Author's note: Hi, so this is my first fan fiction. Be wary, I would love constructive criticism. Thank you kindly!

Disclaimer: All belong to J.K. Rowling, this is all based on her.

Spine of steel, heart of gold and mind full of knowledge Hermione Granger strode with pride to the Ministers office. It was Hermione's fifth year of service to the Ministry and she was to be awarded for her work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

As soon as Voldemort was defeated and the war ceased, Hermione was determined to help keep the world a better place. Well, the Magical world at least, by applying and obtaining a job that would keep order and structure of the magical laws.

Her first accomplishment was ridding the wizarding prison of Azkaban of the Dementors that guarded it and replaced them with fully checked out wizards who had proven themselves trustworthy in a one year trial. Next she helped the last of the accused be put in their place whether it was in Azkaban or back to their homes with a sincere apology. She also worked carefully with the Minister himself, several highly knowledgeable Auror's, and many long-serving law makers to amend, create and abolish laws that were to be better suited for the new world.

Yes, Hermione had achieved many things in five years time, considering she was only twenty-two years of age, she was doing quite well for herself.

Once Hermione reached the Ministers office, she softly knocked at the door and waited to hear a positive reply before entering.

"Miss Granger," the Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt, greeted. "Come in, have a seat," he said gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. Hermione sat quickly with anticipation.

"Thank you, Sir. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, I did. I assume you have already heard rumours as to the award you will be receiving from

the Ministry. Am I right?"

Her cheeks flushed. Hermione did know, and she couldn't lie to the Minister. Even if she didn't know, she would have found out in that moment anyway.

"Yes Sir, I did know."

The Minister smiled at her, "can't keep anything a secret here can we?" He gave a light chuckle and so did Hermione out of pure understanding. She remembers when Harry had mentioned to Ron that he was going to propose to Ginny and of course everyone knows that they had been dating for a while. The word spread through the Ministry like wild fire and soon was enough leaked to The Daily Prophet.

"So then I also assume you know of the dinner we had planned for you to present this award at?"

She nodded, smiling, still had rose coloured cheeks.

"Well then, not-so-surprise Miss. Granger! Your work here in the Ministry has been outstanding. We were so impressed; we decided to honour you with the 'Most Dedicated to the Ministry' award. Congratulations!"

"Thank you Sir, it has been a pleasure working here. I absolutely love my job! I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else."

"Excellent! The dinner will be in two months time, as you know things have been busy here and we're making sure to plan it well. Hence the lateness."

Hermione didn't mind at all, she really didn't even care to have a plaque with her name on it. All she cared is that her boss and co-workers were happy with her work and that she was doing her job well.

"Thank you again Sir, and really, don't feel like you have to rush about the dinner." She shook the Ministers hand with a good grip and gave him a big smile. She headed for the door and was done for the day. Hermione walked through the Ministry feeling so confident, so proud and curious as to what her parents would say if she could tell them about her doings. She thought of them every day, wondering how they were, guessing if they enjoyed their new lives. It was hard on Hermione to erase her parents' minds and send them away. But she couldn't take risks, she had to keep them safe and she did. But the pang of sorrow she felt everyday would never subside. At least she had Harry, Ron, Ginny and the rest of the Weasley's.

As Hermione made her way through the Ministry, she made a detour and stopped in at the Auror's offices. Going there was almost as good as going back to Hogwarts; so many friendly and familiar faces gazed and greeted her as she walked through.

"Hiya Hermione, congrats on the award! Bit of a bugger that you got to wait 'till February to get it though."

Hermione laughed, "thanks Dean. I don't mind all that much. Hey, have you seen Harry or Ron around?"

"Sorry Hermione, not today. Ask Seamus, he might have."

"Thanks again Dean!"

"No problem!" He winked and went back to his duties.

Hermione had always enjoyed Dean, he was a polite and funny bloke, any girl would be lucky to get him. She continued on her search for Ron, Harry or Seamus but Hermione was stopped by a few other people, accepting praise for her award and simple, small talk. Eventually she found Seamus behind a mound of papers; obviously someone was behind on their filing. Again.

"Hi Seamus, having troubles filing again?"

Seamus popped his head out from around the papers and shot a huge silly grin in Hermione's direction. Before she knew it, Seamus had scurried across the floor and scooped her up in a celebratory hug.

"CONGRATULATIONS HERMIONE!" Hermione laughed and thanked Seamus, then quickly suggested to put her down.

"Haha, sorry Hermione. Let me guess, you've already had everyone in the Ministry come and congratulate you and you came 'round here looking for Harry and Ron? Tell me I'm right because I know I am."

Hermione laughed again and playfully flicked his nose, "bingo!"

"Knew it! I'm getting good at this. But sorry to say, I haven't seen Harry or Ron pretty much all day. Oh, but..." Seamus dug around in his pocket and finally presented a small folded piece of paper with Hermione's name written on it. "This is for you. From your boys of course," he said with a smile, "now I really need to get back to sorting these papers. See ya Hermione!" With a wink and a nod, Seamus stalked back to his desk and started to rifle through his papers.

Hermione turned from him and started to head home, when curiosity got the best of her. She stopped in her tracks and looked down at the note in her palm. She stared at it for a minute and then carefully opening it as if suspecting one of George's silly tricks would be hidden inside waiting for her. Instead it was a quick scribble of a note obviously written in Ron's writing because it was barely even legible.

Hermione,

Harry and I have something serious we need to tell you. Meet us at the Burrow at eight sharp.

Ron

Hermione started to wonder what could possibly be wrong. She quickly checked her watch and it read 6:43. Hermione quickened her pace around the corner and hit a hard, yet warm growling wall... What the..?

"Watch it, Granger."

Hermione looked up to meet eyes with her school-day bully, Draco Malfoy.

"How in the bloody hell did you get in here, Malfoy?"

Draco glared at her and gave an unnecessary full body look over of Hermione.

"Bloody hell, hmm? Starting to sound like your little Weasel-bee."

"Ron isn't my anything, Malfoy." He looked down and inspected her left hand to find it empty.

"Hasn't proposed yet then?"

"For your information, Ronald and I are no longer together. Not like it matters to you," Hermione took her turn in looking down to his hands. Long fingers, naked of a wedding ring, but did bare the Malfoy crest and no shackles that bound him, interesting. Interesting about the lack of shackles, not the wedding ring, that was obvious. She glared right back at him.

"What are you even doing here? I thought you would make yourself scarce of this place after the war." He eyed her, looked down to his own wrists and sneered.

"I'm not here against my will if that's why you looked at my hands. I am here for a purpose. It's nothing you need to worry your big bushy head about," then smirked. He was such an ass, and he knew it too.

"Why can't you tell me? I told you my personal information."

"You didn't have to."

"You asked!"

"Still didn't have to."

"Jesus Malfoy, just tell me! It can't be that big of a deal!"

"No." He stood there for a moment and then turned and Hermione watched him floo out of the building. Jerk. Moments after that, she flooed home herself and was then greeted by her cat, Crookshanks.

"Hi Crooks, what have you been up today?" The cat merely meowed and brushed against her legs then made a quick escape to the bedroom.

Hermione's flat was actually big for being a flat. She had three rooms, one for her bedroom, one as a library and another as a study. She had a large living space, which she happened to fill with more books and photos of her Hogwarts years and a breath taking view of muggle London. She was so at home here. This was the fifth place she moved to after the war. Things in the Wizarding World will still hectic and security was tight, so Hermione figured it should be that way with her own home. Once it was declared that the Wizarding World was safe again, she moved one last time and found herself in this great flat.

Once Hermione placed her work stuff in the study, changed into casual wear and sat her bottom on the couch, she brought Ron's note to her attention again.

She read it over and over again, playing different scenarios in her head. She gave up the couch and replaced tapping her fingers against her thighs with pacing up and down her living room. That's when she figured it out. Everyone had been congratulating her all day on her award and Harry and Ron would have heard and probably decided to throw her some surprise dinner at the Burrow! Made perfect sense. So Hermione calmed herself and returned to the couch for some relax time before she was to leave for the Weasley's. But instead of relaxing, she replayed the unexpected meeting with Draco Malfoy at the Ministry earlier that day. She was so sure she ran into a wall, but it didn't make sense that it was warm. It didn't make sense that he was warm. Hermione always imagined him to be stone cold, you know, to match his heart and lovely personality. Never in a million years would she have expected him to be warm. Ugh, she wasn't even going to get into that sort of thinking.

At ten to eight, Hermione gussied up in the bathroom mirror, straightened up the living room and fed Crookshanks before flooing to the Burrow.

When Hermione arrived, she was shocked to see no one there to greet her. It was winter and naturally it was dark at eight in the evening, but there were barely any lights on. She stood still, listening to see if anyone was around before calling out into the darkness.

"Hello..? Ron? Harry? Ginny? Mrs. Weasley?" She checked her watch again to see if she had the right time, and of course, eight o'clock on the nose.

"Mr. Weasley? George..?"

It was really starting to frighten Hermione that no one was answering, let alone the idea that no one might be home. She walked over to the kitchen to see it empty, past the living room which was also empty and decided to check upstairs. Every ascending creek of the stairs raised panic in her. Hermione swore she heard a noise downstairs; she stopped, almost reaching the first landing. She looked down, but nothing or no one was seen. Then suddenly, a door closing upstairs grabbed her attention. Thank God, Mrs. Weasley!

"Oh, hello Hermione, dear. I didn't hear you floo in," she practically whispered. Hermione noticed her puffy eyes and quiet tone but dared not say a thing about them.

"Hello Mrs. Weasley, where is everyone?"

"Everyone is out at the moment, dear. But Harry and Ron are up in Ron's old room."

"Alright, thank you Mrs. Weasley," Hermione gave her a kind smile and moved passed her to continue climbing up the stairs. Clearly this wasn't a surprise party for her after all.

She reached the top of the stairs, knocked and opened the door to Ron's old room. Ron's old room was one of the major factors that led to their split almost three years ago. Hermione thought it was time to grow up and get his own place, but he refused. He claims leaving home would be too hard but Hermione knew it was just a cover story and the truth was Ron liked his mother cooking and cleaning for him. A little after they broke up, Ron moved out, but they never talked about getting back together. Hermione thinks it was for the better.

As she entered the room, the smell of Harry and Ron filled her nose. She looked around the room to still see Quidditch posters upon the wall and a few old chairs sitting around, everything else was gone.

Harry and Ron looked up to Hermione and gave quick smiles.

"Hi guys," Ron looked to Harry and nodded.

"Here," Harry said pointing to the chair. "Come sit Hermione. Ron has some news."

Hermione looked at the pair of them, whatever news it was, it didn't look good. She slowly made her way over to the chair that Harry pointed at and sat down without a sound. Ron looked at her with puffy eyes and a threat of tears.

"I asked you guys to come because I wanted to let you know... My..." There was a long pause complete with a sigh.

"My dad was killed today." Hermione's mouth dropped.

"W-what happened?! W-what, how?!"

"He was visiting Charlie in Romania. Studying his work, you know my dad. And he got a little too close to one of the dragons and bam! Death by fire."

Hermione was speechless. She couldn't believe it! She then felt sorry for not comforting Mrs. Weasley when she clearly looked like she'd been crying.

"Ron... I'm... I'm so sorry," Hermione felt the tears prickle at her own eyes. She held back though, wanting to be strong for Ron.

"Ron, Harry, Hermione! Come down stairs, I got some tea ready for you!"

"Coming mum!"

The trio made their way through the almost empty room and down the creaking stairs of the Burrow. Harry led, quickly followed by Ron, which wasn't surprising since food was prepared and on the table and Hermione followed a few steps behind.

The lights where still off and dimly light in an odd place here and there. Hermione was so taken aback about the news she had just received only seconds ago. It made her think back to her own parents, then about Harry. The Weasley's have been his family since they first met in year one. Closer than that really since Harry proposed to Ginny six or seven months ago. Oh no, Ginny. Poor Ginny. She would have to walk down the aisle without her father and not have Fred there to laugh along with. Poor Ginny, Harry and the rest of the Weasley's.

Hermione came back to reality and realised she had stopped on the second to last step and Ron and Harry must already be round in the kitchen. She proceeded down the stairs and walked around the corner to the completely lit kitchen and sat with the boys who had already started to eat.

"Saw-ry Herm-nee, we were hn-gry," Ron managed to squeeze out between fork fulls of bangers and mash.

Hermione pushed the food around the plate with her fork, not really interested in eating at that moment. Harry, Ron and Mrs. Weasley ate in silence while Hermione replayed the information in her head. Mr. Weasley, dragon, flame, dead.

When the three had finished, Mrs. Weasley cleared the table, not minding Hermione's untouched plate and went without a word. A few silent moments more than Harry looked across the table over to Ron then Hermione,

"Congratulations on your work award Hermione."

"Thank you Harry, but this isn't about me right now-"

"Hermione dear, you got an award from the Ministry?" Hermione was a little shocked to hear Mrs. Weasley sound almost happy, like nothing had happened. But if talking about other things kept her mind off of Arthur Weasley, Hermione would do her best to help.

She spoke of all of the things she has done at the Ministry to achieve this sort of award, Mrs. Weasley seemed impressed. Once she finished and received praise from everyone around the table, a faint sound of a door closing and shuffling feet made an interruption. George and Ginny appeared around the corner of the kitchen, keeping their heads down until Mrs. Weasley greeted them.

Harry bolted to Ginny's side and pulled her deeply close. Hermione watched as he soothed and comforted her, his grip tightened around her waist as she heard the small sounds of tears. Ron rose from his chair and shuffled over to Harry and Ginny to make it a group hug, Hermione thought he needed the hug just as much as Ginny. Hermione noticed George raise his fist to his eyes and smack away the few silent tears that fell. She decided he needed a hug to, so she walked over to him and hugged him tight. Even though Hermione and George never really got to know each other, she felt close to him, to his family. He hugged right back and Hermione dug her face into his chest to stifle her own tears. It was going to be a long night, Harry and Ginny made their way up to Ginny's room for the night and Mrs. Weasley retired to her room as well.

"How are you?"

"Hermione, I rather not talk about it."

"Sorry, we can talk about something else. How is Angelina?" George and Angelina married a few years back, their wedding was gorgeous, it had elements of Quidditch too because that's how they really got to know one another. It really suited them, it was a little cheesy, but perfect. In their second year of Hogwarts both George and Angelina went out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team and made it, ever since then they secretly fancied each other. Everyone knew it, but the two of them avoided dating in school, no one was really sure why.

"She's alright," George was avoiding eye contact with her, she hasn't seen him this upset since Fred died, and even then he was worse than this.

"I think I'm going to go home now, you're welcome to sleep here if you'd like. I'm sure my mum won't mind," George departed from his chair and walked over to the fireplace in the living room and flooed home.

Hermione was left sitting in the Burrow's kitchen alone, she contemplated crashing on the couch,

but she eventually staggered over to the fireplace and flooed home.

A week had gone by and Ron still hasn't come to work. Hermione and Harry have visited the Burrow almost every night. Ron hasn't even gone to his own home yet and George has someone taking care of Weasley Wizard's Wheezes while he spends his days with his family. Even Angelina makes her appearances with plates of goodies, baskets of bread and containers of soup.

When Hermione got to her desk that morning, she had an unusual amount of papers and files sitting there waiting for her. She wasn't due to start in another half an hour so she made herself a cup of tea and grabbed a blueberry muffin from the Ministry's cafeteria.

When she made her way back to her office, there had been a note slipped under the door that lay on the floor. Hermione placed her tea and muffin on the desk and proceeded to pick up the note.

As soon as you're on duty, come to my office and bring those files that are upon your desk. We need to talk.

Shacklebolt

Hermione scrunched her face at the note and turned to the ominous pile on her desk. She quickly downed her tea and stuffed her muffin in a napkin, threw it in her top left-hand drawer and swiped the stack of papers from her desk and made a run for Shacklebolts office.

When she arrived she knocked on the door three times quickly before having the door opened by a familiar face.

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

"Same reason you are, Hermione," as he gestured towards the papers in Hermione's grip.

Confused, Hermione stepped into the office and sat down in front of the Ministers desk. It was only a week ago that she was sitting here with pure happiness, now she sits here more confused than ever.

"Morning, Miss Granger."

"Good morning, Sir."

"I'm assuming you haven't looked at those files yet?" Hermione looked down to her hands, realising she was still gripping onto the stack of papers. She set them down on the Ministers desk and took notice to Harry leaning on the far wall of the office.

"Mr. Potter, could you please fill in Miss. Granger as to why I needed to see the both of you this morning."Harry made his way closer to Hermione and sat in the chair next to her.

"Thing is Hermione, ever since Ron's dad died, we've been finding more and more reports of death, just like his. Some from three, five, ten years ago and longer. We're guessing, by the records, that it started around the same time that Voldemort was first starting to come into power. At least a hundred were killed back then. It died down after Voldemort was gone but then started up again roughly ten years after that, when I first saw him in our first year." Hermione looked between Harry and the Minister, still not being able to put two and two together.

"The dragon that killed Mr. Weasley was a non-fire breather. With all the other cases, it's been the same way. Almost sixty wizards have died because of these non-fire breathing dragons. And all of them were burnt to death, by those dragons." Hermione took a moment to take in that information.

"So.. Are you saying that someone is tampering with these dragons and that they could be Voldemort followers?"

"That is exactly what we thought, Miss. Granger," Shacklebolt replied.

"We're not sure if it is one person, or a group of people who are doing this. All we know for sure is that they're using rare magic to do all of this," Harry started again."Rare dark magic. Whatever we are dealing with, it's strong."

Hermione couldn't believe her ears. More than twenty years have gone by and no one has said anything about it until now? Incredible.. How do you miss something like that?!

"Alright, what can I do to help? I can scan every one of these reports again to see if information was left behind or-"

"Miss. Granger, I actually had something different in mind. You are going to need more than just yourself working on these. You'll also need to have protection, many of our Auror's are already on the case and this is a special line of work. I would like if you, not only continued your normal work but if you would also take on the roll of being part of the Auror Department. Investigations."

"Wow, that is an honor Sir, I will gladly take that on."

"Very good, I didn't think you would oppose to it," Shaklebolt smiled and shook Hermione's hand.

"As of today, you are to interview our new Auror's to see if any of them can match you mentally. Mr. Potter here has already taken to training them physically so they are quite capable to be your bodyguards as well. If you fail to find anyone, I might have someone in mind. Good luck Miss. Granger," Harry and Hermione exited the Ministers office and made their way to Hermione's office.

"It makes me wonder why Shacklebolt didn't just suggest the person he had in mind first," Hermione confessed as she and Harry settled into their chairs.

"Not sure. Anyway, here is the list of the newbie's that I've trained and are ready to be interviewed by you. They have full background checks and they have the one year loyalty and trust trials completed as well. They were briefed on the case, so don't be worried about revealing details," Harry stood and left a folded piece of paper on Hermione's desk. "Good luck," he said, then turned and vanished through the doorway.

Hermione reached across the desk and plucked the paper from the other side. She unfolded the paper to see it revealed at least seven names.

Gillian Banks

Anderson Baker

Bertha Brown

Hetcher Green

Konner Murray

Frank Ward

Mitchell Young

Alright, definitely some new faces. They ought to be a few years younger too, being new to the company. Hermione decided that she would ask each person questions about current events, dark magic and basic magic to know what level they were on. If everything went well, they would get a trial day with her to see how they worked together. That should do it.

She sent down a messenger to gather all of the applicants to wait outside her door to be interviewed, it was easier to round them all up at once instead of getting them one by one.

Hermione opened the door to her office to see the seven faces she called for, here we go.

"Gillian Banks, please," A girl with long blonde hair and pale skin came forward and walked into Hermione's office. Hermione sat in her chair and began running questions for Gillian through her head.

"So Gillian, congratulations on becoming an Auror."

"Thank you, Miss. Granger."

"Alright, so I will ask you some basic questions on current events, basic magic and dark magic. Understood?" Gillian nodded. Hermione could see that she had bitten her nails to shreds, must be nervous.

"Question one, what currently is the Ministry's Auror Department working on?" Gillian stared at her for a moment and then slowly opened her mouth to speak.

"Currently," she croaked, "they are working on this specific case that you are interviewing me for. Nothing else has really popped up in a few days to grab attention."

"Very good. Question two, could you please describe a Horcrux?" This time Gillian's face went blank. How could she not know what a Horcrux is, blimey. Hermione gave her a couple seconds, thinking it was nerves getting the best of her. After about a minute, Gillian dropped her head and Hermione knew that she didn't know the answer. Hermione showed her out and went through the rest of the applicants.

Anderson Baker couldn't handle the stress, even though Hermione hadn't asked him anything yet. Bertha Brown was simply all muscles, no brains. Hetcher Green knew all current events, basic magic, but was shy on dark magic. Konner Murray and Frank Ward were the same as Bertha, but with surprisingly a little more brains. Mitchell Young was flawless, he answered every question right. Hermione was about to declare him her partner when Mitchell asked when they were going to have sex. Hermione warned him that if those words left his mouth again, he'd be fired before he could ever say "sex" again. So much for them. Hermione sent a note to the Minister letting him know that the interviews didn't go to well and that none of them were suited for the job.

She finished the day with her regular duties, flooed home and went to bed early that night, she hadn't even started on the case yet and work was already becoming stressful. But it's nothing she can't handle.

The next morning, Hermione found that another piece of paper had made its way under her office door again. She snagged it off the floor and read the few words on it.

Sorry to hear that things didn't work out with the new Auror's.

My suggested person will be 'round your office at eleven, sharp.

Give people chances, you might be surprised.

Shacklebolt

Alright then, guess we'll just have to wait. Hermione went around her normal business and even took a gander at a few of those case files again. They weren't all the same dragons, so there would be no pin-pointing. Blimey, maybe Shacklebolt has suggested someone who knows people who could have done this. It would be much helpful, it's obviously old Voldemort followers or even ex-Death Eaters. The activity makes sense and the times when it intensifies makes it way obvious.

A knock at Hermione's door frightened her, she looked down to her watch to see that it read 10:59am. On time and one minute early, things are starting well. Hermione rose from her chair, she flattened out her black, mid-waist skirt and checked the buttons on her navy blue shirt. She quickly fluffed her hair, it was as good as it was going to get she reckoned and called for the mystery person to come in.

As Hermione stood there, she looked up to see who had entered her office. Blonde hair, pale skin. No way, it couldn't be. How could Shacklebolt possibly think this was a good idea?!

"Miss me?"