His Mistress

-- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN --

Impedio Oblitteranda Est

Pop!

Hermione was finishing buttoning her Auror uniform when she heard the sound of Apparition behind her. She whirled around, clutching the open front of her robes. Then she caught sight of the tiny visitor and let out a sound of surprise. It was Coddy.

"Coddy, you have to help me," she said without delay.

"Name it, miss, name it and Coddy will do it," the house-elf said squeakily, a look of adoration on his face.

"Well, then ..." Hermione crouched down and put her mouth near the house-elf's ear. Then she explained her goals in a whisper.

The elf's pointed ears drooped, and he gasped, round eyes wide and shocked. Hermione, though, did not give the creature time to raise one of the objections that were no doubt bubbling in its head.

"Coddy, you know perfectly well that she almost killed me ... you can punish yourself afterwards, Coddy, but just tell me ..." Help me.

"Oh, miss is being cruel ... miss is just like master ... but Coddy likes miss, and so, Coddy will tell miss ..." the elf was mumbling under his breath in a way reminiscent of Kreacher. Hermione could see the hesitation in the last phrase, which she nevertheless took as a good sign.

Still, she reckoned that she ought to use more persuasion, just to be on the safe side, and took a wild gamble. She let a mischievous, yet cruel expression settle on her face as she hissed, "Coddy, wouldn't you like it if I took the place of your mistress?"

Coddy stared, eyes wide in delight. "Is that possible, miss?"

I think not ... highly unlikely - not that I'll tell you that. "It might be, if you tell me what I need to know ... if you help me with this ..."

The creature appeared to be considering Hermione's request for a minute, during which the brown-haired witch held her breath.

"Coddy knows exactly the way," the elf said finally, fixing its large, wide eyes on Hermione's own. "Every month, Mistress Narcissa buys a little blue bottle. She does it every month, miss, always on the same day and in the same place. Mistress Narcissa likes to talk when she is doing things in front of the mirror, miss, oh yes Mistress does, and Mistress does not care if Coddy is there to hear it, miss, because Coddy is only a house-elf, miss! And so Coddy knows many secrets of Mistress Narcissa, miss."

Now that was interesting. But wait - "What do you mean, a blue bottle?" said a mystified Hermione.

"It's called a Beautifying Potion, miss," said Coddy.

WHAT?

"Beautifying Potion?" gasped Hermione, "She uses a Beautifying Potion?" Then she burst into laughter, wild, uncontrollable laughter. "Oh - my - God ... Beautifying Potion!" she muttered between gales of laughter.

"It is true, miss," squeaked the elf, and Hermione's mood sobered slightly, the mad laughter dying down. "Yes, miss, and it is made from the flowers of the purple gentian -" But Hermione interrupted again.

"Purple?" she said sharply, "The gentian's colour is blue, yellow, white or red, but never purple! I remember it from those Muggle gardening books I've read as a child ..."

"Oh, that is what everyone is thinking, miss!" said Coddy. "But that is not true, miss. The purple gentian is a very rare flower, miss, rare and expensive, and it has some amazing effects, miss! It grows on the highest mountains of the Himalayas, miss, and the witches harvest it there to make the potion, miss, and Mistress Narcissa buys the potion from a witch friend in Knockturn Alley, miss. That is what Coddy knows, miss."

But how is this supposed to help me kill her?

Then it dawned on her. How fitting, she thought, and how ironic that she would fall to her own methods. It even suited her name ... Narcissa, the one whose vanity would eventually cause her death ...

"But can you tell me how, Coddy ...?"

"Coddy cannot tell miss what to do, but miss can ask questions and Coddy can answer," the elf said squeakily.

Hermione stood there for a minute, her mind working frantically, until an idea came to her. "Is the bottle sealed?" she asked. Coddy nodded. "Magically?" The elf nodded again.

Her eyebrows knitted together in thought, then she said, "Can it be re-sealed with a spell, if it is opened?"

The house-elf clapped its hands. "Yes it can, miss."

"Oh," she said after a moment, "I get it, Coddy. I get it."

The house-elf promptly banged its head against the nearest wall. Hermione ignored the ensuing noise.

"Does your master know that she ... well ... enhances her appearance?"

"Oh, no, miss, master doesn't know, master would be very angry with mistress, master doesn't like it when mistress spends his money on such things ..."

"When does she buy it? And where? Do you have the address?"

The house-elf looked extremely guilty. However, Hermione hadn't been nearly sorted into Slytherin for nothing, it turned out.

-

Three weeks later found Hermione stirring the contents of a cauldron she had concealed in a wall of her house. The secret cupboard, which she had made herself, was password-protected, and she had originally created it to hide incriminating material such as her Death Eater costume.

In the previous three weeks, however, the hiding place had found itself an additional use. It was here that Hermione stationed the cauldron in which she was brewing Polyjuice potion, a potion that took 21 days to make. Today, she found herself overcome with impatience as she stirred the liquid a final time and put out the fire under the cauldron. It was ready at last ...

Once the brew had cooled, she poured it into a flask, then bottled the rest and hid it away in the secret cupboard. She had a feeling it would prove useful in the future; one never knew ...

The only thing missing was the last ingredient, the hair. Hermione could not stop the bad memories that came to her at this point, namely the failure that had been her first experience with this potion. She had used Polyjuice on several of her Auror missions, but she could never quite forget how painful it had been to be turned into a half-cat.

-

Hermione was not wearing Death Eater costume this time. Nevertheless, her face was concealed behind a hood, a dark blue cloak hiding her identity as she walked the most disreputable street in wizarding Britain. From watching her cloaked form moving stealthily past Borgin and Burkes, past the shops and further into the dark, forbidding alley, an observer could accurately guess at her career of secret agent. But in reality, her presence here today had nothing to do with her profession. This time, her motive was personal ambition.

The shops became rarer and the passage dingier. Here, the street was entirely deserted with old, abandoned-looking (on the outside, at least) houses. There were no trees, no lawns, not even the chirping of a bird could be heard in the eerie silence. The occasional cat could be seen creeping in the skeletons of a bush between two houses, yellow eyes glowing, tail bristled and ears alert.

She kept glancing furtively at the houses she walked past, then at a small piece of parchment in her hand. She stopped by a house painted in a fading purple, looking as though most of the colour had been washed off by the rain.

Hermione approached the rather unremarkable door, which had violet paint peeling off it. An inscription stated Madam Grelt in letters nearly erased with age. She recognised the name from the house-elf's indications. Madam Grelt was Narcissa Malfoy's associate and a dealer in illegal potions, who received batches of the Beautification Potion, among other rare and Ministry-classified brews, in contraband directly from Tibet.

Hermione knocked.

The door creaked open, revealing an old witch with a sallow, wrinkled face and a long plait of grey hair. She had rotten, yellow teeth; it was clear the woman did not use the potions she sold for herself.

At the sight of the hooded Hermione, she stuck out her bony hands threateningly. Her nails were sharp and pointed, and there was a visible layer of grime under them. "Who the devil are you?" she rasped.

Hermione's wand was ready. "Imperio!" she said.

The old woman did not resist as Hermione instructed her to walk into the back room and followed her inside. Then she interrogated her for a quarter of an hour, receiving unhesitating, if unwilling, answers. "Stupefy!" she said once she had all the information she needed to do a plausible impersonation of the witch.

The dark glass bottle was unlabelled. Hermione set it on the table and cut carefully through the seal around the stopper, so that a simple "Reparo" would suffice to make it look unbroken again. Then she pulled out the vial of poison she had procured from the shop.

Borgin had said three drops would be enough, but she had to make sure it was enough to kill, and the quicker it worked, the better. Therefore, she poured a whole teaspoonful of the transparent, odourless liquid inside. She then resealed it with magic, checking that there was no outward sign that the bottle had ever been opened, before giving it a good shake.

She knew the woman would surely notice the slightest difference in taste or consistence, but luckily the poison was truly undetectable.

Hermione took out another flask from her robes, this one containing the Polyjuice potion. She plucked a hair from the elderly woman's head and pushed it into the brew, which made a hissing sound and turned a murky, nauseating shade of yellow. Quickly and without allowing herself to linger on the taste, she gulped down the potion straight from its flask.

She waited until the painful transformation was complete and she now looked exactly like the old woman on the floor. Then she undressed speedily and donned the unconscious woman's robes and cloak. She was careful not to look down at her body to avoid the urge to puke.

Dragging the unconscious witch towards a cupboard, she stuffed her inside and cast a powerful locking and hushing charm on the door. It wouldn't do for her to wake up while the 'visitor' was here.

All she had to do now was wait for the detestable blond woman to arrive for their customary rendezvous.

Having learnt everything she needed about what to say and how to behave once the 'customer' arrived, Hermione prepared herself for the encounter. It took a lot of patience to force her face into a friendly expression, and to stop herself from murdering the blond woman on sight, but she reminded herself she had to think about the consequences instead of acting in a fit of emotion, Harry Potter style. She had to be discreet, and as hard as it was, she could cheer herself up with the fact that if she pulled this off correctly, it would be the last time she ever saw the detestable woman. And she'll never get the chance to try to kill me again.

Once it was done, she would modify the old witch's memory to make her think she had sold the potion to her friend as normal, and that Hermione had never been there.

She forced her face into a jovial smile just as there was a knock on the door. "A pleasure to see you, Madam Malfoy," she said, and had to fight a start at how scratchy and unlike her own voice she sounded. "We have your potion right here, freshly imported, but I am afraid the price has risen since your last stopover ..."

-

Draco Malfoy threw open the door to his father's study without knocking and rushed inside.

Lucius shut his Dark Arts book and turned to his son in annoyance. "Have I never taught you proper conduct, Draco? I would have thought you'd know by now that such behaviour is unbefitting of a Malfoy, let alone my only heir ..."

But unlike usually, Draco did not flinch or look ashamed at the reprimand. Actually, his son did not even appear to hear him. His face was unusually pale, and there was an expression of distress in his eyes.

The initial surge of irritation he had felt at his son's blatant lack of manners disappeared. "Is anything the matter, Draco?" he asked.

"Father, it's ..." Draco seemed to be barely capable of speech; he looked on the verge of tears. "It's mother," he said finally, pulling himself together. "I just found her. She's - she's - she's dead!"

Lucius looked slightly surprised for a second. "Indeed?" he said impassively. Aside from that momentary flash of surprise in his eyes, he showed no emotion at the news. His face was stony and mask-like, his eyes cold and indifferent.

Draco, though, displayed the opposite of his father's composed demeanour. He was trembling, his shoulders shaking with repressed sobs, and there were blotches of red on his cheeks; his eyes were swollen from crying.

"How did she die?" Lucius inquired finally.

His son looked shocked at the nonchalant query. "But how can you be so - so cold about it? It looks almost like - like you don't even care!" shouted Draco, his eyes shining with tears.

"Calm yourself, Draco," Lucius said sharply. "I will not be spoken to in such a tone. Now, about Narcissa - your mother was undeserving of the Malfoy name. She was a disgrace," he said coolly without a hint of emotion in his grey eyes, and to his son's visible astonishment, a cold smile slowly appeared on his face. "A disgrace," he repeated softly.

"How can you say that, Father?" Draco said in disbelief. "How can you -"

"I said, calm yourself! You will not raise your voice at me, Draco, I will not tolerate it," said Lucius. "It matters not that you are my son and heir ... I will not stand for disrespect - not anymore." That smile of irony quirked his lips again, as though he had just made a joke known only to himself. But Draco was too distraught to ponder the subtleties of his father's behaviour right now.

Draco's jaw had dropped at the cutting reprimand - or was it a threat? His father had never spoken to him that way before ... so cruel and heartless ... nor had he ever talked about his mother like that.

"Now, I believe I asked you how she died," drawled Lucius.

"I have no idea. I found her in her room, in her usual armchair ... her eyes were open and blank ... lifeless ... it was so awful, I thought I was going to be ill when I looked into them ..."

"End the emotive inanity, Draco," his father cut in. "I simply want to know the cause of her death."

"I don't know," answered Draco. "She has no wounds, nothing like that. Maybe a poison ... there was a bottle of wine on her desk, I think it was open ..."

Lucius looked troubled at that. "Indeed ... but how?" he murmured to himself. "How?"

"Maybe you should take a look, Father," his son suggested hesitantly.

With one glance at the corpse slumped over in the velvet-cushioned chair, Lucius recognised the symptoms. He knew this poison - he had used it more than once to dispose of particularly meddlesome Ministry officials during the Dark Lord's first rise. He had later sold the remaining batch to get rid of potential evidence, should the manor ever be searched by the Ministry.

He knew who had supplied the assassin with the substance, because he was the one who had sold it to Borgin. Now he only had to get the double-dealing merchant to tell him who had bought the bottle.

He conjured a random cloak from the wardrobe in his room and Apparated straight into Borgin and Burke's shop.

Borgin was uncooperative, and in the end he had to threaten the lying shopkeeper with a particularly painful death to make him talk. Trembling with fear, the man finally blurted out, "She told me it was for the Dark Lord! Threatened me, she did, even showed the Dark Mark ..."

"She?" Lucius said sharply.

A stuttering Borgin confirmed to him that it was a woman, he was sure, but she was masked and refused to tell him her name, so no, he had no idea who she was.

Lucius was perplexed. A woman? A woman who had the Dark Mark? But why would Bellatrix kill her little sister? And he couldn't see how Narcissa could have possibly displeased the Dark Lord, or why the latter would want her dead.

Unless it wasn't Bellatrix ...

What other woman had the Dark Mark on her arm? There was only one other, and she was indeed someone who had good reason to want Narcissa dead. But surely Hermione could not have concocted such a plan and carried it out without even telling him! It was so unlike her ...

But who else could it be? All the facts were pointing at her in an undeniable accusation.

It was unlike the Hermione he knew. But then again, perhaps he did not know her as well as he thought.

He had never expected this of her. He had underestimated her, underestimated her ambition. For all the time she spent listening to him confessing his intimate, most fanciful aspirations, she never spoke of hers, he realised. It was as though she had none, but everything he had ever heard about her told him that she was, and had always been, an ambitious and determined woman who had clearly defined goals. But why didn't she ever voice those to him?

Because they were things she thought he would not approve of, perhaps?

Seeing as he could not get any more information out of Borgin because the man simply did not know anything, Lucius Apparated back to his manor without a single word.

He had to give it to her, Hermione was a very effective Death Eater, so effective that it was slightly alarming. And she was extraordinarily good at covering her tracks. This was the girl, he reminded himself, who had kept her Dark nature hidden from even her closest friends and family all her life.

She was really good at keeping secrets. But he did not appreciate his confidante keeping such secrets from him. He would not, and could not, tolerate this.

He concentrated on making her aware of his displeasure through the connection he had forged between them.

-

Hermione was jerked out of her fitful sleep by a searing pain that - she realised it a moment later - had its focal point in her right forearm. "Lumos," she said shortly.

She held her wand up to her skin and saw that the mark - not the Dark Mark, no, the other one - was an inky black colour. A jolt of pain went through her arm again, this time accompanied by a foreign sense of anger, and the instant, inexplicable knowledge that he was displeased.

This mark probably acted like Harry's scar, then, Hermione concluded. But by Merlin, it never burned so painfully when Voldemort called her ...

Not bothering to replace her nightdress with more decent clothing, she only grabbed the nearest cloak (she didn't want to freeze to death if she had to step outside in this mere nightdress), clasped it around her shoulders, and pressed her palm to the throbbing mark. Instantly, she disappeared from her bedroom with a crack.

Just like the last time she had attempted to Apparate to the Malfoy mansion, Hermione was once again repelled by the protections on the grounds. Shivering from the icy wind in her woollen cloak, she made her way past the snow-covered lawn and towards the residence looming in the distance. Today, its magnificence seemed rather menacing to Hermione.

She pulled open the doors which, surprisingly, weren't locked. Stepping into the warm entrance hall, she stopped. He was in his study, up the staircase, though she had no idea how she knew. She felt a pull in that direction, and followed the instinct. It guided her to a door that was ajar.

She pushed it open with a trembling hand.

He did not speak. Hermione hesitated in the doorway, then approached tentatively.

"You called me?" she said steadily, but as with as much meekness as she could.

Silence.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the furious look in his eyes. She felt her stomach churn horribly at seeing how angry he was at her. She had not thought he would take it so badly ...

Her teeth started to chatter in fear as she stared into the cold grey eyes filled with a terrifying rage. It took her a conscious effort to fight the urge to run for her life. But where could she run, anyway? He would find her in an instant, in this house. And not just in this house ...

She could never hide from him, of course. No, she had to stay here and face whatever he decided to do with her in his wrath.

"An assassin now, are you not? What happened to remaining a spy, Hermione?" he said softly, with a scary calm that his eyes belied. "And what about asking your master before going through with a similar plan?" Whether he meant the Dark Lord or ... or himself was left to her imagination as she struggled desperately to speak in defence of her actions.

"That - that's exactly why I didn't tell you," she said quickly. "I knew you would feel obligated to stop me - your honour wouldn't have allowed it, you said so yourself. That's why I didn't ask ... And she almost killed me! I had to do something - would you prefer if I had waited until she tried again, and, who knows, succeeded?"

"So you decided to take initiative without consulting me, hiding your plans from me for weeks ... you lied to me. You deceived me, Hermione." The words were spoken with finality, condemning her.

That gut-wrenching sensation of dread returned, increased twofold. Trembling, she tried to guess what he was going to do to her. The Cruciatus? Or was he going to kill her?

Or would he tell her that it was over and he didn't want to see her again? That would kill her!

He stood from his seat, his lips quirked in a thin smile. His grey eyes were flashing with fury, and Hermione recoiled as he moved closer to her. She suddenly remembered seeing the same look on his face when he talked of his late wife, and found herself wondering what he had done to the unfortunate woman that day. Wait - unfortunate? How queer that the murderess would pity her victim!

He grabbed her shoulders and literally threw her against the wall. It was a wonder she remained standing. "Do you fear me, Hermione?" he hissed.

Her breathing quickened. "I always have," she quietly replied.

"Good," he said. "You should. You really should. Only fools do not."

Then with a boldness Hermione didn't know she possessed, she stuck out her hand, put it on the back of his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

His arms went around her, holding her in a tight embrace, and he promptly took control of the kiss. Hermione found herself pressed harder against the wall, but for once she could not care less.

The kiss was harsh and bruising, and she winced when he pulled back. The anger was still there, she saw with trepidation.

She wasn't prepared for when he Apparated with a crack, taking her with him through Side-Along Apparition, and she found herself in another, darker room - more like a cell, windowless, empty but for the stone walls and floor. By the cold and humid air, she knew this had to be somewhere in the dungeons.

He wrapped a hand around her throat, pressing threateningly. "I warned you not to betray me, ever, yet you deceived me. Give me one reason why I should not kill you," he said chillingly.

She wanted to tell him Voldemort wouldn't be pleased to lose his spy, but she feared that the mention of the Dark Lord would anger him even more. "I thought you cared," she said instead, faintly. But he gave no reaction.

Hermione stared into his face, wishing to get a hint of what he was thinking, desperate for a clue to what was coming. But it was in vain. Her lover's cold eyes gave nothing away except for a controlled anger.

"Please," she said. "Direct your anger against those who deserve it."

The hand tightened around her throat. "And you think you do not?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I am so sorry ... for hiding this from you ... I shouldn't have betrayed your trust ..."

She had not been so scared since the night when, frozen in fear, she had ... acknowledged his superiority ... for the first time. She had just been reminded of who he was, and she was terrified.

She had read her death in those blazing, pitiless grey eyes.

His hand released her neck; instead, he seized her shoulders roughly and threw her on the ground. Then he pulled out his wand.

She was on her knees, her head bowed, her hair hanging in curtains of brown curls on both sides of her face. It was hard to believe that this was the same woman who had committed murder with such calculated precision.

"Stand up, my dear," he spat.

She obeyed, trembling with fear.

She looked imploringly into his eyes. It always excited him when she did that ...

"My Lord, please ..."

Her soft words hung in the silence.

"Don't do something you'll regret ..."

He touched her neck again, more gently than before, almost a caress, but it did not reassure her. She was shivering in his grasp, he noticed, and there were tears in her eyes.

Thanks to the connection formed between them through his magical brand on her, he could sense her emotions, and her mind was torn between two overwhelming ones: fear and devotion. He knew, at that moment, that she would do anything for him; that even if he carried her to the highest floor of the manor and, holding her up to the window, told her to jump, she would do it. She would cry and plead, sure, but in the end she would do it. That was the extent of her loyalty to him.

It reassured him, because no matter how cunning and clever and, on necessity, ruthless she was, she placed his wishes above everything else. Now he knew that even though she wasn't above lying to him, she would never deceive him when it really mattered or trick him, for selfish goals, into something she knew he did not want. In other words, she would never act the way Narcissa always had.

This reassured him, but it also caused his lips to twist in a cruel smirk that she noticed and that caused her fear to increase.

He was not displeased with her for doing away with his wife. In fact, he was glad the nuisance that was the former Lady Malfoy was dead. What had caused his anger to flare was that Hermione had been a plan of this magnitude from him for so long, and he had never suspected it, even when he could literally monitor her feelings through the link of Dark magic that virtually marked her as his servant and him as her Lord.

You see, Legilimency wasn't the only reason the Dark Lord always knew when a Death Eater was not being truthful to him. And the mark he had placed on Hermione's arm worked exactly the same way.

But he had to concede that if he had known what she was plotting, he would have prevented her from carrying it out, and Narcissa would still be alive. Hermione was a really clever witch. It seemed she had thought of everything, and he had to admire her for that.

He felt he had punished her enough, by giving her such a scare ...

With that in mind, he brought his mouth to hers in an intense kiss, his fingers still curled loosely around her soft neck.

"I shall forgive you this time," he said at last, releasing her, and he saw a ray of hope cut through the fright in her tearful brown eyes. "How can I reproach you acting in a way I would have?"

He kissed her throat tenderly, his fingers sifting through the brown wisps at the nape of her neck. "You alone, Hermione ... you alone can appease my temper this way. But never deceive me again, for I do not know what I might do next time ... I always did have trouble controlling my anger."

Needless to say, this was the last time she ever did something of the sort.

She knew she was not facing a simple Death Eater. As a qualified Auror, she could defend herself against Death Eaters.

But this was something else. This man was much more than a mere Death Eater. This was the heir of a nineteenth-century Dark Lord ...

Now there was no doubt left in her mind. In fact, there hadn't been since his display of Dark power when, in a moment of madness, she had allowed him to mark her with fire. No doubt at all ...

That she was facing the next Dark Lord.

-

January passed in a flash. February followed quickly, and soon enough it was March; the snow was melting and the temperature was warming up, only hindered by icily cold winds. Spring flowers such as snowdrops and primula started to peek through the cold soil around Hermione's house, soon followed by yellow daffodils.

Hermione's life had long since returned to the routine it had been prior to the poisoning incidents, except that she now accompanied her lover on his Muggle-baiting escapades. The same went for most of their attacks on wizarding families who opposed Voldemort. But sometimes he insisted on going alone to do the Dark Lord's bidding ("No, never alone," he reassured her, "there are always others with me, the Lestrange brothers, or Crabbe and Goyle are bodyguard enough.") when he thought the risk of her getting identified or captured was too high.

Even so, she had not attended a single Death Eater meeting since the one where she had been initiated. She had felt the mark on her left arm burn several times, but it was always during her 'duty hours' either for the Ministry or the Order of the Phoenix, and she had not answered the call so as not to rouse suspicion, just like Voldemort had instructed her.

She owled the Dark Lord frequently, however, informing him of everything that could be relevant to his plans. Sometimes, she reported the less urgent news to Lucius instead, who then relayed everything to Voldemort at the next Death Eater meeting.

Her written reports were never answered, but she knew the Dark Lord received each one of them, because raids anticipated by the Aurors were always cancelled or postponed. Always. This caused some problems at the Ministry, however, and soon the officials began having doubts.

Rumours started spreading like wildfire through the Ministry of Magic. There were whispers of a spy among the Aurors, as unprecedented as that would be; either that or one of them was being controlled by the Imperius Curse. How else could the Death Eaters know where and when their raids were going to be?

The first time Hermione heard that particular rumour, she had thought her heart stopped for a second. She had assumed the worst: that she had been discovered. But then she had realised they had no idea who the spy was, because she would be already in Azkaban if they knew. No, they had no clue to the person's identity. This set her mind at rest.

After a week of hushed conversations and distrustful glances between the Aurors, someone divulged the situation to the head of their department, demanding that something be done. The rumours, again, had it that it had been Zacharias Smith, who was fed up with the state of affairs and flew off the handle, so to say. Percy had in turn gone to Fudge for guidance, and following a lengthy discussion, Harry Potter had been called to the Minister's office in the hopes that the legendary green-eyed Auror would have an idea of how to deal with everything.

From what Hermione later learnt from Harry, a course of action was decided between the three of them. Fudge's suggestion had been that a dozen Aurors, those he found the most trustworthy, be put in charge of keeping close watch on their colleagues to eventually find out the spy's identity. But Harry had raised the objection that anyone could be the spy, no matter how trustworthy they acted.

"Almost anyone," Percy Weasley had interjected with a thoughtful glance at Harry. "There is one Auror we can trust completely, because under no circumstances could he be a spy for You-Know-Who. There's absolutely no chance that he's a spy."

This had caused a jovial smile to break across Fudge's face. "Excellent idea, Weasley! We will put him in charge of it then, and the hunt for the spy won't last two days - we'll know who it is by tomorrow!"

"Who are you talking about?" Harry had asked sceptically.

They had, of course, been talking about Harry. The Boy Who Lived, whose parents were killed by Voldemort, and who had been fighting the Dark wizard since he was eleven years old. There was really no risk of him being a spy for Voldemort. But Harry had demanded that Ron and Hermione be allowed to assist him, as there was now way he could keep everyone in the Auror Headquarters under surveillance on his own, and that if Fudge trusted him completely, then he had no reason not to have the same trust in his friends as well. Because, you see, Harry trusted his best friends with his life.

Percy had objected to that, reiterating Harry's earlier words back at him. While Harry would never work for He Who Must Not Be Named for obvious reasons, anyone else could be secretly passing information to the enemy, either of their free will or not, and not even his brother, Ron, was to be overlooked in this.

Harry had leapt to the defence of his friend instantly. "I trust Ron with my life, and he has never betrayed me! He has always been with me, and in everything we've been through, we were together. I wouldn't have survived half of the things I've been through if he wasn't there! You can you even think he might be a Death Eater? And Hermione! She's a Muggle-born, for heaven's sake! Why on Earth would she follow Voldemort? I'm sorry, Percy, but this is too much. There's not a bloody chance either of them is the spy."

The Minister had then suggested a compromise. It would be Harry and Hermione who would be trusted with the investigation, for the obvious reasons that they both were completely above suspicion, Harry for his past history and identity as the Boy Who Lived and Hermione as the only Muggle-born Auror. Ron, while from a Light family and close to Harry, was not trustworthy enough, and Fudge had refused to go back over that decision.

Hermione, who at that time had been sitting in her cubicle at the Auror Headquarters, was pouring over the arcane books another Auror had confiscated on a recent raid and which were written in a code that the Ministry wanted cracked, as they suspected it contained vital information about the spells Voldemort had used on his quest for immortality.

A mauve paper aeroplane landed on her desk, and she unravelled the memo to reveal a short message telling her that she was expected in the Minister's office. Her forehead creased in apprehension. Had she messed up somewhere? Had Fudge finally decided to sack her? Or ... had they found out she was a spy?

That last concept was particularly frightening. She knew she was only useful to Voldemort because of her position at the Ministry, and if she lost their trust ...

Hermione was both puzzled and worried when she saw the strange company in Fudge's office. What could Harry and Percy be discussing with the Minister, together? From what she knew, these three had never been the closest of friends.

Fudge, who looked happy about something, had invited her to join the group. Harry and Percy had then taken turns explaining the plan to her. She had masked her emotions well, but she had been immensely relieved. Not only she was above suspicion, but she would be trusted with a task of such secrecy and importance.

This meant Fudge had finally gotten over his dislike of her Muggle origins, and was favouring her above the other Aurors. It also meant that with this responsibility, she would probably stay at the Ministry most of the time, which implied that she would be given less raids.

She and Harry were given the function of 'Inquisitors' and assigned powers to search the desks and drawers of other Aurors without informing them first, among other things. They were also forbidden to speak about their new role; no one else was to know about the operation. The other Aurors were not to be aware that their every move was being watched.

It was ironic, really, that it was she who was given the task of catching the spy. She, the only person who knew the secret agent's identity - of course she knew it, because it was herself.

And it was reassuring to be completely above suspicion. For the moment, she reminded herself, because she wasn't naïve enough to think her treachery would remain unnoticed indefinitely.

The Minister's latest scheme would eventually backfire on her, because if the search came out ineffective after a few weeks and no spy was discovered while the Aurors' plans continued to be foiled up, they were bound to start suspecting her. Unless someone else was caught ...

She realised she would have to set someone up with false evidence, to preserve her position. Currently, she had no idea how she was going to do that, though.

Putting the problem out of her mind for the time being, Hermione sat down and took the time to compose a report to Lord Voldemort, who she was sure would want to hear of the new developments. In fact, he would be furious if he did not hear of this straight away.

Being a spy was not as exciting as she had once thought. In reality, it was wearisome, dangerous, and not rewarding in the least. She constantly had to worry about the risk of being discovered, which would mark the end of her career (and possibly her life), not to mention how draining it was to play the role of something she no longer was whenever she was in public and, indeed, even when she wasn't.

Sighing, she sealed the message and sent it off. There was no backing out of the Dark Lord's service.

-

Life was a routine, proper and predictable ... until the day everything changed.

From the moment Hermione stepped past the oak doors into the Auror Headquarters that morning, she noticed the change in atmosphere. Her colleagues were less quiet than usually. Some were gathered in small groups of three or four in a single cubicle, laughing and whispering excitedly. The gloom that had fallen like a dark cloud over them for the past weeks was suddenly gone, and those who greeted her as she passed them on the way to her own cubicle had an air of triumph about them.

This behaviour caused her to feel slightly uneasy. What could the entire Auror Office be so happy about? Whatever the cause of this good mood, she was sure she would not find it to be good news, being on the other side and all. Actually, if the Aurors were in such high spirits, she had reason to be worried.

Hermione could not ignore the gathering in the cubicle next to hers, where Harry and Ron were surrounded by a cluster of red-robed fellows, some of whom had never talked to them before yet now appeared to be excitedly questioning the duo about -

"The ambush last night ... is it true, Potter?" She could only hear fragments of voices.

"- that bastard -" This was Harry's voice.

"How did you manage ...?"

What's going on? she wondered, agitated.

"They said in the Daily Prophet that ..."

"... promoted to Head Auror?"

"- to Azkaban! Hard to believe we've finally done it ..." This voice she recognised as Ron's.

"... a devastating blow to You-Know-Who's forces," someone else said triumphantly. Hermione repressed a pang of alarm. This didn't sound good, not at all ...

"Which one of you did it?"

Ron answered something indistinct, and then another voice spoke loudly: "Hey, I was there too! They couldn't have done it without my help. Without that quick Impedimenta of mine, you would have been in a bit of trouble, Potter, admit it ..."

That last, boastful comment belonged to Zacharias Smith. Hermione had gathered by now that Harry and Ron had conducted some sort of raid the previous night, accompanied by Smith, and by the sound of it, had been incredibly successful.

"What happened, Harry?" she called, sticking her head over the top of the wall separating her cubicle from Harry's, which was swarming with a good half-dozen people at the moment. But it wasn't the grinning Harry Potter who answered.

"Didn't read the Daily Prophet, did you?" Zacharias Smith smirked over the cubicle wall.

"Potter and company made the front page," Dawlish, one of Minister Fudge's personal guard, added enviously.

Hermione moved back into her tiny workspace. Settling behind her desk, she reached for the morning's copy of the newspaper that lay there inoffensively, folded up in two. For some reason, her hands shook as she unfolded it.

She stared at the headline for a second, blinked, and choked on her tea.

The Daily Prophet slipped from Hermione's grasp. I will destroy you, Harry Potter, she thought, if it is the last thing I do.