Wow! Thanks for all the reviews and follows guys!

I haven't figured out how to respond to reviews directly (is this possible?), so I am going to address some questions generally at the end of this chapter.


"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?"

"Ah yes, Miss Granger! Come in, come in, have a seat," Dumbledore urged, gesturing her over to a chair which faced his old mahogany desk. Hermione did as she was told, noting with some trepidation that McGonagall and Snape were there as well, the latter regarding her with contempt from his perch on the windowsill.

"I trust your journey was pleasant?" Dumbledore inquired cordially.

"Uh… yes, sir." As a matter of fact, someone had thrown up on her shoes on the Knight Bus not an hour ago, but that was neither here nor there.

"Excellent. Now, I'm sure you're wondering why -"

"I think I know, sir," she interrupted, casting a wary glance at her Head of House.

"Not to worry, Miss Granger. This is not a disciplinary matter. Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape are here as Order members."

"Oh." That couldn't be good.

"Could you please tell us about the document you found?" Dumbledore requested, surprising Hermione, who had been certain they were here to inform her she was being expelled.

She reached into her suitcase and pulled out the record, laying it carefully on the table before her. "I made a copy, sir."

"What a surprise," Snape muttered irritably.

They all leaned in to examine the scroll Dumbledore unfurled with his wand, except Hermione, who had already studied it several times. It was a single sheet of paper, dated July 1943, recording the admission of Tom Riddle Jr. into the Psychiatric Ward at St. Mungo's for "depleted core magic and temporary psychosis".

"Curious…" the Headmaster intoned.

"I don't understand what she was doing there in the first place, Headmaster," the Potions master sneered, turning a cool gaze from the parchment to his second least favorite student. "Unless abusing the rules of Hogwarts is not enough for you any more, Miss Granger? Lost its thrill, has it?"

Ignoring his goading as usual, she ploughed straight into her prepared explanation: "I was looking for information to help Harry. With his ... um...visions. Since they're related to You Know Who, I decided to start looking there - "

" - Never stopping to think," Snape interrupted, "that those far more capable than yourself were already handling the situation? Or considering the risk to all of us if your activities were to be discovered by the wrong party? No?"

"No, sir," she bit out. Angry, perhaps, that he wasn't entirely wrong.

"What's done is done, Severus," the Headmaster sighed. "Miss Granger, tell me, did you show this paper to Harry? Or anyone else?"

"No, Professor McGonagall told me not to."

"And the attendant that discovered you - did she know what you were looking at?"

"I -" Hermione paused, unsure. She remembered going into the Records Room, finding Eloise Mintumble's file, and, on the way out, picking up a scroll from the floor, which turned out to be about Tom Riddle. The body bind was on her just as she finished putting the copy in her bag, and she fell forward, losing consciousness. Much of that day was still a mystery to Hermione; there were many moments entirely missing and the rest were clouded, hard to grasp.

"No Albus," McGonagall interjected, "I questioned that tiresome woman for more than an hour. She knows nothing."

Hermione turned a quizzical look on the scroll. There was something there, something her brain was trying to piece together.

"Headmaster…1943 was the year the Chamber of Secrets was opened, wasn't it? The year Moaning Myrtle died," she said.

His blue eyes found hers, and she sensed a whisper across the plane of her mind.

Don't think don't think don't think, echoed in her panicked brain.

"You are very perceptive, Miss Granger - a quality that will undoubtedly serve you well in the near future. However," his voice grew hard, "it is absolutely imperative that you stop looking into this matter. This information could be very dangerous to Harry."

"Because his mind is vulnerable to Vol - You Know Who?"

"Indeed. That is why Professor Snape will be teaching him Occlumency."

Hermione nodded, thoughtful.

"Do I have your word, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, sir. I won't say anything."

"Excellent, excellent. You won't object if I hold on to this?" He picked up Riddle's record and Hermione shook her head. "Then I must bid you a good night, my dear. I'm sure you're eager to return to your common room."

She returned the Headmaster's 'good night' and made her way from the his office. Half-way down the spiral staircase, a call stopped her.

"Miss Granger, just a moment, please," McGonagall requested, coming level with Hermione on the stair.

"I will not be submitting your disciplinary request through official channels for… obvious reasons," the older witch informed her brusquely. "Obvious reasons" was, of course, code for Umbridge's growing tyranny over Hogwarts.

"However," she continued, "trespassing is a serious crime and I told 's that you would be punished accordingly. So, you will serve one month's detention with me and you will tell those who ask that you are working on an extra-credit Transfiguration project under my supervision."

"Professor… I... " Hermione wanted to apologize, but was cut short by the disappointed look on her favorite teacher's face. It was hard to bear.

"I admit, Miss Granger- I always figured Potter was the ringleader behind your shenanigans. But now I wonder."

Hermione suddenly found the hem of her sleeve incredibly fascinating.

"8 o'clock tomorrow. Sharp," McGonagall told her sternly, and, turning on her heel, made her way back to the Headmaster's office.

When she was gone, Hermione smacked her forehead with her palm.

"Why am I such a colossal idiot?" she groaned, earning a few raised eyebrows from the portraits in the stairwell.

She'd gotten over-confident, that was the problem. Losing track of time, she'd lingered in the Records room too long, prompting her friends to come looking for her. Worried by her disappearance, they had alerted the staff, and sure enough, the irritating Welcome Witch eventually tracked her down and hexed her.

Stalking through the halls on her way back to Gryffindor Tower lost in furious thoughts, Hermione didn't notice the anxious students scurrying out of her path. Everyone at Hogwarts - except perhaps Hermione herself - knew she had a reputation for being the one Prefect to avoid at all costs.

"Fifteen points from Ravenclaw!" she snapped, in passing, at a pair of amorous fourth-years. "Get back to your rooms before I take another ten!"

Bellatrix Lestrange was the cause of all of this, Hermione decided. The entire Azkaban ordeal was supposed to be about getting answers from Judith, but she had been side-tracked, distracted, overwhelmed by that woman. Who, as it turned out, was not worth saving. Given the state of her poor victim, Alice Longbottom, that woman's admittedly horrendous conditions seemed a just punishment. Her beauty was completely irrelevant. The atomic cloud was beautiful too, and look how that turned out.

Passing a group of first years giggling over a game of Exploding Snap, Hermione sent them scurrying with a glare.

The entire thing was a debacle. The only positive side was that she'd picked up another thread of information on the path to untangling the mystery of Eloise Mintumble. The Unspeakable's record was interesting not so much for what it contained, but for what it omitted. Entire sections were redacted, and it was impossible to put together the exact circumstances leading to the woman's death. However - and this part gave Hermione chills when she read it first - part of the record noted that Eloise died at midnight on March 12th 1899, and another part said that she was discharged into the care of one Arcatus Rockwood on March 13th. She'd later learned that Arcatus Rockwood was Eloise's assistant and eventually replaced her as Head of the Time Subdepartment after her death.

Then there was the other scroll - Voldemort's scroll. Which, honestly, she wouldn't have considered twice were it not for everyone's strange behavior. She didn't need to be a Legilimens to know that Dumbledore was hiding something or to figure out that Snape was lashing out from fear.

This train of thought was interrupted as someone hissed "Hermione!"

Turning around, she saw the one person she had been dreading running into back at school.

"Cho? What -" But before she could finish her question, the other witch had pulled her into an empty classroom and shut the door.

"Listen," the Ravenclaw began earnestly, "I need your help. Remember how you told me that I should just go ahead and ask out Harry? Well, it turns out I can't. I just haven't got the guts. You have to tell me what to say!"

Disbelief and irritation spread across Hermione's face. "I don't want to get involved in this," she protested.

"Please! Just… pretend you're doing it and tell me what you'd say."

Sighing heavily, Hermione looked at the black-haired witch and told her what she'd actually intended to say to her weeks ago."I would say that the next Hogsmeade weekend is on Valentine's day, and would you do me the honor of being my date?"

Cho's features crinkled in uncertainty. "Umm, don't you think that's a bit much?"

"Probably. Look, I'm not exactly an expert on this stuff." She really needed to get out of here.

"I guess you'll be going with Ron then?"

That stopped Hermione in her tracks. "No! What? Why would you say that?"

"Oh, well...I just assumed, you know...it's what everybody thinks. Is it Neville, then?"

"No, it's not Neville."

What the hell was wrong with people? Why couldn't they just leave her (nonexistent) love-life alone?

"Oh, OK then, I'll see you at the next D.A. meeting. Bye!" Cho chirruped. Giving Hermione a one-armed hug, she waltzed out the door without waiting for a reply, as usual.

Hermione, for her part, sank heavily into a chair and watched the door swing shut, disappointment rising like bile in her throat.

After a long while, she pulled herself together and returned to the common room. But sleep once again proved elusive, and she sat in her four-foster bed with the curtains drawn into the early morning hours, poring over her notes and trying to figure out the meaning behind Judith's cryptic words.

She spent the next day trying to avoid Neville, but the fates were not on her side. Snape partnered them in lab, and, after listening to the poor boy complain once more about the certainty of earning a "T" on his Potions O.W.L., she'd agreed to personally tutor him not only in Potions, but in Charms, and Arithmancy as well. In all likelihood, she would have to start using the Time Turner again, just to keep abreast of all her projects, and though she'd promised herself not to give into that temptation, this was certainly a worthy cause.

And Hermione did feel a lot less guilty - that is, until she laid eyes on the front page of the Prophet the following morning.

"MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN," the headline read, captioning the ten black-and-white photographs of the escapees.

And there she was, in all her psychotic glory.

Staring out of the little photo frame with haunted eyes and a devilish smirk playing about her lips. In the company of murderers, torturers, traitors, and spies, where she belonged.

Had she inadvertently facilitated this escape by giving her a pendant? Had she provided a ringleader who could resist the Dementors terrible power?

The woman had pleaded for death, and perhaps, Hermione now though, she should have granted her wish.


"Bellatrix...come out, come out, wherever you are…"

The voice brought her out of her stupor, echoing in her cell as she sat up on her cot.

"Who is it?" she called out in confusion. Night had fallen long ago, but the corridors of Azkaban, usually filled with incoherent wailing, were eerily silent.

"Bella…Bella..."

Rising, she approached the door, and tried to catch a glimpse outside though the little barred window. There was no one there. "What do you want?"

"Bella...come out and play…" the voice hummed, and, no sooner did it finish than the metal door creaked open, compelled by some invisible magic.

Dread engulfed her. She knew that voice. But...it couldn't be...could it?

As though of their own volition, her feet carried her through the doorway. At the end of the corridor, a shadow slid across the wall and disappeared around the corner. Following, she tried to catch up with her unseen visitor, but the shadow flitted on, always just out of reach.

Passing an open terrace, she saw a silent procession of guards, shuffling forth like Inferi under the direction of a hooded figure. Like a demented conductor, the figure waved them forward, and one by one, they approached the precipice and plummeted into the water below. The figure turned to her, and beneath its hood, she saw the reflected glint of the Death Eater mask.

"Bella...it's been so long…" the voice whispered in her ear. A blinding pain had taken root behind her eyes, and it crashed over her again and again as she turned towards the sound.

There, at last, stood the one that called her, shrouded in darkness.

"M-my Lord? Is-is that you?" she stuttered...and, for a second, she wanted desperately to turn and run. Run over the ledge like the luckless guards. Feel the dark waves ravage her in their fatal embrace.

And yet, her feet carried her forward. A small spark of joy had unfurled in her chest and it swelled uncontrollably, until she was running towards him like a lost child to its mother, like a stone succumbing to gravity, like time flowing inexorably onward.

At last, at last...she was before him, longing to be engulfed by his presence. He turned, and -

No! It couldn't be! "Lucius?"

The blond man's impassive features taunted her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she screamed. "Where is the Dark Lord? What have you done with him?"

Malfoy said nothing, but a sadistic grin turned up the corners of his mouth.

"You bastard," she gasped. "Tell me where he is!"

Her hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing, and he grew paler, face contorting in a grimace of pain.

"Aunt Bella…" he squeaked.

Aunt Bella? But before she could consider what he'd said, a jet of magic swept her off her feet and hurled her into the wall.

Wincing, she opened her eyes, only to find herself on the business end of the wand of a furious Narcissa Malfoy.

"How dare you," the blond witch hissed. "I open my doors to you and this is how you repay me?"

Turning to her son, who was cowering against the opposite wall, hand clutched at his throat, she said: "Draco, darling, why don't you go wait for me in my sitting room."

The boy nodded, his eyes darting between the two women, and made his way to the door, but carefully, as though in the presence of a feral animal he didn't want to startle.

"And take the elves' passageways, stay out of sight," Narcissa called anxiously. "Your father has...company."

"Cissy? What's going on?" Bellatrix demanded, still disoriented.

"What's going on is that you tried to strangle my son!"

"But...that's ridiculous!" Bellatrix exclaimed, picking herself off the floor. "Draco's just a baby!"

Narcissa gazed at her in disbelief. "He was, Bella. In 1981."

Was she mistaken, or was there an undercurrent of pity in Narcissa's voice? That was intolerable.

Approaching her sister, the dark witch grasped her wrist casually, and began to squeeze. It hurt, of course, but Narcissa would never give her the satisfaction of showing it.

"Going to hex me, Narcissa? Your own sister?" she whispered viciously. "What would Mummy say?"

"Mother is dead, Bellatrix," Narcissa replied tonelessly, wrenching free of her grasp. "Fortunately for her."

Turning her back on her sister, Bellatrix approached one of the grand windows, peering out at the moonlit gardens of Malfoy Manor. How was it possible that she'd forgotten about Mother?

"Drink this," Narcissa requested, holding out a small vial. "It's one of your healing potions. For the lung infection."

"Thank you," Bellatrix said grudgingly, downing the viscous liquid. It frustrated her immensely to have to rely on anyone, especially her youngest sister. She'd still been just a girl when Bellatrix got sent to Azkaban, but here she was now, a respectable wife and mother, the quintessential pureblood Lady of the House.

"Don't you think a bath is in order?" Narcissa asked, none too subtly looking towards the corner where Bellatrix had made a nest out of sofa cushions, on which she had slept for the past two days since her escape.

Following her gaze, the dark witch snorted, both angry and embarrassed. Lady Malfoy clearly failed to appreciate why someone who had slept on the floor for years might fight the prospect of a normal bed unsettling. It was too high and too soft; it made her feel vulnerable.

"I don't see why. I've lived in my own filth for fourteen years, whats a couple more days?" Bellatrix drawled. "What, does it offend your delicate sensibilities, Cissy?"

Approaching the bureau, she tried to pour herself a glass of water, but her hands shook so much that half of it ended up on the ground.

"Here - let me help you -" Narcissa offered, reaching for the decanter.

"I can manage myself, for Merlin's sake!" Bellatrix snapped, wrenching away the glass.

"Really?" Narcissa demanded, frustration lacing her words. "Because yesterday I spent two hours holding your hair back while you threw up blood on my best carpet. And then you passed out in it. Remember that?"

She didn't. She didn't even know how long she'd been here, or how she'd come. All she remembered was lying in her corner, too numb to move, for what felt like a small eternity.

"What do you want, a damn Order of Merlin? You should have sent one of the house elves."

"I did. You threw a vase, nearly killed him."

"I'll write you a cheque for property damage, shall I? What does an elf go for these days? 100 gold?"

Narcissa massaged the bridge of her nose, an uncanny reflection of their mother, who would do the same when her daughters got out of hand, which was often.

"Bella…"

"Don't! Don't you fucking dare lecture me!" she raged. "You have no idea what I went though in that hellhole while you were here, living in the lap of luxury. And not one word from you all those years, dear sister! Couldn't even bother to make your useless husband arrange a visit! Even Andromeda - " she paused, mid-tirade, unable to go on.

"What about Andromeda?" Narcissa's voice had grown deadly serious.

"She wrote. Once," Bellatrix laughed, and the sound was hollow. "Told me I deserved to rot. Sent a photo of her little half-blood brat, for some reason."

"Do you still have it?" Narcissa reluctantly asked, herself unsure why she would care.

"No. They took it."

Suddenly, memories of Azkaban assaulted her senses, drawing all the air from the room. Her vision swam as the shadows quivered in their corners, laughing at her softly. The ground rose up, and she was on the floor again, heaving up bile.

Soft hands smoothed her hair back, trying to offer comfort, but it was unbearable. The tenderness repulsed her.

"Get your hands off me!" she growled, clawing blindly at the other witch and crawling back towards the wall.

For a moment Narcissa looked ready to hit her, or cry, but then her features melted back into a porcelain mask. The blond witch adjusted her robes, and stood.

"Perhaps you should go be with your husband," she said haughtily.

Oh, right. Rodolphus. She had forgotten about him. "If you want me to leave, just say so."

Some unspoken emotion flittered across the younger woman's face. She looked as though she were on the verge of saying something, but in the end she just reached into her robe and pulled out a long, curved Walnut wand.

"I kept this for you," she said coolly, tossing the weapon on the floor near her sister. And with that, she strode out of the room, head held high.

The sound of the door snapping shut almost made Bellatrix flinch.

The wand lay there, looking perfectly innocent, as though it had never channeled an Unforgivable. Mocking her.

"You're not worthy anymore," it seemed to say.

Were you ever worthy?


Notes:

So, the "romance" part of this tale is definitely playing second fiddle to the "mystery" part right now, and will continue to do so for quite a while. This story is outlined and partially written through Year 7, so unfortunately (fortunately?) it will be long and convoluted.

To those who were excited about improvements in Hermione's sneaking-skills and Bellatrix's sanity: Sorry! It won't come so easy.

To those who are confused by seeming red herrings: I do try to tie up loose plot threads and will explain everything eventually.