Happy October my friends! Sending love to you all.
Last chapter, TSP hit 1600 followers and 775 reviews. I know I say it all the time, but it really means the world to me that you all continue to support this story so many years later. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
It was a strange twist of fate, wasn't it?
Hermione stared out the window at Malfoy Manor, at the dark sky draping over the grounds and the woods beyond. The darkness seemed to go on forever, to the infinite degree.
No stars, she noticed.
Crossing her arms across her chest, she took a deep breath, taking a moment to count her blessings from the day. She was still alive. Ron and Harry were alive.
The rest was background noise. The rest didn't matter.
It was worth it, she thought fiercely, glancing around at her new prison cell. It was worth it.
Neither can live while the other survives.
That's what it was all about, wasn't it? Winning the war… what was her freedom compared to the rest of the wizarding world? Her freedom was an easy trade for Harry's, for the chance to find the horcruxes, to finish Voldemort…
She had to give herself up.
And even as she repeated the rational, as her logical brain tried and failed to poke holes in the choices that had led her to this moment, she felt the deep emptiness within her.
She was here, trapped. And they were there.
He was there.
Here she stood, in his childhood bedroom, and they had never been farther apart.
Was it wrong that he was her predominant thought?
She wasn't sure it was wrong. But it certainly wasn't right.
"Never imagined I'd see you here, Miss Granger."
Hermione spun around quickly, the voice jolting her out of her reverie.
And there her old potions master stood. As permanent as memory.
Snape was standing in the doorway, his black robes billowing around him. If Hermione hadn't known better, she would have guessed that no time at all had passed. His hair was just as black and greasy, his face just as gaunt. His expression was just as unreadable.
He raised an eyebrow. "Have you gone mute since the last time we had an encounter?"
She stared at her old professor, unable to speak for another few moments before she finally found her voice.
"You know that's not my name."
He pursed his lips. "So, it's not."
Hermione glanced out the window again. "You shouldn't be up here."
"Well, you and your merry band of fools should not have been here at all."
"That wasn't our fault," Hermione snapped at her old professors. "We were snatched."
"You let yourselves be snatched," Snape drawled, his eyes narrowed. "You acted without any sense whatsoever. Who do you think you are, daring to say his name outside the security of your Headquarters? Do you not realize there's a Taboo?"
"Dumbledore always said his name," Hermione said, raising her chin in defiance, throwing out the accusation.
Snape's eyes remained blank.
"That was Dumbledore," Snape drawled, showing no emotion for the man he had killed. "And as much as you lot try, you will never be him."
"No one will be, since you murdered him."
"There are more important things," Snape continued, moving on from the statement without so much as a pause.
"How could you possibly say that?" Hermione screeched, a burst of anger exploding from her chest on behalf of her old headmaster. "You killed him."
"So, I did," Snape said, walking into the room, waving his hand as the door locked behind him. Hermione tilted her head slightly.
She wasn't scared of Snape. He would not hurt her – not when the Death Eaters had gone to so much trouble to get her here in the first place.
No, she was not scared. She was angry. She was curious.
"Something you would like to say?" Hermione asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Miss Le Fay," Snape said, his voice lower than before. "You and your Order can despise me with everything you have, but that is not your primary concern right now."
"Of course, it's not," Hermione scoffed. "I didn't even know you were still alive. We haven't heard from you for years."
"That's not without reason," Snape muttered. His black eyes snapped back up. "But me remaining in the background is not the reason that the Dark Lord is on his way to Malfoy Manor right now."
What ever Hermione had been expecting him to say, it was not that. "What?"
"You are the crown jewel of his collection, Miss Le Fay," Snape said, pacing in front of her for a moment, glancing around the room as if someone was going to jump out of the shadows. "He would very much like…like to collect you."
"Collect me?" Hermione nearly laughed. "Like what, a member of the Slug Club?"
"No," Snape said. "Like a weapon. He wants to collect you like you're the most powerful witch of this generation, with access to tools that even the Dark Lord can only dream of."
"Tools?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow. "What tools?"
Snape glanced back towards the door briefly. "The Le Fays hold a mysterious branch of magic at their disposition. Unfortunately, you never had Celia to pass it down to you."
The name on Snape's lips hit her with more force than she expected. "Did you know my mother?"
"Indeed," he nodded. "And your father. And their secret."
"Did you know who I was?" Hermione asked, point blank, suddenly thinking back to every interaction she had ever had with Severus Snape. Had it always been there? "You knew my parents, you knew their secret, and you had me in your classes for six years."
Snape hesitated. Hermione's jaw dropped.
She had never seen him do that.
"I wasn't sure… but, I suspected."
"How?" she burst out. "How could you have known?"
"You look just like her," Snape said. "And besides, your level of magical ability was far beyond that of any muggleborn."
Hermione glared. "Blood purity is bullshit, and you know it."
"We don't have time for this, Miss Le Fay," Snape said, glancing at the door once again. "You are about to go into one of the most important meetings of your lifetime, and you must do it correctly."
"What are you going on about, Snape…"
"The Dark Lord," he hissed, his eyes narrowed. "He is coming to Malfoy Manor to speak with you, right now. And you must be prepared."
"There's nothing I can do," Hermione replied, shrugging, shocked herself at her nonchalance. "I had to stay and let Harry and Ron go. You know that. You were the one that made sure I gave myself up."
Snape paused, for the first time, without response.
"Why?" Hermione asked, cocking her head and crossing her arms. "Wouldn't you want your precious Lord to finally get a crack at Harry?"
"Don't be stupid, girl," Snape snarled, a perfect image of her Hogwarts days. "You know that Potter, as useless as he often is, is the only way to end this."
"But why would you want that?" Hermione retorted, feeling her mind hit a wall. Dancing around the edges. "You're a Death Eater."
Snape stared at her. "Do you know Occlumency?"
"What?" she replied, startled at the change of topic. "I mean… I know the basics."
"Good," Snape said, nodding. "Now there are things he already knows, no point hiding them. He knows about Grimmauld Place, he knows about your relationship with the young Mr. Malfoy, he knows a fair amount about Order plans…"
"Snape," Hermione interrupted, shaking her head. "What are you telling me?"
"The Dark Lord is going to try to get one piece of information out of you, and only one. Nothing else matters to him. Use that to your advantage. Block the information he isn't actively trying to find. He cannot know what you and Potter are trying to destroy."
Hermione felt her heart drop as the implication hit the air. "How… how could you know…"
"It doesn't matter," Snape snapped. "But block it. You don't know the answer to the question he wants. Let him look, he'll find nothing. But for the love of Merlin, let him look. If he looks and finds nothing, he won't realize you're hiding the Horcruxes."
She couldn't help the gasp that escaped her mouth. "How?"
"I must leave," Snape said, ignoring her shock. "Use your brain, Miss Le Fay. Gods know it's infuriating but use it."
He turned on his heel and headed for the door. Hermione stood there, frozen, trying to process what had happened. As his hand wrapped around the door handle, she finally found her voice.
"Wait!" she whispered. He paused, turning back towards her.
"What…" she started, her voice trailing off. Regaining her wits, she asked him what was overtaking her mind.
"What does he want from me?"
Snape closed his eyes.
"He wants to know where she hid the sapphire."
With that, her once-professor disappeared like smoke from the room, robes billowing behind him.
It was only once he had left that she realized Snape had said muggleborn, not mudblood.
He felt frozen in time, suspended between then and now.
Between a then, where Hermione was safely within his reach.
And now, where she was gone.
There was shouting all around him, movement, chaos. Uninhibited, frenetic energy.
But he stood there, immobilized by reality.
"Mate, pull yourself together," he heard, a voice shouted in his ear.
On some level, he understood that it was Blaise. On every other level, he didn't care.
"Oi!" someone shouted, as Draco felt the blow, knocking him backwards.
"What the bloody hell was that, Zabini?" one of the twins demanded.
Draco blinked, watching Blaise shake out his hands.
"We need him here. We need him present."
"He is here," someone else muttered.
"No, he's not," Blaise shook his head. "He's gone. His mind is gone. Hermione did the same thing when he was captured."
At her name, his eyes regained focus, and the world shifted out of blurred nothingness.
"We need to get her back," he muttered, as Blaise breathed a sigh of relief.
"We will, mate," Blaise whispered. "But we need you present for that."
Draco nodded, suddenly feeling the stinging on his cheek. He raised his hand to cup it. "What did you do?"
Blaise shrugged, the glimmer of a smirk playing on his lips. "Needed to get your attention."
Draco didn't have the time to fight back. He didn't have time to fall into nothingness. He only had time for one thing, one goal, one person.
His brain was fighting against him, trying desperately to trip into the abyss. An abyss where he couldn't feel her absence.
Her absence.
It was blanketing him. But he couldn't let it.
He saw her face in his mind.
Like a bucket of ice water, he snapped back into reality.
Blaise was still looking at him, concern evident in his eyes.
He nodded at his old friend and looked around the room.
The Order Members seemed to still be arguing. Potter and Lupin were going at it, practically screaming at each other in the middle of the kitchen. Weasley was slumped against the back wall, sobs wracking through his body. Finnigan had collapsed in a chair, head in his hands, muttering softly.
Only one person seemed to be paying attention to him.
On the other side of the room, Fred was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, eyes trained on Draco. He looked pensive. When the twin's eyes met the former Death Eater's, Draco read something in them.
It wasn't pity. It wasn't anger.
It was understanding.
"Remus," Fred said, over the belligerent noises Potter was making. The twin's eyes were still trained on Draco. "We don't have time for this."
Lupin turned away from Potter mid-rant, towards the others. Draco could say the fury painted across his face.
"Well, I'm sorry Fred, but I just can't fucking fathom that these morons left her."
Fred's lips twitched. "Watch yourself, Remus. You sound like Snape."
"He was there," Potter interrupted, his face white. He glanced around. "Snape was at the manor."
"Snape?" Remus asked, the surprise breaking through his wall of anger for a moment. "We haven't heard from him in years."
"He doesn't do missions," Draco spoke up.
All eyes snapped to him. He raised an eyebrow, shocked at the fascination this fact seemed to elicit.
"Is this the most important thing right now?"
Lupin shook his head. "No, the most important thing is that you two," he started, turning back to the Dangerous Duo. "You left the most powerful witch of this generation in the hands of Death Eaters!"
"We didn't leave her!" Potter replied. "She chose to stay. She gave herself up. She wanted us to get out."
"I cannot believe that's what happened."
"It has to be," Blaise said, walking forward to Lupin's shaking form. "These morons would never leave Hermione, come on, Remus, you know that."
"I didn't want to leave her," Potter whispered, his face white as a ghost. Weasley was still crying quietly. "But she… she made her choice. And before we knew it, Snape was pushing us out, and we were spinning through the Floo."
Draco did not like Harry Potter. Draco did not think Harry Potter had much to offer anyone, especially in comparison to Hermione.
But he did believe the man, as agony was painted across his face. He would not have just left her. Not in a pit of snakes.
Not even Potter was that stupid.
"How did Snape know where to send you?" Fred asked.
"I don't know," Potter replied. "But now we're here."
"Potter," Draco spoke up, his voice empty of emotion. He couldn't muster it for these two men. "I understand that you didn't leave her, but how could you have left at all?"
Potter's eyes narrowed. "Like you could have done anything different. I get that you two are Others or whatever the fuck, but you couldn't have changed her mind on this. You know that. She selfless. She's selfless to a point of fault. That's what makes her so easy to love."
The word hung in the air like an indictment, as Potter held his gaze for a moment longer than he needed to.
No one else seemed to notice.
"So, what do we do?" Finnigan whispered, his head still in his hands. Draco had forgotten he was even here. The man had seemed frozen in his own personal hell.
And though Draco hated Finnigan, and would like to make that very clear, he understood the pain the man was facing.
Having lost his best friend, and facing the reality of losing Hermione, even if she wasn't his.
Draco frowned. No, of course she wasn't Finnigan's.
She was his.
"Well," Blaise said, glancing around, interrupting Draco's thoughts. "I think the answer is pretty clear."
The former Death Eater closed his eyes, as the fate of tragedy struck like lightning.
"We need to invade Malfoy Manor. Again."
She heard the knock on the door, and she knew.
It was like someone else was moving her muscles, as she began to walk across the room, reaching out to open the handle, and glancing down at her visitor.
A small house-elf stood in the hall. "They are requesting you in the drawing room, Madame."
Hermione nodded, unsure if she would be able to speak. She was unsure if she was able to anything right now.
Have you ever existed in a moment that simultaneously took years and milliseconds? That's how she felt, approaching the drawing room.
The most important meeting of your lifetime.
It was as if she were sleepwalking, heading down the hall, to the stairs, to the double doors.
She wasn't even present enough to take a deep breath.
She pushed forward, wondering what hell she would find on the other side.
Pushing up her Occlumency walls, she walked forward into the middle of the room, towards the figure at the opposite end.
He was turned away from her, looking at the fireplace. Wearing long black robes, the only skin she could see was the white stretched over his skull.
At his feet was a large snake, curled around her master. She met Nagini's eyes, and the creature barred her teeth, eliciting a long hiss.
At least this time, she wouldn't be petrified for months, Hermione thought dryly.
She let her eyes wander up from the snake towards the monster it was coiled around. At Nagini's hiss, the Dark Lord himself turned to see what his pet was reacting to.
Snakelike eyes glanced up to meet hers.
And after a moment, the low voice filled the room, sending shivers up her spine.
"Miss Le Fay," Tom Riddle said, smirking. "At long last."
She only had one cohesive thought.
Draco, you completed your mission.
Please review :)
