His Mistress

- CHAPTER FIVE -

Threats, Reflections and Recollections

One Friday afternoon, Hermione had her friends to dinner around a rectangular dining table in the kitchen of her humble home, The Wildrose Den. In the wizarding world, every home connected to the Floo Network had an official name, for reasons of convenience. For instance, she could Floo to the Weasleys' family house just by saying 'The Burrow' into the green flames, without having to say (or even know) the full address.

Hermione had christened her flat 'The Wildrose Den' because of the lovely wild rosebushes that grew in the backyard of the small house.

"Dumbledore said there will be an Order meeting on Monday, right?" Harry started.

Ron and Hermione nodded. The three of them, plus Neville, had been members of the Order of the Phoenix for years alongside some of their fellow Aurors (Tonks and Shacklebolt, to name a few). Dumbledore had extended an invitation to them to join the Order right after they had finished Hogwarts, and of course they had accepted.

"Well, I just received a firecall from Williamson this morning. He said my presence is required at some kind of hearing. Apparently, they're going to sentence the Death Eaters we caught and they need witnesses to be present. But I'm wondering why it has to be me. There were five of us and we all saw the same thing, right?"

"You think ... you think they're going to ask you questions about the ... about what happened?" Ron didn't dare to breach the unmentionable subject, but there was no need for him to say it directly. Everyone knew what he was talking about.

There had been uproar at the Auror Office when the Daily Prophet had caught wind of last week's Diagon Alley incident. The article had been written in a very unsympathetic way, not that anyone would expect Rita Skeeter to talk kindly of the Ministry. That woman had a horrible grudge against the government and she did not keep back from expressing it. Because of her report, the entire second level of the Ministry had been flooded with Howlers and complaints accusing the Aurors of everything ranging from carelessness and incompetence all the way to cowardice and even betrayal.

Hermione winced, remembering a particularly rude Howler which had accused them of purposely letting Death Eaters get away. It hadn't been far from the truth, but it had been very embarrassing, especially since the amplified voice was so loud that the entire department had heard it.

"Yeah, and I ... frankly, I don't like it. It's almost as if they're accusing us in particular because we're the youngest in the department ..."

"Oh, come on, Harry, no one is accusing you," Hermione cut in firmly. "Honestly, you've been taking lessons from Moody for too long."

Ron snickered, remembering day Harry had returned from lessons with the ex-Auror and knocked out Neville with a disarming spell when the poor boy had Apparated directly into the Grimmauld Place dining room in the middle of an Order meeting, no less. Constant vigilance indeed!

Hermione continued hastily before her two best friends had time to start an argument. "Why you, Harry? It's because you're the famous Harry Potter; why else would it be?" She chuckled, teasing her best friend. Harry obviously didn't enjoy the joke. Even after the years he had had to get used to it, he still hated being reminded of his fame. Hermione thought he was being silly. If she had the chance to have her name mentioned in wizarding history books, she would have enjoyed it immensely.

"Let me guess," she said. "The hearing just happens to be on Monday afternoon, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"So what'd you reckon we should do? Should we ask Dumbledore to postpone the meeting? What'd you think, Hermione?"

"I doubt Dumbledore will cancel the meeting just because one member is unable to attend, Ron."

Ron's ears went pink. Hermione looked like she wanted to say something else, but suddenly she fell silent, staring at the open window.

A large eagle owl swooped in through the window. Narrowly missing the top of Harry's head, it soared across the kitchen and flew straight at Hermione. It dropped an envelope on the table in front of her, then turned gracefully, zoomed outside and flew off across the garden.

Hermione stared at the envelope, which was addressed in a neat handwriting she had never seen, elegant swirls inclined slightly to the right, to Hermione A. Granger, The Kitchen, The Wildrose Den, London, Surrey.

It couldn't be an official message from the Ministry, because the Ministry of Magic never used eagle owls, which were rare and almost exclusively owned by old pure-blooded families. And besides, as she turned the envelope over, the Ministry of Magic seal was nowhere to be found. In its place was a complicated crest which seemed vaguely familiar to Hermione. Where had she seen it before? No doubt in some book, but which one?

Hermione opened it and unfurled the message apprehensively. She stared at the short notice for a moment and paled considerably.

My dearest Hermione,

I would like you to Apparate to the gardens
near my manor tonight at midnight, or else...
there will be consequences that you will
find harrowing if you do not comply with
this kind request.

Best regards,

L. Malfoy

The threat went unspoken. Or else... It left much space to her imagination, but she knew what the general meaning was. Or else something terrible will happen. Or else You-Know-Who will come after you. Or else your parents will be killed. Or else your friends might not come back from their next mission ... it left a thousand frightening possibilities, none of which she even wanted to consider.

Hermione looked as though she might faint. "Oh my goodness," was all she said.

Harry and Ron exchanged a look and tried to read the letter over Hermione's shoulder, but she incinerated it with a flick of her wand, thus preventing them from ever learning of its contents. She had memorised the whole thing anyway.

Vaguely, she wondered why he hadn't used his title to sign the letter. She had noticed in that genealogy book she had found at Grimmauld Place that the Malfoys were the Lords of a part of wizarding Salisbury, where she assumed their manor was located. Ron's voice brought her out of her academic musings and back into the present that she had wanted to escape.

"What was that?" Her overprotective red-haired 'brother' was interrogating her. "What was in that letter? Why did you look so scared? Who was it from?"

But she didn't answer. She sank into her chair, her face in her hands. Kind request ... the words she had just burnt danced under her closed eyelids like flames that refused to die, taunting, tempting, mocking her ... or else ... she remembered the excruciating pain of the Cruciatus Curse ... consequences ...

"Hermione, are you all right?" Harry asked carefully.

She raised her head. She was still trembling. She swallowed. "I'm - I'm fine, Harry, but I think I need to be alone. Please leave."

Harry and Ron exchanged a look.

"You look far from fine," said Harry.

"Hermione, if it's some threats ..." started Ron.

She raised her head to look at her best friends. A bit of colour had returned to her cheeks, and although her eyes still looked scared, the expression on her face was one of resolve.

"Harry, Ron, I can fight for myself," she as firmly as she could. "Just go, all right?"

"You can't stand for yourself if someone's blackmailing you! We can help -" Harry was cut off by Hermione.

"I don't need your protection!" she shouted angrily. "I can fend for myself! Leave or I'll hex you!" And she reached for her wand.

Ron glanced at Harry apprehensively. Hermione's hexes were as bad as Ginny's, if not worse, not to count that their female friend had acquired a dangerous syllabus of Dark spells during Auror training, and they knew for a fact that her knowledge of curses and jinxes exceeded theirs. When angry, the bushy-haired Auror was a dangerous force to be reckoned with. Any woman was - Ron's mother was the perfect example, as was his sister - but their best friend went wild in the rare occasions where she lost her temper.

"Alright, we'll go for now. But if you need help ..." Ron trailed off, looking at Hermione warily. She glared fiercely at him, and he was anxious to get the hell away from her if she actually decided to hex him. "I better go." And he Disapparated with a loud crack.

Harry stood there for a moment, hesitating. He understood that Hermione wanted to handle the situation on her own, and as an accomplished Auror, she was quite capable of watching out for herself. He was sure that if she needed their help, she would ask for it. She didn't appreciate people prying in her business ...

Harry reluctantly admitted to himself that it was best to leave her to her own devices. "Hermione, we just want you to know ... er, you're one of my best friends, and friends fight for each other, OK? No matter what happens," he said quietly.

If only Harry really meant these words ... and if only Ron shared his beliefs. If only Harry didn't consider Ron more of a friend than Hermione ...

"I know, Harry. Just go, please," she said weakly.

"Alright. See you on Monday."

I hope so, thought Hermione. I really hope so. Personally, she couldn't think of the future at the moment. She had no idea why Voldemort's right-hand man had called her to his house and whether she would leave it alive.

She offered Harry a reassuring smile, and he Disapparated to join Ron.

There was no doubt about what she was going to do. She would follow the instructions in the message; it wasn't like she really had a choice, was it? The choice was to obey or face the terrible consequences. And Hermione would never knowingly endanger her friends and family. She would rather die.

She told herself that she was doing this because she was afraid of what would happen if she didn't, not because she wanted to. At least that was what she wanted to believe ...

The vague threat was conveniently aimed to put her conscience asleep, so to say, and that was exactly what it did: it put her conscience and her scruples to sleep.

A rational mind would not have been affected by the unspecified - unspoken even - threat. Lucius Malfoy, who was highly skilled at manipulating people, was aware of the struggle that would be happening in Hermione's head when she would receive the letter, and the elusive 'or else' had been added specifically to give her the illusion that she complied because she had to, thus leading her mind away from the other reasons why she might have accepted so readily.

The indefinite warning would give her the impression that she was doing the duty of protecting those close to her, and then she wouldn't need to fight against her conscience like if she realised the real reason why she had resigned herself to heeding his demand.

Yes, the threat was there, but Hermione did not have to believe it. If she did, it was because she wanted to believe it. She did not realise that it was there to conveniently subdue her sense of right and wrong ...

-

After her friends had left, Hermione sat on a couch in her sitting room; Crookshanks was curled up next to her. She scratched the ginger cat behind the ears absently. She had no mission for the Ministry this evening, thankfully. Being an Auror was like that: she had to be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and she never knew when she would be called. The Ministry could not afford to give the Aurors days off, because they never knew when an attack would occur.

Lives are at stake, her teachers at the Auror Academy used to say as if it justified everything. Lives were at stake and that was why Aurors weren't permitted to have lives of their own.

Hermione looked at the framed pictures on the wall across from her. Their occupants were always moving and some appeared to be talking to each other. She had long since become accustomed to the fact that wizarding photos, unlike Muggle ones, were 'alive'.

There was a picture of Harry, Ron and herself on their last day at Hogwarts. It depicted Harry holding up the House Cup over his head, Ron hugging the Quidditch Cup to his chest, and Hermione wearing a gleaming Head Girl badge. Next was a wizard picture of her parents, who smiled and waved at her. And the last one was a snapshot of four people wearing the scarlet Auror uniform, sleeves rolled up and wands aloft as if preparing for a battle. Harry, Ron, Neville and herself all had proud grins on their faces.

She remembered the day the last picture had been taken. It had been the day they had graduated from the Auror Academy, weary and relieved to finish the third year of exhausting training. She remembered that day all too well.

Upon qualifying, every trainee Auror had to take an oath of loyalty to the Ministry and the Light side. Hermione had learnt the Auror Oath by heart, of course, and she still remembered every word.

I, Hermione Granger, vow to apply my best efforts to fulfil my responsibilities as an Auror and not to abuse the privileges of my job. Should I be called at any hour of day or night to do the noble duty of purging the world of Darkness and evil, I will not hesitate to risk my life in order to save that of others. From this day on, the purpose of my life is to serve the wizarding community of Britain and to protect Muggles from the knowledge and effects of magic. I will never knowingly endanger my fellow Aurors or the Ministry of Magic. I will alert the Department of Magical Law Enforcement whenever I fall upon information that might prove useful in the hunt for those who practice Dark magic or other illegal activities ...

Of course, being Hermione Granger, she obeyed the rules to the letter, and she had never thought she would one day break the oath. She wondered - pure curiosity, she assured herself - whether the oath Death Eaters took upon their initiation was any similar. She wasn't sure if she wanted to find out. Although a small part of her, a part she refused to acknowledge, wanted more than just to find out ...

How can I even consider such an outrageous thing? What is wrong with me? she admonished herself.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she had broken the Auror Oath on more than one occasion. Surprisingly, she did not feel any guilt for it, only a reckless sense of detachment. What's done is done.

Hermione knew that there was a storehouse of Dark Artefacts at number 25 Knockturn Alley. She had been there. But had she told the Ministry or her fellow Aurors? No, because that would mean having to answer questions about how she had come across the place and what she had been doing in it. And that, in turn, would lead to other complications such as having to admit to having broken not only another - and the most important - part of the oath, but also the magical law itself.

She had sworn to do her best to fulfil her responsibilities as an Auror, which were to arrest any Death Eater she came across, or at least attempt to. She hadn't even tried. Worse, she had voluntarily helped a Death Eater escape capture. For that alone, her Auror license could be revoked and she could find herself in Azkaban if her actions were to be brought to court.

What's done is done, Hermione repeated to herself. There was no point in dwelling on the past, because it could not be changed. Even if she could change it, if she had currently possessed a Time-Turner, she wasn't sure she wanted to. And that in itself frightened her the most.

She preferred not to think of it, no more than she chose not to think of what was going to happen tonight. What she was going to do ... she had a strange feeling that things would never be the same after this. And inexplicably, she knew that it had something to do with the Sorting Hat's enigmatic prediction. A prediction that had had no meaning to her for years and that she still couldn't understand ...

... whichever way you go, whatever path you choose, a brilliant future awaits you.

It entailed that she had a choice of paths, and she had never been given a choice of the kind she was sure the Hat had meant. She had chosen to become an Auror because ... because that was the career her friends had chosen, and she had followed them. And wasn't like she had been given another realistic possibility. She had never truly had a choice.

Afraid of finding herself shunned and lonely like before Harry and Ron befriended her, Hermione had taken the habit of sacrificing her own ambitions for her friends, almost as if she had no will of her own. When her friends decided on something, she did not express her disagreement unless they were putting themselves in danger; otherwise, she just went along with them. Without realising it, Hermione had become just a follower ...