Waiting On Bated Breath
Prologue:
An Enemy on the Inside
It had been six years since Hermione Granger had first met the infamous Boy Who Lived, whom was now one of her best friends. Those six years had been a lead-up to the final climax of the war with Voldemort. But more importantly, the final confrontation between Harry and the Dark Lord.
Currently, the war was at a standstill, both parties holding baited breath until the other made their move. Or that's the way the Government put it. In reality, Hermione knew that the ministry had lost track of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and had officials frantically searching all over the country, trying to locate the whereabouts of their most feared enemy.
The tension and lack of activity in the war did concern the more astute members of the wizarding community. They knew Lord Voldemort was one for spectacles, and wanted the attention and awareness of those who feared him. That this apparent rest in battle was out of character. Hermione realized this as well, however, she knew the real reason behind it.
Hermione was aware of more than the fact that the government's lies were covering up for the fact they no longer knew what their opponent was doing. No, she knew how and why the loss of tracking intelligence had suddenly ceased to exist. In fact, Hermione, herself, was, in some twisted way, the reason.
About a month ago, in around the third week of February, Hermione had decided to track the activities of many important employees of the Ministry of Magic. No one really knew why she suddenly cared- or what possessed her to do this- but she did. With the help of Arthur Weasley, and Albus Dumbledore, Hermione had successfully traced and recorded the whereabouts of seventy-five government workers, implementing a device not so much unlike that the Marauder's Map was controlled with.
After four weeks of surveillance, Hermione concluded that forty-nine of the officials were actually working for Lord Voldemort After further collecting of evidence and proof, Dumbledore had taken her findings to the Mister of Magic himself- Cornelius Fudge. Who, of course, had denied any and all claims made.
Fortunately for the entire Wizarding population, Dumbledore was able to pull a few strings in some very important places, and used those and the evidence Hermione had found, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were most certainly "double-agents", as it were, in the ministry.
Both Hermione and Dumbledore had thought it best to hold their findings from both the public and the rest of the ministry and wait it out to see what would happen, but Fudge had other plans. He quietly fired and imprisoned all forty nine employees- making excuses for each and every one their absences. The explanations themselves weren't too hard to rationalize- the war had started, and everything was off-balance. However, there was still the possibility of more Death Eaters working in the Ministry. A worried Fudge had then put all employees to an interview, which contained Veritaserum in the tea, which they were so generously offered. Thirty eight more Death Eaters were found out this way, and ample more had run back to their Lord before their cover, too, was blown. At the end of it all, an alarming number of one hundred and twelve (and possibly more) Voldemort supporters had infiltrated their ranks. It was quite alarming to know that the Government's information was not at all a secret. Voldemort knew everything the Ministry of Magic knew, except for the most confidential of facts.
Upon further inspection of the provided Intel on the Death Eaters' whereabouts and happenings, investigators had found that all information had been provided by or through those workers whom had just been locked up. The Government had been strung along in the war by their enemy.
The double agents had fed out just enough information so the government thought they had one up on their nemesis. But they held back all of the important things, so the Ministry was, in reality, ignorant and blind.
Nothing had changed at all in that aspect, February to March, except Voldemort was no longer tracing their movements from inside the Ministry. But that was all the wizard population had gained from it, because with absolutely no information about Voldemort and the Death Eaters, the government was as in the dark as ever. Thanks to Hermione.
But in the week of waiting, Hermione found her self not concentrating on following the activities of the Dark Lord, but those of somebody else entirely.