A/N : ok, really short chapter this time, but I didn't want to muddy up the story line. Also, a heads up that this chapter contains Dark!Harry, and that's going to continue through the rest of the fic.
Ron looked at the bulletin board in the small meeting room, his head splitting, his mouth tasting like dragon dung, as Harry moved from photo to photo, making notes, muttering, running his hands through his perpetually messy hair. A frisson of severe unease went through Ron as he watched his old friend, and not for the first time he considered expressing his concerns to Shackelbolt. The problem was, Ron was by no means reassured that Kingsley would take his concerns seriously or do anything at all about Harry.
Ron avoided being paired with Harry on assignments now, maybe it was cowardly, but he couldn't stand to watch what Harry did to the detainees, and he didn't have the power to make him stop. The last time he had tried to restrain Harry during an interrogation he'd ended up at the business end of Harry's wand, his friend snarling, and disconcerting flickers of red in the depths of his hazel eyes. There was a wild violence there, an out of control viciousness that frightened him to his toes.
"They're criminals, Ron, no better than Death Eaters, and if you aren't ready to do what needs to be done…" he let the threat trail off. Now he was sitting here, watching as Harry went from photo to photo faster and faster, as if looking for a pattern that was just out of reach.
"I don't understand it, Ron! Look at him, look at them! Bloody nerve, thinking he can come back here and live like a person instead of the monster I know he is. Sentence be damned! They gave him his wand, his wand, after what he did, knowing who he is! And her, I trusted her, and now look. First Snape, and I tried to understand, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, I knew what she was doing had to be hard, and maybe he understood, so I didn't do anything. But now she goes to Malfoy? How can she whore herself out to that bastard!"
"Harry, Malfoy must have changed some or he wouldn't be within a hundred yards of her, much less shagging her, mate, right? If he were still the old Malfoy he wouldn't touch a muggleborn, afraid of getting himself dirty, but the papers say he's been living in Muggle London for the past ten years. I mean, time can change a fellow, right?"
"Malfoy's don't change," Harry hissed. "I don't know what game they're playing, but I'll figure it out. I guess dark magic is enough to even overcome blood hatred for that git, but what does she get out of it, Ron? Money? Power?"
"Harry, it's Hermoine! She wouldn't do something like that. Maybe I should go talk to her, ask her what's going on. If he's still dark and she's with him maybe she's spying again, waiting for the right time to come to us. She's done it before. Remember, she'd already started to spy for Dumbledore when she told us about it because she knew we'd try to talk her out of it."
"That was her story then. But do you ever wonder, Ron? I do. Sure, she gave us some intel, but why would she go direct to Voldemort? There were easier ways, supposedly we already had Snape and Malfoy in the inner circle."
"She probably didn't trust them at first either, wanted to make sure they weren't leading us into a trap." But Harry was already pacing in front of the photos again, and he could tell that his old friend hadn't really heard him. Ron left quietly, wondering if there was anything left in the backup flask he kept in his desk.
He didn't see Harry slowly draw his wand down one photo of Malfoy and Hermoine, a trail of fire following the trail, slowly consuming the photo until it crumbled to ash.