Bone of Contention

Summary: SSHG, AU, Hermione is suspicious about Dumbledore's death and what led up to it. Furious when she questions what happened, Harry and Ron make an impulsive decision with disastrous consequences.

A/N: This will be my first multi-chapter fic in ages. I hope you like it.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Arthur Conan Doyle

The three friends sat under the massive oak beside Black Lake spending a quiet afternoon together on the last day of school. Tomorrow morning, they would leave for the summer hols and Harry would return to the Dursley home for the very last time. Ron sipped from a bottle of butterbeer and watched the giant squid lazily waving his tentacles in the air. Hermione sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, frowning slightly as she listened to Harry talk about what he'd seen on the night of the headmaster's death.

"Dumbledore said, 'Severus, please," Harry said bitterly. "He didn't want to die, Hermione!'

Hermione hummed, looking thoughtful.

"Whut?" Ron grunted.

"It's just… what if he did?" she asked.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Harry demanded.

"Mental, I tell you," Ron muttered.

Ignoring Ron for the moment, Hermione looked Harry straight in the eye. "Harry, think about what you just said. You're saying the headmaster begged Professor Snape for his life."

"How many times do I have to tell you what happened, Hermione? Do you think I'm lying?"

"No, Harry, I don't." Hermione said with a sigh. "I just… something doesn't seem right. I keep feeling like there's something we're missing. Something important."

"What do you mean, 'Mione? It seems perfectly simple to me. Snape's a bloody traitor. He used the killing curse on Dumbledore and Harry saw it. End of story!"

"I beg to differ, Ronald," Hermione snapped. "And then there's the headmaster's hand. It looked blackened and… well, dead. It sounded a lot like a withering curse. I read about them in a book from the library at Grimmauld Place. They're nearly always fatal."

"So what?" Harry said mulishly. "Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard alive. And I spent more time with him this year than any other. If he was sick or dying, he would've told me!"

"Would he really, Harry?" Hermione bit her lip. "I'm not so sure about that."

"Why don't you believe me?!" Snape killed Dumbledore!"

"Oh Harry," Hermione said softly. "I do believe you. I just think there's more to it. The headmaster was in a really bad way this year. And in addition to the problem with his hand, didn't you tell us that Dumbledore drank some sort of potion in that cave?"

Harry nodded, frowning. "Yeah, he was a bit weak but if I could've just gotten Madam Pomfrey, he'd've been alright, I know it!"

"If You-Know-Who decided to use that potion to protect the locket, it would've been something lethal, Harry." Hermione bit her lip. "Between his hand and the potion, I'm… "

"Are you fucking MAD, Hermione," Ron yelled suddenly, his face red and his hands clenched into fists. "You think HARRY killed Dumbledore?!

"No, of course not!"

"Sure sounds like it to me," Harry bit out before jumping to his feet and storming off towards the castle.

Ron gave Hermione a disgusted look. "Just shut it, 'Mione. Harry doesn't care what you think and neither do I. You just go play with your stupid books and leave the real work to us, yeah?"

Harry and Ron dumped their schoolbooks out onto their beds, they wouldn't need them after today. Casting shrinking charms on their trunks before stashing them in their pockets, they quietly made their way down the stairs into the Gryffindor common room with scowls plastered to their faces.

They were beyond livid with Hermione over her questioning what Harry had seen and had loudly made their opinions known to the rest of the sixth-year boys' dorm. Their mates, however, were not impressed at all and had finally told the pair of them to shut it and go the hell to bed already.

Fucking tossers, the lot of them.

Pulling Harry's invisibility cloak over themselves, the pair made their way through the halls until they came to the statue of the one-eyed witch and eased into the hidden passage behind it. When Harry decided they'd gone far enough to not be detected, the two stopped for a moment.

"Dobby," Harry called out softly.

POP!

"Harry Potter called Dobby?"

"Dobby, I need you to do a couple things for me," Harry said, looking a bit shifty.

"Dobby is happy to do anything for Harry Potter!"

"First, could you get us a couple baskets of food? Whatever you have on hand, we're not that fussy. And some butterbeers, maybe?"

"Oi, speak for yourself, Harry! Dobby, pack mine with bacon sandwiches, sausage rolls, pork pies, fried chicken, Scotch eggs, and loads of brownies, cakes and biscuits, yeah?"

Harry licked his lips. "Um, that sounds pretty good to me too, Dobby. Maybe some ham and cheese toasties, Cornish pasties, steak and kidney pie, treacle tarts, and a couple flasks of pumpkin juice too."

POP!

Dobby was back in less than a minute with two enormous baskets filled with a vast array of mouthwatering goodies. With a snap of his fingers, the baskets were shrunk down and stowed in the boys' trunks along with a case of butterbeer apiece.

The elf grinned up at his favourite boy wizard. "Dobby packed all of Harry Potter's and his Wheezy's favourites. Anything else Dobby can do?"

Nodding, Harry fished in his pocket and pulled out a somewhat battered-looking envelope with Ginny scrawled upon it. "Could you make sure that Ginny Weasley gets this when she comes down to breakfast?"

"Dobby will do as Harry Potter says."

Harry smiled. "Thanks, Dobby, you're a real friend."

"Lots better than 'Mione," Ron muttered.

Dobby tilted his head and gave Ron a strange look. "Missy 'Mione always does what's best for Harry Potter and his Wheezy."

Harry squirmed for a moment, then set his jaw, firmly pushing any second thoughts out of his head. "We've got to get moving, Ron. Thanks for all the food, Dobby. Um…. keep this to yourself, yeah?"

The elf hesitated for a moment. "Dobby will."

He stood in the passageway and watched until both boys were out of sight, then he popped back to the kitchens. He saw Winky weeping as she finished another bottle of butterbeer in a darkened corner and decided to join her.

When Harry and Ron didn't turn up at breakfast the next morning, Hermione began to feel uneasy. Feeling eyes upon her, she looked up to find a tearful Ginny giving her a hateful look from the far end of the table. The redhead poked listlessly at her plate of scrambled eggs before getting up and rushing out of the Great Hall.

Hermione frowned, glancing up at the Head Table to see her professors talking urgently amongst themselves. Professor McGonagall noticed her scrutiny and raised her eyebrows in question. Hermione shook her head negatively, her professor's lips taking on a decidedly pinched look.

Hermione's stomach was in knots during the remainder of the meal, and she only managed to eat half a slice of toast with her tea.

Neville gave her a sympathetic look and leaned over to whisper in her ear, "Share a carriage with me to Hogsmeade, yeah? I'll fill you in on the way."

Hermione went cold. "They didn't."

"I'm afraid they did," Neville murmured into his glass of pumpkin juice. "I think they're both bloody idiots, you ask me. You're the sole reason those two have managed to survive this long. You'd think they'd've figured that out by now."

Professor McGonagall stood up and began to address the students before they would board the carriages to Hogsmeade where the Hogwarts Express was waiting to take them back to London. Hermione closed her eyes and let McGonagall's farewell wash over her in a wave of sound, not hearing even a single word.

Oh God, what have I done?

Hermione and Neville found an empty Thestral-drawn carriage near the end of the line, an unusually grave-looking Luna joining them along the way.

As they sat down, Neville sighed and said, "Last I saw Harry and Ron, they were talking a bunch of rubbish about how you didn't believe Harry's account of what happened and, well, they were being pretty obnoxious about it. I just kind of tuned them out, I know how those two are when they get all pissed off and won't listen to reason. Anyway, the rest of us blokes finally had enough and told them to shut it and go to bed. Must've been near midnight. When we got up in the morning, their beds hadn't been slept in, but their books were there, and both their trunks were missing. Hermione, what really happened? There must be more to it than that and I know how thick Harry and Ron can be."

Hermione let out a shuddering breath. "I just tried to tell them that what happened with Dumbledore doesn't make sense. That all the pieces don't fit. The boys took that to mean I didn't believe Harry's story and that I blamed him for Dumbledore's death, but that's not it at all."

Neville frowned. "What do you mean, exactly?"

"I thought Harry and Ronald had way too many Grumblekilts floating around them yesterday," Luna murmured. "When they cluster around your head, they cause you to become rather irritable and quarrelsome. They can also drive people to incredibly rash behaviour, which explains quite a lot."

"That sounds like them all right," Neville commented with a snort.

Crookshanks nuzzled Hermione's hand from inside his carrier in an attempt at comfort. She let him out and the cat promptly curled up in her lap, purring madly as she gently scratched behind his ears.

"Are you sure?" Hermione bit her lip.

"I'm sure. Hermione, you're easily the smartest person I know. If you think something's not right, then I believe you. I'd like to say I can't believe that those gits didn't, but I've seen time and again how quick they are to snub you when you tell them something they don't particularly want to hear."

"I should've just kept my mouth shut," Hermione said with a sigh. "But you're right, they don't ever listen unless I agree with them, or they want something."

Neville leaned over and gave her a firm hug. "They went off half-cocked as usual and that's not your fault, Hermione. Harry's stubborn and impulsive and Ron's always been a temperamental git. Anyway, you were saying something about things not adding up?"

Hermione nodded slowly. "It's been really bothering me, what Harry said about the headmaster pleading with Snape not to kill him. Can you really see Professor Dumbledore begging someone to spare his life?"

"Now that you mention it, no, I can't." Neville admitted.

"That doesn't sound like the headmaster at all," Luna agreed.

"And there's more. Remember the headmaster's hand?"

They nodded.

"I noticed that Dumbledore seemed to be in a great deal of pain but was doing his best to hide it. And his hand never got any better. In fact, I suspect it was getting much worse. I saw him lift up a platter at the Christmas feast and the sleeve of his robe fell back for a moment. I could see that his arm up to the elbow was just as black and shrivelled as his hand. It looked an awful lot like a withering curse."

"Those are pretty much always fatal," Neville said with a shiver.

"And they generally get even more powerful over time," Luna observed quietly. "You think the headmaster was already dying, don't you, Hermione?"

She nodded slowly. "I do. And Harry told me about when he and the headmaster went looking for… something important to do with You-Know-Who. What they were looking for had been placed at the bottom of a basin filled with potion. A potion that had to be drunk or else it simply appeared back in the basin."

Neville looked almost ill. "Dumbledore drank it, didn't he?"

"He did," Hermione confirmed. "Harry said that the professor was very weak afterwards, to the point he had to half-carry him to his broom so they could return to Hogwarts. When they got back, the headmaster Petrified and Disillusioned Harry right before he was confronted by the Death Eaters. Malfoy was with them, and it seemed he was the one meant to kill Dumbledore, but he couldn't go through with it. According to Harry, that's when the headmaster said, "Severus, please" and Professor Snape killed him."

Luna gave Hermione a knowing look. "So, what you're saying is that Dumbledore was already dying from a curse, drinking the potion made him even weaker, and when Snape killed him, it could have been a mercy killing?"

"Hermione, do you really think that's what happened?" Neville gave her an oddly intent look.

Hermione nodded, cuddling Crookshanks close. "I know you never liked him, Neville, and God knows he treated you very badly, but… that's exactly what I think. And there's something else too. Hagrid told us he'd overheard Professor Snape arguing with the headmaster awhile back about not wanting to do something, but the headmaster reminded him that he'd already agreed to do it."

"I hate to admit it, but that makes a lot of sense," Neville admitted. "You're right, I never liked Snape, but I believe that Dumbledore, if he knew he was dying and there was no way to save him, would find a way to make his death help the war effort in some way. And it seems to me that if it appeared Snape killed Dumbledore, that You-Know-Who would want to reward him. My guess is they figured he would make Snape the new headmaster."

"That's what I think too," Hermione said, scrubbing a hand across her eyes. "You-Know-Who would certainly have Death Eaters working at Hogwarts and, as headmaster, Professor Snape would be able to protect students from them at least somewhat. Still, I should've known better, Neville. I knew Harry and Ron wouldn't listen and I went and said it anyway."

"That's not your fault, Hermione," Neville insisted. "If they do get hurt, well, that's on them. You can't hold their hands for the rest of their lives, you know."

"I know, Neville." Hermione shook her head miserably. "It's just that they're going to get themselves killed. "If only I'd kept my mouth shut…"

"If you had kept your thoughts to yourself, it would've ended up being something else, Hermione," Luna pointed out. "Harry is impulsive and quick to anger and so is Ronald. I'm afraid they bring out the worst in each other and nothing you could've done was ever going to change that."

A sudden tapping at the window drew their attention and with a flick of her wand, Luna allowed a young barn owl entry. Gliding in to perch on Crookshanks' carrier, the bird politely extended its leg to Hermione.

She removed the message and scanned it with a frown.

"What is it, Hermione?" Neville asked worriedly.

"It's from Professor McGonagall. She says something's happened. Auror Shacklebolt will be waiting for me and Luna at the station in Hogsmeade. He's to bring us back to Hogwarts immediately."

TBC