Chapter 11
Hermione POV
Hermione walked across the concrete floor, her heels echoing against the bare walls. With the exception of a few dusty boxes in the corner the warehouse was empty. All around her, ministry workers were conducting scans of the room, looking for remnants of previous spells. Another was using a wizard camera to take pictures all through the area for the record.
Letting out a discouraged sigh, ‘I don’t understand. How could they have possibly cleared out this fast? Was there another warehouse in the area, everything did look the same in the dark..’ she said to herself. But deep down she knew that couldn’t be true.
Hearing someone call her name from behind, she turned to see Phillip approaching her.
“There really isn’t much here to catalog but I'll give it another couple sweeps,” he told her. “If I find anything else I’ll come find you.”
Hermione let out a huff, giving one last glance around the room. “Thanks for your help Phillip, I owe you a butterbeer” she said, giving him a dejected smile.
—
Hermione took several deep breaths, her hand hovering over the handle. She knew she had to report to her boss about the lack of hard evidence at the scene, but she hadn’t yet gained the courage to open the door. Hermione closed her eyes, heard a click and finally walked into her boss’s office. She was greeted with a kind smile.
“Oh Hermione I was just about to send you a message, how much did we find at this warehouse? Are we any closer to getting those pills off the street? The Minister is breathing down my neck trying to stop these attacks,” Ruth said, looking hopefully up at Hermione.
Hermione fidgeted with her sleeves behind her back, trying to conceal her anxiety. Her normally solid voice cracked as she said “W-w-well the inspections did not reveal anything but a typical warehouse. We were not able to find any stash of the drugs or evidence of the people involved”. Hermione looked down at her feet, unable to meet her eyes. She wasn’t used to messing up like this. What had she missed? Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this job.
The smile stayed plastered on Ruth’s face, but a twitch of her brow gave away her disappointment and frustration.
“This is bad. I told the minister we were on top of this.” She leaned back in her chair and looked pointedly at Hermione. “Where do we go from here? What other leads do you have?”
Thinking quickly Hermione responded, “I have a hook up with someone who could have some insight.” Her mind flashed to silver hair and glowing eyes.
Suddenly a paper message rushed in, impatiently tapping Ruth on the shoulder. She quickly read it, grimacing. After reading it twice, she let it shred to pieces and stood from her seat.
“Hermione, I need you to push on this connection you have, we can’t let this get any worse” Ruth said as she ushered Hermione to the door. She suddenly found herself in the hallway, feeling the rush of air as the door slammed behind her. Hermione let out a frustrated groan, and started walking.
Draco POV
50…51…52…53…54….
Draco had recounted the small plastic bags half a dozen times, he was sure he wasn’t making a mistake. Some of his stash of pills was missing. ‘This doesn’t make any sense, I know I had another 16 left in this batch’ Draco thought to himself.
Behind him, Theo was singing to himself as he worked on a brew of hangover potion. He spun on his heels, squinting at Theo, thinking.
“Hey Theo, did you take any of [insert name of drug here] to sell at a club,” Draco asked as he turned to count the bags one more time.
Theo responded, “What, no, not from that batch” as he turned away from the caldron.
“Why are some missing then, Theo?” Draco said in a huff.
“I don’t know, Draco,” he responded. But Draco had already walked away, casting spells all around, checking the wards. He walked the perimeter of the building. Everything seemed in order until he got to the back wall. He had made that whole space a collage of posters of his favorite bands. He noticed one, “Marianas Trench” was slightly moving,and was torn on the side. As he removed it, he saw a huge hole in the brick, the wards had been burrowed into, like an animal digging a den.
“What the…” Draco muttered before yelling “FUCK!”. Theo rushed over and after seeing the hole in the wall ran both of his hands through his hair, gripping at the roots.
“Did you know about this?! Try to cover it up?” Draco said, pulling on Theo’s collar.
In response Theo grabbed his hands, pulling them off. “Of course not. But whoever did this obviously knew what they were doing, they got in right between the ward spells.”
Draco spent the rest of the day re-warding the entire building. He collapsed into his leather chair at his flat, sipping on a stout beer and as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, undoing the top button. Suddenly he heard the front door slam, and stomping down the hallway was a mass of curls coming at him. Granger was standing in the archway, her hands on her hips.
“Something on your mind, Granger?” he purred at her before taking another swig of the beer.
She rolled her eyes and started pacing back and forth. “I just don’t understand what happened to everything in the warehouse. Wait, what were you doing this morning? Warning someone maybe?!” looking at Draco with suspicious eyes.
Draco chuckled. “I'm flattered you would think about it but no. I was at my shop all day. I found evidence of a little thief. Some of my stash is missing. I was cleaning up the mess”.
Granger’s face softened and she returned to her pacing. Draco felt a twinge of something in his chest he couldn’t place. He stood, pushing up on the chair arms. With long strides he went into the kitchen opening up the refrigerator. Behind him Granger was going to great detail what they found, or more like didn’t find, in the building. As he listened, Draco started pulling out various types of cheeses, slices of meat, and jam. He grabbed a baguette and started slicing it. Once he arranged the food on a cutting board Granger started grazing, taking bites in between the ranting.
Suddenly she stopped and turned to look at Draco. “So?” she asked, a baguette slice topped with brie and jam halfway to her mouth.
“Well it's kinda obvious don’t you think?” he responded.
Her mouth slightly agape, “Obvious?”
Draco leaned back against the fridge, crossing his arms. “You have a mole in your midst.”
Before she could respond he handed her a glass of white wine.
“That’s ridiculous Malfoy, people at the Ministry would never do that” she spat at him.
He gave her an exasperated look. “Everyone? Everyone at the ministry is as righteous as you? Must I remind you who all worked there during the war?” he retorted back at her, taking a bite of cheddar and salami.
He leaned over onto the kitchen island, his buttoned shirt falling open to reveal his chiseled chest. He noticed the blush in Granger’s cheeks, smirking up at her. “Ok, love, let’s start from the beginning - “
“We don’t have time for that,” Grander bit back.
Draco raised his hands in defense. “Granger, you’re brainy, let’s think through it logically”.
Letting out a huff she replies “ Fine but fill me up”, pushing her wine glass to his exposed chest.
With a snap, a wine bottle was opened, and he filled both glasses. They settled in on the couch. Draco floated the cheese board from the kitchen to the coffee table. With a wave of her wand a stack of notecards and a handful of colorful pens appeared on the coffee table. “Oh, almost forgot…” Granger mumbled, and then a spool of red thread and push pins joined the supplies. Draco looked over with one eyebrow raised. “Really, Granger?”
“It’s actually quite useful to literally connect the dots, Malfoy.” But she still didn’t meet his eyes, slightly embarrassed.
“Well, you’re not putting pin holes in my drywall.” A large cork board was suddenly leaning against the wall.
Granger crossed her legs on the couch, and reached up to pull her mop of curls into a large messy bun with an emerald green scrunchie. He stared at the curve of her neck and could smell whiffs of her pheromones. With a shake of his head he tried to refocus.
Draco picked up a pen and twirled it in his hand before putting it to a blank notecard. “Right, then, what was the first attack?” glancing over.
“Well I was given the case after the incident on the Hogwarts Express, but there had been other reported attacks before.”
Draco scribbled furiously across the note card and then it floated to the board and stuck to the top. “There was also the transformation at the nightclub.” Draco felt his heart rate pick up, thinking back on that night. He felt the pen drop out of his hand and stars entered his vision when he bent to pick it up. Suddenly, the stars cleared and he was floating in a cloud of vanilla, his heart rate slowing and feeling much calmer. He didn’t have to look over at Hermione to know what she was doing.
She cleared her throat then. “We got the labs back on the pill found at the club, it contained similar ingredients to other party drugs, nothing that’s known to cause this effect. Not that any plant ingredient is linked to lycanthropy anyway. There were several ingredients that were below detection levels. Merlin, how was that warehouse cleared out so quickly?! With a larger sample we might have been able to detect those ingredients..” Granger’s voice trailed off, her frustration thick in her pheromones.
“Bring the pills to me next time, I won’t muck it up, like a good lad,” Draco said with a wink. He earned an exaggerated eye roll from the witch.
He leaned back on the sofa. “What is the chance that the warehouse blokes just decided to move operations the day after we saw them through the window?” Draco asked.
“Well what’s the alternative?... That someone followed us that night?”
“For being the brightest witch of our age you can be preeettty dense. Obviously it was someone involved in the case. Maybe a wizard on the crime scene investigation team? Speaking of, let’s list everyone that’s been involved thus far, present company excluded.”
“Don’t think you’ll be taken off my list with that sly comment, Malfoy.”
“Worth a shot…” He wrote down his name with a shrug anyway.
“Well Cho Chang works in the lab, she ran the tests on the sample. Phillip Bountmatten runs the evidence locker, he was a member of the investigation team. There was a whole team at the warehouse, I would have to look at the report to see who was all there.” She continued to list names as Draco and a couple of charmed pens recorded the names.
“What about your superiors?”
Granger’s face went white at the thought, but she stubbornly began rattling off names. “I took over for Albert, so he is not involved. Ruth is my direct superior, running the DOM. And I guess the Minister would fall under that group too, he was the one who is putting pressure on the team.”
“I can’t imagine Ol’ Shacklebolt would do something like this” Draco chimed in.
“Well if it was really an inside job then I'm not sure we should rule out anyone just yet,” Granger added.
“Now you’re thinking like a Slytherin.” A proud smile spread across Draco’s face.
Granger rolled her eyes and shook her head, but couldn't hide the smile that grew on her face. As Draco watched, he felt something growing in his chest, what was it? He couldn't place it.
Turning back to the cards, distracting himself, he continued with the task at hand. “ We have the crime, we have suspects, what about a motive? Could this be a leftover group of werewolves that supported Voldemort during the war?”
“Greyback was imprisoned shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, but i wouldn't be surprised if others escaped the grounds that night. I could talk to Harry about it,” Granger responded.
“Oh great I can’t wait to hear what the Golden Boy says” Draco grunted rolling her eyes.
“Careful Malfoy, I can smell your jealousy from here.”
“Careful, darling, I can smell your pleasure from here.”
Granger whipped her head to look at the board, trying unsuccessfully to hide her blush. “I can’t look at you or this board any longer tonight.” She stood up in a huff.
“Where are you going, love? The night is young and we’ve made no headway.” Even he could hear the pleading in his voice.
Granger was already at the door, an accio’d baguette slice topped with brie in her hand. “I’ve got plans, darling.”
The door slammed behind her, softly rattling the walls.
Draco looked from the corkboard to the now empty seat beside him, and wished the smell of vanilla would linger a little longer.
—
A truck backed up to the open dock, several men standing in wait to unload stacks of boxes. The wizards accio’d the boxes to various corners of the empty warehouse, shelves filling up with the inventory. Across from the dock, bags of soil and greenhouse lights were being set up.
“Why did we have to move everything anyway? Just a waste of time” a man grumbled as he slung a bag of soil over his shoulder.
“Who knows, just following boss’s orders here” said another as he put down the large box. “Still don’t know why we’re paying for those bastards’ mistake.”
“If I wanted to hear your opinion, I'd ask” said someone behind them.
Both men turned, a look of horror on their face.
“Sorry boss” they said in unison.
Suddenly the men grabbed at their throat, choking for air. Red hand prints appeared on their necks as their faces turned purple.
And just like that they dropped to the floor, gasping.
“Next time keep your mouth shut.”