Sweating and pleasantly exhilarated, Harry looped his elbow over the
broomstick across his neck and laughed at Ron's antics as he wrestled the
bludger back into the equipment case. Ron was nearly as dirty, his red
hair sticking up in windblown clumps. He opened his mouth to throw back a
smart-aleck reply, and left it open as his eyes slid past Harry to the
figure striding angrily down the hill.
Like the bat they used to call him, Severus Snape's robes billowed around him like expansive black wings as he swooped down towards them. Dressed head to toe in the repressive costume of a Potions Master, Severus' stern demeanor was incredibly intimidating, and his anger was a palpable force as he stopped in front of them. Harry dropped the broom to his side as black eyes pinned them both.
"Where is my wife?" he demanded in a voice colder than winter. Harry and Ron exchanged looks of shock that quickly changed to dread and dismay.
Minutes later the three of them were examining Hermione's empty room. Snape's expression was even more forbidding as he retrieved Hermione's wand from the pocket of her formal robes, carefully laid out over a chair for the graduation ceremony planned for the early afternoon.
"Nothing's changed," Harry told him, looking at the books and trunk stacked on the floor. "She didn't move anything. Her nightgown is right there," he pointed at the unmade bed, where Crookshanks lay glaring at them all, his tail lashing back and forth, "and her toothbrush is wet."
"So where is she?" asked Ron to the room at large. It was the fifth or sixth time the question had been asked, so no one bothered to make an answer.
"We need the Maurader's Map," Harry said firmly.
"That will not be of any use, Mr. Potter." Albus Dumbledore, looking far graver than anyone had seen him in a very long time, stood just inside the door with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin at his side. Wordlessly the old wizard held out a cylinder of parchment, bound with a black ribbon.
"This was just delivered to my attention, Severus, but it is addressed to you," he said, his voice full of sorrow and foreboding.
Severus strode forward and all but snatched the parchment. The small wax seal broke with a snap and he tugged impatiently at the black ribbon, only to pause when he felt something hard within the loops. Holding it up, he found Hermione's sapphire and diamond wedding band hanging from the elaborate knot.
With a face of stone, Severus shoved the ribbon in its entirety into his pocket, unrolled the parchment and read the short note within. "I'm to present myself at the House of Red Doors by noon, or Hermione will be sacrificed on the Summer Solstice tomorrow," he said evenly.
"What's the House of Red Doors?" asked Ron.
"No place you'd want your mum to find out you went," answered Sirius. "It's a whorehouse down Knockturn Alley."
"And an old gathering place for Death Eaters," Severus added. "Malfoy took me there after I first took the Dark Mark. His idea of - celebrating."
"Is that from Lucius Malfoy?" Harry asked in rigid tones.
"It's not signed, but I've no doubt it is," Severus answered.
"You can't possibly go," Sirius told him. "He'll never let Hermione go, it's obviously a trap."
Severus shot the man a withering look of contempt. "Don't be an ass, Black, of course it is."
"You should also know that Draco Malfoy has not been seen anywhere on the grounds this morning," Dumbledore added. "I've asked every portrait to keep an eye out for him, and the ghosts are all actively searching. I sincerely doubt he is still within these walls."
"How could Malfoy have gotten her out of the castle?" Ron asked. "It's not like he can Apparate out of here or anything." He swallowed as he suddenly remembered how many times Hermione had drilled that fact into him.
Harry rubbed at the red, throbbing scar on his forehead. "Maybe not," he replied soberly. "But portkeys certainly work."
"Why the Solstice?" asked Lupin. "It's nowhere near as significant as Beltane. Why didn't he try for her then?"
"He couldn't get near her," Harry answered. "Ron and I were with her constantly, every single day." In truth, Harry was surprised that Snape did not lash out at him or Ron for letting their guard down.
"Malfoy doesn't give a damn about the Solstice," Severus interrupted baldly. "Either he's going to give her to Voldemort, since the Dark Lord most certainly does believe in the old ways, or he's simply using it as a threat. Either way, he will kill her if he hasn't already."
Harry would have been incensed at the man's expressionless pronouncement if he hadn't noticed Snape's hand. The letter from Hermione's abductor was clenched tightly in his fist, the knuckles white, the parchment shredding in his grip.
"Could we do a locator spell of some sort?" asked Ron.
Several expressions lightened until Severus shook his head. "No. Before I gave her this ring, I cast a finding charm on it, but Lucius obviously thought of that," he told them. "And one of his specialties is a shielding charm to hide something he wanted to keep."
*****
"I need to use the loo."
"You just went." Draco Malfoy's voice was indistinct through the heavy wooden door between Hermione and himself, but the annoyance was quite clear.
"That was ages ago."
"It was thirty ruddy minutes ago!"
"Well, you should have kidnapped someone who didn't have a bladder smaller than your brain!" Hermione snapped, giving the weathered door at her back a thump with her elbow and instantly regretting it. "And while we're at it, I'm freezing! You could have at least let me grab my cloak. I don't even have any shoes on!"
A muffled oath came from the other side of the door and Draco Malfoy's deep green dress robes were shoved through the little square window. It may have held a grate of iron bars at one point, but they'd long since rusted and fallen out. As cells went, this was pathetic. Unfortunately, the latch on the outside of the door made it effective enough for its current purposes.
"Thank you," she muttered insincerely as she flapped the fabric out and over her legs.
"You're welcome," Draco snapped back.
"I still need to pee."
"Too bad!"
Hermione fumed and sucked at the raw bit on her left ring knuckle where Lucius Malfoy had dragged off her wedding ring. It was a petty gesture and a sick trophy, but she missed the sapphire and diamond ring far more than she'd thought she would. She arranged the green fabric around herself and clumsily resumed her position on the dirt floor of the small hut, leaning against the door of her cell. She could only assume Draco was in a similar position on the other side.
When he'd pounded on her door that morning, she'd expected him to call he names or issue more dire and vague threats for her to carry to Severus. Instead, he'd merely lunged forward and grabbed her arm, forcing her hand around an old brass candlestick. The lurching transition of a portkey had made her violently ill, and once the world had stopped spinning she'd heaved the admittedly scant contents of her stomach onto Lucius Malfoy's shoes. The gentleman had not been amused.
"So tell me, Draco. Is this the glamorous life of a Death Eater you imagined? Stuck out here in. where exactly are we again?"
"Shut up."
"Well, from what I can see, it's the arse end of nowhere. Are we even in England?" Hermione examined the oblong of blue sky visible through the small, high window on the other side of the room. The view through it was of grass and sky and the occasional hillock in the distance, complete with sheep; pleasantly pastoral but absolutely NOT what she wanted to see. She could probably work some of the stones loose and enlarge the opening, but it would be hours of work.
"I said shut up!"
"I'm sure you're very proud of yourself. Smart silver mask - oh, wait. You haven't got one yet, have you? So I suppose you haven't been to any good attacks lately. Must be very exciting, attacking Muggles who don't even believe in magic."
Hermione knew he was furious about his assignment to guard her; she'd heard him arguing loudly with his father about being held back from any real Death Eater business and essentially delegated to babysitting. His father had flat out told Draco that until he was marked he was a waste of Lucius' time.
"You'll get yours," Draco warned petulantly.
"Oh, I already got mine. Your father didn't tell you everything, did he? Did he tell you how he and his Death Eaters friends kidnapped me, tied me up and planned to gang-rape me? Only they were too busy torturing one of their own. Did your precious father also tell you how he pulled a wand on Severus Snape? Betrayal must run in your blood."
"Shut up!"
"I'll tell you a universal truth, Draco. People who really are superior don't feel threatened by people who are their inferior. They only feel threatened by people who actually pose some sort of threat."
I know that!" he snapped. "How stupid do you think I am?"
Some note of stress in his voice caught Hermione's attention, and she kept back the sharp retort that had occurred to her. Instead, she licked her dry lips and tried a different tack.
"You're not stupid, Draco. I never thought that. I just don't understand how you can think the things you do.." She paused, thinking. "I suppose that if you grow up hearing those things over and over, you come to believe it, without really thinking about it."
"Maybe," he allowed sullenly.
The ramshackle hut was silent for approximately forty-five seconds. "I'm bored," she announced. She was also scared silly, but boredom was definitely a factor.
"Too bad," Draco replied.
"Your father's going to kill me," she said conversationally. "You know that, don't you?"
"And I should care?" he sneered.
"I always knew you were a git, Draco. I just never pegged you for a murderer."
"That's the beauty of being both rich and powerful, Granger. You can always get some other stupid bastard to do the nasty bits for you."
Hermione snorted. "You don't know your father that well, do you? He's a great believer in doing things himself. How do you think I got pregnant?"
"My father never shagged you!" Draco hotly denied.
"No, he cast an Imperius on Professor Snape and had him rape me," Hermione told him. "Though he had planned on taking seconds," she added crudely.
Draco's pale face appeared in the broken window. "You lying bitch! My father wouldn't lower himself to touch you!"
Hermione rose and braced her hands on either side of the window. "He was certainly in a hurry to get his trousers undone that night!" she retorted hotly.
His angry color drained abruptly. "But he knew - he promised I could have you to myself," Draco whispered, completely bewildered.
"You liked me?" she asked artlessly, and then could have kicked herself as the expression on Draco's face hardened.
"Of course not, Mudblood. I just wanted to fuck you." His attempt at harshness fell just a bit short of convincing, and his face disappeared as he sat back down outside the door with a thump.
Hermione blinked as it dawned on her that she had in fact been personally attacked on Halloween, and not targeted for being Head Girl as they'd always thought. Lucius Malfoy had been, in a very Slytherin way, obtaining several objectives at once that night. The wizarding public and the school governors would have been alarmed at the murder of Hogwarts' Muggle-born Head Girl, Harry and Dumbledore would have been dealt a personal blow, and a possible traitor among the Death Eaters would have been exposed.
The final but not insignificant aspect was the removing an entirely unsuitable interest from his son's life. Now that she thought about it, the continual presence of Draco Malfoy in the hallways of Hogwarts was indicative of a young man crushing on someone he'd rather not, but unable to help himself. The same young man who was currently holding her life in his hands, and was quite possibly questioning some of his own paradigms.
"It's okay, you know," she called softly over her shoulder as she settled once more. "To like someone you shouldn't. I once had a crush on Gilderoy Lockhart."
"Every girl had a crush on Lockhart," Draco sneered. "If he hadn't been so busy staring at himself in the mirror he could have had half the girls and every poofter from third year on up."
"Draco?"
"What," he answered sullenly.
"Why me? I thought you and Pansy Parkinson were getting serious."
"Do you know how many pure-blood girls are from families my father finds acceptable and are NOT spoken for already? Three. One's five years older than I am. There's Pansy Parkinson, who's got less brains than your average lap dog and even fewer looks. And then there's Goyle's cousin, who looks like Goyle in a dress - right down to the single eyebrow. And she's not even ten years old yet."
"Urgh," Hermione groaned with as much sympathy as she could muster under the circumstances.
Silence fell again, until Hermione could bear it no longer.
"Draco?"
"Yeah?"
"Your father's going to give me to Voldemort, isn't he." It wasn't really a question.
A long moment passed before he answered, and when he did his voice was subdued. "Yeah. I think so. Our Lord is a big believer in the old ways. Sacrifices and stuff."
"Why?" she asked softly. "You know Voldemort doesn't care about bloodlines, not like your father does. He's not even a pure-blood."
"I know he doesn't," Draco admitted. "Honestly, I think my father's losing it. He's desperate to prove himself to Voldemort, but he's not thinking very clearly about things." He huffed in exasperation. "I mean, Diggory was a pure-blood, for Merlin's sake, but it didn't help him much."
He was quiet for a moment. "All that matters to old Lucius is getting to the top of the pile, no matter how many bodies he had to climb over. And with my dad, you're either with him or against him," he said softly, almost regretfully. "I don't want to be one of those bodies, Granger."
Hermione felt a little light-headed, but she bit her lip until she could talk again. As much as she wanted to believe Severus would save her, or Harry and Ron would come flying in to the rescue, she was too much of a realist to hold much hope. The minutes ticked slowly by while the cool of the floor soaked into her body and chilled her. Finally, she cleared her throat.
"Draco - would you do me a favor?"
"Maybe. What is it?"
The pendant was warm as she pulled it from beneath the neckline of her dress, grateful it had been hidden from Lucius' sight. She was immensely attached to the necklace, and had worn it almost constantly since Lucretia had sent it. Fighting the tears that clogged her throat, Hermione stroked the little snake with its green eyes before winding the chain around it.
"Would you see that this gets to Severus somehow? It's been in his family for a long time, and I'd like it to go back to him." Awkwardly pushing herself to her feet, she held it out through the broken window. "Please?"
Past her arm she could see Draco's rather hangdog expression as he considered both her hand and the jeweled medallion.
"All right," he said grudgingly, and held out his hand. With an air of finality Hermione closed her eyes briefly, and then let the necklace drop to his fingers.
She opened her eyes again just in time to see Draco Malfoy disappear.
"Well, bugger me," she said, somewhat dazed. Lucretia's letter had said the pendant was charmed against theft. She never mentioned it was a portkey.
The door, however, was still locked.
*****
In a need to do something, anything, Ron and Harry had moved all of Hermione's neatly packed things to one side of her room as they picked through them, vainly searching for any kind of clue to her whereabouts. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were discussing something in undertones before the Headmaster, who simply stood listening. Crookshanks had moved to the small space between the open door and the fireplace, his golden eyes fixed on a spot just inside the doorway.
Severus, however, had discarded his heavy scholar's robes and was pacing rapidly back and forth in small arcs, his pent up rage and frustration crackling around him like an invisible St. Elmo's fire. His anger had burned far past any thought of blame or remonstration aimed at Potter or Weasley. The young men had faithfully fulfilled his request, and their temporary lapse was not worth considering in light of the situation. Instead, Severus' temper was clamped down in a diamond-hard hold and aimed solely at the Malfoy line.
While the pacing appeased Snape's temper, the frantic movement only served to confuse the medallion bearing his family crest. It had been charmed to return itself to the head of the Snape family, but as far as inanimate objects go the necklace was slightly. After all, it hadn't needed to transport a thief to judgement in well over seven decades, and was understandably out of practice.
So it was not too surprising that Draco Malfoy's feet skidded out from under him as the portkey dropped him unceremoniously onto the flagstones.
Like a striking hippogriff, Severus lunged at him and seized him by the throat. Draco scrabbled wildly for his wand as he was thrust against the hard stone wall, but an equally hard-faced Harry Potter grabbed his hand and slammed it into the granite, forcing him to drop it. Ron Weasley grabbed the length of wood as it bounced across the floor and tucked it into his belt.
The pressure around Draco's throat squeezed tight enough to jeopardize his air supply as Snape thrust the edge of his arm up under Draco's chin. "You tell me where Hermione is," he demanded in a dangerous voice, "or I'll snap your neck right here and now."
"Severus!" called Dumbledore sharply.
"As much as I respect you, Albus, stay the hell out of this."
Draco sucked in a desperate breath as he took in the men standing in the Head Girl's room. He didn't know the large man beside Dumbledore, outside of the photos printed in the Daily Prophet when the prisoner had escaped from Azkaban, but a reasonable guess could be made. Remus Lupin still wore the patched robes Draco had ridiculed four years ago, but the stern, implacable lines of the werewolf's face would have him hesitate to make a comment about them now. Harry and Ron were stone-faced and uncompromising as they stood among the older men, but it was the glittering hard eyes of his former Head of House that frightened him the most.
"Your father may not believe in the old ways, Mr. Malfoy," Severus hissed in icy tones, "but Voldemort most certainly does. Tomorrow is Midsummer's day, and at sundown he'll make a sacrifice. If my wife dies, I WILL make sure you live through that night, though I promise you you'll not enjoy it."
Attempting a sneer, Draco made an attempt to defuse the implacable anger directed at him. "Voldemort doesn't want to sacrifice a Mud - a Muggle- born. My father said something about Lord Voldemort wanting a pure-blood sacrifice that was conceived on Halloween, but he's off his rocker. Granger's kid isn't even born yet."
The sudden horror and contempt from all parties puzzled him, until he put his under-utilized brains to work and put two and two together. The resulting sum made him blanch. "He wouldn't. My father wouldn't do that." his voice trailed off as he realized that his father would have no difficulty with giving Hermione a crude Caesarian to retrieve her unborn child.
Snape leaned in closer to his captive's face, unconsciously reversing the same tableaux Draco's father had enacted some eight months ago. "You need to decide, boy, and right now. Are you a murderer, Draco? Are you willing to go to Azkaban or die for what your father's doing?"
Draco wrenched his gaze from Snape, only to see the same harsh resolve in Harry Potter's eyes. "Hermione is going to die unless you stop it, Malfoy."
Snape's sharp elbow in his larynx helped him think faster, and Draco swallowed hard. For the first time in his life, he realized his father was not the most frightening wizard in the world.
Fear was a highly motivating factor, but Draco knew it wasn't the force that bound together the men, young and old, that stood around him. Their collective determination and loyalty to each other was more vital than any whispered plots or veiled threats, the bitter cold machinations Draco had known all his life. The strength of their combined presence was more intense than a noonday sun.
He finally realized just how serious the stakes were for all involved, not just himself. For a single instant in time, his entire existence hung suspended from a thread, waiting for him to open his mouth and decide, once and for all, where his destiny lay. And for the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy made a decision of his own, regardless of the consequences, and opened his mouth.
"She's in the Brecon Beacons. That's in Wales, you prat," he sneered towards Ron, who had frowned in confusion.
Moments later Snape was striding down the path to the gates of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy's instructions clear in his mind. He didn't even realize he was being followed until Black caught at his elbow just inside the gates. Lupin was right on his heels, as were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
"What the hell do you want?" Severus snapped.
"To give you some help. If you'll let me," Serius responded. Remus merely nodded once, decisively.
"And if you think you're going without us..." began Harry,
"Then you're out of your goddamned mind," finished Ron.
Severus looked at each of them, nodded stiffly, and took out his wand.
*****
In a remote area of Wales, five wizards appeared on the windswept grazing land and immediately took a defensive posture. It only took a moment for them to feel slightly ridiculous, all of them ready to hex the single sheep who watched them from the nearby hilltop, grass drooping from its mouth. The only thing breaking the endless hillocks all around was a dilapidated crofter's hut, hip-slung and shedding its stone construction like a phoenix close to burning day.
"Hermione!" Severus shouted, striding towards the weathered timbers that still constituted a front door.
"You two watch the front," Sirius Black told Ron and Harry. "We'll check around back."
Harry nodded, and Sirius and Remus set off, circling the small building in opposite directions. They met in back, under the single high window that showed signs of having recently been enlarged but not enough to let even a child through, let alone a woman who was eight months pregnant.
Remus continued around the building, but Sirius found a toe-hold halfway up the wall and hoisted himself to the window. Peering in, he was just in time to see the interior door open abruptly and Severus Snape entered the room, ready to do battle.
"Severus?" Hermione called, unsure of her rescuer. She stood to one side of the small room, a sizable chunk of stone clutched in her hand. The stone dropped to the dirt floor as she took the few faltering steps that separated her from Severus, and at the last moment threw herself into his arms.
In that moment, Sirius Black at last comprehended that the nemesis of his childhood was nothing but his own memories. He looked on, somewhat amazed, as Severus held his wife close and then gave her a long and lingering kiss. When he pulled back, running a hand over her rounded belly for reassurance, the fierce emotion burning in those black eyes was enough to spark a pang of both envy and hope in Sirius, that he might one day have what Severus had already found.
"Are you hurt?" Severus demanded, even as he felt a hearty kick against his own stomach.
"No, I'm fine," Hermione told him. "You're really here," she whispered unsteadily.
"I'm really here," he confirmed gently. He gave her another kiss before fishing in his pocket. "I think this belongs to you," he said as he stripped the ring off the ribbon and slid it onto her finger.
"Oh," she breathed happily. "Severus." she stopped in mid-word, and her lower lip began quivering as she took in the one detail that no one else had noticed - the green and black striped silk fabric tied around his neck. "You bought a green neck-cloth," she observed numbly.
"Striped, actually," he replied. "Couldn't quite bring myself to go all the way."
"Oh. Oh, Severus," she stammered, covering her mouth as if to hold back the sob tearing its way free. Her free arm gestured aimlessly, unable to express her emotional turmoil.
A faint, tender smile transformed his face as he folded her back into his arms, holding her as tightly as he dared. "It's all right, dear heart," he soothed, "You're entitled."
"I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm doing this," she moaned as tears spilled onto her cheeks.
"You're safe now, Hermione," he assured her, stroking the long, curly strands of her hair as she buried her face in his shoulder and wept. "I'll never let you go," he whispered.
Outside, feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, Sirius Black quietly let himself down the back wall. He wandered around to the front, where his godson and their respective best friends were waiting uncertainly. "They'll be along in a minute," he told them with a wink. Their expressions cleared, though Ron's nose wrinkled a bit.
Sure enough, Severus soon emerged from the hut, carrying his wife over the broken stones that littered the grass in front of the hut. Hermione's bare feet peeped out from under the edge of her voluminous maternity robe. When he put her on her feet, she responded to Harry and Ron's enthusiastic greetings and hugs with a wan but happy smile, wiping away the last traces of her tears.
"You're supposed to carry her IN over the threshold, not out," Sirius commented.
To everyone's surprise, Severus grinned widely. "Do feel free to sod off any time, Black." At his side, Hermione shivered in the stiff breeze, her hair wafting around her face like wisps of smoke. Without thinking, he stripped off his coat and put it around her.
"Ye, gods. A gentleman," Lupin commented in an undertone.
When Severus ignored him, Sirius felt the need to object. "Now wait a minute. What, he gets to insult you and I don't? That's not fair."
"Padfoot," Remus warned.
"No. I've been around this git for weeks, listening to him natter on and on about his new love--"
"One conversation hardly counts as nattering, simpleton," Severus cut him off.
"I want to see him kiss her," Black declared, mischief in the pugnacious set of his jaw.
"Black, you may display your love life in front of all and sundry if you wish," replied Severus. "Oh, I'd forgotten. You don't have one."
Harry and Ron exchanged incredulous grins, but all in all they were both pleased to see the two men apparently burying their previous grievances.
"I don't know about all of you," added Remus, "but I want to get back to Hogwarts and put my feet up. This is more excitement than an old man like me can take."
"That's the most intelligent suggestion you've made in weeks," Severus told him. "And if we hurry, you all might have time to clean up before the graduation ceremony. We can't have the Boy Who Lived missing, it will set off a panic."
Despite his stern words, Harry gave his former teacher a cheeky grin and drew his wand to Apparate. Severus put his arms around Hermione, preparing to do the same, when a mild 'pop' sounded just a few yards away.
Normally impeccably groomed, Lucius Malfoy's current appearance was shocking. His blond hair hung in disordered strands around his face, which was haggard and unshaven. His expensive robes were quite obviously on their second or third day of wearing, creased and grease-marked. Only his expression, smug and self-satisfied, remained as an echo of his former urbane self.
That assured poise melted to confusion and then rage as he took in the sight of Hermione, standing free, surrounded by the five wizards who'd come to rescue her. Malfoy drew his wand convulsively, but halted that movement when five were quickly pointed back in his direction.
Frustrated and furious, he lowered his wand marginally. "Where is my son?" he demanded. "What have you done with him?"
Remus was the first to answer. "Draco is at Hogwarts, in the custody of Professor Dumbledore. He stands accused of kidnapping, at the very least. If he cooperates, he may escape a sentence in Azkaban, but I think it all depends on what Mrs. Snape will say when she testifies."
Lucius Malfoy's watery blue eyes focused on Hermione with a fervent hatred. "You unspeakable little Mudblood whore," he ground out. "You've ruined everything!"
Ron and Harry stepped forward, goaded by the insult. Sirius held up a hand to stop them, but at the same time shifted slightly to the side to allow them all better aim.
"Then maybe you should have left me alone," Hermione replied in a level voice. There were so many things she wanted to say to Lucius Malfoy, to scream at him, but she controlled the impulse to fly at the blond wizard who had so disrupted her life. Even surrounded by her would-be gallants, Hermione felt only marginally safe from Malfoy, and she was in no shape to physically attack anyone regardless of how much she desired to do so.
"How dare you!" he seethed. "My kind have ruled empires! You should be on your knees before me!"
Sirius held his wand out, still tense and wary. "As opposed to flat on her back, begging for mercy?" he questioned spitefully. "Don't blame Hermione for escaping your ploys, Malfoy."
"Got them all panting for you, don't you?" Malfoy hissed between clenched teeth. "Foul little tramp, putting your hooks into my son. And now you've had to settle for him." He turned his furious attention to the tall man at her side, drops of spittle forming on his lips as he flung out his accusations. "I hope she was good, Severus. Was she really worth throwing away everything?"
With a lift of his chin, Severus replied simply, "Yes. She was."
Hermione inhaled quickly, surprised beyond conscious thought by Severus' words. Without meaning to, she reached out and touched his arm. It wasn't a formal declaration, in the words she longed to hear, but when he spared a quick glance at her, everything she wanted to know was expressed there in his ebony eyes.
An incomprehensible scream of rage tore from Lucius Malfoy's throat at this final betrayal, and before anyone realized his intent, his wand raised in a savage arc.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!!"
For one blinding instant, Remus Lupin's more sensitive eyes made out Hermione's form, surrounded by a brilliant halo of green. The after-image burned into his retinas showed Hermione standing with her bare feet planted in the rich earth, the gale force of Malfoy's spell causing her simple robe to outline her rounded form and her hair to stream back over her shoulders. The soft curls were edged with the terrible emerald light that enveloped her entire body. Her husband's arms were dark bands as he reached to shield her, protect her, but were far too late to make any difference.
A lifetime ago, Lily Potter had created a protection for her son by tapping into the elemental magic of a mother's love for her child. In the instant the curse fell from Lucius Malfoy's lips, Hermione's arm flew up as if to ward off a blow, instinctively trying to protect her unborn child, and the air crackled between her and Malfoy.
"NO!" The words came from her mouth, but the sound of Hermione's voice split the air around them, her denial reverberating through the very earth on which the wizards stood. Power thrummed through their bones, sympathetic echoes of the clash taking place within the young woman in their midst.
The spell coiled about her, momentarily stymied from completing its deadly mission. And then the green light flew back to its maker, surrounding Malfoy in a nimbus of rich color. The shielding spell he attempted burnt away before the words were even completed, and he screamed in shock and agony, his spine arching painfully. Glimmers of green light chased themselves across his body as the spell overwhelmed him.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
Sirius Black bounded forward instantly, his wand at the ready, but one look at the staring-eyed corpse left him with little doubt. To be sure, he put two fingers to the man's neck, but failed to find a pulse.
"He's dead," Sirius declared with grim satisfaction, then looked up at the rest of his party. "Dear God in heaven," he breathed.
The ice that clenched in Black's chest could have made the same pale and utterly blank mask that was Severus Snape's face as he gazed down at the burden in his arms. Hermione hung limp and pale in his embrace.
"Hermione?" called Ron Weasley in a small voice, plaintive against the light breeze that toyed with the curls that crossed her still face. Her head lolled back, exposing the tender length of her neck. Half shut, her eyes stared at nothingness.
Snape's knees buckled suddenly, and he collapsed to the green grass, still holding Hermione's upper body across his lap. The weight of her dragged relentlessly against his arms.
"Hermione! NO!" shouted Harry, his forward lunge stopped by Lupin's arms, his werewolf strength just barely able to stop the distraught young man.
"An object lesson, Mr. Potter," Severus declared after a long moment, though his own voice sounded distant in his ears and pins and needles crawled up and down his limbs. "When confronted with a known enemy, do not hesitate to strike first."
The Potion Master's breath caught with a sudden painful hitch, as thought he'd suddenly forgotten the mechanics of respiration. Each expansion of his lungs was a separate act of will as he gazed down at the woman in his arms. "You never know what that moment of hesitation will cost you."
Hermione lay motionless across his knees, her arms lost in the black wool of her husband's coat. The black fabric lay open across her center, framing the pale rose fabric of her gown and the prominent rise of the baby she carried. Severus' right hand hovered briefly over the still, unmoving surface, trembling, as though he did not dare touch the child. Instead, his fingers caught at one of the tendrils of hair floating across Hermione's cheek and smoothed it back.
"Severus," Black called quietly, but the man made no indication he'd heard, even when Sirius called his name again. With a sigh Sirius solemnly removed his cloak and spread it across Hermione's body, pulling it as high as he could without disturbing the new widower.
He stood, feeling older than Dumbledore as he walked towards his godson, who stood woodenly under Remus' grip. Ron had one hand clamped to his mouth and his other arm wrapped around his stomach, hunched in over a pain that had yet to find an outlet in either tears or rage. Sirius put a hand on Harry's shoulder, concerned by the young man's clenched jaw.
"NO." Harry declared, shaking off Sirius' hand and dropping to his knees opposite Snape. "I'm not going to let this happen."
"Harry," protested Lupin gently as tried to draw him away from the body of his friend. "She's gone." Over Harry's black head, he caught the sorrowful gaze of Sirius. They'd seen too many victims of a Death Eater's Killing Curse to have any hope.
"Do we know that for sure?" Harry demanded wildly, his green eyes brilliant with desperation and unshed tears. "Maybe she's not!" He seized a handful of the black coat and shoved Snape's shoulder hard, trying to loosen the grieving man's hold. "We could give her artificial respiration."
"What's that?" sniffled Ron, wiping at his damp cheek, his voice crackling.
"It's a Muggle first aid," Harry muttered, trying to remember what to do. He'd only browsed over the pamphlet that had come in the Dursley's mail as he'd carried it to the waste basket, and spared a split second for the irony that Hermione would have undoubtedly known exactly how to perform the procedure. "Lay her down," he ordered Snape.
Beyond caring, beyond any recognizable emotion at all, Severus mechanically lay Hermione's body flat on the ground. Harry hovered for a moment before sliding a hand into the thick mass of curls under her neck to position her head properly. He bent over her, took a deep breath, and at the last second remembered to pinch her nose before placing his mouth over hers and exhaling as hard as he could.
He'd barely begun to inflate her lungs when a spark snapped between them, like a static arc, which abruptly flared into a blinding white and sent Harry sprawling to one side.
"Harry!" Ron yelled and jumped to his friend's assistance. Black and Lupin both were blinking, shocked physically and mentally at the powerful blaze of magic that had surged through the air around Hermione like a lightening strike. Severus, kneeling beside Hermione's body, had flung one arm across his face in an instinctive effort to block the onslaught of light.
"Your head's bleeding," Ron informed Harry as he helped him sit up.
Harry put up a shaky hand and felt blood dripping from his scar, but no wound. He scrubbed at it with his sleeve. "What was that?"
No one answered him, though all of them were looking at him. "What?" he said again when Ron continued to stare at him.
"Harry.your scar!" he exclaimed in an awed voice.
Harry felt for the lightning slash on his forehead, but couldn't find it. "Is it gone?" he asked, shocked.
"No, it's still there. It's just gone pale or something. Like it's just some ordinary old scar."
Sirius and Remus both stepped closer to see the changed scar. Just that morning it had been red and raised, the same way it had been since Voldemort had reclaimed a physical existence three years ago. Now, the young man's forehead had only a whitish streak lying quiescent on his skin.
"Ow," said Hermione quietly. She pushed herself up, one hand going to her temple as she winced. "Severus?" she queried, eyes half-closed in pain, sounding lost.
Turning quickly, Sirius and Lupin both gaped in open disbelief. Ron and Harry both shouted her name in joy, but stopped just short of throwing themselves at her when they took in the utterly panicked expression on Severus Snape's face.
"Hermione," he gasped, reaching out one tentative hand towards her. When she looked up at him, her brown eyes full of pain and confusion, Severus dragged her into his arms, his hands tightening where they held on to her until they all but disappeared in the black wool fabric of the old frock coat. His shoulders shook as he buried his face in the wavy masses of her hair, but not a sound escaped him until he gasped raggedly for breath.
"Hermione, love. My love. Gods." A dry sob racked his shoulders. "I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, rocking her slightly.
"I'm all right," she told him weakly, and she was not sure if the wetness she felt was his tears or hers as he pressed his lips to her eyes and cheeks.
Doing their best not to disturb the couple, Sirius and the others moved away slightly, without discussion, and watched the pair embracing.
Elemental magic," Lupin concluded at last. "Just as Harry was saved by his mother's love, seventeen years ago. Hermione is a mother to be. Magic recognized magic." Ron sniffled, but the smile on his face was bright despite or perhaps because of the tears on his cheeks. Harry clapped him on the shoulder and they looked on as their best friend was held by another man who loved her.
A quiet 'pop' sounded nearby.
"Bloody hell," Ron shouted, startled, as he and the other standing wizards whirled to meet this new threat. "Now what?"
Harry, however, was the first to recognize the Apparating figure.
"Ginny!"
Ginny Weasley appeared on the small hillock nearby, her long red hair swirling around her shoulders and her pale, frightened face. She wore a black school robe over her white dress robes, and in one hand she carried the silver sword of Godric Griffyndor. Fawkes, the Headmaster's golden phoenix, sat on her arm.
"Harry! Voldemort is attacking Hogwarts!"
Like the bat they used to call him, Severus Snape's robes billowed around him like expansive black wings as he swooped down towards them. Dressed head to toe in the repressive costume of a Potions Master, Severus' stern demeanor was incredibly intimidating, and his anger was a palpable force as he stopped in front of them. Harry dropped the broom to his side as black eyes pinned them both.
"Where is my wife?" he demanded in a voice colder than winter. Harry and Ron exchanged looks of shock that quickly changed to dread and dismay.
Minutes later the three of them were examining Hermione's empty room. Snape's expression was even more forbidding as he retrieved Hermione's wand from the pocket of her formal robes, carefully laid out over a chair for the graduation ceremony planned for the early afternoon.
"Nothing's changed," Harry told him, looking at the books and trunk stacked on the floor. "She didn't move anything. Her nightgown is right there," he pointed at the unmade bed, where Crookshanks lay glaring at them all, his tail lashing back and forth, "and her toothbrush is wet."
"So where is she?" asked Ron to the room at large. It was the fifth or sixth time the question had been asked, so no one bothered to make an answer.
"We need the Maurader's Map," Harry said firmly.
"That will not be of any use, Mr. Potter." Albus Dumbledore, looking far graver than anyone had seen him in a very long time, stood just inside the door with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin at his side. Wordlessly the old wizard held out a cylinder of parchment, bound with a black ribbon.
"This was just delivered to my attention, Severus, but it is addressed to you," he said, his voice full of sorrow and foreboding.
Severus strode forward and all but snatched the parchment. The small wax seal broke with a snap and he tugged impatiently at the black ribbon, only to pause when he felt something hard within the loops. Holding it up, he found Hermione's sapphire and diamond wedding band hanging from the elaborate knot.
With a face of stone, Severus shoved the ribbon in its entirety into his pocket, unrolled the parchment and read the short note within. "I'm to present myself at the House of Red Doors by noon, or Hermione will be sacrificed on the Summer Solstice tomorrow," he said evenly.
"What's the House of Red Doors?" asked Ron.
"No place you'd want your mum to find out you went," answered Sirius. "It's a whorehouse down Knockturn Alley."
"And an old gathering place for Death Eaters," Severus added. "Malfoy took me there after I first took the Dark Mark. His idea of - celebrating."
"Is that from Lucius Malfoy?" Harry asked in rigid tones.
"It's not signed, but I've no doubt it is," Severus answered.
"You can't possibly go," Sirius told him. "He'll never let Hermione go, it's obviously a trap."
Severus shot the man a withering look of contempt. "Don't be an ass, Black, of course it is."
"You should also know that Draco Malfoy has not been seen anywhere on the grounds this morning," Dumbledore added. "I've asked every portrait to keep an eye out for him, and the ghosts are all actively searching. I sincerely doubt he is still within these walls."
"How could Malfoy have gotten her out of the castle?" Ron asked. "It's not like he can Apparate out of here or anything." He swallowed as he suddenly remembered how many times Hermione had drilled that fact into him.
Harry rubbed at the red, throbbing scar on his forehead. "Maybe not," he replied soberly. "But portkeys certainly work."
"Why the Solstice?" asked Lupin. "It's nowhere near as significant as Beltane. Why didn't he try for her then?"
"He couldn't get near her," Harry answered. "Ron and I were with her constantly, every single day." In truth, Harry was surprised that Snape did not lash out at him or Ron for letting their guard down.
"Malfoy doesn't give a damn about the Solstice," Severus interrupted baldly. "Either he's going to give her to Voldemort, since the Dark Lord most certainly does believe in the old ways, or he's simply using it as a threat. Either way, he will kill her if he hasn't already."
Harry would have been incensed at the man's expressionless pronouncement if he hadn't noticed Snape's hand. The letter from Hermione's abductor was clenched tightly in his fist, the knuckles white, the parchment shredding in his grip.
"Could we do a locator spell of some sort?" asked Ron.
Several expressions lightened until Severus shook his head. "No. Before I gave her this ring, I cast a finding charm on it, but Lucius obviously thought of that," he told them. "And one of his specialties is a shielding charm to hide something he wanted to keep."
*****
"I need to use the loo."
"You just went." Draco Malfoy's voice was indistinct through the heavy wooden door between Hermione and himself, but the annoyance was quite clear.
"That was ages ago."
"It was thirty ruddy minutes ago!"
"Well, you should have kidnapped someone who didn't have a bladder smaller than your brain!" Hermione snapped, giving the weathered door at her back a thump with her elbow and instantly regretting it. "And while we're at it, I'm freezing! You could have at least let me grab my cloak. I don't even have any shoes on!"
A muffled oath came from the other side of the door and Draco Malfoy's deep green dress robes were shoved through the little square window. It may have held a grate of iron bars at one point, but they'd long since rusted and fallen out. As cells went, this was pathetic. Unfortunately, the latch on the outside of the door made it effective enough for its current purposes.
"Thank you," she muttered insincerely as she flapped the fabric out and over her legs.
"You're welcome," Draco snapped back.
"I still need to pee."
"Too bad!"
Hermione fumed and sucked at the raw bit on her left ring knuckle where Lucius Malfoy had dragged off her wedding ring. It was a petty gesture and a sick trophy, but she missed the sapphire and diamond ring far more than she'd thought she would. She arranged the green fabric around herself and clumsily resumed her position on the dirt floor of the small hut, leaning against the door of her cell. She could only assume Draco was in a similar position on the other side.
When he'd pounded on her door that morning, she'd expected him to call he names or issue more dire and vague threats for her to carry to Severus. Instead, he'd merely lunged forward and grabbed her arm, forcing her hand around an old brass candlestick. The lurching transition of a portkey had made her violently ill, and once the world had stopped spinning she'd heaved the admittedly scant contents of her stomach onto Lucius Malfoy's shoes. The gentleman had not been amused.
"So tell me, Draco. Is this the glamorous life of a Death Eater you imagined? Stuck out here in. where exactly are we again?"
"Shut up."
"Well, from what I can see, it's the arse end of nowhere. Are we even in England?" Hermione examined the oblong of blue sky visible through the small, high window on the other side of the room. The view through it was of grass and sky and the occasional hillock in the distance, complete with sheep; pleasantly pastoral but absolutely NOT what she wanted to see. She could probably work some of the stones loose and enlarge the opening, but it would be hours of work.
"I said shut up!"
"I'm sure you're very proud of yourself. Smart silver mask - oh, wait. You haven't got one yet, have you? So I suppose you haven't been to any good attacks lately. Must be very exciting, attacking Muggles who don't even believe in magic."
Hermione knew he was furious about his assignment to guard her; she'd heard him arguing loudly with his father about being held back from any real Death Eater business and essentially delegated to babysitting. His father had flat out told Draco that until he was marked he was a waste of Lucius' time.
"You'll get yours," Draco warned petulantly.
"Oh, I already got mine. Your father didn't tell you everything, did he? Did he tell you how he and his Death Eaters friends kidnapped me, tied me up and planned to gang-rape me? Only they were too busy torturing one of their own. Did your precious father also tell you how he pulled a wand on Severus Snape? Betrayal must run in your blood."
"Shut up!"
"I'll tell you a universal truth, Draco. People who really are superior don't feel threatened by people who are their inferior. They only feel threatened by people who actually pose some sort of threat."
I know that!" he snapped. "How stupid do you think I am?"
Some note of stress in his voice caught Hermione's attention, and she kept back the sharp retort that had occurred to her. Instead, she licked her dry lips and tried a different tack.
"You're not stupid, Draco. I never thought that. I just don't understand how you can think the things you do.." She paused, thinking. "I suppose that if you grow up hearing those things over and over, you come to believe it, without really thinking about it."
"Maybe," he allowed sullenly.
The ramshackle hut was silent for approximately forty-five seconds. "I'm bored," she announced. She was also scared silly, but boredom was definitely a factor.
"Too bad," Draco replied.
"Your father's going to kill me," she said conversationally. "You know that, don't you?"
"And I should care?" he sneered.
"I always knew you were a git, Draco. I just never pegged you for a murderer."
"That's the beauty of being both rich and powerful, Granger. You can always get some other stupid bastard to do the nasty bits for you."
Hermione snorted. "You don't know your father that well, do you? He's a great believer in doing things himself. How do you think I got pregnant?"
"My father never shagged you!" Draco hotly denied.
"No, he cast an Imperius on Professor Snape and had him rape me," Hermione told him. "Though he had planned on taking seconds," she added crudely.
Draco's pale face appeared in the broken window. "You lying bitch! My father wouldn't lower himself to touch you!"
Hermione rose and braced her hands on either side of the window. "He was certainly in a hurry to get his trousers undone that night!" she retorted hotly.
His angry color drained abruptly. "But he knew - he promised I could have you to myself," Draco whispered, completely bewildered.
"You liked me?" she asked artlessly, and then could have kicked herself as the expression on Draco's face hardened.
"Of course not, Mudblood. I just wanted to fuck you." His attempt at harshness fell just a bit short of convincing, and his face disappeared as he sat back down outside the door with a thump.
Hermione blinked as it dawned on her that she had in fact been personally attacked on Halloween, and not targeted for being Head Girl as they'd always thought. Lucius Malfoy had been, in a very Slytherin way, obtaining several objectives at once that night. The wizarding public and the school governors would have been alarmed at the murder of Hogwarts' Muggle-born Head Girl, Harry and Dumbledore would have been dealt a personal blow, and a possible traitor among the Death Eaters would have been exposed.
The final but not insignificant aspect was the removing an entirely unsuitable interest from his son's life. Now that she thought about it, the continual presence of Draco Malfoy in the hallways of Hogwarts was indicative of a young man crushing on someone he'd rather not, but unable to help himself. The same young man who was currently holding her life in his hands, and was quite possibly questioning some of his own paradigms.
"It's okay, you know," she called softly over her shoulder as she settled once more. "To like someone you shouldn't. I once had a crush on Gilderoy Lockhart."
"Every girl had a crush on Lockhart," Draco sneered. "If he hadn't been so busy staring at himself in the mirror he could have had half the girls and every poofter from third year on up."
"Draco?"
"What," he answered sullenly.
"Why me? I thought you and Pansy Parkinson were getting serious."
"Do you know how many pure-blood girls are from families my father finds acceptable and are NOT spoken for already? Three. One's five years older than I am. There's Pansy Parkinson, who's got less brains than your average lap dog and even fewer looks. And then there's Goyle's cousin, who looks like Goyle in a dress - right down to the single eyebrow. And she's not even ten years old yet."
"Urgh," Hermione groaned with as much sympathy as she could muster under the circumstances.
Silence fell again, until Hermione could bear it no longer.
"Draco?"
"Yeah?"
"Your father's going to give me to Voldemort, isn't he." It wasn't really a question.
A long moment passed before he answered, and when he did his voice was subdued. "Yeah. I think so. Our Lord is a big believer in the old ways. Sacrifices and stuff."
"Why?" she asked softly. "You know Voldemort doesn't care about bloodlines, not like your father does. He's not even a pure-blood."
"I know he doesn't," Draco admitted. "Honestly, I think my father's losing it. He's desperate to prove himself to Voldemort, but he's not thinking very clearly about things." He huffed in exasperation. "I mean, Diggory was a pure-blood, for Merlin's sake, but it didn't help him much."
He was quiet for a moment. "All that matters to old Lucius is getting to the top of the pile, no matter how many bodies he had to climb over. And with my dad, you're either with him or against him," he said softly, almost regretfully. "I don't want to be one of those bodies, Granger."
Hermione felt a little light-headed, but she bit her lip until she could talk again. As much as she wanted to believe Severus would save her, or Harry and Ron would come flying in to the rescue, she was too much of a realist to hold much hope. The minutes ticked slowly by while the cool of the floor soaked into her body and chilled her. Finally, she cleared her throat.
"Draco - would you do me a favor?"
"Maybe. What is it?"
The pendant was warm as she pulled it from beneath the neckline of her dress, grateful it had been hidden from Lucius' sight. She was immensely attached to the necklace, and had worn it almost constantly since Lucretia had sent it. Fighting the tears that clogged her throat, Hermione stroked the little snake with its green eyes before winding the chain around it.
"Would you see that this gets to Severus somehow? It's been in his family for a long time, and I'd like it to go back to him." Awkwardly pushing herself to her feet, she held it out through the broken window. "Please?"
Past her arm she could see Draco's rather hangdog expression as he considered both her hand and the jeweled medallion.
"All right," he said grudgingly, and held out his hand. With an air of finality Hermione closed her eyes briefly, and then let the necklace drop to his fingers.
She opened her eyes again just in time to see Draco Malfoy disappear.
"Well, bugger me," she said, somewhat dazed. Lucretia's letter had said the pendant was charmed against theft. She never mentioned it was a portkey.
The door, however, was still locked.
*****
In a need to do something, anything, Ron and Harry had moved all of Hermione's neatly packed things to one side of her room as they picked through them, vainly searching for any kind of clue to her whereabouts. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were discussing something in undertones before the Headmaster, who simply stood listening. Crookshanks had moved to the small space between the open door and the fireplace, his golden eyes fixed on a spot just inside the doorway.
Severus, however, had discarded his heavy scholar's robes and was pacing rapidly back and forth in small arcs, his pent up rage and frustration crackling around him like an invisible St. Elmo's fire. His anger had burned far past any thought of blame or remonstration aimed at Potter or Weasley. The young men had faithfully fulfilled his request, and their temporary lapse was not worth considering in light of the situation. Instead, Severus' temper was clamped down in a diamond-hard hold and aimed solely at the Malfoy line.
While the pacing appeased Snape's temper, the frantic movement only served to confuse the medallion bearing his family crest. It had been charmed to return itself to the head of the Snape family, but as far as inanimate objects go the necklace was slightly. After all, it hadn't needed to transport a thief to judgement in well over seven decades, and was understandably out of practice.
So it was not too surprising that Draco Malfoy's feet skidded out from under him as the portkey dropped him unceremoniously onto the flagstones.
Like a striking hippogriff, Severus lunged at him and seized him by the throat. Draco scrabbled wildly for his wand as he was thrust against the hard stone wall, but an equally hard-faced Harry Potter grabbed his hand and slammed it into the granite, forcing him to drop it. Ron Weasley grabbed the length of wood as it bounced across the floor and tucked it into his belt.
The pressure around Draco's throat squeezed tight enough to jeopardize his air supply as Snape thrust the edge of his arm up under Draco's chin. "You tell me where Hermione is," he demanded in a dangerous voice, "or I'll snap your neck right here and now."
"Severus!" called Dumbledore sharply.
"As much as I respect you, Albus, stay the hell out of this."
Draco sucked in a desperate breath as he took in the men standing in the Head Girl's room. He didn't know the large man beside Dumbledore, outside of the photos printed in the Daily Prophet when the prisoner had escaped from Azkaban, but a reasonable guess could be made. Remus Lupin still wore the patched robes Draco had ridiculed four years ago, but the stern, implacable lines of the werewolf's face would have him hesitate to make a comment about them now. Harry and Ron were stone-faced and uncompromising as they stood among the older men, but it was the glittering hard eyes of his former Head of House that frightened him the most.
"Your father may not believe in the old ways, Mr. Malfoy," Severus hissed in icy tones, "but Voldemort most certainly does. Tomorrow is Midsummer's day, and at sundown he'll make a sacrifice. If my wife dies, I WILL make sure you live through that night, though I promise you you'll not enjoy it."
Attempting a sneer, Draco made an attempt to defuse the implacable anger directed at him. "Voldemort doesn't want to sacrifice a Mud - a Muggle- born. My father said something about Lord Voldemort wanting a pure-blood sacrifice that was conceived on Halloween, but he's off his rocker. Granger's kid isn't even born yet."
The sudden horror and contempt from all parties puzzled him, until he put his under-utilized brains to work and put two and two together. The resulting sum made him blanch. "He wouldn't. My father wouldn't do that." his voice trailed off as he realized that his father would have no difficulty with giving Hermione a crude Caesarian to retrieve her unborn child.
Snape leaned in closer to his captive's face, unconsciously reversing the same tableaux Draco's father had enacted some eight months ago. "You need to decide, boy, and right now. Are you a murderer, Draco? Are you willing to go to Azkaban or die for what your father's doing?"
Draco wrenched his gaze from Snape, only to see the same harsh resolve in Harry Potter's eyes. "Hermione is going to die unless you stop it, Malfoy."
Snape's sharp elbow in his larynx helped him think faster, and Draco swallowed hard. For the first time in his life, he realized his father was not the most frightening wizard in the world.
Fear was a highly motivating factor, but Draco knew it wasn't the force that bound together the men, young and old, that stood around him. Their collective determination and loyalty to each other was more vital than any whispered plots or veiled threats, the bitter cold machinations Draco had known all his life. The strength of their combined presence was more intense than a noonday sun.
He finally realized just how serious the stakes were for all involved, not just himself. For a single instant in time, his entire existence hung suspended from a thread, waiting for him to open his mouth and decide, once and for all, where his destiny lay. And for the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy made a decision of his own, regardless of the consequences, and opened his mouth.
"She's in the Brecon Beacons. That's in Wales, you prat," he sneered towards Ron, who had frowned in confusion.
Moments later Snape was striding down the path to the gates of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy's instructions clear in his mind. He didn't even realize he was being followed until Black caught at his elbow just inside the gates. Lupin was right on his heels, as were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
"What the hell do you want?" Severus snapped.
"To give you some help. If you'll let me," Serius responded. Remus merely nodded once, decisively.
"And if you think you're going without us..." began Harry,
"Then you're out of your goddamned mind," finished Ron.
Severus looked at each of them, nodded stiffly, and took out his wand.
*****
In a remote area of Wales, five wizards appeared on the windswept grazing land and immediately took a defensive posture. It only took a moment for them to feel slightly ridiculous, all of them ready to hex the single sheep who watched them from the nearby hilltop, grass drooping from its mouth. The only thing breaking the endless hillocks all around was a dilapidated crofter's hut, hip-slung and shedding its stone construction like a phoenix close to burning day.
"Hermione!" Severus shouted, striding towards the weathered timbers that still constituted a front door.
"You two watch the front," Sirius Black told Ron and Harry. "We'll check around back."
Harry nodded, and Sirius and Remus set off, circling the small building in opposite directions. They met in back, under the single high window that showed signs of having recently been enlarged but not enough to let even a child through, let alone a woman who was eight months pregnant.
Remus continued around the building, but Sirius found a toe-hold halfway up the wall and hoisted himself to the window. Peering in, he was just in time to see the interior door open abruptly and Severus Snape entered the room, ready to do battle.
"Severus?" Hermione called, unsure of her rescuer. She stood to one side of the small room, a sizable chunk of stone clutched in her hand. The stone dropped to the dirt floor as she took the few faltering steps that separated her from Severus, and at the last moment threw herself into his arms.
In that moment, Sirius Black at last comprehended that the nemesis of his childhood was nothing but his own memories. He looked on, somewhat amazed, as Severus held his wife close and then gave her a long and lingering kiss. When he pulled back, running a hand over her rounded belly for reassurance, the fierce emotion burning in those black eyes was enough to spark a pang of both envy and hope in Sirius, that he might one day have what Severus had already found.
"Are you hurt?" Severus demanded, even as he felt a hearty kick against his own stomach.
"No, I'm fine," Hermione told him. "You're really here," she whispered unsteadily.
"I'm really here," he confirmed gently. He gave her another kiss before fishing in his pocket. "I think this belongs to you," he said as he stripped the ring off the ribbon and slid it onto her finger.
"Oh," she breathed happily. "Severus." she stopped in mid-word, and her lower lip began quivering as she took in the one detail that no one else had noticed - the green and black striped silk fabric tied around his neck. "You bought a green neck-cloth," she observed numbly.
"Striped, actually," he replied. "Couldn't quite bring myself to go all the way."
"Oh. Oh, Severus," she stammered, covering her mouth as if to hold back the sob tearing its way free. Her free arm gestured aimlessly, unable to express her emotional turmoil.
A faint, tender smile transformed his face as he folded her back into his arms, holding her as tightly as he dared. "It's all right, dear heart," he soothed, "You're entitled."
"I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm doing this," she moaned as tears spilled onto her cheeks.
"You're safe now, Hermione," he assured her, stroking the long, curly strands of her hair as she buried her face in his shoulder and wept. "I'll never let you go," he whispered.
Outside, feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, Sirius Black quietly let himself down the back wall. He wandered around to the front, where his godson and their respective best friends were waiting uncertainly. "They'll be along in a minute," he told them with a wink. Their expressions cleared, though Ron's nose wrinkled a bit.
Sure enough, Severus soon emerged from the hut, carrying his wife over the broken stones that littered the grass in front of the hut. Hermione's bare feet peeped out from under the edge of her voluminous maternity robe. When he put her on her feet, she responded to Harry and Ron's enthusiastic greetings and hugs with a wan but happy smile, wiping away the last traces of her tears.
"You're supposed to carry her IN over the threshold, not out," Sirius commented.
To everyone's surprise, Severus grinned widely. "Do feel free to sod off any time, Black." At his side, Hermione shivered in the stiff breeze, her hair wafting around her face like wisps of smoke. Without thinking, he stripped off his coat and put it around her.
"Ye, gods. A gentleman," Lupin commented in an undertone.
When Severus ignored him, Sirius felt the need to object. "Now wait a minute. What, he gets to insult you and I don't? That's not fair."
"Padfoot," Remus warned.
"No. I've been around this git for weeks, listening to him natter on and on about his new love--"
"One conversation hardly counts as nattering, simpleton," Severus cut him off.
"I want to see him kiss her," Black declared, mischief in the pugnacious set of his jaw.
"Black, you may display your love life in front of all and sundry if you wish," replied Severus. "Oh, I'd forgotten. You don't have one."
Harry and Ron exchanged incredulous grins, but all in all they were both pleased to see the two men apparently burying their previous grievances.
"I don't know about all of you," added Remus, "but I want to get back to Hogwarts and put my feet up. This is more excitement than an old man like me can take."
"That's the most intelligent suggestion you've made in weeks," Severus told him. "And if we hurry, you all might have time to clean up before the graduation ceremony. We can't have the Boy Who Lived missing, it will set off a panic."
Despite his stern words, Harry gave his former teacher a cheeky grin and drew his wand to Apparate. Severus put his arms around Hermione, preparing to do the same, when a mild 'pop' sounded just a few yards away.
Normally impeccably groomed, Lucius Malfoy's current appearance was shocking. His blond hair hung in disordered strands around his face, which was haggard and unshaven. His expensive robes were quite obviously on their second or third day of wearing, creased and grease-marked. Only his expression, smug and self-satisfied, remained as an echo of his former urbane self.
That assured poise melted to confusion and then rage as he took in the sight of Hermione, standing free, surrounded by the five wizards who'd come to rescue her. Malfoy drew his wand convulsively, but halted that movement when five were quickly pointed back in his direction.
Frustrated and furious, he lowered his wand marginally. "Where is my son?" he demanded. "What have you done with him?"
Remus was the first to answer. "Draco is at Hogwarts, in the custody of Professor Dumbledore. He stands accused of kidnapping, at the very least. If he cooperates, he may escape a sentence in Azkaban, but I think it all depends on what Mrs. Snape will say when she testifies."
Lucius Malfoy's watery blue eyes focused on Hermione with a fervent hatred. "You unspeakable little Mudblood whore," he ground out. "You've ruined everything!"
Ron and Harry stepped forward, goaded by the insult. Sirius held up a hand to stop them, but at the same time shifted slightly to the side to allow them all better aim.
"Then maybe you should have left me alone," Hermione replied in a level voice. There were so many things she wanted to say to Lucius Malfoy, to scream at him, but she controlled the impulse to fly at the blond wizard who had so disrupted her life. Even surrounded by her would-be gallants, Hermione felt only marginally safe from Malfoy, and she was in no shape to physically attack anyone regardless of how much she desired to do so.
"How dare you!" he seethed. "My kind have ruled empires! You should be on your knees before me!"
Sirius held his wand out, still tense and wary. "As opposed to flat on her back, begging for mercy?" he questioned spitefully. "Don't blame Hermione for escaping your ploys, Malfoy."
"Got them all panting for you, don't you?" Malfoy hissed between clenched teeth. "Foul little tramp, putting your hooks into my son. And now you've had to settle for him." He turned his furious attention to the tall man at her side, drops of spittle forming on his lips as he flung out his accusations. "I hope she was good, Severus. Was she really worth throwing away everything?"
With a lift of his chin, Severus replied simply, "Yes. She was."
Hermione inhaled quickly, surprised beyond conscious thought by Severus' words. Without meaning to, she reached out and touched his arm. It wasn't a formal declaration, in the words she longed to hear, but when he spared a quick glance at her, everything she wanted to know was expressed there in his ebony eyes.
An incomprehensible scream of rage tore from Lucius Malfoy's throat at this final betrayal, and before anyone realized his intent, his wand raised in a savage arc.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!!"
For one blinding instant, Remus Lupin's more sensitive eyes made out Hermione's form, surrounded by a brilliant halo of green. The after-image burned into his retinas showed Hermione standing with her bare feet planted in the rich earth, the gale force of Malfoy's spell causing her simple robe to outline her rounded form and her hair to stream back over her shoulders. The soft curls were edged with the terrible emerald light that enveloped her entire body. Her husband's arms were dark bands as he reached to shield her, protect her, but were far too late to make any difference.
A lifetime ago, Lily Potter had created a protection for her son by tapping into the elemental magic of a mother's love for her child. In the instant the curse fell from Lucius Malfoy's lips, Hermione's arm flew up as if to ward off a blow, instinctively trying to protect her unborn child, and the air crackled between her and Malfoy.
"NO!" The words came from her mouth, but the sound of Hermione's voice split the air around them, her denial reverberating through the very earth on which the wizards stood. Power thrummed through their bones, sympathetic echoes of the clash taking place within the young woman in their midst.
The spell coiled about her, momentarily stymied from completing its deadly mission. And then the green light flew back to its maker, surrounding Malfoy in a nimbus of rich color. The shielding spell he attempted burnt away before the words were even completed, and he screamed in shock and agony, his spine arching painfully. Glimmers of green light chased themselves across his body as the spell overwhelmed him.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
Sirius Black bounded forward instantly, his wand at the ready, but one look at the staring-eyed corpse left him with little doubt. To be sure, he put two fingers to the man's neck, but failed to find a pulse.
"He's dead," Sirius declared with grim satisfaction, then looked up at the rest of his party. "Dear God in heaven," he breathed.
The ice that clenched in Black's chest could have made the same pale and utterly blank mask that was Severus Snape's face as he gazed down at the burden in his arms. Hermione hung limp and pale in his embrace.
"Hermione?" called Ron Weasley in a small voice, plaintive against the light breeze that toyed with the curls that crossed her still face. Her head lolled back, exposing the tender length of her neck. Half shut, her eyes stared at nothingness.
Snape's knees buckled suddenly, and he collapsed to the green grass, still holding Hermione's upper body across his lap. The weight of her dragged relentlessly against his arms.
"Hermione! NO!" shouted Harry, his forward lunge stopped by Lupin's arms, his werewolf strength just barely able to stop the distraught young man.
"An object lesson, Mr. Potter," Severus declared after a long moment, though his own voice sounded distant in his ears and pins and needles crawled up and down his limbs. "When confronted with a known enemy, do not hesitate to strike first."
The Potion Master's breath caught with a sudden painful hitch, as thought he'd suddenly forgotten the mechanics of respiration. Each expansion of his lungs was a separate act of will as he gazed down at the woman in his arms. "You never know what that moment of hesitation will cost you."
Hermione lay motionless across his knees, her arms lost in the black wool of her husband's coat. The black fabric lay open across her center, framing the pale rose fabric of her gown and the prominent rise of the baby she carried. Severus' right hand hovered briefly over the still, unmoving surface, trembling, as though he did not dare touch the child. Instead, his fingers caught at one of the tendrils of hair floating across Hermione's cheek and smoothed it back.
"Severus," Black called quietly, but the man made no indication he'd heard, even when Sirius called his name again. With a sigh Sirius solemnly removed his cloak and spread it across Hermione's body, pulling it as high as he could without disturbing the new widower.
He stood, feeling older than Dumbledore as he walked towards his godson, who stood woodenly under Remus' grip. Ron had one hand clamped to his mouth and his other arm wrapped around his stomach, hunched in over a pain that had yet to find an outlet in either tears or rage. Sirius put a hand on Harry's shoulder, concerned by the young man's clenched jaw.
"NO." Harry declared, shaking off Sirius' hand and dropping to his knees opposite Snape. "I'm not going to let this happen."
"Harry," protested Lupin gently as tried to draw him away from the body of his friend. "She's gone." Over Harry's black head, he caught the sorrowful gaze of Sirius. They'd seen too many victims of a Death Eater's Killing Curse to have any hope.
"Do we know that for sure?" Harry demanded wildly, his green eyes brilliant with desperation and unshed tears. "Maybe she's not!" He seized a handful of the black coat and shoved Snape's shoulder hard, trying to loosen the grieving man's hold. "We could give her artificial respiration."
"What's that?" sniffled Ron, wiping at his damp cheek, his voice crackling.
"It's a Muggle first aid," Harry muttered, trying to remember what to do. He'd only browsed over the pamphlet that had come in the Dursley's mail as he'd carried it to the waste basket, and spared a split second for the irony that Hermione would have undoubtedly known exactly how to perform the procedure. "Lay her down," he ordered Snape.
Beyond caring, beyond any recognizable emotion at all, Severus mechanically lay Hermione's body flat on the ground. Harry hovered for a moment before sliding a hand into the thick mass of curls under her neck to position her head properly. He bent over her, took a deep breath, and at the last second remembered to pinch her nose before placing his mouth over hers and exhaling as hard as he could.
He'd barely begun to inflate her lungs when a spark snapped between them, like a static arc, which abruptly flared into a blinding white and sent Harry sprawling to one side.
"Harry!" Ron yelled and jumped to his friend's assistance. Black and Lupin both were blinking, shocked physically and mentally at the powerful blaze of magic that had surged through the air around Hermione like a lightening strike. Severus, kneeling beside Hermione's body, had flung one arm across his face in an instinctive effort to block the onslaught of light.
"Your head's bleeding," Ron informed Harry as he helped him sit up.
Harry put up a shaky hand and felt blood dripping from his scar, but no wound. He scrubbed at it with his sleeve. "What was that?"
No one answered him, though all of them were looking at him. "What?" he said again when Ron continued to stare at him.
"Harry.your scar!" he exclaimed in an awed voice.
Harry felt for the lightning slash on his forehead, but couldn't find it. "Is it gone?" he asked, shocked.
"No, it's still there. It's just gone pale or something. Like it's just some ordinary old scar."
Sirius and Remus both stepped closer to see the changed scar. Just that morning it had been red and raised, the same way it had been since Voldemort had reclaimed a physical existence three years ago. Now, the young man's forehead had only a whitish streak lying quiescent on his skin.
"Ow," said Hermione quietly. She pushed herself up, one hand going to her temple as she winced. "Severus?" she queried, eyes half-closed in pain, sounding lost.
Turning quickly, Sirius and Lupin both gaped in open disbelief. Ron and Harry both shouted her name in joy, but stopped just short of throwing themselves at her when they took in the utterly panicked expression on Severus Snape's face.
"Hermione," he gasped, reaching out one tentative hand towards her. When she looked up at him, her brown eyes full of pain and confusion, Severus dragged her into his arms, his hands tightening where they held on to her until they all but disappeared in the black wool fabric of the old frock coat. His shoulders shook as he buried his face in the wavy masses of her hair, but not a sound escaped him until he gasped raggedly for breath.
"Hermione, love. My love. Gods." A dry sob racked his shoulders. "I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, rocking her slightly.
"I'm all right," she told him weakly, and she was not sure if the wetness she felt was his tears or hers as he pressed his lips to her eyes and cheeks.
Doing their best not to disturb the couple, Sirius and the others moved away slightly, without discussion, and watched the pair embracing.
Elemental magic," Lupin concluded at last. "Just as Harry was saved by his mother's love, seventeen years ago. Hermione is a mother to be. Magic recognized magic." Ron sniffled, but the smile on his face was bright despite or perhaps because of the tears on his cheeks. Harry clapped him on the shoulder and they looked on as their best friend was held by another man who loved her.
A quiet 'pop' sounded nearby.
"Bloody hell," Ron shouted, startled, as he and the other standing wizards whirled to meet this new threat. "Now what?"
Harry, however, was the first to recognize the Apparating figure.
"Ginny!"
Ginny Weasley appeared on the small hillock nearby, her long red hair swirling around her shoulders and her pale, frightened face. She wore a black school robe over her white dress robes, and in one hand she carried the silver sword of Godric Griffyndor. Fawkes, the Headmaster's golden phoenix, sat on her arm.
"Harry! Voldemort is attacking Hogwarts!"