Disclaimer: see chapter 1.

Help!

by Katta (KET on ff.net) (katta_t2002@yahoo.co.uk)

Chapter 7

Hermione arrived back at her parents' house feeling as if she had been through an emotional wringer. And she knew that she had yet another challenge to face. Her father met her at the door, his pale blue eyes watery with pain and love. He hugged her tight and told her how proud he was of her and how much he loved her. It was so heart rending that she didn't know how she coped. Then her mother bustled in and intervened. Hermione sat down to dinner but it was clear that her father was unable to eat anything.

'I'm feeling so bloated,' he complained. His wife tried to suggest things he might eat, but in her anxiousness to feed him, they were all far too substantial. Finally he said, 'Can I just have some toast, please.' Hermione's mother started to object, but Hermione had a sudden brainwave. 'Can I do you toast with honey?' she said. Her father nodded. Afterwards she was to remember that toast with honey which he at with such relish as the last meal she ever saw him eat with pleasure.

However, there is only so much emotion that a human being can stand. Martin Granger went to bed early and his daughter just couldn't deal an evening of her mother failing to face facts. The final straw was when she asked what Hermione thought of a holiday cottage she was trying to book in France for late August. Hermione wanted to shout at her, 'He won't be alive by late August or at least not well enough to travel!' but she knew that this was her mother's way of coping so bit her tongue. But she also announced that she was going to bed.

***

In the darkness of her bedroom she tried to make sense of the day she had just lived through. Her father. The fixed point in her life. She loved her mother – she wasn't an unintelligent woman, she was a dentist after all, but she still had something of the dumb blonde over her. A beautiful butterfly. But her father – her father understood her. When her mother had flustered at the Hogwarts owl, her father had understood, really understood. Probably known on an intuitive level long before that the powers his daughter had were magical. He had probably disapproved, she supposed, but he had known that the magical world was right for his daughter and had never questioned her judgement. Then she cried.

After a long time of thinking of her father, she finally cast her mind to that other cataclysm of the day – Mary Maguire and Micky. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder how the board of Hogwarts had known that she had magical ability and sent her the owl. But not sent one to Micky. Or had they? She needed to speak to Mary again. But first she needed to get some facts straight.

Finally she thought of Snape. In some ways that was the most difficult topic of all. The rejection hurt, really hurt. Whatever else he had thought when he saw the picture of Micky Maguire and read about the Death Mark, he clearly hadn't thought it was something he could share with Hermione. Her heart clenched. She wanted so much for him to trust her, but maybe it was never to be.

It was very late when she finally fell asleep.

***

When she woke the next day, her mother had already gone to work. Her father was sitting in the living room trying to read the paper but looking very uncomfortable. When Hermione asked whether her mother shouldn't be home with him, he smiled at her.

'She is keeping the practice afloat together with Peter. Let her get on with that  and keep her mind off me. Peter is a brick!'

Peter was Hermione's cousin who had followed in the family tradition and qualified as a dentist. A year ago, when her parents had finally realised that whatever Hermione did with her life, dentistry was not going to figure in it, they had made Peter a full partner. Hermione had felt a weight lifted from her shoulders and had been delighted. She was even more relieved now.

'Do you want me to stay or is it alright if I go out for the day?' she asked.

Her father smiled. 'You go. I'll just rest here. I'm not much company, I keep falling asleep,' he said.

Hermione was deeply troubled, but at the same time she was desperate to get more information about Micky and Snape, so she decided to go.

****

'Ron,' said Hermione into the fire. 'Do you know how Hogwarts identify muggle born wizards?'

Ron stared at her. 'I've never thought about it,' he said.

That didn't surprise her – there weren't really that many things that Ron had thought deeply about beyond quidditch. But she was surprised that she had never thought of it herself.

'Ask my dad,' said Ron.

'What?'

'My dad – he would know.'

Oh, of course, Ron was right - Arthur Weasley would know.

'He's at home helping mum today.'

'Thanks!'

Hermione decided this wasn't really the sort of topic to discuss through a fireplace, so she apparated to the Burrows. Mrs Weasley greeted her with delight, only slightly tempered when Hermione explained that she wanted to ask Mr Weasley a question related to 'her research'. Arthur Weasley came in from the garden. 'What do you want to know?' he asked presently.

'How are muggle born wizards identified? How do Hogwarts know who to send owls to?'

Hermione noticed that Arthur Weasley looked slightly uncomfortable at this question and his first answer seemed to be evading the question slightly.

'Well, there are some like Harry which we know about and keep an eye on the whole time.'

'Harry is not muggle born,' objected Hermione. 'I mean real muggle born wizards and witches, like me.'

'Well …' Arthur Weasley was still prevaricating slightly. 'The Ministry usually gets reports of magical activity. And then we follow them up.'

'Are those reports reliable?'

'Usually.'

'And if someone doesn't reply to the letter.'

Arthur Weasley looked even more uncomfortable. 'Well, we can't force anyone to go to Hogwarts.'

'So you'd just leave it?'

'That depends. If it was Harry Potter …'

'If it wasn't Harry Potter. If it was just some kid on a Liverpool sink estate.'

Arthur Weasley shrugged unhappily. 'Then we'd probably just leave it.'

***

Hermione put on her best smile for the librarian at the Daily Prophet and was let in to do some 'further research' . Quickly she did two things. First she looked up Lucius Malfoy. There was surprisingly little information about him – and in particular hardly any information about where he lived – but eventually she found a report in Witch Weekly where 'Lucius Malfoy and his charming wife Narcissa' had thrown open their palatial country house in Gloucestershire to the reporters and photographers. There was enough information there for her revealing charm to give her an address.

Then she went back to the records of the first Death Eaters trials and purloined whatever photographs of Death Eaters she could lay her hands on, including one of Snape. She felt her heart tighten when she saw the morose young man. But suppressing the feeling she slipped the photos into her handbag, smiled at the librarian again and left.

***

This time Hermione was able to apparate in the corridor of the tower block and avoid running the gauntlet of drug dealers. She knocked on Mary Maguire's door. There was no reply for such a long time that she had made her mind up that the flat was empty, when she eventually heard a shuffling sound.

'Who's there?' said an unsteady voice.

'It's me, Hermione Granger. You spoke to me yesterday.'

'Oh. It's you.' The door opened a crack. Mary Maguire was definitely less friendly today. Hermione smelt gin on her breath. She had a sudden insight that the £100 had not gone straight to the loan shark. Sighing slightly at the state of her bank balance, she said, 'I might be able to pay you some more money, if you would answer some more questions.'

'Another £100?'

Oh what the hell – this was Snape's future she was talking about here – her and Snape's future.

'Yes, another £100.'

Mary Maguire opened the door.

'Can you remember, when Micky was about 11 whether you received any strange letters?'

The woman looked at her in bleary eyed confusion and lit a cigarette. A more expensive brand than yesterday, Hermione noticed.

'What sort of strange?'

'Strange looking. Like an official document. Maybe delivered in a strange way.'

The woman considered this for a long while and then she threw back her head an laughed.

'I've had official looking letters all my life. Writs and what-have-you. Bailiffs. The lot. I always throw them in the bin.'

Well, that explained that anyway.

Hermione drew a deep breath. This was the really difficult bit.

'Would you look at some photos for me?'

'What sort of photos?'

'Of some people who might have been among the ones who raped you.'

Mary Maguire was silent for a long while. 'I'm not sure I'd remember,' she said at last. 'It was 22 years ago.'

'Please just look at them and then I'll give you your cheque and go.'

The woman opposite nodded. £100 was a lot of money to her.

The first few photos were unlikely outsiders and Mary Maguire shook her head at them. If she was surprised that the photos moved, she didn't show it. Then Hermione produced Lucius Malfoy. Mary startled and drew back shivering.

'Him!' she said. 'He was the ring leader I told you about. The one who egged the others on.'

Hermione continued showing photos. No reaction. And then the final one – Snape in his early twenties. Mary's eyes almost popped out their sockets as she nodded silently. Quietly Hermione pulled out the press photo of Micky from the News of the World and laid it next to the photo of Snape. Mary turned to her, tears in her eyes.

'I was right, wasn't I. He was the father.'

'I think so, yes.'

'Do you know who he is.'

'Yes.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'No.'

'Will you find him?'

'I hope so. I really do hope so.'