Chapter 25

Hermione was sitting with Ron, Tonks, Lupin and Luna around Bill Weasley's bed in the hospital wing. Neville was in the next bed, but he merely looked as if he were sleeping, and Madam Pomfrey had reassured them that he was not seriously injured. Bill was another matter, however.

Ron had told her that Bill had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback during the battle under the Astronomy Tower, and that his face, neck and upper body had been badly mauled. If he survived, he would be horribly disfigured; it made Hermione wince just to look at him. Madam Pomfrey was frantically dabbing a green ointment on to his wounds.

The doors to the infirmary crashed open, and all of them turned as one to see Harry and Ginny running in, both looking distraught and desperate. Harry exchanged a few words with Lupin regarding Bill's condition, whether he would be a true werewolf, since Greyback had been untransformed, and then Ron had assured them that Dumbledore would know something that could help his brother.

"Ron – Dumbledore's dead," Ginny told him.

"What?"

Remus Lupin exclaimed in despair, losing control of his emotions and sinking to a chair beside Bill's bed, clutching tightly to Tonks' hand. She placed her hand reassuringly on his back and looked to Harry for confirmation that what Ginny had said was correct. He nodded, gravely.

"How did he die?" Tonks whispered. "How did it happen?"

"Snape killed him," replied Harry, immediately, "I was there, I saw it. We arrived back on the Astronomy Tower …"

Harry launched into a long explanation about how exactly Professor Snape had murdered the headmaster, but her friend's words began to buzz confusingly in her ears as if someone had cast a Muffliato in the vicinity.

Severus – killed Dumbledore? What were they saying? That was impossible.

Hermione's heart began to beat faster than it ever had before, thumping wildly as if it intended to lurch out of her chest and throw itself onto the cold hospital floor in a pulsing splat. She clapped her hands to her mouth, terrified of what might escape.

"And then Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra," Harry finished.

What? What?

No.

Something was very wrong here.

They heard the evocative sound of Fawkes' phoenix lament echoing mournfully but beautifully outside in the darkness, breaking all their hearts into pieces. Everyone was crying, even Madam Pomfrey and Lupin.

Only Hermione knew that her tears were for the killer, as well as the killed.

What had Severus done?

Why?

She drew her legs up onto the chair, resting her chin on her knees and wrapping her arms around her bent legs. Closing her eyes and feeling the tears squeeze from her closed lids and down her cheeks, she began to think, her mind searching desperately for an explanation.

What had he said to her, just a couple of hours previously? Think, Hermione, think.

"I am about to damn my soul to save that of a child."

What had he meant by that? What child would be saved by Dumbledore's death?

Severus had seemed wildly on-edge, a glut of nervous energy coursing through his body, his muscles taut and his manner urgent.

"I will not sully your goodness by telling you that I love you."

They had sounded like someone's last words, a declaration that might be made with a dying breath, at a time when a person had nothing left to lose by admitting their deepest feelings. She doubted Severus would ever have made such an admission, had he believed … had he thought … that he would ever see her again.

She buried her face in her knees, trying to keep the panic from her sobs, trying to regulate her breaths – come on Hermione! One after the other, and another, that's it …

Professor McGonagall had entered the infirmary and was being given the ugly news. Their Head of House had collapsed onto a hastily-conjured chair and blamed herself for sending Professor Flitwick to bring Snape into the fray. She explained what had happened with the Carrows in the Ravenclaw common room.

Everyone began to chip in with their whereabouts and actions, and together they attempted to piece together what had happened. Harry explained about the Vanishing Cabinets that Draco had admitted mending and using in front of Dumbledore before he died. Ron looked utterly bereft that they had allowed Malfoy to escape from the Room of Requirement using Draco's Hand of Glory and under cover of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.

Lupin took up the refrain, explaining how Gibbon, a Death Eater, had set off the Dark Mark above the castle, and was then hit by a Killing Curse from one of his own side as he slunk back down, seemingly afraid to wait for Dumbledore alone at the top of the Astronomy Tower.

"So, if Ron was watching the Room of Requirement with Ginny and Neville," Harry said, turning towards Hermione, "were you …?"

The full horror of the integral part she had played in the tragedy was now upon her, and Hermione lifted her head to face Harry, fresh tears beginning to fall.

"I was outside Snape's office with Luna, yes," she whispered, explaining how they had hung around for a long while with nothing happening, feeling rather useless, and how eventually Professor Flitwick had coming racing down the corridor and into Professor Snape's office.

"We heard a thump," she sobbed, "and then Sev … Snape came hurtling out of the room and told us …"

She broke down again, unable to believe her own naivety and ignorance.

"What?" Harry urged her, when she did not continue. "What, Hermione?"

"I was so stupid, Harry!" she shouted, viciously, through her tears and running nose.

Harry knelt down beside her and took her hand, gently.

"No one would dare to ever describe Hermione Granger as stupid," he reassured, squeezing tightly. "Just tell me what happened."

Wiping her nose ungracefully on the sleeve of her jumper, she continued, the words falling out of her mouth and each one sounding a resounding death knell inside her brain.

"He … Snape, said Professor Flitwick had collapsed and that Luna … that we should go and take care of him while he – while he went to help fight the Death Eaters."

In absolute truth, Severus had said this only to Luna, for after the small blonde witch had disappeared into his office to attend to her unconscious Head of House, he had grabbed Hermione by the elbow and pulled her into an alcove, visibly terrified, said some very cryptic things, before effectively declaring his love to her and kissing her senseless before disappearing into thin air. This wasn't something she was about to confess to Harry.

Hermione covered her face in shame and continued to talk into her fingers, so that her voice was muffled.

"We went into his office to see if we could help Professor Flitwick and found him unconscious on the floor ... and, oh it's so obvious now, Snape must have Stupefied him, but we didn't realise, Harry, we didn't realise, we just let Snape go!"

She had actually joined Luna in the office five minutes later, after the kissing, but fervently hoped that the dreamy girl would not pick up on this time discrepancy and mention it.

"It's not your fault," Lupin insisted. "Hermione, had you not obeyed Snape and got out of the way, he would probably have killed you and Luna."

She nodded weakly, the pain of crying still hurting her throat.

No, he wouldn't have. He would never hurt me.

But then, she wouldn't have thought him capable of killing the Headmaster either, and it appeared he had done just that.

Zoning out of the conversation again, she allowed the discussion to burble over her head as the others pieced together the movements of Severus, Draco and the other Death Eaters before they had finally escaped the grounds.

Why had Severus been tugging Malfoy along with him?

"I am about to damn my soul to save that of a child."

Had he meant Draco's soul?

She thought of Harry's insistence, all year, that Malfoy had been forcibly branded as a Death Eater, and her own sightings of Draco being summoned at the same times as Severus had albeit confirmed this.

Harry had insisted that he had overheard Snape trying to pacify and appease Malfoy, as if he were trying to elicit information from him, assuring Draco that he wanted merely to assist him. Had Severus been protecting Malfoy in some way?

However, she couldn't think of what kind of protection would involve murdering someone to do so. Oh, her mind was a mess of distress and confusion, and the chaos was making her head hurt.

-xxx-

Much later that night, the whole school finally back in their beds, Hermione allowed her heart to wrench apart in the darkness. From guilt and from longing. She had spent best part of the school year having a relationship, both emotional and sexual, with the hated professor who had just slain the Headmaster with an Unforgiveable curse.

Hermione thought she knew him. Tonight's events showed her just how little she has known, and just how much he had kept from her.

Had their relationship been purely a fulfilment of sexual need for him?

Even as she questioned it, even with everything that had just happened, she knew the answer – No.

She knew it had been more, from the lengthy time they had spent together not involved in any kind of physical contact. He had spent months drilling her on her offensive and defensive skills, teaching her useful protective charms and enchantments, making her aware that Dark Magic was a seducer, introducing her to Dark potions and objects. He had ensured that she was fully prepared for whatever lay ahead, for surely this was just the beginning … of the end?

-xxx-

The few days between that night and Dumbledore's funeral were the most solemn that there had ever been at Hogwarts. The atmosphere was as subdued and tense as after Cedric Diggory had been killed by Voldemort during the final task of the Tri-Wizard tournament, but somehow the sense of despair and foreboding now was even worse than that. Several students were removed immediately by their fearful parents, not allowed to remain at the school to even pay their final respects.

The funeral itself was as emotional as she'd expected, with Dumbledore being laid to rest in a pure white tomb on the island in the middle of the Black Lake.

Professor Slughorn was named interim Head of Slytherin as Severus had deserted the role, and even amongst the maudlin atmosphere she could not help but ruefully imagine how disappointed Phineas, Salazar, Vida and the other portraits in the secret chamber were going to be as the corpulent Slughorn returned to them.

As they readied themselves for the journey home on the Hogwarts Express, both she and Ron pledged to accompany Harry in his hunt for the remaining Horcruxes, even if it meant not returning to Hogwarts. It seemed now that only Harry could bring down Voldemort, and that the three of them appeared to be the only ones who knew of the existence of the Horcruxes. What was ahead of them, she knew not, but they would face it together.

-xxx-

Severus was speeding across the North Sea on a superb broomstick borrowed from the indecently large collection at Malfoy Manor. At any other time, he would have been enjoying the flight, the taste and smell of the salt spray against his face, the wind whipping his hair and cloak, pushing his hood back as he flew at an exhilarating pace.

Unfortunately, this was not an outing for pleasure.

Barely allowed to draw breath after his audacious murder of the headmaster and his former employer Albus Dumbledore, Severus had been sent with a team of Death Eaters to break all their remaining 'brothers' out of Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy among them, along with the other reprobates that had found themselves captured by Aurors after the Battle at the Department of Mysteries the previous year.

As he looked left, right and in front, all around him flew witches and wizards in identical black Death Eater robes, ghoulish silver masks pressed to their faces. He hated every single one of them with a passion, these 'comrades', these despicable stains of human filth that clung to the Dark Lord's cloak with a reverence borne solely of hunger for power, or from sheer terror.

The task they were expected to accomplish was not actually likely to be too difficult. Voldemort had finally turned the Dementors to his side, and the soul-sucking fiends were no longer controlled by the Ministry, they had broken free and declared their allegiance to the Dark Lord. There would be only a cursory wizarding guard on duty at Azkaban, low-ranking Aurors most likely, sent there to attempt to contain the prisoners in the absence of the Demetors. Severus pitied them, for they would all die tonight should they attempt to impede the Death Eater's 'rescue' mission.

Approaching the vast, monolithic building set atop a huge rocky outcrop in the North Sea, the Death Eaters began to fire at the walls, blasting chunks away, hacking into the cells. Prisoners who were no use to them, petty criminals, those who did not bear the Dark Mark, were left cowering in their cells to defend themselves without wands or protection against the harsh elements.

As they stormed the wreckage of Azkaban, tossing the bodies of the guards who had tried to resist them into the rough, grey waters below, it had been Severus' bad luck to find himself in the cell of Lucius Malfoy, looking drawn and haggard after a year incarcerated here. Not bothering to hide the revulsion he felt at the sight of Malfoy, whose son had cost him so very much, he dragged the physically weakened man on to the back of his broom, harshly instructing him to hold tight around his waist.

Malfoy encircled his thin arms around Severus' waist and clutched them upon his stomach with a deathly-tight grip that made him want to vomit. Setting his jaw, he rose the broom into the air and turned it back the way they had come, across the sea, seeing many of the other Death Eaters doing the same with ill and skeletal-looking escaping prisoners upon their backs.

Such a parody of care and comradeship, Severus thought, despising himself for the role he was playing in such a farce. Once these rescued wizards were revived to full health they would be cursing and torturing each other again, and receiving no mercy in their treatment from the Dark Lord.

Lucius Malfoy clung pathetically to his back, reminding Severus of a desperate parasite feeding from his power. He was Malfoy's only hope of returning home alive, and they both knew it.

As they arrived at Malfoy Manor he stopped short, making a deliberately bumpy landing on the manicured lawns, causing Lucius to fall from the broom and roll over several times. Looking around, he saw that they were alone. Other Death Eaters had no doubt taken their own passengers to their individual homes to recover, or to whatever hovels or shacks these vile beings rotted in. Voldemort would not be interested in playing any part in the care of his loyal followers as they restored themselves to their full strength. He would have them … afterwards.

Narcissa and Draco ran from the house, across the lawns towards them, their pale faces and hair glowing brightly white in the darkness of the evening. They knelt next to Lucius, reassuring him, touching him, kissing him.

Severus stood, his flesh cold, watching the touching scene play out on the ground before him. Neither Draco nor Narcissa acknowledged his presence, nor thanked him for his role in returning Lucius here.

He felt a burst of sorrow inexplicably rise in his throat, and he bit the feeling back down, causing his throat to constrict and cause him deep pain in doing so. Who would ever welcome him home thus? Who would cry and delight in equal measure at his return?

He would not allow himself even the slightest thought of … her.

Stalking to the ostentatious front gates of Malfoy Manor without a word, carrying his broom, he Apparated directly into a dirty alleyway around the back of Spinner's End before disillusioning himself to walk to his house, checking that no one was watching before opening the door to his grotty house and letting himself inside.

He sat in a battered old armchair and summoned his bottle of firewhisky, not even bothering with a glass as he upended the bottle straight into his mouth, reminding himself horribly of his fetid drunk of a father.

No doubt Potter had told the world that it had been he, Snape, that had cast the Avada Kedavra upon Dumbledore, and Severus was just waiting for the knock of the Aurors at the door of his terraced house, identical to every other house in this forsaken street.

But the knock had not come. He had murdered the headmaster, deserted his post at the school, and yet no one had come to find him. This could mean only one thing. That the Dark Lord had finally achieved his aim and taken control of the Ministry.

-xxx-

Hermione lay on her childhood bed in her parents' home, mentally repeating the contents of the letter she had received less than an hour previously. A nondescript post owl had arrived at her bedroom window that morning, bearing a small scroll sealed with black wax.

"Hide your parents, where they cannot possibly be found.

Muggle-born students will not be permitted to return to Hogwarts in September, and their parents are likely to be … persecuted, if not worse.

Trust me."

No sooner than she had recognised the cramped, spiky handwriting that made her stomach lurch, and read to the bottom of the script, than the parchment had rolled itself up and burst into flames, turning it instantly into a pile of charred ash on her painfully pink bedroom carpet.

Unbidden, hot tears began to prick at her eyes; tears of sadness and anger, of desperation and of regret. He had sent her this missive, ensuring that it would be magically destroyed after she had read it. He did not want it to fall into the wrong hands.

Flinging herself onto the childish floral duvet, she thought of the DADA classes he had taught this past year, how many times had she become convinced that he was warning them, preparing them?

This was another of his warnings, but what had it cost him to send it? He was working for Voldemort, that was for certain, but what if ultimately he was still working to Dumbledore's orders, faithful to the plans of the Order of the Phoenix? She could not make the connection between that supposition and the murder, but why would he send her this warning if he did not want her to act on it?

Keeping Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts, that was exactly something that Voldemort, with his insane ideals of pureblood supremacy, would do. But to persecute their parents, too? Hermione shuddered at the thought.

She was shortly to head to the Burrow for Bill and Fleur's wedding, and from there she, Harry and Ron would plan their escape to search for the Horcruxes, not returning to school. If Severus' note was correct, she would not be able to return anyway, so they would not need to bother finding a convincing excuse for her absence alongside Harry. Ron, a pureblood wizard, would be a different story, but she had some ideas already planned.

Before she could leave for the Burrow, not knowing if she would return alive from the Horcrux hunt, she had to ensure that her parents were safe. They had supported her from the first moment they'd been advised their daughter was a witch, obtaining special permissions so they could accompany her to Diagon Alley, supportive of her alternative education, telling friends Hermione attended a rural, highly-academic boarding school and giving no further details.

She owed them their safety.

They did not understand the magical world she lived in and were no part of it. If she told them why they must flee, they would certainly refuse to go, refuse to leave her. There was no choice but to Obliviate them.

Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of erasing herself from her parents' memories. But if it kept them safe, if it kept them alive … it had to be done.

Hermione began to make plans, her mind racing with possibilities. Whilst she prepared, turning her mind over with ideas, another thought threaded its way through her preparations.

It was possible that her Severus was still there, somewhere in this mess.

His final words to her had been; "You will not know with whom you can place your trust."

He certainly had that right.

She had no bloody idea what to make of any of it.