Absolutely Elsewhere Chapter 1, a harry potter fanfic

Title: Absolutely Elsewhere

Giftfor:savine_snape

Prompt: Unspeakable Snape must work with MLE employee Hermione Granger. What happens, who decides that they are the perfect pairing for the job, can they forget their shared past and forge a lasting partnership and/or relationship?

Summary: Over the course of a week, Severus Snape solves a small mystery.

Author'snotes: This was written for the 2011 SSHG exchange. This is my own interpretation of what the Department of Mysteries might be like, and any errors or inconsistencies with the canon are mine. (I haven't had the heart to pick up a Harry Potter book since reading DH for the first time, so all of my canon checks are courtesy of the Harry Potter wiki.) (Also, the use of Astoria Greengrass' name, though not her heritage, is intentional.)

To savine_snape, thank you for the prompt! I'm sorry that this ended up a little underdeveloped; I was simply so pressed for time that I couldn't make it into the FranchiseAffair (a la Josephine Tey) style novella/romantic comedy I wanted it to be.

/ \ / \ / \

CHAPTER ONE

It began—as these things often do—with a Floo call.

Every Friday evening since he had settled into his home at the end of the war, Severus Snape had made himself a small dinner of beef stew and store-bought bread, and had sat in the small dining room and read a book until he finished his meal. He had never before thought of himself as a creature of habit, but on this Friday evening, when he found himself suddenly bored with his book and with his food and with his house, it dawned on him that he had fallen into the dullness of routine.

It had been a peaceful life. After being tried for crimes of wartime and after being fully exonerated, he had been too relieved to think of anything but where he would live and where he could work. Things had reached a nadir when he had finally allowed Slughorn to pull some strings to get him a job at the Time division of the Department of mysteries.

The job was not, as one might assume, very thrilling, or even terribly mysterious.

The only thing that mattered, he told himself, was that it was quiet, secluded and far away from those other jobs he couldn't even contemplate having—such as the resumption of his teaching position at Hogwarts, or tinkering about in the Death Chamber, or, even worse, in the Love Chamber.

He clocked in at nine each morning and left at five minutes past five, flooed home, and either watched the telly or read himself to sleep. Occasionally he dreamt—dreamt of a woman with hair the color of fire and bewitching eyes—but there were potions for those kinds of things nowadays.

It was not a bad life. In fact sometimes, looking at himself in the mirror where the scars stood out against the cords and pale skin of his neck, he wondered if he had really been that same person, that same spy in perpetual motion, who balanced so precariously between his two roles that his personality had been consumed by them. These years of peace had allowed him the liberty of rediscovering himself—the things he liked, the things he wanted to do. Things, in the end, that he was still discovering.

And when part of him wondered, as it wondered now, how much longer he would decide if this was all there would be of his life, he folded that thought aside and thought of other things.

This evening the distraction came in the form of his supervisor's voice booming from the sitting room. When Severus reached the room, both dreading and anticipating this interruption of his dinner, the flames in the hearth had sprung fully into life, dancing around Colin Morse's face, sickly-green in the firelight.

"Snape, come quick. I need to talk to you."

/ \ / \ / \

A reluctant trip through the Floo later, Severus found himself in a familiar office in the Department of Mysteries. He thought longingly of his home and looked forward to crawling in to bed, but tried not to let his impatience show as Morse, standing behind the desk and looking distractedly at the papers on it, drew out the silence a little longer.

Severus supposed that anyone who had ever wondered about the life of an Unspeakable would probably be surprised at the thoroughly mundane, almost Muggle appearance of most of the offices. Colin Morse's office was full of books and clutter, and the yellow walls were barely visible behind the piles of books that he brought and hardly ever got the time to read. Severus was reading the titles behind his superior's head, keeping impatience at bay, when finally Morse mopped his forehead (gradually merging with the rest of his head, under the thinning hair) with a handkerchief and plopped into his chair.

"I need your help, I'm afraid. Or the MLE says that they need our help; frankly, I can't quite see what you or I can do about it," he added distractedly.

A snort. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning."

Morse was a man hardly ever perturbed, perhaps because, by its very nature, the Department of Mysteries was not often concerned with matters of overmastering urgency. Not for him the fast-paced affairs of the Auror Office or the vagaries of the Wizengamot, where tempers ran high and the media was a perpetual, undesired presence. He had been so long in the Ministry that he could remember back when owls, rather than flying memos, were used to send interdepartmental messages, and he had grown old and placid in the department. It was unusual to see him so agitated.

"I've just got a memo from the MLE. They say need one of my people from the Time division to get there as soon as. I confess I'm not sure I was right to interrupt your evening, but I got a second memo within five minutes, to much the same effect."

"Did the memos give a reason? We are not answerable to the MLE and they can't just haul Unspeakables from bed out of whimsy."

"It's hardly bedtime, Severus. There isn't any time to explain. I've already made you a Pass. Here, take it, and go up to level two or the Minister will have my head. Though Merlin knows what good you're going to be."

Severus felt his face twist into the old, familiar sneer at the unintended insult. "I doubt I can be of any assistance to those buffoons at the Auror office."

Morse, for the first time since Severus' entrance, looked up, and laughed suddenly at the annoyance on the other man's face; Severus found himself relaxing, and turned to go. Morse's voice, urging and friendly, followed him: "Get going, there's a good man, and come tell me about it when you're done. I'll be waiting here. Goodness knows there hasn't been any excitement in the department for a long time, and I could use a good story."

/ \ / \ / \

Severus, who had never used a Pass before, was intrigued about how it worked. He had been told, back when he had first taken the job, that the Pass enabled him to communicate with Ministry employees outside of his own department, temporarily deactivating the spell that constricted the Unspeakables' throats whenever they talked about their work. He had never believed that he would ever need the Pass, in no small part because he felt no desire to communicate with anybody at all. It was fascinating, now, to feel the spell loosen itself around his throat as he showed the pass to a harried-looking, spotty young man at the entrance of Level Two. The young man handed him a Portkey, and before he knew it he was in the familiar hallways of St Mungo's.

He allowed himself a moment to stare.

The scene was familiar: in the late evening the corridors were quiet, with some visitors and relatives slumped and sleeping in their chairs against the walls. If memory served him correctly, he was in one of the hallways of the ground floor, where Artefacts Accidents were treated. The Healers in their lime green robes hardly noticed his arrival. The place looked as it did when he had been discharged from the hospital and propelled into his new life.

The one detail out of place was Hermione Granger, former student, Auror, and recipient of the Order of Merlin (first class), looking at him impatiently from across the hallway. Her formal black robes matched her formidable expression.

"I was told to expect you five minutes ago, Professor Snape," she said by way of introduction. She seemed to say it without malice, though—only with the distraction of somebody whose business was calling them urgently elsewhere.

"Miss Granger," he said coldly. Her abruptness had surprised him. He had always been accustomed to kindness from her, for she had treated him with apologetic courtesy since discovering that she had unwittingly left him to die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. He found himself a little offended, and wondered why this should be so.

"Right. You'll want to see the crime scene," she said in the same distracted way.

Crime scene?

His previous sightings of her had afforded him little opportunity to know her further, but he took inventory of the changes in her now that she swept past him, brushing off his cold greeting and motioning for him to follow her.

She was still a tiny creature, a full foot shorter than him, but she moved about with that lack of self-consciousness that characterized the transition from adolescent to adult. He had seen it in other students he had taught. Hermione Granger was by far the most competent of them all, and he allowed himself a moment of uncharacteristic, almost avuncular pride at how he had trained her well, not simply in Potions but in handling an environment where praise was not given or spoken freely. The rigors of his Potions classroom had been a training ground for her Aurorship. He had not been a completely useless teacher.

Silently—and occasionally murmuring things into a small device he'd come to recognize as a cellular phone—she led him through the hallways and into a ward where the walls were painted yellow. One of the beds was surrounded by a throng of Aurors, some of them taking photographs of the scene and the others making notes obscurely. A hush fell over them all as Hermione Granger stepped into the room, accompanied by the infamous Snape. He had thought at first that the silence had been because of him, due to either reverence or disgust; at a second glance, he noticed, however, that rather than stare at him in either admiration or repugnance, most of them were looking at Hermione sideways, with expressions caught between calculating and concerned.

One of the Aurors stepped forward—Ravenclaw, class of '91, Severus thought distractedly. "Thank you for coming so promptly, Professor Snape," said the Auror. "I'm not sure if you remember me. Anthony Markham. I'm presently head of the Auror Office. I'm in charge of this investigation."

"I've received no briefing whatsoever," Severus heard himself say as he accepted the other man's handshake. He had no idea what he was doing there or why he, a theorist and analyst in one of the most boring divisions of the entire Ministry, should be called to assist in what appeared to be a high-profile investigation—since Markham was head of the entire Auror office himself, and would have no time to personally tend to trifling problems. "An investigation, you say?" Behind Markham, Hermione Granger was looking at Severus with that same urgent, expectant look.

Markham nodded. "Yes. At first we thought it was an accident, but then we realized we couldn't, ah, rule out the possibility of a homicide." Something made the man stumble clumsily over his words. He indicated the nearest bed, where there was no body—only the evidence of rumpled sheets, a thick, dark red potion spilled in drops and dollops all over the floor, and a strange, shiny white substance scattered near the head of the bed.

"And you'd like me to take a look?"

"Yes. Please."

"I fail to see how I can be any help," Snape said, even as he surveyed the scene at a distance. "I'm certain your staff is much more qualified. I study time, Markham, and not death."

"You study Potions," Hermione Granger cut in.

It was almost like Legilimency, the way Markham looked at her sideways and seemed to convey his exasperation and annoyance and at the same time to give a command. Auror Granger, obviously reluctantly, subsided and stepped back, avoiding the stares of her colleagues and fixing her gaze on the bed.

"We have a forensics team, sir, but there's a particular substance in this crime scene we haven't encountered before. At least, outside an hourglass, if you know what I mean."

And then it dawned on Severus: the white substance, which turned yellow and golden and then white again as he came ever more close, was the sand of a Time-Turner. There was no need for Markham to spell it out, and Severus held up a hand to silence the senior Auror when the latter looked poised to explain. Severus, aware of the aurors' eyes on him, crouched on the floor. He couldn't come too near lest it touch him, but he knew without a doubt that the substance was the same pearlescent stuff he had in front of him everyday, analyzing it and breaking it into components and properties.

Somebody had broken a Time Turner, and that somebody was possibly—most probably—a murderer.

/ \ / \ / \

The next morning found him slumped over his desk. It was still barely light outside; through the enchanted windows that showed him the city rather than the earth in which the Department of Mysteries was buried, Severus saw the streetlamps extinguished, star-like until they were put out by magic. He knew now what had woken him from his brief nap; someone had come through the door, and was now waiting for him to acknowledge their presence.

He thought that it was a rather bad show for a former spy. He had expected Colin Morse and had prepared a suitably wry, annoyed remark; on turning around, however, he was faced for the second time by the unexpected sight of Auror Granger. This time she was standing behind him and holding out a paper cup of something warm, something smelling deliciously like coffee. Her face was drawn and tired—much, he suspected, like his own—but, in contrast to the brisk manner of the previous evening, she smiled at him ruefully. Wondering at himself, he accepted the cup from her.

"Good morning," she said, looking almost embarrassed, although he didn't know why. "We've sent in the results you gave us. I wanted to thank you. I spoke to Professor Morse and he said he'd had to call you from home. I'm grateful that you came so promptly, considering."

Severus looked at her over the cup she'd handed him. Steam billowed, attractively and fragrantly, from the lip of the paper cup. Surely she didn't think he would drink it directly, without verifying its contents? But she did; she was still standing and looking at him expectantly, clutching in her hands a cup of her own. Actually, he admitted to himself, he really wanted to drink the coffee now, but felt no desire to let her see him so incautious.

"Is there a particular reason for this… token?" he said, indicating the cup.

A quick, embarrassed smile. "I—no. I mean, yes. To be quite honest with you, I did want so much to be in your good graces when you came in last evening. I still do want it. I'm certain we'll be needing more of your help—that I would be needing more of it. I think I got off on the wrong foot with you, however. I had hoped… that a cup of coffee might help ease the way?"

He was not above being startled at the transparency of her admission—that she had brought the coffee with an ulterior motive in mind. Grown-up, unselfconscious, self-possessed Hermione Granger.

"Is there any reason that you behave as though it were a personal favor to you, rather than a directive from the Auror Office and my own supervisor?"

The corners of her lips turned down before twisting again into a wry smile, a strange combination of apprehension and amusement.

"Would it be very forward of me to ask to explain it over breakfast? It has been a very trying night, and I think you might just be as hungry as I am."

/ \ / \ / \

It was surreal. He had no idea why he had agreed to it, because he was not the kind of man who went into cafés with former students—and Hermione Granger was only tolerable at best, really—and he did want to go home, back into the covers and the quiet of Spinner's End. And yet he found himself following her into a small, unsophisticated coffee shop half a block away from the Ministry. The sun had risen fully, and it was a new day.

She ordered for them—after asking his permission, at which he bristled but demurred because he was too tired to be argumentative. He had grown soft, he decided as they took their seats. He hadn't slept under eight hours since the end of the war, and where he once would have endured a sleepless night with equanimity, now he could barely keep his eyes open. Auror Granger appeared to notice this, because he became aware of another cup of coffee being pushed in his direction.

When they had both eaten a little, Severus was a little more ready to listen to her story.

"I was on my way home yesterday evening, when Perks—another auror, you might know her—stopped me outside the Ministry. She and Markham immediately brought me back to Level Two and told me that a woman had been murdered, and that I was a prime suspect."

Severus' surprise registered on his face. Auror Granger caught his expression and laughed—an abrupt sound, not entirely without humor. "Yes, it's ridiculous. But I have to say, the story can be… convincing.

"Supposedly, around half past four yesterday or thereabouts, I crept into the Artefacts Accidents ward and ripped the intravenous line of a Blood Replenisher from a woman's wrist, and caused her death. I was also supposed to have undone the charms that would have alerted the Healers to the woman's deteriorating condition."

"Why you?"

"I match the description given by a little girl who was visiting her sleeping grandmother. She—I mean the little girl—is supposed to have seen the entire thing, though nobody else was awake inside the wards to corroborate her story."

"How should that description be enough to make you a suspect? Surely you were at your office, or wherever it is that aurors spend their work days."

"I was getting to that," she said, allowing herself a small smile at his interruption, and he understood that she was gratified by his interest. "Unfortunately, not only was the description a perfect match—from the color of my robes to my hair—but because of the Time Turner sand found around the crime scene, everybody seemed to remember that I had a record of Time Turner use, and if I'd got my hands on one… well, let's just say alibis don't seem to mean a thing in this case." She smiled wryly.

Severus sighed to himself. It all sounded so circumstantial—and not exactly the sort of thing he should have been wasting his time on. "And who is this mysterious lady you are supposed to have murdered?"

To his surprise, a blush crept up from her neck to suffuse her face. "That's another thing," she said. "I—um. Have you ever heard of a Laureen Denby?"

Suddenly it dawed on Severus. Laureen Denby—Hogwarts 2000, long past his time—was chaser for the Chudley Cannons. And formerly mistress to fellow chaser Ronald Weasley, who was, in turn, formerly fiancé of the woman sitting across Severus right now.

Severus had read in the Prophet in the Time Division lounge (for he had no subscription of his own) that, three days ago, Miss Denby had fallen off her broom during the Cannons-Puddlemere game, being knocked over by a Bludger. She'd sustained blunt trauma to the chest, and had been sent to St Mungo's, where mediwizards fussed over a lacerated aorta. They had said she would be fine in a few days.

The Prophet had not neglected to mention the extremely public show of concern on Ronald Weasley's part, nor the speculation as to the present status of the Granger-Weasley engagement. Auror Granger and Mr Weasley had both neglected to comment.

Severus went for the obvious solution. "Surely you wouldn't be sitting here right now if Markham hadn't cleared you. Was it Veritaserum that convinced him?"

"Yes, in the end. It wasn't a treat and I was loath to let him administer it, but we had no choice. It's enough evidence for Markham, so he's letting me go, but it won't be enough for the court unless we have the actual culprit." She spread her hands in front of him on the table, as though to say, do you see my predicament?

"Is there any particular reason that you should still be on this investigation? You are cleared; surely it's not your responsibility to find the culprit yourself. In fact, because you are so closely involved in the victim's personal life, it might be best to stay away."

"Not a chance," she said cheerfully, spearing an egg yolk on her plate until it bled yellow. Severus wondered at this cheerfulness until he realized: she was pleased that he had not, for even a second, suspected her capable of murder. "I've been living a quiet life. You know, Sir. The kind of life where my every action, every trip into Diagon Alley doesn't get documented in the papers. In fact I haven't been featured in the paper since… um, well. Since Ron and I dissolved our engagement, to be quite honest. I have wanted to keep it that way. And this person who killed Laureen Denby has ruined that peace. I want to get him."

"You seem quite certain that all of this has been intended for you."

"It might not be. But the results are the same, regardless—I'm being framed. I don't know if you understand the implications this might have on my career."

He looked at her consideringly.

"Yes, I believe I do. At least a little. Markham is a sensible fellow and it will mean nothing to him. But should you be up for promotion, the higher offices might not…" he searched for the right words while drinking his last sip of coffee.

"…look favorably on a former murder suspect?" she supplied for him.

"It isn't only that. I mean that they might believe in your innocence, especially if the murder trial were to have conclusive evidence, but they may doubt your ability to keep your private life… private. The higher you go in the ranks of the Ministry, the more imperative it is that secrets should stay—"

"Secret," she finished, finding his choice of words amusing. "I understand that too. But that I can't fix. The most important thing for me now is to find out who really did it. I can't actually be on Markham's official investigation," she said, a trifle uncomfortably perhaps, "but he's given me leave to, shall we say, make my own inquiries."

Breakfast was finished; around them, the other diners seemed to be making an exodus. He looked at his watch: a quarter to eight. Morse would understand if he didn't show up at the office today. He moved to get up, and Auror Granger did the same; they both put Galleons on the table (having tacitly agreed that neither would foot the bill in its entirety) and moved for the doors.

In the sunshine outside, while they lingered uncertainly near the door, Severus asked her, "I have one last question for you. I have a suspicion in my mind and I would like you to confirm it for me. It was you, wasn't it, who decided that I should be called from the Time division? You were the one waiting for me at St Mungo's, and today you showed up with an apologetic coffee and invited me to an apologetic breakfast."

She smiled then. "Yes, it was me."

"But why?"

"I think I wanted someone on my side. You are a Legilimens and I have never been an expert in either Legilimency or Occlumency. You would know, more than anyone, that I never did it, and your proof would be better than Veritaserum. More than that, you are extremely well-versed in the properties of Time Turner sand, because it's a Potion, and you are a Potions Master in the Time Division."

"How could you possibly know that?" It was forbidden, even impossible, to know his work without the necessary authorization. Even within the higher levels of the Ministry; even within the MLE.

"I…" An inelegant shrug. "I couldn't be entirely certain. But remember that we broke into the Department of Mysteries once. We know that there is a Thought Chamber, a Death Chamber, a Space Chamber, a Time Chamber and the Love Chamber, in addition to the Hall of Prophecies. Assuming you would be in one of them, I believe you wouldn't choose to work in the, um, the Love Chamber, the Death Chamber or the Hall of Prophecies, because of their…" At the sudden, steely look in Severus' eyes and the way his body turned away from her, she added hastily, "because of, ah…"

"Never mind that," he said coolly. "And why not the Space Chamber?"

"I haven't ruled that out yet, really," she said. "But between the two, I thought the Time chamber would be better because there is one substance, one Potion, central to the study. You don't have much of a background on Astronomy or physics, at least beyond Hogwarts level, so I thought the Space chamber less likely."

She looked up at him from beneath a layer of fringe—suddenly unsure, almost imploring. "And even if I were wrong, even if you weren't working in any of those divisions, you would still be the best person to have on my side, because outside of the MLE itself, you are the most capable person I know when it comes to getting to the bottom of things. And all the other reasons I said before still apply."

She came closer to him, her abrupt movement causing him to step backward; she sighed and stepped back as well. "Really, in the end, what I need is your help. And the thing is, even if our investigation isn't official, Markham is willing to approach your supervisors as though it were. Which means… which means you'll still be working for the Ministry. Please help me."