.
.
When they get to the Guard-goyle, as Hermione likes to think of it, Theo halts.
"You're sure about telling Snape right?"
"Yeah," she says, honestly and untruthfully. She does trust Snape, but in a limited and abstract way. She trusts Snape - mostly. She trusts him, but there's a but on the end of that line. She's never worked out what motivates him. She doesn't really trust anyone but Theo and Harry. She doesn't think they have a choice. "I'm sure. Bezoar," she adds to the Gargoyle, which slides aside to let them in. There's no going back so she just has to cling onto the hope her instincts about him are right.
"You go first," Theo says, bravely, eyeing the stairs unconvinced. "He is not going to be pleased at being woken up."
Hermione snorts at this. But when she pushes open the door at the top of the steps, Severus Snape is already up. He's pulling on his long black robes, and he's apparently unphased by her presence.
"Is Harry Potter in this castle?" he demands, fastening the buttons at his wrists.
"That has rather ruined my delightful surprise," Hermione says, then sees the look on his face. "How did you know?"
"One of the Carrows has summoned the Dark Lord," Snape says. "I am being called even now."
This is terrible news - the worst really. All hopes of laying a trap fade. He will come in force now, and it will be bloody. Alecto must have guessed somehow, or panicked. She doesn't know. All she does know is that her plans need to change rapidly, and Harry Potter has less time than they'd hoped.
"Don't go," Hermione says, her voice a little pleading. "We can end this now. Harry's almost completed the mission Dumbledore gave him. He - we - just need to get to the snake, but the Dark Lord has it with him."
"The snake?" Snape asks, freezing. He looks away from her, her own eyes travelling up, following after his to rest on Dumbledore's portrait.
"It is time, Severus," the old man says. They both look terribly grave and Hermione feels a spike of fear. There is a current of knowledge passing between man and echo-of-a-man-portrait that she does not understand. Something that is making Severus Snape very afraid.
Something about Harry. But there are other things here. There is his buttoned robes, there is the open window.
"You don't need to spy any more," Hermione says. "It's going to be all over soon. Help us secure the school. Let everyone see who you really are."
"The snake must be killed?" he asks her instead and she nods reluctantly.
"Nott," Snape says. "Go and tell Minerva McGonagall everything you know. Tell her to summon the Order and anyone else of use. She has perhaps an hour, perhaps two, before they get here. Tell her she may use my Floo - there is a password on the desk. I doubt the Ministry will be watching it closely… Tell her, tell her I leave the school in her hands, and that I will try to return."
"Yes, Sir," Theo says, giving Hermione a worried look. She can only nod back at him. When the door has shut behind Theo Hermione scowls at Snape and unleashes her worry.
"What are you doing? Why are you running back to him?"
"Someone must kill the snake," he says, "and I am the only one who can get close enough."
"That's a suicide mission."
He spreads his hands. "I trust not."
"It's not a normal snake," she says. Fuck all this secrecy and mistrust. "It's a Horcrux."
Dumbledore starts to speak but she silences his portrait. She has had quite enough of all that.
"Sorry, Professor," Hermione says untruthfully, "but I think the more people that know the better. It's a Horcrux. So you can't just kill it."
"I've read about them..." Snape's black eyes glitter as his voice trails off, a little wonder mixed in with the horror. "So that's how he did it… But the snake, he did not have that before. How many?"
"Six," Hermione says, glad at his ready understanding, glad she silenced Dumbledore, who is now pacing from frame to frame trying to escape the little painted gag over his mouth. Severus Snape gapes at her. "He was the seventh part. Or so Professor Dumbledore and Harry believe. They're all gone. But - getting basilisk fangs - you could use one of those - but- "
"Miss Granger," Severus Snape says, and his voice is kinder than she's ever heard it. "I know how to destroy a Horcrux. But there is something else before I go."
He goes to the cupboard the pensieve is stored in, and picks up a shining vial. It will be crystal of course. She knows that. He'd use nothing less pure to capture his own thoughts. She knows now that she does really know him, even though she doesn't know why he is the way he is. She watches in silence as he extracts the memories.
"When all the others are destroyed," he says, handing it to her, no discernible softness in his dark eyes and insistent hand, "give this to Harry Potter."
"But-"
"I will invoke protections on the school as I leave," he cuts her off. It's a granite cliff-edge statement. He turns. There is no room for manoeuvre. But then Snape softens, just a fraction, as he pulls the lead-paned window wide. He turns back, "Good luck, Hermione."
She's crying, she realises, and before she can say anything else, he is gone, flying out of the negative space left by the swinging pane like a great bat. Hermione stares open-mouthed after him, clutching the vial. She slides it into the pocket of her robes then lifts the gag on Dumbledore's portrait.
"Sorry about that," she says, swallowing her discomfort in a moment. "I think we have different methods."
"Perhaps I had under-estimated his regard for the boy," Albus Dumbledore says incongruously. Then he peers at her, eyes bright blue over his half-moon spectacles. "Or perhaps… yes, perhaps…"
"What?" Hermione asks, annoyed. Her mind has flown after him, her favourite teacher, as he goes to face a certain danger. He'll destroy Nagini, she thinks, but she doesn't know if he'll survive it. She fears the crystal vial is evidence that he at least does not believe he will.
"I have only ever known him to love one person," Albus Dumbledore says. "If they had had a child, I think she would have been very much like you."
"Right," Hermione says. "Well. That's very interesting, thank you, Sir."
.
.
Hermione almost knocks Professor McGonagall over on her way out of Professor Snape's office and freezes in the entrance instead. The stern teacher is in a long tartan dressing-gown, the end of which is catching up dust as it sweeps along the floor of the corridor, yet remains magnificently dignified as her beady eyes sweep over Hermione, who looks at Theo equiringly.
"Is this tale true, Miss Granger?" the Scottish woman asks. McGonagall has never particularly liked Hermione, but she looks to her now as though she really might take her word for something.
"Yes. Harry Potter is here, searching for an object on Professor Dumbleore's orders. Professor Snape has gone to try to… delay Lord Voldemort. He left the school in your hands. We need to put up protections - I don't know how long we have."
"Very well." The teacher takes a deep breath and turns away. Hermione follows, and the gargoyle springs back into its position guarding the door behind her. "We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I am sure we teachers will be able to hold him off for a while if we all put our best efforts into it. Of course, something will have to be done about the Carrows-"
"Ah, already taken care of," Hermione says. "They won't be a problem."
Professor McGonagall stops and shoots her an extremely sceptical look, then spins on her heel and marches on, the tartan rustling over the stone floor. She raises her wand and three silver cats leap elegantly to the ground and prowl ahead.
"If Hogwarts is about to enter a state of siege it would be most advisable to take as many innocent people out of the way as possible. With the Floo Network under observation, and Apparition impossible within the grounds-"
"Professor Snape said to use his Floo. He said it was unlikely to be monitored. He left a password for the Floo on his desk for you… in case you needed to get people in and out. It's 'Dumbledore'."
"There's also a passageway," Seamus Finnegan calls out from behind them, "to the Hog's Head." He's out of breath and grinning broadly.
"Finnegan where-? Never mind." Professor McGonagall's patronus-cats have vanished now, off on some mission of their own.
They're on the landing above the entry hall now. Hermione lays a hand on Theo's arm. He pauses. She's about to tell him it's time for them to return to Slytherin when a squeaky voice comes carrying up the corridor.
"Minerva!" It's Professors Sprout and Flitwick, hurrying, both still in their nightwear, followed a little later by the bulging figure of Professor Slughorn.
"What's going on?"
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming," she tells the other teachers. Slughorn groans, low and fearful, as the others gasp. "Harry Potter is here. He has work to do in the castle on Dumbledore's orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable while Potter does what he needs to do."
"You realise, of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?" the Charms teacher squeaks.
"But we can hold him up," Sprout says.
"Thank you, Pomona." Professor McGonagall gives the other witch a glance of grim understanding. "I suggest we establish basic protections, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they ought to be given the chance."
"Agreed," Sprout is already hurrying down the stairs as she replies. "I shall meet you in the Great Hall in half an hour with my House."
As she vanishes they can still hear her muttering, "Tentacula, Devil's Snare. And Snargaluff pods...yes, I'd like to see the Death Eaters fighting those."
Flitwick hurries off too, muttering incantations of great complexity as he does so.
"We shall meet you and your Ravenclaws in the Great Hall, Filius!"
"My word," Slughorn puffs. He is pale and sweaty and his walrus mustache is quivering with fear. "What a to-do! I'm not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. He is bound to find a way in, you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in the most grievous peril -"
"I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes also." Professor McGonagall glares at Hermione and Theo as if they are personally responsible for all the evils of their house. "If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill."
"Minerva!" Slughorn gasps, as shocked as Hermione herself feels.
"The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties. Go and wake your students, Horace."
"If you don't mind," Hermione says, "we'd like a word with them first, wouldn't we Theo?"
"I think it's probably time," he agrees. "We'll get them to the hall, Sir. You go and get dressed."
"Miss Granger-" McGonagall begins, then clearly changes her mind. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I think we're announcing our loyalties, aren't we Theo?" Hermione says with a grin, and they rush off down the other staircase, down to the dungeons.
They stop outside the entrance to the dungeons. Hermione is panting and out of breath and so she has to pull Theo's arm again to stop him opening the passageway in the blank wall.
"Wait a second," she says. "I've got an idea."
.
.
Theo's caterwauling charm clangs deafeningly through the dorms as they head into the common room. It's extraordinary, she thinks, that no one else knows what's going on yet. Hermione seals the exit behind them with a wall of fire that burnishes common room.
Draco Malfoy knows something is up, of course. He's already there, sitting by the fire, gripping his arm and wincing, when they plunge in. He watches, wordless, as Hermione blocks his only route out. He says nothing as they summon the house.
"Everyone in first, second and third year go and pack an overnight bag," Theo says as the students cluster together. They are displaced by the caterwauling charm and the wall of fire - some annoyed and some scared but none even nearly as frightened as they ought to be, except for Draco who is now staring at his arm like it could kill him.
"Go on," Hermione echoes, twirling her wand. "We'll explain in a minute." They melt away obediently. She heads up the stairs after them, one step, then two, then three, placing herself a little above the remaining Slytherins. Theo follows, leaning back against the stone bannister, his arms folded, his navy eyes watchful. The firelight dances over their faces.
"Lord Voldemort," she says and the room falls immediately silent around her, some students in pyjamas, a few still in robes, all staring up, "is coming. He's coming to attack the school." Mutters break out and she lets them ripple through the room, lets the news sink in for a few moments before she continues. "We don't know very much of his plans - but it seems to be clear that he views anyone standing in the way as expendable."
"All that magical blood," Theo takes over.
Theo is better at this than she is. Hermione is ready with the facts, but it is Theo who will talk them around, Theo who knows how to take their fears and turn it into something they can use. She knows her own status in the house: she is feared, but she is not beloved. She is and she will always be an aberration here. But Theo is one of them.
"He'd spill mine, see me dead - and I don't know why. I don't know why the death of some random Gryffindor kid is worth more than twelve centuries of Notts. But it is. We think he thinks Potter is here. He'll put the whole future of Slytherin House at risk just to get at one teenage boy. That is what we're facing tonight." There are angry mutterings in the room now. "Don't you miss how it used to be? Don't you miss the safety and security? I do. I miss my home, I miss knowing I could say what I wanted and live however I liked and not suffer for it. I miss the sunshine on my face in the garden while I got drunk with Hermione and Daphne and Blaise in the holidays."
Theo grins around at them, at the gathered, frightened students, and she sees them soften.
"Look. This isn't a matter of abstract honour. This is just about being free to live our lives. For some of us we're coming up against our own friends and families. You think I don't get that? My dad went to Azkaban for the Dark Lord. He's a Death Eater. But if he came here tonight, if he raised a wand against students - I would stand between you."
Hermione flicks her wand, out of sight, their attention on Theo.
He's careful not to use the past tense while he talks about his father. "So yeah I get it. But we know this regime has lost its way if it's prepared to put the lives of its own most valued descendants at stake."
"Rubbish," Vincent Crabbe sneers. They'd known he would. If it hadn't been him it would have been Rosier or one of his gang. They'd prepared. Hermione had prepared.
"I am a Muggleborn," she announces, stealing their attention as easily as if she'd let off a firecracker. Theo at her shoulder stiffens, but holds, as the stone floor of the common room begins to buckle. He is controlling the spell now, and she is free to speak. She doesn't want to. But it's time. She walks back down the steps to stand among them. They step back, away from her, just a little, but they listen.
"I'm a Muggleborn Slytherin, and I am just as worthy to wear this green badge as any of my predecessors." It's not coming out how she wants, but it doesn't matter: everyone is distracted by the knife she holds against her own palm, by the way she slits it, by the ruby drops of blood falling on the stone floor. "I am Slytherin's Head Girl," Hermione continues, "and I say we fight tonight to keep this noble and ancient house free. If anyone otherwise - thinks they have more power to speak for us - they are welcome to try to prove it."
She's not sure they are really listening. They're distracted by the rocking waves of the stone floor. Hermione falls silent as a long grey serpentine body forms. She raises her hands to make it clear she is not controlling it.
"Slytherin House stands against the incursion," she says as impressively as she can. She hears a slight intake of breath in Theo that she suspects might be him swallowing a laugh and has to fight the urge to collapse into giggles herself, but it doesn't matter: the great stone snake rises out of the floor beneath nonetheless. "Slytherin House stands together."
The snake throws Vincent Crabbe off his feet as it arches up out of the ground, huge and impressive and entirely manipulated by Theo.
"I say again," she murmurs cooly, still unconvinced, "that this house, united, can face any obstacle. However." She stops and the students freeze. They don't look up at her. They're watching the stone snake wind its way around Crabbe, who is standing frozen in fear, eyes closed, murmuring in fright. But they're as alert and as listening as anyone could be.
Hermione watches the snake pull Crabbe down into a horrible, gasping, disgusting embrace. She doesn't want to. But it's not that hard, having heard what he's said and seen what he has done, to let it happen. By the time he's subdued by the snake Theo has pulled out of the stone floor, she has recovered herself. She's pushed back the sympathy. There's no space for it now. Harry Potter is here. And Harry Potter has to win.
So Hermione looks down at Vincent Crabbe as she casts the imperius as silently as though she were born to it, and if she does not smile she is not bowed by the weight of it either.
"You will go to the front line, to Lord Voldemort, and you find him publicly in front of as many Death Eaters as possible and you will tell him that Slytherin House stands against him… and that Slytherin House has hostages of its own. That we are holding our youngest students hostage against his forces. That we are so vehemently opposed to him that we would all prefer to die - and to sacrifice our house's children in the effort."
He nods, obediently, and turns and walks away. He will probably be fine, though he will probably fight against them when he's delivered the message and broken free of the curse. She wonders if she'll be haunted forever by the blank way he stands as the snake releases him, by the way she silently spells the fire at the door to part like a curtain to let him pass.
After all, Hermione and Theo know their housemate might be tortured or even killed for what they're sending him to do. They acknowledged it in the corridor and accepted, together, that they could bear the weight of it. Even if he is fine she will always know that she took a boy's will away and sent him into danger.
But she also knows the threat of a line of their own children between the Death Eaters and Harry Potter could save many more students' lives. It could even divide the opposing forces. It could simply buy them some time - but it could make all the difference.
It's been a war for her for a long time now. Now the war has reached everyone else here too.
"There's another thing," she says, now that he's gone. "I can't promise you we're picking the winning side - I'm no Seer. But what I can tell you is that I know for an absolute certain fact that the Order of the Phoenix has spent the last year quietly working on destroying the Dark Lord's defences - and that it knows exactly how to destroy him. I swear on my magic that that's true. So for all that I'm going to fight because I think it's the right thing to do, I do also think I'm picking the winning team tonight."
This causes excited mutterings. Carrot and stick, Theo had said.
"Everyone of age who doesn't want to fight can stay in the dorms," Hermione adds. "Along with the fourth and fifth years."
Hostages. She's not proud of it. She knows Harry Potter wouldn't approve. But Hermione only knows how to fight dirty, how to keep a trick or two up her sleeve. She won't put them in danger, but she might need them.
The line of Slytherin bodies she has conjured for the Death Eaters to imagine won't exactly be real. But she can't be sure that if she lets them all go they won't get word of it to their relatives who are likely massing together even now on the other side of the gate. She'll ward the dungeons herself - but she can't imagine that this invading force will target them anyway. And the house has its own ancient protections against foes, detailed in the older copies of Hogwarts, A History. They'll be safe in Slytherin. But they can still be a weapon against the minds of the Death Eaters.
"Daphne, Blaise - please fetch the younger students and tell them it's time to go," Theo says before anyone can ask questions. "Everyone else - time to get dressed."
Hermione lets Theo deal with the protests and questions and fears, corral them up the stairs and away. The less she says tonight, after the fake scene they have created, the less likely it is her authority will be dented.
She suddenly remembers that she too is in her pyjamas. She'd completely forgotten, in all the hubbub. She fights an insane, embarrassed urge to laugh or scream.
When the older students have gone, replaced by the younger ones, Hermione tells them a sanitised version of the truth.
"The school is under attack by Lord Voldemort," she says, "but we're getting out all out, alright?"
Theo summons his house-elves who appear with two loud cracks. "You're going to Nott Manor," he tells the scared group of students kindly.
"You'll be safe there," Hermione promises before she goes upstairs to change, hoping she's right. "We'll see you all tomorrow."
.
.
She pulls on clothes without really thinking about it. Jeans, dragon-hide boots, a lightweight. She'll need to be able to move quickly, she thinks. She wishes she had dragonhide armour too, not that it would protect her from much of what's coming. She fills a pouch with as many healing potions as she can fit in, ties it around her stomach, and tightly braids her long hair with a spell. She's back in the common room in four minutes flat.
Theo is somehow back before her, already dressed.
"Good," he says, bumping her shoulder affectionately with his own. "That went well. Let's see who comes down."
They've gambled on letting everyone go upstairs while they get the younger ones out. No one else that they know of is the head of their house, able to call an elf to any location. Elves are rare enough anyway. But it's not impossible. So they've risked giving them a moment to see what safety might feel like.
Hermione hopes it'll be worth it. Public bravado was never going to motivate this house as it might Gryffindor. But reminder that in the dorms they'll be blind to what's going on, trapped like rabbits in a dead-end burrow with no information and no escape will - they hope - seem less attractive to the few they're expecting to consider fighting.
Yet far more than she's expected file back down - including Astoria Greengrass and a group of others who are definitely not of age.
"We're with you," Astoria says determinedly. "I'm almost sixteen anyway. I'm old enough."
"No you're not," Daphne hisses. "Go back upstairs."
"Alright, Tori," Hermione says, recognising her need for a task and thinking fast. "You're right that you can help. But you can't come outside the dungeon. I need you to stay in the Common Room to defend it, in case someone does come. Can you do that? I'm going to ward the entrance, but I'll tell you how to get out tomorrow or if there's an emergency inside. You'll be in charge."
Astoria stands up a little straighter. "Alright. I can do that."
Hermione whispers a few instructions to her, and then turns to the rest.
Zabini speaks before she can. He looks uncomfortable as he does it.
"I'm not fighting and nor's Daph," he says quietly to her and her heart sinks. He's going to insist she let them leave. Her closest friends. "But we thought - maybe we'd go to the hospital wing and see if we can help there."
A little glow sparks inside Hermione and she has to blink away tears. They're not fighters, she knows. She'd never really thought any of the house would come with them tonight. All she'd wanted was to make sure they didn't stand on the other side.
"That's a good idea," she says and, surprising herself, reaches out and pulls him into a hug. "Thank you, Blaise."
"Right," she calls out, jumping onto a chair and trying her best to channel that strength she'd seen flicker in Harry Potter earlier. "Who's with me and Theo?"
The four people who come straight away are the only ones she really expects to walk out of that room with him. They're sixth years, Nafisa Shafiq and her cohort who've taken to making the Carrows' lives a misery of their own accord.
But then to her greatest surprise, Draco Malfoy is the first to step over. He looks terrified and he doesn't say anything, but he nods up at her as he takes his place next to Theo. Pansy follows him, calculated indifference an unconvincing mask over her own fear.
"This year's been shit," she says. "I'm fed up with it. And I've learned not to bet against Granger."
"Me too," Tracey says. "I'll help with the medical stuff like Daphne."
"I'm not staying locked in here," Rosier says, less arrogant than usual but still loathsome. Theo slides a glance at her and she nods back. Neither of them believe he intends to fight on their side.
.
.
In the end, most of the sixth and seventh years go down to the Great Hall. There's a large group of adults Hermione doesn't recognise standing with the teachers on the dias. It's a clear night, the stars studding the ceiling canopy. She wonders if it'll be the last time she ever sees them, then shakes the thought away. Professor McGonagall is in the midst of telling the rest of the school that of-age students may fight but she stops in apparent surprise at the entrance of the group of Slytherins.
Hermione sits with the rest of her house, trying to force her eyes from finding Harry Potter. If she sees him, she won't be able to keep her face expressionless. She focuses on McGonagall instead. She wishes she could talk to Draco alone. She needs to get to Harry. She wants to lock Theo away somewhere safe. She can't believe Pansy and Tracey have come to fight.
"We have no time to collect possessions," Professor McGonagall says. "The important thing is to get you out of here safely."
"Where's Professor Snape?" Rosier calls out.
"The Headmaster has left the school in my hands," McGonagall says. There are a few scattered cheers from the other House tables at this vague statement.
"We have already placed protection around the castle," she continues, "but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects -"
But her final words are drowned out.
"I know that you are preparing to fight." It is a new voice, high, cold, and clear. It seems to come from within the castle walls, and the students' screams cannot muffle it.
"Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood."
Everyone in the Hall falls silent as they listen to Lord Voldemort's voice.
"Give me Harry Potter, and they shall not be harmed. Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."
Hermione checks her watch as calmly and obviously as she can.
"It's only half eleven. Crabbe can't have reached him yet," she says and her voice carries to the other Slytherins. "He will soon."
Then Rosier stands and points across the room, yelling, "But he's there! Potter's there. Someone grab -"
Hermione's silencing spell cuts him off as Theo's wand jams at his throat. They stand facing him, their backs to the hall. His thin lips twist with frustration and anger as he tries to speak. She can hear movement behind her, angry voices. She waits for them to die down a little before lowering her wand and turning, leaving Theo to keep Rosier subdued. This is the moment she thinks she was sorted for. She hopes she was. She hopes there's some meaning in the early suffering she went through, in the bad things she did to survive, in the torture she let herself suffer this year, in the that she handed out to others.
"Rosier does not speak for Slytherin House," she says. She is looking at Professor McGonagall, but she can see a line of students at the Gryffindor table, all on their feet. "I do. We've already evacuated. The rest of us are here to help."
This causes more chatter, and more than one hiss carries phrases like Draco Malfoy, and Death Eater dad, all of which Hermione treats with indifference worthy of Blaise himself.
"I suppose Rosier would like to join his friend Crabbe," she says quietly to Theo as McGonagall gives evacuation orders. She's not looking at him. He mutters back that he'll take care of it. She can finally see Harry Potter as the group around him seems to realise no one is dragging him away to throw him to the wolves at the gate. He looks pale, but determined, sitting in between Longbottom and Weasley. She needs to tell him about Professor Snape, about the snake, about the vial in her pocket.
The younger students from the other file out, Rosier with them. Theo has quietly imperiused him to escape as soon as he can without hurting anyone, go to his father and tell him that the rest of Slytherin house is standing against them.
Then he'll break his own wand as the enchantment lifts. It should be enough to protect him from being pulled into the battle. She's sure Rosier senior will send him away to safety. She's not sure if he'll care that any of his friend's children are supposedly lined up at the windows.
A tall, handsome black man with a bald head and the sort of voice that you'd follow into hell begins to line out strategy.
"... and Alastor will be in the Hall. Meanwhile Remus, Arthur, and I will take groups into the grounds. We'll need somebody to organise defence of the entrances or the passageways into the school -"
"Sounds like a job for us." calls out one of the Weasleys.
"All right, leaders up here and we'll divide up the troops!"
"We're also sending a team to help Madam Pomfrey," Hermione calls, which meets the man's surprised approval.
It is chaos as everyone crowds forward for instructions at once and Hermione can't get to Harry Potter. He meets her eyes, once, before he leaves the room. He must be off to get the diadem from the Room. She supposes that's the priority. She'll have to find him later, give him the memories later. It's not time yet anyway. Besides, she has her own job.
"Come on then," she says to the improbable group of Slytherins who've decided to risk themselves to defend the school. "Let's go and make ourselves famous."
Pansy visibly brightens. "I hadn't thought of that," she says. "We're going to go down in history aren't we?"
"Hermione," Remus Lupin calls out as she gets to the dais. "You're with me."
"Yes, Sir," she calls back with a grin. She's terrified - and yet she isn't. Seeing Remus calms her. What else was she training for, if not this?
"The rest of you with me," Professor Slughorn says. Hermione is relieved. She'd been a little worried no one would want them. But somewhere along the way it seems their head of house has put on his courage with his waistcoat.
"I'll be with you in a second," Hermione says to Remus. She turns to Draco Malfoy.
"Are you sure?" she asks. He nods, tightly. "What if your parents come?"
"They won't," he mutters. "They don't have wands. They'll be kept behind. But after everything I've done… I can't do nothing."
She pulls him into a hug and he clutches her back like a drowning man. "Stick with Theo," she says. "Look after each other. I'll see you soon, alright?"
"You're so fucking soft," Theo mutters as she hugs him too. "Be careful out there, you madcap."
"I -" love you dies against his palm.
"Don't say it," he says, his hand over her mouth. "Don't . I'll see you in a bit."
She forces herself to leave them all behind.
"Alright," Hermione says to Remus Lupin and the group around him, as he clasps her shoulder in welcome. She's the only student. "I'm with you. Congratulations by the way."
.
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heh. sorry to do a lil vanish. love you guys, hope you're well.