Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, burst my bubble why don't you. I don't own…
There weren't many times that Severus Snape was truly, thoroughly shocked to the core of his being. Unpleasantly surprised, yes. Beset upon by unexpected unfortunate events, yes. Even the occasional interesting realization. But something that rocked his very soul's foundation—that hadn't happened since he'd realized that he'd essentially played a hand in killing Lily, so very long ago, and Dumbledore had forgiven him.
But now he was shaken, so shaken that he couldn't even pace as he was wont to do when he confronted any problem or obstacle. Instead, he sat wearily in his chair, staring vacantly off into space and wondering just exactly how he'd managed to go and get himself a…an attachment to Hermione Granger.
More like a silly and completely inappropriate infatuation with a girl two decades younger than you!
But no. Though he wanted to protest and call himself a sick paedophile, he couldn't lie—the 'girl' was not truly a child, and had not been for at least a year now. That doesn't excuse you—she's eighteen—or is it nineteen?—barely of age! No matter her maturity, experience, or appearance, he was a perverted old man to have developed such a fascination, and yes, desire, for her. You're truly a monster, Severus Snape. Didn't think you'd stoop to such levels. You're no better than all those you call scum of the earth, your fellow Death Eaters. Once a Death Eater…
Now that he was thinking about her in that way, he couldn't stop. Severus' mind insisted on digging up the most innocuous times he'd spent in her company, and seeing her with the hindsight of his just-realized attachment, he cringed at sullying her—even the thought or memory of Hermione—with this…unacceptable fondness. The motions of her body, fluid and golden as she faced off with him and moved through sally after sally…the sweat trickling down her neck, trailing past her collarbone to dip—there…her voice, soothing in its cadence as she chased after an elusive concept and argued points of debate with him…her unmistakable hair tickling his arm as she impulsively hugged him…the determined stare of an equal rather than a student when she'd confronted him and finally had it out with him about being his peer and no longer his pupil…the sight of her, flushed and talking and ignorant of the way she'd transformed mid-sentence from the elegantly lined body of a stranger into the warmth of herself with those seductively bare feet and expressive eyes…his hands on her soft, soft skin at her delicate throat, pressed too close to her—what?
Severus clapped one hand to his forehead in dismay as he remembered just how he'd attacked her, oh it felt forever ago, when she'd surprised him in his office and he'd pushed her up against a wall and nearly killed her. How could I have forgotten that? he agonized, reliving the moment again. "Even then, I realized just how soft her body was against mine, despite all the muscles," he murmured and then shook his head violently. No! She's off limits, Severus Snape. She belongs to a child of the light—Potter, perhaps, or Weasley. Someone her age, who doesn't have the blood of too many on his hands, on his soul. Someone who can give her what she deserves. Rubbing his face, Severus muttered, "I'm a fool."
Somehow, and at some point, Severus Snape had gone from not even truly liking the girl, to feeling—something—for the woman she'd become. Just how it had happened he didn't know. Just what he felt, Severus didn't dare explore. It could be just lust. I'm just a dirty, perverted man. But he would not examine just what it was, because Severus feared, oh how he feared! For the last time he'd experienced any sort of sensation similar in the slightest to what he suffered now, he had been a young boy-man and he had been in love with Lily Evans.
"You're an idiot and a pathetic cretin of the highest order, even more so than Potter, Severus Snape," he sneered to himself. Silence answered him.
--break--
"Herm—uh, Professor Granger," Ginny greeted as she caught up to Hermione in the hallway. Hermione wrinkled her nose slightly at the younger redhead, making a wry face.
"Hello, Miss Weasley," she teased with a slight smile. "How are you this fine Monday morning?"
"Wondering if you have time to talk sometime today," Ginny replied promptly. She flicked her eyes around, scanning the mostly empty corridor. It was earlier than when the usual masses of students ventured down to breakfast. "About stuff."
Stuff. Hm. Hermione furrowed her brow in thought. "Do you have a free period today at all?"
"Yes, at two," Ginny confirmed. "I didn't take Divination." Hermione managed not to laugh, and instead mentally accessed her teaching schedule for the day.
"I'm free then, I have a planning period," she mused. "Professor Slughorn will be teaching the fourth years in the classroom so we can use the small office. Is that alright with you?"
"Perfect," Ginny breathed with gratefulness. "It's not urgent-urgent, just…important. Stuff."
"Right. Well I'll see you then, Miss Weasley," Hermione nodded as they parted ways to head for their respective tables for breakfast.
When the bell had rung for the next period and Hermione had started grading a stack of Slughorn's fifth year Potion essays, Ginny appeared at the door. Behind her, bouncing happily along, was—Lionel Jordan? "Come in," Hermione waved, and Ginny shut the door behind them with a dull thunk. She stood for a moment, and after a brief pause Hermione realized that she was giving her a significant eye. "What—oh!" She picked up her wand from the desk and gave it a practice roll and flick, murmuring under her breath as she did so. "It's safe to talk now," she informed them. "Sit down. Hello, Lionel. How are you?"
"Enjoying Potions with you much more than the git," Lionel grinned. Hermione couldn't help but smile back at the infectious boy, despite the painful twist her heart made and the angry defense that sprang to her lips for Severus.
"You certainly have a talent for livening the class, though not always to its betterment," Hermione commented in amusement. She raised a brow laconically at him, and he blushed. In class, Lionel was one of the most rambunctious third years Hermione taught, and while some of his call-outs were sometimes relevant and sometimes funny, he also had a propensity to disrupt the class, and he'd already melted a cauldron while brewing the most un-inflammable potion Hermione could imagine. Hermione had had to give him a detention for that one, and had taken points from Ravenclaw more than once for his constant nattering and interruptions. Still, he's such an intelligent young boy. Just unable to sit still and quiet for longer than ten minutes at a time.
"Lionel here came to me with a very valid proposal as well as an intriguing offer," Ginny spoke up. She flashed a smile at him encouragingly. "Why don't you tell Professor Granger about your idea, Lionel?"
"Oh, yeah, sure. Well, over the summer my friends and I were fiddling around with some Muggle stuff, and we asked my Mum how cell phones work. You remember, when I had mine with me last year, and it somehow managed to get signal here?"
"Yes, and you received detention for that," Hermione noted with suppressed mirth.
"Yeah, that time. Well my Mum explained to us about cell phone towers and lines and everything and we started wondering why cell phones work here but other Muggle technology doesn't, and then we got to thinking about how we could help because none of us want to end up like Headmaster Dumbledore or like that Indian twin girl in Gryff." Lionel frowned, momentarily sidetracked. "Padma's been really different since then. Her sister was an honorary 'Claw, so all of us wanted to do something. Oh, so anyway I thought, why can't you all use cell phones here for…like, instead of Floo or something if it's being watched by a spy or something? And then I also thought, a lot of us younger kids, especially in Ravenclaw, want to fight too but we're not old enough for your DA group so why can't we have our own if there's someone to teach us? So I asked Ginny and she said we still were too young to fight but learning how to defend ourselves was a good idea, and then she got interested in the Muggle tech and wanted to know what else could be useful and I tried to s'plain about computers and electricity but I guess I wasn't very good at explaining—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mister Jordan," Hermione interrupted hastily, her mind awhirl and awash with the beginnings of ideas and Lionel's chatter. "Calm down, lad. I get the picture. One thing at a time, yeah?"
Ginny was stifling laughter, and Hermione shot a glare over in the girl's general direction. "So, you were saying first of all that you think the cell phones might be useful to us?" Hermione asked cautiously. Lionel nodded vigorously, and she sat back and bit her bottom lip in contemplation. Cell phones. Muggle technology. I'd never seriously thought about it. I didn't even remember that Lionel's phone worked here at Hogwarts, but it must have had to for it to ring in class and land him in detention. So…cell phones work in the Magical world?
She must have said that aloud, because Lionel replied, a little more subdued. "No, not everywhere. Only in a couple spots in Hogwarts, and in the Leaky Cauldron, and certain hotspots in Diagon Alley. I dunno about the rest of the Magical world but my brother tested it out around. He can call me if he's in the Muggle world and I'm in exactly the right spots in Hogwarts, or from the Leaky Cauldron. But the signal's really weak and the battery goes out real fast. We fixed the battery problem, me and some Claws, but we can't figure out how to fix the signal strength and connectivity without another of those towers closer by us. I think the magic weakens the signal."
"Hmm. I suppose—well, you know, I've always thought magic as a fifth element that operated within a higher physics than Muggles have currently experimented with. A type of energy, really. And according to the first law of Thermodynamics, energy and matter are interchangeable. If one could convert the potential of magic to the potential of something else—say, amplification of cell phone tower strength, or electricity, or even to access the internet…"
"And find an equation to work out the conversion rate from magic to normal energy to matter—isn't that what we really do, except we don't have the step in between of energy, when we're, like, Conjuring something?" Lionel piped up, his eyes lighting with enthusiasm.
Ginny blinked, her eyes ping-ponging from her friend to the little midget, and she groaned. "Dad would have a field day," she said in disgust with a slight temperance of humor.
"That's it!" Hermione jumped up excitedly. "Ginny, that's it!" She turned to Lionel, sobering a little. "It'll take a lot of effort on your part, and on the part of your friends, and anyone who joins, but there's a way you can contribute to the war effort and still stay as safe as we'd like you to be." She leaned forward a little, her voice becoming earnest. "Do you think you all can manage it, between classes and work and still keep your grades up?"
"Of course!" the boy exclaimed proudly. "What do you need us to do?"
Hermione smiled, and Ginny suddenly had a glimpse of the Slytherin lurking in her friend's character. Eyes widening with surprise, she listened as Hermione slowly outlined her plan. "Lionel, and all the fourth years and down—those too young for the DA still—you can form a group, like the DA, only you'll be our specialized team. You'll learn basic defense during your mass sessions, like we do, so that you aren't helpless in case the worst happens and you need to survive to make it to where someone can help you out. Then you can handpick some of the best minds of the group, and Ginny'll pick some of hers from the DA, and that'll be the special team where you do the research for this kind of integrative Muggle technology and magic. That's when you can solve the problem to get the cell phones working—you're right, Lionel, I think it's a wonderful device no one is expecting us to have to communicate for emergencies. And you can also work on getting things like computers to work here at Hogwarts. Even if we can't use it directly for the war, that's what we're really fighting this war for, right?" Hermione gestured expansively, eyes glowing with zeal. "That's what we're fighting for—for the Wizarding world to finally give up its prejudices and step into the twentieth century with the rest of the world! To show everyone here just how advanced the Muggle world really is, to acquaint them with it so that we aren't hopelessly backwards. To make it safe and possible for people to be able to want to have a CD player in their dormitory, or be able to talk on the cell to their parents. Right?"
The boy was captivated by her galvanizing speech. Ginny swallowed, her own soul already raring to get up and fight once more. But she wrestled it down and stayed still, watching Hermione warily. She'd never truly seen this side of Hermione before—for just an instant, as Hermione had talked, Ginny thought that if Hermione ever went bad she'd be as charismatic—and as dangerous—as Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Hermione was the one who broke the intensity of the room as she deliberately laughed and sat back down in her chair. "My apologies, I waxed rather eloquent on the subject," she said. "It's been simmering for a while." And I think I just convinced Lionel and hopefully he'll convince his friends to stay out of real combat. I'd do a lot more manipulating in order to keep the littles safe. Still, Hermione disliked using such grand oratory to hoodwink a young boy into what she wanted him to do, despite it being a great idea nonetheless. And a little selfish as well, since I can't get away from the Magical world at all for the foreseeable future and I'd really like to get in touch with my friends. "Mister Jordan, if that is all I will authorize the creation of both the beginner's DA (although I'm sure you can come up with a better name than that), and the specialized team, pending the Headmistress' approval. Ginny, you'll help Mister Jordan with his task and recruitment process? You've done it before, you know the drill."
"With pleasure," Ginny responded, and rose, cueing Lionel to slide out of his seat as well.
"G'bye, Professor Granger, I'll do all you asked," he promised as he left, almost floating with the responsibility he'd been given.
Ginny hesitated at the entrance to the office, and turned back to look at her friend. "Hermione, do you really think it'll come to this? That the littles will have to know how to defend themselves?"
"I hope not." Hermione looked up into Ginny's worried large eyes. "Ginny, I sincerely hope not. But one thing the past year has taught me is to always be prepared for what you don't want to happen, because it just might."
--break--
Danielle ran a trembling hand through her hair and stared blindly out the window of the dank, slightly sinister living room of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Despite the appearance of the place, there was no more dangerous traps and tricks and Dark magic in this place. She and Hestia had gone combed through the place with a fine-toothed comb when the Order had first moved their Headquarters to the old Black place, left to Harry Potter in the care of Albus Dumbledore. The kid had been asked, and willingly given the go ahead for the Order to utilize the disgusting old house that reminded him "Just what Sirius Black stood against for his life, and went down fighting," were his exact words. Poor kid. Don't blame him for never wanting to see Grimmauld Place again. The only downside, of course, after they'd spent two intensive weeks cleaning up the place of the nasty works and artifacts and plain grime it had accumulated over the years, were the surly and sly house-elf that belonged to it and the equally surly but much louder and aggravating portrait of the deceased Madame Black.
The house-elf, Kreacher, had been more or less dealt with when Potter specifically ordered the hideous thing to obey the orders of the head house-elf of Hogwarts unless it went against what Potter himself demanded, and stay at Hogwarts and not tell, show, or otherwise try to alert anyone to what he had already observed or guessed or knew…The portrait, unfortunately, remained stuck to the wall and resisted al attempts of destruction, removal, or silencing. At least it would not be a security risk at the present unless they had to abandon the house to Death Eaters. Li had cautioned everyone to be wary of what was said in the sharp hearing of Mrs. Black.
Danielle was waiting. She was waiting on the Order decision that could make or break the future of her only surviving relative, whom she had almost given up on. Skye…a tiny bubble of hope in amongst the midst of her drowning despair that even Hestia had been unable to pull her from of late—the only child of her brother and his beautiful, vibrant wife—a joyful, intelligent, golden soul of a girl whom she'd almost been unable to face lying still and pale in the uncaring hospital bed. She was alive. She was alert. And she would get back her life! As long as those upstairs debating on whether they could risk their security and resources to help…
The sofa she was sitting on squeaked every time she shifted, and so she resisted moving an inch, instead sitting bolt upright with her hands primly folded on her lap. She felt like a schoolgirl, and resented it. She was a damned important contributor and member of the Order of the Phoenix. She did not sit around and wait on people to decide whether or not her niece was a "worthwhile cause". If they don't decide in our favor, I'll do it on my own. I might have to do a bit of sneaking and going against the rules of secrecy, but I won't drop this. A roughened hand on her shoulder had her jerking, and nearly stabbing her friend in the eye with her wand. "Hestia! Don't startle me! I could have taken your eye out!" Danielle cried, hastily withdrawing her wand.
"Jumpy, aren't we," Hestia grinned mischievously. She held up her hands placatingly, her well-defined features throwing shadows in the dusky light of the room. "We've finished upstairs." Danielle stiffened, and could have sworn that she felt her muscles seize up and lock down in place. Frozen, she could only manage to croak out, "What…"
The look in her closest friend's warm eyes—despite her still dabbing tentatively at the one that had nearly been put out by twelve inches of willow—was compassionate as she nodded. "We're in all the way, Dani. It went in your favor by a unanimous vote."
A flood of disbelief, joy, and gratefulness turned the previously hardened solid muscles into a liquefied waterfall that had the taller woman abruptly crumbling down towards the creaky and dubiously-stained floor. Hestia caught her before she hit the ground, and hauled her back to the sofa, which gave a particularly angry groan at the abuse of a bottom being plopped unceremoniously onto its surface. "You all right?" she asked, kneeling to efficiently check Danielle's pulse, forehead, and eyes. "You're not going to faint on me? Here—" pulling out a bar of Honeydukes chocolate. "Eat that."
"That's yours," Danielle protested weakly, but tore the wrapper off and took a bite anyway, allowing the sweetness on her tongue to wash away the sudden release of emotion.
"No skin off mine—Remus gave it to me the other day after I came back from an official visit to Azkaban. It was my turn to check up on things there. But I didn't need it because, to be particularly honest, sex works so much better for banishing the cold and the depression the Dementors invoke." Hestia grinned at her friend, and despite the crudeness, Danielle couldn't help but giggle in an altogether too childish way. Oh, Hestia. Always willing to say the crudest, rudest things. She'd always been that way, even as an eleven-year-old when they'd first met on the train to Hogwarts and Hestia had told Danielle that she couldn't wait for the first Quidditch game of the year—the boys were always the most delicious things ever, all muscles and strength, shocking the conservative quiet Danielle quite 'd been friends ever since.
"I'm sure our Minister of Magic didn't complain. Has he started increasing your visits to Azkaban for that sole purpose?" Danielle asked wryly. She ate the last bite of the rich, honeyed chocolate, mildly surprised that she'd eaten it all so fast.
"It's a contributing factor and a very rewarding decision on his part," Hestia noted solemnly, a smirk hovering around her mouth. "Nothing to do, of course, with the concerns our mysterious spy has brought to us about a possible Azkaban breakout soon. All to do with my sexual prowess when forced to remain very close to one's partner for some body warmth."
"Oh, Hestia, when will you stop being obsessed with sex?"
"Oh, Danielle, when will you start having it regularly?"
They both burst out laughing, and were still laughing when Filius Flitwick and Tonks entered. "What's the joke?" Tonks wanted to know, while Filius merely looked on in confusion and a touch of nervousness.
"Oh, just discussing certain needs a girl has to stay healthy and sane," Hestia flippantly stated with a mock-solemn face.
"Oh, yes," Tonks nodded sagely, her hair flashing what one might call in the Muggle world "siren red" before darkening to a shade of red that looked almost black. "Ohh, yes. Remus does make sure I stay healthy and sane indeed. Can you say the same?"
"Our Minister is a very giving man concerned with the well-being of his citizens," Hestia returned seriously.
There was a silence, in which Danielle gave up and rolled her eyes, Filius began to back out of the room cautiously, his diminutive form shrinking further if that was even possible in his attempt to escape the scary women in the living room, and both Hestia and Tonks seized each other up.
"Oh for Merlin's sake, you two are beyond hopeless. Stop comparing sex partners and tell me what exactly the Order decided upstairs," Danielle finally snapped, a small smile hovering around her lips contradicting her otherwise stern tone. Taking pity on the poor man trying to duck and scurry out of the room unnoticed, she deliberately got up took both women firmly by their ears, and sat them down in the broken sofa she'd just vacated, enjoying the twin looks of outrage directed at her. "Be good," she informed them crisply. "Filius, dear, do come in. They won't bite, I promise."
The small professor made his way warily back into the middle of the room, still keeping the door closer to him than the women on the sofa. "Unspeakable," he greeted her respectfully. "Good to, ah, see you again! And under such surprising news—I'm very happy to hear Skye's ghost-spirit is very much conscious and wandering Hogwarts. Remarkable girl, that one. Easily the smartest Ravenclaw of her year—quite possibly the cleverest in her year, top of all her classes. Always thinking, that one. We were all devastated to hear what had happened to her and her charming family last year…"
"Thank you," Danielle murmured sincerely, now struggling once again to hold back tears. Hestia saved the day again by jumping into the conversation cheerily.
"So, after a whole lot of big long words you wouldn't understand, the upshot of the decision is that the Order is unanimous on the decision that Skye being integrated back into her body as a priority of the highest degree. As such, a small research team has been briefed and will be working almost exclusively on her situation and are authorized to any information and resource the Order can spare that may help your niece."
"By necessity, young Mister Malfoy will be in that team and will be granted a special pass to all relevant and sensitive information, pertaining to the research. Anything else must remain secret to him—he isn't a full Order member out of training yet and even most members don't have full access to sensitive information unless its necessary." Filius cut in.
Hestia shrugged ruefully. "Sorry, love, I know you despise the little blond ninny and I don't blame you, but as of now he's the only one that can see and hear Skye."
Danielle remained quiet, but a tiny twitch at the corner of her lips reassured Hestia that she would be okay with the Malfoy boy, if not particularly thrilled, and Hestia subsided.
Tonks, her hair now turning a grave navy blue for the more serious conversation, piped up now. "Those you see here are the other members of the team. There's Filius, for all the charmwork expertise we're inevitably going to need when working on how to actually get Skye back where she belongs and reconnect her spirit to her physical body. You, obviously, since Skye is your niece and since you're a darn good researcher. Hestia—she insisted on being in on this, although she'll have more responsibilities outside as well since she's being tapped for the possible breakout of Azkaban this Halloween our spy thinks is going to happen. Hestia will probably be good to bounce theoretical ideas off for you, Danielle. I'm not worth two knuts at abstract theory, but I can help Filius out once you give us something solid to work with. I've a growing knowledge of Arithmancy—not like Vector has, but good enough to help out with formulating an actual solution once you solidify your theory on what happened. The kids—your Skye, and my esteemed cousin Malfoy, will be working closely with you, Danielle, if that's okay. They're better off doing the research like they've been doing already, so you told us."
"I'm fine with that," Danielle said absently, her mind already a-whirl with plans and ideas. "And the sensitive information that Malfoy said that Hermione mentioned? Oh, and wouldn't it be logical to pull Hermione for this as well?"
"I did ask that. Li briefed us on what Hermione thought was what we're looking for, but she's apparently already tied up with important Order business and Li refused to burden her with more responsibilities. His words were something to the effect of, 'We have placed a large responsibility on her already, initiating her into full member of the Order, and what she does for us now is indispensable. And yet she is still in years, if not in maturity, a young girl. I will not have her tasked beyond her endurance, and making mistakes as a human is wont to do when overworked. No, her work right now is too all-important.' You know, in that sober, powerful way of his when he decides something is to be done."
Filius offered, when Danielle furrowed her brow and wondered just what Li had Hermione working on that was so important none of them had been told, "She certainly seems quite overwhelmed when I see her sometimes at Hogwarts. I don't think she enjoys teaching as much as she had hoped she would, and she often looks either very far away from the moment or simply too tired to do anything. I understand Horace has her doing his scuttle-work for him as part of her 'training' under him."
Tonks shook her head. "It has to be something else other than teaching," she insisted. "Otherwise Li wouldn't look so bloody omniscient and at the same time worried for Hermione."
Hestia, who had been silent up till then, weighed her words thoughtfully. "I have my suspicions of what her job is, but nothing of solid evidence. She did come to me with an unusual request this summer that leads me to believe…" she paused, and the other three leaned forward, a captive audience and bound by gossip, that old companion of humanity that connects the entire world. "Leads me to believe—though I can trust that none of you will mention anything at all?—" they nodded—"that Hermione is our unknown spy's handler."
"What? Young Hermione?" Danielle asked, shocked.
"Miss Granger, a handler—you must be mistaken!" Filius exclaimed, unable to believe Hestia's assertion.
"No way," Tonks added. Her hair was now bright orange in disbelief.
"That's what I think," Hestia stoutly defended herself. "And it makes sense if you think harder about it. She's the perfect handler because no one would expect it of her. Most people don't even know she's in the Order. Many assume she's still just Harry Potter's sidekick and dictionary. Even as a teaching fellow, they think she's just followed through with her priggish know-it-all nature and taken it a step further in the natural direction of teaching what she's learnt. And yet—I haven't forgotten what I saw when she was initiated."
Danielle sobered, and remembered last Christmas—when Hermione Granger had reappeared after her ordeal, injured, looking as though she'd been mauled by a hippogriff, and bearing the head of what had been Harry Potter. Hestia hadn't been part of the council that had heard Hermione's ordeal story and judged her worthy. She'd merely been one of the members watching that night, and still did not know what happened as was customary for a personal ordeal. It's true. Hermione did a hard thing when she killed her best friend—albeit in a different universe, for a good reason. I call her a friend of sorts, but we still don't know each other really well. She could very well have learned the skills of such deception during her time spent in an alternate world. Not to mention Snape was her mentor…
"Snape was her trainer," Hestia added in an eerie echo of Danielle's own thoughts. "He's a lying, murdering bastard but he knew his business well. She had to have picked something up from him, smart girl that she is."
Filius' eyes had cooled considerably in a frosty anger when Snape's name was mentioned, and Danielle noted that there had to be some sort of personal grudge between the two men. Most people didn't spare a thought for the man they couldn't figure out who'd somehow managed to betray them and his oaths to them. Some whispered that he was still somehow loyal to them and that was why his oaths weren't killing him. Others thought he was dead already, quietly somewhere, for no one had heard of him or seen him since his flight from Hogwarts that horrific night. It took too much energy.
"He was a traitor who broke the sacred trust between himself and his students, and his employer and redeemer," Filius snarled. His small size was suddenly in no way "cute" or "unthreatening"—furious, the little man was every inch the formidable dueler he'd been when he'd taken the world championship several decades ago.
To try and lessen the suddenly tense atmosphere, Tonks deliberately morphed her hair to bright purple and pink. "Well, regardless, Hermione still could very well have learned something from him intentional or not. I suppose it does make sense that she's our mysterious spy's contact and handler. I don't envy her the job. I just would like to know how they found another one so fast!"
"And who he or she is," Hestia added.
"Someone probably revolted and scared by Albus' death. Or the careless death of a student." Danielle shrugged. "Someone dissatisfied with the promises unfulfilled by You-Know-Who. Probably male, there are proportionally more males drawn to him—or maybe, are accepted into his ranks—than there are females."
"Whoever it is, I hope Li tested him thoroughly," Hestia said fiercely.
There wasn't anything else to say after that.
A.N.: Thanks for sticking with me, guys! I know, so little of Sev here and no HGSS. But it'll hopefully pick up a bit later. For now, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into some other characters.
