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Chapter Five
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Draco stared at the blunt axe for a few horrified moments before snapping to his senses. Had Draco been a Gryffindor, he would have attacked the murderer himself. But Draco wasn’t a Gryffindor, and was instead a reasonable, logical-minded Slytherin. So, like any sensible Slytherin would do, he tied up the would-be murderer with magical ropes, sent another Stunning Spell, followed by one more Body-Bind Curse, then snatched away her wand. He didn’t care if someone called him the next Hermione Potter; he wasn’t taking chances with a crazy axe-murderer. It was definitely better to be safe than sorry.
Breathing heavily, he tried to calm down and think the happiest thought that he could. Once the image of a Swiss Christmas filled with presents, hot chocolate, and snowball fights was clear in his mind, he fired his Patronus with a message for Aurors Potter and Potter.
---
Harry and Hermione Potter were not people who scared easily. They had fought and defeated the worst of the Death Eaters, hordes of Dementors and other foul creatures, and above all, the feared Dark Lord himself. However, nothing could have prepared them for the giant, ghostly occamy (*) that floated gently at the foot of their bed, at one in the morning, using what was unmistakably Draco Malfoy’s drawling voice to calmly recite something about axe-murderers breaking in through windows.
Harry thought he was suffering from a bizarre nightmare. He thought Draco had morphed into a winged basilisk and was now going to kill him, apparently not by looking at him, but by… using his ingenious mind and his fabulously cunning skills to catch an axe-murderer? “What the hell?” he asked aloud, earning an automatic punch in the stomach from Hermione for his language.
It took a moment for Hermione to shake the shock and sleep out of her head, and realize that the great winged snake with Draco’s voice was, in fact, his Patronus bearing a message.
“– And I’ve tied her up, so come and get her. You can thank me later,” the message finished.
“That – that thing wasn’t a basilisk?”
“No, Harry.”
“Malfoy’s caught the axe-murderer?” Harry asked bewilderedly.
“Apparently. I think I should go now, Harry. You can let go of my arm,” Hermione said kindly.
Harry released Hermione’s arm, which he had been clutching in fear, and said, “I’m going with you. I don’t care if I’m suspended – I’m loads better than that Whizby kid you call a partner.”
“Philby, Harry. His name is Philby.”
“I’m doing him a favor. Belby needs his beauty sleep,” he insisted stubbornly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Auror Brand would not be happy about this.
---
For the second time that week, Ginny was woken from her sleep by a pair of arms crushing her to certain death. The pair of arms was accompanied by, once again, a frizzy brown bush.
“Hermione.”
“Oh, Ginny, we almost lost you!” Hermione cried. “You will never believe it! Malfoy was trying to make the couch more comfortable – you should see it, it really is an awful shade of green now – when he heard someone take the wards down – I don’t know how he knew that sound; he must have subconsciously realized it from his Death Eater days. And then he saw someone come in through the window, and the intruder hexed him, but he did some wandless magic – can you believe that? That takes skill; even I’m a long way from mastering it – and tied up the intruder, and he notified me and Harry with his Patronus – did you see his Patronus? I never thought he could have one; he was such a miserable boy. It was creepy, yes, but it was rather beautiful. It was an occamy, and here I was thinking that Malfoy’s Patronus would be something more along the lines of a dung beetle – and now Harry’s out there with Herby, er, I mean Philby, and Joscelind Wadcock, who was the axe-murderer trying to kill you – England’s going to be in an uproar if she gets kicked off the Quidditch team, not that I care much about Quidditch – and I just had to come here and see you, because I’m just so glad that you’re alive!” Hermione gushed, then took a huge gulp of air.
The only thing that Ginny managed to pick up from Hermione’s rushed explanation was, Malfoy… tied up… Joscelind Wadcock… the axe-murderer.
“Joscelind? Joscelind tried to murder me?”
“Shh!” Hermione hissed, frantically waving her arms around. “The reporters don’t know yet! Joscelind might not even be guilty; someone could have Imperiused her, by the looks of it. Harry and Colby – oh, Merlin! – Philby are trying to figure out what’s going on, and they don’t want England to lose their best Chaser!” Hermione sniffed indignantly. “Men. They take Quidditch more seriously than national security.”
“I’ve got to see Jos –”
“Don’t even think about it, Ginny! The Aurors have everything under control. I’ll go and wrap things up, and you will stay put in your bed.” Hermione bustled out the door, and shut it firmly behind her. Which really was unfortunate for Ginny, because someone stepped out of her closet, and locked the door with a wave of a wand, which Ginny saw was her own. Hermione – or anyone else, for that matter – wouldn’t be coming to her rescue anytime soon.
---
“How’s Ginny doing?” Harry asked, pausing from his investigation.
“She’s a bit distressed about Joscelind being the prime suspect, but other than that, she’s fine.”
Hermione Potter had never been more wrong in her entire life.
“Great. Hermione, take a look at this. It is the Imperius Curse. Wadcock’s eyes go from being completely unfocused to murderously glaring, and her answers to my questions are strange. Listen,” Harry cleared his throat and addressed Joscelind, who was tied to Ginny’s kitchen chair. “Miss Wadcock, what are you doing in Ginny’s flat?”
“I told you I was here for supper!”
“But it’s past midnight.”
“I had a sudden craving for Ginny’s homemade stew.”
Harry made a disbelieving face. “Well then,” he continued, “what are you doing with that axe?”
“I was going to chop some firewood for Ginny.”
“See?” Harry turned to Hermione. “She was going to chop firewood for Ginny. Whoever put Wadcock under that curse obviously didn’t think of a good cover story.”
“So she’s still under the curse?” asked Hermione, leaning in to examine Joscelind’s eye movement.
“Yeah. Seeing as she can’t throw it off, it’ll stay on until we take it off for her, or she completes her assignment. I think you and Shelby should take her in to Headquarters. Maybe you can find out what Wadcock last saw before she went under.”
“Definitely. We need all the clues we can get.”
“But don’t get the reporters involved! And even if she’s somehow guilty, tell the Board that we’ll throw her in Azkaban after the World Cup.”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Harry said, turning to Philby, who was nineteen and fresh out of Auror training. He was a bespectacled young man who was thin and freckly, with a shy, boyish face, and looked like he still belonged in the library at school, instead of investigating crime scenes. “I was never here, okay? The Board wouldn’t like it if I got involved.” Philby nodded. “Good. And Malfoy, you’re the witness. You need to go in and repeat everything you said. And remember, I wasn’t here.”
Draco, who was comfortably lounging on the couch as if he wasn’t part of a crime scene, looked at Harry with an evil smirk. “Really, Potter? So I’m seeing things, am I? You know, I actually could be seeing things. If, say, a bag of Galleons fell out of the sky, then yes, I’d be so happy that I might imagine you briefly, just to watch your imaginary face screw up because I have free money and you don’t.”
Harry sighed. This was what happened when a law enforcer broke the law and got involved in murder cases, when he should really be in bed, minding his own business. Harry grimaced. Malfoy could corrupt even the best of wizards. “How much?”
Hermione gasped, scandalized.
“Oh, nothing much. One hundred Galleons.”
“One hundred? I grow lemon trees, Malfoy, not money trees!” Harry raged. Draco shrugged, with the most annoying smirk on his face. Harry opened his mouth to yell some more, but thought it would be a waste of energy. “Fifty,” he finally spat in defeat.
“Fifty it is, then.” Draco grinned winningly. That was all he had wanted, really, fifty Galleons to pay Ginny for this month’s rent. Potter was so predictable. Take the amount you want, double it, and Potter would chop it in half and offer you what you actually wanted in the first place.
“I don’t have any money on me, right now, but I’ll drop by tomorrow.” Harry shuffled miserably away, and Draco could hear him explaining to Hermione that it wasn’t corruption, it was for her own sake, because if he got in more trouble, she would be stuck with Chubby even longer.
“I could throw him in Azkaban for trying to corrupt an enforcer of law!” Hermione fumed.
“And Malfoy would tell the Board of Aurors why he was trying to corrupt me in the first place! If the Board finds out I went against their direct order, I’d get fired!”
Hermione shot him a withering glare.
“Okay, so maybe I won’t get fired, but I’d get a longer suspension, and –”
“I told you not to come along! I told you Philby and I could handle it!”
“But I’m the Imperius expert!”
“And I am England’s best Auror! I think I would know how to identify someone who’s been Imperiused!” Hermione snapped.
“Hermione,” Harry sighed, running a hand through his messy black hair. “You know how hard it is for me. I tried to live a normal life after the war, but I couldn’t. I’m only happy when I’m out on the field, hunting down bad guys! You know this, Hermione. A suspension – until the rest of the year! That’s more than three months! I feel like it’s already been too long without working. I’m dying, Hermione!” Harry cried, blinking his green eyes in that almost-puppy dog way (he could never quite master the doe-eyed expression, and ended up looking like he had a blinking problem) that he knew Hermione couldn’t resist.
Hermione bit her lip, then blew out a breath and nodded in an exasperated manner. “Go home, Harry,” she muttered, and proceeded to Apparate with Joscelind.
“Oh, and Potter,” Draco called, unable to resist. “Not you, Potter, your wife. Surely you aren’t considering walking into the Ministry in your lovely Gryffindor pajamas?”
Hermione looked down at her red and gold striped pajamas (which matched Harry’s, of course) and her face flushed into the perfect shade of Gryffindor red.
“I must say, you’re losing your professional touch. Must be a side effect of being married to a Potter.”
Now it was Harry’s turn to flush scarlet. After all those years, a war, and a memory loss, Draco Malfoy could still get on his nerves more than anyone else.
---
Ginny gasped in terror as the hooded figure glided out of her closet, clutching a blunt axe in its gloved hands. The figure didn’t say a word, and didn’t make a noise, except for the eerie low chuckling – or was she imagining it? Ginny couldn’t see anything under the hood. She almost expected red eyes or a Death Eater mask to be sneering sinisterly at her, but there was nothing under the hood except pure darkness. She would have suspected the figure to be a Dementor, but the fear she felt was the fear for her life, not the cold, terrorizing fear that a Dementor brought.
Still, fear was fear, and Ginny was almost paralyzed with it. Her door was locked, her wand was in the axe-wielding maniac’s pocket, and she had nothing to save herself with – except for her voice. She screamed. She screamed long and loud and clear, but nobody came. Was everyone gone? It was only moments ago that Hermione left the room.
The figure chuckled, now just meters away. When the person trying to murder you was chuckling, it was never good. The room must have been silenced. Damn. Ginny scrambled out of her bed and furiously backed away, hurling random objects at the assassin with all her strength, but the infuriating villain just knocked them away with Ginny’s own wand. Ginny found herself pressed up against the wall. There was absolutely no way to escape. But wait!
The assassin stepped forward and raised the axe, ready to strike. Ginny dove for the corner of her messy bedroom, where she had, long ago, carelessly tossed the broken-Snitch Portkey that Oliver had given her for emergency Quidditch practices. Ginny ignored the protests of her aching shoulder and reached forward to grab the Portkey. As soon as her fingers closed on the object, she felt the white-hot bite of the axe on her shoulder blade, made even more painful by the axe’s bluntness, but it didn’t matter, because before the axe could slice through any vital organs, she was gone.
The Portkey took her to the middle of the deserted pitch in the Puddlemere Stadium, where Ginny lay, half-panting, half-sobbing, and bleeding profusely. But there was no time to waste; if she was the target, then the assassin would know just where to find her. It would be a matter of moments before the murderer tracked her down to the pitch.
Ginny knew the locker rooms were locked, and Coach Deverill’s office – the only room in the Stadium with a fireplace – was locked too. Without her wand to Apparate with, she needed to get to a fireplace, and fast.
Ginny tore out of the Stadium, her bare feet hurting against the rough asphalt, and her shoulder continuing to bleed. She ran until she reached the nearest residential home, which she knew belonged to Dougherty, the Stadium security guard. She banged on the door as loud as she could, but there was no response. Had the murderer predicted her movements and gotten to Dougherty first?
She continued to desperately bang on the door, when she saw a ghostly white blur fly out of the window. It was unmistakably a Patronus heading for the Ministry, so Dougherty must be in trouble.
Ginny wanted to help, but she was wandless, and Dougherty could already be dead. She needed to fly to safety, and Dougherty had a broom shed. Ginny ran over to the shed and kicked down the door, wincing as splinters dug into her foot. There was a flash of metal, and before Ginny knew what was happening, a blood-stained axe was frozen an inch in front of her face, and the figure in the broom shed was surrounded by Dougherty’s armed neighbors, who had woken up because of Ginny’s racket.
Several people screamed, “Expelliarmus!”, but the hooded assassin was faster. There was a swish of black robes, and the murderer was gone.
“Aren’t you Chaser Weasley?” one man asked.
“Dougherty is hurt!” a woman cried.
“Get him to St. Mungo’s!”
“Who was that man? Was he a Death Eater?”
“How do you know it was a man?”
“Are we in danger? Call the Aurors!”
“Call the Aurors! They should investigate!”
The crowd was panicking, and Ginny clutched at the sleeve of the man standing nearest to her. “I need to get to a fireplace!”
“Don’t you need to go to St. Mungo’s?”
“Fireplace!” Ginny screamed.
“Move out of the way!” the man called out. “Weasley needs to get to the fireplace!”
The crowd moved aside and let her in through Dougherty’s back door. Ginny thanked the man, and threw some Floo powder into the hearth. “The Ministry!” she screamed into the flames, and after a dizzying moment, came flying out of the Ministry fireplace.
The Ministry security guards nearly jumped out of their skin to see a pink and red blur run blindly towards them, and raised their wands. Ginny was in no condition to avoid the red sparks of the guards’ Stunning Spells, but the last coherent thought she had was, I’m safe.
---
“Auror Potter!”
“Yes?” Hermione asked, not looking up from the Wadcock case file that Philby had produced. The rookie’s more efficient than Harry is, Hermione thought with some amusement.
“Mr. Weasley’s younger sister is here, and she’s in an awful state. Should we turn her over to your department, or should we send her to St. Mungo’s?”
“St. Mungo’s? What for?”
“She’s hurt, ma’am.”
“Hurt? Oh dear, what has she gotten herself into now? I told her to stay put. Thil – er, Philby! Take this and alert Auror Brand. I’ll be back as soon as I see Ginny.” Hermione handed Philby the case file, and dashed after the security guard.
When she got to the Visitor’s Booth, where the other guard had placed Ginny in a chair, Hermione was shocked to see that the younger woman’s pajamas were saturated with blood. “Episkey!” she said, and the wound zipped up. After clearing away the blood, and using all of the healing spells she knew, Hermione decided that a visit to St. Mungo’s wouldn’t be necessary. She instead sent her Patronus to Philby, asking him to find a Blood-Replenishing Potion, and decided to take Ginny to Auror Brand’s office, where all the action was, much to Brand’s dismay.
Auror Joseph Brand was suffering from a massive headache. He had spent all day pursuing a shady Mafia man named Lukovski, who had hexed him with a rather strong Jelly-Legs Jinx that still made him feel wobbly. Then, he had been woken up at one-thirty in the morning, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he had just been told that the prime suspect to the Weasley vs. Blunt Axe case was none other than super-celebrity, Joscelind Wadcock, who was now glaring at his left nostril as if she wanted to murder it. He sighed. Celebrities. He hated them.
“I can see that the woman is under the Imperius, Macmillan. So take it off before she bores a hole through my left nostril.”
Auror Macmillan removed the curse, and Joscelind slumped against her chair, fast asleep.
“Miss Wadcock! Miss Joscelind Wadcock!”
Joscelind stirred, cracked open an eye, then jumped up so quickly that she kicked the desk and upturned the cup of tea Brand had been brewing. The Head Auror could have cried. “What are you doing in my room?” she yelled shrilly, adding to Brand’s headache.
“I’m not in your room, Miss Wadcock. You’re actually in mine.”
Joscelind looked around, then declared, “I do not sleepwalk! Why am I here? Did you kidnap me? Explain yourself!”
Brand rolled his eyes. That was what he wanted to ask. “Miss Wadcock, I have been informed that you, under the Imperius Curse, broke into Ginny Weasley’s flat and attempted to murder her with a blunt axe.” He pointedly ignored Joscelind’s baffled expression. “In the attempt to reach Miss Weasley, you have also tried to afflict bodily harm on Draco Malfoy. Although you have been under the Imperius, we wish for your cooperation to ask you further questions and to test your memory in the interrogations room.”
“What?” Joscelind asked, staring at Brand as if he were a madman. “I did what to who with a what, and did what to who on the way to do what to who?”
Brand sighed again. “I will repeat myself on the way to the interrogations room.”
At that point, the door opened, and an exhausted-looking Ginny walked in, supported by an equally frazzled-looking Hermione. “It wasn’t Joscelind,” Ginny said in a voice barely above a whisper. “She was a distraction, I think. The real murderer was hiding in my closet the whole time. He – she – it – whoever it was, tried to kill me,” Ginny said numbly. “It was awful, it was terrifying, and – and –” Ginny wiped away the tears that kept threatening to spill, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t cry, because she wasn’t a baby anymore, and Ginny was still trying to justify her last outburst by blaming it on the pain-relief potion.
“Auror Brand!” Philby shouted, running into the office. “Auror Brand! The residents of Puddlemere Court are going crazy! They claim to have seen an axe-murderer, and they’re saying that he was after Ginny Weasley. A Patronus from a man named Alton Dougherty also confirms this. He was hurt in the fight with the axe-murderer!”
“I just came from there,” Ginny said. “The murderer was in my room, and I Portkeyed to Puddlemere Stadium, and from there I ran to Puddlemere Court. I was trying to use Dougherty’s fireplace, but I think the murderer got there first, and he was also in the broom shed, and the neighbors stopped the axe literally an inch in front of my face!”
Auror Brand’s headache disappeared. A real murderer, panicking citizens, the national security at risk. This was what he worked for. This was what he was born to do. “Send out the troops! Question Miss Wadcock for anything she might have seen, or might remember. Everyone put their guards up! Like my old friend used to say, constant vigilance!”
---
Hermione thought that Philby would have made an excellent secretary. He took wonderful notes and was superb at following instructions. However, an Auror needed to take charge of situations, and Aurors, for the most part, needed to give instructions instead of following them. Harry was excellent at this particular aspect.
As nice as Philby was, he was no replacement for Harry. Was anyone a replacement for Harry? But the point was, the Board of Aurors was incredibly unhappy about being lied to, especially about something as big as the issue of Draco Malfoy, who could have turned out to be a threat to society. It was only because Harry had saved said society that he wasn’t immediately fired. That, and his remarkable talent as an Auror. To Hermione, however, having Harry suspended in a situation like this was as bad as having him sacked.
Hermione had always hated breaking rules, but sometimes, breaking rules saved lives. Ginny was a dear friend to her, and some nasty character was after Ginny’s life, not to mention that the heartless lunatic was hurting anyone that got in the way. If she wanted to protect Ginny and the rest of England, she would need Harry’s help. She just wasn’t as good an Auror without him. If the rules said she couldn’t work with Harry, why, she’d break the rules!
The rules also said information about case files would be kept strictly secret from civilians. But there was one civilian who could strategize better than anyone Hermione knew. Maybe he was still a bit angry with her, and a bit jealous of Harry, but she knew that he knew that their friendship came first.
They had all worked perfectly together during the war; Hermione was the person who had provided the Order with brilliant new spells and hexes that surprised the Death Eaters to no end, Harry was the man of action, who took down more Death Eaters than anyone else, and Ronald Weasley was the strategizing genius, who had predicted the Death Eaters’ movements with almost alarming accuracy.
It was time, thought Hermione with a smile, that the Golden Trio got back together to seriously kick some axe-murderer ar – er, rear end was the polite term.
---
“Tall, hooded, dressed in black robes, and wielding a blunt axe. Has a chuckle that sounds like it might come from a man with a high voice, or a woman with a low voice,” Philby muttered to himself, jotting down anything and everything Ginny said. “Anything else, Miss Weasley?” he mumbled shyly, refusing to look at Ginny, and blushing a lovely shade of tomato.
“Er… Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, being so close to death and all, but I thought the person’s robes smelled a bit stale, like they hadn’t been worn in a long time, and I think I also caught a whiff of alcohol…”
“Stale robes, alcohol. Anything else?”
“Er… No. That’s it, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Weasley,” Philby said in a voice that almost squeaked.
From the other side of the room, Draco rolled his eyes. Ginny was not an unattractive woman, but she was nowhere near beautiful enough to be causing any boys a nervous breakdown – that was what Veelas were for. But Philby was rather amusing.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Philby said, uncomfortably addressing Draco, who, for the benefit of his own entertainment, had rolled up his sleeves. The black skull on his left forearm grinned menacingly at Philby, who paled visibly.
“Yes, Plibby?” Draco drawled, knowing full well that the boy’s confidence level dropped every time someone messed up his name.
“Phiby, sir,” he corrected.
“Right. So, what was it that you wanted to ask, Fishby?”
“Er… I was told to ask you if you wanted your memories back. The Ministry has your Pensieve from 1998, but we haven’t gotten rid of it because you don’t have a copy of the memories inside your head...”
Draco looked pensive for a moment, and Ginny’s curiosity was piqued. She was actually beginning to find the post-war Draco Malfoy tolerable, and she knew the main reason he was no longer evil was that he didn’t remember his darkest days. That, and the influence of Andromeda Tonks. Ginny was afraid that if Draco remembered the war, he would once again become the cold-blooded monster that he had been.
“I’ll take the Pensieve.”
Philby’s face fell. “Mr. Malfoy, could you take just the memories? You see, Pensieves are rather expensive…”
“Nonsense. I wish to reclaim my memories in their current state, which is in the Pensieve.”
“Yes, sir,” Philby replied sadly. He would receive another lecture from Auror Potter about the importance of saving the Ministry budget.
Philby left, with one last shy glance at Ginny, and an uncomfortable silence hung over Ginny and Draco.
Ginny realized, with a funny sort of feeling that was halfway between gratefulness and self-pity, that Draco Malfoy, her greatest enemy that ever lived, had pretty much saved her life. If he hadn’t stopped Joscelind, she would have been murdered in her sleep by an old friend. If he hadn’t called Hermione, who had stormed her flat, waking her up, and distracting the assassin, she still would have been murdered in her sleep. She supposed that she should thank him. She just didn’t know how.
“Malfoy. I, er, that is… The axe-murderer, er, would have killed me. Yes. The axe-murderer definitely would have killed me. So what I would like to say is that, er, I’d like to tell you that…” Why? Ginny thought glumly. Why does this have to be so difficult? “You – that is, I –”
“What you would like to say,” said Draco in an amused drawl, “is that you wish to make me a lovely breakfast with sausages and scrambled eggs?”
“Yes, exactly,” Ginny replied, smiling in relief.
Draco, for the first time that Ginny had ever seen, genuinely smiled back.
And from that moment on, they somehow, inexplicably, became friends – sort of.
---
To be continued…
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(*) The occamy mentioned at the beginning of the chapter is what I thought was a suitable Patronus for Draco. According to the HP Lexicon, the occamy is “a beautiful, carnivorous creature native to India and the Far East, resembling a winged snake, but plumed, having two legs, and reaching up to fifteen feet in length. As occamy eggshells are formed from pure soft silver, the occamy's reputation for aggression may be overstated, as most of its interaction with humans probably has consisted of defense of its eggs.”
I thought that having a dragon be Draco’s Patronus was a bit overdone already, so I used a more exotic animal. The part about the snake and the silver definitely fits Draco, and the occamy’s aggression towards humans to defend its eggs seems to be, in my opinion, a good reflection of Draco’s personality – I believe that he is only mean to others to protect himself. ;)
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Chapter Five
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Draco stared at the blunt axe for a few horrified moments before snapping to his senses. Had Draco been a Gryffindor, he would have attacked the murderer himself. But Draco wasn’t a Gryffindor, and was instead a reasonable, logical-minded Slytherin. So, like any sensible Slytherin would do, he tied up the would-be murderer with magical ropes, sent another Stunning Spell, followed by one more Body-Bind Curse, then snatched away her wand. He didn’t care if someone called him the next Hermione Potter; he wasn’t taking chances with a crazy axe-murderer. It was definitely better to be safe than sorry.
Breathing heavily, he tried to calm down and think the happiest thought that he could. Once the image of a Swiss Christmas filled with presents, hot chocolate, and snowball fights was clear in his mind, he fired his Patronus with a message for Aurors Potter and Potter.
---
Harry and Hermione Potter were not people who scared easily. They had fought and defeated the worst of the Death Eaters, hordes of Dementors and other foul creatures, and above all, the feared Dark Lord himself. However, nothing could have prepared them for the giant, ghostly occamy (*) that floated gently at the foot of their bed, at one in the morning, using what was unmistakably Draco Malfoy’s drawling voice to calmly recite something about axe-murderers breaking in through windows.
Harry thought he was suffering from a bizarre nightmare. He thought Draco had morphed into a winged basilisk and was now going to kill him, apparently not by looking at him, but by… using his ingenious mind and his fabulously cunning skills to catch an axe-murderer? “What the hell?” he asked aloud, earning an automatic punch in the stomach from Hermione for his language.
It took a moment for Hermione to shake the shock and sleep out of her head, and realize that the great winged snake with Draco’s voice was, in fact, his Patronus bearing a message.
“– And I’ve tied her up, so come and get her. You can thank me later,” the message finished.
“That – that thing wasn’t a basilisk?”
“No, Harry.”
“Malfoy’s caught the axe-murderer?” Harry asked bewilderedly.
“Apparently. I think I should go now, Harry. You can let go of my arm,” Hermione said kindly.
Harry released Hermione’s arm, which he had been clutching in fear, and said, “I’m going with you. I don’t care if I’m suspended – I’m loads better than that Whizby kid you call a partner.”
“Philby, Harry. His name is Philby.”
“I’m doing him a favor. Belby needs his beauty sleep,” he insisted stubbornly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Auror Brand would not be happy about this.
---
For the second time that week, Ginny was woken from her sleep by a pair of arms crushing her to certain death. The pair of arms was accompanied by, once again, a frizzy brown bush.
“Hermione.”
“Oh, Ginny, we almost lost you!” Hermione cried. “You will never believe it! Malfoy was trying to make the couch more comfortable – you should see it, it really is an awful shade of green now – when he heard someone take the wards down – I don’t know how he knew that sound; he must have subconsciously realized it from his Death Eater days. And then he saw someone come in through the window, and the intruder hexed him, but he did some wandless magic – can you believe that? That takes skill; even I’m a long way from mastering it – and tied up the intruder, and he notified me and Harry with his Patronus – did you see his Patronus? I never thought he could have one; he was such a miserable boy. It was creepy, yes, but it was rather beautiful. It was an occamy, and here I was thinking that Malfoy’s Patronus would be something more along the lines of a dung beetle – and now Harry’s out there with Herby, er, I mean Philby, and Joscelind Wadcock, who was the axe-murderer trying to kill you – England’s going to be in an uproar if she gets kicked off the Quidditch team, not that I care much about Quidditch – and I just had to come here and see you, because I’m just so glad that you’re alive!” Hermione gushed, then took a huge gulp of air.
The only thing that Ginny managed to pick up from Hermione’s rushed explanation was, Malfoy… tied up… Joscelind Wadcock… the axe-murderer.
“Joscelind? Joscelind tried to murder me?”
“Shh!” Hermione hissed, frantically waving her arms around. “The reporters don’t know yet! Joscelind might not even be guilty; someone could have Imperiused her, by the looks of it. Harry and Colby – oh, Merlin! – Philby are trying to figure out what’s going on, and they don’t want England to lose their best Chaser!” Hermione sniffed indignantly. “Men. They take Quidditch more seriously than national security.”
“I’ve got to see Jos –”
“Don’t even think about it, Ginny! The Aurors have everything under control. I’ll go and wrap things up, and you will stay put in your bed.” Hermione bustled out the door, and shut it firmly behind her. Which really was unfortunate for Ginny, because someone stepped out of her closet, and locked the door with a wave of a wand, which Ginny saw was her own. Hermione – or anyone else, for that matter – wouldn’t be coming to her rescue anytime soon.
---
“How’s Ginny doing?” Harry asked, pausing from his investigation.
“She’s a bit distressed about Joscelind being the prime suspect, but other than that, she’s fine.”
Hermione Potter had never been more wrong in her entire life.
“Great. Hermione, take a look at this. It is the Imperius Curse. Wadcock’s eyes go from being completely unfocused to murderously glaring, and her answers to my questions are strange. Listen,” Harry cleared his throat and addressed Joscelind, who was tied to Ginny’s kitchen chair. “Miss Wadcock, what are you doing in Ginny’s flat?”
“I told you I was here for supper!”
“But it’s past midnight.”
“I had a sudden craving for Ginny’s homemade stew.”
Harry made a disbelieving face. “Well then,” he continued, “what are you doing with that axe?”
“I was going to chop some firewood for Ginny.”
“See?” Harry turned to Hermione. “She was going to chop firewood for Ginny. Whoever put Wadcock under that curse obviously didn’t think of a good cover story.”
“So she’s still under the curse?” asked Hermione, leaning in to examine Joscelind’s eye movement.
“Yeah. Seeing as she can’t throw it off, it’ll stay on until we take it off for her, or she completes her assignment. I think you and Shelby should take her in to Headquarters. Maybe you can find out what Wadcock last saw before she went under.”
“Definitely. We need all the clues we can get.”
“But don’t get the reporters involved! And even if she’s somehow guilty, tell the Board that we’ll throw her in Azkaban after the World Cup.”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Harry said, turning to Philby, who was nineteen and fresh out of Auror training. He was a bespectacled young man who was thin and freckly, with a shy, boyish face, and looked like he still belonged in the library at school, instead of investigating crime scenes. “I was never here, okay? The Board wouldn’t like it if I got involved.” Philby nodded. “Good. And Malfoy, you’re the witness. You need to go in and repeat everything you said. And remember, I wasn’t here.”
Draco, who was comfortably lounging on the couch as if he wasn’t part of a crime scene, looked at Harry with an evil smirk. “Really, Potter? So I’m seeing things, am I? You know, I actually could be seeing things. If, say, a bag of Galleons fell out of the sky, then yes, I’d be so happy that I might imagine you briefly, just to watch your imaginary face screw up because I have free money and you don’t.”
Harry sighed. This was what happened when a law enforcer broke the law and got involved in murder cases, when he should really be in bed, minding his own business. Harry grimaced. Malfoy could corrupt even the best of wizards. “How much?”
Hermione gasped, scandalized.
“Oh, nothing much. One hundred Galleons.”
“One hundred? I grow lemon trees, Malfoy, not money trees!” Harry raged. Draco shrugged, with the most annoying smirk on his face. Harry opened his mouth to yell some more, but thought it would be a waste of energy. “Fifty,” he finally spat in defeat.
“Fifty it is, then.” Draco grinned winningly. That was all he had wanted, really, fifty Galleons to pay Ginny for this month’s rent. Potter was so predictable. Take the amount you want, double it, and Potter would chop it in half and offer you what you actually wanted in the first place.
“I don’t have any money on me, right now, but I’ll drop by tomorrow.” Harry shuffled miserably away, and Draco could hear him explaining to Hermione that it wasn’t corruption, it was for her own sake, because if he got in more trouble, she would be stuck with Chubby even longer.
“I could throw him in Azkaban for trying to corrupt an enforcer of law!” Hermione fumed.
“And Malfoy would tell the Board of Aurors why he was trying to corrupt me in the first place! If the Board finds out I went against their direct order, I’d get fired!”
Hermione shot him a withering glare.
“Okay, so maybe I won’t get fired, but I’d get a longer suspension, and –”
“I told you not to come along! I told you Philby and I could handle it!”
“But I’m the Imperius expert!”
“And I am England’s best Auror! I think I would know how to identify someone who’s been Imperiused!” Hermione snapped.
“Hermione,” Harry sighed, running a hand through his messy black hair. “You know how hard it is for me. I tried to live a normal life after the war, but I couldn’t. I’m only happy when I’m out on the field, hunting down bad guys! You know this, Hermione. A suspension – until the rest of the year! That’s more than three months! I feel like it’s already been too long without working. I’m dying, Hermione!” Harry cried, blinking his green eyes in that almost-puppy dog way (he could never quite master the doe-eyed expression, and ended up looking like he had a blinking problem) that he knew Hermione couldn’t resist.
Hermione bit her lip, then blew out a breath and nodded in an exasperated manner. “Go home, Harry,” she muttered, and proceeded to Apparate with Joscelind.
“Oh, and Potter,” Draco called, unable to resist. “Not you, Potter, your wife. Surely you aren’t considering walking into the Ministry in your lovely Gryffindor pajamas?”
Hermione looked down at her red and gold striped pajamas (which matched Harry’s, of course) and her face flushed into the perfect shade of Gryffindor red.
“I must say, you’re losing your professional touch. Must be a side effect of being married to a Potter.”
Now it was Harry’s turn to flush scarlet. After all those years, a war, and a memory loss, Draco Malfoy could still get on his nerves more than anyone else.
---
Ginny gasped in terror as the hooded figure glided out of her closet, clutching a blunt axe in its gloved hands. The figure didn’t say a word, and didn’t make a noise, except for the eerie low chuckling – or was she imagining it? Ginny couldn’t see anything under the hood. She almost expected red eyes or a Death Eater mask to be sneering sinisterly at her, but there was nothing under the hood except pure darkness. She would have suspected the figure to be a Dementor, but the fear she felt was the fear for her life, not the cold, terrorizing fear that a Dementor brought.
Still, fear was fear, and Ginny was almost paralyzed with it. Her door was locked, her wand was in the axe-wielding maniac’s pocket, and she had nothing to save herself with – except for her voice. She screamed. She screamed long and loud and clear, but nobody came. Was everyone gone? It was only moments ago that Hermione left the room.
The figure chuckled, now just meters away. When the person trying to murder you was chuckling, it was never good. The room must have been silenced. Damn. Ginny scrambled out of her bed and furiously backed away, hurling random objects at the assassin with all her strength, but the infuriating villain just knocked them away with Ginny’s own wand. Ginny found herself pressed up against the wall. There was absolutely no way to escape. But wait!
The assassin stepped forward and raised the axe, ready to strike. Ginny dove for the corner of her messy bedroom, where she had, long ago, carelessly tossed the broken-Snitch Portkey that Oliver had given her for emergency Quidditch practices. Ginny ignored the protests of her aching shoulder and reached forward to grab the Portkey. As soon as her fingers closed on the object, she felt the white-hot bite of the axe on her shoulder blade, made even more painful by the axe’s bluntness, but it didn’t matter, because before the axe could slice through any vital organs, she was gone.
The Portkey took her to the middle of the deserted pitch in the Puddlemere Stadium, where Ginny lay, half-panting, half-sobbing, and bleeding profusely. But there was no time to waste; if she was the target, then the assassin would know just where to find her. It would be a matter of moments before the murderer tracked her down to the pitch.
Ginny knew the locker rooms were locked, and Coach Deverill’s office – the only room in the Stadium with a fireplace – was locked too. Without her wand to Apparate with, she needed to get to a fireplace, and fast.
Ginny tore out of the Stadium, her bare feet hurting against the rough asphalt, and her shoulder continuing to bleed. She ran until she reached the nearest residential home, which she knew belonged to Dougherty, the Stadium security guard. She banged on the door as loud as she could, but there was no response. Had the murderer predicted her movements and gotten to Dougherty first?
She continued to desperately bang on the door, when she saw a ghostly white blur fly out of the window. It was unmistakably a Patronus heading for the Ministry, so Dougherty must be in trouble.
Ginny wanted to help, but she was wandless, and Dougherty could already be dead. She needed to fly to safety, and Dougherty had a broom shed. Ginny ran over to the shed and kicked down the door, wincing as splinters dug into her foot. There was a flash of metal, and before Ginny knew what was happening, a blood-stained axe was frozen an inch in front of her face, and the figure in the broom shed was surrounded by Dougherty’s armed neighbors, who had woken up because of Ginny’s racket.
Several people screamed, “Expelliarmus!”, but the hooded assassin was faster. There was a swish of black robes, and the murderer was gone.
“Aren’t you Chaser Weasley?” one man asked.
“Dougherty is hurt!” a woman cried.
“Get him to St. Mungo’s!”
“Who was that man? Was he a Death Eater?”
“How do you know it was a man?”
“Are we in danger? Call the Aurors!”
“Call the Aurors! They should investigate!”
The crowd was panicking, and Ginny clutched at the sleeve of the man standing nearest to her. “I need to get to a fireplace!”
“Don’t you need to go to St. Mungo’s?”
“Fireplace!” Ginny screamed.
“Move out of the way!” the man called out. “Weasley needs to get to the fireplace!”
The crowd moved aside and let her in through Dougherty’s back door. Ginny thanked the man, and threw some Floo powder into the hearth. “The Ministry!” she screamed into the flames, and after a dizzying moment, came flying out of the Ministry fireplace.
The Ministry security guards nearly jumped out of their skin to see a pink and red blur run blindly towards them, and raised their wands. Ginny was in no condition to avoid the red sparks of the guards’ Stunning Spells, but the last coherent thought she had was, I’m safe.
---
“Auror Potter!”
“Yes?” Hermione asked, not looking up from the Wadcock case file that Philby had produced. The rookie’s more efficient than Harry is, Hermione thought with some amusement.
“Mr. Weasley’s younger sister is here, and she’s in an awful state. Should we turn her over to your department, or should we send her to St. Mungo’s?”
“St. Mungo’s? What for?”
“She’s hurt, ma’am.”
“Hurt? Oh dear, what has she gotten herself into now? I told her to stay put. Thil – er, Philby! Take this and alert Auror Brand. I’ll be back as soon as I see Ginny.” Hermione handed Philby the case file, and dashed after the security guard.
When she got to the Visitor’s Booth, where the other guard had placed Ginny in a chair, Hermione was shocked to see that the younger woman’s pajamas were saturated with blood. “Episkey!” she said, and the wound zipped up. After clearing away the blood, and using all of the healing spells she knew, Hermione decided that a visit to St. Mungo’s wouldn’t be necessary. She instead sent her Patronus to Philby, asking him to find a Blood-Replenishing Potion, and decided to take Ginny to Auror Brand’s office, where all the action was, much to Brand’s dismay.
Auror Joseph Brand was suffering from a massive headache. He had spent all day pursuing a shady Mafia man named Lukovski, who had hexed him with a rather strong Jelly-Legs Jinx that still made him feel wobbly. Then, he had been woken up at one-thirty in the morning, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he had just been told that the prime suspect to the Weasley vs. Blunt Axe case was none other than super-celebrity, Joscelind Wadcock, who was now glaring at his left nostril as if she wanted to murder it. He sighed. Celebrities. He hated them.
“I can see that the woman is under the Imperius, Macmillan. So take it off before she bores a hole through my left nostril.”
Auror Macmillan removed the curse, and Joscelind slumped against her chair, fast asleep.
“Miss Wadcock! Miss Joscelind Wadcock!”
Joscelind stirred, cracked open an eye, then jumped up so quickly that she kicked the desk and upturned the cup of tea Brand had been brewing. The Head Auror could have cried. “What are you doing in my room?” she yelled shrilly, adding to Brand’s headache.
“I’m not in your room, Miss Wadcock. You’re actually in mine.”
Joscelind looked around, then declared, “I do not sleepwalk! Why am I here? Did you kidnap me? Explain yourself!”
Brand rolled his eyes. That was what he wanted to ask. “Miss Wadcock, I have been informed that you, under the Imperius Curse, broke into Ginny Weasley’s flat and attempted to murder her with a blunt axe.” He pointedly ignored Joscelind’s baffled expression. “In the attempt to reach Miss Weasley, you have also tried to afflict bodily harm on Draco Malfoy. Although you have been under the Imperius, we wish for your cooperation to ask you further questions and to test your memory in the interrogations room.”
“What?” Joscelind asked, staring at Brand as if he were a madman. “I did what to who with a what, and did what to who on the way to do what to who?”
Brand sighed again. “I will repeat myself on the way to the interrogations room.”
At that point, the door opened, and an exhausted-looking Ginny walked in, supported by an equally frazzled-looking Hermione. “It wasn’t Joscelind,” Ginny said in a voice barely above a whisper. “She was a distraction, I think. The real murderer was hiding in my closet the whole time. He – she – it – whoever it was, tried to kill me,” Ginny said numbly. “It was awful, it was terrifying, and – and –” Ginny wiped away the tears that kept threatening to spill, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t cry, because she wasn’t a baby anymore, and Ginny was still trying to justify her last outburst by blaming it on the pain-relief potion.
“Auror Brand!” Philby shouted, running into the office. “Auror Brand! The residents of Puddlemere Court are going crazy! They claim to have seen an axe-murderer, and they’re saying that he was after Ginny Weasley. A Patronus from a man named Alton Dougherty also confirms this. He was hurt in the fight with the axe-murderer!”
“I just came from there,” Ginny said. “The murderer was in my room, and I Portkeyed to Puddlemere Stadium, and from there I ran to Puddlemere Court. I was trying to use Dougherty’s fireplace, but I think the murderer got there first, and he was also in the broom shed, and the neighbors stopped the axe literally an inch in front of my face!”
Auror Brand’s headache disappeared. A real murderer, panicking citizens, the national security at risk. This was what he worked for. This was what he was born to do. “Send out the troops! Question Miss Wadcock for anything she might have seen, or might remember. Everyone put their guards up! Like my old friend used to say, constant vigilance!”
---
Hermione thought that Philby would have made an excellent secretary. He took wonderful notes and was superb at following instructions. However, an Auror needed to take charge of situations, and Aurors, for the most part, needed to give instructions instead of following them. Harry was excellent at this particular aspect.
As nice as Philby was, he was no replacement for Harry. Was anyone a replacement for Harry? But the point was, the Board of Aurors was incredibly unhappy about being lied to, especially about something as big as the issue of Draco Malfoy, who could have turned out to be a threat to society. It was only because Harry had saved said society that he wasn’t immediately fired. That, and his remarkable talent as an Auror. To Hermione, however, having Harry suspended in a situation like this was as bad as having him sacked.
Hermione had always hated breaking rules, but sometimes, breaking rules saved lives. Ginny was a dear friend to her, and some nasty character was after Ginny’s life, not to mention that the heartless lunatic was hurting anyone that got in the way. If she wanted to protect Ginny and the rest of England, she would need Harry’s help. She just wasn’t as good an Auror without him. If the rules said she couldn’t work with Harry, why, she’d break the rules!
The rules also said information about case files would be kept strictly secret from civilians. But there was one civilian who could strategize better than anyone Hermione knew. Maybe he was still a bit angry with her, and a bit jealous of Harry, but she knew that he knew that their friendship came first.
They had all worked perfectly together during the war; Hermione was the person who had provided the Order with brilliant new spells and hexes that surprised the Death Eaters to no end, Harry was the man of action, who took down more Death Eaters than anyone else, and Ronald Weasley was the strategizing genius, who had predicted the Death Eaters’ movements with almost alarming accuracy.
It was time, thought Hermione with a smile, that the Golden Trio got back together to seriously kick some axe-murderer ar – er, rear end was the polite term.
---
“Tall, hooded, dressed in black robes, and wielding a blunt axe. Has a chuckle that sounds like it might come from a man with a high voice, or a woman with a low voice,” Philby muttered to himself, jotting down anything and everything Ginny said. “Anything else, Miss Weasley?” he mumbled shyly, refusing to look at Ginny, and blushing a lovely shade of tomato.
“Er… Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, being so close to death and all, but I thought the person’s robes smelled a bit stale, like they hadn’t been worn in a long time, and I think I also caught a whiff of alcohol…”
“Stale robes, alcohol. Anything else?”
“Er… No. That’s it, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Weasley,” Philby said in a voice that almost squeaked.
From the other side of the room, Draco rolled his eyes. Ginny was not an unattractive woman, but she was nowhere near beautiful enough to be causing any boys a nervous breakdown – that was what Veelas were for. But Philby was rather amusing.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Philby said, uncomfortably addressing Draco, who, for the benefit of his own entertainment, had rolled up his sleeves. The black skull on his left forearm grinned menacingly at Philby, who paled visibly.
“Yes, Plibby?” Draco drawled, knowing full well that the boy’s confidence level dropped every time someone messed up his name.
“Phiby, sir,” he corrected.
“Right. So, what was it that you wanted to ask, Fishby?”
“Er… I was told to ask you if you wanted your memories back. The Ministry has your Pensieve from 1998, but we haven’t gotten rid of it because you don’t have a copy of the memories inside your head...”
Draco looked pensive for a moment, and Ginny’s curiosity was piqued. She was actually beginning to find the post-war Draco Malfoy tolerable, and she knew the main reason he was no longer evil was that he didn’t remember his darkest days. That, and the influence of Andromeda Tonks. Ginny was afraid that if Draco remembered the war, he would once again become the cold-blooded monster that he had been.
“I’ll take the Pensieve.”
Philby’s face fell. “Mr. Malfoy, could you take just the memories? You see, Pensieves are rather expensive…”
“Nonsense. I wish to reclaim my memories in their current state, which is in the Pensieve.”
“Yes, sir,” Philby replied sadly. He would receive another lecture from Auror Potter about the importance of saving the Ministry budget.
Philby left, with one last shy glance at Ginny, and an uncomfortable silence hung over Ginny and Draco.
Ginny realized, with a funny sort of feeling that was halfway between gratefulness and self-pity, that Draco Malfoy, her greatest enemy that ever lived, had pretty much saved her life. If he hadn’t stopped Joscelind, she would have been murdered in her sleep by an old friend. If he hadn’t called Hermione, who had stormed her flat, waking her up, and distracting the assassin, she still would have been murdered in her sleep. She supposed that she should thank him. She just didn’t know how.
“Malfoy. I, er, that is… The axe-murderer, er, would have killed me. Yes. The axe-murderer definitely would have killed me. So what I would like to say is that, er, I’d like to tell you that…” Why? Ginny thought glumly. Why does this have to be so difficult? “You – that is, I –”
“What you would like to say,” said Draco in an amused drawl, “is that you wish to make me a lovely breakfast with sausages and scrambled eggs?”
“Yes, exactly,” Ginny replied, smiling in relief.
Draco, for the first time that Ginny had ever seen, genuinely smiled back.
And from that moment on, they somehow, inexplicably, became friends – sort of.
---
To be continued…
---
(*) The occamy mentioned at the beginning of the chapter is what I thought was a suitable Patronus for Draco. According to the HP Lexicon, the occamy is “a beautiful, carnivorous creature native to India and the Far East, resembling a winged snake, but plumed, having two legs, and reaching up to fifteen feet in length. As occamy eggshells are formed from pure soft silver, the occamy's reputation for aggression may be overstated, as most of its interaction with humans probably has consisted of defense of its eggs.”
I thought that having a dragon be Draco’s Patronus was a bit overdone already, so I used a more exotic animal. The part about the snake and the silver definitely fits Draco, and the occamy’s aggression towards humans to defend its eggs seems to be, in my opinion, a good reflection of Draco’s personality – I believe that he is only mean to others to protect himself. ;)
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Author notes: A/N 1: So the real murderer is still unidentified. Did you really think I’d reveal his/her identity so soon? You’ll find out in time, but not yet… The plot needs to grow thicker first! ;) Sorry if I disappointed anyone with the false alarm. Many people are starting to guess the identity of the axe-murderer, and are suggesting Pansy. You may be right, or you may be wrong. At this point, I’m not dropping any hints (apart from the very, very subtle ones in the story itself!). What I can say, however, is that Pansy will be making an appearance, though I won’t tell you what her role in the story is. Read and find out! :)
A/N 2: So the long-awaited final Harry Potter book has been published, and I would like to say that for my story, I am completely ignoring it. I may unknowingly make a reference to something that happened in, or was introduced in DH, but if I do, this is because I got it confused with HBP or a previous book. (If I do that, I’m sorry!) But as far as I’m concerned, there will never be DH spoilers. Ever – because not only will it completely mess up my plot, it also never happened in my universe! (I’m still in denial mode.)
A/N 3: I am terribly sorry that from this point on, updates are going to take much longer. First of all, I will be on vacation for the rest of the month, and will not have computer access. (But I’m taking a notebook with me to write, so the story will continue!) Then, when I come back, I will be going back to school, and balancing that with my job as well. I am a college student, and we all know how demanding that is! And I’m not in the situation to quit my job either, as much as I hate it, so I will have to cut down on my writing time. Please forgive me for this. However, I absolutely promise that I will do my best to update quality chapters as quickly as my time allows. Hopefully, I will be able to crank out a chapter or two a month. Much love to all of my readers (especially my reviewers!), and I’ll see you when I come back!
~ Sheriden
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