The Version Only You Know

by livjoy

Summary:

The Battle of Hogwarts was meant to be the end of it all. With the Dark Lord gone, the Wizarding World could finally begin to heal. But he escaped, leaving the Death Eaters to finish the job. Amid the chaos that followed, Draco Malfoy made a choice no one expected: he dragged Hermione Granger from the fighting and offered her a deal that would bind them both to a future they could not control.

Five years later, the war is far from over. Hermione is a double agent, moving in the shadows between two enemies. To the Order of the Phoenix, she is a vital source of intelligence. To the Death Eaters, she is a closely monitored asset whose loyalty is never certain. Each side believes she is working for them.

As her absences grow, suspicion rises. Questions go unanswered. Every secret Hermione carries becomes more dangerous than the last.

Which side is she truly on?

Because there is a version of Hermione Granger the world sees.
And then there is the version only one person knows.

(Tags will be updated)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Prologue - 11th of June, 2003

 

Ronald Weasley is dead. Hermione knows how it happened. She knows that the spell which killed him was the one that left her lips.  

No one else knows. 

She was masked when it happened, her face hidden, her magic deliberately distorted, and her voice swallowed by the noise of the fight. To the Order of the Phoenix, Ron Weasley died the way so many others did: struck down by an unknown curse in the middle of a battle that offered no explanations.

Hermione remembers it with brutal clarity.

He stepped into her deliberate line of fire without seeing her. Without recognising the stance, the wand movement, the subtle hesitation that came a fraction of a second too late. The spell hit him square in the chest, brilliant and final, and for one unbearable moment she waited for him to get back up.

He didn’t.

They will say it was a Death Eater. They will say it was unavoidable. They will say his name with reverence and anger and grief, and Hermione will stand among them and let them believe it.

Because the truth would destroy more than it would save.

Years and years of lies had taught her how to be invisible when it mattered. How to become a shape instead of a person. A weapon instead of a friend. She had learned how to wear a mask long before she ever put one on that night.

The Dark Lord called it a necessary sacrifice and a plan completed to succession.

The Order never asked.

And Hermione Granger carried the knowledge alone, that she had killed the boy she loved to protect a war that would never forgive her for surviving it.

 

Because there is the version of Hermione Granger the world remembers.

And then there is the version only one person knows.

Notes:

hi guys! thank you so much for reading the prologue of my first ever fic, this has been a long time coming. the first chapter is being posted alongside this one, and i also have prewritten some chapters, which i plan on posting once to twice a week (at the moment) whilst i finish writing.

any feedback is much appreciated!!