A/N: Please recall that the M rating on this fic is for language, as in the next couple of chapters there are two uses of the c-word. I don't usually like to give trigger warnings, but I know some people have visceral reactions to that word and might be upset with me if I don't mention it. It's not in the context of sex, but rather is being used pejoratively (not that that makes it better).

"Rule 30: There are NO girls on the internet."

The Rules of the Internet

"She's getting worse, Harry. You need to go check on her."

"I will when I find a moment,"

"Today, Harry. Today. This isn't going to get any better for her and you're not going to miraculously become less busy. She needs her best friend—"

"I don't know how to help her, Gin—"

Ginny Potter gave her husband her best Weasley-woman glare, which her husband was convinced was only amplified in strength by the fact that she held a teething baby canted on one hip. She had been urging him to intervene on Hermione's behalf for the past few weeks, and his resistance to interfering was wearing on her rapidly fraying last nerve.

"How is it so hard to just go talk to her?"

Harry scratched at a non-existent itch on the back of his head, looking sheepish, "You know what she's like, love, when she's absorbed in a project? How would you approach her?"

Ginny raised an orange eyebrow at the man, evidently not buying his excuse. "What's the project?"

Her husband shrugged helplessly, "Fuck if I know—"

"Harry!" Ginny scolded sharply, jerking her head at their youngest child, who was busily chewing and drooling all over his own hand and whose eyes were watching his parents with avid interest. "Young ears,"

"Er, right... I don't know what she's working on, Ginny," he tried again. "When she's not at that new place she's working at she's at the library. The muggle one, that is,"

Ginny stared at him, her face shrewd. "And she won't tell you a thing about it? Now, I find that very odd, Harry Potter: Hermione has never hesitated to go on and on about anything she's been absorbed with in the past—"

"I agree! That's exactly my point!"

"Okay," she continued, "and you have never hesitated to investigate when someone was withholding information from you. So why stop now?" his wife frowned, pinning him with a glare. "This whole business with the report is funny enough, but even beyond that she's behaving oddly. You owe it to her to see what's got her so distracted. I don't think it's that new job. From everything she told us it's just Waldweirness but more depressing and without the convenience of a Scourgify here or there."

"No, I don't think it's the job," he agreed, reluctant.

Hermione had indeed been increasingly absorbed in something that she seemed all too reluctant to talk about. When he'd pressed her, Harry could have sworn that the witch had been embarrassed, though when she explained her presence in the library he couldn't fathom why: it was no less and no more than how she had spent her time for years. Granted, it was slightly strange that she'd opted for the muggle library, but after the snubbing she'd felt from the wizarding world of late, how could he blame her?

He knew one thing, however—Ginny might have meant well, but if Hermione wasn't willing to talk, there was nothing Harry Potter could do to move her to do so.

The wizard pondered this for several days, putting off his decision on how to act for far longer than either he or his wife were comfortable with. He'd sent out exploratory owls to his friend, making casual inquiries into her activities, offering their house for her to stay at once more, proposing that he could help with whatever project she was absorbed in. When they met for lunch, as had been their habit before disaster had befallen her, she put him off with a sheepish shrug and sorrowful eyes.

His friend had finally admitted to him that rent was becoming uncomfortably tight. He'd patted her hand and instructed the woman to get her affairs in order.

"I don't even know where to start, I've hardly any time..." Hermione wrung her hands in her lap as she hunched over the croissant-sandwich he'd bought her at L'Orange Boulanger. Ron had been shooting them surreptitious glances for the whole meeting, though he was too busy to come over and ask what was up. Harry had been obliged to make a small jerky movement of his head at his brother-in-law that was the signal between the two that he'd tell him about it later.

Though there was nothing that the red-headed man could do for his friends, he tried to make up for it by setting a luxuriant pair of hot chocolates before the two, on the house. It had at least earned a smile from their oldest friend, one garnished with frothed milk on her curved upper lip.

Harry shook his head and sipped at his own, managing it with a bit more grace than Hermione had. "I don't want you to worry about that. Just focus on gathering your things,"

Hermione hunched over once more and buried her hands in the tangles of her hair. She looked ready to moan but stifled herself. "It all seems so impossible,"

He frowned at her, "That's not the attitude I'm used to from you, Hermione. You've never complained about not having the time before. Hell, in our third year you made time,"

The witch cracked a small grin, appearing a bit sheepish. "Would that I could do that again,"

"Yes," he drawled, his expression a bit wry, "I'll grant you that it'd be easier with a time turner. I'm afraid in an official capacity I'd have to frown on that,"

"Git."

"Just the same," he grinned at her. "If you don't have the time, then I'll make some time. Give me your house-key and Gin and I will come and pack you up while you work this week: I'll do it during my lunch if I have to,"

"Harry, really," she looked panicked, "you don't have to do that..."

"Do you need a place to stay?" He demanded, his voice firm.

Sighing, she curled into herself more. "... Yes, you know I do,"

"Then you'll need your things."

And that had been that. She'd handed over her house-keys and Harry had taken a week to gather her things while she attended to her overbooked schedule at Marigold House, appearing in the late hours of the evening drawn and haggard, often times covered in unidentifiable stains that he was quite sure he didn't want to know the origins of. He still wasn't quite sure how it was possible that she was busier than he was as the Deputy Head of a Department, but when she'd showed him her diary, he'd witnessed it himself: she was often working twelve to fourteen-hour shifts.

"Gor! I didn't realize it was legal to work as many consecutive hours as they've got you signed up for!"

She had merely shrugged and had explained that she'd perhaps done some minor magical manipulation of the schedule in order to get more hours.

"Hermione," the Auror began, his voice sharp with warning, "don't tell me you've done something I'll need to book you for—"

"I haven't!" the witch protested back, "I wouldn't... only... only, I cast a perception charm on the schedule. I didn't confund any muggles, Harry. I wouldn't do that,"

"See that you don't." He'd warned with obvious disapproval.

Mid-April saw Hermione living with the Potters and completely moved out of her flat. Crookshanks had settled himself back into Grimmauld place like he had never left it, and in a considerably improved mood given that his mistress could now afford to treat him to his rump steaks once more.

However, it was possible that Crooks was the only one in the house that was entirely satisfied with the arrangement.

That wasn't to say that Ginny and Harry Potter weren't happy to have their friend living beside them: on the contrary. Yet, while Hermione happily watched their two boys often, and was a joy to see and speak to every day, they couldn't help but to notice that she was still absorbed in a kind of funk that they couldn't begin to understand.

She didn't often spend time with them that wasn't scheduled in advance, still preferring to frequent the library whenever possible, ostensibly absorbed in a mysterious project about which they were never given details. It took a few weeks for Harry to put his finger on what was so strange about this project compared to the ones which had come before it.

She never seemed to come home with any books...

Certainly they still saw her about the house with them: but they all came from the Black Family library and were never on a consistent theme. Whatever was absorbing her: she wasn't reading about it, otherwise she'd not have the time or inclination for pleasure reading. Hermione Granger was a uniquely thorough researcher. When she had a subject that intrigued her, she could scarcely look away to do something else or read about a different topic.

Things weren't quite adding up.

Unfortunately, Harry didn't have the time he'd have liked to investigate. His days, outside of his time spent with his family, were taken up with what he was increasingly coming to believe was nothing more than busy work. It almost made him long for the cases of werewolf attacks and apprehending the little Death Eaters: he was sure that they were still going on... but he wasn't being called for them.

As it had been explained to him: his stamp of approval was needed for paperwork. He was too important now for field work.

It made the Auror mightily suspicious, but he wasn't to the point of asking any questions. In fact, he rather thought that it was his questions which had seen him shunted aside into obscurity...

He hadn't forgotten, after all, how Arthur Weasley's support for muggles had seen him sidelined under Cornelius Fudge's administration. This felt like more of the same.

No. If he had suspicions he'd play his cards close to the chest.

He'd gone to the trouble of making copies of his photographs and opening a muggle account with a bank where he'd secured a safety deposit box. Perhaps he was paranoid, but he recognized the kind of yawning dread that he'd not felt since the early years of the second coming of Riddle.

Things were afoot. Things that he felt certain he was being directed away from. Things people didn't want him to know about, specifically.

Near the end of April, the Auror decided that enough was enough. It was bad enough that his employer was keeping things from him, but his best friend, whom he was keeping at his house with his wife and children, was another thing entirely.

He'd tried to ask her countless times why she was so preoccupied and what the project was that held her so in thrall, to no avail.

So, feeling a bit like a giddy first year again, hyped up on insatiable curiosity and perhaps too much sugar from an overabundance of cauldron cakes, Harry took it upon himself to follow Hermione one Saturday afternoon when she made her habitual trip to the library.

It might have presented a challenge if he'd had to rely on disillusionment charms like most wizards, but he'd never had difficulty in that arena so long as he kept his invisibility cloak close at hand.

He was a bit lucky: it was marvelously good weather for late April, and was warm enough that Hermione had chosen to walk instead of apparating. Had she chosen the later, he might have had some difficulty following her, or figuring out which library to check. As it was, he maneuvered himself into her wake, using the path she cut through oncoming foot-traffic to avoid being hit by any oblivious muggles himself.

Upon reaching their destination, he was surprised to find that she bypassed the stacks entirely, and signed up for a computer terminal, logging in with her credentials like she was intimately familiar with the practice, and opened up what appeared to be a silly, and rather fanciful game with childish art and graphics.

Not that he was much of a judge, he frowned to himself, but he thought he'd seen more advanced stuff from Dudley's Playstation ten or more years earlier. Neither was he intimately familiar with how computers worked, and certainly he was a stranger to the internet... but was the game supposed to be in the window itself?

He moved closer, taking care to obscure his footsteps with silencing spells and to cast a bubble head charm over his face to reduce any breath that might disturb her. He was less detectable than a ghost.

Hermione was glaring at the little figure of a woman with a halo of brown, quirky hair, and two white teeth that shone out of her mouth when she smiled. The character seemed to be holding aloft a fluffy tortoiseshell cat in her arms, and was apparently giving her directions, rather bossily, Harry thought, to track down an enclave of occultists that had plans to besiege the abandoned Wulfric's Keep.

He felt his fingers clench.

Everything about the game was... was just so oddly familiar. He couldn't put his finger on it... Perhaps that was why Hermione seemed so taken by it, if her own drawn expression was anything to go by.

After a few moments of him watching her marshal her inventories and arrange her skillbar, she went to open a new browser window, the tips of her fingers resting between her teeth where she seemed to be gnawing at them absentmindedly.

The search function took her to a list of resources after she typed in: Galdrvale AND "Lady Hermia" AND 2007. She stared at the list for several moments, seeming to scroll past a few press-releases announcing a new content pack that had released in January of that year, and clicked on a link for a forum discussing the newest expansion.

From a user going by the moniker Galdrmastr: "What do you guys think of the new NPC? I mean, we didn't exactly need some bint telling us how to level, but the devs seem really gung-ho about her."

BeegChung00se: "Fking obnoxus. Feels like i cant take 2 steps w/o her saying sum dumb shit 2 me"

JarheadBinks: "Dunno. I guess I think it's kinda funny? I mean the whole doing it to save a broad thing checks out I guess..."

Cawkadingle: "STFU HERMI!"

LordDreadNot: "Annoying. Pretty much hate her, but then Wulfric was kinda worse, wasn't he?"

Cawkadingle: "lmaoooo fucking wulfric xD"

TomsDickInHarry: "Scribe's lost his shit, afaik. I watched an interview with Charlie (one of the devs) and he said it was all Scriby's idea."

Wulfs_Hairy_Newts: "Charlie's a fucking cunt, he didn't bring the game back—Scriby did"

Galdrmastr: "IDK about Hermia but the occultists are pretty neat. Think they'll introduce a way to join that faction?"

LordDreadNot: "Bruv, when have we ever had a choice in Galdrvale. It's not Elder Scrolls"

JarheadBinks: "Do y'all ever think the devs watch the forums?"

TomsDickInHarry: "I don't think they care about player experience, tbh, but I saw a rumor once that TyrantTerry had an account where she'd post and talk to players"

Galdrmastr: "I met her at an event once"

LordDreadNot: "What was she like?"

Galdrmastr: "She gave me a voucher for hero-tier armor soooo *shrug*"

JarheadBinks: "Cool cool"

BeegChung00se: "Did u ask her about Scriby?"

Galdrmastr: "No y?"

BeegChung00se: "There r rumors that their friends"

LordDreadNot: "Wouldn't they all be friends?"

TomsDickInHarry: "Nah. Scriby's apparently an arse. If he were friends with TT I'd be surprised"

JarheadBinks: "It seems to me that this whole questline was made cuz Scriby finally got laid."

BeegChung00se: "U think shes a player?"

Cawkadingle: "No gurls on the internet tho"

TomsDickInHarry: "Doesn't make sense imo, if Scriby got laid why is Hermia such a frigid bitch"

Cawkadingle: "Lmaooooo a good point"

Wulfs_Hairy_Newts: "I bet Scribs gets his choice. Probably loaded"

TomsDickInHarry: "Yeah, like any girls gonna spread her legs for 1 bil dinor"

Galdrmastr: "I'd do it for 1 bil and an NPC."

BeegChung00se: "Well rnt u the cheap whore xD"

LordDreadNot: "If Hermia is real, I don't think she plays"

Wulfs_Hairy_Newts: "What if she did tho?"

JarheadBinks: "Id tell her Tits or gtfo"

LordDreadNot: "Now gentlemen, is that any way to treat a lady?"

TomsDickInHarry: "Who says shes a lady?"

LordDreadNot: "(If she's real at all) Scriby seems to think so"

TomsDickInHarry: "Theres no way shes real. Id bet all my dinor and my Grawp-armor"

Here Hermione had finally stopped scrolling through the forum, looking all at once troubled, amused, and irritated. For Harry's own sake, he was glad to be invisible. He couldn't make much sense out of the ramblings of the users on the forum, but the final comment, about 'Grawp-armor' struck him as suspicious.

Was someone from the magical world contributing to this muggle computer game? Wulfric had been one of Dumbledore's many names... could the 'Scribe' be Hermione herself? He observed, silent as a ghost as she snorted to herself and closed the window containing the discussion. She was now staring at the window containing the game with a distinct frown on her face, but after a moment or two, she logged out of the computer terminal and rose to gather her things, muttering to herself all the while.

"Well, that's clear as mud." Harry thought he heard her grumble.

Evidently, his stake-out was at an end. As she left, he saw her clip her laminated name-tag to her navy polo, indicating that she was headed off to work. He waited a few more moments, tucked away against a wall to avoid foot-traffic, just so she wouldn't get the sense that she was being followed before he entered the men's loo and dispensed with his charms and cloak.

As he left the library he made his way into an adjoining park. It was far too nice to apparate back home, and Ginny had taken the boys to the Burrow for the afternoon. With Hermione starting her shift at Marigold House, he had a little more time to sleuth, however he wasn't entirely sure in which direction to go haring off.

This couldn't be the project she'd spoken of. It just wasn't like her. A silly computer game? Since when had Hermione ever cared about anything that wasn't meaningful, or rewarding in any real sense? For her to care about a collection of moving pixels was so out of character as to be inconceivable. There had to be a greater importance. It had to be research of some kind...

She probably wasn't 'The Scribe.' No. She must have been looking for him herself, Harry decided.

He sat at a park bench where he rested his elbows on each knee and supported his chin on his hands, his fingers twined together to create a sort of head-rest. It was such a gorgeous day that no one paid much attention to the lone auror, and he watched the passers-by in the sort of detatched-yet-observant fashion that he'd perfected as someone in law enforcement. Enough to recognize a threat, but not so focused as to distract him from the object of his thoughts and ruminations.

This had all seemed to start when she'd been sacked from the Department of Woe.

Harry sucked his cheeks in as he stared hard at the gravel pathway before him.

She'd been with Eileen that day... at least for a bit, to drop off and pick up James and Al. Was it possible that the old witch knew anything about the game? Could she have directed Hermione toward it herself? It didn't seem terribly likely, but then again, Harry had seen things that turned out to have been connected that had seemed, at the time, more incongruous than this. It would hardly be more unlikely than some of the leads he'd had to follow in his career.

It certainly couldn't hurt to go ask, the Auror decided, rising to his feet and dusting off the seat of his pants absentmindedly. He made his way with brisk steps toward the empty alley he'd spied on his way to the library and whirled away toward Waldweirness.

The crumbling brick and questionable cladding was as it ever was: depressing, dirty, and a bit eerie. Once he was into the residential area and the glamour fell away, the identical rows of terraced housing oddly seemed just as depressing in their uniformity. He made his way to the house he knew Eileen resided in, his shoulders hunched as they usually did when he was single-minded with purpose.

Three raps on the door produced no results, however. Harry gave it another few moments, even craning his neck in a most Aunt Petunia like fashion to try and glance in the window before he repeated the knocks and called out.

"Eileen! It's Harry Potter—I was hoping to speak to you!"

Knock. Knock. KNOCK.

"EILEEN!"

Nothing.

"MRS. SNAPE!"

His calls were met with silence. No light or movement stirred within the window.

The Auror cursed softly and pulled his wand, casting a discreet homenum revelio charm to no avail. The house was empty.

'Could she have stepped out?' He wondered, considering whether he should investigate further. Hermione had mentioned that the women liked to attend games at the recreation centre every so often...

He peeked again into the window and frowned. The kitchen looked deserted. There weren't any dishes by the sink, no evidence of any food.

His mind made up, he discreetly cast Alohomora and let himself in, only to find a house as quiet as the proverbial grave, only emptier. None of the woman's personal effects were in residence, not that she'd had many, but Harry had noticed that the last time he'd been to Waldweirness the woman definitely had a unique presence of sorts. None of that was in evidence today.

He made his way through the small house, checking the bedroom and loo at the back and making his way to the kitchen, where he found no more and no less than the exact number of plates and utensils that were given to the residents as part of their remit when accepting housing: one set. Everything was scrupulously clean... unlived in.

Eileen Snape was gone.

The Auror scowled, his countenance blackened with his displeasure as he left, his boots stomping far more loudly than he'd normally have liked as he clambered down the stairs that constituted the stoop.

If she'd left then the department must know something about where to find her, he reasoned, heading toward the Ministry adjunct offices several blocks away.

But the employees for the department were clueless, the honesty of their lack of knowledge showing clearly by way of their all too evident befuddlement.

"Mrs. Snape has left?" Asked one witch, whose desk was on the opposite side of the hall from where Hermione's once was.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Harry snapped with a hint of impatience. "I know you let Hermione Granger go, but surely one of you was responsible for checking in on her charges—"

The woman blushed and hastened to smooth things over, her features flushed with what could have been panic, "We are! We did... I thought we did—SANDRA!" she called out into the room, beckoning to a petite middle-aged witch in tortoise-shell spectacles, "You got some of Hermione's cases, didn't you?"

The witch hurried over, coming up to the congested desk they were huddled around with a clip-board of what looked to be paperwork.

"I did, she had eleven cases—"

"You didn't happen to have Eileen Snape, did you?"

"I..." she began, and then her face seemed to muddle over with confusion. "I know I got her paperwork..."

"Did you do the wellness checks on her the last few weeks?"

The confusion and bewilderment were still evident in Sandra's eyes as she stuttered around whatever it was she was hoping or trying to say.

Harry thinned his mouth, his whole expression grim. "That's all right, Ms.—?"

"Brock."

"Ms. Brock. It's all right." He tried to paper over any upset with a raised palm of his hand. He'd found that the public tended to assume he had it all under control when he did so.

"It's not alright!" cried the first witch, fixing Sandra Brock with a glare, "It's been weeks since Hermione left, and you can't even admit that you forgot all about poor Mrs. Snape—"

Harry cleared his throat loudly and stepped back a few paces, before gesturing that the witch whom he'd first spoken to should step forward on her own. "One moment if you please, Ms. Brock," he nodded to the second witch. "If you'll excuse us,"

Upon being out of ear-shot he bent down and began whispering, his voice urgent, "It's not Ms. Brock's fault, ma'am. I'd bet my wand that she's been hit with a confundus. I've seen the signs before,"

"A confundus!?" the witch cried, looking aghast.

"Yeah." Harry continued, "Can I assume that neither of you have any idea where Eileen Snape is at this moment?"

"No! We thought she was at home!"

Harry nodded gravely and indicated that they should rejoin Ms. Brock by the desk.

"Thank you for your assistance, ladies. It seems to me that Mrs. Snape has gone missing. I'll be filing a missing person's report on my own," he fibbed, having no intention of turning the investigation over to his own office, "in the meantime, I urge you to contact me if you hear word from her or catch wind of her whereabouts," he said, furnishing one of his business cards.

"My word, Harry Potter! You're Harry Potter!" Ms. Block exclaimed upon examining the card, but her words were to only her coworker.

Harry had already departed.

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

H.L. Mencken