Almost as soon as Draco stepped out of the flames, with Anya safely nestled in his arms, he realised something was wrong. Hermione appeared in the doorway almost immediately and even though she smiled at Anya, Draco could tell that everything wasn't okay by the wariness in her eyes.
"Mummy," Anya cried, leaping out of Draco's arms and running over to Hermione.
"Hi, princess," Hermione said, swopping her daughter up and hugging her tightly. "Did you have a good time?"
"Yes. We chased peacocks," Anya replied enthusiastically.
"Isn't that dangerous?" Hermione asked Draco with a frown.
"She was running around with the baby peacocks," Draco explained. "And Father was with her the entire time. She was perfectly safe."
"I'm sure she was," Hermione whispered, still holding onto her daughter.
"Where's Daddy?" Anya asked, trying to wriggle out of her mother's arms.
"Daddy's busy at the minute, why don't you go upstairs and play for a bit," Hermione suggested.
Draco watched as Hermione took Anya to the bottom of the stairs and supervised her daughter climbing up to her bedroom. Only once he was sure Anya was safely tucked up in her room did Draco ask Hermione what was wrong. He knew she'd been to try and mend fences with Molly, and he couldn't help but wonder if the meeting had gone disastrously wrong. It would certainly explain his fiancée's strange mood, and the fact there seemed to be no sign of Charlie.
"Come into the kitchen," Hermione said softly as she turned and headed towards the back of the house.
Following Hermione into the kitchen, Draco was surprised to find not only Charlie present, but Harry and Ron. The three wizards were standing around the kitchen table, and when Charlie turned around, Draco glimpsed a cardboard box sitting on the wooden surface.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"A parcel has been left on the doorstep," Hermione explained. "It was addressed to Anya."
Stepping up to the table, Draco froze as his eyes landed on a silver Death Eater mask nestled in the box. Coming up beside her fiancé, Hermione placed a gentle hand on his arm. She could see the tension in his body and kicked herself for not giving him some warning. As shocking as the sight of the mask was for everyone who had been present when the box was opened, it had to be worse for Draco. After all, it was a very visible reminder of the worst period of his life.
"Are you okay?" Hermione asked in a low voice.
"This was addressed to Anya?" Draco checked in a hollow voice.
"Thankfully she didn't open it," Charlie said. "I'm not sure how we would have explained this to her."
"I'm not sure how to explain this anyway," Ron said with a frown. "Why would anyone send a Death Eater mask?"
"As a warning?" Harry suggested.
"A warning about what?" Hermione questioned.
"My family," Draco answered, his grey eyes riveted to the silver mask. "This isn't just any mask."
"You recognise it?" Harry asked as Hermione let out a surprised gasp at her fiancé's words.
"I do," Draco replied as he finally looked up, his eyes haunted by the past. "It's Father's."
"His actual mask or a replica?" Ron questioned.
"I have no idea," Draco admitted.
"But you're sure it's Lucius's?" Harry checked.
"Positive," Draco whispered, his attention once again drifting towards the mask in the box.
"I wonder what happened to it after the war," Ron mused.
"Why don't we ask him," Hermione suggested.
"I can go and get him," Draco volunteered. "He'd be happy to help."
"Let's get all the information we can before we take the mask into the Ministry," Ron said.
"In that case, I'll go and make sure Anya stays upstairs," Charlie offered.
While Charlie trotted off upstairs to keep his daughter occupied, Draco took one final glance at the mask before heading off to contact his father. Since he'd only just left the manor, Lucius was shocked to hear from his son, but when Draco informed him they needed his help, he dropped everything and arrived at Hermione's house.
"Is everything okay?" Lucius asked the second he stepped from the flames and spotted his son's nervous expression. "Are Hermione and Anya okay? Has there been another incident?"
"A parcel was left for Anya," Draco explained. "Come into the kitchen."
Silently Lucius followed Draco into the kitchen. Greeting Hermione and nodding politely at Harry and Ron, his focus dropped to the box standing on the kitchen table. The second he saw what was inside the box he recoiled in shock.
"That can't be," Lucius whispered.
"I take it Draco was right, it's your mask," Harry said.
"It is," Lucius confirmed, stepping back towards the table.
"What happened to your mask after the war?" Ron asked. To be honest he had no idea what had happened to things like Death Eater masks after Voldemort's downfall as by the time he and Harry had finished their training the war had been over for a good couple of years.
"I gave it to the Ministry," Lucius replied, turning away from the box and focusing on the two Aurors. "As you know after the war, I struck a deal with the Ministry. Not only did I give them as much information as I could, but I gave them every dark artefact and book in my possession. I've got a record of everything I surrendered to the authorities."
"Do you know what happened to the mask once the Ministry took possession of it?" Harry asked.
"I'm afraid not," Lucius replied with a regretful shake of his head.
"So is this mask the real deal or a replica?" Hermione asked.
"If it's a replica, it's a good one," Lucius said. "Can I touch it?"
"Yes," Harry answered. "We've already ran tests on it and there's no fingerprints or any traces of it ever been handled."
Gingerly Lucius picked the mask out of the box. For a minute he held it in his hands before carefully replacing it in its packaging.
"It's the real thing."
"How can you be so sure?" Ron asked with a frown. From what he'd seen Lucius hadn't examined the mask, he'd merely held it for a few moments.
"That mask was in my possession for years. I know what it feels like," Lucius replied. "I can feel the darkness in it. Anything The Dark Lord possessed has a certain aura surrounding it, and that includes the masks he gave to his followers. This is a genuine Death Eater mask. More importantly, it's my Death Eater mask."
"They were all unique, weren't they?" Harry asked.
"They were," Lucius answered with a sharp nod. "To a certain extent once we were in our masks, we were undistinguishable to each other. You could be standing next to a public figure and never know it. The Dark Lord was the only person who knew every single mask. Of course, masks could become recognisable, and I could recognise the masks of several Death Eaters."
"How many people could recognise your mask?" Ron asked.
"A fair few," Lucius admitted. "But most of those are dead or in Azkaban."
"But there would be enough knowledge out there of your mask for someone to create a replica?" Harry checked.
"But this isn't a replica," Lucius pointed out. "But even a replica would require pictures of the original. Without looking at the mask, I could draw you an accurate picture of it, but I doubt anyone else could."
"Draco recognised it straight away," Hermione pointed out.
"Because it was sitting in front of me," Draco said. "If you'd asked me to draw it, I wouldn't have been able to give all the minute details."
"Just the same as I wouldn't be able to give tiny details of other people's masks," Lucius said. "I could give you general pictures, but the intricate details would slip past me."
"So if someone wanted to create a replica, they would either need the actual mask or a picture of the mask," Ron mused.
"Why are we still focused on replicas?" Lucius demanded. "I've already told you that this is the genuine article."
"We believe you," Harry assured the older wizard. "But if you gave this mask to the Ministry, then it's been taken from the Ministry's possession. Either someone has stolen it, and I would think a missing Death Eater mask would raise eyebrows, or someone's copied it and replaced the original."
"How likely are either of those two options?" Hermione asked.
"Until we know for sure what happened to the mask, I can't really say," Harry admitted. "I guess our first step is to return to the Ministry and work out where this mask should be."
"And what about Hermione and Anya?" Draco asked. "Are they safe here? Yet again someone has passed through the wards and this time left something on the doorstep."
"We checked the wards before you arrived, and they're still in place," Harry informed Draco. "But they did warn us about the intruder. We were here as quickly as physically possible, and if he'd been doing more than simply leaving a parcel we would likely have caught him. We would certainly be here before he could get into the house if that's what you're worried about."
"I suppose that's reassuring, but I'm still not convinced we're safe here," Draco muttered.
"You know you're more than welcome at the manor," Lucius volunteered. "And that includes Charlie."
"Thank you for the offer Lucius, but I'd rather stay here," Hermione replied. "I refuse to let this lowlife scum scare me out of my own house. Harry's reinforced the wards in the garden, and both Draco and Charlie have added their own wards around the house."
"In that case, let me add my protection before I leave," Lucius insisted. "I promise if anyone untoward even sets foot on your doorstep, I'll be here in an instant and they won't know what's hit them."
Thanking Lucius, Hermione allowed him to set his own wards around the house before he headed back to the manor. Harry and Ron left shortly afterwards to return to the Ministry, although they promised to be in touch as soon as they had some news.
"Are you sure you want to stay?" Draco asked as he pulled Hermione into his arms. "We could take father up on his offer and go and stay at the manor. Or we could go away for a few weeks. I'm sure we could even go to Charlie's in Romania."
"They can be our back-up plans," Hermione replied. "For now let's sit tight and wait and see what Harry and Ron have to say. This may be just what they need to finally find out who's doing this."
"Let's hope so," Draco muttered as his fiancée headed off to see what Anya wanted for dinner.
Once Anya was back downstairs all talk of the Death Eater mask was banished. As far as Anya was concerned, it was just another day and nothing untoward had happened. However, Draco, Hermione and Charlie couldn't forget what had happened and they were all on high alert until it was Anya's bedtime. Although even once the four year old was settled in bed and was fast asleep, they couldn't relax and Hermione almost jumped out of her skin when the floo lit up with a message from Harry, asking if he and Ron could pay them a visit.
Hermione had a pot of tea ready for Harry and Ron's arrival, and when they did arrive, it was obvious they were in official Auror mode. Neither of them looked very happy and it was instantly clear that they had no easy answers. Hermione's hopes of the mask leading her two best friends directly to the stalkers door looked to be a no-go.
"Is it bad?" Hermione asked as everyone settled down in the front room.
"It's not good," Ron answered.
"We passed the mask over to forensics for further tests, but they confirmed what we already knew – there was nothing to help us identify the sender," Harry began. "They also confirmed it's a genuine mask, and through our data in the Auror department, we could identify it as Lucius's mask."
"All of which we knew," Draco snapped impatiently.
"Draco." Hermione took Draco's hand in hers and give it a reassuring squeeze.
"Sorry," Draco apologised. "This isn't easy."
"We know," Ron said sympathetically. "It's not easy for us either."
"I know," Draco whispered, well aware that the people who loved Hermione the most were probably all sitting in this very room. "Carry on."
"We also checked what Lucius said about handing the mask in and found he was telling the truth," Harry continued. "Not that we didn't believe him, it was just protocol," he added to Draco.
"I understand," Draco replied with a nod.
"It turns out all the dark artefacts relating to the war are stored in the Department of Mysteries," Ron said. "Luckily the Ministry keep very strict records and we were easily able to locate exactly where the mask should be."
"And let's guess, it was gone," Charlie snorted.
"It was," Harry confirmed with a nod. "But according to records, it was never checked out of the Department."
"So it was stolen?" Hermione checked.
"That's what we thought, but it's nigh on impossible to get into the right part of the department without official authorisation," Harry said. "We were only able to enter because we're Aurors. Most of the Ministry couldn't gain access to the vault where the artefacts are kept."
"So how was the mask stolen?" Draco asked.
"That's the reason we've been so long," Ron answered. "We've been checking the records of everyone who's entered that vault. Of course none of them are down as taking the mask, so we had to check what they claimed to have checked out."
"Couldn't someone have smuggled it out?" Hermione asked.
"Everyone is subjected to a spell to ensure they have nothing from the vault upon leaving," Harry replied. "Of course if you've got something from the vault, no-one thinks twice about the spell going off."
"What you're saying is that someone signed something else out of the vault and smuggled the mask out at the same time," Charlie concluded.
"That's what we concluded," Harry said. "Of course security is all going to be overhauled, but that doesn't help us now."
"So we're no further forward," Hermione sighed. "We still have no idea who took the mask from the Ministry."
"Actually we do know something," Harry said, glancing at Ron who was looking extremely pale. "We found an anomaly in the records. The day before your last encounter with the prowler, someone unexpected signed into the vault and removed a book."
"Who was it?" Hermione asked, leaning forward in her seat.
"Me," Ron answered in a shaking voice. "According to the records, I entered the vault and left with a book."
"Hold on, you said this happened the day before the last incident," Draco said with a thoughtful frown. "The day your wand was cloned and the wards around the house dropped?"
"That would be the day," Ron replied with a slight nod of his head. "Only it wasn't a cloned wand used at the Ministry. We've got precautions against such a thing. My real wand was used to access the vault."
"Which means we now no longer believe Ron's wand was cloned," Harry said.
"But that means someone stole you wand, went to the Ministry to steal Lucius's old mask, disabled the wards around the house in preparation for following me home from picking up Anya at nursery, and then returned your wand to you," Hermione said with a frown. "Who would do that?"
"Someone close enough to me to get hold of my wand without me knowing," Ron replied in a quiet voice. "Whoever is doing this, they're closer than we think. It might even be someone we trust."
At Ron's words, Hermione's mind immediately went to Molly, and how determined she'd been to drive Draco from Anya's life. Glancing at Draco and Charlie, she could see they'd both reached the same conclusion. The question was, would Molly really stoop to such lengths just to get her own way?