Crossroads (1/?)
Author: Hebeleos
Author's email: sigmapibond@yahoo.com
Category: action/adventure, drama
Keywords: Hermione Harry Potter Draco Malfoy dragons Veritserum Voldemort
Rating: PG-13 (for language, probably)
Spoilers: just to be safe, all four books
Description: Takes place in Hermione, Ron, and Harry's 7th year. Voldemort is slowly gaining power, but in the quiet academia of Hogwarts, the dark threat seems distant and remote. However, change will come, and decisions will need to be made.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
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CHAPTER 1
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It was late. Her dorm mates were long asleep; the last irritated grumble to turn off the lights had been hours ago. A light snore came from across the room—from Parvati's bed, it seemed.
Hermione sighed. She had spent the last four hours studying for the first Potions exam of the term. Although she had always achieved top marks in the class, she was never the best ("Bloody Malfoy favoritism," she muttered bitterly), and her papers occasionally did have mistakes.
Both those situations would need to be remedied if she stood a chance of getting a recommendation from Professor Snape at the end of the term. She was applying to the Greenlaw College of Magics in March, and five recommendations were needed. Two were left up to her discretion. But the Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration recs were mandatory, and while the last two would be a snap, Snape was a problem. No, Snape was more than a problem; he was a Bloody Barricade of Impossibility.
So here she was, reading her Potions book for the fourth time in so many hours, hoping against hope that somehow she'd knock his socks off tomorrow and every day thereafter for the remainder of their time together.
Hermione yawned. If she moved from the comfort of her bed and down to the common room she could probably get in another hour before she fell completely asleep. But after that incident with Seamus, Lavender, and the common room sofa last Thursday, she much preferred the sanctuary of the communal girls' dormitory. Her randy classmates were just self-conscious enough to avoid pure exhibitionism in the dormitories, but enough hormones were coursing through their blood to make shagging at unlikely hours in the fragile privacy of the common room seem like a good idea. Hermione snorted softly, and then snickered. The look on Lavender's face had been priceless.
She yawned again. It was past midnight now—two hours past, in fact—and she needed to be awake for the exam tomorrow.
Hermione carefully closed her Potions text and placed it on the table beside her bed. Whispering "extinguisho" at the candle, she closed her eyes and let the darkness wash over her.
**
Harry looks like hell today, Hermione thought the next morning at breakfast. His hair was a mess—a bigger mess than usual, she corrected herself—and dark circles stood out against the startling paleness of his face.
"Hey, Harry," she said, trying to sound cheerful. "Ready for the Potions exam?"
"Err, yeah. I mean, no, not really," he mumbled.
"You seem a little confused," she observed. "You must've stayed up studying really late last night. You've got circles all under your eyes."
Ron shot her an indecipherable look.
"What?" she asked.
"Uh, nothing important," Harry said quickly.
"Right," she replied. Turning back to Ron, she repeated, "What?"
"Never mind," he said. At her look, he added, "You really don't want to know."
"I'm getting really curious now," Hermione remarked. "You're going to tell me sooner or later, you realize that, right?"
"Ron!" Harry hissed in a failed attempt at subtlety.
"She'll just find out anyway, Harry," Ron replied. He considered Hermione for a moment then picked up a piece of toast. "See, it's like this. We were out in the Invisibility Cloak last night, and we happened across Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson snogging in Astronomy Tower."
"Oh." Then her eyes narrowed. "And ... ?"
"That's all." Ron went back to applying liberal amounts of jam on his toast.
"Right, so Harry's secretly lusting after Pansy, is that it? Or does he have the hots for ferret-boy? Which one of them is it?"
Harry choked on his pumpkin juice. "Eeaaugh!"
"Where'd you get that idea?" Ron demanded.
"Well," she replied, swirling her spoon in her oatmeal, her favorite breakfast food. "The only reason I can think of for Harry to lose sleep over Malfoy and Parkinson is if he is secretly jealous, which of course implies that he is secretly in love. So spit it out, Harry. Which one of 'em is it?"
"Me? In love with Pansy? That's disgusting!"
"Right, so tell me the truth now."
"You're too smart for your own good, you know that?" Ron said disgustedly.
"There is no such thing as too smart, Ron Weasley. However, there is such thing as not smart enough ... " Hermione let the sentence trail, and looked pointedly at Ron.
"Hermione!"
"I'm waiting."
"You're ruthless."
"Still waiting."
Harry sighed. "Fine, fine, okay." He looked around the table. Everyone else seemed otherwise occupied with breakfast consumption, and no one was paying the three of them much attention. "So we really were up in Astronomy Tower, and we really did see Malfoy and Pansy. But then we looked out the window and saw a house elf running toward the Forbidden Forest so we followed it ..."
"A house elf?" Hermione interjected. "Is that the reason you didn't want to tell me? You thought I'd blow up because you saw a house elf?"
"Oh, it gets worse. Trust me."
"Fine. Go on." Hermione leaned back in her chair. Her oatmeal had gone cold. Damn these boys.
"So we ran outside, and followed the elf to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and suddenly we stopped, since the elf was talking to a person in a Death Eater's robe, so we ran back to the castle to Dumbledore's office ..."
"Wait, wait, you saw a Death Eater!? A DEATH EATER!?!"
Harry rolled his eyes at her. "It gets even worse."
"What could be worse than a Death Eater in the Forbidden Forest? What did Dumbledore say? What did Dumbledore do?!?"
"I'm getting to it," Harry replied. "So we ran to Dumbledore's office ..."
"Only get this," Ron interrupted. "We couldn't get in because we didn't know the password. So while we out standing outside the door, yelling every possible password we could think of, Snape comes along, glaring at us ..."
"Nothing unusual there," Hermione murmured.
"He had this big goblet of vile-smelling potion with him," Ron went on, "and he muttered something at the gargoyle and went right in."
"Only not before confiscating my dad's Invisibility Cloak," Harry burst out.
"Yeah," Ron agreed. "And he also took 20 points each from Gryffindor, and told us both to go back to the dorm."
"I presume you told him about the Death Eater?" Hermione asked.
"Tell Snape! That slimy bastard! As if!" Ron looked appalled.
"Ron! He's a teacher!" Hermione jumped out of her chair, earning her a few curious looks from the rest of the Gryffindor table. "I can't believe you didn't tell him. We could all have been killed in our beds! What kind of irresponsible, reckless ..."
"Just kidding. We did tell him." Ron grinned at her impudently. "Ha, got you back."
Hermione sat down abruptly. "Ooh, Ronald Weasley, I'll get you for that. That's a promise."
"Quiet," Harry shushed them. He glanced around the table. Seamus and Dean were sneaking them curious glances.
"Fine," Hermione lowered her voice. "So what did Snape say? Did he get you in to see Dumbledore?"
"No, all he did was sneer at us and tell us to mind our own business. Then he went inside, and the door shut behind him."
"Snape! That's really odd. And disturbing, actually. So what'd you do then?"
"Well, we headed back to the dorm. Only ..." Harry and Ron traded anxious glances.
"Only?" she prompted them.
"We ran into that same house elf on our way back."
"How'd you know it was the same elf? And you really shouldn't say 'house elf', Harry. You make it seem like their own function is to serve humans."
"Oh, sorry. Well, we ran into the same elf on our way back. We recognized her. She ..."
"She?"
"Yes. Hermione ..." Harry paused. "It was Winky."
"Winky!" she exclaimed. "What would Winky be doing, corsorting with Death Eaters? Are you sure it was her?"
"Uh, yes." Harry and Ron traded an even more uncomfortable glance. "She was carrying a Death Eater's robe."
"Ohhhh."
"So we're going back to talk to Dumbledore today. Right after breakfast, actually."
Hermione looked up and scanned the head table. "Why don't you go talk to him now? You'll never get Snape to let you out of Potions, and we have that first today."
"With Snape just sitting there?" Harry and Ron looked at her disbelievingly.
"He can't do anything if you just go up and blurt it out, can he?" she replied, exasperated. Then she considered. "But maybe it's not such a good idea. Professor Snape probably had a good reason for not being alarmed. It's probably a private matter, and we shouldn't be yelling it in the Great Hall in front of everyone."
"Hermione," Ron said, slowly. "Are you telling us that we should trust Snape? That Snape actually knew what he was doing? This is the same Snape who wouldn't believe us about the Philosopher's Stone, remember, back in first year?"
"Of course I remember," she retorted. "But I doubt even Snape'd play around when it comes to Death Eaters and the safety of the school. He is a teacher, after all, and Dumbledore trusts him."
"Boy, are you naïve. This is Snape, Hermione!"
"Oh, would you get off it ..." Hermione didn't get to finish her sentence, as at that moment the flurry of wings above them announced the arrival of the mail owls. Hedwig swooped in and dropped parcel wrapped in brown paper in Harry's lap.
"Thanks, Hedwig," he said.
She hooted at him and flew away. "I wonder what this could be," Harry mused. He quickly tore open the package, and an ethereal, diaphanous material slid into his lap. "My Invisibility Cloak!"
"Why would Snape return it?" Ron asked, perplexed.
Hermione, however, had noticed a thin fluttering around Harry's feet, and she quickly bent to pick up the small piece of parchment that had fallen from the package. "I don't think it was just Snape," she said after scanning it once.
"What do you mean?"
"Here," and she held out the note for the two boys to see.
Harry,
I have convinced Professor Snape to return your Invisibility Cloak. However, you ought to know that the term 'forbidden' does, in fact, mean 'forbidden.' Please limit your escapades to the castle from now on.
Good luck this term.
Yours,
Albus Dumbledore
Well," Ron said, flopping back in his chair. "What do you make of that?"Hermione was silent for a moment. This probably wasn't the best moment to yell at them some more for not just telling her to begin with. And it made no sense—just because Winky was involved didn't mean that Hermione couldn't think objectively. Unless there was something else they were't telling her ...
"Are you two sure there's nothing else?" she fixed them both with a hard stare.
"No!" Harry said quickly. "No, honest," he repeated. He shrugged. "We were just afraid that you'd yell at us for jumping to conclusions again. About Winky."
"Jumping to conclusions? Ohh, you mean like in 4th year, when neither of you could see the truth behind Barty Crouch?"
Both boys squirmed a little. "Yeah. But really, Hermione, she's definitely up to something this time. As soon as she saw us, she squeaked and ran down a side hall. And I really can't think of a reason why she'd have a Death Eater's robe," Harry said earnestly.
Hermione could think of one reason. One good reason. Making a small affirmative noise, she glanced back up at the head table. This time, however, her eyes didn't seek out an aged wizard with a long white beard, but the greasy-haired Potions Master, the one with the Dark Mark branded on his arm.
**
Author's note: Greenlaw is from Caroline Stevermer's terrific book, A College of Magics. The idea of teacher recommendations is from A Higher Price by Clare and Anne. I've read so many HP fanfics that I may have borrowed unconsciously from another story; if you spot anything, please email me and I'll correct it immediately.
Please comment/review! I'm not a very experienced writer, and I would appreciate all feedback. My email address is sigmapibond@yahoo.com. Thank you for reading!
