Chapter 1 - Alecto Carrow
The room was dark, foreboding with stone walls and a fire crackling to the side in the fireplace providing the only light in the windowless room. The stone floor was cold but a thick dark blue carpet stored some warmth in the sitting area.
There was a black leather couch pushed against the wall on the other side of the fireplace, with four armchairs in the same material and a glass coffee table in the middle. Two of the armchairs faced the couch, while one was to the right side of the couch, mimicking the head of the table, and the last one on the opposite side.
A woman was curled into the head of the table armchair, drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea, trying to slowly wake up. She had started her day by taking a long warm shower, leaving her fiancé to sleep in their bed, and had dressed in simple black leggings with an oversized Quidditch shirt from the Slytherin team, displaying the name MALFOY in bold letters on her back.
She had pulled her still drying hair in a haphazard bun on the top of her head, her curls were still barely manageable to this day, and she didn't feel like trying today.
To fence off the cold of the stone floor, she had donned fluffy dark green socks and was now waiting for the tea to give her some energy for the tasks ahead today.
The room was technically the front parlour, the space one entered when coming by the front door and shouldn't be used as a sitting room traditionally, but she used it anyway, and had move the furniture from another room into this one. The darkness of the room and the constant chill was exactly what she needed when she felt a migraine incoming.
The sounds of the fire was soothing, and from this room she had access to the rest of the Manor easily. It simply made more sense to her to keep this room as a central hub.
The Manor was big, much too big for her and her fiancé, but she had inherited it from her grandfather. A grandfather she had barely known, she wanted to honour him and her heritage by moving here. It also had the added benefit of being a forgotten Manor, where no one would think to look for her.
Her morning routine was interrupted when she felt someone cross the outer wards and walk slowly to the front door. No one ever did. She stood up, cup forgotten, and let her magic reach out feel the house and the wards to sense who was coming.
With a sigh, she went to the door and opened before he could knock. His hand was in the air, about to make contact with the door when it had been opened and was he left feeling bereft.
"Minister." The woman greeted the man.
"Hermione, good morning." Kingsley Shacklebot replied back. He was wearing formal dress robes fit for his position, dark aubergine lined with black.
"Can I help you, Minister?" Hermione inquired, ignoring his familiarity.
"Please, can I come in?"
Hermione Granger relented and opened the door wider for him, gesturing at him to get inside. She went back to her armchair, and waited for him to sit down in the armchair closest to her.
"Tilly!"
"Mistress called for Tilly?" A small, but very well dressed elf answered.
"Yes Tilly, can you please send out a tea service for myself and my guest?" Hermione ordered.
Tilly nodded, and vanished. Less than a minute later, a full tea service with scones and various jams was on the glass table.
"Help yourself, Minister."
"Thank you." He replied simply, and poured himself a cup of tea, trying to figure out how to get to his reason for coming and trying to temp down his impulse of asking questions about the name on the shirt she was wearing, he didn't have time to dwell on that.
Hermione waited a few minutes before she broke the silence, "How did you find me?"
Kingsley Shacklebot chuckled, "It wasn't easy. I have been looking for you since you disappeared 3 years ago. Harry too. We searched everywhere we could think of."
"I didn't disappear, as you put it, Minister. I simply walked away from public life, I did not enjoy it." Hermione replied.
"What about Harry, Ron and the rest of your friends? You walked away from them too." He retorted.
"Harry, Ron and I had a disagreement. A personal disagreement. We fell out. And my friends know where to find me."
"Really? Because I talked with Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, and Dean Thomas. None of them have any clue where you went, or where you are."
Hermione rose one eyebrow, "Do you realise, all those people to the exception of Neville, have never been my friends?"
"What do you mean? Ginny was like a sister to you and the others were Gryffindors in your year!"
"Is that all it takes to become friends? Reside in the same relative space for a long time? Ginny wasn't like a sister to me, she was a Boy-Who-Lived fangirl I tolerated for peace's sake. The others were classmates, both Lavender and Parvati often pretended I didn't exist and we shared a room for 6 years." Hermione retorted.
Kingsley Shacklebot had the decency to look ashamed until he schooled his features, "Alright, what about Neville then?"
"He was my first friend, on the Hogwarts Express, looking for Trevor. It's true he doesn't know where I live, but we do exchange letters regularly." Hermione said with a smug smile.
"He never said."
"Why would he?" Hermione inquired.
"Fine, I guess he didn't have to say anything. He didn't lie either since he doesn't where you are." Kingsley Shacklebot conceded with a sigh.
"So, how did you find me then? You still haven't answered me." Hermione reiterated.
"I remembered, during the war, you mentioned once your grandfather had a Manor house in Scotland. You immediately changed the topic, and when I tried to ask about it you pretended you had never said anything.
When I remembered that, I used the skills and knowledge I had learned for the security of the Prime Minister and looked up your family tree." He started to explain.
"You stalked me?" Hermione cut in.
He took a deep breath, "I am sorry if that's how it's coming across. I used public information and resources, mostly the archives in London.
Anyway, I first I only found information on your mother side and your maternal grandfather had never owned or inherited anything even close to Scotland. It took me a few months, but I finally managed to find your paternal grandfather, Hector Dagworth-Granger.
Why did you never tell anyone?"
Hermione chuckled darkly, "Probably because no one ever asked me anything about my family or my life beyond Magic."
"Professor Slughorn asked you." Kingsley Shacklebot retorted.
"No, he asked me if I was related to a famous Potions Master. To assess my value. Never mind that said man had died only a couple of months before.
I answered automatically, didn't say no, didn't say yes, it's no one's business who I'm related to."
"Right, well, to finish my story. I went to the Ministry archives and was able to find the address of this Manor in Scotland. I honestly wasn't sure you would be here but I took a chance."
Hermione poured herself another cup of tea before saying anything, once she was satisfied, she asked him the obvious question, "Why were you looking for me?"
"That's a long story. I've been looking out of concern for you at first when you removed yourself from public life three years ago. Recently though, the purpose has shifted. Do you read the Daily Prophet?"
"No, not often. More a Quibbler girl."
"Right, well, almost two years ago Thaddeus Nott was transported to the middle of the Auror bullpen in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry. He was dead.
All the tests came back negative for magical traces, spells, potions, anything. The only cause of death was a bullet wound in his forehead, and the bullet, who did return traces of magic as it had been used as a Portkey to transport his body there."
"Okay, so a fugitive Death Eater was sent to the Ministry." Hermione repeated.
"Right, after several months someone in the Department of Mysteries was finally able to trace back the start point of the Portkey. It was a shabby wood cabin in a forest in Wales. He had clearly been hiding there for a while. But it didn't give anymore indications on who killed him."
"You're looking to know where to send the reward?" Hermione inquired.
"The reward?" He asked with a frown.
"Thaddeus Nott was a fugitive Death Eater, I remember the Wanted poster, I believe the reward to deliver him to the Ministry was 500 Galleons."
"Right, no, we're looking for the killer." He replied in a harsher voice than he intended.
"Why? According to the Wizengamot Terrorist Act of 1876, killing a wanted fugitive isn't a crime and the person responsible is entitled to the reward no matter the methods used." Hermione lectured back.
"Still, it's still murder. Even if we can't send them to Azkaban."
Hermione hummed.
"Anyway, we thought it was a one-off. Someone who got revenge using Muggle means for some reason. But it happened again, last week."
"Who?" Hermione inquired.
"Alecto Carrow." He replied.
"Right, so another wanted fugitive with a reward for capture alive or dead." Hermione said, looking both bored and irritated to be a part of this conversation.
"She was killed the same way. Bullet turned into a Portkey." Kingsley Shacklebot finished.
"Why are you here Minister? Why are you telling me this? I'm not an Auror, I never was."
He visibly hesitated, and she pounced, "Is it because I'm a muggleborn? The smartest one you know?"
He remained silent, silently wondering how to phrase it better.
"Don't you have a single Muggle-raised Auror in your ranks?" Hermione asked, with venom in her voice.
He gulped, but remained silent.
"You don't, do you. You could claim Harry but he rejected the Muggle world so fast, it made my head spin. You have zero muggleborn in the Auror corps, and likely none anywhere of importance in the Ministry. No one, anywhere, to explain the bullet and how to kill a man with a gun? Don't you? That's why you came to me, expecting me to have all the answers." She spat at him.
"You have knowledge no one else does on the Muggle world, you could help the Aurors figure out who is doing this." He said, trying to plead with her.
"No, Minister. Even if I had the knowledge I wouldn't help you. Not out of spite or resentment either. Simply because whoever is doing this isn't committing any crimes technically, and ridding the world of monsters. I'd rather let them, than help you." Hermione replied in a cold voice.
"Hermione, please, we need to stop them, they're murdering people!" Kingsley Shacklebot retorted.
"Get out Minister, and address me by my title, Potions Mistress Granger." Hermione said, standing up and walking towards the door.
"I'm not giving up." He told her and left the Manor when she remained silent and cold.
Once she felt he was past the wards, she infused her magic into them to bar him future entry.
She finished her second cup of tea and went to the back of the Manor, opened the trap door hidden below a thick carpet in the library and went to the basement.
The Manor had been built on a rock and the basement represented that very well, it often reminded Hermione of the Batman comics she had read growing up as she walked into her own Batcave.
"Hey love, who was upstairs?" Theo Nott asked without looking up from a file he was reading.
"The Minister of Magic." Hermione replied before sitting down next to him and kissing him good morning.
"What the fuck, why?" He asked, a small hint of panic in his green eyes.
"To ask me for help into finding who killed your father and Carrow." She replied with a smirk.
"Salazar that's hilarious. They're really clueless aren't they." Theo replied, shaking his head, "Anyway, Draco finally found where the brother, Amycus Carrow, was hiding away last night. We have the coordinates, it's a small island off the coast of Wales."
"Good, let's cross one more name then." Hermione replied and went to the far wall to prep her sniper rifle.