A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! Of course, you knew that I had to bring some of the drama...I'm afraid we aren't quite out of the woods yet. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions!

Please let me know what you thought of chapter twelve and be on the lookout for chapter thirteen soon!


Harry had wanted to try out a new bar that he'd walked by on the way home from classes, but he knew that the dingy interior was not a kind of place that Ron would go to. However, it seemed like it would be perfect for a pint with Sirius, who always seemed to enjoy a little hole-in-the-wall, even though he could get into practically any club with his good looks.

Sirius had readily agreed to meet with him, but in typical Sirius fashion, he'd not been able to show up on time. Harry had tried to disappear back into the corner of the bar, realizing that he was not the traditional patron of the establishment, and he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself than he needed to.

He'd ordered his ale from the one waitress that walked around the room, recognizing the bartender as Hermione's new boyfriend Rabastan Lestrange. Harry would have never suggested this bar if he'd known it was the same one that Rabastan worked at. It wasn't as if he didn't like the man - the one time that they'd all hung out together had been much more fun than he'd anticipated - but he didn't want Rabastan to think that Harry was keeping tabs on him.

He also couldn't get the memory of Rabastan's arrest warrant out of his mind. Alice Longbottom's written complaint of what had happened seemed horribly matter-of-fact for a woman who'd witnessed her husband being stabbed in the stomach when she was being held at knifepoint herself.

Harry counted himself lucky when he realized that Rabastan was far too busy talking to a couple who were seated at the bar to have noticed him. He faced away from the dangerous looking trio, intent on just minding his own business.

As he played with the foam head on his pint and kept an eye on the door for Sirius, he had absolutely nothing to distract him from the conversation that was taking place only a few feet away from him. Knowing that it was none of his business, Harry tried to keep his mind busy, recalling the weekend football matches in vain, only to be drawn into the terse discussion.

It did not take Harry long to figure out that what they were discussing was not in the least bit above board. He winced as the trio planned out a robbery that was meant to take place in the near future, the woman's gleeful cackling about how she was going to rough up the person who they were meant to be robbing. He felt sick to his stomach as he slowly learned what Rabastan's part in all this would be.

Harry was so enthralled that he didn't even notice Sirius walk up to the table.

"Kid, what's wrong with you?" Sirius asked with amusement. "You look like you've seen a ghost! Promise me it's not my mother come back to haunt me," he added with a laugh. The dark haired man slid into the seat adjacent to Harry before dropping a fiver on the table to signal the waitress.

Harry tried to give him a smile, but was unsuccessful. "Nothing, I just, remembered...something I have to tell 'Mione," he stumbled through the response, unsure of what he should do. He knew that he couldn't tell Sirius, not now, because Rabastan was certain to hear them and Sirius was certain to do something stupid and ill advised. No, it was better to tell Hermione first. She would know what to do.

"Ah, and just how is the lovely Miss Granger these days?" Sirius asked cheerfully. His godfather and Hermione had always had an interesting relationship. Sirius had always liked to push her buttons as a bleeding heart and Hermione had always been irked by his careless, bachelor lifestyle, especially when it rubbed off on Harry. As Hermione had grown older, it had occasionally dipped uncomfortably close to flirtatious, in Harry's opinion.

Harry immediately glanced over his shoulder back towards Rabastan, praying that the other man had not heard Sirius's voice, Hermione's name carrying on the stale air in the bar. To his relief, Rabastan was still speaking quietly with the other two. "Oh, you know, same old 'Mione," he answered, before changing the topic as quickly as possible.

A night out with Sirius was always fun, but no matter how hard he tried, Harry could not relax for the whole night. Even when he talked about Luna - a topic he could easily get carried away with - he'd been unable to stop the nervous churning in his gut.

When they finally settled their bills and left, Harry had half a mind to head straight to Hermione's and let him know what he'd heard. But, he remembered that she'd gone out with Ginny and Luna, so there was no way that she was going to be in the right frame of mind to accept what he was telling her. If she was even home at all.

Shaking his head, Harry made plans to go and speak with Hermione first thing in the morning. Hell, he'd even set an alarm if he had to. Hermione had insisted that Rabastan was turning over a new leaf, but he owed it to her to show her that the man she was dating was not the man he claimed to be.

It would hurt her, yes, but finding out when Rabastan ended up arrested or dead would hurt her even more.


Hermione groaned when she was awoken by a persistent pounding on her front door. Sliding her feet into slippers, she threw her robe on while she walked out of the heaven that was her bed. She knew that it couldn't be Rabastan because they'd made plans to get pizza later that night, and he worked a closing shift, so he was likely in a worse state than she was.

She really shouldn't have had that third old fashioned, she thought sourly to herself.

Swinging the door wide open, she was surprised to see Harry standing there. "Harry, what are you doing here? It's eight o'clock on a saturday," she said suspiciously.

He grinned up at her, but his smile didn't quite meet his eyes. "Can I come in for a bit?" he asked, before pressing a paper bag into her hands. "I've brought breakfast - one of those blueberry muffins from the place by mine and Ron's that you love. I'll make coffee."

Stepping aside, Hermione let Harry walk past her, before turning to follow him into the kitchen, picking up Crookshanks on the way. "What, did you just remember that you have a term paper due or something?" she asked, wondering what had gotten into him that he'd come over like this out of the blue, bearing gifts no less.

Harry had busied himself with her coffeemaker, keeping himself facing away from her resolutely, which only made her feel more suspicious. "No, that's not it," he said sounding guilty, perhaps upset to realize that she associated him being overly nice to with with wanting homework help. "So, you know that Sirius and I went out last night?"

"Yeah, Luna mentioned it," Hermione answered, taking a tentative bite from her muffin, Crookshanks settled on her lap. "She also told me about your tattoo. I'll confess, that's something that I wish I never knew about you," she said with a groan, her propping her head up with one hand, wishing she'd been able to sleep in just a bit longer.

To her surprise, Harry's cheeks grew red in embarrassment. He slid into the chair across from her, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. "Yeah, I wish I could forget it myself," he said, running his hand through his messy hair. "My mistake for getting drunk with Ron and agreeing we needed something to remember Gryffindor house for the rest of our lives."

Hermione smiled at that, knowing how convincing Ron could be when he put his mind to something. Silence seemed to stretch between the two friends while Hermione waited for Harry to share whatever was on his mind. "You were mentioning Sirius?" she finally prodded, dreaming of crawling back into her bed.

"Well, I didn't know it at the time, but we actually ended up at the bar Rabastan works at," Harry finally said, trying to sound casual, but doing a terrible job of it.

Immediately, Hermione's mind sprang into action, working overtime trying to figure out what kind of terrible thing could have happened. God, she hoped that Sirius hadn't done anything stupid, knowing he'd always had a bit of a soft spot for her. "Harry, what did you do?" she demanded, her voice already going a bit shrill.

"I didn't do anything," he said, his eyebrows furrowed. "Nothing- look, nothing happened. It's about what I heard," he tried to explain. "Rabastan didn't know I was there, but he was with this couple and well...they were discussing a robbery. A robbery they are planning to commit."

Hermione shook her head resolutely. "No, that's impossible," she said, a frown on her face when she quickly pieced it together. There was no doubt in her mind that the couple was Rodolphus and Bellatrix. "You must have just been mishearing something. Maybe it was something that happened in the past," she desperately tried to explain it.

Harry gave her a sad look, and shook his head. "Hermione, I know what I heard," he insisted. "They were discussing robbing a house. Rabastan is going to be the getaway driver. They were haggling back and forth about what his cut of the money would be."

She felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on her head, a shock to the system that snapped her out of the sunny daze she'd been in the last two months that she'd been with Rabastan. Everything had been so perfect, and she believed him when he said that that life was in his past. She believed him when he said that he never wanted anything to do with his brother ever again.

But, she also believed Harry, her oldest friend. Her friend who had no reason to lie about something like this.

"He wouldn't," Hermione stuttered, feeling tears form in her eyes, embarrassed to be crying over a boy in front of Harry. Could he understand what she was feeling at all? "He promised me - he's trying to turn over a new leaf. Make up for lost time," she insisted, desperately, trying to convince Harry had he must have been wrong, because the alternative hurt her too much.

"Hermione, I'm sorry," he whispered, standing up from the chair so he could wrap her up in a tight hug. Harry had always been the kind of person who wanted to fix things, make everything better, but Hermione was sure that this was one time that he wouldn't be able to repair things with the wave of a wand. "I don't want to hurt you, but I thought it was better for you to find out now, than before you devote more of yourself to him."

Turning into her friend, Hermione let herself cry into Harry's shirt, feeling so small and helpless. His fingers ran through the tangles in her bedhead, working to soothe her. But, Hermione's mind wouldn't quit working, trying to resolve the two radically opposing sides that she was presented. She didn't know what to think, and feeling unsure of herself only made her feel worse than she already did.

She wanted to believe that there was some harmless reason for this, that Harry had been mistaken. That Rabastan wouldn't betray her like that. But one thing was certain - she wouldn't know what the truth was until she talked to him.


After Harry left, Hermione had crept into her room and begin rifling through all of her papers until she finally found the police records that Harry had given her all those weeks ago. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she read through each page with concern in her heart, fearful for what she might find there.

She was relieved to learn that everything that Rabastan had told her was more or less the truth. He hadn't left out anything that he'd done to try and make himself seem better. He was mostly honest. What struck her was actually reading the witness's complaint, her heart clenching when she thought of the poor woman who feared for her life at Rabastan's hands.

More troubling was Rabastan's own interviews and outright refusals to speak about anything that happened. He'd fully taken advantage of his right to remain silent. All three of them, Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan, had stuck together, none of them ratting on each other, despite the witness's insistence that it was Rodolphus who was the ringleader of their operation.

Hermione wasn't sure how long she had sat on the bed, thinking over what Harry had said, but it seemed as if someone was knocking on her door again within minutes. Glancing at her clock, she knew that it was Rabastan this time, coming over for their date.

Reluctantly, she stood from her bed and went and answered the door. Rabastan immediately looked concerned when he took in her appearance. Hermione blushed realizing that she'd never actually gotten out of her pajamas for the day. "Babe, is everything okay?" he pressed, stepping inside and pulling her into an affectionate hug. "You look like you've been crying."

Swallowing thickly, Hermione knew that she had to confront Rabastan with what she knew. She couldn't just sweep this under the rug. "I have been crying, Rab," she answered, looking up at him with a serious face. "Harry came to see me this morning, and well...he told me some news that upset me very much."

"What happened?" Rabastan wondered, his eyes moving back and forth, almost as if he were scanning her for a physical injury.

"He was at your bar last night," she said, spinning away from him, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him in that moment. She couldn't rectify the two opposing sides to Rabastan that she knew about at the moment. "And he told me about what you were planning with your brother."

Turning back to face him, Rabastan didn't appear upset, just stunned, that she knew that he'd been meeting with his brother. She knew that she should be grateful that he wasn't trying to lie to her, but he wasn't trying to explain anything to her either. "I thought you said that Rodolphus was your past, Rabastan," she begged, pleading with him to tell her that Harry was mistaken.

"It's just - it's not like I went looking for him," Rabastan insisted. "Rodolphus came to me. He wouldn't stop tracking me down, he was relentless. It's just this one time and then I am done Hermione."

"How do you know that?" she cried, hating that she wasn't able to control her emotions when she was trying to have a rational conversation with him. "What's going to happen the next time, when he tracks you down again, and he's relentless again, and he convinces you just one more job, hm?"

"You can't possibly understand, Hermione," he said, his voice arrogant and annoyed that she would question him. He stepped forward, cupping her cheek gently, trying to wipe away the tears on her cheek. "Do you know what he'd do to you if I didn't agree? I can't bear the thought that something might happen to you."

Hermione shook her head back and forth. "No, you don't get to do that to me," she countered, angerly. "You don't get to use me to justify a strong arm robbery. There are options, Rabastan."

"Oh yeah? Like what?" he questioned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Go to the police," Hermione insisted, pressing her hands to her hips, wishing that her bossy manner could work on him for once. "Tip them off about what's going to happen and let Bellatrix and Rodolphus get what they deserve."

"I-I can't Hermione," Rabastan spluttered, looking down. "You don't understand. I can't just snitch on them. They are my family. We lookout for one another."

"You know, I read your arrest record," she said, quietly, dropping her gaze down to her feet, unable to look at him.

Rabastan stilled. "How did you get that?" he questioned, his voice deadly quiet.

"It's publicly available information," she snapped back, before guiltily outing her source. "Harry gave it to me weeks ago. But I only just looked at it today. And do you want to know what I noticed?" she questioned.

"What?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.

Hermione let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. "That you really stepped up for your brother. If you would have just talked to the police about what happened, you probably wouldn't have gone to jail for ten years. You probably wouldn't have wasted the majority of your adult life behind bars!"

Rabastan sneered at her. "I'm sorry that you consider my life wasted because I wasn't out getting some poncy degree!"

"That's not what I meant and you know-"

He was already talking over her. "Well, here's something that you don't learn at university, Hermione. Where I am from, you don't talk to the police and you certainly don't turn on your own brother. Because that's what will get you killed where I am from," he seethed, breathing heavily. "Rodolphus and I are family. We had to stick together. Now, I will do this one last job for him, and then he knows that he has to let me move on."

Hermione blinked back her tears, wishing that Rabastan could see everything from her perspective. "You keep saying that you and Rodolphus look out for one another," she said simply. "But ask yourself this: when was the last time that Rodolphus looked out for your best interests?"

Knowing that the argument had run its course, Hermione turned away from him, unable to look at his handsome face - the face that she loved - any longer, knowing what kind of man he was proving to be. "Don't come back here until you have an answer to that question."

By the time she returned to her room, Rabastan had already stormed out of her flat, slamming the front door in frustration.