Thanks to fluffyfledgeling (cruelty? Trust me, I've only just begun), Firefly's Locket (I'll be sure to check it out), Chantal J and Sam (thanks times 2), girl trapped in a dream (will do), Mori (um…Elena isn't Julia Thorne, really, I'm serious, uh, yeah, I'm Alias obsessed, just check out my fic Security), kawaiitie (wanna bet?), InfectiouslyDepressing (Nooooooooooo! You've discovered the midget zombies weakness!), AnnetteWeasley456 (okey dokey), KiriaKare (sorry, not H/Hr, gonna be D/Hr, but still good, I promise)

Chapter One

Elena checked her watch for the third time in five minutes. He was late, that wasn't a good sign. She crossed her legs and leaned back on the bench. She was wearing an actual cow leather coat that fit like a second skin and her boots were made of the finest dragon hide available. With her dark eyeliner and up-do, she looked like a generic Muggle film badass.

"Miss Hisham, I am sorry I'm late. I trust you have not been waiting for very long."

"Goyle," she said sternly, "Our appointment was for 10:00 AM, not 10:10, thus far, in your life, you have survived because of your friends, and I do use that term loosely, and, of course, your father's friends. If you would like to survive on your own, I suggest you learn to arrive on time."

He muttered another, "I'm sorry."

Elena rolled her eyes, "Don't apologize so much. Now come." She strutted into the building behind the bench she was sitting on, knowing Goyle would follow. A door was opened, beckoning them to enter. "Sit." He did, she didn't. "You don't know what I really do in our little club, do you?"

"N-no." He was worried, good.

Pictures appeared, in them, Blaise Zabini was talking to a Muggle woman, they were laughing. There were about a dozen. "You see, Goyle, this confuses me. I've known Zabini for awhile now, and every time we've met, he's talked like one of us, walked like one of us, hell, he even smells like one of us. But these pictures speak for themselves. What has Zabini been doing?"

Goyle was silent, not because he was withholding information, but because he was truly confused. "But Blaise hates Muggles, he's not a blood traitor."

"Then where was he last Thursday, Goyle? His life is in your hands. Or do you want him to die, maybe you're the blood traitor and you set him up to take the fall?" Now Goyle would be even more confused, Elena knew. But, though he knew that Zabini was loyal, he would sell him out. Gregory Goyle was a bumbling idiot, but he was still a Slytherin.

"He was in London! With that piece of filth. I was going to turn him in, I just found out yesterday!"

Elena gathered up her papers, "Very well then. You've been very helpful." She waited for him to leave, but he continued to sit. "Goyle."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He left. Elena remained for a few more minutes, gathering her things up and charming them into her bag. She then left the building and made arrangements for the disappearance of Blaise Zabini.

At around three o'clock she arrived to her house outside of London. "What are you doing here?" She asked Blaise, seeing him sitting on her sofa.

"I came to speak with you, obviously." He didn't stand.

"Should I even ask how you got inside?" She sat down in a chair near him.

"Probably not. I'd end up being hexed, and then things would just be bad." He stopped talking, seeming to think about his next words. "I…I need help, Elena."

Elena sat up straight. "What sort of help?" she asked carefully. Goyle wouldn't have told them about their meeting, he was too scared.

"I…there's…Merlin, I don't know how to say this." He stood up and walked to the window. Looking outside he said, "I met someone."

"I hear a but coming."

"I don't think I was alive before her. It sounds like some horrible cheesy thing from a putrid romance novel, but it isn't anything like The Wizard Who Loved Me. I'm scared, for her, for me." He turned around, there were actual tears in his eyes. "She's a Muggle."

Elena's eyes widened, "The pictures were real," she whispered.

"What pictures?" Elena took out her wand and waved it over the coffee table. The pictures appeared. "You've been spying on me? I thought you were my friend." He sat back down. "You're going to kill me, and her, aren't you?" He sounded hollow, broken.

"Your confession just saved your life."

His head snapped up, "What?"

"What I tell you now cannot leave this room," she said slowly. He nodded, "For the past five years, I have hunted for traitors among the Death Eaters. Every person I have turned over to them has been innocent of everything but senseless racism. They have all been tortured and died because of me and my lies."

"You're a Pureblood, though. Why would you turn them in?"

"Had you ever heard of me before five years ago?"

He thought, "No, but that doesn't mean anything. You didn't go to Hogwarts and…"

She was shaking her head. "Actually, I did go to Hogwarts."

"There was no Elena Hisham in Slytherin in all of the years I was there. Were you a Ravenclaw?"

She heaved a sigh, like a diver ready to do a belly flop of a cliff. "We were in the same year. I…became a Death Eater shortly before what would have been my seventh year."

"There was no Elena Hisham in my year."

"You're quite right."

He was still confused. "You say you went to Hogwarts and were in my year. But now you're saying that you weren't in my year. Make up your mind!"

"Think it through, Zabini, there have to be at least a few brain cells in the pretty head of yours."

"Brain cells? Isn't that a Muggle thing?" She didn't answer. "Okay, you were in my year," she nodded. "But Elena Hisham wasn't."

"I am Elena Hisham."

"But you were in my year." She nodded again. "You haven't always been Elena Hisham."

"Give the man a prize."

"Who were you then?" Now he was interested.

"You're doing so well, why don't you figure it out? Talk yourself through it."

"You became a Death Eater after sixth year?" She nodded, eyes closed, "All of the Slytherin girls came back for seventh year, none of them with the Dark Mark. But so many other girls didn't. You don't look like a Patil, but that could have been changed though spells. The only girl you look even remotely like is…" he trailed off. "That's impossible, she's dead."

"Who, Blaise?"

He looked at her intently, squinting as if he was trying to read really small writing on her forehead. "Hermione Granger." He whispered.

"You're smarter than you look. No one has figured it out as quickly as you yet." She stood up, "I'm going to see if I have any cookies, you deserve one."

"Don't do that." Now he stood up to pace. "Are you a spy for Potter and his band of merry men?" Elena sat back down. She didn't say anything. "Well? Are you?"

"No one knows I'm alive," she whispered. "After…After Snape killed Dumbledore, I had no one to go to. If there's another spy on the inside, I don't know him. There was no safe way to get a message to them. Maybe I'm better off dead."

"I could get a message to them," he didn't hesitate to offer.

"I've been dead for five years. Giving them hope, especially from someone like you, would just be cruel. They've mourned me, even buried an empty coffin for me, just so I would have a headstone." She smiled ruefully, "I'll do my bit, if I'm lucky, I may even survive."

He nodded. Finally, he asked, "Do you know where Nan-- my Muggle and I could go?"

"I'll tell them that you're dead, and your Muggle. You're smart not to give me her name. Get out of the country. Don't tell me, or anyone else for that matter where you're going. Change your names, and your faces. And remember, magic can be traced. If you want to use it, at least make sure other wizards have been there before. Beyond advice, I can't help you."

He stood up and headed for the door. "Thank you, Gran-- Hermione. You're doing something good here."

"At least no one calls me a Mudblood anymore."

He winced. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't--"

"You and your friends meant every word you ever said to me. Don't insult me furthermore by apologizing to me because I can be the bigger person and help you. I know you wouldn't have helped me if I came to you and begged on my hands and knees. Even if you still thought I was a Pureblood. Make no mistake, Zabini, living amongst the snakes doesn't make me one. I may be able to tolerate them, but I still hate them. Never darken my doorstep again."

He walked out, knowing he owed a debt to Hermione Granger. And also knowing that she would never let him repay it.

Elena went into the kitchen and made herself tea. She sat at the table, wishing she could cry for the girl the Death Eaters had killed and broken so many years ago. "I! Am! Hermione! Granger!" She could still hear herself screaming, voice hoarse from lack of water and the torture. She'd clung to her beliefs, her knowledge of her former life, but they'd taken away her spirit. After the conditioning and five years of being a Pureblood, Elena didn't know how to be Hermione Granger.

That was the real reason Elena didn't want anyone to tell the Order that she was alive. The body had survived, but the soul hadn't. The girl who'd once fought for the rights of house elves now turned over Death Eaters to be tortured and killed by their own people. She'd killed Death Eaters, too, the ones who hadn't given her a chance to turn them over. And, as much as it hurt, she knew she'd injured members of the Order past the point of recovery. There was no point in trying to recover her past.

She was just a dead witch walking.

"Elena, are you there?" She heard a voice calling from her bedroom.

"I'll be right there," she said, rising from the table. "Draco," she said, entering the room, "What a pleasant surprise." His head was sticking out of the green flame.

"I know. The French Witch's Ballet is in town. Would you care to join me for three hours of boring, pointless, and utterly confusing dance, followed by very small servings of very expensive food? Tonight."

"Tonight? I'm not sure about--"

"Or tomorrow, the next day even. We don't have to go to the ballet if you don't want to." He stopped talking, "I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"It's charming, really." She smiled. If only he knew who he was inviting to ballet and dinner. Draco Malfoy courting Hermione Granger, what would Rita Skeeter think of that? "It's been a bad day, though."

"Who?" he asked. Malfoy was one of the few people who knew of her real job.

"You'll find out soon. If I tell you, you'll hate me."

"I doubt that's possible."

"If you only knew," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Please tell me, I promise I won't hate you for it. We all have to do our job. Yours is just a little…messier than most."

She closed her eyes, exhaled, and said, "Zabini."

He was in the room before she knew it, arms around her, comforting her instead of condemning her. "What did he do?"

She pulled away from him. He let her go. "I was given some pictures of him with a filthy Muggle."

"Blaise wouldn't do that. I've known him since I was eleven years old, trust me on this, he hates Muggles and Mudbloods."

She swallowed, "He came and asked me for help. I took care of him here."

He sat down on her bed, "Not Blaise."

"I'm sorry that he was your friend."

"No," he stood up again to pace, "You're missing something. He wouldn't be so stupid!"

"Love," she explained, "Even to a filthy Muggle, makes you stupid, Malfoy," she slipped and used his last name. "It was quick, if that's any consolation. He may have been a traitor, but he was a good wizard. I would have received no joy from torturing him."

"The Dark Lord's Pet, showing mercy? Right, and my name is Ron Fucking Weasley." Elena flinched, he didn't see her do it, "You don't know how to show mercy."

"I'm sorry for the loss of your friend, Draco."

"I need to leave. Forget about the ballet."

She smiled politely, "I never much cared for ballet. Will you be calling again?" For some strange reason, she actually cared.

"Of course, you do your job, Elena, no matter how shitty it is. I understand that. I just need to recover from this." He walked back to her fireplace, stepped inside, threw down some floo powder and said, "Malfoy Manor."

"Pure blooded prat," Elena muttered after he disappeared.

Remember the midget zombies?