The Reluctant Detectives

Chapter Twenty-Four


It was a thoroughly scrubbed Sirius Black that went looking for “Frannie”. The difficulty came with the fact that he had met her while so in his cups that even in his memory of meeting her, an image couldn’t clearly appear of what she looked like. So Severus, Hermione, and Sirius went pub hopping.


As a result of the hunt, Severus was in a foul temper, Sirius was behaving like a sullen child, and Hermione had a headache from them both bickering. If this was what it was like to have children, she thought, I’m remaining barren.


“Stop it the both of you!” she snapped, interrupting yet another skirmish between the two. “I have had it up to here!” She held her hand up to her neck in a cutting motion. “We are here to work, not satisfy some pettiness both of you cannot let go of!”


“That’s not…” Sirius started.


“Hermione…” Severus tried to lecture.


“I said to stop and I meant it!” she hissed. “Least I lock you both in a closet together and tell everyone within spitting distance that you are really closet gays that have lusted for each other since Hogwarts!”


“You wouldn’t!” Sirius exclaimed.


“She would,” Severus replied flatly. “Hermione knows we aren’t homophobic. It’s pure loathing of each other on both of our parts and she’d use it.”


Taking a deep breath, she said, “Okay.” She looked over to Sirius. “Is there anything, anything at all that you can remember about her? Any special markings or moles or tattoos?”


He thought it over. “She was a blond bird about your height. But tattoos?” He shrugged. “I can’t think of anything.”


“Not even a mole? Or a birthmark?”


He shook his head no. “Sorry.”


They ended up going back over to the Leaky Caldron to speak to Tom, the owner and operator of the establishment. With any luck whatsoever, he was working the night before and saw Sirius with this woman. He greeted them all jovially.


“You look ready for a pint!” he said to Hermione.


“A butter beer and the lunch special, please,” she murmured.


“Same for me,” Severus told him.


“A bottle of fire whiskey,” Sirius said. “And we need to talk to you once you get the drinks over to us.”


The older wizard nodded and went about putting out the food order to the back, as well as getting their drinks. He set the drinks down, sitting down with one of his own in hand.


“It’s my break,” he told them, nodded to the young man taking over the stick for him. “That way we can talk in peace.”


“Thanks, Tom,” Hermione said with a smile. “We were wondering if you saw Mr. Black here…” She looked over to Sirius and waited for him to fill in the pertinent information.


“Last night between eleven and two-thirty in the morning,” Sirius put in. “Speaking to that blond bird Frannie.”


Tom’s face scrunched up in thought. “You were with Frannie?” He snorted. “Who hasn’t been, I ask you?”


“We needn’t go over that,” Sirius muttered, even as Severus let out yet another evil cackle. “Do you know what her full name is?”


“Francesca Willows,” he answered. “Lives over near the Knockturn Alley entrance.” He frowned. “Why?”


“It turns out that Sirius and she have a friend in common,” she told him. “He just wanted to ask her about him.”


After lunch they went to the address that Tom gave them. Hermione looked from the paper up to the less than pristine lodging house. Wincing she looked over to Severus and Sirius.


“You do know how to pick them, don’t you, Black?” Severus sneered


“We don’t know anything about her yet,” Hermione said, hoping beyond hope that Sirius hadn’t been suffering from beer goggles when he had met Frannie. For all they know they could be looking for a four hundred pound squib, who was missing all her teeth and bald as a billiard ball to boot. Taking a deep breath trying to fortify herself, she began to walk into the building. “Let’s go. Days a wasting.”


Hermione was worried that they would have to go door to door. But as it turned out there was a manager in an open front office that looked like a hotel reception desk.


Smiling she said, “I’m looking for Frannie. Please tell me she’s in?”


The squat, balding man that looked like something that escaped from a swamp looked from her to the two men she was with and back to her. “You clients?”


“No, we’re from the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Public Health and Safety,” Hermione said to him, making his eyes bug out as she added in a nearly confidential tone, “We heard a rumor she has caught…something.”


“What?” he demanded in a croak. “What did she catch?”


“It’s a rumor, sir,” she told him. “About the only thing we are certain of is that one of the last men she was involved with sexually developed severe headaches, dehydration, and an abnormal sensitivity to light. We at the Ministry only wish to make sure all is well with her. You understand?”


He nodded very seriously whispering, “She’s in room 309.”


“The Ministry of Magic thanks you, sir,” she told him and charged straight over to the lift with the other two men right behind her.


As soon as the doors to the lift closed, Sirius hissed, “I didn’t get anything from her!”


“No, Sirius, and if you had listened very carefully, I never said you did.”


He frowned. “But all that you said about headaches and dehydration… and that bit about sensitivity to light!”


Smiling she murmured, “Not to sound immodest, but I thought that was ingenious actually.”


“What? Why is that?” Sirius demanded.


“Because, you fool, she gave the symptoms of your hangover,” Severus told him. “And she didn’t say that you caught anything from her. Only that what was going on happened to one of the last men to sleep with her. Which if you think about it, you still are currently experiencing the same said symptoms.”


Sirius went silent as Hermione rolled her eyes muttering, “It’s the inbreeding, isn’t it?”


“Oh yes,” Severus agreed.


Outraged Sirius exclaimed, “I’m right here, you know!”


She looked at him and told him, “You are behaving like a university student on a constant bender, Sirius. This wouldn’t be an issue, but I didn’t save your life so that you could waste it. Your godson needs you…”


“I am there for him!” he cut in.


“Then act like it!” she roared into his face. “Instead of this shiftless, good for nothing, arsehole who wants to fuck the world and drown in booze in order to forget the hell he went through. Talk to Harry and reassure him!” She took a step back. “He’s going to be a father. He doesn’t need a buddy. He needs you to be there, as his own father can’t be.” She crossed her arms over her chest, adding, “In simpler terms, Mr. Black, you need to grow up.”


***


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