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Touch the Air Softly

by Jessa L'Rynn

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. J.K. Rowling created them and writes them with a genius that has never been equaled. Warner Bros. owns the right to do dumb things with them and doubtlessly will once Jo's finished with them, unless she kills them all. I try to fight the urge to put words into other people's visions. But every once in awhile, something yummy like this comes along and I find myself committing what I have been told is both crime and honor. With all due respect to Jo Rowling and her marvelous world, here is my attempt to "steal from the best".

Chapter 14: Sweep the Grey Mountains

Snape waited quietly in the study for Miss Granger to return. When they had arrived at the end of their tedious and exhausting trip, she had effectively smuggled him into the house, past the curious eyes of the trickle of visitors leaving and entering the place. He was somewhat amused by this, but pleased, too. He was disinterested in becoming a spectacle, out of his element and in clothes he wore maybe once in the past five years.

Miss Granger had gone to speak to her parents, she said, in a voice that he was convinced was trying to cover up something, and had stowed him out of the way in a study or library near the main entrance. He was nervous to have her out of his sight for even this long - Dumbledore would never forgive him if something untoward happened to the girl. And he would never forgive himself. But she had insisted on talking to her parents alone and he certainly couldn't object to that, even though he knew she was up to something.

To still his nerves, he busied himself by studying his surroundings, trying to decipher the intriguing muggle books from their bindings alone. They held his gaze for only a very few minutes before he was pulled away by the large painting hanging over a fireplace that would have looked at home in a wizard's manor.

The painting was of a family grouping - a pair of parents who appeared to be around Snape's own age, a very little girl with ringlets in the ponytails pulled up on both sides of her head, and a young woman who looked almost exactly like Miss Granger as she did now, except that this girl had different eyes, and perhaps a more slender face.

He looked around at all the various pictures that accompanied that portrait, all covering that wall and realized that the littlest girl had eventually grown into the Gryffindor who was the bane of his existence. Curiosity gnawed at him. Who was the older girl, why were there no further pictures of her?

Several moments of investigation revealed her to be Gertrude, Hermione's sister. He had wondered for a moment if she was actually the girl's mother, but the articles he found tucked away from most prying eyes (though not his; the eyes of a spy were particularly good for minding other peoples' business for them) disabused him quickly of all notions where the woman was concerned.

She had been gone since Hermione was a little child. He read the statements, "Surrey Woman Dead in Mysterious Accident" and the date and realized with horror that the unfortunate creature had probably been killed by Death Eaters. He read deeper into the article and sighed when he found it - a small artistic morbidity that told him everything. Bellatrix.

"I was at day care, and my parents were at their office," whispered a sad little voice behind him. Even years and lack of knowledge couldn't conceal the evident grief. "I don't think I really remember her, but I can't forget her either."

Snape looked up at the quiet little grouping. Was there no one that Voldemort and his wretched followers had left alone? Did any family in the world anywhere survive that war with peace? "No more you should, Miss Granger," he said carefully. "The dead are only gone when they are forgotten." He turned to watch her fight her tears and watched the brave Gryffindor spirit raise her chin and sparkle in her eyes.

"My parents are expecting us for dinner, sir," she said. "This way, please."

He followed her all the way out into a different hallway when it occurred to him that something was very wrong and that the girl was trying to tell him, but couldn't see how to do it. "Miss Granger?" he asked, stopping her in a rather fancifully decorated little alcove off of what looked to be a back door into the family gardens.

She looked up at him. "I... I told them you're interested in a muggle funeral, sir," she said and her stance was screaming fear and worry and a deep-seated self-consciousness that he couldn't really explain. She always seemed to be so comfortable at Hogwarts in an environment that should have been completely out of her element, by rights. So why, in her own home, was she so frantic? She seemed to get worse the longer he stayed silent until, finally, she said, "I'm sorry, sir. They know but they don't know how bad..."

He frowned. "Miss Granger, do you mean to tell me that you have failed to inform your parents about the situation at Hogwarts and in our world?"

"Our world," she snorted. "I don't want that for my world."

Snape stared at her and, unable to help himself, forced himself to meet her gaze, to study her mind again, as he used to do from time to time, before he started getting strange ideas about her. A series of impressions, all draped in black, all sorrowing, all weary and afraid, assaulted his mind. He filed the rest away for later consideration and fell on the one he did understand immediately. "I don't want that for our world, either, Miss Granger. And that is why every one of us must do what we can. How can your parents help you if you do not give them the information they need?"

The girl frowned and looked down at her hands. "They'll be safer."

"So said Professor Dumbledore of young Mister Potter. Your fifth year, I believe."

She jerked her head up and glared at him as though struck. "They can't help and I don't want them to worry."

He turned the full intensity of his glare on her, now. "They are adults, Miss Granger," he said. She started to interrupt him, so he lifted his finger and, without thinking, brought it to within a hair's breadth of her lips. Then, with sudden shock, he realized what he was about to do and jerked his hand away. "Yes," he said shakily, "I know you are an adult, too. But your parents gave you life, they have a right to be concerned with it."

She stared at him, wide-eyed and very pale. "I... I'm afraid they'll make me leave Hogwarts."

"That is not their right, Miss Granger," he said. "You are a witch, and a powerful one when you remember it, and you are an adult yourself by every legal standard in the area. Your parents cannot make this requirement of you."

She blinked at him and looked around the room, as though expecting something unfortunate and discolored to appear from the walls. "You think I'm an adult? I'm... staggered."

"You accept responsibility for your actions and for the welfare of others. That is adult behavior." He crossed his arms over his chest, locking out her arguments as firmly as he could, but what he was really shutting out was the knowledge that adult behavior had come more slowly to him than to her in many regards. "You do not have to comply to any demands your parents may make of you, Miss Granger," he said, in the gentlest tone he could muster. "But they have already lost one child to the Death Eaters for reasons they will never understand. Don't keep them in the dark as to why the second must challenge them as well."

She gaped at him. "How did you..."

"Later," he said. "I recognized the pattern." A week ago, this conversation would have astonished him. But now, it seemed only natural that she respond to a more subtle persuasion, and that he offer it without even considering snapping at her. He stopped. "A compromise. I will assist you in whatever calming you wish done, but you must inform your parents that I am here to protect you. They can, at the very least, limit access."

She nodded. "Very well. If you tell me what happened to my sister."

"I don't know, but I can guess," he assured her.

A smiling head appeared around the corner and peered at them both from under clouds of silvery grey hair. Miss Granger was obviously in the genetic norm for this family on the interesting hair.

The Gryffindor girl grinned. "Mother, this is Professor Snape. Professor, my mother, Doctor Granger."

Snape took the woman's hand and bowed over it in the accepted form. "Madam Granger," he greeted her politely.

She smiled at him, then looked askance at Hermione. "Wizarding custom, Mum," she said. "The 'Madam' in no way detracts from 'Doctor,' it's just that British wizarding rarely has the 'Doctor' useage."

"True," agreed Snape. "The Headmaster has what, in a muggle world, would look like an entire dictionary on either end of his name, but he prefers to be simply 'Professor' Dumbledore."

"I imagine if our Hermione had gone to muggle school, she'd already be well on her way to a putting a third Doctor in the house." She turned and led them down the next hallway.

"Oh, mother," the girl protested, but was interrupted.

"No doubt," said Snape. If anyone asked him about it, he would have sworn it was very effective sarcasm.

"I thought you said he doesn't like you," her mother said, a teasing stage whisper that was clearly meant to be heard.

"He doesn't," she said, in a very embarrassed tone of voice, and fled toward the room at the end of the hall.

"I see she still has confidence problems," Dr. Granger said sadly. "At least where people are concerned. All those years around those really strong children, I thought would have had a positive impact on her."

"She's always seemed absolutely fearless to me," said Snape. He was exaggerating - he knew exactly what Madam Granger referred to and had often wondered. The Slytherin in him made him pry stealthily in even this. "I always wondered how, coming from a muggle family, she was found to be so brave upon her first sight of a magical castle."

Dr. Granger smiled at him sadly. "Hermione builds bravery from knowledge. If she knows everything about a situation, she thinks it can't hurt her. But people are beyond her control." She reached for the door, then stopped and turned to meet his eyes. "Anyone who gains her trust can have it for life, even if they abuse it from time to time. But that doesn't necessarily make her trust herself."

He nodded and opened the door, held it open for her. The dining room was a sunny yellow that somehow made it look smaller than it was. There was an antique oak table set for four, there was an ornate arrangement of flowers that looked alive but were actually not real. At the other end of the room, there was a set of French doors that opened onto what appeared to be a back terrace. The girl stood there in the arms of an older man who seemed to be talking in her ear. She was nodding and brushing at her face alternately. Snape tried very hard, but worried for her all the same.

Dinner was a quiet affair, following Snape's introduction to the girl's father, and he found it as comfortable as he had ever found any semi-formal affair. No one asked leading or prying questions, and Hermione's parents weren't particularly interested in him, anyway. They were interested in their daughter, and her place in a world they could never understand or be a part of. It was at moments like this that he believed most strongly in what Dumbledore was doing, in what Dumbledore believed. Watching the three of them together, and the depth of love they bestowed upon a daughter they might never comprehend again, he almost agreed with Miss Granger to keep them in silence.

After the dishes were cleared away and their chatter continued, as Snape sipped from his water goblet and studied them, he wondered how best to tell them. Then he heard Madam Granger use the words "Harry Potter" and realized he had run out of time to plot.

Miss Granger looked up from the table and met his eyes carefully, looking a question at him without a word. He nodded back. She sighed. "Dad, Mum, we have something very important to tell you."

Dr. Granger - Snape had been introduced to the man and promptly forgot his name - peered over his glasses at the two of them, his face positively astonished. He turned to his wife, who looked back at him and shrugged. "Very well," he said in a quiet, logical tone of voice, "we'll listen. The den, I think. Fancy a drink of something, Professor?"

"I rarely partake," said Snape, immediately, lest the temptation to relax with his relaxed surroundings overcome him.

"Me either," agreed the shorter man. "Only wine with dinner. I gave it up for Lent a few years ago and forgot to take it up again." There was an amused chuckle from the girl at his side, but Madam Granger only rolled her eyes and groaned. Snape smiled slightly, but as he had no idea what the joke meant, he wasn't sure what else to do.

The den was a large, well appointed room with yet another fireplace, and leather chairs almost exactly like the ones in Lucius Malfoy's own study. Snape suspected that these were less likely to attack someone than anything Lucius owned. The deep pile carpet and the distinctly lacking and subdued lighting of the place were very comforting to the professor as he sank into the chair next to Miss Granger's and waited calmly while her parents seated themselves, hand in hand, on the sofa facing them, Dr. Granger placing an ornate tea service on the table between them and pouring out with only a murmured question to Snape about sugar and cream.

The Head Girl's voice sounded almost exactly like it usually did in class. It made him smile to hear her drop into that annoying little lecture mode, even with her parents, and only partly because he was relieved to know that she used it on everyone. "The situation in the wizarding world is not improving. In fact, it could lead to open war any day now."

"Oh dear," said Madam Granger, "and I was hoping for some happy news. So that's why you're here, I suppose?" She directed her question to Snape.

"Yes. Miss Granger is in the most likely position to do great good for the Light, and I've been sent to protect her. She is safest back at school, of course, but Miss Granger's mad young friends convinced the Headmaster that she would be safe enough with me."

"You're not going to endanger her, though, are you?" asked Madam Granger.

Snape considered how best to reassure her, and came to a conclusion that would likely comfort everyone - himself included. "I will do everything in my power to protect your daughter from harm or death," he said, and meant it, and it became a binding oath without even the passage of another heartbeat.

Miss Granger began to speak now, carefully outlining the situation as it stood (some of it) and explaining what her parents needed to know about her position in the war. Then, in what he later learned was a gesture to ease her father's mind, she promised to see the family attorney on Tuesday after the reading of the will.

Snape sat through all this, carefully answering questions whenever they were asked, and generally waiting for her parents to lose their calm aplomb and explode. They didn't.

"Professor, if you'll excuse us for a moment?" Madam Granger said. Snape nodded and silently let himself out onto the terrace with his tea cup. It was a warm night and the stars were bright and there wasn't a cloud - or a green nightmare - in the sky. He found Orion and studied it, then followed Rigel to Sirius in Canis Major and watched the star glitter innocently away up there. He waited and tried to feel nothing, but was mercifully distracted.

Unfortunately, for one used to listening around corners and through walls, it was not easy to ignore the conversation going on behind him, mostly saddened accusations from the father, and the occasional bitter sob from Madam Granger. It came to a head with a sob from Miss Granger herself and Snape was about to turn on his heel and interrupt when the girl's mother stopped sobbing and cleared her throat.

"We love you, Hermione, and we've come to terms with the fact that you were born with this phenomenal gift that's pulled you into a different kind of life than ours. But you are never to think, even for a moment, that we do not want to know everything we can about you. You were ALWAYS our magic child, Hermione, our unlikely miracle. Your wand and your witchcraft only prove it."

The sound faded away again so he stood and counted stars a little longer, checking that he remembered something from his astronomy classes, even if only a little geography, and sipped at his now cold tea.

The sounds from inside suddenly turned to laughter. Surprised, Snape set his cup down on the little patio table and waited to see what would happen next. Miss Granger seemed to be coming toward the door.

"I'll tell you, honey," her father said, very clearly, "for a moment I honestly thought you were going to tell us you were marrying him."

Snape was very glad he had set the tea cup down.

Hermione sat up in her bed, finally having shown the Professor to the guest room just across the hall from her bedroom, and assured him that she was just a little red in the face from the heat in the house. She gave him this reassurance in a barely audible mutter because she couldn't look at him without making the reddness worse. Not to mention that she was still convinced that Snape could still read her mind - Merlin only knew what he'd see in there this time. She promised to meet him for breakfast at seven in the morning - she had to set the alarm clock for him and told him just to use a silencing charm on it until she could come turn it off.

She was trying to convince herself that she was reading from the Encyclopedia Esoterica, again, when her mother let herself into the room and settled down on the bed next to her. "Are you okay, baby?" the older woman asked. Hermione looked up from her book and really looked at her mother. Coming home almost always made her aware of the age differences between them, even more so this time, as Hermione came back worried.

"I..." Hermione stopped and sighed. She had done enough lying. "I hope you and Dad know I was only trying to take care of you."

Her mother snorted. "You can take care of me when I'm old, Hermione. I'm in perfect health, as is your father. We may be muggles, but we take good care of ourselves."

"Yes," she said, and sighed. "I'm a very arrogant little witch, aren't I?"

"You come by that honestly," her mother said, then smirked. "Your father thinks he knows everything, too."

Hermione laughed at the old joke. Her mother was actually the one who had the similar personality - well, she did have her father's Don Quixote love of a cause, but it was her mother's studious arrogance that had formed the basis of her character and everyone knew that.

"I just want you to know that you can tell me anything you want to at anytime. I will always listen and I will try my very best to understand."

Hermione nodded and her mother got up. Just before the older woman left, Hermione turned to the door and stopped her. "Anything?" she said.

Her mother nodded. Hermione picked up her wand off the various tables and cast a silencing charm on them, followed by an imperturbable charm on the door, just to be sure. Her mother raised an eyebrow, then rejoined her daughter on the bed again.

"Mum, I don't really know how to say this." Hermione sighed, stared at her hands, then looked up and met her mother's eyes proudly. "I'm in love."

Hermione's much older sister, Gertrude, is the property of whydoyouneedtoknow, who writes the "Living with Danger" series, and is used by permission.(She can be found on - check my favorites lists)Iam impressed by the stories, so the slipping in of the main character is my way of honoring that interesting world.