Chapter Eighteen: Cedar
"Do you know how dire the situation would have been if Potter had been captured by Yaxley?" Severus asked, his voice soft and low.
Yaxley had been put in charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There were now Death-Eater sympathetic hit wizards in a militia called Magical Defence Association. Their duties consisted of terrorising Muggle-borns, Obliviating their Muggle loved ones, and throwing them in Azkaban. Regular Aurors still enforced the law, though some had quit in protest of the new Ministry.
Severus knew that Kingsley and Tonks were still in the DMLE, reporting to the Order when the Magical Defence Association would strike next, rescuing Muggles from being Obliviated. Some Muggles related to Muggle-borns still did not escape that fate. Though Death Eaters had taken over much of the Ministry, they did not have complete control yet, something Severus hoped would continue to be the case.
Security had tightened around the Ministry because they suspected a leak in one of their departments. It had been unbelievably dangerous for the Trio to have gone to the Ministry.
He had been keeping a tight lid on his anger as Hermione relayed the story of how they broke into the Ministry and retrieved the locket earlier that day. It was midnight, and once again she was hiding in the washroom. Severus was sitting in the Headmaster's sitting room, where there were no portraits.
Hermione's face was stricken in the mirror, but that did not stop him.
"Do you know what would have happened to youthree, if you had been captured?" Severus hissed, barely able to hear himself above the roaring sound in his ears.
He could not get the image of Charity being eaten by Nagini out of his head; her plea for helphaunted his sleeping and waking hours, but he suspected his nightmares would be replaced by another brunette soon. There was a tight sensation in his chest that might have been fear if he had the luxury of feeling that emotion.
"It wasn't part of the plan—"
"And whose incredibly reckless plan was it to break prisoners out of the Ministry, the most corrupt and difficult to escape building in Wizarding Britain at this moment?" Severus had never felt such rage. "Anything could have happened! As a matter of fact, there were Dementors present and you could have been killed!"
Shocked silence followed this statement.
"It wasn't my idea." Hermione's lips trembled and Severus had to look away.
"Yet it happened anyway. You were supposed to stop this. You're the intelligent one, you need to be thinking," he snarled.
"I'm sorry," she said, blinking rapidly. He could see a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
Severus closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
"Don't do this again," he bit out, then his voice dropped to a whisper. "Please."
He did not wait for a response, and closed his pocket watch. He walked into his office, cursing with words he had scarcely used since childhood, while trying to look for something to do.
He carefully set his timepiece down at his desk, then turned to the cabinet of silvery instruments that Albus had kept. He blasted the cabinet door off without thinking, and then took care to Reducto every object in the curio cabinet. The only instrument that survived was the Pensieve. For many long moments, he couldn't hear himself think over the metallic splintering and crashing sounds of the instruments being broken, and the tinkling sounds of metal shards falling on the floor.
"Severus…" Dumbledore's portrait started.
"Shut up," he snarled. He bit back the urge to say that this was all Dumbledore's fault. "Just...shut up." Dumbledore's portrait fell silent, as it often did ever since Severus became Headmaster and it became apparent that Severus knew more than Dumbledore ever meant for him to know.
He stopped himself before he began blasting again, and felt sick. What was he doing? This was one of his last reminders of Albus, who despite his flaws was a great man, and who had more right to be Headmaster than he ever did.
Severus crouched in front of his fireplace, fighting off a headache. He had no doubt just destroyed many priceless artefacts.
The Trio had successfully retrieved a Horcrux and managed to free several Muggle-borns destined to be Obliviated or thrown into Azkaban. That was good. He was just concerned—rightly so, of course—if Hermione and the rest of the Trio were to be caught because of how important they were to taking down Voldemort. And if he worried more about Hermione then that was because Potter was the most frustrating person he had encountered in his life, and Weasley was an enabler of such frustrations.
Severus sagged as weariness seeped through his bones. He had been driving himself to the ground before the start of the term, throwing himself harder in his efforts to protect the students after his failure to realise that they had meant to kill Professor Burbage. He had taught beside her for years, and yet had stood by and watched her die. The constant pain in his chest that he assumed was the rip in his soul did not die, and every time he thought of Charity it became worse.
Hermione had found a reference to healing the soul in a book, which was remorse. Just thinking of Hermione and how he had last treated her made his chest ache with the emotion.
He felt remorse for what seemed to be his entire life, but his soul was not healing. The pain only seemed to get worse with every sorry thing he did. Perhaps he wasn't feeling enough remorse for Albus' death, because in some ways he did not regret killing him. But those were not pleasant thoughts (not that any of his thoughts were pleasant of late), so he buried himself in work.
He had warded the homes of the Muggle-born students who were supposed to be incoming first years, so that owls carrying Hogwarts letters and Death Eaters could not locate their homes. Voldemort had been displeased that there were no new Muggle-borns to torture, and had asked Severus to look in the Hogwarts Registry. Severus then told him that Dumbledore had sealed that particular room against him. He had suffered a bout of Crucio for this, but it was mild as the Dark Lord was gratified that no new "dirty blood" would enter the wizarding world.
Most Muggle-borns and even some Half-bloods had withdrawn from the school; some families had left Wizarding Britain altogether. Slytherin historically looked the other way when it came to Half-bloods within the house, so Severus was not worried about Tracey Davis, or Tristian Brown, but he feared the safety of other Half-bloods in Houses where they didn't pretend that their Muggle heritage did not exist.
In addition to the message he had passed on through Hermione, he had also sent an anonymous note to Kinglsey reminding him that there were more compulsion spells than the Imperius; he knew Kingsley would be intelligent enough to make the connection between the Subicio curse and the rapidly changing beliefs of some of the Ministry. He did not send it through Hermione as she did not need to be worried further about anything but Horcruxes.
It felt like a year had passed since term began. There were Death Eaters in Hogwarts teaching children to cast Unforgivables and dark spells. It was fortunate that Crabbe and Goyle were as stupid as they were malicious, otherwise the Infirmary would have been full of cursed children. Fortunately someone was teaching the younger students shielding charms, and he wasn't particularly fussed about self-defense in the corridors, nor most of the other professors.
It was unbearable that the Carrows were walking the halls of Hogwarts, a place he had spent years trying to keep safe. At the moment, the older professors outnumbered the Carrows, and they were intelligent enough to protect the students as best they could, but he knew that the moment Voldemort decided that things weren't changing enough at Hogwarts that would change.
He kept the Carrows focused on "teaching", or what their abomination of the profession was, and convinced them that the Dark Lord wanted intellectual students. He waxed poetic about the importance of correcting students through essays; he wondered if the students would be more enthusiastic about their essays if they knew that writing them was what was saving them from being cursed more frequently. He wondered what the other teachers thought of him turning over detentions from the Carrows onto them, with the excuse that the Carrows' time spent researching and private tutoring was more important than their time. He wondered if the Muggle-sympathetic students in Slytherin who had been chosen to be tutored knew what he was doing.
Minerva still would not look him in the eye, or speak to him directly. Severus barely felt the hurt, his feelings buried so deep. He always felt cold now, a side effect of his Occlumency. He knew it wasn't healthy, but he wasn't sure he would live long enough for it to matter anyway. His choices were to suffocate in his fear and helplessness, or keep a clear mind and do as much as he could. But he hung onto his anger; anger helped him keep fighting. And he was still so very angry at Hermione, Potter, and Weasley.
Hermione woke up early on the 19th of September, 1997. She wondered if Ron and Harry had remembered her eighteenth birthday.
She didn't expect anything special, as the boys had no money and she had realised recently that they could not keep eating takeaway with the funds she had, but she hoped they would remember. Crookshanks certainly seemed to remember, having brought in a few bedraggled daisies from her dying garden onto her bedside table, after which he promptly made himself comfortable on her pillow and began purring loudly.
She had slept well the previous night. It had not been her turn to wear the Horcrux through the night, so she had enjoyed a full night of sleep without the nightmares that usually woke her. When she wore the Horcrux she dreamed of being trapped in the Ministry surrounded by Death Eaters, again, or trying and failing to save Muggles and Muggle-borns, her failures always ending in a bloodbath.
Sometimes she had these dreams even when she was not wearing the Horcrux, and she always woke with a tight sensation that made it hard to breathe, with the sense that she was failing everything because they still did not have a lead on where the next Horcrux was or even how to get the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry.
But as bad as the locket affected her, it seemed to affect Ron worse. At least during the day, she could use Occlumency to fight the influence of the Horcrux, but Ron seemed especially vulnerable to it, especially if he had worn it during the night. She hoped that having Harry wear the locket the night before would help with his steadily deteriorating mood.
Ron had been picking more fights with her, and he had started to even with Harry now. For a while things were good with just the three of them, and their discovery of takeaway, which Harry had never got to have as a child (pizza was a revelation for both Ron and Harry), but as time passed with the Horcrux and no contact with the outside world all their issues with each other intensified. They had started to duel with each other in her back garden to blow off steam, but no amount of duelling helped rid Ron of his agitation.
Hermione left her bed, dislodging Crookshanks who let out a plaintive miaow, when she heard the tale-tell pecking of an owl at her bedroom window. This was a first; only those who knew the Secret could send an owl to the Secret Kept location, and they had not received any owls so far.
Hermione opened the window and waited until a nondescript dark brown owl climbed in, where it sat on the windowsill patiently. She figured the owl was from Severus, but she cast several tracking and Dark magic detection spells on the owl and the package just to be safe. After finding that everything was clear, Hermione took the brown paper wrapped parcel from its claws.
Immediately after being lightened of its load the owl flew away, a spot of soot in the ink-blue sky.
Hermione turned the medium sized package over in her hands and wondered what it was for. There was a pleasant woody and floral scent emanating from it.
Untying the parcel, she was not surprised when she found an assortment of plant material. There was no note. Of course. Even if the package had been intercepted nobody would think twice about Severus sending someone potions ingredients.
Inside the package was a small branch of wood, a blue iris, a small sprig of purple hyacinth, a stalk of some kind of grass with seeds, and a large pile of dittany beneath the other plants. She brought the wood to her nose to breathe in the pleasant smell of cedar. It reminded her of Severus.
From her readings she knew cedar wood stood for strength; irises in general stood for wisdom and valor, while blue ones stood for faith and hope. Consulting her floriography text further she found that the grass was canary grass, for perseverance; and the dittany was Dittany of Crete, for birth (in addition to being a sorely needed potions ingredient that they were running low on).
The purple hyacinth was an apology; she could never forget that.
Her breath hitched at the sight of the hyacinth. She had not spoken with Severus since her disastrous debriefing after their return from the Ministry, mostly due to the fact that he had not contacted her again. But now he had sent her a birthday gift. She thought of thanking him, but she sensed he would deny it and say that he was merely making sure they would get through this war alive by having adequate potions supplies.
Hermione conjured a small vase for the cedar, iris, hyacinth, and canary grass, and carefully wrapped up the dittany for later use. She stroked the iris, and swallowed thickly. There was a flicker of a tender emotion warm and slightly painful at the same time lodged deep in her chest.
She was interrupted by a miaow from Crookshanks, the one that he made when he was hungry.
"Alright, Crooks. Let's get breakfast," she said, changing into well-worn jeans and a thin blue jumper, then headed downstairs.
Hermione padded silently down the two flights of stairs down from her attic room, past the empty master bedroom and guest bedroom where Harry and Ron had set up, and into the kitchen where she gave out a soft yelp at the sight of Harry fixing coffee in his pyjamas.
"Harry!"
"Oh, g'morning Hermione," he said, letting out a yawn. Hermione frowned at the sight of the locket around his neck.
"Couldn't sleep?"
"Nah. Bad dream. You know how it is," he said, eyes not quite meeting hers. "Happy birthday by the way. Officially an adult in both worlds now," he said with a grin.
"It kind of doesn't feel that way at all, and then it also feels like I've been an adult forever," she said, eagerly accepting the coffee that Harry poured out from the French press. Electricity had stopped working when they Secret Kept the house, as the heavy warding interfered with everything electrical, but Ron was used to living without and Harry and Hermione had soon adapted.
Harry hummed. "How do you feel about almond croissants for breakfast? We got some frozen ones the last time we shopped."
"Oh, you don't have to go to any trouble," Hermione said, biting her lip to stop herself from grinning. She loved almond croissants and it warmed her heart that Harry had noticed.
"Hermione. Really, it's no trouble at all."
"Oh, alright." Hermione let herself smile widely at Harry, heart filling with the moment.
The scent of butter and almonds soon filled the kitchen after Harry popped the frozen pastries in the oven. Hermione savoured the coffee and half a croissant slowly while Harry tore into one, but they saved Ron two, which he devoured with great gusto once he woke up. He seemed to be in a good mood when he woke up, but it was his turn to wear the locket, and soon he became sullen and withdrawn after he put it on.
They tried to enjoy the day without worrying—they played a long game of Monopoly, followed by a game of Risk, both of which Ron won handily, which helped his mood slightly, but then he caught sight of Hermione's compact.
She had been fiddling with it while Ron and Harry cleaned up game pieces.
"Who gave that to you?" Ron demanded, catching sight of her compact.
"No one," Hermione said quickly, shoving the compact into her pocket.
"Really," Ron stared at her incredulously. "Do you even know what that is?"
"It's a mirror compact, of course I know what it is," Hermione said briskly, hoping that he would drop the subject.
"It's amazing how much you know without knowing anything," Ron sneered, face turning red.
"Ron, that's uncalled for," Harry said quietly.
"That's a betrothal gift. Only traditional purebloods use them these days. They're usually part of a set so the engaged couple could communicate in a chaste way. Tell me, did the guy who gave you the mirror have a matching piece?" Ron asked, face darkening.
Hermione laughed, because Ron was being ridiculous. "Yes, but it's not a betrothal gift at all," she said.
"You do know that if you accept the gift you've pretty much said that you accept his offer," Ron continued on, an ugly expression on his face. "But you don't know everything, do you?"
"Ron—"
"No, Harry, I think Hermione should explain why she's gone and got herself betrothed and kept this fact from her two best friends—"
"It's not a betrothal gift!" Hermione shouted, inexplicably hurt and patience gone.
"Really? You didn't deny that a boy gave it to you and had a matching piece—"
"I'm using it to spy on Death Eaters!" Hermione nearly shouted again. She had planned on telling Ron and Harry that she had a Death Eater contact later in the day, and that was how she knew Voldemort had a Taboo on his name which she had told the boys right after they fled the Ministry, hoping that they might have been more forgiving because it was her birthday, but it looked like she would be telling them sooner than planned.
"You're what?" Harry asked, confused.
"Right," Ron scoffed. "That mirror can only be used by the other person when they say your name, how exactly would that be spying?"
"Because—because he's a Death Eater and he tells me what he learns," she said
"That's ridiculous—"
"How do you know you can trust him?" Harry interrupted before Ron could finish what he was saying. Ron shot Harry a glare.
"Yeah, how could you trust a Death Eater? What have you been telling him?" Ron rounded on Hermione.
"I haven't been telling him anything! He's been telling me about things when he can—gave me some dittany earlier today—"
"—right, because that wasn't poisoned—" Ron cut in.
"And I know because he doesn't want to be a Death Eater! I got to know him last year while studying together, and he really, really doesn't want their side to win," Hermione spat out furiously. "He was the one who told me to be prepared for the fall of the Ministry, he was the one who told me about the Taboo—"
"What if it's all just a trick?" Ron shot back.
"It's not. Do you think so little of me that I would risk our safety like that?" Hermione asked, hurt.
"It's not that we don't trust you," Harry said. "It's just that this person is a Death Eater. How do we know that he's trustworthy? Who is he?"
"I can't tell you who he is to protect him, because you two don't know Occlumency," Hermione began.
"That's convenient," Ron sneered.
"But I trust him because someone he cared for very deeply—a Muggle-born—was killed by You-Know-Who and he wants revenge," Hermione continued on as if she hadn't heard him. "He doesn't believe in the Pureblood stuff. He doesn't want to be a Death Eater. He's been nothing but trustworthy so far, he doesn't ask for information on where we are or even hint that he wants to meet up, and he saved my life once."
"He's a Slytherin, isn't he?" Harry asked.
"Well, yes," Hermione said, not wishing to lie more than necessary.
"You know the whole lot of them can't be trusted!" Ron exploded.
"It's alright," Harry suddenly said in a gentle voice. "You can tell us that it's Nott."
"WHAT?" two voices suddenly shouted at once. Hermione briefly wondered if Harry had lost his mind from cabin fever.
"Oh come on Hermione, don't pretend to be so surprised. You had all those extra classes with Nott. He never called you names or bullied you. He helped cover for me when I was following after Malfoy and was nearly caught," Harry continued on, looking smug. "And we know that not everyone wants to be a Death Eater," he added in a low voice. Hermione and Ron both flinched at that; they were all thinking of what Harry had said about how tortured Draco looked in his vision when he was forced to Crucio Rowle, and how conflicted he had looked during the entire school year last year.
Hermione was stunned speechless. She didn't want to mislead Harry, but having them think that her contact was Theo Nott was a perfect cover story, even more so because she was fairly confident that Theo was not actually a Death Eater. In that case, if Ron or Harry were caught both Severus and Theo would remain safe, even if they used Legilimency on them, because Death Eaters would know they had been fed lies the moment they mentioned Theo.
"Are you mental? Hermione tells us that she's been talking to a Death Eater—a Slytherin—behind our backs, and you trust that things are fine just like that?" Ron asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah. I trust Hermione. Don't you?" Harry asked.
Ron was silent for a long moment. "I trust her. But I don't trust him," he finally said, and stomped out of the room. The words sounded different coming from Ron than Harry.
AN: So. That was a thing. :)
Life is still overwhelming at the moment, but I will still try to update regularly. Future updates are probably going to happen on Saturdays from now on, still once every 3 weeks or as close as I can manage until I'm completely done writing the fic. (Currently at chapter 31 of ~39.) Thanks all for reading and the lovely comments and likes, the feedback really helps give me an extra push when everything is crazy like it is right now! :)