Chapter 21: Imprudent Vigilante

                                    

                                          
"Potter!" Draco shouted, pounding on Hermione's front door. There was a shuffling inside and the door flew open.
                          
"Malfoy! What happened?" Harry asked in a state of panic.
                          
"I was attacked," he stated.
                          
"Where's Herm-"
                          
Harry's words were cut off by a 'pop' and his question was answered when he looked down at the woman kneeling on the front porch with a man facedown next to her.
                          
"Is this him?" Harry asked quickly.
                          
"I'm almost certain," Hermione answered.
                          
"Almost isn't good enough," Harry replied. "Ron, help me with him."
                          
Draco looked up and saw the red-haired man move in front of Harry. Ron took the man's feet while Harry struggled to lift the large man's upper half. Their steps were small and as soon as they had made it into the room, they lifted him up and flopped him over the back of the sofa.
                          
"What happened?" asked Ron. "Is it him?"
                          
"I think so," said Hermione.
                          
"Not good enough," Ron repeated Harry's earlier statement. "Incarcerous." Ropes shot out of the end of Ron's wand and bound the man's hands and feet.
                          
"What happened?" Harry repeated.
                          
"He tried to kill me!" Draco growled angrily. It was obviously not the answer Harry or Ron had expected. Hermione started from the beginning.
                          
"We were in the bar. He was in the bar," said Hermione, pointing at the unconscious man on her sofa. "He was drinking from a tankard, but he still took a drink from a hip flask. I suspect it was polyjuice." As she said this, Ron dug into the man's cloak and found the hip flask. "He followed us to the apothecary and listened in with extendable ears at Borgin and Burkes. We were leaving Knockturn Alley when Draco just stopped. He turned around and went back the other way. I couldn't keep up and I fell and I had no idea what was happening. I didn't realize that he was under the Imperius curse. When I found both of them… he…"
                          
"He tried to make me kill myself. He called it justice," Draco finished. He was seething. His lip was twitching and his hands were shaking. Hermione gently set her hand on his upper arm. He looked down at her and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself.
                          
"So we know he's under polyjuice," said Harry, sniffing the flask that Ron had handed him. "But that doesn't mean that it's Dennis."
                          
"The extendable ears, though," Hermione offered. "Not many people, except those that grew up with them at school, would think to use them."
                          
"And this is definitely one of Fred and George's shield cloaks," Ron announced, examining the hem of the man's cloak.
                          
"I agree, but we still have to be careful. Hermione, put the pictures down. I don't want him to know whose home this is," Harry requested. Hermione nodded and from her place behind the sofa, swished her wand and all the photos, magic and non, flipped over.
                          
"Where's his wand?" Ron asked.
                          
"I have it," Hermione offered, handing the wand over to Ron.
                          
"What about the cloak?" Harry worried suddenly.
                          
"I have that too," Hermione had blushed when she reached behind her and took out the cloak. She had told Draco to leave, but she didn't know what to do with everything so she simply stuffed the cloak halfway into her shorts and it had been swinging like a tail. No one but Hermione saw anything strange about it.
                          
"When did he take the polyjuice?" inquired Draco.
                          
Hermione checked her watch. "He'll be changing in just a few minutes. I tried to time it well."