Title: Follow Her Nightmare
Notes: See Epilogue
Chapter Two: Easier to Fall Apart Unpleasant meetings in dark places
Hermione woke early, her eyes adjusting slowly to the soft light filtering through her window. She rolled herself over onto her side, before realising she was alone, that the sheets on the opposite side of the bed were smooth. Her mind clicked into focus and she remembered how Severus had slipped out of the room before she'd had the chance to ask him to stay.
Her mind cleared further and she sat up, remembering the other problems she needed to deal with. Not only had she agreed to a potentially dangerous investigation into the death of her old best friend; she was starting it off with a friendly conversation with her ex boyfriend.
She groaned, inwardly swearing at Severus for making her take on such an unpleasant task. Realisticly she knew that Severus wouldn't be able to talk to Ron – the pair had barely shared a civil word in their lives – but he didn't have to be so gleeful about it.
She rolled from her bed and dressed in an old set of teaching robes, wondering why she didn't tell Severus off about his attitude, why she didn't feel comfortable enough with their relationship to be honest with him. She wondered if she'd ever feel comfortable with him: the time they spent together could sometimes be painfully awkward, despite the chemistry between them.
Hermione sighed throwing extra robes and random objects into her carry bag. She would talk to Ron and then she would meet Severus in Oxford. Maybe they would be able to get the investigation over swiftly, giving her the time to concentrate on her own life.
"Here we go," she muttered as she walked out of her room. "How bad can it be?"
When he was well enough to return to work, the Ministry of Magic granted Ron Weasley an office of his own, rather than the cubicle he had been working from. The official reason was lengthy and convoluted, something to do with additional desk duties and rewarding an auror who'd given his all in the fight against the Dark Arts. The unofficial reason (whispered behind hands and over the water cooler), was that the other aurors, still out in the field, preferred to keep their distance. Stories of unexpected rages and gloomy moods filtered through the department and there wasn't a soul who believed he was really over the death of Harry Potter.
Hermione adjusted the little badge pinned to the front of her robes (Hermione Granger: Pre-Arranged Interview,) and walked past the auror's cubicles down the corridor to Ron's office. She paused before knocking on his door, wondering how hard Minerva might have been hit on the head before sending them out on this investigation.
She knocked and the door opened easily, revealing a tiny, overcrowded office. Ron was sitting behind his desk in the middle of the room, spreading a pile of parchment across the desk. "What do you want?" he snapped, without looking up.
"I was hoping we'd be able to talk," she said.
Ron's head shot up and he stared at her. "Hermione?"
"Yeah," she sat on the chair in front of his desk. "Hi."
"Well," he crossed his arms and leant back in his chair. "Well, I can't say I expected to see you today. Or any day really."
"I'm sorry I didn't contact you first. The Minister arranged it for me. She said there was a bit of a rush."
"It's fine," he said, his voice tightening. "What do you want?"
She bit her bottom lip, trying to work out the best way to phrase it. "I need some information, Ron. I need to know about . . . well, what happened."
"What happened when?" Ron stared at her, his eyes narrowing as he realised what she was referring to. "You want to know about Harry's death, don't you?"
She nodded. "Yes."
Ron snorted, "You've got some bloody cheek, Hermione. You spend years ignoring Harry and me, wanting absolutely nothing to do with us. Then he dies, and you come running over here, with no warning at all, so you can bug me about his death. What use is it anyway? He'd dead! Gone!"
Hermione looked down at her hands. She contemplated lying to him, but there were at least three sneakascopes sitting against the walls and she knew thay'd catch him out. "McGonagall's asked me to look into it."
"She did. And then she sent you here, did she?"
"Yes."
Ron pushed his chair back from his desk and got to his feet. He began pacing the small amount of space available, walking, Hermione noticed, with a prominent limp.
"Did McGonagall tell you I don't remember anything?" Ron stopped and looked down at Hermione. "Did the Minister tell you about the mind block? The best Healers in Britain, the strongest vitaserum, the Ministry's tried everything. There's nothing – nothing – to help me remember what happened." He sat back in his chair and glared at her.
"Did you know they suspected me for a while? They thought I'd gone and done Harry in. Inspired by jealousy or something." He snorted. "It took them three weeks to test both our wands and realise that we'd been fighting two or three other people.
"Of course, by the time they'd gotten around to that, it was clearly too late. My name was mud as far as the other aurors were concerned. They reckon it'll be a couple of years until I'm allowed out in the field again."
"I'm sorry," Hermione said softly.
"You're sorry? Hermione, he was my best friend long after you abandoned the two of us. And he's dead now, and they thought I did it, and the best thing you can think of to say is 'sorry'?" Ron slammed his hands on the desk and glared at her.
"What do you want me to say. Ron?" Hermione shook her head, "I'm trying to figure out who killed him. I'm not the enemy this time, you don't have to fight me."
"I remember some things, insignificant things," he said, refusing to look at her, "the Ministry said it wasn't any help to them, but I can tell you what I remember if you'd like?"
"Yes, thank you."
"It was a bit unusual from the beginning. Harry and I didn't usually do routine raids like this one. We usually worked with a team on bigger projects. Harry was twitchier than usual too, he didn't have his normal coolness. And our wands were acting up a bit; they weren't as fast as they should have been." He shrugged, "and Lucius Malfoy."
"What?" Hermione felt her heart quicken as she leaned forward in her seat.
"I don't know why, or how, but Lucius Malfoy keeps coming to mind. He just won't go away." He shrugged, glancing at her briefly before looking away again.
"Ron," Hermione watched as he sat down, "was anyone, I mean, were there any threats made against Harry before you were sent out?"
"Dunno," Ron frowned, "Tonks might know, though. She was really close to Ginny before . . ."
"Thank you," she said.
He shrugged, "I'm sorry. That's everything I know."
"It's a good start. It will help." An uneasy silence fell over them and Hermione wondered if she should go. But one look at Ron's face told her there were other things he wanted to say.
"I screwed up, you know." He looked at her and she held his gaze, making no effort to disagree. "I made a total mess of things."
"What things?" Her voice was calm, surprising her.
"My family. Harry. You." He looked away. "We were supposed to be the perfect couple. Remember that, 'Mione?"
She squirmed at the familiar use of her name. "I remember."
"Harry and Ginny. You and me." He smiled. "I shouldn't have let you go like you did."
"Do you honestly think you could have stopped me?" she asked.
"I could have tried harder." He rubbed the side of his face.
"Why on earth do you do this to yourself?" she sighed. "It wouldn't have worked, you know."
"You don't know that for sure."
"I do. And so do you." Hermione stood and picked up her cloak. "Thank you for the information."
She was out the door before he could reply.
"Please tell me you've unraveled the entire mystery and we can go home now," Severus called to Hermione as she apparated into his house.
"Not exactly," she said as she hung up her cloak. She walked down the hall to the small study where hewas sitting at his desk, heavy books and tattered papers spread around. "Only a couple of new leads, actually."
"Wealsey's being uncooperative?"
"He can't remember anything. His memory's blocked." She picked up on of the books. "What have you found?"
"A lot of heavy books that might have a little information, a few parchments that might be useful if they were in a language I could read properly, and," he held out a white card, "the contact details of an old associate. He's got rooms in Knockturn Alley. He'll see us in a couple of days."
"Ron said that Tonks might have some better information." Hermione took a deep breath, "he also mentioned Lucius Malfoy; said he kept coming to mind."
"Lucius Malfoy was trying to gain power from the minute he took his first step. It's the first name that would spring to most minds."
"Most people think he's dead," Hermione reminded him. She shook her head, "I don't know. It feels a little weird. The only things Ron remembers was it was a strange raid, their wands faltered, and Lucius Malfoy."
"It's something we could look into. I don't think Lucius is dead, but I don't know why he'd come back to Britain." He sat, silent and thinking, then shook himself. "I'll be ready to go in an hour. There's some food in the kitchen if you want."
Severus bent over his books, engrossed. Hermione watched for almost a minute before turning and walking away.
Hermione's London flat was a gift from Harry, back in the days when they'd all been friends. She'd been coming down from Oxford almost every weekend and Harry grew tired of finding her asleep on his couch all the time.
The flat was overcrowded now, full of things she didn't like. But she was spending most of the year at Hogwarts, and her summers tended to be full of research rather than cleaning. She draped her cloak over the couch and watched as Severus poked around the flat.
"Well," she shrugged, "it's convenient."
Severus nodded and stalked down the short hallway until he found her study. Silently he took a fresh piece of parchment and a quill from her desk, before carefully unfurling a fragile, ancient parchment.
"Do you know Ibranite?" he asked Hermione, who was watching from the study doorway.
"Not really," she admitted, "just a few words, not much else."
"I believe this parchment is in Ibranite. As far as I can tell it mentions the Potter family. I think it might be what we're looking for. It's going to take me some time to translate though. The writing's unclear and there's words in here I've never seen before."
"Good," Hermione pushed her hair behind her shoulder and looked at the man sitting at her desk, wondering if she really knew him at all. She shook herself out of her reverie; Severus was just involved in the investigation, that was all. "Do you want to talk to Remus or Tonks tomorrow?"
Severus looked away from the parchment, eyebrows raised. "Do I have to talk to either of them?"
Hermione smothered a grin. "Unfortunately . . ."
"I'll take Lupin, then. I know enough of his dirty secrets to keep him quiet. There's no hope of keeping Nymphadora Tonks quiet."
She smiled, "I'll talk to Tonks."
"Fine," Severus turned, as if to return to the parchment, but his eye was caught by something at the window. "One of us has mail," he said, gesturing at the owl outside.
Hermione crossed the room and opened the window, taking the letter. As the owl flew away, she read the scrawled address on the envelope. "It's for me," she said, turning it over to open it.
Severus nodded and picked up the quill. Hermione took a plain letter opener from the compartment on her desk and broke through the seal, pulling out the letter and reading it quickly. A sudden sense of panic rose through her and she noticed her hands were trembling. "Severus," she said.
"Hmm . . ." he replied, without moving.
"I think you should read this." She held the letter out to him.
Severus took it from her and skimmed through it quickly. Then he held it closer to her desk lamp, as if the soft yellow light would reveal extra clues. "Who sent this?" he demanded.
Hermione groaned. "Its anonymous, Severus. Post Office owl and all. They're not going to stick their names on that sort of letter."
"It's a death threat, Hermione!"
"I'm well aware of that. And I was expecting it too. My visit to Ron, our visits with Minerva, you rummaging around Oxford – none of it would have gone unnoticed. I do think you're over reacting a little."
"Hermione," Severus' voice was low, but forceful, "these people want you dead. They want to send hexes and curses to hurt you and they want to kill you."
"People have wanted to kill me before. I know how to look after myself."
"Still," Severus frowned, "maybe we should go to Lupin and Tonks together, rather than separately."
"It'll take us a whole extra day if we do that," Hermione protested. "I thought you wanted this done quickly."
"I want us to live through this."
"We'll be fine." She looked at him, wondering why he was worrying so much. "Are you coming to bed?" The words felt foreign as she said them, and she was struck by the absurdity of assuming Severus Snape would come to bed with her.
"I want to work on this," he replied.
"I'll see you in the morning." She turned, leaving him bent over the parchment, hard at work.
Hermione pulled her cloak tight around her and shook herself irritably. She intended to make the day as short as possible, to get home early and go through the books Severus had put aside for her. But Tonks was out on a job when Hermione got to the Ministry and tracking her down had taken the better part of the day.
Tonks, Hermione thought as she stepped across the street, had been unable to provide any worthwhile information. Just tales of death threats and Harry's rising paranoia that had left Hermione so disturbed, she elected to walk home rather than risk splinching herself.
She turned around a corner, wondering if Severus had more success talking to Remus. Or maybe he had finally unraveled the strange parchment, made a successful translation and worked out the investigation.
Hermione was so wrapped up her thoughts she didn't notice the lack of people around her. Her shoes tapped across the footpath and she turned into a tiny alley which served as a short cut home. Suddenly the air stilled and Hermione stopped, wondering if a stray Dementor had made its way into London.
"Don't be stupid," she muttered, stepping forward again. As her foot connected with the ground, a thick, yellow fog descended around her, pushing against her as if it were solid and rendering her sightless. It was heavy and cloying, wrapping around her throat and lungs, choking her. Hermione reached for her wand, feeling shaken by the supposedly obsolete phenonemon. But before she could pull her wand from her inside pocket, a large hand clapped down on her shoulder and threw her the short distance into the wall.
Hermione winced as her body made contact with the wall and her knees faltered, threatening to crumple her to the ground. She could feel someone moving towards her, but as she moved to the side, there was another person who grabbed her arms and spun her around.
"I've got her," he growled, his voice thick with an European accent.
Hermione struggled and pulled, kicking the man holding her, in the shins. The man swore violently and the first man slapped her sharply across the face.
"Don't kick, little girl." The first man had an English accent, a voice that sounded terrifyingly familiar. She didn't have time to think about it though, as the foreign man threw her to the ground and kicked her savagely. She rolled out of the way of a second kick, but a third one, along with a muttered hex, caught her firmly in the ribs, leaving her gasping and curled up in pain.
The Englishman knelt beside her, his hands pressing her shoulders into the ground. Hermione tried desperately to see him through the fog, but all she could make out was a dim shape.
"You should have known better," the man hissed, "you shouldn't have gone looking. And you should have called it off when we told you to. But instead you had to play little Miss Investigator." He reached into his pocket and Hermione knew he was pulling out a wand. "Well, our Master doesn't want to be investigated." He stepped back and Hermione closed her eyes. Severus, she thought desperately, where is Severus?
The Englishman laughed, a deep menacing sound, and pressed the tip of his wand against her breast bone. There was a strange empty silence and the man spoke again.
"Avada Kad . . ."
Notes:
Snape has an apartment in Oxford. I think that's Lizbee's fault.
Ibranite is a made up language. I bet Giles knows it.
The fog. A homage to the Mary Russell book "A Monstrous Regiment of Women"
Chapter Two: Easier to Fall Apart Unpleasant meetings in dark places
Hermione woke early, her eyes adjusting slowly to the soft light filtering through her window. She rolled herself over onto her side, before realising she was alone, that the sheets on the opposite side of the bed were smooth. Her mind clicked into focus and she remembered how Severus had slipped out of the room before she'd had the chance to ask him to stay.
Her mind cleared further and she sat up, remembering the other problems she needed to deal with. Not only had she agreed to a potentially dangerous investigation into the death of her old best friend; she was starting it off with a friendly conversation with her ex boyfriend.
She groaned, inwardly swearing at Severus for making her take on such an unpleasant task. Realisticly she knew that Severus wouldn't be able to talk to Ron – the pair had barely shared a civil word in their lives – but he didn't have to be so gleeful about it.
She rolled from her bed and dressed in an old set of teaching robes, wondering why she didn't tell Severus off about his attitude, why she didn't feel comfortable enough with their relationship to be honest with him. She wondered if she'd ever feel comfortable with him: the time they spent together could sometimes be painfully awkward, despite the chemistry between them.
Hermione sighed throwing extra robes and random objects into her carry bag. She would talk to Ron and then she would meet Severus in Oxford. Maybe they would be able to get the investigation over swiftly, giving her the time to concentrate on her own life.
"Here we go," she muttered as she walked out of her room. "How bad can it be?"
When he was well enough to return to work, the Ministry of Magic granted Ron Weasley an office of his own, rather than the cubicle he had been working from. The official reason was lengthy and convoluted, something to do with additional desk duties and rewarding an auror who'd given his all in the fight against the Dark Arts. The unofficial reason (whispered behind hands and over the water cooler), was that the other aurors, still out in the field, preferred to keep their distance. Stories of unexpected rages and gloomy moods filtered through the department and there wasn't a soul who believed he was really over the death of Harry Potter.
Hermione adjusted the little badge pinned to the front of her robes (Hermione Granger: Pre-Arranged Interview,) and walked past the auror's cubicles down the corridor to Ron's office. She paused before knocking on his door, wondering how hard Minerva might have been hit on the head before sending them out on this investigation.
She knocked and the door opened easily, revealing a tiny, overcrowded office. Ron was sitting behind his desk in the middle of the room, spreading a pile of parchment across the desk. "What do you want?" he snapped, without looking up.
"I was hoping we'd be able to talk," she said.
Ron's head shot up and he stared at her. "Hermione?"
"Yeah," she sat on the chair in front of his desk. "Hi."
"Well," he crossed his arms and leant back in his chair. "Well, I can't say I expected to see you today. Or any day really."
"I'm sorry I didn't contact you first. The Minister arranged it for me. She said there was a bit of a rush."
"It's fine," he said, his voice tightening. "What do you want?"
She bit her bottom lip, trying to work out the best way to phrase it. "I need some information, Ron. I need to know about . . . well, what happened."
"What happened when?" Ron stared at her, his eyes narrowing as he realised what she was referring to. "You want to know about Harry's death, don't you?"
She nodded. "Yes."
Ron snorted, "You've got some bloody cheek, Hermione. You spend years ignoring Harry and me, wanting absolutely nothing to do with us. Then he dies, and you come running over here, with no warning at all, so you can bug me about his death. What use is it anyway? He'd dead! Gone!"
Hermione looked down at her hands. She contemplated lying to him, but there were at least three sneakascopes sitting against the walls and she knew thay'd catch him out. "McGonagall's asked me to look into it."
"She did. And then she sent you here, did she?"
"Yes."
Ron pushed his chair back from his desk and got to his feet. He began pacing the small amount of space available, walking, Hermione noticed, with a prominent limp.
"Did McGonagall tell you I don't remember anything?" Ron stopped and looked down at Hermione. "Did the Minister tell you about the mind block? The best Healers in Britain, the strongest vitaserum, the Ministry's tried everything. There's nothing – nothing – to help me remember what happened." He sat back in his chair and glared at her.
"Did you know they suspected me for a while? They thought I'd gone and done Harry in. Inspired by jealousy or something." He snorted. "It took them three weeks to test both our wands and realise that we'd been fighting two or three other people.
"Of course, by the time they'd gotten around to that, it was clearly too late. My name was mud as far as the other aurors were concerned. They reckon it'll be a couple of years until I'm allowed out in the field again."
"I'm sorry," Hermione said softly.
"You're sorry? Hermione, he was my best friend long after you abandoned the two of us. And he's dead now, and they thought I did it, and the best thing you can think of to say is 'sorry'?" Ron slammed his hands on the desk and glared at her.
"What do you want me to say. Ron?" Hermione shook her head, "I'm trying to figure out who killed him. I'm not the enemy this time, you don't have to fight me."
"I remember some things, insignificant things," he said, refusing to look at her, "the Ministry said it wasn't any help to them, but I can tell you what I remember if you'd like?"
"Yes, thank you."
"It was a bit unusual from the beginning. Harry and I didn't usually do routine raids like this one. We usually worked with a team on bigger projects. Harry was twitchier than usual too, he didn't have his normal coolness. And our wands were acting up a bit; they weren't as fast as they should have been." He shrugged, "and Lucius Malfoy."
"What?" Hermione felt her heart quicken as she leaned forward in her seat.
"I don't know why, or how, but Lucius Malfoy keeps coming to mind. He just won't go away." He shrugged, glancing at her briefly before looking away again.
"Ron," Hermione watched as he sat down, "was anyone, I mean, were there any threats made against Harry before you were sent out?"
"Dunno," Ron frowned, "Tonks might know, though. She was really close to Ginny before . . ."
"Thank you," she said.
He shrugged, "I'm sorry. That's everything I know."
"It's a good start. It will help." An uneasy silence fell over them and Hermione wondered if she should go. But one look at Ron's face told her there were other things he wanted to say.
"I screwed up, you know." He looked at her and she held his gaze, making no effort to disagree. "I made a total mess of things."
"What things?" Her voice was calm, surprising her.
"My family. Harry. You." He looked away. "We were supposed to be the perfect couple. Remember that, 'Mione?"
She squirmed at the familiar use of her name. "I remember."
"Harry and Ginny. You and me." He smiled. "I shouldn't have let you go like you did."
"Do you honestly think you could have stopped me?" she asked.
"I could have tried harder." He rubbed the side of his face.
"Why on earth do you do this to yourself?" she sighed. "It wouldn't have worked, you know."
"You don't know that for sure."
"I do. And so do you." Hermione stood and picked up her cloak. "Thank you for the information."
She was out the door before he could reply.
"Please tell me you've unraveled the entire mystery and we can go home now," Severus called to Hermione as she apparated into his house.
"Not exactly," she said as she hung up her cloak. She walked down the hall to the small study where hewas sitting at his desk, heavy books and tattered papers spread around. "Only a couple of new leads, actually."
"Wealsey's being uncooperative?"
"He can't remember anything. His memory's blocked." She picked up on of the books. "What have you found?"
"A lot of heavy books that might have a little information, a few parchments that might be useful if they were in a language I could read properly, and," he held out a white card, "the contact details of an old associate. He's got rooms in Knockturn Alley. He'll see us in a couple of days."
"Ron said that Tonks might have some better information." Hermione took a deep breath, "he also mentioned Lucius Malfoy; said he kept coming to mind."
"Lucius Malfoy was trying to gain power from the minute he took his first step. It's the first name that would spring to most minds."
"Most people think he's dead," Hermione reminded him. She shook her head, "I don't know. It feels a little weird. The only things Ron remembers was it was a strange raid, their wands faltered, and Lucius Malfoy."
"It's something we could look into. I don't think Lucius is dead, but I don't know why he'd come back to Britain." He sat, silent and thinking, then shook himself. "I'll be ready to go in an hour. There's some food in the kitchen if you want."
Severus bent over his books, engrossed. Hermione watched for almost a minute before turning and walking away.
Hermione's London flat was a gift from Harry, back in the days when they'd all been friends. She'd been coming down from Oxford almost every weekend and Harry grew tired of finding her asleep on his couch all the time.
The flat was overcrowded now, full of things she didn't like. But she was spending most of the year at Hogwarts, and her summers tended to be full of research rather than cleaning. She draped her cloak over the couch and watched as Severus poked around the flat.
"Well," she shrugged, "it's convenient."
Severus nodded and stalked down the short hallway until he found her study. Silently he took a fresh piece of parchment and a quill from her desk, before carefully unfurling a fragile, ancient parchment.
"Do you know Ibranite?" he asked Hermione, who was watching from the study doorway.
"Not really," she admitted, "just a few words, not much else."
"I believe this parchment is in Ibranite. As far as I can tell it mentions the Potter family. I think it might be what we're looking for. It's going to take me some time to translate though. The writing's unclear and there's words in here I've never seen before."
"Good," Hermione pushed her hair behind her shoulder and looked at the man sitting at her desk, wondering if she really knew him at all. She shook herself out of her reverie; Severus was just involved in the investigation, that was all. "Do you want to talk to Remus or Tonks tomorrow?"
Severus looked away from the parchment, eyebrows raised. "Do I have to talk to either of them?"
Hermione smothered a grin. "Unfortunately . . ."
"I'll take Lupin, then. I know enough of his dirty secrets to keep him quiet. There's no hope of keeping Nymphadora Tonks quiet."
She smiled, "I'll talk to Tonks."
"Fine," Severus turned, as if to return to the parchment, but his eye was caught by something at the window. "One of us has mail," he said, gesturing at the owl outside.
Hermione crossed the room and opened the window, taking the letter. As the owl flew away, she read the scrawled address on the envelope. "It's for me," she said, turning it over to open it.
Severus nodded and picked up the quill. Hermione took a plain letter opener from the compartment on her desk and broke through the seal, pulling out the letter and reading it quickly. A sudden sense of panic rose through her and she noticed her hands were trembling. "Severus," she said.
"Hmm . . ." he replied, without moving.
"I think you should read this." She held the letter out to him.
Severus took it from her and skimmed through it quickly. Then he held it closer to her desk lamp, as if the soft yellow light would reveal extra clues. "Who sent this?" he demanded.
Hermione groaned. "Its anonymous, Severus. Post Office owl and all. They're not going to stick their names on that sort of letter."
"It's a death threat, Hermione!"
"I'm well aware of that. And I was expecting it too. My visit to Ron, our visits with Minerva, you rummaging around Oxford – none of it would have gone unnoticed. I do think you're over reacting a little."
"Hermione," Severus' voice was low, but forceful, "these people want you dead. They want to send hexes and curses to hurt you and they want to kill you."
"People have wanted to kill me before. I know how to look after myself."
"Still," Severus frowned, "maybe we should go to Lupin and Tonks together, rather than separately."
"It'll take us a whole extra day if we do that," Hermione protested. "I thought you wanted this done quickly."
"I want us to live through this."
"We'll be fine." She looked at him, wondering why he was worrying so much. "Are you coming to bed?" The words felt foreign as she said them, and she was struck by the absurdity of assuming Severus Snape would come to bed with her.
"I want to work on this," he replied.
"I'll see you in the morning." She turned, leaving him bent over the parchment, hard at work.
Hermione pulled her cloak tight around her and shook herself irritably. She intended to make the day as short as possible, to get home early and go through the books Severus had put aside for her. But Tonks was out on a job when Hermione got to the Ministry and tracking her down had taken the better part of the day.
Tonks, Hermione thought as she stepped across the street, had been unable to provide any worthwhile information. Just tales of death threats and Harry's rising paranoia that had left Hermione so disturbed, she elected to walk home rather than risk splinching herself.
She turned around a corner, wondering if Severus had more success talking to Remus. Or maybe he had finally unraveled the strange parchment, made a successful translation and worked out the investigation.
Hermione was so wrapped up her thoughts she didn't notice the lack of people around her. Her shoes tapped across the footpath and she turned into a tiny alley which served as a short cut home. Suddenly the air stilled and Hermione stopped, wondering if a stray Dementor had made its way into London.
"Don't be stupid," she muttered, stepping forward again. As her foot connected with the ground, a thick, yellow fog descended around her, pushing against her as if it were solid and rendering her sightless. It was heavy and cloying, wrapping around her throat and lungs, choking her. Hermione reached for her wand, feeling shaken by the supposedly obsolete phenonemon. But before she could pull her wand from her inside pocket, a large hand clapped down on her shoulder and threw her the short distance into the wall.
Hermione winced as her body made contact with the wall and her knees faltered, threatening to crumple her to the ground. She could feel someone moving towards her, but as she moved to the side, there was another person who grabbed her arms and spun her around.
"I've got her," he growled, his voice thick with an European accent.
Hermione struggled and pulled, kicking the man holding her, in the shins. The man swore violently and the first man slapped her sharply across the face.
"Don't kick, little girl." The first man had an English accent, a voice that sounded terrifyingly familiar. She didn't have time to think about it though, as the foreign man threw her to the ground and kicked her savagely. She rolled out of the way of a second kick, but a third one, along with a muttered hex, caught her firmly in the ribs, leaving her gasping and curled up in pain.
The Englishman knelt beside her, his hands pressing her shoulders into the ground. Hermione tried desperately to see him through the fog, but all she could make out was a dim shape.
"You should have known better," the man hissed, "you shouldn't have gone looking. And you should have called it off when we told you to. But instead you had to play little Miss Investigator." He reached into his pocket and Hermione knew he was pulling out a wand. "Well, our Master doesn't want to be investigated." He stepped back and Hermione closed her eyes. Severus, she thought desperately, where is Severus?
The Englishman laughed, a deep menacing sound, and pressed the tip of his wand against her breast bone. There was a strange empty silence and the man spoke again.
"Avada Kad . . ."
Notes:
Snape has an apartment in Oxford. I think that's Lizbee's fault.
Ibranite is a made up language. I bet Giles knows it.
The fog. A homage to the Mary Russell book "A Monstrous Regiment of Women"