5th Year Part Nine: Chapter 27
"It is absolutely okay with me if you need to keep some secrets. I've been thinking abut this and I decided that a best friend is someone who, when they don't understand, they still understand."
~~ Nancy Werlin
~.O.~
Harry came angrily into the Three Broomsticks, slamming the door behind him as he wiped numerous specks of pink confetti out of his, as always, messy hair. Several adult patrons, as well as the very rude shrunken heads that cursed at him, gave him dirty looks at the show of temper that had momentarily interrupted their peaceful afternoons. He then had the decency to flush and apologize before continuing to Hermione who was waving at him from the back of the room.
He plopped down in front of her, immediately grabbing his butterbeer that she had ordered for him and placed a stasis charm upon and taking a sip before speaking, "Why are women so difficult?"
Hermione raised her signature eyebrow at him, "You do realize you are talking to your best friend, who is indeed a woman?"
He laughed a little with even redder cheeks than he entered the room with, giving Hermione a glimpse of a pink tongue that he no doubt got with his date with Cho who he finally got up the courage to ask out just days ago.
Madame Puddifoot's and everything pink, lacey, and ruffley. What on earth was the boy thinking?
"Cho got angry at me and left when I told her I had to meet you." His laughter subsided for his earlier consternation and a frown, "Apparently she thinks I'm some sort of a man slag after saying her I had to meet my best friend after our date was over."
Hermione was now the one to laugh at him, and at the thought of him being a slag.
If only the girl knew how long it took for him to actually get up the courage to ask her out in the beginning… man slag indeed! If the definition was: young man who has a habit of watching a girl he likes for months before finally being enough of a big boy to ask them out.
"Well no wonder, Harry! Bringing up a girl that you have to meet in the middle of a date." She shook her head at him as she giggled into her own glass of butterbeer, while he was very considerate of her, most of the time, Harry did have the tendency to botch talking with any other girl who has taken an interest in him. Exhibit Pavarti and Padma who were just smitten with him during the time of the Yule Ball just last year, who they each then decided to try their best in ignoring for lack of conversation topics and spying on her.
The boy rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, "You're my best friend! Everybody knows that!" He defended himself, conveniently forgetting all the people who thought that relationship signature was simply a cover for, Hi, this is my best friend who's really my girlfriend in disguise for some reason or another, Hermione.
"Rit Skeeter seems to have missed that memo last year," Hermione scowls in remembrance of that horrible woman's very uninformed articles during the Triwizard Tournament, grateful that Tom had decided against swaying the woman to the side of the Dark even if she was not someone he would want in the beginning. Having simply to ask her the favor of degrading Dumbledore's reputation to which she readily agreed as the unknown man by the name of Marvolo Gaunt II had saved her from the horrible girl and nasty professor who had held her hostage in a jar for the better part of several months. Then she smiled as Ginny and Luna came up behind Harry, "Maybe you need to date a girl who already knows for sure that I am just your best friend, and won't accuse you of otherwise."
Hermione glances sideways at Ginny who was pretending to ignore their conversation after they all said hello to each other, Harry asking, "And who exactly would you recommend, Hermione?"
"Well there are two girls sitting right here who know that little detail for sure," she motions to a now blushing Ginny who was avoiding her eyes, and a brightly grinning Luna.
..
Hermione was then on her way down to the dungeons later the next day for Harry's Occlumency lesson when she happened across Luna on the stairs. Barefoot on the uneven stone floor that always seemed to be colder than it should be, as if ice water were flowing through to fill in the cracks.
"Hi, Hermione." Luna said to her, waving a hand that boasted a new bottle cap bracelet to replace the one she had gifted the curly haired girl at the beginning of the year, citing that it would banish Wrackspurts from interfering with her thoughts.
"Hi, Luna." She told the fairer haired girl, still glancing down worriedly to the girl's feet. "What are you doing walking around with no shoes? It's too cold down here to be without them."
"Oh," the other girl looks down to her pale feet that were tinted grey with cold and dirt and tipped with happy bright yellow nail polish. "The other girls in my dorm needed them more than me, I always find them in random places though after they've borrowed them. One time a baby thestral brought me one that was in the Black Lake, the Squid had thrown it at it scaring it horribly before it smelled my scent on it and brought it back to the edge of the school."
Hermione nodded slowly, knowing all too well from her years at muggle primary school how things could get borrowed and lost very easily when she asked those who she had learnt markers or books to for the object back. They would lie to her saying they had lost it, and that they were very sorry even as she could tell they were not.
The all- too- trusting girl cocked her head at Hermione as she murmured a warming charm to her feet before grabbing her hand and steering them towards Gryffindor tower. "You'll get frostbite on your toes if you go outside like this, and from what I've heard it isn't the most pleasant feeling having to regrow bones that have had to been chopped off. I'll lend you a pair of my own, and if the other girls try to borrow them tell them that they have to ask me themselves."
"You don't have to do that, Hermione. I can transfigure some shoes if my feet get too cold," Luna told her, "You were just going to visit Professor Snape, I don't want to hold you up."
Hermione blinked a moment at her smiling, not in the least surprised at the girl's seemingly infinite knowledge. "I don't mind, I can be a little late."
"You know, I've always thought he was quite handsome, in a nonconventional way. Don't you agree?" A sparkle shone in Luna's eye as she leaned her head closer to Hermione and spoke in almost a whisper, the twinkle much like the one in Dumbledore's when he knew something not of common knowledge that he approved of.
How does her friend always end up from saying something completely naive to something absolutely true?
"Yes," she giggled, "He is isn't he?" Both of the girls' laughs echoed slightly throughout the moving staircases, the portraits them smiling down to the secretively speaking girls below them.
..
Hermione rushed down the hallway towards Severus' office, having spent longer than she thought finding shoes for Luna and talking with her about everything and nothing boy related. Apparently the fairer girl thought Neville was quite handsome. Hoping Severus and Harry hadn't gotten into anything due to their tempers in her absence, she had a very strong feeling that contradicted that hope even while she told herself everything was completely fine until proven otherwise. Quickly opening the door that had just been swinging closed seemingly of it's own volition, she came to a scene in which she never would have thought of. Although, she shouldn't be surprised considering some of the decisions the boy in question has made in the past, and no doubt will continue making.
Of all the things the boy could possibly do…
Severus stood frozen between where she stood in the doorway and the black headed boy who held his face in the private memories gathered within the pensive that was delicately sitting on the edge of Severus' desk. Her love stood before her with the face of intense anger bordering on loathing, pain, and panic all wrapped up in one complex expression. All these years later, the epitome of James Potter with just a hint of Lily standing before him in such a way simply brought up too many nasty memories to allow for any proper action.
Hermione took a step forward, knocking the dark wooded wand Severus must have dropped in his rare moment of surprise. Quickly reaching down to grab it, she made her way in front of the paralyzed man.
"Severus," she slipped it back into his hidden robe pocket before pulling his face down to look into her eyes, knowing she would have to check on him before pulling Harry out of the room by the ear. "Severus, look at me. Now." He finally ripped his eyes from her foolish best friend, "Are you okay?"
"Get him out. Get him away from me."
..
Harry was stuck inside of the professor's most private memories, memories that he was never meant to see he realized once his body was stuck inside that of a young boy crying within a tall hook nosed woman's arms who sat on her knees behind him. But he could not seem to pull himself away once he was bound to the small skinny boy in which he inhabited, a boy much like he himself had been at that age.
The woman who held him exhibited a bruise on her sharp cheek bones, framed by long dark eyelashes covering very sad eyes that flinched each time the angry man before the mother and child raised his deep voice. In a way that was very familiar, yet the man instead of being called uncle was by the name of father and husband. A father's voice that belonged very much to the Hogwarts Potions Master. Harry's vocal cords ached as the man who looked little like the small boy in looks, but every way similar in the spark of anger lighting within his eye grabbed him about the shoulder with one hand while he burned a hole through his already threadbare shirt. The smell of cigarette smoke, burning flesh and fabric, and eye watering booze that all spelled Father in the boy's mind permeated around his small body. The woman behind him mimicked his scared and pain filled screams as if she herself was being burned by the cigarette, the wand she had not used for years and years sitting very innocently on the fireplace mantle. Waiting and hoping in vain for it's mistress to once again pull it from it's restless sleep.
"Gods, Severus! Tobias, please! He's just a boy!"
The memory then shifted suddenly from the man's terrifying father to a scene less physically rattling and filled with adrenaline, yet more surprising and filled with just as much pain.
A teenage boy with long black hair hung upside down, feeling a deep loathing and despair as he latched eyes on a red headed woman with pin straight hair to her waist as his grey underpants were pulled to his ankles, exposing his most private parts. Harry's own heart thudded outside of the memory even as the boy's cheeks burned in shame and undeniable embarrassment, recognizing the woman who had given up her life to spare his own. Mum…
The group of laughing boys behind the girl was headed by a boy with round glasses falling down the bridge of his nose, much like his own, with a head of unmanageable hair that stuck around his head with no direction. The girl's eyes turned stricken once his lips formed a most hated word, "Mudblood…"
He shifted once again… "I am sorry, Lily." He was on his knees before the beautiful girl, looking up to her expression that spelled absolute betrayal and disgust, and something that looked too much like a glimmer of relief to be rid of the boy she had been drifting apart from for years leading up to this horrible day. Once again, there was a black haired boy boasting a sadistic grin and glasses at the girl's shoulder, another boy with curlier dark hair and much the same expression beside him leaning against the portrait of the Fat Lady who looked at him with much sympathy. James Potter and Sirius Black.
Unconsciously latching onto the woman and the fading glow of love within the boy's mind in which he was stuck within, Harry once again saw a younger version of his mother being given a delicate little daisy that had bloomed in the long bones of his small handed fingers. A memory in which held only the smallest sentiments for the girl who had been called Lily Evans, a long faded feeling that held no more bearing on the boy- turned- man's presence as it had within his teenage years. Resentment and a long faded pain having faded along with this love, leaving behind only these recollections of a time in his life.
The last of the memory in which The- Boy- Who- Lived was stuck in before a familiar feminine voice began breaking through to him was that of the voice's owner leaning against him in a moving vehicle, her tiny breathing puffing small breaths onto his neck. With his arm around the tiny body and looking down to the girl's caramel curls while intermittent light from outside the car flashed it's color at him, Harry felt a much stronger love suffusing his being than any of the previous memories. Much different from the anger of the first and faded wavering of emotion connected to the red haired girl that had given his interloper of a mind within these memories life, as he rubbed the silk of her gown between her fingers he felt a peace as he had never known.
The smaller girl's curls and peaceful face was still seared into his brain when the memory was cut off before only to be replaced by the actual furious face of his best friend, although he could see why exactly it was such a specially coveted memory. Harry lamented the fact that he was pulled from emotion such as what the memory had shared with him, never having known such a thing as he had felt in that silent moment as he looked down to his best friend. Never before had he ever felt anything to that sort of magnitude in anyone's presence, although he did admit it was a very close thing when laying emotionally vulnerable within a dark room, wrapped around the girl as they talked of possession.
An expression etching itself upon her face that he would never forget for as long as he lived shook him to the very core of his soul at how utterly angry she was. Only once had he seen anything even resembling the absolute fury staining Hermione's face, when her beloved feline was flung against a wall, but this time, he could cause his permanent death with eyes such as these.
..
Hermione kissed the sensitive spot below Severus' ear in hopes of comforting him along with the firewhiskey he held in his hand that did not grip her around the waist. After Hermione had pulled Harry from Severus' memories, the lesson surprisingly had continued with much the same results as the last. An even more horrible headache with no relief this time around. But this day Harry left alone, not able to look at his still furious best friend in the eyes as he passed where she sat once again behind Severus' desk with her arms crossed in silence.
"The boy's barriers are sufficiently broken down for the Dark Lord to explore his mind without being noticed," he broke their hour long silence, "With Nagini having been perusing the Department of Mysteries, Potter has been hearing distorted whispers of what I assume must be the prophecy if that is indeed where it is being held. I will inform the Dark Lord that we are searching in the correct place, and you will inform the boy that our lessons are at an end. I can no longer fulfill my orders from the Headmaster."
Hermione silently nodded, her stomach clenching at the thought that they were so close to obtaining the prophecy that Tom had wished in his possession as well as the thought of speaking to Harry in such a small time frame when she was still filled with such anger.
~.O.~
Hermione had not spoken to Harry since that night he had decided to stick his nose into business other than his own, but not for lack of trying on his part. He had attempted everything in his power to apologize, yet she snubbed even every mention of his name until she decided enough was enough. It seemed though that she would never deem him worthy of her attention again as she continued to ignore him even while he followed her around the Room of Requirement on her rounds. In between her efforts in correcting those students who had not quite mastered a specific technique off her list, Harry attempted to get her to speak to him once more. To no avail, until he decided enough was enough himself and grabbed her about the waist, lifting her struggling form several inches off the floor before him, and set her in a secluded corner beside the large wooden entrance doors.
"Back to work," Harry told the several people who had witnessed their little tiff who then turned back to their partners, knowing from the beginning of their meeting that their two leaders were in an argument. Hermione having never ignored Harry for any reason at all no matter how angry she was, each person in Dumbledore's Army knew both of them enough that the boy would not resort to such means if it were not very important.
He turned back to a now cross armed and glaring curly haired girl, "When are you finally going to speak to me again, Hermione? I've told you I am sorry, what more can I do so you will stop freezing me out?" He pleaded with her, although she was not moved one bit. "I know what I did was an invasion of Snape's privacy. Professor Snape." He quickly corrected himself for want of actually getting back on her good side and not backslide due to simply bad manners over the professor's proper title. A flash of remembered bone deep peace went through his mind for not the first time since Hermione had begun her silent treatment.
She cocked her head at him, staring for a moment before saying, "You will apologize. To him."
Harry exhales sharply as he flinched, at least she was finally speaking again. Even if it was something he didn't particularly like. "I have been trying, but each time I even look his way it's like he wants to set me on fire with the sheer force of his glaring. He could do it too!"
Hermione smirked slightly at this, her tightly crossed arms loosening a bit in the knowledge that at least he has tried, and even she could see that his observation of Severus was correct. Each time the dark man even glimpsed a messy head of black hair from the corner of his eye his own began to narrow to slits, practically exhaling smoke from his flaring nostrils.
"How many memories did you see?" she asked him, knowing exactly what Severus had put into his pensive, but most likely if Harry had seen anything between her and the other man that would have been the first thing he told her rather than that he had already tried apologizing. Maybe.
Harry hesitated, avoiding her eyes for a second before pulling them back up to her drastically softened face compared to in the day, "I saw most of them I think, he knew my mother and father, Hermione. He was friends with my mother before Hogwarts." He chose to ignore the last tidbit of memory he had seen before the girl in question had pulled him away, for the time being. The only thing he could possibly do at the moment was to bide his time in bringing it up to his best friend. Although, he had felt the emotions connected to each memory of the professor's life, and it didn't seem like the type of emotions a man would feel for his student and pupil.
They were already planning on continuing with each other after graduation… beginning the next chapter of their lives after the war together… how could he have been so blind all these years? Because it was simply a fact that he had long ago consented to, that Hermione and the spy had a much closer relationship that a student and professor should have. Even closer than he and Dumbledore, or Hagrid, as much as she had liked to reason with him that the man was the one to introduce her to the magical world… it was an altogether different kind of relationship they had than any he had seen…
Does she feel the same for him as he does for her?
Hermione's face showed neither surprise nor shock, basically giving him the answer that she knew exactly the content of either the pensive memories, or the professor's past that had long connected him to Harry. The dark haired boy was not surprised at the girl's lack of reaction if what he suspected as true.
She suddenly hugged him, cutting off whatever he had intended to say next, and Harry simply wrapped his arms around her happy that she was not angry at him anymore. "I figured he was, Harry. He was in their same year, but I don't want to hear anything else about those memories, they are very private and you don't need to be telling anyone else of them, especially Ron."
She pulled back to give him once last stern glare before hugging her tighter, he smiled before sliding the hand that had been hugging her shoulder up to the side of her neck. "You are a very kind person, Hermione."
She smiled, but as she opened her mouth to reply, the heavy door beside them swung open far faster than it ever had before, causing Hermione and Harry to jump at the loud piercing squeak that sounded throughout the room. A panting and less than dignified Draco came barreling inside, looking frantically around with a piece of his normally slicked back hair falling onto his forehead as he finally set eyes on Hermione still wrapped up in Harry's arms. His long legs carried him to her fast, grabbing her arm before bending down to talk in her ear as many of those around them watched in wariness and confusion.
"Get everyone out, Umbridge caught one of the Ravenclaw girls down the hall. Hurry, I have to inform Severus that she needs veritaserum for the interrogation but the girl looked like she was going to start talking on her own any minute."
Hermione had a brief surge of renewed disgust for the pink clad woman for using the truth potion on underaged children, but even then, it was simply innocuous and innocent compared to using blood quills on first years. Hopefully, whichever Ravenclaw the woman had caught would be smart enough to heed Hermione's meeting from the first meeting about what would happen she she talk of her own free will. She nodded to the blonde boy who then took right off once she indicated she understood his message, Harry all the while looking to her wide eyed in panic.
Hermione grabbed his cheeks on either side, causing him to loose his balance slightly and stumble into her as she brought him down to her shorter level in order to kiss his forehead quickly before informing the rest of the students still staring at them in the wake of Draco's departure of this new development.
"Do not let my hugs fool you, Harry. I will forgive you once you have actually apologized to Professor Snape, not simply trying your best." She told him, not even beginning to panic herself at the thought that they were all about to get caught by the one woman they did not want to be caught by. She turned back to the room as she gestured to a new door on the other side of the room that had appeared in a lighter wood color than their normal one, "Everybody stay calm and proceed on out the back door, please. The High Inquisitor has caught one our Ravenclaws and is intending on using veritaserum on the girl, please disallusion yourselves and retreat." Hermione neglected to mention the fact that Severus' truth serum that he had been supplying to the woman all year had been completely ineffective, but regardless, she would be required to say exactly why she knew that inside information. Once it looked as if several others would begin to panic themselves much like Harry, she said once again, "Calmly walk out and proceed back to your houses." As several people disappeared under their charms, Hermione tapped each of the younger years who had not quite gotten it just right and sent them on their way.
Once she was back within the confines of Gryffindor Tower, she took out the copy of the list of names she had given Severus months ago, and observed the name now written in red within the sea of black. Withdrawing her master galleon from her pocket, she tapped her wand to it and whispered the name of the girl who had outed her friends and betrayed her house.
..
Marietta Edgecomb came to breakfast the with a thick length of gauze covering her forehead, although spots of red still managed to seep through the one pristine color. Several people who had previously had no affiliation with the now pale cheeked and sleep deprived girl shunned her for no reason at all that the professors could discern. All except for one dark clad one who had been called for his expertise in dark curses into the infirmary late in the afternoon the day he tapped the girl's name on a piece of parchment, as Madame Pomfrey clearly would take the Potion Master's Defense Against the Dark Arts knowledge over the woman who had her students writing essays throughout the whole year. Several had noticeably balked though once the girl's blood could be seen through the gauze, glancing quickly towards the middle of the Gryffindor table where a certain girl sat with her wide eyed friends, those students seeing her nonchalant expression before turning back away just as fast as they had picked her out.
Once the Ravenclaw who was released several days later with the devastating news that the new word branded and carved into her supple skin would indeed be permanent, she had found her warm Dumbledore's Army galleon permanently etched with her name as well. Hermione Granger's words echoing in her head of their very first meeting, if you should tell anyone not in this room without permission from myself or Harry, your name will be known for everyone to do with you what they will… The girl cried and cried on Cho's shoulder who assured her all would be okay, it was not her fault. But they could clearly both discern that all would not indeed be okay once they both entered a realm of shunning the next day, the students they had once been friends with doing to them what they felt was necessary.
Cho being looped into it even by Harry Potter for sticking up for her best friend, and when asking him to reverse the curse, he looked to his best friend who had been watching as Marietta's new fringe swayed slightly to reveal the word etched into her skin with a cocked head.
Snitch
Once the girl who had betrayed their trust through no fault of faulty veritaserum saw where the other girl's eyes were trained, the darker haired girl flinched from her gaze as she suddenly realized that Cho was asking the wrong person to reverse the horrible magic that had scarred her.
"Please, Hermione." She begged, causing Cho to look to her in confusion as to why she was talking to her and not Harry who had been the figurehead behind everything within Dumbledore's Army. He must have been, after all they were all united together across the houses by the boy who saw her beloved Cedric die right before his eyes. Who knew so much that could help protect them against the man who had killed the other boy she had loved so.
"Please," Marietta begged Hermione whilst on the verge of tears, "It won't go away. Professor Snape said the magic is too powerful for even him to break down, although he doesn't know how a student could have cursed me. That it looks like an advanced witch or wizard must have cursed me." Her tears finally spilled over onto her cheeks, "I can't even glamour it away."
Professor Snape knows exactly how such a curse could be irreversible, it was him that taught her how such a bit of magic could be so after all.
Hermione simply observed the girl with impassive eyes while Harry turned towards her, hesitantly saying, "Hermione, maybe you should take it away. I think she's learned her lesson."
The scarred girl nodded frantically, Cho looking gratefully at Harry for intervening, "I have, I am so sorry for what I did."
"It wasn't her fault, Hermione." Cho finally spoke directly to her and not the boy beside her, although she did avoid her eyes as if she were somehow intimidated by her. "It was the veritaserum Umbridge forced her to take."
Hermione glanced between Harry and Cho for a second before taking out her wand, noting Marietta's flinch back. "I will do you a favor, Marietta." She tapped her wand lightly to the ridged and bumpy word, causing the redness to fade smoothly for a split second, before it reappeared. "You will be able to glamour it gone, but maybe it will serve as a reminder that you never turn your back on those you care for no matter the cost or outside influences."
Cho opened her mouth with a defiant expression covering her face, no doubt to once again tell the other girl her friend had no choice in the matter, but Hermione interrupted her next tirade in favor of turning back to Harry. All the while Marietta still held her small fingers up to hide the word written upon her skin, her skin growing cold at the thought that maybe, somehow, Hermione knew the impossible truth she would never reveal to her own best friend.
"Lets go, Harry." Hermione grabbed his hand in preparation of walking away, and Harry who had once had a crush on Cho even after their disastrous date, turned from her and her friend all too easily to follow his own best friend who he loved despite her occasional malicious streaks. Not saying a word at her decision to simply allow a glamouring over the dark magic she had performed instead of following his suggestion to make away with it all together.
Hermione, who had remembered Harry's tale of jealousy from not too long ago, wrapped her arm around the boy whose hand she had let go freer than Cho ever could grab up during their brief dalliance. The curly headed girl's slitted pupils met his now past love intrest's completely stricken eyes over her shoulder and smiled in such a mocking way Cho herself felt tears come to her own eyes as if she herself was the one to have been forever cursed with a permanent marking.
It all goes to show you that girls, muggle or no, had the very high capability to ruin another girl's complete self- esteem through sheer force of will, words, and actions.
Later on while standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Marietta ran her fingers over her deceptively looking smooth forehead that when touched still barred the markings of the letters of Snitch. Although she was not surprised that the glamour only hid surface imperfections and not that of anything deeper than the skin, she could not help but think all the while:
How could she know that I was just too scared of Umbridge that I spilled our most coveted secrets, and it was not Professor Snape's potions that compelled the truth from her?
~.O.~
Hermione sat across from Harry and Ron in the library, flipping through a book with something of an attitude while the two boys spoke of how crazy Hagrid is from bringing his brother onto Hogwarts grounds from his time spent with the giants. Being his mother's pure giant born offspring, Grawp himself was as big a giant as any it seemed to Hermione, although Hagrid maintains the fact that he is one of the smaller than average ones within his clan. Or was one of the smaller ones as the half- giant had decided to bring him back to his home within the school, settling him into the Forbidden Forest that was not as forbidden to students as it might seem. The trio itself seemed to have been entering it far more than the average student with a professor's actual permission each time. Most of the time in Hermione's case as sometimes she would enter, taking care to steer clear of centaur territory, when certain spells called for solitude. Even then, Severus always knew where she was, but she wouldn't exactly call that a professor's permission in any case as he was never one to tell her no. She would just go ahead and complete her task before asking for forgiveness.
"I wish I could have gone with you," Ron complained as he had been stuck in detention, thankfully still free of blood quills as it seemed every time Umbridge made a new batch of the horrible things they would mysteriously tear themselves apart. The feathers flying everywhere and the nubs broken off with a little help from an orange familiar who love his mother's permission to trash any and everything in the horrible woman's private office and quarters. He was the best at sniffing them out no matter where they were hidden at any rate.
The red head's words prompted Hermione to glare at him before growling and uncharacteristically slamming her book shut, to which she earned a glare of her own from Madame Pince. Harry kicked Ron on the shin beneath the table, making him glare incredulously before Harry tilts his head towards Hermione. But as usual, Ron was oblivious so he turned back to Hermione with a resigned shake of the head.
"Where are you going, Hermione?" he asked her.
"I am going to talk to a man about setting wards around that part of the forest to keep adventurous first years from walking straight into a friendly giant!" She begins to turn around, but then pauses and turns back to Harry with her eyes narrowed. "Have you apologized to Professor Snape yet for sticking your nose in things that it didn't belong in?" Her eyebrow raised in imitation of the man in question as Harry placed his chin on his hand and glanced away from her, silently speaking his answer. Her robes swished around her in her irritation as she walked away, calling behind her shoulder as she did so, "Do it soon, you won't be able to put it off forever."
Ron watched as she walked away, "Always so bossy."
Harry chuckled, "You should know that by now, mate."
~.O.~
As preparation for Ordinary Wizarding levels began, Hermione became more and more agitated as exhibited by her hair becoming frizzy and even more outlandish than before as the curls constricted and then proceeded to volumize in such a way as to make hair models jealous. As the boys did not study as much as she did even with these most important examinations coming up, most of her studying was done in the privacy and silence of Severus' rooms in front of the fireplace with her books spread out all around her until she fell asleep. Usually she would be awoken by Severus wrapped in his grey satin sheets with him reading beside her just in time to get back to Gryffindor Tower before curfew. It was on such a day she had taken a nap in his bed of her own volition before intending on getting back to work for the OWL the next day that he returned to his rooms clad in his distinctively nondiscript robes, bone mask in hand as he sat on the edge of his bed.
"Severus?" She asked groggily, her blearily eyes on his back, "I didn't know you had a meeting tonight." He sighed heavily as she sleepily crawled to him on her knees, resting her still fuzzy head on his shoulder while draping herself over him from behind. Listening to his heartbeat, she waited for him to say something as she was on the brink of dozing off once again.
It seemed like forever until he finally did, "It will happen tomorrow. After the last OWL has been taken, the Dark Lord will plant a memory in the boy's mind to lure him into the Department of Mysteries."
Hermione's eyes opened slowly, for a second not comprehending her love's words in her half- consciousness. But once again she remembers the words of plot and intrigue that had hatched after her last one- on- one meeting with the Dark Lord. A plot in which she was once again against, but had limited say in. Both of his large hands folding over her own, he loosened them from where they had balled up his robes. But she could not muster up the energy with everything else weighing on her mind to be completely anxious about it.
She knew he felt exactly as she did about the situation as she did, if not for different reasons. Being that it was the first time she would be put into a situation with the Death Eaters while alongside Harry and not himself, he was particularly worried that she would be injured as her identity as the Dark Lord's closest advisor was as of yet, not common knowledge.
"I will be okay, Severus. Or rather, I will be as careful as I can to come back to you unharmed." She whispered in his ear, to which his simply tilted his head back on her shoulder in order to bury his nose in the side of her neck, inhaling that potent scent of his that had seeped into the now scarred bite mark he had gifted to her.
~.O.~
"There has been new information that has recently come to light," Tom told those of his inner circle that were gathered. A select few of which having resided within Azkaban all these long years, Tom had allowed those who seemed as if they had not completely lost their minds on this most important mission of his. Although, Hermione severely doubted Bellatrix Lestrange's sanity as she seemed to be a very twitchy woman who must have once been very pretty before her years locked away from the sun with all her wild curls must like her own looking as if they had no order to them. She scoffed at that thought, as if she were one to talk. Her husband and brother fared slightly better than her though, as they sat listening to their new course of direction silently, yet Rabastan Lestrange did have a slightly vacant expression written upon him that spoke of no care for anything least of all a prophecy made over a decade and a half ago.
"The prophecy has been within the Department of Mysteries all this time, but yet, we can not seem to get our hands on it as it seems that Lucius has discovered from our severely inept Minister that those prophecies can only be found by those in which they specifically reference." Tom looked around the relatively small group of people, "I myself would retrieve it, but as the Ministry is as of this point in time, still in denial of my resurrection, I intend to keep it that way so as to not add supporters to the side of Light for as long as possible." He pauses before continuing with his next edict, "No fatal harm will come to Harry Potter or those who are closest to him."
For the first time in the short meeting, there was an uproar of voices that were then silenced quickly by Severus, who for now took Hermione's spot at Tom's right hand with her standing behind him.
Tom ignored the blatant insubordination and continued with his orders, "We will flush Harry Potter and his followers out into gaining the prophecy, and each of you will be in charge of keeping the peace. Lucius will head each of you, and you will listen to him as if his orders were mine own. Are all of you clear on what your orders are, and what you are explicitly warned against?"
Orders in the affirmative sounded throughout the table as Hermione kept her gaze on a still furious Bellatrix who had been the loudest voice within the room in yelling harm against Harry.