Author's Note: When I started writing this, it was the beginning to a completely separate story- one of the Sirius/Hermione persuasion. Apparently, though, I'm not meant to write anything fluffy and it all has to be dark. Eh. So now this is a prequel to Turning Points. It was written after TP was already half finished and adds just a little bit of backstory to the situation and what's going on. As of right now, this is all there is. I might add another chapter or something later on, but in my head, this is a one-shot.
Enjoy and please Read&Review!!
The Missing Link
Hermione was slowly walking down a quiet street in a neighborhood which could very well be considered a modern day Suburbia, when she heard light footsteps fall into step behind her. Having walked the exact same path every night at the exact same time and never having seen, much less heard, anybody else out, she quickened her pace and reached into her pocket to get a firm grip on her wand in case it turned out she would need it. Her wand was always with her, no matter her location, these days.
All of a sudden she heard a popping noise and knew she was in trouble. Knowing it would work more to her advantage if she confronted whoever was following her rather than running and leaving her back open to an attack, Hermione whipped out her wand and spun around in quick succession. Her jaw dropped, though, when she saw exactly who had been following her.
"Professor Moody?!" she gasped.
"Aye, lassie. It took you long enough to notice you were being followed." Mad-Eye Moody gave her a questioning look, his magical eye rolling around; supposedly watching the surrounding areas to ensure nobody was really planning to attack.
"Yeah, well I've had a lot of stuff on my mind," she grumbled.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared. "You always have to be alert in these times!"
"Tell that to Dumbledore," Hermione muttered. Then, looking around wildly, she asked, "Who was it that Apparated? I heard a popping noise."
"That was me. I had Fletcher following you with explicit instructions to protect you, but also to try to get your attention. When that didn't work, he signaled for me and I Apparated to see if the loud pop would get your attention." Moody shook his head sadly. "I know you're upset about your friend Ron going off to whatever school it is they sent him to, but he'll be back after the year is up, lass," Moody said. He was, unluckily, no good at comforting hormonal teenage girls and their conversation came to an abrupt end when Hermione burst into sobs and ran away.
Shaking his head once again, Moody Apparated to Order of the Phoenix headquarters to report back to Dumbledore.
"I don't know what's wrong with her, Albus. She's not paying attention to anything—no vigilance in that tyke. She didn't even notice Mundungus following her until he stepped out to signal me. And you know how easy it is to spot him."
Dumbledore merely frowned and looked up at the ceiling. "I think, Alastor, that it is time I let you know what really has Miss Granger so out of it. Here, take a seat," he said, transfiguring a tissue into a plush, royal purple chair, "this is going to take some time to explain."
Moody took a seat with a grunt, his roaming eye carefully looking Dumbledore up and down.
Pacing the width of the room, Dumbledore started, "Shortly after the school year ended Mssrs. Potter and Weasley and Miss Granger met up in Diagon Alley. As you know, Mr. Potter was staying with the Weasleys until around that time. They were there, in Diagon Alley, without supervision and ended up in Knockturn Alley after seeing and chasing after Peter Pettigrew. It was at this time that they were surrounded by several Death Eaters and forced to use a Portkey to get out of the public's eye. According to Harry and Hermione, they ended up in a graveyard; one which Harry says looked very much like the one he was taken to after picking up the trophy at the end of the maze in his fourth year.
"Voldemort was there, waiting for them, determined to kill Harry Potter once and for all. Now, you know how frightening Voldemort can be to an adult, much less to a teenager who had just been, a few minutes prior, laughing and having a great time with his best friends. None of them were prepared in the least for a battle. It is only fortunate that they all had their wands with them at the time.
"Kneeling Death Eaters surrounded the area so there was no way for them to escape..."
Harry, Hermione and Ron were surrounded. They glanced worriedly at one another and then back at the surrounding Death Eaters, hoping that against all odds, Professor Snape was one of the Death Eaters. In the pit of each of their stomachs, however, they knew that Snape had never returned to Voldemort's service after the incident at the Ministry.
Harry's mind was whirring with ideas. He could kill Voldemort. This was his chance. He knew he wouldn't get another one for a long while and hundreds of people would lose their lives in that span of time. 'If only there was a chance of us getting some reinforcements or something. I don't know how to do it without pissing this lot off and putting Hermione and Ron's lives in danger.'
Hermione's mind was working in hyper drive, as well. She was mentally reviewing all of the spells, hexes, curses and shields that she had learned throughout her years at Hogwarts that could help them. She didn't even pause to worry about what would happen if they should fail.
Ron was ignoring the obvious and thinking of ways to get Hermione out of the direct line of fire, should it occur. He knew she could protect herself, but he didn't want to run the risk of her getting hurt and also knew that if she did get hurt, he'd be unable to help Harry and would be too worried about her to think properly. What happened next was something he could never have even begun to fathom.
The Dark Lord motioned for his minions to rise and they all closed in on the trio, who stood back to back to back in a tight triangle. When the first curse was thrown, Hermione threw up a shield spell and managed to block it, but she knew that even if she repeatedly spat out the words for shields, they wouldn't last long enough to keep all of them safe forever. And even if they possibly could, she knew she wasn't strong enough to keep them going for an entire day and would eventually become worn out, most likely before any help arrived.
'What happened to that lovely day we were having earlier?' she wondered, seeing the dark clouds in the sky moving closer and closer. 'Diagon Alley was so bright and full of life. We were having such a great time. Trust Voldemort to come in and ruin it all for us.' She groaned. It was starting to look like there would be no survivors this time. 'We're all doomed.'
"Hermione! Duck!" Harry called out. She ducked just in time to see a flash of green fly over her head and hit a figure with a white mask behind her. 'Get your head in the game, Mione,' she told herself harshly. 'This is no time to be day dreaming.'
She started alternating between throwing curses and putting up shields, hoping it would be enough to last them until somebody realized they were no longer in Diagon Alley. Halfway through this thought process, she realized that they hadn't been planning on meeting up with anybody and that they wouldn't be expected back at Ron's house until much later that day. 'Or I think it's much later,' she though. 'It's dark enough around here to be midnight, for all I know.'
Several hexes later, about half of the Death Eaters were on the ground and Harry, Ron and herself were starting to feel the effects of using so much power in such a little amount of time. She took a second to glance around, protected by a shield spell the three had put up together, and felt the utter death of the place. There were several large craters in the ground where missed hexes and curses had landed and she could see splinters of wood sticking up from some of them. When she noticed the headstones, she gagged.
Hermione had always prided herself on being a strong girl. She stood up for what she believed in, fought against inhumane things and was one of the few females she knew who could carry on a conversation with "the guys" without flinching. This, however, was beyond anything she had ever expected to see in her life. Sure, she knew that eventually Harry would have his final facedown with the Dark Lord and that she would be there to help him out in any way she could, but the reality of the situation had never hit her full force before. She had never thought of the actual deaths that would naturally occur during such a battle. The stench was something she knew she'd never be able to forget, no matter how hard she tried. The scent of blood mingled with rotting flesh from the uprooted corpses and Hermione could feel her eyes starting to tear.
'Well, I guess this means that I definitely won't be filling out that Auror application after I graduate from Hogwarts,' she thought somewhat sardonically.
Turning her attention back to the situation at hand, she almost wished she hadn't. What she saw was enough to make her blood run cold. She screamed, "RON! NO!", but it was too late. Ron was running away from their triangle, and more importantly their shield, to create a distraction so Harry would have a chance at the Dark Lord. Several Death Eater wands were already starting to rise in his direction. She couldn't watch. She squeezed her eyes shut tight before taking a deep breath and attempting to hex the remaining Death Eaters; more specifically, the Death Eaters after Ron. 'It really is amazing that we've taken out so many fully grown wizards on our own,' she thought as she shot a Petrificus Totalus at a figure dressed in full Death Eater regalia right in front of her.
When she turned back to Harry, she saw him on the floor, writhing and screaming in pain and clutching his scar. Blood was pouring down his chalk-white face and Hermione quickly reinforced their shield. She knew it wouldn't help him out of this Cruciatus Curse, but another wouldn't be able to find its way in.
Hermione was at a loss and didn't know what to do to help him. There was no known way to end the Cruciatus Curse unless you were the caster. 'Well,' she corrected herself, 'I'm sure Dumbledore could undo another's Cruciatus. Several books have said that wizards, if powerful enough, are sometimes capable of such a fete.'
Figuring it was worth a try, Hermione turned and pointed her wand at Harry and shouted, "FINITE INCANTATUM!" Much to her surprise, Harry stopped moving. His prone body would still spasm a little every few seconds, but the Cruciatus Curse appeared to have ended. Staring at her wand in awe, Hermione muttered, "Oh, crap."
She turned around to assess the situation, once again, and saw Ron lying not too far from her. She had heard screams and yells, but had been able to block the majority of it out. She quickly levitated his body back into the shield, hoping he wasn't... she gulped. 'I can't even think it,' she thought, full of despair. "Please be okay, Ron. Please be okay," she repeated over and over again.
Grabbing onto both boys, she muttered the spell that she knew was used to test students of Apparation and just hoped she would be able to get them all out of there without splinching anybody. 'Or worse,' she thought. 'If I don't get this right, we're all doomed.'
"And Miss Granger successfully managed to Apparate them out of the graveyard and safely to the door of the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore finished.
"I'll be damned," Moody said. "That's one tough little girl, Albus. You see to it she applies to work under me as an Auror when she graduates, you hear?"
"Ah, you know, Alastor, that I cannot influence any of the children under my care in any way. I'm sure Miss Granger will make a fine choice when the time comes."
Gruffly, Moody replied, "Becoming anything other than an Auror would be a waste of her natural ability. It's very rare to see such a thing from a Muggleborn witch."
"But I am not finished, Alastor. Be patient," Dumbledore warned.
"What more could there be? She Apparated them out of there! She had no training in Apparation, yet she somehow successfully managed to not only Apparate herself, but two others as well, to a location of her choosing without splinching a single one of them! That's something most adult wizards and witches can't even do, Albus."
"Yes, but Hermione Granger is no ordinary witch, as I'm sure you can see."
"That's the understatement of the century," he muttered.
"Yes, yes, she is an excellent witch, one of the finest we have seen in many many years. She is also not a Muggleborn, as you believe."
At this, Moody's one eye popped wide open and the other started spinning around rapidly, as if excited at this revelation. "What do you mean, 'not a Muggleborn'? Her parents are Muggles! We've been protecting the Grangers all this time for just this reason, Albus!"
"Hermione was adopted when she was a few days old. Her biological mother gave birth to twins and her husband refused to raise two children when only one was needed to carry on the name. He, therefore, took the female child to a Muggle orphanage with implicit instructions that he was to meet whoever wanted to adopt the child before the process could be completed.
"The Grangers were the sixth family to take an interest in the child and the only ones that met the standards of Hermione's father. She was named by her biological father so that it would be easier to find her, should the need to use her as their true heir rise in the future. He also made the family sign contracts which allowed him visitation rights on the day after her eleventh birthday.
"On this day, he went to their house and explained everything to the Grangers before wiping their memories of the black haired, blue-eyed Hermione and replacing them with a bushy haired brown-eyed girl. He changed all their photographs, movies and portraits so that nobody would remember her looking any different. It's surprising how much he went through to conceal her identity, which I'm sure, by now, you have a hunch about?" Several minutes passed and Moody was just sitting there, his jaw slack. Dumbledore had never seen him look so unguarded before. "Alastor...?" he questioned.
"What? Oh—Albus! Are you trying to tell me that Hermione Granger, the one-time buck-toothed, bushy haired know-it-all, is really the long lost Zabini daughter?"
"Yes, Alastor, that is exactly what I am telling you," he replied somberly.
"And how do you know about this if nobody else does? I know you're omniscient, but it seems as if the Zabini's took great care to ensure nobody would find out about this."
"In order to keep Hermione's appearance matching that which he had created in the photographs and memories of anyone who had ever known her, he went up to her room, gave her what would become her first wand and taught her a special charm to control her image. It was the day after she had been contacted about attending Hogwarts, so she had already digested the fact that she was a witch.
"Zabini told her that he was her real father and that it was very important that she kept up this appearance rather than the one she was born with or she wouldn't be safe in the wizarding world. She, of course, believed him after seeing the similarities in their appearances and has done just that. I believe, however, that she began to doubt his sincerity after two years at Hogwarts. She realized she was related to Blaise and that he received better treatment from other students, even though he is still basically an unknown at the school—not a very popular boy.
"The thing none of the Zabinis realized, though, is that I know every bit of magic that goes on inside the castle—especially something as strong as a glamour. From what I can tell, it seems that she only has to reapply every few days, thanks to her extreme magical prowess. I don't think she realizes she is as powerful as she is yet, though. Zabini should be very glad that none of her professors have noticed anything weird about her or that her ability is especially uncanny for a Muggleborn, as you yourself have pointed out."
"I'll say. You do have to admit, though, that it would be spectacular if she became an Auror. With her magical ability and Zabini blood, she'd be unstoppable. And wouldn't it be hilarious to claim a Zabini as an Auror? They're just as notorious as the Malfoys for their support of the Dark Lord!" he laughed.
"Ah, Alastor, I have said it before and I'm sure I'll say it many times more. It is very fortunate for us that she became a Gryffindor and is on the light side. Her powers have either just progressed more rapidly than Blaise Zabini's powers have, or she truly is just the more talented of the two. That, in itself, is highly unusual. It is usually the male who is the more powerful of fraternal twins in our world."
Hermione, meanwhile, was sobbing in her room. After Moody had confronted her, she had run off to her home and had gone straight up to her room, ignoring the calls from her mother. She couldn't understand why everything had happened or why Professor Moody had been following her or why she was still so upset over something that had occurred a few weeks ago and her thoughts were so jumbled that she couldn't even think straight. Even Harry had gotten over it, somewhat, though he was still heavily grieving. She almost felt bad for him—first his Godfather and now Ron.
'Ron,' she thought bitterly. 'You bloody prat. How could you not know what would happen by rushing off like that? It wasn't worth it.' She broke into a fresh wave of sobs and buried her face in her pillow. It was stained with tears already, and she really didn't care about adding more.
After she had landed them at the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, a fete she still didn't completely understand how it had happened, Professor Dumbledore had listened to enough of her story to realize he needed to send the Ministry to the graveyard where Tom Riddle's father was buried and hope the Dark Lord was still there punishing some of his followers for allowing the children to escape.
When the Aurors had arrived, they found no Dark Lord, but many Death Eater bodies littered the ground, all either stunned or petrified. Needless to say, the Aurors were heavily impressed with what they had assumed was Albus Dumbledore's work. It showed a lot of power to take on so many Death Eaters alone, even if he was the most powerful Wizard currently alive, challenged only by Voldemort himself. When Dumbledore corrected them and said that the ones to thank for the newly captured Death Eaters were three about-to-be sixth year students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one laughed and asked where the cameras were hidden. A good majority of the others were confused until the Muggleborn Auror explained the television show.
Once the bodies were all Portkeyed to a special ward of St. Mungos, Dumbledore took the still shaken Hermione Granger down to the Ministry of Magic to give an official report of what had happened so that it could be logged.
Once the aurors heard that Harry Potter had been involved, they all gave knowing 'Ohhs' and were about to release her, satisfied with just knowing that Harry Potter had been involved and that he had saved the Wizarding World once again, when Hermione lost it.
"Harry Potter did not save the Wizarding World this time so just stop the blasted lies. Harry Potter was under the bloody Cruciatus Curse half the time so you should be glad he's not dead!" she shrieked.
Gasps rang out from the back of the room. One voice worriedly called out, "Is Mr. Potter okay?"
"Yes, your precious Harry Potter is fine. Sedated and pumped full of drugs, but otherwise just dandy. I'm glad to see the leaders of our Ministry so concerned with the other two students who were at this battle as well. How would it look if word got out that the Ministry was only worried about Harry Potter and didn't give a damn about two other, defenseless students? Hmm?"
The members of the Ministry stared, gob smacked, at Hermione. They had never met anyone with enough gall to stand up to their twisted ways, especially not a teenager. "Now see here, miss, we are very concerned with every member of our community!"
"I haven't seen any of you asking about the welfare of the others involved in that skirmish. Or how the three of got away from a hoard of rampaging Death Eaters. Or how we ended up there in the first place! All you can say is 'Oh, Harry Potter was there. We're saved!' and it's disgusting!" Hermione raved. "But just to let you know, not that you care, I'm the one who Apparated us all to safety and by 'us', I mean myself, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. Talk to Dumbledore if you want the details of what happened. I'm out of here." She stormed to the door and slammed it shut, further shocking the members of the Ministry currently in the room. They all turned to Dumbledore, expecting an explanation, but all he did was give them a withering look and say softly, "Ronald Weasley was hit with The Killing Curse."
A round of gasps broke out, and a voice that had been strangely quiet throughout this whole ordeal rang across the room. "ENOUGH! I've heard enough of this. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is NOT back and nobody has died because of him!"
"Minister Fudge, even after seeing Lord Voldemort with your own eyes not too long ago, do you still refuse to accept the fact that he is back?" Dumbledore asked patiently.
"Dumbledore, You-Know-Who is not back and will not come back. He was defeated by Harry Potter over a decade ago and that is that! AND DON'T SAY HIS NAME!"
Quietly, Dumbledore just said, "If he truly is not back, Cornelius, then how do you explain the death of young Mr. Weasley?"
"Perhaps one of his friends did it, but that is not the point. Nobody shall know of his death. You will bring the body here and we will bury it, if he really is deceased, but nobody will know."
"And what of his family? You can't expect them to just accept the disappearance of their son? This is an outrage! The people must be alerted!"
"NO! I will not have the mass paranoia that occurred so many years ago happen again. And you will keep quiet, Dumbledore," Fudge threatened.
Dumbledore merely sighed, "I will do as you wish, Minister, even though I do not agree with it. I'll have you note, all of you, that I am firmly opposed to this and should anything occur that demands the immediate knowledge of all members of this community, I will be the first one giving an interview with Rita Skeeter. I beg of you to tell the poor boys family, at least. They deserve that much." With that, he swept out of the room, planning on not returning until Fudge agreed to do something about the Voldemort situation or a new Minster of Magic was elected.
Hermione did not know this last half, however. She was sent an owl by the Headmaster explaining that Ron's death was to be kept a secret, as per the Minister's wishes, and that others would be told that he was accepted into a foreign school for a trial study and had to leave immediately, including his family. If it was found out that she had told anyone, the Minister promised severe punishment. To her, this made it sound as if Dumbledore agreed with Fudge and that pissed her off. She was used to Dumbledore being a knight in shining armor type of person—always standing up for what is right and saving those in need. Now, the image she had once held of the wizard was shattered beyond repair.
She knew she had to do something to get back at Voldemort for the loss she had suffered. 'I'm still not going to become an Auror, just for a completely different reason,' she thought to herself. 'One can't defend good and become evil at the same time. It just doesn't work.'