AN: Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed! I forgot to mention last chapter but Fish is a nickname for newbies in prison, it's not a plot point, just adds to the atmosphere. ;) Onward, youngins!

"Where's the Windex?" Hermione called from where she crouched under the kitchen sink, rummaging through a jungle-like plethora of old sponges, moldy dish washer tablets, and bleach bottles.

"What?" Mom yelled back.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I SAID," she roared, "WHERE'S THE WINDEX?"

Mom yelled back something unintelligible – it sort of sounded like I gunho, I'm notching Strife Mop!

As she was reaching into the dark depths, Hermione's elbow smacked a sink pipe and she gasped, pulling back so quickly she accidentally capsized the bucket of cleaning solution sitting behind her on the floor. She grabbed for it, but her reflexes were seconds too late, and the bucket tipped forward, splashing lemon-scented cleaning solution all over the floor. The growing puddle of lime green stretched across the checkerboard tiles, pooling around her knees and soaking through her sweatpants in seconds. Crookshanks leapt off the toaster on the counter and agilely landed in the puddle to investigate, but finding the taste displeasing he sneezed and pranced away with his scuffed tail high in the air, off to trail Mr. Clean paw prints throughout the apartment.

"Awesome," she muttered, throwing down her towel. Cleaning Day was metaphorically impossible.

After fixing the mess, Hermione shoved all the cleaning supplies back under the sink, and stood up to scan the semi-clean apartment. It was, at least, a definite improvement from yesterday. After Azkaban she'd come home to find the place a pigsty, mobbed in dirty dishes that definitely weren't the handiwork of her mother alone, and disgusting needles that definitely were Mom's.

Most teenagers go to parties or update their blogs on Friday nights, they don't sneak back home from prison, she thought, wiping away Crookshanks' lime green paw prints with the toe of her sock as she found them. Not that sneaking home was even necessary. When Hermione came back last night, Mom had been fast asleep – all she ever did was sleep – and Hermione was able to slip undetected into her bedroom. She went there now (it was the only utterly spotless room in the entire apartment), shutting the door behind her. Crookshanks leapt inside just in time, narrowly avoiding a tail amputation.

Dumping a pile of homework that was as thick as the width of her wrist onto her desk, Hermione sat down and cracked open her laptop to keep an eye on two e-mail accounts while she worked through the fruits of labor of AP classes. One e-mail was listed under her given name and most commonly featured an empty inbox – save for spam messages offering Jewish dating websites and discounts on Viagra – and the other account belonged to Gryffindor, filling up with up to about five requests per day in a good week.

Neither account had any new messages. She sighed, pulling over a lab from AP Chemistry to wrangle with for the next thirty minutes. In the meantime, Crookshanks weaved in and out of the space between her crossed ankles, entertaining himself by purring sweetly and rubbing his head against her leg, to try to coerce her into petting him so he could bite her.

Halfway through balancing a complicated equation, Hermione was suddenly distracted by a notification on her e-mail – her real e-mail, for a change. She read the name of the sender and blinked. What did Chief Grindelwald want? Then she remembered – the Chief had mentioned holding a meeting after her first day at Azkaban, to discuss how she was…fitting in…at her new job. She opened the message. Sure enough, Grindelwald had asked her to be at the East Manhattan police station in a few hours.

An idea occurred to her. Maybe he'll be willing to tell me more about Riddle, now that I've seen him for myself. She'd been wracked with curiosity all last night, wondering what the young inmate had been sent to Azkaban for, and why Grindelwald seemed so interested in him. Since she wouldn't be returning to Azkaban until next week, Grindelwald was her best shot at learning more.

She grabbed her messenger bag, dumping her Taser inside too, just in case. It never hurt anyone to be early, now did it?

At the sight of a short girl with voluminous curly hair in a hoodie three sizes too big for her, declaring Real Girls Buy the Trenta in graffiti font above the pixelated picture of a dancing cartoon siren, Chief Grindelwald beheld the arrival of Hermione Granger. It was almost eerie, he thought, what a striking resemblance the girl had to the hawk-eyed detective that had worked under his jurisdiction ten years ago. She had the same shrewd dark eyes, corkscrew hair, and a smaller version of her father's button nose and mouth. The only true difference between the two was her skin, a shade lighter than glowing Barbadian brown in August, and a hair off flaxen in the wintertime. As it was fall right now, Hermione seemed to be caught in-between the colors, a lazy drip of maple syrup drooping off the bottle mouth, iced coffee and pine sap burrowed into her skin like summer's breath.

Still, it's very easy to see which parent she takes after, the Chief thought with satisfaction.

"Hello Hermione," he said once she had entered his office, smiling at her across his wide glass desk and waving her into a chair. "How are you?"

She shrugged – or maybe, her sweatshirt was the one that shrugged. It was hard to defer between the two, seeing as one was so giant and the other so not. "I'm fine," she said. "What did you call me down for?"

"Always cutting right to the chase," Grindelwald noted, not sure whether to be impressed, amused, or offended by this. If only half the officers in the department were as focused as her...

Hermione sat down, sharply staring around his large, spacious office as he spoke. Her eyes caught on the wide window looking down on Times Square, hectic and congested with people and screaming taxis. They all looked like rushing ants from here. "By the way, I didn't call you," he pointed out. "That would require you using that new phone of yours."

Her eyes flashed toward him, surprised he'd realized she hadn't activated the phone he had sent her. "I can't," she said inexplicably.

"You can't what?" he asked, brow furrowing. "Use a phone?"

"No, I can use one, I know how to, obviously-" She broke off, annoyed with herself, and started over significantly calmer. "Look, I just can't."

Grindelwald studied Hermione, but she was avoiding his eyes, indulging in a nervous habit of biting her nails. Finally, he said in a gentler voice, "Can you not afford it?"

A hot breath escaped her, along with one flat word. "Nope."

Sensing dangerous territory, Grindelwald thought over his words slowly before he said them. Talking to Hermione Granger, at this point, was like trying to tip-toe your way across a field of land mines on a tightrope. While blindfolded. In clown shoes. Why is it that inner city kids always have bad tempers? he mused to himself."What if I were to take care of it," he began tentatively, "and pay for the use of the phone as an extension of our agreement-"

Hermione's scandalized expression was enough to stop him. She seemed horrified, rather than grateful like he thought she would. Maybe I should start expecting the opposite of what people would usually do from her. "No," she said vehemently, balling her hands into fists on the chair armrests. "Absolutely not. You're already paying me, that's enough."

"What if it was a work phone?" he offered. "Then the department would have to cover it." When she continued to look unconvinced, Grindelwald sighed. "It's nothing extraordinary, my dear, and I do need to be able to contact you-"

"You can contact me," she said quickly. "You just did a few hours ago through my e-mail, and you called me at my school before."

Grindelwald steepled his fingers under his chin, fixing her with a stern gaze. Hermione stared back at him defiantly. That's just how her father looked at me, he thought with a queer sense of déja-vu. He shook it off.

"Alright, have it your way," he said abruptly, sitting back. Hermione blinked, surprised by his easy acceptance of her demand – and relieved, too? "I'll e-mail you for now, but if you change your mind, don't hesitate to tell me."

"Of course," she said.

"Well…" He drew his fingertip through a layer of dust on the office phone, examining the powdery residue with some consternation. "I initially brought you here because I want to see how your visit at Azkaban went. Did you encounter any problems there?"

"None at all."

"Good. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

"No, nothing." Her eyes drifted aside. She hesitated. "Actually, there…there was one thing," she admitted, after a moment of expectant silence on his side.

"What was it?"

Hermione looked up, startled by his sudden intensity, and Grindelwald relaxed, reminding himself he wasn't speaking to one of his men. "Sorry," he said, flashing her a bashful grin. "I just want to make sure everything is running smoothly, my dear. Now what's on your mind?"

She fidgeted for a minute before answering. "Tom Riddle…Black." Her eyes narrowed slightly at Black, watching him closely for any changes, but Grindelwald was careful to obtain his neutral expression lest she assume any information she should not.

"So you did manage to scrape up some information on him?" he said, pleased by her resourcefulness.

"Yes, I spoke to him," she said, surprising him, "but it wasn't until after that I realized who he was."

"And what did you think?" he said curiously.

"He seemed…" She struggled for the right word, finally settling on, "Quiet."

"Well, there's a reason why he's evaded the government for so long."

"Yeah, about that." Hermione looked at him, her face rapt with burning curiosity. "What is he in there for? Why is it so important that he specifically stays in Azkaban?"

"It's not important that he stays in Azkaban, my dear, it's important that he stays out of the real world," he told her gravely. She nodded slowly. "Riddle is the sort of man who needs to be behind bars – not just for society's benefit, but for his own." He continued, "He's extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to disclose our evidence to explain to you why, as it's technically 'unofficial' and could threaten your safety. You'll just have to take an old man's word for it."

Hermione frowned. "Funny," she muttered. "I didn't get that sense when I met him."

"Did the Germans know Hitler was a sadistic egomaniac when they gave him armies and missiles, when they put the world at his disposal?" he replied with a suave shrug. "Sadly, evil often hides in plain sight."

"But what did he do?" she pressed.

"That's confidential," he said firmly. Seeing her deflate, he smiled a touch slyly and added, "You know, Hermione… I wouldn't be able to stop you from finding the answers to all these questions of yours on your own, if you were to say…resort to your own devices."

She cocked her head. "On my own how? Riddle isn't on the Internet, I checked-"

"The Internet–" He sighed, shaking his head mournfully. "-as much as this may come as a surprise to you, dear – it does not know everything." Turning in his chair, Grindelwald softly tapped one of the filing cabinets behind him, holding her gaze. "But some places do."

Understanding glinted in those keen brown eyes. Hermione seemed to bite back a grin, and so did he. "Alright…Chief," she said airily, standing up. "Thanks for the advice."

Grindelwald hummed. "Anytime, Hermione. Have a lovely day."

Malfoy seemed more confident than usual when he strode into the visiting room today. Voldemort took in his smarmy smirk, amused by the arrogance rolling off the capo in waves when he sat down on the opposite side of the glass and plucked up the phone. Maybe his wife let him sleep in the bed again, he thought, stifling a snort. With uncharacteristic chipper, Malfoy said, "Gooood morning, boss. How're you doing?"

I'm in prison. How do you think I am, ecstatic to see my future empire falling to shit, and thrilled to be sharing oxygen with rapists and murderers every morning? The snarky comeback hovered on the tip of his tongue like a cuspate knife, but Voldemort didn't quite have it in him to ruin someone's mood at eight in the morning – after all, he hadn't had his morning English Breakfast tea yet.

"Dandy," he replied in a clip. "Where do we stand with the court proceedings?"

"Two weeks 'til the trial."

Voldemort snarled, slamming his fist down on the glass above Malfoy's face so hard the cheap plastic walls of the cube next to them shook and flexed. Malfoy jerked back, shocked. Nearby guards saw the episode, but looked away hastily when faced with a warning dark glare from him. "You useless moron," he said furiously. "I told you to extend the date until we got a hold of Wormtail-" At this, Malfoy's sleazy businessman smile returned with an astonishing amount of nerve, and Voldemort cut himself off, studying him with slanted grey quartz eyes. "Explain," he finally said. "Now."

"Wormtail's whereabouts were leaked by a crooked cop. We found him in a small town called Bellevue in Washington, hiding out in a cabin." Voldemort's brows arched. There was a pleasant surprise. "A couple of buttons brought him back here, and they've got him locked up in an old clothing warehouse in New Jersey at this moment, scared out of his mind, but he won't say anything about the traitor. Apparently he never met the rat in person, he was just following orders for extra cash." Voldemort rolled his eyes. "They're waiting for your orders before anything final is done though. Although I'm guessing you'd rather your only witness disappeared quietly?"

He shook his head and passed an elegantly-fingered hand over his jaw, one satisfied smile vanishing before it was ever seen. At least, this explained Malfoy's so god damn sunny mood. He said, "No, we need him. Make Wormtail agree to testify – for me. I'll write him a testimony, he'll memorize it, and he'll say exactly what he's supposed to come the trial. He's going to swear on the Bible, face the court, and prove me unguilty. He didn't see anything. He heard the details wrong. He lied to a police officer. Whatever. Bottom line is, I'm innocent."

"How the hell do we get him to do that?" Malfoy said incredulously. At his deadpan look, the capo amended, "I mean, there's flaws in that plan. What if he lies? Once he's up there, he can say whatever he wants no matter how bad we shake him up-"

"But he won't," he interrupted, smiling. Finally, the courts had turned in his favor. And he wasn't wasting any time warping them. "He'll do exactly what I say, because that slimy little rat values his own life above anything else…and I am going to make him a very generous offer."

"You can't be serious." Malfoy was indignant. "You're going to give that lying shit a pass?" In the underground world, a pass translated into a get-out-of-jail-free card. It meant Wormtail would survive this ordeal, it meant he didn't have to pay for nearly screwing the entire organization over.

"Exactly," said Voldemort. Whatever Malfoy saw in his piercing eyes seemed to be terrible, because he quickly backed off and dropped his own. "It's that or I put a price on his head, Malfoy." His handsome face brightened with an idea. "In fact, plant someone in the court room to be ready to shoot him in the head if he misses a word of his script – of course, Wormtail won't, but just do it to keep him on his toes." For safety measures, he thought smugly, envisioning the petrified look on Wormtail's ugly face when word of the next-in-line's orders reached him.

Malfoy hesitated. "And if he does do what you say?"

Voldemort smiled. Not like Malfoy, who just looked like a greedy hustler, but like a shark with extraordinarily good teeth. "Then you shoot him in the head after the trial."

Lo and behold, national educators had devised a new brand of evil. A required brand of malicousness, worth one whopping and fundamental credit for graduation, forced on innocent children all over the tri-state area. Malign work. Nonsensical torture. And dead boring, besides.

It was eighth period FACS class with Ms. Trelawney.

Why they even had FACS class at a multi-million dollar private school was a mystery to Hermione. For one thing, it was common knowledge that Hogwarts kids didn't need to know the basics of mundane living, such as how to thread needles or bake cookies or operate a sewing machine (they had housekeepers and 20-year old nannies for that). Second of all, did any human being in the 21st century need to know any of the above? Wasn't that what search engines and Youtube tutorials were for?

The school board had yet to get back to the public in regards to this argument. Stay posted for updates.

"This is the Food and Nutrition pyramid, saplings," Mrs. Trelawney announced lavishly, upon entering the FACS classroom ten minutes into the period. Everything about Mrs. Trelawney was lavish and off-balanced, from her deep vibrating voice, travelling across the room like the powerful echoes of a whopped gong, and the wild auburn hair that made her look like an overgrown Lost Boy, to the colorful bohemian jewelry dripping on her person – and then some, like the way she said the Food and Nutrition pyramid, so it sounded more like, the FOOOOD and NuuuuTRITION PyrAHmid!

For some unknown reason, she also didn't learn her students' name, but instead called all of them by variations of plant life.

The FACS teacher had a tendency to never come to class on time either, a habit rumored to be the ripple effect of a drinking-slash-pot problem, which made her frequently forget about the twelve students waiting for her three buildings away from the backseat of her hippie van in the parking lot fourth period. Apparently, she had recently had her driver's license revoked. For the second or third time.

Normally, Hermione could care less about Ms. Trelawney and her useless domestics class. FACS was a lot like gym class. As long as you showed up with deodorant on, you would get through the forty minutes of physical exercise. Sometimes you could even hide in the locker room and cram study for a test next period, or sneak out to the Irish Lit classroom for Dublin tea and Turkish Delights – or if you were feeling less ambitious, claim to a headache and take a nap in Nurse Pomfrey's office until dismissal.

Monday seemed to be the exception to this rule.

Up until Trelawney swayed into class, Harry Potter – the persistent dunce – had been pestering Hermione without mercy, via throwing balled up notes at the back of her head and hissing her name from the back of class. He'd been slaving for her attention the entire day, and she had successfully been pretending not to realize slash giving Harry icy looks. When paper ball #15 smacked her over the forehead, however, she was feeling very far away from feigned oblivion, and dangerously close to melting point. Luckily for Harry, Trelawney chose to show up at that moment.

"Alright everyone, don't get too comfortable, because you're going to be doing a little bit of moving today," Trelawney sang. She traipsed to her desk (leaving the thick, burnt scent of marijuana in her wake) and weaved through the drawers with a jingling, bangle-laden arm until she found her handy deck of index cards. Each card had a student's name on it, and it was up to Fate – and the elaborate methods of Mrs. Trelawney's Las Vegas style shuffling – to decide whose card ended up next to whose. The teacher began to read their names out loud in a grand, trumpeting voice that triumphantly hid her tipsiness.

Lavender, Luna. Blaise, Cho. Cedric, Pansy. Gabrielle, Angelina. Ian, Seamus. And of course, "Last but not least," she announced, "Harry and Hermione."

The universe never played favorites, did it?

Soon all the students had gotten up to conjoin desks and start organizing their food pyramid charts. Seconds later, Harry dropped into the vacated chair next to her. For a while, they sat there awkwardly while the other students worked around them. Harry fidgeted with a lengthening fray on his repulsively bright yellow soccer shorts, unwinding it quickly. "Listen Hermione," he suddenly began, sounding cautious. "I'm sorry about what happened on Friday-"

"Which comes first?" she interrupted, hovering her pen over their worksheet. "Grains or the fruit group?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Honestly, like anyone even cares about this-"

"I think it's grains," she pondered, writing the label in. "Then the fruits and vegetables are next to each other, right?"

"Hermione, seriously. Listen."

"Don't see why I should, but fine. I'll bite." She met his eyes, not holding back a nano of dislike laser-beaming out of her own. "What is it?"

Harry paused and glanced around them self-consciously, scratching behind his ear. Hermione bit down a scowl. He probably doesn't want anyone to realize he's associating with the nobody, lest he endanger his reputation. Psh. "About what I said Friday," he said tentatively, and her eyes narrowed. "You never let me finish," he explained. "I was never going to tell anybody about…your situation, but you said we didn't have anything in common so I thought if I-"

Hermione sighed. "I already know your parents are gone, too, Harry-"

Harry scoffed loudly, surprising her. He was pulling at the fray on his shorts more hectically now, although he didn't seem to realize it. Hermione watched the lengthening thread, wondering why it hadn't snapped yet. "Please, save me the pity party," he snorted. "God knows everybody knows that– but that isn't what I was talking about." He looked at her, his green eyes cat-like and intense behind his glasses. A slice of amber in one iris distracted her for a second, before Harry broke the spell by whispering, "I'm the other scholarship student."

Hermione blinked. "You are?"

He nodded.

"But how…" she trailed. She remembered suddenly that there were two scholarships offered at Hogwarts; she had simply never wondered who had gotten the other scholarship, too concerned with getting into the elite school herself. But how could it be Harry? Hadn't he been going to Hogwarts for years? Wasn't he friends with the richest kids in school? Wasn't he the soccer star, the future New York State governor? It didn't make sense.

Then she thought about it twice. Harry did have a tendency to recycle his soccer uniform, although none of the other players wore their uniforms during school on non-game days as often as he did, and he never carelessly doled out cash like money derived from an un-ending, bottomless river that lived in his pockets the way most Hogwarts students did. And who were his friends really, besides Ron and a few jocks? She had always thought his abominable fashion sense was just some ironic statement, or that he was more modest about his privilege than the others, different.

Well, he was different. Just not in the way she'd expected.

"Wait," she said, rearing back. "You paid me to change your grades, remember? That wasn't cheap," she pointed out. "How did you come up with money for it?"

"No, it wasn't," Harry admitted, wincing. It was the sort of wince she recognized, she'd used it plenty of times, whenever she saw something particularly enticing or lovely at the store, and then realized it was way too expensive and frivolous for her to own. "I used some of my savings to pay for it."

Why would you do that for a test grade? She didn't ask, but she did feel uncomfortably guilty for having charged Harry extra. In her head, she'd called it The Hogwarts Snob Tax and the Justice Tariff. Now she winced herself. "Well, don't you have a job?" she asked.

Harry's face soured. "My uncle and aunt won't let me."

Getting the sense Harry's stand-in parents were an undesirable topic, Hermione swiftly changed the subject. "How did you find out about me?" she said. "About my…situation?"

At this, Harry relaxed, smiling a little. The thread he'd finally tore off his shorts was absentmindedly woven around his thumb, cutting off his blood circulation so the tip was almost entirely white. "It was a hunch. After you told me you were Gryffindor, I figured you weren't working a job that tough and shady – no offense – just for the heck of it, so I went on the school website to look at the student achievements list," he started, glancing at her cautiously when he said Gryffindor. Hermione was puzzled before remembering she'd told him not to call her that with another unwelcome spasm of shame.

This guilt trip thing sucks, she thought morbidly.

"I saw your name under the link for scholarship winners, next to mine." He shrugged. "It was really easy actually."

"Thank God nobody actually goes on the school website," she said, more to herself than Harry. If the students at Hogwarts had in fact cared about their academia, her and Harry's life at school might be very, very different.

"…So are we alright?" Harry asked hesitantly, after a minute.

Hermione felt even more uncomfortable than before. Well, it would be stupid to say no now, she thought finally, and forced herself to nod. Harry grinned, which sort of terrified her. "And can I call you Gryff again?" he pressed.

She glowered at him. "Don't push your luck."

He winked. "It'll grow on you. Give it time."

"I don't think so."

"Whatever you say, Gryff."

"Still don't like it, Pott."

Harry made a face. Hermione snickered and he still looked petulant, but a little gratified, too. Finally, the grand mysterious Gryffindor was starting to warm up to him. It had taken over a week, a day of the cold shoulder from Ginny, and a bruised jaw, but the wait made victory all the sweeter.

AN: Muchos thanks for reading! Reviews get a teaser of the next chapter: Guilt Trip.

Kisses!
ImmortalObsession