DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE, NEVER BEEN MINE. NOT MAKING A SINGLE KNUT.
"Ms. Granger, welcome," Dumbledore greeted her. He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk, and offered her some tea. Within minutes, he was questioning her.
Feeling a slight hint of déjà vu, Hermione once again recapped everything that had happened to her, starting with the first letter. After she finished, all three sat around in silence.
Finally, Professor Snape broke it. "Why," he asked, "in the WORLD would you NOT tell someone about this? Even if you didn't know who they were from, the sounds of them are bad enough. You should've owled the Headmaster right away."
"I figured they were just somebody's idea of a sick joke! How was I to know it was some maniac?" she exclaimed.
"Ok, you two," Dumbledore said, as Snape went to open his mouth to retort. "Let's take this one step at a time. Ms. Granger, I must first have your word that if you receive any more letters or contact of any sort from Lucius that you will come to either Professor Snape, or myself." He waited for her to nod her word before continuing. "Now, we don't know why he's targeted you, but rest assured I'm going to dig around. Until we formulate a plan, however, you must do whatever you can to stay safe."
"Surely I'm safe at Hogwarts?" she asked, surprised.
"My dear, Hogwarts is very safe, but nothing is foolproof. Look at your young friend, Ms. Weasley in her first year. Then again, at your first three years, not knowing Wormtail was alive and sleeping across from Harry! Evil can find its way into any nook and cranny it finds. Keep up the work on your wandless magic, defensive spells, and healing magic."
"Yes, Headmaster," she responded.
"Go and tend to your friends, Mr.'s Potter and Malfoy now. You'll need their help as well. You can never have too many eyes out."
Acknowledging the dismissal, Hermione bid her Professors a good day and walked out of the office.
XXX
"Listen, both of you. I'm going to unfreeze you, but you have to both keep calm. Harry, I need to speak with you before you go storming off again." Hermione was standing in her common room, talking to the frozen figures of her friends. Instead of risking another corridor fight, she had levitated them both to the Head room, and disarmed them.
Hermione muttered the counter curse at them both, and stepped back. Draco was rubbing his jaw and muttering about it being strained, while Harry stared pointedly in the opposite direction of her.
"You're not going to make this easy, are you, Harry?" she asked. When she heard no response, she started talking anyway. As she got to the part about whom the letters were from, Harry finally broke face. Unfortunately, it wasn't to talk to her. He turned immediately to Draco.
"What the hell is your father doing writing Hermione?" he yelled.
"Oh yeah, Harry, let's start this up again," Draco yelled back. "What a surprise, it's the Death Eater's son's fault! Never mind the fact he FOUGHT ON YOUR SIDE, or HE'S FRIENDS WITH HERMIONE. No no, you're right; I'm behind this ALL!"
Rolling her eyes, Hermione got up and went over to the floo to place an order with the house elves. She was starting to feel hungry now, after fleeing from breakfast earlier. Harry had yelled back something starting with "Well, I wouldn't be surprised-"and now they were face to face again, yelling.
Her platter of fruit and buttered toast appeared on the table, and she walked over to eat and wait out their feud. They still didn't have their wands, so she wasn't too concerned. If it came to punches, she would put a stop to it. Until then, she grabbed a book and started reading.
XXX
The following week, Hermione couldn't help but scan the owls streaming in for a falcon every meal. She noticed Harry doing the same thing, but she was more conspicuous where as he was stealthy. She met the eyes of Draco at the Slytherin table, and knew he had checked too.
Harry gave her a small smile and continued eating as well. He and Draco had rowed for a good quarter hour before realizing that Hermione still had their wands and was reading. After making both promise to behave, she finished explaining to Harry what had happened, then returned their wands. Harry had looked worried over the news of Lucius, but looked profoundly happier upon hearing that he really had just walked in on the wrong part of her and Draco talking.
It was now the start of the second week of school, and Hermione had finally started calming down. Her classes were going well for the first week, and Head duties weren't so bad.
She never had a class alone. Draco had taken on almost as many classes as she had, and the ones they didn't share, her and Harry did. Most of the time, it was all three of them sitting together in class, with her in the middle. Draco had even taken up Muggle Studies this year. He seemed determined to distance himself away from his surname, and truly seemed fascinated by some of the wacky things muggles did. Potions had even been going fairly well now that Snape was free to terrorize all students equally.
Finishing with breakfast, Hermione stood and told Harry she'd see him in Transfiguration. She'd barely lifted one leg over the bench, however, when Harry said, "Hermione!"
She looked at him, and turned her head to see what he was looking at. It was the falcon.
Shaking, Hermione sat down hard on the bench. One of the first year's sitting by her asked if she was ok. Hermione nodded and tried to play it off like she lost her balance, and started laughing.
When the bird dropped the letter in front of her and flew off, Hermione picked it up. She surreptitiously looked around and noticed Draco and Harry watching her, and she was positive she had felt Professor Snape's eyes upon her a moment ago.
Not wanting to seem weird to any of the students still looking at her with concern, she opened the letter lightheartedly and began to read to herself, remembering to keep a calm look fixed on her face.
Finishing and shaking her head in fake amusement, Hermione folded the letter again. Standing up, she asked Harry if he wanted to run with her to get her books before class, and as they started to walk, they were joined by Draco, who flung an arm over her shoulders. Flanked by the two boys, they walked out of the Hall, looking carefree to anyone watching.
As soon as they turned the corner, however, they made a beeline straight for the Headmaster's office.
"Pop Rocks!" Hermione told the gargoyle, who leapt aside. Finally running out of wizarding candy, and realizing that people were able to guess them, Dumbledore had started broadening out to include muggle sweets as his passwords.
When they arrived in the office, Dumbledore had not arrived yet so they all sat around. Hermione chose the seat in front of his desk, while Draco and Harry chose seats near the fire. After scrutinizing the chair for a millisecond, Draco transfigured it into a big, squishy bean bag. He had fallen in love coming across pictures of muggle college dorm rooms for an assignment for Muggle Studies, and since then, Draco had sat in nothing else when in their common room. He had a habit of making new designs and colors every time. This one was a dark, inky blue with wisps of white on it. Apparently, it was supposed to look like a stormy night.
Hermione snorted at it, took out her wand, pointed it at the bean bag, and added some realistic looking lightening to it.
"Sweet…," Draco murmured, looking at it in approval. "Thanks. So, you going to tell us what daddy dearest said?"
"No problem," she said. "And no, I think I'll wait, that way I only have to read it once", and went back to waiting in silence.
Less than two minutes later, Dumbledore and Snape walked into the office.
"Let's hear it, then," Snape said. Hermione glared at him for a second, then began to read:
Dearest Hermione,
It seems you have found out who I am; no bother, though. In fact, I prefer it this way. No more sneaking around, no more cryptic passages. No, now you know. Now we can move on.
It makes no difference to me if you've befriended that traitor of a son of mine. I'm glad you've found a replacement for Weasley, although I would've thought it would take longer than a week for Potter to give the spot to him.
Anyway, the plan is forming. Go ahead and feel safe in your school for now. Enjoy it while you can. You won't be graduating.
Always, Lucius
She looked up from the letter to find everyone with different expressions. Snape looked calculating, and blank, as if he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking. Draco looked shuttered and glared into the fire. Harry was pale and shaking slightly, and refused to meet her eyes. Dumbledore just stared pensively at his fingertips, and sucked on a sugar quill.
Finally, Dumbledore spoke.
"It seems we have an informant in our midst," he stated softly.
Harry's eyes immediately shot to Draco, who instinctively raised his eyes from the fire to meet Harry's head-on with a steely glare.
"Get it out now, Harry, or give it a rest," Draco told him.
Dumbledore cleared his throat as Harry started to respond, but it was Hermione who finally snapped at him.
"Oh stop, Harry. Professor Dumbledore meant we have an informant here at Hogwarts, not here in this office. If I didn't trust Draco, he wouldn't be sitting here with us. Now shut it," she hissed. Harry just glared at her, and turned back to the fire.
"Ahem…yes…as I was saying," Dumbledore began again, "Lucius must have someone at the school telling him of Hermione's actions. He knew she knew it was him; maybe one of you said Lucius in class, and someone overheard. Whatever it was, he now knows. I don't like the idea of him having eyes here."
"Nor do I, sir," Draco spoke up, eyes back to the fire. "Lucius is a crazy bastard, but he knows how to get what he wants. It's only a matter of time before he tries something…" Draco was absent mindedly rubbing his left forearm.
"I agree, Headmaster," Snape added, bringing the attention away from Draco. "If Lucius has eyes around the castle, and who knows how many he has, then eventually he will try to take Ms. Granger. There's no hope in scaring him away when we don't know how he's operating, either, unless we scare everyone in the school."
Dumbledore just sat, nodding. After a few moments, he summoned a small pensieve to his desk and started adding thoughts. Ten minutes ticked by whilst he did this, until Hermione could stand it no longer.
"Um…Professor?" she asked timidly.
"My apologies, Ms. Granger," Dumbledore said. "I use this smaller pensieve to try and contain my thoughts better when I'm trying to formulate a plan. I think I'm drawing one up." Everyone in the office sat up a little straighter upon hearing this, and waited.
"We must protect Hermione," he said simply.
Hermione stared, dumbfounded, at Dumbledore.
"….Forgive me, sir, but that's what we've been doing," Draco said.
Chuckling, Dumbledore explained further. "Yes, I know, but that was before we knew we had informants. That was when you and Harry were trying to go stealth and not be noticeable. But now is the time for the obvious."
"Headmaster?" Draco questioned, clearly puzzled.
"He wants someone to be outspoken in the protection of Ms. Granger," sighed Snape, getting irritated. "Obviously, it should be Potter."
"Why Harry? I can protect her just as much," Draco shot at Snape.
"Think, Draco! It's your father. He's not afraid of you, and if anything, if he believes that you are romantically involved with Ms. Granger, it'll make him want to strike that much sooner! It needs to be someone whom the school believes Ms. Granger to be involved with." Snape shot back.
Draco just glared in defeat, and started sulking.
"Actually, Severus, I don't believe it should be Harry either," Dumbledore said.
Harry and Snape both sat straight up, and said in unison, "Why not?"
"Lucius is not frightened of Harry. He knows that Harry would die trying to protect Hermione, but that means nothing to him," Dumbledore explained.
"The Headmaster is right. Lucius would just take that as more of a challenge," agreed Draco, looking at Harry.
"Then who do you suggest, Headmaster?" Hermione asked, fear showing in her eyes at the thought that there was no one qualified.
"The only other person besides myself that Lucius would not dare cross," Dumbledore stated simply. "Severus Snape."