Chapter Twelve.
Sitting on the dock of the small island, Hermione looked out across the calm blue sea. Her shoes were sitting beside her as her feet trailed in the refreshing water. Despite the peacefulness of her surroundings Hermione's emotions and thoughts were whirling around inside her head. It had been a week since Blaise and Theo agreed to help them, but so far Draco's friends hadn't been heard from. Hermione knew the two wizards would be trying their best but the longer they were away the more she was worrying.
"Can I join you?"
Hermione whirled round at Draco's voice, not having heard her boyfriend approaching. Nodding in reply she watched as Draco took off his shoes before settling down beside, letting his own feet trail in the water.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"I guess." Hermione shrugged. "I'm just thinking about Blaise and Theo and if they've found anything that could be of any help to us."
"They should be visiting soon." Draco replied. "At least I hope they will be."
"What happens if they've found nothing?" Hermione questioned. "I think we need to discuss what we're going to do if that happens."
"We can talk about that after they've next visited." Draco said. "But I guess if they can't find anything we'll have to think about leaving. If we can't prove your innocence we'll have to run properly."
"Maybe we should have just done that in the first place." Hermione sighed, remembering how keen Draco had been on the idea of running months ago.
"No, we were right to stay." Draco told his girlfriend. "All your reasons for not wanting to run were valid. We were giving ourselves the best chance of being together in the way we wanted."
"It looks like Ron's still managed to ruin my life." Hermione said sadly, thinking of everything they wouldn't be able to have if they had to run. "If Blaise and Theo can't help us, we'll be spending the rest of our lives as fugitives with no chance of having a family."
Draco put his arm around Hermione and pulled her into his side, hoping they wouldn't have to run. "At least we'll have each other." He said, dropping a kiss to the top of Hermione's head.
"That's what's keeping me going." Hermione whispered. "I couldn't do this without you."
Draco hugged Hermione closer as the couple lapsed into silence. For nearly half an hour they sat quietly on the dock, each lost in their own thoughts. The couple had just stood up to return to the house when Hermione suddenly spotted a boat in the distance.
"Is it Blaise?" She asked.
"I don't know." Draco squinted at the boat but it was too far away for him to see if it was his best friend. "But it's better to be safe than sorry. Do you have your wand?"
Hermione nodded and pulled out her wand from the small bag she had slung around her neck. Draco also pulled out his wand from his pocket and the couple stood on the dock, watching the boat get closer. Despite not using magic since arriving in Italy they both carried their wands with them permanently in case they needed to get away from the island in a hurry.
Draco took hold of Hermione's hand in case they did have to leave, but after a few minutes he loosened his grip and put his wand back in his pocket. "It's Blaise. I recognise the boat."
A few minutes later Hermione could also make the boat out clearly enough to recognise it. As the boat drew even closer Hermione could see that both Theo and Blaise were in the boat. Hermione and Draco waited on the dock as his friends brought the boat into land. Draco helped Blaise and Theo tie the boat up and once the duo were on solid ground the foursome headed back to the house.
Once back at the house Hermione made drinks for everyone, before they settled in the front room. Blaise and Theo had obviously came with their initial findings, but Hermione was finding it hard to decide if they brought good news, bad news or no news.
"Have you got anything?" Draco asked his friends.
"Not much." Theo admitted.
"I have discovered a few intriguing things, but nothing that tells us who killed Weasley." Blaise interrupted. "Sorry, Hermione." He added, throwing Hermione a sad smile.
"Why don't you tell us what you do know." Draco said, squeezing Hermione's hand.
"I'll go first." Theo said. "I've done the best I can to work out who might hold a grudge against Weasley because of his Auror work. The list might not be complete, but without official records it's the best I can do."
"We appreciate anything you've done." Hermione smiled at Theo as he produced a couple of sheets of parchment.
"Here's a copy of the list." He said, handing it over to Draco. "I reckon the people on the first sheet are more likely to be involved. These are the people who could potentially harbour massive grudges. A lot of them are serving life sentences in Azkaban, a few were pretty badly injured as they resisted arrest and a couple are even dead by Weasley's hand."
"We do need to consider friends and family members." Draco said, scanning the list Theo had given him. "That could complicate matters somewhat."
"I've started making some inquiries, but looking into everyone with a potential grudge is going to be a long job." Theo said.
"I can help." Blaise offered. "I think I've just about exhausted Weasley's private life."
"Have you found anything useful?" Draco asked.
"Not necessarily useful, but it's definitely intriguing." Blaise responded.
"Well stop teasing us and start talking." Draco snapped, losing patience with his friend.
Blaise looked apologetically at Draco before he began to talk. "Well firstly his private life was sorely lacking. He spent most of his time working and when he wasn't working he had the odd one night stand, but those ended six months earlier when he approached Hermione."
"Keeping up with the pretence." Draco sneered. "He couldn't be seen bedding other witches if he was engaged to Hermione."
"My thoughts exactly." Blaise nodded. "I did look into a few of these women he bedded, but none of them held any grudges. They all knew it was fling and no-one was upset when it was announced he was marrying Hermione."
"Okay, so a jealous ex is off the cards." Theo said. "What else did you find?"
"When I couldn't find anything in his past, I started to look into his last movements." Blaise explained. "I visited the hotel that the wedding was held at and got talking to a disgruntled employee. Apparently since the wedding there's been a load of lost jobs as the hotel tried to claw back the money it lost."
"How did the hotel lose money?" Draco frowned. "I know having a dead groom isn't exactly a glowing testament to its services, but there'll be plenty of ghouls who would go and visit just because of the murder."
"The hotel was actually fully booked, but they lost a lot of money due to the actual wedding. Weasley ordered the best and most expensive wedding package, but he hadn't paid for it. According to the girl I spoke to when he booked the wedding he charmed the owner, claiming he would ensure the hotel received plenty of free publicity and glowing reviews for hosting the wedding."
"Are you saying the hotel didn't charge Weasley?" Theo asked in disbelief.
"No, they charged him full price." Blaise responded. "But with the sweet talk of publicity he got them to agree to wait for the final payment until after the honeymoon. What he actually paid was a measly deposit, far less than they usually ask for."
"So he would have been in debt if he'd lived." Draco concluded.
"Yes, and not just with the hotel. He made the same deal with the boutique that made Hermione's dress. He promised them free publicity in exchange for a tiny deposit and an agreement that he would pay the rest after the honeymoon." Blaise explained.
"How did he work that?" Theo asked. "Surely the dress had nothing to do with him."
"He organised everything, including the dress." Hermione told Theo. "He told me where to go to get a dress, in fact he insisted that was where my dress should come from. Since I wasn't bothered I did as he said and picked a dress from there."
"This is starting to sound suspicious." Draco narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Why would Weasley wrack up so much debt? He could have created a convincing wedding without going to such expense."
"That's what I thought, so I continued to dig." Blaise said. "A week before the wedding he secured a deal with one of the glossy high end magazines for exclusive rights to the wedding pictures and access to the event itself."
"Tell me about it, those creeps were everywhere." Hermione shuddered as she remembered the amount of pictures they had to pose for. "Chances are at least one of the photographers have a picture of me slapping Ron."
"They have, it was in the papers over the weekend." Theo said. "The pictures had just been handed back to the photographers after the Aurors had done looking at them. Clearly the first thing the photographer did was sell the picture on to make some money."
"Talking of money, can we return to my original point?" Blaise snapped, glaring at Theo who promptly shut his mouth and slunk back in his chair. "Anyway as I was saying Weasley signed a big contract with the magazine, but he insisted they paid him in full before the event."
"Let's guess, they paid him a fair bit." Draco remarked.
"Nearly a quarter of a million galleons."
"Bloody hell." Theo whistled lowly. "That's a lot of money."
"Yes, it is." Draco said quietly. "But there was massive interest in the wedding of the two war heroes. Exclusive access to the actual day would have boosted their sales substantially."
Blaise nodded, before continuing yet again. "By this point I was highly suspicious, then fate handed me another piece of the puzzle. I'll not bore you with the details but I like a good gamble and I frequent this little gambling club in London. Once upon a time it was pure bloods only, but the war changed things and now everyone's welcome, including goblins."
"Goblins." Hermione exclaimed, looking at Blaise in shock. "You gamble with goblins."
"I'll gamble with anyone foolish enough to part with their money." Blaise shrugged, a smirk playing around his lips. "Anyway this goblin had a bit too much to drink and he started to get chatty about his work at Gringotts and complaining about wizards in general. During his rant about ungrateful people he mentioned Weasley, so I poured a bit more firewhisky down his neck and got him to tell me what he knew."
"What did he know?" Draco asked, getting exasperated with Blaise's long winded tale.
"Patience, Draco." Blaise tutted. "I'm getting to it. Anyway after a few hours drinking the goblin told me that over the last six months Weasley's been slowly emptying his bank account. Apparently he had a decent stash in his account, but now there's a few galleons left."
"Where did Weasley get a decent stash of cash?" Theo asked. "I thought his family was pretty badly off."
"After the war the Ministry gave myself, Harry and Ron a substantial lump sum for our help defeating Voldemort." Hermione replied. "I know Ron put the majority of his money in Gringotts, he spent a bit but wanted some savings to fall back on."
"I think what's more important than where he got the money, is why did he take it all out?" Draco mused. "What was Weasley planning?"
"I've got a theory." Blaise said. "When I heard he'd withdrawn all his money I decided to do a bit more digging. I discovered that he hadn't booked a honeymoon."
"But he said we were going to Australia." Hermione told Blaise. "The Quidditch World Cup is taking place and he reckoned he had tickets for several matches."
"I've checked, he doesn't. And I can't find any hotel reservations in Australia or an international port key booking." Blaise replied. "Wherever he was planning on taking you, it wasn't Australia."
"The sneaky bastard." Draco swore. "That was why he engineered the conversation about me where people would hear."
"I don't understand. What does that have to do with anything?" Theo asked. He knew about the conversation Weasley had staged with Hermione, but he failed to understand how it fit into this recent development.
"He was going to take me away and never come back." Hermione whispered, shaking as she realised how close she had come to losing Draco for good. "That's why he was taking all of his money, so we could just disappear."
"Probably." Blaise nodded, agreeing with Hermione. Her conclusion was the one he had come to straight away. "Then once you were gone he would have messed with your memories or done something to keep you with him."
"And when he sent word to say you weren't returning, Thomas and Finnegan could pop up and mention me." Draco added.
"I get it." Theo exclaimed. "With that conversation he could claim they were leaving to get away from you and to end the affair for good."
"Exactly." Blaise replied. "Of course we have no proof of that, and it doesn't exactly help us with finding his killer."
"No, it doesn't." Hermione sighed. "It just proves that in the end I had a lucky escape. If Ron hadn't been killed I'd be god knows where now completely at his mercy."
"Luckily that didn't happen." Draco wrapped his arm around Hermione as he moved closer to her on the sofa. "But we still need to try and find something that could help us."
"I think our best bet is to work on the list Theo's drawn up." Blaise remarked. "Together the pair of us should be able to make some headway."
"I hope so, because we need to start thinking of alternatives if this investigation is going to drag on. As much as we appreciate your hospitality Blaise, we can't stay here indefinitely." Draco said.
"I know, but give us another week before we think about the pair of you moving on." Blaise replied. "For now you're completely safe on the island."
Draco nodded and agreed to give his friends another week before he started to look into leaving. If there was still no progress in a week's time they would have to face the possibility of it being a long investigation and if that was the case Draco wanted to be somewhere where he had access to magic and money.