The silence of the Scottish morning was broken only by the sharp, rhythmic click of the garden gate latch as Hermione Granger closed it behind her. She stood before the door of the cottage, her wand concealed within her sleeve, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. This was the threshold of the lie.
She didn't knock. Protocol was for strangers; this was an intervention between friends who had become adversaries.
With a fluid, silent movement of her wrist, Hermione cast a non-verbal unlocking charm, threading it with a dampener to silence the mechanism. The door swung open, revealing a hallway bathed in the pale, grey light of dawn.
"Cho?" Hermione called out, her voice steady, authoritative, yet laced with a desperate hope that she was wrong. That she would find Cho painting in the sunroom, surprised but innocent.
Silence answered her. Not the comfortable silence of a sleeping house, but the hollow, echoing vacuum of a space abandoned.
Hermione stepped inside, immediately casting Homenum Revelio. The spell ripple moved through the house and returned... empty. No heartbeat. No breath. No life.
Her eyes narrowed. She could feel warmth. The air in the hallway was heated, the scent of brewing tea still hanging faintly in the air. A fire crackled merrily in the living room grate.
She moved to the living room. The fire was roaring, casting cozy shadows across the armchairs. It looked like a scene of domestic peace interrupted only moments ago.
Hermione raised her wand. "Finitus."
The illusion shattered. The roaring fire vanished instantly, replaced by cold, dead ash. The warmth was sucked from the room, leaving the damp chill of the highlands. The cozy lighting flickered and died.
"Thermal Image Displacement," Hermione whispered, a grudging respect warring with her anger. It was a sophisticated piece of transfiguration, designed to fool thermal scopes and sensors, making the house appear occupied from the outside. Cho wasn't just hiding; she was buying time.
Hermione moved into the kitchen. This was where the facade cracked.
On the floor, near the wooden table, lay the shards of a ceramic mug, the splash of cold tea staining the rug like a dark map. It spoke of shock. Of a sudden, violent realization.
Hermione knelt, her keen eyes scanning the room. She needed a destination. She needed a name.
Her gaze landed on the sturdy wooden box on the counter, its lid thrown hastily open. Inside, a velvet lining held indentations for vials—seven of them. Six were empty and dusty. The seventh slot was empty, but fresh.
Next to the box, lying forgotten in the haste of flight, was the stopper.
Hermione picked it up. It was cork, stained with a thick, amber residue. She brought it to her nose, inhaling deeply. The scent was earthy, bitter, with a distinct, metallic undercurrent.
She recognized the base ingredients: Valerian roots, Sopophorous bean... ingredients for sedation. But woven into the scent was something else—a magical resonance that made her wand hand tingle. It was a binding agent, rare and incredibly potent, used in Blood-Dampening Potions.
She was drugging him, Hermione realized, a wave of nausea rolling over her. Not to hurt him. To hide him.
She stood up, gripping the cork stopper until her knuckles turned white. The pieces were locking together with terrifying precision. The shattered ward behind the shed was the result of this potion failing—or running out. The boy, "Luke," was a magical powerhouse, a volatile reactor that Cho had been manually cooling for fifteen years.
And the magical signature Hermione had felt outside... the raw, untrained Potter signature.
Hermione looked around the kitchen, her eyes stinging. The betrayal felt physical, a blow to the chest. Cho had looked her in the eye for years, smiled at Harry, all while harboring a secret that could tear their world apart.
Did Harry know? The question was a poisonous dart. Hermione forced it away. Logic. She needed logic.
She moved to the small writing desk in the corner. The surface was clear, dusted clean. But the indentation of a quill press remained on the blotter. Someone had written a note here, recently and hurriedly.
Hermione cast Revelio on the blotter, hoping to read the impression. Nothing. Cho had magically scrubbed the surface. She was thorough.
Hermione stepped back, the cold reality of the situation settling in. Cho hadn't just run; she had executed a pre-planned extraction protocol. She had taken the boy, the remaining potion, and vanished.
But where?
Hermione returned to the front door, stepping out onto the cold stone path. She needed to find the exit vector. She cast the Elemental Tracking Charm again, expecting to see the silver-blue trail of the boy leading away.
She found it. The chaotic silver trail led north, toward the viaduct.
But then, Hermione saw something else. A second trail.
This one was faint, deliberate, and purely Apparition-based. It didn't lead north toward the boy. It led south, toward the populated muggle centers, weaving a complex, erratic pattern designed to trigger Ministry sensors and draw attention.
It was a decoy.
"Cho," Hermione murmured, staring at the southern trail. "You're acting as the rabbit."
Cho Chang was running south, making noise, using her own magical signature to draw the wolves away from the north, where her son was escaping. It was a mother's sacrifice—offering herself up to the hunt to buy her child an hour, a day, a chance.
Hermione stood at the crossroads.
South: To catch Cho, her friend, the deceiver, and demand the truth about Harry's son. North: To follow the raw, dangerous magic of the boy himself, a boy who had just shattered a Level Seven ward and was likely terrified and out of control.
The Ministry, clumsy and loud, would inevitably pick up Cho's trail in the south. They would swarm her.
But the boy... the boy was heading into the wild, leaving a trail that only a specialist could see.
Hermione knew her duty. She also knew that if the Ministry found the boy first, they would cage him. If she found him, she might save him.
She turned her back on the southern trail, on Cho, and on the easy path. She faced the north, toward the abandoned railway viaduct and the fading, silver-blue scar of uncontrolled magic.
"I'm coming for you, Lucien," she whispered to the mist. "And you are going to tell me everything your mother didn't."
With a sharp crack, Hermione Granger disapparated, pursuing the shadow of the son she believed belonged to Harry Potter.