When Hermione awoke Lucius was out like a log, the potion clearly still doing its job.
She carefully extracted herself from under his arm and, utilizing her 'stealth mode' as she liked to call it, she tiptoed back to her own room, getting a slight adrenaline rush as she did from sneaking around.
It was nice like this, trying to not be detected but also not having to worry about your life being on the line if you were, only mild embarrassment and awkward questions the potential consequences.
Once back in her own room she quickly got ready for the day, excited to get started on questioning people. She decided she wouldn't wake up Lucius, he would only want to come with her which wouldn't be good for his recovery nor her investigation. Ezra was supposed to be out of the country and having Lucius himself show up in the Ministry asking questions would cause nothing but trouble, especially since Hermione still wasn't one hundred percent sure who had been the target of the attack.
No, Lucius would just have to wait in the Manor and he could grumble at her all he liked when she returned, hopefully with some answers.
After a quick but filling breakfast that the elves had brought up for her Hermione collected her notes and headed for the floo, initially bound for the Ministry atrium but at the last minute had a bright idea about how she could go and see Blaise without looking suspicious, her destination changing.
Out Hermione walked through a green puff of smoke into the Hogwarts potions classroom, the students in there waiting for Severus looking a mix of surprised, perplexed and in awe at the witch who had just appeared.
"Don't mind me." She said with a smile as she quickly walked towards the back room where she did her work with the professor.
Hermione made her way over to a cauldron bubbling away slowly on one of the counters, smiling once she lifted the lid. The next batch of her special polyjuice potion was ready to go, just as she had suspected. Blaise had asked her for some more, Merlin knows they seemed to be going through it fast, and now that it was ready she had the perfect excuse to go and visit him.
Firstly she put some in a small phial for herself. Polyjuice was hard to come by these days so keeping spares around was always helpful, especially for undercover investigations, and Hermione had made a bit of a habit of always taking a little from every batch she made. Next she poured the remainder into the large bottles the Ministry had provided her with which were neatly and uniformly labelled, something Hermione highly approved of.
"Good morning Hermione, isn't this a pleasant surprise." Came the voice of the professor as he entered the back room. "When my students said there was a war hero back here I was expecting to find Ronald Weasley."
"Was that an attempt at a joke?" Hermione asked as she poorly attempted to hold in a laugh.
"I think it was." Snape said looking genuinely shocked at himself. "Anyway, am I to assume by your presence here that you have a plan?"
"You assume correctly" Hermione beamed.
"Ah I see." He nodded. "Well then, I wish you good luck, let my know if you require my assistance."
"I shall." She smiled as she bustled out of the room. "Goodbye Severus." She called back over her shoulder, missing the eye roll from her professor and his mumbling of 'Don't go giving my students the idea that they can call me that.'
Hermione arrived in the atrium of the Ministry and blended in quickly with all the other bustling witches and wizards making their way to work, knowing it would do no good to behave out of the ordinary. She went to her office first and planned to stay there for at least an hour doing work before heading off to find Blaise so as not to seem suspicious to anyone who might be keeping an eye on her.
That plan however went out the metaphorical window when she actually arrived at her office only to find Zabini himself waiting outside the door looking a mix of anxious and impatient.
"Ah, Hermione." He visibly relaxed when he spotted her. "I was wondering if I could have a word?"
Hermione gestured towards her door, trying to hide any of the surprise or excitement she felt at seeing him there. "Of course, let's go in."
She could tell he wasn't his typical self today, he looked tired, it was clear something had been bothering him.
"It's funny that I found you here, I was planning on coming to see you later in fact."
His eyes widened a little. "Really? Why?"
Hermione's brow furrowed. She was sure he wasn't Lucius' attacker but his strange behaviour was clearly being caused by something and she aimed to find out what.
"Blaise." She said gently as she caught his eyes. "Blaise, is everything ok?"
He hesitated but pushed forward with a sigh, it was clear that he had made up his mind to say whatever he wanted to when he'd decided to come and see her.
"I've messed up Hermione. I thought I could fix it and cover it up but I can't stop worrying about what might happen, that someone will eventually find out."
"Find out what Blaise? What's happened?" She asked, trying to remain calm, Blaise was clearly in need of help and it would do no good to panic him further.
"As you are well aware, I am the Chief of Security's assistant. I have many roles, one of which is managing the ordering and storage of important supplies, including our polyjuice stocks."
Hermione's breath caught. The polyjuice. Did Blaise know something about Lucius and Ezra? It took a lot of her will power to just give him an encouraging nod and not bombard him with questions.
"I was doing our fortnightly stock check last week and, well, and some was missing. The room is hard to get to, I organised the security for it myself, and there are always guards on the routes leading to it, but somehow, someone has stolen some." He put his head in his hands. "It was my job to keep the stock secure, it will by my job on the line if someone finds out it was missing. I thought I could get more from you and not document it, replace the stock before anyone noticed, but I couldn't stop thinking about who had taken it, and why….what on Earth they planned on doing with it."
Hermione was filled with a sense of relief that Blaise didn't know about Lucius being Ezra as she had feared but it was overwhelmed by all the other thoughts that were racing through her mind.
Blaise was likely innocent since his odd behaviour was clearly caused by the theft of the polyjuice, unless of course this was a very elaborate ruse, but Hermione doubted that. She wondered though, did the theft have a connection to the attack on Lucius? The incidents must have been relatively close together, that was true, but what could it have been used for?
"How much was stolen?" Asked Hermione, getting out a notebook to make sure she didn't miss anything.
"Not much, only one bottle. I counted them over and over, sure I must have made a mistake, but it was definitely missing." Blaise explained. "I've looked into whether it was taken for an undercover mission but it doesn't seem to be the case, I would likely have been asked for access anyway, and I keep all the records myself and I know I wouldn't have made a mistake."
Hermione nodding encouragingly as she scribbled it all down. She believed Blaise, he was meticulous at keeping notes back at Hogwarts and she doubted he was any less thorough now, confident that his records were correct. One bottle may not sound like much but they were large, and the potion lasted longer, so one was all someone would need to last several days of being transformed if they so wished.
"What I want to know Hermione is if you'll help me? See if my guards were compromised, how someone got past them undetected, if the potion might have been used in any recent incidents, or what it might be used for…I just want to know that my failures won't cause harm to anyone really, and to stop this from ever happening again."
Hermione sat up straight and put on her most confident of faces. "Of course I will help you Blaise, I'll do everything I can to try and get to the bottom of this for you and, here." She reached into her bag and pulled out the polyjuice. "Take this, it's totally off the record so no one else will ever realise some was taken. And you're not a failure you know, you did your best, you didn't just brush it under the table and ignore it and you asked for help when you needed it, that doesn't sound like a failure to me."
All the tension seemed to leave Blaise's body at her words, a small smile even making its way onto his face. "I don't know what I can ever do to thank you, you have no idea what this means to me…I still find it hard to believe that you would, knowing the person I used to be."
"You're welcome, and I'm sure there will come a day when I will need a favour from you so we can call that thank you enough." She smiled back. "And who you used to be doesn't matter, it's who you are today that counts, I learnt that recently, and I wish I'd known it sooner."
"Thank you, again. Is there anything I can do to help you?" He asked, bringing out a notebook of his own, Hermione having to suppress a small laugh at his enthusiasm and similarity to herself.
"Hmm, let's think." She pondered. "Act natural, you don't want people to realise that anything is out of the ordinary. Change the security and guard schedule, if anyone asks just say you've decided to change it more often to make it less predictable. Give me the details of who was on guard duty and the security measures in place, if you're allowed to of course, and keep an eye out for anything suspicious."
Blaise wrote all her instructions down in a neat list. "I can do all of that." He said with a determined enthusiasm. "You really are the best at this Hermione."
"The product of many years of regretful necessity."
The talk with Blaise had left Hermione with a lot to think about but for now she couldn't be sure that the polyjuice theft had a connection with the attack on Lucius so decided to continue with her investigative plan for the day. The next stop was to go to the Department of Records and have a delightful visit with the lovely Miss Parkinson. She needed to find out who had visited the room containing the Death Eater case files in the last few weeks, potentially working out Lucius' secret or finding reason to attack Ezra, and whether any of them seemed out of the ordinary or overlapped with anyone in Blaise's case.
The problem was how Hermione was going to get to the bottom of this without seeming suspicious. It would seem very odd if she were to ask about who'd been in there without a legitimate reason, and her reason was one that she couldn't explain. It was made all the more difficult due to the fact that the person she would have to ask was Pansy, grumpy, irrational and proud Pansy who seemed to hate her.
That's when it hit her, the person she was asking could be the key to getting the answers she needed, her plan quickly forming in her head.
She was going to annoy the hell out of Pansy doing it but hopefully it would pay off, in fact, it probably wouldn't work if Pansy didn't get annoyed.