Beggars Can't Be Choosers
by Verity
Chapter NineHermione struggled up to a sitting position – she noticed that both Snape and Dumbledore seemed reluctant to come near her – and then recognized what she was sitting on. Or rather in.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice a little harsher than she'd intended. Her feelings were swirling madly within her – rage, thankfulness, terror all warred with each other. She knew already, though – mother was gone, that faint, indefinable presence she'd not quite been able to put a finger on. Her thoughts were her own again.
"You fainted," Dumbledore said, sounding worried, "In the hallway to Orion Tower. Mother sent you a vision. Why didn't you tell me you'd been having trouble focusing, Miss Granger?"
She flushed. "It was only – the once," she stammered. "I was already very relaxed – so close to the meditative state – I wasn't too surprised. It was peaceful up there."
"And the Glamourie?"
"That wasn't me. It wasn't. Mother came into me – the night I did the healing. I knew I was going to. She had sent me a – she knew I'd do it, draw on my Sibyll power, and she knew I'd trust her…" Hermione trailed off and sighed. "I know what she's trying to do. She wants to use me as a vessel, doesn't she?"
"Miss Granger-"
"You know it, Professor," she snapped. She was sick and tired of everyone playing games with her. Harry, mother, Dumbledore – she'd had enough. Some part of her mind noted that Snape looked distinctly uncomfortable. Good, she thought, though she felt bad about it – Lux did mean Snape, didn't she? "I can feel it," she continued. "She tried with Lamp-Bearer, you know, or would have, if Lamp-Bearer hadn't been important to her. You don't have to… do anything. I know she'd kill you."
"Kill you?" Snape suddenly exclaimed, looking to Dumbledore. "But – this thing can't-"
"Yes, she can." The Headmaster's voice was grim. "That's what the vows are about, Severus. It's a hard thing to be a vowed Sibyll. One has to… make choices. What would have happened if Harry Potter hadn't defeated Voldemort? What of that? What of-"
"Professor Dumbledore," Hermione interrupted, knowing where he was going, "It's no one's fault. Mother's not human. She doesn't see lives. She only sees paths, and forks in the road. You couldn't have saved them." Snape appeared somewhat confused. To him she said, "Sibyll are shown things, sometimes, and they cannot act on them, because that would be to tip the scale to Lightness or Darkness, and anger mother. Sometimes two deaths are better than a reign of terror. In the scheme of things."
"How can you speak lightly of this?" the Potions Master asked her, desperation in his voice. "You play with life- as if it were-"
"I don't speak lightly," she told him, finally pulling herself to her feet and stepping out of the Star within a square, then dusting the chalk off her robes. "Do you know what it means to take a life? Inaction is just as evil as the hand wielding the knife. I have to live with that. I think you have had to, as well."
"What is worth a life?"
"Nothing," Hermione said sadly. "But allegiance to mother lets us save lives… that might otherwise not be saved." An idea came to her. "Professor Snape… could I speak to you a moment? Alone?"
Snape hesitated, for perhaps a fraction of a second… then nodded. Dumbledore quietly left the room. It hurt her to watch him go.
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"I'm sorry," Hermione Granger said to him, sounding as if she meant it. "But you have to know – you'll have to watch what you say around Albus. Mother has had a hundred and thirty years to get to know how he builds his mental shields."
"Mother can- read his mind?" Severus asked her, not quite believing.
"Mother," she told him, "Can do anything she bloody wants to, with him. He knows this. Anything we're going to do behind mother's back has to be done without his knowledge, as well, because he'd want to help. And mother would kill him for it."
"We?"
She ducked her head. "I'd hoped – you wouldn't mind – I mean, since you already know… and Harry wouldn't be involved at all, you know-"
"Miss Granger," he said, adopting a harsh tone, "If you even mention Potter again-"
Hermione held up a hand. "I didn't mean to, Professor, I'm sorry."
She'd apologized to him twice in the last minute or so. Severus was rather astounded by this. After all, Hermione Granger had a reputation for being right about everything. However, he rather thought he'd never really known her before she'd saved his life. Certainly, he'd never thought she'd keep a secret from Potter, of all people… "Does he know about you?"
"No. No one does, except Dumbledore, my parents, and – Madam Dowling. She's dead now." She closed her eyes – a brief expression of grief flitted across her face. "You do understand what Voldemort will do, if he ever finds out I'm a Sibyll? He'll hunt me down. And kill me." She reached to the collar of her dress, found the chain of her necklace, and pulled it over her head. "Take this."
He looked at the thing again – saw what he had seen the last time – same innocuous thing. "Why?"
"Destroy it," Hermione Granger told him. The anger in her eyes frightened Severus, even though he knew it wasn't directed at him.
"But won't you need it?"
She turned away from him suddenly, kicked at the piles of ash on the floor. "You don't know what mother's done. You'll never understand. You're lucky, Professor. Never mind about helping me – it's too dangerous. Go your own way. I wish you well."
"No." She glanced toward him, wonderingly. "Miss Granger – you don't mean to say that what you're about to do is safer for you than it is for me? When this mother person could, potentially, get inside your head?"
"She wouldn't kill me. I – don't think so. Anyway, it's my battle. I shouldn't have troubled you. Go back to your laboratory, Professor. I can do it myself."
"No," he repeated, firmly. She was only a girl, after all, a headstrong, impetuous Gryffindor –
Who was better-read than half the faculty, and certainly smarter than three-quarters of it.
"I don't trust you to do this on your own," Severus said at last.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "Very well."
She walked out of the room, giving the door just the slightest hint of a slam. A Gryffindor, all right.
He realized then that he still had her necklace. The fire opals sparkled in his hand.
