Half an hour later, they were finally able to calm Ron down. He had wanted to march down to Malfoy Manor that instant and demand that the sole resident explain himself. Preferably, in an interrogation room with three prescribed drops of veritaserum down his throat. Hermione found such a course of action to be rash, at best. Solving these mysteries required subtlety, and Ron's proposed approach was the equivalent of a battering ram. Good for knocking down castle gates, but not so much at discovering answers. It took some time and a group effort to convince the redhead of this, however.

A tiny part of her was amused by the heated discussion. Ron's wild gesticulations in defence of his argument reminded her of a windmill caught in a storm. It was only after he almost smacked himself in the nose that he cooled somewhat and listened to reason. No one was going to drag Malfoy out of his own home based on some cryptic message.

When his focus from Malfoy wavered, however, Ron returned to the Hermione-centric issues before him. Like why her living room looked like the den of some insane person, why where there dead people's brains in her freezer, and where had she been all this time. Harry and Ginny just silently arched their brows in her direction at that. They wanted answers too.

Hermione sighed and removed the kettle, which was starting to whistle, from the stove. The girls quickly poured several cups of tea and handed them out. The sounds of clinking china and people blowing on hot water filled the room. Mixing her own sugar into the drink, Hermione felt almost peaceful. Sure, she argued with her friends, but no one could avoid that. And now, sitting at a table together, drinking tea, it was… well, just like family. Which they were, in a way. She'd grown up with them, spent most of her formative years in their presence. She'd fought a war by their side, sharing the very best and the very worst. Those kinds of experiences leave a deep connection, one she was glad to have.

Now that her parents had disappeared in an unknown direction with their memories wiped, this was the only family she had. She suppressed the urge to shed several girlish tears; it wasn't the time. Maybe later.

Taking a sip, she began her story.

"You want to know where I've been and why the room outside looks as it does. Before I begin, I want to warn you that not all the memories are back. Most of them, yes, but some weeks are gone, wiped away by the virus. That was probably its intent in the first place, some sort of self-defence mechanism, so that I would forget about it. What I do remember is sending you a letter and leaving for the continent, then there's a gap before I finally awoke in Russia. Which was the beginning of my muggle life for several months. So I can't say where exactly I was exposed to the spell or who cast it. But I have a pretty good idea. After this, so will you…"

"This story begins probably… oh, about 18 months after Voldemort died. You guys remember how it was right after the war: funeral after funeral, open and closed caskets. Trials that spanned months, as every single captured Death Eater claimed the imperious, or said there were other mitigating circumstances, and they should be let go with a small fine. Us testifying before committees, the ministry using every so-called war hero as PR props, reporters hounding our every step. We coped, we healed, we tried to fix what we could. We tried…

So, it was only a year and a half after that battle in May that I was finally able to leave seeking my parents. Had I been a good daughter, I would have gone immediately after the war. But I always found a reason to put the search off for later. Some trial I had to testify at, some project that urgently needed my assistance. I suppose the real reason I needed those distractions was because I was afraid. Scared that the obliviate on my mum and dad was too strong, that finding them would be much harder than I had anticipated when I cast the damn charm in the first place.

I was working at the ministry by that time and took a leave of absence for several months. You guys wanted to come along and help, and I'm still grateful for that. Maybe I should have accepted the offer, and then everything would have turned out differently. But I didn't. I left in December…

Well, you all remember the next part of this tale. I returned three months later with no parents and little hope. I tried following the fake identities I provided them. I searched social media, I hired private investigators, I accessed government databases and records, public and private. These things are easier to do when you're a witch. Nothing. Not one hint. They were gone, becoming a quickly fading blur in my memory. I grew desperate and lonely and scared even more.

The biggest problem I faced during these months - and this part I concealed when I returned - was that their cases were not special. Almost two years had gone by after Voldemort's death, and muggles were disappearing left and right. You saw the posters hanging in my living room? The 'Have you seen me' ones, the ones offering a reward for information? Families and friends of missing people posted them, desperate for answers. A few of those faces have been found. Most have either turned up dead or not at all.

But missing people were only the tip of the iceberg. Crime in general rose, and a rate that made no sense whatsoever. It was innocent at first. Some more graffiti, petty cases of vandalism. I was able to track all of this later; the stats are all a matter of public record. Two months after Voldemort's death, small crimes in the London area rise. Two years later, and homicide rates triple. It wasn't contained to just London either. Areas all over Great Britain were reporting increases in burglaries, rapes, arsons, even white collar crime! It was like suddenly, in the course of a year, people decided the law didn't matter, that decency was for fools.

So when I tried to search for my parents via social media or some public appeal, my efforts gained no traction. They were just a drop in the ocean, two people among hundreds; so, honestly, no one cared. How can you help some strange girl when your own neighborhood has had three break-ins in the last month? When women are afraid to walk alone at night, and gun sales are at all time high? It was in those months that I realized something was very, very wrong. Something evil was causing this, and I suspected that magic was at the root."

"Wait, Hermione, just wait a sec," Harry interrupted, running a hand through his hair. "Are you sure it was as bad as you say? I mean, how can that even be? If crime had reached that sort of scale, wouldn't have we heard something about it?

Hermione gave him a pitying smile in return.

"When was the last time you read a muggle newspaper?" she asked. "Watched the evening news? Took a stroll into muggle London or even contacted your abhorrent relatives?"

Seeing his hesitation, she pressed on.

"That's right, Harry. Not since the war ended, I bet. And that's the norm. Wizarding communities are so prone to isolation that many of our kind don't even know how muggles dress! So why should we be caught up on current events in the non-magical world? Yes, it was that bad, and no one here had an inkling of knowledge."

Hermione paused, taking a breath and then a sip of her tea. It had cooled somewhat and left a pleasant herbal aftertaste on her tongue. Her friends glanced at each other with worried and confused expressions. Finally, Ron broke the silence.

"But why did you blame magic?" he asked. "Harry and I, we work with criminals all the time, 'Mione, and it's not magic that turns them bad. Some people are just born that way."

"That's a valid point, Ron," Hermione answered, taking another sip of her tea. "There are several reasons. First of all, the overall quantity of new crimes. Homicide rates don't triple in a year for no reason. But that's it - there was no reason! Nothing to justify such behavior. No social unrest, no economic depression, no war - nothing! Life was good, people had jobs, everything was stable. Whatever precipitated this was very well hidden and probably not native to the muggle world.

Secondly, the timing. The rise in aberrant behavior begins the instant Voldemort is gone. He dies in the beginning of May, and by June there's a bump in the crime stats. Coincidence? I think not."

"Um, Hermione?" Ron interrupted again. "I still don't see how this was so obscured. There's a whole department at Magical Law Enforcement that targets muggle-related offenses, so that wizards don't take advantage of people who can't even defend themselves. Rawlings transferred from there a couple years ago, I think. Shouldn't they have been in the loop on this?"

"Yes, they should have, and I'll get to that question in a little bit. I wanted to go to them eventually, but so far everything I had was all circumstantial. So I started to dig. I looked at the people committing these crimes. I reviewed police reports and autopsies. I traveled to where they lived, spoke to neighbors, friends, family. This took me months, but I started to notice a pattern.

It was not obvious at first, because you're absolutely right - even the best people can do evil things for a whole number of different reasons. But a sufficiently large group of them that have no tangible connection with each other? Unlikely. And I found that group. They were the most obvious. The well-to-do, the decent, the kind. The sort of people that have never broken the law, or even seen the insides of a police station! Their behaviors changed dramatically, like something was influencing them all of a sudden.

You asked about the tissue samples in the freezer. You remember the man's you took? Alan Pierce? An excellent example. He was 29 years old, married, had two little children. Earned a six-figure salary working for a marketing firm. Loved his wife, adored his children. Neighbors described him as soft-spoken, intelligent, and kind; they never witnessed any fights between the Pierces, said they were the most agreeable sort. The man spent his free time volunteering for a charity that assists disabled kids. Had the perfect life. Then came home one night, butchered his family in their sleep, and then killed himself.

His case was one of many I investigated. I spoke with his friends, and they mentioned noticing something off about him several months before the tragedy. You see, he had gone to London for business one day, and when he returned something was wrong. It was in his eyes, they said; a tint, like oil on water. His behavior became erratic, said he kept forgetting things. He once complained about hearing voices, seeing things that weren't there.

Does that remind you of something?"

"Voldemort's virus," Ginny whispered. "Like the one inside you."

"Exactly! There were dozens of similar cases, all consistent with a specific profile. People with no violent history committing crimes with no motive. Just… senseless violence. Now, at the time, I was operating under the hypothesis that they had been magically coerced, maybe the imperius, maybe something else. I was hoping to discover a trace of that compulsion, which I then could take to Magical Law Enforcement and have an official investigation opened. With the full force of the ministry behind me, I thought we would apprehend the culprit in no time. So I dug deeper. I researched day and night. I broke into morgues and examined the bodies. Some had already been autopsied, some had not. Those I had to cut open myself. By this time, I had studied enough diagnostic magic to discover the sickness. I found it in their minds, this foul, evil…"

Hermione waved her wand in the air, conjuring a replica of the image from Frackenburger's projector tank. Greasy columns of vile magic spiraled throughout, representing the infected areas.

"Identical to mine. But, you see, muggles are more susceptible to magic than the average witch or wizard, so the symptoms were more severe. It was controlling them, rewriting neural pathways in the brain, lowering empathy, causing hallucinations! I gathered samples from every infected person I found. All of them were dead, so it wasn't difficult. And I brought my assessment, as well as the infected tissue - conclusive proof that dark magic was behind these crimes - to MLE."

"And?"

"And I was fucking flabbergasted. My focus on the muggle world had become so myopic that I forgot all about the wizarding one. Ron, you mentioned earlier there's a department that supposed to serve as a deterrent for wizards seeking to harm helpless muggles? Do you know how many people work in it?"

She didn't wait for them to respond.

"Two! Two people!" she yelled angrily. "One of which is an unpaid intern, and the other is so old he's knee-deep in a casket. They couldn't even understand what I was talking about! They solve maybe 5 crimes in a year! And you know how the ministry officially records it?! They conclude that amount as the total number of crimes against muggles! 5 solved out of 5! Amazing! But - I'm getting carried away. That place was a waste of my time.

So I went over their heads, straight to Grimsfort, MLE's current director. He didn't want to hear anything about this. Said they had their hands full with all the current investigations. That funding was tight as it was. That, fine, he'd look into it, but I shouldn't create a fuss. That's what he called it. Hundreds of victims already and I was making a fuss, upending his stats for the year. Fucking bastard."

Hermione, infuriated by her own speech, made a disgusted sound. Her spoon clinked against the teacup with a vehemence, and she dropped it, balling her hand into a fist.

"Merlin, Hermione," Harry murmured, shocked. "But why you didn't tell us any of this?"

"I should have," the frizzy-haired witch admitted. "I should have told you everything, but it was just a suspicion at first, and you… you and Ginny were getting married, getting your lives back together. Everyone was so happy for once-and, and, oh, you deserved it! Especially you, Harry! You had a piece of that monster stuck inside of you for years, and things were finally looking up! I didn't want to be the girl who ruined everything! The girl who saw monsters everywhere she looked, and brought back a conflict nobody wanted to hear about! Nobody!"

Her voice rose steadily, breaking by the end, and she had to choke back a sudden sob. They all reacted, Harry first of all. He was by her side in an instant, rubbing soothing circles into her back.

"You can share anything with us, you know that. You don't have to carry all this darkness by yourself. We're always here to shoulder whatever burden, no matter how heavy. Right, guys?"

"That's right," Ron said, and Ginny nodded, handing her friend a napkin. Even Snows, perched on the back of her chair with closed eyes, hooted in support.

"Thanks," Hermione said gratefully and dabbed her eyes. Her voice was a little raw when she spoke again. "I was so lonely all that time. I didn't know if I was truly onto something, or if I had begun seeing things. And then I found all that darkness. Innocent lives ruined by a spell they had no chance of resisting. Adults, children - it didn't matter. They all hurt. And so did I-"

"Hey, hey." Ginny rushed over, enveloping her friend in a tight hug. "It's alright, we're all here now."

Hermione sniffed, unable to prevent several tears from escaping. They say sharing your pain is one of the key steps of healing. Maybe that's right. Her soul still ached, but the warmth and understanding of her friends was like the spring sun, slowly thawing cold winter ice under its glowing rays.

"I'm ok now. I'm ok." She tried to put all of her gratitude into those simple words, and they all understood.

"So," she continued, after clearing her throat. "Grimsfort actually said something very interesting during the time he was trying to get me out of his office as quickly as possible. I don't know if it was an accident, but he wasn't lying when he claimed funding for MLE was low. Those boxes over there," she pointed her hand in the direction of her living room, "contain parchment documenting the ministry's fiscal policies since Voldemort's demise. Analyzing them is tedious business, and I was only able to go through a fraction, but I did find that several months after the Battle of Hogwarts, austerity measures were implemented throughout several key areas of the ministry. Funding to law enforcement was among them, and guess what department's funding was cut the most?"

"The magic on muggle crime unit," Harry offered, a sick look crossing his face.

"Precisely. They cut 90% of personnel from the only part of our world that safeguards muggles at the exact time when they needed it the most. That is no coincidence. Someone with a lot of influence within the ministry did this. Someone who wanted to keep it quiet."

"That's a very grave allegation."

"But it fits, doesn't it? Many Death Eater's are still at large, hiding out, biding their time. We don't know how deep this rabbit-hole goes, or who's responsible. What I do know is that we can't trust anyone. After I had gone to Grimsfort, someone tried to place a trace on my wand. At times, I thought I was being followed."

"Is that how you got infected?"

"No. Remember, the virus, in its current stage, isn't even fully active. Its capabilities are locked, and it can't spread from secondary vectors. Only from the original host."

"So that means…"

"That I found it. Him or her, I don't know. I tracked them down and got infected. That's the only logical explanation. But whatever it was, it couldn't kill me, just infected me with the purpose of removing my memory. I think I hurt it… I don't know. This is what I can't remember. This is what we have to find out! Don't you see - this virus is currently acting at a fraction of its potential, and it's already hurt hundreds! If it unlocks itself, we would have chaos! It would cause bloodshed on an unimaginable scale!"

She breathed deeply, trying to calm her galloping heart. Every single day could be their last, and millions of people didn't even know it. They had to find the source of the infection - if she had done it once, she could do it again - and eliminate it. Burn in off the planet for good.

"That's what we have to do," she concluded more softly. "You three must stay here and find the culprit in the ministry. The one who's covering up the danger. The one who cut the funding. Follow the money. I will hunt down the host, and then we'll all kill him."

There were several moments of silence after this abrupt change in the conversation. They didn't last.

"That is fucking stupidest plan I've ever heard!" Ron exploded. "You just admitted you almost died searching for this person, and you want to do it again?! And you plan on doing this alone?! Have you gone completely mental?!"

"No, I won't be alone," she countered innocently.

"What? We're the only ones who know that you're even back, and you want us to stay here! Or are you planning on taking that crazy doctor on this idiotic hunt of yours?! Oh, that'll be grand, he'll babble about brains while you're dodging spells and hexes and unknown magical viruses made by fucking Voldemort! Fan-fucking-tastic!"

She hummed. Ron wouldn't like this next part. Neither would Harry. But she had a plan.

"That's not entirely true, Ron," she said.

"What's not entirely true?!"

"Well, you and Frackenburger aren't the only ones who know I'm here. There is… one more."

Ron gaped at her like a fish out of water. His mind quickly put two and a two together and came to the result that his once brilliant friend had gone insane. Completely fucking bonkers. When he started yelling a second later, his face actually managed to turn into a brilliant shade of purple.

Purple.

In the end, Hermione got her way.

One guest reviewer had the decency to point out to me that April comes before May, not after. Awkward. Thank you. I am ashamed.

That's why I love reviews though. They can really help me improve the story, even in such obvious things. I'm going to go stare at a calendar now.