The very first spell studied at Hogwarts – 'Wingardium Leviosa' – was especially popular this evening; one might have honourably entitled it as 'the spell of the day'. Harry grinned wryly, remembering how their insufferable know-it-all had humorously curled her lips, stressing the 'O' into 'Leviosa'. It was then that the undiplomatic Ron had brought her to tears, which had resulted in the encounter with the Halloween Troll, and that, through many, many milestones, causes and consequences, had led them to the friendship that they had today. Harry admired Hermione, and, after so many years of fighting Voldemort, he was generally hard to impress. Being in these troubled times in the most precarious position, the girl managed to approach the problems with the rationality of a scientist and the equanimity of a dead frog. She got the owls in a row even with stalemate situations – first, finding solutions for 'how not to sink', and then for 'how to swim out'. Without her, they would have been lost uncountable times. And even now, only thanks to her, they had…
Damn!
"Wingardium Leviosa! Ron, where are your eyes?"
The Pensieve, which they were barely managing to levitate, missed the turn and Harry had to hastily repeat the spell to avoid it falling. The boy shivered imagining the thunder the heavy basin would create whilst rolling down the corridor and knocking over the suits of armour. That's if it didn't shatter into pieces along with any hopes of benefiting the Order. Though, charms of indestructibility were most likely cast onto the Pensieve – it was a too precious thing, after all.
The 'too precious thing', meanwhile, flopped in mid-air between them, and it was very difficult to control its movement due to its invisibility. The strength of the spell cast by the guys changed every now and then, and Ron's particularly zealous waves of his wand occasionally resulted in the invisible basin whacking him on his elbow. It was especially hard on corners and stairs – after all, dragging the Pensive from the second floor to the seventh was no trifling matter.
The always extravagant stairs went completely crazy after lights out and refused to stay still even for a minute, resembling giraffe necks moving from one juicy leaf to another in the high crown of a tree. The boys tried to climb up the steps as fast as they could, but the unseen mechanisms under their feet suddenly came to life again and again, and the sharp turns of one after another flight of stairs threatened to knock them down.
Harry's thoughts returned to Hermione and, after finishing praising her in his mind, he managed to formulate several completely undeniable reasons for the need to evacuate her to the Order of the Phoenix – in case she should start arguing again. However, he had to interrupt his reasoning once more due to another unexpected turn of the stairs. He and Ron were thrown to the left, their concentration on the spell weakened and the Pensieve glided down, smashing into Harry's right knee.
"Wingardium Leviosa," Ron muttered under his breath, while his friend hissed all manner of wardrobe items and body parts related to Salazar. "Thus, we'll make it to the Room of Requirement in pieces."
Harry, however, did not share his optimism – he already felt the unmistakable chill in the air and his scar blazed with pain.
"Dementors," he breathed, seeing the word evaporating into a cloud of mist.
Yes, there was an obvious flaw in taking a stroll after lights out, and this flaw was now gliding towards them in a whirlwind of black cloth.
Of course, it was not the first time they had walked along the corridors after lights out, and therefore meeting with the new guards of the school was not too overwhelming as the acuteness of sensations had somehow dulled. The headmaster had clearly not commanded the Dementors to kiss the rule breakers, making their threat extremely unpleasant but not fatal. At least, for those who had mastered the Patronus spell.
Memories gushed like water from a crack in a dam.
Sirius falling through the veiled archway…
Hermione, blood dripping from her hands…
The haggard Ginny on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets…
"Ron, what are you waiting for?"
Ronald turned his pale face towards his friend, lowering his wand. Their invisible load landed echoingly onto the steps.
"I thought you were going to do it. You're better at it."
"Sure! We are in the middle of a moving staircase, only the blind wouldn't notice us – of course, it's the best place for unleashing my stag Patronus! Ron!"
"Oh, okay… Wingardium… Ugh!" with this Pensive-dragging crusade, they'll soon forget all other spells! "Expecto patronum!"
A silvery mist rippled over them, forcing the Dementor to recoil. Ron had problems with casting his corporeal Patronus – it must have been from the lack of joyous memories lately. The happiest thing that had happened over the past month was the destruction of Slytherin's Locket, but to conjure a magical guardian based on the death rattles of a fragment of Voldemort's soul smelled like a mental health disorder.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
They raised the basin and rushed forwards – the stairs had just moored to the hard floor, like a boat to a shore, had swayed and frozen still. The boys looked nervously at the Dementor, who had dived under the stairs, had made a lap of honour, and was now following them at some distance. It did not mean anything good. If they had any form of communicating with each other or with the headmaster, then there was soon going to be either a whole squad of the black-cloaked creatures, or Professor Snape himself… Though, their Potions Master could also be classified as a black-cloaked creature…
"He looks like a Dementor!" Harry uttered his last thought without noticing it.
"Who?" Ron's voice was a bit strained – even a simple charm such as 'Wingardium Leviosa' took a lot of energy when cast continuously. Especially, since his partner was getting distracted by some meaningless nonsense which weakened his concentration.
"Snape," Harry explained hastily. "He's not a bat, not a raven, but a natural Dementor!"
"Ah, yeah, I see your point. Besides, all positive emotions disappear in his presence as well!"
Another staircase. A peaceful one this time.
Three more flights and a corridor to go. What a pain! Harry's scar ached as though someone was trying to dig it out with a blunt fork. A colleague had joined the Dementor above their heads, and now both vile creatures were narrowing the distance, approaching the boys again.
Damn, if they had to keep putting the Pensieve down again and again, they wouldn't make it to the Room of Requirement until morning.
"Expecto patronum!"
This time Ron concentrated very well – his Patronus took on the clear outline of a four-legged creature. Harry knew perfectly well that it was a Jack Russell terrier, but an outside observer would not dare isolate the breed or even the type of animal. Memories, raised by the foulest non-beings, scratched Harry's mind with a short pain and melted away.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Holy crap… This was not even the spell of the day, but a new milestone in the history of magic!
The boys lifted the Pensieve again… Portraits glanced at them sideways, wrinkling their noses and muttering all sorts of nasty things concerning teenagers roaming around at night.
Sirius falling through the archway…
Professor Dumbledore flinches as the flash of blinding green light touches his chest; he throws his head back and freezes for a second – the next moment he plunges down from the Astronomy Tower...
Painful. So painful. When would it end? Only one more flight and a corridor to go, although the latter was as long as Merlin's beard, which had been evoked by the friends so many times today.
"Expecto patronum!" Ron's voice trembled, Harry would rather not know what horrors arose in his mate's memories – he was preoccupied by his own. "E-expecto p-patronum!"
A silvery flash – not even a mist, just a sheaf of sparks, which wasn't enough to scare off one Dementor, let alone three. Three?! Had they decided to exceed the target tonight?
"E-expecto… Crap. Harry, I can't!"
Malfoy's blood dissolves in the water, colouring the floor with a sickening pink…
The green flash of the Killing Curse fades in Cedric's empty eyes…
Pettigrew's clawed hand, amputated by the swift move, falls into the boiling cauldron…
No, he could not unleash his stag on the staircase, this would be too noticeable – pure suicide. Too early as they still had a lot of things to do – to acquire the sword of Gryffindor, for example… It would be stupid to expose himself because of this idiotic basin that weighed as much as a hippogriff and was a size of a toilet!
They had to run, to hide around the corner and then he could…
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
This was the spell of his life. His fate and destiny. It remained only to name his son in its honour – Wingardium Leviosa Potter would certainly be a really annoying brat.
Running with the heavy invisible Pensieve balancing on a magical leash wasn't pleasant. Harry's scar throbbed and ached; the black vortices of their pursuers' cloth whirled, like tornadoes, very close.
The corner. Finally! And around it…
Goggling its round eyes, Neville's toad sat under the painting on the left wall, puffing its vocal sac with bubbling sounds.
'You won't escape now, you little git!' Harry lowered his wand, putting the basin down and not taking his eyes off the toad's smug smile.
"Petrificus –"
Coming out of nowhere, a bony hand brushed his forehead. Okay, deadly Neville was far away, but the Dementors were close…
He had to concentrate: happy memories could be found even in this hell. After all, being in such a place, one could understand their value, learning to find them bit by bit and cherish them like a treasure.
News from Ginny – everyone is alive, safe and sound…
Hermione leaves the Potions class. She's pale, tear-stained, covered in blood, but at the sight of their worried faces, she stretches out her hands and, smiling happily, whispers: "It's over! They are gone for sure!"
A dishevelled little girl on a fragment of an old photograph pulls someone into the frame and laughs in the way that one can laugh only to one's family and friends.
"Expecto patronum!" his silvery stag soared up, it seemed that its hooves were about to become tangible and thunder down the stone floor with a melodic ringing.
The power of his Patronus literally threw the Dementors back – their greedy mouths, half-hidden behind their hoods, choked on the positive energy…
Leaving the basin stay put, Harry approached the wall with the unseen door.
'I need to hide the Pensieve! I need to hide the Pensieve!I need to hide the Pensieve!'
The Room was not slow in coming – the castle was still on their side. Harry smiled at this simple thought.
Ron, opening the door a little wider with his shoulder, stepped inside. Raising his wand again, he was about to evoke the sacramental 'Wingardium Leviosa' for the last time, but three dark shadows, which had held their distance after Potter's stag, suddenly took off and rushed towards him. Managing only a scream, Ronald staggered backwards into the Room of Requirement; the Dementors invaded it after him, spreading the fear and cold all around them. Harry dashed to help his friend, his fingers chilling around his wand.
"I'm coming, Ron!"
As if! The damn Pensieve, which hadn't heard so many curses in its centuries of life as in this evening, got in Harry's way. Invisible! Heavy! With a rumbling worthy of the Hogwarts Express on a bridge, Harry collapsed onto the marble floor, dragging the bloody basin along with him as the Invisibility Cloak finally flew off it. In the tapestry opposite the door, Barnabas the Barmy raised his eyebrows in amazement and tried to shame the night hooligans – it seemed that even the unbalanced trolls holding their clubs over his head did not outrage him as much. Harry, however, did not have time for lectures from the crazy ballet lover – another of Ron's screams curdled his blood. Hissing with pain from his bruised knee and swearing so obscenely that the trolls behind Barnabas covered their ears in embarrassment, he burst into the Room, raising his wand to cast his Patronus; but before he could utter the spell, Harry collapsed again, tormented by a sudden acute headache.
What was wrong with him today? Dementors had been the cause of his headaches before, but the pain had never been so sharp and keen!
"Harry! Harry? Are you okay?"
Harry wondered the very same question in regard to Ron – judging by his last scream, his best friend should have been kissed by now. Yet, Ronald crawled up to him on all fours, safe and sound, and whispered hoarsely:
"Look at them! Just look at them!"
The last thing Harry wanted to do was to look at the dark creatures – his mother's screams and Hermione's sobs still rang in his ears. Dealing with three Dementors at once, straight after using the levitation charm for so long, was clearly beyond his endurance. Ron, however, insistently shook him by the sleeve of his robes, threatening to rip it off. Harry raised his head from the cool floor, screwing his eyes in pain.
The first thing Harry saw were countless objects stacked in tall towers that were on the verge of collapsing. The Room, in spite of his expectations, turned into a large cathedral, littered with hidden stuff right up to the dome – just like it had done in his sixth year, when he had needed a place to hide the book of the Half-Blood Prince. Not surprising, really – he had to formulate his request more clearly. He'd rather he had asked for…
"You're looking the wrong way!"
With great difficulty, Harry turned his head to the pointed direction, preparing to cast the Patronus Charm again, but it turned out that the Dementors were no longer interested in them – the black-clothed trio hovered over an old cupboard, their hoods almost touching a chipped bust of an ugly warlock. Why were they so interested in the statue of a gloomy-looking old man, whose only decoration was a dusty curly wig on top of which was a…
"Tiara," Harry breathed, forgetting the pain in his scar at once.
"What?" Ron frowned in confusion. Evidently the constant levitation charm depleted not only his magical reserves, but also his mental ones.
"Diadem! Look! They are circling the diadem!"
"The You-Know-Who's diadem?" Ron whistled. "But how did it –"
"This is the Room of Hidden Things!" Harry explained hastily, getting to his feet and staring at the grim dance the vile guards of Hogwarts were performing around the tarnished jewellery. "Voldemort might've not known how the Room of Requirement works. He might've decided that it was revealed to him alone and –"
"Hid his Horcrux!"
"– hid his Horcrux."
"Or it's just some kind of ancient widget, which has a deep sacred meaning for those freaks," Ron finally managed to regain his breath and now, puffing, he was lifting today's culprit of their misadventures into an upright position. His unassuming personality was very pleased with the fact that the Dementors had lost interest in them, but... "I take it the option to lock them up in here and wait till they die of hunger is no good for you?"
Instead of answering, Harry closed his eyes, raised his wand and yelled at the top of his lungs:
"Expecto patronum!"
The Dementors were thrown aside as if in a blast – the power of Harry's spell was truly impressive. A dive forward and the diadem fell right into his hands while the bust of the old warlock scattered into a fountain of pieces.
"Expecto patronum!" – a terminal shot. "Run, Ron!"
Ron, who had hardly time to figure out what had happened, looked perplexedly from Harry to the Pensieve, which still stood by the door.
"Run!" this time Harry backed up his rational proposal with a deliberate jab in the back of his hesitant friend. The simple action set Ron in motion and he rushed to the exit.
Skirting the monumental basin, Harry hooked the Invisibility Cloak, which was still lying on the floor next to the Pensieve, with his toe-cap, kicked it over the threshold and sprung out of the Room after it. A cold whirlwind of despair and misery stirred behind him, but the door slammed shut, securely sealing the Dementors inside. Another second and in place of the door was only a smooth wall.
"Holy crap, Harry!" Ron breathed out enthusiastically. "That was even cooler than the Vronsky Feint!"
Harry, meanwhile, dumbfoundedly stared at the silver jewellery in his hand. His scar was pricking and itchy, as if it had been bitten by mosquitoes. This was, of course, not an indicator – especially after such a close gathering with the Dementors.
"Put it in your pocket, will you?" he asked, ignoring Ron's praises to his dexterity. "We need to show it to Hermione."
"Hopefully, she'll say this is a Horc–"
"Shhh!"
"– a You-Know-What. That makes sense, doesn't it? You-Know-Who hid You-Know-What in –"
"You-Know-Where," Harry finished wearily. "We need to find Hermione; she's pretty good at detecting dark magic. I'd say there is a high possibility that the diadem is cursed. Hopefully, Hermione found out something about the cup and we can use that new information to deal with this diadem as well."
"What is the difference between a diadem and a crown?"
"Salazar knows," Harry frowned and strode down the corridor. "I'm worried about Hermione. Why isn't she back yet? If Snape knows about Horc.. about You-Know-Whats, and she came to his den with one in her bag –"
"Wait! She must be sitting in the Room of Requirement. Just not in that crazy version, but in the normal one. With sofas and cushions, you know."
But Harry kept walking, not looking back, and without slowing down.
"Ron, don't talk nonsense. The Room cannot transform when there is someone inside. If Hermione was sitting in the DA headquarters, we would not be able to open the Room of Hidden Things. If she wasn't there, it means she hasn't returned from the dungeons yet."
The staircases seemed to have fallen asleep along with the rest of the castle, and the frequency of their movements had sharply decreased in comparison with the way up. The boys ran, jumping over several steps.
"Galloping gargoyles! Harry, wait…" Ron could barely keep up with his friend, even though his legs were longer. "Harry, perhaps we'd better split up. You can check the dungeons and I'll do the Gryffindor Tower. Maybe she's waiting for us in the common room –"
"No need."
"Well, okay. I'll check the dungeons and you the common room…"
Ron almost bumped into his friend who had stopped abruptly. Following the direction of Potter's gaze, he exclaimed happily:
"Hermione!"
She didn't respond, her thoughts were definitely somewhere very far away.
The guys approached her, anxiously examining her tousled hair and her singed-in-places robes.
"Hey, stop sitting on the steps, you'll catch a cold," despite his prudent advice, Harry took a seat next to her. Ron froze uncertainly by the railing.
The girl shuddered, as if they had attacked her from behind, focused her strange otherworldly gaze and stated the obvious:
"It's you."
Then she jumped to her feet and rushed up the stairs so fast that Ron barely had time to grab her wrist.
"To the Room of Requirement, now!" she commanded.
"Can't do," Ron shook his head. "Dementors are locked up there. With them inside, the Room won't transform."
Contrary to her usual curiosity, Hermione did not even inquire what Dementors were doing in the Room of Requirement. Harry and Ron thought that it was strange, though how could they judge the oddities when they were hiding an alleged Horcrux in a robes pocket?
"To the tower, then."
During the five minutes of their journey, barely keeping up with Hermione zooming ahead, the boys exchanged questioning glances. They were certain only of one thing – she had news.
XXX
Everyone in the Gryffindor Tower was asleep but casting a silencing charm onto the common room was as natural as taking a deep breath before jumping into cold water. In the flickering light of the candles, Hermione's face resembled a grotesque mask. Retelling the girl the results of the brief friendly meeting with three Dementors in the Room of Requirement, Harry studied that mask closely. There was something desperate and harsh in it. And also in the way she was asking fragmentary questions during his tale:
"What made you think that it was a Horcrux?"
"You grabbed an unknown dark magic object without checking it for curses first?"
"And what if it was a Portkey?"
"'Where to?' Should I remind you about the Goblet of Fire?"
Harry did not need to be reminded of the Goblet – the close interaction with the Dementors tonight had provided him with all the necessary colourful details of that terrible memory. Yet, he had no objections to Hermione's words. Besides, he didn't want to argue with her – her eyes twinkled too strangely in the candlelight: was she on the verge of tears or on the verge of rage? Harry could not tell.
"I have no idea how to destroy it now!" the girl sighed. "I saw the Sorting Hat, but it's protected almost as well as Gringotts' vaults… Pity, that the diadem wasn't discovered earlier. I could have checked whether it was a Horcrux together with the cup, or even to have destroyed it tonight as well –"
Destroyed it? As well?!
"Did you destroy the cup?"
"Was it a Horcrux?"
Hermione looked bewilderedly from one boy to another and back again.
"Haven't I said?" she began chewing her lip thoughtfully, detachedly pondering over something unknown to them.
Having waited a few weary seconds, the boys reminded her of their existence:
"Hermione?"
"The cup was a Horcrux. It's destroyed," as if waking up from a dream, she jerked her head and focused on her friends.
"How?!"
"Fiendfyre."
"Hermione!" Ron clucked his tongue in admiration. "You –"
"Not me," the girl cut him off. "It was Snape."
Seeing their shocked faces, she began gabbling:
"I set it up so that he used the Fiendfyre on the Horcrux without knowing it. I think he doesn't have a clue about Horcruxes in general and about the cup in particular."
"You are a genius!" Harry grabbed her hand.
Feeling with his palm how she stiffened, the boy looked at her closely, trying to guess the reason.
"I have news about the runes, Harry," Hermione uttered with difficulty, not trying to free her hand, but not relaxing either. "Good and bad. I'll start with –"
"The bad!" the boys said in unison.
"No, I'll start with the good," there were metallic notes in her voice that somehow reminded Harry of Potions: 'I have good and bad news about your potion, Mr Potter. I'll start with the good – your potion is not explosive. The bad news: it has melded together with your cauldron, so, apparently, to check its effectiveness we'll have to gnaw it.' "Harry, I know what that man wrote to your mother about… About love."
Ron whistled. Harry involuntarily let go of her hand. 'About love'? The unsent draft, covered with ancient runes, had been about love? For some reason, the boy felt uncomfortable, as if the author of those letters, who had been alien to him, had now acquired flesh and blood – he hadn't dared send a declaration of love to Harry's mother... Wow…
"You deciphered such complex runes," Harry tried to mask his amazement with admiration for Hermione's talents. "This is fantastic!"
"It wasn't me, Harry."
Somehow the boy clearly understood that her words and gaze, flashed with determination, had a lot to do with the bad news. He was not wrong.
"The bad news is I know who wrote that letter. I know whose house you visited, whose cupboard you rummaged through –"
"And who's going to kill you for that," Ron finished, giggling. However, at the sight of Hermione's widening eyes, his urge to joke faded at its root.
Harry kept silent, waiting for the continuation.
"Your mysterious Hufflepuffian, Harry, is Professor Snape."
The tension in the common room was so strong that if a colony of flobberworms were in there, they would be torn to shreds.
"Our Professor Snape?" for some reason, Ron couldn't come up with anything smarter than a simple personal pronoun, and his appeal to Snape as a 'professor' could only be attributed to his shock. However, he quickly corrected himself: "The greasy-haired bastard Snape? The vile Death Eater Snape? The filthy traitor and murderer Snape?"
"Thanks, Ron, we got the idea," Hermione's voice was so quiet that the boys could barely hear it. Perhaps Harry would have worried about these strange colourless intonations, but now he was more concerned with the facts.
"But Snape is a Slytherin, what does Hufflepuff have to do with him?" he asked the first thing that had come to his mind, already understanding the idiocy of his words as he was uttering them.
"The cup was a Horcrux, Harry," Hermione said wearily, preferring to stare into the dying fire of the fireplace. "It had nothing to do with distribution into Houses. It had to do only with the Dark Lord."
"And with Snape," Ron added, feeling himself somehow excluded from the discussion.
"Hermione, hold on. Haven't you just said that Snape has no idea either about Horcruxes or about the cup? But if that was his house and his living room, the cup would –"
"I DON'T KNOW, HARRY!" a short, sharp look and she turned back to the fireplace.
Ron glanced cautiously at his friends – both of them were immersed in the abyss of their own thoughts and conjectures, so the obscene language that was dancing on the tip of his tongue seemed inappropriate.
Harry bit his knuckles, feeling like he was losing touch with reality. Even if Voldemort himself were to stick his head out of the fireplace right now, it couldn't surprise Harry more. Snape had shocked him for the second time. The Half-Blood Prince, whose mind he had admired during the sixth year, whose conclusions he had believed… Yet, now it was something more – he had let the stranger from his mother's childhood get too close, allowed himself to learn too much about him… What was he supposed to do with all this knowledge now?
"Hey, guys," Ron could stand the torture of silence no longer, "what are you thinking about?"
"Something isn't right," Harry talked, judging by the direction of his gaze, to the mantel, but Hermione became agitated as though he had inadvertently expressed doubts that had been tormenting her for a long time, and she was very grateful to him for that. "The pieces don't fit into the puzzle."
"What puzzle?"
"Mental. It's an expression, Ron," Hermione responded wearily without turning her head. "Harry?"
"I was ready to vouch that I understood him… Well, those letters, that cupboard under the stairs… his friendship with my mother…"
"Love, Harry," Hermione interrupted him quietly, "he loved your mother, even though he couldn't find the strength to send that letter."
"All right. Everything that I learned about him in that house seems so… human. And to understand that this is Snape…"
"That was twenty years ago, Harry!" Ron clearly didn't like the direction that the thoughts of his friends were taking; there was something unnatural in this. "Anyone could change in twenty years! Maybe You-Know-Who, in his childhood, loved kittens and fed pigeons with the remains of the orphanage's bread. So what? Shall we worship him for that? It's SNAPE! He's been turning our school life into hell for seven years! He's a filthy Death Eater! He killed Dumbledore!"
"Thanks! I do remember that!" Harry leapt up from the sofa, frowning angrily, and started pacing up and down the common room. "I can't explain. Something doesn't fit. Snape loved my mum, but hated my dad. I'm beginning to see a more serious reason for that than a childish feud…It's clear that the very fact of my existence arouses hatred in him… I'm a living reminder that his love for Lily brought him nothing but disappointment, pain and –"
"Harry, do you hear yourself right now?" Ron's face was distorted. "Did you just say that Snape hates you not because of whose son you are, but because of whose son you are not?!"
Harry froze, realising. No, it would be best to push these thoughts to the farthest corner of his mind immediately and to concentrate on the missing pieces of the puzzle.
"What do we know about Snape?"
"He's a filthy –" Ron, of course.
Harry interrupted him firmly and peremptory:
"Facts."
"He loved your mother, he's a half-blood, a Death Eater and Dumbledore trusted him," Hermione spoke fragmentarily, as if she were making notches in a tree.
"He serves Voldemort! Brews torture potions on his orders! Tests them on students! Mocks the Mudbloods!" Ron was disturbed so much that he didn't even apologise to Hermione for using the 'M' word. "He set Hermione detentions for four months!"
"Detentions with Snape were almost a holiday in comparison with Carrow's… And Snape wasn't the one who tested the potion on me."
"No, you both are missing the point…" Harry continued measuring the floor with wide steps; the portraits on the walls followed him with their eyes and whispered something disapproving to each other. "You are talking about particulars, but we are missing a variable in the equation itself. We need to get to the crux of the matter! Why did Snape accept the headmaster position?"
"Because he finally got hold of power! Because he wants to please his Master by raising new Death Eaters!"
"Why then did he flee back to his dungeons at the first opportunity? Why didn't he stay in Dumbledore's quarters to swank around in the interior?"
"A guilty conscience!"
"In this case, Ron, we must, at least, admit that Snape has a conscience. That's already the bomb!" Harry felt that the line of his reasoning was taking him to an unknown shore, and he wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to land there. "Now, about the education of new Death Eaters. If so, why did he keep Muggle-borns at school when the position of the Ministry is quite obvious?"
"He said that himself: to help the house-elves with domestic chores. He dressed them in those wretched grey robes!"
"Well, no one died from it, right, Hermione?"
The girl, who had remained quiet until this moment, shrugged:
"This is the smallest of mischiefs that one could expect from the Dark Lord's Right Hand, if that's what you mean."
"Isn't Snape being too soft with the despised Mudbloods?" Harry continued. "Imagine Carrow's reaction to what Dean did at Potions! Malfoy wouldn't even have had to bother with 'Avada Kedavra'! And Snape simply sent Dean to the Hospital Wing with – note – another Gryffindorian! What a brutal punishment from the one who rammed the blackboard with his forehead! And O'Leary – don't you think that he was sent to St Mungo's just in time – right before the inspection? Umbridge wanted to take him away – I can bet that it wasn't for treatment. And remember how Snape yelled at Malfoy for almost killing Hermione?"
"He made an antidote," Hermione added, barely audible. The boys turned inquiringly to her.
"What?"
"An antidote. I heard Carrow and Greyback saying that Voldemort wouldn't need one. But Snape developed it anyway. He gave one to me… And I'm pretty sure that he tried to spoil his own potion. There is no other explanation – why else would he need to put the eyes of swamp ghouls in it? After all, it's obvious that their interaction with –"
"We got it, Hermione," an extra lesson on Potions didn't inspire either of the boys.
"And my detentions…" the girl crumpled the hem of her robes in her palms. "They weren't torture or bulling, they were just –"
"Yeah, they were just endless detentions with Snape!" Ronald said hotly. "Isn't he a hero for not chopping you into a salad?!"
"You don't understand, Ron!" something flashed in Hermione's eyes again. "They were just classes! Yes, in Snape's style. But think what he COULD have done, given his power over us! He could've made me drink Veritaserum or torture me until I tell him where Harry was. He COULD have done all of that! Yet, he behaves as normal, while the world around has turned upside down! Imagine what would happen to the school if someone else became the headmaster. Carrow, for example – may an acromantula eat him!"
"You've both lost your minds! Harry, he hates you, he hates the whole of Gryffindor!"
"What use would his love for Gryffindor be to me?" Harry almost yelled (thankfully the silencing charm was still in place). "Do you still care about the House Cup award? Let's just step aside for a moment from the Snape that we have known all these years, let's forget that he's a bastard, a cad, a Slytherin scoundrel, who takes points from us –"
"He's all of the above!"
"We are used to it. This seems to us to be the norm, the starting point. But if we take something else for that point? Let's forget about six years of hostility, cross out everything and leave only this academic year. Imagine that we just came to Hogwarts. One professor sets Inferi on us and makes us drink painful torture potions; another one tries to burn a Muggle child alive! Against the background of all this, is the headmaster, who takes points from our House and calls us all idiots, really that terrible? Do you think he doesn't know about Dumbledore's Army? After our fifth year the whole school knows us all by name! Why then do all members of the DA still walk around bipedal and able to use their wands instead of being delivered to Voldemort in whole or in the form of potion ingredients?"
"He saw you on the map!" Hermione whispered in amazement, pressing her hand to her lips. Harry even got a little scared for her – all the colour had drained from her cheeks quite abruptly.
"What are you talking about?"
"The Marauder's Map! I didn't expect him to approach me so quietly… He glanced at the map and dashed away! I was sure that he saw the inscription 'Harry Potter' and rushed to catch you, so I ran after him. But when I caught up with him, he was walking with Carrow in the opposite direction. I decided back then that these events were not connected – that he didn't see your name but rushed away on his dark business and ran into Carrow by accident. But what if he noticed 'Potter' on the map, decided that for some reason you came to the castle and took Carrow away from you deliberately?!"
"The next thing you are going to say, Hermione, is that he set your detentions deliberately too! Out of the kindness of his heart!" it seemed to Ron that he was in an alternative reality – the speeches of his friends sounded so alien. How could they possibly believe any of this?
"I thought about it," what the hell was wrong with Hermione today? Her dejected whisper was almost impossible to hear. "I think this is true."
"You've gone nuts!"
"No, Ron, look," Harry suddenly thought that if the object of their discussion had heard his and Hermione's praises addressed to him, he would hang himself from the tip of his own nose. "Each action can be explained individually, but together they form a system! I'm not saying that Snape is the nicest person I've ever met, although I can't hide that the fact that Snape is capable of loving anyone at all, especially my Muggle-born mother, still means something… But if we assume that Dumbledore was not mistaken in trusting him, we have such a powerful wizard on our side that –"
"He. Killed. Dumbledore. In front. Of. Your. Eyes. Isn't that enough? The fact that he had a difficult childhood is not a reason to forget that! He betrayed your parents, Harry! He has that filthy Dark Mark on his forearm! He serves the Dark Lord like a faithful cur, runs to his calls and fulfils his orders! And finally, the You-Know-Who's Horcrux was hidden in his house!"
As Ron's fierce, desperate words melted in the air, a grave silence reigned over the common room, broken only by the crackle of flames in the fireplace. His arguments knocked the cornerstone out of their entire spontaneous line of defence. In this deafening void, Harry was surprised to hear a gasp, followed by a sob.
"Hermione?" he asked a little cautiously, trying to look into her eyes.
Within a second the girl hid her face in her hands, explaining in a hoarse voice, interrupted by tears:
"I'm just tired. I'm so tired of all of this…"
Harry and Ron exchanged glances but didn't pry. She had done so much, had endured so much over the past months – how gratifying it would be for all of them to know that there was someone extremely powerful on their side. The unfulfilled thought of Snape's possible support had apparently unsettled Hermione completely. Yet, their trio used to trust only each other – this was their strength. Harry nodded to his thoughts:
"You need to leave Hogwarts. Full stop."