The first day after learning about her book of secrets, Harry did everything possible to stay out of Hermione's way. After years together at Hogwarts, he knew better than to cross paths with her when she was cross. The task was simple enough considering she contained herself to the back half of the house between the office, bedroom, and bathroom. With complete peace and quiet, Harry made quick work of the first page deciphering and then translating. While the translation was easy with the help of his dictionary, understanding was not. The few science classes required during his time at university offered a basic knowledge of biology, but Hermione's notes went far beyond the classification of species and "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell."

On the second day, enough time had passed that Harry felt safe enough to slip an apology note under the study door. He sat outside the door for half an hour, hoping they could talk about it, but the door remained firmly shut. By lunch, Harry gave up and returned to his work, pen in one hand and sandwich in the other. When she was ready to talk to him again, she would. At least, he hoped she would.

Days three, four, five, and six held no change. Harry continued deciphering and translating as Hermione continued to lock herself away in the study. By then, the cipher was second nature, coming easier the more he decoded. An idea of what her research entailed was coming into focus. Something to do with a transfer or exchange of magical energy, but the details were still locked away in the pages of her notes.

After a week of silence, Harry was startled to hear another voice in the kitchen as he scrambled eggs.

"You stayed," Hermione remarked from her place in the doorway.

The pan slipped from his hand with a clank against the stove. She chuckled as he clutched at his heart. "Merlin, Hermione. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"You stayed," she repeated, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.

"'Course I stayed. Told you I wasn't going anywhere." His gaze fell heavy and intense on her, making her shift uncomfortably. Afraid of pushing her away to the comfort of her study again, he shot her a smirk. "I don't even think I could lift the wards."

"You didn't try, though. I downgraded them, but you didn't even try." She studied him for a moment. It was a look he recognized from many years of watching her work out problems at Hogwarts. The gears of her mind spun and whirled trying to sort out the question in front of her.

"I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her again. After clearing his throat to break the tension, Harry resumed cooking the eggs and said, "I am curious how you've made it an entire week without my cooking."

She snorted and ventured further into the warmth of the kitchen to snatch a piece of bacon from a plate. "Granola bars from my emergency rations. You know me. I can be a little bullheaded sometimes."

Her smile dropped as her gaze landed on her book and the papers scattered around the table. Shifting a few pages closer, she recognized the passage, causing her breathing to quicken as she realized what Harry had done to occupy the last week. In one quick motion, she swept the papers and book into her arms and tossed them into the rubbish bin, casting a silent Incendio. Flames licked around the edge of the pages, small tendrils of smoke curling up through the kitchen. Burning was good. Flames destroyed and consumed everything in its way until nothing remained. A fact she knew intimately. With a swift flick, water poured from the tip of Harry's wand, flooding the bin. Not even her strongest Incendio could ignite the waterlogged notes. As she reached for the pages again, prepared to destroy them however she could, Harry wrapped his arms around her from behind, confining her wrists.

"Hermione, stop! You've got good theories here!"

"No! None of it is good!" She struggled against him wildly. There were no well-executed escape moves this time, simply sheer blinding panic. Harry wasn't sure which was worse.

"You've got a better grasp on how we produce magic than anything I've ever seen!"

"And understanding how it works is half the battle in understanding how to take it away!"

"Wh-What?"

The outburst drained the fight from Hermione. Her weight dropped heavily back against him, and instinctually, he wrapped his arms tighter around her. A shiver cut through her body despite the warmth from the stove still filling the room. Refusing to release her, he shuffled them both to the couch in the living room, only loosening his hold once they were seated. He took her trembling hands in his and rubbed them in an effort to reassure her. "It's okay, Hermione. You're okay."

"Promise me you won't translate any more of that." Her voice broke as she asked, a desperate plea. "This-this knowledge is dangerous."

"I already have an idea what it was."

"You had no right." The words held no venom. The panic in her eyes diluted any anger she felt. She pulled her hands away, turning to face the cold fireplace instead, once again distancing herself, building a wall. With a flick of her wrist, she cast another silent Incendio. The flames licked to life on the logs rather than the pages she wished to be burning. "You had no right to go through that."

"Talk to me, Hermione. Please," he pleaded.

She drew her feet up on the sofa, wrapping her arms around her knees. The terror drew her tighter in on herself attempting to become as small as possible. Her voice was barely audible when she asked him, "What do you know?"

"It's something about how we produce magic on a biological level and how to do something with that. Transfer it maybe?"

She refused to meet his eyes, gaze remaining on the flickering fire before her. A tell that he was correct, and it made her uncomfortable that he was.

"I think they used your Muggle background because you have better insight into the biological and medical effects magic production would involve. You understand both worlds."

Her hands clenched tightly around the cotton that covered her knees.

"I think they wanted you to figure out a potion or a spell that could amplify or dampen the production of magic."

Her breath caught in her throat as her entire body went rigid. The accusation felt suffocating.

"They had you working out magic snatching, didn't they?"

A shaky exhale whooshed from her as another tremor wracked her body. The heat of the fireplace pressed thickly against her, forcing smoke into her lungs. Flames danced on her heels as she ran wild and desperate while sirens blared. Get out. She had to get out. They would find her and-

"Hermione." Harry's voice cut through the memory as his hand ran up and down her back. She pressed her forehead into her knees in an attempt to regain control of her breathing as she pulled on her facade.

"You can't know this, Harry. The things they would do to you to get this information…" His mind spun at the confirmation of his theory. The ability to rip magic away from a witch or wizard was terrible regardless of whose hands the information was in. The last thing anyone needed was a Death Eater learning how to strip a person of magic. And from the terror in Hermione's eyes, it may be worse if The New Order learned.

"The same things they would do to you to get it, I imagine." The scars that marked her body flooded his mind, scars he knew were from those people. Absently, he rubbed a thumb over her shoulder where he knew one of those scars hid under the collar of her shirt, surprised when she leaned back into his hand.

"This doesn't have to involve you." When she turned to look at him, the fear and terror in her eyes burned away with determination and resilience. She swallowed her pill and let the stern mask settle into place again. "I have to finish what I started, but I don't need to drag anyone else into this with me, certainly not you. I haven't needed anyone in a long while. I'll be fine."

A disbelieving laugh slipped before he could suppress it. "You honestly think I came along because I think you needed me? Hermione Granger has never needed me, needed anyone. Believe me, I know that. But me? I've always needed you. First day I met you, I needed you and didn't even know it." He smiled as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. Every time he repaired them, he remembered a bushy-haired girl with a chip on her shoulder and a naive boy with broken glasses on a train. The world had been simpler to them both. But one truth remained even more than a decade later: he still needed her.

"Why do you think I searched after you all that time? After the war, I didn't know what to do. I knew once you got back, you could help me figure it out like you always did. I always took that for granted, took you for granted. And I'm sorry for that, by the way."

The words flew from his mouth faster than he could fully process them. After four years of constantly wondering and questioning, Harry rehashed each interaction with her. Every fight and disagreement. Each time he knew he was harsher than he should have been or she had snapped at him for some reason or another. Four years was a long time to obsess over eight years of friendship.

"I never realized how much I depended on you until you vanished. I'm not coming with you because I think you need me. I'm coming because I know I need you. And because you shouldn't have to do this alone. You never left me to face Voldemort alone, not once. You never let me face anything alone even when I was awful to you. I won't let you face this alone."

The room fell silent once again as each of them became lost in their own thoughts. Harry had never once previously acknowledged how he took her for granted. It was a pain Hermione was keenly aware of each and every time he chose someone else over her, but in that small alley between Apparitions, he had chosen her and was reaffirming that decision even after learning of the dark magic she had been toying with. It sent a satisfied and hopeful spark through her chest, something she hadn't felt in a long time. Years, even.

"I'm in this now, and I need all the information I can get." He let his words sink in, giving her shoulder another reassuring squeeze. "You wouldn't settle for any less."

Hermione bit her lip and stared at him, attempting to understand why he was so keen to hear every painful detail. But she also knew he was right. She wouldn't settle for less and couldn't ask him to if he was insistent on staying. Without explanation, she trudged back to the kitchen to retrieve his sodden notepad from the rubbish bin.

"You're sure about this, Harry?" she asked once more, almost hoping he would leave it, but the hard set of his jaw dispelled any lingering doubt. He wouldn't be leaving.

With a deep sigh, Hermione dried the pages with a charm and drew a diagram of the base as she explained. The Post was laid out in an octagon, shooting out into secure access sections with a central all-access area. The entire base was centered around the training sector that contained training rooms, classrooms, a common cafeteria, and a small medical wing. The northernmost passage led directly into the recruits' dormitory, where privacy was non-existent. The dormitories were the only area in the entire base that did not reside behind double security access doors. Clockwise, the secured sectors included housing for work staff, armory and vehicles, intelligence, Command, research, development, and finally the training staff quarters, each section entirely self-contained behind two secure access doors. And at the center of the entire base sat a single Apparition point.

Harry stared at the diagram in amazement. Having witnessed the wonder of Hogwarts, he knew the feats magic could accomplish in concealment, especially from Muggles, but the entire operation was hidden even from the wizarding world. This was beyond anything he'd heard or seen before.

"How do they keep all of this hidden?" he asked.

"For starters, the entire thing is underground aside from the supply docks. The Muggles think it's a top-secret military compound, and the wizards just assume it's Muggle. The base is actually fairly infamous in the Muggle world called Area 51. It's smart. They hid in plain sight. All movement is made underground to not draw attention. And the things they do above ground, well, the Muggles think it's aliens."

When he raised an eyebrow at her, she gave a soft chuckle and asked, "Haven't you ever wondered why all UFO sightings sound a lot like broom maneuvers? High speeds and low altitudes. Bright lights and the ability to appear, disappear and reappear. They even have the technology to make brooms even faster with enclosures to protect the rider. One of my colleagues was developing a multi-passenger vehicle designed from broom materials."

"And you've seen all of this?" Despite the horrible things the New Order was capable of, Harry couldn't help his curiosity. They clearly contained a lot of brilliant inventors to have developed the things Hermione spoke of. A multiple passenger broom with enclosures sounded positively remarkable.

"We get some training in each section until graduation. After that, recruits test into whichever section they are most qualified for. No surprise I ended up in research. And that was where I stayed until I escaped."

"You didn't see any of the other sections?"

She shook her head. "It's how they kept us in control, prevent insurrections. They separated each section so we couldn't share information. The only time I saw anyone outside of research was in the training sector. We took rotations in teaching what was coming out of the research sector. We taught within our specialties. Intelligence offers would teach intelligence classes. Things like that. It's like crowdsourced learning. The philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child."

"I suppose that only leaves the big question. Who's Command?"

Hermione drew her feet up on the couch and rested her chin on her knees, clearly drained from the conversation. "I wish I knew. Would make things a lot easier if I did. As far as I can tell, that's the head of the snake. I assume a committee of some sort. I can't imagine one person able to organize all of the Post. The few rumors I heard suggested it was located nearly a mile down a tunnel from the rest of us. Command held the only other apparition point."

His eyes drifted to the diagram, suddenly questioning the scale of the entire operation. Eight separated sections each with their own facilities, housing, and more. The base would have to be massive to house such an operation. "How do they monitor all of this?"

"Closed-circuit television," she responded, looking back at the diagram herself. Even though there were no cameras near, the hair on her neck prickled at the thought of the ever-watchful eyes. "They aren't shy about Muggle technology. They use a lot of it to keep people in and out. They even have a fair amount of Muggles that work for them. The best weapons trainers there are Muggle. Ex-military, even."

"How'd they convince the Muggles to help them?" No matter what offer was given, Harry couldn't imagine Muggles being keen on helping witches and wizards. There was a reason the Ministry instituted the secrecy degree, and from what he remembered, America didn't have the best history of accepting magic.

Her eyes shifted instinctively towards the kitchen where her notes still sat wet in the rubbish bin. The desire to bury it deep and burn it flared in her chest again, branding her with guilt. "My research." She looked down, ashamed she had been a part of pulling more people into that hell. "They promised Muggles and squibs magic as soon as they would be able to. It's why they've been so desperate to get me back."

"They seem organized," Harry commented, running his hand across her tense shoulders, something she used to recenter herself. She wasn't at the Post. She wasn't continuing the research. She wasn't helpless.

"Well organized," she choked out before clearing her voice. "Even I'm not sure how large the entire operation is. I never saw the entirety of the Post, just the labeled doors, but they've obviously been at this or at least planning for a long time. The whole place runs like, well, a military operation."

"Well," Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Isn't that just peachy."

A/N: As always, thank you to a_bookish_ever_after and possumwrites for beta reading. And a huge thank you to the both of them plus our discord family talking me back off the ledge when I struggle. You lot are the reason I've had the courage to start posting this story.