Good morning and happy update!

I know, I know that it's been a while. But in my defense, lots of exciting life update at the bottom?

A quick recap - Hermione (and Ron - whoops) got poisoned as Hermione and Severus were trying to help Malfoy protect himself by giving the Dark Lord some good news. Hermione is using this time to investigate soul magics (yep, a bit dark) to get the Horcux out of Harry's head. However, Severus has noticed his Patronus changed - and needs to let Hermione know why this is important. I ended the last chapter on a bit of a cliffie, so you may want to go back and restart that conversation!

On we go!

Chapter 62

"You may hate me," he croaked. "The only thing getting me through this is that you came to me to tell me it will be alright."

Hermione leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "That was your last cryptic statement, Severus," she said firmly. "What. Aren't. You. Telling. Me."

He breathed out. "I was the one who gave the Dark Lord enough of the prophecy to target Harry Potter," Severus said, eyes closed. "I am the reason that his parents were killed and why he has a Horcrux in his head."

Hermione rocked back on her heels, her mind reeling. "I had always wondered how he had found it," she whispered. "Why?"

Severus opened his eyes, his expression haunted. "Because I was desperate," he rasped. "Because it was the summer of 1980, I was twenty years old, and I had just finished the Potions Mastery that Lucius Malfoy had paid for in half the time it should have taken me to do it. Because the Dark Lord was breathing down my neck to create more and more destructive and horrific potions. Because each time I failed he would torture me. Because I hated Dumbledore and wanted to hurt him. And because I had no idea to whom to prophecy referred."

Hermione pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, mind whirling. "Tell me what happened," she instructed. "Why were you even there?"

"I had just returned from my Potions Mastery in Italy two months before," Severus said. "And already I knew if I could not brew the Dark Lord immortality I would not last long as a half-blood Death Eater with no fortune and no one living who cared for him. I came up with a plan – I knew Slughorn was retiring, I knew that the Defense Position was always open, and I knew if I could get into Hogwarts, I could be of value. I could be a spy, I could turn the young minds of a generation – I had a whole speech planned for the Dark Lord of how I would prove my worth to him, if only he would keep me alive."

Hermione felt her eyes filling with tears this time, hearing the desperation in his voice. She wanted to ask so many questions – why had he joined in the first place? Why chain himself to that despot? But she stayed quiet, bringing her hand from his face to where his hands were clenched and tight in his lap.

"Dumbledore was doing interviews that day, in the Leaky Cauldron," he continued. "I wanted to hear what he would ask, and so I eavesdropped. He was interviewing a woman who claimed to be a Seer but who really appeared to be a drunk and a fraud."

"Trelawney," Hermione said, her suspicions confirmed. "Except she wasn't a drunk and a fraud."

"No," Severus said, shaking his head. "Because even as Dumbledore was trying to end the interview, she began to give a true prophecy."

"Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…" Hermione recited, from terrible memory.

Severus jerked abruptly. "Stop!" he ordered. "If the Dark Lord got even an inkling that I had heard more than that, he would tear my mind apart looking for it," he hissed.

"That's all you heard?" she asked, surprised.

"Barely a sentence more. The barkeep found me," Severus said wearily. "I wasn't as good a spy back in the day. I hadn't even disguised myself. I was – I was gleeful." His voice twisted with hate. "I knew that with this, there was no way that the Dark Lord would kill me. I would be rewarded, I would be safe…"

Hermione frowned at him. "Something leads me to guess that this was not the case."

"I left the throne room bleeding from my eyes," Severus said flatly. "Not to mention my ears and nose. If I had had a fraction less talent for Occlumency, he would have left me raving mad. Lucius dumped me in Spinner's End and I slept for almost two days." He dragged his hands over his face again. "And when I awoke, called by my Mark the Dark Lord's side again…" He visibly steeled himself. "He was kind. Triumphant. He wanted to know everything I knew about James and Lily Potter."

She sucked in her breath without realizing it. "And that was when you realized they would be targeted?" she asked. "Did you know before you gave him the prophecy?"

Severus shook his head, his eyes still dark and terrible. "I had been out of the country for my Potions Mastery – I had no idea that Lily and James had defied him thrice already. He rifled through my memories, going back to the earliest days of our friendship, before we were even in Hogwarts. He – he's been in your head, Hermione, you know what it feels like."

Hermione shuddered thinking about it. The Dark Lord's presence in her mind had been almost alien, reptilian, cold and constantly amused. Her eyes met Severus' for a moment, and a shared revulsion passed between them.

"He could see that I cared – that I had once cared for her," Severus continued. "He saw how desperately I had wanted her to like me, to be my friend." He could sometimes still hear the Dark Lord's amused laugh, its double echoing within his head, when the Dark Lord had realized how much Severus had craved Lily's attention as a scared first year student. Thankfully he had not shared that humiliation with the Death Eaters present, but Severus had felt a hot blush of shame regardless.

"When did you realize they would be targeted?" asked Hermione. "When did you know?" The question had been beating in her head in time with her heartbeat as she listened, clamoring for her attention. When did he know? What did he do? When did he know? What did he do?

The man in front of her looked as though he had turned inward, remembering. "It dawned on me as he focused on information about where the Potters may have been living. He realized it when I did, and I knew I had to cover for my instant panic somehow." He turned those dark eyes on her, shame and worry reflected back at her. "I made him believe that I had wanted her. That I had been in love with her. Dumbledore thinks that the Dark Lord has never loved – he isn't familiar with the emotion. He mistook lust, childhood affection, and whatever scraps of want I could pull from my mind and push onto Lily for love."

He waited for a beat, but Hermione was silent, still meeting his eyes. Severus could see the crease of pain on her forehead, the tightening of her lips, but she didn't speak. "I pleaded with him to spare her life," he said. "I said that I had loved her, and as everyone around me laughed, he promised he would at least try to bring her back for me, as a prize. And then, to punish me for lusting after a Mudblood, he allowed my brothers to torture me to within an inch of my life. This time, no one helped me home."

"When did you go to Dumbledore?" demanded Hermione. "How long did it take you to seek him out?"

"I healed what I could and passed out," Severus admitted. "I woke, thought about what I was going to try to do, and was terrified. Just having the thought in my head could have gotten me killed. And I thought about my life and the balance of the good I had done and the dark, and I knew that if I died, no one would miss me. The only reaction anyone would have to me being dead would have been 'good riddance.' I had nothing to lose, no one to lose, and that thought made me want to drink myself into a stupor. And then – then I wrote to him. I asked him to meet me somewhere remote. In the Highlands. I reconciled myself to the thought that he might just kill me on sight, as a Death Eater. I felt thankful that at least I didn't have any family left, so that if the Dark Lord ever found out about my betrayal at least no one else would suffer for my foolishness."

"And he just came and met you?" asked Hermione incredulously. "He just agreed to meet a Death Eater in a remote location at night?" Even through the maelstrom of emotions she was feeling, her heart ached for the despair in his voice, the self-hatred that colored his words and memories.

"He was, arguably, one of the most powerful wizards in the world," Severus said tightly. "And I was a skinny, underfed twat with a Mastery in Potions, not Charms or Transfiguration or a Dueling championship. And he knew that I had overheard the prophecy. And as soon as he appeared I threw myself on the ground in front of him, blubbering. I was not a particularly fearful sight."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Blubbering?" she asked. "You?" She had rather imaged the moment as a tense stand off between two powerful men.

Severus frowned at her. "This was me almost twenty years ago," he said. "I had come close to death twice in the last week at the hands of my master and I knew that I would likely die for the meeting I was in. I was exhausted and ready to die, and I wanted to do something good before I died. When I had been swallowing my blood on the floor of the Dark Lord's throne room, the only person I could imagine feeling the slightest bit of sadness at my death was Lily. I wanted to make sure that she and her family would at least know they were going to be targeted so that they could hide. I hated Dumbledore then – I was furious at how he had treated me as a student, I hated that I had to go to him, that I knew that given everything that had come between us, that Lily would never even read a letter from me. And he was disgusted with me, disgusted with everything I stood for, until – until I cast my Patronus."

"And it was a doe," Hermione murmured.

"And it was a doe," Severus repeated. "He took it as a sign that it was love – or that at least it was more pure that whatever other intentions I might have had."

Hermione rubbed her eyes suddenly, feeling drained. "And that was how you began spying for the Order."

"At least it was the beginning," he agreed. "Much happened after that – I had to approach the Dark Lord and request permission to seek employment at the school. Dumbledore had already agreed to hire me – and I became a spy. I fed them information about Order movements that had been agreed upon before hand, and Order members made clever escapes. The Potters went into hiding, and I was able to explain that it was Fidelious Charm and that I didn't have a hope of obtaining the address for him, and it was holding in a precarious balance until Wormtail went to the Dark Lord in secret."

There was a long silence, broken only by the sounds of wood snapping in the fireplace and Hermione's breathing. Severus realized he was holding his breath, waiting for her to respond. He kept going back to the meeting in the corridor with this Hermione from the future – she still loved him. After all of this, she still loved him. The thought gave him the courage to reach out to her, to touch her wrist.

Hermione looked up at him, then turned her wrist to hold his hand. "I'm going to ask you one time, and this will be the last time I ask you," she said, clearly and as calmly as she could. Despite the effort she had taken to force her emotions down, her voice shook. "Were you in love with Lily Evans?"

"No," Severus said quietly. "But it was a lie that I used to ensure my survival."

Hermione closed her eyes. "I refuse to be measured against or to be jealous of a dead woman," she said, and then opened her eyes again. "I trust you, Severus. What does it mean for you, now, that your Patronus has changed?"

"It means my life is in danger," he answered simply. "The Order may believe I have turned against them, and the Death Eaters may suspect that something is drastically different in my life. Despite the fact it isn't true, a person's Patronus changing is seen as a sign of deep and true love – and if they think I have someone who I love, they will seek to discover who is it and use that person to control me. If they report it to the Dark Lord, he will want to know, and he will tear through my mind looking for you. I wouldn't even be able to use the excuse that I am toying with you – the change in the Patronus will be taken as a sign that I am deeply in love with you." He was obviously distressed, the pulse in his neck jumping as he clenched his jaw.

Hermione stood up suddenly to pace. "Is that what it means, though?" she asked. "Is that what a Patronus changing means?"

He got to his feet as well, though not to pace, but simply to lean against one of the walls. "No, not at all," he said, his voice taking on an almost lecturing tone, grasping for some thread of control. "A Patronus is a reflection of happiness and safety in the form of an animal protector. The presence of relatively weak animals as protection shows us that our magic doesn't necessarily chose the animal we think of as the best protector – I believe you told me that Miss Lovegood's Patronus is a rabbit, of all things. No, the Patronus is more complicated than that. In the case of James Potter, he probably used memories of transforming into a stag with his friends as a boy – that rush of happiness and freedom was probably the first memory he used. For Lily, she knew James as a stag and she was out of Hogwarts and in the Order before she cast her first Patronus. It was a doe – she was probably using happy memories of the family she had built with James Potter. It was widely spread around and I knew before I cast mine. The happiest memories I had, for a long time, were memories of spending time with Lily and her family – and thus mine was a doe. Until I found other happy memories, memories that are close to who I am as a person. I fell for you, yes, but as you see my Patronus is not an otter of any kind. My Patronus reflects who I am, now."

Hermione frowned at him, still turning the thoughts over in her head. "Then why do people associate it so deeply with falling in love? Now that I'm thinking about it, I've seen it in a lot of Wizarding books as a trope!"

"For a lot of witches and wizards it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, if it is anything at all," Severus said dismissively. He opened his mouth to speak further, but paused when he realized Hermione had stopped her pacing entirely, her mouth making an 'oh' of surprise. He could almost hear her brain working.

Suddenly, she rushed to him. "A self-fulfilling prophecy, Severus! That's it!" She was delighted, it was clear, but her mind was still rushing forward a mile a minute.

"What does that mean?" he asked her urgently. "That's it to what?"

She grinned up at him. "You've been telling me it's too dangerous for you to try to trick the Dark Lord into pursuing the Hallows, that it would be clear in an instant that you were lying because everyone would tell him it's a fake – but we have a foolproof way to feed him information, Severus, a way that I can't believe we've never considered! We know how much the Dark Lord wants the prophecy – you said it yourself, if he thought it was in your head he would tear you apart looking for it. This is how we get him to do what we want – we finally give him the full prophecy!" She said it in a rush, stumbling over her words, wandlessly and wordlessly Summoning her notebook to her hand.

Severus stared at her, dumbfounded. "That would never work," he said flatly. "He knows that Dumbledore would never give me the prophecy, he would suspect a trap. We just finished speaking of how my position with everyone – Order and Death Eaters – has just been jeopardized –"

"Then we don't use you," Hermione said, rushing again, flipping through her notebook, not even looking at him. "We use Draco, or another Death Eater, anyone you'd want elevated to the top. We can stage it, even, give them a valid memory to look at. But if we could craft a plan for the Dark Lord to spend him time looking for the Hallows, that gives us time – time to research, to prepare, even to lay a trap –"

Not too gently, he grasped her by the upper arms, stopping her in her tracks once again. "Slow down, Hermione," he cautioned. "This is an idea, yes, but one that we can't be sure of yet. We would need to think it through – it would need to be foolproof, we would need to plan for every eventuality, we would have to be absolutely sure he would believe it." He saw as she pulled her mind from frenzied planning, and brought her attention to him fully.

She reached out a hand and caressed his cheek. "This will work," she said softly. "We can't just beat him by desperately hoping we find every Horcrux in time. We need the upper hand, for once in our lives. We need to change the game – instead of responding to him, we need to be on the offensive. We need to change the rules, Severus."

"And we need to do it in a way that does not put my life, or Draco's life, in danger," he said insistently. But even as he protested, he heard the truth in her words. "It's a good idea," he conceded. "But we'll need that adapted Fidelius spell you're working to be finished. And we need to create a web – an intricate web with many layers, so that he will find the tricks' he's expecting to find and foil them, never suspecting there are more layers underneath."

Hermione smiled at him. "We can do this," she said. "Not just you and me – the entire Order will have to help us. We need to spin a trap across Europe, a treasure hunt that is aimed at secretly weakening him. It will be complex and it will be dangerous, but with the right bait we can make him dance to our tune."

Severus shook his head in amazement. "Only you would speak of making the Darkest and most powerful wizard alive today dance to your tune," he said wryly. "I can't quite believe you sometimes, Hermione."

"We've only succeeded by chance so far," she said, coming closer to him and wrapping her arms around him. "Think about that first Horcrux that we destroyed – Harry did it on accident! It had come so close to sucking the soul out of Ginny Weasley – the only thing that stood in the way of Voldemort taking over her body was Ginny's sheer force of will to hold on as long as she did and a twelve-year-old boy with a basilisk fang. Think – Quirrell must have also found one of the Horcruxes in Albania, and he wasn't even able to hold his own."

Then, for the second time that night, Hermione stiffened in shock and surprise. "Oh – oh – Severus!"

He pulled away to look at her. "You've made so many connections tonight I'm afraid to say anything else," he said dryly. "What now?" Hermione was already pulling away from him, eyes lost again in her thoughts.

"Ginny Weasley," she said, sitting and pulling her notebook toward her again. "For Harry – she's intimately familiar with Horcruxes and possession by them. And she's survived it, made it almost a year before she was weak enough for it to try to take her – almost a year at eleven years old! Have we taken a close look at her recently? A really close look?"

Severus frowned, returning to his own chair. "Not really, no. I know Dumbledore wanted to push her toward Harry, although there was a time when he had thought it was a bad idea after the ordeal in the Chamber. But he brightened up to it again after it appeared there were no ill effects on Miss Weasley's end. Her mother is protective, as always. She's smart, good at her classes, well-liked amongst her peers. Dumbledore had Andromeda do the same sorts of Wizarding etiquette classes with her that you had to do – shaping her into the perfect future helper to his hero." This was said with a derisive sneer.

"I think – I think we may need Ginny's help with this," Hermione murmured, pouring over her notes. "I'm not quite sure how this is going to fit – I can feel the puzzle pieces turning over in my head, but I feel like I'm just missing one of them…"

Severus laughed, startling Hermione out of her thoughts. "What's so funny?" she asked, him, no small sharpness in her tone. "This may be it, Severus!"

"It's not, not yet," he told her, shaking his head. "You'll get it later, I promise. But for now, shall we go to bed? It's nearly two in the morning."

Surprised, Hermione glanced at the clock that he pointed to, feeling her weariness surge and crash upon her like a wave. Feeling torn, she glanced at her notebook again, then back at the man in front of her. "I-"

"You need sleep, especially if you are going to be determining the fate of the Wizarding World," Severus said, coming closer and offering her a hand. "You'll think better in the morning."

Allowing herself to be drawn up, Hermione almost fell into Severus, wrapping her arms tightly about him. "You're good for me," she murmured into his chest. "We'll figure out the Patronus stuff, Severus, I promise. For the Order, at least. If they want to doubt you, they'll face me."

He kissed the top of her head, feeling warm and tender toward her. "A terrifying prospect," he assured her. "They would be sure to reconsider."

She laughed sleepily. "Let's go to bed. Even if I'm lying there just thinking more it would be good to do with the lights off and in your arms."


Professor Flitwick's office was as light and airy as the Potion Master's office had been dark and grim. At the height of one of the many eastern towers of the castle, Professor Flitwick had a soaring space with vaulted ceilings and high windows, filled with brilliant morning sunlight. The gold and blue tones made the space feel rich and spacious – or, Hermione mused, it was the many expanding charms the diminutive professor had applied to the space.

Flitwick jumped when a disguised Hermione pushed open the door and closed it behind herself. She shimmered into visibility as the Disillusionment Charm fell away, and her professor grinned broadly at her.

"I must say that is the finest Disillusionment Charm I've seen a student perform!" he effused. "Perhaps the best I've seen amongst Order members-" he stopped and squeaked when Hermione held up a hand.

"One moment, Professor," Hermione said, fighting to stop a bolt of irritation from emerging in her voice. With brisk wand strokes, she applied locking and privacy charms to the door, banished a flouncy shepherdess from a pastoral painting and conjured then charmed a curtain to prevent any other visitors from hearing or seeing anything from the frame. When the Charms professor once again opened her mouth, she shook her head again. Carefully raising and lowering her wand, Hermione scanned for a variety of listening and eavesdropping charms. She wouldn't put it past the most competitive of her classmates – primarily the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws, if she were honest – not to try to listen in to office hours without actually attending. She didn't want anyone to hear anything they weren't meant to, after all.

She found one right under Flitwick's wide oak desk, and after poking at it, beckoned the professor over and indicated he should deal with it as he normally did. The scowl on his face looked almost comical on such a small person – but Hermione knew that aside from being a dueling champion of some renown, Flitwick had been given his Charm's Mastery in part due to a paper on the creative use of charms in combat. In many ways, Flitwick could be considered just as dangerous as her or Severus – albeit, less morally grey and more out of practice.

"Anything else?" Flitwick asked, once the spell had been dealt with. He was looking at her appraisingly, now, impressed despite himself.

Hermione gave him a warm, genuine smile. "Just your favorite privacy charms. The strongest you have that aren't … noticeable."

He raised his eyebrows at her, but complied. She wanted to know what they were, but like her, Flitwick completed his spellwork silently. A moment later, he indicated he was done, gesturing for her to take a seat in front of his desk.

"Satisfied, Miss Granger?" he asked, a bit archly.

"Yes, thank you," she said sweetly, smiling back at him. "My apologies – blame it on Severus, if you must, but I must say I've gotten rather more suspicious of who is listening over the years."

She could see that the Charms Master was taken aback by her casual use of Severus' given name. It would have been a foolish game for an ordinary student to play, given the Potion Master's famed temper, but Hermione wanted to remind him that she was not only an adult, but a member of the Inner Circle of the Order. She thought about it, and dropped her Glamours wordlessly and wandlessly.

"Impressive again, Miss Granger," Flitwick said, excitement coming into his face. "How long have you been practicing wandless magic? Can you do it with other things, or just with your Glamours? I know Severus made a comment about you wearing them almost constantly now – is it the practice?" He leaned over his desk, peering at her features through his small glasses.

Hermione concentrated, then slowly lifted her hand at a stack of books on the professor's desk. They slowly rose, then settled down on the table- with a wobble, for theatrics. It wouldn't do for anyone to be too sure of the extent of her capabilities with wandless magic. By this point, such an action didn't drain Hermione badly at all – she could just feel that it took more concentration than it normally did to do a simple levitation spell. The easier ones to cast – creating light or putting out candles, for example – she could do almost without thinking about it.

Flitwick clapped loudly, looking delighted. "Marvelous, Miss Granger, simply marvelous."

"Thank you," she said, feeling proud despite herself. There would always be a part of Hermione Granger who wanted to make her professors happy, and she couldn't help a satisfied smile. "Your praise means a lot to me, Professor Flitwick. But I didn't ask you to clear time for me to show off my wandless magic skills – I've come with more than a few questions, and formal request from the Order."

Despite having fought alongside Dumbledore during the first war against Voldemort, Filius Flitwick had somehow never made it into the Inner Circle of the Order of the Phoenix. Hermione suspected that the "somehow" had something to do with Flitwick's goblin ancestry.

Most wizards and witches did not trust goblins – and for good reason. It was unwise of any conquering force to trust those they had conquered, and the relationship between the wizarding government and the goblin was far more similar to that of the colonizer and the subject than of two governments working cooperatively. Wizards had forced goblins from their land, seized the mines full the material goblins needed to practice their metalwork and their religion, burned down schools and destroyed archives of magical knowledge, and refused to acknowledge them as fully magical and cognizant beings. Gringotts had been a feat of political maneuvering – the goblins could offer something to Wizards that they could not resist: a safe place for their money. The warrens of Gringotts had once been the homes of hundreds of thousands of goblin families. Well guarded and hideously complex, the nearly empty subterranean maze was seized by the Wizarding government to be converted into a bank. In a series of rebellions the goblins had wrested control from the wizards, and had established systems of trade with other countries. Rebellions and savvy business sense had given the goblins at least control of the bank – but the bank had also become something like a prison. It was the only space occupied by goblins in the United Kingdom, and once outside its boundaries, goblins were subject to extreme prejudice. To the Order, the goblins seemed like a powder keg waiting to explode – if the Dark Lord were to offer the goblins any inch more of freedom, it was likely they would have taken it wholeheartedly. They had only been lucky in that the pureblooded Death Eaters were liable to have treated the goblins like scum on the bottom of their shoes at each Gringott's visit. Regardless, it was unlikely that Flitwick, despite his skill in dueling and charms, would ever be given a seat at the Inner Circle.

Flitwick was loyal to Albus Dumbledore in his own way, however. Dumbledore had championed more than one piece of goblins rights legislation, and had offered Flitwick a position at Hogwarts in his first year as Headmaster. While Flitwick was grateful to have been defended by Dumbledore, he was a shrewd man and not an easily swayed one. Hermione saw very clearly that Dumbledore had not received quite the amount of veneration that he had hoped to receive – but that he had not dismissed Flitwick as useless. Rather, he served as a talented teacher, and as a formidable spellcaster when the Order needed one. All of the Charm work at the many safe houses had been a collaboration between Flitwick and Dumbledore.

"A request from the Order?" Flitwick repeated. "What kind of request?"

Hermione hesitated. "Well – a request for the Order," she hedged. "I have an idea, an idea for a charm that might allow us to share more information with the Order at large," she explained. "Since Albus'… accident… it has been clear that no matter how talented one is, there are vulnerabilities. We need a way to safely guard information that is in someone's head. A Fidelius Charm, but for memories or information rather than a location."

Flitwick frowned, already thinking hard. "Fidelius Charms are for locations, Miss Granger – you enchant the actual house."

"Yes, but the key to the charm that I believe can be adapted is the mind magic it works," she insisted. "For example – Headquarters. The first time I went to Headquarters, someone showed me a piece of paper with the exact address written on it. I could see it all in my mind – the house number, the street name, the town. I could see it in my mind's eyes as clear as day. But in that moment, if someone had performed Legilimency on me, they would not have been able to see the address as I saw it. If someone looked at a memory of myself reading that piece of paper, they would not be able to see the address. The magical complexity – it is immense. And we need to be able to apply it to an actual secret in order to win this war."

That statement was met with raised eyebrows, but Flitwick didn't say anything about the quiet urgency in Hermione's voice. "It's a multi-layered and complex spell, Miss Granger," he explained. "One of the oldest known to Wizardkind."

"As long as there have been humans there have been things they've wanted to keep hidden," Hermione said with a shrug. "But just because it is old doesn't mean it can't be adapted." She rustled through her bag, withdrawing a sheaf of parchment on which several neat Arithmantic calculations were carefully arranged into orderly proofs. She glanced over it one more time, then handed it to Flitwick.

"Well this is most surprising, Miss Granger," he said in surprise. "Most surprising indeed."

Hermione grinned a him. She knew she had done a thorough job. "Thank you. I broke down what I understood of the spell from books and from speaking to Albus. I need you to see if you can see if I accurately mapped out the spell and its mathematical roots. And then we need to figure out how exactly we can change it."

Flitwick was squinting at the parchment over his glasses, and had summoned a quill to follow along the tidy rows of neat numbers and runes. "Well I see this is the first layer of the spell – a 'closing in' so to speak of the property line. This is done with herbs and with runes – yes, yes – it seems you've mapped this out correctly. Then comes the binding of the Secret Keeper and the Instrustment of the secret – yes, this looks right, more or less. It is less binding of the Secret Keeper than you thought it was Miss Granger – you may want to use a different rune for "trust" than the one you chose. And then – ah, yes. Here is where you need to begin again – the Mind Arts do not appear to have been mapped correctly."

"Oh?" Hermione asked, leaning in to see where the man was pointing. In her own clear script, the runes for "mind" and "secret" were applied to each other mathematically, twining around each other on multiple planes.

Flitwick nodded, a satisfied smile spreading across his creased face. "Yes, yes. Here it is. You see, Miss Granger, the secret kept by the Secret Keeper is not kept in their mind – it is kept in their soul."

For a moment it felt to Hermione as if she had been transported out of the airy and light tower room. A branch of soul magic she hadn't studied? A detail no one had mentioned about the Fidelius Charm? "But how?" she protested weakly. "How do we know?"

It was apparently clear to the Charms professor that she was disturbed – he peered at her, his frown settling onto his face. "Unfortunately the answer is Dementors, Miss Granger," he said slowly. "We've seen that when someone is a Secret Keeper and their soul is absorbed by a Dementor, it ends their role as Secret Keeper and anyone they have given the secret to becomes a secondary keeper of a sort – they are able to share the secret with others, but someone without knowledge of the secret is still unable to locate the property. The spell only dissolves when the spell caster dies or releases the spell for some reason."

"What reason would that be?" asked Hermione, her mind still spinning slightly. "Why would anyone release the spell?"

The man before her gave her a small, if sad, smile. "Because it is an enormous drain on magical power, Miss Granger. And, of course, it puts one's own life in danger. While I was maintaining the Fidelius Charm on Godric's Hollow I could barely manage some of my seventh year classes here at Hogwarts. Take your Glamours, for instance – you wear them much of the day, do you not?"

Hermione nodded. "I only drop them when I am by myself or with someone who knows the secret," she confirmed. "So most hours of the day they are on."

"And it drains your power," Flitwick said, with an eager nod. "I'm sure you've noticed when you leave them down for a while you feel more powerful."

Hermione thought hard, trying to see if she had noticed the feeling. "I feel more relaxed when they are down, for sure," she said slowly. "But I feel like I've been wearing them forever – nearly seven years for me at this point."

"Interesting," Flitwick said, stroking his beard in an action that strongly reminded Hermione of Dumbledore – she wondered who had picked up the habit from whom. "Well, part of the reason may be that you started performing them so young your magic flexed – adapted to the strain, so to speak, ensured that you could do what you needed. Children's magic is like that, more so before eleven and not much flexible at all after seventeen. But Glamours are a small Charm – the Fidelius is massive, and takes on a greater strain over time."

Hermione pulled the sheet of Arithmantic runes and numbers over, eyes flicking quickly as she scanned it. "I didn't account for power drain at all," she admitted. "And the soul magic – could you elaborate on that? How on earth does it work, hiding something within a soul?"

"It's deeply complicated," Flitwick said seriously. "And it can't be done with just anything – the key to keeping the secret is ownership, strong and true and ancient. That is why we had to use the Potter's cottage at Godric's Hollow instead of any other place. James Potter owned the cottage, deeply and truly. The Fidelius Charm becomes stronger the more ownership one can give to the secret – which is why it is usually used on locations. The ownership of the property is part of the spell itself. The property owner can't be the spell caster at all because they are involved in the process."

"So if we were to do this with a secret, it would be almost like the prophecies at the Department of Mysteries," she said, furrowing her brow. Her fingers itched to write down runes, and without saying a word, Flitwick handed her a quill. "The person whose secret it is would need to give permission?"

Flitwick nodded, using his wand to nudge runes around on the page even as Hermione wrote. "Exactly, Miss Granger. We would need someone who is involved in the secret in some way, who has ownership of it deep in their soul, to pass it into the soul of another."

Hermione snorted without thinking of it. "That won't be a issue," she muttered. Harry's soul is as involved in this process as it could possibly be. "What's the other part of keeping a secret hidden in a soul? How does that prevent the secret from being discovered via Legilimancy?'

She had expected Flitwick to shrug or spread his hands, say that it was unknown and unobservable. But instead he simply launched into his explanation. "Not many people understand this, Miss Granger, but I theorize it works much the same way as a soul bond, much like one used in old marriage ceremonies." If he noticed the way that Hermione's breath caught, he said nothing. "The soul and the mind and the body are interconnected in a myriad of ways. Legilimancy works by exploiting the body's connection to the mind – but as often as we say the 'eyes are the windows to the soul' that isn't true – the eyes are the window to the mind, and that is all. When there is a secret buried in someone's soul, it is hidden from their mind. What the Fidelius Charm does is create a soul secret in the soul of the Secret Keeper – and the reason the magic is so great is that it forces everyone else who knows this secret to bury it in their souls as well. The location of Headquarters is not imprinted on your mind, but in your soul! Which is why this magic is truly, truly immense."

"And – and how does this connect with soul bonds?" asked Hermione faintly. Has all my searching come down to this?

"Mind, body, soul," he repeated. "The way the soul bond works in the old marriage ceremonies is it binds the souls in order to influence the body. The only children that can be borne are those within the marriage, the bodies are bound in life and death – some say that the couple even breathes synchronously for the first few days after the bond is cast. There is some evidence that the mind can be influenced as well. Less if the person was strong in Occlumency, but still, there is some evidence the bond encourages warm thoughts of the partner. The bond is uses souls to anchor the physical bodies, in the same way that the Fidelius uses the soul to anchor knowledge."

I need to think about this, Hermione thought, but not now. "Then that is a strong reason to say that we can adapt the spell to use for secrets and not just property," she said, forcing her mind to return to the project at hand. "Using the same concept, anchoring the secret within the soul. So do you think you could do it? Do you think you could adapt the charm such that we can have someone involved in the secret give the secret to an outside Secret Keeper such that we could keep it safe and hidden?"

"Let me see those papers again, Miss Granger," the professor asked, hedging before making a process. He pushed some more runes around, then frowned and wiped a portion of her work out, scratching for a long time with a quill as she sat and watched. Behind Flitwick, soaring bookshelves reached into the heavens, full with at least as many books were in the Charms section of the library. It was clear that the man in front of her valued knowledge and learning as much as he valued taste – the wood of his desk and rich and well cared for and she noted that the velvet of his teaching robes much more luxe than whatever Severus used for his.

After several minutes of scratching, Flitwick sighed heavily. "I do believe I can do it, Miss Granger," he said cautiously. "It will take several days of work, I fear, but I do think we could start experimenting by the end of the month."

Hermione sucked in a breath. "I'm afraid we need this as soon as possible," she said gravely. "Do you need extra time?"

Flitwick's eyes jumped to golden chain around her neck. "So you are still using it then, Miss Granger?"

"I am," she confirmed, nodding. "This is important enough that if you need the extra time, I will make sure you have it." Hermione bit her lip, then decided to use the trump card she and Severus had discussed earlier. "You know the curse on the Headmaster's hand?" she asked, faking some hesitancy. "That happened over the summer?"

Fliwick's eyes grew wide. All of the professors were desperately curious about what had happened to the Headmaster's hand over the summer, according to Severus. However, the great wizard merely brushed off all questions, refusing to answer anything. Most of the Hogwarts professors were strong witches or wizards – they could sense that something was deeply wrong with the magic in the hand, and with the curse. "Of course I do! Why –"

Hermione leaned in close. "We are vulnerable," she breathed, as quietly as she could. "He holds many of the secrets we need to kill the Dark Lord. He knows his time is – is not certain."

The indrawn breath from Flitwick was sudden and sharp. He looked worried, the wrinkles deepening in his brow. "That was what I was afraid of," he said, almost to himself.

"We need this spell developed as quickly as possible," Hermione insisted. "If you need to take some sick days from teaching, if you need me to use the Time Turner – I hope we can have even a rough prototype to test by the end of the week."

Flitwick met her eyes grimly. "I can try, Miss Granger," he said firmly – or as firmly as he could, given the usual squeakiness of his voice. "I will let you know if I need your assistance. You have given me a good foundation to work with," he added, gesturing to the papers Hermione had brought with her. "Much of the work is right here already, with a few tweaks."

Hermione let a relieved, grateful smile break onto her face. Her professor beamed back at her, clearly pleased. "Thank you!" she exclaimed. "This could really change the entire direction of this war!"

Flitwick blushed with pride. "No promises, Miss Granger," he said. "No promises! It's been a fair while since I've developed a new spell – I wouldn't say I'm rusty, exactly, but not quite as in practice as I used to be."

Even as Hermione bade him farewell and reapplied the Disillusionment, Flitwick had already turned back to her calculations, the scratching of his quill echoing in the empty space. She paused to place a few weak Repelling Charms around Flitwick's door to deter any confused students from interrupting the Charms Master. With a shiver of tense excitement and the feeling that something was niggling at her brain that she couldn't quite put together, Hermione headed back into the dungeons – she had some work to do before meeting Severus in the corridor later.


And so ends Chapter 62.

I have about a fourth of the next one written, and I'll get a chance to write more in December/January so I'm optimistic about a chapter then, should everything go well! I have a good sense of what else needs to happen - I'm hoping we can wrap this story up soonish (which means probably 15ish more chapters? Maybe?). Also, this story is finally caught up to AO3, so I'm glad we are on track!

Life updates - because so many of you love them! Myself and my lovely girlfriend (same one - almost 5 years!) have started graduate school. It's definitely been weird doing it virtually - it makes it so hard to meet your cohort and your professors, and isn't my favorite thing. But I am so, so much happier than I was when I was working a job I didn't love. I wake up every morning (even in COVID) feeling content, happy, and eager to look at the day ahead. It's also been a blessing to get to spend every minute with the person I love more than anyone - I'm glad we haven't driven each other crazy after months in only each other's company! I also am now an auntie, and am quite in love with this little new baby in the world (and trying to tamp down my own baby fever). And on the other hand... the US is a trash fire? We are seriously looking at moving out of the country depending on how the elections go, as she has an EU citizenship in a country we both like. It would be much, but - you know, we like having civil rights and are not here for facists, so... I have my fingers crossed, my ballot signed, and my hopes high.

See you all soon!