Teddy fussed in Tonks's grip. "He just fell asleep," she whined as her head angled backward so that her chin was angled at the ceiling. As Teddy woke up, he wailed, and Victoire joined the chorus.
It was a feedback loop of the children, screaming to one another.
Not only the crying children, of course. The Weasleys had begun to complain to one another about the delays, as half their family was out. What if something had happened? The panicked whines and wails of Mrs. Weasley added to the too-loud mess, and Hermione felt calloused for the thought.
But shouting wasn't helping - not as the Aurors spoke louder, then the Weasleys, then the children...
Hermione sank into her seat, her hair bristled around her face as she tried to drown out the peripheral sound to pick apart the conversation between Ron and Snape.
She couldn't hear them, but she could see their lips moving.
She got pieces of it; not enough.
"Say it again Snape, I dare you." Ron was louder, easier to hear.
"- misunderstand me?" Snape's lips twitched as if he'd love to smile but was sworn against such an act.
"I must've - you said you had that shit under lock, so you lied, which puts - "
"- mistake."
An agreement and a mistake, about what?
Whispers, low speech, her teeth grit as she strained her ears.
Ron's red ears, his wand in Snape's face through the propped open door. Snape appeared intrigued if anything, his gaze fixed to Ron's.
As if he'd love to see what Ron had up his sleeve.
(An excuse to level Ron.)
The children cried themselves out in rapid succession, which lightened the tone of the room. Victoire followed Teddy's lead as if she'd just been screaming to scream. Proudfoot, Jones and Doge had since stopped the discussion of their reports to turn a wary eye towards Ron and Snape.
"'Least they quietened down, hm?" Ginny stroked Victoire's cheek with the back of her index finger.
"If we didn't send mothers on missions..." Molly left the words unspoken. "I tell you, mothers do so much for the children by nature alone."
Tonks gave a weak laugh at Molly's comment. Everyone was scattered and tired.
But Hermione hadn't taken her gaze off Snape.
Not once.
"My apologies for the delay. There were…" Snape paused, as Ron shoved past him with his shoulder. Snape's lips mouth twitched around a suppressed curse, as Ron sat down beside Hermione. "Suspicious figures by the door."
"Suspicious figures?" Remus said, his voice thin. The fool moon was tomorrow.
"They were low-rank Snatchers. I imagine it was a random patrol to bait an attack. See who appears, if anyone." Snape said, his tone even. "I've Obliviated them so that they know they inspected the area but found nothing. Killing them would have been more suspicious."
Ron inched his chair closer to Hermione. She had stood up in her restless wait for the others to arrive, and now she regretted it. His large hand latched onto her wrist.
"Ron, what're you doing," she jumped as he pulled her closer, his arm around her thighs.
Hermione squinted down at him, though he kept his attention on Snape.
He never touched her, even less hugged her.
Not for months.
She allowed it, if only because she was worried he'd shout again. She swallowed hard, her heartbeat against her rib cage so painful she might pass out.
An agreement, a mistake - they can't have her.
Hermione didn't like the pieces she'd been given. She didn't like the physical contact either, as it was irritating more than endearing.
The group continued to patter around topics, but nothing of note. Their meetings often sat like this, quiet and meek, reliant on a group who may not come back.
"They'll be here soon," Percy said, his hand rested against Molly's.
"Why send them to Romania," Molly fussed with Victoire's bow, which she kept trying to put into her mouth.
Hermione sat in silence as the room flitted with a conversation about Snatchers and Death Eaters. It was the same information each week, that they were torturing suspected Order members. The Order had been held up as some Muggle Rights group, out to steal magic from the real wizards, which Hermione found laughable and thin.
The Snatchers never managed to find real Order members; she had to wonder if they were trying. They would pick out random Gryffindors or Muggle sympathizers, anyone who seemed concerned about what the Ministry was up to. The stranglehold the Daily Prophet had on media along with the inelegant touch of the Snatchers made everything tense and miserable.
Younger members were nigh impossible to find, for fear that the Snatchers would turn up to their door.
Hermione had stopped recruiting people in February after the Marital Clause became active. She had never been good at it anyway, and now all she went out for were intel missions around London or for work. The other Order members still tried, with their ears pressed to the doors and walls, as if they'd hear a murmur of dissent.
Beyond the inefficient hunt for Order members, the Snatchers staged assassinations of Muggleborn landowners around London. They were labeled as random acts of violence by Muggles, which provided the Daily Prophet with more gruesome new than it knew how to handle.
They published horror stories about guns and knives, about the horrific torture that these poor Muggleborns endured by Muggles who found out they were magical. Sometimes it was knifes, or guns. But they tended to lean on crueler methods. Bike chains. Golf clubs. One girl had her nails torn out and shoved into her eyes and - Hermione had started to skip those articles, for how violent they became.
It was always the same; prolonged suffering.
Things that would take time to kill people.
Their meetings had become a series of long-winded guessing games. They would wonder about the Snatchers and the Ministry, and when the next attack would occur. But they hadn't really done anything aggressive as of late. They never attacked locations, they never put the pressure onto the other side.
The Order was about saving those few who landed in their nets. Orphaned children, or people who were too old to fight back. It was a charity wrapped in the skin of the past. The Order had been for action and championing causes; now they sat, and they waited, and they pried open the Daily Prophet to lament.
But Hermione didn't leave the house otherwise.
Today, they'd wound around to the story of a young girl Muggleborn girl had been hung in her room at the Leaky Cauldron. They said she'd married a Muggle man. That the Muggle man snapped when he found out she was magical, then tore her apart, hung her, beat her, the details were excessive.
Yaxley was the prevalent theory, for what good that did them. He was deeply protected, for his proximity to the Minister of Magic.
But this was old news.
It was better to dwell on old information than process new tragedies.
Things weren't getting worse, at least.
Hermione slid the corner of an Auror report, to eye the photos of five men split open from throat to the sternum, bled out. Their Dark Marks had been turned into writhing black masses, that wove like veins along their arms, along their throats.
Hermione didn't know if that was normal; for Dark Marks to grow after death.
They didn't know who was killing Death Eaters in France. They had contacts with Fleur's family, whose parents helped place those who arrived from Britain as displaced victims. For some reason that wasn't their focus nor their topic. It was instead a round table discussion about the Muggleborn girl hung at the Leaky Cauldron.
Five Death Eaters, laid alongside one another, split open, massacred.
She pushed the paper away.
Ron kept a firm grip on Hermione's wrist and a firm gaze on Snape.
"Oi," he made a thick noise from the back of his throat. "Are you gonna tell her?" His head bumped into her elbow.
"As I said, it isn't confirmed," Snape's gaze bore into Ron's. "There's no reason to worry her."
"Tell me what?" Hermione said, her voice leaped up an octave. She cleared her throat and yanked her wrist away from Ron, her thick brows scrunched together. "It's about me, isn't it. Just say it, or I'll scream."
"Did you get the letter already?" Ron paled.
"No, you've been holding my wrist for the past twenty minutes," she snorted, her gaze snapped to Snape. "What letter?" She asked though she knew the answer already.
"You've been noted as a person of interest for the Marital Clause." His tone was neither sympathetic or pleased. It didn't sound any different from usual, as if this wasn't worth the effort. It was rare for him to linger in any emotion. She was surprised if she saw his face move at all.
"A person of interest," she echoed.
"Which means that they've found your address."
Hermione felt the air disappear from the room, along with the light and sound. At first, she thought she'd gone deaf, but no one was moving.
Instead, they stared with parted lips and horror in their eyes.
But she'd been so careful.
The past six months had been filled with dread, low in the back of her mind. The conversation resumed around her, about her, but she didn't hear it. She stared at the wood table in front of her, etched with curse words and slurs from whatever tables they'd transfigured together for it.
Why hadn't someone cleared off the slurs at least?
Her hand defaulted to her right forearm.
" — refuse to let her go," Ron slapped his hands on the table, out of his seat.
"It isn't up to you," Remus said, his voice wavered. "It's up to Hermione to decide, should she receive the letter."
"How can you say that," Ginny's voice rattled in her throat, torn between anger and tears.
"It isn't much of choice, now is it!" Ron's nails dug into the table, anger on her behalf.
"But it is her choice," Remus repeated. "We can't force her into hiding. We can do our best to help her, but it's her safety, and her choice."
Hermione wanted to laugh at that; her choice?
Was it now.
She appreciated their indignance.
She couldn't find it in herself to be angry.
Not right now.
"Person of interest doesn't mean they want you for it necessarily," Ginny said, with the flap of her hands enough to catch Hermione's vacant gaze.
Hermione hadn't spoken yet. Snape's gaze burrowed into her, past her defenses, and she didn't much care.
She welcomed it, her eyes widened and her mouth popped open as she tried to think. But even that failed, as the sensation of heat returned as if she'd been wrapped in a warm blanket.
The room had felt so cold, before.
Now it was too small, too hot and the ceiling felt like it may fall on her. Like she'd stubbed her toe on a rogue heroin needle and she'd overdosed by mistake.
"The Ministry has become more brazen with their Marital Clause," Proudfoot said with a low croak in her voice.
"I don't see how anyone could support it," Molly said, her words sharp in the quiet. "As if anyone would be happy to see their children forced off like that."
"Arranged marriages have always existed in wizarding families," Jones said, as she picked through her notebooks. She was still an Auror, through the virtue of her blood status. She wasn't married, Hermione thought in a dim way.
She wondered if the pureblood witches would be forced to marry next, or the halfbloods.
Or would this remain a Muggleborn punishment.
"It didn't with the Prewetts," Molly said with a tang of pride to her voice.
"I fear that pureblooded families have been groomed to believe they're doing a service," Proudfoot said. "That their superior genes, as they believe, will remedy the Muggleborn affliction. As per their words and beliefs," Proudfoot waved a hand, as if to excuse the opinion.
Her stack of pilfered Auror reports sat on the table, which listed the locations of detained people of interest. Some were genuine criminals, while others were murkier. Jones, Doge and Proudfoot had taken several reports each to sift through, but they sat untouched.
The Marital Clause was a topic the Order had firmly avoided, and it made Hermione's stomach turn.
"Death Eaters can't afford to exclude halfbloods," Snape interlaced his fingers on the table. "While pureblood is revered, a mix of magical and mundane is more acceptable than a Muggleborn," he spoke from experience, though Hermione didn't doubt that purebloods were treated as a step above halfbloods.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Remus's lips twitched as he met Hermione's eye. "Attack the few to win the favor of many."
Of all the people in the room, he best understood her. Hermione knew no Muggleborns personally, not that she spoke to regularly.
"I don't see the benefit in it, for anyone." Percy furrowed his brow.
"There isn't one," Proudfoot's watery voice wove a gentle contrast to Molly's outrage. She had been an Auror before the war, though she was in her late sixties now. She'd been encouraged into early retirement last year.
"Why do it?" Tonks frowned, her hand rested against Ted's head. He'd fussed from the noise but had since calmed down. His hair was rainbows beneath her fingers, with purple sparkles across his cheeks. They shifted in his sleep with each stroke from Tonks' hand, from green, to yellow, to blue.
"Because they can," Ginny snorted.
"It's about hurting others more than you hurt yourself," Ron said, his throat tense. "Like, yeah, they're mixing purebloods with Muggleborns, but their kids'll be halfbloods… Y'know?"
"The exclusions have shifted," Hermione said, her voice soft. "The only consistent factor to the husbands is that they're Death Eaters."
"Not even pureblood?" Ron snapped, before he realized how awful that sounded. "Not that blood matters, but it matters to them - you get my point."
"Most of their ranks are halfbloods at this point... Bringing Muggleborn girls into arrangements with upper members of the Death Eaters... It's incentive to move up in the ranks and allows the halfbloods to feel represented," Hermione added, thoughtlessly.
"It's all just a big fuckin' distraction," Ron gestured wide at her with a loose fist, his tongue flush against his gums.
"A distraction," Percy pursed his lips. "From what?"
"Okay, not a distraction exactly, but - something big and easy to get annoyed about," Ron corrected, his hands raised. "While also splitting our ranks, weakening families... It's a foundational attack."
"Impressive," Snape's lips twitched which broke into an awful sneer. "It's been six months and you've finally worked it out."
Silence took over the room. Dode, Jones and Proudfoot continued to flick through their reports as they circled locations and crossed out names. Reports about ex-Aurors they thought might be killing the Death Eaters who'd been tasked with bleeding through the French countryside.
Molly kept a nervous eye on the door, while Ginny and Percy stroked her shoulders and her hand in a balanced effort.
Ron had taken Hermione's hand into his, which she allowed because the room was silent and she wanted to keep it that way.
It didn't make her stomach flutter or her cheeks warm. It was an apology from him if she were to guess. If they had worked out, she wouldn't be in this mess. His eyes said it all, as he looked at her ring finger to her eyes in a loose circle.
"I see no point in resisting if I'm summoned," Hermione said, her voice empty.
"What d'you mean?" Ron snapped. "Of course there's a point! It's your life, Hermione, not some game."
Hermione shot him a sharp look, her chin dropped and her eyes wide.
"You can't go through with it."
"If they've found my apartment, they know where I live. No doubt they could find me again unless I quit my job and refuse to leave the house." Her voice grew small and withdrawn.
"Quit your job, come live with me and the twins, we've got room."
"So you can trap me instead?" Hermione withdrew her hand from his, to cross her arms. "It had to end someday – let it be on my terms."
"It'd only be for a little while," Ron waved a hand at her, as if she'd said yes.
"If they summon me, I doubt they'll expect me to turn up. They'll want a reason to make a show of me, they'll want me to run or to fight," Hermione pressed on, her cheeks red. "You of all people must realize that."
A loud series of footsteps sounded from outside the room as the recon team returned.
Hermione sunk into her seat as the group cheered and greeted one another. The air was thick with sound and joy, as if her news had been evaporated from the heat of their affection. Fred and George barked with laughter, Fleur floated over to her daughter — she didn't look like a woman who'd given birth three months ago, as she was even thinner than she had been even before her pregnancy.
Snape kept his gaze on Hermione, singularly, as if there were more he wanted to say to her.
Instead took his leave, so as to make room for the recon team to sit.
Hermione would have followed him, were it not for Ron's grip on her wrist.
"We don't think ol' Mouldy's body was there. No dark signatures, nothing as dark as he'd be, if they'd tried any rituals," Fred said, his tone flippant. "We didn't think they'd keep him there either, but we thought maybe they'd leave a finger or something behind. He's gotta be falling apart by now, mustn't he?"
"Creep old fucker - and why go to the heart of a Romanian forest if you're not gonna do a damn ritual!" George threw his hands up, as if to further Fred's point.
"Zey cannot be moving ze body," Fleur took Victoire from Molly, to press delicate kisses to her temple. "Zhere is no point I theenk, to treat 'im like luggage. Even if zey do bring him back, 'e will be so furious."
"I still think he'll be wherever Bellatrix is," George massaged his neck, which bore a dark red mark that met the base of his ear hole. "Bet she cuddles with him at night or something sick like that."
"Yeah, I mean, Snape was right, they'd been there, but not for a long time," Fred continued, his arms crossed over his chest. "Been a while since he's given us anything useful, hasn't it."
"Well, it wasn't wrong, just… Late," Bill said with a low growl. "Least we got some scope of how wide their operations have spread."
They talked and talked, and Hermione felt so useless.
All she did was sit outside warehouses and cry.
Hermione refused to look up from her hands as they described the abandoned Snatcher base they'd ransacked. She needed to hold her ground, to assert herself. This wasn't going to be a tragedy, of a young maiden bartered off to save a village from a monster.
This was going to be the end of the war, whether it was in their favor or not.
Wednesday, August 8th, 2001.
Hermione hadn't slept much lately.
This wasn't new. She rarely slept more than four hours a night, given that the Ministry had become aware of her home. But she didn't have anywhere else to stay, she didn't want to be a burden on the Weasleys, and she refused to reach out to Snape. She didn't know Remus and Tonks that well -
Hermione pushed aside her panic spiral, of how she had cut herself off from everyone. It was fine. She was fine. She would find a way around this without a trip to Azkaban.
(She privately doubted that any girl actually made it to Azkaban.)
Snape mentioned it because he thought it was a real possibility. And so she woke each morning with tension in her shoulders and dark circles beneath her eyes.
She dodged the Ministry in the past as her home address wasn't on any official documentation within their records. Not since her apartment with Ginny at Primrose Hill last autumn. She had her wand license assigned to her Muggle home, which was a ransacked shack she'd not been back to in months. She was sure a pile of letters had formed in the living room, and she hadn't found it in herself to care.
Not really, not enough for her to go, lest someone be on the hunt for her.
It hurt too much to see her bedroom in tatters.
If she happened to need something posted to her, whether it was ingredients or books, she had a postal box. It was seated in a small Muggle village a few Apparation points away from her true home. It was rare for her to receive pressing mail via the post and she never ordered things. No one wrote socially to her, and she had lost what few penpals she'd gained from her Fourth year. It had been easy to disappear further off the grid, even if she had to year thick cloaks and hide her face while at work.
She never got mail, not unless it was a death threat with a weak curse locked inside the envelope. It was practical to keep her address something detached from her, specifically.
Even if she had to mildly Confound the Post Office staff into believing she was an eighty-year-old woman named Millicent.
This letter, however, arrived by way of owl in the early morning. The windows were splayed open to combat the warm August morning, on the cusp of autumn.
The great horned owl collided with their wire laundry rack, which Hermione had laid out to air her sheets on. In an attempt to right it's path, it slammed into Ginny's cereal.
Ginny's expression scrunched as she jumped up, her hands in motion as she cleaned the milk that has splashed over her.
"Poor thing," Hermione crooned until dread fell from her throat to her stomach. She looped at Ginny, her mouth pursed small and tight.
"Not one of ours," Ginny licked her lips apart, her gaze locked to the Ministry letter clasped in it's talons.
It sensed their concern and scrambled to right itself, a nasty look shot at both of them. Were it not soaked in milk, it would have been a handsome owl.
"Here," Hermione waved a hand to clean it off, to which it ruffled it's feathers. The owl hopped a few steps closer to Hermione. It waited for her to extend her hand, as it dropped the letter neatly into her expectant palm.
"Prissy isn't he," Ginny said softly as it took flight. It flicked her across the face with it's wing and took off through the gap in the window, cautious not to collide with the wire rack again.
Hermione couldn't bring herself to open the letter.
Her fingers were shaking too much.
"We don't have to open it."
"I want to."
Ginny's mouth snapped shut.
Hermione set the letter against the small potted plant on their table. She stared at it throughout breakfast, despite Ginny's insistent eye contact. Hermione felt stupid to be afraid of it, but it could be any number of things. It could be a court summons or a question from Penelope.
Maybe it was good news, she deluded herself.
When she couldn't eat and couldn't look away from it any longer she relented. She wriggled her fingers in a familiar pattern, one that would scan the envelope for traps.
It was safe, though the contents were far from that.
"I'm being requested for evaluation," Hermione said, her mouth dry. "Snape has to be right about everything, mustn't he."
"Oh," Ginny hadn't needed her to say it.
Hermione felt her expression warp between furrowed and too wide, as she willed herself not to cry.
"We gonna have t'move again?" Ginny asked, her voice fragile.
Hermione looked at their tiny kitchen and their mismatched furniture. Each time they moved they lost their deposit and kept only their essentials.
Ginny wasn't such a problem, not on her own. While she had romantic ties to Harry, she was a pureblood. While a blood traitor and a member of the Order, she was more likely to be survive for the sheer reverence that Pure-blooded folk had for lineage.
They'd kill all her brothers before they'd kill her, Hermione wagered.
Not that Ginny would take such a thing lying down.
No, Hermione was the thumbtack wedged into the side of the enemy. She, along with Ron, were Harry's confidants. They had destroyed horcruxes and been known lovers, not to mention their unmistakable place beside Harry at that final battle.
And if they believed the false biographies, they thought she had given Harry everything.
Hermione was far easier to hate, as she represented everything the fragmented Death Eaters loathed.
"We can't afford to move again," Hermione said in a weak voice. "There's no immediate danger. We'd be dead if that's what they wanted."
"But how did they find us?"
"I don't know," Hermione worried her thumb and forefinger together, as the heavy weight parchment brushed against her skin. "Perhaps we have a spy."
"The lease's up in December. We can make it 'til then," Ginny winced, her arms crossed over her chest. She flashed a glance at the wall, where their kitchen clock sat. "I've got practice in half an hour, but - "
"No, please, there's no reason to skip out on your work," Hermione rocked her head forward to star at her fingers. She'd broken the habit of chewing her nails years ago, but the urge resurfaced.
"You can always come to me, if you need to. You know the stadium."
It was a few jumps away, however. She'd have to flash to Coventry, then to the stadium itself. It wasn't so drastic as to be impossible, but she'd need ten or so minutes to relax between jumps so as to arrive without fainting.
"I'll be okay," Hermione said, her voice light. She remained seated, the letter clutched between brittle fingers.
"Send word if you need me?"
"I will." Hermione gave Ginny a tight smile. "I just need to process it - think about it, rather."
Ginny gave a short nod before she vanished with a pop.
Hermione sat at her small kitchen table.
Her proximity to Harry made her a trophy to a Death Eater. Her skin scrawled as she re-read the letter. It was just a location at St. Mungo's, which eased her nerves, but not much. The words 'Marital Clause' and 'recommended attendance' stood out to her. As if she had a choice.
She had seen the papers; about the girls who skipped around the evaluations.
They wound up hung, with their own nails in their eyes.
Hermione banished her untouched breakfast and slipped into her bedroom. It smelled of vanilla and sandalwood from the small decor candle she'd burn. The candle melted at a far decreased speed, much like the candles in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
She couldn't think about Hogwarts.
A selfish part of her wished that one of the Professors would retire so she could step in. In the unlikely event, she was matched up with someone, she'd be able to eschew the majority of their marriage by sheer responsibility alone. Or she could sabotage herself with some desperate ailment, and no Death Eater would want her.
They'd cheat, she'd have grounds for divorce, it'd be over before she knew it.
If there was a match.