What the Thunder Said
Chapter Six: Delayed DeparturesShe woke with an unpleasant start to find herself hovering in midair. A dream, perhaps? No such luck.
And she realized that it had not, as she at first believed, been one of her own little twitches that roused her from her light, unpleasant—don't think about that yet—slumber. She was being most cruelly wrestled through a trapdoor in the dirt ceiling of the tunnel by some invisible thread.
"Do put me down," she snapped darkly, a bit more loudly than she intended. She was horrified, after a moment, to recognize the edge of panic in her voice. Still, what was said was said. And the startled Snape, still clamoring up onto the leafy surface, obliged immediately. She landed in a tangle of banana silk and jostled limbs. He gave her a snarky glare over his shoulder and turned to continue through the door.
Oh, she hated that man and his billowing black robes and graceful swooshings! She realized this acute dislike was growing a bit more pronounced with every passing moment and added insult. It occurred to her that she had managed, in her time away from Hogwarts, to forget precisely how distasteful the Potions Master was. It was coming crashing back; Realization with a Capital R sounded an awful lot like Neville's eleventh replacement cauldron hitting the stony floor of the Potions classroom.
Bad. Very bad.
Hermione stuck her nose in her hair—after batting the hair and dirt from her eyes—and scrambled to her feet. "I'd ask again, Professor, that you tell me where you're carting me off to in the middle of the night. I'd appreciate-"
"Do shut up, you foolish girl," he hissed, and in a swirl of black robes the trap door slammed shut and his nose hovered painfully close to her own. The faint moonlight that had previously illuminated the opening now gone, Hermione realized that it was dark. Very dark.
And, in spite of herself, she began to shiver… and not from cold. Don't think about that. Still, she took a step backwards hastily.
"Need I ever remind you, Miss Granger," he continued silkily, voice dripping with disdain and annoyance, "the peril you've put us in?"
"I've-?" She clamped her mouth shut; she would not take that insufferable man's bait. She had managed seven years of him, she had learned to keep her tongue in her head, and she could do that just as well now as when she was twelve. She took a deep breath. He had retreated slightly as well, and she couldn't see those angular cheekbones or hard eyes. She hoped he didn't notice her shaking hands.
"It would have been easier," she said flatly, "if I had not been jolted from a second kidnapping. I'm sure you understand my wariness in being dragged off, unwittingly, by strange men." There was a new edge to her voice here, something nearly as sharp as his own tone.
Silence. For a moment, at least, though it didn't last.
"Perhaps you had best learn to take care of yourself, Miss Granger." He sounded as disinterested as ever. "I find you exceedingly infantile for one who claims to be an adult."
She let that pass. She had bigger fish to fry. "Where," she pressed once more, "are we going?"
~*~*~*~
On one hand, he could simply grab the girl by that stupid bushy hair and throw her through the trap door. And Apparate. And be done with it. But Severus was beginning to come to grips with this odd situation, this terrible mess he had gotten himself in. He had to put up with the girl until Merlin knew when, all to the hidden delight and beatific applause of Albus Dumbledore. He might as well be on speaking terms with her, then, if months loomed ahead. Severus did not think kidnapping-by-hair-pulling constituted as "speaking terms."
That left the other hand to deal with. His left, so to speak; the one that he rarely dealt with. Compromise.
Damn Albus. Damn the Death Eaters, and damn Voldemort. And more than anything else, damn Hermione Granger.
"Sit." His eyes had adjusted to the dark relatively quickly, and as he withdrew slightly, he saw her hesitate. After a moment, however, she sat. Her chin was set at a defiant, wary angle, as if she were not yet convinced of her triumph. She slid down against the hard-packed wall on her side of the narrow tunnel, the curve of her back meeting the angle between floor and wall. She drew up her knees to her chest under that hideous frock.
He reached up and checked the hatch of the trap door. He locked it again. "Lumos." The tip of his wand glowed softly, illuminating the small end of the corridor. She looked up at him.
"Where are we going?" She was no longer as pushy, as bossy as before She was quieter, somehow, and less demanding. For a little while he had seen the Old Granger, the ringleader, though many would have doubted it, of Potter's little gang, the know-it-all student. And now she seemed someone entirely different.
He wasn't complaining. She was exponentially easier to deal with in this subdued, serious state. Still, it was unnerving. If he had liked the girl at all, he would have been worried—she had withdrawn again into that yellow tent and was regarding him with hooded, earnest, tired eyes.
He bit back a snide remark. Diplomacy, from Severus Snape? Oh, the insanity was beginning. He thought for a moment. "Where do you want to do?" he asked at last, neither cruelly nor compassionately.
She did not hesitate as he had. She gave him a quick glance. "I don't know." He could tell it was the truth. They sat for a long moment in silence, the light at the end of his Snape's wand growing more steady and assured.
"Albus owns a cabin," he said at last. "I was spending my holidays there before the Order was recalled. It's Unplottable, among other things. I did not test the wards too carefully when I was there this summer, but I have reason to believe that it is very well guarded."
She chewed at her lower lip. "And you expect that Professor Dumbledore knows you—where we—plan to head there?"
He regarded her simply. Clever, even under stress. "Yes. It is safer, as he mentioned, if he does not know for certain. Under Veritaserum, he could still tell inquisitors that he does not know where I headed." She nodded her head slightly, grudgingly accepting the wisdom in that.
"Where, then?"
"America."
"Oh."
~*~*~*~
"An island in the San Juans. In Washington. The Northwest, I believe they call it. Near-"
"I know where it is," she snapped, an edge returning to her voice.
She had been entertaining, for the briefest moments, the idea of a cottage on a Greek isle somewhere in the Mediterranean, on a cliff overlooking an azure sea. Or a secluded little house in the French countryside, or even someplace in Britain, someplace familiar. Or perhaps a little beach house in the Pacific, where she would be blissfully separated from the world with the exception of a few enchanting natives.
America, though.
It seemed sensible, with further thought. The wizarding populace in America had been left alone, for the most part, by the war with Voldemort. They were Americans, after all, and they were obstinately independent. She'd read a few articles that hinted at eventual involvement, but it was likely that only the Eastern seaboard would suffer at all. New York and D.C. had, in their own rights, large wizarding communities. And the rest of the country was relatively Muggle, from what she had read.
Without a word, their strange little interview was over. He snuffed out the light in his wand with a hastily muttered "Nox," and reached up towards the trap door. Just as the edge had returned to her voice, he had reverted quite quickly back to the Insufferable Snape.
And to think, he had been nearly bearable for a few moments there. Thinking back—both seated on the rough, cold floor of the tunnel, both quiet and sober and straight-forward—she decided that he must be more tired than she had thought. Certainly, Severus Snape, under no normal circumstances, would have behaved in such a surprisingly polite manner.
He swept up through the high trap door and turned, eyes glinting, to look back at her. "Do be quiet, Miss Granger, for I should hate to have to remind you a third time." He smiled darkly as she rose stiffly, looking up at the high ledge. "Do you need a hand?"
"I can do very well," she hissed, "on my own." She was not a particularly statuesque witch. In fact, she was quite the opposite. She had to give a few little hops to reach the ledge, her little fingers finally curling around the edge of the trap door. After a great deal of huffing and puffing, she pulled herself up and over, dusting the dirt from her palms. She tried to pretend her little half-step stumble was intentional. Her foot caught on the hem of her yellow robe, and as she straightened, there was a brief, sharp tear in the fabric.
He studied her for a moment before sneering once again. "I see that you're still ludicrously mulish." She willed herself to keep her petulant mouth shut; she had no intention of playing into one of his little traps. He kicked the trapdoor shut with his foot and covered it with a bit of the underbrush.
"Let's just be going," she finally announced between gritted teeth. "I hardly expected lollygagging—in unsafe territory—from a seasoned spy." His eyes narrowed and his head bobbed in the slightest of nods.
Oh dear God. His head.
How—how—had she not noticed that in the tunnel?
"You cut your hair," Hermione breathed. She regretted the words, however true, as soon as they left her mouth. Snape's satirical smile was back in a flash, his eyes glinting in the faint light.
"How perceptive, Miss Granger."
She wrenched her eyes from this newest revelation, the latest in a day of surprises. Still, she had to admit, he had done a fairly decent job of it. Considering he did it himself, of course. Somehow she could not wrap her mind around the idea of the Formidable Severus Snape stepping in to the small styling salon—the Shear Magic—in Diagon Alley and paying for a wash and trim.
Of course he would pay for a wash, Hermione thought, a grim bit of amusement punctuating her returning sour mood. Severus Snape had cut his hair. She ached, at that particular moment, for two specific Gryffindors. They would have greatly appreciated a moment such as this.
It was not short by any means, but the lank length was gone. It had been skillfully trimmed to about three or four inches in length, a few silky wisps of hair falling across his forehead in a manner that looked, for a moment, almost boyish.
She shivered.
He grabbed her by the forearm, wrenching her from her reverie. Hermione was disgusted to realize that she had flinched at the touch and recoiled slightly. She opened her eyes—they had flown shut, for some reason—to find him regarding her strangely. "Let's just go," she said tightly.
She was beginning to feel ill again.
"Hold tight," he said, and she did. She turned, slightly to glimpse a flicker of light through the trees. The castle, looming in the distance, high above the Forbidden Forest. Hermione swayed slightly on her feet, and the grip on her forearm tightened immediately.
And then they were gone.
~*~*~*~
"Fang, ye git! D'on touch the scones, or I swear ye'll get no supper for a week!" The large black dog regarded the half-giant with glittering, expressive eyes. He didn't mean it. He never meant it. And sure enough, in a moment, Hagrid was setting the plate of rock-hard biscuits on the floor of his cabin.
He snuffled—Hagrid, not the dog—and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. "Used to be Hermione's favorites," he told his companion. Fang glanced up for a moment and then went back, promptly, to gnawing at his brickish breakfast.
Huh. Showed how much dear Hagrid knew. Fang had eaten many a discarded scone, carefully stashed in the rosebush by the door of the hut. The three Gryffindors had left them often on their way back to the castle. Fang quickly swallowed the rest of the scones, having given up on actually chewing them, and trotted over to lie back down in his corner by the fire. Hagrid blew his nose loudly and dissolved in another fit of broken sobs.
Fang picked up the rag he had found on his morning patrol and continued to happily slobber over the swath of yellow fabric. Scones and silk. A happy day for a dog.
A/N:
I know. A short chapter. I'm sorry. It's a crazy month for me, though, and I wanted to get SOMETHING up. I'm not completely happy with this, but hopefully things will get better from here on out.
To the "no one" who reviewed: You guessed it! Mrs. PDR Vandertramp is a mnemonic device taught by, I'm assuming, that terrible coalition of French teachers the world over. Go figure.
To all of my other lovely reviewers: Thank you so much for all of your kind words. I had no idea, until I took to writing fanfiction myself, how true it is when authors exclaim about living for reviews. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
As to where Hermione and Sev are off to… you write what you know. I would have loved to send them off to some Pacific isle. It came down to a flat in Heidelberg, where I lived for a few months, and the Northwest. I'm in the Northwest now, so I'll write what I know. Not terribly exotic, but it should do.
