Chapter Text
Hermione Granger was of the opinion that becoming paranoid was a reasonable side effect of war.
It was nothing, at first.
A letter on her kitchen table, not quite where she thought she’d placed it.
Is someone there?
She must’ve placed it there.
Perhaps she just wasn’t paying enough attention.
Hermione would be celebrating her fifteenth year in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures this September.
She couldn't yet say it out loud, but Hermione had finally clued into what her friends had been telling her all along: the job was killing her. In retrospect, she didn’t know what else she could’ve expected—working in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was impossible to do if one actually cared about doing it properly.
Early on, she waited eagerly for the opportunities for change, imagining substantive discourse and negotiations. She thought that she’d be breaking down barriers. She’d pictured an idealized world, one where house elves, centaurs and muggle-borns were recognised as worthy of the same rights afforded to the so-called 'higher classes' of the magical population.
She hadn't imagined that the collective world would still be stuck on the very first question: why should I?
Hadn't they fought and won a war just to answer that question?
So, instead of progress, what Hermione got instead was a never-ending rolodex of crises, like a herd of centaurs being displaced because of a rancorous land developer's 'unfortunate administrative error' that had resulted in the clear-cutting of over three hundred acres of legally protected forest near Moffat. Or a sudden influx in restricted dragon products on the black market—meaning that the poaching rings that were supposed to be disbanded were very much ... banded.
She worked day and night, or at least it felt like it, and it was never enough.
Ever since Crookshanks died—several years ago now—she’d gotten into the bad habit of staying at the office into the wee hours of the morning, because there was no longer a cranky half-kneazle in need of tinned fish at precisely seven P.M. Now, more often than not, she left work after midnight, and there was always something new when she arrived back at 7:30 A.M.
Just this morning, she and her colleagues had been of informed of the hot new ingredient for snake oil peddlers: unicorn eyes. They were rare and exceedingly difficult to obtain; therefore, they could fetch an exorbitant price.
The worst part?
Unicorn eyes in had no known magical properties. In terms of potion-making, they were completely inert.
It wasn’t just cruel—it was stupid.
Hermione rubbed her face before resting her head against her palms, staring at her sad, dingy office floor.
There was what looked like a small note, just a few inches away from her foot.
Hermione reached down and picked it up. She had to squint to read the tiny, type-written text on the paper.
curiosity killed the cat
A cold chill ran the length of her spine.
She tried to convince herself that there was nothing odd—certainly nothing threatening—about a scrap of paper on the floor.
But—what the fuck?
Had it fallen out of her folio?
It couldn’t have.
All of her files were under lock and key—magically fortified lock and key.
Had someone been inside her office?
No, she told herself. There was no reason to believe someone had gone into her office, and there was no reason to believe that the note hadn’t been in the file to begin with. No, because she always kept every scrap of paper related to an investigation as a rule, and she couldn’t possibly expect to remember every record and dictum for every bloody file that came across her desk.
Paranoia. Nothing more.
She usually met Harry during lunch at the Ministry cafeteria (when she took lunch, anyway). Today, he was dissembling and dressing up a sad looking bacon butty.
“Do you ever get disgruntled people, down at your offices?” she asked as she slid into the seat across from her friend.
“At the DMLE? Er … ” he replied, eyes narrowing a fraction. “…Yes. You might need to be a bit more specific.”
“Reprisals, I mean,” she clarified, opening her lunch bag to reveal the wilted remnants of a cabbage salad.
She should’ve made stew.
Harry looked up and stopped buttering his bacon sandwich mid-bread. “Sometimes, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“The thing about criminals is that ninety-nine percent of them are quite dim,” he said mildly, now watching Hermione with uneasy eyes. “It’s pretty rare that they manage to coordinate any meaningful ‘revenge.’”
“Oh.” Hermione nodded absently. “Right.”
Harry lowered his head, his brows furrowing as he continued to stare at his utterly oblivious friend. “Why?”
“Hm?”
“Why are you asking me about disgruntled people?”
She sniffed defensively. “Just wondering.”
“Because…?”
“It’s nothing,” Hermione said, waving her hand dismissively and moving to stand from the table so she could chuck her salad and buy something to replace it. “It’s almost certainly nothing.”
“You’re doing an exceptional job at convincing me,” Harry grumbled.
“I—“ she faltered, finally looking him in the eye. “I think someone’s following me.”
Harry’s expression changed in an instant—every trace of humor and skepticism vanished. He sat back in his seat with a deepening frown. “Why?”
“Well, it’s just—“
Hermione hesitated, hating how stupid it all sounded. She couldn't exactly wave it away now that she'd said something, though. She sat again, realizing sadly that Harry would not want to wait for her to stand in line at the cafe.
She told him about the note, but didn’t mention the times at her flat when she felt inexplicably nervous.
Harry looked almost comically concerned—enough so that Hermione let out a nervous laugh.
“This is the part where you tell me that I’m acting crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re acting crazy.” His expression was serious. “I know that you find me a bit defensive about these things, but you happen to be a very political figure.”
“No one even knows who I am anymo—“
“That is not true,” Harry cut in. “You have a chocolate frog card, for God’s sake.”
“No one actually cares about those stupid cards!”
“Hermione,” Harry insisted, exasperated, “you should take this to the DMLE. It could be nothing, but…”
He let the implication hang in the air.
It might be something.
“I have nothing to report, though,” she said after a moment, letting out a resigned sigh. “What evidence do I have? A random quote on a piece of paper? A bad feeling?”
Harry continued to stare at her. “You should come stay with me and Gin.”
She groaned. Ginny was heavily pregnant, and Hermione could not think of a bigger imposition. “Harry, I can’t do that to you both right now.”
“You’re scared—“
“I am not scared!” she snapped, then felt a wave of embarrassment when she realized how loudly she’d just shouted.
A few people in the cafeteria had started to stare.
“I’m not scared,” she repeated in a humiliated mumble. “Forget I asked.”
That night, as per usual, Hermione returned to her flat very late. When she stuck the key in the lock and turned it, she met no resistance.
It hadn't been locked.
She felt a squeezing in her chest, her heart pump pump pumping quicker than it was a moment before.
She’d locked it this morning.
She was sure she’d locked it this morning.
Cautiously, Hermione turned the knob, raising her wand.
The flat was dark, so she cast Lumos and, after a second of hesitation, Homenum Revelio.
Nothing.
She let out her breath in a rush, dropping her bag on the floor and hastily fortifying her warding charms before trailing back to her bedroom.
She looked around once more, just in case, before feeling satisfied enough to start shedding her work clothes. As she made her way to the wardrobe, Hermione began to unbutton her blouse. She distractedly pulled her pajama drawer open as she half-shimmied out of her top and tossed it towards the hamper.
She plunged her hand into the drawer for her warmest pair of flannels, and—
Hermione jumped so far backwards that she collided with the edge of her bed and tripped over it, letting out a little shout of surprise. She clambered back up to standing and stepped slowly back towards the dresser.
Her pajamas were gone.
In their place was a recently unearthed skeleton of a cat—bits of dirt clinging and all—with a small, typewritten note in all lowercase letters.
are you scared now, kitten?