Cast thy bread upon the waters

Harry was a handy boy at times.

He was getting closer to being a partner than he was, certainly. Isolated as he was, he was a reasonable handwritten cut-out. She was going to wend her way to Hogsmeade, to the one public owlery there, so there'd be no pattern of using Diagon Alley. This particular letter would be top secret. She had learned, with her parents' help, how to disguise herself. She had lifts in her shoes, and had practised striding in what would have been an embarrassing fashion before her sixth year.

She had fretted over the text so much, she'd nearly memorised it. Was she too minimal? Could she be too minimal? She had to convince as well as inform. But Flamel was possibly a busy man.

Dear Mr Flamel

Albus Dumbledore plans to lure Voldemort to Hogwarts using your stone. He also plans to throw Harry Potter, the last of the Potters, into a fight with him, alone and unaided. Voldemort is a necromancer, and he used necromancy to stay as a wraith, a ghost that can be reimbodied, and can use magic and possess people.

If you cooperate with Mr Dumbledore, it won't end well for you, Harry Potter, or even for him. I have Seen this.

Sincerely,

A Friend.

It hadn't been hard to floo from the Leaky Cauldron to the Three Broomsticks. She had worried that the spell she cast, called a glamour, might draw attention to her, but it did make her look older. That, and her non-magical disguise, should help a lot.

She had made casting around a corner in a busy Diagon Alley into a habit, but that raised the spectre of creating a pattern, and she didn't want to do that. She'd read up on the resistance movements in various fascistic countries both in Europe and the New World, and realised they needed the same mentality that spies had. The Malfoys and their ilk were probably worse than any existing such regimes, and nearly as bad as the Nazis had been.

I'm only eleven! she thought, with a certain sense of outrage. But of course, the Death Eaters would say that just made her more fun to do things to. She had made the choice to jump-start her involvement in grown-up games, to protect Harry, which was a noble cause, certainly.

And to win him over, she couldn't help but admit to herself. But she was thankful that that was pretty much out in the open with Harry. And he hadn't chased her away, either. It was a little galling to realise she actually saw Ginevra Weasley as a role model, but she did, to a degree. She seemed pretty shameless about going after what she wanted; still, you cannot argue with success.

She still couldn't see how Aberforth could even stand to be around his brother, to be honest, but she was beginning to understand the temptation the headmaster had succumbed to, to keep secrets as a reflex action. Keeping people such as Nicholas Flamel informed was a positive step away from temptation.

As she watched the owl wend its way towards the Flamels, she decided she would look into spells that could change the handwriting on a message. Then she could print it on a computer, transfer it to parchment, and create the handwriting. That meant that, at worst, undoing the spell would simply present printed material

That thought was followed by another: it was high time to plant the biggest seeds of all.


She had been disgruntled, of course, over failing at wandless switching. But now that she and Harry were ready, she should admit to herself that she hadn't planned everything well, at all.

She hadn't even, she thought guiltily, killed a half dozen rats figuring out the correct dosages of the draught of "the living death" and the Wiggenwald potion. On the plus side, the rats that hadn't been killed by the draught hadn't suffocated even after a week in a pasteboard box. And there seemed to be a broad margin of error with Wiggenwald - and that wouldn't even be her job, come to think of it. And murdering the poor beasts steeled her resolve to painlessly remove the left toe of her subject's right front paw. She had never realised that rat thumbs were smaller than pinkies, and recessed towards the wrist. The more you know, the less you know, she decided, with a sigh.

She was also pretty well covered, she thought, even if some investigator were to go to the pet shop she'd bought her rats at. She was just, after all, yet another girl with a snake. It was more usual for a boy to forego frozen rats for live ones, but not out of the question. The rats that gave their all had been left where stray cats prowled, and the survivors were left at a different pet shop.

She had certainly not given Harry Potter full disclosure on why they were doing this; she had told him, truthfully, that it was yet another thing she didn't want any wizards reading from him. She was already counting on him keeping calm and focusing on the right thoughts, and this was another situation, she admitted, where her telling the truth would make Harry bristle with anger and broadcast his thoughts to anyone with a smidgeon of mind-reading ability.

Nonetheless, he'd been a good sport, and they were now practised in synchronising mumbling the incantation, making imperceptible twitches that mimicked the gesture, and above all, willing the switch to happen. It was possible she'd now be able to do it alone under those conditions, but possible wouldn't do. She hoped she could somehow transfer this skill to something else useful. This was what adventures amounted to. You spent a month learning a skill you only needed once in your life. Hermione Granger, Rat Switcher.

She was used to meditating now, it sort of blurred between yoga, meditation, and some Occlumency exercises. She wondered if those would help her parents. She had decided to give them part-time instruction in everything you could do without a wand. It wasn't against the laws, such as there were, and more importantly, it didn't violate the secrecy statute.

Potions (she'd need to help), Runes (ditto), Arithmancy, History of Magic, the Muggle Studies joke course, Care of Magical Creatures, flying (was that like wanding, or did the brooms, like magic carpets probably did, fly on their own?) Divination ... what else was there? Astronomy!

No, really, there were two courses where non-magicals couldn't make any headway except help coaching when memorising patterns and incantations: Transfiguration and Charms. And while it was illegal, if they were ever forced on the run, non-magicals could do blood rituals.

Well, that all assumed she'd somehow come into some money, and that would have to come from either Harry or Sirius Black. But she could hint by having them do things that cost money and then they might simply say it would be easier on everyone if she had money of her own, and there you go.

At that point, she could keep her parents mobile, and fully in touch with the magical world. She would also depend on hers and Harry's dolls, and probably on whatever charmed objects she could afford from Diagon Alley.

Meditation was the only time her brain didn't hum faster than she felt comfortable about. Even now, hiding in Diagon Alley with a physically disguised Harry Potter, both of them glamoured, both of them apparently looking at new brooms, and really eyeing Percy Weasley out of the corner of their eyes, it wouldn't slow down, let alone stop. She bore down and focused her thoughts. This was it, but as she'd told Harry, "we must not treat this as anything but another practice. Magic really doesn't respond that well to pressure, except on rare occasions. And we'll stand out less the more nonchalant we are. And if we fail, we'll likely just try again, so keep that in mind."

It was good advice, she mused, proudly. When they wandered away from the broom shop, Scabbers was in a sound-proofed, unbreakable box, and Percy Weasley was none the wiser. Hermione had picked an older rat that closely matched Pettigrew's appearance, and since rats only lived a couple of years in captivity, he might very well die or be too sick to be a pet before Percy could transfer him to Ronald. It was just as well; she had no truck with the youngest Weasley boy, but any eleven-year-old boy deserved a better pet than an old, sleepy, fat rat. If they had to meet the boy at all, which she would fight as much as she could, she would suggest fewer Marvin the Mad Muggle Comics and Chudley Cannons posters, and saving up for his own wand, first, if there was anything left in the family coffers, but also pass the suggestion to Sirius Black that he should anonymously get the annoying Dumbledore cats-paw an owl.

She thanked Harry with the hugs she'd apparently become famous - or notorious - for, according to the books. He had gotten more and more accustomed to them, and his eyes were smiling. They were both proud of themselves; Harry may not know the reasons for it, but it was clear this was their first mission, their first adventure together, and it had been, to quote her father when he thought she couldn't hear him, a piece of piss.

She had left him with the Lovegoods, and Pandora and Xeno had suggested she send him her usual way, so there wasn't a chance of the Ministry finding out she was allied with them. Thanks to their care, he was healthy, and would withstand being forcibly reverted and questioned.

Back to the Harry question. Wasn't that what she'd been pondering? Okay, get Harry into yoga, meditation and Occlumency. Tell him it was so she could tell him more. And what would be the grand prize? She would have the dolls copy out the first book, and give him the handwritten sheets. And going forward, she would do the same every year they had to go to Hogwarts. More than that would be too confusing. She could truthfully, if misleadingly, say the dolls had written it. And she could lie if pressed, though she would avoid it if she could, and say they preferred to tell her things in story form.

That night, she put a dosed Pettigrew into a plain pasteboard box she'd bought at Diagon Alley, magically protected against being crushed, but otherwise inconspicuous. The next day, she went in to Diagon Alley with a slightly different disguise and glamour, and she mailed it using the first owl she could reach. She didn't follow it with her eyes, but hustled on as if she was a typical busy Diagon shopper.

Most people destroyed the envelope, after all. And the Lovegoods had charmed it to high heavens not to be kept by anyone that was not the director of the DMLE. It would be put with the rest of the morning's documents on her desk, and since it would have no compulsion charms, and casting detection spells on it would not reveal anything once it arrived, Hermione was covered. That the envelope claimed it was super-sensitive evidence in an important case would make the director investigate rather than destroy it, she hoped. She felt that her note was adequate. It had been hard, even with the help of the Lovegoods, to cover enough yet not too much.

Director

The rat in this box is Peter Pettigrew. He is an animagus, and a strong wizard. He is currently dosed with the living death draught, and a drop or two of Wiggenwald is all that is needed to restore him. You must not let him escape. He was the keeper of the secret of the Fidelius Charm on the cottage in Godric's Hollow where he led Voldemort, and helped him with the wards so he could kill the Potters.

If you interrogate him, you will find that he framed Sirius Black, the heir of the Black family. This was done so certain parties would have access to Harry Potter, the last of the Potters, and so Lucius Malfoy, an unrepentant Death Eater, could use the Black family wealth to support the remaining Death Eaters.

Sirius Black is innocent; Crouch, Bagnold and Dumbledore illegally imprisoned him, and the current Minister of Magic helped. That's how far this goes.

We are agents of justice.

She had tried to make it as manly as possible. And to emphasize the families involved.