Hermione Granger and the Theft of Magic

Chapter 32: The Province of the Wise and Good

[A/N: Thank you to Calamity Owl for beta-reading this chapter!]

Harry walked into his office the next evening for his first shift since he'd left for Banda Aceh to find a pile of memos on his desk and a Sue on his chair.

"Welcome back, ex-rookie," she said.

"Ex-rookie?" Harry asked.

"We've got a new rookie now," Sue said. "Owens started while we were out. He said the 'Q' word last night."

Harry winced. "How bad?"

"A call came in immediately from Umbridge's house." Sue vacated his chair as she spoke and they traded spots. In a moment, Harry had his chair back and Sue was in her usual spot leaning in his doorway. "We checked it out and it seemed legit, so we called for backup."

"Seemed legit?" Harry asked. "What happened?"

"Oz, John, and I went to check the house while I left Owens with Umbridge," Sue said. "While we were clearing the house, which turned out to be empty, we heard an apparition outside, or possibly two. The echoes made it hard to tell. When I came back out, Owens was out cold and Umbridge was gone."

"Gone?" Harry furrowed his brows. "Is she alright? I mean, she's still a bitch, but I didn't want her to die." Not quite yet, at least.

"That's the weird thing," Sue said. "Owens thinks she stunned him, but we don't have any proof. My gut feeling is that she didn't, because I found Owens carefully laid on his side and Umbridge would never care enough about another human being to turn them over after stunning to avoid tongue-swallowing. John and Oz think he fell like that by accident, but I have my doubts. Anyway, we scoured the house and neighbourhood for her and couldn't find her, so we left. This morning, she showed up and said the whole thing had been a false alarm."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "A false alarm with a stunned Auror? Those seem mutually exclusive."

"I know, right?" Sue said. "We're keeping the case open, but without a complainant or proof that a crime was committed, it's hard to continue the investigation."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "Any idea why she changed her tune?"

"Not a clue," Sue said. "She even submitted to a quick test to prove she wasn't currently under the Imperius. She just wanted the investigation closed as quickly as possible."

"Weird." Harry inwardly crowed, but tried to keep it off of his face. "I'd ask you to bring me in on it if you want to go digging around her, but realistically, I hate her too much to be objective on an investigation."

"True enough," Sue said. "I just wanted to bounce some ideas off of you. Let me know if you think of anything that might give us a new angle on her, alright? This one's bugging me."

"Will do," Harry said. "I'm positive she's hiding something Merlin-damned shady, but I don't know what it was or how her little disappearing act played into it." He thought for a moment, then decided to risk it. If Sue hadn't thought of it, she would soon, and leading her in that direction might make her less likely to consider him as a suspect. "Have you considered Polyjuice? It's on my mind from Hermione's Christmas gift to us."

"Yes, I had." Sue nodded. Harry wasn't sure if he'd passed a test, though he couldn't help but wonder. "It's just a theory at this point. There's no way to test for it, Umbridge says nothing happened and we don't have any evidence of two Umbridges running around simultaneously. It would explain some things, but it's purely speculative without something concrete to work with."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "Without evidence, we're just casting hexes in the dark."

She sighed. "Yeah. I'll leave you to catch up on things. Owens will be back on shift tonight and he knows not to say the 'Q' word anymore, so hopefully you'll be able to catch up on some of that."