1976

It had been foolish to hope that sending jewelry to the witch would be enough to break up Ursula and Alfred. It would have been too easy for him to send a necklace and have Alfred go berserk, even if he would have found it. Of course, Ursula would have been able to keep the object well out of her husband's notice.

So, he found himself writing her little notes to owl, inviting her out for dinners or drinks or even tea. Ursula begged off all of Constantin's advances in the hope of seeming demure, but she always wrote back. Eventually, after much persistence on Theo's part, she agreed to meet him out at a bar in Knockturn Alley.

Theo wondered if she was just stupid, knowing how many of Alfred's associates frequented the alley, but he wouldn't look a gift broom in the bristles.

He slipped into his disguise as Constantin, and looked in the mirror, trying to hold back the urge to sigh. Hermione must have heard him because she came up behind him and adjusted the front of his robes — robes that he would never dream of wearing himself. When she finally met his eyes in the reflection, he could feel his heart sink, knowing that he didn't want to do this.

Hermione had told him how Barty Crouch Jr had used polyjuice potion to impersonate Mad-Eye Moody back when they were fourth years, and how he'd used a flask to carry around a steady supply of the potion. Theo had always thought he was just a drunk. In any case, he took the offered flask Hermione gave him with extra polyjuice, just in case he was with Ursula longer than he expected.

Maybe she could see him wavering, because Hermione was pressing a kiss to his cheek then. She didn't have to stand on her tiptoes when he was Constantin to reach him. Did she prefer that, he wondered?

"Go," she encouraged with a smile, but so sternly that he knew he wouldn't be able to argue with her. "Arthur and I will be waiting for you when you get back."

Knowing that he had no excuse, Theo nodded before heading off to meet the woman who had usurped his mother.

Ursula was waiting in the booth like he'd instructed her to in the invitation, sipping an elf wine spritzer. He ordered a drink for himself before walking over to her, slipping into the other side of the table. "I'm so glad you came," he told her with an easy smile.

"Well, you really were so impertinent," she answered, flirtatiously. Her fingers toyed with the opal necklace that now hung around her neck, trying to draw his attention to her breasts. "I am a married woman after all."

He smirked at her. "That didn't stop you from coming here to meet me," he answered. "Don't tell me you are going to let a husband get in the way of our blossoming...friendship."

"Is that all this is?" Ursula asked, leaning across the table, drinking him in. "Friendship?"

"This can be whatever you want it to be," he responded, taking a drink and letting the tension build between them. "We could just have a drink and get to know one another better, or...we could see where else it leads."

Ursula was really too easy, Theo thought, as he watched her breath catch in her throat. He wondered if she'd never had a man be so overt in his intentions for her and if that was why she was practically eating out of his hand. Knowing the kind of person his father was, she must be starved for any attention, and if she was lucky, Constantin was going to give it to her.

She bit her lower lip, trying to mask her delight. "You are trouble, Constantin," she said, her voice dark and delightful. "I'm wondering what I did to deserve bumping into you in the Alley."

Underneath her table, her foot was gliding up his leg. For a brief moment, Theo felt guilty over what he was going to do to this poor woman, whose only crime was marrying an inconvenient man. His mind could easily conjure up one hundred terrible things that Alfred would do to her if he knew she was stepping out on him. Theo felt awful that he was subjecting her to such humiliating and painful possibilities.

But then again, it was her choice to answer Constantin's notes.

He grabbed her foot and gave it a playful squeeze. "Why don't you come over here to this side of the table?" he asked her with a slow grin. "That way we can talk more privately."

Ursula giggled at that before pulling her foot out of his grasp and moving around the table to sit closer to him.

Hermione had quickly learned that most Death Eater meetings were rather boring affairs where men went to drink whiskey and smoke cigars and complain about how mudbloods were ruining society. There was nothing more disappointing to her than waiting up half the night for Theo to return from one, only to be bored nearly to tears to hear that little had been discussed. Maybe if she was lucky, Rosier would get falling down drunk and she'd at least have a silly little anecdote to think about later.

It was easy for her to see how people would be lulled into thinking that the Death Eaters weren't dangerous, more social club than violent hate group.

But there were some evenings, when Theo would return home, his eyes wide and his face whiter than a sheet, and he'd detail some horrible crime that they were planning. Worse was knowing that they couldn't really do anything about most of them. If their plans were constantly being thwarted by some outside force, the young couple was sure that Voldemort would quickly surmise that there was a rat amongst his Death Eaters. The chaos that that could bring could be useful eventually, but not now, not when they hadn't located all of the horcruxes.

Hermione had known that this attack must have been truly odious, because Theo was barely through the floo before he was calling for her. "They want to spread dragon pox at Hogwarts," Theo said with a frown. "Most purebloods would have gotten it by the time they were children, but they figure that the muggleborns probably wouldn't have been exposed to it before."

"What?" Hermione asked, thinking that it sounded a rash, insane plan even on the Death Eaters part.

"It's more dangerous the older you are. The matron and St. Mungo's might be able to help at first, but a true outbreak would probably lead to several deaths," Theo explained. "We have to tell Minerva, warn her somehow."

Immediately, Hermione wrote into the Daily Prophet to signal a meeting for the following day, hoping that Minerva would see it.

"Whose terrible idea was this?" Hermione seethed, thinking of how reckless it really was. She could only imagine the anger she'd feel if Arthur were exposed to a dangerous illness just because it might kill some muggleborns.

"Abraxas Malfoy," Theo said, tersely. "He is on the Board of Governors, you know. And his son is well out of school, so it isn't as if he has anything to fear."

"The fact that he will one day die of dragon pox seems like karma, if you ask me," Hermione quipped snidely, before settling in for the evening, knowing that it would be spent pondering over ways to hopefully stop this. Knowing wizards didn't have anything like a vaccine made it incredibly tricky and she briefly hated them for the way that they completely ignored science.

The following morning, they were off to a tiny town in the Scottish Highlands to meet with Minerva at a small pub called the Wandmakers Arms. Although they knew it was exceedingly unlikely for them to cross paths anyone that they knew there, Hermione and Theo still resorted to light glamours to cover some of their more distinctive characteristics.

Seeing Minerva do a double take let them know that their disguises had worked. If she hadn't been looking for them already, Hermione was sure the witch wouldn't have recognized them. Minerva ordered a pint from the barkeep before taking her mug with her to join them in the hidden away booth that they had chosen.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice dropping an octave. "It must be something serious if you needed to meet so urgently."

"They are planning an attack at Hogwarts," Hermione whispered, watching as the Transfiguration professor's eyes grew wide. "The children are in danger."

Minerva's eyes grew wide when she heard that. "What do you mean? How?" she pressed, clearly intensely concerned about the safety of her children.

"Abraxas Malfoy has organized a large donation of books for students, but they will be infected with dragon pox in the hopes of getting muggleborns and half bloods sick," Theo explained.

"But the purebloods would come in contact as well," Minerva said, her eyebrows furrowed together.

"Most get it as children, and can't get it again so soon after," Hermione told her, once again wishing that wizards understood viruses and how transmission really worked. Perhaps once all of this was over and she could begin her new life, she could do her own research of Wizarding infectious diseases, thinking dragon pox was not unlike chicken pox.

"You will need to do whatever you can to make sure that the books are not distributed," Theo said seriously. "Hermione and I discussed it and we believe that if they sit undisturbed for a month or two, the dragon pox will die on its own."

Minerva nodded. "Of course, I can perhaps argue that the students will already have their books, so there is no need to hand out new ones. I am sure that Dumbledore will understand that."

"You cannot tell Dumbledore about the dragon pox," Hermione insisted. "It would raise too many questions about where you were getting this information from, and we cannot risk it getting back to Abraxas and Voldemort. We need to know we can count on you, Minerva."

Theo nodded from his spot next to her. "Do whatever it takes to deal with the books. If you can't keep them out of circulation for a few weeks, then you are just going to have to destroy them."

Minerva's face looked ashen, but she was nodding in agreement. "Yes, yes, the students safety is paramount," she agreed. "What's a few books when compared to children's lives?"

"We need to leave," Theo instructed, downing the rest of his beer. "We've already been here too long."

Guiding Hermione from the booth, they gave their former teacher one last look, before leaving to apparate home. It was hard to leave this up to chance and even harder to leave it to another person, but they both knew there was no other way.

Hermione certainly never expected that Narcissa would come calling on her personally, but there was no denying that it was her perfect face that had appeared in their floo.

"Hermione, would it be possible for you to come over?" she asked, her voice syrupy sweet. Hermione never would have even imagined that Narcissa hated her had Lucius not revealed the truth to her, but now it was clear in the right way the blonde held her jaw. "Bellatrix is asking for you."

She could hear the distraught cries of Bellatrix coming from the other side of the connection. Stunned, Hermione wondered just what could have made the strong witch so upset. "Of course, I'll come through now," she agreed, before calling Dolly to look after Arthur.

Bellatrix was laying face down on what appeared to be Narcissa's personal bed, covered in light blue linens. "Hermione, thank Salazar you came," she said with agony etched in her features.

Hermione crossed the distance between them, before kneeling next to the bed. "Bella, what happened?" she asked, surprising herself by how much compassion she actually felt for the witch who in another life had tortured her.

"She's being overly dramatic," Narcissa said with a huff, her nostrils flaring. "She hasn't had her monthly yet."

Upon hearing that, Hermione felt her eyes widen in surprise. "You are pregnant?" she asked, thinking that Bellatrix hadn't had a child in the time that she had come from and wondered what exactly happened.

"I can't be," Bellatrix lamented, a fresh round of tears on her cheeks. "I loathe Rodolphus with every fiber of my being! If I'm pregnant with his child I might as well cut it from my own belly."

Feeling woefully unprepared to deal with this, Hermione took a few deep breaths to try and think of the best way to handle this. It was clear to her that Bellatrix desperately didn't want to be pregnant, but it was no good speculating on if she was or wasn't pregnant. Hermione couldn't blame Bella for not wanting to carry Rodolphus's child, though. Their relationship was dysfunctional and very hot and cold.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella," Narcissa scolded from her place standing next to the bed. "Just think of how lovely it would be to give Rodolphus a child. He'd surely kick that Rowley girl to the curb."

Ah, Hermione thought to herself. Rodolphus must be cheating again — as though there could be any other reason for their relationship to fizzle out.

Hearing her sister's disappointed voice, Bellatrix was just crying even harder once again, completely oblivious to how it was upsetting Narcissa. Hermione's heart clenched a bit when she remembered Theo revealing how much the Malfoys had struggled to get Draco. It almost made her want to comfort the blonde and promise that a baby was in her future.

"Let's just do a test then?" Hermione offered, already pulling out her wand.

"Please do," Narcissa sniffed, clearly unhappy with Hermione's presence in this family situation. "She wouldn't let me."

"That's because you want a baby so badly, if you do it, it's sure to come up pregnant," Bellatrix accused, uncaring that her words might hurt her sister.

Hermione didn't want to get into the bickering between the two and instead raised her wand over Bellatrix's middle. "I'm going to perform the spell now," she said with a frown, wondering just what her friend's fate was going to be.

The spell itself was uncomplicated, and gave a witch results after a short wait. Hermione was sure it felt like an eternity to both Black sisters though. When Hermione saw the faint red glow, she gave Bella's hand a reassuring squeeze. "You aren't pregnant," she whispered.

Bellatrix dropped her head back in utter relief. "Oh thank fuck for that," she whispered back, her tears immediately drying on their own.

Hermione bit her lower lip. "I could teach you how to make a potion that blocks conception," she told Bellatrix, ignoring Narcissa's scandalized gasp. "It's quite easy and you'd be able to brew it at home."

"Absolutely not," Narcissa ordered, not giving her sister a chance to consider the alternative. "It could take you years to conceive an heir without you messing things up."

"It's your choice, Bellatrix," Hermione insisted, knowing that it was a modern sensibility, but wanting to offer the witch an alternative to a future she clearly despised.

"She'll be madly in love with Rodolphus again in a week," Narcissa said with a frown. "Let me speak with my sister alone. Make yourself useful and go find a house elf to make us tea."

Hermione did not appreciate being ordered around, but was only too happy to get some distance between her and Narcissa. She happily left the room, before realizing that she didn't know where anything was on Malfoy manor.

It might be a good time to do some reconnaissance, she decided, to see if the Diary was currently hidden away somewhere in here. She walked down an endless hallway, before turning at the corner and realizing that the impressive manor was built in a square shape.

Unsure that she would ever be able to find what she wanted in a house as massive as this, Hermione contented herself with wandering the halls, cataloguing where things seemed to be based off of the portraits that were hung on the walls. She was so absorbed in her little task that she didn't hear the sound of a door opening, only to be pulled inside and pressed up against a wall.

"I didn't even know we were expecting company," Lucius said, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief, as though they were in on some joke together. "What a treat to see that it is you, Hermione."

The way he said her name had her belly coiling right with some emotion she didn't want to name. She flushed when she felt him press against her and she wondered just what Lucius wanted with her. Wanting to duck from under his arm, she found herself bracketed in, helpless. "I'm glad to see you, too, Lucius," she lied. "Narcissa just sent me to get tea."

Lucius laughed. "If she wanted tea, she could have just called for a house elf. No, she wanted you gone," he smirked. "But your afternoon doesn't have to end so quickly. Stay here with me."

Before she knew it, he was surging forward, capturing her lips with his in an insistent kiss — one that had her gasping and giving him the opportunity to deep it immediately. She stood there, completely stunned for a moment, before Theo came stampeding through her mind again.

Pressing her hands against his chest, Hermione finally broke the kiss. Blushing and trying to catch her breath, Hermione looked up at Lucius. She needed to put more space between them and she needed to think. Just because Theo hasn't been as attentive lately didn't mean that she could just rush into an affair with Lucius Malfoy of all people.

"I, um...I really ought to be going," Hermione mumbled, wishing she sounded stronger. "My husband will be wondering where I've gotten off to," she added, hoping to remind him of the wizard Lucius claimed to like. Without waiting for an answer, she turned and left for the nearest floo.