Harvest Moon

Hermione and Ara were racing up the grand staircase almost instantly. Hermione had the modified cell phone in hand and was calling to see where Draco and Luna were.



“We\'re enroute,” Draco said. “What\'s wrong, Granger?”



“Our killer is wearing Ara\'s face and he may have your father,” Hermione said, trying to quell the rising panic as they searched room after room to no avail.



“Where\'s Ara?” Luna asked over the speaker.



“With me,” Hermione said, flinging open another door to the protests of the room\'s inhabitants. “Sorry! Call me as soon as you get here so I can tell you where we\'ve already searched.”



“Will do. And Granger, calm down. My father isn\'t a complete idiot. Usually,” Draco said before hanging up. He glanced over at Luna, who was frowning. “What is it?”



“I have a very bad feeling about this, Draco,” she said.



“Gods, so do I,” Draco said, running a suddenly shaking hand over his forehead.





Hermione shoved her hands through her hair in frustration. “We\'ve searched this whole floor and the ones below it. I wonder where Harry is,” she said, pulling out the phone again before remembering she\'d never had his new number. “How sad is that?” she murmured. “Most of my childhood with him and I don\'t even know what his phone number is.”



“I have it,” Ara said, dialing and waiting for him to answer.





“Potter. Did you find him, Arabella?”



“Not yet. Have you?”



“What I\'ve found are many people in various stages of undress, restraint and pain. Are you positive this is all legal?” he said, sounding highly doubtful of that fact.



“Completely,” Arabella said, trying not to laugh as they were in a very serious situation. “Stop being so squeamish, Harry.”



Harry grumbled before hanging up. “I’m just happy I didn’t bring Gin with me. She’d want to try half of this,” he said under his breath. He steeled himself before opening another door.



“Hey! No one else is supposed to be here,” one of the occupants of the room said.



“Sorry!” he said before backing out. Gods, the Malfoys owed him massively for going through all this.



“You can join us if you’d like,” said the occupant dangling from the ceiling from her ankles said, a little breathlessly.



“Er, not right now, thanks.”



She shrugged as best she could. “Your loss. I’m fun upside down.”



“Doubtlessly,” he said before closing the door.





Draco and Luna arrived and Draco was immediately on the phone with Hermione while Luna fended off admirers. She caught Taz’s eye and dragged Draco along with her over to the Mistress’ chair.



“Who’s dead and/or missing this time?” Taz questioned.



“Father,” Draco said. “Before you even ask . . . No, Granger, we haven’t found him yet. I was talking to Taz.”



“Who is he impersonating this time?” Taz asked.



“Ara,” Luna answered. “Harry, Hermione and the real Arabella are searching for him now.”



Taz nodded. “Wish they would have told me sooner.”



Luna shrugged. “There wasn’t anything you could have done about it at that point in your condition, Taz,” she pointed out. “He was bound to try taking someone tonight or wait until we dropped our guard.”



Draco closed the phone and shook his head. “He wouldn’t have waited. From what Granger and I can work out on the profiling end of things he’s been getting impatient. Considering what the reversed spells on the wand tell us, he’s been at this for close to two years now. Seems his reserve of restraint reached its end. That or it was simply a crime of opportunity and he took Father as an attempt to lure those close to him into a rescue.”



“Has that ploy worked?” Luna asked.



“So far, it’s working brilliantly. If we don’t find him here and I doubt most sincerely we will, at very least Granger and myself are going to be searching for him,” Draco said.



“You’ll find him,” Luna said, stretching up to kiss Draco on the cheek. “I have confidence in both of you.”



“I know we’ll find him, Luna. I’d prefer him to be alive when we do,” Draco said, frowning.



“Well, he left me alive. Though that may have been a ploy to lure Lucius into doing something stupid. Which, I have to admit, this was pretty stupid in retrospect,” Taz said, looking around at the room in general. “That’s mostly my fault though.”



“No, it isn’t, Taz,” Draco said, hearing the very faint note of self blame creep into her voice. “He would have just found another place and opportunity.”



“Most likely,” Luna said. “We should go find the others and help them search.”



“You’re probably right there,” Draco said, following her lead.



Andrew’s head tilted to the side slightly, watching as they walked off before he looked at his Mistress. “My Lady?”



“Yes, Andrew?” Taz asked, thinking she might know what his next comment or question would be about.



“This was not meant to be a costume party, was it?”



“No, it wasn’t.”



“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “May I ask a question then, my Lady?”



“You may.”



“If this was not to be a costume party, why is Lord Malfoy dressed as a John Deere tractor?”