Summary: More than one truth is uncovered...who is "Snape"? And does Hermione know her own feelings at last?
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling, except for a couple I've added.
Author's Notes: Hermione's POV. Sorry, this part would have been up sooner, but I've had horrible 'flu and felt much too miserable to write! Sneezing all over the keyboard is not pleasant... Anyway, one more part to go, after this.
Warning - a few little Goblet of Fire spoilers, possibly.
Another warning - the end of this part is slushier than I normally let myself write!
The Best Man 2: The Search for Snape, Part 8
The dawn light seeped into the passageway as Hermione, Ron and Harry all stared, transfixed, at the unconscious body of their captive. It was no longer the body of Severus Snape. As the minutes passed, the lined face was becoming smoother. The greying hair was turning fairer. The hooked nose was shrinking. The face and form was becoming unmistakably that of...Draco Malfoy.
"Malfoy!" Ron exclaimed under his breath. He looked staggered.
"He must have used Polyjuice Potion, to turn himself into Snape," Hermione realised. She glanced quickly at Harry, who was looking rather grim, and wondered if he was remembering another similar transformation he had once seen and described to them.
"I might have guessed...if Crouch could do it, why not Malfoy?" Harry said at last.
"Well, the C.E.O. will be pleased that we've found Malfoy," said Ron, with a shrug. "He is a wanted criminal, after all. What a nutter. First he kidnaps you, Harry, then he grabs my whole squad! I'll have a few words to say to him when he wakes up."
"I wonder where the real Snape is?" Hermione mused, looking at Malfoy's face.
As they stood still, they could hear the sound of the sea more loudly. Hermione could smell the salty air, and hear some gulls screeching. "Let's get out of here," she said. "We ought to get in touch with Priskett and the others - they may still be trying to get into the blocked tunnel from the other end."
Ron and Harry nodded, and they trudged on along the passage towards the circle of daylight, propelling Malfoy along in front of them. In a few more minutes, they could see the thin line of the horizon where the brightening sky met the sea.
They emerged from the tunnel on to a rocky ledge, some fifteen feet above the water. Below them, the rocks of the cliff face dropped away. The fresh air blowing on their grimy faces was very welcome after the hot, dusty tunnel.
Harry pointed. "Look - that must be the way they get out. Those steps - at low tide, you must be able to go down them to the bottom and then get back up to the cliff path on the other side of that big rock."
"Yeah, there's only one problem with that, Harry," said Ron, gazing down the cliff face. "It's high tide, and the steps are underwater."
Hermione looked around in different directions, searching for another way of getting up to the cliff path - they could Apparate, of course, but taking Malfoy with them might present a problem. Something caught her eye. "Look - what's that down there?"
"Where?" They peered down the cliff face in the still dim light. A little way below them, on a rock just above the water level, they saw a large crumpled heap.
"That looks like Crabbe," said Harry. "He didn't get very far then."
"Probably he came charging out of the tunnel in a panic, trying to get away, and fell down the cliff," said Hermione, already trying to slide over the ledge and lower herself to the rock below, in an effort to get nearer to the fallen Crabbe.
"Careful," said Ron, and she felt him grasp her upper arm. "Don't you become a casualty too."
"I'm OK," said Hermione, but she was grateful for the reassurance of his grasp as she searched for a footing on the rocks below. "All right, I'm down." She worked her way towards Crabbe across the rocks. He started to stir and groan as she approached.
"Help me!"
"Are you hurt?" Hermione asked, stopping a few feet away from him. She patted her pocket to make sure her wand was still there - she didn't have a very high opinion of Crabbe's ability to do her any harm, but he was still an enemy.
"My - leg," Crabbe grunted. "I think it's broken."
Hermione crouched down to have a look. Crabbe was right. His leg was definitely at an unnatural angle. She turned towards Harry and Ron, who were both waiting on the upper ledge with Malfoy, looking anxious. "He's broken his leg. We'll have to get help for him too - I can strap him up, but he really needs a trained mediwizard."
"Hang on," said Ron. Hermione waited, and reflected that Ron looked as if he could do with the attentions of a mediwizard himself - in the gathering daylight his face looked worse than ever, a mask of dirt and blood. He had raised his wand again, and pointing it said loudly, "Accio enforcius!" A shower of gold sparks rose high into the air.
"What does that do?" Harry asked, watching the sparks rise.
"It's an Enforcer's method of summoning help," said Ron. "Tells any M.L.E.S. agents in the vicinity that you need backup." As he finished speaking, there was a series of popping sounds, as Priskett and twenty Enforcers Apparated on the cliff path above them, on the ledge and on the rocks.
"Hermione - Harry! You're safe! We thought - but never mind. Ron, is that you? You look terrible. What happened? And who are these people?"
"It's a long story," said Ron, grinning through his layers of dirt.
"Help me!" Crabbe moaned again, becoming aware of the extra people appearing on the rocks around him.
"Shut up, Crabbe," Hermione told him, with uncharacteristic ferocity, as she become more aware of the aching bruises which covered her own legs. "We'll help you - but you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
She sat beside the grumbling Crabbe on the rock and waited while Priskett, Ron and the other M.L.E.S. agents conferred with each other about what to do first. Harry was still watching Malfoy, who was still unconscious. Hermione looked away from them all, out to sea, and watched the waves rolling in and breaking gently at the foot of the rocks, and the morning light brightening. She was bruised, filthy, and tired, but, now that Malfoy had been apprehended and Ron had been found, she felt relieved. She should be happy, too, that the danger seemed to be over, and yet the thought of going straight back to teaching Transfiguration classes left her feeling oddly flat. Something was still missing. Hermione sighed.
She looked up sharply, as there was a stir above her and Harry shouted a warning. Malfoy was waking up at last. Jerking his head upwards, he opened his eyes and looked around him in confusion...only to see a circle of hostile faces above him, and a ring of wands pointing firmly at him. Lifting his hands conciliatingly, Malfoy looked furious but resigned - even he knew when it was time to come quietly.
The rest of that day was busy. Messages flew between Priskett and the M.L.E.S. headquarters. Malfoy and Crabbe were taken into custody and transported back to London, where Crabbe's broken leg was treated before he joined Malfoy in the high-security cells. Hermione, Ron, Harry and the rest of the M.L.E.S. agents Apparated back to the headquarters in London too. There, they found Alex, Ivan and Leander already waiting for them, looking much more like their old selves.
"Alex!" Hermione walked towards her quickly as they crossed the large office where they had Apparated. "You made it back here! What happened to the little girls?"
"The Carlyons? They're fine." Alex smiled at them reassuringly. "We got them back to their parents straight away - before Priskett and the others left to try to get you lot out of that hill."
"How's your head?"
"Much better. I didn't really know where I was - no idea how I managed to find Priskett at the cottage - but once I got to the mediwizards they sorted me out, and now I feel fine. You all look awful, though!"
"Thanks for the compliment." Ron was looking rather anxiously at his team. "You made it out, then?"
"Just about." Leander also looked much better. "We got to the exit on to the hill at about the same time that Priskett and the rest got to it from the other side. When they started blasting the rock away, we were nearly flattened in the explosion, but they did manage to get us out."
"Only then, we heard the roof coming down in the rest of the tunnel," continued Ivan, "and we thought you lot might be goners. How *did* you get out, exactly?"
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged rueful glances. "Teamwork," said Ron, with a lopsided grin. "I'll tell you the gory details another time. Anyway, we're all here now. Except Bernard - I must go and check on him -"
"You can do that tomorrow, Ron," said Priskett, bustling up to them. "You three need to go straight to the mediwizards to be checked out now - then get cleaned up. Better get some sleep, and we can finish taking statements and sorting this out later."
"Yeah, I can't go back to Ginny looking like this," said Harry, looking down at his grimy robes. "She'd assume the worst!"
At this point, white-robed mediwizards appeared and led Hermione, Ron and Harry away down long corridors towards the medical wing. When Hermione was taken into a small room, Alex came with her, still talking cheerfully about the reunion of the Carlyon family with their daughters.
"Your students will be impressed to hear about your adventure, won't they?" she said to Hermione, as Hermione sat on the edge of a bed, being checked for injuries.
"Mm."
"Are you going back to Hogwarts tonight?"
Hermione sighed. She felt drained of some of her usual energy. The thought of going back to Hogwarts immediately and having to retell the whole story to McGonagall, Lupin, Neville and numerous others depressed her. "I suppose so. I'd rather stay in London for a few days first, but my London flat is rented out now, so I'd better go back."
"You could use my flat," Alex offered. "It's only ten minutes from here. I won't be there tonight - I'm going to my parents' house in Ealing - I want to reassure them I'm OK, after they heard that the whole squad was missing."
"All right. Thanks." Hermione said gratefully.
"I've got an enormous bath," Alex grinned back. "You can wallow in hot water and get really clean."
Hermione felt her face break into the first real smile it had worn for several days. "Alex, that will be wonderful."
When the mediwizards had pronounced her more or less unhurt, apart from bruising and a few grazes they had healed up, Hermione made her way back to Priskett's office with Alex. Harry and Ron were already there. Like her, they both looked cleaner, and Ron's cut ear had been healed up, but they both looked as though a real bath and a good night's sleep wouldn't go amiss. Harry told Hermione that he had already sent a brief message to Ginny, telling her that they were all right.
"Well, it looks as if a potentially very nasty situation has been averted," Priskett pronounced, now sitting behind his desk. "Tomorrow, we will be questioning Malfoy and Crabbe thoroughly, and I hope we will get to the bottom of this. For one thing, we need to find out where the real Severus Snape is."
"Will you need us to stay - Hermione and me?" asked Harry.
"No, no, you go back to your wife, and reassure her," Priskett told him, with a fatherly air. "We will be needing to take fuller statements from you, and of course you will have to give evidence at the new trial, but you can go home now. No doubt Professor McGonagall will be glad to have Hermione back, too."
"Actually, I'm going to stay in London for a few days - that is, if Professor McGonagall doesn't mind," said Hermione. "Alex is very kindly letting me have her flat." Without needing to look across the room, she could feel that Ron was looking at her. "So I could finish making my statement tomorrow, if you like," she told Priskett.
"Fine, fine." Priskett looked pleased. "Now, off you all go."
Outside Priskett's office, Harry turned to his friends. "I must get going."
"Tell Ginny I'll come and see her soon," said Ron. "And that we're OK."
"I'll tell her, but you know she'll want to see you with her own eyes, so come *soon*," Harry told him. "See you in a few days, 'Mione?"
Hermione nodded, and stood watching as he Disapparated.
"Ready?" asked Alex, who was waiting to take Hermione to her flat. "I'll just take you there, and then get a few things before I go to my parents' house - they'll be waiting for me."
Hermione nodded, and was following Alex down the corridor when she heard Ron's voice behind her. "Hermione!"
She turned, and looked up at Ron's still rather grimy face. He was standing rather awkwardly outside Priskett's office.
"After you've cleaned up - if you're not too tired - would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he said, in a rush.
Hermione looked at the smear of dirt on his long nose, the rather anxious expression in his eyes, and the dusty red hair through which he was running his fingers nervously. Then she smiled.
"All right. I'll meet you at the entrance to Diagon Alley at eight o'clock, is that OK?"
He nodded quickly, relief spreading across his face, and Hermione turned away and hurried to catch up with Alex, who quirked a curious eyebrow, but said nothing.
Alex had been right about the bath in her flat. It was enormous. Wallowing in hot foam, Hermione felt that one didn't really appreciate being clean until one had been trapped in a pitch-dark, dusty tunnel and covered with soil and grit. Scrubbing dirt from under her fingernails, she wondered fleetingly if Harry had told Ginny the whole story yet, and if Professor McGonagall had received her owl, asking for a few more days off. But mostly she thought about Ron. She wasn't sure of his motives in asking her to dinner, but she felt the same happiness she had felt when he had walked her back to Hogwarts after dinner at Broomstick Cottage. They had talked that night like old friends, and she had realised just how much she had missed having him to talk to, these last six years. She had thought, then, that she would be content just to have his friendship, but then he had disappeared in Cornwall, and she could remember the sick feeling she had had when he was reported missing.
"But I would have been just as upset if any of my friends had gone missing," she told herself, as she towelled her hair dry.
But, even as she thought that, Hermione could hear Harry's voice in her head. "Would you really? Come on, 'Mione. Be honest."
Hermione paused for a moment, holding the towel still, and admitted to herself something she had been struggling to deny for quite a while - since Harry and Ginny's wedding, in fact. Despite all the arguments, despite the six years of estrangement, despite all the misery she'd felt and the efforts she'd made to create a new life for herself, just seeing Ron and dancing with him at the wedding had been enough to put her right back where she had started. She still loved him, whatever he felt about her. No wonder things hadn't worked out with Stephen - or anyone else - in the last six years. Closing her eyes, Hermione pictured Ron's face, as she had seen him in the flickering wand-light of the tunnel - filthy, bloodstained, anxious - digging her out from under the rockfall.
It didn't matter how far away she went - if she went back to Hogwarts, if she didn't see him for another six years, she realised now that it wouldn't change anything. She would still feel as though there was an invisible thread binding them together. Which meant that she could either resign herself to a single life, knowing that she wouldn't find what she wanted in anyone else, or she could try to persuade Ron that they should give their relationship another go. It could work. But would he agree to try again?
Alex's bedroom clock chimed the half-hour softly, and with a start Hermione woke from her daydream, and realised that she had better get dressed and get ready if she was going to be in Diagon Alley by eight.
* * * * * * *
"I'll tell you one thing," said Ron, four hours later, as they reached the street where Alex lived. "I bet Crabbe confesses everything when he realises the game's up. He was never much good without Malfoy in the same room to give him instructions."
"No. Well, if Malfoy still refuses to talk tomorrow, they probably will find out everything from Crabbe," Hermione agreed.
The meal had gone well. As they chatted and ate, Hermione had been reminded of the night Ron had walked her back to Hogwarts - they had talked with the same freedom then. Tonight, they had talked about Hogwarts, about Harry and Ginny, about Malfoy and Crabbe and Snape and all the events of the last few days. With Hallowe'en next day, Diagon Alley was lively and bustling, and many other people were eating there. The one subject Hermione did not bring up was their relationship - it was just too public a place. Finally, she had suggested that they had better get some sleep before the statement-taking and interviews next day, and Ron had agreed, and offered to walk with her back to Alex's flat.
"This is it," Hermione said, pausing at the door, and unlocking it with Alex's key.
"OK." He paused, looking up at the outline of the building against the dark sky, and then said, "Well - I expect I'll see you at the office tomorrow, when you come in to make your statement."
"Yes." Hermione watched him nod goodnight to her, turn, and walk two paces away before she said, "Ron - wait a minute -"
"What?" he asked, turning quickly.
Hermione looked down at her feet, not at him, and nerved herself to say, "I just wanted to say - well - I really enjoyed tonight, and it reminded me what good times we used to have before -" she hesitated before mentioning the taboo subject - "before Bill died, and we had that stupid argument. I - I did miss it - us - you know -" She trailed off, mentally kicking herself for being incoherent.
"Yeah. I know," he said. He had his back to a Muggle street-light, so she couldn't see his face very well.
"So - I was wondering - I thought - it would be nice if we could see each other more often - if you wanted to - catch up on - everything?"
There was a long pause. So long that Hermione was worried she had blown it, and that he was trying to think of a polite way of telling her that he wasn't interested in reviving their relationship. Either that, or he hadn't realised what she wanted at all.
"Um - so what do you think?" she said nervously, and looked up at last, to find that he had moved a lot closer, and was now looking down on her from only a foot away. She tilted her face up, and relief washed over her as she saw the expression in his eyes.
"Oh, 'Mione," he said, in a hoarser voice than usual, and they were both lost as he bent his head and kissed her.
It was strange, thought Hermione, when her brain cleared enough to think at all, wholly familiar, yet excitingly different. Without really realising it, she was pulling at his sleeve, trying to tow him further into the hallway, to stop him leaving. He came willingly, still kissing her. One of his girlfriends in the last six years, Hermione reflected, had really polished up his technique.
When he finally lifted his face, they looked at each other for a long moment before, unexpectedly, they both started grinning at each other like idiots. "Oh, I missed you," he said breathlessly.
"I missed you too," she said, wrapping him in a tight, warm hug, and whispering into his robes, "Don't ever let me go again."
"I'll never let you go again," he promised her, and Hermione, her face buried in his neck, found that she just couldn't stop smiling.
End of Part 8
Not quite the end...In Part 9 - the last part - loose ends are tied up, the Snape/Malfoy connection is explained, and there may even be a happy ending.
Please review - it makes me write faster!
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling, except for a couple I've added.
Author's Notes: Hermione's POV. Sorry, this part would have been up sooner, but I've had horrible 'flu and felt much too miserable to write! Sneezing all over the keyboard is not pleasant... Anyway, one more part to go, after this.
Warning - a few little Goblet of Fire spoilers, possibly.
Another warning - the end of this part is slushier than I normally let myself write!
The Best Man 2: The Search for Snape, Part 8
The dawn light seeped into the passageway as Hermione, Ron and Harry all stared, transfixed, at the unconscious body of their captive. It was no longer the body of Severus Snape. As the minutes passed, the lined face was becoming smoother. The greying hair was turning fairer. The hooked nose was shrinking. The face and form was becoming unmistakably that of...Draco Malfoy.
"Malfoy!" Ron exclaimed under his breath. He looked staggered.
"He must have used Polyjuice Potion, to turn himself into Snape," Hermione realised. She glanced quickly at Harry, who was looking rather grim, and wondered if he was remembering another similar transformation he had once seen and described to them.
"I might have guessed...if Crouch could do it, why not Malfoy?" Harry said at last.
"Well, the C.E.O. will be pleased that we've found Malfoy," said Ron, with a shrug. "He is a wanted criminal, after all. What a nutter. First he kidnaps you, Harry, then he grabs my whole squad! I'll have a few words to say to him when he wakes up."
"I wonder where the real Snape is?" Hermione mused, looking at Malfoy's face.
As they stood still, they could hear the sound of the sea more loudly. Hermione could smell the salty air, and hear some gulls screeching. "Let's get out of here," she said. "We ought to get in touch with Priskett and the others - they may still be trying to get into the blocked tunnel from the other end."
Ron and Harry nodded, and they trudged on along the passage towards the circle of daylight, propelling Malfoy along in front of them. In a few more minutes, they could see the thin line of the horizon where the brightening sky met the sea.
They emerged from the tunnel on to a rocky ledge, some fifteen feet above the water. Below them, the rocks of the cliff face dropped away. The fresh air blowing on their grimy faces was very welcome after the hot, dusty tunnel.
Harry pointed. "Look - that must be the way they get out. Those steps - at low tide, you must be able to go down them to the bottom and then get back up to the cliff path on the other side of that big rock."
"Yeah, there's only one problem with that, Harry," said Ron, gazing down the cliff face. "It's high tide, and the steps are underwater."
Hermione looked around in different directions, searching for another way of getting up to the cliff path - they could Apparate, of course, but taking Malfoy with them might present a problem. Something caught her eye. "Look - what's that down there?"
"Where?" They peered down the cliff face in the still dim light. A little way below them, on a rock just above the water level, they saw a large crumpled heap.
"That looks like Crabbe," said Harry. "He didn't get very far then."
"Probably he came charging out of the tunnel in a panic, trying to get away, and fell down the cliff," said Hermione, already trying to slide over the ledge and lower herself to the rock below, in an effort to get nearer to the fallen Crabbe.
"Careful," said Ron, and she felt him grasp her upper arm. "Don't you become a casualty too."
"I'm OK," said Hermione, but she was grateful for the reassurance of his grasp as she searched for a footing on the rocks below. "All right, I'm down." She worked her way towards Crabbe across the rocks. He started to stir and groan as she approached.
"Help me!"
"Are you hurt?" Hermione asked, stopping a few feet away from him. She patted her pocket to make sure her wand was still there - she didn't have a very high opinion of Crabbe's ability to do her any harm, but he was still an enemy.
"My - leg," Crabbe grunted. "I think it's broken."
Hermione crouched down to have a look. Crabbe was right. His leg was definitely at an unnatural angle. She turned towards Harry and Ron, who were both waiting on the upper ledge with Malfoy, looking anxious. "He's broken his leg. We'll have to get help for him too - I can strap him up, but he really needs a trained mediwizard."
"Hang on," said Ron. Hermione waited, and reflected that Ron looked as if he could do with the attentions of a mediwizard himself - in the gathering daylight his face looked worse than ever, a mask of dirt and blood. He had raised his wand again, and pointing it said loudly, "Accio enforcius!" A shower of gold sparks rose high into the air.
"What does that do?" Harry asked, watching the sparks rise.
"It's an Enforcer's method of summoning help," said Ron. "Tells any M.L.E.S. agents in the vicinity that you need backup." As he finished speaking, there was a series of popping sounds, as Priskett and twenty Enforcers Apparated on the cliff path above them, on the ledge and on the rocks.
"Hermione - Harry! You're safe! We thought - but never mind. Ron, is that you? You look terrible. What happened? And who are these people?"
"It's a long story," said Ron, grinning through his layers of dirt.
"Help me!" Crabbe moaned again, becoming aware of the extra people appearing on the rocks around him.
"Shut up, Crabbe," Hermione told him, with uncharacteristic ferocity, as she become more aware of the aching bruises which covered her own legs. "We'll help you - but you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
She sat beside the grumbling Crabbe on the rock and waited while Priskett, Ron and the other M.L.E.S. agents conferred with each other about what to do first. Harry was still watching Malfoy, who was still unconscious. Hermione looked away from them all, out to sea, and watched the waves rolling in and breaking gently at the foot of the rocks, and the morning light brightening. She was bruised, filthy, and tired, but, now that Malfoy had been apprehended and Ron had been found, she felt relieved. She should be happy, too, that the danger seemed to be over, and yet the thought of going straight back to teaching Transfiguration classes left her feeling oddly flat. Something was still missing. Hermione sighed.
She looked up sharply, as there was a stir above her and Harry shouted a warning. Malfoy was waking up at last. Jerking his head upwards, he opened his eyes and looked around him in confusion...only to see a circle of hostile faces above him, and a ring of wands pointing firmly at him. Lifting his hands conciliatingly, Malfoy looked furious but resigned - even he knew when it was time to come quietly.
The rest of that day was busy. Messages flew between Priskett and the M.L.E.S. headquarters. Malfoy and Crabbe were taken into custody and transported back to London, where Crabbe's broken leg was treated before he joined Malfoy in the high-security cells. Hermione, Ron, Harry and the rest of the M.L.E.S. agents Apparated back to the headquarters in London too. There, they found Alex, Ivan and Leander already waiting for them, looking much more like their old selves.
"Alex!" Hermione walked towards her quickly as they crossed the large office where they had Apparated. "You made it back here! What happened to the little girls?"
"The Carlyons? They're fine." Alex smiled at them reassuringly. "We got them back to their parents straight away - before Priskett and the others left to try to get you lot out of that hill."
"How's your head?"
"Much better. I didn't really know where I was - no idea how I managed to find Priskett at the cottage - but once I got to the mediwizards they sorted me out, and now I feel fine. You all look awful, though!"
"Thanks for the compliment." Ron was looking rather anxiously at his team. "You made it out, then?"
"Just about." Leander also looked much better. "We got to the exit on to the hill at about the same time that Priskett and the rest got to it from the other side. When they started blasting the rock away, we were nearly flattened in the explosion, but they did manage to get us out."
"Only then, we heard the roof coming down in the rest of the tunnel," continued Ivan, "and we thought you lot might be goners. How *did* you get out, exactly?"
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged rueful glances. "Teamwork," said Ron, with a lopsided grin. "I'll tell you the gory details another time. Anyway, we're all here now. Except Bernard - I must go and check on him -"
"You can do that tomorrow, Ron," said Priskett, bustling up to them. "You three need to go straight to the mediwizards to be checked out now - then get cleaned up. Better get some sleep, and we can finish taking statements and sorting this out later."
"Yeah, I can't go back to Ginny looking like this," said Harry, looking down at his grimy robes. "She'd assume the worst!"
At this point, white-robed mediwizards appeared and led Hermione, Ron and Harry away down long corridors towards the medical wing. When Hermione was taken into a small room, Alex came with her, still talking cheerfully about the reunion of the Carlyon family with their daughters.
"Your students will be impressed to hear about your adventure, won't they?" she said to Hermione, as Hermione sat on the edge of a bed, being checked for injuries.
"Mm."
"Are you going back to Hogwarts tonight?"
Hermione sighed. She felt drained of some of her usual energy. The thought of going back to Hogwarts immediately and having to retell the whole story to McGonagall, Lupin, Neville and numerous others depressed her. "I suppose so. I'd rather stay in London for a few days first, but my London flat is rented out now, so I'd better go back."
"You could use my flat," Alex offered. "It's only ten minutes from here. I won't be there tonight - I'm going to my parents' house in Ealing - I want to reassure them I'm OK, after they heard that the whole squad was missing."
"All right. Thanks." Hermione said gratefully.
"I've got an enormous bath," Alex grinned back. "You can wallow in hot water and get really clean."
Hermione felt her face break into the first real smile it had worn for several days. "Alex, that will be wonderful."
When the mediwizards had pronounced her more or less unhurt, apart from bruising and a few grazes they had healed up, Hermione made her way back to Priskett's office with Alex. Harry and Ron were already there. Like her, they both looked cleaner, and Ron's cut ear had been healed up, but they both looked as though a real bath and a good night's sleep wouldn't go amiss. Harry told Hermione that he had already sent a brief message to Ginny, telling her that they were all right.
"Well, it looks as if a potentially very nasty situation has been averted," Priskett pronounced, now sitting behind his desk. "Tomorrow, we will be questioning Malfoy and Crabbe thoroughly, and I hope we will get to the bottom of this. For one thing, we need to find out where the real Severus Snape is."
"Will you need us to stay - Hermione and me?" asked Harry.
"No, no, you go back to your wife, and reassure her," Priskett told him, with a fatherly air. "We will be needing to take fuller statements from you, and of course you will have to give evidence at the new trial, but you can go home now. No doubt Professor McGonagall will be glad to have Hermione back, too."
"Actually, I'm going to stay in London for a few days - that is, if Professor McGonagall doesn't mind," said Hermione. "Alex is very kindly letting me have her flat." Without needing to look across the room, she could feel that Ron was looking at her. "So I could finish making my statement tomorrow, if you like," she told Priskett.
"Fine, fine." Priskett looked pleased. "Now, off you all go."
Outside Priskett's office, Harry turned to his friends. "I must get going."
"Tell Ginny I'll come and see her soon," said Ron. "And that we're OK."
"I'll tell her, but you know she'll want to see you with her own eyes, so come *soon*," Harry told him. "See you in a few days, 'Mione?"
Hermione nodded, and stood watching as he Disapparated.
"Ready?" asked Alex, who was waiting to take Hermione to her flat. "I'll just take you there, and then get a few things before I go to my parents' house - they'll be waiting for me."
Hermione nodded, and was following Alex down the corridor when she heard Ron's voice behind her. "Hermione!"
She turned, and looked up at Ron's still rather grimy face. He was standing rather awkwardly outside Priskett's office.
"After you've cleaned up - if you're not too tired - would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he said, in a rush.
Hermione looked at the smear of dirt on his long nose, the rather anxious expression in his eyes, and the dusty red hair through which he was running his fingers nervously. Then she smiled.
"All right. I'll meet you at the entrance to Diagon Alley at eight o'clock, is that OK?"
He nodded quickly, relief spreading across his face, and Hermione turned away and hurried to catch up with Alex, who quirked a curious eyebrow, but said nothing.
Alex had been right about the bath in her flat. It was enormous. Wallowing in hot foam, Hermione felt that one didn't really appreciate being clean until one had been trapped in a pitch-dark, dusty tunnel and covered with soil and grit. Scrubbing dirt from under her fingernails, she wondered fleetingly if Harry had told Ginny the whole story yet, and if Professor McGonagall had received her owl, asking for a few more days off. But mostly she thought about Ron. She wasn't sure of his motives in asking her to dinner, but she felt the same happiness she had felt when he had walked her back to Hogwarts after dinner at Broomstick Cottage. They had talked that night like old friends, and she had realised just how much she had missed having him to talk to, these last six years. She had thought, then, that she would be content just to have his friendship, but then he had disappeared in Cornwall, and she could remember the sick feeling she had had when he was reported missing.
"But I would have been just as upset if any of my friends had gone missing," she told herself, as she towelled her hair dry.
But, even as she thought that, Hermione could hear Harry's voice in her head. "Would you really? Come on, 'Mione. Be honest."
Hermione paused for a moment, holding the towel still, and admitted to herself something she had been struggling to deny for quite a while - since Harry and Ginny's wedding, in fact. Despite all the arguments, despite the six years of estrangement, despite all the misery she'd felt and the efforts she'd made to create a new life for herself, just seeing Ron and dancing with him at the wedding had been enough to put her right back where she had started. She still loved him, whatever he felt about her. No wonder things hadn't worked out with Stephen - or anyone else - in the last six years. Closing her eyes, Hermione pictured Ron's face, as she had seen him in the flickering wand-light of the tunnel - filthy, bloodstained, anxious - digging her out from under the rockfall.
It didn't matter how far away she went - if she went back to Hogwarts, if she didn't see him for another six years, she realised now that it wouldn't change anything. She would still feel as though there was an invisible thread binding them together. Which meant that she could either resign herself to a single life, knowing that she wouldn't find what she wanted in anyone else, or she could try to persuade Ron that they should give their relationship another go. It could work. But would he agree to try again?
Alex's bedroom clock chimed the half-hour softly, and with a start Hermione woke from her daydream, and realised that she had better get dressed and get ready if she was going to be in Diagon Alley by eight.
* * * * * * *
"I'll tell you one thing," said Ron, four hours later, as they reached the street where Alex lived. "I bet Crabbe confesses everything when he realises the game's up. He was never much good without Malfoy in the same room to give him instructions."
"No. Well, if Malfoy still refuses to talk tomorrow, they probably will find out everything from Crabbe," Hermione agreed.
The meal had gone well. As they chatted and ate, Hermione had been reminded of the night Ron had walked her back to Hogwarts - they had talked with the same freedom then. Tonight, they had talked about Hogwarts, about Harry and Ginny, about Malfoy and Crabbe and Snape and all the events of the last few days. With Hallowe'en next day, Diagon Alley was lively and bustling, and many other people were eating there. The one subject Hermione did not bring up was their relationship - it was just too public a place. Finally, she had suggested that they had better get some sleep before the statement-taking and interviews next day, and Ron had agreed, and offered to walk with her back to Alex's flat.
"This is it," Hermione said, pausing at the door, and unlocking it with Alex's key.
"OK." He paused, looking up at the outline of the building against the dark sky, and then said, "Well - I expect I'll see you at the office tomorrow, when you come in to make your statement."
"Yes." Hermione watched him nod goodnight to her, turn, and walk two paces away before she said, "Ron - wait a minute -"
"What?" he asked, turning quickly.
Hermione looked down at her feet, not at him, and nerved herself to say, "I just wanted to say - well - I really enjoyed tonight, and it reminded me what good times we used to have before -" she hesitated before mentioning the taboo subject - "before Bill died, and we had that stupid argument. I - I did miss it - us - you know -" She trailed off, mentally kicking herself for being incoherent.
"Yeah. I know," he said. He had his back to a Muggle street-light, so she couldn't see his face very well.
"So - I was wondering - I thought - it would be nice if we could see each other more often - if you wanted to - catch up on - everything?"
There was a long pause. So long that Hermione was worried she had blown it, and that he was trying to think of a polite way of telling her that he wasn't interested in reviving their relationship. Either that, or he hadn't realised what she wanted at all.
"Um - so what do you think?" she said nervously, and looked up at last, to find that he had moved a lot closer, and was now looking down on her from only a foot away. She tilted her face up, and relief washed over her as she saw the expression in his eyes.
"Oh, 'Mione," he said, in a hoarser voice than usual, and they were both lost as he bent his head and kissed her.
It was strange, thought Hermione, when her brain cleared enough to think at all, wholly familiar, yet excitingly different. Without really realising it, she was pulling at his sleeve, trying to tow him further into the hallway, to stop him leaving. He came willingly, still kissing her. One of his girlfriends in the last six years, Hermione reflected, had really polished up his technique.
When he finally lifted his face, they looked at each other for a long moment before, unexpectedly, they both started grinning at each other like idiots. "Oh, I missed you," he said breathlessly.
"I missed you too," she said, wrapping him in a tight, warm hug, and whispering into his robes, "Don't ever let me go again."
"I'll never let you go again," he promised her, and Hermione, her face buried in his neck, found that she just couldn't stop smiling.
End of Part 8
Not quite the end...In Part 9 - the last part - loose ends are tied up, the Snape/Malfoy connection is explained, and there may even be a happy ending.
Please review - it makes me write faster!