Saturday morning was a busy one in the Granger household. Hermione woke up early to disinfect the apartment (which had begun to resemble a hoarder's garage sale, thanks to Mom's helpful efforts), responded to Gryffindor requests that weren't spam, and pounded out an English thesis essay all within three hours. Crookshanks hissed and glowered at her until she fed him a second serving of breakfast. Mom slept peacefully in the living room, so Hermione left her a plate of cold toast in the microwave.

For the first time in what felt like forever, home was quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of Crooks nosing through his tuna. The landlord Mrs. Crumple-Horn and her obnoxious grandkids weren't even home upstairs. Cross-legged on the kitchen floor, Hermione sat beside Crooks and petted the soft fur around his thick chubby neck, until his satisfied purrs vibrated through her fingers like a soft massage.

Hermione was about to leave for Hogsmeade Square when she suddenly had an epiphany and dashed back to her bedroom. She dug her Taser out of her closet, fully charged and rippling with over a hundred thousand volts of electricity. She zipped it inside her messenger bag, hiding the Taser under her laptop. Looking up, she found Crooks staring at her from the doorway, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Mind your business," she muttered grumpily. He sneezed in reply.

An hour later, Hermione was walking up and down the narrow streets of upper Manhattan, only stopping once she found a chain of posh hat stores and ladylike tea cafés. A street sign reading Hogsmeade Ave leaped out at her on the beginning of the block, surprising her. The innocent line of shops was only a strip, certainly nothing she'd expected a notorious mobster to be running – she had anticipated porn video stores with blacked out windows, or cheap clothing shops where strangers in suspiciously bulky leather jackets bumped into customers and offered 2$ movies that hadn't been released onto DVD yet.

Despite Hogsmeade's unseemly appearance, however, Hermione didn't doubt there were traces of Cygnus Black lingering throughout the shopping district. Perhaps he only made a small profit from Hogsmeade, an iota compared to the net worth of his entire illicit enterprise, but the district still had to serve some sort of higher purpose.

The stores must be a front. He probably uses them to explain all the money he makes to the bank, Hermione thought, staring pensively at the quaint storefronts as tourists weaved around her. After all, the Noble Blacks have to avoid investigation somehow…

It was a quarter past twelve, but she didn't see Harry anywhere – and there weren't too many places to look for him on the tiny street. She was contemplating the likeliness that he overslept and forgot to meet her completely, when suddenly a pink-haired girl at an information stand on the side of the road cried out, "HEY! Are you interested in energy efficiency and a better planet? It will only take two minutes of your time to learn how to conserve energy, I swear!"

"No thanks-" Hermione started to say automatically, for gimmicks like this girl's were common in Manhattan, seemingly innocent schemes used to trick people out of their money and into listening to hour-long pitches. But she stopped short when she realized the girl wasn't a random vendor, but Luna Lovegood from school.

Hermione knew of Luna only by reputation, and from seeing her around campus or at lunch in the Great Hall. Luna was known best at Hogwarts for the time she got so drunk at a victory party that she strip teased for the entire soccer team and ended her saucy routine by tripping over her bra and throwing up ten shots of scotch on the school mascot. The event occurred long before Hermione had even heard of Hogwarts, and she only knew about it from overheard gossip in the girl's locker room after gym class. Apparently, Luna hadn't been to any more Hogwarts parties since – whether because she wasn't invited or deigned not to go, Hermione didn't know.

Luna saw Hermione's indecisiveness and pounced, snatching up a pamphlet declaring Zombies? Terrorists? You Haven't Seen Apocalypse Yet and a handful of color-changing pencils with similar environmental gimmicks on them, all of which she waved at Hermione enthusiastically as she jogged through the throng of people on the sidewalk to her. Her shredded tank top, Hermione saw, had a picture of an anime cow dolefully mooing Eat Kale, Not Me, and there were rubber cancer-activist bracelets and silver bangles lacing her arms like colorful sleeves. She grinned at Hermione in relief.

"Hey Hermione," Luna said, slowing down her jog until she was standing before her. Hermione was surprised she knew her name. She didn't talk to anyone at Hogwarts, except for teachers and Harry. And her lab partner in AP Chem, when the occasion required it. "Thanks so much for stopping. Nobody cares about this planet anymore, it's like they think I'm making global warming up or something," she ranted, flicking back her chopped platinum blonde hair with a huff. She used to wear a blue umbra, but now the umbra was gone and a big chunk of her spiky locks was neon pink, artistically braided into a graceful crown around her head with clips and tiny fake flowers looped in to secure it. Hermione was perplexed by the entire fiasco but also a little envious. Even if she was brave enough to wear her hair like that, the look would never agree with her. Inevitably, she found herself thinking back to Riddle when he compared her to a Troll Doll, and touched her own frizzy hair self-consciously.

"Alright, get this," Luna began, flipping open to a picture of an enormous tree in the rainforest burning at the stake, and ignoring the irritated looks of passerbys forced to walk around the girls standing in the middle of the sidewalk. "Deforestation is so much more damaging than we think it is," she said. "When trees go down more carbon dioxide goes into the air, because trees are big absorbers of CO2, and without them extra CO2 gets sucked into the atmosphere and increases the air temperature. What does that mean in the long run?" Flip to another page. "Global warming. A few effects of global warming are rising sea levels, longer winters, freak weather- and one day, Niagara Falls resembling the Dust Bowl." Luna licked her fingertip and expertly opened to a concept image of the future famous waterfall, looking very similar to the Grand Canyon. She looked up at Hermione for a response.

"Ahhh," she said, nodding attentively. Luna seemed pleased.

"Have you realized that it only snowed about three times in New York in 2012," she continued at length, "and the year after that, we had four months of winter? Such a jump is highly abnormal, and completely outside of the normal laws of nature." She paused suspensefully, letting Hermione squint at the snapshot of an estranged polar bear paddling through the Atlantic. Despite herself, she felt her heart wilt. And this is why I avoid animal rescue commercials, she thought grimly.

"Luckily, we still have time to avoid this," Luna said with determined enthusiasm. The pages blurred as she whipped through more of the pamphlet at lightning-speed. "If we invest in research for new conservation technologies, start planting trees where we've torn them down, tap down on our water use, and peacefully yet determinedly protest against the dangerous construction projects of multibillion dollar organizations like McDonalds," she rambled, "who want to clear tropical rainforests in Africa so they can raise cattle for cheap (which would be killing thousands and thousands of rare animal species!), then we have a chance at saving our future." She stopped for air, quickly gasping before she added, "Did you know not all of our recyclables even get recycled? Between 20 and 40 percent of what we think we're sending to single stream recycling facilities just ends up back in landfills - or worse, the ocean, where entire islands made out of trash actually form and pollute the water and alter thousands of fragile ecosystems. Look-" She pointed at a picture of a huge, gray-looking mass in the Caribbean. "-they're huge!"

"That's terrible," Hermione agreed, distressed but wary of more spieling (she had a feeling Luna could go on about the evils of McDonalds and recycling fraud forever). Luna nodded furiously, ecstatic to have a fellow green advocate.

"Here, take these," she commanded, handing her an armful of pamphlets about animal poaching and other dour but demanding subjects. Hermione tried to stuff them all into her messenger bag, and when she ran out of room, Luna scurried back to her stand to root around for a reusable bag, gesturing at Hermione impatiently to follow her when she glanced back and saw her standing in place uncertainly. Hermione went after her, dodging strangers and trying to balance her precarious stack of freebies all at once.

Once she arrived at Luna's stand, Luna was already knee-deep in the cardboard boxes of pamphlets and other supplies behind her kiosk, pawing through them with vigor. Hermione scanned the impeccable displays on energy efficiency and water conservation with interest. It wasn't until Luna shouted "Neville, where are the freaking bags?" that she realized someone else was there.

Neville Longbottom sat slouched in one of two bright Kool-Aid red fold-up chairs, his feet propped up on a tiny tower of pamphlet boxes, head ducked, and a Nintendo DS in his hands. His face bent close to the game screen, spattered by a dusting of freckles and acne eclipsed only by a slightly too large nose. As Hermione took him in, he flinched – except the flinch was less a flinch and more a spasmodic hair flip, resulting in the shift of the long, dusty brown hair that had been blocking his eyes a moment ago, and was already threatening to do so again, as it slid slowly downward over his forehead.

"Neville," Luna repeated, sounding grated. "Hellloooo!"

"Waitwait. One second," Neville griped, grimacing as he surpassed Bowser on Mario Kart. Luna threw him a dark look and flipped back her striped scarf, crawling under the display table, and swearing elegantly as she shoved heavy supplies to and fro.

"Do you need any help?" Hermione asked hesitantly, coming closer. Luna's arm flailed at her vehemently and she stepped back, eyebrows raised. She rolled back and forth on the balls of her feet as she waited for her to finish, glancing around the block to see if Harry was here yet. He wasn't.

"Here it is." Hair tousled enough to show more electric pink than white, Luna stood up and gave Hermione a crumpled vinyl bag covered in pictures of cartoon vegetables, helping her cram her spoils into it. When it was full enough to threaten explosion, Luna stepped back and glanced over Hermione, as if just having a revelation.

"I'm here every weekend," she said, cocking her head, "but I've never seen you around here before. What brings you?"

"Window shopping," Hermione replied, after a pause in which she decided whether or not lying to Luna was worth the karma. She added, "But I'm waiting for someone. They're not here yet. Clearly." She scanned the length of Hogsmeade Avenue again, searchingly.

"Why don't you just text them?" Luna asked, twiddling with her own iPhone absently. It was long and whisper-thin and expensive-looking. Hermione braced herself for the worsened karma of yet another white lie.

"My phone's broken…" she started, as if chagrined. At Luna's surprised glance, she explained, "I dropped it and I haven't had the time to get it fixed yet. I've been, er, busy with school."

"Oh." After a pause, Luna inquired, "Is it Harry?" She seemed to be on a first name basis with everyone at Hogwarts, despite all the garbage the students said about her behind her back.

Hermione blinked. "Yeah," she said, unsure whether she was more impressed or disconcerted Luna had guessed at her agenda correctly. Perhaps it was an equal combination of both. "How'd you know?"

"You two talk during FACS all the time, I sit behind you," she replied, shrugging as she perfected a fan of animal rescue flyers on her table. Hermione tilted her head, not having realized this previously. "Besides, Ginny is in my Bio class, and all she does the whole period is talk about you and him. It's impossible not to overhear, she practically broadcasts her hatred for you," she elaborated on seeing Hermione's frown, which deepened. "She's like the female version of Rosalie Cullen, but with freckles and bimbo minions," she went on.

Luna stepped back to examine her stand, tweaked a fluorescent-orange pencil, and nodded to herself in approval. She plopped down in the fold-up chair beside Neville and produced a Coke from a cooler at her feet, offering a chilled can to Hermione, who in her bewilderment accepted. Neville dragged his eyes away from his DS long enough to glance up at her, but he blushed and quickly looked down again when she said hi.

Awkward, Hermione slurped her soda.

"I can – um – help you look for Harry, if you want, Hermione," Luna offered, nonchalantly brushing ice crystals off of her turquoise skinny jeans. "There's not much business here today, and Neville can man the stand while I'm gone. Right, Nev?" Neville nodded, although he seemed a nudge too video-game-inclined to man anything more tangible than Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Uh, sure," said Hermione. "Thanks." Luna waved her off, grabbing a handful of pamphlets to pass out before they left.

"Sorry about him," Luna said in a low meaningful voice, glancing back at Neville emphatically once they'd walked out of his earshot. Hermione followed her gaze, and Luna slapped her arm, making her yelp. "Don't look! Haven't you ever heard of stealth?" she hissed. Huffing – and ignoring Hermione's black glare – she continued, "Anyway. He's sort of shy when it comes to strangers – or well, everyone. Except me, I guess." She tucked her thumbs into the waistband of her jeans, smiling apologetically at Hermione both for the slap and her friend's lacking social grace.

"It's alright." Although, Hermione was slightly puzzled as to why someone as outgoing and bubbly (and strong-handed) as Luna was best friends with Neville, who seemed so obscure by comparison. Opposites attract? she thought, glancing out of the corner of her eye at a cheerfully humming Luna curiously. She contemplated what circumstances must have set the stage of Neville and Luna's first meeting.

They ducked into a fancy waffle shop for scouting first, at Luna's suggestion, but quickly left after asking the statuesque hostess if she'd seen a tall gawky boy with glasses and black hair, and receiving a rude response in the firm negative. A fudge shop and lingerie store Luna wanted to go inside (her reasoning went along the sly lines of "Maybe Harry shops here for Ginny, hm? That'd be raunchy" and Hermione's prompt almost re-visitation of her breakfast) followed in the same fashion.

Walking back outside, Hermione started to unwrap a very sticky peppermint she had found lurking in her pocket, but the candy went flying out of her hand when Luna unceremoniously elbowed her in the rib and hissed "Look!"

"Argh, you made me drop my peppermint!" Hermione raged, stooping down to pick the now-black candy up and stare at it mournfully. "I really wanted to eat that-"

"Gryff!" a voice called. Hermione looked up, surprised, and found Harry coming to a breathless stop before them, his chest heaving and sweaty dark hair pointing in every direction. Luna stared at his chaotic hair with intrigue. "Sorry I'm late," he panted, planting his hands on his hips and gasping. "Practice ended late, I came as fast as I could."

"Did you run here?" she asked, shocked and suppressing the mean urge to laugh as Harry grimaced from a cramp.

"Only the eight blocks from Washington Heights," he said, glaring when she buried a snicker in her palm. Luna cleared her throat pointedly, drawing Harry's politely surprised attention, and Hermione recomposed herself enough to make introductions. "Harry, this is Luna. We, um, ran into each other while I was waiting for you," she said, gesturing at all of Luna, which was admittedly quite a lot to take in. From a distressed cow-themed tank top to her metallic blue skinny jeans, homemade sewn scarves, flaring pink-white hair, and the band-slash-cancer-awareness bracelets streaming up her arms like tattoos, Luna was undeniably a vision to be reckoned with.

"Hey." Harry lifted his hand and Luna waved back at him with a cheeky smile. Hermione felt inclined to add, "She helped me look for you."

"Ah." Harry raked back his hair, plastered to his forehead from sweat, and Luna subtly edged back to avoid being splashed. Hermione's neck turned light red, but Harry didn't seem to realize or care about his grossness. "Are you ready to get started?" he asked her.

"Started?" Luna echoed, glancing back and forth between them with a wrinkled penciled brow. "On window shopping?"

A beat of uncertain silence ensued, in which Hermione and Harry debated without words what of their precious mystery was safe to share with an outsider, and Luna stared at the both of them suspiciously. Finally Harry's mouth opened, producing an ingenious sound somewhere between "Umfum" and "Ergrawga."

Well, he was a huge help.

"Sort of. It's a project. On consumerism," Hermione said, coming to the rescue, and subtly squashing her foot on Harry's instep. To his credit, Harry didn't make a sound, although his green eyes watered and he glared daggers at the top of her head. "We're doing some research."

"A consumerism project for school?" Luna interjected, looking doubtful as to what class at Hogwarts could possibly call for research on the complexities of window shopping and the American economy. The eye conversations she'd witnessed between Harry and Hermione a second earlier had convinced her of a higher scheme also, although she didn't know of what design or purpose that scheme was.

"No, it's more of an…independent study," Harry said slowly, which was half true. An independent study of a highly-dangerous mob called the Noble Blacks and their maker, Cygnus Black, who more likely than not planned the brutal murders of our family members, Hermione thought in correction. Luna's etched brow did not disappear.

"Well, we'll see you at school," Harry said abruptly, glancing at Hermione, who shot him a disapproving glare and set her hands on her hips in physical protest of the casual dismissal of Luna. "Because we've got to…er, go collect research…" he hedged.

Luna still looked disbelieving – and a little disappointed – but she nodded, accepting the dismissal and reminding Hermione to text her once her phone was fixed, in case she wanted to learn any more about her campaign before she left. Luna walked back to her stand, the asymmetrical strands of her hair lacing through her small blue gages in the breeze.

"She's weird," Harry said immediately after she'd left, rubbing his sore instep and eying Luna's colorful, shrinking form with a frown. Hermione rolled her eyes at his close-mindedness.

"She is not weird, she's just–" She thought for a split-second. "-eccentric."

"So she's a lesbian?"

"Oh my God, just… Zip it. Hush." Harry laughed, not hushing, and Hermione perched on the green velvet window seat against the storefront of the pretentious waffle shop, pressing her palms together over her chest in the universal position of Buddha. Mid-thinking pose, she said, "There's nothing here, Harry. It's just a normal tourist shopping strip. I think the only crime here is overpriced souvenirs."

Harry glanced over the quaint strip and sighed. "Then it's a cover-up," he said, but he looked as unconvinced as she felt.

"Probably, but still – nothing here is going to help us learn anymore about the Noble Blacks."

"What about the employees?" Harry suggested. "They might know something."

"Slim chance." She made a face, remembering the hostess from the waffle shop. "I doubt they'd entertain our questions anyway." Frustrated, she continued, "I don't even know what it is we're looking for." She flopped a hand toward the sign shaped like an enormous waffle iron above them. "How is the Puddlefoot's Waffles Express supposed to help us find evidence?"

"Well, we could improve our brain power over brunch," Harry offered, although his thick eyebrows slowly drew together into a black line as he read the menu taped to the store window and did the math of a pancake in Manhattan.

Hermione scanned the block, her eyes gravitating back to Luna's information stand pensively. Luna appeared to be bossing around Neville, having confiscated his video game, and Neville nodded and waggled his head at every one of her commands loyally. He reminded Hermione of an obedient Eeyore. Absent-minded and generally blue, but still able to make you want to hug him every time his house of sticks tumbled down.

She rubbed her gloved hands together for warmth, musing out loud, "Do you think Luna knows anything about New York crime families?"

"Luna," Harry echoed, like the nametranslated into moon sand or pig blood pancakes. He followed Hermione's gaze when she continued to look serious, his mouth curving. "Why would she know about crime families?"

Hermione's voice continued to be light, but there was a glint that was decidedly calculating in her astute eyes. "Because her father owns the Daily Gazette," she answered.

Harry blinked. "Ah."

"Come on," she said, hopping down off the velvet bench, and dragging him by the olecranal when he resisted movement. "Time for some sleuthing."

He groaned. "Why can't we just eat overpriced waffles?"

"The supplier in Monaco agreed on a down payment," Malfoy said after finishing a lengthy explanation of how several of their members had a vicious run-in with the local rival gang, the Three Brothers. There had been casualties on both sides, and letters to the men's families would have to be written with very vague explanations on the vandalized state of the bodies. Malfoy slid a note with the negotiated price for the Monaco supplier through the slot in the window. Voldemort looked down and crossed out one zero, flicking it back.

Malfoy rubbed his chin, nodding as he glanced at the figures and put the note away. "Well, that's all for updates today. I'll see you tomorrow morning, boss-" he began, but was cut off when Voldemort waved him back down into his seat. He seemed surprised, but didn't protest as he settled back in.

"Kate mentioned some suspicions she has for the rat," he started, watching Malfoy closely as he spoke. Other than a derogatory curl of his lip at the mention of Kate Black, however, Malfoy's expression didn't change – and a bigot's sexism wasn't enough reason for suspicion yet. Voldemort pressed on.

"Talk to her and see what she has to say," he continued. "The situation of informants is getting seriously out of control. Dig around more, search harder, start questioning the lower ranks, they'll be easier to break than our older members. Do everything you can to salvage the damage before I have to step in. Understood?"

Eyes hard with revenge, Malfoy nodded. He seemed to want the rat biting through the electrical wiring of the Noble Blacks hanging from a noose almost as fiercely as he did.

Interesting, Voldemort thought. Given that...

"Malfoy, have you by chance heard of any…" He paused and Malfoy sat forward, pale blonde eyebrows creasing inquiringly. "…any female members in local families?" he finished, after a beat.

Malfoy blinked. Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed uproariously. Voldemort waited, stone-faced, for Malfoy to realize he was laughing alone. "You…you're serious?" the capo finally asked, breathless and pink-faced. "But you know there aren't any women allowed in the ranks, boss, it's- it's just not the way."

"Lestrange is a woman – and everyone's terrified of her," he murmured, peeling away a chip in his thumbnail.

"Lestrange isn't a woman," Malfoy said seriously. "She's a monster."

That was true. And what was truer was the fact women were never initiated into families, this precedent dated as far back as the Mafia's first origins in Sicily, Italy. Mob women were either girlfriends, wives, or prostitutes, and for all of these women there were two unbreakable rules.

1) No one ever touched another mafioso's girl.

2) No one ever touched another mafioso's girl.

If a man happened to be the poor soul who broke these rules, his precious bits were castrated – or he was tortured in some other unspeakably horrific fashion. Or both.

"Why do you ask?" Malfoy said skeptically, breaking Voldemort out of his thoughts.

"Why do you think you can question my motives?" he snapped in reply, and Malfoy checked himself, flushing. On second thought, Voldemort added, "Scabior still takes care of the investigations, doesn't he?" Malfoy nodded. "Tell him to look into the records of a girl named Hermione Granger. I want a full background check on her by next week, complete with copies of all her public files and a list of her closest friends."

"Done," Malfoy said, making a note in his phone, and eager to rectify his earlier slip. Although the capo was many things – most of them not commendable – at least he was smart enough to know when to wise up or dumb down. That was how one survived in the underground world: by keeping his head down. "Do you want Scabior to track the chick? We can get photos and a rough idea of her schedule, once we find out where she lives-"

"No," he said sharply. "Don't lead her to believe anything out of the normal is going on. This girl is very…aware of her surroundings, and she can't have any reason for suspicion." Except very aware of her surroundings was an extreme understatement. He had seen for himself the razor sharp way Granger examined every room she stepped foot in, the throbbing energy in her eyes, crackling like naked wires. He still had no idea how she'd known he was spying on her and Dumbledore last week. No one else had been present in the hallway except for the three of them, the only way she could possibly have known he was there was either by watching the security camera footage after – which he was certain she didn't have access to – or by seeing him hiding in the hall herself. Granger's vigilance was piercing enough to rival a sword.

This was precisely why he didn't like her. Or at least, one of the reasons. Her unkempt hair and attitude were also extremely grating.

"Is that all?" Malfoy ventured, and the sound of his voice was such a shock Voldemort started, having forgotten he was there at all.

"Yes." Scowling, he said, "And for God's sake, don't call me more than once a day. You don't need my A-OK on what you buy at the God damn grocery store." Red-faced, Malfoy relayed his understanding and left, while Voldemort sat there in the visiting room, staring into the middle distance until a guard asked him whether or not he was ready to leave.

"I need to make a phone call," he replied, moving to his feet. Events were finally moving forward in the right direction, and it was high time he followed up on his missing shipment from Taiwan, since Malfoy had decided against turning himself in.

On second thought, he would need to make two phone calls. After all, the family was about to be one more capo short.

As it so happened, Luna Lovegood did know infinitely more about the delicacies of organized crime in New York than Harry or Hermione did. When Hermione and Harry went back to her stand asking after mob families, she effortlessly launched into an expose on La Costra Nostra, the Italian Mafia; the five families, and how several Mafia gangs still existed throughout the country, despite having been supposedly "wiped out" by the FBI decades earlier. Hermione absorbed every word Luna said like a sponge, and eventually Harry stopped staring at her penciled eyebrows and started to look impressed, too – despite Luna's tendency to frequently break off into irrelevant, hot-topic tangents.

"It's funny, because most people think the mafia is a thing of the past, or only exists in the Godfather movies – which are amazing by the way, if you haven't seen them," Luna was babbling an hour later, as all four of them sat smooshed inside a booth in a gelato shop on 7th Avenue (Neville had been brought too, at the insistence of Luna, and much to Harry's disgruntlement). From across the table where he sat next to a Mario Kart-absorbed Neville, Harry shot Hermione a smug look she responded to by pettishly sticking out her tongue.

"But actually," Luna told them, scooping up a mouthful of guava sorbet. "The families are still very prominent, just not to the degree they were before. Even the Genovese family still lives," she said with fiendish delight, as if recounting a chilling ghost story. She sighed, nudging around chunks of broken waffle cone with her spoon. The sounds of colliding cars and squealing tire wheels emitted from Neville's Nintendo. "So many families collapsed in the first place, because of traitors and new technology in the FBI – oh, and the Witness Protection Program was a real killer."

"How do you know so much about all of this?" Hermione asked, impressed, and Luna licked a drop of caramel syrup off her nail with a gloating smirk. Underneath the curtain of his fallen bangs, Neville rolled his eyes. "I know your dad runs the news and all, but…"

"I actually got into the subject by accident," Luna admitted, glancing down and picking at an overtly distressed rip of her jeans. The broken eye contact immediately made Hermione suspicious – she wondered why Luna would lie about such a seemingly simple question. "Sometimes dad lets me proofread the editorials, he likes to say he's grooming me for the business world. Anyway, one day a couple years ago I read over the first publication of the Crouch trial – you've heard of it, right? With Governor Crouch's son Barty Jr.? – well I started following the case, and stuck with it all the way until the end just to see what came of it. When the final court proceedings were finally released, and Barty Jr. was declared guilty for stealing thirty million dollars from taxpayers and giving every penny to some underworld gang, my dad wanted the Gazette to be the first paper with the inside scoop."

She sighed. "But the article couldn't be published until he edited out a few people who were named during Barty Jr.'s trial, who Barty Jr. had been accused of working with."

"Isn't that a violation of the 1st Amendment?" Harry said doubtfully. Luna shrugged.

"Why did he have to delete the names?" Hermione asked.

"Because the people named were part of whatever crime family Barty Jr. was in league with, and they didn't want any media attention," said Luna. Hermione and Harry's ears pricked at that. She lowered her voice conspiratorially, their table was dead silent except for the sound effects of Neville's video game and Harry's chewing. "Apparently, if the original article did hit the public, then it would be an endangerment to Barty Jr.'s well-being."

Harry frowned. "What?"

Luna opened her mouth to explain, but Hermione interjected before she could. "She means naming the crime family members would make Barty Jr. a traitor," she said, realizing as she spoke that all of Luna's story seemed very familiar to her somehow, as if she'd heard bits and pieces of it somewhere before. She met Luna's clear blue gaze. "And traitors to the mafia aren't treated well. They're-"

"-murdered," Harry finished, wincing as if remembering a gruesome scene from his favorite movie, the Godfather.

Luna broke the weighted silence after a moment. "I've read the unedited version so many times I have it memorized. I'm still holding onto the hope the original editorial can go public one day," she said wistfully, twisting one of her rubber bracelets around her wrist unconsciously.

"What were the names?" Hermione questioned. This somehow felt like a very important piece of the story, as if the puzzle of the Noble Blacks would come together much more smoothly with Luna's answer. If the crime family Luna was speaking of was the Noble Blacks, that is. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, thinking the same thing, and Luna began to tick off the witnesses on her chipped silver fingernails.

"Antonin Dolohov, Brian Yaxley, Alex Carrow, Vincent Crabbe, Greg Goyle, and – get this – Draco's dad, Lucius Malfoy."

"Yeah right," Harry scoffed, while Hermione sat in astonished silence. "Isn't he a rocket scientist or something?"

Luna's lips curled triumphantly on the ends. She said, "Yes, that would be an excellent cover-up for someone who needed to be out of town all the time, wouldn't it? Especially for someone working in underground crime!"

Harry stared at Luna incredulously. "But it's Draco's dad," he repeated. "The guy is, like, fifty."

"More like sixty," Neville muttered. The sound of his voice was such a surprise to Harry that he stared at the boy for a minute, as if wondering whether his words had been a product of his imagination or actually spoken.

"She's right, Harry," Hermione said suddenly. He looked up at her in disbelief. Luna exclaimed Ha! "I'm not sure about Draco's dad's involvement," she continued quickly, "but almost every other name Luna said are inmates I've seen at Azkaban. They're in the group sessions with Riddle." She thought of her interrogation with Riddle yesterday, and when he'd denied that the inmates worked for him. She knew he was a liar!

"Riddle?" Luna echoed, frowning as she came down from her victory glow, and realized she was missing something Harry wasn't. "You lost me."

Hermione and Harry looked away from each other, and back at Luna almost guiltily. Her eyes narrowed. Hermione started to stand. "Thanks for the help, Luna," she said, nervously tucking an errant curl behind her ear. "You've cleared a lot of…things…up for us, and we really appreciate it, but Harry and I have got to get going. We'll see you at school on Monday," she promised.

Luna blinked. "Wait a second," she said quickly, scrambling out of the booth and intercepting them before they could leave. Harry and Hermione exchanged another enigmatic look. "I tell you all about mob families and the Crouch case, and you're not going to even tell me what you guys are doing? And don't tell me it's an 'independent project'," she said snappishly, making air quotes. Harry shut his mouth. Her smoky eyes turned into slits. "I'm not an idiot."

"Listen, Luna-" Harry started.

"You're right, you deserve to know what we're doing," said Hermione, surprising all of them. Neville paused his game to listen, Luna looked pleased, and Harry balked at her as she went on, "Why don't you come with us? We're heading to the library for research…and we can explain everything on the way there."

Luna grinned. "Great."

Streetlamps and car headlights illuminated the night when four Hogwarts kids finally left the New York Public Library and went their separate ways. After Hermione and Harry had relayed every detail of what they'd learned about the Noble Blacks so far to Neville and Luna (all the while, strategically avoiding the mention of Hermione's incriminating side job of hacking, or their parents' involvement), all four of them had exhausted the possibility that Barty Crouch Jr. and his accomplices were not only suspects of the Crouch Case, but actual initiated members of the Noble Blacks crime family.

In the end, all the pieces fit. They decided Dolohov, Crabbe, Goyle, Carrow, and Malfoy had been collectively working under Cygnus Black when they by chance came into contact with Barty Jr. at various times over the years, explaining their presence at Barty Jr.'s trial.

A Google search on Luna's iPhone brought up articles on Crabbe and Goyle, infamously known as the Terrible Twins, and arrested for systematically killing a total of thirty four people for money. I compared professional hit men to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Hermione had thought numbly upon this discovery.

Dolohov had been caught smuggling heroin into the U.S. from a small obscure country in Asia, an act he'd been at for decades, although he'd named no other suspects at his trial. Carrow and Malfoy were not listed in any articles.

From what information Hermione could volunteer based on what she'd seen at Azkaban (she'd explained to Luna and Neville, she volunteered there out of an interest in criminal justice. Her karma worsened), they also gathered that because the incarcerated Noble Blacks members answered to Riddle, he was probably Cygnus Black's second in-command. The inference was Luna's contribution, she said mob bosses typically picked a lieutenant or protégée close to them to be heir to the family, in case anything drastic ever happened to the boss. And in the mob, it wasn't uncommon for drastic uglies to happen to anyone. It was also probably that Cygnus Black would choose his adopted son to take the throne after his death, although why he'd chosen Riddle over his biological sons was a mystery Hermione privately puzzled over.

The secrets of the Noble Blacks were unraveling.

The fall air was cold and brisk as it brushed Hermione's skin, sweeping dead leaves and trash down the sidewalk until they jammed in cluttered street grates and the door thresholds of restaurants. She tucked her whipping hair under her hood to keep the curly strands out of her eyes, watching the surrounding crowd of strangers around her closely. She didn't see any sign of Baseball Cap yet, but that was no reason to take her hand off the Taser in her messenger bag. Better safe than sorry.

In fact. Better safe than dead.

By the time Hermione reached her neighborhood, the reassuring body of people bumping and fussing and striding around her had dissipated. All except for one.

Measuring her breaths, she envisioned a brownstone three blocks away, with elegant black railings rusted dull copper, and gone crooked where they were rooted to the cement ground, a ratty bicycle chained to the spindly railing. A dying potted plant stood outside of the basement apartment door next to the worn straw welcome mat, stretching thick green leaves toward the stairway for sunlight. A rose-pink cherry blossom tree outside the apartment was the only sign of beauty in Hermione's rundown neighborhood, not safe to be explored after dark thanks to neighborhood hoods and punks. On principle, she only carried weapons in dire times of need. Example one: when she was coming home after ten o' clock.

Example two: when rapists-slash-kidnappers started following her home.

Were his footsteps closer? Or was she imagining that? Hermione strained her eyes at the shadows on the sidewalk, but it was too dark to see anything that wasn't a building or ancient chewing gum stuck to the sidewalk unless she passed a streetlamp.

Why was he following her?

Suddenly, the truth hit her – it hit her so hard and fast she nearly stopped dead in her tracks, half-tripping over a sidewalk crack for a split-second.

He works for the Noble Blacks.

Baseball Cap had to, it made perfect sense. He'd started following her a little after her first visit to Azkaban Prison, after all, and Riddle had all but spelled out that he didn't trust her during their last run-in. Hadn't he threatened her? I could kill you, directly or indirectly, as I see fit. She could hear his polished silky voice sneering his insults at her in her brain, and the memory made her jaws grind. Why did Riddle think he was so much better than her? Than everyone? Why was he such a stupid freaking as-?

A phone went off, not too close, but not far away enough for her to miss the sound of the ringtone either. Baseball Cap swore and clicked it off, but it was too late – like a shot, Hermione took off running down the street. She glanced back, and Baseball Cap was right behind her – and very, very fast.

"Crap, crap, oh crap," she huffed between strained gasps. She lost her assailant for half a minute by rounding the curb the next block over, and she sprinted into an alley on instinct, although home was another block away. She just didn't think she could make it that far without being outrun.

Hermione had just enough time to dive behind a dumpster when Baseball Cap went racing past the alley she hid inside. In a crouch, she watched the vacant street from behind the grimy blue dumpster, inhaling air sour with garbage and the odor of spoiled things through her mouth while she waited. Her heart throbbed in her chest like it was going to thrust itself out, and her blood ran high and electric with adrenaline. Minutes passed and she would have ventured out, if not for the stiffness of her tensed muscles. In the dense silence, she barely heard the squeaks of running sneakers returning, slowly, tentatively. He was coming back.

He was coming back.

She huddled into the shadows. Paused. Changed her mind. Gritting her teeth and tossing in her messenger bag first, she propped one foot on the edge of the dumpster door next to her and gripped the grime-crusted opening with her hands (she would burn her mittens in a bonfire later, if she got out of this alive, she told herself), and quickly slipped inside. It smelled like decomposition and McDonalds killed fifty times over in the murky darkness of the trash. Nostrils burning, she yanked her coat over her mouth and sucked in a huge breath between her teeth, shoving down bile as she hugged her messenger bag to her chest and crawled between two damp garbage bags.

Baseball Cap stepped into the alley. Hermione sat very still.

"Anyone here?" he called, petering through the line-up of garbage bags and broken liquor bottles filling the alley. He switched on his cellphone light and shone it around him, but the light only lit a few feet of space at a time. He had walked back and forth through the alley twice before speaking again.

"Hey, I'm sorry for scaring you." In the wreaking dumpster, Hermione had just enough control over her gag reflex to snort to herself without puking. "But I need you to come out… I have to explain myself."

Explain what? she thought incredulously at him. How you're going to slice me like a tomato and stick me in your freezer for cannibalistic dessert later?

"Come on, come out. I won't hurt you or anything," Baseball Cap said, first wheedlingly, then again with impatience. His cellphone light swept by the dumpsters two times and held the second, Hermione stiffened, reaching achingly slow into her bag. She didn't even notice the smell now.

"Are you in there?" Baseball Cap sounded amused. The cellphone light got closer as he did. He rapped his fist on the dumpster loudly, Hermione's muscles were on fire from their rigidity. "Come on now. Get out," he commanded. "Jig's up." When nothing happened, he made an annoyed noise and got a hold of the edge of the dumpster, starting to hoist himself up.

Once he was at the top, he craned his neck and searched the sea of bags using what tiny bit of light was offered from the street lamp outside the alleyway, but didn't see much in the darkness except for pizza boxes and black trash bags. Struggling to lift his other arm without losing his grip, he lifted his cell, and the brilliant beam of light fell on a lump of fabric. Caught by surprise, he didn't react quickly enough to avoid it when the lump lifted to reveal a girl's face, twisted with animal ferocity a millisecond before her hand whipped up and plunged a Taser into his sternum with a zzzzap!

Baseball Cap went wide-eyed and white as a sheet. An agonized scream ripped out of his throat as he fell backward, flailing a moment before he landed – hard – with a loud, heavy thump on the concrete. Hermione stood up and peered over the dumpster, transfixed by the electrodes that wracked his spasming body, playing it like a demented violin. She pulled the strap of her messenger bag over her head and hopped out, carefully avoiding the man's pin-wheeling legs and arms, and pointed her Taser down at his face once she had his attention.

"Follow me again," she warned, voice low and rough and a little crazy. "And I'll tase you where the sun don't shine, you pervert." She added, "I'm not bluffing either."

He nodded, groaning.

Hermione kicked off a slice of week-old pizza stuck to the bottom of her foot, glanced over Baseball Cap's face one last time, and ran without looking back.

AN: As always, thanks for reading. For those of you who don't follow my tumblr and didn't see the announcement I posted a couple weeks ago, the fanfiction version of Hack It! is going to be discontinued at the end of part one (chapter 14) and I'm going to write the rest of the story as an original work. I'm sorry to anyone personally invested in the story, but if you'd like to tumblr me (my tumblr is on my pro-pro, as always) I'll be posting information gizmos to keep you all updated on the progress of my novel (writing, hopefully publishing eventually!). Thank you so much to all of you who have read, reviewed and supported me through this story, even though it's barely started. I've said it before, but you're all just totally bitching. (Of course that's a compliment GOSH YOU SENSITIVE HOOKERS.)

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Kisses!
ImmortalObsession