Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all of its characters do not belong to me. They belong to the nice people at Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury and Scholastic. And of course J K Rowling. I don't own any of the rites and I'm not actually clear on whether or not I own the plot.

Archived: Fanfiction.Net

Summary: Based on something that happened to her, Hermione Granger decides to become a key player in the war against Voldemort. When she crosses over, how will she find the line between undercover and immoral? More importantly, when she finds it, will she like it? HG/DM with mentions of HG/HP.

Author's note: This is rated 'R' for a reason. This story will contain adult themes and language. It is Dark and in a later chapter it will contain a torture scene – though this might change, since this is a work in progress.

Chapter Two: Training

Living at Hogwarts again was difficult after so many years. Hermione hadn't even known that she had missed it until her head hit the pillow after a long day of shopping. Her room was on the second floor, overlooking the lake; - Dumbledore told her that it had belonged to a pair of married teachers a few years before her time at Hogwarts. Though it was spacey – it gave her a strangely familiar feeling. I was kind of like coming home, and it gave her some comfort after years of trying to find her place.

Ron and Harry had gone off to the Ministry, Harry to become an Auror and Ron as a Hit Wizard for the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. They had both gone straight away after Hogwarts, and were sent to train with the best, or so she was told. They had spent the first two years in training and only this year had either of them been placed on active duty.

Which she was told, through letters, was very taxing… she didn't doubt it. Voldemort was still running around, trying to gain control of the World, and he was just the major problem. People sometimes forgot that regular crime still went on during wars, and that pick pockets, Dark Arts junkies, and even murderers, who didn't work for Voldemort, were still out there.

That meant that Harry and Ron had their hands full with work, and while they had time to drop an owl here or there, she hadn't actually seen either of them since they had finished training, and that had only been at a celebratory party. Before that she hadn't seen either of them since Harry broke up with her, on the train home.

He had meant well, she knew, thinking that he was protecting her. And she was over him, but she still wondered sometimes what might have happened. She had been accepted to the Auror Academy alongside Harry, but she had changed her mind. She wondered if she might have gone through with it if Harry had stayed with her.

She missed Ron and Harry so much, especially when her parent's died. She stayed at the burrow for at least a month with Ginny and Molly; those had been her darkest days. She had realized then, more than ever, that she couldn't fix everything with research and some well placed magic. It was the most frightening thought that she had ever had, winning over her thoughts when they had attempted to rescue Cho Chang.

Ron and Harry had been under what the Ministry called incommunicado, so they hadn't found out until the Christmas holidays. That owl had been a sad one where as it should have been joyful. Dark marks had been making their appearances all over England and no one was safe. She remembered hearing about Percy's astonishment that a Perfect had been Petrified during her second year, when she had woken up. Those days had been very much like that, especially when the Minister's family was attacked. No one was safe, unless you were on His side.

People had figured that one out real quick, and it was what Voldemort was trying for. Two hundred new recruits in one year… and then they had attacked the Ministry. Two hundred and thirty of them invaded at four o'clock in the morning, she saw them apparate from her building.

She gotten up for a glass of water and from the window in her kitchen on the seventh floor she had seen them coming. She knew then, instinctively, that it was time to try out her spell. So she was dressed in the blink of an eye and she Foo'd to the Ministry's main chambers.

Then she saw the swords for the second time, and Hermione knew that she had to get her hands on a pair of them. So she waited until the Death Eaters knew that they had the upper hand, and then she fired two stunning spells.

No one had noticed her.

Then she summoned the swords. She could still remember the feeling of magic and steel when she grabbed them, ending the summoning spell. They had been surprisingly light, and she would find out later that it was a part of the Goblin magic inside that caused it.

She had waited for Voldemort to appear before she started the spell.

It had actually been a mix of several spells, without an incantation. It was the Location spell and Banishing Charm - with a twist of her own. She actually wasn't quite sure where the Death Eaters had ended up – that was the one of the mishaps of the spell, she could never be quite sure where the recipients had gone. She had been hoping that it would bounce them into some kind of alternate reality. Then Harry came storming in, hero style, and he dueled with Voldemort, and drove him away. Hermione waited to make sure her friend was alright before she Foo'd home again and hid the swords. Then she dressed in proper wizarding robes and walked down to the Ministry to check out the situation. She had, at the time, been a free lance researcher and the Ministry normally called on her to solve some of their more difficult public mysteries. She had showed up on her own, with the pretense that she had heard the commotion from her apartment.

The public hadn't heard from the Death Eaters since then. No attacks, no Dark marks… for the first time in five years the Wizarding world seemed bereft of its resident Dark Lord.

Hermione had known then that they were planning something big.

July 1st was a morning that Hermione believed she would remember forever. You just didn't see the Headmaster, Snape, Harry and Ron dumbfounded, especially not by a rooky.

She had taken Ron's suggestion very seriously and that night she had preformed the Room-sealing spell, which she was certain that none but Dumbledore could break and she had set a few of her own traps.

So when a green bearded Dumbledore all but collapsed onto her rug she was unsurprised, but gratified.

"Where are the others, Albus?" Hermione asked as she reversed the Transmogrifian Torture that she had modified to a semi permanent dye. His beard was now only slightly green – it would wear off in a month or two.

"Ron is cornered by an Acromantula, Harry fell into the Devil's snare – and he relaxed immediately, he is now stuck in a ten foot hole that has been charmed to repel any magic he attempts."

Hermione hid a smile behind her hand and asked neutrally, "What of Snape?"

"He believes that he is confronting a fully grown werewolf." Dumbledore said gravely.

Hermione smiled then, "Good and I expect that all of you were on your way here to give me a special 'wakeup'?"

Dumbledore's eyes flashed in surprise, "You did all of this? You've sent an Acromantula loose in the school?"

"…Of course not…. The spider is a very real representation, and it is quite solid but it won't give Ron anything more than a scare."

"What about the werewolf?"

Hermione laughed, "That was actually a Bogart. It owed me a favor and I asked it to hold Snape for as long as he could."

"The Bogart owed you a favor?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"Yes… I found him in the restricted section, and I promised not to vanquish him if he would do me a favor."

The door opened behind them and Snape snarled in her direction. "How clever of you…."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "My mother always said that you should make sure that you won't need to cross a bridge again before you burn it. It's why I still speak with Pansy, every now and then."

"The two of you maintained a friendship?" The headmaster asked.

Hermione snorted. "I wouldn't say that we ever had a friendship. Ever since… Diagon Alley, we came to an agreement. If she needs something I get it for her, and if I need something she gets it for me. It isn't by any means a friendship, but the alliance will help my task run smoother. The Parkinson's are Dark Art practitioners and though Pansy has chosen not to follow in their footsteps, she does have a certain taste for it."

"Won't Miss Parkinson become curious about your sudden interest in the Dark Arts?" Snape asked.

"Every first of the month she extends an invitation for me to visit a Dark club, and every month I refuse. The last three months I have shown more interest than I normally would. When she invites me to come with her on August 1st I am going to say yes." Hermione said confidently.

"Do you have any idea what goes on at a Dark club?" Snape sneered.

"I do." Hermione answered, and continued before Snape could interrogate her further. "If you'll excuse me, I should probably release Harry and Ron. I think I might have angered them instead of making a good impression like I had intended." She said, barely hiding a chuckle at Harry's antics, which could be heard throughout the castle.

"How can you allow this, Albus?" Snape asked once Hermione had left the room to rescue her friends.

Dumbledore looked all of his one hundred and sixty one years. "We are fighting a war, Severus, and Hermione is a logical girl. The information she gathers may very well come between the world and its total destruction."

"The child is barely twenty one! While I'll admit that she has more knowledge than an average witch of her age, she is not ready for what you are about to do."

 "That is why she came to us. She is a sensible girl and despite your views of her, she does know her limits. Tomorrow is going to be a very different day indeed." Dumbledore said heavily, though his eyes twinkled with something that Snape couldn't place.

"What's this?" Hermione asked, picking up a tiny plastic device. "It isn't a hearing aid, is it?"

Harry, who had finally gotten over his embarrassment at being caught (it had only taken two days), reached forward and gently took the piece of plastic from Hermione. He motioned for her to move closer to him, and he popped the gadget into her ear. Then he pulled out his wand and cast an invisibility spell on it. Harry took a second one out of his pocket and placed it in his own ear.

'Can you hear me?'

Hermione jumped slightly at the sound of Harry's voice inside of her head. She thought back to him, 'Loud and clear.'

Aloud she said, "What's the catch?"

Harry smiled and Hermione jumped as she heard his voice inside of her head again.

'I wonder what she's wearing under those robes. I have to remember to pick up Dragon's blood… tomorrow is -.'

'What is going on? Harry? I wonder if that scar really has harmed him.' Hermione gasped aloud as she realized that Harry heard that last part. "But… I didn't mean… you weren't supposed to hear that last part." She finished lamely.

Harry removed the piece of plastic from her ear and restored its visibility. "That is the drawback. When we're both wearing them, we hear everything the other person is thinking. That is why they are considered dark." Harry started to explain as he removed the device from his own ear and placed it in his pocket. "Imagine having to hear your own thoughts as well as another person's – it is enough to drive anyone mad."

"Why are you showing it to me?" Hermione asked, confused.

Harry looked sheepish. "I thought that... maybe, when you started to spy that you could wear it –."

Hermione interrupted him. "There is no way that I am putting that thing in my ear again. It is too creepy… you can hear my every thought. There is too much power in that, and what if someone could detect it? Huh? What am I supposed to say then? 'Oh that is just Harry Potter in my head, don't mind him, he's just trying to figure out a way to kill all of you.' It is too dangerous."

"Fine," Harry said moodily. "I just thought that it would be easier for you not to do this alone."

"Alone? Ron is dead, he is worse than dead. I didn't mean that I couldn't do it. I just… got over-emotional. I was thinking about… things… before I came here and.... I'll be fine!" Hermione huffed.

"I know." Harry said, sitting down the table. His eyes gazed over the restricted books, but Hermione could tell that he was trying to form the words. "I'm completely against you going; I want you to know that. It isn't because I think that you can't spy, or that you can't save the world… because you can. I just… if you die, I'll kill you! Understood?"

Hermione laughed. "That would be pretty hard, don't you think?"

"I'm serious!" Harry protested.

"Now, Harry, I don't remember giving you permission to impersonate me." A voice called from the door way.

"…Sirius!" Hermione yelled. "How did you get in here? It doesn't even matter! It is so good to see you." She ran forward and threw herself at him.

Sirius raised an eyebrow at Harry, over Hermione who he was hugging tightly.

"She's over-emotional." Harry said cheekily.

Hermione ignored him and pulled away from Sirius suddenly. "I should hate you, you know that? One morning you're gone, and there is no note, no one can tell me where you are! It was torture!"

It was Harry's turn to raise an eyebrow. "One morning you were gone and there was no note? When did this happen?" Harry said, half-jokingly.

Hermione blushed. "I wanted to tell you, but it didn't seem right to mention it in a note… and then he left. It didn't start out like that, Harry, wait."

Harry pushed pass them and out of the restricted section without a word. 

Hermione looked up and Sirius, who was looking after Harry. "I should go after him…."

Sirius dragged his eyes back onto her. "It's my responsibility. I should never have touched you knowing that –."

Hermione pushed herself away from him. "Why does everyone always have to look after Harry? He is a grown boy, and he broke up with me. Everyone seems to forget that little tiny detail. He broke my heart."

"Hermione, you don't understand. You don't know everything –."

"Yes, that's right. No one can tell Hermione anything. Poor, Hermione, she can't handle any information. You're just as bad, Sirius! Do you have any idea how worried you had me?"

"About that, Hermione, we have to talk." Sirius said quietly.

Hermione looked at him curiously and then it suddenly hit her. "Oh, no, you didn't, Sirius. You went back to her?" She said furiously. "I know that it's been a year and a half, and I expected you to see other people, lord knows I did, but you went back with her."

"Arabella is good for me, we're the same age and –." Sirius said quietly.

"Leave." Hermione said tonelessly.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Leave."

"Hermione, if you'll just listen –."

"LEAVE!" Hermione yelled. "I don't want to look at you."

Sirius closed his eyes painfully and shut the door on his way out.

Hermione rushed forward and locked the door before collapsing in front of it. 'I will not cry, I will not cry, I won't cry, I will not cry.'

Hermione felt the tears run down her cheek, one after another, mocking her. 'What did we tell you about letting another person inside? We said he'd break your heart.'

"This time was supposed to be different."

'Oh, sweetie, it's never different.  It goes great. You spend time together, feelings grow deeper, and one day, without even realizing it, you find you're in love. Time stops, And it feels like the whole world's made for you two, and you two alone, until the day one of you leaves and rips the still-beating heart from the other, who's now a broken, hollow, mockery of the human condition.'

"Oh this is ridiculous!" Hermione said, wiping the tears from her face viciously. "I have work to do, the world to save, and I do not have time to take a trip down memory lane. Memory lane is closed."

The wind was beating against her bedroom window, begging her to open it. An owl tapped at the kitchen window, asking for entrance. She ignored it all, nothing mattered. Her parent's were dead. They were gone, not coming back, six feet under. Tomorrow she was supposed to go over their house for brunch, but they wouldn't be there. Crookshanks was purring at her feet, rubbing against her leg, trying to get her attention. The front door slammed open. She wondered what Harry was doing -.

Wait.

The front door slammed open?

She rushed out of the bedroom with her wand grasped tightly in her hand. She screamed at what was waiting for her.

A dementor, a gleaming black hooded monster, waiting to suck out her soul.

"I'm sorry Hermione, but it isn't going to work."

Harry, no, please!

"Are you Ms. Hermione Granger? I'm afraid I have some bad news; there has been an accident…."

Mom, Dad!

"Neville Longbottom has been captured, Headmaster."

No, not Neville….

Hermione's wand fell to the floor with a loud clang that she didn't notice. A part of her could still feel the dementor approaching, coming onto her, lifting its hood.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The cold feeling was going away. The voices began to retreat. She felt a piece of chocolate forced into her mouth, which she instinctively chewed on. Warmth filled her, from head to toe. She opened her eyes.

The door was shut and the dementor was gone.

Sirius Black was kneeling in front of her.

"Are you alright? I've been tracking that bugger for days, finally got it cornered and it brings me here! Do you have any dark enemies…? I can't figure out why it would know to come here."

"…Sirius?" Hermione asked tearfully.

"Yeah?"

"My parent's are dead."

Hermione collapsed into tears.

Sirius held her and she remembered thinking for the first time since the accident, since she left the burrow, that maybe she could handle it. That maybe, one day, she could stop crying.

Then the door burst open and hit her in the back.

Hermione was ripped away from her memories by a sudden, sharp feeling against her spine. It took her a few moments to realize that it hadn't ended that way, and therefore someone was trying to get inside of the room.

She pulled herself off of the ground and ran over to her books, with her back to the door. She discreetly wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Granger, have you forgotten about our lesson?"

Hermione groaned inwardly. Yes, she had forgotten, and no, she didn't want to spend anytime with Snape right now, especially not when her eyes were probably very red and puffy. "Of course not, I was just getting things together."

"Fine then we'll start with beginners –."

Hermione swirled around. "You know, as well as I do, Snape, that I finished beginners Dark Arts for my Seventh year Honors project. It isn't as though I would have forgotten all that I've learned since then."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "– spy skills. Reacting to a rise will only get you dead, Granger. Crying also shows a sign of immense weakness."

Hermione glared angrily. "I realize that."

"I suppose it will be easier for you without Black and Potter around. They do seem to cloud your judgment. What was it this time, lovers spat?"

"It's none of your business."

Before Hermione realized that Snape had gone for his wand, he had already said: "Imperio."

Tell me why you are crying.

Everything was strange and misty, but if she just followed that voice….

Go on, tell me.

All she had to do was tell this nice man why she was crying, it was so easy.

"No."

You refuse?

Hermione suddenly snapped out of it. "Yes I refuse. You know, it isn't very polite to cast unforgiveables on someone."

She thought she saw surprise flicker in Snape's eyes but Hermione figured it must have been the light because the next second he was still the same old Snape.

"First piece of advice: Get rid of Potter and Black if you can't control your impulses around them." Then he swept out of the room.

Hermione, as much as she'd rather not, agreed with Snape partly. Harry and Sirius affected her judgment and if she wanted to spy nothing could affect her judgment.

 "I am not working with her, Albus!" Hermione cried indignantly.

"You aren't exactly peaches and cream, yourself sweetheart." Arabella sneered.

"What is the problem, ladies?" Dumbledore asked.

"The problem! The problem is that she tried to kill me." Hermione said sneering in Arabella's direction.

"Now, Hermione, wasn't that years ago?" Dumbledore asked kindly.

"I tried to kill you? You tried to kill me first."

"Yeah, well, you tried to kill Harry!"

"That was a very big misunderstanding." Arabella huffed.

"What didn't you understand about it? I understood, didn't you understand, Albus?" Hermione said roughly.

"Well, Harry wasn't really himself." Dumbledore began.

"He was using Polyjuice potion! How was I to know that he wasn't Lucius Malfoy?" Arabella yelled.

"Yes, well, there was a perfectly explainable reason for that. Anyway, what reasons did you have for killing Lucius Malfoy? Besides having met the man, that is. It isn't like Harry attacked you or anything."

"Lucius Malfoy didn't belong on school grounds." Arabella said tightly.

"Oh, yeah, well, I think there are a few squirrels outside that probably don't belong on the grounds, why don't you go kill them?" Hermione said haughtily.

"I refuse to work with her, Albus." Hermione and Arabella yelled together.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Dumbledore commanded.

They took their seats in front of his desk without looking at each other.

Hermione looked around the room waiting for Dumbledore to break the awkward silence. She smiled uncertainly at Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, and thought she saw the sorting hat wink at her before anyone spoke.

"The two of you have certainly tried my patience over the years, but enough is enough. Tomorrow is a new day and the both of you," here Dumbledore sent a quelling look in Arabella's direction, "Will feel quite different toward each other."

Something seemed to pass between Arabella and Albus, but Hermione, who was too busy feeling confused, missed it. 'What exactly did Dumbledore mean, "Over the years"? She hadn't seen Arabella since the whole debacle in fifth year.

"I'll leave you to it then, Albus." Arabella said sounding resigned. She got up and walked to the door, once she reached it though, she seemed to change her mind. Arabella turned back to Hermione and looked at her with almost kind eyes.

"Don't be so quick to give away your heart." Then she left without another word.

Hermione felt a renewed sort of anger. 'How dare that little bitch say that about Sirius?"

"Hermione," Dumbledore said gently, bringing her out of a wonderful fantasy in which she force fed Arabella Basilisk poison.

"Yes Albus?"

"I realize that you wanted this to be on your terms, but you must understand that time is a fickle thing. You must do this, because you already have." Dumbledore said sagely.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your mother was correct, Hermione, you will save the world."

"What –." Hermione started to say but was interrupted by a sudden burst of green light. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again Dumbledore was looking at her curiously. "I'm sorry… I must have blacked out for a moment."

"Quite understandable child…. When do you come from?"

Hermione blinked. "When do I come from?"

"Yes, yes, the year, what year is it?"

"2001." Hermione said, confused by the abrupt change of subject.

"Ah, yes, I was told you were coming."

"Albus? What is going on?"

"Ah, yes, I should explain. The year, my child is 1979."

"No, it isn't."

"I assure you, it is." A male voice said quietly from the corner of Dumbledore's office.

Hermione swiveled around in her chair and stared transfixed at the sight before her.

Draco Malfoy was leaning against Dumbledore's cabinet looking both pleased and serious.

This would have been fine with Hermione. It didn't matter that Malfoy hadn't been there a moment ago, or that his presence would have been detected at Hogwarts. That didn't bother her at all, no the thing that disturbed her was that Draco Malfoy had been dead for three years.

She had examined the body herself.

Author's note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I am sorry for the wait, and hopefully the next chapter will be out much sooner. For some reason I had a hell of a time trying to write the middle of this chapter. Anything that I wrote, I hated – it was a bad few days and anymore of it might have broken the delete button on my keyboard!

'It goes great. You spend time together, feelings grow deeper, and one day, without even realizing it, you find you're in love. Time stops, And it feels like the whole world's made for you two, and you two alone, until the day one of you leaves and rips the still-beating heart from the other, who's now a broken, hollow, mockery of the human condition.' Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4.

Thanks to:

Material Girl, Crazy-Peanut-Chick, milehigh, HarryPotterWanter, Irony, Blanche Dubois, Spazy-Sange, Lisa.F, FreAkOnALeaSh.