Work Text:
A warm golden glow flooded the bottom of the staircase, chasing away the shadows and warming the damp air against Hermione Granger's skin. She paused in her descent, listening hard, but all she could hear was a faint murmuring, too soft to make out words.
Too soft to separate the voices, all low and feminine, but Hermione didn't need to separate them to know that one was Lovegood's.
Even if they hadn't spent hours together in the car over the weeks, Hermione would have known that it was Lovegood down there, because she was always wherever the weirdness happened. It was the entire reason that Hermione was descending the stairs into a damp cellar at two o'clock in the morning.
A damp cellar that emanated a strange glow.
Hermione drew her extendable baton and flicked it out into full length. After a brief hesitation, she dug a can of pepper spray out of her pocket.
She spared a brief wish that British agents were allowed to carry guns without having to fill out half a dozen forms in triplicate attesting to her qualifications and the justification for carrying. Her American counterparts went armed as standard, no questions asked. In her agency, she had to be planning to take down a terrorist ring before they'd issue anything more dangerous than an extra can of pepper spray.
Today's assignment didn't qualify for a gun, even though she would have felt much safer descending into a cellar filled with golden light carrying something with more range than her baton.
Hermione resumed her slow descent, barely daring to breathe in case she missed hearing something important. The soft murmuring floated up, still incomprehensible.
As her foot hit the last step, a loud creak filled the air. Hermione winced and held her breath, hoping against all hope that nobody would notice.
The silence after the creak faded away was heavy, filled with expectation. It stretched out like the endless days in childhood before Christmas, when each moment lasted forever.
A sharp cry broke the tension--Lovegood!--and Hermione reacted instantly, bolting down the last step and rounding the corner, only to be blinded when the light flared. She instinctively raised her arm to cover her eyes, dropping the pepper spray can, but a concussive force picked her up and slammed her into the wall behind while she was still squinting to see.
Hermione's head hit the wall and she blacked out.
***
Hours later, Hermione's head was still throbbing and she desperately wanted a cup of tea and a very long nap. Both of those were far out of reach; instead, she was sitting in Director McGonagall's office, trying not to shrink under her scrutiny.
"Are you sure that this is the report you want to submit?" McGonagall asked.
Hermione nodded, grimacing as the motion made her head throb a little harder. "Yes, Director."
"That you can't explain how Lovegood found the child in that cellar or what knocked you silly. Only that there was a bright light and voices."
"Yes, Director."
McGonagall sat forward, narrowing her eyes. "Agent Granger, we assigned you to Agent Lovegood to report on her cases and find some rational explanation for them. To debunk her notions about strange creatures and forces we can't comprehend, before she makes a laughing stock of us all. Your report is rather less helpful on that front than we'd like."
Hermione sat up straighter. "I know, Director, but I can only report what I saw. I can't lie."
"And you saw a light."
"Yes."
"And heard voices."
"Yes."
"And something flung you against a wall and knocked you unconscious."
"Yes."
"Perhaps what you saw and heard was the kidnappers, and they were the ones who attacked you. In which case, we potentially have a kidnapping ring on the loose in Hampshire, and you can't even describe them."
"Agent Lovegood assures me that she didn't see any kidnappers," Hermione said, picking her words carefully. None of them were lies, precisely. They simply omitted a few facts that Lovegood had babbled at her as the paramedics tried to perform concussion checks. "The child was unconscious for the entire time she was missing, so we can't ask her what happened."
McGonagall nodded, her expression not softening in the slightest. "I suppose you've done everything you can. Go home and get some rest. You look dreadful. Try not to let Agent Lovegood drag you out on any wild goose chases for at least a couple of days."
"Thank you, Director," Hermione said, standing carefully in case she wobbled. "I'll do my best."
"Hmm."
McGonagall was frowning down at the report as Hermione left, pursing her lips. Hermione closed the door and hurried away as fast as she could without either falling over or throwing up.
As she rounded a corner, a woman passed her. She was dressed in black from head to toe, her dark hair seemed to be fighting to escape the wide-brimmed hat she wore, and her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.
She was smoking, blowing out a thin stream of pale grey as she stalked away.
Hermione considered calling her back, reminding her of the agency policy on smoking indoors, but the cigarette smoking woman disappeared into McGonagall's office before she could get the words out.
It was probably nothing.
Tea and a long bath were issuing their siren's call, so Hermione shrugged and went home.
***
Her respite lasted for two whole days, which had to be a record since she'd been assigned to Lovegood. Let it never be said that working with Lovegood was easy, dull, or conducive to forming any kind of personal life. Other agents were occasionally allowed to have evenings or weekends off.
Lovegood's cases seemed to bleed into times when any sensible person was trying to sleep or socialise. Not that Hermione had ever expected a normal life--she'd trained in medicine and then taken a sharp right turn into the agency, neither profession offering much in the way of stability and regular hours--but Lovegood seemed to go out of her way to find weird and fascinating cases that consumed every hour possible.
Hermione had only meant to drop in and sign some paperwork from HR to confirm her security access for another year. They'd been hounding her for three weeks, but every time she started reading the forms, Lovegood popped up with a sighting of fairies in Wales or rain streaming upwards in Scotland.
After the forms were signed and witnessed, though, she couldn't resist popping down to the office in the basement. Just to check. Just to make sure Lovegood hadn't found any trouble while Hermione wasn't there to keep an eye on her.
As she opened the door, Hermione glanced up, counting the pencils stuck into the ceiling. There were two more than the last time she'd been here. Lovegood had actually stayed in the office where she was supposed to be, for long enough to get bored. Good.
Hermione looked around the office. Not good.
Lovegood wasn't there.
Her "I want to believe" poster was there, her collection of strange objects and bizarre books littered the desk, and her cabinets of the unexplained were still crammed into every corner, but Lovegood was missing. The half-drunk mug of tea on her desk was cold.
Hermione was peering under the desk, just in case, when the door opened and Lovegood dashed in.
"Oh, good, you're here," she said, waving a folder. "Here, you'll have to read this in the car."
She thrust the folder into Hermione's hands and hurried over to one of the filing cabinets, yanking a drawer open and rattling through the sleeves, picking out more folders seemingly at random.
"In the car?" Hermione said. "Where are we going?"
"A little village just outside Exeter," Lovegood said, shoving the drawer closed and sweeping up her collection of folders. "Madrigen Green. A twenty-five year old woman has disappeared."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
Hermione frowned. "It's not our case. Disappearances are a police matter."
Lovegood grinned, her pale blue eyes sparkling. Her blonde hair was standing out in even fluffier waves than it normally did. "Over the last forty-five years, do you know how many women have disappeared within ten miles of that village?"
"Well, obviously I don't," Hermione said. "I'd need to do some research--"
"Ten," Lovegood said. "Doesn't that seem a little high?"
"I suppose so, but it's still not our case. There are rules--we can't steal cases from local police just because we're interested in a statistical anomaly."
"All of them disappeared near a henge," Lovegood said. "Within walking distance of it. Sometimes, they were actually supposed to walk across it, but they never arrived at their destinations."
Hermione opened her mouth to protest that they still couldn't steal disappearance cases, not even when henges were involved, but Lovegood had already rushed out of the office carrying her armload of files. She probably had a car requisitioned and ready for them, too.
"I guess that I'll read up on everything in the car," Hermione muttered, as she followed Lovegood out.
***
Madrigen Green was small, sleepy, and fitted all the cliches necessary to be described as "picturesque". There was even a cricket match in progress on the village green, everyone dressed in whites and the score indicating that the visitors were taking a genteel thrashing. They drove and parked in a small lay-by at the side of a narrow sunny lane half a mile past the entrance to the village.
Hermione had read the files while Lovegood handled the motorway driving. Over the weeks, Hermione had found that it was a lot less scary to have something to read while Lovegood puttered in the slow lane, her mind only half on the driving. As soon as they hit the smaller dual carriageways and then the B roads, Hermione took the wheel. It kept her stress levels down.
From the files, Hermione recognised the lane they'd stopped in. It was where several of the women had last been seen. There were photographs of it dating back to the sixties in the earliest file, and it had barely changed over the years. Even the direction marker at the T-junction a couple of hundred yards away was the same, only more worn now than it had been.
Lovegood was oddly subdued when they got out of the car.
"Can't you feel it?" she asked, as she shouldered her bag of equipment.
Hermione checked the lens on her camera before pulling the strap over her head. "Feel what?"
Lovegood gestured around them. "There's something here. Something is waking up."
"It's probably the five thousand midges that are going to eat me alive," Hermione said, trying to wave away the cloud of tiny insects that had risen around them.
"You'll see what I mean," Lovegood said, with the annoying calm she always displayed whenever she felt Hermione was being deliberately difficult. "Come on, the henge is up here."
They had to clamber up a bank and into a field of barley, the heavy heads bobbing in a slight breeze. Hermione was grateful that she'd remembered to change into strong shoes before they set out. They didn't have to walk far around the edge before finding the sign for the public footpath that led over the field. It was rocky and uneven, with occasional troughs where water collected in puddles, but it was easy to see that it was a well-used path despite the mud.
According to the files, this footpath was a popular way to cut off a bend in the road before it entered the village. It would bring people out just behind the pub, which was a boon to the landlord, and provided a lot of walkers with a good excuse for a quick pint on the way home.
There was a larger village a mile and a half away, with shops and a doctor's surgery, and a bus that went twice an hour instead of twice a day. It was no wonder so many people took this footpath, even though ten women had disappeared over the years.
A thick hedge surrounded the field, punctuated by a stile where the footpath crossed the border. Lovegood scrambled over easily. Hermione had to be more careful due to the camera, so she didn't get a proper look at the next field until she jumped down.
Nobody had mowed the grass for years, so it rose to waist height on either side of the footpath. In the middle of the field stood the henge: an unimpressive collection of tumbled rocks that formed a vague circle. The footpath ran through the centre and disappeared into the grass on the other side.
Although nobody had touched the grass in the rest of the field for years, the grass inside the henge was shorn close to the ground, as neat as any gardener could make it.
"Who looks after it?" Hermione asked.
Lune smiled. "Nobody."
"Then how..."
"It's the mystery of the henge."
Hermione wrinkled her nose, but she didn't say anything. The grass was a little too perfect and she couldn't see anyone lugging a mower all the way up here.
"Come on," Lovegood said. "We should examine it before we lose the light."
"Didn't the police already search every inch?"
"They might have missed something."
It was impossible to argue with that and Hermione didn't bother wasting her breath. She followed Luna, her eyes searching the path for anything that looked out of the ordinary. Footprints criss-crossed and overlaid each other, rendering any print useless even if there had been a reference print to look for. Hermione took photographs anyway, just in case.
The demarcation between inside and outside the henge was even more sharp when she reached it. The long wild grass stopped at the edge of a ditch running around the stone circle, sliced cleanly, and the grass within was the lush greenness of a lawn. The ditch was free of brambles and detritus, the smooth grass interrupted only by a brackish puddle at the bottom. A few tiny purple flowers peeked out from the base of the stones, which were worn smooth with age and covered with orange and yellow lichen. The wooden bridges over the ditch on either side and the brown footpath cutting across the middle of the circle almost seemed like a wound on the pretty green carpet of grass.
Hermione crossed the bridge and took a few photos, trying to record the layout of the stones and the strange purity of the grass within, before a flash of something caught her eye.
Two stones had fallen in the middle of the circle, slightly off-centre, one leaning on the other. In the shadow created underneath, Hermione thought she saw movement.
She lowered her camera and wished, yet again, that she had something more intimidating than an extendable baton to wield. It seemed foolish to pull it out, but she kept a hand hovering over her belt, just in case, as she crept towards the stones and peered underneath.
Nothing moved, but Hermione tilted her head, frowning. There was something in there. Something that shouldn't be.
She pulled on a latex glove, reached in, and pulled out a scrap of red fabric. A small red button was still attached: the corner of a blouse, torn away with enough violence to leave the edges ragged and fraying. The woman who had disappeared a week ago had been wearing a red shirt, according to her boyfriend. The police were supposed to have searched everywhere; surely they should have found this scrap? It hadn't been difficult to find.
Hermione looked up from her find, and her frown deepened. Lovegood was standing in the centre of the stone circle, her head tilted back to the sky, eyes closed. Slowly, as though she wasn't aware it was happening, her arms rose to shoulder height. The sun dimmed as a cloud passed across it, and a cold breeze seeped through the weave of Hermione's blazer and ruffled Lovegood's hair.
The long grass surrounding the henge didn't move.
Hermione rose to her feet, trying to keep her movement as slow and even as she could. Some instinct told her that she didn't want to attract the attention of whatever had turned the air thick and watchful inside the henge. The breeze grew colder, sending shivers down Hermione's back despite the fact that she was wearing a blazer that was usually too warm for early autumn.
An expression of intense listening creased Lovegood's brow. She wasn't moving, even though Hermione's teeth were starting to chatter from the freezing wind. With a growing sense of dread, Hermione moved closer, stepping carefully although her feet were so cold she could barely feel them. Lovegood had done a dozen strange things over the weeks, but Hermione had never been afraid for her; had never felt this slow churn in her gut that threatened to make her forget all her training.
When Hermione reached out to Lovegood, she expected to find the other woman stiff and unresponsive, frozen in that strangely unnerving position.
But Lovegood's eyes snapped open and Hermione gasped, just before a surge like electricity struck and threw her across the circle to slam against a stone. Her entire body seemed to ring from the blast and the impact, and she was powerless to stop herself sliding to the ground in a boneless slump.
Hermione opened eyes she hadn't been aware of closing, and a groan escaped her lips. Ow.
On the other side of the stone circle, past the boundary ditch, Lovegood stirred and let out a matching moan. She seemed to have been thrown by the same force, although she'd missed out on the crashing-into-a-rock portion of the event. The long grass had provided a softer landing.
The sun appeared from behind its cloud and everything was suddenly bathed in warmth and light again. Even the breeze died away under the flood of sunshine.
That had to be why a surge of relief flowed through Hermione, leaving her shaky. Everything looked normal now, a normal September day, and her concern for Lovegood had only been the worry anyone would feel when their co-worker went into a strange trance.
Hermione sat up. The world didn't spin around her and the throbbing in her head was already starting to recede. Probably not a concussion, then. She could almost hear her old neurology professor having a conniption fit over her self-assessment, but she'd been a field agent for longer than she'd ever practised medicine, and her sense of duty was stronger than her concern for her own head.
She was really more concerned about the dazed look on Lovegood's face.
"What happened?" Lovegood asked.
Hermione shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me. Maybe it was a random lightning strike."
"Hmm," Lovegood said, which said it all, really.
***
Over surprisingly good steak and ale pies in the pub that evening, Hermione set the bagged scrap of red fabric on the table between their plates.
"We should tell Director McGonagall that the local police are a useless lot," she said. "I barely had to look for that. It was right there."
Except it hadn't been, now that she thought about it. Until she caught that flash of movement under the stone, she would have sworn that the fabric hadn't been there. It was certainly bright enough to be noticeable from a distance. Why hadn't she seen it sooner?
What had moved under the stone?
"It's probably pixies."
Lovegood put a forkful of pie in her mouth and chewed with a serene expression. It was the calmness that she delivered those kinds of statements with that always irritated Hermione. Pixies. Honestly.
Hermione shook her head. "It can't be pixies."
"You're right," Lovegood said, after a thoughtful pause. Before Hermione could celebrate, she added, "They're not cruel enough. Whatever is in the henge hates us and needs us in equal measures."
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, Lovegood was staring into the distance with that same thoughtful, serious expression.
One day, it would drive Hermione to do something unfortunate, but she could never decide what that would be.
"There's nothing in the henge," Hermione said. "We're dealing with a stalker and some odd atmospheric changes, nothing mystical."
"Really?" Lovegood raised an eyebrow. "How do you explain this afternoon? That wasn't a lightning strike."
"What happened to you?" Hermione asked.
Lovegood shook her head. "I don't know. I can't describe it. Something was talking and I was listening, but I couldn't understand the words. And then, poof. You blew me up."
"I did not blow you up!" Hermione said, straightening in her seat. "There was some kind of...static electric...um, discharge. I think."
The words sounded a lot less certain than they had in her head. Hermione had been putting together that explanation while she drove and they arranged for rooms in the pub. It had sounded perfectly reasonable until she said it out loud.
Lovegood smiled. "That's a very good, rational explanation."
"No, it's not. It's a terrible explanation."
"It will sound fine in your reports, I'm sure."
Hermione scraped up the last bits of gravy and pastry crumbs from her plate. The pie really was delicious. It had been ages since they'd stayed in a place with real food instead of vending machines and quick trip to McDonald's. A pub in a picturesque village was a step up from the usual Premier Inn in the middle of an industrial estate. There were some advantages to investigating something the middle of the countryside instead of Slough or Swindon.
Lovegood nudged the bagged scrap of fabric across the table towards Hermione. "You should probably look after this, so that nobody questions your reports."
"Why do you care about my reports?" Hermione asked. "They're trying to make me shut you down."
"Because they're important to you," Lovegood said, with a direct look. "They've wanted to shut me down ever since I started looking into the X-Files. Your career could still go somewhere, as long as you've got evidence to back up whatever you're reporting. Isn't it time for bed now?"
She gathered their plates and stood up before Hermione could respond.
Their bedrooms were across a narrow hallway from each other. The floor creaked when Hermione stood outside her door, digging in her pocket for the old-fashioned key. She wished Lovegood goodnight over her shoulder.
"Why don't you use my name?"
Hermione turned, frowning. "I'm sorry?"
"You call me Agent Lovegood. Or Lovegood. But you never use my first name, Hermione."
"Do you want me to?"
Lovegood shrugged. "It's your choice, obviously, but you could sometimes use my name, if you'd like. Not many people do any more."
"Oh." A thick lump in Hermione's throat choked any other response she could have made.
Luna smiled. "Goodnight. Sleep tight. I'm sure this pub doesn't have bedbugs. The curtains are much too nice."
Her door closed behind her, leaving Hermione still standing with her fingers clutching her key so tightly it left marks on her skin.
"Goodnight, Luna," Hermione said after a while, and went to bed.
***
The woman who had disappeared most recently, Jane Cho, lived in a flat over the chemist's with her boyfriend. Hermione could only just remember the days when she lived in a tiny flat like this with her parents, before their dental practice got popular and they could afford a nice semi on a new housing estate, and then a nicer detached house on a private road. Luna peered around with wide-eyed fascination as they climbed the stairs behind Cho's boyfriend, but it was impossible to tell whether she'd really never been in a flat like this before.
Luna looked wide-eyed and fascinated by everything. Hermione had never thought to ask what her background was.
The boyfriend, Dennis Lake, gestured them to a worn sofa. It had the best view of the telly and was clearly the place he usually sat with Jane. Her stack of Heat magazines were still piled on one end of the coffee table. The remotes sat on the other.
"I'll make some tea," Dennis said. "How do you take it?"
Hermione smiled politely, even though she would have preferred a cup of coffee. "White, no sugar. Thank you."
Luna tilted her head. "Do you have anything herbal?"
"Um," Dennis said. "Jane drinks some herbal stuff. Can't remember what it is. She always does the shopping and her stuff tastes like dry grass, so I've never paid any attention to what it is."
"I'm sure it will be delicious," Luna said, with a smile. "Thank you."
Dennis nodded and disappeared through the bead curtain that separated the kitchen from the living area. There was a small gate leg table in one corner, leaning against the wall with two wooden chairs folded against it. The place was tiny and cramped, but someone had recently repainted the skirting boards and trim, and there were a few plants on the windowsill. It was cared for, even if it was probably the cheapest living space in the village.
"Jane Cho didn't leave him," Luna said, her voice low.
"We know that," Hermione said. "We've got a piece of her blouse."
"We've also got this flat," Luna said. "She decorated recently. People don't decorate if they're planning to run away, do they?"
"How do you know she did the painting?"
Lune nudged aside the top layer of Heat magazines, to reveal a Dulux catalogue. "He doesn't seem like the nesting type."
The rumble of the kettle boiling was cut off by a sharp click. A couple of minutes later, Dennis backed out of the kitchen carrying two mugs. Hermione's tea looked strong and he'd left the bag in Luna's cup, which had a posh Hampstead Tea tag hanging over the edge. He must have made Jane's tea often enough to know whether this was one that could be left to steep.
He hurried back to the kitchen and emerged with a mug of his own, which he clutched tightly as he sat on a battered armchair that almost matched the sofa.
"Why are you investigating Jane's disappearance instead of the police?" he asked.
Hermione tried to smile reassuringly. "We're specialists."
"Jane's disappearance matches some others that we're investigating," Luna said.
Dennis's eyes widened. "There's more than one? I didn't hear about anyone else."
"The last disappearances were a few years ago," Hermione said. "They happened in clusters. Have you lived in Madrigen Green for long?"
"A couple of years," Dennis said. "We used to live in Exeter, but then Jane got a job at the nursery in Hendale and this place came up for rent, so we moved here and I got hired on as a junior gamekeeper over at the estate. When the old head gamekeeper retires next year, I'm supposed to get his job, and there's a cottage comes with it. We were going to start a family."
"I'm very sorry," Hermione said.
"Is she dead?" Dennis asked. "I only ask, because you said there had been others, but they were years ago. Did any of them come back?"
Luna shook her head, her eyes grave, and Dennis sat back in his chair. His shoulders slumped and his face went blank.
"Right then," Dennis said after a while. "Right then."
Luna sat forward. "Don't give up hope yet. Just because they didn't come back, it doesn't mean Jane won't. We're going to find her."
"How many others?" Dennis asked.
"Nine others," Luna said.
Dennis blinked. "Nine? How did nine people disappear without anyone talking about it?"
"They didn't all come from this village," Hermione said. "The only commonality is that they all disappeared near the henge."
"The stone circle? Jane used to walk across it ever day on the way to Hendale."
"We know," Hermione said. "We think that's where it happened. Do you recognise this?"
She pulled out the plastic bag containing the scrap of fabric and held it towards Dennis, who took it with a curious expression. He turned it over twice and fingered the button through the plastic.
"It's from Jane's shirt," Dennis said, holding the bag out for Hermione to retrieve. "The one she was wearing the day she didn't come home. It's one of her favourites. She always wore it on Thursdays because it made the day feel less bleak." He chuckled. "She'd been so relieved. One of the kids got felt tip on the sleeve and she'd had a nightmare getting the stain out."
"Thank you." Hermione drained her mug, noting out of the corner of her eye that Luna had already done the same and was carefully putting the teabag into plastic bag of her own. "We should be going now. You know, things to investigate."
"Thank you for the tea," Luna said.
Dennis looked confused, but there was a spark of hope in his eyes as he showed them to the door. Hermione hoped it wouldn't be a spark she had to snuff out in a few days.
When they were on the street, Hermione turned to Luna with a frown. "Why did you take the teabag?"
"I wanted to find out what she drinks," Luna said. "Look, the grocer's is just over there."
She hurried away and Hermione was left to follow. Teabags. What possible use could it be to know what Jane Cho drank when she needed a pick-me-up?
Honestly, there were times when Luna's eccentricities threatened to drive Hermione up the wall. If only she wasn't so good at her job. Even Hermione had believed her when she'd comforted Jane's boyfriend, and she knew the odds of finding anyone alive a week after their disappearance were so close to zero that it wasn't worth reporting.
That was the problem with Luna: she made Hermione want to believe in impossible things. She made Hermione want impossible things.
With an exasperated sigh, Hermione pushed that troubling thought away and hurried across the room to rescue the grocer's cashier from Luna's questions about tea.
***
They ate lunch in Luna's room, sitting on her bed with a picnic of sandwiches, crisps, and slices of fruitcake from the grocer's spread out between them. Buying all of it had made the owner's eyes soften slightly after Luna spent fifteen minutes examining boxes of tea and trying to match the tags against the one Dennis had served.
The purchase of a dozen different boxes of tea had been necessary, too. Hopefully the agency would reimburse the expense, although Hermione didn't look forward to the questions and forms she would have to complete.
Luna tapped the notes she'd made while Hermione made the sandwiches. "If it follows the pattern from the previous sprees, the next woman will disappear tonight."
Hermione nodded. She'd made the same calculations. "We could set up a watch on the henge."
"We could set--" Luna broke off, tilting her head. "I thought you were going to argue with me."
"Why should I? You're right, about the pattern, anyway. I'm still holding out against the pixies."
"It's definitely not pixies," Luna said. "I don't know what it is, though. We should go to Exeter."
"Why?"
"Research. If it's not pixies, it has to be something else, and we shouldn't go out tonight without protection."
Hermione thought of her extendable baton and can of pepper spray. She had a feeling Luna wouldn't consider those to be adequate protection.
"I'll get the shirt sent for analysis," Hermione said. "Maybe there will be skin cells that we can match to the system. Whoever has been doing this has been at it for a long time. We might get lucky."
Luna's smile was serene, and Hermione had to fight the urge to lean over and do something really awful.
The only problem was, she couldn't decide whether the awful thing would be a thump to her shoulder or something much, much more dangerous.
***
They arrived back in Madrigen Green a little before six o'clock and parked the car at the pub again. Hermione took a deep breath of blissfully clean, fresh air as soon as she got out. The stench of whatever Luna had bought at the strange little shop she'd found had seeped into every nook and cranny of the car. Hermione's jacket and hair stank of it, and she thought mournfully of the claw-foot tub in the bathroom next to her bedroom in the pub.
There wasn't time, though. Most of the women had disappeared not long after sunset, which was around seven-thirty at this time of year. They would have to walk fast to be in position on time.
Luna's eyes were bright with excitement as she got out of the car clutching her carrier bags of supplies. She had spent the afternoon drinking tea in the shop, while Hermione had dashed around Exeter, getting evidence sent for analysis and digging through every kind of record she could think of. Hermione's work had left her frustrated and frazzled. Luna had seemed quietly pleased while she explained something about solstices and creatures and sacrifices during the drive back.
If Hermione started to listen too carefully, Luna's explanations almost made sense. As long as you believed in fairies and boggles, that is. Hermione didn't. They were scientifically impossible and, therefore, Luna's theories couldn't be right. Her beastie with a Gaelic name that Hermione couldn't pronounce didn't exist, because it would turn all of Hermione's beliefs upside down.
"Are you ready?" Luna asked.
Hermione eyed the carrier bags. "Are you bringing those with us?"
"Of course I am. Unless you want something to eat your heart tonight."
"I prefer to have something a little more reliable," Hermione said. "I'll be back in a minute."
Luna smiled and crouched on the ground to rifle through her bags, her mind clearly somewhere else. Hermione shrugged and hurried away.
It only took her a couple of minutes to pack everything she would need into a backpack and gather up their warm coats. Luna was standing with a pack at her feet when Hermione got back to her, which she must have taken from the boot of the car, even though Hermione had the key. She took her coat from Hermione and slid it on with a murmured thanks.
Hermione pretended she didn't enjoy the warmth of Luna's skin when their hands brushed during the handover.
The pack let out a wave of herby stink when Luna swung it up to her back, which brought Hermione's attention back to the job at hand better than anything else could have.
***
Only a thin sliver of sun was visible on the horizon by the time Hermione and Luna nestled into place, concealed in the long grass around the henge. Luna had taken her pack of herby stuff up to the henge while Hermione set up their hiding spot. When Hermione looked up from the night camera she was setting up with a periscopic attachment, Luna was pacing around the stone circle with a bowl in her hands that sent a thin trail of smoke up to the sky.
Hopefully whoever was taking the women hadn't arrived yet. They were the least subtle investigators the agency could have sent, if the agency had knowingly assigned them at all. If they did disturb the unknown subject, at least they might be able to convince Director McGonagall that they'd prevented a kidnapping and done some good.
She might consider that good enough.
Maybe.
No, she'd give Hermione that look she had, mutter something terribly Scottish, and make sure they both spent two weeks on microfiche duty.
Luna ambled across the field as Hermione put the finishing touches to their hastily-erected hide. It might be enough. She'd tied enough grass onto the blankets they were hiding under. In the twilight, Luna's trail wasn't visible. She even fluffed up some of the grass around them before settling under the blanket next to Hermione.
Hermione pulled the blanket over their heads and checked the eyepiece of the camera. It had a perfect view of the footpath as it disappeared into the henge.
Luna pulled out a thin periscopic viewer and raised it to her eye. "She's not here yet."
"The sun isn't down," Hermione said, keeping her voice low.
As she spoke, the sun disappeared below the horizon in a blaze of red and orange clouds. On any other night, lying under a blanket with this kind of view might have been nice. Romantic, even.
This night, Hermione was waiting for a woman who might be killed, and she was waiting with Luna. It definitely wasn't romantic.
Not even when Luna shifted closer, so she was pressed against Hermione's side from shoulder to knee. The ground was cold and the breeze was turning chilly, that was all. Luna couldn't be trying to get closer to Hermione; couldn't be wanting contact or experiencing those random urges to do something potentially disastrous.
The rustle of feet in the grass snapped Hermione's attention back to where it should be. She pressed her eye against the view finder of her camera, but the intruder was a teenaged boy wearing the local school uniform, a pair of muddy football boots dangling from his rucksack. Evening practice and a bag of chips on the way home, from the looks of things.
The scent of salt and vinegar made Hermione's stomach growl.
She bit her lip and jumped when Luna's hand nudged hers. When she looked down, Luna had slid a few cling film-wrapped Jaffa cakes over to her. Hermione smiled her thanks and ate a couple, trying to make as little noise as possible.
The last of the red light disappeared from the sky and darkness fell. Overhead, a few stars peeked out between the scudding scraps of cloud. Cassiopeia, the Plough, Orion; Hermione could name more of them than she'd expected. It had been years since she'd had time to look up and study them.
Another rustle in the grass caught Hermione's attention. She peered through the view finder, barely feeling Luna's arm brush hers as she took out her periscopic viewer. It took Hermione a moment of searching to find the woman walking through the long grass. Her coat and trousers were a dark colour, her long black hair hid her face, and it was only a flash of pale skin when she took her hands out of her pocket that gave her away. Bright moonlight lit her path, and she walked briskly without stumbling, even though the shadows cast by the moon were pitch black.
She was alone. The right age. It was the right night. The sun was down and the moon was heavy in the sky.
Hermione turned the camera slightly, until the henge came into view, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't see any sign of someone lying in wait. Of course, they could be crouching in the grass like Hermione and Luna. That was the problem with the location: too many options for someone to hide and jump out. It must be why their predator had been so successful for all these years.
The woman's feet echoed on the wood of the bridge over the ditch. Hermione half expected a hand to reach up from underneath and grab her ankle, but nothing happened. She reached the other side safely.
Luna's elbow suddenly dug into Hermione's ribs, and her entire body almost seemed to quiver with tension where it pressed against Hermione's side.
Hermione searched the henge again, but her camera lens revealed nothing. She switched to night vision and everything became tinted with green, but there was still nothing.
Except, no, not nothing. The grass inside the henge was emitting a dim glow. The woman's dark shape stood out against it as she crossed the circle.
Hermione pulled back and blinked, frowning. There was something very wrong here.
Luna nudged her and held out the periscope viewer. Logically, it shouldn't show her anything that the fancy digital camera could, but Hermione was willing to admit that, sometimes, things happened around Luna that were impossible to explain.
She peered through the viewer and stifled a gasp. The grass wasn't glowing. Tiny spots of light were floating just above it, a colourful mass that might have been fireflies if they hadn't been in every shade of imaginable and a few that Hermione's brain tripped over without naming.
It was beautiful. Impossible. Wonderful.
The woman had stopped in the middle of the cloud, which barely reached her ankles. Hermione couldn't see her face, but she was willing to bet it reflected the same amazement she was feeling.
One spot separated from the rest and darted up, circling the woman's head. Two more followed, three, four, dozens and hundreds of dots bobbing around the woman until she was lit up from head to foot with unearthly ever-changing light.
She lifted a hand and the lights followed the motion, pressing closer to her body. The grass was carpeted with them, bright enough to send up a soft glow when Hermione took her eye away from the viewer.
"What are they?" she asked, keeping her voice low.
Luna didn't answer. Her eyes reflected the glow as she knelt up, her expression caught somewhere between fascination and revulsion.
"Are they dangerous?" Hermione said.
Luna blinked and looked down. Her face was hidden in shadow, but her voice was easy to read. "Oh, yes, very dangerous. Absolutely lethal. But they're beautiful, aren't they?"
Hermione sighed. "The dangerous, lethal lights are very pretty, yes, but what are they? What will they do?"
"Carry her down under the hill," Luna said. "If we're not careful."
"Hill?"
Hermione thought for a moment, trying to remember the topology on the map. She supposed they were on a hill, if the bar for "hill" was set very low. It was more of a mound, really. Barely a bump in the soil compared to the Chilterns where Hermione had grown up.
Why did carrying people away under the hill ring a bell? Hermione was sure that she'd read something about it, a long time ago. Perhaps when she was a child.
"But that's just fairy stories," she said out loud, but it was too late.
Luna had already stood and hurried towards the henge. All that Hermione could do was pull out her bloody useless extendable baton and follow, cursing under her breath.
The woman was almost hidden under lights, which were so bright that they hurt Hermione's eyes to look at. The shifting mass of colour was whirling around her so fast that individual dots couldn't be seen any more. Luna was outpacing Hermione already, pushing through long grass that suddenly seemed to be fighting them, clinging to their legs and slowing them until Hermione felt like she was wading through toffee.
Toffee that clung and tripped and tangled in her shoe laces.
Luna seemed to be making better progress. She reached the bridge while Hermione was still wading forward, losing a shoe to the wriggling stalks.
The pulsing light around the woman was growing stronger. Most of the dots had floated away from the grass to join their brethren; only a few still darted hither and thither around the circle, as if guarding it.
Luna was carrying something that gave off its own glow. For a moment, Hermione thought it was a torch, but the shape was all wrong. It was too narrow, too long, and the glow spread along the entire length, although it was brighter at the tip.
It couldn't possibly be a wand. Hermione had to be seeing things. As odd as Luna was, she wouldn't be waving around a wand. They weren't really magic, for a start. The swishy willow switches Hermione had seen a pagan group waving around (arrested last year for dancing naked in a field overlooked by the M4) had been nothing special. Hermione was a scientist. She had never seen anything that couldn't be explained by science.
She ignored the vaguely uneasy feeling at the memory of a few incidents over the last few months. Nothing had ever been definitive.
Maybe if she hadn't arrived when things were mostly over, or been thrown across rooms and knocked her head, she might have seen something she couldn't explain. Perhaps. But magic was only something that science couldn't explain yet.
Therefore, there had to be a perfectly rational explanation for the glowing stick that Luna was holding out in front of her as she crossed the stone circle.
Luna's hair whipped around her in a breeze that Hermione couldn't feel. She seemed to be fighting for every step she took, battling the wind. Hermione wrenched her own foot free of clinging grass, but more enveloped it when she stepped forward. Every inch of movement was a battle, a war against plants that had been so calm only a couple of hours ago.
Nothing about this made any sense. It broke every scientific law Hermione had ever learned. Plants couldn't fight her, and a wind so strong that Luna had to lean into it couldn't be restricted to a stone circle. It couldn't.
The lights around the woman were growing stronger, pulsing like a heartbeat, and Hermione knew they were going to lose the battle. She didn't know what they were fighting, but they they were ordinary government agents, not fighters or magicians, which couldn't exist. Those lights, whatever they were from, were going to steal the woman away under the hill, and they would do it over and over until whatever appetite they had was satisfied.
Or until someone stronger than two young agents came here and figured out how to stop it.
A flare of frustration gave Hermione new strength and she ripped free of the grass, a sharp stab of pain shooting through her knee with the motion. She stumbled forward, expecting the grass to catch her again, but it didn't.
It couldn't.
She landed on the wooden bridge of the ditch, bruising her knees. Her hands stung with splinters, and one leg was throbbing in a way that she knew didn't mean anything good, but she was free from the grass.
Hermione looked up, in time to see Luna take one another step closer to the swarm of lights. They were almost too bright to look at, and Luna was a dark silhouette against them. The stick in her hand was glowing brighter than anything, though. A pure beam of white that glowed through Luna's hand and burned away every shadow inside the circle.
Hermione clambered to her feet, stumbling when her knee tried to buckle, but she managed to stagger across the bridge. Entering the circle was like hitting a wall: of wind; of noise; of vicious voices whispering in Hermione's ear.
They weren't speaking a language she knew, but she understood them. Knew the hatred and fear they were screaming. Knew that they'd seen all her secrets, all her unspoken wants, and could give her the world if she let them use her.
Shaking her head, Hermione put her hands over her ears, but that didn't help. The voices were in her head, were everywhere, and she couldn't push them away hard enough.
Luna forced another step and stretched out the hand holding the wand, but she couldn't reach the swirling lights. They were just out of reach.
Hermione drove forward with a determination and strength she'd never experienced before. Two steps, three, four; the pain in her knee was almost too much, but she couldn't give into it.
Five steps. Six. Seven.
Luna was right there in front of her, straining forward with everything she had. Hermione stretched out a hand and grasped Luna's, holding on tight.
The world seemed to slow. Luna's hand was warm in Hermione's, clinging with a desperation that matched everything Hermione felt. The wind whipped around them, harder than ever, but Hermione stood her ground. Luna glanced back at Hermione, her face alive with excitement, and Hermione couldn't help smiling back. Together, they pushed forward one more step and Luna's wand touched the bright vortex spinning around the woman.
A chill swept over Hermione. Cold seeped into her bones, her head, her lungs. Time slowed even more, so that each breath she drew lasted an age, and when Luna screamed, it was a distorted sound that Hermione couldn't understand.
Her knee buckled and she couldn't stop herself falling, but it happened so slowly. So painfully. She didn't release Luna's hand--couldn't--even though her breath was stuttering and her heart was faltering, and Hermione knew that she was dying. All the energy had flowed out of her and there was nothing left.
She held onto Luna's hand and sank down into darkness.
***
Hermione wasn't dead.
That was the first thing Hermione was aware of when she woke up. Being dead couldn't possibly hurt this much; ergo, she wasn't dead.
Her knee was throbbing and her head was hurting too much to think. Even her hand ached, as though she'd been holding onto something so tightly that it had started to cramp.
Holding on. That rang a bell.
Hermione's eyes snapped open and she gasped as eyes focused on a face peering down at her.
Luna's face. Luna's wind-blown blonde hair standing out in wild tangles. Luna's worried blue eyes.
Luna looking down at her with an expression Hermione had never seen on her face before: fear.
Looking down at her. From a very odd angle. If Hermione was reading it right, and feeling it right, she was lying with her head in Luna's lap, and Luna's arm was under her shoulders.
It brought Luna's face very close to hers. She could make out every eyelash surrounding Luna's wide eyes. They were quite pretty blue eyes, seen up close.
A smile chased away some of the fear in Luna's face. Hermione frowned. She hadn't said that last part out loud, had she?
"I didn't know you liked my eyes," Luna said. "They're not really my best feature. Some people used to compare me to a frog when I was at school."
Damn, she had.
"They were very cruel if they said that," Hermione said.
Luna shrugged. "They thought it was funny."
It was that unflinching acceptance of humanity's cruelty that Hermione had never understood before. She always fought back, defended people, but Luna simply shrugged and moved on, serene and calm within herself. That had to be why the whispers around the agency never moved her, or made her back down from her search for a truth nobody else believed in. If Hermione was ever asked, she would say that was what had first attracted her; what had first made her look under the eccentricities to find out who Luna was underneath.
"They were wrong," she said.
"It was a long time ago," Luna said. "How do you feel?"
"Like someone tried to shove a pick-axe through my brain, and then stomped on me for good measure." Hermione smiled wryly. "Other than that, I feel just fine."
Luna held up a hand. "How many fingers?"
"Three," Hermione said. "And you're cheating. You're supposed to hold them apart to make it easier to count."
"You did it anyway."
"I don't think I have a concussion."
"No, I don't think you do." A small frown wrinkled Luna's brow. "I didn't expect you to do that."
"What happened?"
"We killed the creature living under the mound."
Hermione tried to sit up, but her head spun and throbbed harder, so she gave up the attempt. "What happened to the woman?"
Luna glanced over her shoulder. "She's asleep, but I think she'll be fine. I found Jane, too. I suspect the other women died years ago."
"How?" Hermione waved a hand, trying to encompass everything that had happened in one gesture. "What did we do?"
Luna tilted her head. "Do you really want me to explain? What will that do to your reports?"
Hermione opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it. She thought for a long, hard minute. "I want the truth. Let me worry about what to put in the report."
A wide smile lit up Luna's face, making her prettier and happier than Hermione had ever seen before. It might have been the headache, or the lingering sense of strangeness that made Hermione react. She didn't question that instinct later.
Hermione reached up, hooked a hand around Luna's neck, and pulled her down into a kiss.
It would have been easy enough for Luna to resist; Hermione was still exhausted and drained, so the strength in her arm was so slight that Luna could have batted it away. Later that night, when Hermione worried about the kiss, she remembered that fact.
And she remembered that Luna's lips pressed against hers, more firmly than Hermione expected. That Luna made a soft sound at the back of her throat. That the kiss was more than just a press of lips: it was movement and warmth, learning shape and texture.
That Luna tugged Hermione's hand away from her neck and wove their fingers together tightly.
When Luna pulled back, she was wearing one of those serene smiles that usually irritated Hermione so much. This time, it sent warmth flooding through Hermione's body, and she couldn't help smiling back.
"The creature under the mound," Luna said, "comes from another realm..."
***
Hermione tugged her blazer straight before knocking on the door. It opened before she lowered her hand, to reveal a woman dressed in black, from her pointy-toed shoes to her hat, set on wild black hair. Dark glasses concealed her eyes, but Hermione could feel them surveying her, the sensation making her skin crawl.
It was the woman she'd passed in the corridor a few weeks ago.
As it to confirm that, the woman raised a cigarette holder to her lips and took a deep draw. Hermione stepped back to allow the woman to pass her, suppressing a cough as the woman's smoke streamed into her face. The cigarette smoking woman strolled away without a backward glance, but Hermione had the oddest sensation that the woman was still watching her, even though it was impossible.
She was starting to question the word "impossible".
"Come in!" Director McGonagall called, and Hermione hurried forward.
McGonagall was standing behind her desk, fingertips pressed against it, staring at the door with an expression that hovered somewhere between irritation and disgust. Hermione glanced over her shoulder and back to McGonagall.
"Is everything all right?" she asked.
McGonagall pursed her lips, but some of the disgust melted away from her face, leaving behind her usual levels of irritation. "Agent Granger, please take a seat."
Hermione sat, and McGonagall followed suit. Their gazes met and held for a minute. Hermione blinked first.
McGonagall lifted a manila folder off the pile in one of her trays and slid it across the desk, tapping it with one finger. "Is this the report you intend to file?"
"Yes, Director," Hermione said, forcing herself to meet McGonagall's eyes.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Do you stand by every word of it?"
"Yes."
"Hmm." McGonagall's lips puckered. "It feels somewhat...incomplete."
"I was unconscious for the significant part, I suspect."
"You seem to be absent or unconscious for the significant parts with startling frequency."
"I am rather unlucky in that way."
"Hmm."
"Is that all?" Hermione asked.
McGonagall was silent for a long moment, before shaking her head with weary resignation. "Yes, that's all. Have the medics checked you over?"
"They've signed me as clear to resume my duties. No concussion."
"Then I suppose you'd better get back to it." A smile flashed across McGonagall's face. "I believe that Agent Lovegood has something for you."
Hermione nodded and stood.
***
There was a new pencil stuck in the ceiling of their office when Hermione reached the basement. Luna was rifling through one of the cabinets, her face alight with the kind of excitement that told Hermione they would shortly be rushing off to chase something impossible.
Hermione leaned over to peer at the computer screen, which showed a grainy photograph of a field with what might be a large black cat bounding across. Large enough to be a panther, not a domestic moggie.
"What is that?" Hermione asked.
Luna slammed a drawer and hurried over with three files. "The Beast of Bodmin."
"That's a hoax."
"Really?" Luna smiled. "We've got a case, from a source. A mutilated woman, found just outside Bodmin. She was torn apart by a wild animal."
Hermione frowned. She might, possibly, maybe, be willing to concede that there were forces out there that she couldn't understand. Maybe she could believe that she and Luna had once been able to do something with those forces.
The Beast of Bodmin was definitely not real, though.
"I've booked a car," Luna said, "and a little B and B for a couple of nights."
"Let me get my bag," Hermione said.
Luna beamed, and Hermione couldn't resist leaning in to kiss her cheek, letting the citrusy scent of Luna's shampoo surround her for a moment.
A couple of days in Cornwall in a nice bed and breakfast with her coworker-slash-girlfriend. They could do a little investigating, Hermione could do a little autopsy to prove the death wasn't due to alien big cats roaming the moor, and they could find a nice little restaurant for date night.
What could possibly go wrong?