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UnBroken	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 6172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 21
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Unbroken
By Odd Doll
Chapter 22
"That's it?" Draco Malfoy said as the Baher home came into view below them. "I thought you said she owned an exclusive resort."
"She does," Narcissa said. From the air, Narcissa Malfoy checked for wards and watchers. "Check the area and the house. You need the practice."
He swept his wand in a wide arc. She saw the fuzziness at the edge of his form shimmer into clarity.
"Your anti-Muggle charm is slipping, which means you didn't cast it properly. It should be impervious to any break in concentration."
Draco screwed up his features. The edges of his form blurred again. He rotated his broom to finish his search.
"She can't be that good," he muttered as he turned his broom to perform his search a second time.
"What did you find?" She watched his face. Draco looked a bit embarrassed.
"Nothing important. A few anti-Muggle spells, some that might keep out trespassers or burglars, but nothing we can't get past."
"Good. You told the truth and didn't try to save face by making something up." Her voice held only a trace of approval. "Come on. We'll talk about her lack of security when we're on the ground."
They touched down on a small terrace made of terra cotta tiles surrounded by simple landscaping. Three stepped terraces built into the slope behind the house, a few planters, some redwood furniture, and a profusion of wildflowers. Bright orange poppies predominated, fading into the scrubby pines that bordered the house on three sides. The sloping back yard descended to a cliff above the rocky shoreline.
"What are all these weeds?" Draco asked with an expression of distaste as he rested his broom against the back wall of the house. "Can't she afford a gardener? And this house is little more than a cottage."
"Looks can be deceiving." She gestured toward the ocean. "An isolated property like this, with woods and an ocean view, must be worth at least half a million galleons. And those weeds are a carefully cultivated butterfly garden."
Butterflies dipped and soared above flowers that nodded in the light spring breeze. The house itself was old, but sturdy and well maintained. The terra cotta roofing tiles tapered slightly from end to end, a sign that they were formed over the leg of a human being, rather than on a mold. The thick timbers that jutted out from under the eaves were pinned to the frame with wooden pegs.
"This house is very old, made with timeless building techniques. Ms. Baher had the good sense not to demolish it and cut down more trees in order to make room for a bigger house."
"You sound as if you almost respect her."
She shot him a disapproving glance. "It's better to respect and appreciate the intelligence of your adversary than to underestimate it. Now, open them." She gestured to the heavy French doors that lay before them.
The good thing about having a rookie along was that she had an excuse for making him do all the work. Not that she had any intention of doing it in the first place.
Draco lifted his wand, about to say 'aloha mora,' when he froze. His eyes darted in her direction before he muttered another spell.
"I do hope you don't learn the hard way not to forget to double-check for wards and booby traps."
"Did you, Mother?"
She cuffed him with a light Slap Hex for his cheekiness. Draco took it as if he had expected it, giving the side of his head a small rub.
"There's one last thing you forgot to do," she said as she followed him into the house.
He frowned. "What?"
"To check if the door was locked in the first place."
The first things that struck Narcissa as she entered the cool, dim living area, were the quilts; two of them, pieced like pointillist paintings to form lush, impressionistic landscapes. They faced each other from opposite walls. Narcissa fingered the edge of one, admiring the tidy stitches and the neat piecing. The longer seams seemed to have been made by machine or magical stitching, but the quilting itself was done entirely by hand.
"She's quite talented," Narcissa said.
Draco turned his attention from the doorway that led to the kitchen. "You think she made them?"
Narcissa pointed to a corner of the room, where a half-finished quilt lay over a frame. "I think so." She wrenched her attention from the quilts. "What's your job?"
Draco did not roll his eyes in annoyance at the question, a sign of either his growing maturity or his nerves.
"We search the entire house for wards, booby traps, and people. Do you want to split up?"
"What would you do?"
Draco easily stepped into the rhythm of her questioning, a testament to the quality of his Hogwarts education. Narcissa had heard rumors that the new management had let the standards slip.
Draco formulated his opinion with impressive speed. "We've determined that there are few wards here. And from what we know about her, she doesn't know much of anything about booby traps, or that kind of thing."
"What is the variable?"
His brows drew together in confusion. "Variable?"
"The wild card. The thing that could leap up and bite you."
"Snape?"
"And?"
"If he were here, he would have warded the place for his own safety, if nothing else."
"He was always very careful to cover his arse."
"I think we could split up to save time."
"Yes, but I want to watch you work."
Draco sighed and walked into the kitchen, his wand leading the way. With Narcissa behind him, he cleared every room, and the garage, before they set about their objectives: finding clues as to Phoebe's location and gathering materials to use in their hunt. They started in her bedroom, which in her small home, served as an office and library as well.
"She likes white," Draco observed.
"And crafts. It's not what you would expect for a woman of her occupation."
Throughout their initial search of the home, Narcissa encountered Phoebe's handiwork at every turn. Needlepoint pillows, embroidered wall hangings and quilts. Quilts covered every bed, some simple and dark, others intricate. In a room that must have served as a gathering area, a crazy quilt had a place of honor over a comfortable leather couch. Even Draco paused to marvel at the variety of embellishments. In her bedroom, a large marriage quilt, pure white with a flowery pattern traced out in tiny stitches, covered her queen-sized bed. White rugs warmed the hardwood floors, and white crocheted curtains covered the windows, which looked out to the ocean. Her décor was tasteful and uncluttered.
"What do you expect from a woman of 'her occupation'?" Draco asked.
"I wouldn't know. You do the nightstands. What are we looking for?"
"Anything that might have her physical essences?"
"Correct. Hair, sweat, blood, that kind of thing." She let out an irritated sigh. "At least we don't have to look for address books."
Phoebe's tidy house, with its sparse, clean ambiance, held a dirty secret, which Narcissa and Draco found as soon as they started to open closets and drawers.
"How does she find anything in here?" Draco asked.
He poked through one nightstand drawer. Disgusted, he yanked it out and dumped the contents onto the bed.
"If I put everything back, she probably won't even notice we've been here."
Narcissa opened the bi-fold doors of Phoebe's closet. Apparently, Ms. Baher took care of her clothing, and she had good taste. Stylish business suits hung aside silk blouses and elegant gowns. Narcissa was surprised to find no leather garments, aside from a few coats, pants, and business suits. The only exception was a lone, red leather mini-skirt tossed on top of a jumble of shoes on the floor.
"Reading glasses?" Draco called out from behind her.
"Set them aside. They'll do if we can't find anything better."
Narcissa fingered the tiny leather skirt. On a whim, she held it up to her waist. She blushed at the thought of wearing something so skimpy anywhere outside the bedroom. Then she blushed even harder at the thought that Lucius would have enjoyed seeing her in it. He always got a thrill from dressing her -- or undressing her. The memory of her late husband jolted her into the present. Narcissa examined the garment, finding the lining to be soaked with sweat and maybe other bodily fluids. Work clothes, Narcissa thought as she tucked it into a collection bag she had tied at her waist.
From behind her, she heard Draco dump out another drawer.
"Merlin's ghost! What the hell is this?"
"Describe it," Narcissa said without turning from the coat pocket she was rummaging through.
"It's long and blue, and kind of rubbery on the outside." She heard a whirring noise. "And it vibrates when I push this little lever."
"Draco!" He could not possibly be so innocent as to not recognize a vibrator, not Lucius Malfoy's son. If nothing else, the oh-so-innocent tone of his voice gave him away.
"It looks like she didn't bother to clean it."
"Put it in your bag." She groaned out loud at the thought of taking samples from the thing, but there was no way she would let Draco do it.
"How do we know she was the one who used it last?"
Narcissa pondered the implications of that with another groan. "We'll take our chances."
Meanwhile, Narcissa found a treasure trove of mints, receipts, lint, and used tissues in the pockets of Phoebe's coats and suit jackets. She gave up on the closet, thinking she could not have collected more snot from a mountain troll with the ague.
Back in the bedroom, Draco still examined sex toys on the bed.
"You know what she doesn't have? Condoms."
Narcissa looked down at the assortment of dildos, vibrators, butt plugs and other instruments of pleasure.
"She doesn't have anything here intended for use by more than one person," he continued. "It seems odd for a woman...of her profession."
Narcissa curled her lip in disgust. "Since you seem to relish this business, you can take the bathroom while I take the desk."
Draco gave her a smirk and went into the bathroom without a word.
"If you didn't already have a Dark Mark, I would have you kicked out of the corps, just so I should have the peace of mind of knowing that I would never be forced to work with you again."
He snickered. "But I'm so charming."
Narcissa sat at the desk and stared at the blank computer screen.
"Draco, do you know anything about Muggle equipment?"
He peeked around the bathroom door. "That thing? No."
Muggles used these things, she knew, to store information, but it might as well have been a pile of scrolls written in Sanskrit for all the good it would do her. As she thought about it, she remembered there was a charm to translate Sanskrit scrolls into English.
Just as she opened a desk drawer, Draco called out, "Mum...these drawers are all empty."
Narcissa stared down at the drawer before her, her mind drawing a momentary blank. She jerked open each drawer with increasing force and anger. Aside from a few pens and plain white envelopes, each drawer was as empty as the last.
"Damn her! And damn Severus!"
Draco tugged open dresser drawers. "There's still clothing in here." But some of the dresser drawers were empty as well.
"What do we do now?" Draco asked as he sank onto the bed.
"We tear this house apart until we get what we need.
Two hours later they sat at Phoebe's kitchen table with their loot spread before them. Among Phoebe's personal items were the leather skirt, glasses, tissues, sex toys, and a clump of hair Narcissa forced Draco to dig out of the bathroom drain. They also found a few photo albums, with magical photographs that might possibly be of use. A box in the garage had held a stack of Christmas cards bound with a rubber band. These would supplement their list of contacts, if they didn't pan out.
Narcissa stood and stretched her back. "Well, we've raped her house, let's drink some of her tea. Thank goodness she has some magical equipment among all this Muggle stuff."
They had already plundered her cabinets, and Narcissa didn't have to hunt for the kettle and the tea leaves.
"Mum, what do you think happened here?"
"You tell me."
Draco didn't preface his account with a heavy teenaged sigh. The boy was really growing up, she thought.
"I think that Snape advised her, but he was never here. She was told to purge her house of things we could use, but if he were personally supervising, he would never have let her be so sloppy."
"I agree. She was in a hurry, too. That's why she tossed entire drawers. She left no dirty laundry, but missed little things like the skirt. What do you think about there being no wards?"
"Well, at first I thought that she was incredibly stupid or naïve, but now I just think she figured we would get in anyway, so why bother?"
"I agree."
Narcissa set out cups and poured the tea. "What is our next step, Draco?"
"Locater Spells?" He sipped his tea and got up. "There was sugar somewhere around here."
"Yes, but I have a feeling they'll do no good." Narcissa sipped her tea and found it to be very good. "This woman's surprising, and I don't like that. Still, like checking a door to see if it's locked, always start with the obvious."
"Then, I guess we should start talking to people?"
Narcissa watched Draco spoon sugar from a bag into his tea. The thought of questioning an assortment of Muggles and American wizards filled her with a mild dread; sort of like what she felt in anticipation of a visit to the dentist. "I wish we could talk to our source personally. The local cell is being awfully hush-hush about him."
"Whoever he is, he's seems to know a lot about her."
"Not enough. This is going to be a lot of bleeding work." She took a sip of her tea and changed the subject. "Anyway, the data we have said she has a suite at her resort. She probably has an office there. We'll take a look this afternoon and find a time to search both of them."
Draco looked around the room. Cabinet doors stood open at every angle, drawers lay on the floors and counters, their contents scattered near and far. The house was a shambles.
"We gonna clean this up?"
"No. She brought this upon herself. She can deal with it."
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UnBroken