A frowning Ron Weasley entered the kitchen at Grimmauld Place with his sister, Ginny and twin brothers, Fred and George right behind him. Taking a look around the kitchen his frown deepened when he found no sign of the witch he was looking for. There were still a few members of the Order left behind following the earlier meeting, but none were who Ron and his siblings were looking for.
"What's wrong?" Nymphadora Tonks, one of the new, younger members of the Order asked the newly arrived foursome.
"We're looking for Hermione," Ron replied. "Have any of you seen her?"
"Not since you all left before the meeting," Remus Lupin, a former Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, replied.
"Have you tried the library?" Molly asked, barely glancing up from where she was brewing a pot of tea. "That girl always has her head in a book."
"That's where she said she'd be, but she's not there," Ginny informed her mother.
"Nor is she in her room, or anywhere else we've looked," Fred supplied, pre-empting the suggestion that they checked her bedroom.
"Just where have you looked?" Remus asked with a frown.
"Everywhere but here," Ron answered. "And Hermione is not in this house."
"That's impossible," Tonks said with a delicate snort. "She can't have just vanished into thin air."
"We're telling you, she's not here," Ron insisted.
"We're worried," George said.
"I'm sure there's no need to be worried," Molly said, finally turning away from the tea she'd been making. "Hermione has to be here somewhere."
"Let's search the house again," Tonks said as she rose to her feet. "Remus and I will help you look," she offered.
"Okay, but we won't find her," Ron grumbled, obviously worried about his friend.
Despite Ron's pessimism, Tonks and Remus joined the search for Hermione, positive that they would find her settled in some dusty corner of the house, her nose stuck in a book and totally unaware of the fuss that was being made. However their optimism was soon dented and after a thorough search of the house, they were forced to agree with the fact that Hermione was nowhere to be found. It did indeed appear as though she'd vanished into thin air.
"Could she have left the house?" Remus asked Sirius when they returned to the kitchen.
"I guess so," Sirius replied with a shrug. "We don't have wards preventing people from coming and going as they please. I guess she could have just walked out of the front door."
"But why would she do that?" Ron demanded. "And where would she go? Her parents live miles away, and she doesn't know the area to try and find her way to somewhere like Diagon Alley."
"I have no idea why she would leave the house," Sirius admitted. "But she has to have left the house somehow. I'll go and see if my mother known anything."
A portrait of Sirius's mother hung beside the front door and since the house had been taken over by the Order of the Phoenix she'd done nothing but shout about her house being invaded by blood traitors. Although it was just occurring to Sirius that his mother had never made a remark about Hermione being a muggleborn, so maybe his mother's portrait could sense that she wasn't who she claimed to be.
However, Sirius's mother was no help and according to her she hadn't seen anything. Sirius got the distinct impression his mother was lying to him, but there was nothing he could do in order to make a portrait tell him the truth. All he could do was snarl at his worthless mother and yank a velvet curtain across her picture, which he'd hung beside her portrait to cover her up when she being particularly nasty. Annoyed by his mother's lack of help, he turned to head back to the kitchen only to find Molly hovering behind him.
"Was it you?" she whispered urgently, checking that no-one had followed her out of the kitchen.
"Was what me?" he asked in confusion.
"Hermione going missing," Molly hissed. "Is it your doing?"
"No, it's not," Sirius answered in a low voice. "Come on Molly, do you really think I'd be so stupid as to do something to her under my own roof. When I spoke of getting rid of her, I meant once she was away from here."
"So where is she then?" Molly asked.
"I have no idea," Sirius answered. "But I swear to you, this has nothing to do with me. I would have told you if I'd been planning anything."
"I know," Molly conceded with a nod of her head. "But you have to admit, there's something not right here."
"I agree, there's certainly something dodgy going on," Sirius concurred. "Do you think it's possible Hermione knows who she is, and has left her of her own accord?"
"I don't think she knows who she is," Molly replied. "But then again, we've only got Dumbledore's word for it. Who knows what the people who raised her have told her about her past. For all we know she might have been secretly plotting against us for these last four years."
"Which is exactly why she never should have been allowed anywhere near us," Sirius growled, his frustration with Dumbledore and the choices he'd made evident for Molly to see and hear. "Given who her father is, it was just stupid to trust her. Even if she doesn't know the truth, she's still dangerous."
"I suppose this could be a good thing," Molly suggested hopefully. "She might be gone without us having to lift a finger."
"Do you honestly think it's going to be left like this?" Sirius snorted. "She's missing, and you can bet your last galleon that a full scale search will take soon take place. No-one is going to let this rest until we know where she is and why she left. And you can bet that Dumbledore will be putting in an appearance soon to stick his oar into matters."
"When he does turn up, I'm going to have a quiet word with him and suggest that we just leave Hermione to whatever fate is coming her way," Molly said. "She should have been left out of our world to begin with, so there's no sense searching for her and bringing her back into the fold."
"I very much doubt Dumbledore will listen," Sirius said with a sigh. "Something tells me that wherever Hermione is, and whatever has happened to her, we haven't seen the last of her. Mark my words Molly, you and I will still have to deal with her if we want the people we love to be safe."
Sharing a resigned sigh, and bracing themselves to have to spend the next few hours acting concerned about Hermione, the pair headed back to the kitchen to deliver the news that Sirius's mother had been no help. Not that anyone had expected her to be helpful, and it had already been decided that it was time they called for help in the form of the headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of the Order, Albus Dumbledore.
Despite neither Sirius or Molly really wanting Dumbledore around, they didn't protest the idea and instead pretended as though it was the best idea to call for reinforcements. It didn't take long for Dumbledore to arrive, but by the time he entered the kitchen, Molly had made a fresh pot of tea and was looking as worried and concerned as her children. Even Sirius was putting on a concerned act, and as he sat down to find out what was going on, Dumbledore had no idea that not everyone was worried about Hermione.
"This is worrying," Dumbledore muttered with a frown. "And we're sure Miss Granger is definitely not in the house anywhere?"
"We've searched it twice," Ron said. "There's no sign of her."
"But nothing belonging to her is missing," Tonks informed the headmaster. As an Auror she knew what to look for in cases of missing people, but from what she and Ginny had ascertained there was nothing missing from Hermione's room.
"Her wand is in the house?" Dumbledore asked.
"We didn't find her wand," Tonks replied. "But we assumed she had it on her. Most people carry their wands with them."
"True," Dumbledore said with a thoughtful nod. "So it's not looking like she's merely ran away."
"Of course she hasn't ran away," Ron snorted in disgust. "Something bad has happened to her, I just know it has."
"Try not to upset yourself, Ron," Molly soothed, patting her youngest son's shoulder. "We'll get to the bottom of this and find out what's happened."
"And how are we going to do that?" Fred asked, exchanging worried looks with his twin brother. Even though Hermione was best friends with their younger brother, they were both fond of the witch and thought of her as a good friend.
"Firstly, I think taking a look at Miss Granger's movements today might help us," Dumbledore said as he got to his feet. "If someone could show me to her room, I can use something of hers to begin a tracking spell."
With no-one wanting to miss anything, everyone headed up to the room Hermione had been assigned when she'd arrived at Grimmauld Place. Using her brush, which had several strands of long brunette curls caught in the bristles, Dumbledore cast a spell which would show them Hermione's movements for the day. The spell manifested itself as a golden ball and as the ball moved around the room, it left a golden trail in it's wake.
"Now what?" Ron asked as the ball floated out of the room, leaving a trail for them to follow.
"The ball is following in Miss Granger's footsteps," Dumbledore explained as they all left the bedroom and followed the golden trail. "It will show us everywhere she's been since rising this morning. Eventually it will hopefully show us where she disappeared to."
For the next five minutes the group trailed the golden ball around the house as it showed them how Hermione had spent her day. Eventually the ball ended up in the kitchen, and when it departed from the kitchen it travelled to the foot of the stairs before turning into the dark corridor that led to the library.
"I think this was the last time we saw her," George said. "When people began to arrive for the Order meeting, we all went upstairs, and Hermione went to the library."
"Not according to this she didn't," Remus pointed out, nodding to where the golden ball merely hovered in the darkness and made no move towards the library.
After a few minutes hovering in the hallway, the ball returned to the main corridor before floating towards the front door. It then passed through the door and when Dumbledore pulled open the door there was no sign of the ball or it's golden trail.
"What went wrong?" Ron asked with a frown as they all stood on the doorstep, gazing outside to see if they could spot the trail and find where Hermione had vanished to.
"Nothing," Dumbledore said quietly. "The spell has done it's job."
"But it's vanished, and we still don't know where Hermione went," Ginny pointed out with a frown.
"On the contrary," Dumbledore replied. "We know she left the house via the front door, and given the fact the trail had disappeared on the doorstep, it means that is exactly what Hermione did."
"You can't just vanish into thin air," Ron snorted.
"You can if you apparate," Tonks said with a slight frown. "But Hermione isn't old enough to apparate."
"Nor does she know how," Remus added.
"So what are you saying?" Ron demanded. "That she left this house with someone who could apparate and they took her somewhere?"
"It would seem to be the most logical explanation," Dumbledore said as he quietly shut the front door and led the way back to the kitchen. "We need to contact everyone who was at the meeting and ask them about Hermione."
"That will take ages," Ron complained. "And even then, people could lie. How do we even know she's safe? There has to be some way we can check on her?"
"I can perform a locating spell, but it will take time," Dumbledore said quietly, removing his glasses and cleaning them before perching them back on his nose. "It might be easier to see if I can get the Ministry to activate her under-age magic trace."
"Even that will take time," Tonks warned. "Even with your influence, we won't get anywhere before the morning."
"We can't wait all night, not knowing what's happened to Hermione," Ron protested. "She could be in danger as we speak."
"I'm afraid she could," Dumbledore agreed with a sad sigh. "But these things take time, Mr Weasley. I promise you that I will do my very best to find Hermione and get her home safely, but I think for now we have to accept that we're not going to know where she is until tomorrow. We just have to hope that wherever she is, she's safe and is in no immediate danger."
Not at all impressed with the fact there seemed to be very little more they could do that day, Ron stormed off to his bedroom. Ginny and the twins went after him, while Tonks and Remus started to contact the Order who had been at the earlier meeting and recalled them to Grimmauld Place for another meeting, where they would each be questioned about Hermione. While that was going on, Sirius reminded Dumbledore that Harry still needed to be retrieved from his relatives house, and he made it clear that he wasn't going to let his godson be forgotten about while all the attention was on Hermione.
"Don't worry Sirius," Dumbledore reassured the younger wizard. "Harry will still be coming to Grimmauld Place tomorrow evening as arranged. Hopefully by then we'll have some answers, and maybe Hermione will even be back where she belongs."
"Speaking of which, I need a private word, Albus," Molly said, pulling the headmaster to one side as Sirius headed off to help Tonks and Remus gather the Order. "Are we sure we should be looking for Hermione?" she asked once she was sure they were alone and no-one could hear what they were saying.
"And why wouldn't we look for her?" Dumbledore asked, feigning confusion even though he knew exactly what Molly was getting at.
"Because of who she is," Molly hissed. "Don't you think it's strange the way she's just vanished? I think we can safely say she wasn't forced to leave this house against her will. She went wherever she is willingly, and I say we leave her there."
"You're forgetting Molly, she has no idea who she is," Dumbledore said softly. "Nor does anyone else know who she is. If she is with the dark then she's not safe, is anything she would be in serious danger. She may have been born as Voldemort's daughter, but as far as everyone is concerned, that girl is dead. Hermione is an innocent, and we owe it to her to find her and save her."
With a piercing glare at Molly, Dumbledore turned and stalked away from the red-headed witch, leaving her in doubt as to where he stood. Dumbledore was determined to find Hermione and get her back to the Order, and for the time being, Molly had no choice but to go along with his wishes. However, she did know that even if Dumbledore did succeed in getting Hermione back, she and Sirius weren't going to stand for having her back in their lives. She was The Dark Lord's daughter and a danger to their safety, and they weren't going to stand back and let her ruin the lives of people they loved. In their eyes she was every bit as dangerous as her father, and as such needed dealing with in the same brutal way.
