A/N: Hello guys. So, I owe you all an explanation. I started writing Looks Can Be Deceiving and then really lost where I was going with it. The truth is, it was my second ever story and I really loved the pairing. I started writing but with no idea what my endgame actually was. I left it and finished off other stories which I had more of a plan for. Now I am taking a pause in that series and returning my attention to this. I sat down and started writing and came up with a completely new story and I'm loving where it is going. It is unlike anything I've written before as it uses the characters but isn't based on the books. I have 7 chapters written so far and I hope to upload one a week. I honestly am really enjoying this story and I hope you do too. I have deleted the old one off of here, but I still have it in case I ever figure out where to go with it, so it hasn't gone completely. Now to be honest this is just the Prologue and the story is actually far more exciting than this makes out, I just needed to set the scene for the events. There is going to be betrayal, twists and turns. Hermione is definitely still going to be the girl we love, but the title suggests all we need to know for now. There will be eventual Bellamione, but I didn't just want to throw them together, especially considering the type of characters Bellatrix and Hermione are. Anyway, enough of my prattle. Please enjoy the new and improved Looks Can Be Deceiving! Disclaimer: All characters (except the ones you have never heard of before) belong to J. K. Rowling.
It astounded Hermione how much could change in a few years. Her days as a Hogwarts student and the war she had fought in seemed like a lifetime ago. She had changed. The world had changed.
She brushed her unruly hair out of her face and tried to focus her attention on a report that needed finishing. Her gaze fell to the unread copy of the Daily Prophet resting on her desk. The front page was mostly taken up by a photo of Harry and Ginny smiling at a Ministry Ball from the previous year. The couple had recently announced their engagement and the Wizarding world was lapping up the news.
It was good to see him looking so happy. The war had taken its toll on them all, but none more so than Harry.
The days following the battle at Hogwarts had been chaotic. There was the clean-up of the castle and funerals to be held, not to mention a full-blown investigation into every employee at the Ministry. Some of the Death Eaters had managed to evade capture, most worrying of all was the infamous escape of Bellatrix Lestrange.
The dark witch had screamed manically when she saw her Lord fall and blasted her way through the gathered crowd, threatening revenge on them all and disappearing into the early morning sunrise. The Ministry had sent countless Aurors after her, but none of them had returned. There had been no news of her for the past two years, but it was too much to hope that the woman was dead.
Her escape had been part of the reason why Harry signed up to be an Auror, along with Ron, within weeks of the battle. It soon became apparent that he was not ready for the role. Hermione knew all too well the nightmares that plagued them all. She often awoke screaming, in a cold sweat, unable to forget the images and memories that were seemingly burnt into her mind. She knew Harry was suffering, but he refused to talk and just tried to push through. Even the counsellor appointed by the Auror department to help him couldn't get through, until one day he just disappeared. All that was left was a note informing Ron and Hermione that he needed space. For a year there was nothing and then he showed up again, out of the blue. It was clear to everyone that the Golden Boy's year away had done nothing to heal the wounds in his mind. It didn't take long for Hermione to realise that Harry had turned to the bottle in order to try and keep the pain at bay.
She had since lost count of the number of times she had put him into rehab. Countless times it had failed and countless times she tried again. It was only when he'd fallen off the wagon the last time that Hermione abandoned the softly softly approach and let him have both barrels. She may have said some very harsh and unkind words and hit way below the belt, but it seemed to have worked. Harry regularly attended AA meetings, got back with Ginny and he was now approaching 18 months sober. He had also re-established himself in the Ministry, now having a high-paying job in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. He disclosed to Hermione that he despised the thought of getting into battles, hence the career switch.
Ron had been no help at all. He was childish at the best of times and seemed to act as if he was in denial when it came to their friend's drinking. He was still an Auror, how Hermione didn't know, as Harry had told the brunette many times that Ron had failed his evaluations each year, more than once. She guessed that being one part of the Golden Trio was what kept him in a job.
She sighed heavily as she struggled to summon up the enthusiasm to finish this report. Her life certainly hadn't gone the way she thought it would.
After school she had returned to Hogwarts, but found it a struggle. Every day she walked the corridors where students had died. She could still see them running in the corridors, laughing until suddenly it would change and they were lying dead. McGonagall noticed Hermione's struggles and when she gave the brunette the option to take her NEWTs early and leave, Hermione jumped at the chance. She passed everything with flying colours, of course, and she hadn't even left Hogwarts before there was a flood of job offers. It turned out McGonagall had been shielding her from a lot of them, but with her impending departure from Hogwarts and adult life beckoning, Hermione needed to make some decisions.
She had offers from every department in the Ministry, but decided on joining the newly renamed Department of Magical Creatures. She settled into her new role and quickly began making a name for herself by introducing a law giving house-elves rights and also changing the laws on werewolves. She was soon head-hunted into the Department of International Magical Co-operation, where she became known as one of the best diplomats the Ministry had ever known, not to mention an expert on Magical Law. It was after she had successfully resolved a conflict between Poland and Russia that the Department of Mysteries came calling.
Euphemia Rowle was the Head of Department and had been since the war. She had been one of the first to offer Hermione a job and was well-respected in the Ministry. It was curiosity that persuaded Hermione to meet with her and she was pleasantly surprised. Euphemia had been the mother of Thorfinn Rowle, a notorious Death Eater, and the brunette expected someone who shared the same views. Like so many others, Euphemia had been investigated for corruption and found not guilty.
Hermione had gone into the meeting expecting to see a woman who valued the brunette's talents, but with a sneer that told her all about the woman's views on muggle-borns, but Hermione was surprised. Euphemia had a dark sense of humour that appealed to the brunette, with a booming laugh and a playful twinkle in her eyes. She was intelligent and the two women soon lost themselves in a range of topics. In short, Hermione felt like she had found a kindred spirit and it was hard to believe that this was the same woman whose son had been one of Voldemort's most loyal, albeit a very useless one. Hermione left the meeting, not only with what felt like a new friend, but also a job offer to consider. It was certainly unlike anything the brunette had done before, and she had been alarmed at the nature of the work, but for some reason it appealed to her more than anything else she had done so far in her life. By the following morning she had accepted Euphemia's offer and by the end of the week her stuff had been moved to her new office.
She had been in the job for two years and thrived at the challenges she was presented with. As an Unspeakable she could discuss her job with no one. So far as anyone else knew she was a researcher and that was it. The truth was far darker.
Unspeakables were highly trained, more so than Aurors. Euphemia had warned her of the testing she would endure, the training, the frequent checks on her sanity, but none of it worried Hermione. She found she craved it, craved the pain from the training so she didn't break under torture, the pain from the ache in her muscles after an intense duelling session to hone her skills, all of it she craved, ever since the war, ever since Malfoy Manor and now she was feeding that craving. Harry had turned to alcohol to numb the pain, Hermione had embraced it.