6.
"Yeah. Hi. This is Harry. Um. This is an answering machine. So, when it beeps, you can say stuff and I will hear it later."
Under normal circumstances, she might have giggled at the inane message. However, circumstances were not normal. Actually, they hadn't been for some time. Aside from the missing Minister, a new war brewing and the vampire-Snape, things hadn't been normal between her and Harry for a long time.
At some point in her seventh year of school, as teenagers often do with people they have constant contact with, she had developed a crush on him, and Harry had reciprocated, or at least been willing to bluff it for the sake of normalcy. Three months later, she had discovered that she didn't like him at all.Ron had been jealous because he wanted the spotlight; the fame that followed Harry around like a loyal dog seemed to avoid him altogether.
Hermione felt exactly the opposite: the fame tended to rub off on her in the worst possible way. Rita Skeeter had ensured that.
If some fictional relationship with him was bad, dating Harry had been filed under Worst Ideas She'd Ever Had.
She had tried to go back to being his friend, and Harry had almost immediately been bounced into the arms of Cho Chang, who had decided to give the somewhat-handsome, famous boy another chance.She almost smiled, remembering the ridiculous pretense she had concocted to get rid of him. Upon opening Viktor Krum's weekly, perfunctory ex-boyfriend letter, all about Quidditch victories and his family, she had given a little squeal and dashed out of the room, and mumbled something to Parvati Patil about having to go urgently read a book.
rumors immediately began spreading and the farce began. The first thing she did was to write to Viktor and explain her situation and asked for his help. His reply was immediate, and the letters began pouring in, nearly daily. Hermione let no one read them and assumptions were made of the most libidinous kind. (The letters were usually a few jokes, a doodle or his notes from class, with the occasional witty observation about the whole thing thrown in. Viktor was actually secretly engaged to a charming woman named Natalia, who Hermione would meet much later.)
And so, a week later, when she explained to Harry why she had to break up with him, he practically filled the story in for her. Hermione grinned tiredly to herself, and then realized that she had been holding the phone to her ear for a long time, and she was listening to silence. Embarrassed, she hung up and called him again. "Yeah. Hi. This is Harry. Um..."
"Hi, Harry. This is Hermione," she said briskly. "I don't know what you've heard but we've got some serious problems on our hands. It would be absolutely great if...we didn't all get killed. Right? Um, stop by or give me a call if you can. I'm going back in to work now."
Who was inane now? She grimaced. She had been about to say "absolutely great if you came by" and realized just in time what sort of damsel in distress role that would put her in. One she didn't want, that was damn sure. Harry the noble survivor, hero and sport's champion wasn't really the sort of person to let people rescue themselves.
Hermione also knew that if she mentioned Snape, the man would be a pile of dust before she could say "Hang on Harry, I'm fairly sure he's not evil."
She put her hair into a long tornado of a ponytail, not bothering with the usual McGonagall-like bun, and grabbed a long wool coat. She stuffed her purse with Kleenex and aspirin and cash, both wizard and muggle. Who knew how long it would be before she saw her flat again? Bloody well wasn't going to let that little French brat drug her, that's for certain.
The tigress grin on the face of Hermione Granger as she jogged up the steps of the Ministry would have made Colette run for cover. As the girl was out running errands, Hermione settled for attacking her paperwork with a ferocity she hadn't felt since the NEWTs.
"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, very sorry, please don't hurt me, they told me to!" Colette whimpered as she walked in, carrying more paper and shielding her face with it. Hermione raised an eyebrow and watched.
"Oh, its all right. An older girl told you to do it, right?"
Colette smiled weakly. "That's right." Then she froze. "Oh Sweet Jesus, Hermione, what HAPPENED to you?!" she shrieked.
"Huh?"
"Mon Dieu!" Colette fished in her pocket until she found a small round mirror, which she handed to Hermione silently.
There was a nicely blossoming dark bruise across her left cheek, a nice balance against the shadows under her eyes and the now-fading marks of abuse on her wrist.
"Oh, it's not as bad as it looks," she said lamely. "Ran into a pal--er, pole."
Colette raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you have someone take a look at it?"Hermione brushed the bruise with her fingers. Definitely painful, very sensitive and a little swollen--funny, it hadn't seemed like he'd hit her that hard--but it wasn't warm or bleeding. "I'll be fine."
"You did sleep, didn't you?"
"I spent some time unconscious, yes."
Colette, whose sharp and intelligent mind had been entirely responsible for the sleeping drugs, beamed. "Good."
The cause of Hermione's bruises was somewhere very dark and very cold.
He hoped, vaguely, that there weren't too many people here and those that were present weren't too bright. He would only be in trouble if they realized what he was before he could deal with them, and, especially in the dark, it wasn't that obvious.
Of course, Severus Snape wasn't exactly going to be welcome either, but the shock of meeting a man ten years dead would probably be more helpful than not should things come to violence.
Despite the dark and dank, the place was quite luxurious. Velvet upholstery and a well-stocked drinks cabinet. People had been here, recently, he could tell. (By the scent and also because there was a half finished poker game going on, five hands laid carefully face down on the table.)
A man came down alone, and he ducked into a shadowy corner. He didn't recognize the face, but he was probably a Slytherin. Bulky and muscular and neckless, in a very Crabbe/Goyle sort of way, and also he was peeking at all the cards.
Snape moved in a blur. To his chagrin, the man managed a small noise before Snape cracked his neck. Two others were down in an instant. The third was carrying a sword as well as a wand in a very Slytherin style, and was smaller and quicker and somewhat smarter than his friends. Snape wrested the sabre away, but not before the man inflicted a deep, narrow wound in his shoulder.
Four men disposed of. Five hands laid on the table. Godsdammit, somebody got away. Somebody awfully paranoid.
Of course, if these were followers of Monsieur Voldemort, anybody remotely intelligent was going to be paranoid. Snape clutched at the wounded shoulder. It would heal quickly, of course, but it was annoying to be losing blood. It came so dearly these days.
Would be nice to satisfy the hunger on some nice, warm corpses, but these idiots were going to be found sooner or later and it would be a bad idea to leave clues. Anybody could snap necks, after all.
No sense in leaving trails of blood, either. He bound the wound as best he could with a couple of handkerchiefs. None of the men carried anything useful, and the upstairs was disguised so well as a clothing store that it had customers, so that was out. He scrambled out the window, the way he had come in, and tried to look inconspicuous which, in the muggle London shopping district, wasn't too hard.
Snape wondered, not for the first time, why he was doing this. Playing at White Hat was all very well and good, but it was going to get him killed. Or...something. Terminated, anyway. And what was the point, anyway? None of it would matter in a hundred years; all these people would be dead, so why did it matter if he saved them.
On the other hand, in a hundred years, and barring any unfortunate circumstances, he -would- still be alive. Or...around anyway. It was a rather sickening thought, and one he generally tried to avoid.
Being a White Hat, after all these years, came naturally, even to the rather odd morals of a vampire.
His shoulder hurt like hell.
What kind of moron would do that to him?
Bleeding. What a waste of food.
Poor starving children, and all that.
Nobody would miss them, would they?
He wondered where he could find some.
"Yeah. Hi. This is Harry. Um. This is an answering machine. So, when it beeps, you can say stuff and I will hear it later."
Under normal circumstances, she might have giggled at the inane message. However, circumstances were not normal. Actually, they hadn't been for some time. Aside from the missing Minister, a new war brewing and the vampire-Snape, things hadn't been normal between her and Harry for a long time.
At some point in her seventh year of school, as teenagers often do with people they have constant contact with, she had developed a crush on him, and Harry had reciprocated, or at least been willing to bluff it for the sake of normalcy. Three months later, she had discovered that she didn't like him at all.Ron had been jealous because he wanted the spotlight; the fame that followed Harry around like a loyal dog seemed to avoid him altogether.
Hermione felt exactly the opposite: the fame tended to rub off on her in the worst possible way. Rita Skeeter had ensured that.
If some fictional relationship with him was bad, dating Harry had been filed under Worst Ideas She'd Ever Had.
She had tried to go back to being his friend, and Harry had almost immediately been bounced into the arms of Cho Chang, who had decided to give the somewhat-handsome, famous boy another chance.She almost smiled, remembering the ridiculous pretense she had concocted to get rid of him. Upon opening Viktor Krum's weekly, perfunctory ex-boyfriend letter, all about Quidditch victories and his family, she had given a little squeal and dashed out of the room, and mumbled something to Parvati Patil about having to go urgently read a book.
rumors immediately began spreading and the farce began. The first thing she did was to write to Viktor and explain her situation and asked for his help. His reply was immediate, and the letters began pouring in, nearly daily. Hermione let no one read them and assumptions were made of the most libidinous kind. (The letters were usually a few jokes, a doodle or his notes from class, with the occasional witty observation about the whole thing thrown in. Viktor was actually secretly engaged to a charming woman named Natalia, who Hermione would meet much later.)
And so, a week later, when she explained to Harry why she had to break up with him, he practically filled the story in for her. Hermione grinned tiredly to herself, and then realized that she had been holding the phone to her ear for a long time, and she was listening to silence. Embarrassed, she hung up and called him again. "Yeah. Hi. This is Harry. Um..."
"Hi, Harry. This is Hermione," she said briskly. "I don't know what you've heard but we've got some serious problems on our hands. It would be absolutely great if...we didn't all get killed. Right? Um, stop by or give me a call if you can. I'm going back in to work now."
Who was inane now? She grimaced. She had been about to say "absolutely great if you came by" and realized just in time what sort of damsel in distress role that would put her in. One she didn't want, that was damn sure. Harry the noble survivor, hero and sport's champion wasn't really the sort of person to let people rescue themselves.
Hermione also knew that if she mentioned Snape, the man would be a pile of dust before she could say "Hang on Harry, I'm fairly sure he's not evil."
She put her hair into a long tornado of a ponytail, not bothering with the usual McGonagall-like bun, and grabbed a long wool coat. She stuffed her purse with Kleenex and aspirin and cash, both wizard and muggle. Who knew how long it would be before she saw her flat again? Bloody well wasn't going to let that little French brat drug her, that's for certain.
The tigress grin on the face of Hermione Granger as she jogged up the steps of the Ministry would have made Colette run for cover. As the girl was out running errands, Hermione settled for attacking her paperwork with a ferocity she hadn't felt since the NEWTs.
"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, very sorry, please don't hurt me, they told me to!" Colette whimpered as she walked in, carrying more paper and shielding her face with it. Hermione raised an eyebrow and watched.
"Oh, its all right. An older girl told you to do it, right?"
Colette smiled weakly. "That's right." Then she froze. "Oh Sweet Jesus, Hermione, what HAPPENED to you?!" she shrieked.
"Huh?"
"Mon Dieu!" Colette fished in her pocket until she found a small round mirror, which she handed to Hermione silently.
There was a nicely blossoming dark bruise across her left cheek, a nice balance against the shadows under her eyes and the now-fading marks of abuse on her wrist.
"Oh, it's not as bad as it looks," she said lamely. "Ran into a pal--er, pole."
Colette raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you have someone take a look at it?"Hermione brushed the bruise with her fingers. Definitely painful, very sensitive and a little swollen--funny, it hadn't seemed like he'd hit her that hard--but it wasn't warm or bleeding. "I'll be fine."
"You did sleep, didn't you?"
"I spent some time unconscious, yes."
Colette, whose sharp and intelligent mind had been entirely responsible for the sleeping drugs, beamed. "Good."
The cause of Hermione's bruises was somewhere very dark and very cold.
He hoped, vaguely, that there weren't too many people here and those that were present weren't too bright. He would only be in trouble if they realized what he was before he could deal with them, and, especially in the dark, it wasn't that obvious.
Of course, Severus Snape wasn't exactly going to be welcome either, but the shock of meeting a man ten years dead would probably be more helpful than not should things come to violence.
Despite the dark and dank, the place was quite luxurious. Velvet upholstery and a well-stocked drinks cabinet. People had been here, recently, he could tell. (By the scent and also because there was a half finished poker game going on, five hands laid carefully face down on the table.)
A man came down alone, and he ducked into a shadowy corner. He didn't recognize the face, but he was probably a Slytherin. Bulky and muscular and neckless, in a very Crabbe/Goyle sort of way, and also he was peeking at all the cards.
Snape moved in a blur. To his chagrin, the man managed a small noise before Snape cracked his neck. Two others were down in an instant. The third was carrying a sword as well as a wand in a very Slytherin style, and was smaller and quicker and somewhat smarter than his friends. Snape wrested the sabre away, but not before the man inflicted a deep, narrow wound in his shoulder.
Four men disposed of. Five hands laid on the table. Godsdammit, somebody got away. Somebody awfully paranoid.
Of course, if these were followers of Monsieur Voldemort, anybody remotely intelligent was going to be paranoid. Snape clutched at the wounded shoulder. It would heal quickly, of course, but it was annoying to be losing blood. It came so dearly these days.
Would be nice to satisfy the hunger on some nice, warm corpses, but these idiots were going to be found sooner or later and it would be a bad idea to leave clues. Anybody could snap necks, after all.
No sense in leaving trails of blood, either. He bound the wound as best he could with a couple of handkerchiefs. None of the men carried anything useful, and the upstairs was disguised so well as a clothing store that it had customers, so that was out. He scrambled out the window, the way he had come in, and tried to look inconspicuous which, in the muggle London shopping district, wasn't too hard.
Snape wondered, not for the first time, why he was doing this. Playing at White Hat was all very well and good, but it was going to get him killed. Or...something. Terminated, anyway. And what was the point, anyway? None of it would matter in a hundred years; all these people would be dead, so why did it matter if he saved them.
On the other hand, in a hundred years, and barring any unfortunate circumstances, he -would- still be alive. Or...around anyway. It was a rather sickening thought, and one he generally tried to avoid.
Being a White Hat, after all these years, came naturally, even to the rather odd morals of a vampire.
His shoulder hurt like hell.
What kind of moron would do that to him?
Bleeding. What a waste of food.
Poor starving children, and all that.
Nobody would miss them, would they?
He wondered where he could find some.