Chapter 4: Preparations

Author's Note: I am in the process of rewriting this story. This chapter has not yet been reworked. While the plot will not be changed, please bear in mind that the writing is not up to my standards. If you have any suggestions as to how I could improve my work, please feel free to review or email me directly. Thanks!

If you're interested in updates on how my writing process is going, or you'd like a few cookies from Chapter 5, take a look at my livejournal (go to the memories page, and you'll find all my Bloodline-related posts).

Disclaimer: see Chapter 1

Severus noted with apprehension the way that Lucius smirked through the rest of the "ceremony". He had looked quite satisfied with himself during the signing, and Severus knew that look quite well, having seen it multiple times over the years they'd known each other. It usually meant that he'd pulled off some scheme, and everyone involved was reacting exactly as he wanted.

The man in question took hold of his elbow the minute they were out of the throne room.

"Excuse us for a moment, Miss Granger," he said with a charming smile. Miss Granger, frankly, did not look impressed, and with some reason.

"Why, Severus, aren't you pleased at what I've done for you?" Lucius wore a look of wide-eyed innocence that wouldn't have fooled Longbottom's toad.

"You know how I feel about other people making my decisions for me. Why do you insist upon provoking me?" Lucius looked as if he liked no pastime better.

"Come, my friend, think of it as a gift!"

"I don't need a gift."

Lucius leaned in close and whispered in his ear. "Don't be silly, Severus. I've seen your porn collection."

He felt himself turning red at that. How did he...?

"Good day, Lucius."

He stormed off in a swirl of black robes, angered beyond all measure at the sound of Lucius's rolling laughter.

A ghost of a smile appeared on the girl's face as he commandeered her elbow.

"Shut up, Miss Granger."

"I didn't say anything."

But she was smirking. Just like Lucius, damn him.

---

Malfoy had probably meant her to overhear their conversation, and to be perfectly honest, the idea of Professor Snape collecting porn boggled the mind. She knew Harry and Ron had their stashes (Ron's had required the purchase of another hard drive), but Snape? He was so uptight, so...Victorian in his mannerisms, his speech. Surely he didn't...?

Suddenly the full force of Malfoy's meaning caught up with her. Did Snape have a thing for younger women? Did Snape have a thing for her? Realistically, she had no reason to expect that Hermione-porn existed, but with magic, who knew? She had a sudden mental image of herself doing a striptease in the potions classroom to a very appreciative audience. Ewwww... Except that it was sort of flattering. Wait, shouldn't she be afraid?

Thanks to the power of suggestion, now she was. She was a bound concubine—a concubine, in the twenty-first century, in England of all places!—and she'd read enough to know what that would entail. She prayed they'd splinch on the way home.

"Miss Granger?" Right, the sarcastic bastard was speaking again. Must try and listen. "Do hold still a moment."

They Apparated with a loud crack.

---

Severus tried to imagine what Hogsmeade would look like to someone who'd been away five years. Certainly it seemed the same to him. Shops had opened and closed, but the major landmarks were there, and it was an abysmally bright and sunny day. Looking again with his mind's eye focused on the Hogsmeade of five years ago, he noticed that Zonko's carried more dangerous supplies, and a shifty-looking wizard was selling what looked like curse tablets not far from the Hog's Head. The changes weren't all bad, he was forced to admit. Though the town's population was much decreased, those that remained were richer and better cared-for. The less upstanding citizens crept around more out of habit than of fear of getting caught. Not that much was illegal these days.

Miss Granger was looking around with amazement. Did she really think Voldemort would scorch the earth just because he could?

"This way," he said, and they started up the hill to Hogwarts.

---

Her first sight of Hogwarts could have been out of the rosiest parts of her memory. The sun broke through the clouds as they crested the first hill, and the school lay spread out before them in all its glory. She could see some changes—they'd added another Quidditch pitch and the greenhouses had been enlarged—but for the most part this was the Hogwarts she'd dreamed about for five colorless years. Part of her wanted to weep with joy at the reunion, and part of her was, curiously, angry that it seemed not to have suffered at all from Dumbledore's absence or Voldemort's new rule. She must have made some sound, or spoken aloud, because Snape chose that moment to speak to her. So much for pleasant memories.

"And why would the Dark Lord destroy this place, when he could use it instead for his own purposes?"

She found she had no answer. She sighed, and walked ahead of him down the hill, past Hagrid's hut, which was...empty? No, it was inhabited. There was a roaring fire inside, and—

"Charlie Weasley?" She couldn't have been more shocked if she'd tried. Charlie, looking up from the pair of dragonhide gloves he was mending, looked equally stunned.

"Hermione? Hermione Granger? What on earth are you doing here?"

That wasn't a question she really wanted to answer, so she countered with her own. "We all thought you'd been killed. How did you make it?"

He gave her an inscrutable look, then solemnly pushed up his left sleeve. The Dark Mark curled, sinister and hideous, around his forearm. She recoiled in horror, and the look on his face told her he had expected nothing less.

"But—but—why?" she stammered.

"Sometimes there is no other choice. You made yours, and I made mine." Snape appeared beside her, and Charlie nodded.

"Headmaster."

"Good day, Mister Weasley. I'll see you at seven."

Charlie turned away from her, and Snape propelled her forward. She couldn't help but feel she had made a grave error.

---

"Well," said Millicent, looking around the flat, "well, well, well."

Ron wished she would get over herself long enough to tell them something useful, but there was no sense in one-upping Harry on the Stupid Things I Did scale and actually saying something about it. Instead, he opted for action.

"Pack some things for the trip. No more than an overnight bag. And Albus, I know you have a wand, so bring that too." He turned to McGonagall and Harry. "You two will need to make some excuses for work. I don't expect we'll be back for a week even if we succeed, and if we fail—well, we'll be dead and it won't matter."

"Wait," Millicent said. "Potter, we'll need your expertise."

"Didn't think much of my expertise yesterday, did you?"

Ron sent an elbow into his ribs. "Don't be snide, she's doing us a favor."

Millicent seemed to find the whole exchange quite funny. "Yesterday you needed to be taught your place. Today, I'm choosing not to risk my contacts to help you."

Harry looked about ready to burst, so Ron clapped a hand over his mouth and said politely, "We'll be right back."

---

"I hate it when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Intervene. Treat me like a child."

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't see any way around it, and keeping Millicent and her people happy is really important right now."

"Still..."

"I'm sorry. Alright, I'm sorry. Can we focus on a plan now?"

Harry sighed and began throwing clothes into a small backpack Hermione had bought for him with her first paycheck. Ron was right, he needed to focus. They had a friend to rescue, and he had a plane to fly.

The day after Ron had forced him to start looking for a job, he'd sat down and made a list of the things he could do. Play Quidditch was at the top of the list, followed closely by Fail to Save the World. Cook and Clean were on there as well, but he hoped he'd be able to find something he liked better than those two—his memories of the Dursleys were still quite potent. Thinking a bit more, he'd started a fresh sheet and replaced Play Quidditch with Fly a Broomstick, under which he wrote "good sense of balance" and "love being in the air", and Catch Small Shiny Things, which was followed by "good eyesight" and "fast reflexes". He crossed out Fail to Save the World and wrote on the new sheet, "brave" and "good in a crisis". He then took a list of careers Ron had found in some school counselor's book and began to work down it. He had to look up a few of them—what the hell was manege anyway?—but for the most part he was able to cut it down by nearly two out of three. He was halfway through the Cs when it hit him. Loves being in the air, good sense of balance, good eyesight, fast reflexes...all he wanted to do was fly, and there was one easy way to start.

Dumbledore's connections had helped them convert their Galleons to pounds, so paying for lessons wasn't terribly difficult. For that matter, buying a plane once he'd earned his license hadn't made much of a dent, either. His instructor had been happy to pass a few clients his way, and now he had a small but enjoyable business.

He took a quick peek at his schedule, which only showed one appointment in the next two weeks—he'd cleared out some time for his ill-fated smuggling attempt—and made a quick phone call. Fortunately, Peter Mayfield, his instructor, had an opening for that same day, and he was able to give Mister Collabi's agent new arrangements. More than a few of his passengers used false names, and Hermione had laughed and laughed over that one. Honestly, it wasn't that funny that one had used the Latin for "crash" as a pseudonym.

He sighed again, and slung the bag over his shoulder. Rescue mission time.