Hermione sighed as she was roused by a harsh tapping sound. She blinked sleepily as she sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes and glancing around the small utilitarian room until she identified the source of the noise, a fierce looking eagle owl that was rapping a beat on her window pane.

She furrowed her brow in confusion, unsure why exactly she was being summoned this early in the morning, when the soft beams of sunlight were just beginning to illuminate her small flat. Nevertheless, she got out of bed with a wince, rubbing the knots in her back and approached the dusty window and opened it, letting the owl into the room.

The owl hooted in thanks and held out a leg which had a familiar letter attached to it. With a groan, Hermione hastily untied the letter from the owl's leg and gingerly set it down on her dresser. The owl took flight as soon as it had been released of its burden and soared out of the window that it had entered from.

Hermione watched the sun rise through the open window, a wistful expression on her face as memories assaulted her mind...

"Isn't it beautiful, pumpkin?" Her father sighed in appreciation as the sun unfolded itself in front of them, shooting out beams of golden light that lit up the suburban landscape.

A tiny Hermione Granger nodded her head and burrowed herself deeper into her father's side, feeling content as she smelled her father's reassuring scent of lemon, soap and fresh pine.

They were both nestled comfortably on the porch swing, watching the sunrise as it completed its daily, glorious ritual.

"Remember to always watch the sunrise, Hermione," her father advised her, a melancholy smile on his face, "it makes you appreciate the simpler things in life..."

The scene faded away as soon as it had come, leaving nothing behind but a jaded vestige of the girl who had watched the sunrise with her father.

She turned away from the sunrise and picked up the letter, her face regaining its usual impassive mask. With steady fingers, she broke the seal on the back. The seal that bore the emblem was the standard seal of the organization, with an impression of a coin pressed into it and a dagger crossed with a sprig of nightshade in front of the coin. If one looked closely enough, they could make out the fine details of the coin, identifying it as a simple one pence.

The letter was simple and straightforward:

Library, 7:00 A.M.

-SS

Hermione refolded the letter and stuffed it back in its envelope, a grimace on her face. Her mentor was clearly not happy with her. She would certainly be subjected to a stern lecture; she just hoped that she wouldn't be suspended from missions for her continued defiance.

Hermione carefully stepped through the open door of the library, wincing as the ancient floorboards underneath her feet creaked in protest.

The figure at the window turned around as she approached and gazed at her with a contemplative expression on his face.

"Hermione, you need to be more careful," Snape said without preamble, his face looking eerie in the dim light that filtered into the room from the dusty curtains, "we don't want what happened last summer to happen again."

Hermione nodded abashedly, looking down and playing with her hands that were clasped in front of her. "I promise, I'll be more careful."

Snape sighed in exasperation at her quick answer. "We both know that you're not going to be more careful. I just wish that you weren't so reckless, leaving behind those clues at both Agustus' and Edwards' crime scene wasn't exactly an intelligent maneuver. You shouldn't have left behind the coins and the marked bullet was an exponentially foolish endeavor." Snape berated her, making sure to give her an acidic glare as he lectured her.

"I know it was...stupid of me to do so, but I can't help it. It's just my calling card, something that I leave behind so that people know that it's me." She tried to explain, her expression stubborn despite the quelling glower that was directed at her.

"These items that you leave behind will get you caught one day, Hermione, then what will happen?" He asked her, his eyebrows raising in mock question.

"Then I get caught and I die for what I believe in," Hermione replied evenly, her face unyielding.

"Promise me that you'll at least try to be less reckless," Snape ordered her, the tension leaving his stiff shoulders as he accepted the fact that he couldn't convince her to stop her foolish actions. He turned away from her and looked back out the window.

"I - I promise to be less reckless," she hesitantly said, a small smile appearing on her face as her mentor minutely nodded his head, accepting her less than stellar apology.

He gazed out at the compound for a few seconds - silently observing the students training in the heat outside - allowing silence to envelop the library in its cocoon. "I have your next assignment for you and it's going to require the utmost caution and stealth."

"What is it, sir?" She asked curiously, looking up at the back of his head with questioning eyes.

"You'll need to infiltrate the Potter Mansion and neutralize your next mark, Harry Potter."

"Toss me another one, mate," Harry ordered Draco, motioning to the cigarette packet in his lap and sighing as he watched twilight descend upon them, bringing with it fireflies and the crooning of an unseen orchestra of crickets.

Draco silently pulled out a cigarette and handed it to him, his movements robotic and his eyes unfocused, neither of them taking in the beauty that surrounded them.

They were both seated on the ancient, crumbling wall that served as the boundary between Potter Manor - the year round home of the Potters - and Wiltshire Manor - the summer residence of the Malfoys. Draco and Harry had spent the last two days like this, straddling the wall that separated the two properties and secretly smoking a cigarette or two as their bored, unseeing eyes stared blankly at mossy green trees and the teeming wildlife that surrounded them. Their new routine had developed after the event that had occurred at the summer extravaganza, two days ago. Paranoia had spread throughout the pure-blood community like the black plague and everyone had frantically retreated to their homes in unadulterated terror, soon after the news of the incident had spread. Though Harry and Draco were both of age and more than capable of defending themselves, their families had insisted that their safety was more important than their daily excursions to the pub and they had been confined to their homes like the other underage children.

Before, Draco and Harry along with Ron, would have been frequenting their local haunt,the Hog's Head, at this time of the night, well on their way to achieving their goal of absolute inebriation. Now, they were both sitting listlessly on top of a wall, smoking cigarettes like muggle teenagers - how the mighty had fallen. Unfortunately, Ron had also been confined to his home, the Burrow, and had not been allowed to leave his anxious mother's sight since then and had been unable to join Draco and Harry in their new pastime.

Harry flicked his burnt out cigarette to the ground and stomped on it a couple of times before swinging himself back up onto the wall. He fixed his eyes lazily upon his silent companion and asked him, "What are you thinking?"

Draco's steel grey eyes flicked down to meet his emerald ones and then he sighed a long drawn out sigh. "I'm just thinking about Edwards and the mysterious way he died. It's baffling is what is. I mean, it wasn't a spell or curse that killed him, it was a muggle bullet. It makes you wonder, you know, if..."

"If the muggles know." Harry finished for him, his face looking grim and hard at the thought.

"It's a scary thought." Draco stated morosely.

"Hell yeah, who knows who'll be next," Harry said, looking nauseated at the thought of who the next potential victim could be.

"What I really want to know is what the 'H' inscribed in the bullet stood for. What does it mean?" Draco pondered, rubbing his lower lip with his fingers.

"It could be anything, the initial of the person who killed him, the initial of the organization that killed him, a secret calling card, who knows." Harry shrugged as he finished listing some feasible possibilities.

"You watch too many spy films," Draco grinned at him, raising a mocking eyebrow, "a secret organization, really?"

"Hey, it could be a secret muggle organization that knows all of the secrets of the wizarding world and is slowly plotting to take us all down, one by one." Harry said defensively, his eyes narrowing and his voice deepening as he animatedly described the takeover of the wizarding world by the muggles.

"Yeah right," Draco snorted at the ludicrous assumption, "and I'm a Hufflepuff."

Harry pushed him off the wall in retaliation and the conversation quickly deteriorated into a shoving match, their conversation forgotten. Little did they know that what Harry had ominously predicted held a grain of truth.

A/N: Smoking is injurious to health and I do not advocate it in any way. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and it hopefully answered some questions or perhaps created some new ones. Thank you to everyone that reviewed, favorited, and followed this story! Special thanks to SRFallen, The only mary potter, Grovek26 and anotherboarduser for reviewing the last chapter! :)