Chapter 25

Draco groaned as he buried his head in his hands. He had a mountain of paperwork in front of him that he still had to get through before he made his way home for the night.

Lately it seemed as if he was falling behind in his work; stretching himself out thinly between his workload and cases, and trying to stop the world from coming to an end.

Alright, maybe that was a slight exaggeration on his part. Yet despite that, if they didn't find a way to stop whomever was behind the tornado and everything that goes wrong in the future, the world as they knew it might very well be terminated.

Yet despite that, he was also trying to find time to fit in his personal life, and to spend time with Scorpius and Hermione; as well as the family that seemed to be expanding each day.

Before it was easy; after work he would at the most go to the Leaky or some other pub for a pint of firewhisky with the boys. Or if not, he would simply go to the Manor and spend a quiet night in, reading or doing something else of the sort.

The latest case he was working on was nothing glamourous; a witch was filing charges against a wizard whom she claimed mugged her, and stole her wallet and bag. Upon the use of a search warrant, Draco was able to find the missing items, minus a few galleons which had been previously spent by the suspect. Open and shut case, right? One would think so. However the amount of paperwork afterwards was ridiculous. It was all protocol, in case something came back to bite them in the arse later on, they would have proof left behind to show they properly followed every step.

"Having fun, Malfoy?" he heard a smirking voice ask. Looking up, he saw Justin Finch-Fletchley breathing down his neck.

"Is there something you require?" he asked, attempting to be polite, not wanting to deal with his co-worker or his attitude at the moment.

"Just wanted a reminder at how far the once 'mighty pureblood' has fallen down, lower than the rest of us," Finch-Fletchley said, holding his head up high.

"Well, if you don't mind, I have a lot of work left to do," Draco said pointedly, hoping the wizard would get the hint.

"You know, I'm up for a promotion?" he bragged, "Junior Junior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic."

"Glad to hear it," Draco said, looking back down to his papers.

"Though I suppose you might be able to move up slightly after I leave," Finch-Fletchley said after a moments' thought. "Maybe now you'll be able to fetch tea for the people who actually matter here."

"If that's all?" Draco asked, through gritted teeth.

"I don't know," Finch-Fletchley said, a sneer crossing his face. "I'm rather enjoying myself. Of course, it's barely a fraction of the interactions I had with you and other Slytherins at school, so wouldn't you say I'm due a little more? Maybe I shall take something from you. Or better yet, I could push some of my cases onto you. My workload is so heavy after all, and it's not like you have any work of value to do, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem."

Draco stood up, his hands pressed to the table, as he glared at the man in front of him. Just because he no longer believed that people like Finch-Fletchley were inferior to him due to their blood didn't mean he turned into some sort of pansy, able to be trampled on or used for their entertainment. He may have been keeping his cool far more than he previously would have at an attempt to be professional, but that didn't apply for workplace harassment.

"You know what, Finch-Fletchley? You can continue to brag about your connections all you want, but know this: I don't care. If I wanted to have that sort of job, I wouldn't have needed to have started off here. I'm here, unlike you, because I actually want to be. And I don't care if your parents are super rich muggles; my fortune is still so much more than yours could ever be. And if you think helping a poor old witch who lost her possessions isn't worth your time, then maybe you shouldn't be here. That's why we do this job; not for the credit or the recognition, but so we can help others and make a difference. So it's probably a good thing that you're leaving. You didn't really belong here anyways," Draco said heatedly.

"You know what, Malfoy?" Finch-Fletchley said, his face glowing red, "You can just-"

"-Draco," Harry cut off their conversation as he flew into the room, a panicked look on his face, "You need to come with me now! Hermione's in the hospital!"

She felt a sharp pain on the left side of her body before she even opened her eyes. As Hermione slowly came too, she was surprised about the shear amount of pain in her body. Her eyes opened ever so slowly, coming into focus to see white walls around her that was familiar due to her work. The only difference is, she was usually the one standing up during her visits to hospital rooms, and not the one lying in the bed, injured.

"You're awake!" she heard Ginny say in a relieved voice. She looked around the room to see Ron standing with his arms crossed while Ginny was sitting in a chair, her hand on her stomach, and Harry was sitting on the bed watching her, as he placed a hand over hers.

"What happened?" she asked, groaning slightly as she tried to sit up carefully.

"You don't remember?" Hermione heard Harry ask. He "I remember the protest," she said, with a frown, as she tried to recall the events of the day. "I remember trying to get out of it, as everyone started to push each other. I fell to the ground, and I remember hearing a cracking sound, before I felt a sharp pain. I think I was hit with a stunning spell?"

"You were," Ron frowned. "The doctors said whomever cast the spell hit you straight in the chest. Must have been either great aim to get you through all those people, or an accident."

"I don't think it was," she said softly, "There was a man behind the person who was speaking, and I didn't realise it at the time, but I think he was watching me. I think he stunned me."

"Did you see their faces?" Harry asked her pulling out a quill and some parchment.

She shook her head, "They were wearing cloaks to hide it," she replied, "But there was something familiar about the man in the back; I just can't place my finger on it."

"You think it's someone we know?" Ron said with surprise.

"Not someone in our lives; I would have recognized them. But someone we knew once. Maybe through school or training at work. Like a distant face you can recall but don't know whom it belongs to."

"This isn't good," Ginny said softly, "They're gaining power. This is exactly what happens in the future."

She was about to respond, as she heard a pop from apparation. Looking up, she saw Draco standing there, holding Scorpius in his arms.

"You brought him to the hospital?" she said, worry filling her voice. "What if someone finds out? What if they see him and start asking questions? I can't believe you just brought him without thinking about all of this!"

"You're in a private room," she heard him say tiredly, "We pulled some strings and convinced the staff to let us place wards on the room. Considering who you are, and your job here, they didn't seem to mind very much. No one can get in or out of this room without permission. And about Scorpius, he was worried about you. He need to know that his mother was okay, and who was I to deny him that?"

She looked at her son, who was wriggling out of his arms, and climbing up the bed. The blonde boy hugged her tightly, nestling into her chest, causing her to wince slightly in pain.

"Careful, Scorp," Draco said warningly.

"It's fine," she said with a small smile as she held her child closely. Seeing doubt on the boy's face, she nudged him slightly, "What's wrong, Scorpius?"

"I don't want anything to happen to you," the boy trembled, "I don't want you to go away like Uncle Ron did."

She looked at him with shock, realizing what it must have done to him to see her like this. She pulled away slightly, enough so Scorpius could see her face, "I'm not going anywhere, Scorpius," she assured him, looking into his worried eyes.

"Promise?" Scorpius said, tears filling his eyes, as he squeezed her hand tightly.

She kissed his forehead, "I promise," she told him. Draco looked conflicted, but sat down on the other side of her, and patted their child's back.

"Are you okay?" he asked her carefully, stroking her face with his other hand. She could see the worry in his face as well, and she wondered how affected

"I'm fine," she insisted, "My injuries are nothing major. I should be out of here in a day or so, if not sooner."

"You should stay as long as they say you need for a full recovery," Draco said warningly, without moving his hand. She felt herself leaning into it, before catching herself and pulling away ever so slightly. She could see a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, but she chose to ignore it.

She looked over at the others, "We need to do something! We've put this off far long enough. I know we said it wasn't safe to tell others, but we have to. Or at least warn those whom we know are supposed to die."

Draco looked wary at the thought, and she knew it was because of the argument they had the other day in regards to the topic.

"I agree," Ginny said. When Harry was about to protest, she raised her hand, "Harry you didn't see it during the protest. People are scared. They know something bad is happening, but they had no idea what was going on. It was like that during the last war too. Despite the Ministry trying to shut you up and prove that you were incompetent and a liar, people still knew something bad was going on. They had no idea what, and there was a lot of panic as a result. And when there was that mass Azkaban break out, I heard the students in the hallways talking and trying to understand. When people are scared they make rash decisions. And right now the only people stepping up and trying to give people something to understand is the very people we're fighting against. That's probably what happened the first time in that we lost control because we were so busy trying to keep them safe, we forgot that our lack of providing them with information is probably what endangered them in the first place."

Harry sighed, "I know," he said softly. "I used to be so frustrated at Dumbledore for keeping information from me; about the horcruxes, how he fought for the deathly hallows, and how he never told me that I needed to die. He just wanted to protect me and to let me have a fraction of a childhood, despite everything, but I just wished he would have told me what I needed to know. So despite it being hard to explain without giving everyone full details, we need to tell them somehow."

"I agree about not telling them everything," Ron said, "Knowing the future could lead to panic and only ensuring that what we're afraid of comes true regardless. But I still think we should be careful about what they know. Tell them there's a force trying to gain power under the guise of caring for the public. Tell them that they want to 'bring back' the old ways, but misuse it to the point where they have a majority and can do whatever they want."

She looked over at Draco, trying to see what he was thinking, but his face was emotionless, revealing nothing about what he was thinking. She pulled Scorpius closer to her body, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and she could tell her son was calming down slightly, as his eyes closed.

"If we do this, we need a plan," Draco said slowly, breaking his silence. "We can't just go about this, winging it and hoping for the best. First we warn the people whom we know were supposed to die. The members that the other side is trying to recruit for their council. Tell them that their lives could possibly be in danger, and to keep their guard up. Tell them why they're in danger, and stress the importance of being careful in their daily lives. Then we proceed to the public. We need to tell them something so they're not in the dark about what is happening, yet we can't mention the children."

Harry nodded, "I can meet with Percy to try and come up with a diplomatic message that still conveys everything we need it to, and give an interview to the Daily Prophet. But we can also host some sort of press conference; I'm sure Kingsley could talk at that and arrange it for us."

Hermione listened, grateful that they were finally doing something to try and stop it. They had been so concerned the last few weeks with trying to figure out who was responsible and how to stop them that they forgot that there was a reason the other side gained so much power in the first place.

"We can split up the list and take the people who we know best, who don't know about all of this yet," Hermione told the group, as they all looked back over at her.

"We'll take care of it," Harry informed her. "You're not leaving this hospital room until you're discharged. And so help me, if you pull any strings since you work here to get out sooner, I'll put you on house arrest."

She huffed, despite knowing her friend's intentions were pure. She was a healer, for Merlin's sake! Shouldn't she be a pretty good judge of just how much recovery time she needed?

But she sighed, too tired to argue. She knew she was still in a lot of pain, and if she were treating a patient in the same condition she currently was in, she would demand at least overnight observation, if not far more.

"We should leave you to rest," Ginny said standing, as she, Harry, and Ron piled out of the room. At the commotion Hermione could see panic immediately shoot through Scorpius' face.

"Let him stay for a bit," Hermione told Draco. "There's plenty of room for the both of us to rest here for the night, and I don't need any other potions for a while, so no one should be coming in."

He nodded, "I'll stay the night in the arm chair, in case he needs anything," he informed her.

"That can't be comfortable," she protested, but he stopped her.

"It's no problem," he insisted, "I don't want to leave him alone, in case something happens, and there's not exactly anywhere else for me to stay."

She hesitated for a few moments, before saying, "We could enlarge the bed," she mentioned, without looking at him, "So you don't hurt your back or anything by sleeping on the chair."

He looked skeptical, "Are you sure you're fine with that?"

Hermione took a few moments, before responding to him, "I'm sure," she said. "Besides, Scorpius is going to be between the two of us, so it's not really all that big of a deal right?"

He nodded, and took out his wand to cast the spell, and once that was done, Hermione watched him take off his shoes and climb into the bed. With Scorpius in her arms, it wasn't long before she felt herself drifting off to sleep.

"I was approached by Draco Malfoy today," Marcus Flint told the group of hooded men. There was a hierarchy to how they stood, with the one who was the leader in front, as the second-in-command stood slightly behind him, and the rest stood as a group further back.

It was the day after the protest, and it had made the papers due to Granger's injuries.

"He told me something very interesting," Marcus continued, "He warned me that there is a group trying to recruiting members whose families once belonged to the Ancient Council, in an attempt to reinstate it, and if you were to reject them, they erase your memories and dump you on the street like trash. He warned me to be careful and not to trust them, for they aren't who they seem to be."

"Malfoy needs to learn his place!" the second-in-command hissed. "I'm glad we have yet to approach him, for he does not seem to be a good ally. He is a coward and an excuse to his namesake."

The one in charge held their hand up to silence their second. "He will get what his coming to him in time, of that I promise you. Flint, I want you to take advantage of the opportunity you have been provided. Get close to Malfoy and the Golden Trio," he spat out, "Get to know what they are hiding and report it back to me. Tell me what they know and if they are planning anything. I want to know anything and everything you can find out. Do not fail me."

"Of course," Marcus said lazily, "Consider it done."

He could see the corner of the leader's lips turn up with a satisfied grin, and he could tell he was dismissed. Marcus turned to leave, for he had work to do.