24 Hours earlier…

Hermione dug her nails into the sharply defined biceps of Cormac McLaggen, her knees tight at his waist, as she lifted herself above him. They'd been fucking for two months, and while she couldn't stand to hold a conversation with him outside of the bedroom, inside the bedroom - inside her - was a completely different story.

"Fuck, I'm gonna come," Hermione growled out, her back arched, her long ringlettes brushing the small of her back. McLaggen's fingers slid between her folds, rubbing at her clit until she was strung tight as a bow.

"That's it, 'Mione…" he encouraged with a sharp thrust of his hips. "Let go…"

It was only another few seconds before her strings were cut, her palms flattening on his chest as she rode her crest to completion. Cormac followed immediately behind, his hands bruisingly tight around her hips as he thrust himself inside her once more and spilled himself deep within her.

Hermione rode out her after-shocks and waited until McLaggen's breathing had settled, before she removed him from her body, and swung her leg over his hip to disentangle them. She never stayed - she didn't want more from him than this - even when he asked. He did want more, despite the fact that she told him every time they were together that it was nothing more than sex to her.

He tucked his hands behind his head and watched as she began to dress, a small smirk turning up the left side of his mouth. "I suppose I can't persuade you to stay?" he asked, knowing damn well what her answer was going to be.

"Listen, Cormac… if this is too much…. I don't want…" she sighed. She liked what they had. She'd not feel guilty when she finally walked away. Or, worse, if she ended up dead. She didn't want someone pining away after her because she left without saying goodbye.

"Still no word from him?"

"From whom?" she asked through gritted teeth, though she knew the answer to that question.

"Ron."

"No, as a matter of fact," she snapped, standing and putting on her bra. "Though I can't imagine what he has to do with anything at the moment."

"I know you're just waiting for him to come back," he said, sitting up. The sheets fell to a very defined stomach that her eyes briefly focused on.

"That isn't true," she said. She was sick of having this conversation. With everyone. Ron made his decision. He left her. Again. And then he was captured. And even though she still loved him - she always would - she had to assume he wasn't coming back - regardless of the fact they'd never found his body.

Voldemort didn't take hostages - he wasn't negotiating with them. He took torture victims and sent back mutilated bodies. Dean Thomas has been almost unrecognizable when they'd found him.

Sitting on the bed and pulling on her jeans, she answered him after a moment. "Ron has nothing to do with this. I don't want a relationship. I don't want attachments... to anyone. I don't have time."

"You don't have time?" he deadpanned, and then laughed. "I have no idea what you do with your time, but I bet you have time for a relationship."

She conceded, if only to end the conversation. "Yes. I have time for a relationship, if I decided I wanted one." She sighed again. "Maybe we should stop seeing each other like this," she said, standing and pulling her shirt over her head. "It's not fair to you."

"I'll decide what's fair to me, Hermione, thank you very much," he said, swinging his legs over the bed and reaching for and sliding on his boxers. "If I want my heart broken by you, it'll be broken by you," he said dramatically. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'll keep that in mind." She glanced down at her watch - she needed to get back to Headquarters. "When do you leave again?" she asked, standing and looking around the room for her shoes.

"I'm here for three weeks," he answered, kicking one of her shoes in her direction. "Since we clinched a playoff spot, we're just training and waiting for the post-season to begin."

Hermione found her other shoe and sat on the bed again to put them on. "See… you've said all those words, but I can't really make sense of them. I know it pertains to Quiddich, and my brain immediately stops," she said laughing, tying her last shoe. "It's a brain block that I can't get around."

"That's saying something," Comac said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. "With that brain, it's hard to imagine you'd get stuck on any topic."

"You'd be surprised," she laughed, offering her cheek; they never really kissed, per se - it was like the action would make their arrangement more… serious somehow. "Listen. I have an assignment in the morning. If… if I don't make it back…"

He put his hand over her mouth to stop her from talking. "You'll make it back. You always do. Whatever it is that you're doing."

He said he wasn't, but she was sure he was angry that she didn't tell him what she did all day. In this new world of theirs, McLaggen made out just fine. He was a pure-blood with immense Quidditch talent - he'd been picked up by the Kenmare Kestrels before their final year had even begun. Once Hogwarts was all but destroyed in the Final Battle, there was no reason for him to go back. He had no reason to drag himself into the underbelly of wizarding Britain.

Cormac McLaggen was rich, famous, pure-blood and wanted by nearly every single witch she heard about. Why he was fucking her was a mystery, but one she wasn't interested in looking into beyond the surface. She knew she could trust him - he'd delivered her information on the children of Death Eaters playing on different teams when he could. He wasn't willing to risk everything for the cause, but he would help when he could, and honestly, that's all Hermione could ask. The fact that Cormac didn't believe in all that pure-blood supremacy bullshit didn't matter: he could make people believe that he did and would get along just fine. He was helping her because he wanted to. And she appreciated it.

The fact that he was amazing in bed was just icing on the cake.

"I'll see you around, McLaggen," she said, dodging the conversation. Again.

"See you around, Granger," he said, waving her off, though he was smiling.

And with that, she was gone, with the tiniest crack of sound.

Back at Grimmauld, Hermione stepped under the hot spray of the shower, her hair stretching to her hips under the weight, and sighed. Every time she left Cormac, she felt guilty; maybe it really was time to end it.

She reached her right hand around her waist to inspect the healing bruise that had been lingering for the last week. Her last fight has been a nasty one, and she'd almost lost - it really was just luck - her shield had reflected off the wall above her attacker's head and the wall had collapsed on them - that she wasn't dead - or worse - under the hand of some sadistic Death Eater.

Then again, considering she was Undesirable Number Two, maybe she'd get an audience with the Dark Lord himself. She'd been making trouble for him for the last five years - and that wasn't counting six years of school before that.

Hermione had hardened - she'd had no choice. When you watched your best friend killed (mostly) by the most powerful living wizard on the planet, and then happened to look around and see he wasn't the only one, and then realize that the war you just lost was over people like you being allowed to live… well, she'd gone on the run. Ron had been with her. They would occasionally check in with Molly about Harry, though it seemed Harry was never going to wake up, and they'd done exactly what the Snatchers had done to them.

They'd started hunting Voldemort's followers, from Death Eaters to low-level informants. Draco had helped, though Ron never knew where the information came from. Hermione learned to keep secrets. Even from those she loved the most. As much as she hated Dumbledore for the predicament they were in, she couldn't argue the fact that not everyone needed to know everything.

And Ron couldn't keep a secret to save his life. Not that him knowing Draco was involved would have gone over well anyway.

At first, they were just interrogating them, trying to find out information about hideouts (they weren't hideouts anymore…), or, perhaps find a weak link in the chain. Then they'd Obliviate them and send them on their way.

That worked for a while, but Obliviation was an art, and they'd been sloppy. It didn't take long for Riddle to find out that they'd had their minds tampered with. And from there, it was easy to recognize the signs, if you knew what to look for.

Things changed after that. For months, Hermione, Ron, Luna and Neville tried to come up with a plan that didn't involve any more violence than necessary (they had to get information from them somehow).

They'd come up blank, and things were looking bleak. The possibility of having to kill someone… Hermione still refused. She'd use everything in her arsenal, but she wouldn't kill.

And finally, she remembered what happened to Lockhart.

The misfired memory charm - after a few different test subjects were reduced to no memory at all, she'd perfected the charm to work as she wanted. Obliviate was child's play by comparison. She could completely remove an entire chunk of memory from someone and replace it with something else entirely.

Knowing that Voldemort was a powerful Legilimens, and knowing he wouldn't trust the word of someone he suspected when he could just invade their minds… if she or Neville planted a scene of the Death Eater betraying their Dark Lord, well… Hermione's conscience was clear.

What the Dark Lord did to his followers was between them and was absolutely none of her business.

She stepped out of the shower and cast a wandless Tempus before drying herself off - 11:00a. She had an hour before she had to be outside the Ministry. Bringing in one of the Carrows was a big deal - - true, Draco said he'd not heard anything about her tip, Draco didn't know everything. She trusted her source.

She shouldn't have.

She was ambushed the second she stepped from behind her hiding spot. She'd approached Alecto, wand drawn, a hex on her lips and had been hit with a stunner from behind. She went down hard, but didn't stay there - she was closing in on her wand from her hands and knees when the first Crucio hit. It wasn't as bad as when Mad Bella had cursed her, but still, it was awful.

She managed to make it to her feet, even though she didn't have her wand, and charged at whichever twin was closest. Hermione was weak, but not so much so that her punch didn't have any power behind it. She'd broken bones in her hand from that punch, and the thought made her smile…

...before she was back on the ground, screaming from the painful grasp of the Unforgivable being cast at her again. It seemed whichever twin she'd punched had regained their composure, because she was being cursed by both of them now, and she'd never felt anything so horrible in her life.

She blacked out twice, only to be revived by another round of Crucio, to which screaming was now impossible, as her jaw had locked shut. Her body bended and contorted in unnatural ways before another voice joined the fray and the pain stopped. She tried to get to her feet, but she was Stupefied.

"We need to take her back to Snape," the voice said in a harsh whisper. "Regardless of the Dark Lord's victory, it's bad form to curse her here. Get her back to the mansion."

She didn't recognize the voice, but heard the distinct pop of Disapparation immediately after.

"Can you Side-Along her?" Alecto asked and the answer must have been non-verbal, because not a minute later, she felt the tell-tale pull behind her navel. She hated that feeling. Hated it even more after several bouts of Crucio, definitely.

The second she was on the floor of the mansion, Hermione was freed, only to be hit by the curse over and over and over, to the point where she thought she might go mad, thinkinging that it would be a wonderful alternative to the pain. If she went mad, would she still feel it? Or would she be so crazy, she wouldn't remember it afterwards? If she survived, she had half a mind to ask Neville what he thought.

She wondered if-

Hermione woke up with a start and sat up, immediately regretting her decision. She felt like she'd been hit by a truck that had reversed over her and hit her again. Every muscle in her body was sore, though she imagined, when one's body twists unnaturally for hours on end, tightening and releasing and turning… well, she was going to be sore for a while. Her hair hurt. She raised a hand to the matted mess and sighed. It was going to take a lot of conditioner to get her -

Wait.

Where was she? She looked down at herself. She was sitting on an unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar room… and the second part of her night, the part where Severus fucking Snape had brought her back to his home, healed her and left her there.

Her mind needed to catch up, and quickly. She didn't know who's side Snape was playing now, but she needed to be able to defend herself if he were going to make good on his promise to Voldemort.

She stood, ignoring the pain in her body, and reached for a wand that wasn't there, just as Snape pushed open the door of the sitting room looking as menacing as ever.

"Whatever it is you are considering doing, Miss Granger, I suggest you do not. You are in no position to over power me, and I am in no mood to be generous. Sit. Down." he commanded with a sneer, and Hermione took a moment to consider her options. Of which there were none.

She gingerly lowered herself back onto the couch and tried not to wince.

The second she sat, Snape's wand was pointed at her face, his terse question a command, threat and warning all in one.

"Do not lie to me, Miss Granger, or I shall simply rip the information from your mind. Where. Is. Harry. Potter?"

"I don't know," she answered calmly.

"I do not believe you," Snape hissed.

Hermione shrugged. She prepared herself to have her mind invaded as she looked him in the eyes defiantly. "You don't have to believe me. It's the truth." She crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to keep the wince off her face. "I don't know, so someone like you can't simply pull the information from my head. Not that I would tell you if I did know."

Hermione watched him narrow his eyes a split second before she heard the incantation.

"Legilimens!"