Chapter Nine:
Lost at Sea by Ben Chatwin
January 3rd, 2000
"I'm on desk duty this week and Ginny is playing a tournament in Ireland, do you want to get lunch at the Ministry cafeteria today?" Harry's voice startles her as she sits at the island eating her breakfast. He's fiddling with his badge and tie, his glasses smudged and dirty from consistently pushing them up his nose.
"I'd love to," she says and with a nod he's gone.
Hermione sets foot into the ministry after two weeks away and she doesn't know if she missed work or just the routine of it all. She fidgets with her bracelet while waiting for the lifts, grateful to be back after the emotional rollercoaster of the last two weeks.
A few people behind her are whispering and she can just catch every other word. She knows they're talking about her outburst in front of the Burrow. Knows they're saying she's unhinged, unfit to work.
"Poor dear…"
"...so sad…"
"Weasley boy…"
Or are they talking about the absolutely abysmal photo Skeeter chose of her and Ron at the ministry ball. When she saw it in the paper, the first thing she thought was how forced her smile looked. Her hair was dull in the light from the chandelier, collar bones on display as she fidgeted in the moving image. Ron seemed tired, his hand hovering over her boney hip, not quite resting comfortably.
The caption read: Golden Trio put their differences aside to partake in ministry ball at Malfoy Manor.
She finds herself sighing to herself, closing her eyes.
"Hermione! Well look at you!" Dean's happy voice pulls her from her thoughts and she moves over so he can stand next to her. "How was your holiday?" The way he looks at her, she knows he's seen the papers.
"Uneventful," she mutters and he pats her on the back in a jovial way, still grinning down at her with his kind smile.
"Wanna come round for a drink this weekend? You can catch Seamus and I up on your uneventful holiday?"
They step onto the lifts and she's pushed to the back, separated from Dean before she has a chance to answer. The wizards who were gossiping behind her continue to prattle on about their holiday, how they refused to go to the ministry ball this year because of where it was held.
"It's despicable Kingsley would allow so much showboating with the war barely being over."
She wants to scream, to stomp her feet and throw her hands in the air. The ministry didn't care where the ball was held. This should be the least of the ministries worries, they did nothing while children died. Did nothing while her and her friends were thrown into dangerous situations. Did nothing when Harry said Voldemort was back.
Are doing nothing…
Hermione can feel her anger rising, coming to a boiling point, she can feel the heat rolling off her face.
But their conversation is cut off when Blaise Zabini steps into the elevator.
He's pale, his hands shaking as he wrings them together nervously. Eyes darting around in a frightful way, his skin clammy, sweat gathering above his brow. He looks like he may vomit, lips pressed together tightly.
She doesn't think she's ever seen Blaise so out of sorts. His button down untucked from his trousers, no coat even though it's January.
Dean catches her eye from the other side of the lift, ensuring she sees how awful he looks. She gives a discreet nod.
Blaise gets off on the same floor as her, but disappears before she sees where he's headed.
When Hermione and Harry meet for lunch that day, she tells him all about Blaise.
They're sitting in the ministry cafeteria and Harry picks at his croissant noncommittally. The tables are nice enough, making it look more like a restaurant than a cafeteria. But the Formica and aluminium tables pull her into her grandmother's kitchen. She's nine years old again, offering to help bake a chocolate cake for her mother's birthday.
"You said you saw Blaise in the ministry?" She nods, taking a sip from her coffee, pushing the memory down, down, inside a box to open later. Harry leans back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. "You're sure it was Blaise?"
"Harry, of course I'm sure. He must be on trial or something, he got off on the same floor as me. Ask Dean!"
"Hermione, Blaise isn't on trial. We raided his house a few weeks ago and found he has no connection to anything Death Eater related. Even when we were in school he was clean. There's no reason for him to be in the ministry." Hermione narrows her gaze at him. "Maybe he's visiting Theodore? He was picked up last night in muggle London—"
"Theodore Nott in muggle London?" her words spill from her mouth so quickly it takes Harry a moment to process what she said.
"Uh yeah, he was caught performing magic in front of muggles. They needed to be obliviated and he's currently in holding. It was nothing serious though."
"Were you the arresting Auror?"
"No, it was Gawain and his partner but I'm processing the paperwork now. He should be released later today." Harry leans forward, picking at his croissant once more. He lets out a deep sigh leaning his face on his hand.
He's tired, the added stress of training and taking on his own cases is starting to take its toll. Hermione reaches across the table, touching his forehead gently. She knows he's scared, trying not to think of what terrible things could be happening within the ministry.
"You're doing well. You're doing your best and I hope everyone you work with can see it," she says, taking his glasses from his face and casting a quick cleaning charm.
"It sure doesn't feel like they notice," he mutters, "I still have a weird feeling. There's something going on, I just don't know what."
"We'll figure it out…" she lets her voice trail, and doesn't want to add what she's thinking.
I just hope it's nothing serious. The world can't handle another revolt right now…
After lunch Hermione returns to her desk to a stack of paperwork that needs filing. Technically the work is beneath her, but Connor requested a few extra days off for the holidays, so she's in charge of the interdepartmental filing.
She gathers the stack, struggling for a moment before casting a featherlight charm and heading to the lifts. Filing always tends to bring her peace, time to think, turn off her brain for a while as she goes on autopilot.
Her first stop is the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, she shuffles her papers around, bringing the ones she needs to the top before exiting the lifts. Head down, she's shifting things around when she exits.
The receptionist greets her, waving her through to drop her papers off in the storage room.
"Fancy seeing you twice in one day, Granger." Dean smiles at her, leaning over the half door that separates the storage room from the rest of the office.
"Knew you'd want to see me again since I never accepted your invite for drinks on Friday." She hands him the stack that he flips through idly.
"You're on Granger! Leaky Cauldron at 6? Convince Ginny and Ron to come, I want some inside intel on trades happening between the Irish and British league." Rolling her eyes she returns to the lifts, on to her next destination.
She completes her filing, popping into the atrium cafeteria for a coffee before returning to her desk. The afternoon line is always long, so she waits quietly, looking out over the foyer when a familiar sight exits the elevators across from her.
Malfoy, in an all-black suit walks a few paces in front of a terrible-looking Theodore Nott. His expression is carefully blank as he holds out his arm, which Nott grips with a shaking hand, his other arm clenched tightly to his body.
He looks worse than Blaise, his skin clammy in the white light of the ministry atrium. Looking as if he will vomit, Malfoy throws an arm over his shoulder when he slows.
Malfoy's hands are shaking too. Nott looks deathly pale, almost translucent as he stumbles. Together they make their way out of the ministry and Hermione attempts to catch Malfoy's eyes, trying to see if he's looking in her direction.
Her heart sinks.
What are they doing to you…
Hermione comes home late on Wednesday night, Beatrice had her stay to have a meeting about her performance and where she sees herself in the ministry in the coming years.
It sounds worse than it is, to be truthful. Kingsley's speech on New Years Eve had ignited something in her she had been missing for a while. Although seeing the Slytherin trio in the ministry today was making her second guess where she wanted to be.
Beatrice's office holds no personality, no photos of family, no trinkets. The grey walls are bare, her desk situated right in the middle with enchanted windows that apparently hold images of the White Cliffs of Dover.
Hermione pulls at her skin, her scar burning under her own touch before she answers Beatrice's question, "I want to make a lasting change. I'm very interested in the biases muggle-born witches and wizards face, not only before their formative Hogwarts years, but after."
"The promotion will be a great stepping stone to get into that field, Hermione. You've been shortlisted along with a few others from different departments, you will have an interview in the next coming weeks to see if you're qualified for the job." It takes everything in her not to roll her eyes. Of course she's qualified for the job, as a muggle-born witch she of all people understands the biases fellow muggle-borns face.
She wonders who else has been shortlisted, wants to know immediately but just lets her anger simmer, excusing herself from Beatrice's office.
When she gets home, Harry has ordered take out and left her some on the counter. She throws a portion onto a plate before climbing the stairs all the way to the top of Grimmauld Place.
Everyone has gone back to their lives after the break and Hermione, to her own surprise, misses the chaos of the Weasley house.
Luna and Melody have gone on holiday to the Lake District, Ginny and Ron are both playing in a tournament in Ireland and Neville is back at Hogwarts shadowing Professor Sprout.
She climbs past all the closed doors to the very top floor, reaching for the trap door to unfurl the attic stairs. Not too much further, through all the old Black family heirlooms and a particularly nasty portrait of Sirius's mother that spits insults at her.
Hermione can see the open window at the end of the attic hall, knowing exactly where to find Harry.
"Hey! Take my food would you!" she shouts, holding her full plate out the window and feeling Harry grab it. With little grace, she climbs out the window and onto the low pitched roof.
From the top of the old house they can see unhindered for miles, the streets bustling below them. Harry has cast a warming charm on one corner that she gratefully steps into, sitting cross legged and putting her plate in front of her.
Harry is about to say something when she cuts him off.
"I promise I won't tell Ginny I caught you smoking," she says around a bite of Pad Thai. His shoulders soften at her words before lighting up another cigarette, settling back onto the roof. Leaning back on his elbow he looks up at the dark sky.
They sit in their comfortable silence they always seem to enjoy together for a while. Hermione eating and Harry chain smoking from a worn pack of Benson and Hedges. The sounds of pedestrians and cars echoing through the streets below them.
"I saw Malfoy with Nott on Monday…" her voice trails and Harry locks eyes with her, taking a long drag and holding it, "Harry, neither of them looked well. Even worse than Blaise…" She's done eating, plate pushed to the side with her half finished meal.
"What do you mean they looked unwell?" he asks, passing the cigarette into her outstretched hand. She takes a pull, feeling the smoke fill her lungs.
"I mean they looked clammy, their hands were shaking. Blaise looked pale like he was going to throw up in the lifts." She passes the cigarette back, hand falling to her bracelet and twisting it now that she doesn't have something to hold.
His brows furrow together, looking away at the skyline. Pursing his lips she can see he's been picking at his skin. "You don't think…" he starts, visibly collecting his thoughts before speaking again. "Do you think they're being tortured with the Cruciatus?" His voice is a whisper, scared to say it outloud.
Shaking hands, pale skin, sweating, nausea. All the symptoms seemed to fit.
The ministry torturing the children of Death Eaters, what a thought. But why? Blaise was never a Death Eater, neither was his mother. She was surrounded by suspicious deaths, but never found guilty of anything.
Hermione remembers little about Blaise other than she had to spend a few painful encounters with him at the Slug Club. Blaise, who wasn't an outstanding student, took Theodore Nott's place once Slughorn discovered his affiliation with the Death Eater's.
"Why would the ministry be torturing them?" Her voice matches his whisper and Harry reclines on the roof, eyes to the sky once more. She wonders if he's looking for Sirius' star, and wonders if he has an answer.
"I'm not sure. Malfoy and Nott's father's are both in Azkaban and Blaise has absolutely nothing to do with the Death Eaters." Harry confirms her thoughts, they have a theory with absolutely no evidence to go on.
"Harry, listen to me. I know I keep bringing this up to you, but please don't do anything stupid…" she says, taking hold of his arm and forcing him to look at her.
"And why on Earth would you think I'm going to do something stupid?" is all he says with a laugh.