Every Little Thing

Valentine's Day

The victim had been successfully evaluated at St. Mungo's and taken to the ministry after the team of medi witches examined her and took samples of the blood from under her fingernails and hairs off of her clothes. This evidence was picked up by Bella and dropped off at the lab while she went to an interrogation room with the girl. She had called Draco in to help her question the victim because Bella found out that people were more likely to talk to Draco than to herself. She took no offense to this as she was proud of her abrasive side. They managed to get a sketch of the man and found out that he was going by the name of Ethan but it was most likely a fake name. The sketch artists ran prints of the face and wanted posters were hung around Diagon and taken to the Leaky Cauldron since that seemed to be the man's hot spot for finding women.

"How did you meet Ethan?" Draco asked, trying to get some more information out of the woman named Jamie.

"He came up to me outside of the Owl post and asked if I wanted to grab a drink. Seemed relatively innocent so I said yes because I was heading to the Leaky Cauldron anyway." Jamie shrugged her shoulders.

"And do you always accept every invitation extended to you by men you meet on the street?" Bella joined the conversation, coming around to stand next to her nephew who glared at her as if to say 'I've got this.' "Okay apparently that was rude of me, let me rephrase that, why would you follow a man you barely knew into a alley way when there's been murders of young women posted all over the prophet?" Draco sighed and wiped his hand down his face. "Still rude? Okay do you read the prophet?" Jamie shook her head yes. "Perfect. So you know about the murders?" She shook her head again. "Now we are getting somewhere. So you read the prophet and you know about the murders yet you still went to follow a strange man to the back alley of Leaky where you know these women have died." She nodded once more. "So tell me why?"

"It's like I wasn't acting under my own volition. I couldn't say no." She started tearing up as Draco shared a look with his aunt.

"You couldn't say no?" Draco repeated the girl's words back to her.

"That's right. Somewhere in my brain I was screaming at myself not to go but I couldn't physically stop myself." Jamie was crying now as Draco handed her a tissue. "I'm just thankful you were there Madam Black or my story would've ended up differently."

"I think that's all of the questions we have," Draco started but was cut off by his aunt.

"I have one last question," she looked at Jamie before asking, "when you agreed to go to get a drink with him, were you thinking for yourself then?" She nodded yes, "okay. Thank you for your time. You know how to contact us if you think of anything else. We will also need you to come back in for a line up if we manage to catch this guy."

"Thank you. Let me walk you out," Draco stood up and took Jamie out of the interrogation room. He came back a few moments later and saw his aunt pacing, looking at the sketch, "so the Imperius curse."

"Seems that way," Bella sighed, "which means these sketches are probably all bullshit because he was most likely glamoured." She threw the sketch into the fire, "fuck!"  She almost shrieked.

"That could be the case but if he's always glamours himself then some people might recognize him that way so it's not a complete lost cause," Draco said, grabbing the other sketches before Bella could destroy them.

"I suppose," Bella breathed sharply out of her nose, "thank you for being the logical one here, Dragon. I guess we can head out. Nothing else to be done now. I guess we just wait to see if we get a match from the blood and go from there and wait for the fucker to make his next move."

"How's the wedding planning coming?" He casually asked as they made their way out of the office and down to the main lobby to access the floo network.

"That, dear nephew, is a question best proposed to Hermione. From what I've heard, we do have a date nailed down and we may or may not be wearing clothes," she cackled when she saw Draco's cheeks turn pink. "Hey, have you heard from your mother lately? She hasn't been returning my messages and she's supposed to be helping Hermione with the wedding planning."