It had been two weeks since Hermione's break up with Ron. Ron had moved out of the flat and back to the Burrow, Hermione had come home from work the Monday following their split to find all of his things gone without a note. She had been visited by Harry and most of the Weasley's, all of whom had told her that Ron was an idiot and he was just having one of his tantrums; that he would come around soon enough and the pair would be back together before she knew it. Hermione knew Ron and their relationship well enough to know that there was no truth in this, his decision was final and there would be no going back from it. She also insisted that she was absolutely fine and she completely understood and agreed with Ron's reasons for wanting to end their relationship, and she handled it the way she handled any form of stress in her life; by throwing herself into work.
Inputting the new 'Dobby's Law' had required more work than Hermione had anticipated but she was glad to have the distraction. She had met with the Wizengamot and had needed to outline the full implications of the law to them before they gave their consent to it. She also had to speak further with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in order to obtain a list of all known wizarding houses and establishments that had house elves working in them and send them all an invitation to a conference where the new law would be explained to them. For those that didn't attend, she had to send letters explaining with an attached form to say they had read and understood the changes and then for those who didn't reply, she and the rest of her team had to visit personally to explain. She was working just as many hours as she had been and every now and again the thought crossed her mind that Ron would have been furious had they still been together.
She had been making the effort to arrive at the office early every morning and she was always the last to leave at night, with the exception of the security wizards. As soon as she arrived home every night she would put on her pyjamas and curl up in bed, counting the minutes until she would be back at work and distracted from her own thoughts.
She knew beyond reasonable doubt that her and Ron breaking up was for the best, there was no point in wasting time in a relationship that was spent mostly having arguments and each making the other unhappy. She could fully understand and accept that. What she was struggling with was adjusting to being alone, not having someone to go to bed with or be there when she woke up, no-one to greet her when she did eventually make it home from work and no-one to look after. She was determined to get used to it though, this was how her life would be for a long time and there was no use in being miserable about it.
The alarm on the bedside table rang and Harry groaned as the sound penetrated his ears and seemed to hammer his brain. He was sure he had only been asleep for five minutes and yet the little silver clock did not lie, it was morning and time to get up for work. He rolled over and looked at his sleeping fiancé, wondering how the damned alarm clock never seemed to make her stir. Her red hair was wild, splayed across the white pillow beneath her head. Her mouth was slightly open and her breathing so heavy she was almost snoring. He kissed her gently on the forehead and climbed out of the bed being careful not to wake her on a rare midweek day off.
He buttered himself some toast and made a cup of tea, then sat at the round dining table in the kitchen of his and Ginny's house in Godric's Hollow. Two thirds of the way through his cup of tea there came a sharp tapping sound at the window and Harry stood to retrieve the Daily Prophet from the tawny owl outside. He slipped a knut into the pouch it wore and took the paper, unfolding it as he resumed his seat.
He scanned the paper whilst he finished his cup of tea, looking for an article that would alert him to a possible new assignment at work. It seemed the weekend had been quiet in terms of suspicious magical activity and Harry hoped this meant he would have the time today to catch up on the mounting pile of parchment that sat on his desk. The paperwork had been an unexpected aspect of the Auror job, Harry realised now how naïve he had been going into the job thinking he would be catching Dark Wizards every day. In actual fact he spent most of his time reprimanding petty criminals whom always reminded him of Mundungus Fletcher and then hours after filling out full reports of the arrests.
He dressed in his work robes that he had laid out in the spare room so as not to wake Ginny when he got ready, and then left the house, apparating beyond the gate to the public toilets that would take him into the Ministry.
When he arrived at the office, Ron was already in the office the two friends were lucky enough to share, head bent low over the copy of the Prophet that Harry had not long finished reading. He hadn't noticed Harry's arrival, giving Harry the chance to study his best friend for a few moments. Since the break-up with Hermione, which Harry was sure was only temporary, Ron wore a permanent look of exhaustion on his face. He was pale and his cheekbones were sunken, dark circles lined his eyes and it seemed he had given up on shaving for a heavy red stubble covered his chin. He had moved back into his old bedroom in the Burrow, assuring Harry and his parents that it was only temporary measure and he would be finding a place of his own soon. Harry sincerely hoped that this would not be the case, Ron moving into his own flat would mean that their separation was permanent and Harry simply couldn't imagine his two best friends not being together.
"Harry, please stop looking at me or I'll have to tell my sister that I think you fancy me," Ron said, making Harry jump.
"Sorry mate, I was miles away. Anything interesting in the paper?" he asked quickly, keen to change the subject of his staring.
"Nah, hopefully we'll have a quiet one. Malfoy's been half-arsing everything over the last week so Robards has asked me to re-do his paperwork. Smarmy git, I bet he did it on purpose."
"Probably," Harry agreed, though he did not think this was the case. He had noticed Malfoy's strange behavior over the last week, his heart and mind hadn't been in the cases he had been given which was most unlike him. As much as Harry hated to admit it, Malfoy was good at his job.
Harry sat down at his own desk, opposite Ron's and pulled the first set of paperwork from the pile. No sooner had he started reading, the head of the Auror Department, Gawain Robards entered the office.
"Morning Potter, Weasley. I wonder if I could have a word about a new case we've just had in. It's bigger than we've had in a while and has some, ah, complications, bit of a sensitive one you see."
Harry sat up a little straighter in his chair and watched Ron do the same. Big cases were rare and always promised excitement.
"Go on," Ron prompted.
"Well, er, I'm probably not the best one to explain it. Malfoy?" he called, peering his head around the still open door.
Malfoy came into the room, looking even more exhausted than Ron, the purple bags under his eyes much more prominent against his pale skin.
"I'll let Malfoy fill you in. Do keep me updated on this one boys," Robards said as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
"Well?" Ron demanded rudely when Malfoy didn't speak.
"Astoria is missing," he replied simply.
"Missing how? Packed a bag and left?" Harry asked.
"Not quite. Kidnapped actually. I need your help to find her, both of you." He looked desperately at the pair.
"How do you know she was kidnapped?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, she could have just left you, no-one would blame her," Ron added unnecessarily.
"Get lost, Weasley. Firstly, we've just gotten engaged, she wouldn't have left me. I think you're confusing me and Astoria with yourself and Granger."
"Leave me and Hermione out of this Malfoy," Ron growled, tightly gripping his wand.
"Then don't make this personal. I know Astoria has been kidnapped because the people that did it left a note, along with a complete mess in my house."
"Any idea who might have done it? List of potential suspects?" Harry asked.
"I have a fair idea. Ever heard of the Knights of Walpurgis Potter?"
Harry nodded, his eyes narrowed in skepticism. The Knights of Walpurgis were supposedly a group of Dark Wizards who had been in agreement with Voldemort during his height of power but weren't ever actively supportive, they didn't fight with him and they weren't branded as Death Eaters. The stories that Harry had heard of them so far said that they were plotting a take-over of the wizarding world, to rid them of Muggle-borns as Voldemort had wanted and then to gain power over Muggles. Harry had heard plenty rumors of the Knights of Walpurgis but continued to doubt their existence, it was his job as an Auror to rid the magical world of such groups and neither Harry nor any of his colleagues had ever found any evidence of them.
"Of course. They don't exist though."
"I beg to differ. I think they do exist and I think they have something to do with Astoria going missing."
"Sit down Malfoy," Harry said, gesturing to the seat on the opposite side of the desk. "You'd better explain from the start."
Malfoy nodded and took a seat, then took a deep breath and began to speak. "Remember on Tuesday, we had that case with all of those idiots we caught in Knockturn Alley selling that poisonous dragon blood and we had a mountain of paperwork to do for it?"
Harry and Ron nodded and he continued. "Well, by the time I finished by share it was after six when I got home. As soon as I got through the gates I knew something was wrong, the door was wide open. I knew it wouldn't have been my mother who had left it, she told me in the morning she would be out from the afternoon until quite late. Astoria had planned to go shopping in the afternoon but said she would be back long before I got to work and she wouldn't have left the door wide open behind her. So I took my wand out and when I got in the house it was completely wrecked. Doors blasted off the hinges, furniture damaged and everything broken in every single room of the house, except the library. There was a glass of water and a banana peel on one of the tables in there so I assume that's where Astoria had been when they got there."
"Hang on," Ron said, interrupting. Harry had a feeling he knew what Ron was about to say, there was already something wrong with Draco's story. "This happened on Tuesday? Six days ago?"
"Yes," Draco replied.
"It's taken you six days to tell anyone that your fiancée was kidnapped?"
"Yes. I can explain why though, just let me finish."
Ron gestured with a wave of his hand, indicating that he could continue.
"So, the library was the only room that wasn't wrecked. There was also a note on the table, from the kidnappers."
"That still doesn't explain why you took so long to say anything though," Harry pointed out.
"I know, you'll understand when I show you this," he said, pulling out a torn piece of parchment and handing it to Harry.
The writing was scribbled and hurriedly written , the ink was smudged slightly and it took Harry a few attempts to decipher the full thing:
Your fiancée is safe, for now. We want information on Potter. Get close to him, track his every move and send it to us through your patronus, it'll know where to find us and, as you know, cannot be tracked. If your information proves valuable, we'll give her back.
The KoW.
Harry passed the note wordlessly to Ron, who squinted at it for several minutes before his jaw dropped.
"So, let me get this straight," he said, "the Knights of Walpurgis are an actual thing, they want you to get information on Harry and pass it on to them, probably so they can kill him, and you waited almost a week to tell us all of this. You were thinking of doing it weren't you?"
For once, Draco had no smart remark. He hung his head and furiously avoided eye contact with Harry. Ron stood up at his desk, his fists balled and his face red.
"You bloody coward! You spend a week trying to decide whether or not you're going to help have Harry killed and then you ask for our help? Well, I tell you what you can do, you can fu-"
"Ron!" Harry yelled. "Just, calm down, alright?"
"Calm down? Harry have you gone mental? Did you read that note?"
"Yes, Ron, I did, but his fiancée has been kidnapped, he must be desperate. If that were Ginny, or Her-" he paused. "What I'm saying is, I can understand why he took so long to do the right thing, and what matters is he did the right thing by speaking to Gawain."
"Thanks, Potter. Weasley is right though, it shouldn't have taken me so long," Draco said quietly.
"That's the smartest thing you've said since you walked in here," Ron grumbled.
"Look, drop it," Harry warned. "Let me grab some parchment and a quill and I'll start writing some details down. Ron, can you go down to the file room and find everything you can about the Knights of Walpurgis, possible members, rumours, stuff like that?"
Ron nodded and left the room, glaring at Draco as he went. Harry pulled a blank piece of parchment towards him and dipped his favourite quill into the inkpot.
"Right, tell me from the start, everything that happened that day."
Draco began to speak and retold the story of his actions the day Astoria had been taken. When he finished Harry scanned the parchment to check he had all of the relevant information.
"You said your Mum was out, do you know where?" he asked.
"No, she didn't say. I can find out if you like but I don't see what difference it would make."
"It's fine, I was just wondering," Harry replied. "Did you fix everything at your house?"
"No, I left it. I waited in the hallway until mother got home and we left, didn't pack a bag or anything, I didn't want her there in case they came back for her. We're staying in a flat in Muggle London now, I figured it was the safest place."
"Good," said Harry. "Can we arrange to go and look at the house then?"
"Yes, I'll have to tell you how to get past the wards though."
"That's fine. Hang on-" Harry paused. "How many people know how to get through them?"
"Just me, mother and Astoria. Well, father too but he's in-well, you know."
"And they were up when Astoria was kidnapped?" Harry questioned.
"Yes, that's why I was so worried about staying there, someone obviously figured out how to get past them."
"Doesn't seem likely, you know as well as I do they're almost impossible to crack."
Draco nodded but said no more on the subject. Harry scanned the notes again for anything he may have missed, this was the first serious case Gawain have given him and Ron to work on without his supervision and he wanted to be thorough.
Ron arrived several minutes later with a huge stack of files hovering in front of him, which he dropped abruptly on Harry's desk.
"That's every single file that has any mentions of the Knights of Walpurgis."
Harry divided them up into three piles, passed some to Draco, and some to Ron before turning his attentions to his own pile and sighed. It was going to be a late night.