Chapter Thirteen
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"You have to be joking!"
Rabastan stared at Hermione in awe.
"He asked for you to take the mark?"
Regulus seemed equally stunned, but it was nothing compared to the fury and jealousy that flashed across Barty Junior's face.
"He sure did," Hermione nodded.
The five teenagers were walking through the gardens again, the skies grim and overcast and the heady scent of wet earth permeating the air. It was colder than the day before, and Hermione was wearing a cloak over her robes. She brushed past some wet roses, the thorns catching on loose fabric.
"But what happened?" Rabastan pleaded, jogging until he was level with Hermione.
"I'd like to hear the answer to that too," Severus said drily.
They walked under a trailing flower archway; stopping in front of a large fountain with enormous marble birds. The water seemed to explode from beneath the wings of the birds, hanging for a moment in mid air before crashing into the basin of the fountain.
The four boys joined Hermione as she leaned against the damp stones that surrounded the pool, gazing into the water.
"During dinner he saw a memory in my mind that he wanted to learn more about. His solution to that was to lay my mind completely open and examine every memory in there. On the basis of that, and a little chat, he told me I would join."
"Just like that?" Rabastan said incredulously.
"Just like that."
Barty tossed his cloak over a nearby bench bitterly. "Nevermind that the Dark Lord never invites anyone to join his ranks without months of observation and meetings first."
"Jealous, Barty?" Hermione asked, eying the skinny boy.
"I think he's made a mistake."
"Do you now?"
Barty looked emboldened when nobody visibly disagreed. "Yes. I think you fooled him somehow. You're good, but not that good!"
"Show some more respect!" Rabastan objected, moving towards the pair. But before he had taken more than a step, Barty let out a high pitched shriek.
The huge marble birds that had been hovering in the middle of the fountain had moved, silently, and the first to reach Barty wrapped its stone wings around his body from behind. It could have been an embrace, if the pain on his face hadn't revealed the crushing grip.
"Help! Get it off me!"
Hermione, leaning against the fountain, turned her palms upwards to reveal empty hands.
"Who, me?"
"Get it off!"
Rabastan, Regulus and Severus looked alarmed, and stared between the two as if wondering which side they should take.
"Still think I don't deserve this?" Hermione asked casually, making the wings tighten.
"No! No...I swear," Barty gasped. "Please! You deserve it. You didn't fool him."
Hermione nodded, and flicked an idle hand at the bird. It pulled its wings back, and reluctantly floated back to its position in the fountain.
"Did you see what she just did to me?!" Barty shouted, as soon as he was freed. He jabbed viciously in Hermione's direction.
"She's psychotic! Why did none of you help me?!"
Rabastan and Regulus exchanged uneasy glances, before Regulus spoke.
"Mate, the Dark Lord himself just recruited her. You're crazier than my mother if you think it's a good idea to take any other side."
Barty's mouth hung open as he stared at his friends.
"So this is it now? You'll let her get away with anything, treat her like fucking royalty, at the expense of your oldest friends?"
He spat on the ground, and then spun on his heel.
"I'm done here."
\\/
Barty Crouch left Lestrange Manor before the rest of the group had even returned from the gardens. After a few awkward moments, the mood lightened and Rabastan and Regulus began to ask more questions about the meeting.
Severus had been typically silent, but Hermione knew he only tended to speak his mind in private anyway.
The morning that everybody was due to leave dawned very quickly, and almost before she knew it Hermione was standing by the doorway, her beaded bag in hand as she said her goodbyes.
"Miss Black, it was an honour to welcome you to our home."
Deus Lestrange bowed low as he kissed Hermione's hand, and she marvelled at how his attitude had changed since Lord Voldemort had announced that she would be joining his ranks.
"Lord Lestrange, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your wonderful hospitality," Hermione demurred.
"I'll see you back at Hogwarts in a week," Rabastan promised, embracing Hemione formally. Regulus nodded, and took her hand to kiss it.
"Safe travels."
Hermione and Severus were apparating back to Hogwarts together, since neither had a home to return to for the final week of the holiday.
"Shall we?" Hermione turned to her tall companion. Severus courteously offered his arm.
"Indeed. Thank you for your welcome, Lord Lestrange. Rabastan, Regs, I'll see you soon."
Without further ado, Hermione and Severus apparated away from the manor, landing on the path from Hogsmeade that lead up to the castle.
The moment Lestrange Manor vanished, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Tension that she barely realised she had been carrying drained out of her body.
"Are you alright?" Severus asked, turning.
Hermione laughed.
"Yes! In fact I feel better than I have all week. I hate being watched all the time."
Severus raised an eyebrow.
"Tell me about it. I wasn't raised with a silver spoon up my arse, and sometimes trying to remember all the rules makes my head spin."
Hermione laughed again. The candid nature of the confession reminded how different this Snape was to the one she had known. On an impulse, she made a suggestion.
"Do you want to head into Hogsmeade before we go back? I could do with a trip to Honeydukes to stock up."
"Why not?"
Arm in arm, they headed further into the village of Hogsmeade. Severus had a spring in his step, and Hermione felt the same. Another whole week of holiday in the castle awaited, with neither Death Eaters nor Marauder's to bother them.
\\/
The rest of the Easter holidays passed peaceably, in the way Hermione had been expecting. She and Severus fought, they trained, and they studied.
"You're surprisingly good company, you know," Hermione said, looking up from her books one afternoon in the Slytherin common room.
"Because I don't talk?"
"Because you don't talk nonsense."
"I'm flattered," Severus said drily, using his wand to erase a line of writing.
Hernione tilted her head again to hide her smile. After a moment she came to the question she had really been wanting to ask.
"Hogwarts doesn't have a duelling team, does it?"
Severus looked up with surprise. "No, not for years now."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. You'd have to ask Slughorn about that."
"I might do just that," Hermione mused. "I might indeed."
"You're not thinking of starting one are you?" Severus asked. There was something in his voice that made Hermione look closer; he kept his dark hair in a sheet between them so she couldn't see his expression.
"The international duelling association usually arranges competitions between schools, and I know some of the other wizarding schools in Europe enter. Why not Hogwarts?"
Severus didn't say anything for a long moment. Then -
"And you'd be the one to train them, in the practice room I assume?"
It was the false note in Severus's voice that clued Hermione in to exactly what the problem was here.
"Of course not! That's a professors job. And the training room is an edge I'm certainly not willing to give up."
As Snape visibly relaxed, Hermione smiled wryly. Male pride still baffled her, although her years with Harry and Ron had at least taught her to recognise it when it appeared.
"I'd be interested in that," Severus said, sounding much more cheerful.
"I'll be sure to talk to Slughorn," Hermione agreed, before turning back to her books.
\\/
On the last night of the Easter Holidays, Hermione and Severus celebrated their final night of freedom with butterbeer and a few pumpkin pasties in the common room, while they shared a copy of Potions Monthly that they had eagerly been awaiting.
"There, look!"
Severus jabbed his finger at the glossy cover, where the image of a large spider scuttled across the page.
"I knew it," Hermione cheered, taking a swig from the bottle. "They've finally legalised acromantula venom."
"Not that anyone ever stopped using it," Severus said drily, turned the pages until he reached the article in question.
Hermione slid off her armchair and knelt by the low table to read the fine print.
"I see they left clause seven in effect," she said after a moment. "Trying to keep everybody happy."
"You think they should be allowed to harvest from live acromantula?" Severus said, looking nauseated.
"I think if you stun them first there shouldn't be a problem. It's the idiots that kill them instead that give the whole practice a bad name."
"Kill first, stun later. What a concept," Severus murmured drily. Something in his tone unsettled Hermione and she looked at him sharply.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." Severus turned the pages over to read an interview with a new Potions Master, but Hermione's sixth sense was tingling and she slapped her hand down on the page.
"Severus Snape you tell me what you're talking about this instant or I'll write to the potions guild and tell them you've been breaking their laws for years."
"You wouldn't," Severus said confidently, taking another sip of butterbeer. "You'd have to be much more sneaky about breaking them yourself after that, because you know I'd report you right back."
Hermione glared at her friend. "Stop dodging the subject and tell me what you know."
"Is that a guilty conscience I detect?" Severus drawled. But when Hermione folded her arms and shot him a killer stare, he subsided.
"It should be obvious. I know."
"You know what?"
Severus sighed, and sat up slightly in the armchair. "You want me to spell it out? I know you're the one that killed Fastius."
Hermione's heart began to hammer as she contemplated obliviating the best real friend she had here. Keep him talking.
"How do you know?"
Trying to keep her voice level, Hermione began reaching for her wand with slow, careful movements.
"It took me a while actually," Severus admitted. "But he was my friend, and I wasn't going to put up with Dumbledore's ridiculous attempt at an investigation. You were the only person who made sense."
"And why was that?"
"Because the only people who would have wanted him dead were too noble to do it. The Death Eaters were about to recruit him, so they wouldn't have done it. And Dumbledore and all of his entourage might have wished we would all drop dead, but they weren't about to get their hands dirty."
Hermione's fingertips touched her wand. "And how did that conclusion lead you to me?"
Severus smiled wryly. "Because you're the only person who was, at that time, straddling both camps. And you had a motive."
"If it was me, not that I am confirming a thing, what do you think my motive could have been?"
"I wasn't naive about my friends, alright Hermione? I know what Fastius was capable of. I know he's done some pretty sick things in his time, and I also know how to tell when somebody is using legilimency. I saw you use it on him during the fight, I guessed what you might have seen."
Hermione stared at Severus Snape, and wondered how on earth she could have all her knowledge of the future, and still have underestimated this man.
"You couldn't have seen anything. You were on the other side of the bloody quidditch pitch!"
"I was watching Fastius," Severus said, shaking his head. "I saw his eyes flash white for a second, something they only do when somebody is entering their mind through direct eye to eye contact."
Hermione cursed, wondering how she could have forgotten that side effect. But then, who could have possibly imagined anybody paying that much close attention?
"He died weeks after that fight," she said flatly.
"I know. And it was very Slytherin of you to spend that long planning it, and making sure you had an alibi."
They had reached an impasse. Hermione grasped her wand, and prepared for the fact that a great deal of the common room would probably be destroyed if she didn't catch the element of surprise over Severus. She had taught him to duel too well.
"Alright. I did it," she admitted.
"I know."
Severus leaned back, his forehead creasing as he stared at the high ceiling. Once again Hermione was surprised by how striking he was, still in the prime of his youth. It would be the perfect moment to obliviate him, but something stilled her hand.
"Why haven't you turned me in?"
Severus took a long time to reply. His forehead furrowed, as though he was seriously considering his answer. When he eventually spoke the words were serious, and intense.
"Fastius was my friend, but that was because I was alone and I needed a leg up to get closer to the Dark Lord. When you killed him, I knew straight away that it was you. But I didn't turn you in because I thought he deserved it."
It was a painful confession, not an easy one. In spite of the quick explanation Hermione could see that Severus hadn't been as glib about his friendship with Avery as he might have wanted her to think.
"I saw him torturing and raping a child," Hermione said quietly. "That's why I did it. It wasn't a fantasy of his, it was a real memory. He did that."
Severus closed his eyes, his face growing drawn.
"I thought it might be something along those lines. But I never knew a child was involved. He used to boast sometimes about the things he and his father would do to muggles, but I was never sure how much was just exaggeration."
"I couldn't let him live," Hermione said simply. "He was going to do it again, and again. Over and over."
"I know. That's why I didn't tell anybody I knew it was you."
Hermione slowly let go of her wand, and breathed deeply. "I'm not sorry I killed him. But I am sorry that he was your friend, and he's gone."
"Some friends are better not to have," Severus said, shaking his head. "If I thought that was what serving the Dark Lord involved, I would never join. But Fastius was just sick in the head."
Hermione decided it probably wasn't the time to let Severus find out that was exactly what serving the Dark Lord entailed. If he was left to his own devices he would come to the conclusion in his own time, and then he would be all the better for having made up his own mind.
"You've got me now," she said, picking up her butterbeer again. "And Rabastan, and Regulus. I know you have the same kind of shitty home life I had, but we don't have to be alone while we have each other."
"Yes," Severus said, shaking his head as if to get rid of the dark thoughts. "You're right."
When he reached for the potions magazine again there was a certain surprise in his eyes, as if he was seeing things afresh. Impulsively, Hermione reached out and squeezed his hand.
"I was alone before I came here too," she said truthfully. "But none of us are going to be alone now."
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Sorry it's been a while. My only excuse is I'm still single mum-ing my way through life, I've just hit my final year of university, and my son has just hit the (truly, truly) terrible toddler phase. Although to tell the truth, while I probably ought to be working nonstop, sometimes its total bliss to escape into fiction for a bit. Postgrad applications and my dissertation are due very soon, so I'll undoubtedly be updating this lots as I procrastinate!
Thanks for reading,
Cas
