Despicable Souls

Chapter 1

"Penelope! Table 6!"

A woman bustled into the kitchen holding an empty coffee pot, an annoyed expression on her face. She wore black skinny jeans and a white T-shirt that read "Pete's Diner". Her frizzy brown hair was tied up into a bun, and her brown eyes were narrowed at the cook behind the line. 

What her Muggle co-workers didn't know was Penelope Clearwater was not this young woman's real name. This was Hermione Granger and she was far more dangerous than they could ever know.

"Penelo - " began the bellowing of the cook.

"I'm right here," Hermione huffed, her temper more at the surface due to an uneasiness that'd been filling her heart since she awoke this morning in her car.

She'd nearly decided to call in but she was close to being able to put a deposit down on a flat.. an apartment... that she couldn't go through with it.

However as a few minutes passed of serving customers, she noticed a few were behaving oddly.

A couple to her left were staring whenever her back was turned and another to her right were eerily cheerful after asking for only a cup of tea.

The customers had also suddenly stopped coming in which was abnormal for a Sunday morning.

Somethimg's wrong.

She hadn't survived being on the run for this long without listening to her gut instinct.

Hermione calmly made her way through the kitchen to a back door where her car was parked nearby.

She could drive further south... stay low for a few days...

However when she opened the door, a dozen wands were aimed at her face from all sides.

And at the front, was someone painfully familiar.

"Harry..." she whispered, looking into haunting and heartbroken green eyes.

There was a flash of light and all that was left was darkness.

***

Hermione awoke in a cement room, magically chained to a chair and metal table. There were no doors or windows but she had a feeling she was somewhere in the lower levels of the Ministry back in London. An international portkey could have brought her here in minutes.

The nausea was unpleasant and her lips were cracked from being so dry. They could have at least left her a glass of water.

Hermione didn't have to wait long for Kingsley Shacklebolt to appear out of a wall in familiar magenta robes and a singular gold hoop pierced in his left ear.

He calmly sat across from her, carefully folding his fingers together, and stared.

Several minutes passed but she stayed quiet, only raising an eyebrow in mock inquiry.

If he thought she'd be breaking first, they would be here for days.

Merlin, she was starving...

"Hermione," finally said Kingsley quietly, his low voice heavy with disappointment. "I wish we were seeing each other under better circumstances."

She stayed impassive.

"Seven years..." he continued, his head tilting slightly. "I can't seem to fathom why you would run from the Ministry after the defeat of Voldemort and being given a future."

Absentmindedly, she checked her occulmency walls as he blathered on about her twisted sense of priorities in a post-war era as the token muggleborn.

Gods when had she last ate? She'd been close to taking her fifteen minute break at the diner where she'd hoped to stuff her face with eggs and toast...