Authors notes:

I do not own Harry Potter. All these characters belong to the amazing J.K. Rowling.

Did you see how I worked the title into the summary? Pretty cheesy right?

The idea behind this story is it's set after the final battle. But the deatheaters don't just decide, "Huh, Voldemorts dead, looks like we lost. Time to throw away all those ideals we seemed to care about so much and trust that the ministry will be fair and just in their punishment". No, they keep fighting. And tension has now built on both sides. This chapter just explains that.

This is Dramione and this is no way a healthy relationship. You've been warned.

Anyway this is my first attempt at fan fiction, and I welcome any constructive thoughts, criticism or compliments. Thanks in advance for reading!

The scene in the field was chaos. What had been a quiet, green farm field this morning was charred black from fire and dyed red with blood. The aurors had received intelligence early in the morning of a potential safe house for deatheaters and Ginny, Hermione, Fred and George had gone to investigate immediately. However the moment they apparated in, they were ambushed by a small army of deatheaters. Ginny apparated back to headquarters immediately to find reinforcements while the rest defended their position. Fred and George were firing large and loud curses in all directions while circling around Hermione, who was knelt on the ground quietly chanting. "We can't hold them back much longer!" Fred shouted over fighting. Hermione didn't respond, still focused on her chant. "Hermione if you're doing this, do it know!" George yelled more desperately. Finally Hermione slowly stood, still chanting. Suddenly she swung her arm over her head and brought her wand down to the ground in one graceful movement, yelling "conteram aperta terrae!". A large bang was heard and the ground cracked all over the field and then began to shatter like ice on a frozen lake. The three aurors were safe in the centre. Death eaters fell into the crevices but many managed to hold their ground or grab the edge of the dirt before falling. Looking at the damage, Hermione's spell had taken out at least half of the deatheaters, but there were still too many. The three aurors looked around and watched their enemies get back to their feet, and looked nervously at one another. "There's still at least ten of them." Fred said quietly. "We can't keep this up." Said George. Just then, the cavalry arrived. Ginny and four more aurors apparated to the field. The battle resumed, and this time the aurors were on the offensive.

In the middle of the chaos, Hermione looked to the small windmill up the field and saw Lucius Malfoy, the most wanted man in the wizarding world limping into the building. Before she could think about finding someone to come with her, she took off after him. When she approached the mill, all was quiet. She raised her wand and slowly entered. It was one large room, basic wooden floors with a few pieces of equipment. The dust shimmering in the setting sunlight. There was no sign of Lucius Malfoy. She circled the room looking for how he could have escaped. When she walked to the far side of the room she suddenly felt the tingle of magic. She whipped around, wand read and saw Lucius Malfoy standing calmly only three feet away, wand at his side. They stood in silence for a moment. Close up, he looked just as intimidating as she remembered. Finally regaining her composure she raised her wand and cast a petrificus totalis curse, Lucius didn't flinch because he knew the curse wouldn't reach him. Only two feet in front of Hermione the curse hit a barrier. She realized she was trapped and began to panic. "This is definitely not good, why did I have to go after him myself?" she thought. But she also wondered why he hadn't killed her yet. "No, he probably wants to capture me, to torture and make an example of me" she said again internally. After a tense silence Lucius finally spoke "Miss Granger, I require your assistance."

Soon the battle was over. Ginny, whose main role was as a healer, ran over to Hermione who was limping back from the windmill, her leg bleeding quite badly. "I saw you go after Malfoy on your own, what on earth were you thinking? Let me see you leg!" Ginny practically screamed. "I went after him, he hit me with this curse and I couldn't walk, he got away" she replied. "You're lucky you weren't killed! You shouldn't have gone after him alone." Ginny chastised as she patched up Hermione's leg. "Going after him myself was the right call" Hermione simply stated. With her leg healed enough to walk on, she apparated back to headquarters.

When Hermione arrived, Ron and Harry bent over the large oak table in the middle of the main room, staring intently at the intelligence splayed haphazardly around the table. They took no notice of her entrance. When she came closer she could tell they were discussing what the next steps should be. Hermione was frustrated but unsurprised that they had not waited for her to return to discuss their plans. Over the years Hermione had become alienated from her two best friends.

Previously...

The war had dragged on for five years since the final battle where Voldemort was defeated. The deatheaters were still many in number and unwilling to give up on their pureblood superiority. Feeling that they still had a chance to take over the ministry the war continued. Hermione and many of her classmates had eventually become aurors to fight against the growing army of deatheaters. However the years of war and the atrocities they had witnessed, had made many people bitter. Especially Ron and Harry. Deatheaters were already known for their cruelty but throughout the war some reached new levels of depravity. Members of the order captured were often tortured and killed, but some deatheaters grew tired of this repetitive and quick end and began to take some of prisoners as personal slaves. Often branding their victims like cattle so they would have a lasting scar to remind them of who was superior. Putting them under the imperious curse and forcing them to work, serve and even "entertain" at parties. Few survived this hell, those that returned home were never really themselves again. The ministry would use the stories from these survivors to justify extreme measures taken to capture and kill any remaining deatheaters and their sympathizers. Harry used his fame and became very vocal on this issue, saying that he felt that everyone associated with the deatheaters in anyway should be removed from society. However, Hermione felt their stance was too black and white. For example, many of their Slytherin classmates were only following their parents and were never really involved with deatheater activities. They could easily be rehabilitated into society if they just had the opportunity to return safely.

However, the wizarding community, in their outrage after the battle agreed with the boy who lived and his hardline stance. Azkaban was severely damaged throughout the war and with all the arrests was quickly filled. The ministry now desperate for money to rebuild, came up with a plan to solve both the issue of space in Azkaban and the dwindling galleons in the ministry vaults. All deatheaters captured in the battle were either sent to Azkaban, or sold to richer families as "servants" without a trial. Servants with no pay and no rights for ten years. After their ten year sentence they could return to society. This also saved them a lot of money in fees for trials in front of the wizengamot. It was sold to the public in a softer manner, as " rehabilitation. The public was told that only responsible families would take these people in and show them how to reintegrate into society. Of course, that is not how the program was used, many people took this as an opportunity to exact revenge on the people that had wronged them. And instead of rehabilitating, they enslaved the former deatheaters and forced them to serve and entertain. Many people felt like this was the perfect karmic solution. As the pureblood deatheaters had felt so high and mighty, to have to kneel to those they felt were beneath them seemed fitting. What Hermione could not understand is how people could not see that by enslaving and torturing these people, that they were now no better than their enemies. She would not wish that fate on her worst enemy.

Not everyone arrested an forced into servitude was actually a deatheater, some were sympathizers or innocent relatives of deatheaters, arrested for their name only. With no trial and no appeal process this drove a larger wedge between the two sides. Feeling that they had no other option, deatheaters that escaped the final battle went into hiding. They remained organized and continued to try to regain a foothold in the ministry to repeal the current laws. However, the orders' intelligence now suggested that the deatheaters had divided into two camps, the older, original deatheaters headed by Lucius Malfoy, and the younger deatheaters, who felt the older generation was too slow and their tactics too timid. The younger deatheaters were the ones to carry out the public attacks while the older group worked on slithering their way back into politics and manipulating workers at the ministry. No one knew exactly who was leading the younger deatheaters, but it was presumed to be none other than Draco Malfoy. He, however, hadn't been seen since the final battle.

Their differences in politics had left such a large rift between Hermione and Harry that it made working with him difficult. Six months ago, both Harry and Hermione were promoted to heads of the auror department. The ministry felt that having two department heads would look better as they were both so young to be put in charge. Hermione and Harry had hoped that this new position would bring them closer again, but it only widened the rift between them. Harry felt that the only way he could effectively wipe out the deatheaters was to distance himself from Hermione and her softer policies. She would always come to meetings with her calming, levelheaded arguments about how to alter his plans to minimize risk, even if it would allow deatheaters to escape. To Harry, none of them deserved to escape. So he began "forgetting" to tell her about planning meetings and their constant fighting created a divide in the aurors, those who supported Harry and those who supported Hermione. The problem of course was that Hermione is smart, and a great strategist. With her plans aurors rarely came back injured, where Harry was willing to risk lives like they were still in the middle of war. Hermione almost always went on the missions with her teams instead of managing from headquarters and because of this had gained the respect of the majority of the department.

The last straw in their friendship was when Harry finally convinced Ron to pick a side. Ron had tried to stay out of Harry and Hermione's fights. Harry was his best friend, and even though him and Hermione had ended their relationship last year he still loved her like a sister. And as much as he wanted to stay out of it, he agreed with Harry, he hated the deatheaters just as much and could not understand how Hermione could show them a shred of compassion after what she had been through. One day they had intelligence suggesting they had the location of the Malfoy's and Harry and Ron felt this was their opportunity to deliver a crippling blow to the deatheaters, Hermione felt it was too dangerous, that there wasn't enough information on what they would be walking into, that aurors could die if they went through with this operation. But Harry wouldn't budge, and finally Ron chose his side. He yelled at her in front of the entire department that the Hermione he knew before this war would never be such a coward and that the deatheaters must have finally convinced her she is nothing but a worthless mud blood. Hearing those words from her best friends, the betrayal of it, was too much and she stormed out of the meeting. This allowed them to go ahead with their plan, putting her other friends in danger. She would never forgive herself for that day. She knew it was dangerous and yet she didn't fight harder to stop Harry and his insane plan. That day, they lost five aurors, and captured no deatheaters. What was worse is that Harry seemed to feel no remorse. He still insisted it was worth the risk to go ahead with the operation, even after seeing the five coffins. He couldn't see beyond his hatred. From then on, she was determined to remove Harry from his position of leadership. He was a loose cannon and she could not allow him to continue putting her coworkers, her friends, in danger.

Hermione now felt very alone without her best friends. Of course she still had Ginny, Luna and Neville. But she missed the days of being the golden trio. She poured all her energy into her work to keep distracted and she came up with policy proposals for alternative plans for the deatheaters; to reintegrate the less radical ones back into society. From interviews with some of the captured deatheaters, she knew that many of the younger ones had really only committed a few small crimes, which they would be happy to pay for fairly. But when given only the choice of Azkaban or slavery, they chose to stay on the run. Hermione goal was simple; to give people the opportunity for a fair trial and to end all slavery. She also determined that the only way to accomplish this goals was to leave the aurors and aim higher. Much higher. However, Harry had also come to this same conclusion. Harry wanted to ensure that the wizarding world remained a safe place for everyone and decided that in order to put in place stricter policies to prevent any group like the deatheaters from returning, he would also need to aim higher. Both Harry and Hermione decided they needed to make a play to become the next minister of magic. When the current minister announced he would be stepping down at the end of the next year, immediately Harry started quietly talking to people about campaigning and rallying support. Hermione remained silent, using her brilliant mind to figure out how she could beat the boy who lived in a public vote.

Present day...

Hermione cleared her throat to make her presence known, finally the the two men looked up at her and she spoke "That intelligence we received from your source Ronald was clearly not reliable. This was not a meeting of a few of the lead death eaters, this was an ambush. What were you think-" but before she could continue, Harry interrupted her "Hermione now is not the time to lecture us, we need to figure out our next move. You failed today, you didn't capture a single death eater! There were over twenty-five of them there, and you couldn't capture a single one? It's like you are working against us. The public is looking to us to keep them safe and every time we bring a death eater to justice people feel safer" "You mean bring a deatheater into indentured servitude." Hermione retorted sarcastically. "Don't start 'Mione" Ron whined. They had had this argument so many times before. Neither one of them cared to mention her limp or ask if she was alright. They knew it was a waste of time to suggest she go home and rest. They continued to bicker while planning their next steps.

The next day Hermione went to the one place she thought she would never go. Many of the stores in knockturn alley had gone out of business and had been boarded up. One store that used to sell dark artifacts had been converted to sell something worse; former deatheaters or at least those accused of being one. When she walked in, the front room looked very cozy with couches, a coffee table and even a very real-looking fake plant, like selling people was almost civilized. A burly man with a bushy beard, wearing a button down shirt half tucked in and blue jeans came out from the back "Welcome!" He said in a thick Scottish accent "what are you looking for today? I have males and females, just got some young ones in last week!" Hermione barely managed to hold back her look of disgust. She felt sick just being here. "I'm looking for a male, can I see what you have?". "Absolutely! Come on back" he responded and lead her through a door to the back room. There were about ten people being kept in large cage on the far wall. Again Hermione had to hold back her fear and disgust. If she was going to pull this off, she needed to be cool and confident. She just kept repeating those word in her head while the man had all the males line up in front of her. He started telling her about their features, which ones seemed to be the strongest or tamest, as if he was selling muggle cars. All the men were wearing old rags with so many holes they barely held together. At this sight, she couldn't help herself, she interrupted his sales pitch saying "Surely there are proper clothes they can wear?". "We aren't wasting anything on these degenerates" he responded gruffly. Hermione knew she had to move on so she pulled out the ring she had charmed the day before. It was a large ruby ring, charmed to glow when it came near an illusion charm. Useful for finding hidden doors, transfigured items or in this case, people in hiding.

She started to her left and as she walked along the line of people the ring didn't respond. She was beginning to worry it wasn't working when she finally saw a faint glow as she approach the second to last man in the line. As she came nearer, it glowed brighter. She couldn't help but smile, even after all she had been through learning a new charm and seeing work was still one of her favourite feelings. Then she focussed on the man in front of her, he had noticed her smiling and was giving her a confused look. He was thin, a foot taller than herself, which was about the height she remembered. And he was the right build, even though he clearly had lost some weight, he still had muscles of a quidditch player. She wondered if they received more than one meal a day here. But his face didn't look anything like she remembered. His hair was brown, and his eyes weren't the piercing blue she was so used to seeing in school when he was taunting her. The nose was all wrong and his lips were too full. Either he was very good at illusions or her detection charm didn't work as well as she thought. "I'd like to talk to this one." She stated turning back to the burly man. "Talk to him? What do you need to do that for? Do you really want him for "talking"" he said slyly. She wanted to shudder at his words. "Confidence. Be confident" she thought. Hermione snapped around and approached the man "I'd like to interview him, not that it's your business but I at least need to know he can follow simple instructions. Something you seem incapable of doing at the moment". The man gaped at her, but after a moment lead them back to the front room with the couches. As Hermione and the man took a seat across from each other, the burly shopkeeper stood in the corner of the room. Hermione looked at the shopkeeper and raised an eyebrow. "I'm not leaving you alone with him ma'am, he could be dangerous." "I have a wand, he does not. Not to mention I'm one of the top aurors in this country. I'll be fine. Leave us for a few minutes." She snapped. "I'll go prepare the sale paperwork then.." he muttered and left the room. She could see that the man in rags smirked at her remark, and it was all the confirmation she needed that she found the man she was looking for.

Again, Hermione reminded herself to remain confident. She needed him to listen to her, trust her and by some miracle, obey her. As soon as the shopkeeper left Hermione turned to the man and with all the smugness she could muster said, "Well you can change your face, but if you're going to pretend to be someone else you should lose that classic Malfoy smirk". Immediately, his face dropped, but he quickly composed himself. He leaned forward and in a low voice said "I don't know what you are talking about. My name is.." but Hermione cut him off and finished "Draco Malfoy."