A/N: Short Harry and Ron chapter. I know their chapters can be boring, but they are important! It's essential to know what Ron and Harry are up to while Hermione is with Draco, so bare with me! It will be a while until another Harry and Ron chapter, so lots of Hermione and Draco to come!
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When Harry and Ron had first arrived in London, they had a hurried discussion on where to go. They ended up at a muggle hotel. Harry said that a muggle hotel would be the last place Death Eaters would look for them, and Ron agreed.
Every morning they Confunded the hotel employees into believing that they had paid for the previous night. Their days were spent researching the Ministry. For two days they followed Ministry employees to see how they were getting to work. Security measures had been increased as a result of the last time they had broken into the place.
On the third day, Ron was at his breaking point. Harry couldn't even speak to him without Ron viciously lashing out. Not that Harry blamed him, of course. After all, by this point Hermione could be dead, tortured, in Voldemort's clutches, in Azkaban, or somewhere else just as bad.
"Let's follow her," Harry suggested, pointing to a girl he recognized from his year at Hogwarts. They had followed her once before, and found that she was the least careful person when it came to being sneaky about how she got into the Ministry. Not only did they still have coins, but now they had to present their wands to be checked who the owner was.
"Let's just Stupefy her and get this over with," Ron argued.
"We don't know enough yet, Ron. We have to figure out where they're keeping people who are going to be put on trial."
"This is bullshit, Harry! Let's just go ask my father, he works here for Merlin's sake! He could tell us immediately, he could help us!"
"Damn it, Ron! We talked about this! It would put your entire family in danger to contact them! They're being Tracked by the Ministry!"
"I don't care! This is Hermione!" Ron sounded tortured.
Harry sighed sadly, "I know how you feel, but Ron we just can't," by that point, they had been following the dark haired girl for several blocks, staying a safe distance behind. They watched as she entered the Ministry the same way she had the day before (by disappearing into a muggle woman's restroom).
It was a surprise, however, when she appeared again a moment later. Perhaps she had really used the loo that time. After looking around herself suspiciously, she began walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction. "That's odd…" said Harry. Since he and Ron could not both fit comfortably under the Invisibility Cloak, they had taken Polyjuice potion to turn into two random muggle men.
The suspicious girl darted down a dark alley; Harry and Ron followed. What was she up to? Her dark purple robes billowed around her as she swung down yet another alley and Harry and Ron sped up to catch her. When they rounded the corner, however, a wand was pointed directly at them. "Expelliarmus!" the girl cried. Both of their wands left their hands and she caught them.
"Fuck," Ron growled.
"Why have you been following me yesterday and today? Did the Ministry want me tailed? Tell me," she said it so commandingly that both boys leaned back, away from her. "Don't want to say anything? That's fine. I'll just wait until this Polyjuice potion wears off. Stupefy!" Ron and Harry both fell to the ground, stunned.
The girl grabbed hold of both of their hands, spun and disapparated to her house. She lived in a small, but quaint place. The first thing she did was bind them in ropes, throw them in her sitting room and then sent a quick Patronus to the Ministry to let them know that she was sick and could not make it into work that day.
Half an hour later, their faces started to bubble. The girl hadn't said a word, just watched with curiosity as they slowly started to morph back into their true selves. As soon as she realized who they were, she gave a wild cry and leapt to her feet, her entire body shaking. "What the hell are you doing here, Harry fucking Potter?" she sounded more angry than anything else.
Not knowing what else to do, being entirely trapped, he said slowly, "We weren't following you specifically. We were following Ministry officials looking for a way to break into the Ministry."
"Why?" when they did not answer, the girl threw up her hands in exasperation and left the room.
"Do you think she's summoning You-Know-Who?" Ron sounded terrified.
"I don't know," said Harry, who sounded neutral. She came back into the room then with a vial of clear liquid in her hands. Without any warning, she grabbed Harry's face, pried his mouth open and tipped it down his throat.
"Bitch," Ron hissed.
She smirked at him, "Actually, I'm just your average Slytherin," she turned to Harry, "Now why do you want into the Ministry?"
"Don't!" Ron screamed, but Harry couldn't help it.
"Hermione went missing the other day. We think that she was captured by Snatchers and taken to the Ministry for the gold. We were trying to break in to find out."
"If somebody captured Hermione Granger, she wouldn't have been taken to the Ministry," the girl said casually, as if they were discussing the weather.
"We know," said Harry, "but we don't think that she was recognized. Hermione's a very skilled witch. We believe that they caught her, but didn't know who she was, so probably ended up taking her to the Ministry. It's my face being plastered everywhere, not hers."
The witch paced back and forth in front of them, tapping her chin with her hand. "If Hermione Granger was captured, then you're right that she was not recognized."
"Thank Merlin," sighed Ron in relief.
"How do you know that?" asked Harry.
"It would have been all over the Prophet. Trust me, that would have been huge news."
"Just fucking great," said Ron after his immediate relief subsided, "now this pureblood bitch knows that Hermione's out there, under the guise of just a regular muggleborn!"
"Hypocrite," said the girl at once.
"Excuse me?" Ron looked murderous.
"You're a pureblood, too. Don't presume to know my where my loyalties lie!"
"So what you're saying is that you're not going to hand us over to You-Know-Who?"
"Merlin, no!" the girl sounded scandalized. "Not all of us want to live in the world the Dark Lord has created, Weasley. I'll help you find her, because Salazar knows that without Hermione Granger, you two would blunder everything up!"
"Oi!"
She smirked, "Well, it's true. You two can stay here at my place for the rest of the day today and tonight. I already sent in a Patronus to work saying that I was sick, so when I go into work first thing tomorrow, I will look through the files of all of the muggleborns who have been caught this week."
"I'm sorry," said Harry, "but I can't remember your name."
She smiled, "It's Daphne. Daphne Greengrass."
The boys didn't even have to return to the hotel; having learned from previous mistakes, they now made sure to always have Hermione's beaded bag on them, along with all of their possessions. Daphne showed them to a spare room, and they settled in.
Not wanting the day to be entirely wasted, Harry and Ron quietly discussed the possibility of breaking into Hogwarts during the summer break. Harry wanted an adequate amount of time to look around, and figured that nobody would be there. The most difficult part would be getting into the castle.
"But we don't even know what we're looking for," said Ron in a hushed whisper. They could hear Daphne singing to herself as she moved around her house, cleaning. Ron was surprised that she did the chores by hand, and she had replied that it helped build character to do things without a wand.
"Something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's. I think it's something that belonged to Ravenclaw because the only known relic that belonged to Gryffindor is the sword, which we have."
Ron's smile was grim, "Wouldn't it be ironic if the sword was a Horcrux?"
Harry gave a weak smile, "That would be ironic, mate, but it's impossible. I've barely put it down for the past two months. We all would have known by now if it had a piece of Voldemort's soul attached to it."
"Fair enough," agreed Ron.
"Okay, so we need to get into Hogsmeade, which will be tricky, and then we can go from there. Walk up to the castle under the Cloak, get a good look at the enchantments around it and see if we can find a weak spot somewhere. Maybe the Whomping Willow will be unprotected. We could get onto the school grounds from the secret passage in Honeydukes."
"As soon as we get Hermione back, we'll go to Hogsmeade."
The following morning dawned bright and sunny. Harry groaned, being reminded of the summer he spent at Privet Drive during the drought. At least now he had Ron. Who was he kidding? He had been happier stuck at the Dursely's without knowing what the hell was going on than he currently was, wondering what was happening to Hermione.
"Alright, boys," said Daphne as she banged open the door of their bedroom, making Ron jump, as he had still been sleeping. Ron hadn't slept a sound night since Hermione had gone missing, but knowing that they were one step closer to finding her, that they had help from inside the Ministry, gave him enough to peace of mind to sleep. "I'm off to work. I'll be home around five," and she left.
Harry and Ron, taking advantage of the time she was out of the house, searched the place. It was true that she did not have a Dark Mark, but that didn't mean anything. They went through her bedroom, the sitting room, the kitchen, the guest room, everywhere she might hide something she didn't want them to see, but nothing came up. As far as they could tell, this girl did not have any connections to Voldemort.
They wandered through muggle London, both of them freezing whenever they saw a girl with brown bushy hair. Several times, Ron had called out to an absolute stranger, "Hermione!" but it was never her.
Daphne returned half an hour earlier than she had anticipated. Harry and Ron were sitting at her kitchen table, drinking tea, when she burst in and threw down a thick file in front of them. Eagerly, they leapt at it, tearing it open and sifting through the files. Most contained photos, others descriptions.
The three of them spent all evening going through every inch of information, but eventually it was clear that Hermione had not been brought to the Ministry. "Is it possible," asked Daphne slowly, "that it wasn't Snatchers who took her?"
"It wasn't Death Eaters," said Harry, who felt his hope fading and yet a part of him was relieved that Hermione had not been brought to the Ministry. "Like you said, it would have been all over the Prophet if they had caught her."
"I'm not talking about those idiots, either," she said snippily. "I'm saying that maybe she was kidnapped by Traders."
"Traders?" asked Ron and Harry together.
"Oh fuck. You two really have been out of the loop for a long time, haven't you? Traders capture mudbloods," she saw the looks on their faces when she said that word, so she quickly backtracked, "You don't understand. That's what everyone calls muggleborns now. And there's a reason for that." She picked up the latest copy of the Daily Prophet and shoved it in their faces.
"I don't see anything," said Harry with a frown as he scanned the headlines.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake! Don't look at the headlines, look at the advertisements!"
Harry's heart sunk at the same moment Ron let slip a few choice swear words. Right there, in the corner of the page were the words, "Mudbloods for Sale!"
