Grimmauld Place remained the destination for the Order meeting and tonight it was no different. Dumbledore had called a meeting to discus Harry’s living arrangements. It had already been two weeks into the summer and Dumbledore promised Harry that he wouldn’t be with the Dursley’s for very long.
Just as he was about to begin, Dumbledore was interrupted by the screams of Mrs. Black. "YOU FILTHY LITTLE TRAITOR, YOU DIED! YOU CAN'T BE HERE!!!"
"SHUT UP YOU OLD BAT!" A familiar voice rang through the house. Sirius made his way into the kitchen where the Order was having its meeting.
"So what did I miss?" he asked, taking a seat next to Mrs. Weasley. He noticed that everyone was looking at him like he was a ghost. "Why are you giving me that look?"
Nobody spoke. An eerie silence washed over the room. Even Dumbledore, who never seemed to be taken by surprise, was silently staring at Sirius.
Lupin finally found his voice, "We thought you were dead." He spoke softly yet with determination. He didn't want to become excited, in case it wasn't true.
"I thought..." He looked around at the confused faces. "Didn't you send Hermione to help me escape?"
"Hermione? We wouldn't send a young girl to do Order work," Dedalus Diddle exclaimed.
"But... she...she's been helping me for the past two weeks. She's with Voldemort right now," he said, panicking.
"What!? We have to go get her!" Mrs. Weasley jumped up, ready to leave.
"No need; I'm here." Hermione walked into the kitchen. She had a gash on her head and she was bleeding from her arm and neck.
"Oh Hermione, are you okay?" Tonks asked, as she and Sirius helped her to a chair.
"I'm fine Tonks." Her voice was just above a whisper.
"What happened to you Hermione? When I left, you were fine." Sirius looked concerned.
"Well you should have never left her alone. She only fifteen, Sirius”what were you thinking?" Mrs. Weasley said angrily, her maternal instincts taking over. She was retrieved ice for Hermione’s head.
"Mrs. Weasley, I asked him to." Hermione looked at her feet, feeling as if she’d had done something wrong. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley."
"It's not your fault, sweetie. Sirius didn't have to listen." She shot him an angry look.
"Mrs. Weasley, if he didn't leave, he would have blown everything I've been working at." Once Hermione had said this she immediately regretted it.
Mrs. Weasley's expression changed, the sweet smile was replaced with a slight frown. "And what exactly have you been 'working at'?" She looked to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore took a deep breath before he answered her. "Hermione has been spying on Voldemort."
It was like seeing the two faces of Eve. Mrs. Weasley’s kind face contorted into an angry old witch. "HOW COULD YOU PUT HER IN DANGER LIKE THAT?! SHE'S JUST A CHILD! SHE COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, PROFESSOR?!" Everyone was looking at Mrs. Weasley; they had never heard her yell at Dumbledore.
"Molly, I'm well aware of her age and the danger that she faced, but I assure you that she was well prepared," Dumbledore stated calmly.
"How could she have been prepared?!"
"I trained her in Occlumency. By the end of the school year, she was quite advanced." He smiled at Hermione.
"Thank you Professor," said Hermione, blushing.
"Why were you teaching her Occlumency?" Lupin asked, as he bent to clean Hermione's cuts. "I thought Harry was the only one who needed it."
"I knew once Voldemort was exposed, he would go after some one close to Harry. Which meant either Ron or Hermione, and since Ron is constantly surround by wizards, Hermione was the obvious choice," Dumbledore clarified.
"But why couldn't you bring her here?" Mrs. Weasley was calming down. "Or we could have taken her. She didn't have to be put in danger. You poor dear what you must have went through." She took Hermione's head into her hands and kissed her forehead.
"Mrs. Weasley, it's okay; I was never in any danger…until today." Lupin attempted to treat the swelling with his wand but instead it sent a sharp pain up her arm. "Ouch!"
"Sorry, just checking for any infections," he lied.
"I'm confused, how did Hermione end up at the Riddle house?" Sirius asked Dumbledore.
"I think only Hermione can explain that," Dumbledore said.
Everyone's attention turned to Hermione as she explained. "Two weeks ago, Voldemort tried to put the Imperius Curse on me and thanks to Professor Moody..." she paused, noticing a growl coming from Moody, "I mean, Professor Crouch, that was the easy part. The hard part was convincing him I was under the spell."
"How did you do that?" Tonks asked, fascinated.
"He asked me to give up the location of Headquarters. So I told him Dumbledore secured a place in the Forbidden Forest where members could Apparate, then they would meet at a designated place in the forest and that it was always changing in case the location was leaked."
"Brilliant Hermione, and he believed you," Charlie Weasley said.
"He had to”he thought I was under the Imperius Curse."
"But why hasn't he killed you?" Bill Weasley asked, with a warning look from his mother.
"After giving him all the false information on the Order and Harry I could think of, I told him that because I was close to Harry, Dumbledore kept me informed on all Order business, in case one of his letters to Harry was intercepted and he couldn't send Harry another letter. Then I could send it for him. And I've been giving him false information on the Order for the past two weeks."
"So how does Sirius fit into this?" Lupin asked. He was still trying to close her cuts, but every time he did, they only became deeper.
"Voldemort wanted to make sure that I was completely under his curse. He showed me Sirius; he was being tortured daily and he wanted me to take over." Hermione pointed to a burn in Sirius’s arm shaped like a snake.
"Sirius, are you okay? Do you need anything?" Mrs. Weasley asked, rushing to get ice for his arm. "Does it hurt? Are there any other burns, cuts, anything?" She put ice to his burn, causing him to jump up. "Sit down! Somebody in your condition doesn't need to be on his feet." She pushed him down into a chair somewhat forcefully.
He tried to push her away but Mrs. Weasley wouldn't give in. She felt guilty about yelling at him earlier.
"I'm fine Molly, stop with the ice. Hermione has been taking care of me."
"How? I mean if You-Know-Who wanted you to torture Sirius, you had to," said Kingsley.
"I remembered an old spell from the Middle Ages, I read about it in History of Magic. It was a false skin spell. Wizards used it to cover ugly moles or fungus growing on them. I figured if I could perform the spell, Sirius would be able to regain his strength so that he could escape. The only problem was he was being guarded by dementors."
"How did you get past the dementors?" Lupin asked. He gave up on trying to heal her arm. He put Muggle medicine on them and then bandaged them.
"Polyjuice Potion. When Sirius regained his strength I knocked Peter out and performed a Memory Charm on him. Then I took his hair for the potion."
"And it worked?" Tonks asked.
"Sirius is here, isn't he?" Hermione said proudly.
"Then how did you get these cuts?" Lupin asked.
"When I got back to the Riddle House, Peter was awake and Lucius Malfoy had broken my charm. I poured Muggle anesthetic down his throat, but as soon as I arrived, Malfoy knew it was me. I tried to run, but he stunned my leg, and when I fell I hit my head on a rock. Then he pulled out a weird knife and he cut my throat and my arm."
A sharp pain shot up her arm. She looked down and saw the new bandage was soaked with blood. "Professor, is my arm supposed to be bleeding this much?"
"It's a new cut, it'll stop bleeding in a hour or so." Lupin tightened her bandage. "There you go, good as new."
"How did you get away?" Sirius asked Hermione.
"Peter was still confused, so when he saw Malfoy choking me, he stunned him from behind." She was holding her bandaged arm. Blood was coming from between her fingers.
"So he was actually good for something," Sirius said. "Who knew?
Lupin performed a freezing charm on her gash to stop the blood from coming out so fast.
"That should hold out for the night." He changed the bandage on her arm. "But that doesn't explain how we saw you fall through the veil," Lupin said.
"What veil?" Sirius asked, confused.
"The veil of no return in the Department of Mysteries," Lupin explained. "Who did we see fall?"
"Narcissa Malfoy, under Polyjuice Potion," Hermione stated calmly. Everybody in the room looked at Hermione as if she was crazy. She noticed everyone staring at her.
"What? It's true. That's another reason Lucius was so mad when I helped Sirius escape."
"But.... How?" Mrs. Weasley didn't know what else to say.
"I think I can explain," Dumbledore said. Everyone’s attention turned to him.
"After I finished speaking with Harry, I went to the Malfoys’ Manor. I wanted Narcissa to know her husband had been caught fraternizing with Death Eaters. But when I arrived the house was empty, except for Dobby the House Elf."
"But Dobby was freed. Why was he there?" Dedalus Diggle asked.
"He wanted to help. He knew that Mr. Malfoy had been caught, but he also knew Mr. Malfoy was a powerful man. He went to the house to show me the dark artefacts the Malfoys had hidden. He took me to a room hidden behind the Malfoys’ library, where Sirius was unconscious and chained to the wall. I was in the process of releasing him when I was stunned from behind."
"Then why were you so surprised when Sirius arrived?" Lupin asked.
"I thought Voldemort would have already had him killed," Dumbledore said.
"But why did Narcissa fight against her husband? And how did she get to Sirius?" Tonks asked, finding her voice.
"Narcissa was planning on posing as Sirius to get information on the Order," Hermione explained. "Lucius didn’t know about it until he found Sirius. She was the only one who knew where Headquarters was."
"How did she know where Headquarters was?" Tonks asked
"With a little help from Kreacher." Dumbledore looked toward the corner in which Kreacher was lurking. "Kreacher would you care to explain?
"Mrs. Narcissa told me she would be coming here through Floo Powder. She asked me to make sure she could get to him." Kreacher threw a dirty look toward Sirius. "So I did what she said."
"Why you little…" Sirius pointed a wand at Kreacher.
"Sirius, no." Hermione stood in front of the wand. "You can't hurt him."
"And why not?" Sirius said, angry that Hermione was still defending him.
"Because, Sirius, Kreacher can be of some use." Mad-Eye Moody stood. His magic eye lay upon Sirius.
"How can that useless animal be of some use?" Sirius asked, mocking him.
"If Kreacher can gain access to Death Eaters, we can use him as a spy, since Hermione was caught," Mad-Eye said, his eye turning to Hermione.
"He's more use to me dead. At least this way we can know that we're not being spied on."
"Sirius, this House Elf is more useful alive." Mad-Eye stood in front of Hermione.
"Sirius, think of Harry. If there is any way we can use Kreacher, Harry could be safe. At least until he has to face him." Hermione spoke softly, peeking from behind Mad-Eye.
Sirius looked into Hermione's eyes. He knew that she wasn't trying to save Kreacher. She was trying to help Harry. "Fine, I'll let him live. But if he puts a toe out of line then he's joining his relatives on the wall." He lowered his wand.
"I think we should leave it at that." Dumbledore spoke in a misty voice. "Hermione, you should get to bed. I want you to go with Remus and Sirius tomorrow to pick up Harry."
"Okay." She stood up and thanked Lupin for cleaning her cuts.
"I'm sorry I couldn't heal them fully." Lupin had a slight hint of worry in his voice. He was good at magical first aid, but somehow Hermione's cuts wouldn't let him heal them.
"Goodnight Professor. Goodnight everyone." Hermione yawned and went up stairs.
"Goodnight Miss Granger."
Once Lupin heard the door to her room shut, he voiced his concern. "Professor I think there's something wrong with Hermione."
Before Dumbledore had a chance to speak, Mrs. Weasley cut him off. "Of course there's something wrong with her. The poor dear has been subjected to working with You-Know-Who for the past two weeks." She shot a nasty look at Dumbledore.
"It's not that, Molly," Lupin spoke up. "I think that Hermione may have poison in her wounds."
"Why do you say that?" Sirius asked, concerned.
"When I tried to close her wounds they wouldn't heal," Lupin explained. "I think Lucius may have used a Kadiva Plaid."
"Even more reason that she shouldn't have been anywhere near You-Know-Who," Mrs. Weasley said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Is there anything we can do for her?"
"We should keep a close eye on her. The poison from a Kadiva Plaid is slow. It may take a week before it takes effect."
Dumbledore wasn't entirely convinced at this. He feared that Voldemort might have done something to her, but he didn't know what. Until he did, he wasn't going to worry anybody.
"I think this night has gone on long enough. I will contact you all for the next meeting. Goodnight everyone.”