In the weeks prior to Fenrir and Lucius suspecting that Draco could be hiding in Uganda, the Order caught a big break independent of any help from Draco, Theo or Hermione.
While Theosophus Nott and Alecto Carrow feared the Dark Lord's retribution more than anything the Order could to do to them, Corban Yaxley did not feel the same. Yaxley decided it would be more prudent to cut a deal with the Order and live to be tortured by the Dark Lord someday in the future, than suffer now and most likely end up dead like Amycus.
Normally, any information Yaxley had to provide would have been useless as both sides followed certain security protocols to safeguard their interests in case any of their members or networks were compromised. This was the chief reason interrogations were pointless and a flimsy excuse to torture the enemy. However, Yaxley had something that none of his fellow Death Eaters knew he possessed.
A paranoid person by nature, more so after seeing how easily the Dark Lord could turn on his followers, Yaxley began to secretly collect and preserve strands of hair belonging to several Death Eaters across the ranks. He made use of his collection to spy on those he suspected of scheming to replace him as Head of Magical Law Enforcement, but it was also meant to provide him with the means to frame his enemies should he ever find himself in a pickle and in need of a scapegoat.
Yaxley offered to direct the Order to his hidden stash of hair and freshly brewed batch of polyjuice potion in exchange for a promise of leniency to be showed towards him for his crimes. It took the Order some days to get back to him, during which time they verified that he was not leading them into a trap. It confirmed his suspicion that they had help from within the Death Eater organisation.
In accordance with their deal, as the current leader of the Order, Harry Potter made a wand oath swearing that Yaxley would not be executed or given the Kiss. However, once the war was over he would be sent to Azkaban where he would live out the rest of his days with no hope of parole, which was fine with Yaxley. After all, he had sworn no oath agreeing to stay a prisoner forever.
His only goal now was to survive for as long as it took his fellow Death Eaters to rescue him... if they ever bothered to rescue him at all.
"The Department of Magical Transportation?" asked Harry Potter.
"The Department of Magical Transportation," repeated Neville Longbottom.
After a discussion among themselves, a majority of the Order had voted that upon infiltrating the Ministry it would be in their best interest to, foremost, render useless or destroy the department responsible for various aspects of magical transport.
Ever since the Death Eaters took over the Ministry, travel by portkey and the floo network was restricted and closely monitored. International travel by broom or apparition was banned, and nearly all forms of magical travel within Britain were heavily regulated. The Order was consequently crippled, as not only were their movements restricted, but it also cut off the possibility of them seeking help from outside.
Destroying the Department of Magical Transportation was an extreme measure that would add to their daunting task of rebuilding wizarding Britain in the aftermath of the war. However, Harry agreed that the Order could only afford to worry about surviving the war for now.
Once planned, the attack was executed by members of the Order like Percy Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebot, who had worked within the Ministry and were familiar with the layout and workings of its different departments. They entered the premises, polyjuiced to look like employees of the Department of Magical Transport. This was the most dangerous phase of their plan that required them to find the opportune moment to confront the real employees they were impersonating and imperius them.
Once the Order had the legitimate employees under their control, they used them to wreck the spellwork, which allowed the Ministry the ability to monitor travel within Britain and replace it with a bogus spell meant to generate random dates, names and places to create the appearance of records being maintained. Finally, the compromised employees were obliviated so they had no memory of what they had done while imperiused.
Thus, within the span of a few days, the Order had not only secured the means to travel freely without worrying about being tracked by the Ministry, they had done so without their enemies being any wiser. Hermione was not involved in either the making or the executing of these plans as around the same time she found herself set upon a different path.
"Of the three, I would never have pegged Yaxley to be the first one to crack," observed Harry with a shake of his head.
"What on earth! You've had sex... and it wasn't with Ginny," accused Hermione when she was done sniffing Harry.
Harry stepped back. "I don't know what—"
"Harry Potter, don't you dare even think of trying to lie to me right now," warned Hermione with both hands on her hips.
"Okay, okay," replied Harry meekly, raising his hands, palms facing outward in surrender. "This whole sniffing thing you do is really creepy," he grumbled under his breath.
Hermione picked up one of her research scrolls and whacked Harry on the head with it. She would have liked to hit him with something harder, but he was too vital to their cause to risk any permanent damage.
"You cheated on your girlfriend. You don't get to call me a creep."
"I didn't cheat on my girlfriend."
"What did I just say about lying—"
"Ginny ended things between us... The very day she returned, her first and only words to me—she said, she couldn't see a future for us." Harry looked away, adding quietly, "and she's not wrong about it."
Hearing the despondency in her friend's voice, Hermione's tone and expression softened instantly.
"Harry, you can't give up on her this easily. Have you forgotten the number of times you ended things with her? If you love her, which I know you do, you have to give her the time she needs... You DON'T have sex with someone else!" She gave him a couple of whacks to the side of his head for good measure.
"Who was it?" she demanded.
Harry looked like he would not answer. Hermione stared daggers at him until he conceded.
"Cho."
"Chang?"
He nodded.
"Bloody hell, that's still going on?"
It was no secret that Harry and Cho hooked up now and then over the years, usually whenever he and Ginny were on a break, which was often in the early years of their relationship. Harry had tried several times to distance himself from Ginny, fearing for her life and safety. But after the Order was forced into hiding he could finally see that, as a member of the Order Ginny would be a target irrespective of her association with him. Harry realised then that staying away from Ginny was only causing the two of them needless grief and they never broke up after that.
Hermione never understood why Harry kept returning to Cho when he did not love her. She had asked him about it once, to which he replied, that it wasn't all that complicated. It was a no-strings-attached relationship, where they made each other feel a little less lonely when they needed it.
Alarm bells set off in her head as Hermione thought about all of Harry's odd actions recently. It could only mean one thing.
"Okay, out with it. What kind of suicide-mission have you got planned?" she asked him while rubbing at her forehead. There were times Harry could be mature beyond his years, at others he was still that reckless boy she had come to know at Hogwarts, mindlessly risking his own life for one thing or the other.
Harry responded with a bemused stare.
"Don't think I haven't noticed how moody you've been acting since I returned. You keep pushing for the final confrontation with Riddle and act like you've nothing to live for anymore," observed Hermione. "And now you're sleeping with Cho and saying you don't have a future with Ginny. So obviously, you're planning to do something that's going to get you killed. What is it?"
Harry shook his head.
"I haven't planned any suicide-mission and I don't plan on doing anything to endanger my life either." In a monotone voice he murmured, "Maybe I'm just resigned to the fact that I may not come out of this alive."
It was true that there were no guarantees Harry would emerge victorious in a final battle between him and Voldemort, and all of her senses confirmed that he was telling her the truth, yet something was off.
"There has to be something else," she said with a shake of her head. "You've always been an optimist, Harry. From when do you go around getting all broody imagining the worst?"
"You know me too well," he said with a slightly asymmetric smile that only underscored the sadness in his eyes.
Harry sat down, inviting Hermione to sit beside him.
"I'm not sure if I should tell you, since I wasn't meant to find out myself... not this early anyway," he told her. "When we evacuated our safe house after you were captured, I ended up in possession of Severus's belongings... Among the vials of his memories was one I didn't remember having seen before. It had Professor Dumbledore's name on it.
"I spent a lot of time alone being shuffled from one safe house to the other... I had time and nothing to do, that could be why I did it—or maybe my curiosity just got the better of me, again—but I couldn't resist the urge to view it... The memory was Professor Dumbledore's alright. It was a conversation between him and Severus about a horcrux that was unwittingly created."
Harry looked away and sighed deeply.
"Haven't we often wondered why is it I can speak Parseltongue when being a Parselmouth is a hereditary trait? And why do I have this connection with Vol—Riddle's mind?" asked Harry rubbing his scar.
Hermione gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. She could not say it, the thought was vile and its implications tragic. It could not be. Harry could not be—
"I am the final horcrux," he said with an empty stare and his shoulders hunched. "I believe we're meant to kill each other, which will finally put an end to his dark reign."
Hermione was unable to respond to Harry, their conversation interrupted as an unknown patronus came bounding into the room.
"Hermione, DANGER! Muh-coo-sa are hunting your friends. They said Order of Phoenix are terrorists. They send American agents to Britain to kill terrorists—"
Hermione had instantly recognised the voice. From her intonation, it was clear that Kalisha had read the first few lines, but any doubt that someone else had forced the child to do so was removed when she heard the rest of Kalisha's message.
"—Come back to Uagadou, Hermione. Bring babies and come back. We keep you safe."
There was no mistaking the warmth and sincerity in Kalisha's voice, which meant there was no questioning the severity of the warning.
"Am I hallucinating, or did a child just warn you that we're being hunted by agents of the Magical Congress of the USA?" asked a stunned-looking Harry.
Hermione nodded.
She wanted to talk to Harry about his discovery that he was a horcrux. She wanted to console her friend and tell him it was not a hopeless situation, even if they both knew otherwise. However, it would have to wait as she needed to speak with Babjide first.
So far, the international community had stayed neutral, why would the MACUSA suddenly call the Order terrorists and want to kill them? It was unlikely that agents of the MACUSA acted without the tacit approval of the ICW, but Babjide had promised to support the Order. Had he reneged on his word already or simply grown tired of waiting for her to turn up with evidence to back up her claims? Surely, he would know that these things take time, thought Hermione, feeling a twinge of guilt knowing she had actively done nothing so far to collect proof of the Death Eaters' misdeeds.
"I'm going to have to speak to the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. He's the only one who'll be able to provide the answers we need right now," she explained to Harry.
With no secure means to contact Babjide, Hermione decided to call him on his personal floo. She borrowed Harry's invisibility cloak to sneak into the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, which was the closest working floo she could safely use. She waited until the place was abandoned by its patrons and the owner retired for the night before she gave the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW a call.
Babjide gave her a withering look. He was not too pleased about being disturbed at so late an hour, but he did not refuse to speak with her.
"I've been anticipating your call," he began, "I had hoped the children would pass my message to you."
"What is going on? Explain yourself," she demanded.
Hermione inwardly winced at how rude she sounded, but it could not be helped. Something about Babjide's persona made the she-wolf want to assert her dominance.
Thankfully, the wizard ignored her tone and quickly relayed to her the extent of the damage caused by the attack on Malfoy Potions as well as its far-reaching consequences.
Hermione, who was unaware that there had been any casualties, was shocked to hear just how many Muggles were critically injured by the blasts. Even worse, the blasts had created an international crisis that had been resolved only because of the timely intervention by agents from the MACUSA's Department of No-Maj Misinformation.
Hearing that the MACUSA was now involved, Hermione begged Babjide to intervene, assuring him that she would bring him the evidence he needed.
"It is out of my hands now, Miss Granger. You did yourself no favours by going on the radio and taking credit for those blasts—"
These words, like the rest of their conversation, would haunt her. After all, was it not at her prompting that Harry went on the airwaves to take credit for the attack?
"—The MACUSA has decided that the Order is far too dangerous and needs to be stopped. I have come to suspect that they are aware of what your current government has been doing to the Muggleborns, but have chosen to turn a blind eye because, while they may not approve of the methods, they do approve of their objective to have a total separation of the Magical from the Non-Magical.
"Their agents are known to work in a manner that is more unconventional than you are—Well, I suppose it's unconventional to what you were used to... I believed I owed you the courtesy to warn you of the danger these agents pose to your lives. Be careful," he said, surprising her with the genuine concern reflected in his eyes.
He reminded her again why he could not do more at this time. "Without any concrete evidence, I cannot help you or command the MACUSA to recall their agents. I fully intend to follow through with our deal, but for now my hands are tied."
Unable to sleep as she wrestled with her conscience, Hermione sat alone by herself, instead of sleeping with her pack as she had done every night since they came to live in the Forbidden Forest. Quietly, she shed bitter tears of regret. She had abandoned her infant sons because she believed her place was beside Harry, yet her return triggered a series of events so now on top of the Death Eaters the Order also had to worry about being hunted down and executed by agents from MACUSA.
If not for her, Harry and the rest would not have found out about Ginny. They would not have used excessive force in the attack on Malfoy Potions. There would have been no consequences in the Muggle world and the MACUSA would have no reason to get involved.
Instead of doing the task she came here to do—a task that would have resulted in the Order receiving the help they needed to win the war—she had allowed herself to get sidetracked. Was this what Magorian had tried to warn her about when he said she had her own path to follow?
The best thing she could do now to help the Order was to collect the proof Babjide needed. Harry did not need her help. He had spent months burdened with the knowledge that to ultimately kill Voldemort he would have to sacrifice his life and still he had not let that cloud his judgement. Even the Order had managed just fine without her.
So many had tried to tell her that she did not need to stay with the Order to help the cause, Oskar, Cora, Gunnolf and...
Hermione tried to not think about the man who had called her mate and promised to be hers forever. He had let her go even though he did not wish to be separated from her because she had insisted her place was with Harry. He had tried to explain to her why he could not leave with her and why he could not turn her if she was leaving. He had told her of the madness that affected their wolves if they were without a pack, but she had not understood, not back then anyway.
She needed to gather what evidence she could and return to Draco and her sons. The she-wolf was her animal spirit. Instead of worrying about what she may do, she needed to trust herself. She had not hurt Kalisha or any of the other children even in her weakest and feral state so why would she hurt the people she loved?
The truth was that she was hiding. Hiding, because she was ashamed. She was the one who chose to leave, to abandon her family, because of which Fenrir was able take her and turn her. It should have been her mate who turned her when they claimed each other before the moon goddess. Instead, she would now forever be linked to a monster like Fenrir because she had chosen not to stay with Draco.
But she understood her path now, and why she could no longer stay with Harry or the Order.
Hermione was a different person in the days that followed. She explained what the situation was to Harry, what she needed to do and why it had to be done. Harry approved, even though it meant he would be all alone once she left. She tried to convince him to speak to Ron or anyone else within the Order. It was not right that he should spend his days feeling lonely, with nothing to look forward to but his final battle with Voldemort. Her heart went out to Harry, but nothing could distract her from her personal mission.
All she had so far were the memories given to her by Ginny, but those alone would not suffice to paint a picture for the outsiders of what their world was like now. So while the Order carried out their gradual infiltration of the Ministry of Magic, Hermione started visiting members of the Order and collecting their sworn statements and memories. She also spoke to the various creatures of the forest to find the unicorn who had seen firsthand the creature experiments being conducted by the Death Eaters.
All lives mattered, as far as Hermione was concerned. However, when it came to large organisations, Hermione had seen that some lives mattered more than others. She doubted the MACUSA and ICW were any different. They would not care too much about the plight of creatures or Order members, who were seen as terrorists. To provide what they would consider unbiased proof of the criminal activities and systemic abuse that had become a norm under Voldemort's rule, she would need testimonies of the Pureblood elite.
As if there weren't enough reasons already, Hermione now had yet another reason to hurry back to Draco.
AN: It was nice to see some old names in the reviews. I appreciate the show of support.