"Long, Long, Long"

Chapter 11

Hermione arrived with a small popping noise in her London apartment, which was situated just a few blocks from the visitors' entrance to the Ministry. She sat down in an armchair and leaned back her head, closing her eyes.

The one thing she had thought she wanted so much--to see Draco again--had turned out to be one of the things she was most afraid of. She couldn't understand why she had reacted the way she did; what was it that she was so afraid was going to happen? Then she realized that she had already gone through the horror of separation once; if she were to see him again only for a few minutes and then have to deal with it all over again…it would be too much for her to handle.

It was probably best, she realized, that she had left when she did--for both of them. Having now justified her strange behavior, Hermione took a deep breath and rested in her chair for a while before preparing to start her new position the next day.

…

Draco sat in the chair before Gloria's desk as she had asked him to. He was still a bit dazed from the fact that he had nearly run into Hermione seconds ago. He didn't know how he would have reacted if they had actually met again. There might have been a long, awkward silence while neither of them moved and Gloria looked between them, confused. He smiled at the picture and was jerked out of his trance by Gloria, who asked him, "Now why is it that you would like a position here, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco, ready for this question, answered, "I would like to help the Ministry as much as possible with the fight against the Death Eaters. One of my teachers once mentioned that I would make a good auror, so I figured I would check for openings here first."

Gloria nodded, "and which teacher was this?"

"My Head of House, Severus Snape." Snape had obviously never told Draco any such thing, but the chances of Gloria actually researching this bit of misinformation were slim.

Gloria nodded again, looking down at the piles of papers on her desk, "Did you attend the brief war training with your Professors after Hogwarts was closed?"

Again, a question Draco had expected. "No, my parents requested that I return home immediately," replied Draco truthfully.

"I see…" said Gloria, looking at him thoughtfully. "Well, in that case I'll need to take a quick look at your grade records, just to make sure you're qualified for the position."

"That's fine," said Draco, "do you want me to come back tomorrow?"

"Oh, no, I can get them right now. Do you have a few minutes?" Draco nodded. "I'll be right back."

Draco waited patiently while Gloria ran off to another department to find the file with Draco's grades. He was fairly confident that his grades would be good enough to qualify him for the job, and relaxed a bit in his chair, looking around the office absently. A diploma from Hogwarts was framed on the wall behind Gloria's desk, next to an old picture of Gloria in her school uniform smiling broadly and waving.

Draco's eyes rested for a moment on the diploma, and he realized with some sadness that he would never receive one like it. After all his years, all his hard work at Hogwarts, he would never even graduate.

He heard the door open and Gloria reappeared holding a thin folder with Draco's name on it. She sat down and opened it, sorting the few sheets inside on her desk. She looked at the grade charts in silence, read the note of Draco's appointment as a prefect, and finally said, "Well, well, it appears that you were an excellent student indeed."

Draco didn't know how to respond to this compliment, so he merely smiled.

"It seems that you are perfectly qualified, Mr. Malfoy, so if you will just sign this form…" she hastily pulled a slip of parchment from a drawer in her desk and filled in a few of the blanks. She then handed Draco a quill and he stood up to use her desk as a surface. He handed the form back to Gloria, who initialed it and set it aside. "I'm so glad we've got Hermione's position filled so quickly; so few people want a job with the aurors these days, they think it's too dangerous. Of course it is a bit, but we need people now more than ever with…everything," she finished with a sigh. "Anyway, wonderful to meet you, Mr. Malfoy, you start tomorrow at eight." She stood and offered her hand.

Draco shook it and said, "Thank you, Ms. Stone."

And so he secured the position, just as the Dark Lord had requested.

…

Hermione soon discovered that being a guard was not one of her talents. She had wanted a less exciting job, but she thought this was going a little too far. All she did during her shifts at St. Mungo's was watch various patients and healers go by as her eyelids drooped in her boredom. She knew that her job was supposedly important, but she couldn't help feeling that she was more in the way than actually doing much good.

It depressed her terribly as each day she saw more and more sick and injured witches and wizards coming in every day, all needing more attention than the overworked healers could afford. She desperately wished she could transfer again, but where would she go? She had already been moved from the job she thought would best suit her, and since she hadn't graduated, she didn't qualify for any real positions anywhere. As soon as the war was over, and extra guards were no longer needed, she would be out of luck.

These thoughts didn't help Hermione's depression, but as she had hours and hours each day with nothing to do but think, there was no way to stop them.

The highlight of Hermione's first two weeks at St. Mungo's was letter she received one evening. She had been making herself dinner and an owl had suddenly flown in the open window and landed on her kitchen table. Hermione was very surprised by its appearance and became even more so when she examined it more carefully and wondered aloud, "Hedwig?"

The bird hooted and stuck out its leg. Hermione immediately leaned over and untied the letter being delivered. As she unrolled the parchment, the owl flew over to the counter and started helping itself to some raisins Hermione had been snacking on earlier. She didn't mind, nor did she notice; she much too intrigued by the letter--the first she'd received from Harry since that start of the war.

Hermione,

I hope you are well and that you are not worrying obsessively as I have known you to do. I realize that I should have written sooner, but since the start of the war I've been moving place to place with Dumbledore and haven't had time to do so.

I don't know if you've heard, but Remus Lupin died last week in the Death Eater attack on Hogsmeade. He was there to keep an eye on things under Dumbledore's orders and they suddenly attacked the whole town. You probably read about it in the Prophet; I hear several residents were killed as well. A funeral will be held for him on May 1 at 11 o'clock on the Hogwarts grounds. Dumbledore says he isn't sure if we'll be able to attend yet, but I hope to, and I've also owled Ron, so he may appear as well.

I can't say much more here; Dumbledore has warned me not to write too much in letters. Hope to see you on the first.

Harry

Hermione gasped softly and felt tears well up in her eyes as she read the news about Lupin. She hadn't read the Prophet lately, and though had known there was an attack on Hogsmeade, did not realize that her anyone she knew had been involved.

She plopped into one of the chairs at her kitchen table and put her head down in her arms. They were wet from her tears when she lifted her head after a moment and she looked sadly over at Hedwig, who seemed to be waiting to take back Hermione's reply. Poor Harry, thought Hermione, smiling slightly at the owl. It was bad enough for him to lose Sirius, but now Lupin? The last of his father's friends were gone, unless Peter Pettigrew counted, and Hermione had no idea where he was at the moment.

Was this what Harry had been talking about when he'd told Hermione about his dreams back in January? Was Lupin just the first of a series of their friends that were going to die in the war? The thought was horrible and Hermione tried not to dwell on it as she rummaged in her desk drawer for a piece of parchment and quill.

When she'd found them, Hermione sat back down at the table and wrote Harry a reply mentioning that she would certainly attend the funeral on the first. She told him that she was no longer working under the aurors; that she now had guarding duty at St. Mungo's. She included towards the end that she hoped Harry was alright, wherever he was, and told him--perhaps unnecessarily--to be careful.

She rolled up her message and sealed it with wax before tying it tightly to Hedwig's outstretched leg. Hermione gave the bird a fond tap on the head, which Hedwig responded to with a faint hoot before flying off again.

Sighing softly, Hermione tore her gaze from the open window and wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks before continuing to make her dinner as if there hadn't been an interruption.

…

Draco did not have to go through the secretarial position to start out, as Hermione had. He immediately filled her place investigating the Death Eater reports with the aurors. Though the position was a good one considering he had just started working and he hadn't attended the Hogwarts training session with the other students, Draco really wasn't in much of a position to mislead the aurors as to where actual Death Eater hideouts were.

This didn't bother Draco in the slightest, however. He was perfectly happy to work for the Ministry and when asked by his father why he wasn't doing anything, to merely say that he didn't yet have any authority to tell the aurors where or where not to look.

Days and weeks slid by without Draco having to worry at all about proving his loyalty to the Dark Lord. No evidence was found on any investigation Draco was sent on. He knew that some day the time would come when he did have to make a decision, and eventually, it did.

One afternoon, Draco was filling out a form that would tell his superiors that the reports involving Greenville had been mistaken at his small desk when Sean Miller, an auror that Draco had worked with a couple times before, informed him that they were to look over a spot near Oxford that had been reported.

Draco nodded and followed Sean calmly, but slowly started to panic inside. He knew about a Death Eater hideout near Oxford; he had been there himself on one occasion. It was where certain Death Eaters fled to when the aurors found out who they were or where they had been living. It wasn't a central part of the Dark Lord's web, but there were almost always Death Eaters there, and most likely dark magical objects that had been hidden when the Ministry searched their homes. The Dark Lord wouldn't be happy if it were discovered.

One by one the aurors disapparated to the countryside, and Draco followed them. The appeared in a deserted field at the corners of which were four small houses, and beyond them, more fields. The aurors gathered in a circle and Sean said, "Over the past few weeks, there have been scattered reports of people apparating and disapparating in this field more than would be expected, considering the only wizarding family for miles lives over there," he pointed to a little blue house at the edge of the field. "Search around for an hour; we'll leave then if nothing is found."

The aurors immediately dispersed and searched the field. Some headed off in the direction of the nearest road to search there. Draco tried not to walk suspiciously fast or to look as anxious as he felt as he headed for a deserted-looking building not far away that he knew to be the Death Eater hideout.

He reached it before the others, something he was very grateful for, and quickly crept inside. The room he entered was dark and as deserted-looking as the outside of the house. He checked quickly out the broken window to see if any aurors were following him before approaching a wooden door on the opposite side of the room.

He searched the face of the door quickly before finding what he was looking for: under the doorknob, burned into the wood, was a small Dark Mark. He touched the tip of his wand to the Mark and waited until it glowed green, at which point he pushed the door with his free hand and it swung open.

Two men sat in old, ripped armchairs in the center of the room, one with his face covered by a newspaper and the other with his back to Draco. The one with the newspaper looked up when Draco closed the door and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Draco Malfoy! What brings you here? Is the manor being searched?" he asked, looking vaguely concerned. The face of the other man, which Draco did not recognize, suddenly appeared over the back of the chair closest to Draco when his companion spoke.

"No, Rodolphus," whispered Draco, "I'm here with the aurors--"

"The aurors!" cried Rodolphus in surprise.

"Be quiet!" hissed Draco. "The Dark Lord has asked me to work with them. In any case, they're here now, so get together any objects you don't want found and leave!"

"Malfoy…" said the man Draco didn't know thoughtfully, "So you're Lucius's son?"

"Yes," said Draco, not sure what that had to do with anything. The man nodded and turned back around. "Will you two get moving? The aurors will be here any moment," said Draco impatiently as neither of the Death Eaters did anything.

Grudgingly, Rodolphus got up and rolled up his newspaper, which he then tucked into a pocket of his worn-out robe. He grabbed a brown cloth bag in the corner of the room and disapparated without another word. The remaining man grumbled under his breath for a moment before he, too, disapparated.

Draco checked the room over briefly before exiting the way he'd come. He'd just closed the door behind him when an auror appeared in the doorway leading to the outside.

"There's nothing inside;" said Draco quickly, hiding the Dark Mark under the doorknob with his arm, "just some old furniture. Looks as though the house has been abandoned."

The auror nodded and headed back outside without speaking. Is it in their training to be unfriendly? Draco wondered while also heaving a sigh of relief that the auror hadn't investigated further.

For the remainder of the hour, Draco searched the field and other buildings with the aurors. At the end, no one had found anything, so they agreed to apparate back to the Ministry. Draco felt a strong pang of guilt as he looked back at the place he knew to be a Death Eater hideout, but that he had hidden from the Ministry to save his own neck. True, the building wouldn't have been of any real value to the Ministry, nor would it be a great loss to the Dark Lord, but how many more times would he have to do this? How much harder would he make finding the Dark Lord's supporters for the Ministry before Voldemort decided that Draco was indeed loyal?

Things were exactly as Draco had feared they would be; he was working for the wrong side, actually preventing the people he believed in from getting anywhere, and all the while, his life was on the line anyway. Draco hated the fact he might die for the Dark Lord's cause, but, as he'd known months ago when he'd had that conversation in the library with Hermione, it was his only choice if he wanted to survive at all.

Draco tried to shake the feeling of guilt as he turned away from the building, but it wouldn't leave him. He stopped trying to get rid of it when he realized it would be constant until either the end of the war or the time Draco switched sides. Neither would happen soon, if at all in Draco's lifetime, so he gave up the battle and disapparated after the others.

…

Hermione did not have to work as hard as she expected to make her boss give her the first of May off. Her boss was a sixty-something ex-healer that had worked at St. Mungo's her whole life and was bitter that medicinal techniques had changed so much since she was trained that she was no longer qualified to work as a healer. Her name was Patricia West, and was usually very disagreeable, but seemed to have a bit of a soft spot for Hermione, which Hermione did not understand in the slightest.

Hermione had tentatively approached Patricia's office a week before the first and knocked on the door wondering how she should phrase her request. "Ms. West?" she called through the door.

"Come in," growled Patricia from the other side.

Hermione entered and saw that perhaps she had not picked the best time; Patricia's desk was littered with empty coffee cups and the woman herself looked as though she hadn't slept in days. Hermione looked at her boss concernedly and earned a rare smile.

"They've put me on extra hours recently;" Patricia explained in her low, worn voice, "security needs have increased with the war and all."

"Mmm," said Hermione, suddenly feeling guilty that she wanted time off when Patricia clearly needed her staff more than ever. "Er, Ms. West, I was wondering…an old professor and friend of mine just died in the attack on Hogsmeade, and I hoped to take the first of May off to go to his funeral…" she said hopefully, "but if you really need me here, I suppose I could--"

"Oh, don't be stupid, child," snapped Patricia, taking a sip of coffee from what must have been her fiftieth cup. At Hermione's taken aback look, she said, "Of course you can go to your friend's funeral. I'll have you trade shifts with someone else."

"Oh, alright, well, thank you, Ms. West," said Hermione, a bit surprised.

Her superior grunted in response and turned her attention to some papers on her messy desk. Hermione, assuming they were finished, left the office quietly and headed off to her place in the main lobby grateful that Patricia had been understanding, even when she herself was obviously being overworked.

Hermione arrived at Hogwarts at quarter to eleven on the first dressed, as were the others around her, entirely in black. She had apparated to Hogsmeade and walked from there, wishing that the castle in the distance was still her home. Harry hadn't told her where on the Hogwarts grounds the service was to take place, but she noticed a small clump of people standing over by the lake and she headed in their direction.

When she got closer, she immediately recognized several members of the Weasley family by their very visible red hair. Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, Bill, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had all managed to attend and she approached them with a smile on her face.

"Hermione!" cried Ron, the first to notice her.

"Hello," she greeted them all, hugging each in turn.

"Oh, Hermione, dear, you look exhausted," fretted Mrs. Weasley, looking at Hermione in concern, "What have they been putting you up to?"

"Well, Ron probably told you I was working with the aurors at first, but I was recently transferred to be a guard at St. Mungo's."

"Did you ask to be transferred? I thought you wanted to work with the aurors," asked Ron curiously.

"I did, but…" said Hermione, wondering how to explain. She didn't particularly feel like telling them all about her strange Death Eater experience, especially with the perpetually worried look on Mrs. Weasley's face, so she said simply, "St. Mungo's wanted a few more guards."

"Oh," said Ron, not asking for details.

Two hooded figures suddenly approached the group of Weasleys and Hermione. Everyone looked at them questioningly, wondering who they were and why they were there. As the pair reached them, the shorter of the two briefly lowered his hood and smiled at them.

"Harry!" Hermione gasped, instantly hugging him.

"Shhh," whispered Harry as Hermione pulled away, "no one's supposed to know I'm here." He lifted his hood once more, but looked much less menacing now that they all knew it was him.

"We haven't seen you in months! What have you been doing?" asked Hermione, dropping her voice to a whisper as well.

Harry shrugged and turned to the taller figure beside him, who Hermione immediately realized must be Dumbledore. "We've mostly been dodging Death Eaters, jumping around from place to place. In between I've been studying--learning the most important things we would have if we had continued school, and also a lot of defensive magic."

"Harry, it's so good to see you, I've been so worried," said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes shining with tears.

Harry tried to smile comfortingly. "I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley, don't worry."

A loud voice interrupted the conversation, "If everyone will please sit down; the service will begin shortly!"

Everyone present stopped talking and sat in the rows of seats arranged near the edge of the forest. After a few minutes, a short, thin man stood before the crowd next to a large wooden coffin that obviously held Remus Lupin. The man, who Hermione did not recognize, gave a brief speech about what happened at Hogsmeade and how Lupin had died. He explained that the attack, like all the rest, had been unexpected and that Remus had fought the Death Eaters bravely but that he and the others with him were greatly outnumbered and could not hold off the Death Eaters forever.

When the man had finished, Dumbledore stood and took the man's place. He did not lift his hood, but Hermione had no doubt that everyone there recognized him immediately by his voice as he started his own small speech. "Remus told me more than once that Hogwarts was the only place in the world where he felt at home. Here, he said, was the only place he felt respected…."

At this point Hermione looked over to the chair next to her where Harry had sat a moment before, but which was now empty. She saw him quietly walking down to the shore of the lake, unnoticed by anyone but herself.

She got up and left as inconspicuously as he had, following behind him until he came to a stop by a large rock near the lakes edge, on which he sat. She quietly went over and sat next to him without speaking. She knew that Harry would soon say his thoughts aloud and that her job was to listen, so she waited until he did so. She didn't wait very long.

"So I guess this means the last of my dad's real friends are gone…Sirius, now Lupin, and who really cares what the hell happens to Peter Pettigrew?" Hermione didn't say anything; Harry wasn't really asking her a question. "We're probably lucky, really," he continued, "to have only had one close friend die in the past months. Doesn't make it any easier though…." Hermione shook her head slowly in agreement, resting her head lightly on Harry's shoulder as they both stared out over the glassy water.

"Was Lupin's death in one of your dreams, Harry?" asked Hermione suddenly, "You know, the ones you told me about in January?"

Harry shook his head, "No," he said, "which gives me some hope that you were right; perhaps they only were dreams. I might have thought they were more because I was so worried that what happened in them would happen in real life. So far, none of them have come true, so we can just hope that's the case." He paused, kicking a small rock that was on the ground back and forth between his feet. He stopped after a moment, looking thoughtful. "Hermione, there's something Dumbledore wanted me to ask you. I was going to write you a letter, but it's easier not to have to speak in code, so I may as well ask you now…"

"What is it?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Well, if you would be willing to, Dumbledore says we need another person with us, someone who is able and that we can trust. I thought of you first, but Dumbledore told me to warn you that some of the tasks he may ask you to do will be dangerous, and he wants you to be aware of that before you agree."

"So…he wants me to travel around with you and help where I can?" Hermione clarified.

"Yes, essentially," said Harry, "although the helping you will be doing will be extremely important, and, like I said, probably dangerous." He examined her carefully, trying to tell where she was by her expression, "So, would you be willing to do it?"

Hermione didn't have to think very long before saying, "Yes, of course."

Harry looked relieved and offered a smile. "Great. We'll send you a letter soon with a time for us to come by your apartment and get you." He looked at his watch and stood up. "I need to get back; Dumbledore said we'd need to leave before the burial in Hogsmeade cemetery." He looked gloomy once more at the thought of Lupin and Hermione stood to walk him back to the place of the service.

Harry and Hermione walked in silence and Hermione began to wonder what sorts of jobs Dumbledore would ask her to do. Whatever they were, Hermione was sure that following Harry and Dumbledore around was better for her than her current guarding job, which seemed worse by the day. In addition, Hermione would get to see Harry a lot more and maybe then she'd stop worrying so much about him and what he must be going through.

Maybe finally, after the months that had gone by since the war began, she would be doing something useful, and that thought, more than anything else, had made her readily accept Harry's offer.