"Yaxley, you know. The Carrows were next. They were negotiating with a new Lot seller on the night of the attack, but they were expected to be at Edinburgh, so the Dark Lord was suspicious. He had them interrogated and tortured. Your aunt cleared them just yesterday." Theo sipped from his glass. "I know they used Legilimency on every Carrow Girl, but couldn't find a leak."

Hermione drew a sharp breath, her chest loosening in relief. There was still no suspicion of Charlotte or the other girls. But as Theo finished his Firewhisky and chatted with Draco, she couldn't help but think that there was a True Order member somewhere waiting on crucial information that only Charlotte's memories held.

~*~

Hermione threw herself into researching the tattoo potion while they waited to hear back from Theo. She and Draco holed up in his room and argued over interpretations of Nott Sr.'s scribbled handwriting until their dinner had gone cold.

Earlier in the week, Narcissa had informed her that Lucius had forbidden Mippy from retrieving the Ghost. So Hermione spent the mornings poring over the Prophet, trying to piece together what Skeeter wasn't saying instead of what she was. Viktor remained Undesirable No. 1 as the days went on, and when there was no response from Katya by the following week, Hermione felt her suspicions confirmed that she'd been working for the Order.

Ten days after the attack on Edinburgh, the Prophet reported the public execution of Nott Sr. His crimes included "a failure to carry out orders."

Hermione stared down at the moving picture of Ted Nott being dragged up on a platform, his eyes wide with terror as Voldemort stepped forward.

Behind Voldemort stood the Swiss colleague that Nott Sr. had been working with, who now would take over all his duties for protective wards, the U.K.'s Anti-Apparition line, and offense against the French and True Order: Albrecht Berge.

Theo was there, ashen and wild-eyed. Skeeter reported that Theo would go with Berge to the French border and apprentice under him. Berge stood beside Theo as the Dark Lord swiftly killed his predecessor, his hand on his shoulder.

Draco paled when she told him the news, and Hermione slipped from the room, leaving him with his thoughts. They couldn't depend on Theo's help anymore. Not when his father was dead and he was trying to stay alive.

She wandered through the east wing, thinking. If she and Draco couldn't view Charlotte's memories, locate a contact, and turn them over to the Order somehow, then their only other option was to find a way to return them. They'd discussed the possibility once, but trying to find an intermediary in the Order had seemed less risky than Draco walking back into Edinburgh and attempting to give Charlotte her memories back. But now they had no other choice.

When she returned to Draco's room a few hours later, he brought up the option before she did. They paused their research on the tattoo potion that day, looking instead into restoring extracted memories.