Phoenix Fire, Chapter 35: The Last Dance
DISCLAIMER : The characters described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute.
A/N: Oh, ye of little faith! How many of you saw fit to beat me around the heart this week? Too many of you. That's alright, I understand, I really do. In my panic that I wouldn't be able to solve the trilogy to everybody's (or anybody's really) satisfaction, I hauled off and did some reading. I read the first (and so far only) two books in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha trilogy. Foolishly, I purchased the first one, but not the second—trying to be frugal, you understand, for it was possible that I wouldn't have liked it and then not wanted to read the second, so found myself at ten pm on Sunday evening with only twenty pages left to the end of the first book and the terrible, TERRIBLE conviction that a particular plot point was not going to be resolved. I may even have shouted "you're going to fuck this up completely!" at the book, though, to be fair, she did resolve the thing I was worried about and then I later decided that the book might have been stronger if she hadn't. Worst of all, when I went to my local crack—oops, of course I mean bookstore the next day to buy book two they didn't have it and I had to order it and then I didn't get it until Friday, which really didn't seem fair. Particularly since I could have gone to the big chain store and got it that very hour, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. Point being, that I know what it's like to get near the end and feel anxious. (As a side note, the ending to book two was kind of fabulous). Just believe me that I'm doing my best! Besides, while I did make a promise of some sort to fix the holes in the original Harry Potter stories, I made no promises about fixing the holes in my own stories! That's up to you, my friends ;p
What else? Oh, yes, well I really am not going to go into more detail about what on Earth Lucius was thinking. You'll just have to take it on faith that Yaxley and co kept mum about their plans, no-doubt on the assumption that the man had to a certain degree changed, but that their friendship stretched far enough to include a hide out. They were, after all, wanted men, and he had, after all, managed to avoid Azkaban, and they could have threatened to incriminate him if captured. That's it, folks, on with the story! Penultimate chapter, here we come!
Even with the extra influx of patients who had been wounded at Hogsmeade, Poppy insisted that Hermione spend another night in the Hospital Wing. It had meant that she only barely had a chance to talk with Harry and Ron—Hermione had refrained from asking, "What the hell happened to Total Fucking Honesty, Ronald?", which had to count as a win, and she tried to swallow their apologies with good grace. Harry looked too fragile for the lecture she was longing to deliver.
"I know that it sounds ridiculous in retrospect, but we just didn't want to worry you," said Harry.
"You wouldn't have been allowed to come," said Ron reasonably. "You were magically exhausted."
I was, and then I killed somone.
"I just don't understand why you didn't tell Snape or McGonagall," said Hermione.
"Because nothing was supposed to happen!" explained Ron.
Harry pushed up his glasses to rub a hand across his eyes. "It sounded so reasonable when Tricklebank suggested it," he despaired.
"Yeah," agreed Ron, nodding. "After all, we already had the Death Eaters in custody. The way Tricklebank put it our presence was just a roll of the dice, an opportunity to check whether there were any others lurking for a chance at the wand."
"It never, never occurred to us that, that . . ."
Ron put a hand on Harry's shoulder as he broke off. "No-one could have known that the Aurors were trying to wipe out the Order, Hermione."
Hermione stared down at her hands and tried to think forgiving thoughts. Her boys were, to an extent, right. She had been worried all year that Harry was at risk, she had hated the idea of a Death Eater ambush, but she'd never imagined that the ambush was aimed at Harry and the Order. The idea was preposterous.
It was no co-incidence, she realised, that the Aurory had attempted to arrest Severus at precisely the moment his attention was needed elsewhere. And if it wasn't for the miraculous disappearance of his tattoo, they would have succeeded, too.
"How did they know about Snape's tattoo?" she asked, seizing on the only question she could think of that didn't sound particularly aggressive.
Ron groaned. "Totally and utterly my fault," he declared, both hands raised to as if to ward off a blow. "Coxton was banging on about how he just knew Snape still had a Dark Mark, and eventually I told him to shut it, and that all he had was a regular Muggle tattoo." He pulled an exaggeratedly apologetic face. "Wish I'd seen him, though," he added, "when the tattoo disappeared."
Hermione thought about how carefully and cleverly the boys had been cut off from their friends and supporters and kept down at the Station, where the twisted logic of this Tricklebank character came to seem more and more apt. She thought about Kingsley, who surely hadn't known about this; she wondered what other factions at the Ministry had been involved, and to what extend Kingsley himself had been a target of the whole mess.
She was about to say something further when the doors of the Hospital Wing swung open to reveal Rita Skeeter, resplendent in puce velvet.
"Steel yourselves," Hermione muttered.
"Bloody hell," swore Ron.
Skeeter, rather unsurprisingly, had all manner of questions for Hermione about her Animagus transformation. Hermione managed to smile sweetly, if insincerely, and stuck to the story she'd hammered out with McGonagall: they'd been working on the transformation for a long time now, without measurable success, and only when she'd seen the students in danger had she transformed—without a second thought.
"Perhaps you should work on the transformation," Hermione concluded, throwing Skeeter a bone, "I imagine that you'd be good at it." Maybe she could trade silence about her own transformation timeline for silence about Skeeter's.
Skeeter narrowed her eyes, but responded in kind: "Perhaps, I always was rather good at Transfiguration." Before Skeeter left, Hermione tried to pump her for any information about the planning behind the Hogsmeade attack, but she kept mum. "I don't owe you anything, Hermione Gryffindor," she said.
"Gryffindor?" asked Ron, surprised. "You're going to change her name?"
"Not I," said Skeeter, tucking her Qwik-Notes Quill away into a poison green handbag. "But everyone else will." With a fake smile and an irritating wave of her long, painted fingernails, she finally left.
Poppy chose that moment to come and insist that Hermione go to sleep, and reluctantly, the boys complied.
It took Hermione a goodly time to fall asleep. First, Severus wasn't sitting there beside her, as he typically did, and she couldn't help missing him or chastising herself for wanting him there in the first place—no doubt he had a ridiculous number of Slytherin students to look care for in the aftermath of the day. Second, the Hospital Wing itself was teeming with restrained activity, and the continuous footsteps and low conversations kept intruding into her rest.
Once she did finally sleep, she was troubled by dreams. Around three a.m., she jerked herself awake, her heart hammering, her body slick with sweat. It took a few minutes for the shadows around her to shift into the familiar shapes of the hospital beds and to recognise the person seated beside her.
McGonagall had lowered her copy of Transfiguration Today and was looking at Hermione over her glasses.
"Severus wanted to be here," she said, "but I insisted that he rest."
Hermione nodded. She swallowed, groping for the glass of water on her bedside table. McGonagall waved her wand to shift her chair closer to the bed and to cast up a sound barrier so that their conversation would not wake those around them.
"By the way, I took the liberty of registering your Animagus form with the Ministry."
Hermione cleared her throat. She wanted to say thank you, but instead she said, "I killed a man."
"So I heard," said McGonagall, her face calm. She added, "How does that make you feel?"
Her tone and her expression were so reminiscent of Hermione's mother, Susan, that Hermione had to blink back tears. In vain she searched for an adjective that would describe how she felt.
"At the time," she said, "I didn't think at all, beyond the need to protect Harry. But . . . but . . ."
McGonagall held up a gnarled finger. "If Albus were here he would tell you to hold onto that 'but', Hermione. He would say that there resides your own humanity and that of Harry's attacker."
Hermione hadn't been particularly close to Dumbledore and she'd never really forgiven him for abandoning Harry to the Dursleys or for his treatment of Severus. She found herself unmoved by his supposed advice. "What would you say?" she asked. She sounded belligerent and she flushed, ashamed of herself.
"Me, I would ask you a question," said Minerva. Urged onward by Hermione's stare, she asked it: "In that long year you spent on the run, if you'd had to kill someone to keep Harry safe, would you?"
Hermione knew the answer to that question without a second's reflection, but she closed her eyes and pretended to think. Her response felt like a shard of metal in her chest. "Yes," she said finally.
"If you'd had to kill someone to stop Voldemort from taking over the country, would you?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Hermione," said McGonagall gently, "you're still the same person you were yesterday."
It helped to think about it that way, it really did. The metallic shard hadn't disappeared, but it seemed less likely to puncture a lung.
"It's an important lesson, too, to know how easy it is to do. Much as I might wish that were the last and only time you will need to fight, Hermione, the reality is sadly adverse. And don't forget that Avada Kedavra will kill you just as dead in your Animagus form as it will as a human; in some cases, you will need to fight to the death."
"But still," said Hermione.
"Yes," agreed McGonagall, "but still." She adjusted her glasses. "It is very possible that if you'd had more experience fighting transformed, you wouldn't have killed him. Though he was performing an Unforgivable at the time, he was still a human being—with friends and family members and a daily routine."
McGonagall's words hurt, but it was also a relief to have them said aloud. Harry and Ron, and even Rita Skeeter, had brushed over the event.
"Professor?" she asked. "Have you ever killed anyone?"
"Yes." McGonagall nodded. "Two women in the first Voldemort War and at least one man in the second. I also cast a number of protective wards around the school in the lead up to the Final Battle that were capable of taking several lives; I do not know how many were injured at my hand."
"But you're still the same person you were before?"
"Yes. If a little older."
"Thanks for talking to me about it."
McGonagall reached out and took hold of Hermione's near hand.
"Child," she said, and somehow, the word held no hint of patronising overtones, "I need to ask you another question, and I hope that you will forgive my impertinence in advance."
Hermione braced herself, but it wasn't the question she was anticipating.
"Did Rabastan Lestrange rape you?""
"I—" Hermione squeezed her teacher's hand. "No. He threatened it, and he . . . he raped another young woman, but he didn't rape me."
"Given the pain he was in, I'd say he raped several." McGonagall shook her head, her mouth was turned sharply down at the corners.
Hermione's confusion must have been evident upon her face, for when McGonagall looked up and caught her eye, she explained herself.
"The Dolens membrum is the traditional Wizarding punishment for rape," she said. "Indeed," she went on, "in many communities it was both punishment and trial—for the charm causes pain to the member in direct relationship to the pain that the member has caused."
"I didn't know that," said Hermione quietly. She turned the knowledge over in her head: it was exactly the kind of thing Severus would know. She felt a sudden fierce gladness: she was glad that Lestrange was being punished for his crime (or crimes)—in a direct, undeniable way that was effective even in spite of his insanity—and she was glad to recognise the method behind Severus' actions. She herself would have leapt at the possibility of vigilante violence against Lestrange, and she hadn't judged Severus for taking the opportunity when he had it—despite the technical illegality of his actions. But knowing the purpose and effect of the spell he'd chosen made her love him all the more. She wanted to hug him, to squeeze him tight in thanks.
"They only stopped using the spell once the Dementors were installed at Azkaban," said Minerva, looking thoughtfully into the distance. "Perhaps there's an argument for its return now that the Dementors are gone once again."
"Professor," said Hermione. "Do you think I could borrow Dumbledore's Pensieve once I'm permitted to leave the Hospital Wing?"
"Of course, dear. I'll put it out for you in my office. Just come and get it."
It wasn't until midday that Hermione was allowed to escape. She'd seen Harry briefly in the morning, but he was too concerned with the Auror situation to stay long: his big news was that a small group of Aurors who had refused to participate in the ambush had been discovered in the Station lock up. While technically they had refused to follow orders and thus were due punishment for insubordination, their very existence was a relief. Of the many others, all of whom were now under arrest, it was proving difficult to separate out those who had planned the exercise from those who had merely done as they were told—whether they agreed with the sentiments behind it or not.
Having collected the Pensieve, Hermione stopped by the library, but though the rooms were crowded with students cramming for the exams, there was no sign of the young woman for whom she was looking. Hermione left quickly, before the whispers could get to her: she'd read the papers that morning and could only hope that the excitement about the gryphon d'or would fade as quickly as it had blossomed.
Hermione found Lavender in the common room. The other girl stood up at her arrival.
"We thought you'd be looking for us," said Parvati. Lavender was wiping her hands awkwardly on her thighs.
"Oh." Hermione was taken aback.
"We're really sorry, Hermione, really," said Lavender. Lavender was telling the truth—that much Hermione could ascertain from Legilimency—but she had no idea what Lavender was talking about.
"Marietta's been a friend of my family as long as I can remember!" explained Parvati, wringing her hands. "It didn't occur to us that there was anything in the letters except schoolgirl gossip."
Marietta's pen-pals, remembered Hermione as the Knut dropped. "Don't worry about it," she said quickly, meaning it. "No-one could have known that Marietta was working with the Death Eaters, no-one." Another idea occurred to her. "Did you ever see her outside of school?" she asked, trying to sound casual and non-judgemental.
"Well, we did! She often comes when we go out—she's just one of the group."
Hermione didn't really need to ask whether Marietta had been there at New Years', by the sound of things she must have known the details whether she was actually present or not.
"Honestly," she said, "please don't worry about it." She turned her gaze on Lavender. "Lavender," she said, hiking the Pensieve up higher on her hip, "I wondered if I could have a word with you. In private."
"With me?" asked Lavender. She swallowed, then pushed her hair back from her face. "Shall we go up to the dorm?"
Hermione nodded. She knew that Lavender knew what they were about to talk about.
"You want me to come?" asked Parvati solicitously.
"No," said Lavender. "Hang out here, I'll come get you if I need." She shot a smile at her friend, but it died as she turned back towards Hermione. She tilted her head towards the staircase, and Hermione led the way up to their room.
Once inside she placed the Pensieve carefully on her dresser and extracted the bottle of memories from her pocket. Lavender was staring at it apprehensively.
"Let me guess," she said. "One of Marietta's friends paid me a visit on New Year's?"
"Yes," acknowledged Hermione. She felt terrible.
Lavender stuck out her lower jaw. "Who was it?" she asked.
"Rabastan Lestrange."
"Okay." Lavender nodded. She was still looking at the phial of memories. "Is that . . . ?"
Hermione nodded. "I should start at the beginning," she said. She gestured at the bed. "Sit down?" she asked.
Lavender sighed, and sat down. Hermione sat on the bed opposite. She took a deep breath. "In order to make The Potion," she began, "I had to steal one of the ingredients." She paused. "Snape caught me."
Lavender's eyes flew to her face.
"At first he was very angry, but in the end he agreed to make The Potion for me, using my Arithmantic equations."
"He what?"
Remembering the situation Hermione couldn't believe that she hadn't realised right then and there how much he cared about her: Snape helped her brew a dangerous and borderline illegal potion. She wasn't surprised that Lavender was surprised. "Well . . ." Hermione searched for a way to explain what had happened. "He and I have a history," she said finally. "I never told him who it was for," she added, "and he never asked."
Lavender blinked at her. "Okay," she said slowly.
"Anyway," said Hermione, pushing onwards with the story, "from things that Lestrange and Yaxley said during my, my um, captivity, it became clear that Lestrange had assaulted you." She studied Lavender's face for some sign of how she was taking the news: her face was hard. "I got the impression that the others didn't know anything about it, but I could be wrong."
"Wait, you think Marietta didn't know?"
Hermione lifted her hands in uncertainty. "Maybe?" Lavender tilted her head back to stare up at the canopy. "Maybe she told them your movements but didn't realise what they would do with the information?"
She waited to see if Lavender had anything further to say, but when she said nothing, Hermione kept going.
"Yaxley committed suicide before he could be interrogated. But Lestrange didn't. Plus he's insane. There was a good chance they'd subpoena his memories." Hermione couldn't figure out a way to explain why Snape had seized them that didn't sound like the two of them were maniacs with no care for the rule of law, which, in a way, they were. It was one of the things they had in common. She just cut to the chase and hoped Lavender would assume that they'd acted to cover their own arses. "So, Snape took them before anyone else did."
"He took them," said Lavender, her voice flat.
"Right." Hermione looked down at the memories in her hand and rolled the bottle between her fingers. "Right now, this is the only copy that exists. If you want to prosecute, it's up to you. If you don't, no-one need ever know. Even if Umbridge or Marietta did know and told someone, it would just be hearsay; you could deny it."
"No-one is going to know?" For the first time in the conversation, a flicker of emotion crossed Lavender's face.
"Snape knows," said Hermione. "You know, Parvati knows, I know. I swear to you that neither Snape nor I will tell anyone. I can guarantee it."
"You're sure about Snape?"
Hermione nodded adamantly. "He made me a highly restricted potion without even knowing who I was going to give it to, then he talked his way into the Aurors' offices and stole a memory from a prisoner." She paused for a second and decided Lavender deserved to hear the rest of it, too. "He also hit Lestrange with a particularly nasty curse—the Dolens membrum."
"Oh, yeah? I wish I knew how to cast that; could come in handy." Lavender glanced over at the Pensieve and changed the topic. "Is that yours?" she asked.
"It's McGonagall's. Listen, you don't need to view the memory unless you want to. Snape said it was brutal."
"I want to," said Lavender decisively. She held out her hand for the memory, and Hermione handed it over.
"You know how to use the Pensieve?"
"Yeah, my dad has one."
They'd shared a room for seven years and only when Lavender was about to watch a memory of herself being brutally raped did Hermione realise that she had no idea what Lavender's parents did for a living. They were practically strangers to each other.
Hermione braced herself. "Do you want me to watch it with you?"
"No, thank you," said Lavender politely. "I'd rather you weren't even in the room."
Hermione felt an inordinate rush of relief. She didn't actually think she could bear to watch the memory, but if Lavender had wanted her to, she would have.
"Okay," she said. She stood up. "I'll wait outside," she added. "Just call out if you need anything."
Lavender made a noncommittal noise, and Hermione let herself out of the room. In the staircase, she paused, at something of a loss. After a few moments, she sat down on the stairs to wait.
The temporality of memory was a flexible thing. Hermione had no idea as to the length of Lavender's original ordeal or how long it would take to relive the experience. According to her watch, she sat and waited for precisely eighteen minutes, but in truth it felt like an hour. Only towards the end of that time did she hear anything at all from the room: there was some heavy breathing, a cry, some loud bangs. Hermione leapt to her feet at once, going so far as to lay her hand on the doorknob. She tried to turn the knob to no avail: Lavender had locked it from the inside. There was another sound, a sob perhaps, on the other side of the door. Hermione hesitated, unsure as to whether she should unlock the door or not—Lavender clearly wanted privacy, or at least, had wanted privacy before she viewed the memory. Hermione hadn't yet decided what to do when she heard steps approaching the door.
Hermione stepped back, removing her hand guiltily.
The door opened.
"Hi," said Lavender. "Don't worry, the Pensieve is fine."
It hadn't even occurred to Hermione to worry about the Pensieve. "How are you?" she asked instead, hating the stupidity of the question the second it had left her mouth.
"Alright, I guess," said Lavender. She raised a handful of silver filaments in one hand. "I think I might have damaged the memory beyond repair."
Hermione widened her eyes. The threads of memory were distended and hardened; they made an oddly beautiful structure, bunched up in Lavender's hand.
"Hermione," said Lavender, stepping into the corridor beside her. She looked at Hermione, at the memories she held, then at the stairs. Unexpectedly she sat down, gesturing to Hermione to join her.
Hermione sat.
"Hermione," said Lavender again, "I want to say thank you, and to apologise."
"You don't need to do either," said Hermione quickly.
"No, I do." Lavender pulled a face. "I said some horrible things about you." She pulled at the strands of memory.
Hermione pressed her eyes closed for a second. "Lestrange said that you fought hard," she replied.
Lavender made a sound that was almost a laugh. "I did," she acknowledged. "But I lost it in the end."
"I would have done anything to stop this having happened to you," said Hermione, feeling wretched.
"I know." Lavender nodded. "I know that to be true." She looked up into Hermione's face. "I really appreciate everything you've done for me. I know you wouldn't have kept this secret if it happened to you, and it means a lot to me that you're willing to respect my decision. Thanks for everything."
"It was nothing."
Lavender gave her a look under her eyebrows that communicated exactly how little she believed it was nothing. Then she transferred her attention back to the memories—holding them up and out in front of her. "What do you reckon?" she asked. "I'm thinking about making it into a necklace."
Hermione blinked for a moment at the abrupt change in topic. Then she realised it wasn't a change of topic at all. Lavender was girly in ways that Hermione had always assumed were shallow, but she was also gutsy and as hard as stone where it mattered. They made terrible roommates, and they might never be friends—not in the way Hermione had always understood the word, nor in the way that Lavender could be friends with other, more Pavati like girls—yet she had fought for Hermione, fought against the odds, against brutal violence.
"I think it would really suit you," she said once she'd found her voice. "It really would."
The thought of exams sat in Hermione's stomach like a twisted piece of wire. It wasn't the all-out panic of her younger self: she knew she would pass everything, indeed, she felt pretty confident she would pass all her subjects with an Outstanding, despite the fact that her planned week of intense revision had been replaced with a week flat on her back in the Hospital Wing. In truth, Hermione knew that her anxiety was mostly bound up in the idea of how disappointed she'd be if she didn't get straight Os. Even one E would be a crushing disappointment, but in the face of everything that had happened over the last week, a bad grade seemed a small thing to be upset about.
On Tuesday afternoon she waited outside the Great Hall with Harry, counting down the minutes before their Potions N.E.W.T. They stood at some remove from the other students, and Harry kept muttering the properties of various ingredients to himself or dipping into his satchel to check something in the Half-Blood Prince's annotated textbook. Hermione was keeping an eye out for Severus, hoping that he might put in an appearance, perhaps to verify something with the Ministry examiners or to check that everyone was on time. When a silver python barrelled around the corner and shot towards them, she was startled—even once she recognised the Patronus for what it was, her heart continued to thud painfully against her chest and her skin crawled. The snake wrapped itself around her feet and up, over Harry's lap, to encircle them both around the shoulders, spitting and hissing the entire time. Hermione stared, horrified, into the snake's silver eyes as its mouth yawned wide in front of her face. Then thankfully, it dissolved and disappeared.
"Well," said Harry, adjusting his glasses and smiling rather fondly, "that was nice."
Hermione swallowed. "Er," she managed, "did that snake just talk to us?"
"Uh-huh," agreed Harry.
"Using Jocelyn's voice, right?"
"Uh-huh," he said again.
"And what did it say, exactly?"
He gave her a searching look. "Are you okay, Hermione?"
"Yes, I'm fine." Hermione needed him to answer her question. "I just want to confirm that I wasn't imagining things."
He laughed at her evident discomfort. "She said, 'Be brave, my Gryffindors, and good luck on the exam'."
"That's what I thought," lied Hermione. Harry never had been any good at noticing when something or someone was speaking Parseltongue.
Contemplatively, she adjusted the "Mudblood Pride" badge pinned to the lapel of her robes. She certainly found Jocelyn's Patronus terrifying—despite the forewarning she'd received—but on the plus side it made the prospect of a long fight against blood prejudice seem much more inviting than it had before. She might need to postpone the start date of her campaign until Jocelyn graduated from school, but she felt pretty confident that the two of them, working together, could achieve great things.
Hermione stayed in her last exam until the final second—even though it cut down the time she would have to prepare for the Commemoration Ball. Only when the elderly witch at the front of the room wheezed that it was time to put quills down did she let the parchment snap shut and shake out her aching hand.
Her mind was still full of Gellert Grindelwald as she left the room, and she might not have noticed Neville waiting in the foyer if he hadn't jumped up at her approach.
"Hi, Neville," she said, taken aback to see him.
"Hi, Hermione, how was the exam?"
She rocked her head from side to side and laughed at herself. "I could have squeezed out another inch or two about Muggle history and the Second World War if I'd had a few more minutes." She rubbed the palm of her wand hand, which still hurt from the hours of written questions she'd endured. "What's up with you?"
"I, er . . . Are you walking back to the tower?"
"Yes," said Hermione, wondering what it was that Neville was trying to work himself up to say.
"I'll walk with you." Neville gestured expansively towards in the direction of the stairs, and Hermione, with a thoughtful tilt to her head, began to walk with him.
Neville made inane chit-chat about the weather and the impending summer until the staircase they were on swung out into midair, effectively stopping their progress. "Hermione," he said in a rush as they swung out clockwise over the atrium, "I owe you an apology."
"Really?" she said. There was a little wriggling worm of hope in her chest.
"I'm gay," he said, as if it were a terrible confession.
"Neville! That's wonderful!" Hermione seized hold of his arm in her joy. "Congratulations!"
The staircase had stopped moving entirely, leaving them stranded in space.
"No," he said, laying a restraining hand over hers, "you don't understand. You see, this entire year I've been secretly in love with Ron—"
"That's okay," said Hermione. "That's nothing to be ashamed of! He's a loveable guy."
"You're being very sweet." Neville didn't look at all comforted. "But you really have to understand. I have tried very hard not to come between you—and yet at the same time I wanted to spend all my time with him. I know things have been a bit rocky between you, but when you were kidnapped he was devastated. I realised that I can't keep on like this. Hanging around straight guys with girlfriends—it's just not cool."
"Neville," said Hermione slowly, wanting to break through his despair and searching for the words that would do so without breaking her promise to Ron. Something had to give. "Ron and I broke up."
"You did?" Neville looked devastated. "I'm so sorry, Hermione."
"That's okay. It wasn't your fault. Besides, I'm absolutely convinced that we are better off as friends."
"Maybe it was my fault! If I hadn't been spending so much time with him—"
"Neville," said Hermione sharply, cutting off the self-flagellating diatribe as quickly as possible. "I understand that you feel you've done me a disservice." He nodded his agreement. "Well, I'm prepared to totally and utterly forgive you on one condition."
"Anything!"
"Tell Ron exactly what you just told me."
Neville blanched. "Tell him that I like him?"
"Exactly."
Neville took a deep, horrified breath and held it for a long moment. He let it out in a noisy rush. "You're right," he said. "I need to tell him. I abused his friendship, and he deserves to hear the truth of it from me." Hermione opened her mouth to contradict his use of terminology, but he pressed on. "I'm going to come out to everyone, Hermione," he said. "I already wrote a letter to my gran. I know it's not the Wizarding way, but I'm sick of being lying and being scared that someone will find out. I'm going to tell everyone on my own terms."
"Good for you, Neville," said Hermione, touched and thrilled. "Tell Ron first," she added.
"Okay," he said, taking a few fortifying breaths. "I'll do it right now."
"Oh, Neville!" Hermione threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug; he looked so noble and handsome in his convictions. "I'm so proud of you."
With a groaning noise, the staircase started up once more, unexpectedly swinging them back in precisely the direction they wanted to go. It seemed prophetic.
"Thanks, Hermione," said Neville. "I really am sorry for my behaviour throughout the year. It wasn't fair."
"I'm the one that should be apologising to you," said Hermione too quietly for him to hear. "Just make sure you tell Ron, and everything should work out just fine," she added more loudly.
Neville grimaced. "If that's what it takes," he said.
"Finally!" exclaimed Parvati as Hermione shouldered her way into the dorm room.
"I bet you stayed in the Hall, scribbling answers right up until they dragged the parchment out of your resisting fingers." Lavender was grinning at her, and Hermione realised she was being teased.
"Did I miss something?" Hermione had expected to find the room empty. Typically Lavender and Parvati prepped for such events in Padma's room—presumably with a whole posse of Pureblood girls who had grown up together. This time the two of them had already done their hair and faces, though they were still dressed in t-shirts and shorts—in Parvati's case her shorts were so short that the pockets hung out the bottom.
"We," announced Parvati, her hands clasped under her chin and an expression of pure delight on her face, "are going to do your hair!"
Hermione baulked.
"You know," added Lavender conversationally, "that Sleekeazy thing you usually do does nothing for you. You should really work with your natural curl."
Hermione forced her shoulders back down to their normal level. She looked at the veritable array of combs, clips, and beauty products spread out on the central dresser and she tried to relax. You can do this, she told herself sternly. Lavender and Parvati clearly meant well, and there was little to be gained by insulting them now.
"Okay," she said, swallowing her reluctance and letting her satchel slide from shoulder to bed. Parvati quite literally leapt up and down a few times with glee; Lavender took her by the shoulder and steered her into the waiting chair. When Hermione caught sight of her own apprehensive expression in the mirror, she had to laugh.
Their conversation was still awkward—the eleventh-hour attempts at reconciliation, though genuine on both sides, did little to bridge the very different personalities of those involved. Lavender and Parvati were well able to chatter over Hermione's head, however, and she herself did her best not to be irritated by a conversation that focussed, for the most part, on colours and styles and who took whom to which party. They did, she had to admit, know what they were doing: they combed out her hair, and sprayed it down with some unidentifiable substance; then they began to twist and plait and pin. There was some difficult-to-discern logic behind their movements, too, and a distinct hair style began to emerge from their actions. In essence, they'd piled her hair up on her head, weaving different strands of it into a complicated structure that seemed both haphazard and impeccably balanced. When they were done, there were tiny braids that held the mounds of her hair in place: they wove through a riot of curls, curving and falling around her face, framing it, and setting off the angle of her neck and chin.
"Wow," she said, as Lavender held up a mirror to show her the back of her head. "I didn't even know my hair could look like that."
"Now," said Parvati, as if announcing dessert, "make-up!"
"No," said Hermione. "No, no, no, no." She held up her hands to make her refusal perfectly clear.
"Hermione," said Lavender, gently but firmly, "you have to trust us. We're not going to make you look like a tart. Promise."
Every instinct told Hermione to flee. She sat right on the edge of her chair, ready to bolt.
"If you don't like it," said Parvati reasonably, "you can wash it off."
Hermione breathed out through her nose. "Okay," she conceded, allowing Lavender to push her back into her chair.
They were, thank goodness, subtle: just tiny touches of bronze, glimmering on her eyelids, a sheen on her lips, a gentle glow on her cheeks.
"Okay?" asked Parvati.
"You did a very good job," she said.
Parvati grinned contentedly.
"We weren't about to make you look like someone you're not," said Lavender, surveying the results of her labours with her hands on her hips.
"Thank you," said Hermione, meaning it. She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked beautiful—more grown up and sophisticated than she would have looked under her own ministrations.
"You're welcome," said Lavender, exchanging a loaded glance with Parvati. "But we're not quite done."
Hermione looked from the reflection of one girl to the other.
"So," said Parvati, drawing out the vowel. She added the rest in a rush: "We got you a dress!"
Hermione was stunned. "You . . . why?"
"Why not?" asked Lavender. She shrugged. "This is our last week as roommates; we haven't always been the best of friends, but we can end on a good note."
"Besides," added Parvati, "We've been itching to give you a makeover since you hit puberty!" She punctuated the sentence with an arch look, and Hermione was left not knowing whether she was serious or not.
Lavender took the dress out of her wardrobe and held it out for Hermione to see.
"We matched the colour to your Animagus plumage," she said.
Both young women were waiting with bated breath for Hermione's reaction.
"It's beautiful," she said. She reached out and ran the tip of a finger across the shimmery fabric.
"Let's put it on!" exclaimed Parvati, clapping her hands together.
Hermione took off her regular clothes, and rummaged in her drawers for some fancier underwear.
"Okay, those I approve of," said Parvati, saluting her choice.
Lavender and Parvati helped her into the dress, fussing until it hung correctly. They wouldn't let her look in the mirror until they decided she was ready: Hermione was stunned at the result.
"I didn't even know I could look like this," she admitted. "Thank you."
"If anyone asks," said Parvati, suddenly diffident, "you could tell them that I made the dress."
"You made it?" Hermione stared at Parvati and then back at her reflection. She couldn't believe her ears.
"Yes." Parvati preened, just a little. "Lavender's hoping for a Divination apprenticeship, but I'm hoping for a job at Madame Malkin's."
Hermione's arrival at the ball caused a stir. It wasn't just the dress, either. Within feet from the door, someone called out "Gryffindor!" and several others took up the cry. She stood there, awkwardly, scanning the room for someone she knew well enough to approach; it was with a huge wave of relief that she spotted Ron, with Harry and Ginny dancing nearby. Moving, however, didn't stop the stares, and Hermione felt terribly self-conscious. As she crossed the endless expanse of the floor, she started to hurry. Ron saw her coming and stepped towards her, his arms held wide, and a goofy, delighted smile on his face. Hermione practically threw herself into his arms, desperate to hide her face against his broad shoulder. He spun her up and into the air, and as the flashbulbs of the Wizarding paparazzi went off around them, she laughed at his exuberant welcome.
The spin went on, recklessly careening into the middle of the dancers.
"Good news," he whispered into her ear, "I've got a boyfriend!"
Only then did he put her down, though he continued to twirl her around the dance floor, a smug expression on his face. Hermione smiled up at him. "I'm so, so happy for you both!"
"All thanks to you," said Ron, giving her waist a squeeze.
The photographers around them continued unabated.
"Ron," she said, as the irony dawned, "this is the least effective break-up dance, ever."
"Fuck it," he said. "Let's give them something to talk about."
He led her in an exuberant, ridiculous dance: twirling her out to the end of his arm, and spinning her in; tipping her back and leaning over her; and lifting her up at the corners to rotate on the spot. He wasn't the most amazing dancer, and they spent a lot of the time barely avoiding collisions; he also stood on her foot—twice. The sheer excess had her laughing almost to the point of hysteria.
"You have to stop," she gasped at one point, "I'm losing it!"
"No, no!" he replied. "We're winning! We can't stop now!"
The dance came to a last, triumphant end: Ron spun her out in such an enthusiastic flourish that Hermione was lucky to keep her feet. Almost immediately, someone seized hold of her free hand.
"The next dance, I believe, is mine."
Hermione turned to find a portly, middle-aged wizard in ruffled, pale blue robes. She must have stared at him rather blankly, for he smiled helpfully and provided his name: "Hector Blathering, senior undersecretary to the Minister's chief assistant."
The music had already started for the next dance and Hector began to pull rather insistently on her hand. Hermione cast a beseeching glance at Ron, who looked flummoxed.
"Er," he said.
Ron's hesitation provided enough of on opportunity for Hector to catch Hermione up into the dance position.
"Make sure you come find me afterwards," called Ron as she was led away. She shot him a rather nasty glance over Hector's shoulder, which just made him grin and shrug. "Don't bite his head off!" he shouted.
Not funny. Ron's jibe, however hilarious he might have found it, left Hermione nauseas. And while she tried to be polite, the dance was dire. Ron wasn't the most graceful of partners, and he regularly stood on her toes, but he was a nice height to lean against, he smelled good, and his hands weren't sweaty. That was three strikes against Hector Blathering. Plus Blathering blathered.
As that dance came to a close, a second man cut in. "Marvin Puceton," he said, introducing himself, "Deputy Sub-Deacon of Acquisitions." Once again, he was older than Hermione's father, although this particular specimen was tall and thin where Blathering was not. While dancing, his hands strayed below her waist, which occasioned her to recall Ron's words, this time on her own behalf. "If you do that again," she said through gritted teeth, "I will bite your head off." She gave Puceton a toothy, if forced, smile. His hands returned to a bearable location for the duration of the song.
"Hermione Gryffindor," said a third man as the dance came to an end, "allow me!"
"I'm sorry," said Hermione without any attempt at a tone of sincerity, "but I've just seen someone I absolutely need to speak with." She stepped decisively away from the dance floor, making towards the only familiar face in sight. "Hooch!" Hermione said with relief. She grasped for the older woman's hand as if it were a lifeline.
"You've no shortage of dance partners tonight, Hermione Gryffindor," she replied. Hooch leaned rather heavily on her cane, and one shoulder was propped against a pillar.
"I'd rather be dancing with you," Hermione confessed, surprised at how vehemently she meant it.
"Alas, I think it will be some time before I'm fit to dance." Hooch tapped on the floor with the cane to illustrate her point.
Hermione scanned the room for a glimpse of a familiar silhouette. Though there were a healthy dose of Hogwarts students in attendance, most of the crowd was made up of adult witches and wizards—predominantly Ministry employees, she guessed.
"You and the Weasley boy put on quite a show."
"Yes." Hermione took a deep breath and asked directly for the information she wanted. "I don't suppose you've seen Snape, have you?" Hooch pinned her with an interrogative look, and Hermione attempted, rather gracelessly, to explain her question away. "I, er, wanted to thank him for all his help this year."
"Last I saw him," Hooch said, her golden eyes unwaveringly focussed on Hermione, "he was upstairs—sulking." Hermione turned her gaze immediately, seeking for the way up. "Over there," added Hooch, pointing at the staircase.
"Thanks," she said.
"Be brave, Gryffindor," said Hooch, extracting a hip flask from her sleeve and holding it up in a mock toast. "You're going to need it."
It took a while to find Severus, a circumstance that was exacerbated by the sheer number of men—mostly older men—who wanted to talk to her. Hermione was ready to scream in frustration. She lifted a glass of champagne from a floating tray, which at least stopped the many offers to get her a drink, but she soon resorted to repeating a desperate need to find the bathroom—a blunt approach that put her in a rather unflattering light, but did have the benefit of shutting down those who would otherwise have offered to accompany her to her destination.
At least the champagne helped. Hermione switched her nearly empty glass for a full one, and pressed onwards. Everywhere she turned there were faces staring at her—male and female. There were voices whispering "Hermione Gryffindor"; she was starting to hate that name.
"If I were Snape," she asked herself, "and I wanted to get away from these fools, where would I go?"
She tried to visualise the floor plan of the upper level, then headed outwards, away from the central balcony overlooking the ballroom. Hermione wandered through a series of interlocking antechambers—all dark wood and large oil paintings—and finally found herself at the edge of the building: a long gallery, lined on one side with large, vaulting windows, and at the far end, a tall, dark figure in impeccable dress robes. Her heart leapt into her throat.
For a moment, Hermione paused on the threshold, watching Severus where he stood, his back and the sole of one foot against the wall, a glass of Firewhiskey on a marble mantle beside him. He had been lost in his thoughts, but at the sound of her arrival or the weight of her gaze, he looked up. Hermione could feel his fury, she could taste it.
"Hi," she said. Her voice sounded too high; she drank a mouthful of champagne.
"Miss Granger," he said and turned his gaze away.
His words shivered down her spine. For a second, she considered flight: she could run to the Apparition foyer and leave, maybe she'd even make it that far before the tears started. Or not. Hermione pushed back her shoulders and walked down the long hall towards him. She walked right up beside him and leant against the wall next to where he stood.
"This is a beautiful room," she said.
"What are you doing here?"
Looking for you. "If one more elderly Ministry employee tries to dance with me—just so that he can claim, afterwards, that he's groped the Gryffindor—I might blow up the room."
His eyes flickered towards her for the briefest moment. "I would have thought, that for all his manifold inadequacies, your boyfriend should prove capable of fending off unwanted dance partners."
"Ah," said Hermione, running a finger lightly around the mouth of her champagne flute, "but I don't have a boyfriend."
She had his attention then. He turned his face towards her so quickly that his hair swung out in an arc. "I saw you," he spat, "dancing with him. Don't lie to me."
His face was rigid with anger and oh-so-very-close to her own. Her heart rate quickened, but she forced herself to stay very still. "I don't think I could lie to you," she replied.
"Nonsense." He turned his head away once more; Hermione felt a sharp stab of loss. "I taught you Occlumency myself."
Hermione took another mouthful of champagne. She let the bubbles fizz against her tongue and her teeth before she swallowed, her eyes closed. Be brave, Gryffindor. She opened her eyes.
"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked, turning her head and tilting it up towards him. "About Ron?"
He looked down at her from the corner of his eye. He didn't say anything to encourage her, but he didn't discourage her, either.
"He's gay," she confessed.
For more than thirty seconds, Severus didn't move: not a breath, not a blink. Then he tilted his head up towards the ceiling. "He's . . . gay?"
"Yep." Severus turned his face to her, and Hermione smiled. She lifted her shoulders.
"How long have you known?" Incredulous.
"Since Christmas." Hermione attempted to smother her grin in her glass of wine.
Though Severus hadn't moved, the tension was bleeding from his body.
"I hesitate to tell you the worst part." She waited just long enough for him to draw his brows together, uncertain as to whether he should be apprehensive or not. "Ron . . . is going out with Neville."
"Longbottom and Weasley?" Severus stood for a moment with his mouth open. She couldn't remember ever seeing him lost for words. "Thank Merlin they can't reproduce!"
"Well," she said, elongating the word. "It's possible I may have offered my services."
He blinked. "One can only hope that your genes will dominate."
"A test case," teased Hermione, "in the Nature versus Nurture debate."
"Indeed." Struck by a thought, Severus patted his chest and then reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out a slim packet of paper. "These arrived this afternoon: it's only the page proofs but I thought you might like to see it."
It was their Wolfsbane article, and right there at the top were their names: "By Hermione Granger & Severus Snape." Hermione ran a finger across the words. The ampersand looked like a knot, tying them together.
"I have another copy," he said. "That one is for you. We have to send any corrections within the week."
"Wow," she said. "I'll, er—"
"Read it later?" he suggested. He was laughing at her, but not in a nasty way.
"Yes," she agreed. She realised that she was grinning like a fool. With a happy pat to the cover, Hermione tucked the proofs away.
They stood there in companionable silence for a short while: Hermione beaming, Severus sipping at his Firewhiskey. Hermione was turning over possible ways to induce him to dance. The answer came from an unexpected source.
"Hermione Gryffindor!" exclaimed a voice from the door. "I have been looking everywhere for you!"
At the sight of Cornelius Fudge, Hermione slid fractionally closer to Severus. She reached out a hand along the wall and took hold of his robes. She pulled on them—subtly, but enough that he could not fail to notice.
"I insist on a dance, you know!"
Severus put his glass down on the mantel with an audible click. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Cornelius," he drawled, "but the next dance is mine."
There was a flash of annoyance in Fudge's eyes. "Come now, Severus!" he said. "You've had her locked up in that school of yours all year."
Severus had lifted Hermione's glass from her fingers, and with a casual flick of his wrist he sent it floating towards the mantelpiece. Taking her hand firmly in his, he led her towards the door.
"There are, alas," he said as they passed a flabbergasted Fudge, "so few opportunities for dancing during the school year."
Hermione found that the whispers and comments of the crowd were much easier to bear with Severus by her side. As they approached the dance floor, they passed Ron and Neville.
Severus hesitated for a bare second. "Mr Weasley," he said with a dignified nod of his head, "Mr Longbottom."
"Professor Snape," replied Ron politely. His eyes went to the place where their hands were joined and then rose to Hermione's face. As she brushed past him, he lifted his fist and she bumped her hand against it.
Then she and Severus took the floor. His arm was around her, her hand in his. She knew she had a triumphant look on her face, and though she tried to hide it, the attempt was in vain. Instead, she leant her forehead into his chest and smiled into the sharp creases of his dress robes.
"Don't look now," he murmured on the second turn, "but Weasley and Longbottom are dancing."
"Together?" she demanded, lifting her head immediately—despite his warning—and twisting her neck to look. "Together!" she confirmed delightedly. Evidently they'd come to no consensus about who would lead, and their dancing was more like a manly hug that happened to be moving than any dancing in the literal, Wizarding style.
All around them people were staring—and it wasn't just that they two of them were famous names, it was that the two of them were wizards.
"There's Jocelyn, too!" said Hermione. Jocelyn and Chelsea barged onto the floor beside Ron and Neville. Draco and Astoria, looking impeccably graceful, followed in their wake. Jocelyn had a dancing style that reminded Hermione of Fred and George at their finest. She managed to catch Jocelyn's eye and waved; Jocelyn gave her a thumbs up.
"Kingsley's noticed," said Severus, nodding discreetly to his left.
Hermione, who had abandoned discreet quite happily, swivelled her head round to look. Kingsley was staring at the dance floor, taken aback. As she watched, he turned on his heel, stalked over to a tall, thin wizard dressed in an impeccably tailored set of pale blue robes, and dragged him back by the hand towards the dancers. The other wizard—who had been mid-sentence with an interlocutor—protested right up until the moment he was locked in Kingsley's embrace. Then he sighed, rather theatrically, and allowed himself to be twirled under Kingsley's arm. They weren't that far away, and Hermione heard him remark, "You could have warned me, darling, I would have worn different shoes."
"What about Hooch and Poppy?" demanded Hermione, craning her neck. "Do you see them?"
"They won't," said Severus. He sounded about ninety-five percent sure, but he was definitely looking, his dark eyes scanning the room.
"Why not?" asked Hermione. People around the room had started to notice the odd couples littering the floor. Several other same-sex couples had caught on and had also joined the dance. Hermione felt her heart swell in her chest. There were flashbulbs going off all around them, but she felt pretty confident that her dance with Snape had just slipped several notches of newsworthiness further down the ladder.
"Poppy had a very prestigious medicinal apprenticeship when she first left school. One day her Master discovered that she'd spent her Saturday afternoon at what she calls a 'Sapphic picnic.' She was dismissed without references. She spent a long period unemployed, and as I understand it, she only got the job at Hogwarts because Albus went in to bat for her with Dippet."
"That's terrible," said Hermione. Something of the lustre of the evening faded. At that very moment, she caught sight of Molly and Arthur. Molly was staring at Ron and Neville, her face a picture of shock. Molly's eyes strayed over the dance floor and paused on her and Snape. Hermione's heart dropped as Molly's eyebrows inched even higher. She watched, turning her head each time Severus spun her in the dance, as Molly pulled Arthur towards Ron. The expression on Molly's face was little different from the one she wore when she killed Bellatrix.
When she got to Ron, Molly pulled Arthur towards her. "Dance, you fool," she hissed. They began to dance.
Hermione felt dizzy with surprise and relief. She caught sight of Ron's face. He, too, looked stunned.
"There's Hooch," said Severus.
"Where?" asked a familiar voice behind them.
They both turned to find Poppy, standing alone on the dance floor beside them.
"Beside that pillar, watching," said Severus, swallowing his surprise and lifting his arm to point.
"Old girl's been waiting nearly sixty years for this dance," said Poppy, a funny catch in her voice. "It wouldn't do for her to miss it."
Hermione said, "I think I'm going to cry." Severus held her a little more tightly, and she rested her head on his chest.
He kept them virtually still, swaying in place as they watched Poppy thread her way through the dancers to Hooch. Hooch stood up straighter at her approach. They watched Hooch lift up her cane and gesture with it, watched Poppy take it out of her hands and lean it against the pillar. They saw Poppy take Hooch's weight as the other woman leant against her, watched them rock back and forth in time to the music.
"This is perfect," said Hermione as the song wove its way to a gentle close. "It's the happy ending everyone has been waiting for."
Severus made a noise of agreement, half a bark of laughter, half a grunt.
"Well then," huffed an unwelcome voice behind them. "You can't put me off a second time!"
It was Fudge once again. Hermione felt Severus' arm tighten in response. She lifted up her head, resting her chin on his chest, as high as it would go. He looked down into her face.
"Let's run away," she whispered. He did laugh then, throwing back his head. "I'm serious."
"Can you imagine the papers? They'd have a field day."
Undeterred by their lack of response, Fudge was becoming more vocal. "Snape! Unhand Miss Granger immediately!"
"Well, they'd have worse things to say if I were to transform here and now and terrify everyone within clawing distance," proposed Hermione quite reasonably.
"They'll start calling me the Heir of Slytherin," he said. Neither of them had bothered to glance at Fudge.
"You can just correct the error: 'Father to the Heir of Slytherin'."
He looked down at her through narrowed eyes.
"Did you realise that Jocelyn was a Parselmouth?" she asked in her most conversational tone.
"No," he said. The corner of his mouth curved up, and she realised that he was happy at the idea.
"Yes," she said expansively. "I've got big plans for her. Between the two of us I'm pretty sure we can change the world."
"I'm imagining a large, Hollywood-style sign in the main square of Hogsmeade: MUDBLOOD PRIDE."
"Now, that's an excellent idea!"
Though Severus kept steering them away, Fudge kept following. He was fast shifting out of irate and into apoplectic.
Hermione slid her hand from where it sat, decorously, on Severus' shoulder, up and around to cup the back of his neck. "Come on," she said quietly, "let's get out of here."
Severus looked down at her with an unreadable expression. "If you insist," he said. His arm tightened, and he lifted her entirely off the ground. Then, right there, in the middle of the dance floor, with Fudge bearing down upon them, they Disapparated.
A/N: At the risk of spoiling the storyline: there will be lemons in the next chapter. If that's not your thing, please consider this your "fade to black" and join us the chapter afterwards for the epilogue.