No one seemed happy with her idea, but they didn't dare to go against her, everyone standing with her in unison. She didn't want to feel responsible for their consciousness—after all everyone was capable of making their own decisions—so when the plan had been laid out and everyone expressed their readiness, they went into action.
It was her, Harry, Neville and Ron on their way to infiltrate Azkaban and do what was needed to be done without alerting anyone.
They had brought Ron quickly up to speed, everyone chiming in with a piece of information, bringing Ron more and more into a state of disbelief. When he had been told everything, he pointed an accusing finger at her and, in an offended tone, said that he was hurt because he had only been involved at the last minute.
Hermione was smart—she knew that. But Ron was the one who could plan strategy like no one else. His chess skill was formidable, his mind swirling with plans and moves no one else could think of. She had presented him with her own idea and felt flattered when he expressed a kind of impressed reaction—and that was a truly big compliment coming from Ron. He then made his own adjustments, turning it into a scheme as close to perfection as they could hope for.
Where Dementors once lurked, ensuring no one could escape—an undoubtedly cruel cost-cutting measure—now stood guards, overseeing the place. Armed with the knowledge Harry and Ron provided about the layout of Azkaban and the number of Aurors patrolling the grounds, Hermione felt fairly confident that their plan would work without a hitch.
They Apparated to the Prison—Harry and Ron, wearing their official uniforms, their Auror badges flashing on their chests. She and Neville, hidden underneath Harry's Cloak of Invisibility, a second behind them, with Hermione holding her breath and trusting in her ability to Apparate them both without losing their concealment.
The guard at his post perched up at the arrival, assessing the newcomers with squinted eyes. "What are you looking for here?" he asked with suspicion.
"We're here to make sure that everything's in order, sir," Harry lied easily, taking onto his challenging posture.
"How come?" the guard asked, walking up to them. "You're just Aurors in training."
"It's part of our training," Ron spoke up with a strong voice.
"Is it now?" the guard crossed his arms. "On whose order?"
There was a beat of silence, barely noticeable, before Harry decided to answer. "The Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, sir," he provided, the lie spilling out of his mouth.
Hermione held her breath, waiting for the guard's reaction and wondering if Shacklebolt would back them up or sell them out if the guard chose to check Harry's truthfullness. Neville's warm hand squeezed her own in a comforting manner.
"Fine," the guard finally relented, shrugging. "You wouldn't mind if I accompanied you, would you?"
Hermione could see the tension seeping into Harry's and Ron's bodies, but they quickly shook their heads, plastered on smiles and went off together with the guard. She heard in the distance a question formed by the Auror "So, what is it that you want to do here, exactly?" and she knew her boys would be able to handle the situation.
Meanwhile, her and Neville snuck off to look for the cell number 37 which contained one Thoros Nott. She thanked Harry inwardly a hundred times for his Cloak, slowly making her way through the Prison and swiftly avoiding the Aurors.
33, 34, 35, 36…
Her heart started beating fast as they were just a few steps away from their destination, her throat becoming dry. She had thought of the impending moment of standing face to face with Thoros Nott so many times; countless scenarios had already played out in her mind. She could imagine his cold, impassive stare, face distorted in disgust as he realized who was he looking at—dirt in his eyes. She had thought of raising her wand and ending this man's life and Harry's echo of question "Are you really planning a murder on a locked up man?" that accompanied each of the scenarios. Could she do this? Was she really about to just kill someone in cold blood? Someone without a way to defend themselves? Once upon a time, she wouldn't even entertain an idea like this and now she was about to make it happen.
Standing in front of the heavy metal door, working on the lock and feeling it give way, she was about to find out what had become of her.
Only—the cell was empty.
She looked over at Neville whose brows were raised to the top of his forehead, as if to check what she was seeing wasn't just a bad dream. His expression confirmed it and she couldn't pry her eyes away from the emptiness that greeted her. They walked inside, checked every cranny and nook, but there was no one here. The only presence was the underlying feeling of dark magic floating in the air and the blood splutters on the stone floor.
"How did this happen?" Neville asked, incredulity written all over his face.
They heard a voice in the distance and quickly dispersed from the inside of the cell, but it was too late to close the door behind them. Instead, they connected with the wall, seeing the guard, Harry and Ron running over and cursing under their breaths.
"What the—" the guard said, observing the empty cell, looking frantically for the inmate. Then he pointed an accusing finger towards her friends. "Are you responsible for this?"
"Of course not," Ron shot darkly, looking stunned at the accusation. "We are training to be Aurors. Why would we announce our presence and then let one of the infamous Death Eaters out?" he spat out the word 'Death Eaters'. "And we were with you the whole time!"
The guard cast one last judgemental look at the Aurors in training and then run off, undoubtedly to inform the rest of the staff about his discovery.
"What did you do with the body?" Ron hissed in the direction of the empty hall, addressing the question towards her.
"We didn't do anything," she hissed back from under the Cloak. "He was gone by the time we got here."
"What?" Harry asked in surprise, waving his hand in the air, trying to locate her and Neville's exact whereabouts. "What did you say?"
"We should leave, now," Neville spoke up, grabbing her arm. "This place is about to be swarmed with Aurors."
She nodded at him, patting the shoulders of Ron and Harry on the way to let them know they needed to get out of there.
She was raging inside, having a hard time comprehending how a Death Eater managed to escape without anyone taking notice. It was absolutely ridiculous. Now, they were back to square one. She hadn't the faintest idea where someone like Thoros Nott could go into hiding, and there was no way for her to ask Theo about his father and his favorite spots.
But—
She didn't need to ask him.
Theo was laying on his bed across her, bound and restricted, dosed with the Sleeping Draught.
She was back at Hogwarts, in Theo's room in the dungeons, with Neville and Luna waiting outside and giving them privacy, but close enough to intervene if things went south. All of the cursed students and teachers were out in the world causing mayhem and Hermione had no idea how bad things had gotten at this point. There had already been a print on the first page of the news with the headline 'Wizards and Witches teaming up against Muggle-borns again?' and she couldn't bring herself to read at what kind of damage had already been done.
She wanted to come closer to him, curl at his side and feel the warmth of his body, and it pained her to know he couldn't even stand her existence at the moment.
She delved right into his mind coming across no defence in his state. His mind was warped, overshadowed with the senseless feelings of rage and hatred and horrible thoughts that were breaking her heart.
On the surface she could only feel overly negative emotions, finding nothing positive, but she knew it had been the effects of the curse, so she skimmed through the recent memories, diving deeper for the ones he hid the most. She fell onto one, hearing a conversation between him and Malfoy and she latched onto it.
"You can't tell her," Malfoy said through his teeth, staring at Theo with disbelief. "You know what will happen."
"No shit," Theo retorted, his anger spiking. "I won't tell her anything. Whenever I even think about it, my throat squeezes and I can't catch my breath."
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "You care too much, Theo. You need to be careful."
Hermione listened in confusion, wondering who was the 'her' they were both referring to. The same girl she had seen in the other one of his memories?
"I have a plan," Theo spoke, running a hand through his hair—the same way she had seen him do so many times. "You need to trust me."
Malfoy didn't say anything to that, looking skeptical at his friend. The memory ended, fading away. That hadn't cleared anything for Hermione, and it wasn't anything she was looking for. She went deeper, looking for the image of his father, trying to find any conversations between him and his son—or any places where both of them were together that could point her in the direction of where Thoros could be hiding.
Searching and searching, she saw a glimpse of Theo's father and she went after it.
There he was—Thoros laughing at his son in a disturbing way.
"Imperius," he muttered, looking straight into his son's eyes.
Hermione's blood ran cold at that. Father using an Unforgivable on their child. Just how exactly evil was he?
"Come here, son," Thoros spoke in low voice.
Hermione felt her anger spike at the usage of the word 'son' coming from his lips. He didn't deserve to call him that. Theo obeyed, halting right in front of his father. Then, Thoros motioned with his hand. Malfoy appeared, coming into view and stopping right next to Theo.
"Cut your hands with your wands, and then clasp them together," Thoros commanded.
With as many books on dark magic as she had read in her recent times, she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that what she was witnessing now was a blood pact. A powerful magical ritual to swear one to another to specific terms or promises with unyielding magical force. And now—they were being forced into one.
After boys did as told, he turned around.
"Bring the filth!" Thoros yelled out.
A girl was thrown into the room, landing on the floor and when she looked up with burning fury in her eyes, Hermione's heart almost stopped in shock. What was she doing in Malfoy Manor, together with Theo, his father and Malfoy? Why she had absolutely no recollection of that? Was this even real? Was this a legit memory of Theo's—or he was just feeding her fables? Then again—what would be the point? Why would he conjure a fake memory of her participating in whatever the hell was going on here? Her mind was swirling in confusion, her heart was racing, and she couldn't tell anymore what was real and what was not.
Her own hands, the ones in the memory, were bound together, rendering her incapacitated. Thoros cast at her one fleeting look filled with disgust and focused his attention back to Theo and Malfoy.
"Swear to each other that you will speak to no one about what you witnessed here tonight—what you know about it, what you might possibly learn in the future—not a damn peep."
Hermione—both her and the one from the memory, watched the two Slytherins bound each other to the oath. When it was all done, Thoros' gaze bored into Theo's.
"Obliviate her," he ordered in a casual tone. "Erase her memory of this night and every moment you and her have spent together. Every single one."
Theo's eyes found hers, empty, and he raised his wand—
She was pushed out of the memory, stumbling backwards, losing grip of his mind—that was when Theo, the flesh and blood right in front of her, took the opportunity to invade her head. He pushed in, breaking all of her shields and protections, aggressive and unrelenting, finding any good and warm memory she had and twisting it into something ugly, damaged and broken—warping any positive emotion into sadness, anger, disappointment.
She fought him off, kicking and screaming, but he kept pushing and pushing, and she was growing weak. She didn't even realize when Neville and Luna ran into the room—Luna wrapped her hands around her and whispered words of comfort and Neville Stupefied Theo.
"Are you alright?" Neville asked with worry, crouching beside her.
She nodded, feeling the swirl of emotions in her mind. She shook herself off, getting up.
"Maybe you should take a break," Luna offered warmly.
"No," Hermione simply responded, knowing she had to keep going.
With Theo rendered temporarily unconscious once again, she delved back into his head. There was chaos in there and she wasn't skilled enough to find the right memories easily and under the pressure of time. She wandered and wandered, feeling the burn of anger and hate. She couldn't tell if Thoros had always been the way he was—had there ever been a moment when he was showing any shred of love towards his son? Had there ever been a decent conversation between the father and son? Had Theo cradled any memories of his father that he held with even the slightest trace of warmth? Should she look for the happier memories or the ones filled with dread and fear and rage?
In the sea of hurt and deflated emotions, she found a glimpse of something glowing in happiness. She dived right into it, curious.
It was the same memory she had once seen—Theo lounging in the grass, under the warm sun, boring his gaze into the girl. This time, however, the girl was moving in his direction and Hermione could immediately recognize that it was her.
The hat was in her hand, the curls tightly clasped in a bun and the smile plastered on her face. The Hermione from the memory joined Theo, resting her head on his shoulder and Hermione could feel the overflow of love in the air—coming from both of them. She was taken aback, disbelief invading her as she couldn't comprehend just how and where had that happen. She must have met Theo after the war, but before coming back to school, when Hogwarts was in the process of rebuilding. Feeling the happiness in Theo, she could understand more clearly now why she had felt the inexplicable pull towards him—she had already loved him. She had just forgotten—or rather, his father forced him to make her forget.
She could feel the content mood shift into something more sour.
"My father is planning something," Theo said quietly.
The Hermione from the memory hummed lightly in response, squeezing his hand.
"We'll get through this, whatever it will be" she responded firmly, wrapping herself more into Theo's warmth.
"I know," Theo said, kissing her head. "But whatever happens…just know that I'm always on your side."
The memory dispersed. Hermione could feel her heart swell with sadness at what she had just witnessed and not being able to remember any of it. The fact that she couldn't remember being loved by him and loving him—it was crushing.
She stormed through his mind, and every happy memory that Theo had was of her. She guessed, if she dived into the deepest parts, she could find the love Theo had for his mother, but Hermione didn't feel privy to that. It wasn't right.
She racked for something connected with the sense of dread, uncertainty, maybe a little anger.
"My father is a prideful man," Theo spoke slowly, looking at her.
From the looks of it, they were situated in a small caffè, and Hermione could hear faint conversations around them.
"Whatever he's planning, he will want to witness it. He will want to see it come to fruition, bask in the glory of his achievements. Whatever it will be, it will be dark, ugly, wrong."
The Hermione in the memory squeezed his hand, beginning to say something, but Hermione could already feel the memory distorting, and she knew Theo was waking up.
It didn't matter, though, because she got what she wanted. She needed to find out where the biggest chaos was currently raging on and she should find Thoros Nott at its heart.