A/N: Okay, now it's truly embarrassing how often I update. But I need to know what happens in this story and I can't do that unless I write it. I am La Campanella.
Hermione awakened propped up by another living human on the Grangers' kitchen floor. The air in the room was faintly smoky with the greasy water that had boiled over onto the top of the cooker. The electric lights overhead seemed harsh and stinging. Sound was returning to her ears as if it was washing back into her brain like a tide washing over gravel. The sound was her mother's voice, and it was coming from the body holding her torso up off the linoleum.
"Hermione, darling, what's happened? You gave us a fright. One moment I was calling to you about the cooking and the next..."
Her father was standing over them, having rushed in without setting down his glass of claret, bobbing his head in front of the light hanging from the ceiling, watching her pupils dilate.
She had passed out for a matter of seconds, but it felt as if it could have been days. It had happened in a blast of frantic piano music, the smell of narcissus flowers, and the flash of a familiar blue light behind her eyes. The scent and the music portended danger, but the light was love - him. She didn't know how it could have happened without her, but Draco's love charm had been activated, called into service. And at that moment, the magic of the charm had drawn strength from her, shaking her to her very centre, enough that, for an instant, she had fallen unconscious.
"Is anyone else here?" she asked, straining to sit up, to see if Draco was there, and if he was alright.
Her parents assumed she meant the expected dinner guests and assured her they were alone.
Something had happened - changed. But all she would tell her parents was, "I'm alright. Must have lost my balance and tripped."
Ann was trying to palpate her skull through her hair. "I didn't see you hit your head. How does it feel to you?"
Hermione pressed her fingers to her temples. "No pain at all. I'm just a little woozy. Sorry for the scare. Best get up before the guests arrive."
She leaned away from her mother, showing them she was able to sit up on her own, but they still refused to let her stand. She sat on the floor between her parents, sipping the glass of orange juice they insisted she take, fielding awkward questions.
No, she hadn't been skipping meals recently.
Yes, she had been staying up late but so were all of the NEWT students, just like her parents had done leading up to their A-Levels, their sights set on dental school.
No, she didn't think she needed to relinquish her prefect duties to spend more time caring for herself.
Yes, the air was fresher at school in Scotland than at home in London.
"What about stress?" Ann probed. "There have been some terrible but very odd accidents throughout the city recently. It's not trouble with - your people, is it?"
"Every society has political strife," Hermione answered truthfully. "You needn't worry," she added, much less truthfully. The truth was she was barely holding back the frantic urge to find the nearest Floo and fling herself into Malfoy Manor, of such a thing was even possible, to fix whatever had gone wrong. But that would be ridiculously reckless - a Harry stunt. And afterall, Snape was there, and Madam Malfoy was still a witch of some acclaim, and then there was Draco himself. For the moment, she had to trust them to be strong and wise in the face of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange's wicked madness.
The most urgent job for her right now was to stay undiscovered as the charm caster, and to keep her parents separate from it all.
There was a gap in the Grangers' questioning, an uncomfortable silence wherein Ann looked at Tim over the top of Hermione's head far too knowingly. Something passed between them, coursing through Tim like a shudder Hermione couldn't help but see. Perhaps it was already too late to keep them separate from her real life. She braced herself for what was to come.
Her apprehension grew when Ann spoke with her falsely chipper dentist's voice. "Tim, dear, fetch that home blood pressure monitor from the bathroom, would you? Underneath the sink. You may have to dig."
He couldn't have agreed to leave any quicker, virtually scrambling out of the room. Ann extended an arm to Hermione and raised her onto a kitchen chair. She took a deep breath and folded her hands together on the tabletop before she began. "Now, about this Drago Malcolm - "
"Draco Malfoy."
"That's it. You and he - how involved are you? It's not a mere crush - "
"No, Mum, not at all."
"So I'm right to assume your relationship with him is - physical."
"It has many dimensions - "
"Including physical."
Hermione bowed over the table, laughing with relief. THIS was her parents' burning anxiety about events in wizarding Britain? "Yes, Mum. I'm seventeen. It's the age of majority in wizarding society. It's alright."
"Seventeen. It bloody well - " Ann stopped herself, drew in another deep breath, refolded her hands. "Hermione, you must be frank with us if we're about to be grandparents. You'll need regular medical attention - "
"Grandparents?"
"Yes, low blood pressure and lightheadedness are not uncommon in pregnancies, even young, healthy ones - "
"Mum, I am not pregnant. I can't be. Draco and I - we're together, but not like that."
"Thank all that's holy!" It was Tim, bawling from the doorway, squeezing the bulb of a sphygmomanometer rather cruelly. "We've hardly had a chance to be parents to you these past six years, let alone grandparents."
"Dad, stop."
"Quiet, Hermione," Ann was saying. "You musn't talk while having your blood pressure read."
Hermione obediently rolled up her sleeve, even as she protested, "Well, the reading is going to be awry now anyway, with the pair of you sat here accusing me of being pregnant."
"Who's accusing?" Tim said, strapping her arm into the blood pressure cuff.
"And tell me," Ann went on, "exactly what kind of access does this school serving legally adult students give you to proper contraceptives? And I do mean proper medical contraceptives, not a lot of dodgy Latin and wishing on stars."
"Mum, it's not like that." Hermione sat back as the machine's display flashed with a perfectly normal blood pressure. "And it's not as though I don't know about Mug-, about non-magical contraception. I read a whole book on it when I was ten, remember?"
Ann loosed the cuff. "Maybe so, but you're not going back to that school until you see a doctor and get something to protect your future, and Declan Malfort's too."
"Draco Malfoy!"
"Yes, you'll meet him again with The Pill in hand. Age of majority my eye…"
Hermione was about to object, to do what she always did whenever her parents expressed concern that the things they wanted for her were absent from the wizarding world. But then she paused. Her situation was unpredictable. Voldemort was back, tormenting Draco's family, stalking the headmaster. Lives were on the line and it wasn't impossible that she could end up having to say yes to Draco, marrying him, and needing to prevent becoming a mother whilst still at school.
She had read about contraceptive charms from a book in the library, but would that be adequate? What was it that McGonagall had told her when she first matched her with Draco for dance lessons before the Yule Ball - not everything is best learned from a book? But who did she have to learn it from if not a book?
She thought of the adult witches in her life. Tonks was in and out of Hogwarts quite a lot this year, but she seemed to be pining for someone so it probably wasn't a good time. Professor McGonagall hadn't been married as a young person, so her knowledge might be as academic as Hermione's. Molly Weasley might react poorly to such questions, worried they might have something to do with Ron - or worried that they might not. Either way, she was not an option, and not just because, by appearances, Molly may never have mastered contraceptive charms herself. Madam Pomfrey could tell her something, but her contact with Hermione had never been personal. A talk with her would be just as clinical as a visit to her mother's doctor. So why not start at her mother's doctor, to put her parents' minds at ease, at the very least?
"Fine, Mum. I still say I don't need it, but if you need me to have it, call the doctor."
Draco's first apparation outside of a class, which was also his first attempt conveying a side-along apparation ever, went as well as could be expected. His turn into the maneuvre was a beautiful (if excessive) pirouette executed in the centre of the floor of his mother's bedroom. But he should have done more to prepare Snape instead of leaving him tripping to keep up and keep hold of his arm. As it happened, the pair of them landed on the gravel outside the manor skidding in a circle, barely staying on their feet.
Snape flung Draco's arm back at him. "That will not happen again."
"Sorry, sir." The December night was bitingly cold. Draco hugged his jacket around himself, pulling his hands inside his sleeves.
"I suppose you'll have to be returned to school," Snape said. "You may be brought back here if his anger abates - or if it fails to abate enough."
He shook his head. "If I'm at school, won't he be expecting me to be mending the cabinet? That's no way to buy us time while we figure out what just happened. There must be somewhere else..."
"Spare me the lovesick excuses, Draco. You will not convince me to take you to her. Bringing you to her home would be the same as leading the Dark Lord to her door. You must be kept somewhere the Dark Lord has nothing to gain by knowing, or else somewhere unplottable." A new light appeared in an upper window of the Manor. Snape snagged Draco's collar and tugged him down the lane, away from the house.
"Your people - your other people - they must have someone who could take me in," Draco said, twisting free. "I mean, what's the opposite of Malfoy Manor?"
Snape smirked. "That would be a house known as the Burrow, home to a large family of Weasleys."
Draco shrank slightly into the hedge at his back.
Snape advanced toward him. "You performed so well with the Dark Lord just now, Draco. Are you not cunning enough to convince him that you could be spending a warm holiday with your chums Potter and Weasley?"
Draco blinked. "There must be somewhere else. Where do you live?"
"I am expected back here before tomorrow morning. Both the Dark Lord and the headmaster require my services at Malfoy Manor, as does your mother. And if you were to stay alone, in my home - I could not guarantee - your - safety there."
Draco understood charmed houses well, and he hung his head. He didn't mean to make himself into the picture of a pathetic, beautiful, loved child driven out of his home in winter, but he did anyway. Snape let out a long sigh. "Take my arm."
With no tripping or skidding, they were in London, Islington, on a dark Muggle street. "Behold the second of your secrets for the evening," Snape said. The brick and stone of the row of houses before them began to grind and shift, making way for one more home, far dirtier and more decrepit than its Muggle neighbours. Draco's mother would have known the place well, from her childhood when it belonged to her Aunt Walburga. It was another house of Black, 12 Grimmauld Place.
"The last of your family to live here was your mother's late cousin, Sirius Black," Snape explained. "Whether your mother or her sisters have any hold on this place or not, no one knows. If your Aunt Bella appears, remain calm. Quietly disapparate, as you did before, go back to Hogsmeade and to the school. Notify me at once."
They were through the door, into a dusty hall smelling of mould. A large portrait of a sick old woman hung on the wall. Draco couldn't help but gape at it. The face became animated as the door creaked shut. It was sneering at Snape, teeth bared, as if about to scream at him. But then it noticed Draco and broke into exultant laughter.
"At last!" the portrait shrieked. "At long last, a true heir of the house of Black. Come to purge us of the vermin, the years of waste and rot, the mud…"
"Do not dally, Draco," Snape said, nudging him further inside.
From the kitchen door, at knee-height, the oldest, most tattered house elf Draco had ever seen was shuffling out to meet them. Snape spoke to him. "Kreacher, this is our guest, Mr. - "
"This is our master," the elf interrupted. "Young Master Black."
Draco began to argue.
"However you like it, Kreacher," Snape said shortly. "It does not matter in the least. See that he is warm and fed and tell no one he is here." Snape was pulling on a pair of gloves as if he was about to leave at once.
Draco clutched at the tails of his coat as he spun away. "Sir, please - where are you going? Back to the Manor?"
"Eventually."
"But not directly," Draco nodded. "You're going to her first. To see that she wasn't hurt when - not like Potter's - I mean, sorry, sir. But please tell me. I understand I can't come along, but I must know."
Snape flashed an angry look at him but spoke coolly. "Since I am already in London, I will take this opportunity to visit a very accomplished, very anxious, one could say, insufferable student who was devastated this summer to find she had received an OWL grade of Outstanding in every class except the one which I now teach. I have long been meaning to discuss the need for maintaining realistic expectations of ourselves with this student and her parents, particularly as they have been through neither the OWL nor the NEWT testing processes themselves. That is who I will visit tonight and why. Do you understand, Mr. Malfoy?"
Draco's posture slackened, relieved, nodding since he couldn't trust himself to keep from sayIng something that would ruin everything.
Snape strode to the door, stopping just shy of opening it. He met Draco's eye along the length of the hall, and as he looked at him, Snape's chest swelled a little, feeling something, perhaps pride. "Get some rest, Draco. It is well-deserved."
Tim Granger was red-faced and laughing loudly, another glass of claret in his hand, his sisters and their families wined and dined, settled into his house for the night, the holidays upon them, when a loud knock sounded on the front door. Tim opened it to find a barely familiar, barely friendly face.
With far too much jolly shouting, Tim welcomed Severus Snape into the hall. He turned to fetch Ann, calling more loudly than he realized, "It's our girl's teacher, the nasty one from the station, he's here."
"Dad, please," Hermione said tagging along with Ann.
For the first time in her memory, Professor Snape looked something like pleased to see her. "You're looking well, Miss Granger."
She blinked. "Thank you, sir."
"Professor Snape," Ann said, waving him into the study with grand, sweeping waves of her arms. "I would like a word about student hygiene and reproductive health at Hogwarts."
"Mum, no. Not tonight - "
"Do sit down," Tim was saying. "Refreshment? 'Tis the season, and all that."
"Thank you, no," Snape said, remaining standing. "You are kind. But as I have arrived unannounced, and I can see you are indisposed, it would be wrong of me to stay."
"Women's health," Ann was saying, as if launching into prepared remarks, "is paramount in a civilizationalized society - "
"Yes," Tim interrupted. "Why just today, our Hermione had a bad spell in the kitchen. Laid her out on the floor for half a moment. That school of yours has sent her back to us exhausted, weak as a baby."
"Hush, Timothy," Ann hurried, waving her arms in his face. "Not only that, it has sent her back to us pining for Dieter Mandrake."
Snape frowned. "Draco Malfoy?"
"Is he alright, Professor?" Hermione burst in. "Draco - did something happen to him today? Any trouble with his houseguests?"
Snape narrowed his eyes. "Yes. But he weathered it well and will be spending the rest of his holidays elsewhere - the former headquarters. And you, Miss Granger, I share your parents' concerns about your health and safety and will see to it they are addressed with the utmost seriousness when term recommences. Are you quite well, after your 'bad spell'?"
She answered with a slow nod. "It was a shock, but it's over now."
"Let us hope so." He turned back to the Granger parents, taking his leave, cutting short any more sloppy attempts at policy discussions. "Doctors Granger," he said with a slight bow, "I do apologize again for my interruption. We shall speak again soon."
And to a chorus of "Happy Christmas" wishes, Snape stepped back into the street.
Draco lay on the sofa in the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place, a low, smoky fire burning on the hearth, a half-eaten meal of stew and bread still on the table at his side. He felt filthy, worn out, ages older than he had been when he'd got out of his bed in the Slytherin dungeon that morning. He'd had to treat his own cut hands and they were still stinging slightly beneath the bandages he'd wrapped around them. There was nothing good to stay awake for, but he wasn't sleeping.
His feelings were a mess, cycling from joy at having survived his defiance of the Dark Lord with both his mother and Hermione still alive, but also horror at what the future would bring. In the Dark Lord's chambers, Draco had fired all of his tricks at once. What did he have left to defend anyone with? And so much of it was thanks to Snape. He felt so grateful to his teacher, it moved him almost to tears, but at the same time, he wasn't sure how much he could trust him.
Foremost among his feelings was loneliness. There was no one here, in this miserable house. There was a foul portrait and a fouler house elf to serve her. Otherwise, no one even knew he was here. He could die in the night, shed his hair and flesh onto this sofa, asphyxiated by the bad fireplace or any number of other things, and he would just slip away, out of history, lost.
He turned over on the sofa, scolding himself for his melancholy. When Christmas was over, he would return to school. Hermione would be there. The damnable cabinet would be there too, but if she was there, they'd figure out what to do. He had to tell her about it now. And even if they didn't think of anything, they'd be together.
Though for now, they were not.
Even with his eyes still open in the low firelight, he heard it before he saw it - entering the house with a sound like wind, or water, rushing down the chimney, turning the flames a silvery white. He sat up on the sofa, too overwhelmed to even fumble for his wand. The silver flames seemed to blow out of the hearth and into the room, swirling in a loop around the walls, against the floor and ceiling, moving inward until they had coiled around him. There was a sensation of being bathed in warm water, the same temperature as his own blood. And in the lights he saw a creature - long and sinuous, with sleek fur, pawing at the air as if swimming through it.
"Hermione!"
It was her Patronus. She had described it to him before but he'd never seen it, though now that it was swimming around and over him, it was unmistakable. It felt like her - her touch, her breath, her love. Its appearance meant she was safe, brilliant as always, powerful, and longing for him the same way he was desperate for some sign of her. He opened his arms to the light and magic, sad as it faded, but still, silent, falling to sleep.