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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7649 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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If there were such a thing as an “organised uproar,” Hermione was in the midst of it, and liked it not
at all.

It would have to be Snape, of all people, that voiced the obvious, and in a voice that oozed scorn and
dislike as deeply as it ever had.

“As touching as all this is, how do you plan to find the Dark Lord, Potter?”

He might just as well have blown up a powder keg, Hermione thought sourly. Her head was aching,
her mouth was bone dry, and the Order could very well argue until dawn, at the rate they were going. Part
of the trouble was that Mrs. Weasley furiously nixed any plans that put Harry at further risk. More
importantly, the sobering truth was that what remained of the Order were too few to manage a head-on
assault of the Death Eaters. There were not enough Aurors to guard the Ministry and aid in such an attack.
And they might catch a Death Eater and question him, but their losses would dash any hopes of winning a
fight with Voldemort himself–slim as even those hopes were.

Draco, Draco, she thought, her throat tight with fear.

Draco.

“Draco,” she said aloud.

Amazing how rapidly that name silenced everyone.

“Malfoy?” The twins chorused.

“Do you know another Draco?” she asked dryly. “If anyone can find Voldemort, it’s Draco.” Seeing
the outraged expressions on the faces of better than half those present, she continued hastily. “He’s been
spying for us for two months. We went to Romania on his information. Some of us,” she added meaningfully,
“are only sitting at this table because he warned us about Voldemort’s plans.”

Rapidly, unblushingly, she related the rest of the story, supported occasionally by Moody and
Kingsley.

“The only thing,” she finished, twisting the sleeves of her robes in her fingers, “is that I don’t know
how to find him. After...” Her lower lip trembled perilously and Hermione drew a deep breath, forcing
herself calm. “...he left to go after the Eye himself, and there’s no way I can find him. The Mark...”

Kingsley stepped in so smoothly that Hermione herself almost didn’t notice the interruption, and she
gratefully used the time to get a hold of herself. Now was not the time to go to pieces. Later, she promised.
Later she would find a room with thick walls and scream until her throat was raw.

The few who had heard of the Confatalis Mark were impressed; those who had already heard the
story were thoughtful.

“Tha’s all well an’ good,” said Hagrid bluntly, “but how do we plan to get a hold a’ him?” There was
still deep mistrust in Hagrid’s voice, and Hermione couldn’t blame him. Draco had been singularly horrible
to Hagrid for most of his time at Hogwarts.

“Hedwig,” Harry said, reaching under the table to give Hermione’s fingers a squeeze. “Hedwig can
find anyone. And she’ll know,” he added, meeting her terrified eyes, “to wait until he’s alone to deliver the
message.”

It was some time before she could find her voice, and it shook when she spoke. “You’re sure,
Harry?”

He understood the question. “Hedwig won’t give him away, Hermione. I promise.”

Mechanically, she nodded, taking proffered quill and parchment, tearing a narrow strip off the
bottom.

Draco,

Don’t try to fight Voldemort yourself. When you know where he is, the Order can join you in force.
The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London. Please be
careful.

I love you.

Hermione

Whatever Harry said, she felt as if she’d just signed his death warrant.

Gently, he took the parchment from her nerveless fingers, handing it briefly to Dumbledore. The
parchment flared in the Professor’s hands, and Harry left to send Hedwig off with the message. Hermione
scarcely heard the rest follow him, in ones and twos, some giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze in passing,
Mrs. Weasley bending with a whispered reassurance and kiss on the cheek.

Five minutes, five hours, five days might have passed when she looked up and saw Dumbledore
sitting beside her, hands resting comfortably in his lap, looking as if he would wait until the sun burned out
for her to speak.

“Was this the only way?” She asked quietly.

“The only way to defeat Voldemort, Miss Granger?” Dumbledore idly flicked at the buttons on his
robe, one, two, three, and stroked his beard. “Perhaps. The only way to save Mr. Malfoy’s life?” Noting her
start of surprise, he smiled. “I believe so. There is no prophecy that says Draco Malfoy would destroy the
Dark Lord.”

“He’s fighting for me.” That truth had been tearing at her. “If I had gotten the Eye, if I had done my
job, Draco wouldn’t have gone. And even with Hedwig...” Struggling, she shoved that thought aside. “He’s
fighting my battle, and I hate it.”

“As Harry has always fought our battles.” Dumbledore closed his eyes. “At eleven, at twelve, and
nearly every year since–a child fighting the most feared wizard we have known for many long years. Does
that make it easier to bear, Miss Granger? The innocent suffer, and struggle. And, sometimes, they die.”

“What will happen?” Hermione whispered, squeezing her own eyes shut. It wasn’t as if they had
called Draco back; called him to safety, sent someone else to risk their life. They were sending him from
danger into danger.

“Even the wisest cannot see the future,” Dumbledore said reprovingly, his voice unwontedly gentle.
“I don’t know. But Mr. Malfoy chose this course. He chose it for love. He loves you a great deal.”

“I love him.”

“And there is magic in that.” Dumbledore rose. “Old magic is mysterious, Miss Granger. No one can
see all ends; no one can say what will be, what could be, what should be. Much as we wish it were
otherwise.”

There was no comfort there; there was no comfort in any of his words.

She heard him moving, heard the sweep of his robes on the floor; saw, from the corner of her eye,
him adjusting the half-moon spectacles that had a tendency to slip down his crooked nose.

“You might remember,” He said from the steps, almost sharply, “that there are times, Miss Granger,
that sacrifices must be made. Sooner, sometimes, is better than later. It might already be too late; I cannot
say. But what Draco has given you, I hope you return in full measure.”

“Given–?”

Dumbledore chuckled sadly. “Time, Miss Granger. It is like a river...flowing onward, unstoppable,
immoveable, but for a Herculean force...” He subsided, glancing back at her with an odd smile. “You were
given time with Mr. Malfoy. It is my hope,” he said wearily, “that you used it well.”

Hermione stared after him blankly as he moved up the stairs, still pondering aloud the vagaries of
time.

Fond as she was of Dumbledore, there were times when she agreed with the Draco Malfoy of many
years before: he was cracked. Brilliant, but cracked.

~o~oOo~o~

Three nights. Four nights. Five.

The slaughter continued unabated. There was joy in destruction, the pagan’s delight in a shower of
blood, the fanatic’s fierce pleasure in a rallying cause. The unceasing whisper, murmurous and constant as
the sea, of the terror of the Dark Lord.

The Dark Mark glowed in the sky nightly. His sigil. His glory.

It was sport beyond any Death Eater’s darkest dreams.

How deeply their network had delved, only the Dark Lord himself knew. Families were wrenched
asunder by betrayed loyalties, friends locked in deadly combat. The Ministry pushed back, calling
desperately for assistance, and the few that answered the call came too late. Through the Imperious Curse,
through the slow and quiet swelling of their numbers, through the first and deadly attack at the Department
of Magical Law Enforcement, many of those that could have fought were already dead.

And he burned with it.

From his throne in the basement of his mansion, Voldemort counted the victories and discounted his
losses, knowing that only a few strongholds remained to be toppled. His own Scrolls of the Dead, the list of
Aurors and members of the Order, lengthened, day by day. He knew who had perished and when; he often
knew how, as his Death Eaters recounted their own stories, spun legends of every murder. Lucius Malfoy
remained beside Voldemort on the step just below his throne, curled in a fetal position and staring outward,
his mouth frozen forever in a scream. A macabre reminder of the price of failure. His Death Eaters would
not fail.

Ultimate victory was in his grasp, and Voldemort savoured it like the finest of wines.

Chilling red eyes swept the room and hovered like beacons on the six kneeling Aurors he had
commanded to be taken alive.

As excellent as his intelligence had been, as deep and vast his network of spies, there were some
things known only to a very select few.

The headquarters of the accursed Order of the Phoenix being foremost among those things.

It was his hope that one of these six would not only possess that knowledge, but would be willing
to share. Or unwilling to share. His smile widened, a grimace of teeth and thin lips, a flash of unholy eyes.

Despite their fear of him, a fear that even stretched to saying his name, the six Aurors stared back,
unflinching. Young; all of them, and he knew their names, just as he soon would know their secrets.

Zacharias Smith. Anthony Goldstein. Lee Jordan. Alicia Spinnet. Padma and Parvati Patil.

They would break on the unstoppable wheel of his power.

Behind them hovered nearly a dozen Death Eaters, masked and hooded, not trusting the captives,
even if they were deprived of their wands. Magical ropes bound their hands, and had they evinced any
tendency to speak unpleasantries, Voldemort would have silenced them, as well.

As it stood, his gaze lingered longest on the twins, sensing a weapon.

“The girl,” he said softly. “She reeks of fear. She is weak.”

Mulciber seized Padma by the hair and yanked her head up, forcing her to stare at Voldemort.
Clenching her small jaw, she did, gazed into his burning eyes with a dark fire of her own, that kept its secrets.

“Severus,” Voldemort said, and his Death Eaters felt a twinge of uneasiness, like the plucking of a
discordant string. “How well you taught your students...”

For which the betrayer would pay dearly, in Voldemort’s own, and infinite, time.

Parvati shrieked and struggled as she and the other four Aurors were dragged to the corner of the
room, still within sight–and well within earshot–of the fate they would eventually share. They would see how
courage was rewarded.

“The Order, girl,” Voldemort hissed, not deigning to address her by name. “You know. Occlumency
will not stop Lord Voldemort from breaking your body.”

She did know, but Padma Patil had grown to adulthood during the grim sixth and seventh years at
Hogwarts, and her time in Dumbledore’s Army stood her in good stead. She could not tell him where
Headquarters was; only Dumbledore could do that. But she could block the sight of it from her mind, hide
the image of the house, the street where it stood. To show him these things would mean the death of the
Order, of her friends, of the people she had fought beside. The worst Voldemort could do was kill her. It was
a terrible knowledge, she thought glumly, that it would not be an easy death.

“Crucio!”

Padma screamed, writhing on the floor, too hurt to move, too agonized to lie still.

“The Order...?”

It took time to gather herself, but she did, rising with bared teeth. Meeting the Dark Lord’s eyes, she
bent deliberately and spat at his feet.

Mulciber cuffed her viciously, her cheek striking the cold stone floor. Voldemort glared at him and
he stepped back, glowering at the girl.

Parvati sobbed aloud, and Lee Jordan surged to his feet, roaring.

“Coward! Fucking Death Eater ma–”

“Silencio,” snapped Avery, grabbing Jordan’s dreadlocks and shoving him down.

“Crucio!”

Now it was Parvati who screamed, as loud and long as her sister had, as Padma gasped for breath,
working frantically to keep the wall before her memories intact. Refusing, for now, to meet Voldemort’s eyes
as he forced her chin up with a long and burningly cold finger. Tottering, she tilted herself back over, and
up. On her knees, but better than on the floor. She would not give them the satisfaction of crushing her.

“Crucio!”

A moan. Padma swayed.

“Crucio!”

It became necessary to silence the rest of the Aurors, except for Parvati. The sounds she made were
eminently acceptable. A fine trickle of blood, gleaming in the dim light, made its way from Padma’s nostril.

“Cruc–”

The Death Eaters turned as one as Voldemort broke off, staring at the steps at the far end of the
room. Padma fell, unnoticed.

“We have a guest...” Voldemort said softly, lips curling in a smile more terrifying than a murderous
snarl. “Perhaps, my servant,” he murmured, glancing at the body of Lucius Malfoy, “Lord Voldemort will
do better by your son...”

Author’s Notes

Foreshadowing all over the place here, but hopefully it’s less obvious than I think it is. I think a few
of my reviewers caught what’s coming in the original version, so tell me if you think you know what’s going
to happen. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to drop hints ahead of time and play with the foreshadowing
thing.
- 16
- 17
- 18
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