The office outside the interrogation room had calmed down since the incident. The large wizard whose face unluckily encountered Alice's pepper spray attack relocated to another room down the hall to recuperate. Another witch chimed a healing spell which subsided some of the irritation, but his eyesight was still blurry since the toxins had gone into his tear ducts.
Draco had returned to the office in time to witness the bizarre commotion that had taken place and he waited silently for Blaise to exit the room. When he did, his face looked perplexed. One of the case's team members quickly rushed over to him with Alice's bag, which she had dropped upon arrival.
Blaise glanced through the bag's opening and while pushing several items aside, including a badly squished lemon scone, he pulled out a small book with a stack of folded parchment stuck in between its pages. Removing it he noticed there were two Daily Prophet newspapers, one around eight years old, the other from yesterday. "Interesting," he thought, while folding the parchment back up and placing them in his jacket pocket.
He noticed Draco had returned from the department laboratory and he motioned for him to come over. "I think you should take the samples now," Blaise said, leading Draco into the interrogation room.
After Blaise left the room, Alice rose from the chair and went over to the book lying on the table, her book. She grabbed it, running her fingers over the highly glossed cover and flipping through its newly printed pages; its text was all too familiar. It was to be her first academic milestone, the first book she had published. This remnant only rammed in the reality of her situation. Her memory of this book could be gone by the end of today. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, calming her senses as best possible.
The door opened again and Blaise walked confidently through the door. Alice cradled the book in her chest, as if protecting it, and she stared calm and as poised as she could in his direction. Behind him followed Draco and her eyes narrowed on the tall blonde.
"Draco Malfoy." The name dripped from her mouth accidentally.
Draco looked confused at Blaise who had already closed the door behind him. Blaise nonchalantly pulled the two newspapers from his inner jacket pocket. "She's had reading material," he said, handing them to Draco.
Draco quickly realized the one paper she had was from his most difficult time in life, the trial and incarceration of his father in Azkaban; while the other was yesterday's edition which included an article on his current research with Professor Slughorn. Having only hours ago been given a detailed description of Alice's life, she had already had some knowledge of his.
"The Daily Prophet typically doesn't fall outside our realm, but yet you happened to come across it," Blaise said coming closer to her.
Still clutching the book to her chest, Alice slowly took a step back towards the wall, feeling slightly threatened. "I happened to come across many things, I just devoted my mind to figuring them out." Removing the book from her chest, "This book," she looked down at it proudly before continuing, "This book was merely hypothetical, I present no tangible evidence to support my case, no source of absolute definitive information, only postulates... That paper," she pointed at Draco who held it in his hand, "That paper only provided creative input, helping to explain what I saw as off in my world."
Her ability to speak lyrically again deceived her outward appearance which exhibited a delicate naiveté.
"And this?" Blaise asked; pulling that morning's Daily Prophet out of his pocket.
Alice's eyes widened when she saw her face on the front cover, "They did publish it!" Her astonishment had made her forget her place as she quickly snatched it away from Blaise's hands, opening it fully to survey the article.
Draco was more than amused by the muggle's agility, but Blaise was not, especially since that morning's front page had the possibility of damaging his reputation as head of the Special Cases Unit. "Care to explain?" He asked, sounding perturbed.
After a moment of scanning the various headlines of the newspaper, she replied, "Call it poetic revenge. I thought by now I would have no recollection of any of these events." Alice folded the newspaper and in a gesture of civility, handed it back to Blaise, who took it without much expression. Suddenly she thought her shrill commentary may have hurt her situation more than helped. She moved towards the chair to sit down, feeling slightly defeated.
Blaise decided to take a step back to let Draco do his job. "Mr. Malfoy here, whom you seem to already know, will be taking samples for testing."
Draco removed a small knife from his jacket. He knelt down besides Alice, whose hands continued to clutch her book in her lap. No matter what, she knew she couldn't hide the worry from her eyes. His hand slowly grabbed a strand of her long auburn hair while the other hand brought the knife to trim a small length from its end. He removed a glass vial from his pocket and placed the strands inside. Next, he grabbed her right hand from the book it was holding. Alice expected his touch to be jarring but it was surprisingly gentle. As Alice saw the knife, she looked him straight in the eyes and whispered firmly, "I feel pain," hoping he would be reminded of her humanity. Slightly apprehensive, Draco pricked her index finger with the point of his knife. He saw Alice's eyes wince but she quickly returned them to a blank stare. He collected several drops and closed his vial. Returning his knife and samples to his jacket he removed his wand and cradled Alice's wounded hand on top of his own. With a simple flick, her small cut had closed. Alice gazed into his light grey eyes with a sense of calculated wonder and for a moment she thought she could see a touch of kindness behind them. His hand lingered for a moment longer than it should have as he gazed back at her.
Blaise had witnessed this peculiar moment and decided to interrupt for the sake of both of them, "Good. I expect to see a report by the end of the day."
Snapping out of his trance, Draco released Alice's hand and proceeded to leave the room, with Blaise following behind him. For Alice, this had been the first time she witnessed real magic preformed, it was not something she could take lightly.