Chapter One - Vittoria Jackson

Café Vittoria was particularly small, even as hole-in-the-wall coffee shops tend to be. There were two small tables, each with three chairs around them as a fourth wouldn't fit inside the space. Along the back wall, the counter stood proud at two feet wide and about the same deep. There was exactly enough room for the sole barista who stood stooped over the counter, working on some sort of paperwork, and no more.

The bell chime above the door sounded out sharp and loud as Neville Longbottom walked into the room but paperwork stubbornly held the barista's attention. The nod of acknowledgement he received was almost imperceptible, but at least it was there. Clearly even when wholly engrossed, the server still believed in some semblance of customer service. Neville took advantage of the lack of attention paid to him by quietly turning around the sign on the door, so that it displayed, 'Sorry, we're closed right now,' to the passersby on the street.

As he turned back around, he studied the girl behind the counter. From what he could see, she was the perfect fit for the profile he'd been given. Slight in stature, standing no more than five feet tall. Her complexion flirted with an olive tone, to the point where it could have easily been mistaken for a slight tan. Pulled back into a messy bun, her blonde hair was straight and likely would have fallen to the middle of her back if she'd left it down. She wore a stylish though not particularly expensive looking pair of glasses that had fallen down her nose somewhat as she'd been hunched over.

After a moment, Neville cleared his throat and the barista finally looked up from her paperwork, squinting as she adjusted her focus. 'Oh! Sorry to keep you waiting,' she said with a polite smile. 'What can I get for you?'

'Good afternoon,' he greeted. 'Are you Vittoria Jackson?'

She cocked her head slightly in confusion. 'I am.'

Neville smiled kindly as he pulled a leather wallet out of his pocket and opened it up to display a badge and identification card for her. 'I'm Detective Inspector Neville Longbottom, with the North Yorkshire Police. I'd just like to ask you a few questions, if that's alright?'

Vittoria blinked in shock for a moment before she collected her wits about her. Her hands busied themselves with squaring up the paperwork in front of her before putting it down on a shelf beneath the counter. 'O-of course, Inspector. Is something the matter, or...?'

'You aren't in trouble, if that's what you mean,' Neville replied, giving his best attempt at a soothing smile that he could. 'We've been trying to get in touch with you for a while, though. You're a surprisingly tricky person to track down.'

'I am?'

Neville nodded. 'We've got no listed home address for you, and the tenancy agreement for this café is listed under the name Grant Jackson. Presumably that's your father?'

Vittoria mouth opened and closed a couple of times, as though she was trying to speak but her mouth couldn't form the sounds intended. 'Oh, uh, yes. Grant Jackson's my father. This was his café before I took over it. He named it after me, you see.'

'I see. And do your parents live nearby?'

'Um, not particularly. My dad moved to Inverness a few years ago for work, and my mother lives in Italy. They haven't lived together since they split up when I was five. I haven't seen her in almost ten years.'

Neville grimaced sympathetically. 'I'm sorry to hear that.' He glanced down at his notebook briefly before pushing on. 'Can I ask where you attended school, Miss Jackson?'

Her confusion at this line of enquiry was evident on her face, but she answered nonetheless. 'Of course. I went to Bootham Primary, then moved to Huntington School when I was fourteen. Is this important to something, Inspector?'

Once again, Neville glanced down at his notebook quickly. 'I just needed to cross-check some information, that's all.' He put the notebook back into his pocket, then reached inside his jacket as he approached the counter. From the inside pocket of his blazer, he pulled out a roughly foot long, carved stick of wood that looked like it shouldn't have fit wherever he'd had it stowed away. 'Does this item look at all familiar to you, Miss Jackson?'

He handed it over to her, and she pushed her glasses up to her nose. The wood was quite light in colour, slightly lighter than birch. Around one end of the stick, there was a beautifully intricate carved design of a vine wrapping all the way around and reaching up to around half of its length. It was heavier than she'd expected it to be from her first glance, and as she held it in her hand, she could almost swear that it tingled a little up her arm, though she almost instantly dismissed that thought as ridiculous.

Vittoria shook her head as she handed the stick back to DI Longbottom. 'I can't say it does, no,' she admitted, a little apologetically as it really was lovely.

'That's no problem,' Neville said with an almost sad smile as he stowed the stick back in his jacket pocket. He then produced another, similar stick from the same place, though this one was a bit darker in colour.

He glanced over his shoulder then waved the stick towards the front of the shop. In an instant, the sound of the door locking rang out in the quiet of the room, and the blinds drew themselves closed, leaving the room much darker with only the dim artificial lights to see by.

'Inspector, I–'

Vittoria had gone sheet white at the display, and her hands shook.

DI Longbottom gave her that same sad smile. 'I'm really sorry, Hermione. This isn't going to feel particularly great. Stupefy.'

A red light shot out of the end of the wand, and in a fraction of a moment, Vittoria Jackson collapsed on the ground.

21st May 2001 - 14 Months Earlier

'Miss Granger?' the clerk behind the desk called out, and Hermione looked up, sharply drawn out of the reverie of her own tumultuous thoughts. 'The Minister is ready for you now.'

Hermione rose from the seat in which she'd been waiting for the last ten minutes with as much grace as she could muster, despite her nerves. As she walked up to the door of the Minister's office, she silently willed her hands to stop giving away her anxiety with their shaking, but they didn't.

Kingsley's office was sparsely decorated, with very few personal touches. If not for the piles of parchment and folders on his desk, he could have been mistaken for having only moved in earlier in the day, as opposed to the four years he'd held the position. He rose from his desk as she entered the room and greeted her kindly.

'I know you've already been briefed on how everything's going to move on from here, but I requested that Head Auror Garcia allow me to handle the business of issuing Harry and yourself your new identities,' Kingsley started with very little preamble, and picked up a folder from the top of one of the piles on his desk. 'You're aware that the assignment doesn't have a strict time limit, and that it will only be concluded when the immediate danger to both of you is over?'

Hermione nodded mutely, and took the folder from Kingsley when he offered it over the desk to her.

He continued as she stared down at the cover sheet. 'Tomorrow morning, you'll wake up in York as Vittoria Jackson. You'll be given an hour and a half to read through the overview of your new life before being escorted down to Unspeakable Webb for memory-modification. This is a routine procedure for the Department of Mysteries, and they've performed it hundreds of times for both undercover Aurors and protected witnesses alike. The process is very thorough, and while any memories of your current life won't be removed, they should be completely unattainable for the entire period of the assignment. The memory-modification spell is completely reversible, and no complications or negative side effects have ever been reported.'

The entire briefing felt like a well-rehearsed script being read out, and Kingsley gave out a long sigh as he came to the end of it. It was clear that he was just as uncomfortable with the situation as she was herself, but they had spent over a month trying to come up with an alternative course of action and had collectively drawn up nothing but blanks. This was the only option available to them.

'Do you have any questions, Hermione?' Kingsley asked softly.

Scores of questions were rolling around her head, but if she was honest with herself, she knew the answers to most of them. Those answers that she didn't have already were waiting for her to read within the folder on her lap.

'Will I at least get to see Harry before we're sent downstairs?' she asked quietly.

Kingsley looked at her with such an expression of regret that she didn't need him to respond to know his answer.

'I briefed Harry earlier this morning. The decision was made to not allow you to have any contact with each other after being given your new identities, in order to make sure that there was as little opportunity as possible for anyone to find either of you, and that includes finding each other. If everything has stayed on schedule, Harry has already been seen by the Unspeakables and is being relocated as we speak. I'm sorry, Hermione.'

Hermione looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly, trying not to allow the tears she could feel forming to fall. She had suspected that this would be the case, but the finality of the situation was harder than she'd expected it would be.

'Of course,' she replied weakly. 'That's the safest option. Is there anything else, Minister?'

He shook his head after a pause, then cleared his throat. 'No, that's all. Claire will see you to a secure office down the hall for you to read through your file, and Unspeakable Webb will come to collect you from there when he's ready.'

Hermione nodded as she stood, and made to leave the office. As she reached for the door handle, Kingsley spoke up once more.

'Take care of yourself, Miss Granger.'

She froze for a moment and then, without turning back to face him, replied in a small voice before leaving the office.

'It's Miss Jackson, Minister.'

Vittoria - no, Hermione - shocked awake on a chair in the café, shaking off the memory as her eyes settled on Neville, dressed in smart muggle clothing, sitting across the table from her. He'd changed his appearance a little, clearly as a part of his cover. His sandy blonde hair had been spelled a dark brown and he'd grown it out some, as he'd also grown a small, tidy amount of facial hair. Other than that though, his face was still very much his own, and it was looking at her with no small measure of apprehension.

She took a deep breath to collect herself before breaking the silence. 'It's good to see you again, Neville.'

Neville sagged in obvious relief. 'Hey, Hermione. You too.'

There were a whole host of things laid out on the table in front of her: her wand, a wrist holster, two potions, a pile of her own clothing, a pair of glasses, and a letter addressed to her. Neville followed her eyes and cleared his throat.

'The green potion is to undo the body transformation, and the blue is a minor pain relief potion because the first often gives people a headache. The glasses are identical to the ones you've been wearing but with plain glass in place of lenses, as people often take a little while to get used to not wearing them. The letter is from Kingsley.'

Hermione nodded and collected her wand and holster, and the pile of clothing from the table and stood. 'I'll just go and get changed in the back before taking the potion. These clothes won't fit me after I take it,' she said, gesturing down to the outfit she was wearing.

As Neville nodded his acquiescence, she made her way towards the back rooms of the cafe, where there was a small bathroom. Once in there, she placed her things on the closed toilet and took a moment to study herself in the mirror.

Though she'd been given a description of the changes, she hadn't been given a chance to actually see her cover identity before being placed into a potion induced sleep and moved to York. Vittoria Jackson was pretty. Like really pretty, Hermione noted with some semblance of bitterness. Once she took that potion, she would return to her own, plain, body. The lovely blonde hair she had put up in an almost effortlessly stylish messy bun would be replaced by her own bushy, brown hair.

In a few moments, she'd grow about five inches, and gain a few inches around her waist. Vittoria Jackson was skinnier than Hermione herself actually was. Her boobs would grow slightly as she returned to herself, though she didn't really care one way or another about that. The birthmark that was currently on her neck would disappear, and the scar on her throat from Bellatrix Lestrange's knife would reappear. The freckles that usually sat across her nose and cheeks would return, and her face would change from the thin and long shape it was now to more heart-shaped.

As she studied her face, she took a moment to properly appreciate the colour of her eyes - a very familiar, bright green. Whoever had designed this identity for her had left her with a small piece of her old life to keep, though she hadn't been able to appreciate it until now. At the moment, she stared past her glasses into a pair of eyes she hadn't really seen in over a year. Harry's eyes.

Shaking herself out of her sentimentality, she turned away from the mirror and got changed out of Vittoria Jackson's clothes and into Hermione Granger's. They were a size or two too big for her smaller frame, but that would be rectified soon enough. Instead of putting her plimsolls on, she picked them up and headed back out to Neville. She couldn't imagine that wearing shoes while her feet changed shape would be a particularly pleasant experience.

Hermione returned to the front of the café to find Neville sat where she'd left him. He was typing out a message on a mobile phone, which was a bit of a shock to see. She supposed that his cover went beyond just pretending to be a police detective for her own sake. He finished his message as she sat back down opposite him and smiled gently.

'Is Harry at the Ministry already?' Hermione asked, hoping for a casual tone but knowing that it probably sounded as desperate as she felt.

Neville hummed for a moment. 'No, he's not. I've actually come to restore you first.'

That wasn't the plan, Hermione thought, and furrowed her brow. 'The plan was that you'd get him first then come to me, wasn't it? What happened? Is he okay? Did something happen to him?'

'He's fine,' Neville assured her quickly. 'Nothing bad has happened. It's just that, even with no memory of himself or the magical world, Harry still managed to screw up the plans of the Ministry.' Neville grinned as he spoke. 'He was sent to Bournemouth to work with Dorset Police, but over the course of the last year or so, got wrapped up in a missing person's case and got a transfer.'

Hermione looked at Neville in confusion. How did that mess up the Ministry's plans? Seeing the question in her eyes, he continued.

'He moved to the North Yorkshire Police, and has spent the last four months trying to solve the disappearance of Grant Jackson. I was assigned as his partner once the Ministry caught wind of what was going on, and we recently caught a lead when we finally found the location of Mr Jackson's daughter, VIttoria.'

Neville finished with a laugh, and Hermione couldn't help but grin. 'So Harry's been investigating the disappearance of my cover identity's father, a man who doesn't exist, and you've been spending however long helping him try to find me?'

'Two months,' he confirmed with a chuckle. 'The Ministry is doing some work as we speak to get his case wrapped up and to get me and him transferred out of the force to tie up the loose ends, but I'm due to go and restore him at 3pm. Would you like to join me?'

Hermione's eyes lit up with excitement. 'Really? Has the Ministry approved this?'

With a gesture towards the letter on the table, Neville nodded. 'Apparently Kingsley pulled some strings.'

She picked up the letter and turned it over to find the seal of the Minister of Magic on the reverse. Completely disregarding the usual care she opened envelopes with, she tore into it and took the letter from within.

It was a small piece of parchment with only two lines written on it.

Go get him, Hermione.

-Kings

The emotions of the last hour finally caught up to Hermione all at once, and she choked out a sob as she clutched onto the little note. Neville smiled at her gently.

'Come on. Take your potions, Hermione, and let's all go home.'

Hermione nodded jerkily, smiling through her tears.

'Let's go home,' she agreed.