Chapter: What They Knew
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"Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Hermione had once promised herself that she would never again approach the bleak walls of this place. And yet here she was, willingly and without falter, nearly a year after her last visit, striding determinedly forth into the dark. The screams reached her ears while she was still a quarter mile off. Harry flinched beside her, and she laid her hand briefly on his swinging forearm without looking at him.
Azkaban loomed in the distance.
They met a guard, a shriveled old stick of a man, outside the imposing, stained doors. He said nothing and didn't need to ask where they were headed; her position and undertaking were well-known in general wizarding society—The Daily Prophet had made sure of it.
This time she didn't look inside the cells until they had reached their destination. Harry, she saw from the corner of her eye, could not stop staring. If the prisoners had been able to see through their confinements as he could, Hermione thought, many of them would have sat up and stared back. Would they curse or exalt him? She couldn't say.
They rounded the corner and Hermione heard Harry hiss through his teeth. The prisoner sat against the wall of his cell, clad in nothing but the standard rented and grubby uniform of Azkaban and paler than any human being she had ever seen.
It was the first time Harry had seen this particular convict since the night his hero had fallen into the oblivion.
Hermione spoke first, because she felt that Harry would not be able to. "Professor?"
Severus Snape's head jerked towards the sound of the disembodied voice but he said nothing, waiting, she felt, to perceive whether the sound was real or merely a product of his imprisoned mind.
"It's Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. We've…ah…we've come to give you some news."
Now she had attained his attention. He shifted slightly and narrowed his eyes over his hooked nose. "Harry Potter, you say? What could he possibly want with me, Miss Granger?"
Harry, after several moments of surprised contemplation, coldly voiced a reply. "I want to see if what Hermione said of her visit last year is true. I want to see,"—here his voice turned bitter—"if you really killed Albus Dumbledore because you wanted to and your Dark Lord wanted you to… or for some other reason all together."
Hermione whirled fast on her friend, whispering hurriedly to his face. "Shut up, Harry. You're going to agitate him."
Harry stayed quiet but didn't seem at all happy about it.
Hermione turned back towards her former professor, fixing an impassive look on her face instinctively although she knew that he could not see her. Snape was staring blankly at her, even through the solid wall that he saw but she didn't. It unnerved her considerably. He had remained silent throughout Harry's outburst and didn't seem disposed to defend himself.
Hermione took a deep breath and began with a distinctly businesslike tone. "First of all, I want to inform you of some of the events that have taken place in the last year. Three months after my visit, approximately nine months ago today, the Ministry discovered three previously unknown witnesses to the alleged crimes of the Miles Bletchley, Amycus Carrow, and Georgiana Diggory. As you know all of these prisoners, in a situation strikingly similar to your own, were sent to Azkaban without trial due to the apparent heinousness of their crimes. As it turned out, these three witnesses, who had each been quite close to one of three prisoners, could provide alibis form most of the crimes the Ministry had convicted them for. Under the circumstances of their lengthy imprisonment previous to this discovery, these three were set free. I believe that Georgiana Diggory, in particular, has returned entirely to her life previous to her brief dabbling in the Dark Arts, and lives with her five year old daughter and ailing husband in a quiet corner of Suffolk."
Snape received this information pensively and with a keen expression on his sallow face. "And? Surely you could not have come all this way just to tell me that? Go on… yes…on, and on."
Harry frowned beside her, and turned to whisper discreetly in her ear. "He's not…?"
"Oh, I believe he's sane…it's only that this place has muddled him a bit, I think. Several months of freedom and he would be right as rain, if not a little surlier than usual."
"Miss Granger! I have all the time…yes, all the time in the world, but I was never a very patient man," came Snape's voice from within the cell.
"I apologize. Anyway, after hearing this news, I began to recall more clearly out meeting of last year. I remembered very distinctly your words concerning Dumbledore's murder."
She did not miss to note that the grimace that passed over Harry's face at her words was mirrored on Snape's. "I began to consider whether or not everything was as it seemed that night in the Astronomy Tower. I went to Harry and told him what you had said. He was reluctant to believe me…" Hermione glanced sideways at Harry as he flushed slightly. "Reluctant" was one word for his reaction. In reality, he had raged at her for a near ten minutes for her betrayal while she sat and waited for his head to clear. She continued. "…but in the end…"
…after three months…
"...he began to consider the possibility of the Ministry's hasty conclusion. Together we went to the Ministry and petitioned our case. They took some convincing and a lot of evidence supporting our suspicions scrounged up personally by Harry and me, but just last week they have agreed to give you a trial. Long overdue, in my opinion."
Silence. Snape sat and stared at the wall. Cleared his throat, and spoke with a voice that she could barely hear and that cracked with the first real feeling he had probably felt since his imprisonment. "Why?"
"Because I knew you. We all did, in school. And I didn't think you were so heartless as to murder in cold blood the man who saved your life with no reason except to gain the favor of Voldemort. Cold and vindictive, perhaps, but not murderously so. And I could tell, throughout those six years we were at school, that you held real respect for him. You're a good actor, there's no question, but you're not that good. Harry agrees with me." To prove her point, she elbowed Harry in the ribs.
"I do," said Harry through gritted teeth, angry and acrid, still, in the sudden presence of his once sworn enemy.
And Snape, a man who had probably only ever shown gratitude to one other person, said nothing but "thank you," and stared completely motionless at the wall, tears streaming down his face. Hermione and Harry left soon after.
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When Hermione thought of the events of the past year, she liked to remember only the good things. She liked to remember that Harry had finally proposed to Ginny, amid good-natured fanfares of "took you long enough!" and "it's about bloody time!" and "oh Harry, dear, we felt for sure you were of 'the other sort of men' for a while there, if you know what I mean!" She liked to remember how Molly Weasley had stopped setting three extra places at the table. She liked to remember that she had at last found something to do, and that she had almost stopped dreaming of the two bodies in the grass, the two people she had loved most in the world besides Ron.
She did not like remembering that at Harry and Ginny's engagement party she had become so drunk that she could not stand straight on her heels and could not keep the straps of her demure gray dress over her shoulders, and Harry had had to carry her outside and apparate her back to her flat. She did not like remembering that she had blabbed out the whole story to him, the whole story, before she vomited on his hundred-galleon suit. She did not like remembering that he had called Ginny over as well, and they had stayed with her all night. And she did not like remembering that they missed their party and that in the morning when she awoke with a splitting headache and a sick-tasting mouth, Harry Potter had looked at her square in the eye with anger written all over his face and said, "I'll kill him. I'll kill him."
That was her downfall, her low point, and she hated it.
She also did not like remembering that she still dreamed of Ron every night, of his running and her chasing. She did not like remembering that she now dreamed of him, as well.
So mostly she tried not to think about the past at all, and faced the future with an inquisitive eye.
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Three months after the conclusion of The Nietzsche Classes, as TheProphet was calling them after someone had leaked information about their content, Hermione had slipped on the steps of Flourish & Blotts and twisted her ankle hard enough to make her cry out. She'd clambered to her feet amongst the crowd of concerned bystanders, tears shimmering in her eyes, but two figures had emerged quickly from the crowd and pulled her arms around their shoulders—one set was broad and high, the other slim and not high at all—and helped her to sit in the metal chairs outside a small café. Vulpe Lestrange and Blaise Zabini had leaned over her, concern written on their faces, as she shut her eyes and waited for the pain, brief but substantial in its own right, to subside. Once she could speak without blubbering, she had voiced her confusion. "What are you two doing here?"
Vulpe had smiled prettily, while Blaise shrugged. "We were in the neighborhood," the former enunciated, with a careless note that told Hermione not to question their motives.
What had commenced was a truly pleasant lunch ("No, Hermione, don't you dare. My treat…Merlin knows I've enough galleons in my pocket," Blaise had insisted at its end) and an unlikely new trio of friends.
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Once she had asked them what they knew of him.
Where had he gone?
They didn't know. Italy, perhaps? They had heard rumors that he was in Italy.
What was he doing there?
No one could say. He'd left soon after the classes were finished and had gone traveling. It was a bit of a mystery.
He'd been gone for all this time?
Yes. It was a bit of a mystery, they said.
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Hermione apparated to her flat and sighed as she viewed the self-made disaster scene. Strewn about her dining table and the floor beneath it were newspaper clippings, scraps of paper with phone numbers and floo addresses scribbled on them, several worn journals, and something that looked suspiciously like a scroll of emerald paper with instructions and musings written in craggy, elegant script and signed at the bottom by one Lord Voldemort. Tools of the trade, she thought grimly, and resolved to clean it up in the morning and store what was needed as evidence for the hearing that was to take place on the Thursday afternoon of that week. Turning her eyes from the disorderedly mess, she went into the kitchen, passing an extracted article from The Daily Prophet that was pinned on her refrigerator, the headline of which read "Determined Duo Hermione Granger and Harry Potter Secure Trial For Imprisoned Death Eater." On the same refrigerator resided a similar-looking article from The Quibbler, which stated boldly in large all-caps, "HERMIONE GRANGER AND SEVERUS SNAPE: THEIR SECRET LOVE!" Hermione paused to consider that last headline, smiling in remembrance of Harry and Blaise's reactions to the editorial it intimated, both which had been remarkably similar and equally hilarious.
She scrubbed her hands in the sink for nearly five minutes, for she could not stand to think of the remnants of Azkaban remaining on her skin for longer than was necessary. She then made herself a scant dinner, having little appetite, and went to bed early, utterly exhausted. For once, she didn't dream; the past year had been hard work.
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Thursday morning, Hermione was in a whirl of frenzied motion. She rushed about her flat, clad only in her sensibly stylish skirt, pantyhose, and bra, searching for her dress shirt in vain. She had it in her hands just last night…
It was good, this rushed flurry. It kept her mind off being nervous. This was the day she had been working towards for months, and it had all started because she could not stand to see a man wrongly punished. She often cursed her sense of righteousness.
"Her-mio-nee! We're heeere! SHIT!"
Hermione turned just in time to see Blaise, dusty gray from his recent floo, stare momentarily at her half-naked state and abruptly whirl about so that his back was facing her. "Uh… sorry?" came his muffled voice. Apparently he was coving his entire face as well, just to be sure.
Vulpe stepped out of her fireplace moments later, eyeing the situation with an amused look on her face. Her eyes lighted on something unseen by Hermione, and she stepped over to the couch, plucking the tasteful crème shirt from the cushions. "Is this what you're looking for?"
Hermione snatched the shirt with a glare, magicked away the wrinkles, and buttoned it over the pale cups of her bra, thus saving Blaise from further embarrassment. He turned around with his hands over his eyes. "Safe?"
"Safe," assured Hermione.
"Sorry."
"It's quite alright."
"We thought you could use some moral support," said Vulpe, inspecting Hermione's hair from behind and tucking an errant strand back into the neat French twist of brown curls.
"You were right," sighed Hermione, nervous flutters already attacking her insides. If this failed, if all her efforts were for nothing, she didn't know what she would do. "They're going to call me as a witness."
"You'll do wonderfully. You'll manage," said Blaise, before she remarked that they had better go and the three of them apparated to the Ministry.
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"Miss Granger, is it?"
"Oh, you know perfectly well," replied Hermione smartly, gazing up at the opposing attorney with a smile.
He paused for a minute, considering her. "Do you confirm that approximately one year ago you paid a visit to the defendant?"
"Yes."
"And he appeared entirely sane?"
"Oh, not entirely, of course. I daresay you would become entirely incoherent within two hours of imprisonment in that place, it's that terrible." The courtroom chuckled and the attorney's face became slightly flushed. Hermione sobered. "As I said, he was not entirely lucid, but he was in a considerably better state than the rest of the prisoners. Lucius Malfoy himself was babbling at the wall like it was his wife asking for pocket-money." She could see that some residents in the court found this unbelievable, for the elder Malfoy had always seemed to the public as completely unable of loosing his composure. Hermione caught sight of Ginny giggling into her hands while Harry shushed her repeatedly. The Wizengamot loomed high above her. "Mr. Snape recognized my voice easily and spoke with a remarkable amount of eloquence for his situation. He could recall the situation of Dumbledore's death easily and processed my questions with the intellect suspected of a former Hogwart's professor. He did, however, become increasingly agitated and disconnected as our meeting progressed due to, I believe, the stifling atmosphere of his cell and the unexpected emotional onslaught as a result of our questions."
"And what were those questions that you asked him, Miss Granger?"
"I asked him why he betrayed Dumbledore, and why he had never killed Harry while he was a professor at Hogwarts if he was always working for Voldemort."
She completely ignored the hushed exclamations of shock and outrage for her use of the name.
"Er…yes. And what were his answers to these questions?" The attorney asked, somewhat flustered by now.
"He said he had never betrayed Dumbledore, and that Harry and I should learn the signs of legilimency. When I asked about Harry he said I wasn't listening, and that Dumbledore had said so. That was somewhat ambiguous. It is my opinion that Mr. Snape was far too distressed and strained to lie—"
"Simply answer the question, Miss Granger," he interrupted.
"This is part of my answer. He was too distressed to lie properly, and couldn't have possibly sounded as convincing as he did if he hadn't been telling the truth. He—"
"Miss Granger."
Hermione fell silent.
"Was there anyone else who accompanied you to the defendant's cell?" The attorney continued, giving her an altogether cold and disagreeable look.
"Yes."
"The name, if you please?"
"Draco Malfoy."
Many in the room gasped collectively.
The attorney had a glint of triumph in his eyes now, and Hermione shifted in her seat. She knew not what to expect.
"And, Miss Granger, is it true that you engaged in a brief and passionate relationship with Mr. Malfoy approximately one year ago?"
Hermione's mouth dropped open, and the room erupted. She knew exactly why he was asking that question. A connection with Draco resulted in an obvious connection with Snape, and thus a motive other than just goodwill and righteousness for wishing to free him. Hermione felt the room spin for just a moment, and she blearily saw the standing and livid forms of Harry and Blaise as they shouted rudely at the attorney who had been questioning her. She saw Snape look at her with no small amount of pity in his eyes as he sat, quiet and bedraggled, next to his more than competent attorney, hired mainly with Harry's fortune with bits of Snape's meager teacher's salary sprinkled in. He stood up and voiced an obvious complaint.
"Objection! Irrelevant."
"Granted," said the Chief Warlock, a faceless wizard who Hermione did not know because he wasn't Dumbledore.
She didn't have to answer any more questions. She stumbled dumbly from the witness's chair into the arms of her friends, who whispered comforts alternating between sweet and completely enraged.
She asked them only one question as tears began to leak from her broken eyes. "How did he know? How did he know?"
They did not know, but promised that they would find out.
She heard dimly, as if through a fog, that hated attorney's voice. "Before the trial draws the a close, I would like to call a surprise witness, if I may. Could Mr. Draco Malfoy please take the stand?"
No.
Hermione looked up, and her eyes caught gray.
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"Fear is the mother of morality."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Author's Note: Okay, I can't help it. I like this chapter. And it's been only a week since my last post! Yay!
I must make everything clear: I have no idea about Snape's actual position in the books. I'm manipulating and stretching things to make them work for this particular story. Who knows? He could be the most evil bastard to ever grace the face of this earth.
Also, I know I've totally maimed Blaise's fanon personality. I apologize, but it's fanon. But don't tell me I've maimed his canon personality as well because he doesn't really have one yet. So what, he looked cold and snotty? So what, he didn't really say anything? The world of The Nietzsche Classes is MINE, I tell you! Mwahaha! I can do what I want! Now I must take deep breaths.
I need sleep.
I bet you can tell that I have absolutely no experience in law or court situations whatsoever. It's not my fault if the British Wizengamot sounds like Law and Order, which I don't even watch. Hmm…
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, especially the little bits of humor I put in. I figured since the last, like, ten chapters (the whole fic, if you hadn't noticed) was so depressing, I should put in something a little more lighthearted before we really got to more depressing stuff (i.e., the last line of the chapter).
Good luck in all you do, and let me know what you think. Worthy of nominations/awards? I'm still not convinced.
(Oh, and another thing. I HAVE MORE THAN 300 REVIEWS! IT'S AMAZING! THANK YOU THANK YOU!)