Ch 34

Enemy Aid

It was Luna who, wearing the face of a young death eater recruit, accompanied the headmaster of Hogwarts to the school and was not seen for a day. They had learned from their mistakes and no attempt was made to move the horcrux once it was located.

"Best to be rid of it as soon as possible," Mr. Weasley asserted.

"NO!" The joint voices of Ron, Harry, and Hermione exclaimed.

"We can't."

"He'll know the minute we attempt to damage it."

"He can sense it."

They chimed out near in unison.

Turning to look at her boys Hermione quirked a brow, "There's got to be another way to destroy it than basilisk venom… it would be noted if we tried to get hold of something like that."

"No one but Deas would know…if needs be," Snape commented, after silence had reigned for a minute or two.

"Fine then, if that's our final recourse… but it can't be done, not until we are ready to kill him. We cannot risk it a moment before."

"The snake…" McGonagall murmured, "The snake has to go."

"He doesn't keep it with him anymore," Snape said, "I believe it was entrusted to the Malfoy's for safekeeping. Bella couldn't keep a rock alive… and Nagini ensures Lucius toes the line, if he enjoys his marital state."

"We're doomed then… the Malfoy's won't tell us anything," Harry said.

"Won't tell you anything," Ron said prodding the other in the arm, "This one," he gestured at Snape, "Is practically a part of the family."

Snape's perpetual grimace deepened, "I'm afraid Narcissa has become rather uneasy about me… uneasy about everyone really, not that I can blame her, any mishap and He will have Lucius's head on a pike. Even Bella's on the cusp at the moment."

"Draco might let it slip… not that he doesn't fear you just as much as his mother… but… he's the weakest link," Hermione pointed out, having previously mentioned her encounter with the youngest Malfoy with Snape. She felt bad keeping it from the others… but they could barely trust Snape would not betray them, and he had done far more to prove his loyalty, than anything the wavering conscience of the youngest Malfoy might indicate.

Snape nearly tripped over her exiting the bathroom in the morning. In his defense between the gout of steam from his early, early morning shower obscuring the dark hall and with his near comatose state of wakefulness it was a no small miracle that he interpreted her presence correctly and stepped back from the doorway slightly so as to admit her.

"Yes?"

"Let me talk to Draco."

He bit back his instinctive response and instead reached for a dry towel, settling with his back to her. Toweling dark hair dry took some time and allowed for thought, "What angle do you intend to try?" he finally asked.

"I don't know yet… It'll be apparent if I can talk to him, depends entirely on which he fears more, you or his conscience."

"Can we trust to fear or guilt?"

"We needn't trust him at all. He doesn't need to do anything but let slip where."

"And…" he trailed off meaningfully.

"Harry and Ron'd have my hide if they suspected I was going to put myself in any sort of danger."

"Does speaking with me constitute a danger in their minds?" Snape bit out thoughtlessly.

Hermione's hand on his damp, bare shoulder was a shock, but neither pulled away.

"You know very well I am not ashamed," Her chiding tone was warm and too close…and he too vulnerable, physically and emotionally, caught as it were. Damn his temper.

"If they see us plotting they won't let me out of the house without a hundred questions and the last thing we need is Dumbledore watching us any more closely than he does."

Coming suddenly to his feet he turned and found Hermione was surprisingly close. Her right hand extended slightly in surprise, just brushed his chest when he breathed, he noticed a light flush from the heat of the room coloring her upturned cheeks, her eyes, warm, deep amber in the too bright, almost clinical light of the room.

"I don't approve, but I will arrange it," he affirmed brusquely, stepping deftly around her to exit the bathroom.

It was not difficult to find a reason to speak with Lucius, and simpler still for the overburdened pair to hand off the mundane details of it all to their most trusted aids. After all, if they couldn't trust blood and magic, they really had fallen too far.

It was a tad harder to find a legitimate reason for him to be sending her abroad that would not alarm their chaperons, for lack of a better term. He eventually settled on a partial truth, Some of Bellatrix's lackey's had crossed Severus, and he wanted aid locating the names and positions of these, in part for their disrespect toward himself and his blood marked, and, in part, as insurance against Bellatrix. Lucius being in charge of the hall of records… or more crudely the secret police and surveillance systems all wrapped up in one, had been glad to help, quite understanding of the slipping respect the lower ranks were showing those who had stood with the dark lord since the beginning and had offered him access to his resources and his son Draco the help navigate him. Given the delegation of the task it would be strange if Severus were to look into the matter himself, when he had one so capable so readily available.

Snape entered the library where the "kids" had all been bedded down on cots for the time being, "Hermione."

She appeared from between the shelves, both Harry and Ron close on her heels, the first scowling slightly due to the smile that had unconsciously lit their friend's features at his sudden appearance.

She said nothing, if she noticed, her eyes expectant, waiting for him to speak.

"I need you to accompany me to the ministry for a few days… maybe a week. I asked Lucius Malfoy for a favor and it seems he's given the job to my godson. It was implied I should similarly delegate and lend my special services to a project of his in thanks for his aid."

"She can't go to the ministry," Harry stated in a hard voice, "Draco can't be trusted, and HE is there."

Severus flickered his dark eyes over the boy dismissively, "She is my blood marked. In theory, she is completely safe to walk anywhere I can without fear. And the dark lord knows precisely where she is. If he so desired he could demand her of me now, and we all would be powerless to stop him, being five hundred feet or five hundred miles from him would not change that fact."

Harry's face reddened and he shifted forward, only to be stopped by a cool look from slanting chestnut toned eyes.

"In theory?" Ron latched onto this qualifier with all the strength and tenacity of a terrier.

Hermione sighed, "Yes, in theory, I'd have to be a fool to walk into the serpent's mouth without being aware of the danger, but so long as I grovel to the right people and keep my wand close at hand, I am not doing anything much more dangerous than I have done so far."

She looked at Severus, and he at her, conveying that this was the arrangement, he had agreed to provide, and that details would be shared once privacy was once more achieved.

Then, just to rile the boy, knowing she would punish him for it later, he reached out, casually brushing a dark curl that had been straying down betwixt her bright eyes, back into its place with the others. As always he was cognizant of her, and took care that his skin did not brush hers, fine to flaunt such a thing to anger a child, but it would not do to handle her so casually, she did not appreciate such things.

This action caused her eyes to narrow just slightly, and he accepted her nonverbal scold with all the repentance of a slight smirk. She knew precisely his game, and he was rather uncaring of the fact that he had happily sunk right down to the boy's level to get back a bit of his own.

"I want names, rank, and position."

Hermione stared up at him through eyes dark and narrowed with suspicion. She did not ask the obvious question.

"No," she challenged instead.

He gave her one of his looks and she met it without qualm.

"I know you," she warned in a low voice.

He smiled, but it held no warmth, and said only, "Indeed you do."

"Damn you, don't unsettle things now out of stupidity," she could tell the accusation had missed its mark when he immediately snapped back,

"I need identities, because you are about to become much more visible. If I am going to be flaunting a target, I need to know each and every single person who will take a shot."

The sharpness of her eyes did not diminish, but neither did his.

"Don't," She sighed and looked away when he gave her a look that clearly said, 'You know very well I will take care of it however I deem appropriate.'

"Nothing foolish," she amended, "Please, nothing foolish."

Touching her drawn cheek in a brief brush that she hardly noticed, she watched chilly, black, eyes, blink once in assent, and then he vanished as he apparated with her directly into the atrium of the ministry.

Separating from Severus once he had ushered her unmolested through several layers of rather invasive security measures, she walked purposefully past several unabashedly staring witches and wizards, she had a very well known face. Being the most wanted witch of the war had that effect. She did not have to ask to be directed to the hall of records.

Entering she saw a fairly typical wizarding office, save the death eaters in their pall-like robes seated where ministry men and women used to sit… correction, they were ministry men and women, witches and wizards she recognized, now dressed like death eaters, only a few of higher rank daring to don only the emblazoned insignia of their lord on their breasts rather than the full regalia of the zealot… or those pretending to be so.

Obviously these…peons were not marked. Marked men and women stood out, they dressed… as was their wont and walked without fear of retribution for lack of outward obeisance to their master, although most bared their left forearms with pride.

Ah…Draco. He dressed as a young… old-world lord might, and was seated in a modestly sized, but subtly luxurious office near the back of the "office space". His pressed white sleeves were rolled up with a care to capture a roguish, but still business-like air. For a Malfoy did nothing carelessly, no, the effect was calculated to expose the mark, and lend presence and threat to the one who was surely the youngest, marked death eater.

He half rose from his seat, almost startled to see her, Granger, the mudblood, here, in the ministry, the heart of Voldemort's power, but slowly, unwillingly sank back into his seat, gesturing with forced nonchalance toward one of the seats opposite his desk.

"Master Malfoy, I had assumed you were aware of the intention of my master to send me in his place. His particular talents are needed far more urgently elsewhere, and I have been sent to act in my master's stead."

Unconsciously the man tugged at his tie, a subtly Slytherin piece composed of silver prisms bordered in several shifting shades of green, loosening it slightly. His fingers, a tad clammy from the fright she had given him, leaving slightly darkened imprints on his immaculately white, pressed collared-shirt along the V of the steel grey vest. A young lord indeed, he looked the part.

"Of course, please, follow me," he said clearing his throat and rising, "The records room is sealed to those without authorization. We don't need our people to be compromised."

As he spoke, he lead her to a large set of doors, just past what she assumed was his father's office, tapping his wand in intricate pattern over the unbroken surface of the door. He muttered a word, and the knob-less doors swung inward. An expansive room, its landscape defined by filing cabinets and long worktables, in a maze-like pattern, the walls lined with bookshelves, some filled with books, some with files, even a few scrolls were shoved haphazardly in place.

A few ministry workers, two women and a young man were working near the entrance filing papers and transcribing missives into preexisting files, but Draco banished these at a word.

"Low-level, they don't have the clearance to move beyond the first three rows, each 'room' of cabinets requires a different pass key, and very few know all of them." He explained briefly.

He ushered her past several, side passages and rooms in the filing cabinet maze occasionally keying in at points that to her seemed unmarked and muttering passwords she could not distinguish.

"There, past this layer the only watcher spells are those directly controlled by the Malfoy family. No one else has the clearance to the information that might be revealed. What sort of information does Snape want?"

"He wants the files on those who have been in your aunt's favor going back five years."

Draco gave a low whistle, "Damn, that's going to take… some serious work… organization is by date of recruitment and then by work classification. We'll have to read individual files, and hope the watcher spells caught wind of whom they associated with… do you have any… qualifying information? The spell is a rather 'dumb' one, it simply records whom the individual was in close proximity to, and after a certain number of hits per pairing the names are automatically entered into their records, if words are exchanged, fewer hits are required and short snippets of the interaction recorded. Half the problem is that Marked death eaters keep almost habitual wards against the watcher spells, for example, Snape's name does not appear on these files once, his own file is actually a blank, most of the ranked death eaters are."

He came to a stop suddenly and shot her a crooked grin, "And I've just managed to tell you precisely how to avoid being caught on file…damn."

"My thanks, Malfoy, but you need not concern yourself, my master would not be pleased if his business were known. I have been protected."

He scrubbed a hand through blonde hair and shook his head, scanning the surrounding maze with an expert's eyes, "Aye, might have thought as much. Might as well take a look at Bellatrix's file, maybe she's been careless."

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is eating good food with family and friends. That is certainly on my agenda. Managed to wiggle this out between food commas, enjoy, review.