Chapter 25

Dumbledore requested to see her the morning after. After her lessons with Dumbledore over the summer for crafting, the encounter wasn't as daunting as it once would have been. However, the fact that it came the morning after her separation from Severus had her worried. So she donned her gifted teaching robes to present an image of professionalism before making the trip to the Headmaster's office.

"Gum drops."

She climbed the stairs to his office and stopped to briefly straighten her appearance before knocking.

"Come in!"

She opened the door to see the man in question sitting at his desk in a deep purple robe that looked much better than the yellow set she'd seen him in the previous day. He twinkled at her from his seat.

"Apprentice Granger, please sit," Dumbledore invited. "Tea?"

"No, thank you," Hermione declined politely, sitting in the opposite chair. "I have the time-turner here."

She touched it lightly against her chest.

"Time-turner?" Dumbledore inquired with a mischievous sparkle. "I'm sorry my dear, I don't understand."

"You told me I'd need to return it at the beginning of term," Hermione asserted, reaching around to release the chain.

Dumbledore raised his hand to stop her, his twinkle more prominent. "Ah, yes, so unfortunate what happened to your time-turner. But students will be students, and potions accidents happen every day. We're most fortunate you were not injured, dear."

Comprehension dawned. "Does the ministry want the remains, sir?"

"They've allowed me to keep them," Dumbledore told her, dropping a mangled piece of gold on top of his desk. "Who would think a simple Wide-Eye Potion variation could do such a thing, hmmm?"

"Just as well," Hermione said probingly, "I wouldn't know what to do with it throughout the year if I still had it."

At the clear question in her voice, Dumbledore chuckled. "I do have a task for you, if you're willing."

Hermione nodded.

Leaning back in his chair, Dumbledore explained. "You informed us about young Mr Malfoy, and we agreed on the next course of action. We'd like you to befriend him and let slip some information, a test … it's the only way to be sure of his allegiances.

"We need you to let slip that Harry will be visiting Godric's Hollow, his parents' home, Halloween night," Dumbledore told her. "You tell young Mr Malfoy he will be escorted there by two Order members, and then if an attack is made that night we will know he made the leak. Can you do this?"

"Of course, sir," Hermione agreed immediately. "Befriend Malfoy, or at least get comfortable enough to let something like that slip. Is there an ideal time to inform him? A week before Halloween, for example?"

"I trust your judgement, Miss Granger," Dumbledore nodded. "I'm sure you will do well."

Hermione thanked him and got up to leave. Just as she was about to leave, Dumbledore called out, "Oh, and before I forget, I got into contact with that former student of mine. She has agreed to see you next Sunday for tea."

"Really?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Come to my office Sunday at two, and I'll see you to her home. Now, go, enjoy the Hogsmeade weekend you have."

She did. Her and the boys hadn't spent any time in Honeydukes or Scrivenshafts the previous day, so they recitifed that oversight first thing that day. Hermione had realized, after a week of messy Potions classes, that the few robes she had were not enough to last until the elves did the staff laundry on weekends, and so she left the boys to Zonkos and went to Twilfits and Tattings. Once again having to resort to her Gringotts checks for purchases, she bought a few more outer robes that would be fit for teaching potions class and assisting Sev-Professor Snape.

She was determined not to think of him as Severus, not until the next week when she was set to meet with the witch in question. Still, it was difficult. Her magic constantly tried to pull her towards the castle throughout her Hogsmeade day, and when she returned to brew that evening it was directing her to get intimate with her Master once again. When it did, she reflexively grabbed the apprenticeship mark around her neck, using it to keep her grounded and away from the ethereal magic that was guiding her.

Professor Snape was a consummate professional during their time in his personal lab, never touching her or lingering too close. Neither of them mentioned their previous relationship, and neither of them acted on their previous habits, like sharing kisses or grabbing each others' hands when they left the room.

Not sharing their usual intimacies made Hermione's magic flare, but also left her discontent and tense. Always afraid of messing up, always worried he would find this arrangement more agreeable. She wanted, desperately, to have that familiarity back. She found herself leaning towards Severus during their time alone, as if her body knew she yearned to kiss him. She'd startle herself away from the actions when she caught it, but she could see the pain it inflicted on Professor Snape when she dangled her affection in front of him and pulled it away. It helped her stay away.

Monday morning a large banging echoed through the halls. Students on their way to breakfast, and Hermione coming back from a night training in a spare room, ran to find the source of the noise. Argus Filch was hammering a giant metal peg into the school's wall, just to the right of the Great Hall's doors. He hung a giant, framed sheet of paper.

That's how Hermione knew they'd been ratted out to Umbridge. That first declaration, banning all extra-curricular activities and group meetings not approved by the High Inquisitor was clearly aimed at the DA. She looked carefully at the people who came, looking for the signs of her hex, but they all looked unscathed and just as worried about the proclamation as she was. It must have been someone looking through the windows, or who noticed they were meeting. They wouldn't know what, then, but they knew Harry and them were leading it. Harry would be even more of a target.

Umbridge looked too self-satisfied, which made it a great relief when the mail arrived for the day. Daily Prophets were deposited in front of many of the student body, Hermione included. She was pleased to see that Rita Skeeter had come through; a front-page story about the new High Inquisitor, her approved bills of questionable nature, and Hermione's anonymous quotes about her competency and use of illegal corporal punishment on the students and how she declared it approved by the Minister of Magic. Better, still, Rita had interviewed some influential pureblood families about their thoughts on the use of these methods on students. The universal horror expressed from the quotations would go a long way to destabilize Umbridge and prompt Fudge to discipline her himself.

Umbridge's face contorted in a controlled, attempted calm that only highlighted the extreme nature of her rage. Her face was pink as her petticoat with her restraint. Snape looked at me with a look of warning, silently commanding me mute.

Professor McGonnagal didn't get the memo. "Delores, it seems as though you will be following our prescribed practises after all," she said primly, giving the Defence Professor a stern gaze. "Doesn't it?"

"Perhaps for now," Umbridge replied darkly. "Minerva."

With that parting, Umbridge quickly abandoned her breakfast and made her way from the hall, shooting Hermione a knowing glare in return. She had no proof, but Hermione knew that Umbridge would hold her responsible for anything that went wrong, much like Harry. The DA would need the coins sooner rather than later.

"I admit, that went better than I anticipated," Snape said, breaking her from her train of thought. "I wonder what compelled Miss Skeeter to keep her school source a secret?"

Hermione took a sip from her pumpkin juice. "She knows better."

"Meaning?" The brows raised.

Hermione thought for an appropriate euphemism. "I suppose Miss Skeeter didn't want to bug the wrong person. It would be a shame for her to get crushed under heel if she got on the bad side of the wrong person, wouldn't it?"

His piercing black eyes looked at her curiously, shrewd as ever. "Indeed."

That week, Hermione found the opportunity in her classes to distribute the DA coins to its members. She saved the Slytherins for when they all came to her office hours on Thursday. She had them sign the jinxed paper and then gave them the coins before dismissing the younger group and keeping the Slytherin girls. Since she had no idea when Harry and Ron would want to hold the first DA meeting, she wanted to teach the girls on her own as well, specifically in self-defence and survival skills. Moody had taught that to her first, knowing that if she needed to go on the run, she would need to survive. These girls would need it too.

That Sunday she arrived at Dumbledore's office in one of her fancier robes, not sure exactly what she was going to be doing that day with this other link witch. Dumbledore simply handed her a note. On it read the words Throw this note in the fire to get to Manorside Cottage. "I believe you arrived fifty-five minutes ago at a mutual friend of hours. I hope this was useful."

"I'm sure it was, sir," Hermione chuckled.

"Just so," Dumbledore agreed with a happy smile. "You know, I think I need to retrieve a text from my library."

With that lovely and conspicuous exit, he left her alone in the office so she could use the time-turner against her neck. She turned it back once before walking over to the fireplace and chucking in the parchment and stepping through.

She twirling sent her barreling through the fire and into a lovely rustic sitting room. Hardwood floors and beams in the roofwork, no rugs anywhere. There were scenes of nature mixed with pictures of a handsome couple on the walls, giving it all a very romantic cabin vibe. There, sitting on an ancient-looking sofa, was a kindly lady with a tea tray and cuppa in hand.

"Miss Granger?" She greeted. Hermione nodded. "Come now, no need to be timid. We're practically family! Take a seat. Would you care for some tea?"

"Umm, yes ma'am," Hermione took a seat and accepted the cup. "And do I call you Miss Lleonelin?"

"That's my maiden name, dear," she corrected. "It's Mrs. Oswin now."

Oh. Hermione forced a smile onto her face. "That's wonderful."

The woman gave her a look. "Trouble with your young man?"

Hermione refused to either correct her about the young adjective, or confirm her troubles. She simply sipped her tea, avoiding the older woman's gaze.

"We'll come back to that, then," Mrs. Oswin persevered. "For now, I understand you recently turned eighteen."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You do look quite beautiful in your inheritance, dear," she complimented pleasantly. "What do you do with all your awake hours?"

"I read," Hermione blushed, "or train. I've been tutored in crafting, so I've using my time practising that and in grading as a Potion's Apprentice as well."

"Very good," Mrs. Oswin approved. "There are two things that can ruin people like us; idleness and the continuation of time. Keep busy, but also take an hour or two each night to sit in nature and lie in your magic. Trust me. As time goes on you'll need those hours to replace the peace of mind that sleep brings."

"I'll try it," Hermione sipped her tea again. She had a specific question in mind, but she didn't want to ask. Instead, she switched directions. "What powers do we have?"

"Powers?" she laughed at the young student. "Dear one, we have magic. We can have whatever power we like."

Her mocking tone made Hermione blush. "I-I mean, yes, b-but-"

"It's alright, Miss Granger," Mrs. Oswin chuckled. "You must understand, you and I are not creatures, we are simply humans with a greater degree of magic than most. So much so that we need to share it in various ways."

She placed down the teacup and reached for the fern in the middle of the coffee table, taking it in hand. "The legends of the xana have us as guardians of nature or seducers of men, respectively. Why do you think that is?"

Hermione hesitated. "Is it the same answer for both?"

Mrs. Oswin gave her a proud smile and nodded. "Oh, little one, magic is linked to everything living. Muggles, wizards, trees, animals … I find I prefer to live alone in the countryside, growing in my gardens, because my magic sings to them and feeds them. Nature is naturally in tune with us and doesn't fight the magic we share with them. Men … men are harder."

The fern under her fingertips grew and bloomed, a beautiful flower coming from the center.

"Did you feel the change?" the older woman asked.

Hermione shook her head.

"Use your magic and surround the plant," she was instructed. "Try to feel it as a living thing, with a magic of its own."

She did. Her magic surrounding the plant, she probed at the plant with her magic and tried to feel what the woman showed. Just like the grass under her feet in the evenings, it had its own pulse that fed lightly into her energy. Then Mrs. Oswin sent her own magic into the plant, and she could feel its energy respond and bloom under her.

"Wow," she murmured.

"You can do that with people too," Mrs. Oswin told her, "but they usually aren't as receptive."

"Really?" Hermione gasped.

Mrs. Oswin nodded. "I nearly went into teaching just because of it, you know; to be able to reach in and fan a student's magic until they can feel it within themselves, that would be so fulfilling. And yet … too many people are resistant to such meddling. An old soul like mine can only take so much rejection."

It reminded Hermione of how she felt when her magic interfered with hers and Severus' relationship. It was meddling, it was undermining free will … but the woman in front of her took it as a rejection of help, not as a refusal to comply with obedience.

"You're ages away, young one," Mrs. Oswin noted. "What troubles you?"

"You never feel like the magic is controlling you?" Hermione asked. The woman looked at her with comprehension. "It throws me at someone, and if I get mad at them it tries to distract me or undermine me."

"Were you unable to stay mad, dear?" the old woman replied kindly. "Or was it more like something interrupted your anger and you realized you were wrong to be that way?"

She patted Hermione's hand familiarly. "Dear, your magic feels like an extra limb, but its more than that. Think of it as a new instinct. It's in tune with you, with your partner, with the people around you … it will intervene if the magic around you suffers. Anger makes magic suffer and lose its balance. Depression, anger, mourning, loss, they all negatively impact your magic. It makes sense that if such a living thing as your magic is suffering, it will try to right it."

Hermione thought on it. "So if the Forbidden Forest started going up in flame-?"

Mrs. Oswin nodded. "You would be compelled to intervene. If there was a death in the school or a student was suffering enough to affect their magic, you would be drawn to that student for some reason. As a link witch, I'm in a symbiotic relationship with my magic; it uses me to fix the magical environment, and I receive a larger portion of power. If I don't want to be in that relationship, I go somewhere that doesn't require my attention. Here."

"That's why you're isolated," Hermione grasped.

The lady nodded. "I was being forced to save lives and be part of a war I didn't want to be a part of with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Much like you, I decided that being forced to do one thing or another was too much for me and I left."

"But you can do so much good!" Hermione protested.

Mrs. Oswin gave her a stern look. "You can too."

That shut her up.

"So," Mrs. Oswin lifted up her tea cup again, "which young man do I have to blame for you considering isolation yourself?"

"I'm not-"

"Don't insult me," the woman said sternly. "I could see the consideration you were giving it. Even if I didn't, you do realize that I live in isolation, right? I chose this. I had every reason, and men are certainly part of it."

Hermione bit her lip. "I just, I don't want to be forced to behave one way or another in a relationship. I felt for him before the, er, transformation, but I still feel like he could want something and my magic would force me to want it too. I can't trust myself."

"Of course you can, dear!" Mrs. Oswin insisted. "You mustn't believe that the magic is interfering with how you react. It is simply helping. It is a voice of reason and compassion, especially in the times when we forget or don't have enough."

"But that reason is different from mine!" Hermione pointed out, frustrated. "I deserve to be angry sometimes, I deserve to be upset!"

"Did it stop you from becoming angry?" Mrs. Oswin demanded. "Did it keep you from feeling frustrated, upset, or sad?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Let me tell you the secret of a successful marriage;" the older womanleaned forward, capturing Hermione's gaze in her own tenderly; "we never deserve any of it. We don't deserve roses, or breakfast in bed, or to get angry. We are imperfect. But," she raised her hands, preparing her defense, "do you believe he does?"

Hermione was stopped by that. Severus deserved everything. He was a spy for the order, had given his life and happiness away to help people. And when she really thought about it, he deserved a lot more than she had given him the other day. Like the faith that he was worth working through the magic diverting her mind and energies.

"If we feel we deserve perfection, we'll be disappointed," Mrs. Oswin advised kindly. "You can't expect perfection when you, yourself, are not perfect. It takes work, and the maturity to admit what's wrong. It takes caring more taking. We deserve only to be loved, in whatever form that may take. It is never about what we deserve in a relationship, it's about what we can give. And good relationships give back."

"Can I even trust my feelings?" Hermione asked.

"Yes."

Her swift and concise reply soothed her mind, somewhat. She needed to spend more time in Severus' company to decide if it was true though. In context with the impulses of her magic from the previous week, it seemed a stark contrast. She tried to look at it with outside eyes. There was little doubt she appreciated Severus, or she would be angry with him as much as she was with Malfoy, or even Ron. She had wanted to kiss him before the change, she had felt indebted to him before that. If Mrs. Oswin told her she could trust her feelings, and it was only the compulsions she should worry about, did that mean that all her compelled feelings were feelings she allowed to be compelled? That the magic was simply helping her relationship with him?

"So if, before this, I thought I might love him?" Hermione whispered, almost unwilling to say the words to a stranger before Severus. But she needed to know. She could feel how desperate her face appeared, but she didn't care.

Mrs. Oswin looked at her with kindness, and for the first time in the trip Hermione felt an unfamiliar magic surround her, comforting her. She automatically fought it, forcing herself to feel tension. "Dear, let me comfort you."

"It's not comfort if it's forced!" Hermione protested.

"That is what I'm showing you," Mrs. Oswin told her calmly. "You can feel what I'm sending you, yes? The magic?"

"You mean the feelings." The magic seeped into her body, relaxing her and bringing her mind to the calm that had eluded her that week.

"No, the magic," the older lady shook her head. "No, it is a prompt, nothing more. You decide whether to accept it or to fight it. And I can tell you've been fighting it for a little while."

Hermione only nodded.

"So…" Mrs. Oswin smiled mischievously, "how about you stop fighting, for the next … say … hour? And you tell me if you feel better."

It was a challenge. What could Hermione do but accept?

So, she let her magic do as it wished and accept Mrs. Oswin's foreign influence. It flooded through her as if pumped through her very blood, clearing her body from every ounce of tension she felt. Then, once she'd accepted it and let it work its – for lack of a better word – magic, it retreated and her own magic reared up to the forefront, spreading and tasting the environment. Hermione hadn't realized just how restrained she had kept her magic until it had been freed by Mrs. Oswin. It flooded everywhere, tasting everything. It touched the other link witch with affection, caressed the plant on the table with love, and then rushed through her to remind her of their one-ness.

"Alright?" Mrs. Oswin queried. At her nod, the older woman gave her a broad, sincere smile. "Then come on, I want to show you my greenhouses."

They spent the next hour training her in the things Hermione had been rejecting. She had felt uncomfortable using her magic to feel her environment, worried that she was violating her peers, colleagues, and students by letting her magic surround them. Instead, she saw how an environment of magic helped the plants and listened as Mrs. Oswin told her how it helped her friends. The magic environment could draw the inherent power from her students in a way that couldn't be artificially replicated. In essence, her students would become better for her lack of control.

She was taught about her connection to nature. Magic was, in essence, the use of life force external to that life. It drew from earth, from beings, from within her and could be shared with everything that was comprised of matter. She even was allowed to grow some of the aconite with her powers and pluck it for Severus' stores.

That hour was the most rejuvenating she'd spent since shutting out Severus. She never realized just how off-balance she'd made herself by rejecting her bond with him, but it became clear that she was hurting herself to do it.

At the end of it, she stood at the fireplace with another scrap of parchment, ready to return to the school.

"Thank you," she told the fellow link witch. She bit her lip hesitantly. "I really don't want to leave."

She didn't. It was so peaceful here, and she had someone like her to talk to.

Mrs. Oswin beamed at her. "If you ever need me dear-" she extended a hand with a scrap of paper, "this is the only name the owls will know how to deliver to. I am far from society, so owls take some time, but better than nothing. True?"

"Absolutely," Hermione grinned.

Mrs. Oswin placed an arm on her shoulder. "And please, consider righting things with this man. Magic is rarely mistaken – the bond it formed with him is for a reason, and I've found happiness and strength with every partner it has chosen for me. He will be good for you, if you're not afraid to accept him."

Another chapter, and now I have the whole plot mapped out! That means I'll be a bit faster with updates, hopefully. I started too many stories, I guess. Still, the best thing for my stories are reviews! REVIEW PLEASE!