This Thing Called Love - Dramione Sequel

Ch. 18

Hermione's POV

Harry sighed deeply, rubbing his hand over the scruff on his chin as he looked down at the letters on my desk skeptically. "'Mione, as much faith as I have in your abilities, these letters are from years ago."

"We still have to try," I said insistently, looking over my notes one last time. "And you never know; something may come up!"

He sighed again, shaking his head slightly before shoving his hands into his pockets. "The only thing I'm concerned about is the fact that she's most likely apparated different places; how will we know where she went in that case?"

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and said, "I'm honestly not sure. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens."

"Do you think we should bring someone else along, just in case something happens?" He asked.

"I think we'll be fine by ourselves," I said with a shrug. "After all, it's not very likely that we're going to find her today."

He shrugged in return. "Alright. I'm ready to go when you are."

With a nod I stood up and grabbed the letters along with my wand before leading Harry outside of my office. Jenn watched us curiously as we moved to the center of the room, and Harry paused to watch me, taking a tentative step backwards.

Looking down at the letters, I concentrated on Tala and then waved my wand, muttering, "Appare vestigium."

A shower of gold dust circled around us and illuminated a set of footprints leading from my office to the lift. Harry blinked in surprise and said, "Wow, it worked!"

"This is just showing her most recent footsteps," I said as I walked towards the lift. "Remember, she was here not too long ago."

"Fair point."

Harry followed me to the lift and we waited somewhat impatiently as we went to the main floor, finding more gold footprints. We quickly made our way through the crowd, pushing past people and muttering apologies as we went.

"Look at the stride length of her steps," Harry said, pointing between one step to the other. "She was running out of here."

"Well she was panicked and it was close to the full moon," I said. "I can see why she would be running."

We followed the tracks outside of the Ministry building where they began to veer off towards an alleyway. I frowned at Harry who was also grimacing as he drew his wand and led me towards the alleyway entrance where we paused to investigate.

"Well, the tracks continue down," He said with a frown, pointing into the somewhat dark alleyway with his wand.

"Yeah," I sighed before gripping my wand and tensing up. "It looks relatively empty. Let's go."

"Stay right next to me," He said quietly as we slowly began walking through the alley.

Even though there weren't any obvious doorways or hidden areas, I still made sure to look around with every step as my stomach twisted with nerves.

"Harry, look!" I said suddenly, pointing down to the ground with my wand.

He paused and looked down, stepping back to look at the mess of gold tracks in front of us. "It's like she walked around in circles."

I followed the tracks with my eyes, noticing that there wasn't really a rhyme or reason to their pattern.

"I think she took a breather here," I started slowly, stepping over the tracks carefully so as not to disturb them. "And she paced around, trying to figure out what to do."