Hello, my lovely readers.

I went on a surprise writing binge last night and finished Chapter 46, which is amazing. Over my break from school I ended up writing a oneshot (which you should all go and read and review when you're done with this chapter, btw) instead of working on this piece.

THANK YOU to everyone who went and voted for FTOH and for the small number of people who reviewed the last chapter.

On with the story!

Chapter 43

Hermione steadied herself, hand on the doorknob of the sitting room of Safe House Three. Her 'team' was waiting in there for her to lead them. Lead- she was more used to working behind the scenes. No, screw that. She was used to working so behind the scenes from the people who worked behind the screens. She took another shaky breath, squared her shoulders, and strode in the room. Her curls were piled on top of her head, her arms were full of reports, and her mouth was firmly set.

"Wotcher, Hermione," Tonks said, giving Hermione a large grin and a wink. "Those for us?" Something tight loosened in Hermione's chest. She had at least one ally in the room.

"Yes," Hermione said, almost curtly, handing out a report for each person. "I finished with my meeting with Dumbledore this morning and finished putting these together. Please read them after the meeting today is finished. I'll give the preliminary briefing now." She gave Bill, who had already opened his folder, an expectant look. He closed the folder sheepishly.

The group was arraigned in a semi circle of overstuffed chairs, their backs to the fireplace. They were missing one- it was no bother to Hermione, who pulled out her wand, conjured a chair, and promptly sat in it, crossing her legs neatly.

"Before I start, I want to ensure that all of you are fully committed to the project," Hermione said quietly, making the others lean in to be able to hear her. "If you are not, I can Oblivate you now, and you can leave with no memory and no consequences. I'll even give you another task to work on so that the rest of the Order does not know." When there was no reply, Hermione leaned back. "I need verbal confirmation from everyone. What we will be working on is not only top secret, it is an attack on the Dark Lord himself. Should he find out, we would be direct targets of his wrath."

"Well, I'm game," said Tonks.

Bill nodded. "I'm in, Hermione."

"Me as well," chimed in Viktor.

This time there was no hesitation on Cedric's face. "Let's do this."

Hermione beamed at them. "Excellent," she said excitedly. "There is so much work to be done and all of you have talents that are rather uniquely suited to our task. Let me explain a bit more about it, and then I'll give each of you the individual details of your assignments."

There was a coffee table off to the side, Hermione twitched her fingers at it and pulled it with her magic until it sat between her and her team. Bill whistled. "Wandless? Where'd you learn that?"

Hermione grinned. "I picked it up this last year," she said, not a little proud. From the bag she had brought in, Hermione withdrew a battered black diary with a hole in the center, and placed it on the table.

"There are several objects that we are looking for," she began. "There are six that are our focus. This is one of the six, we still have to locate five." She sighed. "The thing is, we don't know how they're protected, where they are, or even what they are, for the most part."

Bill was frowning at the diary. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked in a voice that was very clearly struggling to be calm.

"It depends," Hermione said. "If you were thinking that it was the diary that affected your sister in her first year at Hogwarts, you'd be correct. This is the diary of Tom Riddle, the boy how would become Lord Voldemort. It was protected by two guardians. The first was Lucius Malfoy- the Dark Lord intrusted it to his care, wrongly. The second was a basilisk." She paused a moment.

Cedric's eyes widened. "The one that was terrorizing the school a few years ago? It got Justin- all the seconds and firsties were terrified for weeks."

Hermione nodded. "Lucius Malfoy thought that the Dark Lord was gone," she said almost dreamily. "In his possession was what he knew to be a Dark artifact, an artifact that he would not want to be caught with. So he decided to fell to birds with one stone- get rid of the book and hurt an enemy, Arthur Weasley, at the same time. He slipped the book into the cauldron of Ginny Weasley. The book took over her mind, causing her to call forth the basilisk. She did so, almost killing several people." A hard smile slid onto Hermione's face. "Including me." She still had dreams, nightmares, memories of a small hand mirror in one hand and her clenched page of notes in the other and eyes, wide and yellow and paralyzing. Being trapped in a space between waking and dreaming for weeks, hearing snippets of talk but not being able to feel or make sense of it all until she could feel Professor Snape's hands on her face and his potion in her throat.

Cedric gave a low whistle. "That's right. You were petrified for a few weeks, weren't you?"

"I was," Hermione agreed. "But I had figured it out- I knew that Slytherin's monster was a basilisk. Harry found the page of the book with my notes scrawled on it and figured it out. He went after the basilisk and killed it, destroying this diary with a fang he pulled from his own arm."

"It didn't kill him?" asked Viktor Krum. "How?" His thick dark brows were knit together in confusion.

"Phoenix tears," replied Hermione. "We were lucky- the basilisk venom destroyed this object and Dumbledore's phoenix saved Harry. We can only hope to have the same luck when locating these objects." She cleared her throat. "This is where each of your individual talents will come in handy."

"Bill, you're a curse breaker, and that'll be useful when we are dealing with the protections on the objects. You and Tonks will both be on the retrieval team full time. Tonks, I'm also going to have you on the information gathering team because your unique ability to look like several different people." Hermione flashed her friend a smile, which Tonks returned. "Cedric and Viktor, if we need more people on the retrieval team, one or both of you will step in. However, Viktor, your language abilities and contacts throughout Europe are extremely valuable. Cedric, you also have contacts and research ability. And a trustworthy face. Viktor, you're a little too recognizable, but you can still have some role with information gathering."

Bill nodded. "When do we start?" he asked. "Do we have any leads?"

"We definitely have at least one," Hermione said, holding up her notes. "Albus gave me our first lead this morning."

Carefully, using only the details that Dumbledore had told her were allowed, Hermione described how Tom Riddle had grown up in an orphanage, how it had been a miserable, miserable childhood, how they had been given one vacation a year, to the seaside. How a girl and a boy had disappeared with Tom into the cliffs on the sea side, only to return shell shocked and trembling, unable to eat or speak for days. "We need to find out where that cave is," Hermione said. "It won't be easy. Dumbledore tracked down one of the workers from the orphanage, and we are to see her tomorrow morning. I need my most charming faces for this one, so Tonks, and Cedric. Tonks, as adorable and trustworthy as you can get it. Cedric, be yourself. Muggle clothing, respectable, everyone. The talking points that we will be pursuing are in your folders already. When we find the cave, Bill, that's where you will come in handy. But first, we need to find it."

There was a moment when all the flesh on Tonks' face seemed to waver, and then it changed slowly. Large eyes, baby blue, and long chestnut hair. "How's this?"

Hm... something's off. "Adorable wans't quite the right word. Older, maybe?" Hermione suggested. "We want her to give us this information willingly, if we can." The steel in her eyes told the others that if willingly wasn't an option, unwillingly was.

Tonks scrunched her face in concentration. A few wrinkles lined the sides the eyes and mouth. With one hand, she twisted the long hair into a bun, holding it at the back of her head. "How's this?"

"Brilliant," Hermione assured her. "Do you have tweeds?"

"My mother does," Tonks said with a sigh. "If I must."

Hermione smiled at all of them, then uncrossed her legs and stood. "Tomorrow morning, nine o'clock," she told Tonks and Cedric. "I'll meet you both here."

In the heat of the afternoon, the garden of the Burrow was, for once, quiet. Around the two teenagers sitting in the sunlight were only the quite rustle of gnomes in the bushes and the tiny sighs of the Blooming Hushies, bright red flowers that Ginny was very fond of. The sun was hot on Hermione's shoulders, but a quiet cool wind brushed her skin. She tilted her head up, eyes closed, and basked in the warmth.

Next to her, Harry scuffed the ground with a shoe, the small noise it made drawing her attention. Without opening her eyes, Hermione spoke. "You doing alright, Harry?" She had come to see him after her meeting, to give him a quick report to read and to check up on his wellbeing.

He was quiet for a bit. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm find. I feel- I feel like I need to be doing something, though. I dunno, Hermione. I know all this stuff and I just can't sit here and- and de-gnome the garden or do a History of Magic essay."

That caught her attention- Hermione opened her eyes and faced him, raising a Severus-like eyebrow. "You haven't done your school homework yet? Harry!"

He raised his hands defensively. "I've had other things on my mind, Hermione! Like-" he lowered his voice- "the Horcruxes!"

"You- and Ron, I'm guessing, because if you haven't started your homework he certainly hasn't started his- need to get working on that right away! Seriously Harry, your education is important! It might not seem like it now, because so much is happening, but when the Dark Lord is gone and we are out in the real world, things like N.E.W.T. scores are going to matter." Hermione knew she was lecturing him, she saw him rolling his eyes, but she couldn't help herself. "Harry-"

"Stop, Hermione!" Harry's voice was irritated, but something was stirring in the way his eyebrows came together angrily and his fists were clenched. "I can't focus on the fifteen uses of fluxweed in potions when I know that he's out there killing people, Hermione! When I know what I need to do to stop him!"

Hermione took his chin in her hand, forcing him to look at her rather than at the ground. "Don't think like that, Harry," she said gently. "I'm taking care of things. Trust me. It's not on your shoulders alone."

Harry was quiet, his green eyes calming slowly as he looked into hers. "Isn't it though?" he asked softly. "The prophecy..."

"The prophecy isn't everything," Hermione said firmly. It was funny- the skin under her fingers rasped slightly. Harry could probably grow a beard if he wanted to. It made her stomach clench- he was growing up. They were all growing up and it was all moving too fast. He wasn't a boy, he wasn't a man, he was in that odd space in between. "The prophecy isn't everything," she repeated. "Yes, there might be a time when you have to face him, but you won't be alone. I'll be at your back. Ron will be at your back. Neville and Luna and Ginny will be at your back."

Suddenly, Harry hugged her tightly. She returned the hug, tears prickling at the back of her eyes. "It'll all be okay," she told him, rubbing his back. "I'm taking care of as much of it as I can, Harry. Don't worry."

A quiet knock at the door alerted Hermione to Severus' presence right outside of it. Her breath caught in her chest, and she flushed suddenly. How was she supposed to face him when only last night his mouth had been suckling at her breasts, his fingers, his wonderful fingers, pulling and pinching and teasing and the feeling of his mouth so hot and wet and then the cold on the sensitive skin as he pulled away and oh- she had been half nude in front of this man less than twenty-four hours ago and how on earth was she supposed to look at him? He had been gone before she had risen so she had not been forced to have that meeting in the morning. Although, admittedly, it would have been easier in the small hours of the morning when they were both half nude and sleepy. Everything always felt right when she woke up in his arms, right in a way they didn't always seem in the evening or night.

Nevertheless, Hermione rose and opened the door, staring up at her tall Potions Master. He gave her a crooked grin, then swept into her room. He waited patiently until she had closed the door, then bent down and gave her a light peck on the lips. Or, it would have been a peck, except his lips had caught her lower lip and he captured it for just a moment before letting her- it- go.

"Hello, Severus," she murmured. Her heart was beating fast, and damn it she knew her face was bright red.

He smirked at her, towering over her. His hand went to her waist, the fingertips trailing up and down up always stopping when the reached her ribcage. "Hello, Hermione."

Hermione could feel her flush deepening. Cursing her fair skin, she pulled away and sat down at her desk. "What brings you here?"

It felt like he was laughing at her, but only because that damn smirk wouldn't go away. "Although I could lie and say it was your luminous beauty," he drawled, sprawling gracefully into a chair and crossing his arms. "I actually have news to report."

Hermione sniffed at him, then grabbed her notebook and quill. She was uneasily aware of how the shirt she had chosen was slightly too small over the chest, making the buttons gape. Frowning, she pulled her cardigan closed over her chest. "Go ahead, Severus."

When she looked up at him, the damnable smirk was still there. "Pity. I was enjoying the view," he said blithely. "I received news from one of my contacts that we lost the giants. Sending Hagrid on that mission was a damnably bad idea and the Dark Lord's delegation has won them over completely. They should start arriving in Britain within weeks."

Hermione paled, but kept writing. "Arriving here? What does he plan to do with them?"

A sneer replaced the smirk. "Destruction," he hissed. "What else, Hermione? That's all giants are good for. Destroying towns, cities- I don't know exactly what he has planned for them yet, but rest assured that property will be destroyed and people will be hurt. He used them in the last war when he wanted to make an... impression and he will use them again."

"Fuck," Hermione breathed. "Alright. We need to find a way to get a warning to the Office of Misinformation and the Oblivators to make sure that they're prepared with a cover story- what did they use last time?"

"Hurricanes," Severus said. "And a few other things, but saying that it was a hurricane usually works best."

Hermione sighed, and scribbled a few last notes. "Anything else?"

"The dementors are breeding," he said, voice clipped. "The nasty little buggers have been persuaded to expand their ranks by the Dark Lord."

Hermione stared at him. "How do they breed?" she asked.

"I have no idea, and nor do I want one," he snapped. "The problem is that they are spreading throughout the country. Muggles can't see them of course, but they are affected. Not as badly as wizards are, but watch for a rise in suicides, especially of prominent people. The Dark Lord likes sending them out to surround the house of someone he wants dead- he just has to wait for them to get depressed enough to kill themselves and save him the trouble."

There was quiet for a few moments as Hermione added to her notes, then charmed them a light green and sent them to a pile of other light green notes. She had a very organized system, color coded and all.

"Did your contact say anything else?" Hermione asked, after the silence had drawn out too long to be comfortable. There had been the sense that business was over and done with, but other words would not- could not- find their way to her mouth.

Severus, still sprawled elegantly in her other chair, shook his head. There was a heat in his eyes as he looked at her, as if he was waiting for her to get the point.

Instead, Hermione cleared her throat. "When's your next meeting with the Dark Lord?" Her voice went up too high.

"Tomorrow night," Severus answered fluidly. The smirk curved around his mouth again, and he waited.

"Um- would you like a cup of tea? I could run down to the kitchen and bring it up here," she babbled. "Someone- Molly probably- brought in some new tea that I don't quite like but I have some of the tea that you gave me here-"

Severus sighed. "Hermione Granger, stop your chattering," he commanded, rising to his full height. He sat on her bed, banishing a few papers to the floor. "Come here."

Slightly shamefaced, Hermione walked over to the bed, kicked off her slippers, and slid into the bed, curling into his side. Like always he smelled of smoke and herbs and potions, of ink and night air and the flower scents from the illusion he had passed through. His chest made a comfortable resting place for her head and his arm held her tightly to his side. She half hid her face in his white shirt, shivering slightly as his long fingers began to stroke her hair.

When he spoke his voice rumbled in his chest in the most appealing way. "Hermione. If you are not pleased with the rate at which the physical side of our relationship-" she could feel his mouth curl around the word- "is progressing, then you need to let me know. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with what we did last night?"

Hermione bit her lip, thinking. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm torn between wanting more and being scared, Severus."

"Scared?"

As long as she wasn't looking at him it was easy to answer. "I don't know. I want you, I want to touch you and feel you and have you touch and feel me, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm ready. And at other times I feel like I'm more than ready and I just want to let go of everything that's telling me I shouldn't and just- and just go for it, Severus. Why shouldn't we? Just because it's complicated? But then I think about actually- actually being with you in that way and I just know that I can't do that yet." She kept her voice quiet, fighting to keep it steady.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I understand," Severus said quietly. "I don't want to push you, Hermione. I know you are busy, I know you are stressed, and I know that the timing for this is absolute crap."

"Speaking of busy..." Hermione said slowly. "I'll be gone all of tomorrow. At least- I might have to stay for a day or two more, depending on how things go."

"Things?" There was almost a dangerous tone to Severus' question. "It isn't like you to avoid stating directly what you're about."

"It is when I've taken a vow on my magic," Hermione said quietly. "Dumbledore's special mission."

She felt him tense under her. "So you can't discuss it? Even with me?"

Hermione sighed, and rubbed his chest soothingly with one hand. "Don't think I didn't ask Albus," she said, her own annoyance with the man leaking into her voice. "His words weren't kind."

"And what were they?"

"Something about not wanting certain information in the mind of a man who spends so much of his time at the Dark Lord's side," Hermione replied, wincing a bit as she felt him tense again. "It's not because he doesn't trust you, you know that, Severus. If I were him, I'd probably agree. I don't want the Dark Lord knowing where I'll be tomorrow any more than you do, I'd suspect. Am I right?"

There was a long silence, and then Severus exhaled loudly. "You are right, you insufferable know-it-all," he muttered. "Will it be safe?"

"Mostly," answered Hermione. "I can't guarantee anything, you know I can't with the kind of work we do. But I'll be alright. Tomorrow at least will be quite tame."

"If you don't come back to me in one piece I'll be quite upset with you," Severus murmured into the top of her head.

Hermione twisted around to stare into his dark eyes."I know."

Gently his lips met hers as he took her lower lip between his own, sucking it into his mouth carefully. He kept the kisses innocent for a moment before teasing her with his tongue, tempting her to follow it back into his mouth. Hermione moved in his lap, winding her arms around his neck as she straddled him.

The sensation of him growing hard against her core was a heady one, the questions of how she could do that to him combing with the curiosity of what lay beneath the straining fabric. A distraction came in the form of one hand slipping beneath her shirt, rubbing the small of her back and going up her spine. She shivered, arching into him.

"Tell me what scares you," Severus whispered in her ear. "Talk to me, Hermione."

His lips caught the skin below her ear, sucking lightly. She let out a breathy sound, not a gasp nor a moan but something in between. "How do you know how to do all of this?" she said, her words stumbling over each other. "I- I've never felt like this in my life. It- it feels so odd-"

She had chosen to wear a button down shirt today, feeling like it would make her look more authoritative- now he was unbuttoning it, placing kisses on her collarbone and the taunt skin above her breasts. "Go on," he instructed. "Does this scare you?"

"Yes," she breathed. "No. I don't know." How could she express this feeling of wanting him and not knowing what to do with that want? Not wanting to be passive, not knowing what to do, feeling afraid of letting go and just letting him do all these wonderful things to her with his hands and mouth? She made another sound as his mouth closed over the fabric of her bra, right over her nipple, the sensation making her arch back again. His hands moved up her back, unclasping her bra quickly. He moved away just long enough to push her shirt over her shoulders and remove her bra, leaving her half naked before him again.

"Beautiful," he said, voice dipping as low as she had ever heard it. His fingers traced her scar lightly. She flinched, and his hand went to her chin. He tilted her head until she was looking in his eyes. "Beautiful," he insisted. "All of you is beautiful to me."

A tremor ran through her, a combination of his low voice and the chill in the room and the way his eyes were boring through hers. She could feel the slight tickling sensation of her nipples tightening, hardening. She raised her hands to her breasts, cupping them herself.

Her own flesh was warm, smooth, soft. A muscle twitched in Severus' jaw as he watched her flick her own thumb over the hard peak. "It doesn't feel the same when I do it," Hermione murmured. "Why is that, Severus?"

His eyes were dark, so dark. His hands had gone to his own shirt buttons, undoing them rapidly. He untucked his shirt and shrugged out of it, tossing it behind her and onto her floor.

"Because your body recognizes mine," he told her. Slowly he dragged his fingertips along her sides, watching her belly clench. "It knows- your hands are small and soft and mine-" he cupped one breast in a one hand, and used his other to pinch her nipple lightly, drawing a small sound from her. "Tell me about my hands, Hermione. You've mentioned before that you liked them- is that still true?"

She stared up at him. "Yes. They- they're strong and rougher than mine and with longer fingers- oh-" She didn't know what to do with her hands, she fisted them in the blankets, breathing hard.

Severus removed his hands from her breasts, pulling her closer to him in an embrace. "Feel me like this," he said softly.

Hermione wrapped her arms around him tightly, overwhelmed by the feeling of his skin on hers. "I- I-" she knew she couldn't say what she wanted to say. "I adore you," was what she finally settled for. "Don't let me go, Severus."

He kissed the top of her head and her neck and stroked her back and sides. "I'll do my best."

Hermione smiled in satisfaction as she surveyed her troops. Tonks had transformed herself into a mature and dignified looking woman with gray-streaked chestnut hair drawn into a knot at the back of her head and a beautiful but lined face. She was dressed in Andromeda's clothing, which whispered of money and class. Cedric was in Muggle slacks and a button down shirt, and his hair was combed and parted neatly. He looked older than his nineteen years, which suited Hermione.

She herself was wearing a dress that she had transfigured from a memory of one of her mother's old work dresses. Slim fitting and still professional, with stockings and heels. Hermione thick curls had been wrestled into a bun, and she had wire-rimmed glasses with clear lenses on her nose. A subtle Glamour aged her a few years.

"Tell me our cover story," she instructed Cedric.

He nodded seriously. "My great uncle, Dennis Bishop was a charge of Wool's Orphanage in the early 1930's. My grandfather's family was living in France and were not contacted when Dennis' family died. Something happened to him in 1935, which resulted in Dennis hanging himself in 1940. I am seeking information or reparation."

"And I am your legal representation," Tonks added. "We are going to be visiting Cynthia Brown, who was an aide at the orphanage from 1929 to 1942."

"Perfect," said Hermione. "And I'm a distant relative of Amy Benson, who was also involved." She smoothed her hair and swallowed hard. "We'll Apparate to Headquarters. A cab will be waiting for us there- we want to appear as Muggle as possible."

The home of Cynthia Brown was small yet not cramped; unlike the houses of other ladies of her age, not every space was filled with porcelain knickknacks or photographs of grandchildren. Rather, it was sparsely decorated in pale shades of blue and green, and there was only one framed picture on the mantle of a woman and a child by the seaside.

"My sister and her child," Cynthia said when she saw Hermione looking at it. "I spent my entire life looking after little brats. I wouldn't have been able to stand having one of my own, and there was never a man in the picture anyway." She heaved a sigh and set down the tea set on an old wood coffee table, and began to pour. "Milk or sugar?"

Once everyone was settled with a worn china cup, Cynthia settled into her chair and looked at them suspiciously. "Now. You said on the telephone this had to do with Wool's. That place's been closed more than a decade. Whaddya want with it now?"

Hermione nodded to Tonks, who assumed a very serious expression. "We're here about two of your charges, Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson. Do you remember them?"

The old lady's wrinkled forehead scrunched farther. She rubbed the side of her large nose, adjusted her glasses, took a sip of tea. "Yeah. I suppose I do. Odd, both of them. I wasn't the one that found Bishop's body, but it was all that Mary could talk about for weeks. Til she quit anyways."

"Odd how?" pressed Tonks.

Again, there was a space of silence and shuffling before she spoke. "Well- they were quiet, like. Scared, like little rabbits. They did what they was told. Empty eyes."

Hermione made a few notes in the notepad open on her lap. "But they weren't always like that, right?"

Cynthia's cloudy blue eyes met Hermione's for a moment, and she took the opportunity to slip in.

An institutional room, barren, pale green. A little girl with wet dark hair straggling over her shoulders and long bangs and hollow eyes, shivering in a large blanket. A small boy, only his blond head peaking out of the blanket, his eyes squeezed shut as fat tears leak out. And standing in the corner, a tall pale boy with a sunburned nose and his arms crossed across his chest, hiding a smirk.

She blinked and looked away, and Hermione was out.

"No. They weren't always like that." The old woman was quiet, seeming to sink in on herself.

Cedric leaned forward, setting his cup on the table. "Ms. Brown, we need your help." His eyes were wide and appealing, and Hermione noted pleasingly that he was being very charming. "We need to know what happened. And where it happened." He paused a moment, then pleaded, "Please."

Her eyes flicked to Cedric, then down, then back to the wizard. "He was a strange one, Tom," she whispered. "He did sommat to them, to Dennis and Amy. We was at the seaside for the children, for the vacation, and they 'wandered off' he said. He was the only one who could talk. They wandered off afore lunch and didn't come back til after dark and- it wasn't right."

"What did he do to them?" asked Cedric. "Do you know?"

Cynthia shook her head. "Not me, I know nothin'. None of us knew nothin'. Just that they was all scraped up- bleedin' something terrible. Amy was trembling for weeks and Dennis- he was quiet. Nightmares, he says, of snakes and water and a cave. Nothin' that made sense anyhow."

Snakes and water and a cave, thought Hermione. Dennis wasn't making it up. "Where was this trip to the seaside?" asked Hermione. "Can you give us a location?"

"A place near Kessingland," said the woman. "Don't remember the exact name but it wasn't far."

Hermione wrote it down, a brief feeling of triumph rising in her chest. "And- do you think you could tell us a bit about Tom Riddle?"

The woman's spine straightened and Hermione noticed that her hands began to tremble, causing her tea to slosh against the sides of her cup. "No."

Well, maybe Cedric? Hermione nudged him with her foot. He shifted, then leaned in again. "Ms. Brown, it would be really helpful for our case."

"I won't be testifying or nothin'. I don't see why you need me to talk about that boy."

Cedric tried again. "Just- just to get an idea of what we should be asking other people. I promise we won't be bothering you about this later. We just- we just want to know for ourselves."

Handsome boys do work wonders on old women, Hermione thought to herself, as the woman began to speak. I am actually considering thanking Albus for his messing about which is making me wonder if I should check into Mungo's.

"I said the others was odd, but that was wrong," said Cynthia shortly. "They was broken, he was odd. Quiet, polite, and- dark. He was just a dark child. If you didn't do as he wanted he would pin you with this look, like, like he was plannin' to do sommat to you. It was right scary, just until you wanted to just do as he said to make him stop looking at you like that. That's all I'll say. Are you through with your tea?"

"Well?" asked Tonks as they walked to the Apparition point.

Hermione blinked, looking up at her. "Well what?"

"Well, did we get what we needed?" Tonks glanced around, and took her hair down from the bun. As she shook it out the grey streaks disappeared and the wrinkles slowly receded from her face, de0aging her by ten, fifteen, twenty years.

Hermione bit her lip."We got more than we had," she admitted finally. "Which is good. Now I need to track down a few more leads and then we go out again." She turned to the man walking beside her. "And Cedric- you did an excellent job." She smiled at him, a genuine smile that went to her eyes.

The wizard was so surprised that he stumbled and nearly fell. "Um- thanks, Hermione."

She patted his arm lightly. "Neither Tonks nor I could have gotten her to say half of what we needed. You did very well."

It was as if he couldn't believe it- Cedric kept glancing at Hermione, and a silly grin slid onto his face for a second. "Yeah. Right."

She couldn't help it- Hermione laughed and Tonks joined in. "I don't get a 'very good job,' Hermione?" asked Tonks, placing a hand over her chest. "I'm hurt."

Hermione, giggling helplessly, nodded. "You were brilliant too, Tonks. We're going to track these things down, all of us, and it will be great."

"In that case, and assuming we don't have anything more pressing at the moment, I suggest we stop for fish and chips," Tonks said. "My treat."

Well, I was going to eat lunch while going over reports... thought Hermione. No. I'm kidding myself. I would have gone over reports and kind of forgotten lunch. Reports can wait.

"Fish and chips sounds lovely," Hermione said happily. "Cedric?"

He gave her a roguish grin. "Count me in."

For once there was a bright sun in the sky and leads were falling into place. A long time friend was at her right and a surprising new one was at her left and all felt right in Hermione's world.

And so ends Chapter 43.

VERY IMPORTANT: Voting has been open for a few weeks, but I think it closes soon. So please go vote! The link is on my author's page! Some of the other stories in the WIP category are much, much more popular than this one, so if y'all could spread the word, get your friends to read it, blog about it, that would be great!

The prompts I've been seeing for the prize have been great so far, and I'd love to see more come in!

I wrote a new story! It's a slightly smutty oneshot (smuttier than almost anything I've written so far) that you should please go read! It's called Tea and Glory and I'd appreciate some comments!

Other things: School's going well, boys are nonexistent in my life, and I'm actually venturing out to a real party tonight, so we'll see how that goes. My roomie continues to be amazing, which is no surprise. Someone did mention that it seems that the Tonks/Hermione friendship seems to be popping up more recently, and it turns out that you're right! It was completely subconscious, I swear!

Your excerpt:

Severus reacted first, pulling away. Hermione stumbled in the heels she was still wearing, dread filling her body at the look of murderous rage on her lover's face.

Review, vote, and go check out my new story!