MO

Rosalie Granger had spent most of her life being underestimated in the exact opposite way Hermione was. Hermione was loud brilliance, impossible to ignore, while Rosalie learned early how to survive by becoming quieter, colder, more observant. By sixth year, she had developed a reputation at Hogwarts for being difficult to read and even harder to intimidate, which was precisely why the Ministry approached her after a string of attacks against old wizarding families connected to both sides of the war. Someone was targeting students at Hogwarts, selectively, carefully, and leaving behind almost no evidence except whispers about recruitment into something darker than the Death Eaters themselves. The Ministry needed someone intelligent enough to blend into both crowds — the righteous and the corrupt — and Rosalie, despite being Hermione’s sister, had enough pureblood ancestry through her mother’s side to move unnoticed in certain circles. Her assignment was simple in theory: monitor Draco Malfoy, determine whether he was acting under Voldemort’s orders inside the castle, and report any sign of planned attacks. What Rosalie didn’t know was that Draco had been given his own orders weeks earlier by Lucius Malfoy, who suspected the Grangers were becoming politically dangerous because of Hermione’s closeness to Harry Potter and Rosalie’s increasing influence among students. Draco was told to watch her, learn her habits, discover who she trusted, and if necessary manipulate her before another family could use her against them. What begins as mutual surveillance turns into something far more invasive and dangerous. Rosalie starts noticing things she cannot explain: books she mentions casually appearing on her desk before she checks them out, shadows outside her dormitory after curfew, someone intercepting owls addressed to her, footsteps stopping whenever she turns corners too quickly. Draco always seems to appear moments before something goes wrong, dragging her away from corridors before curses are cast or forcing her into empty classrooms seconds before masked figures pass by. She becomes convinced he is involved in the attacks until she realizes he is not stalking her to hurt her — he is stalking her because someone else is too. As pureblood politics inside Hogwarts grow increasingly violent, with students quietly aligning themselves with future Death Eater factions and old families treating the castle like a breeding ground for wartime alliances, Rosalie finds herself trapped between two impossible truths: Draco Malfoy may genuinely be dangerous, and he may also be the only reason she is still alive.