Be Careful in the Dark

By the time the end of their sixth year rolled around she'd put the initial stages in place. Breaking into the Ministry had produced a surprisingly thick folder on one Malfoy, Lucius. It had disturbed her how easy it was to break into what was supposed to be a secure facility and copy a file on someone that dangerous. She wondered, then, if this was how it felt to slide down the path towards the Dark. After that, all she needed was a little transfiguration to change her appearance just enough to make her unrecognizable, a charm to make her more convincing and well….charming, and a tracking spell to find the perfect person. Namely, someone who could train her to do what she needed. Add an enhanced learning potion (Snape would have had a fit if he'd known how much extracurricular potions making she was involved in) and she was ready. Or as ready as she was ever going to be.

The beginning of the summer found her standing nervously outside of a plain, suburban house with a nice front yard. A high fence separated the backyard from the neighbors prying eyes. Walking past the bobbing tulips she squashed her fear and tried to find some of the surety she had felt back at Hogwarts. Her parents thought she was staying at school to study and Hermione worried about the lack of guilt she felt about deceiving her parents.

An unremarkable man answered the door, looking at her in polite confusion. Hermione gulped and plunged ahead.

"I know what you were and I need your help. Can I come in please?"

"Dear girl, I don't know what you're talking about." His tone was light and he wrinkled his brow at her.

"Please, please. If it turns out I'm a crazy person I'm sure you're capable of tossing me out on my ass. I can't talk about this out here. Please." She did not need to fake her desperation or the tears that welled up at the possibility of failure. He stared at her and then pushed the door open without a word. Hermione rushed through and stood uncertainly until he had walked past her, guiding her to the comfortable living room.

"Now, what's this all about?" His facial and body expressions all exhibited exasperated patience. He was exactly what she needed. Without a word she dropped Lucius' file on the coffee table. She had spelled it so that he would see the muggle equivalent of the wizarding worlds' crimes.

He paged through it, his mouth tightening with every page though that was the only indication that there was anything remotely unsettling contained within it.

"What does this have to with anything?" He finally asked. She could almost hear the ‘what does this have to with me’ he wanted to say instead.

"I killed this man's son. And now, he's killing people I care about and he's going to move on to the people I love and then he's going to kill me. I cannot allow any of that to happen." Hermione tossed the words out as quickly as she could, afraid he would tell her to leave.

"Why..." He stopped. The socially correct thing to do would have been to be horrified. But clearly the contents of the folder had disturbed him more than he let on. Good. "Why did you kill him?"

"He wouldn't stop." Hermione had known it would come to this but still, the words had to be squeezed out of her mouth.

"Speak clearly, girl, or do not speak at all." He snapped with a sneer so reminiscent of Snape she almost smiled. Instead, she tried to pull some of the emptiness inside her to the surface so she could do what needed to be done.

"If you want detailed description of every beating and rape he committed, we're going to be here a while." Her voice was dry and dispassionate.

"I see. How?" He did not elaborate though he leaned forward and studied her face intensely. Hermione did not speak a word; she just looked at him and let the emptiness in her rise until flowed out of every pore. He nodded slightly and leaned back. Her instincts had been right. A test given and passed.

"Again we return to the question of why it is, exactly, you think I can help you."

"Finding you was a combination of intelligence, connections, and pure blind luck. I'm smart, painfully so, and I just kept following a trail, asking little questions, until I found you. Or a file anyway with no name, nothing to identify it. But it was what I needed. What you did in Austria...that's what I need here." His face tensed just a hair but it was enough that Hermione knew she had hit a nerve. This tale was complete bollocks but she could hardly tell him she'd used magic to find him and his nameless file now could she. Now, her abilities at Charms would be proven if he, as a honed spy and killer, would buy this flimsy tale. "I know you want more than that but really, the jump from the file to you was complete intuition."

He frowned and stared off into space. Hermione sat waiting patiently; please please please running through her head like a mantra.

"How did you kill him?" He did not look at her but this time she knew her answer was important.

"I poisoned him." She replied calmly. He looked at her sharply, eyes narrowed.

"Did you manage not to get caught?" This he said with a hint of derision.

"I poisoned him with something common. And then I shot him up with an illegal substance that he had been known to use and made it look like he was just another druggie idiot who mixed and died. That's about all the detail you're going to get from me since I intend to remain uncaught." More bollocks but close enough to the truth that it would suffice.

A small, bitter, half smile at that.

"So why is Daddy after you then?"

"He's after everyone. I just happen to know why. He set fire to the entire village by our boarding school. He's completely off his rocker and no one is going to be able to stop him."

"How long?" He asked, his face and posture focused and intense.

"Three months." She replied. That was all the time she had to give him to learn. He grunted his understanding. Another long silence.

"Alex." Came the clipped voice.

"Maya."

"We begin now."