One
September 1st, 2017
“Mom, I’m leaving for the platform!”
“Wait! I was gonna take you”
“You have to get to work. You have a meeting in an hour”
“How did you know that?”
“Aunt Katie is your receptionist. She tells me your schedule for the week.”
"Well I love you. Owl me when you can."
"I will. I love you mum" Lyra Granger grabbed her trunk and walked to the floo. Taking a handful of floo powder, she disappeared to the Platform.
Picking her purse and work bags up from the kitchen table, before following her daughter through the floor.
Instead of appearing at Hogsmeade Station, she arrived in her private office at the Ministry of Magic.
When she stepped into her office, she was met with her best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
"Lyra didn't have you take her to the station?" Ron asked as soon as Hermione set her bag down.
"She knew I had a meeting. Your wife apparently sent her my schedule."
"Katie sends it to everyone. My mum has a copy in the kitchen"
"If it makes you feel better, James didn't want us going either. We only got away with it because Lily still loves us."
“Rose and Hugo begged us to take them.”
“My little girl has grown up. She doesn’t need me anymore.”
“She’ll always need you.”
“Just like us”
“What do you need?”
“Funding”
“For what?”
"New training gear"
"This is why we get accused of favoritism. If you need funding you have to go through the correct channels. I am not going to sign it until all you've done the paperwork."
"Please 'Mione"
"No." A knock on the door ended the conversation. “Come in”
“Minister, your eleven o’clock is here.” It was Katie.
“That’s our cue.”
“Yes, please go do the work you were hired to do.”
“Yes Minister Granger” She resisted the temptation to throw her shoes at them.
“Your husband is a pain in my arse.” Katie smiled.
“Sorry to break it to you Minister but you’re stuck with him.”
“Unfortunately.”
The two smiled at each other before Katie let Hermione’s appointment in.
"I miss my kids, I truly do, but the first night of the year when it's silent and I can drink my wine without interruption, I slowly start to forget that I'm in my thirties and have three kids." Ginny Weasley sipped on her red wine with her feet on the coffee table.
“I miss being young! Our twenties were fun and carefree!” Katie sipped on hers before quickly going silent. “Sorry ‘Mione.”
“No, it’s fine. They were fun. Mine were just a little more stressful than exciting. I wouldn’t trade a second of it. I love my Lyra.” She sipped her wine. “Ginerva, get your feet off my brand new coffee table or I’ll call your mother” Ginny did as she was told. Any threat involving Mrs. Weasley was nothing to bet against.
“It’s rude when you use my mother against me.” Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
“Speaking of Lyra,” Katie started. “She’s sixteen now. Have you decided when you’re going to tell her?”
“She’s going to hate me.”
“She won’t. She’ll be upset and that’s understanding but you did the best you could with the situation.”
“I’ve kept the secret for so long now. You two plus the boys are the only ones who know.”
“Pansy knows too.”
“Yes. And she hasn’t spoken to me since she found out.”
“But she hasn’t told him.”
“Because her exact words were, ‘I’d rather not face the fury that is Draco Malfoy’. He’ll be pissed. That’s who I’m really worried about. She’s going to want to find him and know him. She’s my daughter, she wants to know everything there is to know about the world.”
“Have you heard from her yet?”
“No, but it should be any minute now.” Almost on cue, an owl flew through the window. “Just like I said.”
“And I thought you were bad at divination.” Hermione shook her head as she took the letter from the Owl.
“That’s not Lyra’s Owl. That’s McGonagall’s. I know it because James has taken after his uncles.” Hermione confirmed it when she read the letter.
“Hermione,
I write to bring you unfortunate news. Lyra never arrived at the Hogwarts Platform. She was supposed to meet myself and the other prefects when the train arrived but she was not in attendance. I searched the train, and spoke with her classmates and friends, no one saw her board the train. She was last seen at Hogsmeade station before disappearing. I will inform you when I have new information.
-Minerva.”
“I’ll get Harry.”
“Ron is with him.” Katie ran to catch Hermione before she fell to the floor and Ginny disappeared through the floo, returning a second later with her husband and her brother.
“What happened?”
“Lyra, she never made it to Hogwarts.”
"What do you mean?"
"McGonagall sent a letter. Lyra didn't meet her and the other prefects. She was last seen at the station."
"Are you sure she didn't just go straight to her room? Maybe she wasn't feeling great and wanted to skip the feast."
"Harry, she's my daugther. She would have told someone where she was. She would have gone to McGonagall first." Katie helped move Hermione to the couch. "This is all my fault. I thought it was nothing."
“You thought what was nothing?” Harry asked, sitting next to her and Ron following.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want anyone to worry. Since it hit the ten year anniversary of when I was elected Minister, I’ve received threats. At first it was harmless hate mail every once in a while. Then it increased. I was getting mail once a month, then once a week, and then every other day, until it all stopped in August of last year. Two days ago, I received one that mentioned Lyra.” Hermione left her place on the couch, her friends looking at each other in disbelief. Hermione came back and handed the note to Harry. “It’s someone who supposedly knows who her father is.”
“This doesn’t just threaten to tell the world the truth, this threatens to kill her. As soon as you got this, you should have come to me.”
“I thought she’d be safe at Hogwarts. I told McGonagall and she said she would ensure it.” Hermione paused. “I should have taken her to the train station. I didn’t want her to be suspicious about why I was being so conscious.”
“Someone took your daughter Hermione. We have to do an official report.” All Hermione could do was nod. Ron looked at Harry. They were thinking the same thing, everyone could tell.
“Out with it?”
“Do you think Malfoy knows about her?”
“He wouldn’t threaten to kill his own blood.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t but what if his parents know.”
“Narcissa is bound to the Manor and Lucius is in Azkaban.”
“He might have ties to the outside world. Maybe a friend of the family, someone who is still wanted found out about her. She has malfoy blood in her.” Ron pointed out the obvious.
“She doesn’t have Malfoy hair though. Only someone who tested her blood or magic would be able to analyze the paternity.”
“Except there’s the glamor on her hair.” Ginny mentioned. “Someone could have noticed it. With the right spells, you can see through them.” The dreaded white-blonde hair. Of course her daughter was born looking more like her father than her mum.
“Add it to the list of things she’ll be angry about.”
“Hermione, you have to Owl him.” Harry looked to his best friend. “You can owl the minister of France. Tell him we need Malfoy’s help with a case. He’s the best Auror in the French ministry. We had some overlap a few years ago.”
“He’s going to want to hex me.”
“Most likely.”
“We should go to the Ministry. There’s protocol for this type of thing. She’s the minister’s daughter. This is classified as an attack on you. We’ll have to call in the squad.”
“I’m on it.” Katie was the first one through the floo. Harry and Ron quickly followed after her.
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll get her back.”
“She’s going to hate me. And he will too.”
“Hey, he’s the one that left you. Remember that.”
“You think his wife will come with?”
“I think she’s in Australia right now. The society pages love her.”
“How perfect.”
With that, Hermione and Ginny were through the floo getting ready to wage a war.