Title: Artificium Magum

Author: Calliopeia17

Summary: The Slytherins are trying to murder Harry, Hermione has a Magical Theory book that holds all the answers – if she knows where to look, and Snape seems to be putting himself in more and more danger – for what? There's a plot to make Harry immortal, the trials of being Head Girl, and Hermione hates Snape…doesn't she? A novel-length 7th year SS+HG fic.

Rating: Will eventually be R

Pairing: Snape/Hermione

Warnings: Pre-fic character death. Sorry, Draco fans. I don't want to scare anyone away with that, but though this is not yet AU, I'm pretty sure it will be as soon as HBP comes out. There will eventually be teacher/student relationships, obviously non-canon ones, and some violence.

Reviews: Please! Feedback is good!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. That honor belongs to JKR and Warner Bros.

"Hermione," Tonks said, looking frustrated, "Dumbledore has entrusted me to keep you safe. Safety doesn't really include giving you information on the workings of the Order of the Phoenix."

"He said he didn't want us kept in ignorance," Hermione couldn't help but point out.

"He didn't mean giving you tactical information, and you know that full well."

Hermione decided to try a different tack. "Tonks, I had detention with Snape last night, and he came in late and covered with Aether burns. He asked for my help, and you know that's not like him. I just want to know what happened to him."

Tonks looked back at her through narrowed eyes. "Strange of you to start caring about Severus Snape all of a sudden. Hermione, I'm an Auror. I'm an Order member. You're not going to get me to tell you anything. You can sit here talking at me for the rest of the day, but it won't change that."

"Can't you just tell me a little bit? The things that anyone would know?"

Tonks shook her head. "The vast majority of what I know, Hermione, is classified information. I know that Snape was attempting some sort of conversation with djinni—he's been working on different translation potions to be able to speak with them for weeks now. I would imagine the Aether burns came from that somehow. There's a tidbit of knowledge for you, all right?"

"Is that it?" Hermione asked. "What was he doing? Why djinni? What's Dumbledore planning?"

Tonks held up a hand, and Hermione fell silent. "You need to understand that there's a reason you three aren't being made Order members. We know you want to help. We know you're powerful—you saw Harry beat me in a duel not ten minutes ago. But the ways you can help aren't by trying to piece together Dumbledore's overarching plans. Help by being a trustworthy Head Girl so that the students will follow you if a crisis comes. Help by getting Harry to reform the DA—I'll even supervise it as an official club if he wants—because we need you all to have all the experience you can. Help by watching the other students, looking for suspicious behavior, or for those who are sympathetic to us and want the chance to help. But it won't do any good for you to know what Dumbledore is planning—whatever it may be, it won't be something you'll be able to take a part in."

Hermione nodded. "I want to know what's going on, Tonks, but I'll do as you say. I'll talk to Harry about the DA—I'm sure he'll be willing to put it back together."

"Good," Tonks said. "Look, and if you want to help Professor Snape, you could always talk to him."

Hermione shook her head vehemently. "No thank you. I'd like to keep Gryffindor's points total in the positive, thank you."

"Good point," Tonks laughed. "Now, seriously, I want you to think about something. Professor Dumbledore doesn't always work the way we would expect him to. Consider that maybe his plans rest on you, or Harry, not knowing what they are at the present moment. Know that you are a part of his equation—he knows you're on our side and want to help. And trust him. Trust us. Please."

Hermione nodded again. "I can do that—for now, anyway."

"Good. Now, I believe you're due in Herbology, so off you get."

Hermione picked up her satchel. As she walked towards the door, she turned back to Tonks. "Thanks for listening, anyway."

Tonks grinned. "Sure."

By the time Hermione had sat through a long Herbology lecture about the properties of several shrub and tree varieties whose sap proved useful in potions, then waited patiently through Professor Grubbly-Plank's Care of Magical Creatures class, she had nearly forgotten about the advice Tonks had given. Grubbly-Plank, who had taken over the NEWT-level classes while Hagrid went on inexplicable forays into the Forbidden Forest—Hermione could only assume it involved his giant younger brother Grawp—had brought in cages of completely nonmagical insects—butterflies and scarabs, which apparently, though not innately magical, held magical properties under the right circumstances. Hermione had been fascinated. Grubbly-Plank had explained that many of these insects were mythical or literary symbols in the Muggle world because of the magical properties they held—butterflies' perfectly mundane ability to change forms over the course of its life cycle, for example, made them a symbol of what Grubbly-Plank called "the circle of life," the cyclical nature of being. However, it also made butterflies potent potions ingredients—and there was even one story of a witch who had kept a butterfly familiar.

By the time she, Harry, and Ron had trudged back up to the Gryffindor Common Room, Hermione wanted nothing more than to collapse on one of the cushy scarlet sofas and read by the firelight. She sat down hard, and Ron collapsed down beside her.

"Harry, can't we just take a quick break before Quidditch?" Ron groaned. Hermione had almost forgotten—the boys were co-captaining the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year. It hadn't been something she'd been paying attention to, in the mad opening rush of classes.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Good plan. I'm just going to put my books upstairs, and I'll be back down." He disappeared up the boys' staircase.

Ron and Hermione sat in silence for a moment. Ron seemed to want to speak; he kept opening his mouth and closing it again, and his ears were turning pink once again.

Hermione sighed inwardly. "Ron, is there something you want?" She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know. He'd been acting like the boys in books did when they were pining over a girl, and Hermione sincerely hoped that he wasn't romantically interested in her. When Victor had asked her to the Yule Ball in fourth year, she'd read several books on modern wizarding dating—a few scientific, and a few, well, not so much. How to Snare the Wizard of Your Dreams had been educational, though, to say the least.

Ron was still gaping like a fish stranded on the sand, and Hermione felt she really had to spare him his discomfort. "Ron?"

"Er…I was just wondering…if you…if you wanted to go to the next Hogsmeade weekend with me?"

Well. This was something that the books had neglected to mention. What on Merlin's name did you do when one of your oldest friends spontaneously decided he fancied you? More importantly, Hermione wondered, as she imagined kissing Ron and felt her stomach lurch at the thought, what did you do when you didn't fancy him back?

She said the first thing that came into her head. "Ron, we go to every Hogsmeade weekend together."

Probably not the best idea. Now she was forcing him to say what he meant. Not that it didn't make it easier for her, but now he'd be even more uncomfortable.

"I meant…er…together. Just us. You know, like, a date, I reckon. It seems like…the right thing to do."

Hermione still had no idea what to say. "Ron—what—why are you suddenly asking me this?"

"Well," he stammered, "I mean, everybody seems to think we should…get together. So, I thought—I mean—"

"Ron, do you fancy me?" Hermione jaw suddenly dropped open as she realized what she had asked. She was fairly certain that neither How to Snare the Wizard of Your Dreams or Witches and Wizards Today had advocated the…er…direct approach. At least, not quite that direct. "I didn't actually mean that," Hermione hurriedly corrected. "I meant, er, that it sounded like you thought we should—date—because everyone says we should, and not because you fancy me or anything."

Ron, of all things, looked relieved. "So you understand, then?" What? Hermione felt her head spinning. How in Merlin's name did Lavender and Parvati deal with this sort of—of drama on a regular basis? For that matter, what in Merlin's name was Ron talking about? Then it suddenly clicked.

"Is that—is that what you mean? You don't actually fancy me, but you asked me on a date because everyone's been saying we should?"

Ron flushed again. "It seemed like a good idea," he said miserably. "I reckoned maybe—you know, since everyone was saying we fight so much, we must actually be in love or something—maybe that we ought to try and see, and we'd—get to like each other or something. Not that I don't like you," he added quickly. "Just not like that."

"Oh, Ron," Hermione sighed. "It's very sweet of you, but I don't think dating is actually supposed to work that way. I think of you like my brother; it'd be—" she made a face "—weird to date you."

Harry clattered back down the stairs, sans satchel and books. He looked at Ron and Hermione, both still blushing fiercely, and rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you two were talking about dating?"

"No!" Ron exclaimed, just as Hermione said, "Yes!"

"But not—I mean, not about us dating. We're not. Dating, I mean. We…er…decided against it." Hermione explained awkwardly, wishing fiercely that there was some book, somewhere, that told girls how to deal with this sort of thing without blushing.

Harry grinned. "Good. Because, not to insult you two or anything, but you'd be terrible for each other. Plus it would be weird. I mean, we were best friends before we even noticed you were a girl, Hermione."

"Yeah," Ron sighed. "I know. But I'm a bloody idiot sometimes. Let's go play Quidditch."

"Wait!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed. "I almost forgot! I talked to Tonks after class, and she wanted to know if you'd be willing to restart the DA. She said she'd sponsor it—as a club or whatever—if you wanted. But I bet you'd have to let in Slytherins if you did that." She frowned. "But that's not the point. Do you think you'd want to?"

Harry looked startled and, for a moment reminded Hermione very much of a trapped animal. "Hermione—I don't know."

"You like teaching," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "But I don't like being the center of attention."

Ron seemed to have recovered from his previous crushing embarrassment. "Mate, it'd be brilliant! I mean, it's a way to help out against You-Know-Who—"

"Voldemort," Harry correctly absentmindedly.

"Whatever," Hermione said. "The point is—and Tonks even said this—the best thing we can do to help is to have everyone prepared if something happens. I mean, if Voldemort ever attacks, we all have to be able to do what we can against him. And, well, you're the best there is."

"I'm not really," Harry said uncomfortably. "It's—it sounds like a good idea, but it'll be so much work, too. Did you think about that?"

"I'll do lesson plans for you if you want, Harry," Hermione offered. "The real problems will be what to do with a secret defense organization that's suddenly legitimate. I mean, what will we do with the Galleons and so forth?"

"Does Tonks know about that?" Ron asked.

"I doubt it," Harry replied. "But you're right. I'll talk to her. It may turn out that we still keep it a secret—or invitation only, or something like that."

"Not to mention the Slytherins are hardly going to want lessons from you, mate," Ron pointed out.

Hermione laughed. "Good point. Can you imagine Crabbe and Goyle taking orders from Harry?"

Even Harry smiled at that. "We'll see. I'll talk to Tonks. But I mean, I'm not even a teacher, you know? I'm not qualified—"

"Harry," Hermione interrupted seriously, "you beat a trained Auror in a duel this morning."

There was a silence for a moment, during which Hermione realized that Harry hadn't considered that before. She didn't blame him; she'd barely thought about it herself. Tonks had given them dueling advice before, but really she'd just been a friend hanging about Grimmauld Place, another person about their age against whom they could practice. The implications of Harry's victory that morning had taken a while to sink in.

"Mate," Ron said, his voice quiet, "you're the best there is."

Harry gave a shaky smile. "Thanks, you two. Now—seriously, this time—let's go play Quidditch."

The two were halfway out the portrait hole when a cry came from the boy's dormitories. They both paused.

"That sounded like Seamus," Harry said, and then in a flash he and Ron shot towards the stairs, Hermione, after a moment's hesitation, following close behind.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Seamus, eyebrows singed and looking shell-shocked, staggered out of the seventh-year dorm. "Harry," he gasped, "I didn't even see what happened. It just exploded." He held open the door, and the four of them filed into the room.

It was a disaster. Harry's giant four-poster bed was a smoldering ruin of charred logs around what looked like—a blast radius? It was as if there had been an explosion in the center of the bed and the entire thing had caught alight. The remains of the bed were soaked liberally with water, which had begun to seep into in the carpet, pooling by the window.

"What the bloody hell happened?" Ron said finally.

"It just—exploded," Seamus explained, looking frightened. "The whole thing caught on fire—I conjured water to put it out; it was the first thing I could think of."

Harry just stood staring. "My bag was lying in the center of the bed. I just sat it down and went back downstairs."

A scrap of fabric caught on one of the smoldering, splintered bedposts caught Hermione's eye, and she picked it up—a scorched piece of the scarlet canvas Harry's satchel had been made of. "Look," she said, holding it out to him.

Ron gestured at something in the charred mess. "There're pages from your Herbology textbook in that mess. Ripped apart." Hermione looked where he was pointing. The paper was so blackened it was hardly legible, but one scrap still clearly read "Pine species and their magical usages."

"Exploding Hex," Harry finally pronounced.

Hermione shivered. Harry's voice sounded dead. "I'm getting McGonagall," she declared, and, when no one moved to stop her, fled from the room.

She plunged straight into the Transfiguration Professor's third-year class. McGonagall was halfway through a sentence when Hermione barged through the door.

"Miss Granger?" she asked. "What on earth—"

"Someone tried to kill Harry," Hermione gasped out, heedless of the younger students' ears. "There's a fire in the dormitory—"

"Class dismissed," McGonagall said curtly, and followed Hermione upstairs, surprisingly quickly for her weathered appearance. She barged into the room and scrutinized the scene, shaking her head.

"Do you have any idea what might have caused this?" she asked finally.

"An Exploding Hex cast on my bag," Harry replied. "I'm not sure what triggered it."

"I will summon Professor Dumbledore to help me cast a diagnostic on the remains," McGonagall said. "In the meantime, I want all of you out of this dormitory."

The four Gryffindors didn't even bother complaining; they knew their Head of House too well. They went silently into the common room, and sat without speaking 'till dawn.

Notes to Reviewers:

Dafina: Thanks for another lovely, thoughtful review. I hope you keep liking my version of Snape- he's a strange combination of teachers I've hated and the sort of person I think Hermione would fall in love with. Which I find very intruiging.

I-LUV-ILC: Thanks! "Wotcher" is just a sort of catchphrase that Tonks uses in the books - sort of a British "What's up?" I think.

Fiona McKinnon: Thank you! Keep on reading and I hope you enjoy!

Magic and sparkle: Thanks! I'm definitely getting some romance in eventually, but I'm having fun building up the plot, too. Look for a lot more Snape in the next few chapters!