AN - Hi friends! This submission just squeaked in on the last day of the year for where I am. I hope everyone is having/had a wonderful and safe Happy New Year's celebration! Once again, J K Rowling is the genius behind HP and I'm merely a fan. Thanks for reading! :)
- Chapter Four - June 18th 1999 -
- Concealed Criminals and Cloaked Company
Draco was rushing. His slim but muscular build pushed through the crowd of faceless ministry workers easily. He hated being late to work, but something was holding him back. He knew that he had to quit his job today, it was the last day in the workweek, and the Dark Lord had only given him a week. Draco found this uncharacteristically generous of him. Although the paperwork was mundane, Draco's work was an escape from life at the manor. He relished in the hours spent in his office.
Running his hands through his coiffed hair, Draco made his way to the lift and pushed the button for the second floor. The robotic voice chimed his request back to him as he straightened his tie and adjusted his side bag.
Just as the lift door was about to shut, two plain looking people he had never seen before stumbled into the compartment. The female of the pair quickly pushed a button and cringed slightly as the robotic voice listed her request. "Level Nine: The Department of Mysteries." The girl nervously tucked a blonde strand of hair behind her ear. It looked as if she wasn't used to the current hairstyle because she kept fixing it.
When the male took her arm comfortingly, she turned to face him. She had a calm expression until she turned her head a bit towards Draco's lean form. Presumably upon recognition, her pale eyes widened and she swiftly turned to face away from him. This struck Draco as quite odd because he had never seen this witch before in his life… almost as if…
The plain looking man, with his dull brown hair and pale skin, turned and looked at the girl with a worried expression. He whispered something in her ear and she shook her head.
"Not now." She hissed. When she turned to face the man again, her eyes were flashing daggers.
Draco cocked his head to the side. The young woman seemed familiar. He tried to remember a blonde girl like her from his Hogwarts days. She seemed about the same age. She had a dominating manner about her if the young man waiting and watching her every move was any indication. Her bossy attitude and the way she held her head up high with little to no cares made him wonder.
As he did so, he could only picture one witch he knew of that could murder with her eyes and hiss admonishments like the snake she so vehemently opposed.
One frizzy haired, bucktoothed witch who had infuriated him for years fit the description. But it couldn't be her, she was a wanted criminal. Thinking about it more, Draco had to stop a laugh; Granger would be the type of person to neglect her criminal status to do something reckless.
In his position of relative power, Draco decided to risk it. "Granger!" He coughed into his hand. Draco had to hide his smirk when he saw the blonde's spine stiffen. This ought to be good.
Draco quickly got out of the lift when his level was called and sped to another one. He needed to know what that mudblood was up to. If not for his own merit of turning her in -if he were to turn her in- then for the excitement of something interesting to watch unfold. This was most likely his last day inside the Ministry of Magic, after all.
He had no idea what the Dark Lord has planned for him. Now that his parents were dead, would the Dark Lord stop at anything to use Draco to his 'fullest' potential? The many scenarios racing through his mind did nothing to soothe his late night terrors. Draco had to find a way to get out of this mess.
Once in the lift, he hammered the correct button and flexed his fingers. It seemed to take forever, but once he entered the ninth floor corridor, Draco opened his satchel to fish for his invisibility cloak. He had found it in the forbidden forest shortly after the battle at Hogwarts was 'won' and appreciated the cloak's value.
Slipping it over himself and continuing down the corridor with quiet feet, Draco headed towards Granger's lift. He wondered who the man was beside her as he crept. Potter and Weasley were both dead, so she didn't have her two buffoons following her around anymore. The man must have been some other Gryffindor snot whom she knew.
The lift opened shortly after he arrived. Nobody appeared to be in it. Draco inwardly cursed. How could he have been so stupid. Calling her out and scaring her away. He went to turn and go when he saw ripples in the air.
It was as if the air was blanketed and someone was slowly, but surely rumpling the sheets. The wavy effect in created was certainly interesting and the ripples were a characteristic of a disillusionment charm. Draco found himself smirking once more.
Draco followed the concealed criminals. What were they up to? He really wanted to know.
The odd trio walked in silence with Draco taking up the distant rear. They had been slowly creeping through the halls for about fifteen minutes. The monotony was enough to cause Draco to grit his teeth.
Suddenly, a minuscule rabbit patronus leaped into the darkened hallway. It paused and Draco could have sworn that it looked through the cloak straight into his eyes. Just as jarring was the voice that emitted softly and dreamily from the patronus.
"I'm safe. You have ten minutes before he comes back. Hop to it." The rabbit dissipated into thin air after Luna Lovegood's words. Draco barely noticed the ripples carry on as he stood open mouthed. Loony Lovegood was still alive? He was sure that she had gotten killed in the battle.
He heard a whispered voice, "Quickly, this way." It was certainly Granger's annoyingly bossy voice. The ripples wavered and wobbled as they two broke into a run in front of him. Draco sped up too, in hot pursuit.
Hermione clasped Justin's sweaty palm as they sprinted down the dingy hallway. The Department of Mysteries certainly was a place most wizards and witches would try to avoid at all costs. So many eerie things happened within these walls. In Hermione's opinion, the silence was far worse than the sound of pain, it meant that something was being hidden.
Their footsteps were barely audible thanks to the cushioning charm she placed on their shoes earlier that day. Hermione looked at her surroundings. It was strange to be in these corridors again without Harry and Ron. She swallowed her feelings and continued her pace with Justin alongside her.
Finally reaching the door Luna had indicated yesterday via muted patronus, Hermione whipped her head around to double check the hallway. She couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was following them. Slowly, she released the disillusionment charm on her and Justin. The polyjuice had worn off only minutes beforehand.
Justin knocked four times, paused and then followed with eleven short raps. The door opened and Luna stood in front of them, a happy smile on her pale face.
"Hello Hermione. Justin, hello." She grinned dreamily at them.
Luna's dirty blonde hair was waist length and she wore a sack of a dress that matched the hue of her hair colour. Her bright silver eyes were inviting and she beckoned them in.
She hung by the door a beat too long for Hermione's comfort, and then closed it softly. Luna had been able to find the decade time turner Hermione wanted and hid it in plain sight under a concealment charm only Hermione and Justin could see. The meet up afterwards was mainly to calm Luna's nerves that they indeed got it and weren't in trouble. "So," Luna clasped her hands together, "did you manage to grab the time turner from the spot?"
Hermione heard a gasp and turned to Justin with a frown. She had explained that their plan revolved around a time turner. How else was she to go back in time and raise Tom Riddle herself? Her hopes were to make sure there were no horcruxes and certainly no Voldemort created. "Yes we did, Luna." Hermione turned from Justin and smiled at her old friend as she held up the intricate metal object.
Luna crashed into her with an exuberant hug. "I'm so proud of you!" She giggled. "What you're doing is very brave." Her praise was affirmed with honest globes of silver unblinkingly fixed on Hermione. Hermione couldn't help but feel a slight heat to her cheeks.
"Yes well," she tried to divert the attention from herself, "I wouldn't have been able to even begin my journey without your invaluable help. Thank you two." Hermione smiled genuinely at Luna and Justin. "Now I just have to perform the correct spell ensure that the time turner can go back as far as I need to go."
Hermione opened her beaded bag and rummaged around for an ancient text. She mumbled to herself, "seventy years, that's exactly seven repetitions of the incantation." She grabbed onto it and pulled the tome out triumphantly. "Aha!" The incantation was historically used on regular hourly time turners, but Hermione was meticulous and wanted everything to go off without a hitch.
She settled down on the floor and laid out the time turner and began reciting the enchantment. "Multiplicamini hoc tempus machinatio per decem...septem." Hermione repeated herself seven times. Luna and Justin stood around her silently watching.
Just as Hermione was about to recite the closing portion of the incantation, a whooshing sound interrupted her. She spun to spot the last person she wanted to see in this moment and gasped.
"Malfoy!?"