Disclaimer: Standard applies, no money, respects to those to whom respect is due.

A/N: I apologize for how long this has taken me to put out – thank you all for reviewing and sticking with it, though, it means a great deal to me! A huge thanks to my beta, Trinka, for all of her work on this, and my promise that chapter fifteen is actually with her now, so hopefully there will be more updating soon! Read and enjoy!

Kassandra's Bargain



As Hermione carefully marked the page of an old tome in the library, two spots on either side of her spine began to itch, her body's sixth sense and warning that she was being watched. Years of study in the art of subtlety learned the hard way - an unfortunate side effect of being a best friend of Harry Potter - kept her from sitting up straight in her chair and turning to find the source of her vague discomfort. Her stalker's gaze felt uncertain, not malevolent, and so was instantly categorized as a curiosity instead of a threat to be dealt with immediately. Either they would walk into her line of vision as they left the room, or she would see them when she stood and collected her own books.

She tapped her parchment with the end of her quill, frustration settling in once again. Since the encounter in the ever-in-bloom rose garden, she had been in the library for almost all of her spare time, seeking any information on the Keeper Concilium. After the meeting with Mroczek several months ago, she had not consulted the shelves that had always stood her in good stead, but had put the information in the back of her mind to be oft retrieved and mulled over, the matter of whom they were a secondary interest to understanding the enigma she was proving to be. She was uncertain, now, what she was intended to do. She had discovered both what the Echo was and who the clarinetist was, fulfilling the orders Professor Snape had given her months ago, and now was at a loss as to how to proceed.

In the absence of instruction, she had turned back to the mystery of the Concilium, her curiosity renewed with the news of the attack from Diagon Alley, and the strange connection the Zabini family had to them. In a recent review of the night Mroczek had caught them in the forest, she recalled vividly the way that Klytemnestra had ordered him not to report them:

"If the Headmaster can forgive our presence in this forest, my father can forgive yours."

But information on the Concilium did not exist on printed pages, and Hermione could not confess herself surprised that the library was once again refusing to yield her desired goal. A society shrouded in mystery could hardly remain so if information on it was available on school bookcases. She reflected ruefully that as she got older, and the fight against Voldemort took on different, strange magic not taught at Hogwarts, the trusted volumes gathering dust on the shelves contained less and less of what she needed.

"If the Headmaster can forgive our presence in this forest, my father can forgive yours."

Perhaps it was time to put aside the secret organization and focus on Mr. Zabini, a wizard who wielded such political and social power that his sixteen-year-old daughter was at ease commanding a man of Mr. Mrozcek's supposed standing. She rose, stretched, caught sight of the eyes watching her - Snape, his hair slung over his face in the curtain that would become his customary hiding place as an adult - and walked out of the bookshelves and towards the limited selection of periodicals, pointedly ignoring the boy who had been shadowing her for four weeks. She had read almost all of the books about great wizards and achievements of the twentieth century, and she did not recall Zabini's name being amongst them. So it was likely that his work was extremely modern, and would be recorded in the glossy pages of Witch Weekly or, probably, Galleons and Knuts: Britain's Greatest Working Wizards or Thyme.

Snape hesitated some rows away, unaware that the object of his observation knew he was watching her, debating, as he had been for weeks, how to approach her. His cousins had been as closed-lipped with him about the mysterious Concilium as they had been with the Gryffindor girls, and his frustration with their evasive answers was growing.

Added to this was the gnawing sense that Lucius Malfoy was planning something that would affect Snape's family. Snape had lifted his head from his toast and coffee this morning to see the platinum-crowned Prince of Slytherin eyeing Kassandra with a speculative smirk, and the younger wizard's spine had chilled. There had been something predatory in Malfoy's eyes, not in the way that a boy seeks a girl he likes, but the way a hunter stalks when intending to kill. Having no true friends to speak of, the young Slytherin's connection to his family was thusly strengthened, and in spite of his disgust at Kassandra's obvious lack of taste in men and his irritation at his cousins' obsessive secrecy, a threat to her heightened Snape's sense of alarm.

Through it all, the Gryffindor witches sat, whatever information they possessed sealed away, the American transfer student squashed between despised Potter and loathed Black in every class they shared, just a few meters from him and seeming as inaccessible as the bottom of the ocean. He could remember quite clearly the morning after the fight on the grounds. Their gazes had collided in the middle of their Transfiguration classroom as they pulled chairs away from desks and dropped bags to prepare for class, and after a moment she had arched her eyebrow in a gesture of courteous invitation, and turned her back. Her meaning had been perfectly clear. She would not come to him.

He had struggled for a month with whether he would go to her. Part of him, a part that was desperate for answers to his many questions, prodded him to move forward, to seek the information he was oddly certain she could provide. The part that understood the full weight and meaning of angering the only two people in his House that truly cared for him, the family he valued so highly, urged him to forget her. And a third part, a part that he had been squirming away from acknowledging for months, quietly egged him onwards, caring little for answers and for family, only for the physical nearness of the wild tresses that seemed untamable by magic or brush or plait, and the slender limbs that were deceptively small for the power they housed.

As always, House allegiances and family security stayed his footsteps and his tongue, and he merely stood, gaze fastened on her from his place behind the volumes, unwilling to move as long as he could see her without being seen, watch her without fearing the scrutiny of his housemates and her friends.

He had not counted on the ever-present glance of his cousins, who were seated not far from Hermione, studying for their OWLs. Kassandra was making a list of the twelve uses of dragon's blood as Klytemnestra screwed up her face in concentration, memorizing the steps to a basic, catch-all antidote. There was always a risk that a mild poison would be in the practical part of the exam, and rumor was that lethal toxins had been used until too many students had died at the end of their fifth year by failing their Potions exams. Snape had heard this story, and while he privately thought that it sounded like something invented by the staff to scare students into studying, he would simply carry a bezoar with him for the exam when his turn came in two years.

All attempts to remember schoolwork ceased as Kassandra elbowed her sister in the ribs and pointed silently to where Severus stood, as unmoving as the shelf he was partially tucked behind, his eyes trained intently on a third point of focus. Craning their necks revealed the recipient of his attention, and the sisters locked eyes, in complete accord once more. Suspicion and family in-fighting had been instantly suspended in the face of opposition from an outside source, and the twins were enjoying their renewed closeness, even when it was expressed in mutual exasperation over their cousin's peculiar attachment to a witch who asked too many uncomfortable questions and knew entirely too much.

Kassandra bent her head inwards to breathe in a whisper, "He's completely infatuated with her."

Klytemnestra made a low noise of agreement. "I would be pleased - she's the first person he's ever indicated an interest in outside of a purely intellectual plane - except that she's the worst possible choice he could make in the entirety of Hogwarts."

"Or all England for that matter," her sister muttered. "She's too..."

"Powerful," Klytemnestra said bleakly. She wondered if the Gryffindor girl's raw power were the attraction for her cousin, but she doubted it. It had to be the girl's voice, in part, and her brains...

"It'll run its course, I think," Kassandra said diffidently, sitting back to return to her OWLs. Klytemnestra watched Severus a little longer, her thin, dark brows drawn together to crease in the middle, creating worry-lines.

From the steady, unwavering quality to Severus' countenance, Klytemnestra doubted that whatever he felt for the strangely talented witch would run its course in so short a period of time.

888

A thick, heavy parcel landed in front of Hermione, the tawny owl depositing it carefully between pumpkin juice and eggs at breakfast, flaring its large wings as it landed and leaving the table untouched by its arrival. It received an extra piece of bacon for its trouble and scooted off to the Owlery hastily, clearly afraid that it was about to be laden with an equally weighty burden. The young witch sighed in relief, grateful that something in her life seemed to be working smoothly. The periodicals last night had born essentially no fruit - Anthony Zabini's name had appeared in the covering of several charity and Ministry events, one of which had been thrown at his manor on the island of Sicily. But as to his professional work, or where his great quantities of money came from, the magazines either didn't know or weren't telling – and knowing publishers, it certainly wasn't the latter.

"Are those the other books we need?" Remus asked, leaning in eagerly and deliberately allowing his shoulder to nestle firmly against hers from the left side and remain. He slanted a glance at her face, trying to guess at her reaction to his touch, but Hermione's dark eyes belonged solely to the package that James and Sirius were already reaching for. She swiftly placed the bulky delivery in her bag, dislodging Remus and setting it out of reach of the other boys at the same time.

"We want to see - are they the ones?" Sirius was halfway out of his seat and leaning across the table, hand outstretched like a demanding toddler reaching for his favorite toy.

"It's two of them, the last one I ordered into Folio's - we can pick it up there. But as Professor McGonagall is approximately fifteen feet away, I somehow think it's an unwise idea to simply open them where she could easily see what we're looking at," Hermione said neatly, zipping her bag again. "We can look at them after class today."

The two black-haired boys across from her exchanged pained looks that bespoke pure impatience as Sirius slumped back into his place, and Hermione laughed, genuine delight ringing in her voice. If only she had ever seen Ron and Harry look so excited about a set of textbooks-

"And...uh...the other part, are we going to get started on that soon?" James asked hopefully.

"We still need ingredients, James, and Hogsmeade isn't for another two weekends." A flurry of looks passed between the boys at the mention of the trip – James and Sirius giving Remus an intent stare, and Remus returning the look with equal heat, his cheeks coloring red. Hermione's head swung between them, nonplussed by the peculiar, nonverbal exchange.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing." James rose pointedly from the table, making an exaggerated show of checking his watch. "Oh - look at that, five minutes to class. Siri, I think I left my Potions essay in our room."

"You know, I'm pretty sure I did too. Peter can help us retrieve them." Sirius all but yanked Peter away from his breakfast, sending marmalade on a spoon skittering down the table as the three friends marched out, evidently leaving Remus some task, for James and Sirius both turned at the great doors and grinned at him saucily before disappearing in the direction of the staircase.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked, looking at him.

To her surprise, he was watching his plate as if it were quite the most fascinating thing he'd seen in a long time. "Remus?" she prompted worriedly. In the future, there were only the three of them comprising the center of her world, and the workings of a five-person group sometimes baffled her, although none of the personalities were as volatile as Ron and Harry when they were angry with one another. Were James and Sirius planning some prank?

"Erm...well...it's nothing," he mumbled, shoving a bit of partially melted butter across his plate to leave a long, pale streak.

"I think the last time it was 'nothing' for either James or Sirius was the day before they were born. What are they doing?" Hermione asked dryly, reaching for her bag and preparing to give chase to the mischievous duo and their mismatched third.

"No, actually, they really aren't...Gryffindor's having a Valentine's Day Bash," he blurted, changing the subject mid-sentence, as soon as his nerve mounted.

Hermione blinked at the abrupt change of direction. She knew about the party, of course, having heard Trina and other girls in her dormitory giggling about it behind their closed curtains, and she had seen flickers of dress robes made in satin and shining silk as they whispered and shrieked and swapped clothes. But when she had casually asked Lily if she were going, the red-headed witch had given her a blank look and answered, "With whom?" which had opened and closed the subject for both of them. They had a tentative plan to do some Arithmancy work that evening when their bedroom was sure to be silent, owing to the large amount of noise being made in the common room.

"I know," Hermione said hesitantly, suddenly wondering with a faint apprehension where this was leading.

"And there's a Hogsmeade trip that day," he continued.

"Right." Another pause punctuated their halting conversation, and to relieve the tension and hopefully some of his anxiety, she lowered her voice and leaned closer to him to murmur, "Don't worry - none of the ingredients we buy have to be used fresh for this potion. You guys can go to the party, we'll brew it on the Sunday afterwards."

"No, no," he sighed. "That's not - I mean - I was wondering..."Just say it! his mind screamed at him. Frustrated with his fumbling, he finally shoved the question off his tongue: "Would you come with me?"

"Oh!" She sat back, relieved that it wasn't more serious and caught utterly off guard. "To Hogsmeade? Or to the party?" she asked, her voice automatically filling space so that she could think without the weight of an awkward silence.

"Well...both, really. We'll all be in Hogsmeade together anyway, and there's a really good new Greek place I could take you to for lunch, and there's supposed to be dancing and games at the party..." His mouth had run away with him, and Remus hastily closed it before he could make too big a fool out of himself.

Hermione had cocked her head to one side while listening, and she smiled at him as he colored worse than before and fastened his eyes back on his china. "Yeah, I'll go with you. It'll be fun," she said, shrugging. She glanced down the table speculatively to where Lily was thumbing through their Runes text and had an idea that would make it unnecessary to explain to the other witch why she suddenly couldn't study that night. "D'you reckon you could get Ludo's friend Walt to ask Lily?"

"The Beater? Why?" Remus asked, perplexed.

"'Cause he's good at Potions and Arithmancy," she replied, rising and slinging her bag over her shoulder, "and Lily thinks he's cute. Come on. James and Sirius are probably waiting to jump on us right outside the door, but they were right. We do only have two minutes 'til Potions."

888

"Are you being Miss Kassandra Zabini?" The high pitched voice behind her made Kassandra jump, fingers slipping as she tried to tie her bathrobe, her cry of surprise clipped and short as she pressed her lips together, annoyed at the house-elf's abrupt appearance. One rarely saw them here, being as students from the old families were forbidden from bringing their personal elves to the castle, and those employed by the school kept themselves well out of the way of students and staff as they performed the chores that kept the school running.

"I am," she told the solemn-eyed little creature. And further questions on her part were not necessary, as a stick-thin arm extended, scrap of parchment clutched there, the tiny fingers wrapped around the now-scrunched paper as if it were a precious jewel.

"Mister Lucius Malfoy says to give this to you," the elf squeaked, and as soon as Kassandra lifted the paper from the elf's fist, it disappeared with a crack. Kassandra eyed the short note with extreme misgiving, tempted to throw it directly into the fire without reading it. She had made a thorough effort in avoiding Slytherin's favored son this term, helped largely in this effort by the once more almost constant company of her twin, whose disdain for the heir to Britain's largest fortune was well known. Kassandra suspected Narcissa was also pleased that Malfoy's attentions had turned elsewhere yet again - the daughter of Aries Black seemed unmoved by her intended's inability to remain faithful to her now that their betrothal papers had been signed, but disliked it when Lucius seemed to be actively more interested in a particular girl than he was in her.

The burning of shame and self-disgust that always accompanied thoughts of Lucius Malfoy, a feeling that was gradually receding in minute increments with time, returned as she unfolded the scrap and read the curt message, unable to make herself throw it away unread. Meet me at 6:30 in the Owlery on February 14th. It's just to talk. Just to talk. He had deliberately chosen a time when everyone else would be in the Great Hall, having dinner and preparing for whatever activities that night held for them. He clearly intended the meeting to be uninterrupted...

It's just to talk. Painful as it was to admit, she had been a fool to think that she might be more than a diversion for him. And now it was worse, because instead of just bedding him, she had unwittingly given him valuable information...

She folded the parchment and threw it into the flames, watching the orange lick over the faintly yellowed page eagerly, hurriedly turning it a deep brown. She had yet to atone for the mistake of her revelations. She had ten days to plan how to turn his own game back on him...and it was time to discover how much and whom he knew.

888

"Guess who asked me to go with him to the Valentine's party?" Hermione grinned at Lily's genuine bounciness as the older girl entered their dormitory, the red-haired witch's maturity fading to leave only a smitten thirteen-year-old impatiently waiting for Hermione to participate in the age-old game of guesswork, books set aside on her bed cover as the door clicked closed.

"Hmmm...you mean, other than James Potter?" Hermione teased. A look of annoyance was her reward for this remark, but the other girl swiftly shrugged it away.

"I said no to him." Lily brushed the question away with a flutter of her hand. "Guess who else?"

"Sirius Black?"

"Hermione! I'm not joking, someone did ask me. Someone I would go with," she clarified.

The older girl shrugged, eyes sparkling. "If it wasn't one of your two worst enemies, who could it be?"

"Walt Winters!" The name exploded in a breath of excitement and apprehension. "The Gryffindor Beater!"

Hermione laughed outright now, pleased with herself for her successful machinations. "I know who he is. You only can't take your eyes off him every match!"

"That's not true," Lily challenged. "Sometimes I watch Ludo."

"Once an hour for about five seconds," Hermione retorted, smiling.

"Walt is much better looking," Lily responded firmly. Plans for Arithmancy study had clearly gone out of Lily's head as the younger witch strode to her trunk and flung it open in an uncharacteristic display of sudden caring for her appearance. Like Hermione, Lily woke in the morning, wiggled into whatever clean school robes were closest to hand, and washed her face swiftly. Her one concession to female vanity were the waist-length locks of rich red-gold-auburn that she carefully brushed and pulled into a plait, or clips, or a ponytail every day.

But now, she was tugging at the end of one strand of hair as she caught one side of her mouth in her teeth, and then she was pulling school robes and casual wear out of her trunk with both hands, most of it flying to drape itself over the duvet, but some of it crumpling to the floor in her enthusiasm. As she reached the bottom, she slowed, and carefully lifted out her two sets of dress robes - the ones she had worn to their first Slughorn dinner, and the much fancier ones from Cornwall, complete with elbow-length black gloves. As Lily smoothed both out on her bedclothes, Hermione cleared her throat to capture the other girl's attention.

"I guess this means no studying on the fourteenth then?"

Dismay colored Lily's jade eyes, dampening her high immediately. "Oh, Hermione - I'm so sorry...when he asked me I completely forgot-" she halted, her friend's amusement plain on her face. "What?"

"I think I'll be all right. Seeing as I have a date for the evening, too."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me before?!" Dress robes lay neat and forgotten as Lily threw herself at Hermione's bed with a shriek of delight, sitting next to her as she breathed, "Who?"

As she opened her mouth to answer, Hermione felt a warmth gifted by total contentment douse her from head to toe. Even her gradually deepening friendship with Ginny Weasley did not contain this wholly girlish and unsullied interaction. She would not hesitate to call it childish - but it was a slice of childishness she had been denied, and so drank it in all the more eagerly now. Lily was often too adult for her years, and the older girl treasured the rare moments that the other witch allowed herself to be the thirteen-year-old girl she was as she dragged Hermione with her into a world of young teenage dramas, unworried by academics and the grinding war that had wholly consumed Hermione's childhood and now seemed likely to take her adulthood as well.

"Remus."

"I knew it!" Lily cried, flopping over backwards on Hermione's bed. "He's liked you for ages, you know. Almost ever since you got here."

Hermione froze. "He's liked you for ages." And she recalled how long it had taken him to work up the nerve to talk this morning, the way that he had stared so steadfastly at his plate, and she barely restrained a groan as she pressed one slender digit to her temple. She hadn't meant it like that. How could she have been so stupid as to miss the telltale signs of nervousness that she had been so quick to observe in Harry around Cho and Ginny, and in James whenever Lily walked into his line of sight?

"You and Remus will be cute together," Lily continued blithely, totally unaware of her friend's dismay. "You're both library rats, he's much nicer than the other three...and Walt asked me to go to lunch with him in Hogsmeade! Lunch! Just the two of us!"

"That's good," Hermione murmured distractedly, her mind tearing down corridors of thought in search of a polite way to extricate herself from this situation without hurting Remus and bringing down the wrath of the Marauders upon her person. She was a formidable witch, but they were more devious by far, and she doubted she could handle all of them at once.

"What's wrong?" With her friend's abrupt switch of mood, Lily had once again become the grave, serious girl that Hermione knew best, rhapsodies for Walt Winters put aside as Lily worriedly peered into Hermione's concerned face. "Hermione? Are you all right?"

"Yes...I just..." Hermione almost laughed at the absurdity of her situation. She had never been in such an awkward position, having skipped over the intrigues and romances of her classmates in favor of fighting Basilisks, Peter Pettigrew and Death Eaters. Abruptly, longing seized her violently, lodging in its familiar place between her ribs and below her heart as she thought of Ron, Ron whom she had spent the better part of two years yearning after, Ron who had recently turned his eyes to her and away from Lavender Brown after his poisoning...if only it had been him asking instead of the hapless, gentle Remus…

…and she suddenly remembered her first Defense Against the Dark Arts class her third year, the classroom warm in the late-summer afternoon sun.

Remus Lupin, her memory of his greying hair contrasting sharply with the solid brown of the present-day boy, had been calling off the list of names, familiarizing himself with their owners as each member of the class announced their presence.

He paused when he got to her, and it seemed to her that he stumbled as he said, "Grang-" and lifted his head to stare directly at her. Thirteen-year-old Hermione had thought she'd seen surprise, amazement, a hint of unhappiness and a touch of pain glisten there.

"I see Hermione Granger is with us already," he said quietly, and did not call her name for her response. Hermione had wondered, at the time, at the peculiar recognition he seemed to grant her - Harry was the famous one that everyone knew by sight, and the strangeness of the new professor's seeming familiarity puzzled her - but she had not asked him at the time, and as he had never looked like that again, she had become convinced that she imagined it.

Was this why? Had she hurt him over this, seven years before her birth and twenty before she would see him standing at the head of her class?

Desire to laugh vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, and, quashing the homesickness that swamped her as memories of Ron flooded through her, Hermione looked to Lily helplessly, grounding herself once more in time. "I didn't mean it like that...I...Remus is great, but I don't..." I can't date a boy three years younger than I am who will be my professor. That's just too...unnerving.

"You don't like him like that?" Lily guessed shrewdly.

"Yes," Hermione swiftly took refuge in the age-old excuse. "That is, no, I don't."

"That's a shame. He really is perfect for you," Lily said, tapping her lips with her index finger. At this, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort escaped Hermione.

"He's - we're - thirteen, Lily. Do you think Walt Winters is 'perfect' for you?"

"No," she admitted with a shrug, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. "But he is very good-looking, and he said he'd pay for lunch. I've never been invited on a date before. "

"By anyone except James Potter," Hermione amended.

"Who doesn't count, because he's more monkey than human," Lily countered.

"What can I tell Remus?"

"That you thought he meant going as friends," Lily told her seriously, returning to her bed to continue her appraisal of her potential dresses. "That is what you thought? When he invited you?"

"Yes," Hermione replied firmly.

"So tell him that." Lily shrugged as she straightened each finger of the gloves spread on her four-poster. "But I'd do it before Valentine's Day if I were you."

888

Valentine's Day dawned clear and crisp, the sun shining over the snow in a distant way, making it glitter brilliantly and warning the staff and students of Hogwarts that the day would be bitterly cold.

Hermione sighed as she rose to dress, pulling on her robes slowly, her fingers slipping over the buttons. Lily observed this behavior, the opposite of her swift preparations, including the curled hair that fell to her mid-back in ringlets as she cast the charm on them.

"You haven't talked to him yet, have you?" she asked quietly as pushed her last bobby pin in place to hold her hair in a frame around her face, tendrils deliberately falling to brush the edges of her cheeks.

"What d'you think?" she asked, not waiting for Hermione to answer the first question as Lily nodded at her reflection and twisting her head around as far as she could to see the back.

"I think you look stunning," Hermione said honestly. "Walt isn't going to know what hit him." It was small wonder, seeing Lily look like this now, that James Potter tripped over his tongue every time she walked into the room, and Hermione recalled vividly her first impression upon seeing Lily – that she already moved like a woman, having skipped the awkward stage of adolescent clumsiness. Hermione felt a stab of surprise that others had not expressed interest in the beautiful young witch, unaware that, like herself, Lily's bookish tendencies and perfectionist attitude towards her work superceded her beauty.

"And no, I haven't talked to him yet," she said softly.

"Do it on the way into Hogsmeade."

"Right. With all of his friends standing there."

"Good point. Well...do it before the dance."

"Yeah," Hermione agreed half-heartedly, giving her appearance a cursory check in the mirror, knowing that, next to Lily, she looked drab and dull. She had been dreading the idea of the sure-to-be awkward conversation with Remus so ardently that she had avoided the Marauders as much as possible over the past few days, something that was growing increasingly harder as their keenness to continue researching how to become Animagi had them actively seeking her company every moment that Quidditch and class did not occupy them.

"Come on!" Lily demanded impatiently from the door. "We're making them wait!"

Feeling that she would happily make them wait all day if it weren't for the ingredients she needed from the apothecary and the book she needed from Folio's, Hermione reluctantly followed her excited friend down the spiral staircase.

888

"Looks like Loony Lupin has got himself a girlfriend," Michael Avery drawled as the Slytherins jostled past them on the road to Hogsmeade, Lestrange ensuring that his shoulder collided with Peter's, sending the smaller, rounder boy sprawling face first into the snow. Remus dropped Hermione's hand to help him up as he sputtered, James, Sirius and Hermione placing themselves between Peter and their Slytherin tormentors, wands out. They were barely outside the gates of the school, and Hermione tossed the wrought-iron spikes a swift glance, hoping that none of the chaperones were close at hand to be paying attention to this not-quite-unexpected altercation between students.

"Shove off with your dogs, Lestrange," Sirius spat, long, willow wand pointed directly at the acknowledged leader of the pack.

"What did you call me, Black?" Tim Wilkes had his wand out now as well, Avery and Rosier were drawing theirs, and Lestrange was rolling his between his palms as if contemplating it, a would-be casual gesture that fooled no one. For a long moment none of them moved in the chilly morning air, unwilling to be the first to break the rules about fighting, but equally incapable of backing down.

Snape was next through the gate, flanked by both of his cousins, who walked perhaps five paces behind him, deep in conversation.

"Great. Snivellus," James muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Don't call him that," Hermione snarled. Sirius and James exchanged exasperated looks.

"In-fighting? Dear me, whatever next?" Lestrange smirked at Hermione. "What does it matter to you what they call him?"

"I've had enough foul names sent my way to last me a lifetime," she responded coolly.

Snape had halted to assess the situation, taking in Remus and Peter still crouched in the snow behind the front rank of Gryffindors protecting them shoulder-to-shoulder. He felt something burn within him as he looked at Hermione, scarf fluttering away from her head to loose her plaited hair, ears already reddening with the cold.

"Snape." Lestrange greeted him without taking his eyes from the Gryffindor triad.

"Les. You seem to be having a touch of trouble with Potty and his merry men."

"Your assistance would not be remiss," Lestrange replied in a light tone.

"Wouldn't it?" Snape had made no move for his wand, and, looking towards the trio once more, he saw their triangle had shifted, leaving him facing the American witch who increasingly haunted him. He crossed his arms in a gesture of refusal to join the fight, and, ten seconds later, he was extremely glad he had done so.

Through the snow billowed Professors McGonagall and Flitwick, their escorts for this trip, and no sooner had her red robes appeared over the hill than McGonagall was running towards them, angry impatience clear in her tone, though wind carried away the words before they could reach the group of students who were hastily stowing their wands, as if their professors didn't know precisely what they were up to.

"...five minutes and you're already at it! Potter, Black, Lestrange – I see those wands! Pettigrew, stand up, boy! Are you hurt?" He shook his head to indicate the negative, and she turned away from him to glower at the entire group in turn. "Twenty-five points from Gryffindor for fighting, Thirty-five from Slytherin-" A cry of outrage rose at this injustice, only to have Professor McGonagall silence it with a wave of her hand that took in the four boys that comprised Slytherin's pack and Snape and his cousins. "There are more of you," she snapped curtly.

"Professor?" Hermione ventured quietly, "Snape and the Zabinis weren't fighting."

Total silence greeted this unexpected slice of honesty, and Hermione looked past her mildly astonished professor to meet the black eyes of Klytemnestra Zabini. She could feel the other girl weighing her, wondering what prompted this generosity, and what Hermione would expect in exchange for it.

"Thank you, Miss Granger." McGonagall recovered herself and corrected the takings. "Make that twenty points from Slytherin and five points to Gryffindor for telling me the truth. And a detention for all of you." Her sweeping finger took in the nine combatants. Sirius and James looked positively mutinous at this pronouncement, especially as Snape stood behind their Transfiguration teacher, features stamped with sheer delight at witnessing their punishment.

"I don't know what will keep you from this kind of irresponsible, irrational behavior," the older witch lectured tiredly. "We've tried everything with you, Potter and Black. And you, too, Lestrange." She turned her dark eyes on Hermione, disappointment glittering strongly in their depths. "And you, Miss Granger. I would have thought you'd have better sense than to join in this childishness. Potter, Black, Wilkes and Rosier, you will report to Filch on Monday night for your detention. Granger, Lupin, Pettigrew, Lestrange and Avery, you will report to Hagrid. They will expect you at eight o'clock sharp. Lateness will result in a further loss of House points. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

Nine heads bobbed up and down precisely once, the students waiting as her judgment hung in the air, legs tensing to bolt. When it was obvious she had nothing more to say, the two rival Houses turned firmly from one another and hurried to continue their trek across the snow, leaving their professors behind them to shake their heads and roll their eyes.

Snape fell into step behind the Slytherins, far enough back not to have to speak to them, close enough to observe the group of Gryffindors creating a parallel track not thirty feet away, James and Sirius breaking the trail and occasionally floundering in snow up to their knees for their trouble, laughing as they wrestled with one another, their black heads thick with clumps of white.

He was watching when Remus Lupin reached for Hermione and tangled his fingers in hers, and his black eyes took in the shyly pleased smile that graced the quiet boy's features. The Slytherin halted dead, unaware of his legs sinking into the snow as it collapsed under him, an emotion comprised of searing hatred and desire flooding through him, darkening his vision, making it difficult to breathe with its weight and ferocity. Granger was looking at the other boy, her face and reaction obscured from Snape, but he couldn't tear his eyes from their co-mingled fingers until the figures had grown too small to make out the detail, and only then did rational thought start infringing on blind emotion.

He stood in the cold until he was sure he had his envy under control, and continued towards Hogsmeade at a slower pace, unaware of his cousins observing his reaction and trading glances, the brightness of his day permanently dimmed.

888

Hermione cursed soundly and almost silently as she stood in the apothecary, staring at the empty display case, and closest to her, Sirius placed a hand on her back in concern.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"They don't have crushed elderflower," she sighed. "And we can't make the potion without it."

Sirius groaned aloud, a sound quickly silenced as Hermione shushed him. They had already waited so long to brew it, he felt his patience would snap under the strain if they had to waste another day.

"Do they order it in? Maybe James and I could sneak out with the Invisibility Cloak if they're going to get a new stock soon," he suggested.

Hermione hesitated, unwilling to outright condone their insistence on breaking every rule they could, but knowing they needed the crushed leaves if they were to continue, and the next Hogsmeade weekend wouldn't be for at least another ten weeks.

"We can ask," she conceded, blowing a long breath as the need to help Remus won over her ingrained compulsion for obedience. She approached the clerk behind the counter and smiled shyly. "Will you be getting a new stock of elderflower leaves soon?"

"Elderflower?" He reached for a complicated-looking table and ran one stubby finger across the parchment. "Not soon, as it's not a product we have a lot of demand for...next order is due in five weeks." He glanced at her. "School project?"

"Er...yes," she lied, frowning with displeasure. "Thank you."

She rejoined the boys on the other side of the small, musty shop. "Verdict?" Remus muttered.

"No good. Five weeks until the next order arrives."

"Five weeks?" James sputtered. "That's forever from now. Can we order it from Diagon Alley?"

"Yeah - but it's the price plus shipping if we get it from the apothecary there, which I was hoping to avoid," Hermione sighed.

"I'll cover it," Sirius volunteered immediately. "You know money's no object with me." She smiled wearily, grateful for Sirius' complete selflessness when it came to the needs of his friends. His eyes had brightened with this new plan, all the impatience of a teenage boy clear in his immediate need to do something. "We can go to the post office now and send an order with one of their owls." He straightened to his full height and looked around the shop. "Is everything else here?"

"Yes," Hermione answered. "I'm going to pay for this stuff. Wait for me at the post office." Galleons and Sickles tumbled into her hands from theirs as each of the boys made their contribution to the purchase and filed out the door to run their next errand, sprinting towards the post office in a rush of streaming black cloaks and red-and-gold scarves, Peter predictably lagging behind, his pudgy middle and short legs in sharp contrast with the slender, long forms of his friends.

As she stepped back towards the counter, she found herself behind a lean figure with long, dark hair buying a number of the ingredients commonly required for third-year Potions students. She hesitated, the long fingers she had observed for so many years in a dungeon classroom tapping the pitted, stained wood, apparently oblivious that she stood directly behind him. Much as she did not trust his cousins, Snape's face had told its own story of betrayal and surprise that night in the rose garden, and Hermione felt that she needed his help as much now as she had when she had arrived. But he seemed ill-inclined to do more than shadow her, and she had come to the conclusion that she would have to move first.

"Snape," she finally greeted him.

He did not startle, and his slow turn around confirmed that his failure to acknowledge her had been a deliberate choice, not out of ignorance of her presence.

"Granger." The coldness in tone and eyes solidified as dread in her abdomen. He had not been so distant with her since before he had heard her sing, and she thought she saw hurt underlying the ice in his black gaze.

Snape could not help the next words that tumbled from his mouth, shaped to wound. "Where's your boyfriend? Shouldn't he be licking your heels with the rest of your friends?"

Hermione recoiled from the verbal slap, and, her defenses honed after six years of word battles with Draco Malfoy, wrapped her own exterior of indifference over the sharp, unsettling pain of having caused him grief. She purposefully chose not to correct his misimpression of her relationship with Remus, fire rising to meet ice. "They're doing something else, Snape." She flickered a glance towards a shelf not far off where his cousins lingered, absorbed in weighing mercury and counting unicorn hairs. "Unlike you, I don't need bodyguards at my beck and call."

"Your total is nine Galleons, seven Sickles and ten Knuts," the clerk interrupted them cheerfully, unaware of the battle going on in front of his nose.

Snape paid without looking at the man, tilted his head with a sneer at Hermione, and departed. The girl watched him leave, his robes catching the wind at the doorframe to widen and fill the bottom area with black before the door slammed on his heels.

"Erm...miss?" the clerk prompted.

"Sorry." Hermione turned back to the counter, placing her items on the wooden top. She barely paid attention as the man rang her up and she passed him money without thinking. It was the first time she had spoken to Snape since the fight, and, if the hardness of his voice told the whole story, his cousins seemed to have turned him against her.

But there had been something else there, a new look, a clearer, harder tenor to his glance, than he had had while in the library not two weeks before. Some factor had clearly changed since then to turn him from uncertainty to dislike, and she could only guess at what had caused the difference.

888

Kassandra mounted the stairs to the Owlery with growing misgiving, moving slower with every ascended step. She had never sent Lucius a reply, but the look he had slanted her today as they passed each other in Honeydukes made it clear that he was expecting her, the same way one would expect a bitch puppy trained to heel to come when called. She had not told Klytemnestra anything about his note. Her twin would have tried to talk her out of going, and now Kassandra wondered why she hadn't given her the chance.

She fingered the wand in her robe pocket, reassuring herself that the dueling lessons she had taken every summer since her tenth birthday had adequately prepared her if Lucius tried to use force. Just to talk. She took a moment, hand on the Owlery door, to quietly damn her consuming curiosity. She had never 'just talked' to Lucius Malfoy, and his inclusion of that assurance in the message had tipped the scales, ensuring her willingness to respond to him.

Swallowing the part of her that was inclined to simply back down the stairs and go to dinner, she pushed open the wooden door and entered the tower that smelled of feathers, bird droppings and damp from the constantly open windows, shivering as the wind greeted her entrance by swooping along her neck, lifting her hair and sending cold down her spine.

"Kassandra." Lucius' voice sounded its usual blend of honey-and-milk smoothness, and as Kassandra really looked at him for the first time in the six weeks since she had stopped sleeping with him, she wondered how she had ever found the too-coifed, coldly-patrician features attractive enough to bed in the first place. He exemplified their House emblem, a snake from his boots to his silver-coated tongue, and she shuddered faintly, unease peaking.

"Malfoy," she returned coolly. "You wanted to talk?"

"Yes," he replied, and a frowning creased his pale forehead. "I have a question for you about music."

Unexpected bitterness choked her, and Kassandra beat back sudden disappointment, furious with herself. Of course it was about music. She didn't know why she should have expected it to be anything else. She opened her mouth to snap that music was a subject she would never again discuss with him, and hesitated. If she really wanted to know what he knew, she had to string him along, not shut him out. She changed direction before her vocal cords could respond scathingly, and her reply came out neutrally instead.

"Of course. I guessed as much. What, about music, precisely? And why?"

"I need to know how to bind a musician's power," the Malfoy heir replied.

Kassandra's eyebrows hit her hairline. His reply was both direct and risky, and it was unlike the boy she knew to be so honest. "How much power?"

"A lot."

"Who?" she asked. He slotted her a glance, his grey eyes cold and troubled, and shook his head.

"You don't need to know." In the half-light of torches and snow reflecting the last, late-evening rays of sunlight, Kassandra saw that the features she had passed as his normal, refined looks were, in fact, a shade too sharp and slightly nervous, as if he were under great strain and not eating enough. Her mental evaluation of his situation climbed. Seemingly unflappable, he was the ruler in any student situation, and Kassandra seriously doubted the pressure came from within. Who or what was he beholden to outside the castle walls?

"I beg to differ. We both know that Kly and I are musicians. I will not help you work against us."

He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her statement and waited a moment before he replied quietly, "The American. Hermione Granger."

Kassandra's interest sharpened abruptly as, for the first time, she considered giving him what he wanted. Two months ago, she had been furious when he had persevered over the transfer-in witch, jealous of her status as his only lover. Now, however, she and her sister had their own problems with the intelligent third-year Gryffindor. Her knowledge of the Concilium, a society that had to remain secret due to its very nature, was too puzzling for comfort, and the clear head she had for research and puzzle-solving was bound to yield future difficulties as she discovered some nugget of information relating to their family. Klytemnestra had spoken of the virtuosic talent and power of the other witch's voice, which was, in all likelihood, the reason Mrozcek had been interested in speaking to Hermione to begin with.

And here stood Lucius Malfoy, offering to essentially put an end to all their troubles at one stroke. For him to remove her from the picture was almost too perfect a solution - bloodless and blameless for Kassandra and her twin.

And her cousin...he might be broken-hearted in the manner of young teens for a week or two, but today he had been left to stand cold and alone in the snow as she walked off hand-in-hand with one of the Gryffindor brats she counted amongst her friends, and Kassandra's resolve hardened.

"What do you intend to do with her?" Kassandra carefully kept her tone bland.

"Granger? There is...someone...who wants to meet her very badly, and she will not accompany me by invite, so I'm afraid I will have to use a different...method of persuasion."

"Who wants to meet her?"

"I cannot say," he returned, and the firmness of both eyes and voice told Kassandra that she would not get him to reveal this name. She switched to the topic that truly interested her.

"Will she be leaving Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

"For good?" the black-haired girl pressed.

He dipped his head in the affirmative and gave her a strange look, one corner of his mouth twitching. "Do you hate her so much? Why is it important to you that she be gone?"

"Reasons of my own," she replied lightly. She could almost hear the beat of the dance, could feel the movement in her taut body, point and counterpoint, the exchange of information between two people who knew precisely what value it had, cooperated only because they had to, and were playing for high stakes.

"Elaborate?"

"What will you give me in return?" She directed the conversation away from her dislike of Hermione Granger. Lucius did not need a soliloquy on the subject - she did not think that he was aware of her cousin's interest in the girl, and did not intend to tell him. Let him presume it was leftover jealousy.

"For telling me how to subdue her?" Kassandra nodded once. He eyed her warily, and asked cautiously, "What do you want?"

The dark witch considered him seriously. The sparseness of his conversation betrayed him. In the circles they inhabited, one only asked directly for something when one cared very little about receiving it or else desperately needed it within a given time constraint. The pinched quality of his mouth, the frustration in his eyes when he spoke of the transferred-in witch told her that it was not the former. Lucius was clearly under intense pressure to deliver her, and so Kassandra knew that her price for her knowledge could climb.

The answers to his questions were a direct threat to many in her family, and loyalty to bloodline had been long trained into the young woman. "If I tell you, you must swear an oath not to come near anyone who bears the same blood I do, and never to use this against them."

"You included?" he asked a shade snidely, using his sarcasm to cover how deeply he cared about the answer. A blood oath of restraint was not one to be made lightly. His wand would not work against any of her family, including Snape, if he swore, nor would his fists. It was a high price to pay for the information he needed...but this was his last chance of capturing the American witch instead of presenting his master with the second-best choice, either the girl standing in front of him, or her twin - and the oath would put them permanently out of his reach.

But the reward would be all the sweeter if he could hand over the girl the Dark Lord truly wanted…

"I have to be exempt," she replied, contempt coloring her voice. "You will not be capable of performing the magic yourself - unless you are hiding some musical prowess I am unaware of."

"To bind a musician you have to be one?" he asked, incredulous irritation in his tone, even as some part of him acknowledged that it was far from surprising to discover this prerequisite.

"Of course. Your blood oath?"

He looked into her black eyes and saw the same arrogant, unyielding firmness that Klytemnestra always draped around her, and the coldness that was identical to her younger cousin's. Even in his desperation, he could admire the aloof composure that dictated the terms of her compliance, and he knew their careful dance had come to an end. No choices. His polished wand flashed almost gold in the light of the setting sun, and a strip of red slashed across his white palm, crimson trickling into the creases of his lifeline and joints. Crimson met crimson as she split her hand to match his, and they clasped, scarlet smearing and seeping through cracks in their palms to drip to the floor, spots freckling the wood.

"My oath to your bloodline, that my wand and my fist should never be raised against one of you," he whispered, and his wand, held in his left hand, flared, the yellow light of a protection spell streaming from it to soak into their joined hands.

As the after-tingle faded, they dropped arms immediately, wands healing the tissue so that nothing but vermillion strips remained on either's skin.

"So. Tell me."