Chapter 14: Hermione UnderCover

"Are you sure this is safe, Harry?" Ron asked, concerned, as he watched his wife get "wired up".

The original "Golden Trio" stood in Ron and Hermione's sitting room, getting Hermione ready for lunch with Mildred Montiface, who had unexpectedly invited her out with friends. Harry supposed, as his connection to Hermione was well-known, that "Millie" wanted the dirt on how he felt about the Ministry now. Or something to that effect. At any rate, since it played into their plans to get Hermione to talk to Millie, they were going with it.

"As sure as I can be, Ron." Harry hummed under his breath as he affixed a beetle-shaped platinum pin to Hermione's rust-colored robes. "This will mask the electronics inside and allow us to pick up their conversation."

"A beetle? Really, Harry?" Hermione asked as she looked at the small, pretty thing, which even had horrible etched markings for eyeglasses on it.

Harry winked at her. "I couldn't resist the homage to our least favorite reporter." He straightened it out. "Now, Hermione, don't be a hero. Just chat her up."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I leave the hero work to you two. I'm a mother, now, you know."

"Yeah, to my children, wife, so I'll back Harry up on this," Ron said seriously. "We weren't the only ones on our adventures."

"I'd say there's a good deal of hero there, myself," Harry allowed. "Hence the warning. Just join her for lunch, work the conversation over to her friends, make noises about needing intellectual conversation with like-minded individuals. See if you can get a location out of her. Failing that, arrange a meeting with me, if you can."

"May I remind you that I am, in fact, the deputy head of the DMLE?" Hermione shook her head at the fussing pair. "I'll get you what you need, Harry."

"You're a treasure, Hermione," Harry bowed elaborately and kissed her fingers.

"Please stop," Ron begged. "You remind me too much of the twins when you do that."

Harry smirked. "Yes, well, once a Marauder, always a Marauder."

"This is not a joke, boys," Hermione said sternly.

"Yes, ma'am." "Yes, ma'am." They said in unison.

Hermione sighed.

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Diagon Alley bustled with life as Hermione popped into the apparition point near the back entrance of the Leaky Cauldron. Harry and Ron had flooed to WWW to monitor her conversation, while James was spending his morning at MI6, going over contingency plans with M and the other agents who would be aiding in pulling the key leaders off the streets and into custody. Severus had joined him.

Hermione drew a deep breath, forced a welcoming smile, and strode into the dim light of the Leaky, looking for Millie. She looked around a bit before spotting her in a corner booth with two other people: Justin Finch-Fletchley and a woman she didn't know. Hermione made her way over to the booth and slid in next to Justin. "Hello, all. Justin, it's nice to see you. It's been some time."

"It has," Justin said with a cordial smile and an extended hand. "How have you been, Hermione?"

"I'm well, thank you. And who's this?" Hermione nodded to the unknown woman sitting next to Millie.

"Louise Brealey," Millie jumped in. "Louise, this is Hermione Granger-Weasley. She and Justin went to school together at Hogwarts, and Hermione and I occasionally work together at the Ministry."

"A pleasure," Louise said politely, shoving her long dark hair behind her ear.

The four chatted for a minute, ordering the lunch special, and settling into their conversations as they ate their shepherd's pie. Millie waited until Hermione was nearly half done with her plate before appearing to fidget a bit, then blurting out, "Hermione, has Harry Potter been to talk to you recently?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Of course. He was livid after his stop at the Ministry. Honestly, I didn't even know we collected the blood of mundane spouses here. I'm so glad Kingsley put a stop to it."

"How did Harry get a muggle spouse, anyway?" Justin asked, quirking an eyebrow of his own.

Hermione smiled. "They met through work, hit it off, and, well, apparently magic decided they were compatible, because the bonding took them both by surprise. Harry, of course, thinking a spontaneous magical bonding would be near impossible with a mundane."

"And they're sure his bonded is mundane, are they?" Louise inquired.

"As they can be," Hermione assured them. "Harry conducted the spells himself."

"What is Harry doing for work these days, anyway?" Justin slipped the question into conversation adroitly.

"Oh, he works for the British government in some capacity," Hermione said vaguely.

Millie gasped theatrically. "He works for the muggles?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Millie, stop. You know you're a muggleborn yourself. And Harry isn't in anyway a purist, as you might have guessed to his reaction at the Ministry the other day. He slipped out of the magical community after Voldemort's fall on purpose. He was raised by mundanes, you know."

"I don't think that's widely known, actually," Louise popped in. "I'm muggleborn, and I always thought the Boy-Who-Lived was a Pureblood."

"Not sure where anyone got that," Hermione said skeptically. "He defeated Voldemort; he didn't buy into his politics at all. And, at any rate, Harry prefers to be kept out of the Ministry and the magical world."

"I really don't understand why," Millie said. "He's practically an icon here. He's famous!"

Hermione shook her head wryly. "And that would be why. The public has always loved him one day, hated him the next. They're incredibly fickle, and they seem to think he owes them something. Which he absolutely doesn't. Saving them from megalomaniacal dark lords twice in one lifetime was more than enough to ask of anyone, in my opinion."

"Well, he's not alone in wanting to spend more time in the other world than in the magical, that's certain," Justin said thoughtfully. "Do you suppose he'd like to meet up with some of the rest of us who feel the same?"

Hermione's heart skipped a beat, but she gave no outward sign of her inner anxiety. "Like who?"

"Oh, me. Maybe Millie here. Louise. Even you're welcome, Hermione." Justin stretched a bit. "We meet every Friday for drinks and conversation."

"I can talk to Harry," Hermione acknowledged. "It might be nice to touch base with the mundane side of life for a bit. Where are you meeting?"

Millie smiled. "My group of friends and I meet at 4123 New Cavendish Street, London. It's a renovated brownstone we use sort of as a clubhouse."

Hermione smiled. "This Friday then?"

Justin nodded. "Yes; most of us are there about 7."

"Sounds lovely." Hermione wiped her mouth. "I'll let you know, Millie, if Harry can make it, and check to see if Ron is willing to watch our children that night. It'll be nice to have an evening of adult conversation."

"Lovely," Millie said.

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Harry shook his head slowly. "Girl's still got it. That was almost too easy."

"As if they were looking to recruit you?" Ron nodded. "Sure sounded like it. At least, it does if you know what's underneath the whole thing."

"Hermione does oblivious in social situations very well," Harry observed. "But she's really not, and that's their mistake."

The pair listened as Hermione said her farewells, then strolled out to Diagon Alley and headed for WWW, ostensibly to meet her husband.

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James, Severus, M, and R laid out a plan to pull the known players in the conspiracy from their locations on Sunday afternoon, just as James and Harry's bonding party was in full swing.

James could not take part, for obvious reasons, nor could Q. R would be running the technical portion of the ops. Severus would make an appearance at the party, but pop out to quietly take the head of the Australian company into custody, using magic dampening bracelets and a quick Portkey. They'd spoken to Parvati and the Serpentine, who would collect Hussein at the factory. Alec made a date with the admin in Texas, who he'd determined was the real threat there, and he'd simply wine and dine her into custody on Sunday afternoon. One by one, they identified the leaders globally, and set their agents up to be in place.

A phone call from Q interrupted their planning meeting.

M put him up on the plasma screen in his office, on a video conference call.

"Q, what news have you?"

"Hermione and I have been invited to a meeting of muggleborn Friday night in London," Q said without preamble. "We have the location; I'm unable to text it or tell it to you as I'm not the Secret Keeper. However, I was listening in to the conversation in which Mildred Montiface told the secret to Hermione."

"Are there really no provisions in this secret keeping spell that adjust for listening devices?" M wondered allowed.

Severus smirked. "Not for mundane listening devices, at any rate."

M shook his head. "Magicals really underestimate the rest of the world, don't they?"

Q cleared his throat. "As it's Wednesday now, that gives us two days to prep for a meeting and confirm the players, along with their intent. Depending upon the scope of the thing, Hermione and I may be able to take them all into custody, and we should run a planning scenario for that."

M nodded. "We'll continue to run the planning for the global ops as well, as back up. We might not scoop everybody up on Friday night."

"It would be nice to have a bonding party without the op hanging over our heads, though," James commented.

"Best laid plans, 007," M reminded him. "Best to have back-ups of back-ups."

Severus nodded grimly. "Let's get to work, then."

Q's phone beeped, and he read the screen. "Oh, clever catch, Mione."

"What?" James asked.

"If the location was truly under Fidelius, then Hermione would not be able to tell me the location. I only know it because I was listening in," Q explained. "Hermione decided to try and tell the location to another party, George, as a simple test to see if the Fidelius was true. She couldn't say it, so it stands to reason that it's a true Fidelius. That said, Hermione notes that she would theoretically not be able to tell me where to meet her, so she needs to meet with Millie again."

"Would Ms. Montiface know that?" M asked.

"She would," Q acknowledged. "It's some sort of test, I imagine."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "One Ms. Granger-Weasley will pass, I presume?"

Q, busily texting Hermione back, nodded absently. "I'm going to tap into her pin again when she goes so we have ears on her." He exchanged a few texts with Hermione, then went to the computer he'd set up in the room and pulled up the feed from Hermione's platinum pin, which she'd taken to wearing out of habit. "Here."

Muted sounds filled the room through the machine's speakers, filtered over the video feed from Q's position. Hermione was apparently striding toward the Office of Muggle Affairs, exchanging occasional greetings with others. The men heard her open the door to Millie's office, greet her, then say, a bit irritably, "So, Millie, how am I to bring Harry along on Friday if I can't tell him the address?"

Millie's theatrical gasp of surprise would never win a BAFTA, James thought, as he listened in.

"Oh, Hermione, I'd forgotten. That's under Fidelius. Remember? We were playing around with Secret Keeping at lunch that one day? That's the secret." The men heard fumbling on Millie's desk, the knocking over of an ink well and a hurried catch of it. "Here, let me write the address down for you."

"Appreciated," Hermione said. "Harry's likely to just write the whole thing off and go about his business if it's over complicated."

Millie's fake laugh punctuated the scribbling of her pen. "Oh, that wouldn't do, would it?" Silence. Then, "Who did you try to tell?"

"My husband," Hermione said glibly. "He wanted to know where I'd be in case of an emergency with the children on Friday."

"Oh, of course," Millie said, and the sound of ripping paper was heard. "Here you go. Just show that to Harry, and to Ron, of course."

"Thanks, Millie. Can I bring anything Friday?"

"Oh, just yourself, this once," Millie confirmed. "If you join us more often, we'll put you in the rotation for snacks."

Hermione laughed softly. "Good to know." The men heard footsteps, and the sound of a door opening. "See you Friday, Millie!"

They heard a door close, and more footsteps as Hermione made her way back to her own office.

Q's phone beeped. He read off a text. "All clear, she says," Q repeated. He looked up at the room. "Thoughts?"

"Your friend is clever," M murmured. "An obvious thing, to let her husband know where she is in case of emergency. Plausible, simple, and likely true."

"Not too mention, completely in character," James added. "Q is more likely to blow off social interaction if it's complicated."

"Well done, indeed," Severus agreed softly. "And, we know have the secret, written on paper, to show a team of arresting officers, should we choose to use it."

"Oh, that's brilliant," Q said brightly. He closed out the terminal he'd set up in WWW with a few keystrokes, then started packing it up. "I'll be back at the branch in 10. Anything I can do for you while I'm out, gentlemen?" He turned to face the screen again.

M shook his head. "No. Just bring yourself back so we can brief you on our back up plans for Sunday."

"With luck, M, we'll take out the main players on Friday night," Q acknowledged. "But the back-ups are important."

Severus nodded. "When will you meet up with Ms. Granger-Weasley?"

"Dinner tonight," Q said. "James and I are being visible with dinner out this evening among the Weasleys."

"Black tie, darling?" James asked with a wink.

"Not even close, dear," Q said, deadpan. "See you in a few." The screen blinked off.

James looked back at M and Severus. "So, time to plan a Friday night battle, then?"

"Gives us two days," M said.

"Let's get to it," Severus agreed.