Even the Stars Can Be Moved

Hermione's face drained of color. Pendrake Malfoy smirked. It seemed to be some kind of insidious inbred genetic trait, the smirking, she thought viciously. Regaining her balance, she raised her eyebrows at him and folded her arms.

"Kylee and Stuart Potter are a childless couple who live, quite full time, in Wales."

She stepped away from him, her folded arms between them, but he leaned into her ear again.

"And that leaves us with an obvious question. Who are you?"

Hermione broke away from Pendrake. "Professor Dumbledore struck my name from the records in accordance with Act XIV of the Troisieme Conventione. It was a protection of my identity as a relocated resistance fighter. Just because he altered my records doesn't mean my story isn't true. Everyone will see at once that you're just search of attention." All those years Harry and Ron had been saying her voracious appetite for reading everything was pointless. She'd have to remember to rub their noses in the point when she saved them from certain death.

"So what you're saying, Miss... Potter, do you insist? What you're saying is that it doesn't matter if I give Dippet the information. But I think it still matters if I give it to Tom. I know what he's capable of, and I think you do, too."

"Why do you say that, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked, disgusted with the way her height seemed to compromise any effect she had on people.

"Haven't you noticed?" he asked, although what she was supposed to notice Hermione didn't know. "And, anyway, I know your story isn't true, and he's utterly capable of at least proving that. They'll probably give him another award, special sevices to School, Country, and Community."

"Then why don't you prove it," Hermione suggested, determined to bluff him.

"I will," he returned, looking down at her. "But why don't I say it louder so all the pictures will know that you're a fake. Tom talks to some of them, you know. They're his eyes and ears, and he has more besides those. And if you try to hex me or obliviate me-- I have ways of knowing--I have a little pet trained to go straight to Tom Riddle."

There was a passage of time during which Hermione averted her eyes from Pendrake's and tried to think of an angle out of the trap. There seemed to be none available. She was compromised. Her mission was compromised. "It's obvious you want something. Get on with it."

Pendrake smiled toothlessly, eyelids lowered, peering down. "That, I'd like to discuss with you somewhere else. I understand you're a great lover of the Forbidden Forest?"

Hermione set her chin and turned to walk towards the school entrance without further notice. "With any luck you'll be eaten by an Acromantula," she muttered under her breath. Pendrake walked behind her, which was well enough until she started to be nervous about it. Despite the fact that she was well-armed against any attack he might try, something about his presence behind her was unsettling. But then, no one liked being followed, did they? And perhaps it was the situation she found herself in that made her so unnerved. Her plan was threatening to teeter over into oblivion, and with it, the future of everyone she loved. She quelled a brief surge of panic. Panic would not help her now. She steadied her breath as they exited the castle, walking through the grounds which were strangely, eerily empty. She saw only one student out by the Quidditch Pitch, robe whipping past him in the sharp, cool wind.

Hermione guided them down a path that led to a clearing near the perimeter of the forest. She waited for Pendrake to enter the clearing, standing by a tree near the entrance in case she felt any need to extricate herself from the situation, which she very probably would.

"My motives are probably not what you think, Miss Potter," said Pendrake, with great emphasis on her surname. "I loathe Tom Riddle above all other creatures."

"Funny way you have of showing it," Hermione noted coolly.

"I have no choice in the matter," said Pendrake. "In fact, that is why I have sought your help."

"Blackmailed me," she corrected.

"I am about to reveal to you sensitive information," Pendrake explained. "It wouldn't do to reveal that to you without having, say, a trump card."

"Reveal away," said Hermione.

Pendrake expelled a pent-up bit of breath, clearly unhappy at her reaction and uncomfortable progressing in the conversation. That suited her, though. "Tom... forced me to befriend him. It was a political move, in order to assemble the little group he has about him now."

This roused Hermione's interest not a little bit. How silly of her not to realize that the answer to her curiosity about Tom's fifth year had fallen into her lap. With a hefty price, to be sure. But still. If she were to parlay this turn of events to her favor, she ought to take advantage where she could. "Oh?"

"Yes. There is a... curse. I've never heard of it before, although I've since found that it's being used in the war on the Continent. It's why I thought you might be able to help me."

"Which curse are you referring to?"

"When he uses it, he says Imperius."

Hermione's blood curdled at hearing this. It shouldn't surprise her that Tom knew the curse, but it did worry her. It worried her also to see a symptom of the darkness that lay under his imperturbable surface. And lastly, there was a very real danger that Pendrake was under it now--she checked his eyes, quickly. No. Thank goodness she knew the signs, as all too many in this time did not. "Can you be more explicit? You aren't under it now. When, and how exactly, does he use it?"

"The first time... we had a confrontation. I thought he'd simply broken and would duel me, but instead... he made me do things. He made it clear he would make me do things whether I wanted to or no. That he would use it as punishment. He gave me the choice of acting on my own."

"To do what, exactly?"

"To make my friends his, to gather the most reputable Slytherins around him so his pitiable lineage wouldn't be a problem anymore."

"Yes, the half-blood business. And why did he choose you, of all people, to initiate the proceedings?"

Malfoy's lips thinned a bit, and he seemed to be considering.

"I've already half an inkling the half-blood business had to do with you, Malfoy, so let's not waste time with half truths. I'd like the whole story, from the beginning.

"I... well, he was just going about, chin up all the time, as though he belonged in Slytherin. As though he wasn't the first half-blood there in centuries. I knew about it for a while, from my father, and after a while I couldn't stand it. So I... I found proof, in document form, and put it up everywhere in Slytherin, so no one could miss it."

"Thus demonstrating the inalienable class passed along your line," Hermione commented dryly.

"And where, Miss... Potter, does this crusading spirit come from? Surely not from family indoctrination. What of your family?"

Hermione couldn't help but feel heat rise to her cheeks at the mention of her family. "That, Mr. Malfoy, not even you can ferret out." She sighed, suddenly feeling a great wave of hopelessness wash over her. A pet, he had a pet who would go to Tom and ruin her entire plan. Even if the information got to Dippet the damage control might well be insurmountable. "And pureblood or no," she said, leaning against the trunk of a tree, "which I'll not give you the pleasure of knowing... You came to me for help. Get on with it."

"I heard you're capable of a sort of permanent shielding spell--I saw evidence of it, so don't bother to deny it."

Her lips quirked a bit at his imperiousness. His grandson had been slightly older the last she'd seen him, and his own veneer had seemed just as flimsy. Small comfort in the face of this obstacle. "Wonder who you heard that from," she said, her tone implying that she didn't.

"Teach it to me, so when the half-blood--I saw that look, you must be a mudblood--"

"Blood won't help you. It's the normal shielding charm, done silently, and repeated as fast as my pulse."

"What are you saying?"

"Would you like me to write it on a bit of parchment for you? I think I'm clear enough."

"You just--keep on casting it?"

She raised her eyebrows in response. "Patience, tenacity, and not a little talent. If you're determined enough you may have my success, only I've had quite a bit of practice, and Tom will see what you're doing as soon as you try it."

He grasped her wrist tightly and she gasped. "You know I can't," he said, white-faced.

"I bet the half-blood can," she whispered viciously. He rose his hand as if to slap her and she ducked, but the hand never reached her. When she looked up from under the fall of her wild hair she saw it, raised and still and beside his smirking face.

"You're still cowed, mudblood. I still have the power here, and I am very tired of upstart mongrels pretending to be worth more than they are. You will find a way for me to disengage myself from the sway the half-blood has over me, and you will find it soon." He yanked her arm so she was forced closer to him, and she refused to meet his eyes. "And every indignity I suffer in the meantime you will answer for."

She was hardly paying attention any more, her heart was beating so loud. She forced herself to think, but her panic sent her vague forays into reason off track. He let go of her, and she was back against the bark of the tree, thrown back rather hard. Don't look at him, she told herself. It will only make it worse, and panic will do nothing to solve the problem.

"Who knows," he drawled. "I may even set a deadline."

She could hear the crunch of his feet against the undergrowth of the forest as he walked away. Perhaps it was that which did it, the physical diminishing of a dangerous object. "And if I am a pureblood?" she whispered. "What will you make of your Muggle manhandling then?"

He turned, his face composed. "If you are a pureblood, then you have a very bad reception to my attitudes, and I will not regret having taught you your manners." And he finished going.

Hermione sank to the gnarled roots of the tree, and all the half-thoughts she'd been keeping at bay rushed to her like flies to a honey-sweet corpse. For one, the fact that she was forced into an impossible position. She didn't know how to free Pendrake Malfoy from Tom's coercion, and even if she did, it would lead to some kind of showdown which would probably come back around to her. Either way, her mission was compromised. She couldn't keep things in a holding pattern for long, and even if she found some way to resolve the issue to her favor, Pendrake would surely use his blackmail against her again. Quite possibly to help him seek some revenge on Tom. And Hermione was certainly not up to confronting the future Lord Voldemort just yet, so out of accordance with her plan.

Ron had once noted, after having nearly brought her to tears with three victorious turns at Wizards chess, that her greatest weakness was a nearly addictive dependence on plans. He had also pointed out to her that her greatest strength was planning, and that where one plan fell short, she could always come up with another one. She looked up to the sky, to the stars and the spaces in between them, and wished he were here to help her with her next move.

*

Funny that, in the middle of a weekend day that didn't fall on a Hogsmeade Weekend, Tom found it so easy find the hallway in which the one-eyed witch's statue resided empty. He smiled as he tapped her with his wand and murmured "Dissendium." Things had been growing easier. He could swear he detected luck, and power, and control in some abstract sense, if only faintly at times. It would slip out of his hands, as it had with the appearance of Mione Potter, only to guide and sway him so that he knew his path towards his objective would be met. He couldn't help but notice that things came to him more easily if he was immoral. But then, morality had never been dear to his heart. Today's objective, of course, was Professor Dumbledore's meeting with a certain Mr. Knauss, who Tom knew, and presumed Dumbledore didn't know, to be a double agent with knowledge both of Grindenwald and the incident in Alsace. He, for one, did not intend on being late.

Tom hurried down the secret passageway. He had just been through it the night before, and the way seemed shorter due to the familiarity. He had planted an escaulpo charm on each of the tables in the Three Broomsticks, since he wasn't sure where Professor Dumbledore and Monsieur Knauss would choose to sit. Since he didn't want to waste time rifling through the tedious conversations of the patrons, he'd decided to watch through a window to see where Dumbledore and Knauss chose to sit. At the end of his passageway he exchanged his school robes with a cloak whose cowl fell over the upper portion of his face and shadowed the rest of it. Although he would have anticipated that the disguise might attract more attention than his uniform, the Hogsmeade residents also seemed keen not to be caught looking in his direction.

Just a few minutes left. Tom ambled over a thin, fresh dusting of morning snow to linger a few metres from a window. If Dumbledore and Knauss were coming from the East he'd be able to see them going towards the entrance. Looking up at the sky, a wild happiness possessed him momentarily, and a smile broke over his features before he mastered himself. He was on the cusp, could feel the power and tension of the moment at his fingertips.

He caught sight of Dumbledore's familiar spangled robes at that moment and couldn't help but feel it was a moment of synchonicity. The smile curled the edge of his lip briefly as he noted their movement. The stood for a while, talked with the fat old matron who ran the establishment. Then Dumbledore gestured to a table and Knauss took a seat. The third table from the northeast pole. It was the fifth charm he'd placed the day before. Tom gilded away from the pub towards the Shrieking Shack for privacy. It wouldn't do for any passersby to spy a smoky copy of the conversation about to take place.

Tom sat on the gnarled root of a tree at the edge of the forest bordering the path to the Shack. His heart gave a brief thump as he extended a cupped hand and moved his wand over it to reveal the conversation via the charm. Nothing happened. He felt a similar blockage as to what happened whenever Hermione entered Dumbledore's office. He muttered the incantation again. Again, nothing. Tom was momentarily overwhelmed by the surprise, but he had no immediate ideas about what to do about it. So he sat, staring at the emptiness he held in his hand, under an empty sky, waiting for an answer to come. He had been sure he was stepping towards something. But then, it had happened before. It had happened briefly, and the charm had resumed its application. It would happen again. It had to.

Tom passed his wand over his hand again. Softly, an image flickered to life.

It was them. "And now to the matter at hand, Monsieur Knauss," said Dumbledore. They had been speaking of something vital, Tom realized. That was the reason for the silence. And he realized it was the reason for the other silences. What he could not fathom was the reason he had been allowed to listen, for he knew suddenly and surely that Dumbledore had been permitting him to listen for some time, not only to him but to the other members of the staff who he had been spying on.

"Zee girl, Minerva, has detected something strange in one of zee bodies," Knauss began. "However, eet ees not a matter of Transfiguration. She suspects eet may be a potion, but none that she has any knowledge of. Eet has altered zee body. However, zere is yet no way of telling eef eet had something to do with zee battle zat took place."

"I see," said Dumbledore with not a little weight to his words.

"I am sorry I cannot relate more," replied Knauss.

"It isn't that, Monsieur. I am afraid it is quite likely the potion did have something to do with the battle that took place, and if it did, I am quite sure that none of the reasons that explain how the two are linked will be pleasant."

"You theenk zere is a chance zere was a survivor?"

"The possibility is growing ever more likely, Monsieur Knauss. You understand that this discussion is to be kept utterly secret. If she did survive, no one must know. I know there those who are duplicitous in France, and we much not chance this information getting in the hands of Grindenwald's forces."

"I understand, Monsieur Dumbledore."

"I hear that your cousin is in the midst of designing a new chocolate? Do tell me of this most illustrious endeavor."

Tom expelled a breath at this. The utter fool wanted to talk sweets after making a spy privy to sensitive information? He couldn't believe Dumbledore hadn't discovered Knauss's dual nature. However, he might not have exactly the right picture. If Dumbledore was allowing Tom to be privy to information, there were certainly levels of subterfuge he was unaware of. But the conversation was winding to a close, and soon he would have the rare opportunity to interrogate a source close to the incident in Alsace. Tom extinguished the flickering image cupped in his hand and set off for the Three Broomsticks. It was seeming likelier and likelier that Mione was the very survivor Dumbledore and Knauss were speaking of.

Tom returned to the nook he had used to observe Dumbledore and Knauss' seating arrangements. He could see Dumbledore standing and speaking to the fat proprietor. Not a few moments later, Knauss emerged from the edifice. Tom watched him turn east and waited before following him. He made his movements seem his own rather than guided by Knauss's direction. He ducked into The Hog's Head, noting the man's direction, and departed through the back, making not so much as a ripple in the bar. Knauss was now at the perimeter of Hosmeade. He was heading for an apparition point. Tom moved slowly, hiding himself in the trees. There, that was far enough from prying eyes. He sent a silent stunning spell at the man. Knauss fell in a clean arc, landing on his stomach. Perfect. He would never see Tom. Quickly, smoothly, Tom made his way to Knauss. When he was close enough he could see the small signs that displayed struggle with the stunning spell. It was the type of thing that revealed itself in the face and neck. There was more rigidity there than was strictly necessary. He'd better be quick about this.

"Legilimens," he whispered, passing his wand over the man.

He was first met by the proliferation of images and sounds at the forefront of the man's memory. Dumbledore, the pub, apparating from France. Vaguely, Tom thought of peeking in closer on Knauss's conversation with Dumbledore, but Legilimency required a narrowness of thought processes, and Mione filled the parameters of his mind. Her face was before him, clearly--the large, youthful eyes, shaded with darker contents than they had been made for, the soft mouth so often set in a stern line, the small nose and gentle slope of cheekbones. He rifled through the man's thoughts--he was certainly a spy for Grindenwald, he worked mainly with an elegant-looking black woman. But he was looking for Mione's face. Alsace, the bodies in Alsace. This brought him to a meeting with a stern-looking young woman whose hair was pulled back into a severe looking bun, introducing herself as Minerva McGonnagall. Yes, this was it. She was the Transfigurations expert who had come to have a look at the body. The body, the body. They were walking through a long, dimly lit hall. And then there was a room, one wall covered with jars, various body parts floating in a preserving fluid. At last they came to the body.

It was curled upon the table, a closed fist near its mouth, as if to protect itself. It was a child. A chubby little blonde girl. There was a moment of shock, and he could feel Knauss fighting back, and felt his own thoughts being pulled at, Mione's face--he pulled back, checking the scene again, to be sure. It wasn't her. And yes, this was the only one who might have survived the skirmish in Alsace. And it was not, was not her. Tom broke away completely in shock, now. He stared for a moment at Knauss. He was farther away from understanding the situation than he ever had been.

Quickly possessing himself, Tom retreated back to the cover of trees. Once hidden, he retracted the stunning spell. As expected, Knauss jumped up quickly, turning wildly in an attempt to hex his attacker. No matter.

"Obliviate," Tom said softly. And then Knauss was confusedly looking about, walking this way and that. Obliviate took care of everything. Tom waited until he saw Knauss recover and go on to the apparition point. Knauss stopped, and pointed his wand towards himself, and disappeared with a faint pop. And Mione's face returned to the forefront of Tom's mind. He didn't even remember that he had not looked for that portion of the conversation between Dumbledore and Knauss that he had not been allowed to hear.

*

Henri Knauss knew that something had happened in Hogsmeade, and a strong suspicion that it had to do with Dumbledore. It was stupid to stay, however, especially since he was so confused and couldn't see whoever was responsible for his state. He merely apparated back to his quarters in Le Quartier Latin, where Bellonia Zabini was awaiting him. She was in a white gown that highlighted her dark features and looked, as ever, like a fallen angel. She blinked her long, slanting eyes at him, and intoned, "Et oui?"

"Dumbledore is ever the fool, and I believe I've been obliviated."

With a maddening slow grace she picked up the goblet of wine on his mahogany footstool and took a pull from it. "It is a good thing they have chosen me, then, to be your partner. Who knows more of the minds of men than the Black Widow?" She smiled, softly. "Have I ever told you of my beautiful Pensieve, a gift from my third husband, the darling Mr. Silversmith? It has the peculiar quality of translating one's subjective memories into a more objective picture. It is able to clear the mind fogged by drink, trick the reluctant mind into giving a whole picture, even to extract memories that have been obliviated. And it is made of white gold and encrusted with 24-carat pink diamonds. Did you know that the yellow tint to gold that gives it its name is actually an impurity?"

Knauss sat across from her on his recliner. "Yes, your obsession with purity. Well, do fetch it so we can find what it was that was so eager to hide."