All characters are property of JK Rowling and I do not make a profit from this story.
Beta: Roman's Sundial
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Department of Mysteries
Hermione Granger – Present Day
March 14, 2000
Hermione hovered outside of the west wing where she knew Draco was sitting. She was being silly of course; she had spoken to him a few times since she had told him that she loved him, and that conversation had never been brought up, yet she was still nervous to see him. "This is silly, Hermione," she whispered to herself. Taking several deep breaths, she pushed open the door to his wing. "Draco?" she called out, when she noticed that he wasn't in the sitting room.
"Be out in a minute," came his voice from the bedroom. She stood awkwardly in the corner waiting, until a rolled up parchment on the table caught her attention. Curious, she made her way over to it, hesitated, but eventually decided on opening it. She recognized his handwriting at once, and realized that it was an unfinished letter to his mother. She began to read it to herself:
Dearest Mother,
I hope that everything is well over at the manor. I know that you are lonely, especially now that the fidelius charm prevents you from having anyone over, but my hearing is on Friday and with any luck, this will all be over and I will visit with you much more frequently. I was going to ask Hermione to see you before the hearing, but she's been incredibly busy lately. Speaking of her, I was hoping that your opinion of her has changed. She saved you from the intruder and it is thanks to her that I am currently not in Azkaban. I was thinking of asking her to-
"Do you make a habit of reading people's letters?" asked Draco, entering the room and watching her read his unfinished letter to his mother.
"Draco, I – uh – sorry," she said, hastily dropping the letter back onto the table. "I shouldn't have done that."
Draco picked up the parchment and tucked it inside of his robes. "Is everything alright?" he asked her. "You haven't come by in awhile."
"I know, I've been incredibly busy. We are doing daily meetings with the departments at the Ministry, so it's taking up a lot of my time. Yesterday was with the Aurors, today was with the floo department, and tomorrow is with the Unspeakables," she said nervously, although Draco did not pick up on it. "I've come by to remind you of your hearing on Friday."
"How could I forget?"
"Well, I want you to know that I will let them know that you've followed all of the rules and hopefully you can finally be let off."
"Thanks."
"I, uh, need you to not mention all those times that I've left you alone at Harry's house and stuff; it would be bad for both of us."
"Don't worry," Draco said, understanding her point. "As far as the Ministry will know, the only places that I have been without you was the Slytherin common room and this wing."
"Thank you," Hermione said smiling. "I should go now," she said, turning to leave.
"Hermione, do you think we could talk?"
She bit her bottom lip but said nothing. Tomorrow was a busy day for her and her friends, and incredibly risky; she did not need to add the stress of Draco on top of that. "Not today, Draco, but…" she hesitated before speaking again. "We can soon, okay?" Draco accepted her answer and she left his wing to head to the kitchen where she could get something to eat and hopefully get some sleep before the big day tomorrow.
"There you are," said Viktor, sitting at the kitchen table.
"Viktor! I didn't know that you were home!"
"I left quidditch practice early; I feel like I never see you anymore."
"I know," she said, walking towards him and allowing him to pull her onto his knee. "It's been incredibly busy at the Ministry and tomorrow is going to be the same."
"Vell, since ve haff forever together, I guess I can let you vork all these hours." The pair laughed together, but as Hermione went to stand to get some food, Viktor pulled her back down. "I vanted to ask you something," he said to her.
"What is it?" she asked. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a beautiful blue sapphire on a gold band. "Viktor," she gasped, "that's beautiful!"
"I bought it for you," he said.
"What? Viktor, no, I can't accept this, it's way too much!"
Viktor chuckled at her response. "I do not think you understand. Hermione, I am asking you to be my vitch forever; I am asking you to marry me."
Hermione's jaw dropped to the ground. "Viktor, I… This is so unexpected! I – I don't know what to say!"
"Vell, I vould prefer it if you said yes."
"Oh, Viktor, I-"
"I know how your mind vorks, Hermione. You need to think and to process; you ver never one to make a quick decision. So how about this, then." He grabbed her right hand as opposed to her left, and slipped the ring on it. "I vill put the ring on this hand for now, that way nobody knows it is an engagement ring and it gives you the time you need to think. How about in a veek, we haff dinner together and you can tell me your answer?"
"Viktor, you should keep the ring for now," she responded.
"No, it is yours. Leave it in your eye sight for now so you can get used to looking at it. A veek from now, vith hopefully the answer I am expecting," he chuckled.
"A week?" she asked, still not fully comprehending what was going on.
"A veek," he confirmed. Not being able to find her voice, she simply nodded. Viktor stood up and kissed her on the forehead. "I must get to bed, I haff an early match tomorrow against Germany that ve must vin. I vill see you upstairs."
"Okay," she said so quietly, that she wasn't even sure if he had heard her. When he left the room, she stared down at the ring. It truly was beautiful, but an engagement ring? Her head was spinning; with the break-in at the Department of Ministries tomorrow, Draco's hearing on Friday, and all these mandatory meetings that she now had to do with every department, Hermione could not process what had just happened with Viktor. Fearing that she would not be able to function tomorrow, she gave up on eating that night, pushed the engagement ring out of her mind, and headed to bed to rest, although she knew that at this point, sleep was impossible.
Neville Longbottom – Present Day
March 15, 2000
Neville arrived at the Ministry early in the morning as planned, checked in with the security desk, and headed to the lifts to take him to the Dobwig Association's office, where he had a pretend meeting scheduled with Ron. He walked in to the office and immediately saw Ron's bright red hair. "Oh, good, you're here. Come in, Neville." Neville followed Ron inside and shut the door, only to realize that Harry and Hermione were in there, too.
"I didn't realize you were going to be here as well," said Neville.
"We are just going through our notes for today," answered Hermione. "Monday's meeting was only an hour, and yesterdays was only an hour and fifteen minutes; we really need to push it longer today. Here, Ron, I got you these," she said, handing him a few rolls of parchment.
"What are these?" Ron asked her.
"Examples of pureblood families in history who wound up dead after refusing to help the muggles."
Ron started to read one of them aloud. "Martin Stewart of Scotland in 1552 witnessed a muggle being dragged by a horse through his farmland. Stewart withdrew his wand from his robes, but instead of stopping the wild animal, he used his wand to tighten the ropes around the muggle's leg so that he could not get free. A nearby witch, Selma Gonzaga, who was in love with the muggle, had witnessed what Stewart had done. Infuriated, especially since she had not arrived in time to save the muggle, Gonzaga killed Stewart with a flash of her wand. Hermione, this is boring!" said Ron. "Nobody is going to want to hear any of this rubbish!"
"I don't care that it's boring, Ronald! You barely spoke for ten minutes at the other two meetings, we need you to speak for much longer and reading these articles will help! Besides, the message is actually really important; if Stewart had only helped the muggle, both of their lives would have been spared!"
"Don't argue with her, mate," Harry whispered to Ron. "Just read the bloody articles."
"Hermione, that's a nice ring," said Neville, noticing a lovely blue sapphire on her right hand.
"What? Oh, thanks, it's a gift from Viktor."
"Wow, that's a nice gift!"
"It's no big deal," Hermione shrugged.
"Sure it is!" replied Neville. "That must have cost him at least one hundred galleons!"
"I doubt it," she replied.
"He's an international quidditch player, Neville," said Ron grumpily. "He can afford to buy things like that; makes the rest of us look horrible," he added in an undertone.
"Alright, everything is set," said Hermione, ignoring Ron. "Neville, you sure you're okay?"
Neville nodded. "Me, Luna, and Angelina are well prepared, don't worry about us."
"Have your galleon just in case; we will send word if there is trouble," said Harry. "Oh, and take this," he added, handing his invisibility cloak over to him. "It won't cover all three of you at once, but maybe you can use it to make your way down there."
"Thanks," said Neville. He slipped out of the office, threw the cloak over himself, and carefully made his way down to the Department of Mysteries. Having the cloak had been incredibly helpful; as he stood against a wall near the door to the Department, the cloak kept him invisible from all the Unspeakables that were heading towards their meeting with The Dobwig Association. Angelina appeared just as the last Unspeakable was leaving. Horrified that she was to about to get caught, Neville aimed his wand at the Unspeakable under his cloak, but before he could stun him, Angelina took care of the situation.
"Hi, I'm here collecting orders for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Would you like to place an order?"
"No, get out of here."
"I'll see if anyone else would like to," she said, making her way towards the Department.
"Nobody else is there!" he snarled at her.
"Oh, thank you for letting me know; I guess I'll return upstairs then." Not having any other choice, Angelina got back onto the lift and headed away from the Department. A few minutes later, Luna had arrived.
"Luna, I'm here," said Neville, removing the cloak. "Angelina was seen so she went back up," he told her.
"Do we go on without her?" Luna asked him. "It's already 9:03am!"
"I'm here!" Angelina panted, as she raced towards them. "I made it look like I was going up to the top floor, but once that Unspeakable got off the lift, I took it back down here."
"Great!" said Luna.
"Okay," said Neville, taking charge. "Let's go." When they entered the Department of Mysteries, they found themselves in the room full of spinning doors as they knew they would. Angelina took out what looked like a large bucket of red ink and drew a circle on the door that would lead them back out of the department when they were ready to leave. "What's that?" Neville asked.
"It's called paint," Angelina responded. "It's a muggle invention that George discovered and uses in the shop. Harry told me how the fiery x's you used the last time eventually vanished so I thought of this; it should stay on."
"Brilliant!" said Luna, smiling. "Which door should we go through first?"
"It doesn't matter," answered Neville. "But we need to move fast, we don't have much time." Luna selected a door and they found themselves in a very familiar room full of glass orbs.
"This is where we fought the Death Eaters last time," said Luna. "Where we found the prophecy!"
"We know that these aisles only contain prophecies and stuff, so we can cross this off our list," Neville said. Angelina drew an x on the door with her paint, and they waited for the doors to stop spinning again before selecting another. Angelina opened the next door, and the three of them stood staring into an empty room with nothing but an archway on a dais in the centre.
"There's nothing in here," said Angelina.
"Let's keep looking," offered Neville. Door after door the three of them went through. They found familiar rooms from when they were last there, as well as new rooms with incredibly interesting artefacts, but nothing that had the potential to store anyone's insides, nor restore "the person to the vessel".
"It's 10:08am," said Luna, looking at her watch.
"Let's go," said Neville. "We can think of another plan after." As they headed for the door with the circle on it, Neville froze. "They'll know people broke in here by the paint," he said.
Angelina shrugged. "It was the only way that we could ensure that we could get out. Let's get out of here; even if they know someone had broken in, they'll never know it was us." The three of them successfully made it back to Ron's office at the Dobwig Association and had only been there for about thirty seconds when Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned. Hermione closed the door and casted Muffliato on it before anybody spoke.
Harry Potter – Present Day
March 15, 2000
"Well?" Harry finally asked.
"Sorry, Harry," said Neville. "We couldn't find anything."
"Nothing at all?"
"I don't think it's in there, Harry," said Angelina. "We can find another way to get back in and try again, but I really believe that it must be somewhere else." Before Harry could say a word, a loud voice was heard throughout the Ministry.
"There has been a break-in; nobody is to leave or enter the Ministry."
"What now?" asked Neville.
"Luna, quick, get to the Daily Prophet now and do whatever it is that you do there!"
"Got it!" she said, and took off.
"Angelina, here's my order form. You need to go to every office and collect orders to cover yourself. As long as every Department has seen you, you'll be fine." Angelina left behind Luna without a word. "Ron, you walk Neville downstairs; act as if he has been in a meeting with you the whole time."
"But I was with the Unspeakables; they'll know that Neville wasn't with me."
"Ron, say that Neville was locked in your office doing some paperwork for us and that you locked the door yourself so that there was no way he could have gotten out," Hermione told him. "You're a member of the Dobwig Association, the Order of the Phoenix, and you're Harry Potter's best friend; they'll take your word for it." Ron and Neville took off together, leaving Harry and Hermione alone. "Now what?" she asked him.
"I don't know." Suddenly, the office door burst open and Kingsley Shacklebolt stood standing there, his face bright red with anger.
"Ms. Granger," he started.
"It's taken care of," Harry said before anyone else could speak. "My people have left already and they'll never be able to find out who it was. It's done, Kingsley." After a moment, Kingsley gave Harry one small nod and took off, helping the Aurors in the building to try and find the intruders that he knew very well he would not find. Once the lockdown had been lifted (and no intruders were found), Harry apparated to Grimmauld Place and went to sit next to Ginny's still form. Unlike the others who were all placed together in one room, Harry had laid Ginny down on the bed that they shared at Grimmauld Place. "Hello, Ginny," Harry said, grabbing her hand. "I don't know if you can here me. If what Hermione said was true and your person isn't in there, then you probably can't." After a moment of silence, he decided to continue to talk to her anyway. "We tried to find you all today, we really did. We weren't successful but I promise you, we won't give up. I could have sworn it would be in the Department of Mysteries, though; where else could it be?" Harry rubbed her cold fingers between his warm ones, but nothing he did would warm her skin. "I love you," he told her vessel. "I've never loved anyone the way that I love you. I love my parents even though I don't know them. They are my parents after all, and they sacrificed their lives for me. I love Sirius, the only parent that I actually knew. I love your parents, who treat me like their own child, and I love my siblings, Ron and Hermione. I love Teddy, my Godson, more than I thought possible. But then there's you, Ginny." Harry sat there quietly looking at the witch he loved most in this world. "I can't lose you," he whispered to her. "If Sirius were here, he would have known what to do. But he's behind that stupid veil and no matter what I do, I can't get him out, but I know he's in there, Ginny, I-" Harry froze mid-sentence. "Ginny, the veil! HERMIONE!" he yelled, running out of the room and towards the floo to find her.
Gellert Grindelwald – The Past
May 13, 1998
Gellert broke the dry piece of bread into little pieces and littered them on the ground of his cell. He was an old man and he was tired. He spent far too many years in Nurmengard, the prison he built, yet he was the prisoner. Year after year he had spent, wasting away in this dark cell, with only two visitors in the fifty-three years that he had been there. The first had been Dumbledore. Ah, Dumbledore. Too many years had been wasted due to that man. Gellert shook the thoughts out of his mind. His second visitor had been Tom Riddle; the man who called himself the Dark Lord. Gellert laughed aloud, What a fool! He had visited Gellert in Nurmengard, and yet, left him alive! Gellert laughed again. "Oh, the fool!" he said, cackling loudly. He assumed that Riddle had informed the Wizarding world that he did kill him, however, considering the encounter that he had with another prisoner. The new prisoner was being taken to his cell and screamed when he had seen Gellert. "Grindelwald!" he had screamed. "But he killed you!" Laughing yet again, Gellert ruffled through the pieces of bread that he had littered the floor with. The truth was, other than his two visitors, he had also received one more thing. A couple of days ago, buried deep inside his serving of dry old bread, was the tiniest bit of parchment with five little words on it: Time to get you out. He ingested the parchment the moment he received it so that nobody else would find it, and from that moment on, he waited. He had searched every piece of bread given to him, but no other parchment was found. As he sat on the ground, now eating his pieces of bread, he began to wonder if he had dreamt it. That thought disappeared however, when he saw a shadow approach his cell. He looked up into the eyes of a woman he had never seen before.
"Hello, Mr. Grindelwald. I think it is time that we get you out of there."
Author's Notes: First, I would like to apologize. I said I would have one up before the weekend, yet it is Sunday when I am posting this. My husband and his Grandma were in the hospital for different reasons (both are okay now, thankfully). Things happen that are out of my control but I want to take this time to ensure you all that I am 100% committed to this story! I have the entire 19 years planned for the most part, and I have plenty written already (just not published yet as I go in order obviously!) So please know that if I do not post it is because something had happened, but rest assured that once things are on track again, you will receive a new chapter! My goal is 2-3 a week but I promise that you will never go a week without at least one! I'm trying to manage posting, writing, taking care of a baby, and regular life all at once so bear with me!
Now, back to our story! The Department of Mysteries was a bust, but Harry thinks he has an idea; let's see if he's right! In terms of Krum's proposal: you can take it as an end to the love triangle (once Hermione makes her decision in a week) she IS going to make a decision, and she IS going to eliminate one (or both) men. In terms of Grindelwald, who is the mystery woman? I would love to hear your thoughts!
Next chapter focuses on Draco (after all, he must compete with a proposal!) With his trial coming up, there's a lot on the line.
Thanks for understanding; please review and send your questions/comments!