AN: As many of you pointed out, canon Ginny has brown eyes, and in Hack It! they're green. But because it's a small flaw, I'm just going to keep it, although I thank those of you who pointed this out to me. :) Anyway, on with the chapter!

The subway roared through the underground tunnels of Manhattan, rocking its inhabitants to and fro, like an extremely cumbersome vat of gelatin. A girl sat sandwiched between a family of five, arguing over Temple Run and shoving an iPad back and forth over her head. Her fingers drummed an uneven beat on the bulky messenger bag she carried, hawkish eyes intent on the tiny lights of the city map, pinging out of sight as the tram passed them.

Ping ping ping.

When an automated voice announced they'd reached Lexington Ave, she was already halfway out of the subway car.

Hermione recalled Grindelwald's instructions on how she would reach Azkaban, pocketing her Metro Card and starting the walk down West Street to the Staten Island ferry. It left in five minutes, and she would catch the return ride after she was done at Azkaban, taking the subway all the way back to Queens – hopefully, with enough time still left to complete a few Gryffindor requests.

The only memory of boat rides she had was of Dad holding her up to the porthole of the Ellis Island ferry once, and a hasty glimpse of the back of the Statue of Liberty as they slid over the river. She didn't remember much of the actual island, just a museum about immigration that had been excruciatingly boring to her seven-year old mind, and endless stairs. The hotdog she ate from the concession was a vivid recollection, however, since it had made a ferocious reappearance on the deck of the ferry.

She hoped seasickness was a thing people were supposed to outgrow.

Staten Island, a vaguely shaped mass on the opposite side of the dark blue Hudson River, had Azkaban Prison waiting somewhere inside it. But Hermione already knew what she would see in detail when they got up close.

Like Grindelwald had said, Azkaban was a state prison, situated miles away from the mainland or any signs of urban life. An aerial shot of the prison on Google showed flat grey buildings and lots of concrete, a sorry sight no soul could wholeheartedly say she was anticipating. Azkaban had almost been shut down in 1978, because of low funds, dangerous construction, and poor treatment of the prisoners, but it had undergone a radical reform since then, thanks to the arrival of new staff and an incredible donation from an anonymous philanthropist that saved it.

More recent articles Hermione had found on the Internet said the prison was also in the middle of an upgrade, installing a new and improved air-tight security system, and motion sensors all over the facility. So at least, if a chainsaw murderer bent on a killing spree got loose, Hermione would be trapped inside with him.

Up ahead and much bigger, a hulking swirl of stirring grey clouds conveyed the forecast awaiting her on the island. Although the deck was off-limits when a storm was in the area, Hermione had managed to slip on, leaning against the safety railing to watch the choppy waves below batter the chipped, tangerine-orange hull. A salty breeze sprayed her face, giving her a sporadic craving for seafood, and three drops that were either river water or rain knocked on her hair softly. They were almost under the storm clouds now.

"I do not get seasick," she muttered under her breath, concentrating on the enlarging complex of buildings and green above the roughing water. Her fingers flexed around the metal railing too tightly. "I do not get seasick."

When the ferry finally anchored at the dock, Hermione had been long driven inside by the rain and an angry security guard who caught her outside. She emerged with the overflowing procession of tourists and commuters onto the slippery station. Jerking up her hood, she ran out to the street, finding a maple tree to stand under until her ride showed. The vinyl cord of the visitor's pass necklace Grindelwald gave her, lying safely under her sweatshirt, scraped against her sticky neck.

Mist fuzzed the roads, blocking out the landscape into blue outlines and smudgy suggestions. She searched the fog banks for a glimpse of a taxi, pushing dripping curls out of her face. I can already feel them frizzing, she thought with a grimace, trying to finger-comb her hair into presentation, but it was no use. For some reason, her hair had a chemical reaction with rainwater, the product of which spelled out disaster no matter how much conditioner she put into it.

The wheezing sound of an exhausted engine near the end of the road broke her thoughts. Hermione skittered out to the side of the road and stuck her arm in the air, at which an ancient green minivan honked three times and jerked aside to zoom up alongside her. On the side of the minivan, the logo the Knight Bus jumped out at her in strips of peeling purple graffiti.

"Hi. You go to Azkaban, right?" she said breathlessly, hopping in when the driver shoved open the passenger door, and immediately starting to feel the beat-up upholstery for a seatbelt. In the driver's seat, a man with deep gold-chocolate skin and a thick West Indian accent greeted her cheerfully in broken English. His name was Stan and he played Bob Marley as they drove, bopping his head and yapping in rapid Creole on his Bluetooth, seemingly impervious to the weather outside.

The windshield wipers slashed back and forth hectically, and although it was already cold Stan turned the A/C on to keep the condensation on the glass at bay. Hermione was working on squeegeeing her soaked hoodie onto her jeans, which were already done for in the soluble department, when out of nowhere the rain shower doubled in force, transforming into a liquid meteor shower that drowned out Rebel Music within seconds. The downpour was so thick she couldn't see the road.

"Don't worry, young lady," said Stan. At first, Hermione thought he was talking to whoever was on the other end of his Bluetooth before he flashed her a luminous smile, crooked teeth glowing like Christmas lights against his dark skin.

"I'm good driver," he assured her. "No worries." As if to prove it, the speedometer needle inched up to eighty-five and Stan drove one-handed, resuming his conversation, lighting a cigarette, and simultaneously texting a cousin on his cellphone. Hermione's eyes widened, the mental image of the Knight Bus wrapped like a soft pretzel around a lamppost blurting across her head. When she had imagined going to Azkaban, she'd thought the violent criminals she would encounter would be the worst threat to her livelihood, not the taxi driver.

Sooner than later, the Knight Bus cruised up to Azkaban, revealing an estranged, enormous enclosure in the middle of the monsoon. Stan paid the imposing prison no mind as they drove the winding road around it, but Hermione's eyes were glued to the window. From the wide barren landscape consisting of two scrawny crab apple trees and a thirty-four foot high cement wall barricading most of her view, her first impression of Azkaban was not inspiring.

The prison, she saw when they were closer, was actually a scattered collection of huge block buildings connected by a network of channels that were probably security checkpoints, with a pithy basketball court toward the back of the property. Topping the formidable cement wall were frenzied coils of barb wire, covered in Warning: High Voltage signs at intervals, and – occasionally – gun posts.

Hermione knew Azkaban was a maximum security prison, a place just one rung below the home of the lowliest of infamous sociopaths, but still she hadn't expected the prison to look so…so…

Well, cold.

When they reached the gate, Stan put on the breaks and honked five times in quick succession. There was the barest of pauses, and then the gates of Azkaban had begun to open, dragging over the gravel road like claws across a chalkboard, moving slowly enough that Hermione wondered how successful Azkaban's supposed renovations were proceeding. Or if they were proceeding at all.

The sound of the car doors unlocking snapped Hermione out of her rivalry. "This is where I drop you off, young lady," Stan announced.

Hermione pulled her soggy hood back up – it was a pathetic protection against the raging-typhoon-meets-tropical-rainstorm outside, but all she had. Even if she'd thought to bring an umbrella, she doubted it would have held against the wind. "Where do I go next?" she asked Stan, one hand on the door.

"Go straight. Follow the reds."

"Reds?"

"The cameras." Stan pointed through the windshield and she looked up, to see a red focusing on them from its post on a sky-high light tower, where a menacing tier with attached guns glared at them powerfully. Surprised, she stared at the tiny crimson light, blinking to show the camera next to it was recording. She hadn't noticed it at all – she wasn't sure if that fact, or the red's presence unnerved her more. "Some of them go along the entranceway going inside. They have 24/7 surveillance here," Stan went on, mistaking her sudden sharpness for worry. "You will be safe."

She nodded. "Thanks for the ride." Hermione climbed out of the van and backed up a few feet. The Knight Bus reversed and Stan hit the gas, squealing away onto the rain spattered road. She took a deep breath. Duke University and a dentistry practice in Venice, she reminded herself, walking through the open gate. This will all be worth it when I'm filling cavities in Italy.

The doors of the entrance building were glass and automatic, they slid apart like a pulled zipper at Hermione's approaching footsteps. A burst of warm air spread over her when she passed a heating duct on the way inside. She glanced around the large empty room, although she didn't know what she was looking for. A secretary maybe? Welcome desk? The S.W.A.T. team? Sherlock Holmes?

Great. Mom's detective shows were getting to her head again.

"Hello?" she called, and her voice echoed, a startling sound in the emptiness. No one responded. She took a survey of the lobby once more. There were two halls branching off on either side of the main entrance, which split into more and more halls; steel walls, and linoleum flooring. The reds were everywhere.

"Ma'am! Ma'am, who are you?" a man's voice boomed, startling her, and accompanied by the sounds of heavy boots clunking against the floor.

Hermione raised her head, more bewildered by the ma'am than the lanky prison guard coming toward her. "Uh, Hermione. Hermione Granger," she said, rooted to the floor by the guard's severe gaze, which eventually gave way to recognition at her next words. "I'm the volunteer." She tried not to say the volunteer like there were invisible quotation marks around it, but it came out that way anyway. She winced.

"Wonderful," the guard muttered, although his tone didn't reflect his description. His nametag read Dementor and when he stopped before her, Hermione thought she could understand why someone with a name like that could be so melancholic. Dementor had washed-out greasy red hair, pale toad-like eyes, and a seemingly permanent scowl etched onto his exhausted face. His amphibian eyes regarded hers hostilely.

"Alright, come with me," he said gruffly, readjusting his belt and the heavy nightstick strapped to it. "We'll go through security check and I'll give you the rounds. After that, I'll drop you off to Dr. Dumbledore and you can get started."

"Dr. Dumbledore? Who's that?" Hermione asked, falling into step with the grumpy prison guard when he started to lead them down the right hallway. "He's the psychologist here," Dementor answered, seeming disgruntled by her inquisitiveness. "Evaluates inmates under observation so we can know how to place them, and he runs the AM and PM group talks. You'll be participating in the latter."

She was participating in prison therapy? Now that should be interesting. "What will I be doing?" Hermione said curiously.

Dementor looked at her, his natural scowl deepening. "Do I look like the psychologist?"

Hermione glanced over his lined, glaring face and refrained from commenting on Dementor's looks.

They proceeded to security check, where she found several more grumpy prison guards, and was instructed to empty out her pockets and hand over all suspicious possessions on her person. Kicking off her distressed Converses for them to search along with her bag, she stepped to one side of the metal detector and held out her arms, so another guard could give her a pat down. She glared indignantly at him when he frisked her snarled wet hair with a pensive look on his face. What did he think she was hiding in there, bombs?

"All clear," he finally said, reluctantly. Hermione's eyes narrowed.

When Hermione was finally deemed legal (except for her eight-ounce hand lotion, which they decided wasn't trustworthy and threw out, much to her annoyance), she joined Dementor on the opposite end of security. At least, she had opted against bringing her Taser to school today, she reflected.

"This building is where most of our activities occur," Dementor said flatly, beginning the tour in a decidedly Mr-Binns-esque fashion. His voice was as depressing as his charisma – or lack thereof. Hermione dreaded the inevitable yawn-inducing information bound to come. "What we're passing now is the cafeteria," he said. "Meals are held three times per day here. All inmates work jobs, like custodial services, kitchen duties, clean-ups, et cetera, so they can meet their daily quotas. Education is a privilege – one that can be taken away – so not all the inmates take classes here, depending on their behavior and cooperation."

Hermione nodded. They left the mess hall and started down a different hallway, their footsteps the only sounds to be heard aside from the constant, insectile whirring of the reds. She couldn't stop glancing at the watchful cameras, which gave the prison a decidedly eerie, haunted mental hospital-esque ambiance, but Dementor seemed to have all but forgotten their existence completely.

"We're about to enter the building where inmates live," he said after they were admitted through another gate. The guard who let them through glanced over them both closely, before waving them on with a bored expression. "In a maximum-security prison," Dementor continued, "inmates are required to live one to each cell, but space has been tight lately around here so we room inmates to about seven per." He turned left. Hermione's eyes widened. "Inmates under observation, however, do get their own cells," he added peculiarly, "as well as…special cases."

Special cases. Why did that sound familiar? Was it a politer synonym for stir-crazy, maybe?

"…Wake-up calls are at 6:30AM sharp. At 7 o' clock, we do inspections and head count. 7:15 is breakfast in the cafeteria," Dementor was saying when she tuned back in, ticking the items off on his fingers. "Head counts, keep in mind, are imperative here," he said gravely. "If you lose an inmate, his escape is not the worst thing that could happen."

Hermione glanced at his dour face, unsure whether or not she should be perturbed. "What is the worst thing that could happen?"

Dementor gave her a dull look she guessed was supposed to be intimidating. "About twenty years ago in Sacramento Prison," he began, with all the storytelling flair of a dead cactus, "a head count after activities was missed for one group, and the guards watching the group didn't realize a highly-dangerous prisoner was not with them when they returned to the cafeteria for dinner. The prisoner in question was committed there because he'd murdered his four children by drowning them in the river behind his lake house twelve years before. That night, when all the inmates were asleep, the prisoner got hold of a guard's gun, and murdered three staff and an inmate he thought were his children come back to life. Then he tried to climb the fence and got electrocuted to death."

Hermione swallowed. "Don't forget head counts," she repeated, repressing the urge to glance over her shoulder and check for any gun-wielding escapees. A shiver crept over her. "Got it."

Dementor started talking about inmate privileges.

They entered the cell unit, which turned out to be the only part of Azkaban Hermione had visualized correctly. The vast building they entered was five floors high, and on each floor barred cells that had been repainted in a sanitized shade of eggshell stood three feet apart each, lining the walls in long, meticulous rows. Some inmates sat inside of the cells, every one wearing the faded orange jumpsuits iconic of prison life, and lounging around idly. Hermione guessed most of them were elsewhere, in class or doing work.

"Are these all of the cells?" she whispered to Dementor, keeping her voice low as they passed the inmates.

"No, only about a third of them," he explained. "This is Cell Unit D. You might see more if you ever go in the other units-"

He was cut short when one of the inmates spotted them and screamed Fish!, which elicited an uproar of raucous laughter. Hermione didn't know what a fish meant here in Azkaban, but she didn't doubt it wasn't meant to be taken as a compliment – or that it was directed at her. One of the guards responded to the first voice in kind, threatening to strip privileges for misconduct. The threat was ignored and soon the entire first floor was hooting and catcalling and shouting. "Fish! Fish! Fish!" they all chanted.

Dementor grunted and shot her an accusing look – Hermione scowled in return. How was this supposed to be her fault? With another contemptuous glance at the room of crowing prisoners, Dementor quickly ushered them away while the staff tried to calm the inmates down.

"Well, those are the inmates," he said drily, once they were far away enough to speak again. Ears ringing, Hermione glanced back at the chaos they'd just left, but the barred gate behind them had already been shut.

It was easy to tell when they entered the older section of Azkaban, yet to be renovated and taking the form of a long, dimly-lit hallway with flickering ceiling lights, and the putrid scent of a bathroom on 45th street hanging like suicide in the dense air. The dark corridor ended at another gate, where a heavy-set prison guard buzzed them through, into another building.

For the next half hour, Dementor showed Hermione the work rooms, commissary, daytime room, the infirmary, classrooms, and finally the yard, where outdoor activity was organized and the pitiable basketball court she saw before was presently being pummeled into dust by the vicious rainstorm. The tour would have been interesting, if not for the fact Dementor made her history teacher's, Binns, class seem as thrilling as a Las Vegas vaudeville act.

Hermione kept herself awake through the mind-numbingly dry sound of Dementor's raspy tones by memorizing all the routes of Azkaban they had walked through and retracing them in her head for future reference. She also counted the number of reds they passed.

She glanced up as they strode through another gate checkpoint. 108.

"This is Dr. Dumbledore's office," Dementor announced at last, halting outside of an unassuming office door. "Good luck."

"Am I supposed to-?" Hermione stopped talking when she realized Dementor had already walked away. She sighed, turning around to knock on the door – and came to face-to-face with the inquisitive gaze of Dr. Dumbledore instead.

When did he get there? she wondered, eying the older man standing in the doorway with surprise. At the sight of his pressed burgundy suit, embroidered with little crescent velvet moons and threaded silver stars under a fuzzy bathrobe, she wondered how long Dementor's tour had actually been.

"Good evening - Miss Granger, is it?" Dumbledore greeted in a heavy British accent, shaking her hand firmly when she nodded. "Welcome to the Azkaban Correctional Facility."

Hermione's brows furrowed. "Don't you mean Azkaban Pri-?"

"Oh no, I always mean what I say," he said, shaking his head sternly and giving her hand one last tight squeeze before letting go. She flexed her fingers, surprised by the tingle in them. "A prison is a cage, Miss Granger, and this place is by no means that. Azkaban is a safe haven where individuals who have used up all of their last chances are given one finalchance, and not judged for their past actions." Dumbledore clasped his hands behind his back, staring past her and thinking for a drawn-out moment. Hermione squirmed, not sure what to do or say. She hadn't been reprimanded since she was eight, and had long since forgotten what to do in the face of chiding.

And the doctor's pajamas kept distracting her.

"Well anyway," said Dumbledore, coming back to the land of the living with an abruptly cheerier air. He looked at her knowingly. "You don't want to hear an old man's philosophies, do you? But how are you? I hope your trip here wasn't too taxing? You came over from Queens, correct?" Everything the doctor said ended in an arch, a conventional question that always welcomed answers no matter what shape or form they took. If his profession was a question to Hermione before, it certainly wasn't now.

"Er…yes." Disconcerted by the seamless switch from Lecturing Scholar to Friendly Inquisitor, Hermione struggled to catch up. "It's raining pretty hard outside though," she said, gesturing uselessly at the pounding rain, which didn't have a sliver of hope of being heard through the three-foot thick steel walls surrounding them. "With the storm and all."

Dumbledore frowned. "Oh yes, I heard about that. Nasty out there. Ah well, it's always raining somewhere, isn't it?"

Turning on his heel, he locked the door to his office with an impressive set of hefty keys he'd extracted from his bathrobe. They jingled when he replaced them in his pocket. "Come along then," he said. "We've got to go."

"Go where?"

"To the session room." Before she could ask what that was, Dumbledore continued, "I assume you've been given a tour already, by one of the guards?"

"Yes, but-" She stopped in order to catch up to Dumbledore, who was striding down the hall at a vigorous pace for a seventy-something-year old man, and smiling enigmatically. Idly, she wondered what the inmates did when he walked through the cell unit. "Dementor said you could tell me exactly what I would be doing here, Dr. Dumbledore," she hedged, once she had caught up.

"Of course." Dumbledore's face brightened. "Well, you'll be working alongside me, which I hope you don't mind too terribly." A cheerful smile was sent her way, disappearing behind the white tufts of his long, gently curling beard again before Hermione could figure out if he was joking. "On a usual day," he went on, "you'll arrive here, go through security check as you did today, and Dementor will escort you to either the session room or my office, depending on my schedule that day." He paused, looking at her for confirmation. "But you're only coming in on the session days, isn't that right? For the PM shift."

"Yes." I think?

"Good, very good. And then the filing you'll do later…" Dumbledore drifted out of one subject and right to another, sawing his hands together excitedly. "Now group therapy is where the real fun begins. We're a bit late today, but worry not, it isn't serious. You and I oversee the session – oh, it's very easy, Miss Granger. All you do is make sure they don't stray to any less-than-inspiring topics, like drugs, death threats, strapping bitches, et cetera – whatever it is they like to converse about these days, you know." Hermione's jaw dropped, but Dumbledore continued obliviously. "And I would be just thrilled if you could help me by taking part in our discussions. Not all of the patients are very chatty, naturally, although I have a feeling your presence might change that."

"How so?" she said reluctantly.

"I have no idea, it's just a hunch," said Dumbledore, touching his beard with a purse of his lips. Unlike Grindelwald's clipped goatee, Dumbledore had a silvery mane that went to his navel and was more than slightly unruly. If he had payot, gall, and a beady, grilling gaze, he would've looked just like Hermione's moody Jewish grandfather from Georgia.

Dumbledore stopped them at a door, exchanging pleasantries with the security guards on duty around it, all of which seemed to be on friendly terms with him. "Miss Granger," said Dumbledore, catching Hermione before she could go inside. "You do know this is not a job for the light of heart," he asked her, lowering his voice. "Don't you?"

Hermione frowned. "Do I seem lighthearted?"

Dumbledore considered her, probably psychoanalyzing or forming diagnosis based on the defensive hunch of her shoulders and the height of her chaotic hair – or whatever it was therapists were really thinking when they looked at humans. Nodding thoughtfully, he murmured, "Maybe not."

Satisfied, Hermione started to walk past him, but the doctor caught her shoulder again at the last minute. She looked from his withered hand to him, confused, and was taken aback by the ferocious intensity crackling like livewires in his blue gaze. Oddly, it reminded her of…

…Well, her.

That was strange.

"I've seen lots of people come and go in my line of work, for a variety of reasons," he said quietly, searching her eyes thoroughly. "I hope you will be one of the few who surprises me."

"What do you mean?" she said, puzzled.

"I mean, keep acting tough. It works on you." Dumbledore straightened, letting her go finally. "After you, Miss Granger."

Hermione was stunned, but she walked into the session room as ordered. Overly personal therapist or not, she was here for a reason, and nobody was going to scare her off. Her eyes swiftly swept over the session room, cataloging the details.

Six inmates sat in metal fold-up chairs arranged in a rough circle. A tall, scrawny man with a gaunt face, brown skin, and hazel eyes was the closest to the front door, and sitting next to him were what looked to be two bodybuilders. These men had glossy looks about them – not like they were stoners, which Hermione would've recognized in a heartbeat, but as if their IQ scores weren't on the high end of the seesaw, per se. The men formed a solid pack of muscle, and both had similar round faces, buzz-cuts, and tiny piggish eyes. If it wasn't for the steroids, she thought in a rare moment of black humor, they could be Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

She looked across from the giants, finding a stout, broad-shouldered man with Slavic cheekbones and neat shoulder-length auburn hair. His jaw was square, curving into a proud dimpled chin in the center, and he had flirtatious green eyes. Next to him, a stand-offish black man with bleached blonde hair jogged his feet in place restlessly, running his hands over his face like he thought there was something on it every other minute, and in the very back, another man leaned so far back in his seat the front half rose off the floor. His head was turned, so all she could see of him was thick black hair. That unpleasantly reminded her of Harry – which made her stomach turn with something she refused to analyze – so she quickly looked away.

By the door, Dumbledore was trying to rattle free a fold-up chair from the cart a guard had brought in sometime earlier. The fluorescent ceiling lights poured harsh light over the room, but the back right bulb was broken and flickering, where a trapped bee stupidly threw itself against the glass wall inside it. This room hadn't been upgraded yet clearly, judging by the scribbles on the chipped walls and suspicious stains on the floor. A single red watched over all of them, perched eternally recording over the table jammed against the wall to her right.

Dumbledore offered a clipboard to Hermione, handing over a pen as well and gesturing to the fold-up chair he had wrestled free. She mumbled thanks and sat down, avoiding all of the raking eyes trained on her. She wanted to wrestle her Medusa-like mane into a ponytail, but thought it would be too obvious now. Dumbledore took the seat on her left.

"Good evening, everyone," he began, smiling benignly at the chattering group, who fell into quiet after an expectant moment. "I would like to make a small breach in our routine today by introducing our new intern – whom you may have already noticed – Hermione Granger. She'll be with us for a little while from now on, I believe she's here from her school and interested in studying criminal justice. Is that right, Miss Granger?"

"Mostly." As in, it was the cover story Grindelwald had written for Hermione in their email correspondence. Hermione cleared her throat, speaking louder when it was obvious no one had understood or heard her. She always mumbled when she was nervous. "I would love to become a detective – and actually, I'm just a volunteer," she clarified uneasily, cracking her knuckles to curb the anxious drum in her chest, and forcing herself to glance around at the faces staring at her. Ugh. And I thought class presentations were bad…

"Really?" Dumbledore said in surprise. She nodded. He seemed to catch onto the hint that Hermione refused to utter another syllable without extreme prodding, because he smoothly moved on.

"Now-" With one promising lift of his broad eyebrows and a quirk of his lips, the aura of enthusiastic energy around Dumbledore revived like a holy resurrection. The group sunk lower in their chairs at the excited glint in his eye, much like students did in class when the Hogwarts English teacher, Mrs. McGonagall, announced, Next week's thematic essay is on…! "-why don't we all introduce ourselves to Miss Granger here before we open discussion," he said. "State your name and-" He paused, as if debating what personal information was safe enough for a convict to volunteer. "Well," he said at last. "We'll just go on from there."

The doctor didn't wait for a volunteer and pointed at the skinny man first, seated across from him. The man's entire face shrunk into a leer immediately, he shouted, "What you picking me first for, huh, Dumbles? What'd I do to you? What the fuck I do to you? Did I do something to you? No? Then why'd you pick me? You got a problem with me, a stick up your ass? Is that it, Dumbles, you got a-?"

"You didn't do anything at all." Dumbledore was unfazed and soothing. Hermione, stiff with shock in her chair, was stunned to see the manic inmate start to calm down at his words – although he did it slowly, jerking with small, irrepressible twitches that wracked through his whole body in his chair. "Why don't you just introduce yourself to Miss Granger?" he asked reasonably.

The man's eyes sharpened with irritation, but he said, in a disgruntled growl, "Cuss Carrow." The group gave their first round of sniggers at Cuss.

"Your full first name please?"

"What? You copping bull-?"

"Full name."

"Amycus." The word was a snarl. Carrow added impatiently, "Amycus Carrow, god damn it. Is that all, you needy bi-?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Carrow," Dumbledore said drily. "Next?"

Hermione wrote down the group members' names as Dumbledore's procedure continued, along with a small physical description of said inmate each time. She could never remember people's names – or anything – unless the information was paired with a visual, and she hoped her fastidious note-taking would jog her memory later.

The two Incredible Hulks turned out to be Crabbe and Goyle, and the European, Antonin Dolohov, spoke in a liquid Russian accent and had a habit of tapping his boxlike chin in thought every time he broke off mid-sentence – which was often. Bartemus Crouch Jr. was skittish as a field mouse, and the inmates called him Twitch for obvious reasons. The name Crouch tickled feathers at the back of Hermione's brain. Before she could figure out why, Dumbledore had moved onto the final prisoner: the man who hadn't looked up once during the entire session. The inmate whose name she had an inkling she already knew.

Dumbledore waited expectantly, but the group averted their eyes, seeming to suddenly decide the name game wasn't enticing as it had been a minute ago. Hermione frowned, glancing between their averted gazes and the final prisoner. He couldn't be the cause of their disinterest, could he? He certainly didn't seemintimidating, only…slight. Especially compared to the two giants, Crabbe and Goyle. And he was young.

Too young to be in a prison for the rest of his life.

Then again, there was a something about the inmate that rubbed Hermione the wrong way, although she couldn't pinpoint the source of the something. She only knew he vaguely reminded her of the haughtier Hogwarts students. What was that, rolling off of him like radiation from a nuclear plant? She stared, as if looking hard enough would make his strangeness visible, her eyebrows crammed together, trying to determine it.

Then suddenly she knew what the something was. And the knowledge crawled over her skin like a cockroach, explaining without explanation why she'd gotten a bad vibe from him without even hearing him speak.

He vibrated with entitlement.

He was entitled. Privileged. Bored. Isolated by his own gloating reflection. Hermione saw the expression of the rich every day for six hours, the natural carelessness pampered people carried around with them like a virus. She could see it in the lazy slouch of his wide shoulders, the softness of his sheltered ivory skin that seemed to say I have grown up in a perfect, untouchable bubble. I do not know hunger or worry. But this inmate wasn't a Hamptons package, she reminded herself, focusing. He was a murderer. Or worse.

Judging by the way no one save Dumbledore directly looked at him, he was definitely the worse kind.

"Something wrong?" said an unassuming voice, pliable as soft butter, yet clearly audible. Hermione blinked, wondering where such softness had come from - and then The Worst raised his head and glared at her.

Holy shit, was all she could honestly think of for a solid ten seconds. He's gorgeous.

Hermione couldn't even help it when her eyes widened at the sight of the inmate head-on. Edgy, she thought, didn't even begin to cover him. Now that he was sitting up, she could see the mop of ash black hair she'd seen before was actually cropped short and artfully swept aside, strands of it dashing into a pair of eyes that were a striking blue-grey and staring daggers at the entire room from under his silver right eyebrow piercing. He wasn't slight like she'd first thought either, but lean and mean, with smoky black tattoos snaking out of the cuffs of his jumpsuit, twining around two pale wrists like ink hugs as the hints of more sinewy shapes curled mysteriously under his shirt collar.

The glowering, moody figure even had high fluted cheekbones. (This last asset was absolutely unfair, Hermione had always envied people with high cheekbones and despised her own childishly round face.) Still, the question remained: How had that ended up in Azkaban Prison?

The chair the inmate sat on creaked, as he sank more fully into a boneless slouch and tipped his whole weight on one flimsy back leg of the metal chair. He almost seemed to be imitating a meditating monk – or mocking one.

Hermione abruptly remembered he had said something.

"Sorry what?" she said stupidly. Sorry. Of all the moronic things she could've said.

Sorry.

Kill her now.

The inmate – who had never been addressing her, as it turned out, but Dumbledore - arched a brow at her cavalierly, as if he'd just found a cockroach laying eggs on the carpet of his Aston Martin. Hermione knew the look well; she'd been on the receiving end of it for the past week, although usually the supercilious sender was Ginny Weasley – not some psychotic killer with attitude problems.

"Was I talking to you?" he asked, eying all of her slowly. Not the usual way boys eyed girls, but the way humans stared at wriggly, eight-legged creatures who had encroached on their abodes. Despite herself, Hermione felt her ears grow fire hot. An awkward, dense silence stretched across the room.

In the background, Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose, which Hermione had only just vaguely realized was very crooked, in an exasperated gesture. Clearly, this type of behavior from the guy wasn't out of the norm. Clearly, looks didn't promise personality.

"Mr. Riddle," the doctor said warily. "Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself to Miss Granger?"

Riddle turned his head, to spear Dumbledore with the same cocked silver brow and arrogant stare Hermione had just been treated with. Somehow the conceit served to make him even more attractive, which was just ludicrous. You've got to be kidding me, Hermione thought, prickling all over and clenching her fists tight enough to turn white in her lap. That's Tom Riddle? The Tom Riddle I'm here because of?

Fate sure had some wicked sense of humor.

"But didn't you just introduce me, Albus?" the brat said innocently.

Dumbledore smiled, even though Hermione was positive he wanted to punch Riddle's face in as badly as she did. "Yes, but I would like you to introduce yourself, if you please," he said, with incredible restraint, as one would use patience on a 4-year old prone to tantrums. "I am sure Miss Granger would appreciate it as well."

Don't you dare bring me into this again. But it was too late, for soon the condescending eyes of Tom Riddle were trained solely on Hermione for the second time in a very torturous two minutes. Blue eyes rimmed with chrome skewered her, like a poison-tipped spear shoved straight through her throat. As embarrassing as it was, she felt a few dormant hormones stir to life when an enchanting half-smile tugged at Riddle's lips, drawing her eyes to the perfectly bowed, pouty specimens. She quickly crushed them.

"Would she now?" The voice had become a sensuous murmur. Riddle's eyes didn't leave hers, but Hermione felt suddenly that she was being ogled more openly and blatantly than any of the other sex-depraved inmates had done her today. Riddle didn't spare a glance at her body, however, which was what made her sure that human attraction wasn't even close to what was on his mind. "Well, Hayley, would it please you if I introduced myself?" he said in the same feather-light tones – but she could hear the patronizing lilt oozing out of his voice like slime.

"It's Hermione," she said curtly. She didn't trust herself to say anything else, lest the sarcasm motor go on overkill again.

"It's Voldemort," Riddle replied, smile dropping. She realized that under the strange softness, he had a British accent too, and wondered at it. Riddle stared at Hermione as if he meant to threaten her, as if he meant to rip her apart with his eyes. "Charmed… Hayley."

Hermione's expression transcended into a glower, but Riddle was already back to tracing figure-eights on his jumpsuit and pretending the rest of them had ceased to exist. Her forehead puckered as she realized something. Why had he called himself Voldemort? Dumbledore called him Riddle. This is Tom Riddle, isn't it? She glanced at the doctor questioningly but Dumbledore shook his head lightly. Save it for later, his eyes seemed to tell her.

She cast one more perplexed look at the top of Riddle's head, and sealed her lips.

"Voldemort is Mr. Riddle's nickname, Miss Granger. He's very adamant people call him by it – which of course means as staff that we should not. Complying to the…prisoners'-" And he said prisoners as if he wished for a more adequate word, but could not find one. "-demands is a sign of weakness. Here in Azkaban, you'll soon find, power is everything to these men, and very quick to succumb to change," Dumbledore told her afterward, when the session room was empty and they were putting away the chairs. "Mr. Riddle's given name is Tom Riddle Black, however."

"Riddle is his middle name?" Hermione verified, trying not to make it too obvious that she was digging for information, or that she found all of this spectacularly bizarre. What sort of middle name was Riddle? It sounded like a cosmic joke.

"No," said Dumbledore, but had to stop as he strained at a stubborn fold-up chair. Hermione bent over and kicked it. "Ah, thank you, Miss Granger," he said appreciatively, beaming at her. "Now, let's see – ah, I believe his middle name is something along the lines of…Maureen…or Maurice… Marvin perhaps? Marcel?" he muttered, frowning in thought. Hermione frowned too. Tom Marvin. Definitely not hot, she thought, not without a sense of divine justice.

"He has two last names," she observed out loud, and hoped she wasn't being overtly interested. Of course, she only asked so many questions for the sake of Grindelwald – he had practically told her to investigate Riddle, after all. "Is he Hispanic?" He didn't seem Hispanic, with that pale skin of his, but then his hair had been very dark…and soft-looking…and-

Stop stop stop. Riddle is not hot, Hermione told herself fiercely. He is an asshole. Albeit, an extremely good-looking one...

"Mr. Riddle is adopted." Finished, Dumbledore propped a wiry elbow on the chair cart and looked at Hermione with sudden sternness. "Miss Granger, I'm sure you don't need my reminding you that this is a correctional facility, but I'm going to do it anyway. None of the people here are stable, even if they may seem to be so." He hesitated. "Even if they may seem… er, appealing-"

"What? No! That's not what I- that's not why I asked- I would never even-" Hermione was so mortified she couldn't finish. At Dumbledore's skeptical look, she sighed loudly and cocked her hands on her hips. "Ok. Come on, you've got to give me more credit than that. I'm not interested in dating criminals. I have self-respect."

"Inmates," he corrected.

"Same thing."

Dumbledore tried to appear firm, but couldn't help cracking a smile at Hermione's righteousness. "Well, lovely young women such as yourself are often known for fancying – er – bad boys, Miss Granger. I just had to be safe," he said, eyes sparkling.

"Not me," Hermione muttered, although she was startled by the doctor's choice of adjective. I like someone else, she thought grumpily, staring at the torn toes of her faded Converses. Someone distinctly non-jerk-ish. Someone with adorable freckles.

Riddle didn't have any freckles.

Dumbledore, seeming satisfied with her answer, blessedly changed the subject. "Well, it is dinnertime, and I am frankly famished," he confided. "Would you like to eat in the staff lounge or the cafeteria?"

"I packed food," she said with a shrug. "I'll just eat in the filing room, get a head start on organizing." Besides, all she had brought was chips, an apple, and a soggy PB & J, which had been decimated when her laptop crushed it in the messenger bag during the ferry ride. Dinner wasn't exactly going to be an event, on any account.

"If you wish it," Dumbledore said, but he seemed unsure of leaving her alone. "I'll just get someone to stand guard while you're inside."

Again, Hermione shrugged. "Alright."

But secretly, she was relieved she wasn't going to be left on her own.

"You can cut the antics out, Twitch," said Voldemort, flipping to the next page of the New York Times after an annoyed glance across the table. "Shrink isn't around." Shrink was what they'd taken to calling Dumbledore, their own sentimental nickname for the doctor hard-pressed to wheedle them into repentance for their crimes. It's like Dumbles is part of the crew, Voldemort thought, an iron smile twinging his lips.

"I can't stop, i-it's turning into a habit." Twitch grimaced, running fidgety hands over his trembling legs with a theatrical shudder. All of the men at the table knew his circus act was BS though. In fact, none of them had any psychological problems – they'd been faking it since Voldemort arrived and was placed in the group therapy program, which he'd immediately decided was a fine place to keep an eye on the other imprisoned Noble Blacks' members all at once.

Voldemort shot Twitch a meaningful look, and Twitch held perfectly still. Quickly, the members around the cafeteria table caught onto the sudden tension, automatically crowding in to cut off the view of any outsiders. No one except for Voldemort met Twitch's eyes.

Their eyes were on the boss.

Voldemort folded his newspaper, setting it down. His plate of grilled filet was untouched, and a chagrining sight to all the other inmates in the cafeteria, who were eating defrosted hamburgers and tomato gruel soup. Some occasionally contemplated what might come of demanding the ill-humored pretty boy to fork over his gourmet meal plan with force. Looking at the team of lackeys that surrounded Voldemort at all times, however, the chances of demand didn't look good.

Besides, everyone knew what the Noble Blacks did to those who crossed their ranks.

"Twitch," said Voldemort.

"Boss," said Twitch.

"When I tell you to do something…" He licked the inside of his teeth, straightening a fork with his pinky finger while Twitch squirmed. "What do you do?"

"I follow your orders, boss."

"Do you have any questions about that? Any confusion I need to clear up for you?"

"No, boss."

Reassured, Voldemort nodded. He looked around at his men, levelling each one with a gaze as sharp and cold as an ice sword, waiting until every one of them looked away first before he returned to Twitch, whose fists were clenching and unclenching in genuine anxiety now. "Then you listen to my orders," he said, "so I don't have to repeat myself."

They all nodded.

"I'm sure you've all heard word of the traitors in our ranks," Voldemort went on, flipping forward through his newspaper until the bold headline of KINGSLEY PUTS ANOTHER GANGSTER BEHIND BARS glared up at them. "I'm sure you're having doubts about Cygnus's capability to keep everyone in-line, to run business smoothly, but-" He laughed faintly, a whisper in his throat, a shadow of amusement that sent chills travelling fast through the rest of them. "-I'm going to set you straight right now."

"If I find out any of you have even had a secondof indecision, one passing thought about turning against your family…" The fork, just as suddenly in his hand, sank tong-side first into the wooden table with a hard jolt that made the entire row of them jump. The fork just grazed Twitch's fingers. Twitch exhaled shakily, staring at the four lines of red blood snaking down the side of his palm, and Voldemort continued placidly. "Then I'll kill you all. Maybe personally. Maybe not.

"But be sure of this: I will design a torture specific to your deepest fears – and have no doubt, I know precisely what you're afraid of – and that there is always someone waiting to carry out your murder, to pull the trigger, to make you pay dearly for your mistakes. That someone is me. It will always be me."

Voldemort let that sink in.

Finally, his men said, in a mixture of reverence and fear, "Yes, boss."

"Very good." He stood up, shoving his unfinished plate toward the center of the table. Like a pack of hungry dogs, their eyes all fell on the simmering fish, and leapt back up to flash death threats at each other. Voldemort smiled behind them. Unfed sharks trapped in a tank with one prey to devour amongst them. "Resume your business," he said brightly.

Just before the doors of the cafeteria shut, he heard the beautiful sound of chaos breaking out, and a plastic tray cracking down on someone's head. The guards hollered warnings, charging forward with night sticks in-hand to break up the fight. Goyle had probably been the one to deal out the concussion, he always went for heads first.

The guard escorting Voldemort noticed him glance backward and shook his head incredulously. "Wonder what got their panties in a twist," he said, smirking at Voldemort, who shrugged with boredom.

"Small things have a tendency to get big quickly around here," the guard continued to observe, prodding him for some reason. Voldemort rolled his tight shoulders and nodded. "Luckily," he agreed. The guard looked at him strangely, but Voldemort's mind was already elsewhere. Cygnus always said people were only small parts of the whole, and every mob man knew the whole always comes before the individual. If pitting his own men against each other was what he had to do to single out the traitors and save the organization, then all the better for the Noble Blacks' prosperity. All the better for the whole, for the future.

In fact, all the better for himself.

AN: Intriguing strategy there, Voldyboy. But will threats reveal all? Can Hermione stomach her soggy PB&J? And why is Dumbledore wearing PJs? What's with all these questions? What is life? What am I doing here? Why are you here? Who is your mother? (And is she really reallyyyy your mother?)

Ok I'm gonna shush.

Next chapter: The Grand & Mysterious Gryff

Kisses!
ImmortalObsession