A Thousand Words

Chapter 21: Say the Word

Draco was staring at her expectantly.

Hermione took a deep breath. She had jumped to conclusions too quickly; that was it. The writing on the list did look slightly similar to Shadow's, but she was sure they weren't exact matches, so it was probably just a coincidence. Besides, there was no way Shadow and Draco were the same person. Shadow was considerate and thoughtful. Draco...well, he possessed neither of those qualities.

But the way Shadow had smirked at her...and his eyes...all of it was so reminiscent of Draco. Hermione couldn't explain that away. Shadow had gone to school with Harry, too. It all added up. Everything but the handwriting on the list and Kay.

But Draco had said he didn't know Kay very well, and Hermione believed him. After all, he had no reason to lie about it. Besides, she remembered, Shadow knows I'm a Muggle-born. Draco Malfoy wouldn't treat a Muggle-born he knows nothing about that kindly, no matter how much he claims to have changed.

Perhaps it was just Hermione who was too eager to discover Shadow's true identity, then. She was grasping at straws, making minor details more meaningful than they actually were.

'Come back to Earth, Granger,' Draco suddenly said loudly, jolting Hermione out of her thoughts. 'Like I said, I have other matters to attend to if you're just going to sit here and daydream.'

'I'm sorry,' Hermione apologised. She tried to push all thoughts of Shadow out of her mind. She had to concentrate on this case right now; it was more important. 'What were we discussing?'

'Your theories on the case,' Draco reminded her impatiently.

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but just then, a waitress walked by. Draco held up a hand, and she came over to their table. Hermione abruptly shut her mouth, slightly annoyed.

'The usual, Ethel,' he said brusquely.

The waitress smiled brightly. 'Very well, Mr Malfoy. Anything for your lady friend?' she added, nodding in Hermione's direction.

'I'll just have sweet tea,' said Hermione before Draco could answer for her.

Hermione waited until the waitress was out of sight before continuing. 'I have an idea to run by you. It occurred to me last night while I was reading up on the properties of aconite that there have been an unusually high number of -'

But once again, Hermione was interrupted mid-speech when Draco suddenly buried his face in his hands and muttered, 'Hide me.'

'Wha-?' Hermione started to say, but then she caught sight of a pretty, dark-featured witch standing near the counter, looking around as if she were searching for someone. Hermione recognised her as Anna, the witness whose account Draco had cited.

'You're scared of your girlfriend?' she said, now amused. Draco was slouched down in his seat, trying to cover as much of his face as possible. She had never seen him willingly put himself in such an undignified position, especially in front of her.

'She's - not - my -'

'Draco!'

Draco was cut off mid-protest by Anna's exclamation. He groaned audibly and straightened up as she came hurrying over to their table.

'Hi there,' she said to Hermione, smiling uncertainly as she tossed her handbag onto the table lackadaisically and sat down in the booth next to Draco.

'How are you?' said Hermione politely in response. Then, an idea came to her. It was the perfect way to infuriate Draco. 'Why don't you stay for a while? Mal - er, Draco was just discussing how you two met at the crime scene investigation last week.'

'Oh!' said Anna, sounding, if possible, even more chipper. 'You're the lady I talked to first, aren't you?'

'That's me,' said Hermione, smiling and reaching out a hand over the table. 'I'm Hermione.'

'Anna,' the girl replied without shaking Hermione's hand. 'But surely Draco told you my name already?'

'Oh yes, he did,' said Hermione, retracting her hand. She felt slightly affronted about being brushed off so easily, but she ignored it and continued. 'He told me quite a bit about lunching with you.'

'Did he really?' said Anna, sounding not the least bit surprised. She looked quite smug about this, in fact. 'I expect -'

'I'm still here, you know,' Draco snapped all of a sudden. He was glaring daggers at Hermione. She pretended she couldn't see him.

'Well, since you're here, Anna, why don't you tell us a bit more about what you saw the night of the murder?'

'They've already drained me of everything I know,' Anna explained airily. She turned to Draco. 'So, how was your Christmas?'

'Great,' Draco muttered. 'Anna, I'm sorry, but we're in the middle of a -'

'I think I'll order something,' Anna mused, as if Draco had never spoken at all. 'The peach tea does sound good...'

Hermione waited as Anna consulted with Draco about which item she should order from the menu. Somehow, the fun of aggravating Draco by bringing Anna into their meeting was wearing off. Indeed, she now found that she rather regretted doing it.

'Are you two done yet?' she said grouchily after a few minutes. She glared at Draco, as if it were his fault that their conversation had been interrupted.

'Oh, can't your business discussion wait a few minutes?' Anna asked, waving a hand about breezily. She looked at Draco with sad, doleful eyes. 'Although if you really need to carry on with it, I suppose I can leave you two alone...'

'You're not a bother,' said Draco, even though his pained expression clearly suggested otherwise. Hermione was both surprised and vexed that Draco was making such an effort to be polite to the girl.

Anna smiled fondly at Draco. 'Oh no, don't worry, I know I am,' she said with a melodramatic sigh. 'Go ahead and crack on with your meeting; I'll try to keep out of your way. If you need any help, do let me know.'

Unfortunately, as the minutes inched by, it seemed that Anna was doing everything in her power to not keep out of the way. Every time Draco so much as looked away from her, she'd grab his arm or say something loudly to steal his attention back. The more she did this, the less Draco seemed to resist, until at last he simply dropped the topic of the case altogether.

On the other hand, Hermione was fed up with having to be careful to only reveal details of the case that could be revealed in front of a stranger. She couldn't help but wonder every once in a while why Anna was attracted to Draco in the first place. Anna came off as someone who only cared about the physical appearance of others, and though Hermione felt slightly ashamed for thinking it, Draco wasn't exactly the best-looking fish in the sea. The hideous scars had, unfortunately, marred his once-aristocratic features. Thinking about it, Hermione almost felt sorry for him.

Then there was the fact that she was also growing increasingly jealous of the lack of notice she was receiving from him. No, not jealous, she corrected immediately. Exasperated for professional reasons.

'Malfoy, do you intend to ever start fulfilling the purpose of this meeting or not?' Hermione finally said loudly after having just sat through Anna's painstakingly long story about how she and her mother had managed to secure a summer home in Ibiza. She glared at Draco expectantly, ignoring Anna's offended expression.

Draco ground his teeth together. 'I would have hours ago if you hadn't opened your bloody mouth and -'

'It's not like I'm chuffed about it either,' Hermione retorted.

'What's going on here?' said Anna crossly as she looked back and forth between Hermione and Draco. Hermione suspected that she did not enjoy being left in the dark for even a moment.

'What's going is you,' Hermione said through gritted teeth. She was sick of Anna...of her incessant simpering, her shameless flirting, her infatuation with Draco...

'What do you mean by that?' Anna said shrilly, flaring up. She narrowed her eyes at Hermione. 'I thought you said I could sit down.'

'No, you sat down yourself,' Hermione corrected coolly. 'I said you could stay for some chitchat, not the entire afternoon. I've had enough of this nonsense. We have matters at hand that we're forbidden to discuss in your presence, so if you would please escort yourself away from our table...'

'Why, I - I've never -' Anna spluttered. She sounded quite beside herself.

'As enjoyable as your company is, Anna, I'm afraid I have to agree with Miss Granger here,' Draco injected smoothly. He held out her handbag. 'Perhaps we can meet again sometime soon. In the meantime, if we have any questions, we will certainly come to you for answers. It was nice seeing you again.'

Hermione caught the slight twitch of Draco moving his hand under the table just before Anna was rudely ejected out of her seat by an invisible force. She squealed loudly, stumbled, and almost fell over an old couple's table before she righted herself.

Pushing her long, curly hair out of her eyes, Anna glowered at Hermione as if it were Hermione's fault that she had just suffered through that minor loss of dignity. As Hermione had nothing to say, she simply drummed her fingers on the tabletop pointedly until Anna finally spun around and stormed out of the shop.

'You know, considering the number of O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s you got, I never would have expected you to be so thick when it comes to using your common sense,' Draco snapped over Hermione's sigh of relief.

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'You could have warned me about her earlier if you hadn't been so busy trying to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. "I'm not scared"...oh please, I don't know how you survived Voldemort's wrath if you couldn't even stand up to that monstrosity.'

'We wouldn't even be here right now discussing the murder if it weren't for that "monstrosity" and the evidence she provided,' Draco replied sharply.

'Oh, so now you're defending her?' Hermione fumed. 'One minute you're terrified of her, the next you're hexing her out of her seat, and now you're defending her. My God, Malfoy, make up your mind!'

'Let's just quit the bickering and you can tell me what you were going to tell me earlier.'

Hermione's jaw dropped. Astonished that Draco had actually stepped up and ended an argument for once, she obeyed.

'What I was going to say is that I realised that aconite is most well-known for its use in the Wolfsbane Potion.'

'A conclusion any third year Potions student could have easily drawn, but a conclusion nonetheless.'

'No, what I mean is,' said Hermione, passing over Draco's sarcastic response, 'with all these werewolf attacks going on recently...and Anna did say the man in question had scars all over one side of his face...you don't think...?'

'It's possible...' said Draco slowly. 'So then our suspect was carrying this pamphlet, which presumably held instructions on how to brew the Wolfsbane Potion, because he had recently been bitten?'

'Or bitten someone,' Hermione pointed out.

Draco nodded. 'You might be right. Someone in your office must have records of all the werewolf attacks in the past few months, right?'

'Right,' Hermione affirmed. 'It's my day off, but I'll go back later and see if I can get them. Or I can just go right now...it's just across the street, so -'

'No need. Why don't we meet again the day after tomorrow once you've obtained the proper files?'

Hermione was surprised that Draco wanted to meet so soon. She had gotten the feeling that he didn't like these meetings at all, and she had to admit that initially, she hadn't liked the idea of seeing him on a regular basis either. Now, though, she found herself almost eager for the next one.

It's Ron, she reasoned. He's driving me out of the house.

'Okay,' she said with a tentative smile. 'Where?'

Draco seemed to hesitate. He looked down at his hands before saying, 'My flat?'

'You want me to set foot in your house?' said Hermione incredulously. She almost laughed at the peculiarity of the proposition. 'Aren't you worried I'm going to get filth all over your -'

'Well?' Draco said sharply. 'Are you going to come or not? After today, I'd prefer not to do this in public, and I'm not about to wander into Weasley's hovel.'

'I live there too,' Hermione said petulantly. 'But fine. Your place it is.'

'Here, I'll write down my address -'

'Oh, it's fine,' said Hermione hastily. At Draco's questioning look, she added, 'I know it already. The members of our offices keep records of each other, remember?'

Draco shrugged. 'Stalker,' he said, smirking.

Hermione laughed. It felt nice, she decided, to finally relax in front of Draco. All she had to do was put up with his occasional snide remarks...she supposed those would never go away, but for the most part, his intentions did seem to have changed for the better...

'Now that we've got that figured out, I've got to attend to my other matters. Shacklebolt's assigned me to guide the Hit Wizards-in-training through the Unforgivable Curses course tomorrow -'

'I'm doing that for the Auror division,' said Hermione, surprised that they had once again received the same assignment. 'I guess we'll be seeing each other even more in the future then.'

'I can't wait,' said Draco, rolling his eyes and sliding out of his side of the booth. 'Same time as always, then. See you, Granger.'

'Bye, Malfoy,' said Hermione, biting back a grin.

Once Draco was out the door, Hermione sat back and distractedly sipped from her half-empty cup of tea. They had a theory to work with, which meant she could spare some time now for her own issues - Shadow's identity, for one.

Was he Draco? Had Draco lied? Hermione didn't know what to believe. It seemed like almost all of the evidence pointing towards Shadow and Draco being the same left no room for doubt, but she nonetheless found herself doubtful. On top of that, she didn't even know whether she was disappointed or happy at the idea of Shadow possibly being Draco.

Finally, Hermione decided firmly that for the moment, she would assume they were different people. Her instinct fully supported this resolution, and she chose to go with it this once; after all, Draco had told her she needed to make better use of her common sense. If, however, any further evidence suggesting otherwise arose, Hermione knew she would have to rethink the dilemma.

After a while, Hermione realised that she had finished all of her tea and was sipping from an empty cup. She stood up, dropped a few Muggle bills and coins to cover hers and Draco's orders, and left the little tea shop.

Outside, Hermione crossed the busy street to the telephone box on the other side. It was empty, so she stepped in, dialled six, two, four, four, two, and answered the cool female voice that responded with 'Hermione Granger, Auror Headquarters, here to visit said office and collect a few reports'.

The floor began to sink; for a moment, Hermione was enveloped in darkness as the bright afternoon sun outside disappeared; then, after a minute or so, she was once again able to see as the light from the main hall of the Ministry slowly slid up her body and illuminated her cramped surroundings.

Finally, the door of the telephone box fell open and Hermione stepped out. As she made her way down the long hallway and towards the golden gates at the end, she nodded and smiled at a few of the witches and wizards waiting in line to depart via the Floo network.

Hermione passed through the golden gates and stepped into one of the many lifts on the other side. It was a rather tight fit, as it was rush hour in the Ministry and workers were frantically trying to return to their offices after their lunch breaks, but Hermione managed to step out when the female voice announced, 'Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services.'

Luckily, Hermione ran into Robards almost immediately after leaving the lift.

'What are you doing here?' he said, looking taken back by the fact that Hermione was at the Ministry on her day off.

'I'm here to collect the reports on the recent werewolf attacks, sir,' said Hermione. 'I just had a meeting with Mr Malfoy, a member of the Hit Wizard Squad who's also working on this case, and we're trying to investigate a few hypotheses.'

Robards looked impressed. 'Good to know you're seizing this bull by the horns,' he said gruffly. 'Go back to the office and ask Dawlish; he should have them. And while you're there, let him know what you're doing. He's in charge and he'll want to be clued in.'

'Will do, sir,' said Hermione, ecstatic that Robards was no longer displeased with her. She hastened to the headquarters. There, she was once again granted with good luck when she met Dawlish on his way out.

'All right, Granger?' he said, nodding at Hermione as he passed.

'Wait, Dawlish, I need to see the werewolf attack records.'

He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Hermione. 'Why?' he asked suspiciously.

'For the Malkin case,' Hermione explained.

'Now wait just a second, I'm in charge of that case. What've you been hiding from me, Granger?'

'I know you're in charge,' said Hermione quickly. 'I've been working with a Hit Wizard - Draco Malfoy - on it...I mean, I figured since you're so busy here...'

Dawlish grunted, looking rather pleased with himself. 'Damn right I'm busy here...I've been trying to deal with those morons at the Improper Use of Magic Office for the past three days...they refuse to dish out the information on -'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Hermione swiftly, cutting Dawlish off before he could work himself into a long-winded rant about why Aurors were the only people who had any sense of courtesy towards other departments at the Ministry. 'I really need to see those records, though, Dawlish, so if you could fetch them for me...'

'Fine, fine...' Dawlish grumbled, turning around and heading back inside.

Hermione followed him to his private office at the back of headquarters. His desk, she noted as he gestured for her to wait outside while he went to retriever the files, was considerably messier than her cubicle, which she always kept tidy despite the lack of space.

'Thank you,' she said gratefully as he returned to her with a sheaf of parchment. She took it from him.

'Mind you tell me everything you find out!' he called to her retreating back as she spun around and hurried away.

As Hermione wended her way between the rows of cubicles, she noticed that Ginny was sitting, hunched over something, at hers.

'Ginny!' she exclaimed, stopping next to her friend's cubicle.

Ginny looked up and grinned when she saw Hermione. 'Hey there, Hermione. What're you doing here? I would've thought you'd be sick of this place by now, what with all the time you spend here...'

Hermione laughed. 'No, I'm just here to pick these up.' She lifted up the stack of parchment Dawlish had given her. 'What are you up to?'

'I'm writing a response to a letter of thanks I received from a witch whose missing husband I helped find a few weeks ago,' Ginny explained.

'Oh, good job,' said Hermione. She smiled kindly at Ginny, adding, 'But I've got to go now...Robards has me doing the Unforgivable Curses this year...'

'Ouch,' said Ginny sympathetically. 'Well, at least you're not doing the dark creature obstacle course.' She winced. 'Let me tell you, it's a good thing Lupin gave one to your year when he was teaching at Hogwarts...you can help me base mine off of his...'

'Ginny, you know this is more complex than Lupin's obstacle course,' Hermione scolded.

'I know, I know,' said Ginny. 'Don't worry about it, Hermione. You go home now and try to get some sleep before you get to work planning your training session.'

'I will, Mum,' Hermione replied teasingly.

Waving good-bye to Ginny, Hermione left the Auror Headquarters.