The sense of chaos and urgency they felt wasn't reflected in their surroundings. People were going about their usual business at the Ministry as they stepped out of the Floo. It was their personal loss and frustration that made them feel isolated because everyone else seemed to have moved on from the terror that was the Carver. The Daily Prophet had reported the recent murders but they hadn't connected them to the Carver as the Ministry had withheld most of the information. They didn't want the world to descend into pandemonium like last time, but Kingsley did warn them that it was a matter of a week or so before they would have to release the details to warn the public. They were nowhere close to catching the killer and it seemed like the sensible option to give the public a forewarning.
As they passed people in the Atrium, they turned heads. It wasn't the fact that Hermione and Draco had appeared at the Ministry together but the fact they had appeared at the Ministry at all. Nobody had seen or heard from the Malfoy Prince in years and neither had Hermione made any headlines barring her breakthroughs in research.

Terry Boot spotted them and walked over. As he was discussing the details of Draco's undercover case Hermione spotted a familiar face waving at her. "Hello there stranger!" Rowan said as he walked towards her. She met him midway and gave him a side hug. She was enveloped in his scent almost immediately and her brain froze at that. Something about how he smelled seemed to affect her every time. He asked about her day and how she had been. They made polite conversation and he kept complimenting her for her last research paper. She was used to the praise but the way he said it, it didn't come across as platonic. For a change someone wasn't complimenting her intelligence, he was complimenting her.
Draco truly appreciated Terry being apprised of all the information about his undercover case but who the fuck was the guy talking to Hermione and why was she looking so taken by him. He was trying really hard to focus on what Terry had to say but all he could see was the young man next to Granger from the corner of his eye. There was something about him that was bothering him. "Sorry to cut you there mate, but who is that guy?"

They were close enough to have a clear view but not close enough to be within their earshot. "That's Rowan Greenwillow. He's helping with a case Tonks said. Something about some American firm selling us shoddy goods." Boots informed.
"So, he's American?"
"Yeah, related to the Greengrasses I think. Distant cousin maybe."
"Any idea how does he know Granger?"
"He was there at the Barrel the other night when we all went drinking. I saw them chatting, so probably that's how they met. Why? Are you with her now?" Even Boot knew asking that would do nothing but annoy Malfoy, but that's what made it worth a shot.
"What do you mean by with her? Of course not. That's Ms Swotty Granger. I was just curious. Never seen her so wonderstruck before."

"You do have a point. You headed to your office?" Terry asked as he checked the files he was carrying. "No, actually we should get going. I'll catch you around, ya?" The two men nodded their goodbyes as Malfoy made his way to interrupt the conversation that was beginning to make Granger swoon.
"Sorry to cut in, but we have to go, Granger," he said in a clipped voice to Hermione. "Rude! That's Malfoy if it wasn't obvious," she stated in an annoyed tone. "I am Rowan Greenwillow. Nice to meet you?" Rowan said as he extended his hand towards Malfoy and gave him a questioning look. Malfoy shook his hand and appraised the man from top to bottom. He was impeccably dressed and was handsome for sure. Not as handsome as him, of course, but he could appreciate a man who had good taste. "I am Draco Malfoy, but Granger already told you that." "Who doesn't recognise the Auror extraordinaire Malfoy even if Hermione here didn't tell me? Nice to have met you." He was 'too nice' for Draco's comfort and 'Hermione', who even called her that. "Yeah, same here. Now we must go, we wouldn't want to keep our colleagues waiting now, do we, Ms Granger?" He said with gritted teeth as he turned towards her and started pulling her towards the lifts. "I'll catch you later Rowan!" she waved goodbye.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT STUPID FAT HEAD OF YOURS MALFOY!?" she all but screamed once they were alone in the elevator. "Our friends are waiting and so is a serial killer, you can chat up dandies on your own time." "Excuse me? Who do you think you are telling me what to do with my time? I will talk to whoever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want." She was livid. How dare he just barge into the conversation so rudely and physically drag her away like that!
They were now glaring at each other a few inches apart. Malfoy was seething for reasons he didn't comprehend fully and Hermione was raging because she realised she had a crush on Rowan and Malfoy had completely ruined the conversation with his ferret-like pompous behaviour. "You stupid git!" she pulled out her wand to hex him. "You like him, don't you Ms Know-It-All!". With that, the elevator screeched to a halt at the Department of Mysteries and the doors opened to Harry & Ron looking veryveryconfused.
The angry witch and pale wizard looked like they were angry and about to kiss as the doors opened? Harry couldn't make any sense of what he was seeing so he turned towards Ron who just looked equally confused and shrugged in response. "If you were snogging and that's why you are late, I think that's a fair reason." came Blaise's voice from behind Harry & Ron.
"What no!" Hermione & Draco both said in unison. "Well, the way you are holding her arm and are almost in each other's faces, it would seem so. But if you wanna keep it under wraps, then sure, let's pretend otherwise." Blaise said as he turned around and walked away.
Draco realised he had never let go of her arm after he dragged her away. He quickly dropped her arm and ran out of the lift after Blaise, cussing at him. Hermione was left looking like a deer caught in headlights but Harry & Ron knew better than to question her. She might not hex Blaise, but she would definitely hex them. She huffed her way to her new office with two-thirds of the Golden Trio trailing after her. When she reached the door, she found Blaise casually leaning against the wall and Draco looking anywhere but at her.
"Why are you both standing here like that?"
"Because only you have the access to enter and to grant us the same," Harry replied meekly from behind.
"Oh." She charmed the door open with her palm and the four men followed her into their new office. The room was a huge sterile-looking white space that stretched endlessly. Rooms in the Department of Mysteries were highly malleable as per the user's needs and extremely well protected. Almost like the Room of Requirements except that this room had to be turned into what you need, it wouldn't magically turn into the space you needed it to be.

"What are you doing here by the way?" Hermione asked Blaise as she produced an endless number of things from her charmed beaded bag. "I am the Ministry's..er consultant…for dark artefacts."
Hermione gave him a snide look and concluded, "Of course you are." This made Malfoy, Harry and Ron snicker. The great Blaise Zabini looked absolutely terrified of the small brunette in front of him. And if history was any clue, he was right. She might have been small in stature but the things she had done and was capable of were nothing short of intimidatingly incredible.

Blaise produced his own set of notes for the possible weapon being used which Hermione studied thoroughly. "The blade in question seems to be something of a unique pedigree. Nothing like it seems to exist in recorded modern history or in trade in the Black Market. I have extensively studied the magical imprints it has left behind on our victims and none match any so far."
"So are you saying you are unable to identify it?" Draco asked him with an eyebrow raised at his childhood friend. They might not have seen each other in a while but their friendship remained the same. The two were always challenging each other in jest- a constant game of one-upmanship.

"I wouldn't say that. Yet. All I can tell you is that I have been able to narrow it down to two aspects. Not going to make any promises here because these are simply assumptions am making."
"What is on your mind?" Hermione asked while still ruffling through his extensive notes. She was mildly impressed with the amount of details he had recorded. She would need at least a day or two to go through it all but at least it was a start.
Blaise summoned a chair out of thin air and sat down. Gesturing for the others to follow suit. Once they were all settled around a table with their respective notes in tow, he continued.
"I think the blade is an old piece of magical artefact. Modern blades are much cleaner in the way they cut. Here the victim's wounds are severely jagged which is usually a result of two things- old unsharp blades & an inexperienced killer. And considering the wounds are inflicted post-mortem, it's done entirely for optics so I would guess that the blade holds some relevance to the killer."

"That's helpful, so I'll look into older blades and cases. Maybe something pops up in some old case."
"Any idea about the provenance of the blade?" Draco interjected. Blaise took his notes from Hermione and flipped to a page where there were diagrams of a few possible blade shapes and lengths.
"I would say the design is based on these late 18th-century blades, but there are plenty of imitations made of those. So to say that it's an 18th-century blade might be conjecture. It could be a modern replica only a decade or two older. As with the shape and size of the blade, these are the possible iterations but since the injuries were magical and done in a slanted jagged motion, we can't be very sure of those two factors either."
"That's frustrating." This time it was Harry. He had been studying the diagrams on his copy of the notes. "There are at least 6 variations here and possibly more that we don't even know exist."
"I have an idea." This time it was Ron. It might surprise many but the people here at this table knew that Ron was great with strategy. Harry might have saved the world but he had a headfirst attitude towards things. With Ron's strategy and Hermione's knowledge, he had managed to save the world.

Zabini looked surprised but then he noticed that the others had leaned in to hear what Ron had to say. A mark of respect, in his opinion.
"I think we can all look at older cases like Hermione suggested. But instead of just looking at say confiscated weapons we should also look at unexplained wounds or missing murder weapons. I think this one's something that was clearly never recorded and like Zabini said, could be an older blade. In case it's an heirloom that went missing a while ago, there won't be any Ministry record of it. But what we'll definitely have access to would be similar wounds in previous murders, suicides and any other unexplained deaths."
Blaise added to his notes as he asked, "Shouldn't we narrow the pool to just murder?"
"I think Ron has a point. We can't be sure that this blade was always a murder weapon. It could have been used in some other crime. Maybe a magical sacrifice for all we know and the Carver is on some deranged revenge spree. Narrowing it down to just murders will reduce the search pool, but we might entirely miss out on the real connection to the murders."
Once everyone agreed, it was decided that Blaise, Hermione & Draco would look into the old cases for any matching details. Harry & Ron would work with Scotland Yard on profiling the murderer and the victims. They came up with a few theories but decided to keep those to themselves until they had something concrete to back them up.

It was late evening by the time Hermione realised she was too tired and could barely keep her eyes open. Not one to give up, she considered getting herself a giant cup of coffee from her favourite Muggle cafe nearby. Just as she was about to fetch her wallet, a Ministry memo whizzed past Malfoy and landed in front of her. Blaise had excused himself after collecting his share of the files and Harry & Ron had made their way to Scotland Yard. The two remained in a surprisingly civil silence with an occasional judging look or quip.
Hermione read the memo, wondering if it was Kinglsey asking for an update.
"What does he want?" Draco hadn't even looked up from the case file he was reading.
"Uh..what?"
Hermione never stuttered. Draco looked up and after a moment of staring at her he retorted, "It's not Kingsley, is it?"
"Nobody you should be bothered about Malfoy." She collected her thoughts as she replied to the memo. Her shoulders didn't look weighed down with fatigue anymore and she had started collecting her things at a much faster speed.
"Who was it?" Draco stood up and started pacing towards her. "None of your business Malfoy."
"Keeping you safe is my business and if you are headed anywhere without my knowledge, it's a violation of your protective custody."
"I am not in protective custody for Merlin's sake."

"Yes, you are." He was gritting his teeth as he towered mere inches away from her face. "Why else do you think am sitting here going through files with you instead of being out in the field?"
"You have to be kidding me. I need to have a word with Tonks. This cannot be for real."

"You can have a word with her and Kingsley for all I care but these were his orders. Only Harry, Ron & I are allowed to be your protective detail and since they aren't available, I am in charge. Whoever you are seeing and wherever you are going, I am coming with you."
She took a deep breath to rein in her anger but then Malfoy went to block the bloody door. Before she realised her rage was too far gone, "You are not coming with me to a bloody date Malfoy." She was seething by now.
"It's a date then, with that American? What was his name? Ronald McDonald?" He had one eyebrow up in that sarcastic expression of his which screamed 'Holier than though.' Smug bastard.
"I am not even going to grace that with an answer." She said as she sidestepped him and moved towards the door. The fact that Malfoy knew about Ronald McDonald amused her but she was too pissed to prod him.

If Granger thought she had the last word, she had another thing coming. He gathered his things with a swipe of his wand and traced her footsteps as she left the Ministry. She could go on as many dates as she wanted but he was coming along for the ride. It would be like watching a peculiar mating ritual at the zoo, he mused. She zipped through the narrow lanes and apparated.
Draco growled in frustration as he whipped out Harry's DA coin. Harry knew this was a possibility so with the help of the Auror's Office he had gotten a locator spell on it in addition to the Protean Charm. Once he had locked on to Hermione's coin, which was conveniently always on her as a safety precaution, he apparated away with an angry crack.
A/N
Going through a very rough time but this story is partially keeping me afloat. Would love to hear from you how you like the story so far and any guesses about how the plot will unravel!
Love,
MM