Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Delancey’s foot tapped her desk in a steady, annoying rhythm as he leaned closer with a menacing expression. “It’s been two weeks, and still this is all you have?”

Hermione looked up from her calculations with an exasperated sigh. “I can’t give you anything more unless I have more information. I can’t find links between the victims, your raid of the office of that society hasn’t yielded anything useful—”

“At least my people try to find out something, Granger. All you do is sit inside this office all day scribbling numbers.” He pulled a piece of parchment from the mess on her desk. “And not even that. All you have is variables.”

“Of course that is all I have,” Hermione snapped. “If there is nothing definite to work with, how could I have any numbers – or results?”

“Your boss said you’re the best in your field, surely you can come up with something.”

“I prefer not to come up with something but to actually calculate,” she replied peevishly. She knew she was hitting a sore spot. Only a few days ago, the Prophet had published a scathing article about the falsified evidence that had been discovered in the Goyle case.

Delancey pressed his lips together. “Then do calculate, Granger. I want results. Or do you want me to tell the Minister that you’re just a waste of money and time?”

Hermione dropped her quill. “Tell the Minister whatever you want, Mister Delancey. Just let me do my work.”

He snorted. “You call that work, do you? Never getting your hands dirty, always staying where it’s nice and warm – you couldn’t do real work, fieldwork, if your life depended on it.”

“For your information, I’ve done quite a bit of getting my hands dirty while fighting Voldemort—”

“Of course you had to drag that old story in again. I’m sure it’s comfortable to rest on those laurels, but keep in mind they’re getting dry and dusty, Granger. You can’t expect us to be hero worshipping forever.”

“I don’t expect hero worshipping!” she cried, but Delancey had already left the office.

“Don’t let him get you down, Hermione.” Stephen came to her side. “He’s just annoyed we’re not making much progress.”

Hermione snorted. “We’re not making any progress, the way I see it.” She dropped down into her chair and put her hands over her eyes. Two weeks of working at least twelve hours a day were taking their toll. She was tired, her brain felt muggy, her eyes burnt and she couldn’t remember the last proper meal she’d had.”

“Tell you what, why don’t we go to the Leaky and have some dinner?” Stephen said. “You’ve been working much too hard on this, you need a break.”

She groaned. “Sorry, but I really don’t feel like eating out, Stephen. I’ll just go home and get some sleep. At least tomorrow’s Sunday. I’m definitely not coming in to work, no matter what he says.”

“I’ll tell him you’re sick,” Stephen offered. “Sure you don’t want to grab a bite first?”

“Very sure, but thanks for the offer. And don’t tell him anything. He can’t actually demand us to work on Sundays, you know.” Hermione picked up her jacket. “I’ll see you on Monday, then.”

“I hope you’ll feel better soon,” Stephen called after her as she walked to the elevator.

Lying in the bath, feeling the warm water soothe her body, Hermione let her thoughts wander. So Delancey thought she was not doing enough, did he? He thought she preferred to stay out of harm’s way. Bastard! What did he expect her to do? She didn’t have Auror training, she was an Arithmancer. It was her job to stay in the office and “scribble numbers”. His famed Omega Office had failed, that was it. Instead of trying to gather information, they had barged into the office of that Society for the Promotion of Blood Diversity like a troll crashing a party and hadn’t found anything. What had Delancey expected, a list of victims? A to-do list: Monday – shopping, Tuesday – dinner at Aunt Marge’s, Wednesday – commit brutal murder? He was an idiot. He thought that his intimidation tactics would work on everybody. If anybody had asked her, she would have suggested getting a spy inside the organisation. There might not be written records, but a spy could easily pick something up in a meeting. But of course Delancey was too dumb to see that. He probably was a Hufflepuff, he had that dogged determination. But for spying, it took something else.

She felt the water cool off and used a heating and a stasis charm to keep it at a comfortable temperature.

Professor Snape had been a great spy. Voldemort hadn’t found him out, not even at the very end. But that society was no Dark Lord. It wouldn’t take a talent like Professor Snape’s to fool them. She could probably do it herself. That would teach Delancey a lesson!

Hermione laughed. What a silly idea! She had no idea how to be a spy. How did you get people to talk about the thing you were interested in, anyway? She might spend weeks infiltrating the place and learn nothing more than the members’ favourite Quidditch team.

But maybe she could bring up the thought at the next meeting. Maybe Delancey had people for this sort of thing. Not that he’d listen to her. He never did.

By the time Hermione left the bathroom, the skin on her fingers and feet had become crinkly and soft, and she felt more relaxed than she had in weeks. She crawled into bed and read a bit to take her mind off work, before falling asleep at an hour she usually would have considered ridiculously early.

Hermione woke the next morning feeling wide awake and energetic. She had a hearty breakfast, even made some scrambled eggs to eat with her toast. It was a huge difference to her usual breakfast of a cup of lukewarm tea or a cold coffee from the shop near the subway station.

Afterwards, she cleaned her flat, enjoying the feeling of doing something that didn’t require her to use her brain and had visible results.

The Sunday Prophet put a damper on her good mood. There had been yet another killing.

With a sigh, she fell onto the nearest chair. Delancey would go crazy. If she didn’t show up at work, he’d probably send a commando to pick her up. As if this murder would bring any new evidence! So far, the well-worn line that every criminal made a mistake sooner or later had not proven true with this one.

She browsed the article. There was nothing in it that she didn’t already know from the other cases. Male Pureblood, body terribly mangled, found in the general area of that Society for the Promotion of Blood Diversity – though Rita Skeeter might just have put that bit in to prove her point. The way Hermione saw it, there was no reason to believe the killer was a Muggleborn taking revenge on Purebloods. If he was, he chose his victims badly, as most of them had not been openly on Voldemort’s side in the war.

Hermione trudged into her bedroom to change into some decent clothes. There was no way of avoiding it; Delancey would expect her at the office immediately. She decided to Apparate, at least that way she’d be there and – hopefully – gone quickly.

As she had anticipated, most members of the Omega Office were already assembled in the conference room when she arrived. Delancey had been pointing out details of the new case, but interrupted his speech when Hermione entered.

“How nice of you to have fitted us into your busy social schedule, Granger,” he said with a sneer.

There were some snickers. Stephen shot her an encouraging look.

“Now if you’re ready, I’d like to continue.”

Hermione slid into the nearest empty chair, opened her notebook and tried to listen intently.

“As I was saying before Granger made her grand entrance, there are a large number of similarities between this case and the last ten. However, Skeeter has published just about every detail we had on those, so we can’t rule out the possibility of a copycat killer.”

A middle-aged woman in black robes looked up from her notes. “With eleven murders and no lead, shouldn’t we for the time being consider this to be one and the same criminal? If we start looking for copycats, we’ll get bogged down completely.”

Delancey frowned. “We shouldn’t rule out any option at the moment, Rogers. Precisely because we have no lead we need to be open for all possibilities.”

“Have there been any witnesses this time?” Stephen asked.

Delancey made a dismissive gesture. “One woman claims to have seen a man the size of Frankenstein’s monster lurking in the shadows, but I don’t set much store by that. They always see sinister figures when there’s been a murder.”

The woman he’d called Rogers browsed through her notes. “The forensic expertise suggests the killer of victims 4, 7 and 10 was taller than the victims, whereas in cases 3, 6, 8 and 9 he or she was shorter. With the others, it was impossible to tell due to the many wounds. That would mean our suspect is somewhere between 5’5’’ and 5’11’’.”

“Yes, but doesn’t reduce the number of suspects much, does it?” another man said. “The wounds were all non-magical, and there is little to no sign that the victims tried to fight, but that might just be because the first blow was lethal. Forensics haven’t been able to define which wound resulted in death in all cases, and they couldn’t make a model of the weapon used, the edges of the wounds were not clear enough. It looks like the killer used a sharp weapon and a blunt one on all victims. But he or she doesn’t necessarily have to be very strong. Victim 9, especially, was very athletic, but again, there’s no sign of defence. It seems the murderer got very close without causing suspicion. As all the victims have been male, I’d say we’re looking for a woman.”

Rogers laughed. “With your theory, we should consider the sexual orientation of the victims. If one of them was gay, he might have let a man much closer than a woman.”

“That would be interesting if the victims had been out with somebody before the murders, but that’s not the case. It is not unusual for somebody to come up close on the street; the killer might have pretended to be begging,” Delancey said. “But keep those ideas in mind.” He turned to Hermione. “Now I wonder whether our little Arithmancer has something useful to say.”

Hermione blushed angrily. He had no problem talking sensibly to the other members of the team; it was only when dealing with her that he became a jerk. “What do you expect me to have? There is not one bit of new information for me to use,” she snapped.

He sneered. “I really wonder why the Minister insisted to take you on the team. You’re not of much use, are you?”

Hermione slapped her notebook shut. “In that case, I might as well go home and enjoy the rest of my Sunday.”

Without another look back, she stormed out.

***

Her living room floor was covered with colour-coded notes. The tea she had made a few hours ago was still standing on the kitchen counter, untouched.

Hermione sat cross-legged in the middle of the mess, her elbows resting on her knees, her mouth pressed against her folded hands. Her middle fingers tapped against the backs of her hands.

Ever since she had come home, she had tried to find something in the notes that she hadn’t considered before, something that would help her to make sense of the case.

With a sigh, she drew the calendar nearer on which she had marked the dates of the murders. There was no pattern there. Sometimes over a week passed between two killings, sometimes only a few days.

Only…

She frowned. There was one week each month that was unmarked, the time around the full moon. Could that mean anything?

But what could it mean? Was the killer too weak during that time to murder? Were they looking for a werewolf?

Hermione shook her head. It didn’t make sense. If a werewolf took this route to fight for werewolf rights, there were more influential people to kill. The victims were blank pages, politically speaking – unless of course there was something that wasn’t in her notes.

With an exasperated sigh she got up. She felt so useless. Eleven killings and nothing to point her in the right direction. Delancey probably was right; it made no sense to involve her.

She pressed her lips together. No! She’d show him. If he didn’t want her in the office, she would weasel her way into that Society for the Promotion of Blood Diversity and find the information they needed. If those people had anything to do with the murders, she would find out. Hermione Granger had taken on Voldemort; she wouldn’t be outwitted by some serial killer.

Out of the papers on the floor, she picked up the one with the information on the Society. There was a meeting tonight!

With a quick glance at her watch, she changed from her work clothes into jeans and a plain blouse. If they were looking for blood diversity, they would get a Muggleborn par excellence.

Seconds later, Hermione Apparated into a dark alley. With her wand drawn, she cast a quick look around. Nobody had seen her arrive. She hurried out to the main street and checked the house numbers, then turned right.

A small brass plaque told her she was at the correct address. Taking a deep breath, she entered and walked up to the second floor as advised by the plate at the door.

What looked like the door to a regular flat was standing wide open. She could hear voices from the inside, but nobody reacted to her timid knock.

Hesitantly, she went inside.

The hallway was dimly lit and narrow, with doors leading off on both sides. Opposite the entrance door was another open door. Hermione could see people gathered around a table.

“Hello?” she said.

A young man turned. “Oh, hi! Come in. You’re new here, aren’t you?” He got up and held out a hand. “Don’t be shy, we won’t bite.”

A woman said something that she didn’t get, but she heard several people laugh and blushed uncomfortably.

The man cast a glance at somebody out of her sight. “Mum, don’t go and scare her away!”

“I’m not scared,” Hermione said quickly and stepped closer.

Now she could see that the room was a kitchen, immensely crowded, with a large table and eight chairs occupying most of the space. To the left, there was a window going out to a side street. Next to it, several old teacups were arranged neatly on a shelf. A teakettle was standing below it on the kitchen counter.

“Welcome to the Society for the Promotion of Blood Diversity,” the man said. “I’m a Half-Blood. My name’s Eric. That is Ellen, Muggleborn, Thomas, Half-Blood, Paul, Pureblood – but we don’t hold it against him, Miriam, who is obviously half-giant, my fiancée Melanie, Muggleborn and—”

He was interrupted by the last person in the room, a woman who looked so much like him it could only be his mother. “Melanie, like me, is not only Muggleborn but also a werewolf. I’m Lupa.”

“Lupa?” Hermione repeated.

“Her name used to be Christine,” Eric said hurriedly.

Lupa shot him a menacing look. “I changed it. There is no need to hide what I am, is there? Lycanthropy is not a disease. Nature gave us teeth, and we’re not afraid to show them.”

“It wasn’t nature, precisely,” Melanie muttered. “It was Fenrir Greyback.”

Lupa opened her mouth to say something, but Eric interceded. “So, who are you?”

Hermione hesitated. She didn’t want them to know who she was. “Er – Hannah,” she said.

The others looked at her expectantly.

“I’m Muggleborn,” Hermione added.

“Welcome,” Eric said. “We’re always glad to find we’re not the only ones who believe that Wizarding society today needs people from all backgrounds to flourish and grow. We have seen in the past what dangers lie in the separation based on blood status. The Purebloods need us Muggleborns and Half-bloods or they will die out. And only if we work together to stamp out the prejudices that have clouded the judgement of previous generations can we make sure that our children will live together peacefully and no Dark Lord will be able to seduce them to follow him and his poisonous ideology.”

He was a good speaker, Hermione thought. A bit too pompous – he reminded her of Percy a little – but he did manage to capture his audience, even these people who likely had heard the speech before.

“I’ll be glad to help,” she said and sat down on the chair Ellen, a dark-haired girl a few years younger than herself, drew up for her. “So, what have you been doing so far? Any projects you’re working on right now?”

Miriam, a large woman with a square jaw and small eyes, put one giant hand on a stack of papers on the table. “At the moment we are planning a leaflet campaign to raise awareness in the population. Ellen and Melanie are also creating posters we want to put up in Diagon Alley, but Mel was just explaining that her computer is acting up and the layout isn’t quite ready yet.”

Hermione frowned. “That sounds good, but isn’t there more we can do? Something that really will get people’s attention, something they can’t overlook and ignore; a big bang of some kind?”

The group was silent for a moment and Hermione noticed that several smiles had faded.

“Our aim is to raise awareness, Hannah. We don’t want to polarise. There is enough to divide the Wizarding world, we don’t want to add another issue,” Eric said quietly.

“Even though the Ministry thinks we’re a bunch of evil monsters,” Lupa said hatefully.

Hermione frowned. “The Ministry?”

Ellen nodded. “That Omega Office raided this place only a few weeks ago. Apparently they think we are behind those murders.”

Miriam winced. “They came to my place, too. I guess being half-giant, I make the perfect suspect. Everybody assumes I’m a monster anyway.”

Melanie put a hand on hers. “Don’t say that, Miriam. You’re one of the nicest people I know.”

Lupa slammed a hand on the table. “I still say we should sue that Delancey person. They had no reason whatsoever to barge in here and tear the place apart. Hannah is right. Leaflets and posters are all nice and good, but we should show them that we are willing to fight for what we believe in.”

“We are fighting,” Paul said. He was a rather thickset man whose dark eyes were shadowed by massive brows. “With every leaflet, with every person who joins our ranks” – he nodded to Hermione – “we know our message is heard. They won’t ignore us forever; we just have to keep going. The laws might be even for all, but we want a change in people’s minds, and the only way to achieve that is to keep pointing out their prejudices. Some Purebloods have come to realise they are no better than other witches and wizards. We are making progress.”

“But so slowly it will take generations,” Lupa insisted. “And the blood status issue is not the only thing that needs to be addressed. Werewolves are still treated more like beasts than people. We still haven’t got our rightful place in this society; we’re still supposed to hide what we are.”

“Mum, we know that. And we are working on that as well.” Eric turned to Hermione. “We are drafting a letter to send to the Minister calling his attention to the werewolf problem.”

“There is no werewolf problem,” Lupa snapped. “It is a non-werewolf problem, it is the problem that this society thinks it can ignore a strong, powerful group in its midst. The Minister will just have some undersecretary send us a noncommittal letter full of promises and nothing will happen.”

“Then we will write another letter,” Paul said calmly. “And another and another, until the Minister gets so fed up with us that he will do what we ask him to do just to make us shut up.” He smiled, and Ellen laughed admiringly.

Lupa shot her a disgusted look. “You underestimate the amount of stuff the Minister or any other wizard is able to ignore. If we don’t make it obvious that we won’t accept the denial of our rights, it is our fault if we don’t get what we are entitled to.”

“Lupa, please,” Melanie said with an embarrassed frown. “I think everybody got your point.”

“No they didn’t,” Lupa said sharply. “Weren’t you denied the position at the Ministry simply because of what you are? Didn’t the Hogwarts governors have you removed from the school when they found out about your lycanthropy?”

Melanie didn’t reply.

After a moment’s silence, Miriam cleared her throat. “Well, I guess we discussed everything on schedule for this meeting. Hannah, why don’t you take home some of our leaflets and get an idea of what we’ve been doing?”

Hermione, who had been taking a good look at each member of the group to make sure she could remember their faces, needed a few seconds to realise it was she Miriam was talking to.

“Sure, I will.” Quickly, she grabbed a few brochures from the stack on the table. “When is your next meeting?”

“We will meet here next Sunday, but if you can make it we would appreciate your help with handing out the leaflets in Diagon Alley on Friday afternoon and Saturday. We want to get as many of the weekend shoppers as possible,” Eric said.

“I’ll see what I can do. My work hours are crazy at the moment, though, so I’m not sure I can make it.”

“Where do you work?” Melanie asked.

Again, Hermione hesitated for a moment. “I’m an Arithmancer. A desk job, nothing special,” she said curtly.

She noticed Melanie was about to ask more questions and quickly picked up her jacket. “I got to run. I need to be in the office early tomorrow or my boss will be ready to kill me.”

As she left, she cursed herself for not having answers ready. She had seen some suspicious looks, especially on Lupa’s face, when she had brushed off the questions so quickly.

There might be a book that could help her, but it would be much easier to learn this spy business directly from somebody who knew how to deceive others. She wasn’t convinced yet that the Society for the Promotion of Blood Diversity really had anything to do with the murders, but she hadn’t liked some of the things Lupa had said, and that one man, Thomas, hadn’t said anything at all.

What she needed was a teacher who knew as much as possible about deception and secrecy. She needed a Slytherin. If only Professor Snape was still alive! The last time she had seen him, in the Shrieking Shack, had made her realise that he indeed was human, not the black bat of the dungeons. If he had survived, she might approach him. He had been a good teacher, all things considered. He had demanded a lot, but there had been very few accidents in his class, even though he had let them make some dangerous potions. And even Neville, who had no hand for it, had done quite well in his Potions O.W.L.

Hermione sighed as she unlocked her door. It was no use pondering what Professor Snape might have taught her. She had to look somewhere else for help. She went through a list of Slytherins she knew. Most of the students in her year had been of the thuggish variety, following Draco Malfoy’s orders. There was no way she could approach Draco. The last days of the war had resulted, a year later, in a severe psychological crisis, and after three attempted suicides, he was now living with a man who was as much guard as nurse in a house in Scotland. But he wasn’t the only Malfoy. There was Lucius Malfoy, after all, who had managed once again to escape imprisonment. He certainly knew how to take in people so they’d believe everything he said.

Before Hermione went into her bedroom, she took a last look at the notes spread out on the living room floor. She had to do something. And there was only one person alive to really help her. She’d have to contact Lucius Malfoy.