Aurelian (Dramione)

Chapter 12: Concern and uncertainty

"Whoa… that's… yeah…" Ron said in a dejected daze. He sat on the interrogation room table with his feet on the chair in front of him and his elbows on his knees. Harry and Hermione had relayed everything they had seen in the pensieve earlier that day and Ron was quite overwhelmed by it. Hermione and Harry both sighed. It was one of the most difficult things they had ever had to witness and it was difficult in a very different way to have to relive it as they spoke the details aloud.

"You know," Ron said quietly, "at first I was pretty upset that I wasn't able to view the memories with you, but I'm really not that envious anymore."

Harry nodded in agreement. He was glad he had information to help him discover a way to prevent it all from happening, but he rather wished he hadn't had to view those horrible events either.

"So, Malfoy is going to speak to Pansy and see if she might tell him about anything that might be going on with her family. And tomorrow, the three of us are going to try to talk to Dennis Creevey," Hermione informed him, glad to be done with the discussion of the events of the future war.

"That's a good place to start," Ron agreed.

"What about you?" asked Harry. "Were you able to have another look at the break-in at Snape's house?"

"Yeah, I went there this morning," Ron affirmed. "There really wasn't anything there. The place was completely empty and everything looked untouched. There still weren't any traces of magic. The report said that the front door was splintered by the handle. It looked like a physically forced entry. I couldn't have a look at that though because the squad repaired it when they left. I talked to Susan about the evidence she collected. There was only a bit of mud, really. She identified that substance they found as just a tiny piece of strawberry taffy. From what I can tell, it really does look like it was just some muggle kids messing around."

"While that's a relief, it also means that we don't have any further leads at the moment," Harry said tiredly.

"I'm not getting anywhere with this either," Hermione said. She sat back in her chair as she continued to scan another profile. "We know that Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange must be involved in this. They were never caught and they were both very close to Bellatrix. If anyone knows about Bellatrix's horcrux, I'd be willing to bet just about anything that it's Rodolphus."

"I'd say that that's a pretty safe bet," Harry approved. "I'm surprised that she would tell anyone about it though."

"Perhaps she left information about it for him to find after she died," Ron offered.

"That's a really good thought," Hermione said thoughtfully. "If she did, it could be very helpful to find that… if we knew where to look."

"I think that a lot of things could be answered if we found the Lestrange brothers," Harry grumbled with frustration. "No one has seen either of them in two years."

"That's not necessarily true," Hermione argued. "Just because no one has reported seeing them, doesn't mean that they haven't been seen. Some might be too afraid to report it, some might not have recognized them, or they could have even used memory charms."

"That still doesn't help us," Harry muttered.

"No, it doesn't," Hermione agreed. "I keep looking through these files on all fugitive Death Eaters and I don't know what I'm looking for. In your investigations after the war, Malfoy mentioned a man named Summers that no one else had ever even heard of, so I don't have a clue if he could be involved or not. Malfoy also mentioned a man called Berk from Slovenia. We were able to get some information on him, but weren't really able to look into it because international prosecution laws. But with the mention of Slovenia in the pensieve, I have a feeling that if he's not involved already, he will be." Hermione closed the file in her hand and slapped it down on top of the large stack of files in front of her. "Where do we start with all this?"