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The woman reminded her of Umbridge a bit. Where Dolores wore pink, this woman seemed to feel that lavender was more appropriate. She looked so prim and proper sitting across the table as Hermione came into the interview room. It had been all of a few days since her Auror test. Per the norm, she’d been given a mask, told not to speak unless they were spells and expected to hold her own for a certain amount of time along with all the other tests that came with being an Auror… Tests she’d studied for in her fifth year when Harry had announced that he wanted to be an Auror. She’d intended to go with him, even then… even knowing that they probably wouldn’t make it out alive.
But they had and here she was… faced with a woman in lavender who was definitely not an Auror. She’d bet a secretary, a very highly paid secretary.
“I’m the Minister of Magic’s Head Secretary, Ms. Helena Selwyn.”
She would have groaned. A pureblood of one of the so-called sacred twenty-eight. She’d wondered what exactly had put the twitch in her hand to grab her wand and blast her, but she said nothing sitting down across from the woman. She wondered if “Ms.” sounded like “Mistress” in the woman’s mind. Hermione shook that thought away. She’d spent a little too much time in the American south to be thinking like that at the moment. Helena Selwyn didn’t care if she was black, brown, or as pale as freshly fallen snow, so long as she had pure blood.
She didn’t and she was very much brown, a deep rich chocolate brown that seemed to sing when the light hit her just right. At least, that’s what that guy in Florida told her while fawning all over her accent.
“I have been instructed to give you this package and to tell you that, despite your heritage, you have performed satisfactorily.” She stood, “A representative of this department of the Ministry will be in shortly.”
With that she left and Hermione had never felt so relieved in her life. She was sure that she’d had enough of assaulting Ministry officials for her life. That aside, she contemplated the package.
It’s an all black package with seemingly no means of opening it. In her experience, such packages were either dangerous or not truly meant to be opened. She lifted her wand and muttered a litany of spells to check its contents. It wasn’t poisonous, nor harmful in anyway though she could not get a read on what exactly was in the package. She decided not to touch it.
The door opened, a jovial looking man came in, shook her hand and took a seat.
“It’s an honor to meet you Miss Granger,” he said. “I work for the Minister of Magic’s office and we are rather excited to include you in this batch of applicants.”
She waited, quiet as he went on and her eyes narrowed as he continued to talk about seemingly nothing.
No… not nothing.
Rather he seemed to be talking in circles around something of great importance something about curiosity and danger. Something ancient and so very sad-- a woman?
Pandora’s Box? Hermione thought, the myth coming to mind seemingly from nowhere and she looked down at the package that opened, unfurling. The darkness of the pages melting away to a neat folder sealed with a crest of the Minister of Magic.
The man checked his watch with a nod, “You truly are a marvel, Miss Granger…Bonus points if you can tell me how it works.”
Hermione gave him a look and tilted her head thoughtfully. How the charm worked… she could cast a spell to see, but she had a feeling that that would yield nothing. This was a question of logic...A test, even.
“It isn’t time related. I would think that… it is a reading charm, connected to a masking charm. You expected me to test its contents…”
He smiled knowingly.
“It would get a sense of my wand, a wand I’ve had for a long time, and therefore a wand that had a piece of me… a very strong connection to me and my mind.”
Through that it had a link to her mind, reading it, studying it and waiting for the magic word.
“Pandora’s Box,” she said. “This package’s password is Pandora’s Box, yet not the phrase but the idea itself.”
“One of many,” he said simply. “Now that we have gotten the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get on with it shall we? You have tested to become an Auror, yet the age and face of the Auror has changed, has it not? With the defeat of Voldemort, Aurors have become agents of the Ministry of Magic’s effort to restore and keep the peace.”
Hermione waited, “There is a section of the ministry of magic unknown by even some of the highest levels of ministry. In fact, after this conversation I will have no idea why I am here.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You have been chosen because of your testing, experience, and general aptitude to take part in the training of this secret sect. Aurors only take the best, and the very best of those applicants are offered a chance at something else.”
“This… section of the Ministry… what does it do?”
“Well, the same thing Aurors do… except much more covertly. You are familiar with the police and the military correct?”
“Yes.”
“If Auror are the police officers, then this sect is Black Ops.”
She blinked, “How apt of a comparison.”
“I am muggle-born too,” he said smiling. “In that folder you will find all the details you will need for training should you chose to participate. If not, you won’t remember this conversation and you’ll show up for Auror orientation first thing Monday.”
He nodded and stood, “The choice is yours.”
“Wait,” she said looking at him. “Why me? You said aptitude. Yet I know for sure that, so many others who fought were not brought in.”
He smiled, “That is a question you will have to answer for yourself, but you are correct. Good day, Miss Granger.”
He left then, leaving her to contemplate the folder. At once intrigued and wary. Pandora’s Box, she thought. The password was scarily apt. Hadn’t she seen enough of war in her short years? Had she not done enough for the wizarding war?... But if Harry and Ron were not involved, could not be involved then there was something else.
Her theory of the problem, they true danger in the Wizarding World seemed to be breathing down her neck.
And she reached out her hand, drawn to it. Like Pandora’s Box, like freshly mowed grass, new parchment, spearmint toothpaste and that other scent that she could not identify then, but could now. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to admit it then, but she felt it now. The letter was not covered in the potion that had brought these scents to her attention, but it felt like an irresistible pull.
She wanted… to be safe, yet she knew that there was no more safety in knowing than not knowing. Only the element of preparation, an advantage over what may come that could lead to safety and be the reason one walked out alive.
If there was a branch of the Ministry of Magic, a branch of Aurors almost that dealt with dangers of wizards who sought death and destruction… if they’d been kept so secret that even the man who’d been sent in the give her the offer would not remember giving the offer… then there had to be some danger there in the shadows, obscured by the far more visceral and imminent threat of the war.
There had to be another rise of the sicknesses of the wizarding world seeking to destroy it and perhaps the whole world with it. Yet hadn’t she seen enough of war? Had she not studied it enough in the years she’d been friends with Harry?
To know or not know?
To stand still or move forward?
To stand still…
Or to move forward?
To do both?
She shook her head and let out a breath. She had not run from danger in all of her life, she certainly wouldn’t start now.
She needed to know.
The folder unsealed itself as her hand fell on it. She opened and began to read. The words appearing just fast enough for her to remember them before fading off the page. When the words ceased to appear, she watched the folder vanish and the door behind her opened.
She blinked, walking towards the door and felt something wash over her. Words in her mind, swirling as she walked out of the room, down the corridor and towards the elevator to leave the Ministry.
Erset la tari, the phrase stuck in her mind as she arrived on the streets of London and headed back to her flat. She could not explain how exhausted she felt, getting inside, locking the door with her charmed key and stumbling into the bedroom.
She fell to her knees on the edge of the bed and forward, asleep with no recollection of why she was so very tired.
Erset la tari… a voice whispered in her ear. Harsag Zalazalag...Peta Babkama Luruba Anaku…
She opened her eyes feeling the words on her tongue, ancient and foreign and rose from bed. She scrambled for a piece of paper, scribbling down the words that she could remember, before getting up and heading towards the library of the Ministry. It’s early enough that even the guards are half asleep and she feels a little odd about being there, but none of that matters though because the words are screaming in her ears until she flips and flips through hundreds of books.
Ancient Sumerian, the language is ancient sumerian and that’s all she can find out before the library closes and the Ministry begins to shut down for the day. She ends up at the local muggle library, on a computer and searching for the phrases as best she can with no knowledge of Ancient Sumeria.
She gets one translation: Land of No Return.