A/N: My thanks to my phalanx of wonderful alpha- and beta-readers for their help with this rather niggly chapter: Anastasia, Annie Talbot, Indigofeathers, and Lady Karelia, who had to hear this one over the phone because she lost her internet. Any compound predicate comma errors, being completely inaudible, are absolutely not her fault.
Special thanks to Melenka for helping me figure out the structural specifics of something extremely important, as she did so often with A Walking Shadow. *hugs*
11: Exchanges
If Mimi hadn't so obviously heard him – physically heard him – he might have realized that her scratch was gone and, along with it, the permanent damage done to his throat by long-ago fangs.
-#-
How she managed to fall asleep, Hermione had no idea; no more had she why, after only a very few hours, she greeted the morning feeling thoroughly rested.
She reached for her wand and, rubbing her eyes, began the sequence of spells that would expand and unlock her wardrobe – before she remembered that it was still in the living room.
At her door, she hesitated, listening, but heard nothing. Don't be stupid. He saw you in your pajamas last night. She slipped into the hallway, trying to move quietly and to dispel the ridiculous notion that morning made any difference to the intimacy level of being seen in one's pajamas by one's former teacher.
It didn't, but it did.
The spare room door was closed, however, and she relaxed a fraction, retrieving the wardrobe from the living room and setting about her morning routine.
She wasn't being watched. Not really. But she couldn't shake the awareness that Professor Snape was in her flat. It seemed to settle on her very skin and was particularly acute in the vicinity of her elbows.
-#-
He'd heard her awaken – the noises from her bedroom revealed far more than he wished to know about details like "gets tangled in sheets" – and he'd abandoned her armchair, slipping back to the spare room before she emerged from her own.
Mimi had spent the better part of the night in his lap, save for a thoroughly baffling episode at around three in the morning, when she'd leapt up quite suddenly and rushed about after no object he could discern.
Wondering what the kitten imagined she was chasing had provided a brief but welcome distraction from whatever it was he'd spent the night trying not to think about.
He'd been successful. He still had no bloody idea what it was.
He waited until he heard the shower stop and Hermione's door close before stepping into the hall, careful to tread heavily enough for her to hear.
-#-
After an uncomfortable few minutes during which her completed preparations for the day offered her no further delay, she firmly told herself that there was nothing at all awkward about having the… ghost? It would have to do for now… the ghost of one's former professor in one's flat first thing in the morning.
Not even if one had blurted an invitation in the wee hours. "Because I asked you to"? "I think, Sir, that I miss you"? What had she been thinking?
Well, at least he was no longer warping her memories into Dali-esque nightmares, leaving great pools of ink on the floor.
Fingering the coin Demetrios had given her, Hermione ventured out of her room and into the kitchen, where she could hear cat food hitting Mimi's bowl. "Good morning, Professor Snape. I hope you slept well."
"I don't sleep."
"Oh… right," she said, tucking the coin into her robes and reaching for the kettle. Surreptitiously tasting the contents of the sugar bowl –
An affronted sniff.
– perhaps not so surreptitiously, then, she ascertained that it was, in fact, sugar. "Tea?"
"I've had no use for such things as tea or sleep for seven years."
"Right. Sorry." She blushed and checked her watch. "I'll just drink my tea and be off, then."
She left the kitchen, heading for the Floo, feeling the idiot.
Footsteps followed and stopped in the middle of the living room. "Miss Granger."
"Yes, Sir?" she responded automatically, turning.
"Unnecessary as they patently are, I appreciate your accommodations."
Hermione swallowed and nodded. "I hope you were comfortable, Sir."
"Your spare room is most adequate."
For no reason she could fathom, she blushed deeper. "Then you're welcome, Professor Snape."
A long silence.
She nodded. "Right, then." But before she tossed the powder into the grate, she turned her head. "I don't know what to say, or how to begin to say it if I did, but – thank you, Professor."
"Of course."
"Of course." She couldn't suppress a small laugh. "Well, I'm off." But she didn't move. She couldn't, not knowing…
She heard him cross his arms. "Miss Granger, if you wish to know whether I plan to remain until your return, ask."
"Oh, fine, then," she said, turning fully to face her dead – or something – former professor. "Will you still be here this evening?"
"I've nowhere else to be."
"Perhaps by then I'll have recollected my wits somewhat."
"One can hope."
"It's all so very awkward – you, here; dead, but not really – and I've so many questions, all of them quite conceivably rude. It's probably best that I not speak until I've had time to sort them out a bit."
"Indeed."
Another long silence.
"I'll be leaving, then."
He exhaled loudly. "You've said as much already. Twice."
She flatly refused to blush again. "I just..." Her hands raised, empty. "There's simply no way to ask this without sounding entirely impertinent, Professor, and I hesitate to say anything after the debacle of last night's memo."
A brief silence in which he seemed to be measuring something. "Very well. You may dispense with your manners for a single question."
It came out in a rush: "Will you please promise me not to decide to finish dying while I'm gone?"
In the utter silence that followed, Hermione didn't know where to look.
"'Asking of' is not the same as 'asking', Miss Granger," he said finally.
She stood her ground. "Nonetheless, it was technically a question."
"Indeed."
"Was that an agreement?"
"Conditionally. In exchange, however…"
"Exchange?"
"You split hairs like the Wizengamot and yet know so little of Slytherins? One might wonder if you actually read any of these books of which you're so protective."
She glared into the pause.
He continued, "In exchange, I would ask a consideration of equal value."
"That's fair – what is it?"
"Your light on a mystery."
Something about his tone made her shiver, and she reached for the coin in her pocket again, hearing an echo of Demetrios, saying "Mysteries involve possibility…"
"May I know which mystery, in particular?"
He hesitated. "I shall inform you in due time."
He was hedging. She'd bet her life on it. She paused, then nodded. "Deal." She turned to the Floo, and was gone.
-#-
When Hermione arrived at the Library, she heard Demetrios's unmistakable warbling – that and an oddly plinky-sounding piano. She tilted her head, trying to identify the song. Still in the 1970s… She smiled.
"'Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river'… mmm-m-mmm… 'Too many lonely souls'… hmmm… 'drifted out to sea…'"
Hermione laughed as she slung her bag onto her desk and made her way into the archive proper. "Good morning, Demetrios," she called up through the floating metal shelves, which were bobbing in time with his song, providing a rhythmic piano part as they bounced in the air.
His face appeared over the top edge of a set of still-bobbing shelves, and he hastily gestured them motionless. "Hermione, my dear, you're early this morning… oh, dear; well, my secret's out… I do like a bit of accompaniment, I confess, when the old archive is willing to oblige…"
Her eyes crinkled. "You can still do magic."
"Of course I can, dear."
"Well, I think it's delightful, Demetrios. Don't stop their dancing on my account."
"Brilliant, my dear, brilliant…" The shelves started bobbing again, and he beamed cheekily at her. "I'll be with you shortly; Florence Nightingale's stethoscope has gone walkabout again… 'And you're feeling like a part of you'… mmm… 'is dying…'" His voice cut off abruptly, and his head reappeared, impossibly high up. "Oh, I am sorry, dear; forgive my lapse – are you quite all right after last night?"
"Reasonably so, I think."
"Well, that's good, then… You're sure you don't mind the archives playing along?"
"Quite – as long as it's not AC/DC!"
The shelves seemed to bow before resuming their rhythmic bobbing. She tilted her head back and watched them swing inward at the top and out again, silhouetted against the dusty skylights, and laughed.
As she made her way past the series of Reading Room return shelves, half of which were now blessedly empty, Demetrios's voice rose again.
"'Communication is the problem'… hmmm… 'to the answer'… Well, of course it is… when is it not, I wonder?"
Hermione chuckled, sat down and bent to work.
As she shuffled through various acquisitions forms and reading room request-slips, she didn't realize that a question was taking shape in her mind. At first its mental caress was so gentle it would not, if spoken, have measured as a whisper. It grew more insistent over the course of the morning, and as she focused intently on the translation Charms they used on several reference requests, reading their contents and forming the appropriate responses, it flitted, fully formed, into her mind.
Where's his body?
She set down her quill and went immediately to the shelf holding the past decade's Daily Prophets.
Nothing about a body.
Climbing onto a moving stepstool, she searched the ever-expanding hall that constituted the records of Hogwarts, which updated automatically, condensing once per decade via a terribly old editorial spell into new printings of Hogwarts: A History.
Nothing.
No body.
No portrait.
She frowned.
Several hours later, after cross-checking through fourteen volumes of finding aids, three drawers of catalog files, and wondering how she could frame a plausible-sounding inquiry of Minerva, she finally went in search of Demetrios.
She found him triumphantly extracting Florence Nightingale's stethoscope from the determined clutches of a box marked "Scientology."
"Now down, you," he scolded the box as he folded the stethoscope into his robes. "You have your space on the shelf with all the rest; why won't you leave the poor dear in peace? Her time is past; yours will come." He turned his attention to Hermione, and his eyes sparkled. "Why, Hermione! I divine by your thunderous expression you've a new curiosity… how wonderful! But you've hit a bit of a snag, hm?"
"Not just a snag, I'm afraid – an enormous ruddy wall. I've tried every finding aid we have, and I've still got nothing."
"What is the nature of your search, my dear?"
"I –"
He held a hand up, forestalling her response. "Don't tell me its object, just its nature."
"Wizarding subject, public records, absence thereof."
"Recent?"
"Erm… relatively."
"Oh, my dear, you're not looking for Severus Snape, are you?"
"His body, at least. Demetrios, I can't find any record of its ever having been found, never mind buried. That's just impossible."
"Hmmm… more curious than impossible, I'd say…."
"I was wondering if perhaps we have a Time-Turner?"
His eyes widened in mild surprise. "My dear, you know the Ministry's supply was destroyed."
"Well, I was there. But I also know you."
He laughed, patting her shoulder. "That you do, my dear. We do have the one, but…"
"One?"
"The first, of course. French Revolution, Overflow shelving. But, my dear…" His voice stopped her as she was turning away.
She looked back at him.
"I'm afraid a Time-Turner can't help you."
She raised her eyebrows at the challenge. "Can't?"
He shook his head. "Even with their later refinements, Time-Turners could only transport one a few hours. A day, at most."
"But surely with modification…"
He tucked a ghostly arm around her. "Oh, I am sorry, my dear, but the theory behind their creation absolutely contraindicates such a leap as you're thinking of. The paradox, you know."
She did. It had nearly torn her apart during her Third year. "I thought the paradox merely an unfortunate material side-effect."
"I'm afraid not, dear – it's intrinsic to the theory, which quite unravels the spell if you push its limits too far. You'd end up standing right where you started, spinning your necklace to no effect whatsoever."
Something in his tone told her he'd tried it. "How silly you must have felt."
"Oh, quite, my dear, quite. And what a good laugh I had, too!"
Demetrios's laughter convinced her more thoroughly of the facts of the matter than any amount of cross-referencing ever could. "But without… I'm sorry, but as you have no body, perhaps… ?"
He patted her shoulder. "My dear, it simply won't work. I do admire your determination, and absolutely depend on your curiosity, but… no. Practicality aside, it won't work in theory." He hesitated for a moment, considering something. "Still, curiosity must be indulged, else... havoc, oh, my, yes, havoc..."
She looked at him quizzically.
"Follow your float."
She laughed. "Excuse me?"
"I'm surprised at you, my dear - have you not thought to try my owl?"
"Your owl?"
"The coin, dear. The coin. When I'm stymied I often follow her wisdom."
"You trust to luck, you mean?"
"Of course, dear. Follow your float – although in your case, you might think 'feet' more appropriate..." He laughed. "My pretty little owl has never once led me wrong, 'though astray... well, everything unifies eventually, whatever the Ever-Expansionists say."
She glanced down at her feet then back at him. "So I… how do I follow my, hrm, float, exactly?"
Demetrios sighed fondly. "My dear, you overcomplicate; I sometimes forget how very young you sometimes still are… Simply toss the coin and proceed where your spirit takes you."
At Hermione's skeptical look, he smiled. "Whether or not it works, it's no less sensible a methodology than pulling at your hair."
Hermione's hand rose to her head, and she laughed. "Oh. I suppose I have rather…"
Demetrios chuckled. "I'll be around if you need me…" Humming quietly, he floated away as somewhere off to the left the Reformation Collection began a softly haunting guitar melody.
"'I close my eyes'… mmm… 'only for a moment, and'… mmm-hmm…" He opened his arms and drifted out of sight between the Kaballah and the Cubists.
As Hermione listened, the original dueling banjos up in Ephemera: American twanged out the usually far more melancholy duet that marked the bridge.
Wrinkling her nose, she closed her eyes and tossed the coin.
-#-
When she opened her eyes, she was sitting at the Gryffindor table.
Her legs barely reached the floor.
She heard Minerva's voice call, "Potter, Harry."
She was eleven years old, and, as she gripped the table for balance, her gaze flew to the head table, searching.
Professor Snape was alive.
He was looking at Harry.
And his face was haunted.
-#-
She scarcely had time to blink, and she was back in the archive.
Notes on sources and other sundries …
1. The songs performed by Demetrios and the Archives in this chapter are "The Things We Do For Love" by 10cc and "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas. Merlin help Hermione when he discovers disco…
2. Florence Nightingale: Famous early nurse.
3. Scientology, the Reformation, the Kaballah – six ways of looking at a blackbird. If you squint.
4. The Cubists – six ways of looking at a blackbird occurring simultaneously.
5. "Dueling Banjos" – a bluegrass song made famous by the movie Deliverance.
1-5 may or may not share a kind of thematic contiguity, if you squint at them all simultaneously. *twirls quill*
Author's Endnote, located here to avoid front-loading a spoiler: What just happened will be explained in the next chapter. Believe me, Hermione wants to know just as badly as you do.
~ A.