Ron let out a captive breath. "Bloody hell."
"I know. It's mental. I wouldn't believe it either had I not seen it with my own eyes. But it's all there in the Pensieve. You can take a look."
The bright afternoon sun filtered through the paned glass cheerily, as the three sat digesting Harry's revelation about Snape's memories. Hermione had managed to covertly sneak her clothes on before either of the boys arrived at full wakefulness, but they were all still under the sheets. The bed had widened quite nicely to accommodate the trio, and a sense of relief at their miraculous survival indirectly laced their words. The three clung to their little oasis of friendship in that borrowed bed, hashing out the night's events between them before facing the inevitable ruin beyond the evacuated Gryffindor dorm.
"I dunno what's more shocking; that Snape was on our side after all, or that he fancied a woman?" Ron wondered with a faint smirk. "Your mum must have been a dime piece if she made that old bat turn his head," he elbowed Harry mischievously. Harry gave what was left of Ron's diminishing love handles a good hard pinch before turning to Hermione.
"Come now, I just revealed the secret of the ages and even got Ron asking questions—but you haven't piped up once," he said. "What gives?"
"Nothing. I just find it all rather incredible, that's all," she replied in a small voice, picking at the woolen coverlet.
Harry looked at her strangely. "You don't believe me."
"Honestly Harry!" Hermione huffed, pushing her wild hair out of her face. "Of course I believe you! It's just that—well, after all Professor Snape's done—after all he's put us through? Now we're supposed to mourn him?"
"Hermione, all those years we were in school you were the one that fought hardest for us to respect him, to believe that he was on our side."
"Yes, well even I make mistakes," she said ruefully, wrapping her arms around herself. "But I stopped kidding myself the day Dumbledore was murdered."
Harry took her hands gently in his. "You can't blame yourself anymore for letting him go that night, especially now that we know how it ended. You did not make a mistake. You saw what no one else but Dumbledore, did. And now the rest of us know the truth too."
"But if you had seen him just before he got to the tower-" Hermione shuddered, becoming lost in her thoughts.
He barked orders for her and Luna to assist Professor Flitwick in the next room.
Immediately, she turned to follow the girl. Then for a heartbeat, she paused. Something wasn't right. She didn't know what possessed her to do so, but she reached out and grabbed his sleeve as he swooped past.
In half a breath she was twisted round, back jammed against the wall. He pinned her wand hand with one of his above her head, and pressed her other arm into the stone behind her. Her air came in short gulps and he bored his eyes into hers. Her body tingled. A smoldering heat ripped through her insides when his forehead nearly touched her own. Hermione knew instinctively that he was emanating dark magic. She could feel it spilling over into her like the tendrils of fog uncurling over a block of ice, and she was riveted.
"Please, sir-" she began in a whisper. "You don't have to do this." The words slipped from her tongue without knowing why, and her cheeks flushed at the way she begged. Was it for herself, or someone else?
One hand released the crushing grip on her shoulder and encircled her throat instead. His hands this time felt so different from when he healed her wounds gained at the Department of Mysteries… what had she been thinking? Her flesh burned beneath his cool fingers, and she felt her pulse wildly leap into his palm. She gripped his wrist as she tried to pry him away.
"Don't try and 'save' me, Granger," he sneered, tossing her aside. "You know pathetic little, as ever."
"Professor!" She tried again, calling after the darkness.
The entire encounter only lasted a few moments, but it was branded into her like the scar on her chest. Like the words on her arm. It was a tape that rewound itself every night and replayed on the backs of her eyelids. She spent months over and over again trying to figure out what she could have done differently to change the course of events. If only she had said this, or did that—perhaps Dumbledore would have lived. Perhaps Voldemort could have been thwarted sooner. Perhaps fewer people would have died.
She had felt so guilty and responsible since then, thinking she had let slip a chance to affect change in the tide of battle. And now she was told it was all part of the Master Plan. Just accept that her instincts had been wrong. She knew she should be relieved to no longer feel culpability, but then, why had she felt such strong dark magic from Snape?
Their next encounter had also been the last. There he laid, blood pooling from his punctured neck on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. She cast a stasis charm on him just before she slipped out behind the boys—the one he taught her to use in potions when they had to step away from their cauldrons. She had no idea if it would work on humans.
Like that night in the corridor, she wasn't sure why she meddled again. Maybe she couldn't bring herself to admit after looking into his fading eyes that he had truly been their enemy all this time. Or just maybe she did it because she felt he didn't deserve the peace of death.
Pansy selected a rose colored dress from the wardrobe her father had provided and prepared for dinner anxiously. For a week she had been shut up in this apartment with no company other than her chatty mirror, but tonight she was going outside at last to join the Parkinson patriarch for dinner.
He had left explicit instructions that she was not to apparate or contact anyone until he gave permission. Pansy had yet to succeed at either, but not for lack of trying. The wards prevented her from leaving, and even an attempted bribe with the well-tailored guards stationed on either end of her floor came to naught. She was desperate for news about Draco, and hoped that her father's shocking proclamation regarding the dissolution of their betrothal was some kind of mistake that had now been put to right.
"Gardiner Parkinson," Pansy said to the maître d' of Le Bon Plat.
She felt a swell of pride as she was led to her father among the sea of diners. He appeared so handsome in his Muggle style slacks and jacket, carelessly open at the throat, and youthful looking without the restraint of a tie.
"Must you insist on wearing pink?" Gardiner sighed as she reached his table. He cast a critical eye over her choice of dress. "Green suits you so much better, even if you insist on sporting those raccoon eyes."
"I wear green every day at school, Papa," she told him, sliding into the quilted leather booth and ignoring his swipe at her usual heavy makeup. "And besides, this dress was among the things you gave me."
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the table. Pansy took a sip of the wine already placed before her and looked around the lamp-lit establishment anxiously.
"How are you settling in, then? Everything to your satisfaction?" Gardiner inquired coolly as soup arrived. Pansy nodded, but her attention had turned to the bustle of the restaurant. She was astonished to realize that each dish had to be hand carried to the customer.
"You haven't had much experience outside of the Wizarding World," Gardiner stated, noting her fascination with the wait staff, "But now is the opportunity to learn. Living among Muggles—as distasteful as it may seem—can be a useful skill. Particularly in times like these."
The color drained from Pansy's face as her eyes riveted back to her father's. "But I thought you said that Lord Voldemort was defeated… why then are we hiding? Is this because you returned to join him?"
"Now wherever did you obtain that absurd notion?" Gardiner asked, raising a dark brow.
"It's what Mother said," Pansy admitted, realizing her error as the words fell out of her mouth.
"I thought you had more common sense than to permit your mother's latest passions regarding Lord Voldemort to go to your head," he tutted disapprovingly. "How many times have I reminded you that backing fanatical political figures only leads to poor business conditions?"
Pansy nodded, but felt he didn't quite appreciate just how close they had come to capitulating entirely into Voldemort's hands. Despite his many lectures regarding the priority of their family business, she reasoned that her father very well could have changed his mind had he experienced the distress she did.
"The Dark Lord has been vanquished, we can be certain of that now. But it's the living we have to worry about, which is why you have been sequestered. The feeling against Voldemort and his proponents has reached a fever pitch, and you unfortunately have been marked as one of his supporters."
"Me?" she gasped, "But I never took the Mark!"
"No matter; the public is on a Voldemort sympathizer 'witch hunt' for lack of a better phrase—and you have several strikes in the wrong tally column. Pureblood, betrothal to a Malfoy, Slytherin heritage, membership on Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad in addition to favor with the Carrows, and of course—your damning outburst at the crux of the battle where you wisely suggested the Chosen One be sacrificed to save your own skin," he sneered.
"But Papa," she argued, "It wasn't just my skin—it was everyone else's too! It was life or death! You should have been there and seen-"
Gardiner held up his hand. "Despite the clumsy handling on your part, I do acknowledge its pragmatic essence. However, the unfortunate fact remains that your declaration happened to be exactly the wrong thing to say publicly, given the outcome of the war. The eye of scrutiny has now been turned upon our name, and that is what I'm displeased with."
Pansy pouted, pushing her lobster bisque around its bowl as her father continued.
"Already the Prophet has run a firsthand account identifying you as the instigator of Slytherin House's controversial expulsion. It's only one line, but soon the owls will come flooding in on the hunt for additional details. We will not be responding to those inquires beyond an official statement put out by our lawyer, of course, but sooner or later others are going to come forward with their own unflattering version of events, " he said disapprovingly.
"Then why not let me give my own interview? We could let Rita Skeeter write it—she likes me. Described me as 'pretty and vivacious' in the last piece we did together," Pansy suggested with a toss of her dark bob.
"Ah yes Daughter, I forget how very charming and persuasive you can be. Surely that will turn the tables," Gardiner said dryly.
Pansy beamed.
"The answer is no—especially not by that Skeeter woman. We don't need to jeopardize our position any further. Your former fiancé has done enough of that even without your blunder."
"How is Draco doing?" Pansy asked, taking pains not to sound too eager and hoping she misheard the state of their engagement.
"The entire Malfoy family has been taken into custody for questioning."
"Even Narcissa?"
Gardiner nodded. "I imagine she'll be released shortly. But I expect you to understand that this betrothal between families no longer contributes to advancing our position, and has therefore been revoked."
There it was—'revoked'. Pansy's heart hammered miserably in her chest as she watched her father calmly cut into the coq au vin set before them. She struggled not to register agony on her face.
"The Malfoys are in the bowels of social disgrace without sign of recovery," he continued smoothly. "In this political climate we simply cannot afford to be publicly aligned with such close supporters of our world's latest villain."
"Well, you didn't seem to be so bothered by their ties when Lord Voldemort was on the rise," Pansy bristled.
"Of course not. Lucius and his son were useful to us then," he said as though it were patently obvious. "Just because I didn't want to pledge allegiance to a madman doesn't mean I can't leverage benefits from those who do—and you'd be wise to remember the same."
Somewhere in a corner of her brain Pansy supposed her father was right, but it did nothing to quell the lump rising in her throat.
"And what now?" she asked, struggling to tame her frustration. "I'm to stay here for all eternity? With no friends, no fiancé and hardly any language? French was never my strong point; I can barely get by as is."
"You're living here where I can keep an eye on you until this bad press dies down. The less you interact with the Wizarding World at the moment, the better. Magic is permitted within your quarters, of course, but you'd do well to blend in on the outside while living in Paris," he advised.
"So my owl will be returned to me?" she asked carefully.
"Hootaninny will be delivered this evening. Keep in mind though that all of young Master Malfoy's correspondence is under surveillance. Do try not to commit to parchment anything either of us will regret," he said, eyeing her shrewdly.
"Anything else?" Pansy asked, annoyance creeping into her voice.
"Why, yes; you will from this point on refrain from wearing your hair short, in addition to easing up on the sweets. We need you in top form for your return to the marriage market."
Ginny fished a gold anklet out of her jewelry box and put it on tenderly. She had selected it in Egypt as a memento of her family's trip six years ago; the tiny pomegranate that threaded the center was charmed to bring prosperity and good fortune, the merchant had told her. Ginny certainly needed some of that after her hellish introductory year at Hogwarts, and happily brought it home. For the rest of the summer it glinted above her heel, and she felt curiously alive and free.
All that changed though, the day she met Professor Lupin. He was brilliant of course, saving them from the Dementors on the Hogwarts Express. But the Egyptian charm had not been strong enough to shield her from Tom's invasive return as he penetrated her mind with the aid of those rotting specters. She removed the anklet that night, angry at its failure.
In the end it amounted to nothing more than another useless souvenir, like Ron's sneak-o-scope, and lay forgotten among her other abandoned pieces of jewelry. But today was yet another funeral—Lupin's funeral—and she was entitled to a bit of sentimentality. The charm represented the last link she had to her gentle professor. Perhaps the pomegranate couldn't protect her from Tom, but it had brought Remus Lupin into her life when she wore it, and that was something.
Ginny sighed reluctantly. This day had been delayed on account of several of Lupin's werewolf associates needing time to transform and recover, but at last it could be put off no longer. Of course it was not simply Professor Lupin they were remembering. The honor belonged to Tonks equally. Ginny's pain for the woman she had come to regard as a sister was great. She knew it was. And yet weeks of mourning the young Auror and others left her with no tears to spare and only a white-hot numbness in her heart.
Tonks would think this whole thing stupid, Ginny thought defiantly as she slipped into her somber, faded black dress for the fourth (or was it the fifth?) time that month. Tonks would have preferred a lively party. Preferably one involving lots of Firewhisky and brightly colored decorations. Ginny smiled slightly at the idea, and turned to her mirror.
Carefully she transfigured her unadorned hair to grow several inches. Then she altered its shade, abandoning the carrot tones and zooming straight into tomato red. Tonks had frequented that hue and length when she wasn't sporting bubblegum pink, and liked to quip that she and Ginny were 'sisters from another mister' when coiffed that way.
Ginny raised her wand to her nose and hesitated. Should she also duplicate Tonks' signature joke snout? Ginny knew she was a dab hand at Transfiguration but body parts were notoriously tricky-
A tentative knock on the door interrupted her concentration and Hermione entered, looking perfectly ladylike with a string of pearls around her neck and her hair tamed into a sleek twist.
"Oh!" she started with a glance at Ginny's vibrant appearance. "You look really… that is to say… Er—your mother needs your assistance in the kitchen," she finished lamely. Ginny wordlessly flounced out of the room with her original nose.
"Really Ginevera," Molly said with raised brows as she glanced at her daughter's dramatically enhanced locks, "Hardly the time to be drawing attention to yourself, I think."
"Where are the potholders, Mum?" Ginny asked loudly, rummaging through the cupboards.
"Ten minutes to make the port-key dear," Arthur announced, smelling clean and damp as he ran a comb through his thinning hair.
"Yes, yes of course," Molly breathed hurriedly as she charmed a whisk to beat cream into fluffy peaks. Ginny levitated a hot casserole from the oven and set it on the table with a cushioning spell. "Put it in the basket and make room for the others," Molly instructed, pulling off her apron as she bustled to check on a second crock.
"I've got it Mum," Ginny insisted, taking the lid out of her hand. "You go finish up." Molly absentmindedly patted her still rolled hair and padded off to the washroom.
"Ron, while I have you here making yourself so useful," Ginny began in a falsely sweet tone, "Could you please spoon out the whipped cream onto the pastries?" Her lanky brother paused as a second helping of the fluff made its way to his mouth.
"The chocolate cream puffs are in the pie-safe, and if I discover even one of them is missing, I know a clever little hex that will turn your todger into spotted dick—and not the one cooling on the counter."
By the time the family made their way to the antiquated churchyard, Ginny was grateful for the gentle breeze glancing across her lightly perspiring skin. Immediately she sought out Harry in the throng of mourners; he had left the Burrow by broom hours earlier, needing to clear his head.
"Your hair looks lovely," Harry whispered with a sad smile as she tucked herself into his side. "Reminds me of Tonks." She squeezed his hand gratefully and prayed she didn't smell too much like the fish stew she had spilled minutes earlier.
Of course it had rained on the day they buried Fred—the very antithesis of how his spirit had been in life. And now as they lay to rest these two new parents, the sun shone mercilessly and songbirds chirped, oblivious to the tearful goodbye playing out beneath them. Ginny badly wanted to bat-bogey hex the creatures into the next beyond as they competed with the eulogy, but she could feel her mother shrewdly eyeing her wand hand.
Then her mind wandered. Yes, she admitted it. She refused to focus on the wretchedness of Tonks and Lupin's earthly bodies settling into a dark hole, as if tiny Teddy crying in the background on this beautiful sunny day wasn't jarring enough.
She scanned the small crowd, and was surprised to note that she knew quite a bit of the group. There were a few she couldn't recognize; one or two young people who may have been Tonk's classmates, a shabby knot off to the back she assumed were Lupin's lycanthropy comrades, and an elegant woman in a mourning veil standing beside Andromeda Tonks.
Her stomach rumbled indelicately and she hoped it wasn't too terrible of her to be looking forward to the informal potluck lunch following at the Tonks' home. More of the couple's friends and colleagues would be there, and away from the invasive light and noise of wizarding paparazzi lined up at a just-barely-respectful distance from the gravesite.
At last it was over, and mourners began to pay their respects to Andromeda. Ginny watched as the shrouded woman beside her lifted her hat net to embrace the grieving mother, and was startled to recognize Narcissa Malfoy.
She didn't even notice that Harry had left her side as he fell into conversation with other attendees. Transfixed, she watched the woman quickly leave the gathering soon after and stand off to the side for several moments, alone. In the distance several photogs deployed their flash and jockeyed for position. Narcissa appeared to bring a handkerchief to her face. Ginny recoiled at the obvious stunt, and strode over.
"Move over to the left a bit, why don't you? All the more sunlight to get that perfect shot for tomorrow's papers," Ginny said ruthlessly to the statuesque blonde.
"Ginevra Weasley. How lovely to see you—as always," Narcissa Malfoy responded, the perfect picture of decorum. Ginny's blood boiled at the woman's composure.
"Rich of you to show up here when your own husband and sister were the very ones firing lethal spells at—"
"Andromeda is my sister too," Narcissa said quietly, but with feeling. "And in great pain at present. I pray you never know what it's like to lose, or almost lose a child. If you'll excuse me-" her last words slipped out tremulously and she hurried after what appeared to be a bodyguard dressed in black, waiting several paces beyond.
Slick, those Malfoys, Ginny thought angrily. She almost felt guilty for the way she approached Narcissa. Almost.
A/N: Thanks to my beta Kci47! If you think you'd be interested in an AU Snape/Hermione romance involving Snape as a pirate, be sure to check out her work in progress, Captured! I am also looking for a Brit-picking beta for improving dialogue, so if that's your strength feel free to drop me a line.
Thank you to those who have put this story on Alert! I love checking out your profiles and other favorite fics.
Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling!