A/N What? A new chapter? Surely it can't be!
Life has been funny and busy and insane, and this long fell to the wayside as did a lot of my writing in general. But stranger things have happened and I found the outline for this fic in one of my old notebooks and decided to go through it again. The chapters already posted make me cringe in spots, but I believe in leaving things up as a record of progress. Chapter Seven was written, actually, many years ago, but I have cleaned it up and made it fit for posting. Several other chapters are half-written, and with some tinkering I hope to have them follow soon. This story was always written with a very clear ending in mind, and it seems it goes once more from "possibly abandoned" to "a very long hiatus".
For those who have been reading this from the beginning, my endless thanks.
Chapter Seven - New Faces
Little white flowers shall never awaken you
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you
-Gloomy Sunday
The sound of Hermione's footsteps were the loudest noise in the still morning air, echoing and reverberating off the stone walls of Hogwarts castle. She had woken before everyone else, and unable to bear sitting alone in the dark, she had gone for a walk down the familiar hallways she had grown up in.
The thought still hadn't sunk in yet … that this would be her last day at Hogwarts.
She was sure of it now; she wouldn't be coming back. She would take her NEWT'S at the end of the week, and then go in for the interview with the Unspeakables. With the wizarding world slowly waking to a new dawn, it was with the Department of Mysteries that Hermione felt she would find her place. And now it was only a matter of saying goodbye to the things she would leave behind.
Looking up she realized her feet had wandered to the old Potions classroom. The room was a mess, it had taken its toll during the battle on Hogwarts. Workstations had been turned over, cauldrons upset and the storage room looked as if a tornado had gone through it.
Hermione quickly walked over with her wand out, worried that some ingredients upset from their containers could possibly pose a hazard. Who knew what other rare and dangerous things Snape kept in his private stores apart from the boomslang skin she had stolen in her second year?
The shelves had collapsed and broken jars littered the floors. With a few quickly cast spells she managed to clean most of the mess up, banishing most of the spilled ingredients. Walking over to the private store cupboard, she noticed its doors had been blasted open. On the floor directly below it was a small clay jar, small enough that she could have easily wrapped one hand around it, with a large crack down its middle.
Curious, Hermione knelt down to examine it more closely. It was housing a measure of cloth. Moving away the corners with the tip of her wand, she saw something sparkling within the folds of the cloth. It was a brooch.
Hermione sucked in sharply when she realized what it was. It was the Slytherin Head of House pin. Tucked safely away and only by chance recovered.
She picked it up, examining it in the few rays of light the dungeon allowed. It glittered emerald green and silver, the beautifully crafted snake twined around the Hogwarts shield almost seemed alive. Snape must have hidden it away for safe-keeping…
Something overcoming her, Hermione obeyed the impulse to tuck the small pin away into the folds of her robes, hidden away from the prying eyes of the world and nestled near her heart.
Staring out the window of the Hogwarts Express, she didn't hear a word of what Harry or Ron were saying. A sense of gravity had settled over her that did not allow her to do anymore that day but say over and over in her soul, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
"Stanton, do you know if we ordered another shipment of Ashwinder eggs?"
"I'm unpacking them right now."
Reinhardt grunted his approval and quickly scribbled this into his ledger. Whistling for his owl, Goethe, he wrote a short letter to one of his customers to notify her that her order had been received by the shop and she could come by any time to pick it up. Opening the door for his owl, he watched as it flew out and into the skies of the quaint Die Brucke village. Smiling, he walked back inside Zutaten für Medizin.
"It seems Frau Lange is trying to brew love potions again."
His assistant, who had only been working in his shop for a few weeks now, smiled wryly as he packaged an impressive number of the brilliant orange and pink eggs. He was quite a find, one of Chloe's strays, and had already won over the good graces of his employer with his quiet demeanour and willingness to work. An Englishman, and could be mistaken for nothing else with a name like Stanton Sommerville. Incredibly knowledgeable when it came to the ingredients and various magical supplies Reinhardt kept in his apotheker, fluent enough in conversational German to serve customers who spoke no English, and without ever the risk of causing trouble. It had incited Reinhardt to generously offer Samuel the spare room above the shop for free. The wages he could pay the man were on the meager side after all.
"We're running low on unicorn hairs, so I've written up a request for the stables. And the bubotubers we have are very old and due to expire in a week."
Stanton carried a small wooden crate filled with jars that contained different powdered roots, shifting it over to one arm as he gave Reinhardt the orders he had drafted.
Reinhardt barely skimmed them over, already nodding. "I'm due to pay Joachim a visit today anyway, I'll ask after the unicorn hairs. You can close shop; it's been a slow day."
Stanton nodded soberly, not as delighted at the prospect as Reinhardt had initially anticipated. He gave his assistant the once-over. Quiet, a very quiet man, with something simmering under his calm, professional demeanour that Reinhardt had only seen surface once or twice. It always seemed to lurk somewhere, though, in those eyes … black, and boundless like a well.
He measured his words carefully. Knowing a thing or two about solitary men who didn't display their emotions on their sleeves, he had an inkling that part of Stanton's hidden intrigue was a dark sense of pride. "Don't worry … if you have any trouble you can go to Egon next door. I'm sure you'll be able to handle anything, though."
Stanton nodded once, briskly, before returning to his task at hand. Reinhardt gave him one more thoughtful look before leaving him alone to his duties.
"Stanton" ran a hand through his hair, coal-black with a very light smattering of gray beginning to form at his temples. He kept it short, but a strand or two would fall out of place to curtain his eyes. He would need to cut it again soon. He had grown a full-beard, very neatly trimmed, in keeping with the tradition of the men in this locality, and it gave him a sense of quiet authority that at least kept most wagging tongues from confronting him deliberately to his face.
Severus had picked up enough German to speak conversationally, but he understood more of what he heard than he could convey himself. Sidelong glances, pointed remarks to Reinhardt, a refusal to acknowledge him or even the pointed effort to make him speak … he knew that in this little village he was allowed to stay but only as a stranger. A schwulen, their word for squib. And it held an unfortunate similarity with the German term for a faggot or queer. It seemed that every wizarding community held the same prejudice for the ones unexpectedly without gift.
Sighing, he finished stocking the shelves and returned the crate to the back storeroom. Severus was fine with this arrangement. Once he had learned to remind himself that his status as once being a powerful wizard was part of a life he was trying so hard to escape, the double standard he lived by now was not so hard to bear. Settling himself behind the apothecary counter, he rolled up his shirtsleeves and donned a pair of slim spectacles and began to read.
An hour or so passed and he was about to close shop for the night when a pair of boys walked in. They wore Durmstrang robes and Severus raised an eyebrow. That school was very far from Die Brucke … but he didn't think the school year had started yet, so perhaps they were just preparing to leave home.
They brought over a small handful of owl and eagle feathers to the counter, jostling each other for the coin purse.
"Wieviel macht das?"
Severus looked over at the small bundle. "Vier sickles."
They paid him in a jumbled, unorganized pile of coins as he wrapped the feathers in some brown paper. Giving them back a few knuts in change, they promptly deposited it into the tip jar and left, gabbling at each other too rapidly for him to make out more than snippets of their conversation.
Something twinkled in the jar, catching Samuel's attention. He peered in, seeing something shining amongst the copper, and fished out a ring. It was thin and silver, with a small green stone adorned in the center. Turning it this way and that in the light, Severus could see it was not a precious stone but merely coloured glass, or unrefined crystal.
Something passed over his face at the familiar pairing of colours. Part of him wanted to drop the ring back into the jar, but finally he slipped it onto one of his own slender fingers.
The past was too far away that he could allow himself this one, little keepsake.
Hermione nervously sat on the stone bench, doing her best not to fidget or bite her nails. She wasn't too sure whether casual business attire appropriated to the same view as professional to wizards, so she had opted instead just to wear black robes.
Just entering into the waiting room of the Department of Mysteries was awe-inspiring. Their offices and headquarters seemed to occupy the very catacombs of the Ministry of Magic. She had been led down a stone hallway, glittering blue with the flicker of enchanted lamps. It was a bit colder down here too, the stone seeming to slowly leech out every ounce of warmth she had.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a tall wizard with auburn hair came out of the door and told her to come in.
Hermione, thinking it must finally be time for her interview, followed him eagerly through the impressive stone door carved into the wall she had been staring at for the past hour, only to be plunged into darkness.
Confused, she blinked and the room brightened a second later. The wizard had gone. She turned around; the doorway she expected to see behind her wasn't there either. What was going on? Her wand was already out of her robes sleeve, ready at a moment's notice.
It was then Hermione fully appreciated the room she was in. It was entirely made out of polished glass. It was as if she were inside a cut diamond, the room was shaped like an octagon. Eight wall facets, glimmering, the ceiling and the floor as well. She saw her surprised face eight times over. It was like walking around inside a very large mirror.
"What …?"
In wonder, she approached the mirror walls, running her fingers along the surface. To her surprise, the surface gave way under her fingers, as if made of goo. Withdrawing her fingers she saw her reflection ripple before settling back into a crisp image. Trailing her fingers along the walls, she navigated around the entire room. All the mirrors gave way into that liquid ease until she reached the very last one. The panel that replaced the door she had entered the room in. It was solid and smooth. Hermione ran her fingers along its edges, knocking on the glass with her knuckles, hoping to find something – anything that would give her purchase.
Curiouser and curiouser…
Stepping back, Hermione held up her wand and directed it to the true glass mirror. "Reducto."
A red beam of light shot out of her wand, hit the glassy surface and then bounced off its surface, ricocheting directly back to her. With a yelp, Hermione fell to the floor, narrowly missing her rebounded curse, and watched as it hit one of the liquid panels only to be absorbed. Shaking, she slowly got to her feet. Raising her wand she cast a shielding charm on herself before directing it once more. This time, to one of the liquid panels.
"Reducto."
The panel absorbed the red beam of light with a ripple.
This was the beginning of some sort of puzzle. Hermione mused on what this experimentation had just taught her. She paced the floor, wand tapping against her arm as she turned the laws of this curious room over and over in her mind.
Hermione looked down at her own feet, the mirrored floor casting her own eyes back at her. Who would create such a curious room and to what purpose? And why had she been brought here? And would she be able to leave again?
Hermione paused, something having flashed by in the corner of her eye. Backtracking, she looked down at the floor's glossy surface only to see her reflection suddenly vanish out of sight and reappear again.
What …?
Slowly, walking with small, measured steps, she circumnavigated a small boundary in which the floor did not reflect her. It showed the ceiling and nothing more. Hermione's head hurt and she had to close her eyes for a second as she realized she was finally looking at the answer to: what do two mirrors reflect when facing each other directly? The dazzling portal of light and … absence was difficult to comprehend and she found she couldn't stare at that one blind spot for too long. But, she was sure she had found the key to this riddle.
"Reducto." The red beam shot upward and disappeared into the ceiling.
Hermione looked at the one mirror panel that did not give way to touch. Glancing quickly down at the floor to ensure she was standing on the boundary of the blind spot, she raised her wand to the wall mirror. Working out the angles in her head, she lowered her wand accordingly.
"Reducto!"
The spell bounced off the mirror's surface and blasted into the blind spot, causing a small explosion of shattered glass. Hermione held an arm up to her face to shield herself before remembering she had already taken those necessary precautions. The detritus bounced harmlessly off the shield charm she had placed on herself.
Moving the shattered glass away with her foot she saw the handle of a door built into the ground. Tugging on it, it swung open to reveal a trap door and a flight of stairs that spiralled downward. Feeling a thrill of triumph, she descended the stairs.
When Hermione reached the bottom of the staircase it was to be met with the bewildered expression of a scruffy wizard working behind a desk. In fact, his desk was one of many, and there were other witches and wizards flitting about. A tall wizard, the one who had led her into the room, clapped his hand to the other's shoulder.
"Told you she'd figure it out." He grinned.
The seated wizard, the scruffy one, suddenly beamed with delight and got up from behind his desk, extending his hand to her. It was then Hermione noticed an hourglass, half-empty, on his desk.
"Perinor Phonapan, at your service, Miss Granger. My goodness, your reputation precedes you."
She shook his hand, bewildered. "My pleasure, I'm sure."
The tall wizard shook her hand as well, still with that self-satisfied grin on his face. "Peregrin Phonapan. His brother."
"Please forgive us. That happens to be a test every Department candidate must undergo, although I do say – no one's managed it quite as well as you. You still have over an hour left on your time!"
Hermione gaped. "You mean, you would have left me in there for another hour?"
Perinor shrugged. "If you couldn't figure it out, yes."
"And if I had injured myself?"
Perinor shrugged again. "No one's ever died in there yet. As I said, you've managed it well. Very well. Some of us got through merely by blasting the entire place apart and having one of our shots hit the target by fluke."
Hermione looked flustered and Peregrin gently laid a hand on her shoulder.
"You've passed your interview with flying colours. Miss Granger, welcome to the Department of Mysteries."
