Mine Protector

Chapter 17: Macnair's Revenge



When asked to pinpoint the time and place when he felt furthest from his friends, Harry would always look back to the Dursley's and those hated weeks before his birthday. It was possibly the loneliest period he'd experienced since receiving his letter of acceptance to Hogwarts. Ron, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley were on holiday in Romania, visiting Charlie. The Twins were busy publishing their mail-in Weasley Wizard Wheezes catalog, and Mr. Weasley was spending night and day at the Ministry, trying to work around the divisions that were occurring between departments ever since you- know-whos 'alleged' resurfacing. Hermione wrote and described herself as very busy with her first summer job; quite appropriately, she was in charge of the children's' reading program at her neighborhood public library.

Harry waited and waited for Sirius to send for him. Each morning at breakfast he expected post owls to rattle at the window, carrying Sirius' invitation to join him at the seashore, or perhaps to help re-construct an old farm house in Hogsmeade. Even sharing a room at the Leaky Cauldron would have been just dandy—anything was better than 14 Privet Drive.

In early July, he finally received word from Sirius.

// Before I can even think to provide a proper home for you, I have to build one for myself….//

If he'd been able to use magic, he would have burned the parchment at once. As it was, he had to settle for shredding it to pieces by hand, which served only to invigorate his temper, it seemed.

He had written to both Ron and Hermione soon after, too afraid to spill his anger out on the page uncensored, but yet unable to hide his feelings completely. The quill trembled in his hand, and the result was a thick, lopsided script--heavy as the weight on his chest.

Ron, as usual, was at a loss for helpful words.

//Gee Harry…I'm sorry it's come to that. But look up--we'll be back at the Burrow soon, and of course you're invited to stay in the weeks before school starts. By the way…did I tell you that Charlie let me feed the Hungarian Horntail you faced during the first task?....//

Hermione was more sympathetic, but played the 'every cloud has a silver lining card' as per usual:

//We were all hoping that you could finally go and live with Sirius now that he's a free man. I'm so sorry that things aren't working out that way, Harry, I really am…But what if living with Sirius isn't as you imagine it? He's been away from people for so long that I expect he'll want to re- adjust to society a bit before trying to settle down and be a father to you. But when the time is right, he *will* want to be your father Harry…I'm sure of that.//

Funnily enough, Harry felt suddenly too old for a father at all. He turned Hermione's letter over in his hands, fingering the travel-worn parchment. As usual, she had written on her India-ink embossed stationary, which was imprinted with her initials and home address, the gold sealing wax monogrammed with the letter H in a voluptuous, palmer-hand script similar to her own.

Harry had wanted to write her back at once, but found himself lacking the strength to do so; if only he had been able to phone her—he would have done so at once if it were possible to use the telephone without inciting the wrath of Uncle Vernon. Looking at her letter once more, Harry was reminded that Hermione lived east of London, near Ilford, specifically. He had never paid a visit to her home before, and neither had Ron, for that matter. Harry suspected this was because the Grangers were a bit uncomfortable amongst wizards and witches. Not uncomfortable in an officious, rude, Dursley-ish way, exactly, but on the few occasions that Harry had met the Grangers, he was aware of their quiet, unobtrusive demeanor—as if they were trying to fade into the woodwork. Other than the fact that they were both dentists and had high expectations for their daughter, Harry really knew little about Hermione's parents. How would they react if he were to show up on their doorstep for a visit? Would they welcome him in or send him packing?

Harry weighed his feelings carefully—pent up frustration at the prospect of living with the Dursleys for another six weeks, paired with anger at Sirius, envy of the Weasleys and their Romanian vacation—and concocted a scheme to leave behind Privet Drive for at least one Saturday. While the Dursley's attended a Grunnings company picnic, Harry unabashedly broke all rules (in addition to ignoring orders to clean the rooftop drain-pipes) and left his Aunt and Uncle's house. He dared not use magic, knowing that it would at once alert both Hogwarts' staff and the Ministry of Magic, and instead opted to travel on his firebolt—draped in his invisibility cloak, of course. Several times over, Harry had promised the headmaster he would not leave the magically-protected territory of Privet Drive, and his only real concern upon departure wasn't that he would run into danger, but that Dumbledore might discover his disobedience and be filled with disappointment.

The entire trip took longer that he expected; his firebolt was fast enough so that the actual flying only took an hour or so, but once on the ground he found he had to consult a street map several times before finding the Grangers' neighborhood. It turned out to be a very typical, tree-lined street, with tidy, modest-sized homes set back from the main road. The Granger house was painted a sunny yellow, a large bird-bath set in the middle of the front garden. Still under his invisibility cloak, Harry felt suddenly awkward at the prospect of knocking on the front door and facing Hermione. What would he say? "Sorry to drop by unannounced, but crazily enough you're the only friend I've got in this entire seventy kilometre radius, and it just so happens that I really need a friend right now"…?

Stifling his embarrassment at the imagined scenario, he knocked anyway—but no one answered.

At first he had been furious with himself; all that flying through smoggy London air, only to find that the Grangers were gone for the weekend. Then he decided to investigate; maybe someone was in the back, working in the garden. Or perhaps even a side door was left unlocked, and he could at least use the toilet and rest his feet before making the return journey to Surrey. He would leave the Grangers a note, of course, and apologize for the intrusion; but they seemed like nice people, he doubted they would be cross with him.

Amazingly enough, the back door to the house *was* open, and Harry called out "Hello? Mister and Missus Granger? Hermione?" several times before tentatively stepping over the threshold. Silently, he tip-toed through the house, too nervous to leave even a fingerprint behind. The house was on the small side, but was furnished comfortably; it contained the usual Muggle appliances, such as a personal computer and a microwave, but interestingly enough, he found that the Granger's had several wizarding artifacts throughout the house, as well. Three or four elaborate sneakoscopes lined a shelf in the living room, causing Harry to quirk an eyebrow in surprise. The sneakoscopes looked too expensive to have been purchased for pure novelty purposes—one looked to be crafted of solid platinum—and he wondered why a pair of mild-mannered dentists would feel the need to place such powerful warning devices around the house. A shameful blush warmed his face, and Harry wondered, briefly, if the Grangers disapproved of their daughter's association with him—a boy who had undoubtedly led her into dangerous predicaments time and time again, causing them to worry for Hermione's safety.

After using the washroom, and despite the fact that he already felt guilty for entering the Granger home without permission, Harry felt compelled to explore the bedrooms on the second floor. The first was so sparse it was nearly empty: a single queen-sized bed graced the middle of the floor, and a truck was shoved up against a window, piled with cushions so that it could be used a as a window seat. The second room was definitely Hermione's: parchment and painfully advanced-looking spellbooks littered the dresser and desk, and a half-drunk cup of earl gray was propped up on the radiator. The third room was completely empty.

Seeing this, Harry had blinked in confusion. Could the first, sparse bedroom actually belong to Hermione's *parents*? For a bedroom, it seemed utterly un-lived in. There were no school-aged pictures of Hermione tacked up on the wall, nor were there bedroom slippers and magazines poking out from under the bed. The air was stale and uncirculated, the sheets on the bed perfectly smooth.

-Perhaps her parents are on holiday, and she forgot to say so in her letter…- he rationalized, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. In any case, he was starting to feel more and more out of sorts inside the Granger home—nothing was at all how he expected it. He decided he had best leave, and quick.

As he made his way down the front walk, flanked on both sides by flowering shrubs, the quiet neighborhood was disturbed by the unmistakeable hum of an approaching automobile. Mounting panic made Harry forget that he was invisible, and he quickly straddled his firebolt and ascended to a leafy bough in the Grangers' front yard, ducking for cover. A little tin-can of a car rattled into the drive, and a tall woman with hair as black as his own had exited the car, a wicker-work basket clasped in her hands. She was barefoot and wore an off-the-shoulder summer dress; her presence seemed unremarkable but for the fact that she unlocked and entered the Granger's home as if she belonged there.

-Who *was* she?- he wondered, and the concern echoed in his mind during the flight back to Privet drive, his problems with Sirius and the Dursleys suddenly forgotten. The letter from Hermione that he received a few days later indicated that nothing unusual or new was going on in her life, and Harry found himself unable to write back and ask her why her parents' home was so strange, or who the dark-haired woman with the shoddy car was. –Maybe I was at the wrong address the whole time- he thought dully, though internally knew this wasn't at all the case.

Soon enough, the Dursleys piled enough chores into his schedule to keep him busy until his sixteenth birthday, and Harry didn't recall the strange experience again until Ron, Hermione, and Ginny picked him up for his annual summertime escape to the Burrow. Hermione had been driving, entirely confident behind the wheel, when Harry was unexpectedly struck with the notion that Hermione had never, not in one of her letters, mentioned testing for her driving permit. And yet here she was, navigating the roads with the expertise of a pro. Additionally, there was something different about her posture, about the languid movement of her eyes, that put Harry at unease. Had she always been so much more adult than him? Why had he never noticed before now?

By the time they boarded the Hogwarts Express a few weeks later, a strange truth had revealed itself: Hermione and the mysterious black-haired woman were one in the same, of this Harry was certain. As soon as Harry saw Crookshanks sleeping in his familiar wicker-work basket, he made the connection. But during the time he had been hiding up in the tree, Harry hadn't even recognized her, his own best friend. How could that be?

Beleaguered with confusion, Harry remembered the sneakoscopes and wondered if Hermione and her family had been forced to take on disguises for the summer. Perhaps Harry's nightmare had come true and Voldemort was finally targeting his closest companions. On the other hand, if that were the case, wouldn't Hermione have told him? She usually told him everything. –Then again, she can be very cunning when it comes to secrets…- he thought cynically, remembering with a new, strange bitterness all the times she had kept him and Ron in the dark on a variety of issues: the fact that she withheld knowledge about Lupin's condition as a werewolf, for example, or the year she had used a time-turner to take additional classes.

In the end, though, his friendship with Hermione won out. He wanted to give her the chance to confide in him before he formed any unfair suspicions against her. After much internal debate, he wrote her an anonymous note—nothing too threatening, just a few words that he hoped amounted to a nudge in the right direction.

"I know you're not who you say you are."

When the time was right, he would make sure she received it.

-----



"It was you…" Hermione breathed, and the disbelief that thundered through her was paralyzing. Even the pain she was in receded to the background; like white-noise in a seashell, it thrummed vaguely, almost hypnotically.

"If you're talking about the notes….yes, I sent them," Harry said, finally loosening his hold on her shoulders. The look in his eyes, however, was still one of black fury.

"But *why*?" Her voice cracked shrilly. "I had so many suspicions…Draco, mostly. Though I even wondered about Sirius, for a while. But you…." she trailed off, seeing him in a new light. Harry was angry at her. She was the one enduring the silly notes, dodging Death Eater attacks, and *he* was mad at *her*. Why? And what…or who…had led him to question her identity in the first place?

"It started last summer," he began, as if sensing her thoughts. "I had this crazy whim to visit you—lonely, I guess—and when I found your house…well, it was strange. There were sneakoscopes everywhere, and not a single trace of your parents. And then you showed up…though I didn't know it was you at first. You looked different. Darker hair….older looking, too. I sent the notes hoping you would confide in me…tell me what was going on."

She stared at him, renewed pain throbbing in her wounded belly. "The notes were meant to scare me, you mean," she clarified, a sharp edge in her voice. "Scare me enough to tell you about them, to seek you out for help." Silently, she remembered the strange phrasing of the second note: *Tell your friends who you are, or I will.* There it was: orders, more or less, to spill the deepest of her secrets to Harry and Ron.

"Not at first," he snapped, looking at her as if she were less than human. "But that was when I still thought you were Hermione. And now I know that you're not."

Hermione's narrowed her eyes. "I see," she said coldly, in a condescending tone remarkably similar to Severus Snape's. "And just how do you know who I am…or am *not*, for that matter?"

Harry looked furtively over his shoulder, then turned back with a smile. Not the warm smile she had been greeted with over the years, but a crooked one that darkened the majority of his features. "Because of this," he said, and stretching out his hand, palm-up.

She drew in a breath, at once recognizing what he held.

It was her own fallacy stone.

-----

Throughout their exchange, Sirius sat in a far corner, magically camouflaged from Hermione's sight, and thoroughly sickened by the raw, unbridled quality of anger that was being exchanged between the two childhood friends. No…it wasn't even anger—it was almost *hate*. He could smell it filling the room.

-My Gods…how have things come this far?- he wondered, pushing a hank of hair from his forehead.

For Sirius, things had unraveled after his fatal mistake: the night he had followed Hermione into the dungeons, and then had followed his own lusts as he watched her bathe, touching her in a manner that now seemed like the product of a hazy-lit schoolboy fantasy. But it was no fantasy, it was a fact he couldn't escape while they both walked the same school grounds. Each time she passed within a few metres of him, he could smell her unmistakable scent, stormy and organic, making him undeniably aroused, and yet simultaneously dismayed at his own lack of self-control.

And then there was the matter of her relationship with Severus Snape. Sirius didn't know what had happened between them, but it hardly seemed customary for a student to visit her professor while the rest of the school was sound asleep. Unfamiliar emotions nipped at his heels. He didn't know if he was jealous of Snape, or purely concerned for Hermione's well-being. Dumbledore might have held Snape in high regard, but Sirius knew better. The man had followed the majority of his Slytherin classmates directly into the arms of the Dark Lord, and he had tried to seduce Lily out of James', in the process.

In retrospect, he decided it was a severe lack of judgement that caused him to approach Harry with the matter. Only last week, Sirius had casually asked Harry what his feelings towards Snape were, secretly intending to see if the boy was aware of Hermione's interaction with the potions master.

"Like you should need reminding," Harry had replied, rolling his eyes.

"So you still loathe him then, I take it," Sirius said, halfway amused. They were settled into one of their afternoon teas, in which they typically discussed Harry's favorite Quidditch teams, or Ron's recent, annoying display of studious activity.

"More than ever," Harry growled, taking a loud swig of chamomile.

"How does Hermione get on with him?" Sirius asked, tone neutral as he buttered a scone.

"Ha! Gets the best of him in class, I tell you. Always one-ups him and he doesn't even know it…stupid git."

Sirius frowned. "So she doesn't do extra credit potions work with him or anything?"

Clearly baffled, Harry blinked before answering. "No. Why would she want to do that? She's the last person to need extra credit."

Seeing that there would be know way to hide the truth from his perceptive god-son, Sirius reluctantly gave a *very* censored version of the events that had been haunting him for over a week.

"You saw her come out of his private quarters? And this was *before* the sun had even come up?" he asked, incredulous.

"Well, it hardly matters, I suppose." Sirius tried to dismiss the subject, taken aback by the alarm in Harry's tone, which was increasing by octaves. "What she does is her business, right?"

Harry looked as if he were about to nod, but he opened his mouth to speak, instead. With much force, he told Sirius about the sneakoscopes in Hermione's home. About the dentist parents that seemed non-existent, and the mysterious black-haired woman that had looked just like Hermione.

"It didn't just *look* like her," he corrected. "It was her. I'm sure of it."

"So what are you getting at?" Sirius asked, knitting his brow together. "You think Hermione's got something to hide?"

"Well, lately it seems there are things about her that just don't add up, do they? When I first met her she was too scared of heights to even go near a broom, and now she's the best beater to hit Hogwarts in years. And then that second note I sent her…she burned it right at the breakfast table. Right in front of my eyes. She wouldn't do that unless the note had scared her, right?"

Sirius' frown deepened. "Maybe she knows you sent the note, and she burnt it in front of you to give you a turn?"

Clearly, this hadn't occurred to Harry. "Even so," he protested. "The fact that she's consorting with Snape is just one weird occurrence too many…" he trailed off, the mechanics of a plan coming together behind his thoughtful expression.

When Harry had stopped by his office just yesterday morning, Sirius discovered just what that plan had been.

"I broke into her room…wearing the invisibility cloak," he panted, slamming the door behind him, his eyes wide.

Deeply shocked by Harry's disrespect of Hermione's privacy, he had started to chastise him, but Harry wouldn't let him finish.

"You won't believe what I found….mostly ordinary stuff, but then, there was a hidden compartment in her truck full of odd things. Some funny potion that smelled a bit like polyjuice, plus an odd stone. Looks like a polished river rock, but it has a smooth indentation on one side, and it's a deep green colour."

This gave Sirius a turn. "That sounds like a magical object," he admitted. "But it still doesn't mean anything, Harry…don't you thinking you're jumping to con—"

"I'm not!" Harry protested hotly. "Don't you remember what happened during my fourth year? Barty Crouch was here ALL YEAR and all it took to fool us was a little polyjuice potion. What if someone is masquerading as Hermione…one of the death-eaters? Or even Rita Skeeter....no one knows where she is these days, and she really has it in for Hermione, you know…"

On and on Harry prattled, obsession surfacing like ugly, brackish oil. It wasn't that Sirius didn't agree with Harry in certain respects—there *was* something unusual going on with Hermione, that much was obvious. But Sirius' sensitive canine nose didn't lie. Every person he had ever encountered possessed a unique scent, a one-of-a-kind marker similar to a set of fingerprints. And Hermione's smell was the same one he had breathed in three years ago, the first time he had met her in the Shrieking shack. Back then he had associated her scent with thoughts of comfort, and with his own long-gone home, oddly enough. Now that she was older, he found that those thoughts ran closer to something like attraction…or possibly even love.

And then there was Crookshanks, of course. He still followed Hermione to and fro about the castle, as faithful a familiar as any witch could ever want. The animal was most likely part-kneazle, and was the smartest feline Sirius had ever met, aside from Minerva McGonagall. If Hermione were an imposter, or a danger of any sort, the cat would have fled from her side.

Of course, Sirius didn't know how he could tell Harry these things. How could he possibly assuage his god-son's fears, without owning up to his own recent blunders, his own inappropriate feelings?

This was it. He was neatly trapped.

-----

"You don't even know how to use that," Hermione snapped, lunging for the fallacy stone in Harry's hand.

Amazingly, he was faster than her, his seeker instincts allowing him to snatch the stone just out of her reach. "Oh, don't I?"

"No," she said firmly. "And I can't believe you had the gall to search through my things, by the way." It made perfect sense now, she realized. Crookshanks hadn't detected a strangers' presence in the dormitory because there had *been* no stranger. Only Harry, whom he had known for years, and had never had a reason to mistrust.

"I wanted you to come to me," he said, his face almost softening. "But you wouldn't."

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Her broken ribs felt fine, but the cut in her stomach rippled painfully with the gesture. "If you know how the stone works, then tell me."

He stepped back a bit, looking wary. "Okay," he said finally. "On our way to potions yesterday I had the stone in my pocket. As we were talking, I noticed the weight of it would change when you spoke. I didn't think much of it at first, but it kept going on, making me wonder. Then, right as I was apologizing to you for being a prat, I said your name out loud and the thing felt as heavy as a bludger."

"So?" she said impassively, her face rigid.

"So?! So after you didn't show up for Defence lessons I showed the stone to Sirius…."

"You showed it to Sirius?" she echoed, and felt dread travel from the base of her spine to the pit of her throat, catching her breath there.

"…Yes. He said it was a type of truth-stone, used by Aurors for detecting lies. It was supposed to grow heavy when a speaker lied, and after I knew that it didn't take long to put the pieces together."

"And what pieces are those?" she said pointedly, and he grew red at the hassling tone of her voice.

"The stone went HEAVY when I said your name! So that means Hermione isn't your name at all! That's what it is, isn't it?"

"What if it isn't my real name?" she said evenly, taking him off guard. "What then? Does that mean I'm your enemy Harry? Does that mean I'm not the same best friend you've had for years?"

He was trembling slightly now, though she couldn't tell if it was from anger or fear. "I….I know you're not Hermione. You're not her. What have you done with her?"

She sighed heavily. "I told you you weren't using the stone correctly," she said, this time moving fast enough to pluck it from his hand. He made a frantic grab for it, but she pulled away, hiding the stone behind her back. "Hold out your hand," she ordered.

He stared at her, immobile.

"Do it," she said sharply, and he reluctantly held out his hand, palm up.

She placed the stone in the center, the indentation facing down, then closed his fingers over it in a fist. "You can't just feel it change weight and make your judgments at random. You have to ask it direct, specific questions. And even then, it takes practice to read the signals for accuracy."

"How do you know that?" he asked, defensive.

"Because it's *my* stone. Did you think I owned it merely for the purposes of decoration?"

He shrugged and she released his fist. For a moment, the dim light in the room seemed to warp and swim, and his face seemed very far away to her. She swallowed hard, willing her eyesight to come back into focus. "Okay now," she instructed. "Repeat after me: 'the girl before me means me no harm, and is the same person I've long regarded as Hermione'".

He shuffled about and rolled his eyes, looking as if he found this whole exchange insulting.

"Do it!" she shrilled.

"The girl before me means me no harm, and is the same person I've long regarded as 'Hermione'" he repeated tonelessly. She watched as uncertainty rippled across his features, almost erasing his antagonism completely.

"Well?"

"It…it went heavy. And…more solid-like," he admitted, looking amazed.

She nodded. "Good. Does that at all put your mind to ease?"

He studied her carefully. "Not exactly. It still doesn't tell me what's been going on with you."

"What makes you think you deserve to *know* what's going on with me?" she challenged. "Sneaking around behind my back…never thought to just come forth and ask me, like any friend would. Did you?"

He blushed faintly, but still maintained his defiant posture, regarding her with deep suspicion.

"Look Harry," she said, a headache distracting her thoughts. "It's…almost sunrise. I'm very tired. I know I owe you an explanation. But please…can't it wait?"

"No…" he said, looking on the verge of another outburst. "I've waited long enough. If you are my friend, then you know I deserve answers."

She took a step towards him, and nearly doubled over as her entire torso cramped, agony pressing on her chest like granite. "Ooh.." she breathed, taken aback, clutching at her hidden injury.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking at her strangely.

"I…" she started to say, then fell to her knees, groaning. Her muscles seemed to have taken complete leave from her body; she knew that they hadn't only by the cramps that seemed to be sealing her joints together. This was pain that went far beyond the bruises or knife-wound. –Is this 'Crucio'?- she wondered for a moment, biting down on her lip and tasting blood. But just as quickly as the wave of pain had come, it ebbed away, leaving her numb and….not right. Something was wrong…something.

"Hermione!" Harry gasped, lowering himself to her side, his familiar concern finally returning.

"Harry?" she asked, and the name felt thick and furry on her tongue. The light in the room seemed to be pulling away, and she could barely make out his face. "Get Snape…tell him to bring the knife."

"The knife?" he asked, clearly baffled.

"Don't…ask…" she said haltingly, finding that she was barely able to get the words out. No pain now, just extreme fatigue. Dangerous fatigue. She must not fall asleep. "Get Snape…he'll know. First torch…past potions classroom. Password 'brandywine'."

"But…I shouldn't leave you," he said, sounding on the verge of panic.

"Go.." she whispered, fighting the urge to lie on her side, to close her eyes to the surrounding darkness.

She could no longer see the dimensions of the room behind her. Everything receded into black, and only the sound of his swift retreat gave her comfort.

-----

Snape paced the confines of his quarters, distraught. He had been quite furious with Hermione for intentionally handing herself over to Death Eaters; it was the type of show-offy, risky behavior that he associated with Potter, in particular.

-Then again…who could she have been showing off for?..- It wasn't as if the entire school would catch wind of her late night activities. In fact, she had specifically come to him with her injuries to *avoid* questions from the other staff members and students, all of whom were sure to wonder if she had stumbled into the hospital wing with broken ribs and a knife- wound. But that didn't change the fact that she had gambled with her health and well-being.

But she *had* been trained in Aurorship, which meant that she would always value justice over her own safety. –Which means she will always be putting herself out there, on the line…rather than cowering in a dungeon....-

So that was it: he didn't know if he envied her heroism because it was something he himself couldn't afford, or if he admired her heroism and simply hated the fact that she might, one day, be taken from him.

-Quit thinking of her as if she belongs to you..- he thought grumpily. Women like her didn't *belong* to anyone; certainly not former Death Eaters. Once Potter was finished with school, she would be working for Dumbledore as an Unspeakable, an enormous responsibility in which she would scarcely have time to pay late-night visits to a foolish, doddering potions master. No, it was best if he didn't interfere. She had a job to do…and so did he.

Mentally grappling with these thoughts, he gathered up her ruined clothing from where it had been left in the bathroom. It felt dry enough to burn now, and he piled the scraps on the hearth; a single wave of his wand set the fabric ablaze, and he watched as the fibers curled up, smoking with blood and forest residue. When a pile of ashes remained, another wand- motion swept them directly into the fire place.

But what was that? A small item was left behind, glittering under the cinders. Using the sleeve of his robe, he picked the still-hot object up, seeing at once that it was crafted from sturdy metal. It looked like the hilt of a knife; the very top of it was set with a red stone—ruby or garnet—and he pressed down on it with his thumb, not surprised when a blade sprung out from the base. So it was a switch blade, then…and judging from the emblazoned letter "M" on the hilt, this was most likely the very knife that had wounded Hermione. Why had she kept it, then?

The knife was still stained with her blood, and he wiped at it absently, rubbing his fingertips together. But his potion-making fingers were extremely sensitive to organic materials, and he immediately sensed that there was more than just blood on the knife—there was something else there, too. A cold feeling of foreboding swept over him. –Let it just be mud….- he prayed, studying the point where blade and handle met, noticing at once the ring of yellow resin collected there. He brought a bit of it to his nose and sniffed. It had a bitter odour.

"Digitoxin…" he whispered, to no one in particular.

He should have suspected. As soon as she said Macnair's name, he should have remembered. But he had been away from the Death Eaters for too long; memories of their sadistic capabilities had long been shoved back into the furthest recesses of his mind. But Macnair….he should have known. In the day, one of the executioner's favorite pastimes had been inviting Muggle- born wizards to his house for dinner, and during the exquisitely prepared meal he would poison their wine. As soon as the guests were convulsing with the affects of the poison, he would gloatingly display several different antidotes, daring them to figure out which would cure them…and which would simply speed death along.

"Digitoxin," he repeated, not quite hearing his own voice. Extracted from the foxglove plant, it was an arecardiac stimulant—sometimes used by medi- witches on patients who were in shock or had dangerously low blood pressure. But on a healthy human being, the digitoxin would cause full- blown digitalis: a rapid jump-start of the heart, followed by cerebral disturbances, then, eventually, a slow and irregular pulse. Without treatment, the body would continue to suffer the effects of overdoes, and finally shut down completely.

He remembered lowering Hermione's body into the bath; her pulse had been very fast, thrumming through her skin in a way he could both hear and feel. At the time he had dismissed it as a product of nerves and increased adrenalin. But if the digitoxin had been in her wound, already seeping into her blood, the racing pulse might have been a first sign of poisoning. There it was: a symptom, right under his nose. And he had dismissed it for nervousness.

He pocketed the knife, and, thinking fast, crossed his quarters, using his wand to unlock the desk drawer where he kept his most expensive and dangerous potion-making ingredients. He rooted through the vials, then finally found the leather pouch that contained what he needed. Once everything was in hand, he hesitated, realizing he was wasting precious seconds. Could he really swoop into Hermione's dormitory and shake her free of sleep, saying "Wake up, I think you've been poisoned?" How could he possibly handle this situation discretely?

As if in answer, the bricks that guarded his quarters fell away; he jerked his head in the direction of the noise, desperately hoping that Hermione would be standing there, looking healthy as always.

But it wasn't Hermione, it was Harry Potter, panting and rubbing a hitch in his side, his face blotchy with perspiration. "Hermione…said you should come…" he breathed.

"Relax Potter," he said, uncharacteristically calm. "Is she displaying strange behavior? Fatigue? Sensory disturbances?"

He nodded. "I think so."

"Then we must hurry." Severus retrieved a small bowl from the fireplace mantle. "Is there a fire burning in your common room?" he asked.

Harry nodded again. "Will she be okay?" he asked, refusing to move when Snape beckoned him near.

"I don't know," Snape replied flatly, gathering a fistful of substance from the bowl. "We'll use the floo powder to get there faster." He dashed the powder into his fire, and with a loud crackle, the flames flared bright green. "You go first," he instructed.

Harry finally stepped forth, entering the fire without hesitation. "Gryffindor common room," he announced, then disappeared in the swelling inferno.

Fighting to regain composure, Severus followed at his heels.

-----

Sirius watched Hermione's condition with mounting concern; once Harry was gone, she dropped to all fours, quivering oddly, her half-lidded gaze lifted in his direction.

"Aperio," Sirius murmured, swishing his wand. He was in full visibility now, but she didn't even blink. He took a few steps forward and she startled at the shuffling noise, sitting back on her knees, her robes puddled around her.

"Hermione?" he asked tentatively, lowering himself to her level.

She squinted. "Sirius?"

"Yes. Can you see me?"

She shook her head. "I thought I saw you, just for a second. But now it's gone. My eyes….everything's blurry."

"What happened to you?" he asked, touching her wrist carefully. She pulled away from him, smiling weirdly, and then began unbuttoning her robes.

"What are you doing?" A frantic edge had crept into his voice.

The robes were pulled apart at the waist, and he saw that she was wearing a plain tee-shirt beneath them. Wordlessly, she lifted the shirt up a few inches. "What do you see?" she asked, looking weary.

"You've been wounded," he said, noticing the pink, just-healing edges of a long gash, stretching length-wise above her navel. "But you've been cleaned up nicely….it's already healing."

"That's what I was afraid of," she said, lowering her tee-shirt once more. "I'm sure the blade that cut me contained poison…and if the wound has already healed…" she trailed off, her face going pale despite the orange fire-light that played over it.

"Then there is no hope of washing the poison out," he said dully, realizing the severity of the situation. So Harry had been sent after Snape in search of an antidote, then. Good. If anyone could deter a poisonous toxin, it would be him.

"How did you get in here, anyway," she asked suddenly. "I didn't hear the portrait open and…" she paused, then convulsed slightly, her shoulders going limp. Sirius watched in horror as she fell to her side, eyelids fluttering with abnormal rhythms.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed, shaking her lightly. There was no response. He felt along her neck for a pulse, finding nothing but smooth musculature at first, then finally touched on the side of a main artery. Her blood was still moving, but it was slow…so slow. He pulled her upright, fighting the urge to slap her into consciousness. "Hermione!" he said again, rattling her harder this time.

"It was you…" she said dully, her eyes opening slightly.

"Wake up!" he shouted, not caring if he woke any of the students. If Snape didn't get here soon, he would carry her to the hospital wing himself. He was faintly aware that she was pawing at his chest, her fingers flickering down the length of his torso as if in search of something.

"It was *you*" she said, her voice clear and strong now.

He stopped shaking her, the full realization of her statement hitting him at once.

She giggled, and it was a delirious, frightening sound. "All this time I thought….but it was only Harry writing the notes. And it was you spying on me in the bathroom?"

"I didn't mean it." His voice was hick with emotion. "I…I promise I'll explain later. Right now we need to get you help," he declared, gathering her stiff body into his arms. He half-expected her to swat him away, but she seemed beyond protesting, her eyes rolling back into her skull once more. He struggled to his feet, lifting her up along with him.

"Don't fall asleep," he begged, running a thumb along her cheek.

In answer, there was a roar of flames. Both Harry and Snape stumbled out of the Gryffindor fire-place, their robes faintly smoking. Noticing how Hermione was held close to Sirius' chest, Snape's eyes narrowed dangerously. He moved in and touched her wrist, checking her pulse, and his touch seemed to bring her back to consciousness.

"Severus…" she whispered, reaching out for him. With little effort, he gracefully pulled her from Sirius' arms and into his own. The fabric of her robes slipped through his fingertips, and he bit down a cry as she was taken from him, jealousy pinning him to the spot.

"What's she been poisoned by?" he asked instead, his expression forcefully blank.

"Digitoxin," Snape said, moving towards the fat lady's portrait. "I must get her to the hospital wing at once. She will be upset with me for taking her there…but there's no other way."

"We're coming with you," Harry said, making to follow Snape's lead.

"No," Severus commanded, his tone business-like. "Black, I need you to owl Dumbledore at once; he's in London with the Min—"

"I know," Sirius interrupted. He wanted to protest this arrangement, but knew that Snape's orders were valid. Dumbledore needed to be told of Hermione's condition, the sooner the better.

"And Harry…" Snape turned to face the boy. "Stay here until morning. Once she is awake, inform Professor McGonagall of the situation. As your Head of House, she'll want to know why her sixth-year prefect isn't at breakfast."

Harry nodded reluctantly, looking as dissatisfied as Sirius felt.

Snape studied them uncertainly, as if he were in want of better assistants. Then he gave them a slight nod and disappeared through the portrait hole, Hermione held tightly to his chest.

-----

Once he reached the hospital wing, the events speeded up and blurred together, taking on an unreal quality.

"Digitoxin!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, clutching at her ample bosom in dismay. "But how on earth…?" She trailed off, no doubt leaving a barrage of questions unspoken. She had long ago mastered the art of don't ask/don't tell.

"Bring me your most accurate scales, Poppy," Severus said, lowered Hermione's prone form to a hospital bed. She had been fully unconscious for the past five minutes, and her breath came in labored, shallow wheezing.

Poppy did as he asked, and quickly fetched him a handsome set of bronze scales. He set them on the dresser beside Hermione's bed, placing both Macnair's knife and a small leather bag beside them. If Hermione had simply swallowed digitoxin, there would be no need for such ceremony; there were plenty of expectorant spells that could have effectively removed the contents of her stomach. But since she had been poisoned through knife wound, the digitoxin had already made its deadly journey through her heart, contaminating her entire blood system. There was only one solution, and it was one that he found he scarcely had the courage to undertake. The only cure for severe digitalis was, in its own right, as dangerous as the poison itself.

Snape shook the contents of the leather bag onto the scale plate: a few, waxy-looking dried berries, almost black in colour. He silently picked through them with his fingers.

"That isn't Belladonna, is it?" Poppy asked, sounding horrified.

"She needs Atropine," Severus said simply.

"Oh, no," Poppy said, going pale. Snape refused to look at her. Atropine was a highly dangerous delerient, known to cause both paralysis and death in even small doses. But it was also an excellent antidote for digitalis. To administer the correct amount of belladonna, he would have to weigh out an amount that contained between 0.4 and 0.6 percent atropine. Anything less than 0.4 percent would be ineffective, but anything more than 0.6 would be fatal.

As he ground the berries with Poppy's mortar and pestle, Sirius Black entered the hospital room, his expression dark.

"I thought I told you to owl the headmaster," Snape growled, almost losing his concentration.

Sirius shook his head. "I don't think that will be necessary. I have a feeling he's already on his way."

"And why's that?"

"One of the owls had an early delivery for me," Black said, then silently held up a copy of The Daily Prophet.

"So?" Snape asked, his irritation mounting.

"So read the first headline. I believe it mentions an old friend of yours."

Snape stopped grinding long enough to lean forward and glance at the headline. It read: COMMITTEE OF DANGEROUS CREATURES BAFFLED BY LATE NIGHT MURDER.

Beneath it, a picture of a large, mustachioed man was blinking and scowling.

It was Walden Macnair.

------

Hermione was back in the pasture where Draco and his Slytherin friends had left her; it was still dark out, and, oddly enough, everything seemed to look slightly blue. The stars, for example, were bright pin-points of neon cerulean—the bluest colour she had ever seen. They twinkled conspiratorially, turning her blood cold.

"Got you good, didn't I," a voice said, and she whipped around to find Macnair behind her, smiling broadly. The knife was still protruding from his gut, and he was bleeding again—great gouts of it were gurgling from his wound.

"That's mine now," she said calmly, pointing at the knife.

He shook a finger at her teasingly. "That's what you think." He giggled and started to walk away. Weirdly, she was compelled to follow.

"I'm tired," she complained, and she was. Her legs moved so slowly, as if she were treading through syrup.

"Think your smart, don't you?" he said, echoing their previous, real-life conversation. "Well you over-looked something big, out here in the forest."

"Like what?" she said, frowning. He was moving to the opposite end of the pasture, right where the tree-line started. It was quite a distance away from where she had encountered him and Lucius.

"Like him, for instance," he said, pointing. She followed the direction of his forefinger and saw a hooded man, carefully barricaded behind a thicket. He appeared to be watching something from a distance, and when she turned her head in similar manner, she nearly gasped at what she saw.

She saw herself, nearly fifty metres away, struggling with Macnair. Lucius was crumpled to the ground nearby, clutching at his testicles. She watched herself break from Macnair's grip and race through the grass, her robes streaming behind her. Macnair gave chase and soon had her back in his murderous grasp; he used the knife on her, his laughter carrying all the way to her present position, and she winced—at the pain or the memory, she wasn't sure which.

She began to shudder violently and rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to still the convulsions. Everything still looked so blue.

"Why am I shaking?" she asked, and Macnair regarded her impassively, not answering. From a distance, she thought she could hear another man's voice calling her name. It was Sirius or Severus….or perhaps both.

"Watch yourself," Macnair suddenly ordered, and she turned back to the scene playing out before her. She was still struggling with Macnair, wrenching his wrist back as he carved into her stomach. He hollered and pulled away from her grip, and she took the opportunity to push him brutally to ground, pinning him with all of her weight. In slow motion, she raised the knife in the air, both hands wrapped around the hilt, her face grinning maniacally.

In horror, Hermione closed her eyes at the impossible sight: her other self, stabbing the knife into Macnair's body over and over again, blood and bits of gore splashing both of them.

"That's not what happened," she insisted, her voice gravelly.

"Maybe not….but this is exactly how *he* saw it," Macnair said, indicating the man hiding in the thicket.

"Who is he?" She swallowed thickly, tremors wracking her limbs.

"That's Roland Nott, senior," he said, flashing her a school-boys' smile. "You forgot about the third Death Eater, didn't you?" He tutted and shook his finger again. "Not very on the ball, I must say…"

"Shut up." She gritted her teeth, fighting to keep her temper in check.

"You didn't really think that obliviating Lucius' memory would be enough to cover your cute little behind, did you? Oh no…the Dark Lord is being filled in about last night's events right as we speak…"

"I obliviated your memory, too," she reminded him.

"Oh, that didn't do any good," he said, chuckling. "You see…I'm already dead."

She leaned against a tree, the rough bark oddly comforting. She wanted nothing more than to sleep. "You're not dead," she said, impatient. "I healed you."

"Oh no," he corrected, his voice almost gentle. "You killed me."

"What a mean thing to say," she said, her voice sounding odd and disconnected to her own ears. The blue light was blocking him from her vision, and the surrounding forest wavered and faded out. Now she was standing in what looked to be an empty room, but the walls were strangely translucent. When she pressed her face to them, she thought she could see stars, moving at impossible speeds. The walls were soft, too…so soft.

"Hermione…" a gentle voice said, and a hand touched her chin, pulling her away from the soft, soothing material.

"What?" she tried to say, but the words wouldn't come. She opened her eyes. Dumbledore was looking back at her with his own.

"Ah…you've come back to us," he said. In response, she rolled her head to the opposite side. It took much effort, and she saw that she wasn't in the forbidden forest, nor in any strange, soft-walled room. She was in the hospital wing. Poppy Pomfrey was standing not far away, her features set in a firm, anxious expression. Dumbledore had pulled a chair up to her bed- side, and Hermione realized with some embarrassment that the soft material she had buried her face in must have been his voluminous, velveteen robes.

She tried to speak again, but found that she hadn't the strength. Noticing the silent workings of her throat, Dumbledore put a cool hand to her forehead.

"Your voice won't come back for a few hours yet," he said. "So please, just go back to sleep. When the effects of the atropine have passed, we will talk."

She gave him a final, pleading look, willing him to hear her thoughts.

He frowned, concern etching his already-wrinkled face. "Just go to sleep," he said, then used his own fingers to tenderly push her eyes shut.

The sudden darkness was too much, and she felt herself slipping back into slumber. Still, a burning question remained on the tip of her mind, lingering and unspoken.

Was Macnair really dead?



***************************



Okay, so that was a semi-cliffie. But the chapter was getting LONG, and well, this seemed like a natural end-point. So forgive me! Please! I promise I won't do it next time!

My descriptions of digitoxin and atropine are loosely based on real-life definitions, but I added a bit of my own guess-work, as well.

JKR and the HP books never mention Hermione's actual place of residence. I chose the Ilford/Essex area because it was a good distance away from Surrey, and because I believe that's where Maggie Smith (who played McGonagall in HP) was born. =)

Thanks for all those birthday reviews. They made my day!