Hello lovelies!
This chapter is long (I've only ever had one other 10k chapter for one of my other stories), and it's mainly due to the canon lines/scenes in this chapter. It's also been far too long since I last updated, so I'm dreadfully sorry about that. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter, even though it will seem like the Golden trio is insane.
Please leave a review and let me know what you think xxx
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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and only the story line and any OC's belong to me.
The sound of Hermione's galloping heart is thundering in her ears. The witch's fingers lightly trail across the white brick of Severus Snape's abode as she creeps forward—she is keeping as low as she possibly can in order to stay out of sight.
The grass whistles softly under the golden trio's feet as they progress towards the entrance in a single file: Ron is leading the charge, Harry is in the middle, and Hermione is bringing up the rear. Hermione grips her wand just that much tighter when they reach the two steps that will carry them up to the landing and the front door.
Ron cautiously ascends onto the landing, and then pauses. The ginger haired wizard peers over his shoulder at his two companions, and they both nod their heads, giving him permission to proceed.
The door is slender, painted a murky, dark green, there is a cast iron knocker in the shape of a snake eating its tail, and a polished steel ovular door knob, but, thankfully there are no glass panes.
Hermione desperately hopes that they have the element of surprise; she doesn't think Snape will listen to them any other way. There is an odd sensation pulsing in her gut, and she's praying that it doesn't have a deeper meaning.
With practiced ease Ron non-verbally casts an 'alohomora', and the door softly clicks open. Hermione winces when the door creaks and groans gently as Ron carefully pushes it inwards.
The trio freezes, waits for a long, pregnant moment, and when nothing happens they straighten up with their wands at the ready and enter into the dimly lit foyer.
On their left as soon as you walk in the door is a narrow corridor that leads into a harsh darkness, and the foyer is a small, squashed room that is bare save for a full length mirror that is hanging on the wall directly opposite the front door.
Harry and Ron are hovering at the corridor's mouth, indecision on whether to enter the unknown clearly playing a part in their hesitation.
Hermione shifts her eyes in order to see better—the corridor clears up instantly, and she can see all the way down it—and she is about to join Harry and Ron when a hard slightly rounded tip presses against the right side of her head.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted him," a voice says from behind Hermione. It appears that there is no need to venture down the narrow corridor, as the owner of this pleasant little cottage has come to them.
"Boys, it would appear that the welcome wagon has arrived," Hermione whispers, and she grimaces when what must be Severus Snape's wand tip grinds into her scalp.
"If that was meant to be amusing, I can assure you, it was not," Severus Snape sneers, and Hermione closes her eyes. This is all going swimmingly thus far. She really should have just kept her mouth shut.
Ron and Harry have not budged an inch since Snape made his presence known, and all Hermione can do is hope that Harry does not turn around right now. She really does not wish to have her head blown off.
Some people tend to get emotional and irrational when faced with the visage of a person they loathe, and Hermione had a feeling that Severus would act before thinking when presented with a James Potter look-alike.
Hermione slowly pries her eyes open, and gets a good look in the mirror at the man behind her, she also sees the dark corner in which he must have lay in wait for them—they must have tripped his wards when they arrived.
This version of Severus is a bit of a shock: he still has greasy hair—which is tied back and out of his face—a hooked nose, dark, beady eyes, but there is no sorrow thinning out his face, and the frown lines on his forehead are severely reduced.
The wizard's features are angular, his chin a bit pointy, but there is a youthful tenderness to his face. The most intriguing detail is that she can sense the fire burning in his soul, as opposed to the cold indifference she'd gotten accustomed to in the older version of Snape that had taught her in school.
A flicker of motion however catches Hermione's attention. Ron raised both of his hands in surrender, whilst thankfully, Harry has remained as still as a statue.
"Don't move!" Severus commands, and his voice is deeper than she remembers, and there is also a nasal quality to it that she certainly doesn't recall.
Ron and Harry obey his command, and if Hermione didn't know better, she would think that they aren't even breathing.
Hermione knows this will only go downhill from here if she doesn't somehow get a grasp on this situation, so she cheerfully greets their unwitting host, "Severus. Is that anyway to treat guests?"
"No, but it is the way to treat trespassers," Severus snarls, his breath hot against her ear. She shudders. "Who are you? Order members?"
She can't help herself. A gay peal of laughter bursts out of her mouth.
The absurdity of the situation they've found themselves has finally caught up to Hermione. They—her more than anyone else—are currently at the mercy of a broody Death Eater who doesn't truly regret any of his life decisions thus far, in a dimension that does not originally belong to them, and they are attempting to convince him to become a double agent.
It's morbidly hilarious, because they've risked everything, all in the naïve hope that deep down, this Severus's moral convictions will prevail—or more likely his self-preservation—and he will help them defeat Lord Voldemort.
Severus is seemingly taken aback by her manic laughter, as the pressure on her skull lightens. Hermione takes the precious opportunity she's been afforded and whirls around, only to press her own wand tip underneath his chin.
"I don't want to hurt you, Severus," Hermione informs him calmly, her other hand tightly gripping onto the lapel of his black robes.
There is fury thinly veiled in Severus's eyes, and his features contort into heavy contempt, but Hermione realises quickly that he isn't directing that ire at her.
The Death Eater's attention is gripped by the two wizards over her shoulder—from the look on Snape's face she surmises that they've both turned around. Snape's brow furrows, "you. You're the mysterious ginger wizard everyone's been talking about."
"Guilty," Ron shrugs, wand languidly pointing directly at Snape's forehead.
"Potter," Snape sneers, "collecting more filthy strays I see."
"I consider myself more of a well-kempt canine companion," Ron pipes up.
"Not the time, Ronald," Hermione growls, pressing her wand further into the soft flesh underneath Severus's chin when she catches him rolling his wand between his fingers; he ceases instantly.
"Harry Potter," Harry corrects softly.
"Don't take me for a fool, Potter. I don't know what game you're playing, but—" Snape's words cut out abruptly, and Hermione knows that he sees them. The bright green, almond shaped eyes that Harry had gotten from his Mother.
"Who the fuck are you?" Snape spits in mild horror, his left eye twitching.
Hermione takes a risk: she lets go of Severus's robes, and reaches into her cloak—her fingers fumble about for a second before she finds what she's looking for—and withdraws one of the phials they'd brought with them.
"We can show you. If you let us that is."
Snape's gaze settles on her again, "you're the girl who was in Diagon Alley with Lily that day…" he says, but his eyes widen a fraction as if realising that that is a piece of information he did not wish to disclose.
So we were being watched that day, Hermione muses.
Snape's dark eyes narrow at her, as if she is to blame for his unintentional confession. "What do you want, and how do I know that this isn't some ploy or trick?" Snape's eyes flick in Harry's direction for a brief moment.
"You don't, but you'll have to trust us," Harry says.
Snape snorts rudely.
"We want your help to defeat Voldemort," Hermione supplies, and she meets the wizard's glower head on.
"You're either very bold or very foolish to speak his name so callously without fear or hesitation," Snape comments, the corners of his lips curling.
"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," Harry interjected, and Hermione smiles softly. Dumbledore may be a sodding prick, but there is acute wisdom behind a lot of the things theirs had once said.
"Foolish it is," Snape murmurs. "Well I suppose that answers my earlier question then. Overt optimism and all that other rot must mean you're Order members."
"Things aren't quite as black and white as that," Hermione says, and Snape's face is swirling with a mixture of doubt and disgust.
The light from outside is shining onto Severus's back, and his features are heavily cast in shadow, which only serves to create a sense of disquiet in Hermione's gut when he speaks again. "Whoever the fuck you really are, I can promise that you won't be alive much longer, and you certainly will never defeat the Dark Lord.
"We did once already, mate," Ron drawls, and the floorboards creak slightly under his weight as he strolls over to them. Ron folds his arms over his chest, and looks down on Severus with an almost pitying look. "We can do it again."
Severus's frown is back, and he is about to open his mouth when Harry beats him to it, "your patronus is a doe."
Hermione sees the palpable fear trickling into Severus's eyes, and swirling in and amongst the dark pools of hatred.
Panic. "I can't cast a patronus charm," Snape says, shaking his head in denial.
"Yes you can, and its corporeal form is a doe. I know because I've seen it," Harry says as he strolls over and settles in on Hermione's other side.
Ron makes a noise in the back of his throat. Harry swears at him in parseltongue—Snape frowns heavily at that—if Hermione could afford to rip her gaze from Snape she would glare darkly at the ginger. In her peripherals she sees Ron shrug.
They all know how Ron feels about Snape's patronus, and Snape's feelings for Lily.
"I cannot cast a patronus charm," Snape grits out.
Harry sighs, "I also know that you are the Half-Blood Prince."
"Who the fuck are you?" Snape asks, mouth agape, and for the first time since they arrived, he looks afraid.
Perhaps he should be.
"I told you already, my name is Harry James Potter. If you'd let me finish, I could have told you that I am the son of James and Lily Potter, and that I am from the future," Harry says with a cavalier shrug.
There is a thick pause, and then almost inaudibly, Snape says, "prove it."
"Do you have a pensieve? If not, we brought our own," Ron says, and his hand dives into his trouser pocket and retrieves a small, ovular disk. Snape shakes his head, no, he does not have the luxury of owning a pensieve.
Ron shrugs, turns on a side, and with a flick of his wrist the disk sails into the air, only to be halted by a motion of his wand in the centre of the room. A swish, a flourish, a muttered incantation, and the pensieve grows to its original size.
"If I remove my wand, do you promise to behave?" Hermione asks. Snape grunts. "Use your words."
"I suspect I don't have much choice, but yes, I will. I cannot guarantee what I'll do after you're finished with your little show and tell, but for now I give you my word that no harm shall befall you at my hand," Snape heaves out. It's better than she expected, and warily Hermione lowers her wand.
Without turning her back on Severus, she heads over to where Ron and Harry are already waiting on the circumference of the pensieve.
"You coming? We have a lot to show you," Hermione says firmly. Snape rubs at his neck, and with a sneer, and billowing robes he follows after her.
Hermione unstoppers the phial still held in her hand, and pours the wispy, silvery substance into the black, smooth surface of the pensieve. The surface ripples.
"After you," Hermione says with a smile, and Snape squints at her before complying—his face cautiously dipping into unreadable darkness of the pensieve—and heading into the unknown.
The golden trio swiftly follow after him: there's a crispness to the air around them, and a hefty fog that makes it terribly difficult to see anything.
"What exactly am I supposed to be seeing?" Snape asks, a few feet away on Hermione's right—his voice sounds far away; like he's submerged.
Suddenly they are on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees.
Before they stands Snape, only a year or so older than the one that has accompanied them into this memory. Memory Snape is panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or someone.
"What is the meaning of this?" Severus asks, trudging over to the Memory version of himself, scrutinising him intensely.
"You'll see," Harry says, standing back. The other two members of the golden trio have never been privy to these memories, they have only ever heard recollections of them from their third member. It had been more than difficult to select the memories they were to show this dimension's Severus Snape, and hopefully they'd chosen correctly; they tried their best to show the remorse and regret that plagued his other self for the path he had taken.
Memory Snape's fear infects them, even though they know that they will not be harmed, and they follow his line of sight.
A blinding, jagged jet of white light flies through the air, and Memory Snape drops to his knees, and his wand flies out of his hand.
"Don't kill me!" Memory Snape exclaims.
"That was not my intention."
Albus Dumbledore stands before Memory Snape with his robes whipping around him, his face illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.
"How did you get this?" Severus asks, taking several steps back from the pair. He doesn't wish an answer, and Hermione doubts he would hear it regardless as he is enraptured by the scene unfolding before him.
"Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?"
"No—no message—I'm here on my own account!"
Memory Snape is wringing his hands: he looks a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him and a desperation laced through his tone.
"I—I come with a warning—no, a request—please—"
Dumbledore flicks his wand, and though leaves and branches still fly through the night air around them, there is now a leaden silence on the spot where he and Memory Snape are facing each other.
"What request could a Death Eater make of me?"
"The—The prophecy…the prediction…Trelawney…"
"What prophecy," Severus whips around and demands of them, but the golden trio remain silent, intently bearing witness to the memory. He fiercely turns back to the memory.
"Ah, yes," says Dumbledore. "How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?"
Memory Snape shudders at the mention of Voldemort's name.
"Everything—everything I heard!" says Snape. "That is why—it is for that reason—he thinks it means Lily Evans!"
"Potter," Harry corrects softly, whilst a soft, "what?" falls from Severus's lips as he takes a step towards Dumbledore and his other self.
"The prophecy did not refer to a woman," says Dumbledore. "It spoke of a boy born at the end of July—"
"You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down—kill them all—"
"If she means so much to you," says Dumbledore, "surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?"
"I have—I have asked him—"
For the first time since they entered the memory, Ron voices his opinion, rounding on Harry, "this is it, isn't it? This is why you refused to show us this. He was willing to let you and your Dad die Harry, to save your Mum!"
Harry sends Ron a harsh glare, "not now. Later. Watch."
"You disgust me," says Dumbledore, and never before had any of them heard such contempt in the older wizard's voice.
"For once I agree wholeheartedly with the old codger," Ron growls. Harry shushes him again, and Hermione keeps her eye on the scene as she crosses over to Ron, and she tucks herself into his side. This is hard to watch.
Memory Snape seems to shrink back a little.
"You do not care, then, about the death if her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?"
Memory Snape says nothing, but merely looks up at Dumbledore.
"Hide them all, then," he croaks. "Keep her—them—safe. Please."
"And what will you give me in return, Severus?"
"In—in return?" Snape gapes at Dumbledore, and after a long moment, he says, "anything."
The hilltop fades.
"You're lying," Snape says with an acidic bite to his tone.
"Trust me, mate," Ron says with a bark of a laugh, "I fucking wish we were." Ron faces Harry. "That's why you never showed us. All that bollocks about him being a brave man, he tried to bargain your life away to evil itself, and only when it fucking backfired on him did he do the right thing."
"It wasn't that simple," Harry croaks.
"Mate, I love you, but in this regard, you're wrong. It is that simple," Ron snarls. The ginger haired wizard firmly but not unkindly pries himself out of Hermione's embrace, and with righteous indignation he marches over to Snape. The two wizards are inches apart.
"You want to know what happened after that?" Ron asks quietly.
Snape stares up at Ron with steel wiring his jaw shut, and his chin is jutting upwards in a blatant show of defiance and fearlessness.
"She dies. Lily and James Potter die by the hand of Voldemort, because a fucking rat betrays them," Ron snaps. Snape flinches, and Hermione can tell that the outburst has made him uncomfortable.
"Ron," Hermione says warningly.
"Pettigrew…that—that's how the Order knew," Snape says, his eyes widening slightly. "No one aside from the Dark Lord knew who his informant inside of the Order was."
"Ron."
"No, Hermione. He needs to know," Ron booms, hands thrust out to the side. "We came all this way after all. May as well tell him the truth."
Ron's hands fall limply to his sides, he's slightly bent at the middle so that he is almost nose to nose with Snape, and dangerously low he says, "the truth is that there were two boys that qualified to be the bloody chosen one, and if Voldemort chose the other, Severus Snape would have been quite content to let him die."
"You don't know me," Severus spits, gruffly grabbing a hold of Ron's shirt, and Ron smiles darkly, "ah, I may not know you specifically, but I know what you will become if you stay on your current path."
Snape shoves Ron backwards, "fuck you. I don't have to listen to this rubbish any longer. Your time is up."
"No, it's not," Ron shouts, plucking a phial from his pocket, unstoppering it, and with a wild flick of his wrist the silvery substance explodes into the air, a fog engulfs them, and the scene changes.
"I told you your time is up, whoever the actual fuck you are!" Snape shouts.
"And I told you that it's not," Ron says in a scarily serene tone, and he points at the scene before them: a gathering of students all lined up at workbenches, dutifully attending to their cauldrons, and most of them are cutting up daisy roots.
"Sir," a pale haired boy calls, drawing their attention his table, where he is accompanied by two short lads; one ginger, one raven haired. "Sir, I'll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm—"
"Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him," says a voice from the front of the room. Severus follows it, and is greeted by an older version of himself.
"Is that…?" Severus asks, and Ron whispers, "yea, this is the Severus Snape I grew up with."
The much shorter ginger lad whose hair hung over his ears is glowering at the pale boy next to him, his face brick red. The boy seizes his knife, and if Hermione didn't know better, she would have sworn that Memory Ron would have tried to cut Memory Malfoy with it.
Memory Ron gruffly pulls Malfoy's roots towards him—there is an obvious tightness gripping the boy and pooling in his shoulders—and he begins to roughly chop the roots, so that they are all different sizes.
"Professor," drawls Malfoy, "Weasley's mutilating my roots, sir."
"That is Lucius's son," Severus states to himself, and the only confirmation he receives is Harry subtly nodding his head.
Memory Snape approaches the table, and he looks much older than he really is—years of inner torment having ripped him up inside. "He was a fucking terror," Ron mutters to himself, and Severus pays him no mind.
Memory Snape stares down his hooked nose at the roots, then he gives Memory Ron an unpleasant smile from beneath his long, greasy black hair.
"Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley."
Memory Ron's chest puffs out, he throws his shoulders back, and his voice quivers with outrage, "But, sir—"
"I spent almost fifteen ruddy minutes carefully shredding those roots—I wanted to make sure they were in exactly equal pieces," Ron sighs.
"That isn't important to the memory, Ronald," Hermione groans, and she looks about her, and suddenly she realises why Ron really chose this memory. Fuck me, Hermione thinks, there is no way he's helping us. We're going to have to obliviate him.
"Now," says Memory Snape in his most dangerous voice.
Memory Ron reluctantly shoves his own beautifully cut roots across the table at Malfoy, then takes up his knife again. Sulking, he cows his head and tries to salvage the roughly butchered roots.
"And, sir, I'll need this shrivelfig skinned," says Malfoy, his voice full of malicious laughter.
"Potter, you can skin Malfoy's shrivelfig," says Memory Snape, giving Memory Harry the look of loathing he always reserved for him.
"Mate. I don't care what he did to help us, do you see that. He made us miserable, treated us like we were lesser than the dirt on the bottom of his shoe, but, oh, he was good in the end because he loved your Mother and 'protected' you," Ron explodes, shoulders rising and falling. Ron viciously turns on Snape, "I don't fucking care if you help us at this point, but promise me this, don't become a miserable fucker who torments children."
Snape recoils from Ron's wrath, putting some distance between them, "I am not him."
"You say that, but do you mean it?" Ron asks, tilting his head to the side. "We're not finished, there's more yet for you to see. If you think treating an orphan who grew up in an abusive muggle household like scum, because he looks like your nemesis from school is bad, how about you take a good look at how you treat him." Ron's index finger is aimed at another student in the Potions classroom.
Hermione ignores the squabbling behind her as she advances over to a few cauldrons away, where Neville longbottom is in trouble.
Hermione hears a few muttered curses, and knows that Harry is attempting to calm Ron down, she understands why Ron is so furious. For all the good Snape did for the outcome of the Second Wizarding War, Ron is right, he did torment them as children.
That's why we need to show him that there's another way, that he doesn't have to end up like this, Hermione thinks.
"Who is he?" A voice asks quietly beside her, but she doesn't tear her eyes off of Neville, her first friend at Hogwarts.
"A kind, gentle soul…Severus Snape, meet Neville Longbottom…the other boy the prophecy could have applied to," Hermione smiles softly, bending down slightly to get a better look at the blond, curly haired boy. She misses Neville something terrible.
"Like Harry, the war robbed him of his parents," Hermione glances at Snape and takes note of the fact that he is intently listening to her, "Bellatrix Lestrange went a bit crazy and crucio'd Alice and Frank until their minds simply…broke."
"Bellatrix is certainly…a wild card," Severus concedes. "Are you sure he's Frank Longbottom's spawn?"
"Why?" Hermione queries, walking around to the side of the bench.
"Frank Longbottom is…" Snape trails off, as if his words are failing him.
"A tough lion? A brawny lad with a good head on him? An Auror?" Hermione chuckles softly, "he may not look like much now, but he is one of the bravest people I've ever known."
"Then why is he shaking like a leaf?" Snape sneers.
Hermione doesn't answer, she doesn't think she needs to as he is about to see why.
"Orange, Longbottom," says Memory Snape. He'd walked around to the front of the bench a few moments ago, and had immediately turned his nose up at Neville's potion as soon as he took note of its hue.
The wizard ladles some of Neville's potion up, and allows it to splash back into the cauldron so that everyone can see.
"Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn't you hear me say, quite clearly that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn't I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"
"Potions is his worst subject, and it didn't help that he was deathly afraid of his Professor," Hermione murmurs, folding her arms over her chest, and a honey brown curl falls into her eyes.
Neville is pink and trembling. He looks as though he is on the verge of tears.
"Please, sir," says Memory Hermione from beside Neville, "please, I could help Neville put it right—"
"I don't remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger," says Memory Snape coldly, and Memory Hermione goes as pink as Neville.
"Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly."
Memory Snape moves away with a disapproving curl of his lip, and leaves Neville breathless with fear.
"Help me!" Neville moans to Hermione.
"Your hair was much…bigger," Snape notes, gazing down at the younger Hermione as she mutters instructions to Neville—out of the corner of her mouth so that Memory Snape would not see.
"That's all you have to say about that interaction?" Hermione asks with pursed lips.
"No. How do I know that this isn't some fabricated reality? Also, what exactly does this prophecy entail?" Snape drawls, thoroughly examining his surroundings, as if looking for a crease, a glitch, something that doesn't belong.
"I suppose you don't, but as you are a Master Legilimens, I may let down some of my guards and show you more memories if that's what it takes," Hermione shrugs, and she narrows her eyes at Memory Hermione's rather long teeth.
It's horribly superficial, but she's glad she got Pomfrey to shrink them just a bit smaller than they were originally after she got hit by that hex.
"Don't think I didn't notice that you didn't answer my second question, and that is a foolish offer to make," Severus says, dark eyes peering at her as if she is an equation he has to solve. "What could you possibly gain from that?"
"Your trust," Hermione smiles wanly, and Severus's lips part as if he is about to respond, but Memory Snape interrupts.
"You should have finished adding your ingredients by now; this potion needs to stew before it can be drunk, so clear away while it simmers and then we'll test Longbottom's…"
Crabbe and Goyle laugh openly, watching Neville sweat as he stirs his potion feverishly; Memory Hermione continues to guide him with muttered instructions.
Harry and Ron join them as the students tidy their stations, put away their tools and unused ingredients, and then wash their hands and ladles.
"Sorry," Ron mutters, and Severus stares at him strangely before nodding; although there is a dark look about him.
"You aren't him. You're right. I don't know you," Ron apologises, and the dark look slides from Snape's features—he clearly wasn't expecting such an earnest apology. However, one can plainly see that his defensive guard is still up.
Memory Snape strides over to Neville, who is cowering by his cauldron.
"Everyone gather 'round," Memory Snape says, his black eyes glittering, "and watch what happens to Longbottom's toad. If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink to a tadpole. If, as I don't doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned."
The frightened energy exuding from the Gryffindors is staggering, but it is battling for attention with the Slytherins excited glee.
Memory Snape picks up Trevor the toad in his left hand, and dips a small spoon into Neville's potion—which is now green. He trickles a few drops down Trevor's throat.
There is a moment of hushed silence, in which Trevor gulps; there is a small pop, and Trevor the tadpole is wriggling in Memory Snape's palm.
The lions burst into applause. Memory Snape, looking rather sour, pulls a small bottle from them pocket of his robe, pours a few drops on top of Trevor, and he reappears suddenly, fully grown.
"Five points from Gryffindor," says Snape, which wipes the smile from every face. "I told you not to help him, Miss Granger. Class dismissed."
The memory fades, and Hermione is surprised when it melts into another.
"So much for picking one, Ron," Hermione grumbles.
"They're related. It all happened on the same day after all," Ron shrugs.
Hermione however, is not listening anymore as her full attention is gripped by an older wizard as he begins his lecture. Remus John Lupin.
He's dressed a bit shabbily—almost every inch of him is covered which is a contrast to her Remus who loves to expose his torso—his hair is much longer, there is a scar on his left cheek that her Remus doesn't have, and even though he looks quite tired, the man still holds a boyish charm.
She of course isn't in love with this Remus—she never was—but she has missed the man. He was a kind mentor, and a right laugh.
"We will practice the charm without wands first. After me, please…riddikulus!"
"Riddikulus!" said the class together.
"Lupin is a Professor? How in Salazar's name did that happen?" Severus asks with thick disdain.
Hermione growls unwittingly—she can't help it—she is highly protective of every iteration of Remus John that she knows; she can feel her mate bond warming in her chest.
Severus flinches, and takes a step back, "I take it he's a friend of yours?"
Hermione faces the events unfolding before them once more, hands on her hips, brown eyes swirling with copper and her jaw is clenched.
Snape raises an eyebrow, but does not press the issue further.
"Good," Professor Lupin says. "Very good. But that was the easy part, I'm afraid. You see, the word alone is not enough. And this is where you come in, Neville."
"What exactly is going on here?" Severus asks.
Harry—who'd been silent for extended period of time—enlightens him. "For context, this was our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class in our third year. Lupin was teaching us how to deal with Boggarts, shapeshifters which represent—"
"—the thing you fear most in the world," Snape finishes.
The wardrobe in front of the students shakes again, though not as much as Neville, who walks forward as though he is heading for the gallows.
"Right, Neville," says Professor Lupin. "First things first: what would you say is the thing that frightens you most in the world?"
"His own shadow?" Snape snorts.
Neville's lips move, but no noise comes out.
"Didn't catch that, Neville, sorry," Professor Lupin says cheerfully.
Neville looks around rather wildly, as if begging someone to help him, then says, in barely more than a whisper, "Professor Snape."
Whilst nearly all of Neville's peers laughed, Severus intakes a sharp inhalation of breath, but otherwise he does not have any other outward reactions. Even Neville grins apologetically.
Professor Lupin is stroking the back of his fingers along the length of his jaw thoughtfully.
"Professor Snape…hmmm…Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?"
"Er—yes," Neville confirms nervously. "But—I don't want the boggart to turn into her either."
"No, no, you misunderstand me," Professor Lupin says, now smiling. "I wonder, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?"
Neville looks startled, but says, "well…always the same hat. A tall one with a stuffed vulture on top. And a long dress…green, normally…and sometimes a fox-fur scarf."
"And a handbag?" prompts Professor Lupin.
"A big red one," Neville answers.
"Right then," says Professor Lupin. "Can you picture those clothes very clearly, Neville? Can you see them in your mind's eye?"
"Yes," says Neville uncertainly, plainly wondering what is coming next.
"When the boggart burst out of this wardrobe, Neville, and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape," says Lupin. "And you will raise your wand—thus—and cry 'Riddikulus'—and concentrate hard on your grandmother's clothes. If all goes well, Professor boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture-topped hat, and that green dress, with that big red handbag."
There is a great shout of laughter. The wardrobe wobbles more violently.
Severus looks more than a little uneasy: it cannot be easy realising that for someone else, you are the big bad wolf, you are the thing that goes bump in the night, you are their worst fear.
"If Neville is successful, the boggart is likely to shift his attention to each of us un turn," says Professor Lupin. "I would like all to you to take a moment now to think of the thing that scares you most, and imagine how you might force it to look comical…"
The room goes quiet. The teenagers are all contemplating on their greatest fears and what humorous thing they should picture in order to render them powerless.
Snape is focusing on a young Ronald Weasley, who is muttering to himself, "take its legs off."
"What are you banging on about?" Snape asks Ron, who shrugs. Snape raises at eyebrow at that, but before he can ask for more details, Professor Lupin speaks once more.
"Everyone ready?" Says Professor Lupin.
"Neville, we're going to back away," says Professor Lupin. "Let you have a clear field, all right? I'll call the next person forward."
"...Everyone back, now, so Neville can get a clear shot—"
The quartet witnessing the memory move forward out of the way of the retreating students—whose backs are now against the walls. Neville is alone beside the wardrobe. He looks pale and frightened, but he had pushed up the sleeves of his robes and is holding his wand ready.
"On the count of three, Neville," Professor Lupin says, his own wand pointing at the handle of the wardrobe.
"One—two—three—now!" A jet of sparks shoots from the end of Professor Lupin's wand and hits the doorknob. The wardrobe bursts open. Hook-nosed and menacing, Professor Snape steps out, his eyes flashing at Neville.
Neville backs away, his wand up, mouthing wordlessly. Snape is bearing down upon him, reaching inside his robes.
"R—r—riddikulus!" Neville squeaks.
There is a noise like a whip crack. Boggart Snape stumbles; he is wearing a long, lace-trimmed dress and a towering hat topped with a moth-eaten vulture, and he is swinging a huge, crimson handbag.
There is a roar of laughter; the boggart pauses, confused, and as Professor Lupin shouts, "Parvati! Forward!" the scene fades into vaporous tentacles that blow away into white nothingness.
Snape silence and his aversion to meeting any of their eyes is almost painful for some reason, and then, very quietly he asks, "anything else?"
"We can stop if you want," Harry suggests kindly, and Severus raises his head to peer at Harry with an unreadable expression.
"Ronald—" Severus glances at Ron for confirmation that he's gotten his name right, Ron nods, but frowns at the use of his full name, "—said 'an orphan who grew up in an abusive muggle household', he was referring to you I take it. What did he mean by that exactly?"
"That isn't important—" Ron begins, but Harry raises a hand, thus silencing his protective friend.
"After my parents died…Dumbledore took me to live with my Aunt, her husband and son," Harry says stiffly, and Hermione recognises the look in his eye as he thinks back to his childhood when all he knew about his parents was that they died in a 'car crash'.
Not for the first time Hermione contemplates a divine punishment to bestow upon the Dursleys for how they treated Harry when he was a child.
"He made you live with Petunia?" Snape frowns deeply, his contempt for the woman abundantly splayed across his features. "She fucking hates—"
"Wizarding kind?" Harry says with a breathy, curt laugh. "Yea, and her husband is no different."
Snape gathers his black robes about him, and with a small sigh asks, "how am I to believe any of this?" Snape glances at Ron, "your hostility to him seems genuine, but you could be playing a part—well, I might add."
"What can I say? The Snape from our dimension made our lives hell in school, especially Harry's," Ron grunts.
"I think you need to clear that part up for me, you keep mentioning your dimension. You are not only claiming to be from the future, but from an entirely different dimension?"
The dense white fog is swirling around them now, licking at their skin and clothes, and it has entirely engulfed their feets and stops just above their ankles.
"We didn't exactly elaborate on the details, did we?" Hermione winces. Their original plan went sideways, and they didn't really explain themselves that well, so she can understand where Snape's confusion is coming from.
"I'm Hermione Granger. This is Ron Weasley," Hermione pauses to gesture to Ron, who waves half-heartedly with a stiff smile, "and Harry already introduced himself to you."
Hermione takes a deep breath, and crosses over to Snape, ensuring that she is looking him directly in the eye as she says, "we're from the future in a different dimension, and we will do anything it takes to make sure that the ones we care about don't die this time."
"What does that have to do with me?" Snape asks, "why risk coming to me knowing that I am a Death Eater, and that I may very well go and tell the Dark Lord everything I've seen today."
"The Severus Snape I knew was a cruel, miserable man, but he was crucial to ending the war and taking down Voldemort," Hermione starts, and cautiously she places her hand on his upper arm. "I thought you might say that…so that's why I thought we should show you a couple more things."
She waits, and Snape's dark eyes consume her, most likely trying to get a read on her true intentions. "Fine," passes through his lips.
"Harry," Hermione calls.
"You sure, Hermione?"
"I'm sure."
From behind her she hears a pop, and she knows Harry has opened their last phial. Hermione doesn't take her eyes off of Snape as the memory forms all around them. "It's not pleasant…"
"I can handle it," Snape says, the corners of his lips twitching upwards.
"I know," Hermione says as she steps back, and they are immersed in yet another memory.
They are surrounded by darkness, it is pressing in on them, they are in a tunnel, and voice can be heard coming from the room directly ahead of them; only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel has been blocked up by what looks like an old crate.
The wix are crammed into the tunnel alongside the three younger memories, partially passing through them, and feeling as they do. Fear, uncertainty, and they all hardly dare to breathe.
Even in the darkness, they can somehow see the raven haired boy edge right up to the opening, and peer through a tiny gap left between the crate and wall. Then they are the boy.
The room beyond is dimly lit, but the boy can see the snake—Nagini—swirling and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floats unsupported in midair.
"What is the importance of the snake?" Severus hisses, and Hermione is removed from the boy's mind for a brief moment, long enough to place a hand on Snape's shoulder, "not now." They become the boy again.
He can see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered white hand toys with a wand. Then Memory Snape speaks, and the boy's heart lurches: Memory Snape is inches away from where he is crouching, hidden.
"…my Lord, their resistance is crumbling—"
"—and it is doing so without your help," says Voldemort in his high, clear voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there…almost."
"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you, Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."
Memory Snape strides past the gap, and the boy draws back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there is any spell that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he can not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away his position.
What is the importance of the snake? Snape whispers in Hermione's mind, but she doesn't reply.
Voldemort stands up. The boy can see him now, see the red eyes, the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in the semidarkness.
"I have a problem, Severus," says Voldemort softly.
"My Lord?" says Memory Snape.
Voldemort raises the Elder Wand, holding it delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.
The Elder Wand? Snape wonders, for what the boy knows in this moment, so does he. So it does exist. How did he obtain it?
He nicked it from the grave of its previous owner, Ron thinks, and Snape chews on that information in silence. It is clear that there are some things they will not share with him; they must not fully trust him. Good, he wouldn't if he was them.
"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"
In the silence the boy imagines he can hear the snake hissing slightly as it coils and uncoils—or it it Voldemort's sibilant sigh lingering on the air?
"My—my Lord?" says Memory Snape blankly. "I do not understand. You—you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."
"No," Voldemort says. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand…no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago."
Voldemort's tone is musing, calm, but the boy's scar began to throb and pulse: pain is building in his forehead, and he can feel that controlled sense of fury building inside of Voldemort.
"No difference," Voldemort says again.
Memory Snape does not speak. The boy cannot see his face: he wonders whether Snape senses danger, is trying to find the right words to reassure his master.
Voldemort starts to move around the room: the boy loses sight of him for seconds as he prowls, speaking in that same measured voice, while the pain and fury mounts in the boy.
"I have thought long and hard, Severus…" Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"
And for a moment the boy sees Memory Snape's profile: his eyes are fixed upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.
"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."
"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw.
He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."
"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself—"
"My instructions to my Death Eaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends—the more, the better—but do not kill him.
But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable."
"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But—let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can—"
"I have told you, no!" Voldemort says, and the boy catches the glint of red in his eyes as he turns again, and the swishing of his cloak is like the slithering of a snake, and he feels Voldemort's impatience in his burning scar.
"My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"
"My Lord, there can be no question, surely—?"
"—but there is a question, Severus. There is."
Voldemort halts, and the boy can see him plainly again as he slides the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Memory Snape.
"I don't like this," Severus voices softly, more to himself than anyone else, but Harry still replies, "you shouldn't. Voldemort will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, he doesn't care how loyal someone is…everyone is expendable once their usefulness to him expires."
"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?"
"I—I cannot answer that, my Lord."
"Can't you?"
The stab of rages feels like a spike driven the boy's head: he forces his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out in pain. He closes his eyes, and suddenly he is Voldemort, looking into Snape's pale face.
"What the fuck is happening?" Snape exclaims, and Harry's hand on his shoulder causes him to still. "It's a long story, but when Voldemort killed my Mother—she sacrificed herself to save me, and when he went to kill me, the killing curse rebounded and hit him. Short version, we ended up…connected."
"Connected?" Severus asks in horror, but Ron pokes his arm, and jerks his chin towards Voldemort, and they all resume watching events fixed in stone—in another dimension—transpire.
"My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's."
"I—I have no explanation, my Lord."
Memory Snape is not looking at Voldemort now. His dark eyes are still fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.
"I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."
"Albus Dumbledore has the Elder wand?" Snape asks in surprise, but the Golden trio says nothing. Enraptured, Severus watches intently, torn between the fear that is palpable in the air, and his innate need to know more.
Now Memory Snape looks at Voldemort, and Memory Snape's face is like a death mask. It is a marble white and so still that when he speaks, it is a shock to see that anyone lives behind the blank eyes.
"My Lord—let me go to the boy—"
"All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," says Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner…and I think I have the answer."
Memory Snape does not speak.
"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."
"My Lord—"
"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine."
"My Lord!" Memory Snape protests, raising his wand.
"It cannot be any other way," says Voldemort. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."
And Voldemort swipes the air with the Elder Wand. It does nothing to Memory Snape, who for a split second seems to think he has been reprieved: But then Voldemort's intention becomes clear. The snake cage is rolling through the air, and before Snape can do anything more than yell, it encases him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort speaks in Parseltongue.
"Kill."
"It still boggles the imagination that this is what he does to those he perceives to be loyal servants. Anyone that stands between him and power is a nuisance, a light that has to be extinguished," Ron whispers, and Severus stiffens.
There is a terrible scream. The boy sees Snape's face losing the little colour it has left; it whitens as his black eyes widen, as the snake's fangs pierce his neck, as he fails to push the enchanted cage off himself, as his knees give way and he falls to the floor.
"I regret it," Voldemort says coldly.
He turns away; there is no sadness in him, no remorse. It is time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that will now do his full bidding. He points it at the starry cage holding the snake, which drifts upwards, off Snape, who falls sideways onto the floor, gushing from the wounds in his neck.
Voldemort sweeps from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent floats after him in its protective sphere.
Back in the tunnel, in the boy's own mind, he opens his eyes: he has drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in an effort not to shout out, he winces at the stinging pain that comes as the grime mixes in with the crimson.
Now he is looking through the tiny crack between crate and wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.
"Harry!" breathes Memory Hermione behind the boy, but he has already pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifts an inch into the air and drifts sideways silently. As quietly as he can, he pulls himself up into the room.
He does not know why he is doing it, why he is approaching the dying man: he does not know what he feels as he sees Memory Snape's white face, and fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at his neck.
The boys takes off the Invisibility Cloak, and looks down upon the man he hates, whose widening black eyes find Memory Harry as he tries to speak. The boy bends over him, and Memory Snape seizes the front of his robes and pulls him close.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issues from Memory Snape's throat. "Take…it…take…it…"
Something more than blood is leaking from Memory Snape. Silvery blue, neither gas nor liquid, it gushes from his mouth and his ears and his eyes, and the boy knows what it is, but does not know what to do—
A flask, conjures from thin air, is thrust into his shaking hands by Memory Hermione. The boy lifts the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask is full to the brim, and Snape looks as though there is no blood left in him, his grip on the boy's robes slackens.
"Look...at…me…" he whispers.
The green eyes find the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seem to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding the boy thuds to try floor, and Memory Snape moves no more.
Once more the white fog creeps up on them, and without warning swallows them whole. They are once again surrounded by whiteness, but there is a depth to its expanse that was not there before.
There isn't much discussion, Severus reticently asks if they have more to show him, and with a curt nod, and a flick of Hermione's wand, they are once more plunged into another memory.
Dumbledore looks sickly, pale, weak, and so fragile that even the slightest breeze will sweep him away.
As the man speaks, informing Memory Snape that in order for Lord Voldemort to be defeated, Harry Potter must die; whilst the fragment of Voldemort's soul lives on in Harry, the Dark Lord cannot die.
Severus walks around the room, gazing upon Dumbledore with perplexion, and with an air of disbelief. As if he cannot believe the words that are leaving the old wizard's mouth.
Dumbledore's words seem far away, echoey almost.
"So the boy…the boy must die?" Severus asks quite calmly.
"And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential."
Another long silence. Then Snape said, "I thought…all these years…that we were protecting him for her. For Lily."
If Hermione didn't already have a gut full of resentment and ire directed at Albus Dumbledore, she certainly would now as she listens to him talk about Harry's death, and how he will have to sacrifice himself.
To his credit, Memory Snape looks horrified, as he should be.
"You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?"
"Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?"
"Lately, only those whom I could not save," Memory Snape says, bitterness creeping into his tone. He stands up. "You have used me."
"He uses everyone," Ron growls, and Hermione's reassuring hand on his upper arm helps cool his head. Even though she wholly agrees with him, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore fancies himself the chess master, the one pulling the strings, but she won't let him sacrifice the ones she loves, not again.
"Meaning?" Dumbledore asks.
"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—"
"But this is touching, Severus," Dumbledore says seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
"For him?" Memory Snape shouts. "Expecto Patronum!"
From the tip of his wand bursts a silver doe: she lands on the office floor, bounds once across the office—Severus instinctively takes several steps after the doe—and the doe soars out of the window.
Dumbledore watches her fly away, and as her silvery glow fades he turns back to Snape, and his eyes are full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," Memory Snape says.
Everything is frozen in place as Severus asks, "how old is he here?"
Hermione does some quick math, "thirty-seven."
Severus's hands fist at his sides, and he stares at the memory of his other self, as if willing it to look at him, to talk to him.
The quartet are yanked out of the memory without warning, and dunked directly into a blurry haze of colour.
Their surroundings sharpen, and the elder Snape is gripping a letter once penned by Lily Potter. The man's lips twist with emotion and he takes the page bearing Lily's signature, and her love, and tucks it inside his robes.
There is no hesitation as he then rips in two the photograph he is also holding, so that he keeps the part from which Lily laughs, and he throw the portion showing a happy James and gurgling Harry back onto the floor—it slips under the chest of drawers.
After that, the moment they emerge from a memory, they are plunged back in: Snape and Dumbledore's portrait discussing the Sword of Gryffindor, Nigellus Black aiding Memory Snape with the Hermione and Ron's location, "they are in the Forest of Dean!"
The last memory is Lily and Severus as children, running down a hill and falling into a laughing bundle of joy.
Gasping desperately Severus rips his head from the pensieve, and he is rapidly followed by the golden trio. Hermione's hand is on her wand.
Severus's head swivels back and forth as he backs away from them, looking like a cornered wild animal as he demands, "what is the bloody prophecy?"
"Prophecies don't always come to fruition, and as far as any of us know, it doesn't exist in this dimension, and there's a possibility that it never will—"
"WHAT is the prophecy?" Snape asks vociferously, his voice bouncing eagerly about the house and echoing down the narrow corridor several feet away, he raises his wand and stalks towards Hermione.
Ron and Harry raise theirs.
"It doesn't matter," Hermione says wisely. "It doesn't matter, because the real threat does exist in this dimension. Voldemort does exist, and if we don't do something, the war will cause far too much grief and pain. Too many will die, too many will suffer."
"Why did you come here? Why did you show me any of this?" Snape asks not for the first time.
"We thought that maybe, you deserved a chance at happiness this time," Hermione says truthfully. "The Severus Snape I grew up with was twisted with bitterness, filled with resentment, and broken. We thought that perhaps we could give you the chance to help us stop the war, and a chance to not become him."
Ron steps forward, lowering his wand and he holds his hands out to the side in surrender, "I'm sorry I laid into you. You aren't him." Ron meets Severus's eyes, "and I really, really hope that you don't become him."
Harry also lowers his wand, and Snape's lip curls, his head tilts in disbelief, and black meets vibrant green, "I'm not Dumbledore, nor am I Voldemort. I won't ask you to lay down your life, all I want is to ask, when you picture your future, what does it look like? Are you free? Are you still serving the Dark Lord?"
"I—I…" Severus trails off, grimacing, and thick contemplation is present on his features. "How do I know that you didn't fabricate all of this, that this is some play by the Order to get me to switch sides?"
Ron strides forward, stopping right next to Severus, and hesitantly he puts a hand on his shoulder, "I think you already know the answer to that. You can believe us or not, mate. All we ask is that you take what we showed you into consideration in the future."
The pale light in the room is captured in Ron's electric blue eyes. Severus glances between the three wix, not lingering on any one of them for too long.
Hermione hopes that they are making the right decision in going for a more indirect approach—they knew commanding Snape do anything would not end in their favour, on the contrary it would most likely blow up in their faces. Thus they decided to give him a choice, even whilst knowing it can still end badly for them, but then they won't have forced his hand.
The golden trio does not utter a word further (Ron shrinks the pensieve, and tucks it and the phials into his pockets), and they keep an eye on him as they leave Lilium Cottage, ensuring to gently close the door behind them.
The trio leave Severus Snape to contemplate everything he'd just seen, and to ponder on how if they are telling the truth, several things begin to fit into place and make sense. Things like Regulus Black changing sides.
"You defected?" Severus queries lowly, the thought had obviously occurred to him, but until that moment he hadn't entertained the idea that it was true.
Regulus taps his finger against the chair's arm, pursing his lips before carefully replying, "not exactly."
On the outskirts of the property, back on the small hill, Hermione Granger hugs herself and stares back down at the cottage. An arm wraps around the witch's waist, and she sags back against the lean body of its owner.
"Do you think he'll defect?" The boy with the lightning scar asks softly, and simultaneously the ginger haired boy drops his head onto Harry's shoulder.
"I don't know," Hermione admits, wondering not for the first time if they've just made a grave error in judgement. "Only time will tell."
