The Sorting Hat's song was slightly more perfunctory and subdued than in years past, Hermione noticed with a sigh. The first years' ranks were thinned, and the first name Minerva called from her scroll, "Abernathy, Jennet," didn't come forward. With a jolt Hermione realized what it meant, and recalled the name from the papers. Jennet Abernathy--the daughter of Frederick and Samantha Abernathy. Killed in June with her parents and older brother, Harvey, a Ravenclaw. There were a few moments of respectful silence for young Jennet, and Minerva went on to the next name. "Andrews, Thomas!"
A stocky, brown-haired young boy stepped up to the stool, sat down, and placed the hat upon his head. After about ten seconds, the hat cried, "Hufflepuff!" The Hufflepuff table set up a cheer. "Bennet, Jillian," a blond girl, became a Ravenclaw, as did, "Boxhall, Joseph," a small, black-haired boy.
"Firiens, Henry," and "Janeway, Bonnie," also did not step forward to be sorted. The first new Slytherin was "Lightoller, Herbert," a fair-haired lad. She saw Snape smile slightly at that. She herself was relieved when, "Lowe, Harold," was the year's first Gryffindor. She studied him as the Gryffindor table gave a roar for its new member. He was slender, with dark brown hair, and grinning widely. Keep an eye on that one. Lightoller too. They look full of mischief, she thought.
The Sorting proceeded through "Montverde, Melanthe," a Slytherin, pausing again to acknowledge the loss of "Nelson, Douglas," then proceeding calmly through the rest to "Zales, Gerald," who became a Hufflepuff. Dumbledore rose to his feet, studying the four tables before him, and the chatter of welcoming the new house members silenced. "I would like to take," Dumbledore said softly, but his voice echoed throughout the Great Hall, "a few moments in memory of those we have lost this summer."
The list began with Harvery Abernathy, Jennet's older brother. Eight names, including the four who would now never attend Hogwarts. The hall was respectfully silent for a few minutes, as thoughts of friends, classmates, and pupils lost went through all their minds, from the newly sorted children to the oldest among them, Dumbledore himself.
Things resumed a semblance of normalcy, and she looked out at the four tables, smiling a little to herself to see the prefects already taking it upon themselves to show the new children the ropes. It felt so odd--she had been a student herself with the current fifth years and up. So much had changed, too, from what she had known. Hester Latterly of Gryffindor, now a seventh-year prefect, had been a third-year when she had left for Lothlorien. And apparently Hester was serious romantically with William Monk, a prefect in Slytherin now, whom she gladly would have gutted when she and Monk were both thirteen. She looked closely and saw a ring on Hester's left hand. Serious indeed. And yet Slytherins and Gryffindors still were giving each other grief across the hall, and it was like every other Greeting Feast she had been to in her student years. It felt at once like everything and nothing had changed in three years.
An hour later, the students retired to their dormitories. John Evan, one of the Hufflepuff prefects, gave her a smile as he passed by, the new Hufflepuffs following obediently behind him. She had tutored him in her sixth year in Potions, and he had been profoundly grateful. She smiled back, and once the hall was empty, rose with the rest of the staff to adjourn to her own room for the night. After all, classes began in the morning, and she was to be thrown right in the fire with seventh-year Gryffindors and Slytherins, followed by first years from the two houses later in the day. She was more concerned about the seventh-years respecting her as a teacher, particularly the Gryffindors she had shared a common room with so shortly before. I'll think about it tomorrow.
She unbuttoned her robes, in the mandatory Hogwarts black, even for staff, and sat in the cushy armchair, reading about the defeat of Rasputin in 1918, fascinated to note the role her predecessor, Professor Janney, had played in the Dark wizard's downfall. Crookshanks hopped on her lap and proceeded to snuggle down and leave ginger fur all over her.
There was suddenly a banging on the door, and she stood up without thinking, sending Crookshanks to the floor yowling in protest. She said a quick apology as she hurried to the door, wondering what appeared so urgent. She removed the ward, opened the door, and barely had time to utter a greeting as Snape swept in, moving swiftly towards her window while saying over his shoulder, "They've called--hurry!"
She was dumbfounded. Never had she seen him in such haste when they had gone spying before, but she quickly cast the ward protecting the room again, and rapidly transformed, grateful she had kept in practice with the skill. She caught up to him in flight just over the gates of Hogwarts. What's the rush? she asked, grateful that a peregrine falcon was by nature a little swifter than a gyrfalcon and that she wasn't having to work quite as hard to keep up with him.
It's all changed since you were last out, Hermione. You'll see what I mean, he answered, banking towards the clearing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. She followed mutely, as they landed upon the grass and rapidly Apparated to their old spot, seeing the forbidding form of Malfoy Manor close by once again with a slight prickle along her spine.
They located the Death Eaters holding their gathering in the gardens again, and the first thing she noticed was that a few of the prominent Death Eaters were missing. She remembered reading about Avery and McNair's deaths, but she resolved to ask Snape what he knew of them. The Daily Prophet said only that they had died under "mysterious circumstances".
Voldemort received reports on the killings of the week before, and seemed to be nearly purring in pleasure. Then it was a fifteen-minute diatribe about the filth of Muggles and those who supported them, the Death Eaters all nodding eagerly. Hermione waited for him to declare the targets for the next night and who was to execute his orders, but instead, he simply nodded to Lucius Malfoy, whose figure she'd recognize even in her nightmares, by his right side and said simply, "The Waldens."
Lucius bowed in acknowledgment and began mulling the Death Eaters, trying to decide who would accompany him. Stop gawking! Go! Snape hissed, launching himself from the branch and landing a few hundred yards away, out of sight and earshot for the Death Eaters. The Waldens, in Hull. Apparate to their bedroom, and quickly!
She quickly did as he said, and found herself standing at the foot of a bed, unable to see anything but blankets from her lack of height, and that only faintly due to the darkness. Snape beside her had transformed to his human form, and she rapidly followed suit. He shook the shoulder of the man asleep in the bed none too gently.
He cast a quick Laryngius Charm, stifling any protest or alarm. "The Death Eaters are only a minute or so behind us. Get your daughter and Apparate to the Ministry, and do it now!" She noticed he was careful to hide in the shadows and add a raspy edge to his normally-smooth voice in concealment.
"Thank you," Walden said softly as his wife hurried out the door, obviously towards their daughter's room. Then he turned and headed after her, and not thirty seconds later, she heard the faint pop that accompanied an Apparating from a little ways down the hall.
He was at the window, and gestured for her to look. She could barely make out their shapes in the darkness, but saw them on the lawn, gathering and preparing to go about their gruesome work. Three of them, and she was only too eager to Apparate away from them, and felt a small frisson of triumph that their victims had escaped.
They Apparated back to the far edge of the Forbidden Forest, and she tried to ask him about it, but he cut her off abruptly. "No time to talk. If I'm in my human form outside Hogwarts' wards for any length of time, they'll be here in a second to kill me." With that he changed to falcon form and took flight over the forest, she left again to trail doggedly behind, feeling stupidly like a novice at the entire thing again. It was if she had learned nothing since becoming an Animagus.
They flew back to Hogwarts, into his quarters. He gestured her to a plush chair, offering to send for some tea or the sort. She shook her head in reply, leaning forward and inquiring, "So…please. It's all changed so much…" She trailed off, uncertain of what she was asking. What the hell's going on? Yes, that likely fits.
He sighed, looking a trifle more pale than usual, obviously worn out from all the hard flying and the drain of multiple Apparatings in rapid succession. "It has all changed. We got too good at saving them, you and I. He's gone to giving no warning, just telling one of the higher-ranking Death Eaters to take a few from among the ranks and do the job right then and there. We were lucky this time."
He was silent for a moment, then resumed. "Lucius dawdled a bit over his selection of accomplices tonight, it seems. We end up racing to see who can Apparate there first. Sometimes I would get there and get them out, and sometimes unforeseeable delays…not being able to land to Apparate for awhile, a fluctuation in the Apparation network…I'd arrive sometimes to find them already dead."
"I…had wondered why so many seemed to still be dying."
He grimaced. "Of course it's a close shave most times. Usually we haven't the luxury of Apparating away while they're still chatting up on the lawn. At Elena Filitova's, I Apparated out just as Wormtail came bursting through the bedroom door," he smiled humorlessly. "It's gotten much more dangerous, Hermione, and there's less room for error than ever before."
"I still want to," she said with determination. "You couldn't scare me off it when I was eighteen. You won't now--anything truly worth doing is a risk."
"Ever the Gryffindor," he said with a shaky laugh. "There is another thing, though."
"Yes?" She was aware of Tosca shifting around a bit in her mews, probably asleep.
"At times," he said, his dark gaze directly meeting her own, "he sends more than one killing…crew, I suppose…a night. A few times he's sent three or four. You saw that I jumped to it with the first names. That means that we will miss some. That's helped by the fact that I can go one place and you another, perhaps, and get both of them out in time. That's one thing Tosca couldn't do. But there may yet be ones that will die because we were busy saving others. Can you stand that?"
His words of three years ago echoed in her mind. Do you realize how powerless you are as a spy? You play God, Miss Granger, in deciding who must be sacrificed, and that is an assuredly heavy and awkward burden. But it was a necessary one. Someone had to step up and shoulder it. She nodded in reply. "I can stand it," she said in a near-whisper.
"Excellent," he said, something close to relief in his tone. "You had probably best get some sleep. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow." He smiled a little. "Shall I come frighten the little brats into obedience for you?"
"No, Severus," she said wearily, but still managing to laugh, "I think I'll handle myself."
"Famous last words. Good night, then. Shall I see you to your room?" he offered.
"No, I believe I'm all right," she said, bidding him good night as well and waiting for him to remove the ward from the door so that she could leave. Carefully she made her way to her room, then rolled her eyes to realize that she didn't have to worry about being after curfew any longer.
She collapsed on her bed, deaf even to Crookshanks' inquiries as to how it had gone, asleep within seconds. Her last coherent thought was, Teaching can't be half so nerve-wracking. I'll be fine…