Hermione sent Malfoy an owl first thing the next morning, asking for a complete list of wards that were on his vault. She wasn't sure if actually determining what ward had interfered with the Gringotts' alarms would help solve the case, but she couldn't let the thought go. If anything, she needed the answers for her own peace of mind and she'd be damned if she didn't get them.

Upon returning to her office from the owlery, Hermione found Harry waiting for her. He held a file in one hand and looked slightly uncomfortable which was so unlike him that she had to take a second to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"Harry?" she asked. He twisted around sharply and gave her an awkward smile. "What's going on?"

"We got the results on the signet ring," he told her. As soon as she was within reach, he handed her the file and she opened it while he went on to explain, "It's a Nott family heirloom, but Gringotts records show Theo Nott—the only remaining Nott who isn't imprisoned—hasn't entered Gringotts in years."

"Has the Nott vault been accessed at all? Maybe someone else was in possession of the ring," Hermione suggested. The file Harry had handed her wasn't very full, but it did compare Theo Nott's comings and goings with the records from Gringotts. Just like Harry had said, Nott hadn't been to Gringotts in years.

"He did marry Daphne Greengrass, but she's only accessed the vault once and that was seven months ago," Harry said.

Hermione hummed. Crabbe was dead several months before that, but Harry didn't know that and it likely wasn't related. What little she knew about Daphne led her to believe she was not the aggressive type. It was highly unlikely Daphne Nott was directly involved in whatever had happened in Malfoy's vault. Theo Nott, on the other hand, could be a viable lead.

"I'll contact the Notts anyway," she said, making a mental note to also mention it to Malfoy. If Nott held any grudges against him, Malfoy would be the best source. "Anything else? You look worried."

"It's not really related," Harry said, waving away her question. Hermione frowned and Harry sighed. "Last night, we got an alert that someone triggered the wards around an old crime scene. It was one of Ron's cases so I tried to contact him, but he hasn't said anything."

"Where was it?" Hermione asked. If she'd triggered a Ministry ward in an attempt to use Malfoy's not-portkey key, she'd kill him.

"Remember that case Ron had that ended up being tied to the Smith murder?" Harry asked. Hermione nodded and held in her sigh of relief. It hadn't been the same house she'd visited. "Someone tried to break in but the wards around the cabin were triggered before they did anything."

"Have aurors been sent out to check the area?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded. "Let me know when they come back. I want to know what they found."

"You think it's connected to the Gringotts case?" Harry asked in confusion. Hermione shrugged and dropped the file he'd handed her onto her desk.

"Could be," she replied. "It's seems like suspicious timing, especially after I—" She cut herself off before she mentioned visiting the site of Smith's murder. "Well, it just seems suspicious."

"No, what were you saying before?" Harry asked, looking even more confused now. "Did you find something out yesterday?"

With a sigh, Hermione sat down behind her desk and told Harry about her trip to Gringotts. She refrained from mentioning Malfoy showing up in her office and leaving her with a key and an address, but she did mention Zabini had met her there.

"Apparently he'd made the appointment ahead of time so I could talk to the goblins, but I don't know how he could have known I'd be there," she murmured. Unfortunately, she did have a rather good idea and it started with 'Draco' and ended in 'Malfoy'. "The goblins weren't entirely helpful, but I did manage to send a request for the wards on Malfoy's vault and should be hearing back soon."

"What does that have to do with the old Smith case though?" Harry asked. Hermione argued with herself for a couple of seconds before coming to the conclusion that she may as well just tell Harry.

"Malfoy sent me an owl with an address and when I went, it ended up being the same site where Smith had been murdered," she admitted, still leaving out the part about the key. "Someone's been there recently too. The sofa was torn up and the desk was scratched."

"Ron said it was untouched," Harry remembered. Hermione nodded. "Alright. I'll let Larkin know we may need the report from that case and the two may be connected. Let me know when you hear back from Malfoy, yeah?"

"Of course," she promised. Harry smiled and after promising to meet her again for lunch, he left her office.

As soon as the door had latched behind her, her Ministry owl flew in through her window and hooted happily. Hermione jumped, not having expected the owl to return so soon, and untied the parchment for its leg. She gave the owl a treat then unrolled the parchment. Beside her, the owl hopped around her desk and hooted happily.

The note Malfoy had written for her was longer than the last few, thank Merlin, but he still refused to include all the wards surrounding the vault. Three were listed and while Hermione knew one of them had to be at least a little helpful, she still knew the real ward was not listed.

Here's all the wards that you asked for. Don't worry, I kept any incriminating details to myself. - D. M.

While she appreciated the more comprehensive list, she did not like the thought that the one ward she needed to know was something that would incriminate Malfoy. It wouldn't have been a surprise if he'd straight up told her it dealt with dark magic, but it was frustrating. The Malfoys were renowned for their past involving dark magic and Hermione tended to think the best of everyone, but Malfoy dabbling in the art was almost expected if she were honest.

She set aside the note from Malfoy and penned a quick response. At the very least, she needed to know how the missing ward worked and what it did to interfere with the Gringotts alarms. He didn't need to tell her which one it was or how to set it up. All she needed from him, she wrote, was information on how it could have altered the alarms. She also mentioned the possibility of Theo Nott holding a grudge against him and asked if it was at all possible he'd been the one to break into his vault.

Once her letter was written and the owl flew out her window again, Hermione wrote another letter to Daphne Nott asking for her presence at the Ministry the following morning. With a little luck, Daphne would know if her husband held a grudge against Malfoy.

All of the responses came back at once which, if Hermione had been the superstitious kind, she would have recognised as bad news. Daphne Nott apologised greatly, but she was currently out of the country and not expected back for quite some time. If Hermione had any particular interests, though, she was more than willing to reply by owl. Malfoy, on the other hand, had written a very detailed reply as to how the Malfoy vault wards interacted with the Gringotts' wards.

If the Gringotts alarm system did not register the Malfoy vault, then someone else has been messing with the magic and I, my dear Granger, cannot be held accountable for it. Best of luck to you though and Zabini sends his love.

Hermione stuffed the letter from Malfoy into the same desk drawer as other letters he'd sent, but took a few minutes to write back to Daphne. It didn't even occur to her until she arrived home that if Daphne was really out of the country, the response would have taken longer to reach her.

By then, Hermione was already lying in bed with Crookshanks beside her and the last thing she wanted was to get up. Deciding it would be a problem for the next morning, she flicked off her lamp and hoped she wouldn't dream about the case like she had the night before.

She got her wish, of course, but only because fate had a twisted way of granting it. While she didn't dream about the case, she also couldn't sleep and ended up returning to her office with bags under her eyes and a frown on her face.

"Merlin, Hermione," Harry exclaimed, falling into step beside her. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"I believe I got a complete 2 hours and 32 minutes," Hermione grumbled. She took a long sip of her coffee then asked, "What can I do for you, Harry?"

"Larkin sent me the files related to the Smith case," Harry told her, gesturing to his office. "I thought you might want to look through them with me." He looked back at his office and frowned while Hermione opened her office door. "It's not very organised since it's Ron's, but I imagine—"

Hermione had just turned to step into office and was about to invite Harry in, but the sight of Draco Malfoy sitting at her desk once again made her stop short. Malfoy's eyes widened at the sight of Harry and he fell in an ever-so-elegant heap below her desk seconds before Harry turned back to face Hermione.

"—we can get through it quickly," he finished saying. He gave Hermione a grin and she returned it with a panicked smile of her own.

"I actually have some owls to get back to," she told him, stopping him from walking further into her office. "I will come over as soon as I'm finished though, okay?"

Harry looked at her strangely and Hermione resisted the urge to look at her desk and make sure Malfoy was successfully hidden.

"Sure thing, Hermione," Harry said slowly. "No rush though, yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling tightly. "See you in a bit, Harry."

Harry gave her an awkward wave before turning back to his office. Hermione hurried to close and lock the door then rounded on Malfoy before he'd even crawled out from under her desk.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, marching up to him and pulling him up. He was taller than her, but that didn't stop her from pulling him up from under and around her desk. "You can't just show up in my office."

"My apologies, Granger," Malfoy said, smoothing out his robes. He gave her an irritated look and said, "It was my impression that you wanted my cooperation. If that's incorrect, I can gladly leave—"

"Don't you dare," Hermione growled. She summoned a chair forward and it hit the back of Malfoy's knees. "Sit."

With a flourish of robes, Malfoy situated himself in the seat and looked perfectly at ease despite how uncomfortable she knew that chair to be. Hermione sighed to herself and sat in her desk chair, taking another long sip of her coffee.

"Talk," she snapped. She procured a clean parchment and a Quik-Notes quill as she leaned back in her own chair.

"My, my, Granger," Malfoy clucked, folding his hands across his stomach. "Do you always treat your willing witnesses like this?"

"You are neither willing nor a witness," Hermione reminded him, eyeing the quill as it copied their words down dutifully. "You are at most a coerced contact."

"Very well," Malfoy said, letting out a deep breath. "However you want to call it, I'm here, aren't I? Don't you have questions?"

Hermione blinked.

"What?"

"You heard me, Granger," Malfoy said, a smirk playing on his lips. Hermione glared. "Ask away, oh wise one."

Hermione fumbled for her scribbled list of questions, not having expected him to offer up a free questioning. The list was scrambled and in no particular order, but at least she'd written down the questions as they'd come to her.

"We found a family ring belonging to Theodore Nott in your vault during our first investigation," she informed him, glancing up at him momentarily. "Is there any way Nott could be behind this? Do you two have any grudges?"

"No, absolutely not," Malfoy said, waving his hand briefly before bringing it up so he could prop his chin up on it. "Nott's with me."

"He's 'with you'?" Hermione repeated sceptically. "What does that—Oh." The realisation hit her and Malfoy nodded.

"Oh," he said, waggling his eyebrows at her teasingly. "Yes, Nott's one of the pack. Was he really your only suspect?"

"Well we haven't got much to go off of, do we?" Hermione snapped in reply. "You haven't been exactly helpful until now, so we've had to grab at what we can."

"You can scratch Nott off the list," Malfoy informed her. He nodded at her parchment and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"What was his signet ring doing there? Did you know it has blood curses on it?" she asked as her curiosity got the better of her. Malfoy leaned back in his chair as Hermione leaned forward in interest.

"He probably dropped it when we went by last time," he said, rubbing his chin with a frown. "The blood curses don't surprise me, though. His family was always like mine in that sense. Curse the jewelry, kill the muggles." Malfoy waved a hand and Hermione blinked. "We've bonded over thwarting those ideals."

"So not Nott?" Hermione asked uselessly. Malfoy snickered.

"No, not Nott."

Hermione watched her quill write that down and hummed, looking at her list of remaining questions. If Malfoy was so sure it couldn't be Nott, then that meant she didn't need to write Daphne any particularly pointed questions. At the thought of Daphne, however, Hermione remembered her strange letter.

"Are the Notts out of the country? Daphne or Theodore?" she asked, staring at the letter that still sat on her desk. Malfoy shook his head and she sat up. "Neither of them? You're sure?"

"Well, not anymore," he said with the roll of his eyes. "I did just visit Daphne and I have it on good authority Theo is out with Zabini."

Hermione pursed her lips.

"What?" he asked, sitting up in his seat as well.

"I owled Daphne yesterday and she said she was out of the country," Hermione said, still eyeing the letter.

"Ah, yes," Malfoy said, nodding. "I do remember now her saying something about visiting Switzerland for a while. I didn't think they'd left so soon."

"Don't lie for her," Hermione said, giving him a sharp look. "If Theodore is 'with you' as you say, then there's every reason for me to believe Daphne is as well."

"Daphne is a lady, Granger," Malfoy said. His tone was scandalized, but his face was teasing. "I would never ruin a lady's reputation like that."

Hermione snorted and did a poor job of covering it up by taking a sip of her coffee.

"Honest, Granger," Malfoy swore, raising his right hand mockingly.

"Do you have any more honest answers or should I consider this the end of the meeting?" she asked. Malfoy sighed and looked around, gripping the arms of his chair before standing.

"I do have many legal things to do today," he said, winking at Hermione as he said it. "Many important, legal things."

"Cut the shit, Malfoy," Hermione grumbled. Malfoy smirked. "If you're ever feeling overly willing to share information again, do feel free to owl beforehand."

"Of course, dear Granger," he replied. He gave her a bit of a mocking bow and pulled out his wand. "Until then."

And without disturbing even a hair on her head, Malfoy disappeared in front of her eyes, leaving Hermione with nothing but a list of vaguely useful information and many more questions than before.