PART I - Her Espionage, 2002

4: Hermione Potter neé Granger

Harry Potter was incredulous.

"Let me get this straight. You are asking ... Are you asking my wife to whore herself out to Draco Malfoy?"

Hermione's stomach did a nauseating flip at her husband's choice of words.

Espionage wasn't news in the Office of Secrecy, the equivalent of Secret Services at the Ministry of Magic, but they had never needed her in such a role, never mind needing her to ... to what, bed a suspected active Death Eater? She tried not to think about who it was too. No, her school year crush turned awkward non-friend is the last thing she'd wanted to encounter in this situation, but no one knows about that.

No one needs to know about that.

As Harry's tirade went on for a good quarter-hour, she shot a nervous glance at Theo Sullivan, their boss who sat across from them without so much of a change in expression.

"I understand your frustrations, Potter," he finally said. It was surprising how long he had let Harry go on a rant. Sullivan was not a man who normally tolerated emotional display from his subordinates.

And Harry took the cue to clamp his mouth shut, (momentarily, anyway.) Hermione, too, quickly clasped her hands together in her lap. She hoped her boss did not notice that she had been turning her wedding band on her ring finger all this time in her state of unease.

"But I ask you to see sense," Sullivan continued, "your wife has all the qualifications to extract the information we need." Hermione noticed that he did not deny Harry's assertions about the potentially sexual nature of her assignment. She couldn't let him continue anymore without interrupting.

"But where is the sense in this?" she blurted out.

Impatience began to etch across Sullivan's face. She continued anyway.

"If we understand you correctly, you are asking for something incredibly invasive and personal of me. And I am hardly spy materia—" Sullivan shushed her before she could go on. She almost growled under her breath.

How dare he!

Hermione wasn't daft enough to not notice that this entire time, Sullivan was addressing Harry only. And now he was shushing her when she'd barely said her piece. Was this meeting not about her?

No. She understood now. The whole point was to let Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, vent so he would not make a scene in public later. Sullivan didn't really want her input, and certainly not her emotional tantrum, (which she had yet to lay bare, might she add.) Sitting back into her seat, she fumed as the tall brooding man across from her raised an eyebrow, as if to dare her to speak again. She couldn't help but take the bait. Parting her lips slowly, she drawled, defiance barely concealed.

"Go on, sir. I'm listening."

Blaise Zabini would be proud of her.

The subtle twitch in Sullivan's eyebrow was satisfying enough for now. She didn't care if her boss didn't like her. He never really did to begin with. She knew that the man called her "that intellectual woman" behind her back, as if it weren't supposed to be a compliment. She was too hard to read. Too sure of herself. And the subtext: Too over qualified for a woman. Well, screw him and his opinions. After all, she'd dealt with the Know-It-All badge of honour all her life. Hell, even Ron still jokes about it whenever he had a chance. Sod them all.

"So, what I was going to say," Sullivan now continued as if her objection wasn't an issue, and again, not addressing her, "was that we are all aware of your wife's expertise in house elves sociology."

At that, Hermione raised a meaningful eyebrow at him. He actually blushed a little. Hah. Does he know how to be ashamed after all?

"Well..." he corrected, "by all, I meant the staff in our office."

No thanks to you.

Hermione had almost said it out loud, but her lips stayed pursed. She didn't want to wallow on her bitterness anymore. Her employment at the Ministry had been extremely restrictive to her research career, but she chose her battles, and here she was.

"We need someone with excellent field combat skills as well," Sullivan was still persuading her unconvinced husband. At that comment, Harry took his glasses off and sighed. His brows furrowed as he cleaned the lens a little too vigorously with the edge of his shirt. Hermione knew that habit all too well - he didn't like where this was going.

"You must remember that her scores in mandatory training were off the charts, and surely you know that Auror Colin had recommended that she test to join your special auror unit?"

Now, this piqued her curiosity. She glanced at her husband, and found that he was avoiding her questioning stare. Sullivan isn't lying then. But why have I not heard of this until now? Harry wasted no time to retort and misdirect.

"Yes, sir, but that doesn't mean—"

"Look, Potter, I am sure with a little refresher that she can handle herself. And we need her. As I've explained earlier, it's become clear—"

"That house elves are not only slaves for the elite, but also messengers and spies for Dark Alliance members, yes, yes," Harry cut in, still considerably holding back the temper that he had shown earlier. "I've read Hermione's dissertation, sir, but—"

"Exactly," Sullivan interrupted, taking Harry's agreement as the cue to say, "and yet you still refuse to see that she is perfectly suited for the role."

"But this espionage is FUNDAMENTALLY unnecessary!"

All cool was lost. Harry was out of his seat again, pacing the room in a frenzy, arms in the air. Hermione could almost see the angsty teenage boy that she remembered from their Hogwarts years.

"Never mind that you're asking Hermione to seduce Malfoy in the process," he seethed, "but we have intelligence from other sources—and Colin can really vouch for this!"

He slammed an angry fist on Sullivan's hardwood desk, but then quickly realised that he was crossing a line and retracted his hand. "I'm sorry, but," he gathered his composure again, "my point is, we'll be able to arrest these Dark Lord heretics next month without relying on such high-risk intelligence."

His voice cracked in frustration. "How is it necessary to ... to have Hermione do this?"

Harry couldn't even say what it was that she would have to do anymore. And Hermione sensed that he didn't want her input in this right now. Not that Sullivan wanted her opinion anyway, even though he sure surprised her with a couple compliments thrown in there about her capacity for combat.

Regardless, she wasn't happy with the way that Harry was defending her by playing down her research results. She only let Harry continue, because she agreed with him at a fundamental level: This old-school espionage attempt was ridiculous, amateur even. But she couldn't deny that Sullivan's proposition intrigued her scholarly curiosity, and she began to wonder if this was his ploy too all along.

It was why she ended up in the Office of Secrecy in the first place: Hermione had been an advocate for house elf sovereignty since her Hogwarts years. Only until several months ago, she had been tirelessly working towards an advanced degree in Law, specialising in Wizarding and Magical Creature rights, so she could one day work with the Wizengamot to get rid of the archaic, oppressive injustice against house elves.

It was her theory that house elves' lack of rights and sworn networks of secrecy are significant loopholes in the legal system, preventing the Ministry from regulating business transactions between the wealthy elite. It was her view that Death Eaters could easily and have certainly used this network to their benefit in the last war.

Instead of giving her the degree, however, the Wizarding Examination Authority deemed her thesis ("House Elves: Imprisonment for Life and Their Roles in Politics") TOO SENSITIVE INFORMATION (stamped on the front cover, no less).

She objected the censorship fiercely, even attempted to call for a public hearing, but the very institution that she wished to work for pulled the strings and gave her an ultimatum: Either she worked under Sullivan and the Office of Secrecy, provided her expertise to the war attempt, or she does no research at all.

So she begrudgingly ended up in an entirely unexpected section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and as an Unspeakable employee no less. Unless her secret keeper (that would be Harry) revealed her employment status, for anyone else's concern, including even Ron, Hermione was a stay-at-home wife.

She almost chuckled at that thought.

Hermione Granger? First in class, workaholic Hermione Granger? A housewife? What a joke.

As much as she hated it, that was that. She would have to live with the indignity if she wanted to continue working on what she cared about most, in whatever shape or form. "Until the war is over," she told herself, as she often did. She will bear it until the war was over.

It took her a moment to calm her long pent up anger, so much so that she had missed much of the conversation between Harry and Sullivan now.

"But Potter, we need evidence that he is actually continuing his father's legacy."

They were speaking about Draco Malfoy now.

"He took the Dark Mark in his seventh year, sir," Harry said gravely. "Hermione can attest to that."

At that, he glanced at her for some support, but Hermione was not paying attention. With her eyes cast down to her ring finger again, her thoughts went to how she had discovered the still inflamed tattoo on Malfoy's forearm. It was not too long after returning from winter break that year. Even now, she could still recall in vivid detail the indescribable anger and confusion in his pale grey eyes. Four years on, she was still not sure what to make of Malfoy's decision to take the mark.

Had our friendship mean nothing to you?

It felt as though she had postponed asking him that question, all this time, and now it was finally catching up to her.

But her mission wasn't going to be about catching up, was it?

"Is it not enough that we know for sure that he had been initiated?" Harry implored.

"Swearing allegiance isn't enough to get someone thrown into Azkaban," Sullivan responded. "You should know that."

Hermione shuddered. Right. That was the goal. To send Malfoy to Azkaban. Merlin, help me. How will I do this?

#

There was nothing to say on the way back to their respective rooms - Harry to his with his aurors, and Hermione to her research center. He avoided looking at her. She kept her eyes on her feet as they walked through the hallways.

What were they to say anyway? Their boss had given them the ultimatum, warning that anything Harry did to obstruct Hermione's assignment would end both their contracts with the Ministry. Hermione didn't say anything to that, and Harry understood why. Harry didn't object either, not after what Sullivan told him after dismissing Hermione for a quick private conversation.

"You know she can walk around in broad daylight with all those dangerous questions and knowledge about house elves in her head because we stopped her research from going public, right?"

Well, yes. If there was anyone who wasn't afraid to keep pursuing the evidence, even if it would paint a large target on her head for purist scumbag Death Eaters everywhere, it was Hermione Granger.

Harry turned the corner into his office without saying a word. He knew his wife was staring at him, almost reaching out to him to say something. But say what? Sorry? She didn't get herself into this.

As he busied himself with work for the rest of the afternoon, he tried to suppress the thought that kept haunting him.

Hermione had a crush on Malfoy.

He never forgot that night in their last year at Hogwarts, when she came crying to him because Malfoy received his Dark Mark. It was baffling at time. He had seen the Dark Mark coming. Ron had seen it coming. How could Hermione, of all people, had possibly missed the signs? After all those years of bullying? While knowing Lucius was an unrepentant Death Eater?

He had hated the implications of her distress, and her blindness. It was unnerving enough that she had become reasonably amicable with the Slytherin ferret that continued to taunt him through his entire Hogwarts career. To think that she had more than friendly feelings for him was gut-churning.

And to his surprise, Harry wasn't just concerned for Hermione was a friend. No, he was jealous. Jealous that she had become emotionally attached to his insufferable school year nemesis.

But it was so long ago.

Harry had been sure that he was over it. Hermione certainly seemed over it. She never once mentioned Malfoy in the last four years. While Ron went on to marry his Hufflepuff girlfriend, they eventually decided to become life partners. It was one of the most amazing things that happened to Harry, ever, to have someone to call family.

But there was always the "What if" question. What if she still liked him? What if Malfoy had feelings for her too?

And why stir all of that up now?

Maybe, just maybe, Sullivan knew all of this. Merlin knows how, and he was sure he was just paranoid, but the thought certainly didn't escape Harry's mind.

#

Back in her office, Hermione ran a tired hand through her wavy tangled tresses as she attempted to focus on the case files that Sullivan had handed her. In her flustered state of mind, her elbow bumped into her neatly organised piles of notes and the papers cascaded to the floor. She swore out loud.

Her notes did not matter right now. No. Rather, she was perturbed by how occupied she was by the blonde boy that possessed her thoughts for most of her last year at Hogwarts.

Draco Malfoy. He was surely not much of a boy anymore. When was the last time that she had seen him? Not since they graduated from Hogwarts. What was he then, eighteen? Seventeen? It took her a moment to realize how young they were back then. Harry had shed his lankiness as a teenager in the past couple of years, and so had Ron. They had filled out, grown wider shoulders, and a lot more facial hair. Ron sported a bit of a beard these days, and Harry's five o'clock shadow was quite charming, if she may say so. Malfoy, too, must be a full-grown man by now. She blushed a little, realising what she was imagining.

Really, what would he say if he knew what you were thinking just now?

Probably sneer at her in disgust. Certainly not offer her the same playful banter like in the old days.

It hadn't been much of a friendship yet, she admitted, but what they had was significant to her, special, even. He would have been her first Slytherin friend. A pretty surprising one at that, considering their history. But she had welcomed it. She had thought that maybe he had welcomed it, too. But then, from out of nowhere, an infinite distance stood between them. They had barely spoken beyond necessary after that night.

And Sullivan thinks I can seduce him into revealing his family's secrets. AND You-Know-Who's!

It was laughable. She couldn't imagine meeting Malfoy today, much less meeting his house elf, who was supposed to spill his secrets as well. Where would she meet them anyway? At the Malfoy Manor? She scoffed out loud. She wouldn't even stand a chance at having a civil conversation with Malfoy, much less seducing him.

Sullivan is out of his mind.

With that final thought, she flicked her wand to undo the mess on the floor, cleared her work desk, and got ready to leave for home. It was only mid afternoon, and she rarely ever played hooky, but there really was no point staying at work. Not when her mind was elsewhere. As she got her things together, her thoughts went back to how insensitive and forceful Sullivan was to her at the meeting, not giving her even half the amount of decency that he showed Harry and his concerns for his wife.

Hermione couldn't tell you how badly she wanted to strangle the chauvinistic pig. (Very much so.)

As she left the Ministry, her heart sank again at the sight of the gloomy streets of Diagon Alley. It still disheartened her, how so many stores were closed, temporarily or permanently. The clouds above were thick and dark. These alleyways certainly had never looked so cheerless in the past.

"This war really needs to end," Hermione said to herself as she zipped up her coat and stepped into the drizzling rain. Even though she was still fuming over the injustice of her position, she had to admit that she was willing to do her part for the greater cause. And this absurdly outdated espionage idea might just be the opportunity she needed to test her theories about house elves in elite families too.

I guess I'll think about how viable it all is after looking over the rest of Sullivan's files tomorrow.

Workaholic Hermione was still workaholic Hermione.

#

She woke up groggy and listless the next morning. It didn't feel like she had any sleep at all. Rolling over to her side, she felt the bed and knew from experience that Harry hadn't come home the night before. Not that this was anything new. As an auror working on highly confidential cases, he often had to respond to distress calls around town in the middle of the night. At times, he wouldn't come home for days. He likely went straight back to work again.

Looking at the clock, she saw that she could still catch him before his regular auror morning briefing. Maybe have a short conversation, if anything. So Hermione quickly got dressed and left for the office too, thinking that she'd see Harry the first thing. Instead, she found a paper plane pinned to her door. She was to report to Auror Colin's office immediately upon arrival.

Hermione sighed. Talking with her husband would have to wait.

It took her all but five minutes to get to Colin's door. She was just about to knock, when a cool, detached voice came from within.

"Come in."

How unnerving.

She glanced at the pristine white door once again before pulling it open and going in as requested. "I was not aware that we could set up surveillance on our doors, sir," she said matter-of-factly.

The chief auror looked as though he was about to crack a smile, but instead nodded her to a chair. "You couldn't. I can," he said, just as matter-of-factly. Point taken, Hermione thought to herself, as she sank into the seat.

"And please, just call me Charles from now on," he added, "Especially while we're working in the field. I prefer to keep a low profile out there."

She understood that Charles was not his real name. In fact, she doubted that she had ever known Auror Colin's first name, even though she knew him as Harry's field commander for a long time now.

She knew too that he ran the Office of Secrecy Special Auror Unit (S.A.U.) with an iron fist. As much as she disliked most of her Ministry employers, she respected this stoic man, for he was firm, but not cruel. He also rarely complimented anyone, and so any praise that came from him was a big deal. Needless to say, Sullivan's disclosure about his opinion of her combat potential had surprised her quite a bit yesterday.

"Charles" did not speak for a while, surveying her face with steady eyes. It made Hermione somewhat uncomfortable, but feeling that he was deciding on something, she kept her mouth shut. Is he trying to figure out how to convince me?

"Personally, I don't see a lot of success coming out of this mission," he finally said, with a steady voice that suggested he had reached a conclusion. Hermione didn't know how to react, she was surprised to hear such words from Sullivan's closest subordinate.

"Do you?" he asked her pointedly.

Now that was a question that she had not expected from him either. There was much she had to learn about him, if they were really going to work together now.

"No," she answered honestly. He nodded for her to go on. Gaining some courage at that, she continued, "Most of all because of my ... extracurricular activities during my Hogwarts years, if you will."

Charles snorted lightly. "If you can call it that."

Hermione grinned a little. "I'm not sure how I would engage with Draco Malfoy without raising suspicion when my husband and I are public enemies of the Dark Lord."

No, she couldn't see how there was space for stealth in this.

Charles looked deep in thought. His eyes never left hers, as if he were surveying her inner mind. It certainly felt like he was. Hermione felt the need to keep her former crush out of her mind, as though if she pondered upon it any longer, Charles would see right through her.

"And your knowledge of house elves?"

Hermione sighed inwardly. Another colleague who was about to dismiss her work for nonsense. But before she could give him a House Elves Sociology 101, Charles spoke, as if to counter her assumptions about him.

"You're tenacious and tactful enough to successfully interview the most reclusive informants at Hogwarts, and untangle their complicated heritage and magical law histories, are you not? I understand a lot of them have severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and that has made it very difficult for scholars of magical creatures to do an ethnographic study like yours. But you are capable of conversing entirely in Elfin, are you not?" It was rhetorical, and he surprised her again.

She was about to ask if Harry had given him a summary of her work, when she thought about the language that Charles was using. She had used some of those exact terms at one point, in writing.

"Have you read my dissertation?"

Charles raised one eyebrow, as if to say, Of course I have. Hermione blushed at that, feeling apologetic for assuming the worst of him. But then again, he was the first person that she had met (aside from Harry, but he doesn't count!) in the office, who had thought through her work beyond what she had presented in work briefings. She was a consultant for them, but an unwelcome one at best. Aurors weren't exactly fond of her bookish type.

Dismissing her apology as unnecessary, Charles pulled out a heavy folder from his desk and slid it across to her. "One of the problems my team faced during our investigations of the Dark Alliance was these codes that they were using." He pointed out the relevant files to her, which were records of Death Eater clandestine meeting locations that the Office of Secrecy aurors had been able to decipher in the past. "Turns out," and he didn't really need to say more, as Hermione could read Elfin with ease. "It's phonetically written in Elfin, but spells out to English," she completed his sentence for him, eyes lighting up with excitement. Charles nodded satisfactorily and showed her another set of memos.

"And sometimes, they wrote in English to spell out Elfin words instead. All these cases involved highly sensitive transactions. I suspect that you're right about house elves being the primary communicators."

Hermione beamed with pride at that.

"Your phonetic guide was very helpful," he added, now pointing to the tattered copy of her dissertation that he had included in the folder. "It must have taken you a long time to come up with a transliteration."

It was true. There weren't any living witch or wizard who professionally translated Elfin languages. Not in the last millennium anyway. Hermione had to work through a lot of it with the assistance of Hogwarts house elves, but mostly alone.

"Are you suggesting," she began to grasp his train of thoughts. "That I would be a useful field agent?"

It was the first time that Charles had truly cracked a smile in their conversation. "What makes you think you could be a field agent with my unit, Potter?"

"My scores were off the charts, weren't they?"

There was no boasting in her tone, just a confirmation of veracity. Charles' smile grew just a little more, before he stored it away. Hermione made an aside to herself that he was quite charming when he smiled.

"Indeed," he answered, leaning back into his chair. "Though I had thought Potter, and I mean Harry, had kept that information from you."

Hermione shrugged, "he did." Charles looked as if he was pausing for a moment of thought.

"Sullivan tried to convince him," he said in that all knowing tone. And when Hermione nodded with her eyes cast down, "Not very convincing, was he?"

Hermione smiled sarcastically. "No."

Where is this conversation going, she wondered.

"Well," Charles changed his tone. It was subtle, but Hermione could tell that he wanted to get to the point. Maybe he really could read minds. He betrayed no hint of hearing that last thought though.

"As I said at the beginning, I don't see a lot coming out of this mission. And as you can tell by now, it has nothing to do with my faith in your abilities, your training scores and research have demonstrated as much." Hermione blushed at his words again. It made her uneasy how this man could so easily make her feel significant. Have I been starving for even a teeny bit of recognition for so long?

"Regardless, I think we can still test the waters, and set things up so your encounter with Malfoy will seem coincidental. You should know, I believe, that Jupiter will be on stage at the Opera House?" Charles said as he reached for a theatre pamphlet and flyer from one of his folders and handed it to her.

"Uh," Hermione hesitated.

Well yes, she certainly did. That flyer that had been posted around the Ministry in recent months. Jupiter was a popular opera with a happy ending. The Arts and Culture Department had been busily organising it for months now, hoping it would cheer people up in this depressing atmosphere. She had heard that ticket sales weren't ideal, but what can you expect in this political climate? They weren't in out right war, but tension was building and Death Eater incidents weren't rare. There was a reason why so many stores on Diagon Alley are currently closed.

"I have heard of it," she responded tentatively. Where is he going with this?

"Good. So it's all set up," Charles looked satisfied, there was a conniving half-grin on his face. It wasn't as charming this time.

Wait, so what is set up?

"You will be there alone, supposedly because your husband is too busy. He's not coming with you, and we will, in fact, make sure that he is busy, so you would not be lying."

What is he talking about? Hermione began to panic.

"We've booked a seat for you within Draco Malfoy's vision. I'll be briefing a few other personnels to ensure he notices you. This afternoon, I'd like you to go through some basic combat training. I'll get someone to duel with you, just as a refresher, and as for this evening," he added, eyeing her messy hair bun and the drab grey suit that she was wearing.

She was admittedly a little disheveled today, with how little time she had to get ready that morning, but she couldn't explain that to Charles now.

"You'll be meeting my assistant to dress up. We'll make sure he notices you too."

Hermione was dumbfounded. She couldn't believe it. It was starting already.