Dumbledore looked over the top of his half moon spectacles, taking in her unpleasant appearance as she sat uncomfortably in a seat in his office. Thankfully for Hermione he had just been leaving the Three Broomsticks when she walked unsteadily down the steps of the Knight bus, trying to keep Crookshanks from tripping her as she went. She knew she looked a mess then and even worse now, as dark circles pointed out her need for sleep, she was wearing the same jogging clothes that she had left the house in, and she had been pulling at her hair in a nervous gesture, as she ran disastrous scenarios through her head. Most of them ended with the blame being placed on her, which landed her into Azkaban which meant her parents' murderer was roaming free while she rotted away in some cell. Dumbledore didn't look as if he'd do that, but the sparkle in his surveying eye was gone.

Finally he said, "I'll need you to go down to the ministry with me, if you don't mind. They'll use a truth serum on you, so I do hope that you've had a bit of something to eat, else your stomach might not agree with you later."

Realization dawned on her. She was a witch and the ministry was a magical institute that used the best of means to get the answers from people. Even if they had wrongfully sent Sirius away, there was no way they could wrongfully accuse her with the sudden advancements in information extraction. She had worried herself into this queasy state because she had been to much in shock about her parents to even think that they would know she was telling the truth. Relief still didn't come completely. A feeling of dread had just slowly ebbed away.

She shook her head before saying, "No, I've had nothing to eat since this morning, but the faster we report to the ministry the better." She paused then began again, "I need to tell the story one last time so I can stop worrying about having to relive it."

He nodded, and the gleam returned to his eye, as if it had been there, lurking below the surface of the watery blue.

"I am proud to see that you've kept your head about you," he spoke as he pulled the back of floo powder from the mantle place, "After this, I'd like to talk to you more about what you're going to do, if that's alright?"

"Yes, sir."

He threw the powder into the fire and shouted, "Ministry of magic, Prime Minister Fudge's Office!" and was gone in a flash.

Hermione followed suit and found her self racing through the floo system until the moving stopped and standing in the fire place of Fudge. Dumbledore had already dusted himself off by the time she stepped out and did the same. Fudge was staring, mildly interested, but at the same time annoyed by the sudden intrusion.

"Miss Granger has some information that you may find a bit stressful, but needing attention immediately." Dumbledore nodded in her direction after he finished his announcement.

She hadn't really thought of what to say. If hadn't occurred to her that she would be the one speaking to the glaring little ball of half wits and old wits. What was she supposed to say? Fudge cleared his throat, looking at her expectantly. There really was only one thing to tell him, but how to word it? His eyebrows knitted, almost closing the gap between them and his lips thinned in a line of impatience. She obviously had little time to think it over any more.

"My parents were murdered,"she couldn't stop the words from coming out, "I came home and found them laying on the floor. They seemed to have been cursed with an Unforgivable."

Fudge's eyes twitched for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something to the bushy-haired girl, before the door to his office swung open. In strolled, Malfoy senior, his cane grasped in his left hand by the silver snake head. His eyes moved from the fat little man sitting behind the desk that was twice as wide, to the headmaster and then finally to Hermione. His mouth turned up on one side for a second before he returned his gaze to the head of the Ministry and England's magical world. Fudge seemed to duck his head just a little as Lucius stared at him with a ghost of the Malfoy smirk that was almost permanently on his lips.

"I do hope," he began in a cold but amused voice, like the one belong to a future serial killer that had just tortured a puppy to death, "that I am not disturbing anything."

His eyebrow raised as he looked back towards the duo standing before the fireplace. His cold steel eyes danced with something that seemed to be haughty pleasure.

Hermione felt herself frown and ball up her fists and had she not such incredible will power, she would have lunged at him that moment and fought to the very death, most likely her own. She stared back, unflinchingly bold. She didn't break the eye contact until she turned her head to the sound of Fudge's voice.

"Why, Lucius, Professor Dumbledore was accompanying Miss Granger while she reported the unfortunate death of her parents, but," he turned from Malfoy to stare at Hermione with his eyebrows raised, "she believes that it was the Avada Kedavra curse that caused it."

Lucius looked from Hermione to Fudge, that award winning cruel smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Hermione could feel her heart beat speed up at least ten fold. All she could think about was that it had been him who had probably cast that curse. That it had been him who had helped kill her parents in cold blood, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had no proof and even in the wizarding world they would not be so willing to apply truth serum to someone on one person's allegations alone, much less to someone with as much influence and power as Lucius Malfoy. Even in this world of wand waving, money and connections got you everything.

"Does Miss Granger have a medical licence?" Lucius said cooly, adding a slight mock concern to his voice.

Hermione shook her head, but became more enraged. He was just trying to make her seem like a young and stupid girl. A young and stupid Mudblood. And in Fudge's eyes, she knew she was.

"Well, then, how could you diagnose the cause of death?" He said, almost bored with the whole thing, "Could they not have died of some nonmagical cause, like a heart attack, for example?"

Hermione could hold her tongue no longer at this, "Both my parents at the same time? I highly doubt it! Besides that, I don't think a heart attack could cause the dark mark to be burned on to their forearms."

Fudge's eyes widened once more, and he slightly gasped. His face was turning purple in anger at this new information. He just didn't want to believe that the world was in danger from Voldermort, even though they had caught- and released- a large number of death eaters months ago. They hadn't kept them because of course the ones that held high positions in the ministry had pulled the strings to help them out. The whole thing had been reported as the results of a strong controlling curse that was never disclosed.

"Well, that certainly is sad," Lucius's voice as cold as an iceberg, colliding into Hermione's ears, "Are you certain that Miss Granger didn't place it there to stir up trouble?"

She stepped forward, hands clinched into the tightest of fists.

"I do think," Dumbledore said as he placed a calming hand on Hermione's shoulder, "that the Department of Justice would like to question her while she is under the influence of a truth serum."

Fudge hesitated a minute as the old wizard turned his blue sparkling eyes towards him. In a moment, though, he got on his feet and nodded quickly, in short jerking motions. He waddled as fast as he could towards the door. It seems that he'd been eating many a late night snack, maybe in an attempt to calm his nerves. He held the door open and Lucius nodded before remarking that he'd return to discuss his business another time and that he did hope Hermione would be 'able to cope with her great lose'. He swept out the door and they could hear the heels of his shoes clicking on the hard marble floors. Dumbledore lifted his hand off of her shoulder and walked out the door, still held open by Fudge. Hermione followed him out, glancing at Fudge with frightened eyes as she walked past him.

Walking through doors, down stairs, up stairs, across busy and empty hallways, and one ride in the elevator later, Hermione was in the Department of Justice and was being handed different glowing potions to drink. After reliving the story in full detail and explaining why she waited so long to report to someone about twenty times, she was released. They had wanted her to go with them to the house, so that she could tell them if anything had moved since she had been there, but Dumbledore seeing the sick green tint of her face, insisted that she leave with him.

A week afterward they called her back, this time to identify the bodies as really her parents. They laid on metal tables in the center of a dark stone room. The air was cold and smelled of sadness and death. Hermione took one look at the faces, then pull the drape that covered her mother further down so that her arm was exposed. There it was. The skull wrapped in the body of a hissing snake who seemed ready to strike at Hermione, even though she knew it was just a mark, just warning scar.

The ministry did not charge Hermione with the deaths of her parents, and they did not report them as caused by the Dark Lord. They simply released that they had died of undisclosed causes and they were shutting the case down for the moment because there was no substantial evidence with which to begin any investigation.

Hermione didn't bother to fight it. She didn't bother to bring about he justice that her parents deserved. It had been a month after that and she was far more busy trying to sleep in the castle of Hogwarts, then she was trying to hurt the people she knew were responsible. She knew that they were still watching her every move so she couldn't lead them to Harry and the Order. She knew they would watch her as long as she was in England and she didn't know how much more she could take. With still two months before school started again she decided that she would travel. If it didn't stop the feeling of those eyes watching her, at least it would stop people from showering her in pity. She had the money. She had the knowledge to keep her safe. She had to leave.

A/n: I would like to thank my first reviewer, Really-A-Dopey-1 and this chapter is dedicated to them. Enjoy.