Hermione impatiently drummed her nails on her briefcase in the foyer outside the Minister's office. Two intimidating aurors stood on either side of the large wooden door as ministry officials whizzed past her.
For the past two years, her eagerness to prove herself to those around her hadn't quite worked in her favour. She was constantly being pushed to the side so that those around her - pureboods - could move up in the ranks. Despite the war's conclusion that blood purity meant nothing and that people are people, Hermione still faced regular insult in the form of shoulder shoves, lewd remarks and invitations to big parties to play the role of token muggleborn or worse, as a publicity stunt.
As it stood, her largest accomplishment thus far had been a promotion to a senior member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She knew when she accepted the position that she would have major climbing to do to win the trust and approval of her fellow associates, and it helped that she was considered to be the brightest witch of her age, but the world couldn't change in a day. Apparently it couldn't even change in a year.
Kingsley told all of them after the war that it might even take a lifetime for change to fully take root, and most people wouldn't like it when it happened to them. But it was the cost of change, and Hermione supported the change he opted for; blood mania would no longer exist, and the promise that none of their future children and grandchildren would ever have to fight how they fought.
Hermione looked back up to the clock, annoyed with herself for her temper starting to flare up as she tried to reign in the harsh comments she just barely kept quiet.
"I'm sorry," she started, getting the attention of the young wizard sitting behind a large desk strewn with papers and schedules. "I've got an important meeting with the Minister that ought to have started well over fifteen minutes ago. I'm a busy woman, I've got other meetings to attend to."
The young wizard jumped from his chair and stuttered an apology.
"I-I'm sorry Miss Granger, Ma'am, I'm sure the Minister will be with you shortly."
"I should hope so," Hermione said as she rolled her eyes. She did not like to be called Ma'am. She wasn't nearly old enough for such a title at 24. Biting her lip, Hermione wondered if she were being too hard on the boy. It wasn't his fault that she was in such a bad mood this morning. Perhaps if Ron hadn't been picking fights all week she would be better at handling something as trivial as a late meeting and not be giving death glares to a young man who had no control over the Minister's meetings.
Finally the door swung open and silencing charms were taken down and Hermione could hear the raucous laughter of a large group of men as they left Kingsley's office.
Without a word, he gestured to Hermione.
"I hope that joke was well worth it, Minister," she grumbled when she sat down across from him, who rose an eyebrow at her sour attitude and gave her a tight lipped smile.
"So, Hermione. What is on the docket today? Bring me up to speed."
"Well," she began, taking a breath. "The house elves are still not wanting to meet with me. I've dispatched some of my people to see if we can come to an accord with them, but I'm afraid my reputation precedes me. It seems that their case will have to be handed over to Dammerford despite all my efforts to work with them in the past. The centaur herd out by Hogwarts has been in touch and we have some new legislation that we have to get their approval on. I've corresponded with their representatives and we are looking to build centaur-safe villages where they are welcome and commonplace, just as we did with the werewolf communities."
"Aren't you afraid that a village like that will breed division between wizarding society and the centaurs? We saw what happened with Villa Luna. It's entirely inhabited by the werewolves - as much as integration sounds good on paper, most of the wizarding families chose to leave the town completely. Now Villa Luna is in need of help from the ministry because they don't have a fully sustainable community inside the town borders and vendors aren't feeling especially motivated to stroll into the heart of a werewolf community. Especially when considering what Fenrir Greyback was like… he traumatized too many people."
Hermione nodded, anticipating this.
"Yes, and I need to discuss something with you shortly about werewolves in a moment. But my centaur liaison, Dennis Creevey, has assured me that the centaurs aren't seeking a village like the werewolves. They are perfectly happy living in the forest. They just want access to villages that won't try to get rid of them if they happened across the street. Think about their children and how excited they would be to stroll down Diagon Alley like we got to do."
"I see where you're coming from, Hermione, but what you're suggesting would mean pinpointing communities near the herds and buying out any muggle families and then on top of that, buying out wizarding folk who would prefer not to live in such close proximity with the creatures."
"I think you'll find that you can share a street with someone you don't care for and still manage to lead a perfectly satisfactory life, Kings. It isn't a matter of Creature versus Wizard. It's a question of soul versus soul, and after the war, nobody could rightly claim that they are better than any other just because of blood or something as trivial as what you're suggesting."
"The optics of it are on the right path and I am sure I could find seats on the Wizengamot to back your claim, but the fact of the matter is that it's all fine and good when it's happening to someone else. Do you seriously believe that a family like the Pucey's wouldn't fight to align themselves with forward-moving politics, vote for your proposal just to look good for the press, and then push the resulting community into near desolate locations? Villa Luna was a lovely idea, Hermione. But it's better thought up and dreamt of than it actual practice."
Noticing the deflated look on her face, he put his arms onto the table and leaned over his desk to look her in the eyes.
"Look, draft some plans and have my assistant book a meeting with you, Dennis and myself. We'll talk more about that in a week after I get a chance to do some of my own research on the matter."
Perking up, Hermione smiled and remembered something she needed to get off her chest.
"Thank you, sir. Now about the werewolves… Kingsley, it is no surprise that we lost a lot of people during the war. I totally understand the need for a complete account of all wizarding families in Britain, but in the recent census done, the Ministry asked for strange information. Werewolves and Veela want to know why they've been excluded from this census. Why discriminate against people who are active members of society just because they aren't entirely like the rest of us?"
Kingsley shifted in his seat, uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry. All I can tell you is that the werewolf and veela populations weren't left out for any discriminatory reasons - they just didn't fit what the census was aimed to collect. I know you have the best intentions and that this is your job, but the census is strictly private. As much as I wish I could discuss this with you, I can't. Not now, though I'm sure you'll understand in time."
A knock on the large doors cut him off before he could continue. The young wizard from the desk poked his head through.
"Lord Greengrass is-" Kingsley raised his hand to cut the boy off from speaking further.
"Hermione, I'll be back in a moment. My apologies for the intrusion."
Hermione nodded and closed her mouth before she could say the first thing that came to mind.
When Kingsley closed the door, Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. Her day was far too busy to be kept waiting and then intruded upon. Looking at her watch, Hermione growled in frustration. She was going to be late for her other meetings and lunch with Harry that, though it wasn't entirely necessary for her job was actually very necessary for her sanity.
Kingsley had only been gone a few moments when a thick brown folder with papers stuffed into it haphazardly caught her eye. Hermione knew not to look, but couldn't help herself. She cursed her curiosity and after a minute of straining her ears to hear any hint of Kingsley's return, Hermione stretched a tentative hand towards the folder.
She tried to open it, but quickly discovered that it was heavily warded.
Curious, Hermione thought to herself, turning it slightly to get a better look. The magical signature very clearly stated that the folder was meant to be in the care of the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement, with instruction to only be opened by a council that Hermione's couldn't quite make out.
Trailing her fingers across it as if it were a dusty book, Hermione bit her lip as she pondered what was in the folder that needed to be kept hidden, and what council was so private that even she hadn't heard of it. An idea struck her, and her fingers sped to the sides of the folder where papers weren't returned neatly and confidentially. She knew they papers wouldn't come out, but if she turned through the corners she might be able to find something useful.
She couldn't make out anything other than a couple of names, but the two that she saw weren't helpful in the least. Of course Kingsley would be on it, and of course Lord Greengrass, who acted as head of the DMLE. Hermione took out her wand and examined the folder. It was warded carefully, but predictably. Whoever was in charge of protecting the folder had not anticipated anybody but whatever council it belonged to trying to open it. Hermione could easily hack into it if she was given enough time. They felt awfully similar to the wards she'd been studying in her personal time. It was uncomfortable to admit that she spent an unusual amount of time taking long detours from her daily errands to be near the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement, especially since Ron was frequently inside the short hallway and she rarely went in to greet him. It was a guilty pleasure, she knew, to spend so much of her time absorbing the wards that the DMLE kept. It was her underlying Ravenclaw tendencies demanding that she figure them out entirely, but it was her overbearing Gryffindor-ness that screamed that she ought to find out what was exactly inside the Department, and what was more, what was inside the office that she had only ever been invited into twice by the Lord Hyperion Greengrass himself.
Drawing out her wand, Hermione focused on the folder and with one hand moved her wand in short, deliberate strokes while her other hand tugged on the paper that held a list of names. When it didn't loosen immediately, her brow furrowed and a small beat of sweat collected at the nape of her neck. She pushed more of herself through her wand and after a few more ministrations of her spellwork, the paper tugged itself from the rest of the stack by several inches, allowing her to see several more names. There was Malfoy, not entirely a surprise to her, but the other names caught her eyes. Nott Senior, Francis Galvin, Hubert Cubbins, and perhaps ten more. She recognized some of them from her daily life working in the ministry, and suspicion nagged at the back of her mind when she remembered the group of men Kingsley had been meeting with before their own. Most of the people on the list that she could recognize were there earlier, in that very room.
She scanned it over and locked it into her memory.
She was absolutely sure that the entire council had been present, she could remember roughly the same amount of people leaving Kingsley's office. But where were Lord Greengrass and Lucius Malfoy in all that?
It was possible that she just hadn't noticed them, but they were both striking characters and she wasn't sure, even after therapy and years of safety, that she could ever cross paths with Lucius Malfoy and not shiver. She frowned then, wondering if perhaps she really had missed him and if she did, was this a good sign? Was this all a part of healing?
The fact that she could even miss her superior, Lord Greengrass, astounded her. She'd only ever been invited to his office twice, and both times she resented the childish glee that she remembered feeling when a teacher congratulated her on an essay or an exam she did well on.
Hermione snorted. How she could think of sitting before an entitled pureblood Slytherin an honour, she could not fathom. He was tall, with dark features and a sharp nose. Hermione had gone to school with his two daughters, Daphne in her year and Astoria a few years after, but they didn't look a thing like their father. Though she couldn't quite imagine how Daphne looked these days, the pictures of Astoria in all the magazines and newspapers assaulted Hermione with images of perfect pale skin and soft blonde hair. The public engagement between her and the ferret had been announced only two weeks before and since the moment she stepped out with the largest ring Hermione had ever seen, the two of them have been front page stories.
Resigning herself to her curiosity, Hermione pushed the folder back into position on Kingsley's desk as the door reopened and the Minister walked in astride Hyperion Greengrass, who curled his lip at her without a word while he reached over her for the folder she had been trying to get into.
"Good day, Minister," he said lazily as he bowed slightly before leaving.
"I'm just saying, next time you're late, just please give me a bit of room to nag you about it. It's not every day I have anything against you," Harry laughed over his coffee as Hermione rolled her eyes in response.
"You have nothing against me at all, Harry Potter, and I do not nag. Have you seen Ron at all this week?" She asked, changing the subject. She smiled and tried to push down the coiling in her stomach that made her skip ordering anything for lunch other than a strawberry smoothie.
Harry grimaced.
"Yeah I've heard from him, and he's being a right prat. Just ignore him. Ginny told me he's thrown another hissy fit and run off on another abroad trip."
"How many aurors need to be sent abroad?" Hermione huffed, "it seems every time he and I have a row he has an out of the country assignment. How many dark wizards are there?"
Harry smiled, clasping her hands in his while he dipped his head down to steal a sip of her smoothie from the straw haphazardly leaning in his direction.
Hermione laughed and pushed him away, playfully protecting her drink.
"Listen, I know Ron's been difficult, but he just needs some space."
"Space from what? We don't live together. We hardly ever see each other and when we do, it's hardly ever alone!"
"I think that's part of the problem, honestly. Maybe he's trying to get you to miss him?" Harry offered, leaning back in his chair.
"That's possible," Hermione resigned, sitting back as well. "I don't care all that much anyway right now."
Harry raised an eyebrow at her.
"What?" She asked when Harry didn't speak.
"You've been in a wretched mood, 'Mione, I doubt you seriously don't care all that much."
Hermione nodded.
"It's not just about the whole Ron thing. I've just spent the past couple hours with a bad stomach ache about something and it's getting me a bit wired."
"What is it?" Harry asked, leaning in with a whisper. "Did Kings refuse to add werewolves and veela to the census?"
This time Hermione grimaced. "He didn't outright refuse, but he wouldn't tell me why they were excluded in the first place. He said that it wasn't discriminatory, but that they didn't fit into the information that the Ministry was looking for. I meant to ask more but Lord Greengrass showed up and bludgered the rest of my meeting with Kingsley. He was too distracted to get anywhere with anything after that, pretty much made the whole meeting a waste of time that, may I remind you, I was kept waiting for."
Harry's brows knit together. "That doesn't make any sense. It was a census, wasn't it? It should include all of Wizarding Britain, not just a select few."
Hermione nodded again, slowly. She bit her lip and focused on her smoothie. Something wasn't sitting well in her stomach.
"Unless…"Harry started, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. "Unless it wasn't really a census…"
Hermione cocked her head to the side. "What makes you say that?"
"The stuff they asked for… It wasn't exactly typical stuff, was it? I understand the age and gender, hell, I even understand asking about our income and allergies and careers, even what bloody house we were sorted into if we went to Hogwarts. But the saliva sample? The hair sample, too? How are those really necessary?"
"Maybe you've been blind to what muggles can accomplish with just a saliva sample, but you can easily do ancestry tests with that DNA, and with that DNA, you can also find out a person's genetic disposition to illnesses and how the body processes or reacts to a great many things."
"Why would the ministry want to know that stuff though?"
"I don't know, maybe so we can avoid the exact problems that led to Tom Riddle's success in the future. And maybe those Pureblood families are starting to worry about all that inbreeding they did?"
"What if it's a way to prove blood purity?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?"
"What if Malfoy and his friends are looking for empirical proof that they're better?"
"I've looked into all of this already, Harry. It's impossible to find blood purity. Either you have the magical gene or you don't. There's no variation depending on who has family members with the gene. Malfoy's will be no better or worse than mine. If anything, perhaps this saliva test will come back and prove that I have magical lineage somewhere." Harry nodded to her, silent for once as he sat watching her.
"You don't look totally convinced, Hermione, and it's your own argument." Harry said after a few minutes of silence.
"I know."
"What else is there that you're worried about?"
"I- I don't quite know. I just feel like there's something I'm missing. For some reason, I keep thinking back to something Kingsley had in his office today." Hermione looked up at Harry's interested eyes nearly begging her to continue. Though Fudge and Dumbledore were long gone, Harry's brain automatically jumped to conspiracies every chance it got.
"I've been hearing through the gossip chain that Kingsley's been holding a bunch of top-secret meetings. He was in one today, it nearly ran me out of the time I had with him for my meeting with him. The whole lot of them were on the Wizengamot and a bunch work as high ranking ministry officials. None were from my department, but I recognized a bunch of them. Then, during the meeting, Hyperion Greengrass just showed up and Kingsley left me alone in his office. I snooped around a bit," Hermione earned a cheeky grin from Harry at that, "and found a folder that looked suspiciously plain next to all of Kingsley's colourful papers and whatnot. I took a peek and it was some Council that had some of the same people written on it that were in the office before me. I didn't recognize most of them but the names sounded familiar."
"What kind of council? What about it tipped you off?"
Hermione shook her head a bit.
"I don't know why it's got me feeling so weird. It just makes me feel… it makes me feel really bad. I don't want to doubt Kings, he's been with us for so many years and he saved our lives so many times during the war…"
"But?"
Hermione looked down solemnly.
"But he's not the same as back then. Everything has changed. We're not fighting for our lives anymore. I want to trust him but something just feels wrong…"
"Look, Hermione. I know you want to believe that Kings has got the best in mind for us. I know I want to believe that. But even I've heard rumours going about," Harry whispered in forced tones. He sounded almost angry as he squared his jaw to keep from attracting any attention.
Hermione looked up at him, skeptical. He looked positively unabashed when he widened his eyes to her. After so many years of trusting Harry's instincts, Hermione picked up on his body language immediately.
"What do you know, Harry Potter?" Hermione asked hesitantly.
"We've been instructed to keep quiet, but the Auror department recently learned that there will be new legislation put in place soon. Really soon. Like a few months away soon. We've been told that we'll be working security for some people in the ministry after this new law is made public."
Hermione's eye twitched. "It's believed to be unpopular enough to need aurors to protect those that pass it?"
Harry nodded and sat back in his chair. Drumming his fingertips on the table, he absently scratched at his beard and cracked his neck.
"I don't have a good feeling about this," she said finally after a few minutes of silence. Harry raised his eyes to meet hers and she stared through the sun glinting through his glasses to meet his.
Then, cutting through the moment, Hermione's muggle watch started beeping, and Hermione stood and left Harry still pondering conspiracy theories.
Later that day, Harry pulled his coat off of the rack at the front door of the Auror Department and turned to say goodnight to the few brave souls who would be working their overnight shift. Ron, who was scheduled for nights this week was gone and as expected, Terry Boot and Andrew Anglehorn were less than pleased by their sudden night in the office alone together.
"Did you see McLaggen's face when Lord Greengrass came 'round?" Harry heard Terry Boot say aloud. Cormac's father, Finian McLaggen, sat as Chief Auror and wasn't nearly as much of a prick as his son. Whatever it was that made Cormac such a pompous fool in Hogwarts was something his own father clearly wasn't genetically predisposed to, thank Circe.
"Poor sod's got too much on his plate," Andrew replied, tossing a muggle football up in the air. "What do you suppose Greengrass said to him that made him turn white as a ghost? He ran out of here in seconds looking like he ate one of those Weasley treats."
"Speaking of Weasley's… how does Ron keep getting out of these shifts? Seriously, mate, any of us would be fired by now if we pulled the shite he pulls."
"It's because he's a war hero, but it's bullocks. We all fought. We all lost people. Special treatment time should be over."
Harry sat down in his office, leaving the door open a crack to listen in, but when the conversation turned into prattle about which girls they fancied, Harry leaned back in his chair and contemplated everything Hermione had said over lunch.
She knew to trust him, but even more was that he knew to trust her. While the war ended for him, Hermione still lived in it. She surrounded herself every day with the very people who would have seen her imprisoned or killed, trying to stand up for others like her or worse off. Harry knew that she had become hardened, but the moment she felt genuine fear was the moment he knew he had to stand up. Even if it turned out to be nothing, he would help her.
Harry pushed open the door to Hermione's small flat that night and stood with his jaw hanging at the sight of her sitting in the middle of the living room floor with papers adorning the walls and books on the floor. Her hair was pulled back, once in a braid atop her head though by now it hung loosely down her back with stray hairs frizzing around her head. Her eyes were dark and worn, wand between her teeth, as she took a muggle highlighter and highlighted a section of text from a stack of papers in front of her.
Harry took a tentative step towards her and raised his arms slowly to keep from startling her.
After so many years of witnessing her sleep-deprived and obsessed, Harry lowered himself to her level and spoke slowly.
"Hermione," he whispered, gently pulling the wand from her teeth.
She barely registered him, but let go of her grip on the wand easily.
"Hermione," he tried again to get her attention and this time succeeded. Her eyes frantically met his.
"What is all this?"
"You were right, Harry, you were so right. The census, the memos you've been getting," Hermione lifted a finger to point to a series of stained papers - papers that he'd filed in his office not even 5 hours earlier. How had she gotten them? He'd been in his office until the moment he left to stop by her place…
"Look here," she stood and motioned to him to come to stare at all the papers lined up on her walls. He wouldn't have been surprised to find yarn lines and pictures with their eyes crossed out, but he stood and let her guide his eyes to the section highlight which members of the ministry would be getting their own security detail. There were a few that were a given; Kingsley always had aurors with him, and so did Lord Greengrass. Lucius Malfoy, though, had him scrunching his eyebrows together. He read more names and each confused him more than the one before.
"Those names all sound familiar, but I don't have a clue where I know them from…" he murmured.
Besides him, Hermione nodded and pointed him towards a stack of newspapers and magazines.
"Almost all of those men have children who have publicly announced engagements in the past month. The others either have no children or children who are married already. But the engagements… they've been splashed across every public platform. We'd be hard pressed not to know that Draco is engaged to Daphne's sister, or that Nott is marrying Slughorn's great-niece. Ask yourself, why are they all announcing things at the same time, though the wedding dates are so widely spread out?"
Harry read the front pages of all the newspapers and magazines Hermione had gathered into a messy pile and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Why would these specific people need a security detail?"
"Each of these names were on the list I saw in Kingsley's office."
Harry looked up to her. "Are you sure?" he asked cautiously.
"Positive. I watched it all again through the pensieve, "she waved her arm behind her to the kitchen, where a floating pensieve caught Harry's attention. Where had she gotten a pensieve from? "These are all the names on that council. You know what that means, then."
Harry peeled his eyes from the pensieve and the mass of papers scattered throughout her living room.
"Sorry, what? What does this mean?"
Hermione's eyes glinted with frustration.
"We're going to break into Lord Greengrass' office. Tonight. I know I can get into the folder if I have enough time."
Harry's face paled.
"Excuse me? Hermione, are you insane? You could be thrown into Azkaban for even just the suggestion of that. He's dangerous"
"Come now, Harry, I wouldn't ask you to do this with me if I had no clue what I was going. I've spent months studying the wards around the DMLE-" Harry's brows shot up at that. "I know I can do it. I just need the time."
This time Hermione's eyes conveyed no frustration. Instead, Harry was astounded to see sparks of excitement course through her, hints of it in her hair and in her eyes. Nodding, Harry took off his jacket and strode into the kitchen. He filled the kettle with water and placed it on the burner before turning to sift through her cupboards for two mugs and tea bags.
"Walk me through your plan," Harry sighed, turning towards her and leaning back on the counter. "I trust you."
