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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7651 -:- 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.

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Halfway through her Auror training, Hermione had developed an appreciation for running.

More than a practicality, it gave her time to think, and with less than three hours until her meeting
with Moody, she needed time to think.

Draco had pressed his green and silver prefect’s badge into her hand, and she had vanished back to
the library with no idea what she would do next.

The cold air slapped at her face like a dash of water, and she felt the badge, a weight in her
pocket–the badge that was engraved with Draco’s initials in his own neat script, and an odd motto: nil
desperandum. Never despair.

That the arrogant little boy she had known would secretly engrave such words anywhere threw
everything she thought she had known to the four winds. Hermione’s mind boggled as she imagined him,
sitting in bed long after Crabbe and Goyle’s snores had deafened everyone else at dungeon level, nursing
whatever hurt and tracing the words there with the tip of his wand.

Maybe not so melodramatic as that.

As skilled as she was at apparation, creating portkeys, and generally moving herself to where she
needed to be, the good old-fashioned method of running had saved her more times than any other evasive
tactic, and Hermione sped up, stride even, arms pumping.

What she would do if Moody needed convincing, she didn’t know. Even after all she had seen in
Draco’s memories, even after his odd behavior, she still had trouble believing herself. He had been believed
to be a Death Eater for the past six years, and until now, there had been no evidence to the contrary.

Nothing she had been willing to consider, at any rate. Thinking back, he had been different their
sixth year; less quick to insult, calmer, not nearly as much of a bully. Oh, there had been times when she had
seen that familiar smirk on his face, that drawling voice she loathed, but he had not been the same Draco she
had hated for five years.

And when had she started calling him Draco, anyway?

When he had started acting like a human being.

That thought was oddly disturbing, as was the abrupt vision of him in the moonlight, arms extended,
turning slowly for her inspection.

Or the sight of him kneeling at her feet, handsome head inclined as he silently bore her scrutiny.

She muttered an oath and ran faster.

Run fast enough, and running itself required concentration. Breathing, balance, step by hurried step,
and it was a welcome relief.

The whole thing was the purest insanity. Draco Malfoy, working to bring down the Death Eaters,
including his revered father? And she, the widely acknowledged Golden Girl of Gryffindor, meeting him
secretly in a forest?

It reeked of a trap, and she wondered uneasily if Draco had somehow learned Occlumency. For the
first time in her life, she wished Snape were there, so she could ask if Occlumency merely prevented mind-reading, or if it could put up a shield of protective memories. It would be a useful tidbit of information.

No place like the library for that. This was not at all the Draco she had known. No sneering, no
insults, just a terrible intensity...and fear. Draco Malfoy was afraid. And that scared the hell out of her.

~o~oOo~o~

Even after several year’s acquaintance, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody was still an unnerving man.

A younger Hermione might have been wringing her hands; as it was, she merely twisted her fingers
on the inside of her pockets, fiddled with the sleeves of her sapphire robe, crossed and uncrossed her legs.
She was an irrepressible fidgeter.

Not that Moody was trying to put her at ease; it was his long habit to make his visitors
uncomfortable, until they spilled their secrets out of sheer nervousness.

“Who told you all this?” He asked, fixing her with his wildly rotating blue eye.

“They don’t want to be named. There are spies on both sides.”

“This room is bespelled within an itch of its life, Granger. What’s said in here stays in here.”

She nodded. “I understand, sir, but I must honor their wishes. I’m not sure what would happen to
them if anyone found out, but...”

“Why do you believe what they–“ Moody grinned over the pronoun– “told you?”

“I read h–their mind.” Hermione mentally kicked herself. Merlin, if there were a class in lying she
would fail it miserably. “They’ve been spying on the Death Eaters for a long time. I’m still not sure why,”
she added thoughtfully.

“There wasn’t the barest hint of deception? Nothing hidden?”

“Nothing.”

As much as Hermione was a fidgeter, Moody was a pacer, and he got up from his desk and did so.
Interoffice memos fluttered nervously in their cages as he went by.

Abruptly, Moody threw some floo powder into the fire and stuck his head in.

“Kingsley!”

Hermione couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but Moody pulled his head back out and shook
the ashes out of his hair after only a few minutes.

“Shacklebolt’s on his way. If we’re going to move more than a dozen of our Aurors to Romania, he’ll
want to hear why from you.”

Hermione nodded and stood, stretching. She’d been closeted with Moody for the better part of two
hours, and thought longingly of cigarettes. She’d picked up the habit seventh year and then dropped it when
she went into Auror training. The craving never went away, though.

She snorted softly at herself. She’d thought the stress of seventh year–what with NEWTS and Death
Eaters hunting down known members of the Order–had justified the vice. She’d had no idea what stress was.

Kingsley Shacklebolt entered a few minutes later and she respectfully remained standing. Kingsley
had been appointed Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement last year, and between him,
Moody, and the new Minister of Magic, she answered to no one higher.

“Sit, Granger.” Shacklebolt said curtly. “Explain.”

She did, telling him everything Draco had told her about the artifact. She told him that the Death
Eaters had been behind the assassination of Cornelius Fudge–no surprise there–that they were infiltrating
various departments within the ministry, that they had several smaller cells specifically tasked with
eliminating the Aurors–especially the Dark Wizard Catchers. That they were more organized than ever
before, that Voldemort had postponed his ambition to kill Harry until he had found some sort of weapon to
make sure the task would be completed. It was a long list, and she was slightly breathless when she was done.

Kingsley looked as surprised as she’d ever seen him. Not very.

“Moody says that your informant doesn’t want you to name them.”

Hermione shook her head. “They might be playing both sides, sir. I’m not sure.”

Moody and Shacklebolt exchanged glances, and Kingsley sat down, rubbing his forehead.

“Dumbledore should know about this, too.”

“I’ll send Tonks with the message tonight.” Moody sat down on the edge of his desk, his wooden
leg thudding dully against the surface. “When are you meeting them again, Granger?”

“When they call me,” she replied, mystified. They both acted as if her news had been catastrophic,
and she ran over it quickly in her mind, trying to figure out which bit could have been so distressing.

“When they call you?” Kingsley echoed, staring at Hermione as if she had finally done something
interesting.

She nodded, and remembered belatedly that to explain Draco’s method of contacting her might give
away who her informant was. She had seen the mark, etched indelibly between her shoulder blades–a tiny
silver and green dragon, mouth agape, curving around runes that meant “bad faith.” What that meant, she did
not know, nor did she know why Draco would mark her with something that was so identifiably him. Perhaps
there was no choice with the spell he had used.

“How are they contacting you?”

“I’d rather not say, sir.” She said. “The method might give away who they are.”

Once again, Moody and Kingsley exchanged glances, and she wondered if she was already telling
them more than she should.

“Granger,” Kingsley repeated slowly, his voice even more bass than usual. “How are they contacting
you?”

By all rights, both Moody and Shacklebolt were privy to everything she knew. As an intelligence
officer, she’d signed away the privacy of her own mind, which was part of the reason she’d been forbidden
to learn Occlumency. A shame, that–she might have finally become a halfway decent liar.

More than that, the fact that both men had allowed her to hide her informant’s identity up to this
point showed that they trusted her judgement.

“What is seen in this room stays in this room?” she asked finally, and both nodded. Moody drew the
drapes and turned on the lamp on his desk, dodging a stapler that scuttled past his hand.

Reluctantly, Hermione stood and stripped off her robe, holding her t-shirt flat across her belly as she
raised the back.

“It’s supposed to get hot when they want me to meet them,” she explained as Moody prodded the
tiny dragon with his wand. “I didn’t recognize the spell, and it’s not in any book I’ve read yet.”

“It also protects you from some of the Unforgivable Curses,” Shacklebolt said, and there was awe
in his voice. “That’s the Confatalis Mark. Whoever your informant is, Granger, they want you to stay alive.
That’s a difficult piece of magic.”

“Did they explain exactly what that spell did? All of it?” Moody asked, and his voice was far from
awed. It was angry. She looked over her shoulder to find Moody clenching his wand tightly in his hand.

“No,” she replied uneasily.

“It’s not just protection, and it’s not just a summons. It’s the Binding of Fates, Granger. That’s how
he–they protect you,” Moody said, and didn’t even trouble to hide his slip of the tongue. He knows that it’s
Draco, she thought despairingly.

“She didn’t give him a mark, Moody,” Kingsley said gently, straightening up and gesturing for
Hermione to put her robe back on.

“I still don’t trust him.”

“We never knew for certain.”

“We bloody well don’t know for certain now!” Moody retorted, reaching for his pipe. “There’s bits
of Dark Magic all over that mark.”

“There’s nothing dangerous in it,” Kingsley said flatly.

Moody snorted, the glowing coals of his pipe dancing in his eyes.

Hermione had watched them argue with the air of a spectator at a tennis match who had no idea how
the game was played.

“What is a Binding of Fates?” She finally demanded. It had taken a while for that particular phrase
to sink in, but it had penetrated deeply enough to frighten her.

Both men started, as if they had forgotten she was there. Which they probably had.

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Kingsley finally said. “He shares your fate, which is how he protects
you. If someone cast a Cruciatus on you, he would take half the pain. And if they cast Avada Kedavra–“

”He would die, too,” Hermione finished, in a whisper. Why would Malfoy do that? Surely there were
other ways to contact her. Unless what he was doing was so dangerous that he felt she needed that protection,
just for being vaguely involved. Her stomach churned at that thought. “And,” she thought aloud, “because
I didn’t give him the same mark...”

“If he dies, the mark will fade. That’s all. You don’t share his pain or his fate,” Kingsley said,
regarding her almost pityingly. “That’s an ancient spell, Granger. It was once used as a marriage mark, before
there were other, less...stringent...spells.”

Hermione suddenly felt the need to sit down, and did so. The fact that it was a marriage mark was
of little importance; the fact that she could get Draco killed was uppermost in her mind. Intelligence officers
did not exactly have the safest job, and she would likely be one of the dozen Aurors sent to Romania, to
search for and protect the artifact, whatever it was. And it might be permanent, a little voice whispered in
the back of her mind–the little voice that was endlessly caustic and apparently delighted in added to her
worries whenever she was ready to dash her brains out because of them.

“Is it permanent?” She asked softly.

“Yes.” Moody said around his pipe. “He endangered himself to protect you. And if he’s doing what
I think he’s doing, then he’s also likely to get himself killed because of it.”

For a wild moment, Hermione wondered if this could possible be the same Draco Malfoy who’d
spent five years of his life trying to hex her every time her back was turned. That same small voice in the
back of her head was gibbering, Draco? Malfoy? As if she had a closetful of Draco Malfoys at her flat, dying
to risk their lives for her.

Her jaw was hanging somewhere around her knees, and she closed her mouth. She scarcely heard
Moody dismiss her, with instructions to report back if she was contacted again, or in a week’s time,
whichever happened first.

The library. Whenever she was in doubt, whenever the world was spinning madly around her,
Hermione went to the library.

Author’s Notes: Not my characters, blah blah blah. I’m having to reformat this whole bloody story
because of the site crash, but I’m not changing anything but the author’s notes and my nifty little
section dividers.
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Bad Faith