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Ring A Ring O' Roses	By : Gallivant Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 16636 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Investigations into mysterious deaths in Patagonia take a deadly turn for Hermione and Draco...

11. In Patagonia

The glaring afternoon sun and stultifying heat came as a shock after spending close to two hours inside Senor Canaro's chill, dismal house. Hermione and Draco walked slowly through the leafy streets in deep silence.

'I think we should postpone this trip to Patagonia,' Hermione urged. 'You clearly need to see a mediwizard as soon as possible.'

'Senor Canaro said it can wait,' Draco replied, with an air of affected nonchalance.

'But for how long?'

Draco smirked sarcastically. 'Your concern for my welfare is very touching, Hermione, but I'm sure I can last another day or two before keeling over and dying, okay?

'Look, Malfoy, unlike you, I happen to have a shred of humanity when it comes to others. You might be a prat, but I don't actually want you to die.'

'Blimey,' Draco said, spluttering with laughter. 'That's probably the nicest thing you've ever said to me.'

'What did Senor Canaro mean when he said you shouldn't be suffering from the type of magic affecting your wound?' Hermione asked, genuinely curious.

'Nothing!' Draco retorted peevishly, his face scarlet with sudden anger. 'The man's a blithering idiot.'

'But it sounds serious…'

'Look, Leave me to worry about my problems,' Draco said heatedly. 'Our priority is to get to Patagonia as fast as we possibly can, preferably today. We need to verify this memory to see if it's false or not.'

Hermione's throat tightened at the mere thought. She fervently hoped the memory was false.

But if that was the case, who was trying to mislead them, and why?

'We need to visit the Santa Maria morgue before they move the bodies,' Draco continued.

Hermione automatically flinched at the prospect. 'They've probably been claimed already.'

'Not necessarily.'

'I guess we'd better Floo there then,' she said in resigned tones. 'It'll be quicker than flying. Do you know any other wizards in Buenos Aires other than… Senor Canaro?'

'Afraid not,' Draco grunted. They both stopped in their tracks, turned about heel, and rapidly headed back to Senor Canaro's house.

XXX

The tall, thin windows seemed even blanker than usual. The closed door seemed even more forbidding.

'He said he had business this afternoon,' Hermione remarked. 'We might have missed him.'

'I doubt it,' Draco said, knocking on the door with a firm rap of his knuckles. 'We only left five minutes ago.'

There was no reply.

'Surely his house-elf hasn't gone out too?' Hermione asked. 'Try again.'

This time, Draco banged his fist on the door with greater strength and for a more sustained period of time. But there was still no answer. Just a deep, brooding silence.

'Hold on Malfoy!' Hermione said, staying his hand with her own. 'This can't be Senor Canaro's house. He had a door-bell.'

'So he did!' Draco agreed. Hermione surreptitiously mouthed a revealing charm, just in case the doorbell had been concealed by magic.

She hastened down the garden path back to the pavement to double-check that this was the right house on the right road. She craned her neck upwards to take in the full view of the tall, thin house with its peeling black shutters.

No doubts about it. This was definitely Canaro's.

'Try an Alohomora,' Draco suggested.

Hermione did just that. But nothing happened.

Their eyes locked, a swift communication of unease passing between them, then sped away, not daring to look back.

'Okay Malfoy, this is looking odder by the minute,' Hermione muttered under her breath, almost as though she feared the trees and hedgerows and parked cars at the side of the road were eavesdropping on their conversation. 'We need a Plan B. And fast.'

XXX

They soon returned to the busy avenue which bordered the parkland they had strolled through earlier. A few hundred yards to their right was a strikingly designed modern building, which Hermione realized was an art gallery, judging by the banners advertising Latin American art. In front of the gallery, there was an elegant water feature, with neat symmetrical lines of water-jets shooting skywards. A stylish, open-air terrace-restaurant was situated to its left.

The mid-afternoon sun was high in the blue, cloudless sky, beating down on them with an unforgiving intensity. Feeling parched and over-heated, they headed straight for the restaurant.

Their table was set a little apart from the other diners and was adjacent to the waterfalls, which pleased Hermione, as she always found the sound of babbling water soothing. She closed her eyes and wallowed in the rhythmic, sloshing rush of the water-jets rising and falling. She shivered luxuriantly, reveling in the deliciously chill tingle rolling through her.

'You've got goose bumps.'

Hermione snapped open her eyes. Draco was watching her closely, a concentrated expression on his face.

'I find the sound of running water relaxing,' she explained, a little self-consciously.

She gestured to a harried-looking waitress. Draco seemed less keen to eat than drink, ordering an expensive bottle of Malbec and a sandwich. The last thing Hermione wanted was wine. There was still a faint dinning at her temples from the copious drinks she had consumed at the airport yesterday evening.

'Maybe you should Portkey to Patagonia and I'll follow on tomorrow with the scanner?' Draco said the moment the waitress was out of earshot.

'No bloody way!' Hermione screeched. 'Don't you dare leave me to do all your dirty work! And what about our friends in red? Considering they've already taken a pot-shot at you and disabled my husband, I'm a little wary about going to strange places on my own.'

'That's a very good point, considering they seem to know everything about this mission already,' Draco scowled. 'Kind of convenient that, don't you think?'

He paused while the waitress brought Hermione a glass of coke and a plate of pasta and poured Draco a large glass of red wine.

'It's pretty damned obvious to me that Ron must have spilled the beans to somebody,' Draco continued haughtily.

'No, Malfoy. He wouldn't do that!' Hermione said defensively. 'Somebody must have known your plans. What about your father-in-law? You used a Gilgad Inc credit card at the hotel this morning.'

'How very observant of you, Mrs Weasley,' Draco said sardonically. 'Although you forget that Gilgad is the majority shareholder in Herb Healing.'

'So does Ephraim know about this trip or not?'

'Of course he does!' Draco took a long, thoughtful sip of his wine. 'But there's no way he'd betray us to Jeroboam, if that's what you're thinking. Ephraim hates Jeroboam with a passion.'

'You sure about that?' Hermione asked, meticulously winding a skein of stringy pasta onto her fork.

'Positive. Gilgad and Jeroboam's Red Star are major business rivals. But most importantly, my father-in-law worked with Jeroboam, many years ago. They were part of The Geneva Group, a bunch of scientists trying to create Dark Flux under lab conditions, but the project fell apart when Ephraim discovered Jeroboam's true ambition – which was a weapon of mass destruction.'

'Why didn't you tell me this before?'

'Remember those files I gave you? It's all in there.'

Hermione was conscious that she hadn't actually looked at those files since he had given them to her at Malfoy Manor. As far as she was concerned, they were Ron's territory.

'In any case Malfoy, I think we should speak with your father-in-law. He probably has some very useful insights,' Hermione said prissily.

Draco shrugged. 'He doesn't like to talk about it to strangers.'

Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation.

'He figures there's no point bad-mouthing Jeroboam in public when there's no smoking gun, as you Muggles would say,' Draco stated baldly. 'He's probably right. We need more than a couple of leaked memos and some blabbing employees to nail the guy.'

'You told me and Ron you had hard evidence linking Jeroboam to Dark Flux!'' Hermione exclaimed, outraged.

'I might have exaggerated a little,' Draco said sheepishly. 'We have the scanner of course.'

'If we can prove it works!'

'And now, Los Rojos, who Canaro says work for Jeroboam.' Draco chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. 'Mind you, I'd never heard of them before today. I'll get Torquil to check them out.'

'Who the bloody hell's Torquil?' Hermione shrilled, exploding in frustration.

'Torquil Haast. He's my father-in-law's main administrator, negotiates all of Gilgad's legal business with the Ministry so you've probably seem him around. He definitely knows you. He pretty much planned this whole mission actually.'

'It would have been nice to be told this earlier,' Hermione protested.

Draco fidgeted uncomfortably. 'I assumed your bloody useless twat of a husband had briefed you properly before you came here.'

'So has Ron met this Torquil person?' Hermione said bitterly.

Draco smiled. 'Many times.'

Draco took another deep swig of his wine. 'Maybe Torquil knows of a local wizard to help us out with our current difficulty? Or we could hire a magic carpet? They haven't been banned in South America,' Draco said with almost childish glee.

A sudden trilling thrum, emanating from Draco's jacket, interrupted them. Draco pulled out his mobile phone, which he immediately slapped to his ear, leaning away from Hermione so that he could converse more freely with the caller.

'That's great, Miguel, thanks for that,' Draco said, clicking his phone shut and squirreling it away before signaling for the bill. 'Come on. Eat up. I've got us a lift to Patagonia.'

XXX

Hermione had to admit that Senor Miguel Culebra was a dashing fellow. He had a charming, rakish air, penetrating soft brown eyes and a full, sensuous mouth, which seemed to enjoy smiling.

'You did not tell me, Draco, that you were bringing such an enchanting lady-friend with you, on this particular trip,' he said, his eyes roving Hermione's face and body in a most off-putting manner, Hermione thought.

'It wasn't planned,' Draco said brusquely. 'This is very good of you, Miguel.'

'No problem, we can talk business en route, no?' Miguel said, leading them into the sumptuously upholstered cabin of a small private jet. 'I will be getting off at Bariloche, which is just a few hours away, and then the plane is at your disposal to fly further south. Where is it you want to go?'

'El Calafate,' Hermione said crisply.

'It's a private matter,' Draco said. 'Kind of hard to explain.'

'You do not need to tell me a thing, Draco!' Miguel said, punching him playfully on the arm. 'You've done me many favours in the past; this is the least I can do.'

'I hope you haven't lost that Draught of Peace Senor Canaro gave you?' Draco whispered to Hermione, buckling his seat belt in readiness for take-off.

XXX

The Draught of Peace had done its job, Hermione thought with considerable relief. Boarding a plane so soon after the flight from London to Buenos Aires would have been an impossible task without it.

Instead, Hermione could hardly believe their luck, and was even excited at the prospect of flying, relishing their speed as they taxi-ed down the runway and the ear-fogging intensity of take-off. She gazed at the sprawling mass of Buenos Aires and the mud-brown river which bordered the city, extending its spidery brown fingers into the surrounding countryside. Before long, the view had been swallowed up by thick, clotted clouds.

Once they were in the air, a young man in a smart burgundy uniform offered them a drink. Hermione opted to spoil herself with a gin and tonic, feeling she had deserved it after the horrors of the Pensieve.

Miguel and Draco were seated opposite one another, work papers already strewn on a table between them.

'So how long have you two been… you know…?' Miguel asked Draco, a mischievous glint in his eye. He cast a sneaky sidelong glance at Hermione, who was blushing furiously.

'We're not… you know,' Draco said emphatically.

'I beg your pardon. Please forgive me. So you work with Draco?' Miguel asked, suddenly switching the full focus of his attention to Hermione, his dark eyes burning into her.

'Mrs Weasley is helping us out with a freelance research project,' Draco interjected neatly. Hermione could feel his cool, grey stare on her glowing cheeks.

The two men soon resumed their business negotiations, leaving Hermione in peace.

Before long, she had drifted off to sleep.

XXX

Moments after waking, Hermione realized she was alone. There was no sign of either man - although, to her relief, Draco's briefcase was still parked on the table he had shared with Miguel. The metal case containing the scanner was also there, along with the couple of bags crammed with clothes they had managed to grab from the hotel in the very short time they had before getting to the airport.

One of the bags was open - its contents unstuffed and flopped onto the floor. Hermione guessed Draco was getting changed in the toilet, which didn't seem such a bad idea she thought. She imagined Southern Patagonia would be chillier than balmy Buenos Aires, so she rooted around in the other bag for her jeans and a top.

She felt a little grungy after falling asleep for what must have been at least a few hours and felt a need to freshen up. To her annoyance, she couldn't find her toiletry bag, and realized she'd left it, along with the pink shift Draco had bought her, in the hotel room. Luckily, Draco hadn't checked them out. He had business in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

She leant her head against the window and stared out at the clouds, which parted occasionally to reveal vast swathes of endless brown terrain below them. The scenery here was far from exciting. This had to be the Pampas - baked, hard earth, sun-scorched grass, stretching as far as the eye could see. It was the sort of sight which normally would have panicked her - a vast, wide open space, disorienting in its remote nothingness. She listened to the steady drone of the engines, fervently wishing she'd had time to pack a book.

Where the hell was Draco? He was taking a very long time in the toilet, but then a faint shushing snort alerted her to somebody's presence. Heart hammering in her chest, she peered behind her to the pair of seats nestled at the back of their cabin.

Draco was fast asleep, his coat draped over his body. His silvery hair was mussed up and his mouth was agape. He looked strangely innocent, Hermione mused, even angelic.

As the toilet was obviously vacant, she decided to spruce herself up. It was a more spacious in-flight bathroom than usual, with a full-length mirror and an array of decent towels, soaps and a sweet-smelling hand-cream. She undressed and had a proper scrub-down.

Her hair was a riotous mess of tangles; without any hair-care implements to hand, she resorted to magic, unfastening and re-sizing her wand pendant to fix the problem. Once her hair had been restored to some kind of sanity, she shrunk the wand back to its pendant size and re-attached it to the necklace, placing it on a small shelf above the sink while she nabbed a generous dose of hand-cream.

There was a banging on the door. 'Hermione?' came Draco's voice, in slightly belligerent tones.

Her hands were coated in cream, and she was wearing only her underwear.

'What do you want?' she asked irritably.

'I need the loo.'

'I'll only be a minute.'

'I'm desperate,' he groaned.

'Okay, Okay, I'm coming!' She rubbed her hands on a towel and quickly donned her jeans and a green, long-sleeved jersey top, then grabbed her pretty blue dress and swept out of the bathroom, the door smacking Draco in the face in the process.

'No need for that!' he grumbled, rubbing his nose.

Minutes later, he rejoined her in the cabin. She had resumed her dreary watch of the interminable, blank brown scenery. The sole excitement was a slight buffeting from the dank, grey clouds which scudded past them at regular intervals.

Draco knelt on the seat in front of her so that he was facing her. He followed her gaze out of the window. She glanced at him, surprised to note that he was looking a lot less exhausted than earlier. His face had a healthier glow. His eyes too, were brighter, a warmer, deeper grey, currently reflecting the clouds outside.

'You missed the mountains,' he boasted. 'Stunning.'

'Never mind. At least I got to see all this lovely, endless… brownness,' she said.

'Not as bad as flying over Afghanistan...' Draco said. 'From the air, it looks like one great, big turd.'

'That's a horrible thing to say!'

'Yeah, I remember I must have used about twelve different sets of Daydream Charms on that trip. You realize I've been hugely instrumental in forging George Weasley's millions, don't you? I hope those blasted Weasleys appreciate it.'

'I would have thought you'd find most of their stuff far too infantile for your liking,' Hermione said snidely, referring to their earlier conversation.

'Don't be ridiculous. I happen to feel deeply sorry for Muggles having missed out on the joys of belching powder and screaming yo-yos.'

'They've coped fine with such deprivation for many millennia, and will continue to do so, I'm sure,' Hermione said coolly.

They were now beginning their descent, and the scenery was rapidly changing, growing into something much more mesmerising. Lakes and rivers and snow-capped peaks in the distance.

'Half an hour to El Calafate,' Draco said. 'Miguel said there's taxis that can take us straight to Santa Maria. It's not far. We should shove our bags into a secure locker at the airport for now. We can retrieve them later.'

XXX

Santa Maria was as grim as they'd feared. Dusk was drawing in fast, rendering the small, ramshackle town even gloomier in the drab, grey light.

This place really felt like the end of the world, Hermione thought glumly.

'Let's try the café,' she said to Draco, pointing at Bar Santa Maria.

A group of men were huddled around a table, playing what looked like dominoes, except these dominoes were spelled to spontaneously keel over when least expected, adding an extra element of urgency to the game.

A young woman was working behind the bar.

Draco attempted to speak to her in his halting, incoherent Spanish, attracting a great deal of amused attention from the card-players, who chortled gruffly into their hands and sleeves.

One man, however, a broad-chested chap with sandy hair and a weathered, slightly grizzled-looking face separated from his companions and approached them at the bar.

'You guys needing a bit of assistance?' he asked in a friendly American accent.

Hermione grinned in relief. 'That would be great.'

'English?' he said, angling his head to one side and squinting a little as he examined them with unabashed nosiness.

Hermione nodded. Draco pushed past her, hand outstretched.

'I'm Draco Malfoy. And this is Hermione Weasley. We're from the British Ministry of Magic.'

On cue, Hermione fumbled for her Ministry ID, which she flashed at the sandy-haired American while he was still distracted by Draco's over-enthusiastic handshake. One ID pass seemed to suffice.

'I'm Jonas Arbuthnot,' the American said. 'I'm kind of head honcho in these parts. I'm guessing you're here to talk about these suspicious deaths we had?'

'We are,' Hermione asserted. 'Is there somewhere we can talk more privately?'

Their every movement was being closely tracked by the card-players and the young woman at the bar, who was watching them with large, soulful eyes. There was something about those eyes, Hermione thought, something she was trying to communicate. Was it anxiety? Suspicion?

'I have an office in town,' Jonas said cordially.

'That would be great,' Hermione said. She turned to Draco and was surprised to see that he was ogling a TV, attached to a bracket high on the wall above the bar, showing what looked like a Brazilian Tele-Novela.

Draco looked aghast. He mouthed something. A name.

'Astoria. It's bloody Astoria!' he choked, caught between hilarity and horror.

Hermione gawped at the brassy blonde on-screen. There was no doubting the resemblance.

'Someone he knows?' Jonas asked, intrigued by Draco's odd behaviour.

'It's his wife,' Hermione mouthed.

'Ex-wife,' Draco said emphatically.

XXX

Jonas's office amounted to little more than a dingy room on the ground floor of a civic building.

'I thought it best to get you away from the townsfolk,' Jonas said with a heavy sigh. He flicked his wand, prompting a bulbous, white lamp to burst into life. 'They're getting mighty pissed at the constant quizzing over these deaths we're being subjected to. Anyone would think we'd murdered the poor bastards. And I've gotta say, I'm not really getting why your Ministry is so curious about something that happened thousands of miles away.'

'Who else has been here?' Hermione asked, trying to sound casual and hoping to defer further awkward questions. She glanced over at Draco, who was lost in thought, clearly still dumb-founded by what he had seen at Bar Santa Maria.

Jonas settled himself onto a large chair behind his desk, which was completely bare. He indicated to Hermione and Draco to take a seat.

'Well, I'm not too sure what I can or can't tell you. And I don't know how you even heard about our little mishap, because it ain't been aired on the Muggle news, that's for certain.'

'We found out from a Senor Asusto,' Draco said. 'He says he found the dead girl and baby in the bar where we met you.'

Jonas's eyes narrowed. 'I don't know this Senor Asusto,' he said in suspicious tones. 'And there weren't no baby either, as far as I know… and I darned well should know; I was first on the scene when the alarm was raised.'

'Who raised the alarm?' Hermione asked, deeply concerned now about Senor Asusto's testimony.

'Well that was Dolores – the woman working at the bar? She runs the place. Her friend Ana was one of the victims.' A look of deep sadness shadowed Jonas's face. 'She was one hell of a witch, she really was.'

Ana. That had been the name Senor Asusto had cried when he found her body, Hermione thought. So the memory hadn't been entirely false.

'And she was Muggleborn,' Draco said pointedly.

Jonas's body language changed from amicable to defiant. He folded his arms tightly across his chest and eyed Draco with unalloyed suspicion. 'We don't hold no truck with such distinctions in this part of the world, Mr Malfoy. She was a witch, plain and simple. And a darned skilled one at that.'

Jonas cocked his head to one side and examined Draco closely. 'Your name is kind of familiar. Have we met before?' Draco vigorously shook his head.

'The thing is,' Jonas continued, 'this country, Argentina, has had many problems in the past. It's been a dark past. Too many acts of unadulterated evil, too many ghosts. Back in the late 70s, early 80s, the Muggle world descended into the kind of hell your Dark Lord 'Voldemort' was hell-bent on implementing in Britain and beyond. We call it 'La Guerra Sucia' – the Dirty War. Tens of thousands of people were murdered or spirited away, never to be seen again. So we've seen the horrors that can happen when one bunch of folks gets too high and mighty, and we're determined not to let that happen again. Here or anywhere. Santa Maria is a community of blow-ins. Magical folks from all over the world can come here to live a life of peace and tolerance.'

'Until last week,' Hermione said succinctly.

Jonas curled his lips into a grimace. 'Until last week.'

'We heard that you had a bunch of investigators here, calling themselves Los Rojos? Wizards wearing red robes? Is that true?' Draco said.

Jonas nodded. 'That's true. And we've no idea how they got wind of our situation, but they did. Maybe that too was the fault of your mysterious Senor Asusto?'

Hermione smiled wanly. 'Can you tell us exactly how many actually died in last week's tragedy?'

'Look, little lady,' Jonas said. 'I'm more than happy to talk to you, but if you happen to be allied to these guys…'

'I can assure you, we're not,' Draco cut in.

'It's just that they were a little heavy handed in their interrogation process, you know what I mean? Scared the crap out of half the town, chanting and sprinkling some kind of dust, or it could have been ash, everywhere. Acted like they owned the goddamned place.'

'Ash? What kind of ash?' Hermione asked. 'Is there some we can look at? Maybe take a sample?'

'No chance,' Jonas cackled. 'You see the wind in these parts? It's all gone.'

'Did it look like the type of ash used to contain dark spirits? Or… or as protection from something outside?' Hermione asked, almost over-flowing with her excitement at this information. 'Was it pale, like bone-ash?'

'Hey, lady!' Jonas bellowed, silencing her with a thunderous look. 'Like I said, the wind took it far, far away from here. Maybe it was some kind of ritual. Hey, I dunno! And I didn't care. I just wanted my town back to normal. But then we had some other kook poking his nose into our business, and that was a Muggle. We were none too pleased about that, let me tell you!'

'A Muggle?' Draco asked.

'That's what I said, didn't I? Some Danish guy. Said he was a photographer. He didn't stick around long.'

A Danish photographer. How the hell did he know about this? Hermione wondered.

'Have you heard of Dark Flux, Mr Arbuthnot?' Hermione asked, deciding to cut straight to the crux of the matter.

'Of course I have,' he sneered, a little unpleasantly Hermione thought.

'How can you be sure?'

'Because I've seen it before.' There was a dark gleam in Jonas's eyes which chilled Hermione's insides. 'Paris. 2008. I lost my sweetheart, Marie-Louise. She was a Muggleborn. And a very fine witch.'

'And the bodies. Weren't they blue too? Like here?' Hermione asked, almost holding her breath as she spoke.

Jonas opened his mouth to speak, then faltered. He seemed to ponder this information, then abruptly stood up from his desk, slamming his chair tight against the table as he moved to the door. Hermione and Draco instantly followed.

'You want to see these bodies? You've got ten minutes flat, you hear me? It's getting late,' he said, plucking a large brass key from a keychain on this belt.

XXX

The morgue was housed in the dark, shadowy basement of this same civic building, and was accessible by a narrow staircase. There was a wet, musty odour to the place. Jonas led the way, holding high his wand, which he had illuminated with a simple Lumos. Hermione instinctively reached for her wand pendant, thinking that two wands would be better than one. But instead, her hand landed on bare flesh.

A sickening wave of dread surged through her.

'My wand,' she gasped, grabbing frantically at Draco beside her. 'Have you seen my wand?'

He stopped following Jonas and scanned her neck, but it was hard to see in the dim light, so he slunk his hand under the collar of her top and tentatively patted her neck and collar-bone, his fingers skimming her skin and her hairline.

'It's gone… What the hell you done with it?' he asked anxiously.

Hermione thought she might burst into tears. 'Oh, God,' she murmured. 'Oh no. I think – I think…'

She was actually finding it hard to think, not only because she was spiraling into panic, but also because the unexpected touch of Draco's fingertips on her bare skin in the dark, had sparked an unwanted response in her, a fluttery ferment of feeling she was struggling to tamp down.

Hermione was aware that Jonas was waiting at the bottom of the steps, a quizzical expression on his face that was pooled in the solitary light afforded by his wand.

Hermione screwed her eyes tightly shut, recalling with sudden vivid clarity the moment she had placed her wand on the shelf above the sink in the bathroom on board Miguel's jet. Had she picked it up? She couldn't remember if she had. She couldn't recall putting the necklace back on again. Draco had interrupted her. That was right.

'Shit,' she gasped. 'I left it on the plane.' How could she have been so stupid? She'd never lost her wand. Not ever. Ron had. Countless times. But not her. She didn't do stuff like that.

Until now.

'Something wrong up there?' Jonas asked.

'Everything's fine,' Draco proclaimed jovially. He gently squeezed Hermione's arm. 'I'll call Miguel the moment we're out of here. Let's just get this over with, okay?' he whispered.

She followed Jonas deeper into the pitch-black darkness of the morgue, Draco close behind.

'Is there any light down here?' Hermione asked, trying to maintain as steady and jocular a tone as possible.

'One moment,' Jonas grunted. He tapped a bar above a low trestle table. A garish white light exploded into life, directly above the electric, blue body of a young woman who Hermione instantly recognised as Ana from the bar. The light focused almost entirely on the contents of the table top, only spilling a few inches beyond its borders so that only the chest and lower half of Jonas' face was clearly visible, his eyes concealed from view. His mouth and jaw were set into a tense, pouting frown.

Hermione gazed intently at the corpse stretched out before her. It was a sickening sight, and yet poignant, too. A nightmare made flesh.

'We're confused about these welts,' Jonas said, indicating the dark purple contusions distributed across Ana's body, disfiguring not only her limbs but also her torso and breasts.

'This isn't normal for Dark Flux victims, is it?' Draco mumbled.

'Not to my knowledge,' Jonas said mournfully. 'Nobody's seen anything like this. Our current theory is that Ana came into contact with some kind of infection in El Calafate where she'd been visiting a friend.'

He gestured to the tables behind them supporting other corpses, covered by a translucent shell which shimmered with the faint white glow of enchantment.

'None of these manifested the same symptoms, that's for sure. Apart from being… bright blue.'

Hermione counted three more tables, which made four bodies in all. Four victims - not three, as reports had suggested. Did this mean the baby was here after all?

'How many died that day?' she asked sharply.

'Three.'

'But there's four bodies.'

'Not all deaths are like this poor soul, Mrs Weasley. At the far end is a man we believe died from natural causes - nothing to alarm yourself with, whatsoever.'

'Can I see?' Hermione asked, suddenly brave, even though the skin where her wand would have rested was feeling eerily cold and tingly in the wand's absence.

Jonas opened his mouth to answer but a creaking noise from the top of the staircase alerted them to the presence of somebody else. There was the faint sound of a footfall followed by an odd buzzing sound.

The new arrival was yet to speak, but they could feel the morgue was being studied closely by an unseen pair of eyes.

Hermione could hardly breathe, aware that her pulse was suddenly racing and her chest had constricted uncomfortably. Draco tugged at her sleeve, pulling her away from the pool of light which hovered over the table before them.

'Hey! Who's there?' Jonas snarled, infuriated by this intrusion. 'Nobody's allowed down here without my express permission.'

Hermione saw that he had a tight grip of his wand and was pointing it as unobtrusively as possible at the staircase.

She inched backwards with Draco and was gradually enveloped by the darkness behind them, rendering them spectators to the scene unfolding before them.

There was a glimmer of blue light emanating from the top of the stairs which gradually seemed to grow until it was the size of a small golf ball. It hovered in the air, emitting an ominous hum, briefly illuminating a wand pointing in the direction of Jonas Arbuthnot.

A look of grim dread scuttled across Jonas's face, and then the blue ball of light spun at breakneck speed towards him, smashing into his chest with such force he fell backwards. Jonas crashed heavily into the table, instantly extending an arm to steady himself, which then landed on Ana's corpse. He yelped in fear and disgust, instinctively pushing at the body, which slid off the table, collapsing with a gut-churning thud onto the floor.

The blue ball of light continued to hover close by, zooming to and fro, occasionally charging at Jonas before zipping upwards, then circling the table, before making another swooping dive, homing in to sting its prey.

There was an unpleasant crackling sound and the acrid smell of burning flesh as the ball attacked again and again, striking Jonas repeatedly on his face, his hands, his neck.

Jonas recoiled in horror, pleading and crying for the ball of light to stop.

'Come on,' Draco said urgently, grabbing Hermione's hand. 'We've got to get out of here!'

But Hermione feared it was already too late. The shadowy figure at the top of the stairs was now descending, arm outstretched. Clad from head to toe in a long, red cloak, the figure was fast approaching Jonas, who was whimpering in fear, batting away the buzzing blue ball which continued to pepper him with burning blows.

'We should help him,' Hermione gasped.

'No we fucking shouldn't,' Draco whispered hoarsely. 'We should help ourselves, Hermione, come on!' He grabbed her by the waist, hooking his arm firmly around her middle, and carried her as far from Jonas's screams and cries as seemed physically possible.

'No,' she squealed, wriggling free from his grasp. 'Get off me!'

She desperately tried to harness the mental energy to summon a spell which could assist Jonas, who had fallen to the floor and was squirming in fear and agony.

Draco was feeling along the back wall for an exit of some kind. 'Forget about him, Hermione, he's a goner!'

Hermione stood her ground, feeling the magic quivering through her fingertips. Focus, she said to herself. Come on, focus!

'Stupefy!' she shrieked, aiming her hand in the direction of the wizard wielding the wand, who was now a foot away from Jonas.

There was a faint sizzling noise and a sharp pain which stabbed at her fingers, but no magic. 'No, no, this can't be happening,' she sobbed. I can usually do this, she told herself. Why not now?

'Expelliarmus!' she cried. Jonas's caped attacker now had his wand poised and was pointing it straight at him. The wand sparked blood red as the Cruciatus Curse was inflicted over and over again.

Jonas's screams were deafening as he writhed in pain.

'Hermione,' Draco hissed. 'Get your arse over here now!'

Hermione was rooted to the spot, hysterical panic whirling inside of her. If only I had my wand, she thought over and over.

To her horror, the red-cloaked man was being followed by a troupe of similarly garbed assistants, each carrying a heavy black sack. She realized they planned to take the bodies.

'I've found an open window,' Draco called. 'But it's stuck.'

Sure enough, there was a faint draft to her right.

'Come on, help me out here,' he begged.

Draco grabbed Hermione's arm, his fingers digging deep into her flesh, and dragged her towards the back wall of the morgue. The sudden searing pain from his tight grasp jolted her to her senses.

She saw that he was frantically trying to prise open a small window, little more than a vent really, built high into the wall, by jumping as high as he could and shoving at the glass with his hand. The window was ajar, but jammed too tightly to fully give way.

'Lift me up!' she yelled.

He placed his hands on her waist and hoisted her high into the air, so that she was able to smash her hands against the glass. His arms were quivering with the strain of holding her, his feet unsteady.

'It won't open!' she screamed, panic-stricken.

A piercing shriek rang out behind them and then a booming Avada Kedavra followed by silence. Hermione could see the green light of the deadly curse reflected in the windowpane.

She could hear the footsteps of Jonas's murderer fast approaching, and hear the chilling hum of the buzzing blue ball hurtling towards them.

Draco was swaying beneath her, then he swerved, pulling Hermione away from the window, narrowly avoiding the blue ball which whizzed past them before shooting upwards, poised for a fresh attack.

Draco tottered, his knees buckling beneath him. Hermione slid inexorably down the length of his body, her head smashing heavily into the wall, aware only that his arms had tightly encircled her and were holding her close.

I'm going to die, she thought helplessly, hot, bitter tears stinging her cheeks, her face muffled by Draco's shirt which was wet with sweat. I'm going to die in a morgue at the end of the world with bloody Draco Malfoy.

There was a sudden crashing thunk, an explosion of bricks and dust, and the shattering of glass high above them. The window had vanished and a vast opening had been blown into the wall.

For a few brief seconds, Hermione wondered if she was dead; she felt she was floating, being flung forwards into the darkness of the night, before landing clumsily on a gritty, muddy pathway.

She was lying on the ground, her head was swimming, her vision starry.

'Venga!' came a woman's voice. 'Come with me!'

She was being hoisted upwards by two strong arms and dragged across the dirt-path, her shoes scuffing the ground.

A small house with a candle glowing in the window beckoned them. Draco kept hold of her. 'Can you walk?' he panted.

'Yes – yes, I think so,' Hermione said.

There was a woman ahead of them. She flicked her wrist and the door to the house swung open. 'Get inside!' she barked.

They ran inside and the woman slammed the door shut.

Hermione stared. It was the woman from the bar. The woman whose deep, dark eyes had tried to communicate a silent warning.

'You are safe now, I promise,' she said, in heavily accented English. 'My name is Dolores. Welcome to my home.'

XXX

CHAPTER TRACK: "WIDE OPEN SPACE" by MANSUN

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my original characters.

Thanks to Apurva & Lou.
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