Disclaimer: never did and never will own it. J.K. Rowling does.
Spoilers: Order of the Phoenix
Thank you to my beta, Nakhash Mekashefah!

Living On Borrowed Time - What Stubborn Heart Unmov'd Could See Such Distress, Such Piety?

Warning! Contains HPB spoilers and, among them, the true identity of the Half-Blood Prince. Read at your own perils and don't come to complain afterwards. You were warned beforehand.

"How could you do it, Hermione?" asked Harry, half-angry, half-sad.

"How could I do what?" she replied tiredly, laying her head back.

"Sacrifice yourself for Snape!"

"And what else could I do?" she said simply. "Was I to let him die without doing anything?"

"He was ready to do so," noted Ron.

She straightened in her armchair and looked lengthily at them.

"I can't believe it. You don't realise what a man we would lose in Severus Snape!"

Harry scoffed.

"Be serious, Hermione! A man prejudiced against Houses, whose better mood is when he's not snapping at you, and who enjoys making people miserable?"

"And what do you know about him?" she exclaimed, red with anger. "Did you work with him day and night until exhausted, and see him collapse before your eyes? Did you see him mad with fury because he couldn't do more for the cause? No! The only thing you know about him is his hatred of you, and your father and his friends."

"Isn't that enough? Didn't he show us more than once that he was unable to see beyond that?"

"Because you can? You had five minutes of compassion for him in fifth-year, and soon after, it was drowned in hatred! Your father and Sirius were bullies, and Remus conveniently turned a blind eye. Severus Snape could've turned out much worse than he did."

Ron put a restraining hand on Harry's arm and asked calmly, "What did you mean, Hermione?"

"That he could have turned out worse? Frankly, Ron–"

"No, not this one. The one about the man we would lose in him."

She took a deep breath.

"He's a Potions master. A good one, and it's not as easy as it seems. There aren't many Potions masters in the country, except Arsenius Jigger and Damocles Belby. His loss would've been dreadful. The man can do wonders!"

"But you're a Potions mistress, Hermione."

She gave a mirthless laugh. "And little do you know how hard it was for me to achieve that title. It was worse than my third-year. I had to create an illegal Time-Turner to be able to complete it in time, without the whole thing being a complete failure, and afterwards I slept three days without interruption. I was out of my mind for more than two weeks once it was over. But you didn't see any of that. Only Professor Snape – and Arsenius Jigger – knows it. What I did with difficulty, he mastered easily. The man has flair for the field, which you should know, Harry, since you had his book."

"But you're better at it than any of us, Hermione!"

"I have no flair," she said with a grimace. "I only know what's printed in a book. How do I know anything in Potions? Because I take care to buy all books published on the subject, and I spend all my nights reading them until I know them by heart."

"Yet he wants to teach DADA," remarked Harry slyly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "And when did he get the job? When, conveniently, you would've been kicked out of Potions class, while it was required if you were going to become an Auror. So very smooth. For your two last years, you had a competent Potions teacher and a competent DADA teacher. You never realised the fact, I guess?"

"I did wonder why Snape was getting his dream job that particular year," admitted Ron.

"All right, Hermione, I understand you admire the man, but did it justify the fact that you were ready to lose everything to save him?"

"Yes. Understand me, Harry: it wasn't as if he'd asked me. In fact, he would have sent me away if I'd told him of my plans. It was seeing him so resigned, so ready to die, that broke my heart. And if anyone could find a cure to his potion, it was he. As I've already said, I have, unfortunately, no flair…"

"So you were expecting him to try to save you!" exclaimed Harry. "How could you trust him so completely, even when you were saying in your letter not to?"

"No, I wasn't. How to explain it to you? I didn't care. I had done my duty… No, it wasn't a duty. I chose to act as I did, fully conscious of what I was doing, and my only motivation was that I wanted him to be finally free. It was my way to thank him for all he'd done for us, but I wasn't forced to do so. I wanted to, even more because he didn't ask. In all honesty, Harry, had he left me to my fate, I would not have begrudged him. I told him to let me be."

She sighed.

"I wish you'd stop being at each other's throats."

"If only he'd stop baiting me," grumbled Harry.

"Because you don't? You attack him before you think, and, naturally, he takes a fierce pleasure in remonstrating with you for behaving like a child. He proclaims Gryffindors are thoughtless, and you only fuel his arguments."

Harry looked slightly uncomfortable, while Ron inclined his head toward Hermione in acknowledgement.

"So what didn't you tell me during your summary of what happened while I was unconscious?" she asked matter-of-factly.

Ron laughed.

"We should've known we couldn't hide anything from you. It's about the Knights of Walpurgis."

"The what?"

Harry explained, in great length, all it was about and spoke also of Isadora's comments. Hermione turned thoughtful.

"And you believe her?"

Prudently, Ron let Harry answer. The young Auror had taken the matter to heart and was loath to let anyone else weigh in on the subject.

"I don't know," he admitted, his green eyes strangely shadowed. "Her arguments are valid, but I don't trust her. I'm not that sure that I trust Dumbledore either, but… How to say? Some days, I think that she's right, that it's the only answer but the following day, I think it's stupid. What could be Dumbledore's reasons to act like that? Why would he want to control Voldemort?"

"To look powerful," replied Hermione. "He was a war hero, thanks to Voldemort. As soon as his return was known, everybody turned to Dumbledore."

"True, but the dead people, Hermione! Would he sacrifice so many people to ambition?"

"Some would, and you know it. But Dumbledore, I don't know."

"And, well, Isadora Nott is Slytherin. You'll say it's my grudge toward her House, but Slytherins aren't known for being truthful. Yet, they've been strangely useful, without asking for anything. Why would they do that?"

"No idea. I'll have to think about it, but not today. I'm really tired."

Ron stood up, feeling concerned.

"Of course, Hermione. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I will be, in time. I feel as if I've just completed a major project, that's all. And I do have a meeting with Dumbledore tonight."

"OK. See you later, then."

She waited for them to close the door behind them before calling softly, "What do you think of all this, Severus?"

Somehow he was not really surprised that she had known of his presence. Silently, he stepped out of the shadows and took a seat without having been asked.

"About Dumbledore? It's utter tripe."

"I thought so, but Harry's notoriously instable when you dare to contradict his opinions. He still considers Dumbledore responsible for Sirius's death."

"The only one responsible for Black's death is Black himself," replied Severus with a sneer.

"Could it be… oh, I don't know, Dumbledore's brother? Aberforth? Wasn't it said that he was quite a strange person?"

"Aberforth Dumbledore doesn't exist at all. It's a character created from nothing, by Albus. Being the bartender of the Hog's Head allows one to learn quite a few things. It's the perfect cover."

"But… but didn't Moody actually see Aberforth?"

"And Albus did things with a wand that Griselda Marchbanks had never seen before in Charms and Transfiguration. What does that tell you? Ever heard of Doppelgangers?"

Hermione looked chagrined. "I never thought about it," she confessed. "All right, so Dumbledore has a less than savoury side, but it doesn't make him the Knight Commander of Walpurgis. Do you know who he is?"

"Truthfully? No, I don't. Only Lucius Malfoy truly knew – or else he made as if he knew."

"But I thought Harry told me that Malfoy cited his family, and then the Lestrange, the Black, and the Snape families."

"Which is a wondrous lie. Were you all under a Believe-All spell, or what? The Snape family could not have been part of the Knights of Walpurgis, since my father," he said the name with all the venom only a snake could muster, "was a Muggle. Nobody with the name of Snape was ever a wizard, until my birth. You know it, as well as Potter and Weasley. You were the one to find out about my mother, if I recall correctly."

Hermione's eyes widened.

"I'd forgotten," she admitted. "But you shouldn't know about the discovery we made about your origins."

"I kept an eye on Potter the whole time and I had the suspicion he had my old book. It was only a question of time before you worked out the mystery around the 'Half-Blood Prince'."

Hermione blushed slightly. "So Malfoy lied the whole time to the Wizengamot?"

"Probably not the whole time, but a good part, yes."

"How is it you know about the Knights of Walpurgis, then?"

He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I am – was – a spy. And then, Lucius quite liked to brag to me about belonging to a higher Order, to be working for the good of the whole Wizarding society, etc."

"What do you know of that Order then?"

"That, contrary to what Lucius liked to tell, the Knights of Walpurgis is not as evil as it seems. It had its beginnings when it was created by Salazar Slytherin, but you have to remember that the times were dark. Witch hunts were common, and you were labelled 'wizard' or 'witch' for no other reason than the shape of your nose or the colour of your hair. Or even simply the jealousy of your neighbours. The problem was that true wizards and witches were named, also, and Salazar Slytherin wanted to protect Wizarding society from the 'barbarians', as he called them. That was the role of the Knights of Walpurgis. Their main preoccupation was not to kill Muggles, but to save wizards from them. But–"

"But some pure-blood bigots twisted the original meaning of the Knights?" guessed Hermione.

"Indeed. And instead of protecting Wizarding society – all wizards and witches, even if Slytherin wasn't too keen on Muggle-borns – they began killing Muggles and proclaiming that we had to exclude Muggle-born wizards."

"And from bigot to bigot, it became worse."

"It became worse until they forgot the true meaning of the Knights. I don't know anything about the current Knight Commander, but I'm not that sure that he – or she – truly wanted to use the Dark Lord."

"It would be an invention of Malfoy's?"

"Probably. Or it could be that Lucius was delusional and thought himself to be the Knight Commander."

"Why did you tell Ron to ask Mr Higgs and Miss Nott?"

"Because I fear that Isadora Nott knows much more than she lets others believe."

Hermione remained silent a moment. "She's dangerous, isn't she?"

"As dangerous as a poisonous snake. But we should forget Miss Nott and the Knight Commander of Walpurgis for the moment. I believe we do have a meeting with our dear Headmaster tonight."

Hermione sighed.

"And he won't make it easy on us. I wish I wasn't so tired!"

Severus hesitated. "Hermione…" he said, as if tasting her name, "you're not just bookish, you know. If you were, one of us wouldn't be here right now."

She looked at him quite a long time, as if trying to understand all the meanings that could be implied by the Slytherin Head of House. Then she took a deep breath. "I forgot to tell you something very important, but then, I didn't want anyone to hear…"

He looked faintly puzzled, and she winced at her own babbling. But trusting her Gryffindor courage, she looked him in the eyes.

"Thank you, Severus," she said sincerely. "Thank you for coming as soon as possible, for not waiting for Dumbledore at my door, for finding Crookshanks, for–"

He interrupted her by brushing his finger against her lips. How he had crossed so quickly to her seat, she would never know, but now he was crouching in front of her. Briefly, she thought that no one would ever believe her if she told them that Severus Snape had been in such an undignified position.

"No," he said softly. "You should not be thanking me. On the contrary, I should be on my knees before you, giving you my most heartfelt thanks."

"Severus, no," she murmured. "You saved me from sheer folly. You knew I could feel what you felt, didn't you?"

"I had an inkling that it was so," he admitted. "But I insist, Hermione. I am in your debt, for you gave me the most precious gift: you showed me that you cared for me, to the point of selflessly giving your life for mine. I saw the result of your noble gesture; I heard what you felt at that moment, and I saw your tears upon waking up, when you were thinking I would die."

"I… I thought you would consider it pure Gryffindor foolishness," she said in a small voice.

He refuted her tentative sentence with a shake of his head. He had always thought he hated the words that were ringing in his head, that he would find a way of never saying them again. He loathed the feeling of dependency and debt that went with them. Yet, he found himself eager to say them to her, earnestly, and with such a desire that it almost frightened him. He should have been irritated by the futility of her gesture, a purely Gryffindor gesture, but he realised also that no other House would have done it. Not even a loyal Hufflepuff would have dared. It took a Gryffindor, with her unshakable faith and courage, to dare, and thus, to break his last defences.

"Thank you," he said quietly, his voice assured.

Even though she should have been expecting it, Hermione's eyes grew huge in wonder.