Chapter 1

Hermione slunk along the corridors, careful not to be spotted.

Ha, spotted. That was a terrible pun, Hermione berated herself. Harry would have keeled over at that.

Her Animagus form was that of a tiny margay, with some extra spots along her face to replace her freckles. If she was vain about it, she would have been proud to be such a beautiful animal. It was the kind of creature she expected Narcissa Malfoy to turn into, if her angular features didn't seem more fixed with a bird of some kind. When her initial meditations and symbols came to mind, she thought she was a house cat like Professor McGonagall. It would have pleased her to no end to have her Professor's example to follow. However, she turned into an animal that would not ordinarily be seen in Britain, making its purpose as discreet completely negated. Still, she was proud. She was more powerful in this form, her hind legs making her more adept at tree climbing than the common house cats. Her spots made her distinctive, but being smaller than the full-grown versions of her species made her a little more unassuming. At least she wasn't huge, a lioness or a deer or something that didn't lend well to prowling around Hogwarts.

Had she told Harry and Ron? No, but she would. She had turned seventeen earlier that summer because of her time-turner use, and she just wanted to do something alone that would prove her useful. Voldemort was back and she couldn't just do nothing. She was going to do it on her own over the summer before Sixth Year and then train the boys. For now, Harry was having a hard time and she didn't want to bother him. If she was completely honest, she was enjoying her time alone with this form, prowling the dark corridors with her night vision and practicing her speed outside on the castle grounds.

It had made Hermione much more reckless, at least with regards to curfew rules. Being an unregistered Animagus was enough to make her realize all others rules she could break had far less severe consequences.

So she allowed herself to sneak out of her dorm at nights to practice her nonverbal magic alone and outside of class. She had even started on her wandless magic, summoning objects short distances daily as practice. Her magic seemed reluctant to obey, and it killed her to have a piece of magic so evasive to her.

Nothing in the old texts on wandless magic said it should be hard, only warned of overtaxing yourself. So why was it so hard for her? Why didn't everyone use it? The texts on the subjects were old, probably 12th century. Wandless magic seemed to be of little importance now, and any modern texts on it put it as a skill that was slow to respond and because of that, not useful.

But Hermione had seen Dumbledore and Voldemort fight last year. She had seen Voldemort wielding the wandless magic nearly identically to his wand magic, using his wand in his right hand and wandless in his left. It wasn't useless anymore than magic itself was. But how did he do it?

Hermione was slinking back to the common room, angry at her lack of progress. She'd become an Animagus in less time than she'd been working on wandless magic, 3 months into the school year. Hermione huffed at her own thoughts.

A pair of feet in a nearby corridor made her ears twitch. It wasn't the sure feet of Professor Snape, who was set to be on duty tonight, but an unsteady sounding scuffling. Someone was trying to sneak around.

After debating between running up to the common room or investigating, Hermione slunk closer to the noise, careful to stay tight against the wall. She wove around the feet of the suits of armor when she needed to, being careful to approach the noise.

Her cat nose smelled them before she saw them. Cologne. Definitely not a professor, unless Snape had a hot date tonight. Hermione tilted her head around the corner, trying to find the perpetrator. Her eyes fixed on the lightest feauture: platinum blonde hair. It was Malfoy.

Even Hermione knew that Katie wasn't cursed by accident, and to be honest seeing Malfoy here was the opposite of reassuring. She prowled along behind him, following him across the 5th floor and up the staircase to the owlery. Keeping her distance, she watched as Malfoy grudgingly bribed a black owl down from its perch fastened a letter to the leg of the large bird. There was something additional on the bird's leg, a rune marker of some sort. It was the fastener Malfoy was using on its leg, with Perthro on it.

"Take this letter to the Dark Lord, Malfoy Manor."

Hermione's feline heart sank deep down in terror. He was contacting the incarnate of evil, and to what purpose she didn't know. The bird, at least, seemed as reticent to go as she. That was, until Malfoy stroked its head and told it, "Don't worry, the little bit of jewelry I gave you will let you through the wards."

Helpless to stop him, she simply watched as the bird flew beyond her reach with Malfoy watching his flight. When it was out of sight, the blonde monster who had always tormented her for every weakness seemed to sag. He braced himself against on of the rails of the tower, obviously putting all of his weight on it rather than his legs.

"It's almost over," she heard his pained whisper. "I'm so close. I have a plan, I can do this. She'll be fine. I'll be fine. A few months. Just a few months."

She was intruding here. She had never seem such vulnerability from this young man and it made her head spin with its implications. Could he be just as hurt from this man, supposedly his master, as Harry was? More?

Hermione didn't remain there to watch him. Giving him his privacy, she slunk back to Gryffindor house with heavy heart and too many thoughts spinning in her head.