Chapter Sixteen: Shadowed
The sun was shining and a gentle summer breeze brought the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers through the wedding pavilion. Everyone was seated and waiting for Fleur to show. In that moment, Hermione forgot her frustrations with Horcruxes, the Ministry, Dumbledore's exceedingly cryptic will that had been unveiled the day before, and enjoyed the celebration of a significant life event with friends.
She was happy for Fleur. Over her stay with the Weasleys she had gotten to know the young French woman better, especially after Luna had come over one day and sent an absolutely scathing look at Ginny when she called Fleur "Phlegm" again. Hermione still felt some shame for how she had treated Fleur before, but tried to keep an open mind about the half-Veela after that.
Fleur still stirred up uncomfortable feelings with her beauty and absolute sense of self-assurance, but Hermione found her to be a straightforward and caring woman underneath her distant facade she used to keep people at arm's length because of her Veela heritage. It was admirable how much Fleur believed in herself and her ideals, after Hermione got used to her. They had even bonded over their love of French cuisine, though Molly had broken up their conversation not long after it started with more pre-wedding chores.
All too soon, Bill and Charlie entered the packed marquee, then Fleur followed, radiant in her simple white dress.
"Ladies and gentlemen...We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls…"
Hermione glanced up at Mrs Weasley and Madame Delacour, both of whom were already dabbing their eyes with lace handkerchiefs. Her own eyes prickled with tears when Bill and Fleur recited their vows, to cherish and to uphold each other for the rest of their lives. Hermione had never thought of marriage before-it seemed like something very distant and extravagant to her life. Here though, amongst the friends, family, and flowers, it was touching to see Bill and Fleur declare their devotion to each other in such a public way.
"Do you, William Arthur, take Fleur Isabelle…?"
Hermione dabbed at her eyes with her own plain handkerchief and beamed at Harry, who looked quite touched too, despite his Polyjuiced disguise and lack of tears.
"...then I declare you bonded for life."
The officiant raised his wand and a stream of silvery twinkling lights encircled Bill and Fleur's enclasped hands, flaring briefly before disappearing.
He then asked the guests to rise, and the chairs and canvas walls of the marquee rose into the air and vanished, leaving behind a canopy supported by golden poles and small white tables surrounding a gleaming wood dance floor. There was a view of the grounds from underneath the canopy, showing off the freshly manicured lawns and rose bushes that Mrs Weasley had gardened.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Hermione danced with every member of the immediate Weasley family, including Ginny, some distant Weasley relations, and Harry, who was disguised as a Weasley.
She danced with Viktor, remembering the magic of the Yule Ball when she had felt like a fairy princess, and felt an unpleasant swooping sensation in her stomach when she realised that Viktor was also tall and dark and had a very distinguished nose.
She even danced with Hagrid and Lupin, after hurriedly excusing herself from Viktor. The wizarding waltz and other dances were not so different from their Muggle counterparts, and it felt nice to glide across the dance floor with a partner, to move for fun for once.
Once her feet became almost numb in her dance shoes, Hermione found Harry. He was sitting on the edge of the tent next to Aunt Muriel looking absolutely wretched. She had just asked Harry if he was alright when a silvery lynx flew into the marquee. People stopped in the middle of their dances and watched as the Patronus spoke in Kingsley's deep and slow voice.
"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
Time slowed. For a moment, everything was quiet. Then, there was a scream as the protective wards around the Burrow fell with a flash and scattering of red sparks. Lights blew out, people began to Disapparate, and the crowd fell into chaos. Hermione looked frantically for Ron, while Harry grabbed her hand to keep together in the panic-stricken crowd.
She reached Ron and began to Apparate home, but a heavy hand grasped her shoulder before the final steps of Apparation. Before the world began to spin, Hermione desperately thought "anywhere but home".
The trip was rougher than usual, and she landed hard with a gasp. Violently shaking off the large blond man who had caught her shoulder, Hermione stumbled against the wall of the alleyway that they appeared in.
Harry immediately Petrified the man. The Trio looked on in muted shock at the Death Eater that they had caught.
"I think this one's Rowle," Harry said, expression grim.
Ron gasped. Hermione whirled around to find a large wound at the top of his arm bleeding, and then Madam Pomfrey's first aid training kicked in. She made Ron sit down in the dirty alleyway, sending a gentle cleaning spell at his wound with shaking hands. Ron grimaced. Then she sang a healing charm until his wound knitted itself together. Summoning Dittany from her beaded bag, she gave it to Ron to dab on his wound so it wouldn't scar.
"What are we going to do with him now?" Ron asked after it was all over. Harry had been silent the entire time that Hermione worked on his wound, as if he knew that Hermione needed silence to concentrate.
"Nothing," said Harry, with a determined set of his jaw. "Wipe his memory and leave him here. Serves him right if he gets mugged by a Muggle."
"Do you know the spell?" Ron asked.
"I do," Hermione said quietly. "I've studied it, just in case," she added at the look on Harry and Ron's faces.
She crouched down by Rowle in the dark grimy alleyway and flinched at the look of pure hatred on Rowle's face. Taking a steadying breath, Hermione raised her wand and cast. "Obliviate." Immediately Rowle's gaze unfocused, and he blinked blearily in the dark.
"Come on," Hermione whispered softly to Ron and Harry. Tugging them a short distance away from the Death Eater, she grabbed their hands again and took them home.
It wasn't until they arrived at her home that she realised that she had Splinched herself as well, and that her heel was bleeding.
Severus watched Rowle writhe in pain with a faint sneer. He didn't pity the man; Rowle was the one who had brought in Charity, and Severus could still hear her pleas for help in his dreams.
Rowle was the one who led the hunts for people the Dark Lord wanted, and often was successful. It was for this reason he had been chosen to go after Harry during the Weasley wedding, and why Severus had declined the "honour". Because he knew Rowle would fail.
He knew Hermione had been prepared to run at a moment's notice, and that they would have been notified by the Order. Severus had been proven right, though he did not rest easy; Rowle had failed to catch Potter and, what was more, his entire evening had been Obliviated, a detail that enraged Voldemort. Severus hoped Rowle had not gotten close enough to Hermione—to the Trio—for her to need to cast the spell.
Severus forced himself to watch as the Dark Lord ordered Draco to cast the Cruciatus curse on Rowle, time and time again. He wondered if this was deliberate: Draco's curses could not be very strong—his wand hand shook, and he could not look at Rowle. If Voldemort was asking Draco to curse Rowle, it was because he wanted to draw the torture out as long as possible without causing any permanent damage to the blond man being tortured.
Out of the corner of his eye, Severus observed the elder Malfoys. Narcissa was barely holding herself together; the knuckles of her fisted hands were white and her face ghastly pale. Lucius' jaw was clenched, but his expression was impassive.
Severus pitied them; Lucius had taken him under his wing in school when no one else cared—though he led him down a dark path, Lucius had cared. He'd taught him how to fit in with Pureblood society, how to drink wine, dance with women, and command respect. Back then, it felt like Lucius had cared for Severus as he cared about his family. It was unfortunate now that they were all prisoners in Malfoy Manor, but it was a consequence of their own choices. Just like his own.
A foul stench permeated the air, after a particularly loud curse. Severus turned away from the scene, hardly breathing. Rowle had soiled himself. The spill was immediately Tergeo'd, and Voldemort called for a halt.
"That's enough for this evening. Take him out of my sight—I don't want to see such failure," the Dark Lord hissed, his slit-like nostrils flaring.
Severus waited until Voldemort left the room with a sweep of his robes, then bowed his head briefly at the Malfoys before he headed out to return home. There was nothing he could do for them.
Severus felt the trick Muggle coin warm in his pocket. It reminded him that there was someone better waiting for him, away from this hellhole of shit and misery.
Hermione was surprised at how easy it was to live with the boys, once they had all recovered from the shock of the fall of the Ministry and their quick run away. They were not naturally inclined towards tidiness, but a colour-coded chart had all the chores done with a minimal amount of nagging (having trained Harry and Ron into obedience over the years), and both Harry and Ron had turned out to be better cooks than she was.
Despite the relative ease of living with the boys though, they still suffered from cabin fever. Harry and Ron did not cope as well as Hermione did with being cooped up in her Secret-Kept home and both had taken to pacing when they got restless; she had resorted to sending the two out on all of their errands, so long as they were disguised with Transfigured features. She did not think it likely that wizards would be wandering around in broad daylight in Oxfordshire, but she could not be too cautious. Hermione usually made Ron a brunet and Harry a blond, much to Harry's disgust and Ron's amusement.
This led to a new development, which drove her batty.
Harry and Ron had discovered a second-hand shop that sold cassettes, and with it came Harry's almost non-stop playing of angry grunge rock songs (sometimes it wasn't angry, like Smells Like Teen Spirit, which she had caught Harry playing air guitar to a few times), and Ron's obsession with Wheezer (which he called "Wheezler" sometimes), and the Barenaked Ladies, which Hermione thought was as much due to the band name as well as their music.
She also could've sworn that she had occasionally caught Ron humming Everybody and Quit Playing Games by the Backstreet Boys, but she tried to put it out of her mind. In short, her home had become filled with loud rock music from waking to sleep, and she could only find silence when she retreated to her room in the loft of her house.
Unleashing Harry and Ron upon the town had led them to another development she could not have predicted. Ron was good at stretching a budget, and he loved Muggle snack foods.
"They've got so much plastic! There are tubes of yoghurt Harry," he had said one day, brandishing a tube of Raspberry-Banana "Frubes" at Harry. "Why don't we have tubes of anything?" Ron then dug into their bulging sacks of groceries. "And check out these rolls of dried fruit! Dried fruit rolled like parchment! And prawn cocktail crisps!" And on it went.
Hermione was a little bewildered at Ron's sudden transformation into Arthur Weasley, and Harry similarly bemused, but they took it all in stride. They could not fault Ron, because they had made discoveries of their own. They had discovered takeaway.
"This curry is so much better than anything the elves ever made at Hogwarts," Hermione said, guiltily thinking of how the house-elves slaved, dipping a chip into her chicken curry sauce. Her parents had always been focused on healthy eating and rarely ordered out.
"I can't believe the Dursleys stuck their noses up at takeaway," Harry agreed, stuffing his mouth full of chips.
"Those plodders weren't much for enjoying life though, were they?" asked Ron, sighing happily after a particularly large bite of garlic naan.
"Not really, no. Never took me on their trips to eat out either," Harry said, scowling briefly, before changing the subject.
Those days of takeaway were beyond anything they had imagined, before they discovered that spending so much money on takeaway was not sustainable on Hermione's funds, and before Ron discovered her father's collection of cookbooks.
"I know I burned the chicken last time, but I've seen mum do this a million times and I know I can do it better," he said to Harry one day, as he tried to make garlic fried chicken. Harry and Hermione let him continue on with his obsession with cooking, because Ron had a tendency to become surly when nothing was happening—which was frequently. Research into the location of the Horcruxes was not going as planned.
After two weeks of settling in her Fidelius-charmed home and going through the contents of Dumbledore's will, Hermione told Harry and Ron that she had some idea of who R.A.B. was based on reading old yearbooks, and the three of them piled into Grimmauld Place.
Severus had told her that he had searched the house briefly, but there were many places that he had not had time to go through, so it was with this in mind that Hermione directed Harry and Ron to go through the former Order headquarters.
The air was stale and still in the ancient terraced house; occasionally in her search, Hermione came across small nests of doxies and other minor magical creatures that were beginning to set up residence.
Eventually, there was a high-pitched scream, where it turned out that Ron had been bitten by a stray cursed teacup. Ron's finger had taken on a greenish tinge but a careful application of Murtlap essence healed him. From then on they decided to search together, in case of more danger.
Together, they tried Regulus' room first. It was dusty, but there were signs that someone had been there before them—smudges of dust gone from the posts of the bed and corners of the table, and the still glistening remains of a spilt inkwell.
When they finished searching Regulus' room, they looked through the library, the kitchen, and then Sirius' room.
Hermione was just searching under the bed when Harry gave a shout.
"What?" she asked, lifting her head and knocking it against the bed frame.
"It's a letter...from my mum…" Harry said in a wondering voice.
Hermione and Ron crowded around to read Lily Potter's letter, which detailed baby Harry's exploits with his toy broomstick and their cat, as well as the beginnings of a section of gossip about Dumbledore that talked about his involvement with Grindelwald as a youth.
There was a moment of shocked silence. Hermione desperately tried to think of something to say before Harry's inevitable explosion.
"Harry—" Hermione started.
"Leave it," Harry said roughly, hands tightening on the letter written by his mother.
Hermione bit her lip and felt her eyes sting. Harry had become obsessed with Dumbledore's past after his death. The Daily Prophet articles smearing Dumbledore's legacy didn't help either. She had spent days at the Burrow trying to calm Harry from judging Dumbledore too harshly, especially after they received the insanely cryptic willed items of a snitch, a pocket lighter, and a children's book in runes.
Harry had taken Dumbledore's death poorly, and just as after Sirius' death, it seemed like he had settled on rage at Dumbledore, except in Dumbledore's case he was even angrier that he had died. Hermione personally thought that Harry's anger had been misplaced—he had blamed Severus for Sirius' death when it was Sirius' recklessness that got him killed (though she would never voice this thought to Harry), and Snape had told her that Dumbledore had been cursed doing something foolhardy with a Horcrux. Having never hero-worshipped Dumbledore the same way Harry did, it had not been as much of a shock for Hermione to realise that, while Dumbledore was a powerful man, in the end he was just that—a man.
This development with his mother's letter did not help. In fact, it looked very, very bad. She tried again. "Look—it's in the very distant past now. It's obviously something Dumbledore did long ago, and it's a fact that he—"
"I said leave it!" Harry snapped, instantly looking regretful. "Hermione—whatever reasonable and sensible thing you're going to say, just bloody leave it alright?"
"Okay," Hermione said, shoulders tense. "How about lunch?" she asked, changing the subject.
Lunch was club sandwiches and pickled onion crisps that Ron had packed. Hermione savoured the flavours of the creamy egg, summer tomatoes, and perfectly done bacon; Ron had turned out to be the best cook of the three of them, even if he had developed an unhealthy obsession with Pot Noodles, sausage rolls, and prawn cocktail crisps.
After their break, they returned to the search. They were searching through the drawing-room when Hermione felt a jolt of shock shoot through her.
"Here!" she exclaimed.
"Did you find it?" asked Ron excitedly.
"No—but—the locket was here," said Hermione, pointing at a dark wooden cabinet with glass panelling.
"We were cleaning...and there was a locket that nobody could open…" she said, trailing off weakly. "But we threw out most of the stuff we found."
"It's okay! Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us," said Harry.
He ran to Kreacher's cupboard in the kitchens, with Ron and Hermione following in his wake. There was nothing but a nest of tattered old blankets in the cupboard. When Harry shook the pile of blankets a dead mouse fell out. Hermione felt her lunch rise up in her stomach at the sight.
The nausea did not leave Hermione when Harry called in Kreacher and the ancient elf recounted the tragic story of Regulus and the cave.
They agreed to stay at Grimmauld Place while they waited for Kreacher to fetch Mundungus Fletcher, who had taken the locket. At first, they did nothing while they waited, sure that Kreacher would return with Mundungus immediately. When night fell, Hermione returned to her house to pick up supplies and feed Crookshanks, and sent Severus a short message: At Grimmauld Place.
Be careful, he sent back. Dementors sent after Potter, she read, after his previous message had faded.
Hermione stared at the coin, willing more messages to appear, but none did. So far they had been eating from what she had stocked up at her home, and from the one trip she had made to Tesco for produce, but the knowledge that they were being tracked—or at least Harry—by the only creatures that could track someone based on something that could not be masked—their very soul—sent shivers down her back.
And gave her a headache. Harry was going to be insufferable if she ever told him that he could not leave the confines of the Fidelius-charmed locations of Grimmauld Place and her own home.
Hours stretched into days. Hermione read her copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard front to back, then back again, triple-checking her runic translations, while Harry and Ron practised duelling in the drawing-room.
Crookshanks began to shoot her increasingly offended looks every time she returned home to feed him, and had even made a mess of Harry's room, as if he knew it was all Harry's fault. Hermione had righted the room in exasperation and decided that keeping Crookshanks company for an hour or two a day would not hurt the boys—too much. Regardless, she set up wards around the perimeter of Grimmauld Place to let her know if anyone entered or left the premises and tried not to think of herself as Harry's babysitter.
On the fifth day, Professor Lupin dropped by. It turned out that he was trying to abandon his pregnant wife.
Hermione had felt sick after his visit, partly because of the Daily Prophet that Lupin had brought. Harry was wanted for questioning in his role in Dumbledore's death. Muggle-borns were under watch by the Ministry due to "recent breaches by Muggle-borns of the Statute of Secrecy" and had to register their blood status as well as submit their wands for a new version of the Trace that could detect casting by adult witches and wizards. There was also a new wizarding militia that had been formed by the Ministry to conduct surprise inspections of Muggle-born households and businesses for signs of "socially subversive behaviour" named the Magical Defence Association, separate from the Aurors and with special privileges.
But mostly she felt sick because she could not imagine what it must be like for Tonks, pregnant, unable to do her job, abandoned to raise a child alone because the father had allowed society to alter his view of himself so deeply with self-loathing that he did not even view his family as a right worth fighting for. It made Hermione wonder about her own future; her own father had been devoted to her mother and herself, but it seemed that kind of devotion wasn't always the case—her mind shied away from pursuing that train of thought further, terrified at where it would go.
On their third night at Grimmauld Place, Hermione received a message from Severus asking to talk in the evening. At the appointed hour, Hermione locked herself in the bathroom and cast Muffliato so that Harry and Ron would not overhear.
Her mirror compact grew warm in her hands exactly at eleven; she opened up the slim metal compact to see a brief view of her face before that image faded and was replaced with the face of Severus. Her hands trembled slightly at the sight of Severus—she had not seen his face since their confrontation at Spinner's End.
"Good evening," she said, unsure of how to open the conversation. Severus looked tired.
"It's not," he said, though his voice lacked its usual bite. Hermione studied his face closely—he looked as awful as he had the last time she had seen him in person, perhaps even more gaunt.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"It's not your fault." He ran a hand through his hair. "Does Potter know about the Dementors?"
"Yes," she said. "I told him that an Order member had told me about it and he didn't question it. Was there something else you wished to speak to me about?"
"Yes." Severus stopped, and stared. Hermione found it difficult to maintain eye contact with his image and finally looked away.
"In addition to the Dementors sent after Potter, there have been search parties looking for you. After the break out from Azkaban, your parents were not considered a priority, but now they are on a renewed search for you and yours. Dementors have not been mobilised yet, and I doubt they will mobilise Dementors for Mr Weasley as the Ministry still thinks that he is resting at home with Spattergroit, but you need to be careful." His eyes wandered over her face carefully; it was hard to keep looking back at his intense gaze.
"Do you think it'll be safe for me to go outside, then?" she asked. They had been prepared for the case in which they were all being hunted by Dementors, as Harry had been hunted by Dementors in the past, but the situation in which she had to ward a large section of a forest while she scavenged for food was not ideal.
"Most of the Dementors are still gathered around Azkaban, and when they do wander further out they're still quite far north. It would take them some time to travel the length of the country without any guidance on where you are, so if you kept your outings to less than an hour each and far away from where you live, you should be safe. So long as you aren't shopping in the same place every time," Severus replied, voice low.
"Right. Shopping in Cornwall and Norwich it is." Hermione laughed awkwardly. "We could even stop by Devon to see how the Weasleys are doing," she said, trying to look on the bright side of things.
Severus hissed at this. "You cannot be seen—"
"I know," she said. "I know."
Severus then caught her up on the latest Ministry developments, such as the warrant for Harry's arrest, the formation of the Magical Defence Association, the Muggleborn Registration, and the Taboo on Voldemort's name. In turn, Hermione caught him up on their developments at Grimmauld Place. Severus sneered when she told him about Lupin's visit, and warned them to be careful with Mundungus Fletcher.
As their conversation wound down, Hermione was tempted to ask Severus why he had joined the Death Eaters. She had been thinking of his copy of Advanced Potions Making, and all the spells he had invented—especially Sectumsempra, for enemies. What kind of enemies did a 16-year-old Snape have? Was that why he had joined the Death Eaters? He did not seem to hate the Muggle world, though he seemed somewhat indifferent—she wondered what it was about the Death Eaters that had appealed to him as a young man, but she knew she would never ask.
AN: Thanks for all the reviews and love, hope everyone likes this one! :)