After Arthur's accident, Hermione split the rest of her Easter holidays between supporting the Weasleys at St Mungo's and visiting the manor. When she was at the manor, Hermione and Draco continued to work on synchronising their magic and she managed to have a long talk with Lucius and Narcissa regarding her plans for Dumbledore. With what she had planned they had no way of knowing what would happen to Dumbledore after graduation, but Lucius promised Hermione they would still find a way to kill him so she could compete her vengeance and move on with her life.
Whenever Hermione was around the Weasleys she kept a close eye on Harry and Ginny's blossoming friendship. The pair still looked to be getting friendlier, and Hermione was becoming increasingly worried that they would be romantically involved by the time they returned to school. However according to Ron, who Hermione had spoken to about the burgeoning romance, Harry wasn't ready to begin any sort of romantic relationship. Hermione was guessing that Harry had confided in Ron, but she was still nervous about how things were progressing.
With Hermione's worries about Harry and Ginny still bubbling when they headed back to school, she decided it was time to ensure they put their plans into place sooner rather than later. After settling into a compartment with her friends, Hermione made an excuse about doing patrols as Head Girl so she could go and find Draco. A quick walk down the train revealed which compartment her boyfriend and his friends were in, now all she needed was an excuse to enter the compartment and make it clear to Draco she wanted to talk. Luckily for Hermione, an excuse fell into her hands when a loud exploding noise sounded from the boy's compartment. Without hesitation Hermione yanked open the door, only to be greeted by thick smoke.
"What is going on here?" she demanded, pulling out her wand and clearing the smoke.
"What's it got to do with you?" Theo asked.
"I'm Head Girl, and I need to know if students are safe," Hermione retorted.
"As you can see Granger, we're all perfectly safe," Draco said with a smirk. "You don't need to worry about us."
"I wasn't worrying about you. You lot could blow yourselves up for all I care," Hermione shot back. "I'm worried about the younger students, and if whatever you're up to will endanger them."
"There's no younger students here," Blaise pointed out. "There's just the five of us."
"But what were you doing?" Hermione demanded, making sure she caught Draco's eye and her boyfriend understood she wanted to talk to him.
"Nothing for you concern yourself with," Draco replied. "Run along back to your little friends, and leave us alone."
"Don't tell me, I couldn't care less," Hermione shrugged. "But the five of you have each earned yourself a detention next weekend and you'll each lose five house points."
Smirking at the shocked Slytherins, Hermione turned on her heel and exited the compartment. She'd barely made it three steps when she heard Draco following her out and the next thing she knew her boyfriend had her pressed up against the wall of the train, his most fearsome expression on his face.
"That was uncalled for Granger," Draco spat loud enough so the nosey people who were looking out of their compartments would hear what was going on.
"Get off me Malfoy, or else I'll dock more points and give you another detention," Hermione hissed.
"I'd like to see you try," Draco sneered as he moved his head even closer to Hermione. "What's wrong?" he whispered, knowing no-one else could hear.
"I want the plan with Ginny activating as soon as possible. She needs to be caught with Blaise sooner rather than later," Hermione whispered back before she raised her hands and pushed her boyfriend away from her, continuing on with their pretence of arguing. "That's another ten points lost, do you want to try for more?"
"Uppity cow," Draco sneered as he turned around and headed back into his compartment, slamming the door behind him.
Knowing people were still watching her, Hermione made an effort to look as though she was pulling herself together before she turned and headed back to her own compartment. As she left the part of the train where Draco and his friends had been sitting she could hear people gossiping and knew that by the time they reached Hogwarts the whole school would know she'd had an altercation with Draco.
"You're back," Ron grinned when Hermione stepped into the compartment.
"Is everything okay?" Ginny asked as Hermione sat down with a sigh.
"Yeah," Hermione nodded. "I just had a run in with Malfoy and his mates. There was some sort of explosion in their compartment, and when I went to check what was going on they weren't happy."
"Did Malfoy do anything to you?" Ron questioned. "I swear, if he touched you, I'll kill him."
Hermione had to work hard not to laugh at the mere idea of Ron trying to take on Draco. Her boyfriend would have the redhead on his backside before he'd even managed to produce his wand.
"I'm fine," Hermione reassured Ron. "I can handle Malfoy. He's all talk."
"So what was the explosion in the Slytherin compartment?" Ginny asked.
"I have no idea," Hermione shrugged. She would have to try and talk to Draco later and find out what had actually happened. "I just heard the bang as I was passing. Until I went in to investigate, I had no idea who was in the compartment."
"Did you not ask them what they were doing?" Harry pressed, worried in case the Slytherins were up to no good.
"Of course I asked them, but they refused to answer," Hermione replied. "To be honest I couldn't be bothered arguing with them. Whatever it was everything looked fine in the compartment."
"I bet it was something dark," Harry muttered. "I bet the whole lot of them are up to their necks in all this Death Eater business."
"You can't know that, Harry," Ginny said, jumping in before Hermione had a chance to speak. "Not all Slytherins are evil."
"Since when has your opinion changed?" Ron demanded of his little sister. "You know as well as Harry and I do, what the Slytherins have done over the years. You know there's no good in them whatsoever."
"I just think that not all of them are like that," Ginny admitted quietly. "A few of them might be alright if you gave them a chance."
"Maybe," Harry shrugged. "But not Malfoy and his friends, that lot are pure evil. And I'd bet anything that whatever happened today was a result of them planning something. We need to keep a close eye on them this term."
Hermione's attention drifted off as Harry and Ron got into a discussion about how best to keep tabs on the Slytherins. Hermione was also aware that Ginny didn't join in the conversation, instead she was sitting looking out of the window as she bit her fingernails nervously. Hermione was just about to ask Ginny if everything was alright when she heard the name Athena mentioned.
"What was that you've just said?" she asked Harry and Ron.
"Sorry, I thought you'd heard," Harry apologised. "I was just saying that I may have some information about Athena."
"How?" Ginny asked. "We never got a chance to talk to Mum and Dad before Dad's attack, and I thought you weren't going to bother your Mum."
"I didn't bother her, she was upset and she'd had a few drinks," Harry told his friends. "She was rambling a bit, so I'm not sure how accurate anything she was saying is."
"What did she say?" Ron asked, practically sitting on the edge of his seat in anticipation.
"She said that maybe Dad was right, and they should have been more careful regarding Athena," Harry said. "I tried asking what she meant, but she went quiet. However, just as she was going to sleep she warned me to be careful, that Athena was closer than I realised."
"What does she mean by that?" Ron frowned.
"I think it means we know Athena," Harry replied. "I've been thinking about what we know about Athena, and we're actually missing one vital piece of information; how old she is. She's just been referred to as Voldemort's daughter, it's never been said how old she was when Dumbledore saved her life."
"I can't believe we never picked up on this sooner," Ron said, slapping his hand against his forehead. "How could we have been so stupid?"
"So how old do you think she is?" Ginny asked Harry.
"I'm not sure exactly, but we have been told she's been raised well away from the dark and has no idea who she truly is. To me that indicates she was saved when she was fairly young," Harry answered. "It would have been much harder ensuring she was raised away from the dark if she had memories of being around Voldemort."
"Unless of course the Order obliviated her," Hermione pointed out. "Who knows how old she was when her parents died."
"Hermione has a point," Ginny said. "She could have been saved at six or seven and had her past memories obliviated."
"I never thought of that," Harry admitted. "But even if that was the case, whoever she is has to be near to us in some way. Athena isn't some random witch, she's someone nearby."
"So who are our options?" Ron queried.
"We could be looking at almost any girl in the last couple of years of school," Harry said. "Considering when Athena was saved, I would say she could be around Ginny's age at the youngest. If she was already older when she was saved, she may have already left school, but is still known to us."
"And don't forget she'll probably have connections to the Order," Ginny added. "Dumbledore made it clear he's known her all this time, therefore it makes sense if her family are connected to the Order."
"Well that rules out all the girls in Slytherin," Ron said. "Dumbledore wouldn't place Athena with any family that had connection to the dark."
"He doesn't necessarily need to have placed her with someone connected to the Order," Harry warned. "All it has to be is a family with no dark connections. Any normal wizarding family would do and he could have been watching her from afar."
"That opens the field up a lot," Ginny remarked. "Just considering sixth and seventh years, that's a lot of girls. Even if you take out the Slytherins, or any other families with connections to the dark."
"And muggleborns," Harry said. "Dumbledore wouldn't have risked placing her with muggles. He could have easily lost track of her that way."
"Yeah, he'll have wanted to keep her close," Ron agreed.
"So let's get this straight, we're looking at any witch in sixth and seventh year whose family are free from dark connections and aren't muggles. That's still a fair few options to choose from," Ginny said.
"It is," Harry sighed. "Although we now also have to think about if she's older."
"I think that selection is pretty narrow," Ron mused. "We don't really have contact with any witch whose left school, so why would your Mum warn us to be careful."
"I can think of one witch who's older and is involved with the Order," Ginny said quietly. "Tonks."
Nymphadora Tonks was the daughter of Narcissa's sister, Andromeda. Tonks was a few years older than the group, but Hermione could see why she was an option in Ginny's mind. For Tonks to have been Athena she would have had to have had her memories obliviated, so it would make sense to place her with a family that was closely connected to the Order. Also with recent events, Tonks had been around much more and it would make sense if Lily was warning Harry about her.
"That's a really good idea, Ginny," Harry said.
"But how are we going to know if it's true?" Ron questioned. "How are we going to know if anyone we suspect of being Athena really is her or not?"
"I don't know," Harry admitted. "But I do know we have to be very careful around other witches. Hermione and Ginny are the only two girls we can trust, we can't take the chance that any of the others are Athena."
Hermione inwardly smirked when Harry announced she was someone to be trusted implicitly. She had been worried when Harry confessed that Lily had been talking, but luckily Harry had completely overlooked her when thinking about possibilities of who Athena could be. Now for the rest of the term Harry and Ron would go around being suspicious about everyone else while she was above suspicion, and she was the one the pair should really be worried about. It was their best friend who was out to get them, and they would never see it coming.