"Leo, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Leo clenched his fist tighter around the cloth of Hermione's shirt. For a brief moment, she considered tattling on him to Nadine if he ripped it. "You can, and you will."

"No, I mean… I can't. I physically can't, you see… um… this would actually be much easier to explain if you'd put me down first."

Hermione thought she heard a low growl in the back of his throat, but he let go of her shirt anyway and folded his arms across his chest, giving her a calculating look.

"Sirius's house was made Unplottable by a Fidelius Charm, and I'm magically bound by the Secret-Keeper, in this case, Dumbledore himself, not to reveal its location to anyone. Only he can do that," she said in a matter-of-fact voice that would've made Harry and Ron groan.

"I know what Unplottability is." Leo sounded like a petulant ten-year-old.

"Then you understand my predicament!"

"Naturally," he drawled. "But wouldn't you expect that there'd be some sort of loophole if the house was legally mine?"

"But it's not, Leo. Sirius left the estate to Harry. And if you're believed to be dead, as you say you are, there's no way you could be the legal owner of it."

Leo pouted for a long moment. Hermione shifted her weight to her left hip, fidgeting in the awkward silence. Suddenly, he lit up. "Perhaps not the house…"

His expression made Hermione squirm. "What do you mean?"

Leo started pacing again. "Wizards' Wills rarely have authority over the ownership of house-elves… that's an entirely different sort of magic. You said that Sirius had one, didn't you?"

"I might have…" Oh, Merlin, they were in trouble. She knew where he was going with this.

"As the next living Black in the bloodline, I should be his true master. What's the little bugger's name?" His eyes were dancing, something Hermione had never witnessed before. It made her uncomfortable. She decided she preferred him better when he was pouting.

She sighed inwardly and rubbed her temples, wracking her brains for any sort of clue as to how she should respond. As risky as it was, Kreacher might just be the link she needed to get her arse out of this dismal place. Perhaps it would do her well to play along.

And yet, she hesitated. There was a time when she had crawled about the flat, searching for even the tiniest cracks in the walls and the floor that could serve as a means of escape. As November pushed forward, however, she had more time to objectively consider the situation; she found herself making less of an effort to get away, and more of an effort to wrap her head around everything Leo was. It was inevitable, really, as they both had something that the other wanted: Hermione was the only link to a father Leo never knew, and Leo… well, he was a mystery Hermione had yet to solve, and had far too much potential to help the Order for her to just leave him to his own devices.

She knew that gaining Leo's trust was the most important part of her plan, and if that meant showing him that she wouldn't try and leave him, then so be it. As much as she wanted to go home, she had an obligation to the Order to find out everything of value he knew. She just hoped they weren't wasting too much precious time searching for her, when they needn't worry. Perhaps she could get some sort of a message to them if Kreacher was able to get them into Grimmauld Place.

Hermione took a deep breath in and then out to calm herself. "Kreacher. His name is Kreacher."

"Excellent," Leo said, and spoke his name.

The two of them stood there in the moonlight for a few tense moments. Hermione thought her heartbeat was loud enough that the neighbors could hear it pounding. A vein in Leo's temple throbbed. They waited.

Then…

POP!

"No, no, it's all wrong for you, dear… here, try this."

Ginny Weasley stepped down from a stool in Madam Malkin's, smoothing the full skirt of the robes she was trying on and turning to assess her backside in the mirror with a wrinkled nose. "Ugh, you're right. I look positively dreadful in this colour."

"You look like a cupcake that belongs in Madame Puddifoot's," Lavender Brown sniggered from her left, as she shimmied out of her own set of robes, which were silky and blood-red with golden filigree stitching. "And after all, it'll ruin the mystery of the Masquerade if you stick out like a sore thumb."

Ginny sighed wearily as Madame Malkin pulled the pink sequined dress over her head and handed her another set of robes, this time a powder blue with tiny pearls sewn into the bust line. "This one might be a little out of my price range," she whispered to the older witch, who nodded with understanding and disappeared again behind a curtain that led to some sort of back room.

It's safe to say that Ginny hated shopping, and she hated it even more when she did it with Lavender, who felt quite the opposite about it. She missed Hermione… at least their mutual dislike of the activity made it somewhat more bearable.

The weeks that had passed since Hermione's disappearance had been long, dreadful ones for her, her boyfriend and her brother, and it was preposterous that they had been instructed to hide their grief and act like nothing was wrong. Every other student thought that she was on leave for family reasons, and if the wrong people (mainly the Malfoys and other wizarding families with close ties to Voldemort) caught wind of what was really going on, then there would be loads more trouble, according to Dumbledore. So, for Hermione's sake, they internalized their pain and all kept their mouths shut regarding her affairs.

It wasn't easy, especially when Ginny would burst into tears at the most inopportune times, or when Harry singlehandedly lost Gryffindor the last two Quidditch matches, or when Ron would mope in Potions and neglect his concoctions until they decided to violently explode (although to anyone else, this didn't seem out of the ordinary). Dumbledore had insisted adamantly, multiple times, that her kidnapping wasn't Voldemort's doing, but Ginny hardly knew if that made her feel better or worse.

So when Adrian and Audra Vine, a pair of 4th-year Ravenclaw twins who had recently transferred to Hogwarts from a private academy in Australia, announced that their parents were going to be holding a New Years' masquerade (exclusively for pure-blooded and prominent wizarding families), the three were extremely grateful that Hermione no longer seemed to be an important aspect of the gossip ring.

They were also incredibly surprised to receive owls informing them that they had been invited.

"Thought our lot were a bunch of blood-traitors," Ron had remarked scornfully over his toast and eggs that morning, tossing the envelope aside and scanning today's edition of the Prophet.

"My mum was Muggle-born, too," Harry had said skeptically, peering closer at the red calligraphy on his invitation. "Although maybe I fall into that 'prominent families' bit."

Ron had muttered something incoherent in response, toast crumbs falling from his mouth as Ginny scolded him for his lack of manners. "It's easy to forget that us Weasleys are pure-bloods sometimes," she said with an edge of anger to her voice. "But apparently the Vines don't care too much about the stigma attached to our name, which is nice for a change." Or we'll be easier to hide since we'll all be donning masks, she thought grimly.

"You don't mean you actually want to go, do you?" Ron at least had the mind to swallow his toast before gaping at his younger sister.

"Oh, come off your high horse, Ronald! We can't just sit around and mope forever." Ginny lowered her voice a bit. "Hermione would want us to live a little, don't you think?"

"She's not dead for goodness sake!" Harry slammed his pumpkin juice down on the table, startling some first-years sitting nearby. "Hermione," he hissed, "would want us out there, doing everything we could to find her… not gamboling around at some fancy party. How can you even consider that when our best friend is missing?" With that, he had grabbed his things and stormed from the room, leaving a bewildered Ginny and Ron in his wake.

"I just wish we could convince him that there's nothing we can do that we haven't already done," Ron said, suddenly very interested in his fork. "He already tried to set that bloody house-elf on the lookout for her. Dumbledore's keeping too close of an eye on us for us to really accomplish anything else. It's infuriating, having him breathing down our necks."

"I know," Ginny said mournfully. "I wish Harry wouldn't blame himself so much for it, either. He's really taking this hard, regardless of the fact that Dumbledore seems to believe that Voldemort didn't have a hand in the kidnapping. He's got to have a legitimate reason for believing that."

"I'm more than just skeptical, myself. Who else besides You-Know-Who would have anything to gain by taking her?" Ron had sighed gloomily, his face falling into his hands.

Hermione shrieked, grabbing Leo's arm without thinking and digging her nails into his flesh as a small shadow hurled through the air and landed on the floorboards in a heap. Leo grimaced, throwing her off of him, and rushed to tug the string connected to the lamp in the corner. Light flooded the room and Hermione decided it wasn't worth it to ask him why he didn't just use Lumos. She avoided his eyes in short-lived embarrassment and instead focused on the groaning green lump in the corner that was now getting to its feet.

"Kreacher just minds his own business, yes, Kreacher just does what he's told, and then this is how he is rewarded, yanked from bed in the middle of night to…" He trailed off as he turned to face the two others in the room, rubbing his head and staring with wide eyes.

Hermione's eyes were just as wide as the house-elf's. Deep down, she had known it would work, but physically seeing him in front of her was an entirely different thing. His gaze focused on her.

"The Mudblood that Harry Potter so eagerly asks Kreacher to be finding, can it be? But that filth could not have the power to be calling Kreacher, not at all, not with her dirty Muggle blood–"

"Hush! That's enough out of you," Leo snapped, advancing towards the huddled green elf. "She's not yours to insult, only I can do that."

"I suppose I should've warned you about him." Hermione bit back a snort at Leo's backhanded compliment, fighting the blush that was threatening to rise to her cheeks.

Kreacher opened his mouth to protest but found that no sound came out. Horrified, he clutched at his throat until his eyes found the signet ring hanging around Leo's exposed neck. He pointed, crying out silently, and then immediately threw himself to the floor in a violent tantrum. She was instantly at his side.

"Stop him, stop it!" she yelled, trying to wrench the creature's thrashing body away from the coffee table, as he was now fervently banging his tiny bald head upon it. "Please! Order him to stop!"

Leo, amused at her concern for the elf that had colourfully insulted her not moments before, said calmly, "Kreacher, you're not to hurt yourself."

Kreacher glared daggers as Leo but drew his head away from the surface of the small table. Hermione quickly noticed that there were tears welling in his eyes as he plopped his rump down onto the floor, and she asked Leo to let him speak.

"None of my late masters be having any children," he wheezed, rocking back and forth while clutching his ankles. "Not a one. And yet there he stands…"

Leo eyed the elf warily. "Kreacher, my name is Leo, and I'm Sirius's son."

Kreacher's eyes widened even more and he began rocking faster. "And he is the filthy bastard of my poor Mistress' unworthy son, he is! Oh, how disgraced she would be to know… how humiliated…"

Leo was becoming annoyed, Hermione could tell. His jaw was set and a vein near his temple was becoming more defined as Kreacher kept ranting and clutching his ankles.

"Kreacher always wondered why he was not compelled to do the young Potter's bidding, but he did it still, because Kreacher feared that he was free at last… but now Kreacher is still bound to blood-traitor scum, and he does not yet know which he prefers."

"Is he always so rude?" Leo asked Hermione, folding his arms.

"He's been worse," she commented wistfully. "Your father often claimed he'd gone 'round the bend as well, but I think all he really needs is some old-fashioned nurturing." She was silently enjoying the fact that the tiny elf was getting such a rise out of the werewolf. Hermione knelt down so he could be at eye level with him, adjusting her ankle. "Kreacher, we need you to do something for us."

"Kreacher does not answer to the likes of Mudblood filth, in particular ones who are meddling with the freedom of his kind," he said scornfully, finally getting to his feet and dusting off his rags with his spindly fingers.

Leo stiffened at first, managing to look quite threatening. "You'll behave yourself, and answer to her as you would answer to me." But after Kreacher's words had a moment to sink in, he chanced a quizzical look at Hermione. "What's that he said? What did he mean, 'meddling with the freedom of his kind?'"

Her face grew hot and she played with the hem of her nightshirt, trying to hide her blush while seeming nonchalant. "It's nothing, really. He just says odd things, he was cooped up in that old house alone for so long."

Leo snorted. "You're a terrible liar, you know that?"

"It's not a lie! He does say very odd things." When he looked down his nose at her, she squirmed. "My apologies for not being as experienced in deceiving people as you are, then!"

"You do realize you just admitted it."

Well, he had her there. But she stuck her nose defiantly in the air. She had nothing to be ashamed of, after all. All she did was advocate for the welfare of house-elves. "I formed a group several years ago called the 'Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.' It was quite popular among the students," she embellished proudly, figuring that what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. "We basically petitioned for the freedom of house-elves and to improve their working conditions. I think it's simply awful that they don't have wages or even holidays –"

She was cut off by a sort of choking sound coming from Leo, and quickly realized that he was trying desperately to hold back laughter. "You did what?"

Hermione clenched her fists, the redness in her face now more due to anger than to embarrassment as she gave him a stubborn glare. "Don't you laugh, Leo Black, it was quite successful!"

"Was it, now?" Leo sniggered. "You can't be serious, Hermione, elves don't want to be free! You even heard Kreacher just now! He said the only reason he kept doing what Potter said was because he was afraid of his freedom! And he loathes the boy!"

Kreacher gave Leo an appraising look. "My unworthy Master speaks the truth, scum though his father may have been –"

"You hush up about my dad! I don't want to hear you bad-mouthing him." Leo tried to sound dignified but it was difficult when he was clutching his sides with laughter. "Oh Hermione, I can't believe… actually, maybe I can…"

Trying desperately to change the subject and take the focus of the conversation off of her, she stood up taller and said, "Laugh all you want at me, but that won't get you any closer to Grimmauld Place. We brought Kreacher here for a reason, remember?"

Leo wiped his eyes and took a deep breath, but a stupid grin was still etched on his face. Hermione hoped it stayed that way; he actually looked quite pleasant.

"Now, Kreacher," she said in a voice that reminded Leo of the way you might scold a puppy, "I need you to tell me if the Order still uses Grimmauld Place as their Headquarters."

He nodded begrudgingly. "Wizards come and go as they please, making a ruckus so Kreacher cannot sleep and must leave his cupboard and retire to the attic."

She saw Leo's brows knit together in her peripheral vision. "Were they there when Leo called you?"

The elf thought for a moment. "No," he said finally. "They have not been imposing on my Mistress's home for several days now."

She caught Leo's eye but continued addressing the house-elf. "And your magic can bypass the Fidelius Charm that Dumbledore put on it?"

"How else would I be getting here?" he said dryly.

"Leo," Hermione said, using the table to get to her feet, "Could you cover us both with a Disillusionment charm that would hold through Apparition? We could have Kreacher take us to the attic where he sleeps, and from there, make our way to the lower floors. We don't want to take the chance of running into anyone." At least, you don't, she thought.

"Erm…" Leo fidgeted slightly and coughed.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. It was plainly visible on his face that he seemed to be having some sort of an internal conflict. Finally, he spoke, looking strained. "This may surprise you, but I never actually learned how to do a decent Disillusionment Charm. I never needed it. I… erm… came into the possession of a Demiguise invisibility cloak awhile back and used that all the time. Unfortunately it was rather old, and its properties had already begun to wear off. I had to toss it after several years."

She couldn't help the incredulous look on her face. "You can't be serious, can you? Disillusionment charms… they're third-year stuff! Granted, they take a bit of time to master, but I was able to –"

"I'm sure you were," he cut her off, struggling to make his face a hard mask once more. "Now if you're done patronising me, perhaps we should figure out another plan of action, Miss Know-it-all?"

They regarded each other for a moment. "Well," she said slowly, sending out a silent prayer, "you could always let me do it."

Leo snorted. "And how do I know that you just won't Apparate away as soon as I give you your wand? Or Disarm me and make a run for it?"

"It would take me ages to remove the spells around your flat," she said, dismayed. "They're rather complicated and I haven't the foggiest what some of them even are. It's terribly Dark magic that you've used. I'm also assuming you've put anti-Apparition wards about, as well?" He nodded. "Well, if I can't Apparate from here, and I can't Apparate from inside Grimmauld Place, that leaves me stuck, doesn't it? And you must be a fair hand at dueling, yourself, so I really have no desire to fight you, especially with my ankle in its current condition."

He thought about her proposal for a long moment, and then, to Hermione's utter shock, nodded his head. Hermione let out a breath she wasn't even aware she had been holding. Wait…what had just happened? He agreed?

Leo disappeared down the corridor leading to his room, and emerged several minutes later with her wand in hand. She couldn't believe it! She was getting her wand back!

She reached for it eagerly, forgetting herself, and he pulled it away from her, making a clicking sound with his tongue. "My senses are much keener than yours, thanks to the full moon being so near. I'll be able to sense things that normal humans can't… like your nerves, the tiniest muscle twitches… If I catch even a whiff of any funny business, you'll be sorry." His irises briefly flashed yellow, and she gulped. He wasn't joking.

She tore her eyes away from his as he placed the smooth, wooden stick in her hand. It felt foreign for a brief moment as she tested the weight and rolled it in her fingers, but the moment ended in a shower of lilac sparks that spilled from the tip and danced around her. She felt overcome with giddiness as she watched them swirl and pop, thinking back to the first time Ollivander had showed her how it should be held. It knew, just as well as she did, that this was home.

She grinned at Leo, whose expression was unreadable. "Let's get out of here, shall we?"

AN: Some people have been wondering how Hermione was able to discuss the location of Grimmauld place with Kreacher. My logic in that was the assumption that since the house-elf was bound to the house and the family that owned it, he was grandfathered in to the enchantment that allowed him to know where it was and how to get there. Since both he and Hermione had knowledge bestowed upon them by the secret-keeper, the magic allowed them to discuss it with eachother, regardless of the fact that it was in front of Leo. The house-elf's magic was able to bypass the original enchantment that disallowed anyone not explicitly told by the secret-keeper to enter the house, since it was mentioned clearly in the seventh book that the magic of house-elfs is far older and sometimes stronger than that of wizards, but nobody has ever really thought to consider it, as the Malfoys didn't when Dobby could Apparate in and out of their dungeon.