I have hit a wall with all of my stories- except for A New Family
SO, I got the idea to combine my stories "Raising The Rainbow" and "A Ready Made Spy". Some parts will be identical to the other stories, but with changes)
It's really just that I'm using the ideas that Kingsley and Alastor raise Tonks, and she later goes to spy on a Death Eater meeting with disastrous consequences.
A formal warning: This story will contain abuse, non-con/rape, death, dark themes, it will not contain graphic descriptions of such.
Sirius is still alive as of this chapter.
I don't own HP, and I took inspiration from what Remus says in HBP: "Albus needed a spy, and here I was, ready-made."
*****And since I don't own HP, I don't own the parts of DH Chapter 1 you will see in this chapter*****
Again, I'm utilising my headcanon that Andromeda and Ted were part of the first Order.
Hermione appeared outside of the Burrow's boundaries, just as Kingsley's instructions had told her to do. Stepping through the boundaries, she was met with the end of Kingsley's wand pointing at her chest.
"How did you receive my instructions, and on what date?" He asked.
"Three days ago, on July 20th, I received a patronus- yours, which is a lynx- telling me to Apparate exactly one hundred and fifty yards away from the house." She said.
He nodded, stowing his wand beneath his robes. "Your parents?"
"Safe, as I said they would be." She said, and they walked back towards the house. "Has anything new happened?"
"A lot has happened." Kingsley said.
"Good or bad?"
"Good, with a lot of bad."
"What's the good, then?" Hermione asked.
"Remus and Dora got married just over a week ago, it gave us a reason to celebrate something. And so far, this house remains safe. We'll be bringing Harry here on Saturday, the wedding will go ahead as planned on the first of August."
"And the bad? Deaths?" She asked, her heart skipping a beat.
"Not that we know of, yet."
"Yet?"
"Dora went on an undercover mission last night, and still has not returned." Kingsley said.
"Oh, Kingsley, I'm sorry."
"Remus and Sirius spent hours looking for any signs of her, we can only imagine they found out about her and took her captive. And we're setting up a safe house for the Dursleys, we just need Order members who will agree to protect them."
"And the plan to move Harry?" Hermione asked.
"It will be discussed at an Order meeting tonight." Kingsley said as they reached the Burrow's back door. "I must get back to the Muggle Prime Minister, I'll see you this evening, Hermione."
She nodded and watched as he walked back to the point she had just appeared at. She turned, heading into the Burrow's kitchen. It took her an hour before she could escape the various family members and Order members in the home, and by the end of the hour, all she wanted was quiet.
Hermione walked towards Ron's room, knowing it would be the quietest area in the house, her copy of Pride and Prejudice in her arms. She had arrived at the Burrow only an hour before, but between the wedding planning and the Order being in what she could only describe as crisis mode, she already needed silence.
She walked by the twins' room, only for the door to open and one of the twins to step out, a box in his arms. He bumped into her, catching her by surprise, and she stumbled backwards, landing on her backside in the hallway.
The twin dropped the box, and she found herself looking up at Fred while Decoy Detonators scurried around her.
"Oh, Hermione, I didn't realise you were here!" Fred said.
"I figured that." She said, as he held out a hand. She took it, standing.
"I have a habit of making the ladies fall for me." Fred said, bending down to retrieve the book, frowning slightly. "A Muggle book?"
She took the book. "Uh, yes. My mother bought it for me a few years ago."
"Never change, Miss Granger." He said with a wink, waving his wand and returning the Decoy Detonators to the box. He began heading down the hallway when she noticed one of the Decoy Detonators hadn't be summoned. She grabbed it, following Fred.
"You forgot this, Fred." She said, and he turned to look at her.
"Keep it." He said. "Perhaps you'll need a decoy, Granger."
As he continued walking, she looked down at the Decoy Detonator, a blush creeping to her cheeks as she smiled slightly.
She heard footsteps from the stairs leading to Ron's room, and jumped when Ron spoke. "Hey, Hermione, heard you arrived." He said, when she turned to him. "Looking for me?"
She tucked the Decoy Detonator into her beaded bag. "I was on my way up to your room, actually." She said. "You don't mind if I read in there, do you? It's just a little loud downstairs, and I'd like some silence."
Ron shrugged. "Nah, go ahead, I'm heading out to play Quidditch with Ginny, Bill and the twins." He said. "We have to try to convince Charlie to join us, or our teams are uneven. Unless you'd like to...?"
"No, that's alright, I'd like to read." She said, and he nodded, headed downstairs. As she continued up to Ron's room, she couldn't stop thinking about Fred's wink.
Merlin, the Weasleys are a distracting bunch.
They gathered in the crowded kitchen of the Burrow that evening, and Hermione noticed Remus and Sirius were the second last to arrive. She wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for her to approach him, congratulating him on his marriage and saying she was sorry there was a chance he was widowed all in the same week, so she stayed silent, waiting for the meeting to begin.
Moody finally arrived, his magical eye searching the room quickly, before he walked to stand next to Kingsley. "No sign, I take it?" He asked, and most of the Order members looked towards Remus and Sirius.
"Not yet." Sirius said. "We're going back to the Manor tonight, try to find some kind of sign of her."
Moody nodded after a moment. "If there's no lead found in the next twenty four hours, I believe we'd be better off assuming she's been killed. Give ourselves closure." He said. "After all, she walked into a room of Death Eaters and You-Know-Who himself, if they found her out-"
"She was sent."
Remus' voice was so quiet, that Hermione hadn't been sure he had spoken at all, until she realised others were looking at him as well.
"She volunteered." Moody said. "We could have used Polyjuice-"
"You should have!" Remus snapped, shoving his chair back and standing. "Any of you! It didn't have to be her! Alastor, you're a damned retired Auror, you know how the Death Eaters work!"
"I didn't like the idea either, Lupin, but Nymphadora volunteered-"
"She volunteered a lot in the past, but why now? Why send her now?" Remus demanded. "Alastor, you and Kingsley are her parents! Shouldn't you have wanted to protect her? Or teach her to do it herself in your absence? Or, perhaps, she is just a tool to the Order? Is that why you took her in instead of handing her to the Malfoys? She's useful, because as long as she's around, none of you need to disguise yourselves to face a Death Eater meeting, she'll do it for you! And because of that she's most likely been killed, and we have no body to bury- because none of you volunteered to do what she's done."
Hermione jumped as Moody's fist connected with the top of the table, leaving an echoing silence as the grizzled Auror focused both of his eyes on the werewolf.
"You better rethink who you're speaking to, Lupin." Moody growled. "I've known that girl since the day she was born. I was the one to take her from that house when Death Eaters left her for dead when she was barely a month old, King and I spent hours, waiting for St Mungo's to agree to allow her to go with us. We fought the Ministry for nearly two bloody years to keep her out of the Malfoys' greedy clutches."
There was a tense silence, and Moody continued. "King and I raised her, I trained her to be the Auror she became. And Merlin be damned if her husband of a week thinks he has any right to make it sound as if I've failed somehow. If she dies, it's not because of me, it's not because of the Order- it'll be because there might have simply been no hope for any Order member that had walked into that meeting. The girl I trained, the Nymphadora we raised, will go down fighting and without muttering a single word about our plans, and we should all honour her- whether or not we find her body."
The tension seemed even thicker when Moody stopped talking, broken only when Remus stormed from the kitchen and into the garden, a loud crack telling them he wasn't returning to that meeting.
"We're going ahead with the plan for this Saturday." Moody continued after a moment. "Like I said, I don't believe Dora would let slip any of our plans."
"What is the plan for this Saturday?" Hermione asked quietly, and Moody's electric blue eye swiveled to stare at her.
"Polyjuice Potion." He said. "Six decoys, the real Potter and seven protectors. In pairs, we're moving to seven different safe houses and portkeys will bring the pairs here. Potter can't use magic, we need to distract from the real Potter as much as possible. Originally, I was going to go and bring him here with Side-Along, but there are Death Eaters in the Ministry, and we can't have him tracked here. Which leads me to the next problem that I have. We're one decoy short now that Dora's absent, possibly a protector short as well-"
"Remus will still be there." Sirius said. "He'll be there for Harry."
"I can be a decoy." Hermione said, and Moody nodded.
"Are you comfortable on a broom?" He asked, and she shook her head.
"Not exactly." She admitted.
"You'll be on one of the thestrals, then."
"Pairings?" Kingsley asked. "If I was originally with Dora..."
"Ron will be with Sirius, Fred with Arthur, George with Remus, Mundungus with me- all on brooms. Hermione with Kingsley and Fleur with Bill- on thestrals. And the real one with Hagrid on the bike." Moody responded.
"I want to protect Harry." Sirius said.
"They'll expect it. They'll go for the ones that seem obvious as protectors- the Aurors and the godfather. He's safer with Hagrid." Arthur said.
Sirius went to say something else, but Moody cut across him. "No more arguments, Black."
"I was going to say something else, actually." Sirius said. "You said that You-Know-Who is probably going to have Death Eaters patrolling the area, so we need to be prepared. Now, if that happens, and they get all of their Death Eater buddies to show up- there are likely to be Imperiused Death Eaters, right?"
"Curse them." Moody said. "Anyone who threatens your life, curse-"
"Even if it's Dora?" Sirius asked. "You said it yourself, she'll fight, but if she can't fight off an Imperius Curse, we've got one of us on the other side. Someone who knows each of the people who will be out there, and she's a damn good dueler."
Moody was quiet for a moment. "Stun her." He said. "If you see her, Stun her."
"And let her fall? If we're dueling on brooms-"
"Then don't let her fall."