Hermione groaned as she shoved the book away from her. She had spent the last several hours utilizing the ministries library, trying to find something that could help her out of the mess her biological parents put her in.
Disregarding the last several books and notes she had made she glanced around as she stretched. It was dark now, taking in her surroundings she noticed that not only had she been in the library for several hours, she had been there all day.
The tea she had purchased was ice cold, her nose wrinkled in disgust. All that time had been for naught. She had found information on bonding's, marriages, even creature mating's and nothing seemed to focus on a blood oath. She had quickly moved onto the magical oaths section.
It was a wealth of knowledge, but nothing was what she was looking for. She had found information on all forms of oaths, from legally binding documents down to the more primitive verbally binding vows.
Nothing she had found, however, would help her in her quest to nullify the blood oath that was given on her behalf. It seemed like everything to do with blood magic was hidden away. Which to a certain extent, was understandable. It was easily manipulated and mostly used in dark ways.
Sighing she stood up, with a wave of her hand the reference texts in front of her flew back to their spots and her notes fell into an organized pile. The Ink well and feather vanished to her office desk.
With super efficiency Hermione was out of the library and striding through the empty hallways of the MoM. Upon reaching her the floo room she had already made her next plans. She was going to reach out to Malfoy. Despite wanting to keep this information as quiet as possible, access to the Malfoy family library was incredibly important, especially since Harry had already had Kreacher bring her every reference text from the Black library.
She arrived in her flat with a sudden whoosh of air, siphoning off the ash from the fireplace, she quickly shed her clothes, flicking her faucets on as she passed her bathroom and prepared for bed, gathering her softest robe, a large canister of bath salts, and a chilled glass of wine. She also added a trashy romance novel to her list of items, deciding she needed time to unwind.
After what felt like only minutes, but was truly two hours, of relaxation, she let her mind wander back to her reality. Getting fully ready for bed she penned, hopefully her last late night, note and sent it off to be received by her acquaintance before finally slipping off into a dead sleep.
The next morning, she was awakened by a loud banging on her flats door. Groaning she cracked her eyes open slowly, before slamming them shut again. It felt like she had the worst hangover she has ever experienced. Definitely not the most fun thing to wake up to first thing in the morning.
The banging grew louder and more impatient the longer she took to answer the door. With a soft explicative she rose from her bed, grabbing her robe on the way. With an exaggerated eye roll she let her irritation at her early morning visitor show heavily in the way she flung the door open.
With no time to spare, none other than Theodore Nott strode confidently into the room, as if he owned the place, which, he actually did.
"Theo." The name was said with a slight sneer as her irritation at his antic increased.
"Mia, love, you honestly couldn't have gotten dressed?" His tone was incredulous, as if she had insulted him by still wearing her pajamas after she had woken up.
"It's," glancing at the clock she couldn't stop the slight widening of her eyes. It was already 11 am. "it's still morning Theo, and I didn't expect you to show up banging on my door as if the bloody building was on fire this morning."
Grumbling slightly at her unexpected guest she led him into the kitchen where she made a cup of tea for them both.
"Love, you can't honestly expect me not to have shown up after that perplexing request you sent me last night." He rolled his eyes slightly.
"I mean honestly, you act as if you don't know me at all. You haven't so much as spoken with Malfoy since the war ended, let alone get comfortable enough to ask a favour of him. So something juicy must be going on."
"Bloody hell, Theo. You're worse than Lavender and the Pavarti twins were back in Hogwarts. You can't seem to keep your nose out of other people's private business."
He flashed her a smirk as she finished.
"You know damn well that I would not give you this favour without first knowing why I was asking for these books. Especially considering the type of magic we are dealing with. My life as a simple estate owner just isn't providing me with the most entertainment recently." The "simple estate owner" was a load of bullshite. The man sat at the head of a real estate empire, where he delegated most of the work but reaped huge benefits.
"Its for a case I am working on. I just need some information into magical bondings, especially in how blood oaths would affect magical creatures." The lie fell off her tongue easily for once, thankful for all the times she had to cover for herself and the boys in Hogwarts.
"I see." It was obvious in his tone that he didn't believe her one bit.
After a short bout of silence his deliberation stopped. Sizing her up slightly he finally agreed to help her out. Her shoulders sagged in relief.
"But I get to help." That single sentence had her tensing once again.
"Why would you want to? It should be a pretty boring case." She tried to keep her tone nonchalant but was failing miserably. He smirked knowing he had caught her.
Shrugging his shoulders he kept his face straight not giving away that he had seen right through her.
"Just a little bored is all. Could use a new topic to spark my interest in things again."
Sighing internally, she knew she would not be able to brush him off this time, not without providing some information, so she gave in.
"Fine. When can we start?"
"In about a week. Draco doesn't get back from his honey mood until next Tuesday."
"A week!" the word was shrieked. "I can't wait that long! I have to get this done as soon as possible. I have a month deadline!" She was internally hyperventilating. This time she could feel the walls starting to close around her. She knew her deadline but she had thought it would be easier than this to find information, to find something, anything, to break this stupid betrothal.
"I'm sorry, darling. But he's unreachable before that. Have you tried Potter's library? The Blacks are known to have some pretty dark books."
"I've already searched through everything there, and at the MoM. I didn't find anything of use. That's why I asked. I wouldn't have said something if I wasn't desperate."
"Well, if you tell me specifically what our objective is, I might be able to search the Nott library. Its almost as extensive as the Blacks is." Hermione had already thought of this, but if she was going to get access to his library that would require her to give him information on what she was looking for. And she didn't want anyone else knowing anything about what was going on before she could fix this. Not with that nasty little pest, Skeeter, around.
Theo went in for the kill.
"I already know that this is not to do with work. Based off of how you're looking now I am going to surmise that this has something more to due with your bloodline rather than the continued blood line of one of your clients." His brow raised as if daring her to deny it.
Shite. She had forgotten her glamour. And even worse, she wasn't wearing it to the meeting at Azkaban nor when she accosted Harry in his department. It was as if the universe was conspiring against her. She expected to see something about her sudden change in appearance in tomorrows paper, surprised that it wasn't already there considering that parasite still worked for the prophet.
Sighing in defeat she looking down at her cup.
"Yes, Theo. There has been some… information that has been released and it affects me directly. I need to fix this. And it needs to be done already. I am running out of time."
Theo smirked at the confirmation.
"Fine, you don't have to give me specifics. I have a feeling I am going to find out soon enough as it is." Pulling a package out of his pocket he enlarged them. There on the counter sat several large tomes. Another package was pulled out. It was detailed notes. Hermione nodded in thanks. It seemed he had already done some research of his own.
"I brought the books that were in the Nott library that were relevant to the subject. I also took the liberty of going through them all. And I had Narcissa do the same. We both found information on blood oaths. But, from the way your reacting you're not going to like what we found…" Hermione scowled. He had already contacted Malfoy, and his mother conducted the research for them. He had her thinking she was going to run out of time before she had even had the opportunity to look.
"And?" She was getting more and more impatient.
"Assuming you're looking into how to break a blood oath?" The end trailed off as a question, to which she reluctantly nodded. "In that case, there is only one way."
Hermione's head shot up from the notes and her eyes widened.
"How?" She was desperate.
"Death." His answer was straight, getting right down to the grit. The Gryffindor in her appreciated the sentiment from the usually dramatic snake. But the logical part of her was screaming internally. She had feared this. From the shear lack of information, she could find, she had a feeling this was coming.
"Death of whom?" There was still a slight hope in her eyes, on the off chance that maybe just maybe it was Dolohov that had to die, he was old enough, and Azkaban was cold and deadly, she might still have a chance.
"You or your intended." Hermione sucked in a breath, damn, Rowle was looking oddly healthy compared to her father!
"So, are you going to tell me who you ended up betrothed to?" Theo's voice was teasing, but with an edge to it. He was the worse gossip she knew, worse than both Ginny and Molly combined.
"Fine, but you have to keep this quiet. I need a wizard's oath from you until, that until I release it to the public this stays between us." Her eyes narrowed at the wizard.
Rolling his eyes he grabbed his wand.
"I do so solemnly swear to keep Hermione Granger's secret until such a time that it has become well known." With a swish of his wand they felt a shiver of magic rush over them.
"You know, Granger, you could have been a Slytherin. With how cautious you are." He chuckled softly.
She glared at him, but it held none of the fire it had before.
"Thorfinn Rowle."
"What?"
"That's who I'm engaged to. Thorfinn Rowle." He paled so much so she feared he would faint.
"But that- that would make you…"
"Dolohov's daughter. Yes." She shrugged it off like it was nothing.
Theodore gripped her arm tightly.
"Tell me everything."