Assignment
She leaned over the simmering potion and carefully sprinkled in some powdered newt's tail. Yawning, she leaned over the thick book she was working from to read ahead while the potion simmered for the next hour. It was early and despite popular belief, Hermione Granger was not a morning person. She brewed the easiest potions in the morning since she usually didn't start thinking clearly until sometime after lunch.
Hermione glanced around the lab with disdain. She was stuck here brewing potions while other members of the Order got to do all sorts of exciting things. Harry was off somewhere with Ron. Only Dumbledore knew the specifics of their mission. She, on the other hand, was stuck in a lab, day after day brewing potions for Snape. His work as a spy was taking up more and more of his time and he had requested someone to assist him. Dumbledore had ordered her to volunteer.
Of all the complaints she thought she would have about working with Snape, she hadn't imagined that "uneventful" would be at the top of her list. She wanted to help the Order, to help Harry. She really didn't feel like brewing potions, most of them well below N.E.W.T. level, was the best use of her time.
She had mentioned this to Dumbledore, requested that she be moved to a new assignment, possibly something more important to the cause, a better use of her skills. It was then that Dumbledore had confessed that they needed her, that they had given her this assignment merely as a way to keep her safe until they found an assignment important enough to risk her.
That had placated her for a while, but she remained restless.
And so she continued another day, bored out of her mind. Snape wasn't there. But then again, he was rarely around. He was busy with his spy work and teaching, that was the whole reason she had been assigned to help him in the first place.
The lab at headquarters was white, clean, and they kept it in immaculate condition. Her gaze traveled around it. Suddenly the door flew open and a familiar black-robed figure stormed into the room. He said nothing to her but instead flew through the room into the small supply closet. He emerged seconds later holding several vials. The look on his face made her heart skip a beat. Something was going on.
She stood up.
"Something's happened."
"Yes."
"What?"
"There's no time to explain here. It involves you. Come."
She followed him into the adjoining study where he threw a handful of floo powder into the fireplace and called out, "Dumbledore's office, Hogwarts." And suddenly they were standing in a room she had not been into in many years. She had barely a moment to take in her surroundings when the elderly wizard strode in through the door. His face mirrored Severus'.
"Do you have the potion, Severus?"
"Yes. Three vials."
She found it hard to breathe. She had never seen Dumbledore conduct any type of interaction without offering each member a lemon drop before. Today it was all business. Whatever had happened, two things were certain: this was a serious matter and time was a factor.
"Miss Granger," Dumbledore began, finally sitting down behind his desk and motioning for the other two to be seated as well, "There has been an incident in Hogsmeade."
"Who's dead?" She asked, not being able to bear the suspense any longer.
He hesitated for a moment.
"Pansy Parkinson."
She had no reaction to that.
"She was in your year at Hogwarts. I believe you were acquainted with her."
"Yes, of course," she stumbled. He had mistaken her lack of reaction for her not knowing of Pansy. She had known her of course. Hogwarts wasn't that big and being an intelligent muggle-born and friend of Harry Potter, she had been well acquainted with most of the Slytherin purebloods. Her lack of reaction instead stemmed from the lack of emotion she felt over the death of this girl. This girl had tormented her in school, had looked down on people like her. She was not happy that Pansy had died of course, but neither could be bring herself to feel sad.
"I'm sorry sir, but I fail to understand what this has to do with me."
"We have been waiting for an opportunity such as this one. Severus is currently our only spy within the upper levels of the Dark Lord's army. We have been having some trouble getting more spies that we can trust. The dark mark, in essence, marks the soul, not the body. We cannot simply send in Aurors polyjuiced to look like death eaters because the mark would not show up on them. We have been waiting for an opportunity to place someone close to the inner circle, but not inside it. Pansy has always been a social girl. She is well-connected to many important death eaters. Her death has provided us with a rare opportunity."
"You wish for me to assume her identity and spy for you?"
"Yes." It was not Dumbledore's style to get straight to the point. Under ordinary circumstances he would have danced around the subject and asked a little more tactfully, but every second counted.
He reached behind his desk and pulled out a pile of clothing, presumably Pansy's from when she had been attacked. On top of the pile sat a slender wand. He handed her the pile which she accepted.
"How long?"
"Until the end. It could be weeks, months."
"Or years," she said softly.
The old wizard nodded somberly.
"Yes. Or years."
"Ok. So how does this happen?"
She didn't need to think or consider. This was not a job offer, it was not a request. It was an order.
"You will spend the next few days in intense training with Severus here at Hogwarts. Pansy's body will be charmed to look like you and you will be reported dead. We will then alert people that Pansy has had an accident and is recovering in the Hogwarts infirmary. You will take the Polyjuice and slip into Pansy's role, blaming any slip-ups on the memory damage that she suffered in the accident. Severus will have occasional contact with you to provide you with more polyjuice and to collect any information you gather. The two of us are the only ones who know of your assignment. To the rest of the world you will be dead."
She nodded, trying desperately to absorb all the information being thrown at her.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Dumbledore turned back towards her and dropped a small item into her hand, "this is Pansy's too." He turned and strode out of the room.
She looked down and saw that the item in her hand was an engagement ring. She looked up at Snape.
"Please tell me it's not Malfoy."
"It's Malfoy and he's on his way to the infirmary to see his injured fiancee right now. Come." When they reached the infirmary, Poppy was already there, pacing frantically. The nervous look in her eye told Hermione that the woman had already been briefed.
There in a bed in the middle of the room lay the lifeless body of Pansy Parkinson. She stepped cautiously towards the bed and Snape followed, pulling the curtain around them. He reached down and gently plucked a single black hair from the girl's short bob and dropped it into the vial in his hand.
Hermione grimaced in anticipation of the flavor, but when he handed it to her, she gulped it down without hesitation.
She closed her eyes as the effects of the Polyjuice took effect. She could feel her body stretch as she gained a few inches and lost a few pounds. The ever-present feeling of her bushy hair on her shoulders disappeared into the light feeling of short, straight hair. She felt her face change, but have no mirror to observe the changes. Opening her eyes, she stared at the lifeless face of the girl whose form she now took. She didn't need a mirror...the corpse showed her the same thing.
She ran her hand over her now-silky hair. It was hair she would have killed for as a younger girl. Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the infirmary doors being slammed open and a loud, haughty voice saying, "I demand to see my finacee at once."
She looked up at Snape in fear as they listened to Madam Pomferey intercept the young man. From behind the closed curtain, the professor waved his wand and the corpse was suddenly invisible. He bent down to Hermione and whispered in her ear. "Put on Pansy's clothes and get into the next bed. And take this." He handed her a second vial, this one containing a blue liquid she did not recognize before stepping out of their curtained enclosure and leaving her alone with the invisible corpse of the woman whose image she currently inhabited.
She quickly changed into the clothing she had been carrying, noting that they fit Pansy's body much better than her own had. Slipping under the crisp sheets of the bed, she gulped down the unidentified potion.
The second the potion hit her tongue, the world began to slow, as if a think layer of mud had been poured over everything. Her eyes drifted shut.
The sound of the curtain around her bed startled her and she slowly opened her eyes to stare into the cool gray ones of Draco Malfoy. The potion made everything foggy and she stared at him in confusion instead of her normal revulsion or hatred.
His eyes swept over her body and she noted that instead of the concern for his lover she expected to see there, there was only a cold analytical stare.
He turned away from her and back to Snape.
"She'll be alright? No scars or anything."
"No external scars. She has suffered some internal damage though...some brain damage."
The young man nodded.
"Is there anything you can do."
"There is a potion that she will need to continue to take."
"She will be ready to be released tomorrow. I will see that she makes it back to her flat."
"I want to know how this happened. I want all the details of the incident in Hogsmeade."
She was aware that the voices were getting further away as the professor walked his godson back to the door. After a few minutes of silence, he returned to her bed and forced a potion down her throat. She coughed and sputtered and sat up, her mind clearing. It was obviously the antidote to whatever he had given her earlier.
"You drugged me," she accused.
He appeared unaffected by her accusation.
"And it would have been better if you had flinched or even hexed your supposed fiancee as soon as he entered the room?"
He didn't give her a chance to respond.
"Come, we have work to do."
The rest of that day was spent in his office as she carefully poured over each of her memories of Pansy Parkinson in Snape's Pensive. When she had made her way through them, he emptied his own memories of the woman into the Pensive and watched them with her, explaining all he knew about Pansy. Some of his memories were more current. Many were of the girl as private events of the Malfoy Family. Hermione took note, trying to keep track of her pattern of speech, of her mannerisms.
Next, Hermione practiced with Pansy's wand. It was difficult to use and her spells came out weakly, but Snape seemed pleased with that fact. Pansy, of course, was never the most powerful witch.
Finally, he led her out of his office and into his classroom. She gave him a curious look as he sat behind his desk. She was no longer a student and was almost insulted that he expected her to sit at one of the students' desks like a first year.
"Take a seat, Miss Granger," he smirked.
She hesitated but complied, easing herself onto the cold, wooden chair. She looked up at him across the empty classroom. He looked down at her with a malicious glint in his eye.
"For our next lesson, Miss Granger, I will ask a question and you will give the wrong answer."
"Sir?"
"Miss Granger, you are an incredibly intelligent young witch. Won't it be suspicious if Miss Parkinson somehow suddenly has knowledge and powers far beyond her abilities?"
"Yes."
"We are, in effect, asking you to play dumb. I know it will be difficult for you to restrain your natural tendancy to be a know-it-all, but it is vital to the sake of the mission."
"I'm not a know-it-all," she pouted.
"Miss Granger, please name a potion in which moonstone is used."
She opened her mouth with the answer on the tip of her tongue but he shot her a sharp look. She closed her mouth. She could think of over a hundred potions in which moonstone was not used, over a hundred answers that she could give. She opened her mouth again and tried to force one out, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't give an answer knowing she was wrong.
She glanced up at the man in the front of the classroom who was giving her a self-satisfied smirk.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" She asked.
"Immensely."
She narrowed her eyes as he reveled in her pain.
"I hate you."
"Try again, Miss Granger. What is a potion in which moonstone is used?"
She took a deep breath.
"Hiccuping Solution?" She asked, knowing full well that it was not in the list of ingredients for that particular potion.
"Wrong," he smirked, "very good, Miss Granger. Now shall we try another?"
The second day of training went much the same as the first and by early evening it was time for the mission to begin. She stood in the room they had set up for her at Hogwarts with the vial in her hand. There was a full-length mirror that she gazed into, taking in the details of her face, of her body as if she had never seen them before; she had no idea when she would see them again.
She gulped down the potion and stepped outside to where the potions master waited for her in the empty corridor. He would be her connection, the one person she would have contact with as she went undercover. Her heart pounded in her chest as she wondered if she would be able to pull this off.
They walked silently through the school, but he paused just inside of the main doors and turned to her.
"I assume I do not need to tell you how vital this mission is," he said softly.
"No, Sir."
"As a spy, your job is to gather information and only to gather information. Do I need to repeat myself?"
"No, Sir."
"Your job is not to free the Malfoy's house elves. It is not to talk anyone out of service to the dark lord. It is not to save lives. Your job, Miss Granger, is to gather information. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Sir."
They left the school and apparated to the small flat in Hogsmeade where Pansy lived. Snape opened the door and she stepped inside, looking around at the contents of the apartment.
She turned around to see the Snape looking at her carefully, as if he could see something which she could not...as if he could see a future of which she was only becoming dimly aware.
"I will return in a few days to check in on you, to bring you more Polyjuice."
She nodded and he turned to leave, but then hesitated and turned back towards her.
"There is no reason to feel ashamed, to feel guilty about anything you might be forced to do to keep up your role. I have been doing this for nearly twenty years now, rest assured that you are not doing anything that I have not already done."
He closed the door and she was left alone in the dead woman's apartment.
She cautiously walked through the small home, opening drawers, peering in closets, looking for anything that might help her. Finally in a drawer next to the bed she found what she was looking for...Pansy's diary, her way into the mind of the woman she was supposed to be. She needed to get into Pansy's mindset if she was going to be able to pretend even for one second to be in love with the man who had tormented her throughout her childhood, if she was going to be able to pretend to be in love with a Death Eater.