Disclaimer – Not J.K. Rowling, not Robert Galbraith, not making money off of this.
20 – The Waste Land
"So how long have you been being a spy then?"
"First off, I'm not a spy. I'm a handler." Hermione slapped the file folder she'd just filled closed. "Are you even working on those, Ronald?"
The answer was obvious. He was leaning his chair back on two legs, feet propped up against the table, robe thrown over the back of the chair, files still sitting where she'd set them. "I can't focus on that. I'm trying to readjust my mind to Hermione Granger – spy master."
"Here, Harry, you take half." Hermione pulled the files over, kept three or four and pushed the rest toward Harry. Then she flipped through the enormous poetry anthology in front of her and stopped when she reached - "Have you used 'In Memorium of A.H.H.' yet?"
"Never heard of it," said Harry, shaking his head.
"Effingo," muttered Hermione. She wondered if Draco had read any of these poems. She pointed at the page in the book, then at the blank parchment next to it. The words appeared on the blank parchment and she slipped it into the file, then grabbed her quill to write on the top "In the Matter of A.H.H." Finished with that file, she looked up at Ron. Some days everything he said or did annoyed her. "I started at the end of October, well, it was actually November before I got the first message."
"You didn't say how you get the messages."
"No, and I'm not going to. It's not that I don't trust you. I trust both of you with my life. You know that. But . . . any of us could be captured, and who knows what ways the Death Eaters have of getting information – Veritaserum, torture, legilimency. It's just better if the specifics aren't known to very many people." None of them were any good at occulmency. Would Draco be willing to teach her?
Ron rolled his eyes, but didn't argue any more. Hermione turned back to the Table of Contents of her book, then turned to a page near the end. "Harry, have you used 'The Love Song of J. Arthur Prufrock'?"
"Nope."
"Ron, they didn't even tell me who the contact was, just how to get the messages."
"Yeah, I know."
Harry put down the file in his hands and looked at Hermione, his head cocked to one side. "But you know now, don't you?"
Hermione bit her lip, then knew right away that she shouldn't have done that. She'd just as good as answered Harry's question. She'd hoped she could just be evasive on that point, but if he was going to ask her straight out . . . .
"I found out."
"And . . . ." Ron set his chair down and leaned forward onto the table.
"And . . . that's not my secret to share." She couldn't even think about how much danger Draco would be in if Ron knew he was her contact. Not only would Ron not be willing to suffer to keep the likes of him safe, but he might even let slip to one of his siblings. With the Order infiltrated . . . it wouldn't take long for news like that to reach Old Ugly.
"Does your contact know that you know?" Ron wouldn't let up. He seemed to be approaching this like he dealt with wizard's chess, one methodical step at a time until he got where he wanted to go.
"Yes."
"And it's someone you trust."
"Yes, and I'm not answering any more questions." She glared at him to emphasize her point. "We need to get going." She copied one last poem into a file folder, then reached over for Harry's files, waved her wand over them, binding them together and shrinking all of them so that they fit easily into her bag. "Are you two ready? We need to get everything set up over at the Ministry." She stood up.
Harry stood also. "I'm ready. I've got my cloak and some hair. Do you have the polyjuice?" Hermione nodded.
"I thought you said you wanted us to meet your contact." Ron was still sitting, letting her know he wasn't distracted yet.
"I said I think it might be beneficial for us all to talk, to try to figure out some way to draw Snake Eyes out, but honestly, I'm trying to think of a way to do that without having you actually meet each other."
"Why? If you can handle this bloke why do you think we can't?"
"I never said it was a 'bloke' and it's not a question of handling them. I'm not sure you could . . . get along well enough to work together face to face."
"But you can. What? Is this Death Eater a jerk or something?"
"Can you think of any Death Eaters you could get along with?"
"No, but I can't think of any you should be getting along with either."
"You think we should just tell the spy to shove off – you're a Death Eater so we don't want the insider information you can give us."
"What does he or she want in exchange?"
"Exchange? That's not what this is about. This is someone who wants to bring Old Ugly down at least as much as we do." Hermione glanced at her watch. "We can discuss this later, but we've got to get going. We've got to get back over there and have everything in place before they get there."
Ron nodded and stood up, adjusting his robes which had gotten tangled in the chair back. "I'm ready."
"Wait. Ron." Hermione stepped closer to him and reached out to examine something he was wearing on a chain around his neck, but he grabbed it and quickly stuffed it under his jumper. "What was that?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing," he answered. He glanced down at his watch. "We'd better get going. Are we going to floo . . . ."
"Ronald, was that a dirigible plum?"
Ron's face flushed red and Hermione's suspicions were confirmed.
"It's supposed to help me see the extraordinary," he mumbled.
"I'll bet it is." Hermione smiled as she took the glass of polyjuice potion Harry was offering her.
"What's that all about?" Harry asked, but both Ron and Hermione shook their heads.
"It's nothing," said Ron again. Hermione smiled to herself, but said nothing. She'd taken a hair from a glass tube in her pocket and she dropped it into the polyjuice, swirling the glass carefully to mix it in. Once the liquid inside had changed to a consistent pale orange, she sniffed it once, then drank half of it in two long drafts. She poured the other half into a small vial, sealed it, put a cushioning charm on it and slipped it into her robes' pocket. They'd learned to always keep some extra polyjuice ready.
"Yours looks much better than mine," grumbled Harry, then plugged his nose while chugging down half of the brownish-green liquid in his glass.
Hermione turned her back to the boys as she felt her skin pulling, moving, changing. She hated watching polyjuice transformations and figured she'd spare them the sight. By the time she turned back around, Harry had become Vern, his double with lighter brown hair, and she'd taken on Allison's shape. Ron was pulling on the invisibility cloak, only his head still showing.
The three of them slipped quietly down the stairs and into the main parlour of Grimmauld Place. Shaklebolt had arranged to connect them to the floo system, just for the day, and with passwords required to return.
"Hermione, could you disillusion my feet for me?" With Ron's height he barely fit under the invisibility cloak any more. They'd taken to disillusioning his feet to keep anyone from spotting them. The disillusioning was not quite as thorough as the cloak. If someone were to be carefully studying the floor they might notice the wavering light that signified disillusionment, although it was only visible when he was moving and when the light was strong enough.
Hermione made Ron's feet disappear, then said "Wait. One more spell - Abolesco olere."
"What was that for?" Ron asked, as Harry's eyes echoed his question.
"It gets rid of all odors. I use it whenever I'm going somewhere that Greyback might show up. Now I don't look like Hermione and I don't smell like her either, and neither of you smell like you might have been with me."
"Brilliant," said Harry. "You should teach us that when we get back."
Ron pulled the cloak over his head and they all stepped into the fireplace. Once they were at the Ministry Harry and Hermione took the elevators to the second floor, holding the lift doors open for an extra couple of seconds to make sure that Ron had gotten on.
Outside of the Aurors' Office, Ron whispered "I'll wait out here. Do you have your coins in case I need to contact you?"
Hermione reached into her right pocket, where she had a coin charmed to communicate with Ron and Harry's coins. Her left pocket held the coin which she used to contact Draco. It was a galleon rather than a sickle, but just to make sure that she remembered which pocket held which, she'd slipped the portkey that Draco had given her into her left pocket with his coin.
Earlier in the day they'd visited the Auror Office, all under the invisibility cloak that time, and temporarily removed everything sensitive. Now they just needed to set up a few things. Shaklebolt had agreed to keep the Aurors busy today and looking around the office it appeared that no one had been in since they left.
It was Harry's job to set up the viewing holes, so that he and Hermione could watch everything that went on from the adjacent office. He reviewed the map of London on the wall then chose the pin over the town of Grimsby to enchant. From the office side it looked no different, but on the other side of the wall there was now a peep hole. Next he found a copy of the old Order of the Phoenix picture on the next wall over. He used the spell on one of Dumbledore's eyes. Hermione glanced over her shoulder at him and she felt an uncomfortable swelling in her throat. That was perfect.
Meanwhile, she'd brought a small empty file cabinet with her. She enlarged it, then returned the files, now full of poetry, to their normal sizes, then put them in the file cabinet. When she was done she set the cabinet in a corner they'd cleared for this purpose. Finally, she got ready to make it disappear, using a spell that was not quite dark magic, but still some rather obscure blood magic. They'd decided that blood magic was the best way to make the cabinet convincingly top secret. They'd gotten some of Hestia's blood from Mad-Eye Moody's stores, which had contained some blood from each of the Aurors working under him. A bit of research had revealed that, even though Bellatrix would be polyjuiced as Hestia, her blood wouldn't be Hestia's blood, but Draco had been sure that Bellatrix would have taken some of Hestia's blood as well as her hair and they would use that.
Hermione checked her notes for the incantation. Her voice trembled just a bit as she sprinkled the vial of Hestia's blood onto the filing cabinet. As soon as she finished the cabinet vanished, leaving only an empty corner.
"We're all set then," Hermione announced.
Harry checked his watch and nodded. "Let's get into place." They stopped by to check in with Ron, still waiting in the hall. "Don't forget," said Harry solemnly, "You're here in case anything strange happens. Let us know by coin if you have to leave this spot."
Ron nodded and Harry and Hermione went into the innocuous looking office, labeled "Albert Snowdon," Assistant Clerk to the Wizengamot." Hermione wasn't sure whether Albert Snowdon existed or not, but his purported office was an empty L-shaped room, with a back passage that went behind the Auror Office. Hermione would watch through the peephole in that passage and Harry would be in the regular part of the office. Hopefully, having two different perspectives would help them to see everything. Hermione had only shared with Draco the details of the plan that directly involved him and that didn't include anything about their surveillance plans. He probably suspected that they'd be watching, but not knowing any details would make it easier for him to act naturally. She wondered if it was difficult for him to play the part of the faithful Death Eater. Was it exhausting to be constantly acting?
Once they were in place there was nothing to do but wait. Hermione lit her wand and pulled Snape's potions journal out, turning to his Wolfsbane Potion recipe. It was fascinating to see the notes in the margins, to be able to see which ones he'd crossed out, what he had replaced them with. It was almost like watching a master experiment, using different combinations, different variations until he found the most potent recipe. Today, though, she couldn't focus.
What was going on with Draco? Just when she'd convinced herself that he'd changed, that all that he'd been through had made him a fundamentally different person, suddenly he was back to being a git. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe he did still hate her, or at least find her repulsive because she was a 'mudblood.'
But that couldn't be true. First of all, he'd saved Ginny. If he wasn't dedicated to bringing down Snake Eyes there was no reason why he would've almost died to make sure that his boss didn't get a hold of Ginny.
Although – just because he wanted to bring down the Dark Lord didn't mean that he wasn't still a bigot, wasn't still a judgmental snob. Except that she'd seen how he treated Nappy. Not just that, but Nappy was obviously very fond of him. There was real affection there and it went both ways.
Sometimes it seemed that his feelings for her had changed as well. Obviously he didn't hurl insults at her anymore. Was that just because there was no audience? Then why did he seem to want to protect her when they were in the pensieve? Why did he get so angry when he thought she was being careless? Why did he look at her almost as though he . . . .
Suddenly, one of her pockets grew warm – the left one. It was a message from him. It was blunt: "Greyback's coming." Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that she'd remembered to vanish her scent. She was just settling back to read when a thought shot into her mind.
Her scent would still linger from her visit earlier in the day. With the werewolf's heightened senses, he'd surely be able to find the traces from that visit and they would lead him right to the Auror Office. Even if he didn't find her current hiding place, knowing she'd visited the office earlier in the day, particularly since she wasn't an Auror, might throw the entire operation into suspicion, and, truth be told, she didn't want him prowling about in the hall just feet from where she was. This was the kind of thing that Draco meant when he said she was careless. Why hadn't she gotten rid of her scent after her visit earlier? She needed to do something about this.
She dashed past a puzzled Harry. "I'll be right back. I'm not going far."
"What are you . . . ." She didn't pause to answer him. That could wait until she got back.
She stepped into the hall and was annoyed to see a dumpy witch coming down the hall towards her. It was Saturday. What kind of Ministry workers worked on Saturday? She turned and walked toward the witch, careful not to look at her too much or too little – just two co-workers passing in the hall. She gave her a non-commital nod as they passed, then strode purposefully around the nearest corner. It was amazingly difficult to walk at a calm pace. Her heart was pounding. She waited a few minutes, then peeked back around. She was gone. Ron must be laughing at her, although it was getting late. They'd be here soon. This really wasn't funny.
"Abolesco olere." She cast the spell as she walked down the hall. She needed to get rid of all her scent on this floor. There wasn't time to deal with the rest of the building. As she hurried toward the elevators she heard Ron's muffled steps next to her.
"What gives?" he whispered.
"Greyback's coming. I'm getting the scents off of this floor. I'll be right back. I'm just going to the elevator and back."
She heard his steps stop. He must be returning to his post. She was almost to the elevator when she heard the magical voice that announced the floors. It was faint, not yet on this floor, but it might be here soon. "Abolesco olere." That should be enough.
She turned and jogged back to Mr. Snowdon's office, prepared to slow to a walk if the elevator doors opened, but she reached the office door and slipped inside before anything happened.
"Hermione! Where did you go?" Harry stood directly in her path.
"Sorry. I got a message that Greyback's coming. I had to go get my scent off of this floor. I can't believe I forgot to do that when we were here earlier today."
"Hey, come on, take a deep breath. You got it done. It's fine." Harry was all too used to calming her down when she started to get too self-critical.
"I know. I'm okay. I just wish . . . I wish I'd had time to go down to the lobby, clear my scent off of the elevators, get all of that done."
"Don't worry. If it's off of this floor, it'll be fine. He's not coming here to find you. Now, you need to get back to your post. We don't want extra movement in here once they get here."
"Okay. Don't forget – it's time to take more polyjuice. I'll see you when they're gone." Hermione hurried off to her perch. She could still feel the adrenaline rushing through her system. Before she turned the corner she paused. "Harry, thanks."
He gave her a quick smile. She settled back in on the stool she had set up by her viewing hole, after taking another drink of her polyjuice potion. What she hated the most about this whole Greyback thing was the feeling that they were trying to throw her off her game by making his weird obsession with her so obvious. However, even though she suspected this, it was working. She was overreacting, panicking. She just hated the sensation of having him sniff her out, having him try to hunt her down like she was some pathetic little forest creature.
It didn't matter. Her scent was gone. Everything was fine.
She had hardly reopened Snape's journal when she felt heat from her right pocket.
"She's coming." They hadn't actually asked Ron to let them know when he saw Hestia, well, Bellatrix, approaching, but she was glad he had. It seemed like an eternity before she heard the door to the Auror Office softly open, then click shut. Peering through, she could see flashes of movement. She cast an enlargement spell on the peek hole and then she could see the whole office easily.
"The fools!" Bellatrix snarled. She looked like Hestia, but not the Hestia they'd known. Her face was drawn into a snarl. Her eyes were cold and bitter. "I can't believe they're relying on nothing more than a password. Mudblood fools!" She spoke with Bellatrix's typical snarl.
"They've made our jobs easier, Aunt. Don't complain too much."
She couldn't see him, but she could hear his voice, smooth, like warm milk pouring into a mug.
"Yeah, well, where would such fools hide their most precious secrets?"
"Maybe they're not hidden at all. They're not expecting company. Let's see what they've left out."
He was playing it cool, not rushing for the files they'd hidden. He was good at this.
"Nothing," she snapped. "Just their little write-ups of our vicious attacks. Oh, look, did you know we killed 42 orphans? Not bad for a failed attack." Hermione smirked to herself. She hadn't been able to resist the chance to reinforce the fraud they'd played that day.
"Yes, well, that little 'failed attack' led to hideous pain for me, so forgive me, Aunt, if I'm not eager to relive the fond memories." Hermione was a bit surprised by the harsh tone he took with Bellatrix. She'd never heard anyone speak to the insane witch like that.
"No, I'd imagine not." Bellatrix didn't look particularly sympathetic, but she didn't seem angry either. Hermione frowned. She'd almost forgotten that they were actually family.
They searched through the one visible filing cabinet. "What is all of this rubbish? Do they have to fill out a form every time they request more parchment?"
"Apparently." Draco held up some sort of a form he'd pulled from a file. "Careful, Aunt, we don't want them to know we've been here."
All things considered, Bellatrix was actually doing pretty well at not disturbing anything. Snake Eyes must have been persuasive.
She slammed a drawer shut. "That's ridiculous. There's got to be more here. We need to find something useful."
"Relax. It's time to start looking for the things they've hidden."
"Fools. How could they think they could hide anything from us?"
"Exactly. Adapertio." Hermione wondered if Draco found it ironic that his aunt, for all her bragging, hadn't been the one who knew the necessary spell. If she only knew who'd taught it to Draco . . . no, that wouldn't end well.
Just as they'd planned the planted file cabinet glowed white. If she'd been thinking she could have made sure that there were a couple of other hidden items to show up under that spell. That'd be less suspicious, but it would also take them longer, so maybe this way was just as well.
Bellatrix hurried to the corner and felt around the invisible file cabinet. Draco let her try a couple of different spells to reveal it. Hermione smiled when Bellatrix was the one who announced "Let's try blood magic. Maybe they're not all useless idiots." She pulled a vial of dark red liquid from her robes. Watching her handle blood she'd taken from their now dead friend made Hermione shudder. Bellatrix tossed a couple drops of it carelessly in the corner and the file cabinet immediately shimmering into sight.
"Jackpot. This must be where they keep the good stuff then. Let's just copy all of it and go." Draco's voice had a touch of urgency. He couldn't be anxious to drag this process out.
"Maybe. Or maybe it's all still requests for quills. Wait. What is this nonsense? It's gibberish.'April is the cruellest month'? My birthday's in April."
"They're on to something then."
"Funny." Bellatrix didn't laugh at his joke, but, once again, it was strange to see their easy back and forth.
Bellatrix held the first file she'd pulled out up and obviously let Draco read it over her shoulder.
"No, Aunt. This is good. There's no reason they'd keep a cabinet full of nonsense. It must be in code."
"That's no good to us then! We can't bring back a bunch of useless stuff." Bellatrix sounded almost frightened. Certainly she didn't want to disappoint Flat Face. And Bellatrix was one of his favorites. Of course, given what had happened to Draco . . . .
"It'll be fine. Come on, Aunt. They're mudbloods. We can break their code. Here, I'm going to copy everything – effingo totalus. The fools probably left the key to their code in the same cabinet. But even if they didn't, we can break this. It'll be fun."
They'd have to work on that. What would be the best way to reveal their invented code? Maybe let them steal a briefcase?
Just then, the coin in Hermione's right pocket burned through to her hip. "Shouting coming from down the hall. Going to investigate." That wasn't good. For one thing, it'd be a lot harder to find Ron since they wouldn't be able to see him and they couldn't exactly send a patronus to hunt him down, not if there were a bunch of Death Eaters around. For another thing, it meant there were other Death Eaters on the floor. That could only complicate things.
Draco and Bellatrix seemed to be almost done. He was just shrinking the copied files.
Hermione jumped when she realized that Harry was standing just behind her. "Clausus totus auditurus," he whispered, carefully blocking all sound from the office next door. She looked away from the peephole, her eyes adjusting to the dark corridor. "Would you mind if I went to help Ron? This is under control and we don't want to lose him when we can't see him."
Just what she'd been thinking. She nodded silently. Harry slipped quietly out of the office. She didn't hear the door so he must've remembered to cast a silencing spell.
Meanwhile, Bellatrix and Draco were about to leave. "Wait, Aunt." Draco cast some spell she couldn't really hear, but it must have been to return everything to its former position as the hidden cabinet disappeared and the papers on the desk rearranged themselves slightly. This time Hermione noticed Bellatrix, still polyjuiced as Hestia, holding the door opened behind herself, letting Draco through.
Hermione checked her watch. That'd been quicker than she expected. She still had a good fifteen minutes left before she needed more polyjuice.
She slipped an extendable ear under the door, listening for the approach and departure of the elevator which would mean that Bellatrix had left. After hearing it, she waited a bit more, listening. No sound. They must be gone.
Then she heard a faint, distant cry – "No, please!" It was followed by a foreboding thunk. Someone needed help. She quickly gathered her things, shrunk them and slipped them into her robes, then hurried out into the hall.
She paused and listened. There were voices down a nearby corridor. She turned the corner in time to see a Death Eater striding toward a wide-eyed older man, who was sprawled on his back in the hall.
"Stupefy!" The Death Eater knelt down to pick up the man's fallen wand and the spell shot just over his head. He whipped around, glaring at her, his mask off. She'd seen him before, the Russian one. Then around the corner came snarling and rushing – Greyback!
Hermione ran. She turned and ran down the hall as fast as she could, realizing too late that was the worst thing she could've done. She should have played it cool, shot some spells at them, disarmed them, petrified them. Now she'd drawn their attention and she had to keep running. She couldn't hit them as she ran. She shot back an obscuring spell, then hurried down a joining hallway. She made as many turns and twists as she could, hoping to lose them in the labyrinth halls of the ministry, but she could still hear them coming, and now she was good and lost. Of course, she was being foolish. She might not smell like Hermione Granger, but she still had a scent and Greyback could track her.
She racked her brain for another spell. She sent an ice spell over her shoulder and heard cursing as they slipped, but their voices, their heavy footfalls kept coming.
"Bombarda!" A nearby wall exploded and she was thrown against the opposite side of the hall. Her head rang from the impact. She went to cast some sort of shield spell, give herself a moment to regroup, then realized with a jolt that her wand was gone. It must've been knocked from her hand. She groped about on her knees, the dust blocking her vision.
"Crudus sensim!" The spell came quickly and a searing pain shot through her, a slicing from her shoulder down her arm, onto her torso and all the way down to her hip. It took her a minute to know that the red splattering everywhere was her own blood, lots of it. She went to stand and gasped. The pain knocked her back.
"I got her!" The Russian was triumphant. "Come on, Fenrir! Are you hungry?"
If only she could find her wand, then she could – what? She'd think of something. Could she use the coin? Call for help? Could they get here fast enough? Maybe if they were close. Her hand slipped into her pocket. The sides of her vision were going black, as though a tunnel was closing in on her. She couldn't lift her head. She was losing so much blood. Her fingers touched the cool metal of the portkey. Draco had said it would take her back and forth from headquarters to the cottage, but she needed her wand!
She ran her hands over the ground around her, then her fingers felt the precious wood! Her wand!
Greyback's leering face jumped at her out of the still-clearing smoke, all teeth.
"Portus!" Even as she felt the pull of the portkey, the darkness swirled all around her and she blacked out.
So sorry for the delay in updating – real life and computer problems conspiring against me. Thanks so much for your patience. Hope this was worth the wait. Thanks so much for your many encouraging reviews. If you haven't reviewed – try it! Let me know what you like, what you don't like, what you didn't get, what your favorite type of ice cream is. I'd love to hear from you.