Fic 12 | By : Nerys Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 38 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. |
The blood-red paper airplane almost took out Unspeakable Granger’s eye with the urgency it had. Ministerial memos rarely flew around the Department of Mysteries, always being confiscated, examined and organised by the secretarial office so they wouldn’t disturb any ongoing experiments. Unspeakables would often pick up their cleared memos first thing in the morning or pass by the secretariat during lunch or at the end of their shifts. There was green for regular mail, orange for must be seen some time this week and red which needed to be seen that day.
Then there were the blood-red ones, memos that were spelled by using the caster’s blood. Only those were allowed passage straight to the person they needed to see. They were extremely rare, indicating a life or death emergency. Even though Hermione had worked at the Department of Mysteries for two decades, she hadn’t had a life or death emergency since childhood, despite some of her more volatile experiments. Her chest clenched when she recognised Harry’s scrawny penmanship on its wings, stating, ‘Hermione Jean Granger.’
The memo danced in front of her; its point pricking her chest, her arms, and her forehead irritatingly, telling her in no uncertain terms to hurry up. With a twist of her wrist, she sliced open her finger and dropped her blood on the memo. It glowed darkly before folding open. Harry’s message was short and to the point.
He’s back. Meet us in Interrogation Cell 3.
Harry.
The memo went up in flames the second she was done reading it.
He?
Voldemort?
No, it couldn’t be.
But it was definitely an emergency worthy of this type of memo, and in case the memo was intercepted, however unlikely such an event was, no one would be the wiser either.
But Voldemort was bloody well dead!
Still, there was only one person Harry would use the term ‘he’ for and know she would understand straight away who he was talking about without him risking a compromise of security. A flash of pink lit up the room as she quickly placed her experiment under stasis. Hermione dropped everything she was doing and raced out the door.
As the lift doors opened at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she was immediately greeted with the sight of a protective waterfall shield behind which two Aurors stood; both had their wands out. The tiny fellow had sharp eyes, indicating his wrinkled face, slightly hunched posture and white-grey hair weren’t a sign of diminished mental capacity. The larger bloke’s hand had a tremble that he tried desperately to hide by putting on a stern face.
A child.
How young did they recruit Aurors these days, from kindergarten? She barely refrained from shaking her head.
‘Gentlemen,’ she said, nodding politely as she stepped underneath the cascading water—the identifying water soaked her down to the core of her being. The water stopped when the wind took over. It twirled her hair around and ruffled her clothes until she was dry.
‘Access confirmed. Hermione Jean Granger, Director of D.O.M, clearance level alpha,’ a disembodied voice droned.
The large bloke let out a sigh in relief, lowering his wand. He pressed his hand against his leg, clearly trying to steady it. She pretended not to notice his anxiety and focused on the tiny, old man who smiled broadly in her direction as he pocketed his wand.
‘Miss Granger, they’re down that corridor,’ he pointed to her right, ‘turn left at the end, and then, it’s the third door on your left.’
‘Thank you, mister?’
‘Marlow.’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘The Constantine Marlow?’
Harry had called in retired Aurors? A war hero, no less.
The wizard laughed, a warm sound that echoed through the corridors. ‘Around you, Miss Granger, adding “the” to my name seems hardly necessary, but yes, I am him.’
Hermione shook his hand. ‘I beg to differ. You saved an awful lot of Muggleborns during his days in power and undermined his ministerial activities while being an actively serving Auror. Not many dared do what you did. We’re all in your debt. Thank you for coming back today.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of staying away with him,’ Marlow sneered, his nose wrinkling as he nodded to her right, ‘in that cell.’
Hermione noted the way his colleague shuffled nervously on his feet, so apparently did Marlow, because he added,
‘And this is young Mr Owain Cadwalader. He graduated from the Auror Academy only yesterday. Fell straight with his nose into the butter as Aafke, my Dutch wife, would say. Usually first days consist of nothing more than boring paperwork and casting so many vows your eyes will bleed, but none of that for this lucky kid. I thought they were young in my day and age when they joined, but I swear they keep getting younger and younger.’
The normalcy of his comments broke the tension, and smiles were shared all around. Hermione shook Owain’s hand.
‘Nice to meet you, Owain.’
Upon contact with Hermione’s hand, Owain turned bright red, suddenly at a loss for words.
‘Come on, kid. She doesn’t bite,’ Constantine said jovially, slapping his back and turning his face even redder. Hermione took pity on the kid.
‘Thank you for your service,’ she said, patting his shoulder as she walked away. ‘I’m sure you’ll make us all proud.’
She ignored the whispered ‘Oh my god, that was Hermione Granger’ behind her back and quickly moved to the end of the corridor, nodding to the two Aurors leaning against the far wall. One of them was hiding a cigarette behind his back rather badly but he returned her nod. The female Auror was writing inside a case file and seemed completely entranced, but before Hermione could scold her for this derelict of guard duty, the blonde muttered ‘Miss Granger’ under her breath without looking up. That’s when she noticed the continuous casting.
‘Impressive charm work,’ Hermione replied, seeing the corner of the blonde’s mouth quirk up. ‘I missed it.’
She turned left. It was nice of Marlow to say which door but a bit redundant since the two Aurors stationed in front of said door made it quite obvious. She knew both of them well. They’d been in her year at Hogwarts.
‘Fay, Susan, so good to see you again.’
‘I wish it was under different circumstances,’ Susan replied, giving her a hug.
‘Yes, me too.’
‘Be careful in there,’ Fay said. ‘He was an absolute nightmare to restrain.’
‘I can imagine,’ Hermione muttered darkly.
‘While unconscious,’ she added warningly.
‘Unconscious?’
Both of them nodded with a severe expression on their faces.
‘How was he casting while unconscious?’ she asked, utterly baffled.
‘Some kind of defensive magic. It happened when we tried to move him into the cell. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Susan said. ‘Sent about a dozen of our men to St Mungo’s and he didn’t even open his eyes or move. Only Harry’s shield was strong enough to hold that initial blast. I got lucky. I stood behind him.’
‘We couldn’t all hide behind Harry the entire time because we still had to move him inside. I’ve never had to cast this fast before to move a damn, motionless body. Every time I tried to take down whatever charm, curse, spell it was, a new one pulsed into existence. It took out too many of us,’ Fay added, pulling up her sleeve and showing a nasty wound that seemed alarmingly necrotic.
‘You need to go to St Mungo’s. Now,’ Hermione said, pulling out her wand.
‘Can’t yet, we don’t have the numbers to spare. In about an hour the next shift will arrive. I can go then.’
Hermione flicked and swished her wand over the wound, biting her lip at the result. It was spreading. Slowly, but still, spreading. She couldn’t treat this here. Swiftly, she contoured the outline of the wound and applied a stasis charm.
‘Did Harry see this?’
When she saw Fay’s face, Hermione growled. ‘Really, Fay, you’re hiding a necrotising wound from the Head Auror?’
‘Gryffindors,’ Susan muttered under her breath.
Susan is too nice and polite. Fay will need a proper advocating bitch if they’ve already sent over 12 acute patients or the triage nurse may put her in the waiting room. I've just seen someone that fits that bill perfectly.
Hermione turned around and gestured to the blonde who immediately came over. She noted the smoker put out his cigarette and took on a more active stance when his partner left his vicinity.
‘She needs to go to St Mungo’s right now. Make sure she gets there and gets seen immediately. No delays.’
Fay sputtered. ‘You’re not in charge—’
‘Fay, you’re going; don't make me pull rank officially because I will and then you can explain to Harry how this entire investigation has automatically become my department’s,’ Hermione said, tight-lipped. She pushed her into the arms of the other Auror and added, ‘Tell the Healers it’s spreading and that I applied a Foucault level stasis charm at a 14:10 hours around a size 24b, category E wound.’
‘You just contoured the wound?’
‘It may become invisible with the properties I detected in that curse.’
‘Oh,’ Fay said, looking suddenly a lot more nervous at her arm.
‘Repeat what I said back to me, please,’ Hermione said, focusing solely on the other Auror.
‘Foucault level stasis charm at 14:10 hours around a size 24b, category E wound.’
‘Good,’ Hermione said, gesturing at them to leave.
The blonde placed her arm around Fay Dunbar as they walked away.
‘She’s so stubborn,’ Susan said with a sigh as they turned the corner.
‘I remember.’
‘Oh, don’t you start, you wouldn’t have left either.’
‘Maybe not, but I have ways to stop those types of wounds from spreading inside my body. I couldn’t apply that after the fact on her here unfortunately.’
‘Will she be okay?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Two little words,’ Susan suggested lightly, making Hermione laugh darkly. ‘Just saying. If Harry’s not watching, and you get the chance, go for it. Nobody will care, and even if they do, you have your outrageous Unspeakable immunity.’
Still laughing, Hermione shook her head at Susan as she moved to the door. Unspeakables and Aurors were like fire and water at times, clashing over jurisdiction. The Unspeakable Charter allowed many liberties not granted to regular folk, but unlike Susan’s suggestion seemed to indicate, the Killing Curse wasn’t one of them. Most of the time.
‘I'll see what I can do.’
A sheen of red light engulfed her when she grabbed the doorknob to Interrogation Cell 3 only to find it locked when she turned it. The doorknob wouldn’t let go. Her hand was stuck, and she immediately got pulled inside, belly first. Her body lurched; her organs seemed to rearrange themselves as she got spit out into a brightly lit Watcher Room. She stumbled, taking several steps before catching her balance. Her stomach turned and a sour bitterness filled her mouth. Luckily she hadn’t had time for lunch yet or she would’ve surely vomited. She leaned forward, her hands catching her knees as she swallowed, taking in deep breaths to compose herself. Eventually she straightened, her hand brushing her perspiring forehead.
‘Dammit, Harry.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, scratching the back of his head. ‘Additional security. I didn’t want anyone walking in, unauthorised, not even in the Watcher Room.’
Her eyes fell on Ron who stood against the far wall, his face pale, eyes unseeing. He was muttering something to himself she didn’t understand.
‘Ron, are you okay?’
She took a step closer, concerned. Harry’s hand fell on her arm. His head shook no.
‘It’s him.’ She now heard what Ron was muttering. ‘It’s really him.’
‘We’ve had a bit of an altercation with Riddle earlier,’ Harry said softly.
‘I’ve heard. Unconscious magical protection. Ingenious.’
‘Oh yeah, that, too.’
‘That, too?’
‘He tried to kill me when Ron and I had lunch together at the Leaky Cauldron. It was a mess.’
Hermione’s eyebrows flew up, her eyes darting up and down his very alive physique demonstratively.
Harry snorted. ‘Yeah, he failed … Again.’
She shook her head at Harry’s jokingly tiresome tone.
‘So nothing new there then?’
‘Nope.’
‘Bloody Divination nonsense,’ she said under her breath.
Briefly she cast a furtive glance towards Ron who seemed to be in shock, wondering if she should do something but realising that Harry was right. Her intervention would make things worse. Ron never had taken her help well. Therefore, she walked towards the one-way window, taking in the wizard securely shackled behind the table.
Her breath caught. So, not the Voldemort she’d expected.
No, this one seemed obviously younger than his predecessor. She estimated him to be somewhere between 50 and 60 years of age. His pitch-black hair with streaks of grey curled flatteringly around his handsome pale face. The couple of lines in it didn’t diminish but enhanced his features. He sank further down in his chair, his head tilted back. Those black, bottomless eyes glanced up while his full lips formed a circle in order to whistle softly. She didn’t recognise the tune and honestly didn’t care to know. That he was whistling was disturbing enough. Voldemort and music just didn’t go together. Voldemort and joy just didn’t go together.
It should be illegal.
A light stubble had begun to form on the lower half of his face, and she wondered when he’d last shaved before realising how little that mattered. There was a substantial amount of dried and wet blood on his left cheek from the sharp cut right below his eye due to whatever slicing hex had struck him. It had leaked all over the white shirt he wore underneath his dark-green robes. That blood was the only menacing thing about him and only because she knew who he was. If she’d not known, she’d been concerned about a still bleeding injury that close to an eye. Voldemort made a decisively casual impression with the way he seemed to lounge in the iron chair.
Almost like it’s too small for him.
She’d known Voldemort was tall, had seen him before, but had forgotten how much his presence filled the room. Dark-green robes cascaded off lean shoulders, opening up at the elbow and showing off his bare, slim forearms. The man was frightfully thin, seeming almost emaciated, as if a small breeze could blow him away. Yet his self assured posture belied that impression. Lord Voldemort knew the power he controlled wasn't something to scoff at. The phrase ‘appearances can be deceiving’ was true for him in so many different ways.
He held his slender hand crossed, resting on top of his wrist and thus hiding quite a substantial part of the glowing iron that shackled him to the round ring in the middle of the steel table. She frowned. It could be just a pose, and despite knowing the shackles would absorb any wandless magic put upon them, increasing the strength of the locks, she didn’t like being unable to see what the hell he was doing there. Her eyes immediately dropped to the other cuffs around his similarly crossed ankles. These glowing chains were more visible since he’d stretched out his long, black-clad legs. To her surprise there was only one shiny black shoe on his feet. The other foot was completely bare. Apparently dark lords went without socks. At least this one’s nails were clean and trimmed.
‘How did he lose a shoe?’ she asked, baffled.
‘Hell if I know,’ Harry said. ‘Everything went so damn fast. I haven’t had time to examine the memory yet.’ Upon witnessing her disapproving expression, he added, ‘Look, we barely were able to overpower him, contain him, and get him in here, and I wanted to warn you first.’
‘Are we a hundred percent sure it’s him?’
She had to ask, even though she knew the answer just by looking at him. As an Unspeakable, she’d studied what was known about Tom Marvolo Riddle in her first year on the job. Pensieve memory after Pensieve memory on notorious dark wizards and witches was an obligation during their training. The Dark Arts weren’t prohibited in her department but used, and because of that, Unspeakables needed to learn the pitfalls to not succumb to its powers like the idiot in the cell had.
‘He pretty much told us he was Tom Riddle—’
‘He used that name?’ she interrupted sharply, her eyes narrowing at the man in the cell.
‘I found that strange, too,’ Harry said, shrugging. ‘But he did. I’ve sent his magical signature away for confirmation but I feel it’s going to come back positive, Hermione, look.’
Hermione gasped when Harry pulled a sinister appearing, bone white wand out of his pocket.
‘How did he get that out of the vault of the Department of Mysteries? How did he get inside the Department without being noticed? That shouldn’t be possible. All alarms should’ve gone off.’
‘We walked right in without being stopped as teenagers,’ Ron suddenly said, his voice steady.
Harry and Hermione turned around, seeing him push himself off the wall. His cheeks had some colour back on them, and he appeared visibly more collected. She didn’t say anything, knowing it wouldn’t help and only embarrass him further. Harry kept silent, too.
‘Sorry, mate,’ Ron said, his ears turning red. ‘I was - was…’
‘We could walk in like that because the Death Eaters had paved the way for us,’ Hermione replied matter-of-factly, seeing Ron’s face relax in relief as she changed the subject away from his momentarily freak out. ‘If they hadn’t, we would’ve set off all the alarms already in the entrance hall.’
She’d also severely boosted security when she became Head of the Department of Mysteries, but that was something she left unsaid.
‘Oh.’
‘That he had his wand was one of the reasons I contacted you right away,’ Harry said.
Hermione’s eyes glanced over the ceiling. ‘Only a Surstorm Ward, this will do.’
‘Only?’ Ron questioned in a slightly higher tone of voice.
She flashed her wand and conjured a quick red memo. She slashed her palm this time, knowing she needed more for the creation than opening a memo. Blood flowed through the air, turning the paper dark-red as letters formed on it, constructing the message to Terry Boot.
Check vault 777c: TMR/LV and inform me of the status of its contents asap. Forgery possibility of content extremely high. Memo set for automatic reply.
Hermione Jean Granger, Director of DOM, code OTTER1.
Circling her wand around the memo, the air around it darkened and darkened until there was a lightning flash and a crack of thunder that shook the room. The memo was gone; the wound on her palm had healed. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the movement in the cell. Riddle had sat up abruptly and was now staring intensely at the window.
How had he noticed? I haven’t touched the wards around the cell.
‘How did you do that?’ Harry asked, stunned, distracting her.
‘A little sleight of hand to bypass the ward,’ she replied. ‘We will get an answer soon. Terry is good.’
‘Better than him?’ Ron asked, a tone of disbelief in his voice as he nodded to Voldemort.
‘If he left behind a forgery of his wand, I have no doubt Terry will detect it. There are only a couple of methods to forge something with such an intense magical signature as a wand, and all of them have flaws. The only way you won’t notice is if you’re doing a casual inventory.’
Ron huffed.
As glad as Hermione was that he had shaken himself out of that stupor, she really didn’t need Ron to act like a peacock and disparage her employees right now, especially not Terry, because she knew damn well why Ron questioned his abilities and it had nothing to do with his work product of which Ron knew absolutely nothing. He wasn’t even a ministry employee anymore. She understood why Harry had brought him along, but she wasn’t sure it was a good idea if he stayed, given how easily Voldemort had manipulated him in the past. It wasn’t her call though. Unfortunately.
‘So,’ Harry said, his pupils darting between them nervously, ‘like I said before, his magical signature has been sent to the lab. I’ve put a rush on it, but we probably won’t get it back for another hour or 2 at best. He tried to kill me and admitted to being Tom Riddle, which is weird but still a confession. And we have his wand here, which definitely worked smashingly for him, so if he’s an imposter, he’s a remarkable one because wands that belonged to dark wizards don’t change allegiance simply when stolen from a vault.’
‘Related,’ Ron mumbled.
Hermione nodded. Ron had that right. A family member could operate another family member’s wand without needing to gain its allegiance. The more alike the two family members were, the better the wand would cast.
‘Okay, so possibly related or really Voldemort. Anyway, we need to know who we are truly dealing with and what his plans are.
‘Besides killing me and taking over the world; obviously,’ Harry added upon seeing Hermione and Ron stare at him.
‘You want to go in now,’ Hermione questioned, ‘before we have the outcomes?’
‘We need to interrogate him.’
‘That’s going to go swimmingly, I bet,’ Ron muttered.
‘He loves to chat,’ Harry said, looking to convince Hermione. ‘He’ll boast about his prowess and then he’ll let something slip he shouldn’t have. He always does.’
‘If it’s him,’ Hermione said.
‘Come on, it’s obviously him,’ Ron said, gesturing to the wizard wildly. ‘I know you didn’t see him duel, but his movements … I’ve only ever seen Voldemort cast so smoothly. If Harry wasn’t the Master of the Elder Wand, I bet he would’ve lost.’
‘Thanks, but I’m not using the Deathstick, am I?’
‘It probably still influences your magic. Right, Hermione?’ Ron glanced at her hopefully.
Hermione didn’t think that was such a farfetched theory. No, she actually thought it was much worse than a mere influence. She’d wondered in the past whether the act of repairing the phoenix feather wand with the Elder Wand might have strengthened his wand substantially or even had transferred the qualities of the Elder Wand to the holly one—a representation of life eternal all by itself.
So, she’d researched it. Wandlore theories were often ambiguous, but there were a couple that involved wand strengthening actions and they involved bundling whole wands or transferring power from one wand to the other by adding its core to it. Nobody had tried to cast with the Elder Wand after Harry had switched back to his old one, and Hermione hadn’t felt comfortable breaking into Dumbledore’s tomb just to test out whether or not the stick still had a core or not. Now she really wished she had.
Something to check out later.
However, it hadn’t escaped her notice (and clearly not Ron’s either) that Harry’s casting had gotten much better after Voldemort’s fall. He was more powerful, more precise, much more than explainable by the mere lack of stress of constant imminent death. No, Hermione was pretty sure the core of the Elder Wand had joined Harry’s, but she hadn’t shared this with him because Harry was convinced his actions would mean the death of the Elder Wand and she didn’t want to shatter his illusion.
She also hadn’t shared it because the Elder Wand had a nasty effect on its previous owners’ characters when they knew. It was almost like their belief in the wand itself made them do horrendous things, take bigger risks, become arrogant and obnoxiously hungry for power. She trusted Harry. He had enough strength of character to resist the darkness of the wand, probably even more than Dumbledore, but she didn’t want him to have to carry that burden, too. He’d had the weight of the world on his shoulders ever since he’d been born. Enough was enough.
Besides, if people couldn’t trace the powers of the Elder wand back to Harry’s wand, the legend of the Unbeatable Wand would die out eventually, too.
‘Maybe,’ she replied, making a gesture of uncertainty, ‘There’s much we don’t know about wandlore.’
That wasn’t technically a lie.
‘Okay,’ she quickly added, wanting to leave this treacherous topic behind. ‘Let’s talk to Voldemort, shall we?’
‘I’ll do the questioning, you two—’ Harry started.
‘What, sit there and look pretty?’ Ron interrupted, sharing a look with Hermione.
‘Well, no,’ Harry said, tossing his hands in the air. ‘Dammit Ron, you’re a civilian now. You’re not even supposed to be here. The Wizengamot will have my arse if we have to trial him and they can’t use questions you asked because you’re not an official ministerial employee.’
‘I’m sure Hermione has ways around that problem,’ Ron said.
She smiled. This was why you didn’t play chess with Ron. He always had another move. Still, she wasn’t sure he should go in, but with how determined and confident he seemed, maybe it would do him some good? It would definitely be disastrous if they went in without him. She caught Harry’s eyes, seeing the doubt she had reflected back at her.
‘Let’s just go in,’ she said, shrugging. ‘If by chance anything does go wrong that needs to come before the Wizengamot, Ron’s a very - very special, my eyes only, Unspeakable, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Harry said.
‘Perfect, I look forward to seeing the salary scale of a very - very special Unspeakable,’ Ron said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Hermione laughed.
‘Definitely an unpaid internship.’
‘Crushing the dream, Harry?’ Ron joked, immediately walking past the both of them towards the door.
Harry made a move to go after him, but Hermione grabbed his arm and stopped him.
‘Leave his wand out of the cell. I don’t like what I’ve heard about his skills and he’s far too calm. He may look younger but he doesn’t necessarily have to be younger. Also, if he doesn’t move his hands once while talking, we need to be wary of the integrity of those shackles. If you can keep his attention—’
Harry just gave her a look, while Ron snorted, waiting with the doorknob in hand.
‘Okay, right, my bad, obviously that won’t be an issue. I’ll have to cast on those shackles, preferably without him noticing, so I’ll pretend to be the scribe.’
She flicked her wand at her hair, changing the colour to a bleached blonde and swirling it up into a tight bun to hide the curls which were an absolute nightmare to transfigure straight. A pair of square glasses appeared on her nose. Several taps on her cheekbones altered her facial shape considerably. Her skin tightened, making her appear much younger than her forty-five years of age. She tapped her robes next, shifting them into a less expensive, off the rack quality and making them wider. A second later her body gained a substantial amount of weight. A notebook in a dark-blue leather folder appeared in her hands, a blue ballpoint clipped on top of it. She looked up, satisfied, noticing the frown on both boys’ faces.
‘What?’
‘That’s Muggle gear,’ Ron said, replying first.
‘Exactly,’ she replied.
‘Oh, you’re counting on it being another factor in him deciding you're unworthy of his attention,’ Ron added, nodding his head. ‘Clever.’
She turned to Harry, raising her hands questioningly when he was still frowning.
‘We stopped using scribes when you introduced that automatic system two years ago.’
‘Let’s see if he knows that.’
‘Why a scribe? Why not just another Auror? If he knows, your cover will be blown immediately,’ Ron said.
‘We have to risk it. An Auror will automatically draw his attention, but he won’t pay attention to anyone with that type of a job,’ Harry answered for her.
‘Especially a woman,’ Hermione added under her breath.
‘What?’ Ron said, laughing bemused. ‘Have you forgotten Bellatrix?’
‘No, Ron,’ she said icily, pressing the folder to her chest and crossing her arms in front of it. ‘I most certainly haven’t forgotten about her.’
Ron turned pale, shuffling his feet, whispering, ‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Are we done here?’ Harry asked, glaring at them. ‘Because I can promise you right now that if you two are going to behave this way in there, he will play you against each other and eat us alive.’
‘Give us some credit, mate. We’re not idiots,’ Ron muttered, somewhat irritated. ‘Hermione, can you change how I look, too? If both Harry and I are here, he may automatically figure out your identity.’
That was an excellent point. She pulled out her wand and aimed. Her spells shifted Ron's appearance drastically. Harry snorted, covering his mouth with his fist when she was done and averting his eyes.
‘What?’ Ron asked, stepping sideways to catch his reflection in the window and failing. ‘What did you do?’
He moved his hands over his pointed face and grabbed a strand of a long, very familiar colour of blond hair. It hung haphazardly cut all the way to his shoulders.
‘By Merlin, Hermione, change it back!’
Harry and Hermione burst out in laughter.
‘Hermione,’ Ron said warningly, ‘I’m not going in there looking like a Malfoy spawn.’
‘You don’t look like a Malfoy,’ Harry said, still sniggering.
‘Of course I don’t. You guys are just laughing at my totally ordinary looks.’
‘Okay, maybe you look a little bit like a Malfoy, but you’re lacking the obnoxious attitude that’s supposed to go with it and your clothes aren’t by far adorned enough. Besides, he most likely will know who all the Malfoys are and you’re too old to be Scorpius.’
‘He’ll never think you’re Ron Weasley if your looks somewhat resemble a Malfoy,’ she added. ‘He knows how much the families hate each other.’
‘Fine, fine,’ Ron said, tossing his hands in the air. ‘I’ll go in looking like a fucking Malfoy. If he kills me, on your head it is.’
Harry passed Ron, grabbing the doorknob; before he turned it, he looked back at them.
‘Remember your Occlumency shields and try not to let him catch you in a lie. He never did need a wand for that.’
‘I know it’s been a while but I remember my training,’ Ron said, knowing full well that comment was meant for him. ‘Besides, I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk anyway?’
Harry shook his head and turned the doorknob, walking inside, Malfoy Ron following right behind him.
This was going to either be a splendid success or a spectacular failure.
Hermione turned her arm inwards, her magic turning her wand invisible as it slid between her fingers underneath her notebook. If shit were to hit the fan, she’d be ready. Right now she was absolutely expecting this to turn into a monumental failure, because they hadn’t had time to prepare and research at all.
Still, the outcomes of a conversation didn’t really matter that much to her as long as he remained incarcerated. There were always second chances, and until she had more information, she couldn’t pull rank and take over this entire investigation.
Actually, the worst this went, the better for her department.
And believe her, she had a couple of perhaps somewhat illegal items she would very much like to shove up Voldemort’s arse.
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