Chapter Two:
"Where the heck are we?" Hermione looked around frantically, seeing yellowing stone walls on either side and one pokey window in the entire corridor. She darted across the threadbare, sun-bleached carpet runner and gripped tightly to the crumbling window sill. The window was scratched and hazy at best so she couldn't see a single thing in what she assumed was the darkness of night.
They had been dragged to that blasted arch by a swirling vortex—compelled to enter it—and then sucked through it with a similar sensation to Apparition. Except when they landed, they were in the middle of a dusty, mildewy corridor and not anywhere Hermione had envisioned arriving in. The torches in the sconces spluttered and wavered before flaring just a little bit brighter, revealing nothing more than what she'd observed already in the dimmer light.
"Oh, fuck!" Sarah said. She hadn't moved, but as Hermione turned to her, she saw the blood drain rapidly from her friend's face. "I know where we are."
"Where are we?" Hermione asked slowly, trying for patience, but it came out sarcastic to her ears. She tried to push her rain and wind-ravaged hair behind her ears, but it instantly disobeyed, springing back and covering her face. Why did she agree to go for a walk with her friend? She should have stayed home, snuggled up under a blanket, reading. Reading doesn't get you transported physically to the—wherever they were.
"The Labyrinth." Sarah still hadn't moved. Her eyes had become dazed and fixed on a point past Hermione. She turned and saw an oak door a few metres away that wasn't there before.
"Labyrinth as in Crete?" Hermione asked, hopefully. Crete was only a Portkey away from Britain. She would just send a Patronus to Harry and get him to arrange it. Yes, it would mean revealing that she was magic to Sarah, but that could be controlled with a memory charm.
"No. As in Goblins."
Hermione didn't have time to ask anything to assuage her curiosity when the oak door opened with a rather loud screech.
Both women turned to face the door with trepidation. Hermione raised her wand, grateful it came with her. She always had it on her. Even when living with a Muggle who kept insisting that she knew Hermione was magic every single day. Still, the Statute of Secrecy meant she couldn't reveal the truth to Sarah. She had a glamoured holster on her arm so no one could see it or detect it, but her wand was always on her. Now was not the time to be worrying about secrecy.
Sarah scoffed. "What do you plan to do with that?" she asked in a whisper. "Poke the King's eye out?"
Hermione didn't respond verbally because 'the King' strode through the door in a swirl of black. She made a mental note to chastise her friend for accusing her of being magic and then mocking the symbol of said magic when presented with it.
Sarah made a confused humming sound, and Hermione baulked.
"Professor Snape?"
The man had been reading a book, so had not seen the two women standing—in their rain-drenched anoraks—in the hallway dripping onto the floor, but as Hermione spoke, his head snapped up, and his eyes instantly widened.
"Granger, pray, tell: what are you doing here?" His voice was the same as ever. His wardrobe hadn't changed if his present black garb was anything to go by. His hair was still long and black, but less greasy and his nose was as prominent as ever. Perhaps his eyes contained a previously unknown softness about them, but they instantly hardened into those fathomless black pits she had seen look upon her with scorn and derision for most of her Hogwarts career.
"B-but you're dead, Sir?"
Snape gestured at himself with an expression that read, 'Obviously not.'
"You know him?" Sarah hissed.
Hermione raised her brow. "No, he died. This has to be a trick." Louder, she asked, "If you are Professor Snape, tell me, what was your nickname for me back at Hogwarts?"
Snape smirked. "I am not Professor Snape, and I have not been for quite some time."
Hermione wandlessly erected a shield charm around her and Sarah. "Then who are you?" She blinked as her magic felt thick and sluggish as if it was manifesting in molasses and not air.
"I am simply Severus Snape." He eyed her carefully before closing the book and holding it under one arm. "And I affectionately called you an Insufferable Know-it-all."
Sarah snorted beside her, but Hermione ignored her pinch of embarrassment. Getting angry that this Snape look-alike would do anything affectionately wouldn't help them out of this bind.
"How are you not dead?" She didn't want to contemplate that she and Sarah were in fact dead and this was some awful afterlife.
"That is a long story. More importantly, why are you here?"
"Well, with that attitude, we wouldn't tell you if we knew." Sarah crossed her arms. "Where is the King?"
Snape eyed Sarah with mild interest before returning expressionless eyes to Hermione. "You wish to see the King?"
Hermione couldn't drag her eyes away from Sarah. How the fuck did she know there was a King in this barren-looking place? Clearly, her earlier assertion about the king had not been about Snape.
"Not particularly," Sarah muttered. "But he has to be responsible for this so he can undo it."
"I assure you that if he were expecting visitors, he would have mentioned it to…me," Snape replied evenly.
Sarah pursed her lips and crossed her arms. "I don't know who you are, but I assure you that the King will want to see me."
Hermione narrowed her eyes at her friend. Who is this king?
"And who are you that expects an audience with His Majesty?" Severus asked evenly.
"Sarah…I'm Sarah," she said, her confidence falling with every syllable as Snape remained nonplussed.
"And that is supposed to mean something?" he asked, tilting his head slightly. "It is an exceedingly common name Aboveground."
Sarah bolstered herself, and took a few steps forward, dissolving the shield charm. "Tell him that I am the Sarah that defeated his scrawny, pale ass and all his goblins nearly thirty years ago."
Snape stepped closer to her. "I think not."
"Then we will just go and find him ourselves."
"Guards." Snape didn't raise his voice or even blink. He remained stoic and still as he watched them.
They were quickly surrounded by short brown creatures that Hermione assumed were the goblins Sarah had mentioned. They scurried from every corner as if they were part of the walls themselves. Each one looked vastly different and seemed rather dishevelled and disorganised, but they both found themselves quickly transported through the oak door Snape had come through, unable to resist their poking and prodding of their rather dull but effective weapons.
"How on earth do you know that bastard?" Sarah hissed as they were pushed and shoved into the long chamber, which was much like the hall they'd just been in except for the chairs and paintings that lined the wall.
"How do you know the King?"
"Long story."
"Mine is shorter," Hermione said as little hands shoved at her back. "He was my teacher at school."
"And he died?"
"Presumably." Hermione wondered about that as the goblins steered them mercilessly through the long hall. They had never found his body. Just a puddle of his blood and his broken wand. "I witnessed him dying." Not dead, though.
"What fucked up school did you go to where you witnessed a teacher dying? A magic one?"
Hermione gritted her teeth but nodded.
Sarah exhaled sharply. "Did he wish himself away? Or did someone wish him away?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." And she didn't. If it were as simple as wishing someone away she would have wished away—at the very least—Voldemort or Umbridge. She was sure that Harry and Ron would have wished Snape away a dozen times in the first year alone.
They moved into the next room which was just a mass of stairs in all directions. Gravity-defying directions.
"Oh, shit," Sarah swore. "Not this room again."
Hermione didn't have time to wonder why she'd been in a room that resembled an Escher painting before as their diminutive guard had started pushing and tugging them down a precarious staircase. They hadn't gotten very far when a tall, pale, skinny blonde man came stalking out of one of the doors above them making him appear upside down to them.
Hermione was awash with vertigo as the man stood stock still and peered down or up at them. His hair was distraction enough without him also being upside down. But the fact that he was also wearing skin tight trousers, didn't miss Hermione by. Coupled with the flowy white poet's shirt and the black waistcoat that had skulls etched into the leather, meant the man had her attention.
"Sarah?" the man asked, almost paling further in shock.
"You!" Sarah roared.
"Severus, what is the meaning of this?" the pale man asked.
Unbeknownst to her, Snape must have been following them. Hermione cursed in her mind at not paying attention. Of course, he had been silently trailing them. Why would he just leave them in the mercy of these goblinesque creatures? Hermione absently noted that Gringott's would not hire such creatures. They may share a name but they were vastly different in appearance and behaviour. These ones seemed wild and unruly compared to the goblins she knew; almost like these were feral kin or even the juvenile forms.
"I found them in the Chalké corridor, Your Majesty. Dripping all over the carpet runner." He made it sound like dripping rainwater onto a faded carpet was worse than magically appearing in a labyrinth uninvited.
"And you treat my honoured guests with a goblin escort." He tutted. "Where exactly are you taking them?"
"I was merely going to place them downstairs until you approved an audience with them."
The blonde man—presumably the King—marched up his set of stairs, rounded a corner and then appeared directly in front of them on their plane of existence. Hermione felt queasy.
"Sarah, it has been quite some time." He looked her up and down in an appraising kind of way, topped off with a lascivious grin. "You're no longer a child."
"Keen observation," Sarah said, huffily, but Hermione detected a slight blush belying a scant amount of pleasure at his words. Hermione was really going to hurl now.
"And you have a friend." The King slid his eyes over to Hermione but they remained, thankfully, on her face. The silence stretched on as if he was waiting for something, but Hermione just returned his patient gaze with a hard one of her own. "She has a lot of hair."
Hermione scowled, Sarah shouted an angry, "Hey!" and Snape made some amused sounding grunt from behind them. Hermione couldn't help but label the strange man as a hypocrite considering his hair would make 1980s Tina Turner quite envious. It was blonde, uneven and looked like it had lost the battle with a blast-ended skrewt.
"Hermione Granger, Your Majesty," Snape supplied when no one appeared to want to tell him her name.
"She told you her name?" the King asked with a cocked brow. "Foolish."
"He was my teacher when I was a child so really I had no choice but to," Hermione said through gritted teeth, cutting off any reply Snape was going to make. "But he died."
"Oh, I can definitely tell you are Sarah's friend with your lack of obsequience, your deplorable manners, and your defiance." The King smirked and then stared pointedly at Snape. "And your lack of situational awareness considering that he has clearly not yet snuffed it."
Snape snorted softly behind her. "She does seem to pick friends that believe they are above the rules, Your Majesty."
Hermione spun around to throw her glare at him instead. Snape just shrugged.
The King chuckled. "It is a good thing I am lenient and won't throw you into an oubliette for your lack of deference, but I will insist that you refer to me as Your Majesty."
"Your Royal ass, more like," Sarah muttered. And then louder, "Send us home, Goblin King."
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, if you have a request to make of me, then you need a formal audience." The King tutted. "Basic protocol." His voice was like honey and Hermione couldn't help but wonder if men with beautiful voices all turned out to be morally grey. Harry and Ron both had plain, commonplace voices, yet Snape and this King could teach silk a thing or two. She assumed both of them had learned to use their delectable voices as a weapon quite early on.
Sarah was scowling but Hermione's interest in the two of them had waned as she shifted against one of the goblin's weapons and they dug it in deeper. Hermione winced and in her periphery noticed Snape grabbing the offending goblin and tugging him away, releasing the pressure against her kidney. She sighed in relief but would not thank her captor under any conditions. He had set this motley bunch onto them in the first place.
The King leaned towards the pair. "Sarah, you can either play by the rules or spend your days locked in an oubliette." Then he tapped his lip. "Although, I do remember you being quite fond of a certain bog, so perhaps you could go and keep your friends company there."
"You sent my friends to the Bog?" Sarah all but screeched, making Hermione's ears ring with the sound.
"Your Majesty," Snape said softly from behind Hermione. "Perhaps, it would be prudent to first find out how they got here before we banish them to the Bog. I have the utmost sympathy for wanting to send them there, but if there is a breach in your security…"
The King had oddly matched eyes and Hermione noticed this in a maddening, desperate way as he contemplated Snape's words. He obviously had no need to hear the remainder of what Snape had left hanging because he eventually straightened up, nodded and then gestured behind him.
"We shall retire to my Throne Room where you will tell me how and why you're here and then if I deem your reasons adequate enough, I will grant you a hearing." The King clasped his hands behind his back and spun on his (high) heel, leading them up and around staircases that made no gravitational sense. They'd only gone three or four staircases away when he thankfully dismissed his goblin horde.
They entered through an arch and descended a final staircase into a shabby chicken feather and shit-covered throne room. It stank.
What the fuck was this place?
Hermione stepped over a sleeping (she hoped) goblin and stood next to Sarah—who faced the Goblin King with grim satisfaction as he lounged on his throne. Snape stood stiff and silent on his left-hand side.
"Why are you here?" The King asked. "Proceed."
"We went for a walk in London together and ended up here." Hermione crossed her arms. "That's all there is to it."
"Herman Graceger—"
"Hermione Granger," she corrected, mildly affronted. Sarah reached out and squeezed her wrist in what she supposed was meant to be a comforting way. Years of no one pronouncing her name right, made his blatant ignorance rankle.
"Yes," The King replied, indifferently. "You can't just stroll through London and end up here."
"Well, I assure you that is what happened."
"Now send us home," Sarah said, stepping forward
"Uh, uh, uh." The King wagged his finger. "You need a hearing first, Sarah. How quick you are to forget the rules."
"We walked—or rather got dragged—through a fucking arch that asked for a fucking key which we obviously don't have and then we ended up moving through fucking time and fucking space and dropped unceremoniously in your tatty fucking castle," Sarah all but shouted. "Happy now?"
Hermione had noticed Snape flick his gaze from Sarah to Hermione the moment she'd said the word, 'key,' and that gaze then dropped to her chest. She cleared her throat and raised her crossed arms higher to let him know she'd caught him staring. He didn't even have the grace to look abashed. If anything, his stare intensified as it slowly meandered back to her face.
Meanwhile, the King was twiddling with what looked like one of Professor Trewlaney's crystal balls. He looked bored and it made Hermione's stomach drop out as she realised they would be treated according to his whim. He didn't seem to believe he was responsible for their being there, which had been her first assumption and she would treat him accordingly. Hermione also excused her own rudeness and disrespect on seeing her dead Professor very much not in the state of being unalive. It was, after all, a shock to the system and they have every right to be angry and worried about being stuck here. And if that meant a bit of incivility, then so be it.
"Happy?" the King asked. "You care for my happiness, Sarah?"
"I care that you send us home as I am sure that would make you happy because if you don't, I will make your life a living hell," Sarah ground out. "That's as far as I care about your happiness."
"Tsk." He rolled the crystal down his arm, across the back of his shoulders and up the other arm.
"Well?"
"Well, what?" he asked in a bored drawl.
"We want to go home."
"I haven't decided whether to grant you an audience yet," he replied, throwing the crystal up into the air where it promptly vanished.
"Hermione, point your magic stick at him and hex his bollocks off!" Sarah instructed with her eyes firmly on the King's face. Clearly, Sarah had been spending too much time around Brits. Considering his family jewels were being threatened, the Goblin King just gave a toothy grin and leaned back in his throne.
"Try," he said, gesturing with his hands as he slowly pushed his thighs wide apart. Sarah glanced away with a huff, but Hermione turned nervously to Snape while fingering her wand. His face remained serene and she cursed him in her mind. He was no help.
What was she supposed to do now? The King's magic was unknown and she wasn't a poker player. Was she meant to call his bluff? Or not? She decided a different tactic was necessary.
"I have a friend who may be interested in your dangly bits as earrings, but I think I'd much rather render you mute," Hermione said with way more confidence than she felt. "You talk far too much and way too freely."
Luna had been on her mind the moment she realised they weren't on Earth anymore—well, their version of it at least. She had always struck her as someone who believed in the fae and Hermione's hat wasn't tasting so good. She would have to allow some concessions to her friend's otherworldly theories.
The Goblin King leaned forward, placing his elbow on his knee and smirked. Fuck these two males and their endless supply of smirks. At least this one sneered less than Professor Snape.
"But how could you do that when your—wand, did you call it?—is now a fish?"
Hermione glanced down at her wand to see a dead elver in her hand. She wanted to throw the slimy thing away but after one panicked glance at Snape and seeing the minute shake of his head she held on tighter.
"So you're a master of illusions?" she parried, hoping Snape's infinitesimal shake was a warning and not just his perverse nature. The elver felt slimy to touch and she longed to throw it at his smug face; which smug face of the two men was up for debate.
"Ah, you had mentioned she was smart, Severus," the King said, straightening up. "Perhaps she could be of use."
"Highly unlikely, Your Majesty," Snape said, watching her with inscrutable eyes. Bastard.
"I don't plan on being of use," she spat. "Sarah and I plan on returning home. Now, if you would be so kind."
"Kind?" The King laughed. "You know nothing of my folk if you think the word kind has any bearing on me."
Hermione shrugged. "Sarah's right. You can send us home or we can annoy the fuck out of you. Ask him." She pointed at Snape. "He believed me to be insufferable as a student and I can be a thousand times worse right now."
"Ah, but you see, if you're in an oubliette, you will be forgotten." The King sneered then. "Your magic is no match for mine."
It was also no match for the magic of Severus Snape who was coolly assessing her. She felt like a cornered wild cat. Angry, but trapped. She let out a sigh through her clenched teeth.
"I do not think either of you are in the right frame of mind to have a hearing right now," the King said, shaking his blonde fringe out of his eyes. "So perhaps Severus could show you to the guest wing while you cool down and wait for a time where I might be a bit more willing to listen to you both."
"Is this not a hearing?" Sarah asked, gesturing wildly with her hands.
"This is more a pre-hearing to ascertain if you qualify for a proper hearing," he said with a smirk as Sarah snarled with exasperation. "And I have decided that you will need another hearing where you treat me with nothing but sweetness and then I might consider a proper hearing. Until then, I will be generous enough to allow your stay in the guest wing and not the Bog or an oubliette." He was baring his sharp teeth in a semblance of a smile, but his eyes were only for Sarah. "I am sure you remember my generosity, Sarah."
Sarah scoffed, crossed her arms and looked ready to argue, but she deflated as Severus stepped forward gesturing to another door that had appeared on their right. The King gave a low rather pitiless laugh before he vanished from the spot.
A/N: G'day. So after much debate and many WIPs started, I settled on getting this one posted first. It won't be a hugely long story (famous last words). Depending on how my mood goes I may start posting another SSHG wip in the next few weeks. Because apparently I like living on the edge with multiple WIPs released to the wild instead of cosy and warm on my laptop. Chapter 3 will be up this week too, and then it will come as it comes. :) Most of this is written. It just needs sewing together and that takes more time than pumping out scenes, I find.
Anyway, be safe, be kind, be magnificent. Byeee.