Hermione waited outside of the Beach Lounge with a Quidditch bat.
The laughably misnamed bar was smack in the middle of Knockturn Alley, the blackened, dingy bar front a ridiculous contrast to the bright yellow letters that spelled out its name. She swung the bat and smacked the end into her palm, her eyes fastened on the door front. It was a two hour wait before she saw the person she'd come for.
A man with greasy brown hair and strangely owl-like eyes that were too big for his face. His expression was perpetually startled because of the odd shape. Hermione had expected him to turn right and walk towards her, but he stepped out from under the awning, looked right, then left, and turned left. She flipped up the hood of her cloak and followed. He spotted her almost immediately as she'd suspected he would. The man picked up his pace and darted around the corner into a small alley. Hermione sprinted after him. When she turned the corner after him, a red spell flew by her ear, almost striking her.
She swore under her breath and threw up a shield spell to block his next attack. As he drew back his wand to send another curse her way, she parried with a body binding spell. The man fell. Hermione approached his side. As she walked she let the bat fall through her hand, so that she had a grip on the handle instead of the taper. She twirled it around her hand like a baton, a move she'd had plenty of time to perfect after a week of coming to this alley every night to watch and wait. The man's struggle was clear on his face, frustration and anger written over his expression. Hermione pulled out a potion bottle of clear liquid and poured it over his forehead like a blessing with holy water.
His face melted, his hair lightened and lengthened. Brown eyes turned blue.
"Hello, Lucius."
The death eater sputtered, but her body bind curse was too powerful to allow for speech.
"It's been a minute. Two months, almost, since you kidnapped me. I didn't think you'd make it to England alive after gypping Nott and me escaping."
She tapped the bat against her palm.
"I bet you'd thought we'd stopped looking for you. You'd be right, the D.A. has bigger priorities right now. But I don't."
Hermione leaned down, right into his face.
"You, Lucius, are my top priority. Because putting a death charmed bracelet on a defenseless muggle boy crosses a line. A very personal line. And you're going to pay for it."
He jerked suddenly and came up with an uppercut that hit her in the jaw. Pain shot straight through her skull and down her spine. Hermione was thrown off balance by the power in the blow and stumbled. Lucius shoved her and leapt to his feet. She managed to trip him with her ankle and swung the Quidditch bat at his knee. It landed, and Lucius bellowed in pain. He stayed upright. Hermione found her footing and swung the bat with more power, right to the same spot. There was the crack of bone and Lucius went down with a cry of pain.
"Stupefy," Hermione said and flicked her wand.
Lucius' body went lax. She did a feather light charm and picked him up and apparated to her apartment building's basement. Her lodgings here were temporary, or at least she hoped they were, so she'd gotten a furnished apartment in Diagon Alley. In the basement she healed Lucius' leg and tied him to a chair with magical chains.
Hermione stepped back and wiped the sweat from her brow. She needed a drink. Lucius could wait a few hours.
"Hey, Granger."
She looked up from her fire whiskey to see Seamus Finnegan sliding into her booth. Dean Thomas was right behind him and she moved over so that he could sit next to her.
"Hey guys. What's up?"
"Not much," Seamus said. "How's unemployment treating you?"
"It's a leave of absence." Hermione said.
Dean snorted. "Suspension."
"An unplanned leave of absence."
The men laughed.
"No, tell us. How does the brightest witch of her age occupy so much free time?" Dean asked.
Hermione picked up her glass and swirled the amber liquid. She answered softly. "Hunting war criminals is fairly entertaining."
Silence met her remark. Dean and Seamus stared at her.
Seamus leaned forward, his elbows propped on the table and his forearms folded. "You don't say?"
"Hmmmm." Hermione shrugged and took another swallow of her drink.
"Cool," Dean said. "How do we get in on the action? You need help? Who are we going after?"
"Relax, I don't have a list or anything. I only had one target. Lucius."
"He's here?" Seamus' eyes flashed.
Hermione could see his outrage.
"They said he'd been thrown overboard by Nott."
She shook her head. "Probably thrown overboard. It was a guess, nobody actually looked for his body."
"How'd he get here?" Dean asked.
"To London?" Hermione said. He nodded. "I have no idea. But I got a tip from a source that he'd arrived, and I tracked him down."
"Did you turn him in to the aurors?" Seamus asked.
"Nope."
The Irishman raised an eyebrow.
Hermione defended herself against the judgment that gleamed in his eyes. "He'd just escape, and you know it. I wouldn't trust the guards at Azkaban to look after my car keys, let alone a war criminal."
"She's right," Dean said to Seamus.
He sighed. "Yeah. What are you going to do with him?"
"I don't know yet. I left him tied up and went to get a drink and think about it."
"We could just toss him into the English Channel all tied up," Dean said.
The other two looked at him.
"What? That's what everyone already thinks happened to him."
"We're not doing that," Hermione said. "We aren't Death Eaters and we don't kill with impunity."
"Nobody in their right mind would send us to prison for getting that maniac off the streets." Dean put up his hands in surrender when they both glared at him.
"I have to go," Hermione said. She picked up her glass and drained what was left in it. "I have an early meeting."
"Is it about your suspension?" Seamus asked. "Because we could use you out in the field."
"I don't know. But it's with Kingsley."
The next morning she transfigured a cage for Lucius in her bathroom and performed every charm, hex, and curse she could think of on it. The small room had no windows and she'd taken everything out of it so that he couldn't destroy anything or hurt himself. He didn't say a word when she took him there and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. She asked him if he was hungry, but he didn't reply. He put his feet in the tub and turned so he was sitting with his back to her. Hermione left him a slice of toast and a bowl of strawberries and a plastic cup of water. Then she apparated to the ministry.
It was a Friday morning, but the lobby was bustling with people. Hermione had to wait ten minutes for a spot on the lift. After an uncomfortable ride wedged in far too close of contact with other bodies, she got off on the eighth floor. A secretary with purple reading glasses perched on her nose didn't bother looking up.
"Name?" she asked in a croaky voice.
"Hermione Granger."
When her name didn't elicit a reaction, she disliked the twinge of insult she felt. It wasn't like she was that famous after all. But still.
"Who are you here to see, Miss Granger?"
"Minister of Magic Shacklebolt."
At that, the woman looked up. "Are you certain?"
"Yes. And it's Captain Granger."
The secretary glanced at her dress black uniform with the gold aiguillettes that draped across her chest and fastened to the top button of her jacket, signifying her rank as an officer.
"Have a seat."
Hermione sat down and waited while the secretary wrote a note, folded it into a paper airplane and tapped it with her wand. It jetted off. Three minutes later a woman in a charcoal suit came to get her. When she entered, the secretary looked up. Hermione could see the surprise on her face. Hermione looked at the suited woman but didn't recognize her.
"Captain?"
Hermione stood, her peaked cap under her arm. "Ma'am."
"I'm Beatrice Braxton, the minister's chief of staff. It's nice to meet you, I've heard nothing but good things."
"Thank you."
She shook the woman's hand and couldn't resist as side eye at the secretary who was watching them with rapt attention. The woman's beady eyes were brimming with curiosity.
Beatrice led Hermione down the hall to an elevator, where she pressed the top button.
"The lift shakes but don't mind it. All the protection spells make it wobbly."
Until it began to move, Hermione wasn't concerned. The floor under her feet suddenly began to shudder like an earthquake. She grabbed onto the railing and held her breath as they lurched, jerked, and then shot upwards as if shot from a cannon.
Hermione's knees were trembling by the time they stepped out of the lift on the top floor. She felt like she'd survived a near plane crash or her first skydive. Were there stairs for the trip back down? She hoped so.
She pulled herself together on the walk down the hall to Kingsley's office. When Beatrice pulled open the door she found instead a bunch of desks, four in total, all shoved into different corners of a cramped room. Down the center there was an aisle. Papers littered the floor and the trash bins overflowed. Three of the desks were occupied, one by a man in a brown suit working on a typewriter and the other two by men in navy suits. They glanced up, shot her harried smiles of polite acknowledgement and kept working.
"Straight through," Beatrice said.
When Hermione didn't move, she stepped around her and led the way to through the desks to the wall. She tapped it with her wand and the plaster pulled aside like curtains opening.
"The minister is waiting."
At Beatrice's prompt, Hermione stepped inside. Behind her the wall reformed. She tried not to feel like she was being buried alive or locked in a tomb.
"Hermione!"
Kingsley rose from his chair and came around the desk. She met him halfway through the large room. He pulled her in for a hug that left her breathless.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Captain Granger."
"Thank you, sir. You look well."
"I look gray." He laughed and ran his hand over his short curls, that had once been dark. "This job will do that to you."
"I'm sure it will."
Kingsley gestured for her to sit down on one of the love seats. "Sit, we need to catch up."
He took the chair opposite her, with the glass topped coffee table between them.
"You got suspended. How's all the free time?"
"It sucks," she said honestly.
The minister laughed.
"Predictable Hermione, I know. But I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not studying or working."
Kingsley sat up a little straighter. "That's why I called you here. I feel that your suspension was a hasty decision on Harry's part."
"He wasn't given an option," Hermione said. "The United States government essentially told him that to not take disciplinary action against me would cause an international incident."
"Still. The punishment was unnecessarily harsh. I've read the reports and my personal opinion is that your actions were taken in good faith to protect a boy's life."
Hermione nodded.
"Based on that, I've been considering asking Commander Potter to commute your six-month suspension."
"I don't know if that would be possible."
The minister snapped his fingers and on the coffee table there appeared a pot of tea and cups. He poured the water and added the bags.
"Sugar? Milk?" he asked.
"One sugar please."
Hermione took her tea and sipped the piping hot drink as Kingsley did the same. He leaned back against the sofa and hooked his ankle over his knee.
"Tell me what happened that night in your own words, Captain Granger."
She did, ending with how she'd saved Jack after Harry had fought to keep him alive for hours against Lucius' curse.
"I read all of that in the reports. I'm more interested in what happened next."
"Next?" Hermione asked.
"When you woke up in the hospital. Abbott Medical Center in Washington D.C., if I'm correct."
"Yes. Special Agent David Rossi had stayed with me through the day and I woke up late in the evening. He informed me that Jack was fine and hadn't suffered any ill effects of the charmed bracelet. Harry had done a magical transfusion procedure on me that saved my life and he was also receiving treatment for exhaustion, anemia, and dehydration. The healers told me they had to do spells to restore his blood volume three times for it to bring him up to a normal level."
"Not many people could have kept Jack Hotcher alive and survived doing a magical transfusion," Kingsley said. He took a sip of his tea. "What happened next?"
"Immigration agents came into my room, along with several officials from the U.S. Ministry of Magic. I'd robbed the National Bank and lost its gold to Lucius Malfoy. When I explained what had happened to the gold, they were furious."
"And that led to your hearing with the National Commission of Magical Malpractice?"
"The commission determined that my actions had been reckless. Harry, Agent Rossi, Agent Hotcher and even Director Reitman of the muggle FBI argued that I should stay embedded in the BAU. But the commission members were insistent that I be punished."
"Hmmmm."
Hermione shrugged. "I stole a huge amount of money from them. Simon Eaton, the manager of the National Bank died during a shootout. It was a tragedy and I'm sorry for it. I can understand why they wanted me punished."
Kingsley set his tea down and leaned forwards. "Granger, you didn't deserve that. All of your actions were taken in good faith, to protect a life. The commission should have respected that."
"But they didn't. So here I am."
"Let's talk about that. I think there's room to negotiate for your return."
Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas sat on Hermione's couch, staring at her with wide eyes.
"Holy shit." Dean Thomas looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "You've worked yourself into a fix, Granger."
Hermione paced back and forth, wringing her hands.
"I know. I don't know what to do! I need advice." She stopped and turned to face them. "What should I do?"
"Turn Lucius in, obviously," Seamus said.
"How do I explain that? Everyone thinks he's dead! That's why the United States wants him, they think Kingsley can't we can't deliver what they asked for. But Lucius is in my bathroom right now. Literally all I have to do to go back to the BAU is deliver him to the Agency of Criminal Magic in Washington D.C."
"Then do it." Dean said this as if the answer was obvious.
"What do I say?!"
"That you found him?" Seamus suggested.
Hermione shook her head. "No. It wouldn't make sense."
"You knocked him out in an alley and held him captive in your bathroom for two days?" Dean said.
"We are not saying that!"
"I wasn't involved in this," Seamus said.
"You are now, because I told you about it."
He shut up.
Dean sighed. "Why don't you let him go? Then recapture him in public or something."
"That has potential," Hermione said. "I can just obliviate the past few days for him and put him out somewhere that the Aurors will find him."
Seamus rolled his eyes. "You've got a twenty-five percent chance of the Aurors catching him if you let him go right in their offices."
"Don't joke like that," Hermione said.
"It's funny because it's true."
Dean and Hermione glared at him.
"What?" Seamus said. "It is!"
"The idea isn't horrible," Dean shrugged. "It's better than keeping him cooped up in your bathroom, right?"
"Right. He's tried to flood the place three times already."
"Let us do it," Seamus suggested.
"Wait a minute," Dean said.
Seamus ignored him. "It'll throw the heat off you. We can run out and get some hair from a few muggles and Polyjuice ourselves. Then we throw on some hooded cloaks and set him loose in front of some Aurors. We'll even hang out to make sure he gets caught."
"Good plan, I like it," Hermione said.
"No! Bad plan," Dean exclaimed.
"What's wrong with it?" Seamus asked.
"We might get caught!"
"Better than staying here and being out of the action."
"If we're in jail, we'll be out of the action permanently."
"Bull. We can escape, just like all the Death Eaters do."
"Shall I get Lucius?" Hermione asked.
"No," Dean said.
Seamus stood up. "Yes."
Hermione woke up to a knock at her door at three a.m. She slipped on her robe and belted it, racing for the door as the pounding grew louder.
"Coming!" she called.
She paused to flip on the lights and opened the door. On the other side there was a man in a suit who looked like he'd stopped evolving two steps before homo sapiens.
"Captain Hermione Granger?" the Neanderthal man asked.
"Yes?"
He looked over her shoulder into the apartment. "Are you here alone?"
She stiffened. "What kind of a question is that?"
The man refocused on her and appeared to realize that his question could be construed as threatening.
"We'd like to bring up the Minister, but we need to secure the apartment first."
"Oh. Okay."
She stepped back and let the man into the apartment. Along with him came two other men and a woman, all of them dressed in dark robes. They swept through the living room and then headed down the hall to sweep her bedroom and the bathroom.
"Alright," Neanderthal said when he returned.
He pulled a compact mirror from his robe pocket, opened it, and spoke.
"Send up the Minister of Magic, the premises are clear."
The guards and Hermione waited in silence. She looked down at her floral silk dressing gown and the clashing striped pajamas and wondered if she shouldn't change. It was the Minister of Magic who was about to see her.
A veritable battalion of guards wearing black robes filed into her room when the door opened. Finally, Kingsley entered. Hermione looked around at the crowded living room. It held more people than it ever had before.
"If you don't mind, Captain Granger and I need some privacy," the minister said.
"You need at least two guards with you sir," the rough featured guard she'd opened the door to replied.
"Stay. Maggie as well. Everyone else out."
At his command the majority of the guards left the room. When they left, the four of them remained.
"We'll speak in the kitchen," Kingsley said.
He motioned to Hermione and they moved around the decorative partition wall into the kitchen.
"Would you like tea?"
"No, thank you."
He leaned on the counter top and crossed his arms and his legs and propped his foot on its toe. When he spoke, he kept his voice low so the guards in the other room couldn't hear.
"We found Lucius Malfoy."
Kingsley's eyes were fastened on her face. She could see him reading her reaction.
"Good."
"Funny. I tell you this morning that we need a grand gesture, like a prisoner exchange, with the United States to secure your return to the BAU. This evening we find the perfect candidate for such an exchange right outside of the Oxford Street Auror's offices."
Hermione kept her face blank. "That's fascinating."
"Very fortuitous."
Kingsley waited as if giving her the opportunity to confess. Hermione crossed her arms and met his gaze without a flicker of guilt.
"Alright then," he said after a long minute. "I suppose you're still wanting to be placed with the FBI?"
"If they'll have me, yes."
The minister raised an eyebrow. "Have you? Director Reitman has sent two formal letters asking for your return or at least a replacement. David Rossi and Aaron Hotchner both signed them as well. And based on what I've heard from my sources in the U.S. their law enforcement is suspicious of certain activities. They're thinking the Death Eaters are ramping up their action in the country, but they aren't sure why."
"The U.S. doesn't have the capacity to defend themselves. Their magical government outside of Washington D.C. is more of a confederacy than an actual governing body."
Kingsley grunted. "True."
"Will we be trading Lucius?"
"I already reached out. They snapped up the opportunity to try him in their courts. Three guesses why."
Hermione flinched, remembering the lost gold from the National Bank.
"Who are we getting?"
"Your Tennessee Death Eater, the guy with the cuffs."
She raised an eyebrow. "Him? Isn't he a bit of a small fish in comparison to Lucius?"
"Yes. But we'd like to interrogate him, and the U.S. hasn't been accommodating of our requests. This simplifies things."
"Right."
"We need to talk about one thing, Granger."
Tension knotted her shoulders. "What?"
"Don't be cagey with me. I know that Lucius wasn't just fate smiling on us, and I know that the man was obliviated. You had a hand in this even if I can't say how."
He paused, waiting for a comment from her. She said nothing.
"You're taking risks. Big risks. And you need to be more careful."
Hermione shrugged. "I'll bear that in mind."
"I'm serious. I'm concerned about you. A lot has happened to you in the past year and I think you're reacting to it in some very troubling ways."
"I'll take that under consideration. What are my chances of being reinstated as the FBI liaison?"
Kingsley pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. She opened it to see an official order putting her back in the BAU in an official capacity on Thursday. Two days away.
"Thank you, sir."
"I'm sending you with a team this time. You're expected to stick together as much as possible."
"Who's on the team?"
"Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Lee Jordan, and Terry Boot."
"How are we going to stick together?"
"Very simple. They've all got apartments in your building. Your entire floor will now be made up of D.A. members and your extra time will be committed to doing reconnaissance on Death Eaters."
Suddenly, being placed back on the team didn't sound nearly as appealing.
"There is something you should know before you go back," Kingsley said. "To cover for your disappearance with the team, we told them that Jack was attacked by Mr. Scratch and you saved him. Details were deliberately kept vague and your disappearance was cast as a punishment, which should assuage any cold shoulders from your former teammates. Also, Agent Hotchner has chosen to enter the witness protection service."
"I see. Who's in charge of the BAU?"
"SSA Emily Prentiss is the new unit chief."
Hello!
I would like to apologize for my long absence. A lot has happened in the past few years. I wrote my first full length piece of fan fiction, I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I landed a full time job actually related to my major (wow, right?) and I decided to return to this story. This chapter has been sitting on my hard drive for a while now but for some reason, tonight seemed like the right time to post it. Hope you all enjoyed it!
Please leave a review, as I always appreciate your feedback.