Unspoken

Golden lace peeked out around the scalloped edge of cream linen paper. It had taken her hours to find the invitation in the organized chaos that was her office but she had not wanted to risk a summoning charm and have one of her precarious towers of scrolls suddenly go tumbling. As Hermione wiggled the paper out from underneath a tome that was about a full foot wide on her desk, shimmering ink began to scribe itself onto the paper.

Arthur and Molly Weasley formally invite you

to attend the ceremony of marriage between

Ginevra Molly Weasley 

and

Harry James Potter

on the evening of Wednesday, December 21st, 2006

at the Hall de Lumiere

London, England

The calligraphic script was elegant and a soft string melody played once the card was unfolded to reveal the response card and other event details. There was even a little oval photograph of the happy couple grinning at each other, Harry’s arms wrapped about his fiance’s waist.

Hermione pulled out the response card and looked at it. There was a small ink stain just above the line where Granger would have marked a “yes” but it was just a little dot. As though she had gone to respond, put quill to paper and suddenly lost her courage. The date was only a month or more away… several weeks after when Granger knew she’d lose her memories. How must she have felt when she realized she would never be able to attend her best friend’s wedding? It must have been buried under Nobility and the Magic Bloodlines so that Granger wouldn’t have to see it. 

She grabbed a bottle of ink and made sure to quickly scribe an extra large ‘x’ next to the “yes” response. Sealing it with the tap of her wand, Hermione stood up to take it to Elizabeth to send along to the Ministry owlery. There were muffled voices on the other side of her office door and when she opened it, she found Draco Malfoy standing in front of her assistant’s desk, glowering at the shaking witch.

Was she going to get a single day without interacting with this man?

“May I help you, Malfoy?” she asked, stepping far enough forward that she was able to slightly shield Elizabeth with her body.

The blond man sneered and held out a scroll. “I am delivering a copy of our findings from the initial research at St. Mungo’s. Goldstein mentioned you had asked after it . ” 

“And that required intimidating my assistant because…?”

“The purpose of having an assistant, Granger, is to have someone who prepares and catalogs such documentation for you. Goldstein and I can’t have you losing any more of our paperwork, after all. However , she was acting as though I had cursed it.” He was now glaring at her as though daring her to deny it.

Hermione glanced down at Elizabeth, who was looking at her lap shamefacedly, a pink tinge on her cheeks. She held in a sigh and took the report from Malfoy, asking, “Is there anything of note you’d like me to consider during my review?” 

“These are only preliminary observations from a limited sample pool before we had even considered applying for this grant, Granger. This project could, should , take years before we have any definitive results to publish.” His voice was as challenging as his eyes. Everything seemed to be some kind of fight with him. Hermione was beginning to find his mere presence exhausting. Was he always going to approach her with a combative attitude? What was his problem with Granger?

“I look forward to reading it, Malfoy.” His expression of distrust did not waver. “How about we meet later to go over any questions I have? Elizabeth, please find a mutual time for me and Malfoy to meet. And please mail this for me. I forgot to send this myself and I do not wish to receive a Howler regarding this reply.”

As she passed over the wedding reply, she noticed that Malfoy was staring at the piece of mail fixedly but chose not to ask why. Godric’s Hollow, she just wanted to get back to her desk.

“Is that all, Malfoy?” 

“Yes.”

Why was he still standing here?

“Then please go over my calendar with Ms. Thwhistle.”

As Hermione turned to go back into her office, Elizabeth reminded her that she had some sort of muggle-something council meeting at ten o’clock and it was roughly half an hour til at this point. She nodded, shut the door, and dove for her planner, tossing the scroll Malfoy had just given her onto her chair.

“Council meeting… council meeting… bugger this ... “ she breathed as she looked for any notes, bouncing on the tips of her toes in anxiety. One of the pages caught on her right index finger and she sucked at the papercut, trying now to turn pages with her left hand. Why not have this written in the Department of Mysteries tab, or have it clearly marked on her desk calendar? An annoyed glance at the desk revealed that Granger had written in. There it was - November 8th, 10 o’clock. She’d spent too much time searching for that damn wedding invite. 

On the other side of her door, she heard Malfoy growl, “So when IS our lauded Under Secretary available?”

She did not hear the reply because her eyes caught on a list marked, Standing Meetings, in the Lists tab. A little star was marked under Muggleborn Recovery Council indicating that there was a scroll or folder of some sort in her office. Hermione dropped the planner with a thud and started checking the drawers of her desk. 

Aha! 

Here was another moleskin planner, thinner than the planner but still containing numerous pages. Filled with Granger’s now familiar script, there were extremely detailed meeting notes, starting two years prior. Definitely not enough time to read all of this before she departed for the council. Merlin’s beard, she didn’t even know where the meeting was held. Did she need to leave now to make sure she was on time? Being late didn’t seem very Hermione Granger-ish. 

Slurping down the dregs of a cup of tea, Hermione grabbed both planners up and headed out the door. She could skim notes in the elevator and while she walked. It seemed Malfoy had been able to square away some date and time with her assistant because he was no longer stalking around the space. Small work of magic, that.

Thinking quickly, Hermione smiled at her assistant and asked, “Could you please confirm the council is meeting in the same place as usual before I head off? It’d be terribly embarrassing if I ended up in the wrong office.”

Elizabeth jumped to comply, shuffling some scrolls to the side and flipping through some sort of magical rolodex with her wand while also checking a desk calendar of her own. Hermione watched with increasing amazement at this level of multitasking and didn’t even realize that Elizabeth was giving her the office information for the council meeting.

“Hmm?” she mumbled, wondering just how her secretary had so much paperwork already on her second day at work. Had this all been left by her predecessor? Was there anything in there she needed to know about?

“Hermione? The meeting is in the administrative suite of the Department of Magical Education this month. Um… Hermione? Don’t you need to leave?”

And so off to the Department of Magical Education she went. She didn’t have time to worry about running into someone she knew, or that she didn’t know exactly which floor the meeting was on, or that she needed to somehow come up to date with two years worth of notes on some kind of muggleborn reparation committee in the next twenty minutes. Hermione navigated her way out of the DOM research corridors for only the fourth time in her life and did her best not to flat out sprint to the elevators.

She skimmed the council minutes as fast as she could, hanging onto the velvet ropes overhead as the elevator zipped and zoomed around the Ministry. At one moment, Hermione almost let go of the rope in horror as she realized Granger had actually been the one to suggest the formation of the Council. The elevator hip checked her as it changed direction again and jolted her back into reading through the rest of the notes. 

Hermione walked more confidently than she felt into the small and sensible meeting chamber, her hair slightly disheveled from the elevator and three particular points on her mind that she kept repeating to herself. 

1. Granger’s main concern that led to the creation of the council was the treatment of muggleborns not just during the war, but directly after. War crimes against muggleborns were not prioritized for prosecution. Children were missing. Muggleborns were under-represented in the new Ministry. 
2. Someone named McGonagall was her biggest supporter on the committee. Hermione was able to remember from her weekend reading binge that Minvera McGonagall was the current Headmistress at Hogwarts, but she was not the Headmistress when Granger was attending.
3. Everyone else there was out to make a name for themselves with pet projects and career moves.

Not to mention that apparently Hermione was the only muggleborn on the council. The irony had surely burned deep for Granger.

Six other faces turned to watch Hermione as she walked over to the only remaining chair at the circle table, setting her planners down and conjuring herself a quill. An older woman with spectacles to her left smiled at her. That smile was a mixture of approval and expectation that Hermione felt deep in her bones, as though some instinctual part of her did not want to disappoint this woman. The young woman smiled back, hoping that this was McGonagall. 

“If we are all here, can we start the meeting already?” brayed a deep voice from two seats to her right.

Hermione frowned and looked over at the individual who had spoken. It was a man with a pale complexion and beady pale eyes to match, a light blue that was cold. She immediately compared them to the coldness of Malfoy’s eyes for some reason. Draco Malfoy’s steely greys were icy with distrust. This man reeked of disinterest. His pudgy hands were folded on top of the table and she noted he had no notes, no planner, not a single scrap of parchment or paper. 

McGonagall sniffed and Hermione glanced briefly around at the other members of the committee. No one spoke and a few of the gazes were expectant. She had not had time to memorize names, even though Granger had of course provided them in the first pages along with their departments and titles for quick reference. She’d have to wing it. 

“Do we have any new reports?” she asked, opening the council planner and scribbling the date at the top of what would be her first contribution to Granger’s notes. Her hand quivered momentarily so she gripped the quill harder, the papercut from earlier burning against the pressure. 

The third and last woman at the table levitated a scroll to each council member and began a verbal presentation about second and third quarter statistics regarding retention and recruitment efforts for new positions within the Ministry. Hermione’s brows creased slightly as she glanced over the data on the scroll as she listened. According to the cumulative numbers, muggleborn employees were on the rise which was one of the goals of the council, she knew. But as she flipped back to previous pages of the report, the jobs muggleborns were being hired into were areas specific to dealing with the muggle populace - departments like the Muggle-worthy Excuse Committee and the Office of Misinformation. Where were positions in the department of the International Magical Office of Law, or the Wizarding Examinations Authority?

“Is there a problem, Ms. Granger?” sneered the man who had complained earlier.

The witch in charge of the recruitment project snapped her head at this statement, frowning first at the man and then at Hermione. 

“Our growth for the past quarter was 4%, twice the expected goal.” announced the woman, daring Hermione with her eyes to refute the data.

“It was,” she started slowly, wondering just how strong Granger had come on in these meetings in the past, “The recruitment efforts are proving that they do work. But I hope I do not need to point out that the goal of this committee is to increase muggleborn involvement in areas where they are fewer in number. I am not sure we should be patting ourselves on the back for hiring two more people for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office.”

The woman’s face immediately darkened and the smirk the pale, disinterested man gave at her statement meant she’d made a misstep. Crap. 

“If muggleborns would apply for those jobs, maybe we would be able to hire them!” 

“Ms. Opalopus has a point, Ms. Granger,” noted another, less irate council member. This was a taller, much older man with a pert white beard and muggle style tie wrapped around the collar of his wizarding robes. “Diversity is a lofty and wonderful goal, but we cannot force people to work for the Ministry if they do not desire to do so.”

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek, angry with herself for not having enough information to retort. 

“And have you given them any reason to think they’d be listened to? Accepted?” asked McGonagall tartly. A warm glow of appreciation washed over Hermione and she immediately dedicated herself to getting to know the headmistress better. 

“Has there been any consideration of promotion from within the Ministry of muggleborns already here?” Hermione asked, suddenly struck by the thought.

A wizard down the table who looked closer to her in age than anyone else rolled his eyes. “You asked that at the last meeting.”

Great minds think alike, huh, Granger?

“And so? Has there been any consideration since? No?” The table remained silent, and the smirk from the pale man’s face was gone. Good. Hermione straightened in her seat, and leaned forward pointedly. “I propose an internal review of all muggleborn personnel files for the purpose of identifying individuals who have shown to possess executive skills or are found to be contributing above their outlined position duties. We, the council, will arrange to review the profiles submitted at the next quarterly meeting and see if there is any promise with this avenue. Agreed?”

No one could disagree, at least, no one could disagree as no one was actively promoting an individual at this time. They made arrangements to inform all the heads of departments to submit personnel files within a month’s time so there was time to prepare before the next gathering.

The council moved on to some discussion of ongoing trials regarding hate crimes against muggleborns. There was also a pending proposal before the Wizengamot on new legislation increasing repercussions for guilty verdicts in such cases, but it was being held up due to waiting on a review of a similar proposal that had been submitted in the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France. Her pasty nemesis across the table, whom she eventually identified as one Carrington Sallow of the Wizengamot Administrative Services office, mentioned his counterpart in France thought the legislation was likely to fail and seemingly relished in what that might do to the bill on this side of the channel. Then some heated discussion on talks of financial reparations. And then came the last topic of the day.

The missing children.

It spoke to how dire the situation was that Hermione could tell just by reading the room. There were no smirks, no one was posturing themselves into a better position. Just somber, serious expressions all around the table.

McGonagall took a deep breath before speaking to the group. “We are still searching for the Quill of Acceptance. The Auror team in charge of this investigation assures me that they have a new lead regarding the trail of ownership after the Final Battle.”

The older woman nodded to the younger wizard at the end of the table - Hermione flipped discreetly to that first page of the planner at the list of names again - and Brennan Doyle of the Department of Law Enforcement stood.

“As the Headmistress has informed you, the Auror team is moving on this new information. I can share no more regarding that particular Tracing effort. As for an update on tracking the muggleborns, unfortunately, the Magical Law Enforcement squad has discovered two more incidents of muggle familicide in the region of Kent. As before, each of the incidents was marked as accidental by the muggle policeman. One car crash in 2003 … and another house fire as recent as this summer.”

There was a dull whooshing in her ears as Hermione listened with increasing distress as McGonagall went over a list of remaining muggleborn children who had not yet been tracked down. There had been eleven years of muggleborn children - their names written down by the aforementioned missing Quill in something called the Book of Admittance - who had not yet been admitted to Hogwarts, and from the talk around her, supposedly many of them had gone missing during a war. She stared with dread at the as yet unread tab of the closed purple planner that was marked Second Wizarding War. All of the children who should have been admitted in the fall of 1996 had boarded the train to Hogwarts and they had not been seen since. They had been named “The Missing Generation.”

She bit the inside of her cheek and ran her fingers over the council notes in front of her, speed reading while other members of the council asked questions of Doyle. It appeared the Ministry had primarily concentrated on the stolen Quill rather than the missing children. Only when McGonagall and her staff had discovered they were having difficulties tracking down the muggleborn families of impending first years that anyone had stood up and called foul. It had been eight years since the Final Battle and only half of the remaining children had been tracked down. A few had been discovered with families that had moved out to Europe or lived in smaller towns of the English countryside; no one had found an explanation as to why it had been so difficult to find the children.

But the horror had washed over the magical community when the Ministry had discovered that some children had not been hidden. Rather, they had been murdered. A group known as the Deatheaters had used their access to the Book of Admittance during the war to hunt down muggleborns. Every member of a muggleborn child’s family was sought out and slain.

Many muggleborn children were still missing, as was the Quill of Acceptance. There was no way to track any new muggleborn children who had been born since. Experts in magical artificery were split on whether the current owners of the Quill would somehow find a means of coercing it to release those names without the Book. McGonagall was working with the Muggle Liaison Office to set up a reporting team that would review any notices regarding odd behavior or incidents involving muggle children noted by medical offices as well as schools.

There was talk of using Aurors-in-training to shadow the families that had been found until they successfully started at Hogwarts and could be accounted for. The cost of such an effort was significant, however, and there were differing opinions on how the money should be collected for the effort. Most of them were in favor of cutting budgets from other departments, but others wanted to make the issue known more to the wizarding public and open a call for donations. Hermione asked that data be collected on the minimum amount of funding needed to get the children’s protection underway.

Eventually they wrapped up by detailing their individual responsibilities prior to the next meeting. Hermione vanished her quill and collected her things as the others made their exit back to their regular day jobs.

A dull ache pounded in her chest as she reflected on all the information she’d just had to process. Her forebear had written, scribbled, and underlined her struggles to fit in both in the mundane world as well as the magical one, the latter due to her muggle heritage. Granger was emphatic that whoever was responsible for her lost memories was someone or someones who abhorred her existence in the wizarding world.

Hermione knew she was a muggleborn, biologically. But could she really claim to be one if she didn’t have the memories of being a muggleborn? The ethics of it all threatened to consume her mind for the rest of the day so she shoved the confusing feelings down and prepared to head back to her office.

McGonagall stopped her with a gentle touch on her arm. There was no one left in the room. As she looked up at the woman’s grim expression, the older witch swished her wand and a faint buzzing lingered in the background.

“A muffling charm?”  she asked in bewilderment. Her heart leapt into her chest as Hermione panicked whether or not she trusted McGonagall too quickly. 

“This is not something I wanted anyone else overhearing,” said the older woman tersely, and her mouth twisted into a thin, hard line. “Have you heard anything about a magic school?”

Hogwarts? That seemed too obvious an answer and McGonagall has made it clear in the meeting she didn’t suffer fools. Hermione shook her head.

“Damnation. Forgive me, dear. I had hoped… well. I am not sure what to do with this information. I wasn’t sure who to go to. I’m not sure who to trust.”

Hermione empathized.

McGonagall glanced out the open door and around the empty room and stepped closer, in spite of her charm. “One of the families I managed to track down told me they were already approached by an individual about sending their child off to a magical school for younger children. They claimed someone calling themselves Dean Scire invited them to a new, safer school for their magical young one.”

“Safer than Hogwarts?” Granger had made it very clear that Hogwarts was generally perceived to be one of the safest locations in the country if not all of Europe. 

The headmistress snorted. “Certainly that is what they were led to believe. I tried to ask them further questions but they became cautious of sharing any more information and told me they would consider their options and could I please leave? Can you imagine?”

“Was it one of the families from the Book?”

She knew instantly from the worried look in McGonagall’s eyes that it was not. She gasped slightly. “So whoever has the Quill was able to discover the names of the new muggleborns?”

“That, or there is a mole within the reporting division that was created to track magical occurrences in the muggle populace. We have to hope it is the latter.” McGonagall shook her head. “Ms. Granger, I hate to ask you because I know the Minister already relies heavily on you, but could you please poke around on this here in the Ministry if you can? I cannot leave the school without arousing too much suspicion. And we need answers. Answers I don’t want to share with the Council yet.”

Hermione chewed her lip anxiously. Damn, but that was becoming a bad habit. Her life was already in danger from unknown forces and someone who trusted Granger was asking her to take on another potentially dangerous task. “Is there a reason you don’t want to share this with the Council?” 

Silence.

Shit.

“I can try to ask questions, but I’m not often out of my office as it is either. Did you think of approaching Harry?” The look McGonagall gave her almost made her laugh if the situation hadn’t been so serious. “No, you are right, he’d dive headlong into this and make it a top priority, which he can’t do without revealing too much information. I can’t make promises...”

“No, you wouldn’t. You have a wise head on your shoulders, Ms. Granger. I may not say this enough, but I am so proud of how far you have come and how much you have grown, dear. There are many people with double or triple your years that I wouldn’t dare whisper a hint of this to.” The headmistress sighed and placed two fingers on her temple. “I pray you find something more than a false name that we can potentially track. Owl me if you do find something and I’ll arrange for some bogus interview for you to come out to Hogwarts. Unless… you are sure you don’t want the Transfiguration professorship?”

The question struck Hermione dumb for moment, but she rallied. “Oh, well, not at this time, but I promise to take it into deeper consideration.” The thought of another job had never crossed her mind, because this Hermione had never been offered the position before. So why did she feel like she had done the headmistress a disservice? 

McGonagall nodded and suddenly took a moment to consider Hermione before asking seriously, “Are you well, Ms. Granger?”

“Excuse me?”

“I am not one to be rude, dear, but you have lost more than a little weight since I saw you last. And I know a Glamour Charm when I see one.”

The young witch flushed and did her best not to look down at her toes. “I have not been sleeping the best. Work is very busy at the moment. I just wanted to seem a little more fresh for the meeting.” To say nothing of the lingering bruise on her cheekbone. 

“Well, work makes husks of us all, but that is no reason to neglect your health. Do I need to send along some Sleeping Potions?”

“No, ma’am.”

The power this woman had over her was amazing. Hermione wanted to be her when she grew up.

“Then I trust next time I see you there will be no need for a Glamour charm?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her answer made McGonagall snort softly and pat her kindly on the shoulder. “Less words, more action, Ms. Granger. And please do be careful. I worry for my students when they are older as much as I did when they were under my charge.”

-------

It was almost time for lunch, and Hermione’s mind warred between thoughts of the butternut squash ravioli she had ordered the day before and the never-ending to-do list she was quietly tabulating in the back of her head as the elevator zoomed her back to the basement. So now not only did she need to find someone out to murder her, she had the pile of paperwork waiting on her desk, personnel files of muggleborn Ministry employees to review, more vials to delve into before her Friday night drinks with Granger’s gang, and now tracking down a mysterious school for younger magical children that was seeking out muggleborns. Oh, and those damn roses. Painswick had sent an interoffice memo that morning asking if they had been ordered yet. She’d need to check with Elizabeth if she’d heard back from the events people yet.

She arrived at her office suite to find her assistant missing. Her lunch was on her desk, nestled in a fabric cozy that was charmed to keep her food fresh and warm until she arrived. Elizabeth had likely gone off to take her own lunch, which was a good sign that the young woman wasn’t completely glued to her secretary desk. All that was missing from her own lunch was a cup of tea, which Hermione was completely capable of fetching herself, despite what Elizabeth thought.

After shutting her planner in her desk drawer, Hermione walked down the hallway towards where Granger had marked the staff mess would be. She prayed there weren’t too many other people taking their lunch as she was not up to making small talk with strangers. It actually turned out to be less of a lunchroom and more of a closet that had a kettle, a teapot, and a French press with a mismatch of tea cups and mugs. And luckily, there was only one other person who had also had the thought of pouring themselves a cup of tea.

Unluckily, it was Draco Malfoy.

She bit back a groan and waited until he was done with the kettle before setting about making her own tea. He lingered next to the counter and watched her, drinking from his cup, as she poured the dark liquor into her teacup and added copious amounts of sugar.

“Cutting back on the caffeine, are we?” he drawled. 

“Is it any of your business?” she retorted, angry that she was so easily goaded by this man. There was something about his character that just made her want to grind the back of her teeth together. Almost like a lingering loathing, and not for the first time did she wonder what Granger had thought of Draco Malfoy.

“I always thought coffee suited you. Bitter. Pretentious.”

Hermione resisted rolling her eyes but only just. “Are you always going to be this petty whenever we run into each other?”

He grinned, flashing her a wicked smile that screamed danger; like a five-alarm blaze blaring in the back of her mind. “I thought you liked a little tête-à-tête. I’m hurt, Granger.”

“You’re a Healer, aren’t you? I’m sure you can manage.” 

The grin grew wider, as though he was enjoying this. Was this the same man who had been such a grumpy ass in her office earlier today? Didn’t he hate her?

“Something is not right with you,” Hermione said aloud before she could help herself.

Malfoy’s smile vanished in an instant, replaced by the more familiar sneer. “You aren’t exactly yourself, either.”

Her heart almost stopped and she stared at him in disbelief at his words.

Did Malfoy know something about her… condition? The shock must have shown on her face because his sneer faltered. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to come up with some sort of biting, confidant retort and -

BOOM

The floor rocked, and with both her hands holding her cup of tea and saucer, her heels slipped slightly on the tile floor. Hermione gasped as she expected to come crashing down on her arse again - as she was wont to do nearly every day she had existed in this bizarre life - but felt the wind get crushed out of her as Malfoy flung an arm around her to keep her upright.

It surprised him as much as it surprised her. They stared at each wordlessly, noses mere inches away from each other. She could feel his heartbeat pressed up against her. The hot tea had sloshed violently and was dripping from the angled saucer down her wrist. She barely noticed.

She was barely breathing.

BOOOOM

She clutched at him as the blast rocked the little kitchenette again. Both of their eyes widened with worried uncertainty. He hastily let go of her just as she let the teacup fall to the floor. The delicate china shattered into pieces behind them as Hermione and Malfoy raced down the corridor toward the sound of the explosion.