Lost Boys

Lost Boys

Chapter Two

On board Flight Number BA0298, Hermione stared outside the tiny window, a long repressed memory rushing back to her...

"Hannah, we have explicit instructions to stay put. Remember we're not Hit Wizards, we're only surveillance."

"Keep your knickers on." Hannah Abbott flicked her blond hair, dismissing the warning with a careless shrug.

She bit back a cutting remark and simply glared at her. 'Hannah's been my partner for three years, but sometimes I honestly wish I could ask for a bloody new partner.'

Hannah twirled her wand with her right hand and smiled lopsidedly, blatantly ignoring her glare. "Come on, Hermione; lighten up a bit."

Incensed by Hannah's carefree manner, she retorted heatedly, "How can you act so cheerful? If we blow our cover, the entire operation will fail. Our two Hit Wizards could be placed in danger. Can't you understand that our job is not a joking matter!"

The smile in Hannah's face faded. "Who doesn't?" she sighed. "Susan's dead, Dean's in St. Mungo's fighting for his life, Justin's been missing for weeks. For the first time in my life, I have this unshakeable feeling that one of these days I'm going to end up dead, too."

At that, Hermione went silent. Noticing for the first time the uneasy fear in Hannah's eyes, she felt guilty for saying such harsh words. "Hannah...look, I didn't mean..." She paused, not knowing what to say to her partner of three years. She wasn't able to continue, however, because a sudden noise erupted from the place they had been watching for several hours.

The last thing she remembered hearing was, "I'm sorry, Hermione."

She was knocked out unconscious by the deceptively timid-looking Hannah. It was twenty minutes later before she woke up with her head pounding. After finding the former Hufflepuff gone, Hermione hurried to the building and found her partner slumped on the floor, face down. With trembling hands, Hermione turned her around and gasped when she saw Hannah's deathly white face and glassy-eyes staring back at her. Further to her left, Katie Bell and Roger Davies, two of their Hit wizards lie unmoving, probably dead as well. Fighting back the tears, she closed her eyes. When she opened them later, they were hard as granite. Grief turned to fury. Someone must pay dearly for this.

"Well...well...well, if it isn't Harry Potter's former Mudblood sidekick in person," a voice spoke behind her.

The voice made Hermione's blood turn into ice. She whirled around and whipped out her wand, ready to do battle. Outwardly, she looked pale but composed. Only the glitter of her eyes betrayed the fury blazing inside her.

"The Ministry must be pretty desperate to send a Mudblood to spy on us."

Hermione found herself face to face with former Slytherins Malcolm Baddock and Marcus Flint. Her eyes darted around her, looking for a way to escape. There was none.

"There's no escape," said someone from behind Baddock.

Her back tensed and her eyes widened as she recognized the voice.

"Justin?" she gasped, clearly outraged. "No...." she choked out in disbelief. "No wonder the Death Eaters were always one step ahead of us," she lashed out, quickly recovering from the shock. "We never suspected a spy among us...you, of all people!" She was shaking with rage. "You bastard! You set us up in a bloody ambush!"

"Hannah wasn't supposed to die," said Justin icily. "Just plain stupid, I suppose."

She stared at him in disbelief. .

"I told her to hand you to us and join our cause. She refused so she had to die."

"But she loved you!" she spat out.

"The idiotic girl thought she could make change me overnight and stop me from my plans."

Hermione's throat tightened when she realized that Hannah knocked her out in order to save her.

"Enough of the chitchat," Flint muttered as he raised his wand at her. "Now you die."

Her hand tightened on her wand as blind anger swept through her. She aimed and hit Justin exactly on the chest, shutting her eyes tightly at the same time, expecting to die in the same moment.

She heard two loud thuds and opened her eyes. Justin was lying immobile across the floor. Her eyes widened in disbelief. Marcus Flint was dead, too, a look of surprise on his face. She looked up and saw Roger. He was still alive - weak, but still alive.

A hissing Baddock turned menacingly toward Roger, who frantically limped away for cover, desperate to get away from Baddock's target range. Hermione moved with startling speed towards Baddock and hit the Death Eater with a deadly sleeping spell; Baddock came crashing down the floor, face down. Panting, she ran towards a limping Roger, who was now tightly gripping a nearby post just to remain standing up. Hermione could see that he was in a very bad shape; apparently, he had suffered severe beatings and his face was nearly unrecognizable.

"We must get out of here," whispered Roger, his voice extremely hoarse. "More Death Eaters will arrive in a few minutes."

She nodded. Roger was right. "I almost forgot, I have a Portkey with me." She frantically searched for the Portkey inside her robe. "Here, hold it," and she threw the Portkey at his lap. "I'll just get Hannah and Katie."

She was almost halfway across to Hannah when the other Death Eaters arrived. Despite being outnumbered, the two of them fought with everything they got. Curses and hexes flew across the room. Hermione feared Roger, who was getting weak by the second, could not last much longer against the harsh onslaught of the Death Eaters. She's not faring any better; she could feel her strength starting to fail her. The grim realization that the two of them may not get out of this alive hit her with cold clarity.

"Hermione!" Roger suddenly threw something towards her.

Just as she caught the item, one of the dark-robed Death Eaters shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"

Stunned, Hermione realized that Roger had thrown back the Portkey at her. "Noooo!" she cried out , watching in horror as Roger's lifeless body fell on the floor with a dull thud. Something rolled away from his limp hand. It was a bomb. In a split second, the walls shook and windows splintered into thousand pieces. She felt the familiar tug; later, all she could remember was the huge explosion.

"Care for a cocktail?" the stewardess inquired, startling her.

Hermione shook her head and stared back at the window. Her right hand automatically clasped her heaving chest. She could never forget that blinding pain, or Logan's voice telling her that she would be alright. If it hadn't been for Logan, she would be dead. He was the one who brought her to St. Mungo's Hospital, where she spent many months in intensive treatment for facial and body burns, damaged lungs, temporary blindness and deafness. The mediwizards told her she was lucky to be alive.

The death of Hannah, Roger and Katie had plunged her into a severe state of depression, and despite learning that almost all of the Death Eaters were dead, she felt only a grim sense of consolation. One Death Eater survived - heavily wounded but alive. It was Ernie McMillan. He was under the Imperius Curse and thanks to the contents of his Pensieve, the Ministry of Magic was able to detain many of the secret Death Eaters who had infiltrated the Ministry.

The moment she was released from the hospital, she decided to quit the team, but Artemius Biddlecombe, the supervisor at that time, flatly refused. It took her another six months to hand her official resignation. Again, Biddlecombe refused, told her to get a vacation, and classified her as merely on a leave of absence. It had been two years since she left her job.

She had been content with her new job as a copy editor in a newspaper company in Chicago. She even took up her shrink's suggestion and enrolled in kick boxing and judo karate lessons. After all, self-defense always do come in handy. Her lips curved into a small grin as she recalled how she broke a man's nose when he tried to mug her. Her grin vanished when she remembered the reason why she was on this plane.

* * * * *

"Why didn't you use Floo Powder?" asked Logan, upon learning Hermione took the eight hour flight back to London. "It would be much faster, or you could have asked me for a port key."

"I know, but I wanted to take advantage of the flight to sort out my thoughts," replied Hermione. She had reported in his office an hour earlier than expected.

"You looked like you haven't slept for days," remarked Logan, noting the dark smudges under her eyes.

I kept seeing those kids whenever I close my eyes... Instead, she said, "You're not looking too good yourself."

He gave a slight nod. "This case had been causing us sleepless nights. The quicker we wrap this case the better."

"I would like to put Narcissa Malfoy under surveillance," requested Hermione quietly. When Logan didn't answer, she added, "All the boys closely resembled Draco Malfoy when he was still a kid. She is the most plausible suspect."

"You can't," was the immediate reply.

"And why not?" she said heatedly.

"Don't get your hackles raised," said Logan. "Narcissa's dead."

"What?" She looked at him in shock.

"She died a few months after Draco Malfoy was sent to Azkaban. It was just a few months after you took your leave."

"Suicide?" Her voice barely a whisper.

"We guess as much." Logan stood up and opened the top cabinet file, then took out a circular basin containing silvery substance. "Here's my Pensieve shows on the day we discovered her body inside Malfoy manor."

Hermione watched as he placed his hand on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it. Soon after, a figure appeared - an unknown Elf.

"It's one of the Malfoy Manor's servant," explained Logan.

"Wait," said Hermione. "Do you mind?" She fixed her gaze intently on the Pensieve. Logan apparently understood that she meant to immerse herself in the Pensieve, and he nodded. Hermione stood in front of basin as Logan took a step back. Placing her hands on each side, she tilted her head and when the tip of her nose touched the silvery substance, she felt a familiar lurch and was immediately sucked inside the basin.

Shortly, Hermione found herself sprawled across the main entrance. When she looked up, she saw Logan's tall form entering the manor, accompanied by Lisa Turpin and Orla Quirke. They were headed up the stairs, with the servant leading the way. Hermione followed quickly. When they reached the master bedroom where Narcissa's prone body lay on the bed; Hermione heard Orla's muffled gasp. Narcissa Malfoy's eyes were fixed on the ceiling, with her thin mouth frozen into a silent 'O'.

Hermione stood across the bed, looking at the body, her brows knitted into a deep frown. She was wondering why on earth she felt as if there was something wrong with the whole picture. Though it certainly looked like suicide but the facial expression of utter astonishment on Narcissa's face indicated that it wasn't an ordinary suicide case.

Hermione turned away from the corpse and checked the room for any clues. The mirror table was cluttered with perfumes and candles. She checked Narcissa's closet and did the same to the other cabinets, but she found nothing unusual. Feeling disappointed, she went to the window next to the bed and pushed the velvet curtains aside. Lush green trees and a splendid view of the blue sky greeted her. When she turned away from the window, she stepped on something. Bending down to take a look, Hermione picked up an odd-looking piece of stone. Having absolutely no idea what it was, she placed the stone inside her pocket.

"Are you done yet?"

She heard Logan's voice and promptly called out, "Almost." Before she could do anything else, though, Hermione was pulled back to the present. Without a word, she took a seat and sighed heavily, looking very pensive.

"What do you think?" Logan asked her.

"Something is very wrong here. I mean, for starters, she didn't strike me as the suicidal type," Hermione murmured. "All throughout the eight hour flight, I strongly believed I got the suspect all worked out. Truth be told, Narcissa Malfoy doesn't strike me as a child-killer type, but I have this gut feeling that it's her. Now, I'm totally in the dark as to who could have possibly have done this."

Logan took a piece of paper and handed it to her. "This was found in Lisa's study table. We tried to figure it out but we don't have clue what to make of it."

Hermione stared at the paper. Lisa had scribbled the word angels over and over again. "It doesn't make any sense. Where was Lisa last seen?"

"Within the vicinity of the railroad station, while her partner, Orla, was supposed to meet someone at the Hog's Head Pub."

"I see," said Hermione. "By the way, where are the others? I haven't seen any of them."

Logan stood next to the window, watching the hustle and bustle outside. "The Ministry of Magic has taken up Arthur Weasley's proposal to prevent anymore kidnappings. The Registry of Prescribed Charmable Objects approved the Muggle cameras which have been modified by Mr. Weasley's team and disguised as owls, all to be set up inside all the shops in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Particularly Honeyduke's Sweetshop and Zonko's."

He turned to look at her. Seeing the blank look, he explained, "Natalie McDonald, Dennis Creevey and the rest of the surveillance team were assigned to monitor the cameras and be on the lookout for any suspicious character."

"I'm glad to hear that there are monitors set up," Hermione said. "That way, kidnapping could be more or less be impossible to get away with."

"Unfortunately, they were approved after the four boys had already disappeared," Logan said with much regret.

"I'd like to check out the witnesses."

"Fine."