Chapter 2

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Hermione Granger was by no means late, but she rushed anyway. The moment her best friend had asked her to meet him, she had immediately felt dread. Dread for what he was about to tell her, dread that even though they knew the war had ended, it really hadn't. Honestly, she should be used to it by now. Being Harry Potter's best friend did come with its fair share of apprehension.

She entered the Ministry for Magic almost at a run, even though mentally she was reciting the mantra that she was panicking for no reason. Harry had seemed perfectly calm when she spoke to him earlier. There was no slight elevation in his voice to hint that he was lying, and he had even cracked a joke or two and smiled. Why on earth would he have been so at ease if he had dire news to tell her? The sensible thing was to take her time and head towards his office; instead, she moved as quickly as possible, nodding quick greetings with the co-workers she passed.

The moment she got into the elevator and pressed the button that would lead her to her office floor, she finally let out a low breath that she wasn't aware she had been holding. Maybe he was going to tell her something confident but not necessarily important, if that made any sense. Maybe it was something pertaining to the rogue Death Eaters they had been tracking the past month, those who had somehow managed to slip under the watch of the Ministry and were currently on the run. Maybe the information was so delicate that they had to move fast and he needed her to stop her well-deserved vacation to foresee the operation. But then, he didn't mention anything about her coming back to work. He did vaguely say something about having a job for her, though.

By the time the elevator doors opened and she stepped out onto the intended floor, Hermione's stomach was in knots. Her mind had travelled in warp speed thinking about every single possible scenario and she was just about to burst if her curiosity wasn't satisfied immediately.

She found Harry as she always did, with his form hunched over a desk piled high with documents. She didn't bother knocking and instead marched right in and took a seat right opposite him. "Hi, Harry."

Harry jumped slightly before his eyes landed on her. "Hi, Hermione."

Hermione smiled at her friend's startled jump; served him right for making her worry. "What was so important that you couldn't give me the details over a simple floo call?"

Harry squinted at her slightly before he grinned almost wickedly. "Did you rush here?"

"No," she scoffed. But his knowing smile caused her to narrow her eyes at him in mock anger. "You said it was an emergency."

"No," Harry said slowly. "I said it couldbe an emergency."

Hermione glared at him. "Harry, I swear. If you laugh, I'm getting up and leaving here right this minute."

With great difficulty her best friend stopped mid-laughter. "Alright, since you're here." Lifting his wand, he called for a file from his filing cabinet that landed cleanly into the palm of his hand. "This is not about the other Death Eaters."

"Oh?" Hermione sat straight upright, suddenly curious since she hadn't thought of any other possible scenario.

"There might be a chance that the disasters are connected."

"All of them?"

Harry shrugged before he handed over the file. Hermione took it carefully, before leafing through the contents. "These are articles about them." She looked up at him in confusion.

Harry placed his forearms on the desk and leaned forward. "I need you to show them to someone, and see if they notice anything familiar or out of the ordinary."

"Who?"

Harry hesitated for a moment, before he spoke, wincing as he said the name. "Malfoy."

"Malfoy?" Hermione asked in confusion. "DracoMalfoy?"

Harry simply grinned at her sheepishly

"Harry..." She shook her head, every single thought landing on the same conclusion. There was no way she was going to talk to him willingly. "What does Malfoy have to do with any of this?"

"Apparently, he has been having dreams that correspond with each and every disaster since they started happening."

"That's not unusual."

"Normally, no. But the dreams have been almost like a forecast. The things he dreamed came true."

"How do you even know this?"

"Andromeda told me."

It took Hermione a moment to make the connection. "She and Narcissa are back on talking terms then?"

"Barely." Harry shrugged. "But it doesn't hurt to check on this, right?"

"Fine. I admit that it does seem weird. Even in the Wizarding world to foresee a disaster unless you're a seer-"

"-especially every single disaster that has happened around the world," Harry piped in.

"But still, why can't you do it?"

"I would love to," he mumbled sarcastically. "But we need to get this done soon, and Kingsley needs me to check out East Asia. He still says that priority is for those who escaped the Ministry, not the disasters. And I'm leaving tonight."

"Then why are you looking into this?"

"Andromeda asked me to."

"Harry," she reprimanded.

"I know. But Hermione, all you have to do is go to Azkaban and interview Malfoy."

Hermione stared dumbly for a moment before she let out a nervous laugh. "You're joking, right? This is not as easy as you're trying to make it out to be."

Harry looked back at her sympathetically. "I wish I was joking."

"There's no wish," she said desperately. "You can just forget about this."

"I can't. Andromeda asked me. And I... sort of owe her."

"You're asking me to sit down with Malfoy. That sounds impossible to me."

"Not really." He shook his head. "You just have to take his statement."

"Harry," Hermione began in her best rational tone, "think about what you're asking me to do. You're asking me to give up my paid vacation so that I could go to a Death Eater infested prison and meet the one person who has hated me since the first time he found out I wasn't a pure-blood."

"I don't think he's going to be thinking about your blood status."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You want to bet?"

Harry let out a low sigh. "It's not like I can send Ron," he said meaningfully.

"I wasn't thinking about Ron," she said thoughtfully. "What about Seamus?"

"You know he's busy with the Egypt disaster."

"Dean's free."

"I just put him on the France job."

"Neville?"

"He's dropping the Auror programme to go into herbology, remember?" Harry smiled at her hopefully. "You're the best person for this job."

"How in Merlin's name did you come to that conclusion?"

"Simple," her best friend said with a shrug. "You're the only other person who can put him in his place." She opened her mouth to retort, but he beat her to it. "I can't say no to a Minister's request, and Ron will hex him before he even speaks his first sentence. Trust me, it has to be you."

"Is this because I punched him in third year?" she asked in mock insult.

Harry grinned at the memory. "It's your own fault, Hermione. If you weren't so insistent on doing things your own way and doing them well, I would have treated you like a Damsel in Distress from the get go."

A smile fought its way to the surface. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr Potter."

"I'm looking at facts more than flattery," Harry said seriously. "Besides," he said grinning, "I think it's working."

"Serves me right for trying to protect you from the big, bad, evil Dark Lord." Hermione sighed, knowing that she was agreeing to this disastrous assignment despite her misgivings. "This doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it."

"Definitely not," Harry said dryly. "The one thing I don't expect is Malfoy to have changed."

Hermione did everything that she could think of to prolong meeting her childhood irritator. But no matter what she did, she ended up right where she was supposed to be when the time came. Needless to say, the expression on Malfoy's face the moment she entered the meeting room was almost worth having this assignment. Almost.

"Malfoy," she began curtly before she took a seat opposite him.

The moments he spent staring at her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust gave Hermione the perfect opening to study him with her own cold exterior. He didn't look good. Azkaban had not been good to him, anyone could see that. Usually a tall, lanky individual, Malfoy now sat almost a skeleton in front of her. His eyes had sunken in, allowing the dark circles above his cheeks to show contrastingly against his pale skin. When in school, she had always thought that he couldn't get paler if he tried. Apparently, she was wrong. Keeping him away from the sun almost had the added effect of making him look sickly pale, even though his eyes still had that fire in them. And in some unusual way, she was glad to see it.

"Granger," he said with a sneer.

Hermione smiled then, glad to see that he had some bite left in him, which only caused Malfoy's gaze to narrow suspiciously at her. As much as she was for putting Death Eaters in Azkaban, having known Malfoy for most of her life made her thankful that Azkaban hadn't broken him, at least, not yet.

"For what do I owe this displeasure?"

Hermione bit her tongue to stop an automatic insult from leaving her lips. She knew this wasn't going to be easy. She had to be the bigger person. "Harry sent me."

His demeanour instantly changed. "Potter?" he spat. "And why is it that the Boy-Who-Lived chose to send his bushy-haired accomplice instead of showing his scar-head face here?" He leaned forward with a sneer. "Is he scared?"

Hermione fought the urge to touch her curls self-consciously. "Harry has to deal with an issue in Hong Kong. He asked me to speak to you."

"Well, isn't he the avid globe trotter."

"Yes, well." She cleared her throat before she rummaged through the bag she brought with her. Malfoy stared almost curiously as she took out a piece of parchment and a quill.

"What do you want first, the order for my lunch or dinner?"

Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Actually, I want a statement."

"Brilliant. Planning on publishing my life story, are you?"

"Despite what you think, your life story is not that interesting, Malfoy."

"I don't know about that," he said with a light shrug. "Living with the Dark Lord gave us a few insights. Do you want to know the bathroom schedule?"

Hermione sighed, already tired after meeting with him only for five minutes. "You're not going to make this easy, are you?" She took his silent glare as an affirmative. "Alright, then." She cleared her throat and took the quill in her hand. "Let's begin with the first dream." She looked at him expectantly.

Malfoy stared at her. "First what?"

"Dream," Hermione said automatically. "I heard that the first dream happened..." she pulled out a notebook and glanced at a few pages before her eyes landed on the information she was seeking, "...nine weeks ago." When she looked up again, Malfoy had a murderous glare trained towards her.

"Why are you here?" His voice was slow and controlled, but she could sense an underlying tone of foreboding.

Hermione hesitated for a moment. "To take your statement on your recurring dreams."

Immediately she realized, she might have said the wrong thing. Before, while he had been only slightly hostile and insulting, now she realized that he was simply angry. She could practically see his rage in the way his eyes narrowed at her, and he glared almost unforgivably. "You're not here to free me," he said slowly, his tone slow and deliberate.

Part of her was hesitant to tell him the truth. "What made you think I was?"

"My mother," he sneered. "She told me that she was going to get Potter to help me. And I was told that he agreed."

Hermione looked at him in confusion. "How is Harry supposed to help you?"

"Do I look like I bloody know?" Hermione winced. She had never been a fan of swearing, especially when it was accompanied by a tone with that level of anger. "Potter is supposed to be the do-gooder he always has been and speak to the Ministry about my conduct. He is supposed to get me a hearing."

"Malfoy," Hermione said soothingly. "Harry has already spoken to the Ministry. Everyone who has the Dark Mark was given a minimum ten years of mandatory incarceration in Azkaban, you got five years. Didn't you ever wonder why that was? Harry spoke to the Aurors, to the Minister himself and told him about what happened at the Manor. And what happened with Dumbledore," she finished softly. For the first time since she entered the room, the fire in Malfoy's eyes dulled slightly.

"Then why am I still here?" he asked softly, almost as if he was dreading the answer.

"The Ministry believed that your actions during sixth year - fixing the vanishing cabinet, letting Death Eaters penetrate the wards of Hogwarts and killing innocent people - deserved some time behind bars." Malfoy looked away, and part of her understood that he had spent his time in Azkaban trying to forget that night. "And the fact that Voldemort stayed at the Manor while he was still wanted by the Ministry didn't help matters either," she continued softly, ignoring his automatic wince at hearing the forbidden name.

"I'm not stupid, Granger. I know I deserve this," he muttered softly. "But I think I've paid my dues. I might have fixed the vanishing cabinet, but I never killed anyone. And the Dark Lord wasn't exactly an invited guest." Malfoy drifted off thoughtfully.

Hermione stayed silent, unwilling to break this almost calm that had settled between them. She had a job to do, and she had a limited amount of time to do it. "I need to know about your dreams, Malfoy."

He looked at her then, and for some reason, she could see defeat in his eyes. "How do you know about them?"

"Andromeda told Harry. I'm assuming that it was-"

"My mother."

She smiled slightly in encouragement. "Yes."

"My mother is a superstitious fool, Granger. She makes things bigger than what they are. You're wasting your time."

Hermione really wanted to take his words at face value and leave. But she had made a promise to her best friend, and her own curiosity won over her need to avoid this conversation. "I just need to know the details. That is all."

"I can barely remember them," he scoffed.

"Andromeda said you did," she said in retaliation.

Malfoy squinted at her, his gaze suspicious. "And what is so great about my dreams? Potter trying to thicken up his dream book?"

"For reasons unknown, you seem to be exhibiting the signs of a seer."

He scoffed then. "Okay, Granger. If you say so."

"If you tell me your dreams, I promise to leave you alone for the rest of your life."

Malfoy barely hesitated before a wide grin split his face. "Let's get started then."

Hermione sighed before she picked up her quill. This was going to be a long day.

TBC

A/N - As great as it is to see so many people favourite this, feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think. Even though this story is completed, I'm currently tweaking it before posting new chapters. So I really appreciate any constructive feedback :)