Chapter Thirty-Five
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When Hermione grasped Lily's chin and tilted her head up, at first Lily didn't understand. Their eyes met, and Hermione focussed carefully. Lily's eyes clouded with confusion and then cleared.
Hermione projected, slowly. Delicately. No sense in overwhelming Lily.
Hermione was in her bedroom, sitting at her desk by the window. Her hair almost covered the page of the book she was poring over, but the title could be read in small print at the top of the page: The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. At last, she moved her head and a small picture of Lily and James Potter appeared, smiling and waving out of the page. The heading beneath read The Death of the Potters and the Boy-Who-Lived.
The scene blurred.
Hermione perched at the kitchen table, eleven years old, chattering to her father at high speed.
"And daddy, there's a boy, and they say he's the only person to ever survive the killing curse. It's a mystery how!"
"I don't like the sound of this killing curse," her father said, scratching his head doubtfully.
"But daddy did you hear me? Harry Potter survived it! And they say that he's going to Hogwarts this year…"
The kitchen faded away, and then Hermione was knocking on a carriage door whilst the Hogwarts Express shook and rattled around her.
There were two boys in the carriage, a redheaded boy with chocolate around his mouth, and a black-haired boy with green eyes and broken glasses. There was a large pile of chocolate on the seat beside them, and a plump rat squeaking.
Hermione felt Lily's shock reverberate through their shared mental connection, and she moved on before they spoke. She made the scene changes faster, trying only to give Lily an idea of who Harry had been.
Harry perched nervously on the stool in front of the whole school, the sorting hat slipping down over his eyes as hundreds of people craned their necks to look at him. The hat opened it's brim wide.
"Gryffindor!"
Another change.
Draco Malfoy was jeering. Neville Longbottom was being led away by Madam Hooch, and they were outside beneath a bright blue Autumn sky. Malfoy leapt onto his broom and Harry was there behind him.
"You give that back," he demanded.
Malfoy took flight and Harry was right behind, soaring through the air like an eagle in the wind, flying like he had been born to it.
Hermione added memories from the end of the first year when Harry had gone through Snape's flames to defeat Voldemort alone. She added more, of times that perhaps weren't so memorable; just the three of them spending time together. Moments that were uniquely Harry, and what it felt like to hug him and hear his voice.
When she slowed the projections to a trickle Lily projected another thought.
What was the last memory you had of him? What was he doing the last time you saw him?
The question dragged the memory up to the surface of Hermione's thoughts, and though she tried to suppress the memory as quickly as she could she was afraid of what Lily might have seen. She returned slowly to herself and blinked several times before focussing on Lily in front of her. Lily looked stunned.
"All that blood, oh my god. Did he die? Too?"
"Yes," Hermione said grimly. "I'm sorry you saw that. I didn't mean to let that get through."
Lily was silent for a while, but when she did speak it was low but clear. "No, I'm glad I saw the truth. I sort of didn't believe you until I saw it."
Her hands were shaking as she twisted them in her lap.
"It just seemed so unreal, you know? I kind of believed the facts, but not as something that really happened. But you did, didn't you? You really lived in another time."
"Yes."
"You-Know-Who killed us both, James and I?"
"Yes."
"And...Harry? He looked old. That memory must be years in the future…"
"Twenty years."
"Twenty - You-Know-Who is still here in twenty years?"
Lily swallowed. Hermione thought it was almost worse watching Lily come to terms with this than it had been watching her own friends. Her friends had seen themselves as murderers, but Lily had seen her own future being cut short in less than four years.
"I can't imagine having a child," Lily babbled. "I don't know how it happened so soon."
"Maybe it was an accident," Hermione suggested. "Or you just wanted to by then. You were married, after all."
"Does Severus know?" Lily said. "That you came back in time?"
"Yes," Hermione said.
"What happens to him?" Lily said and then shook her head. "No, wait, I don't want to know. Knowing what happens to me is enough."
Hermione was relieved and impressed despite herself. Her own curiosity would drive her to demand every scrap of information available had she encountered a time traveller from the future.
"But does Sev know about James and me? About...Harry?"
Hermione shook her head. "No. He knows what happened to him in my time, but everything else...It just seemed so complicated."
"You didn't want to tell him," Lily guessed.
Hermione flushed. "It seemed...unnecessary. Harry was the central point of the war in my time, everything revolved around him. But Voldemort should be defeated before he's even born here. If he's even born," she amended.
"You should tell him," Lily said. "Harry was your best friend, wasn't he? Severus should know."
Hermione shifted uncomfortably. "It's not that I want to keep anything from him, but it's going to hurt him. Even now."
Lily looked down. "Even now?"
"I know he loves me," Hermione said. "We're engaged, we're committed. But there's something about your first love, I think, that never really leaves you."
Lily nodded slowly. Then her head jerked up. "I'm sorry. You're engaged?"
"Voldemort wants to marry me off to Rabastan," Hermione said. "Marrying someone else first is the only way to get out of it."
"Won't that make him angry?" Lily asked.
Hermione grimaced. "Yes. But since I'm going to try and kill him this year I don't think it's going to matter too much."
Lily choked. "You're going to…"
"With a bit of luck," Hermione said dryly. "It's what I'm here for, anyway."
"Still," Lily said, regaining her composure admirably. "Engaged. That's a big deal. When are you going to…?"
"Soon," Hermione said. "It's got to be soon."
Lily stared at her. "Aren't you afraid of that kind of commitment? We're just teenagers."
Hermione pointed at herself. "Time-traveller, remember? I'm twenty-two."
"Twenty-two?"
"Yep. Five years older than Severus," Hermione said, half smiling at Lily's scandalised face.
Lily asked no further questions but her face was thoughtful, and she lapsed into long periods of doodling on the misted glass with her index finger. Hermione didn't interrupt her musings, but closed her eyes and waited quietly to be released.
When the door blasted inwards there was no prior warning. Hermione was thrown against Lily, both of them falling into a crumpled heap at one corner of the box as shockwaves reverberated through the room. The water flooded out of the open doorway like a plug being pulled from a bath, and within seconds the water level had dropped more than halfway down the glass box. Lily cautiously vanished their glass ceiling and both of them breathed in cool air with relief.
"Hermione!"
"Lily!"
The instant the last foot of water drained out of the room a dozen bodies tried to fit through the door at the same time. Hermione's friends made it through first, swiftly followed by the marauders and a couple of Gryffindor girls that Hermione recognised as Lily's friends.
"Hermione!" Severus said, pushing his way to the front. He drew his wand and vanished the glass box, and then she was free and they were rushing towards each other. He grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her up and down and then pulled her into his arms. Severus was white and trembling and he held Hermione as though he would never let her go.
"I thought you were dead," he said, his voice muffled in her hair. "We all thought you were dead."
Hermione pulled back and was astonished to see that he was crying.
"Severus Snape," she said, trying to sound more light-hearted than she felt. "Surely you have more faith in me than that."
Severus didn't say another word but held her more tightly, burying his face in her shoulder.
"You seem to have engineered a very lucky solution," said a low voice, and Hermione turned to see Professor Dumbledore standing in robes that were dripping with water. His beard was dripping too, and his face was grave.
"That was Lily, sir," Hermione said.
"Indeed?" Professor Dumbledore said, turning to Lily. "Fifty points to Gryffindor for quick-thinking."
James and Sirius broke into broad grins, but Lily didn't smile.
"Professor Dumbledore, this was attempted murder," she said in a small, determined voice. "The doors were sealed. I don't know where the water came from -"
"I do," Hermione said, feeling that the truth was about to come out anyway. "I asked my friends to use flood pellets to make a small flood in the corridor outside. I thought it might get me out of detention early."
Professor Dumbledore frowned, but the marauders looked reluctantly impressed.
"What are the flood pellets?" James asked.
"An undoubtedly illegal item," Professor Dumbledore said, giving Hermione a look that left her in no doubt that he knew where the pellets had originated from. "Miss Black I am disappointed in you. Fifty points from Slytherin."
"Yes sir," Hermione said. She knew it was just for show, but even after all these years being told off by a Professor still stung. "But sir, the flood pellets were tiny. This shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have been possible for it to happen."
"Is that so?"
"Someone took them," Alecto blurted out. Her face flushed when Dumbledore turned to her.
"I mean, Professor, sir, somebody took them. We went to drop them but our pockets were empty. Then the door glowed blue -"
"The sealing spell," Arabel said.
"And we couldn't open the door," Alecto finished. "No matter how hard we tried. And we tried sir, we really did."
Professor Dumbledore went to the office door and made a series of complicated gestures with his wand. The door glowed red, and then blue.
"An airtight ward," he murmured. "Very cleanly cast…perhaps Professor Malvolio could -"
Hermione quickly stepped forward, pulling Dumbledore aside and speaking quietly.
"But sir, I'm so sorry. Professor Malvolia is dead. She hit her head when the water came in and we couldn't reach her in time. I think she might have drowned."
Severus pulled back, startled. Even Professor Dumbledore couldn't suppress his surprise. Hermione glanced past him and saw that her friends, hovering further back, hadn't heard. Professor Dumbledore stared at Hermione for a long moment, information passing between them, and then he turned to the gathered students.
"Alice, please could you go to Professor McGonagall's office and ask her to come here immediately," he said.
The round-faced girl scurried out of the room.
"Miss Black and Miss Evans, please make your way to the hospital wing You friends may accompany you there but then they must return to their own common rooms," he said quietly. "I will speak to both of you later when I have had a full accounting of the situation."
Hermione looked over her shoulder at the open classroom door, water dripping from the door handle. She wouldn't have minded getting a closer look around Bellatrix's quarters now that the wards would have fallen, but Dumbledore -
He saw Hermione's look and shook his head.
"Now is not the time. I must get to the bottom of this matter," he said. "Go to the hospital wing with your friends, Miss Black."
So, dragging her feet a little, Hermione went.
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"I'm telling you it was Grindelwald," Rabastan said, pacing furiously up and down the hospital ward.
"And I'm telling you that he didn't leave his rooms," Arabel said. "Because some of us don't fuck up our jobs and mine was to watch him."
"He got out somehow," Rabastan exclaimed. "It had to be him! The only other person it could have been was Bellatrix and now she's -"
"Rabastan," Severus snapped. "Just because you locked Pomfrey in her office doesn't mean it's a good idea to shout that sort of thing around. The Gryffindors are literally right there."
"Nice work by the way," Rabastan added to Hermione, ignoring Severus. "I think Rodolphus might actually send you some thank you flowers."
"Which is not what Voldemort's going to do when he finds out," Arabel said, quelling Rabastan with a single glance. "He's going to tear this place apart to find out who killed Bellatrix. We're lucky he isn't here already. Do you think he knows yet?"
Hermione ached all over. Her robes had been replaced with clean cotton hospital pyjamas and her hair had been dried but she felt queasy and shaky.
"Yes," she said, lifting a hand to her chest where a small silver skull and snake pendant hung. It was hot to the touch and vibrating faintly.
"Yes, I think he knows."
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"Miss Black I cannot allow you to do this," Professor Dumbledore said two hours later.
"I have to answer," Hermione said, forcing her arms through the robes Arabel was holding out to her. The Dark Mark pendant had grown so hot that she had taken it from around her neck and placed it in her pocket, wrapped in a pair of socks. She could still feel it vibrating and shuddered to think what it would have felt like if it had remained tattooed on her skin.
"You are underage -" Dumbledore began.
"I'm not," Hermione corrected, buttoning the robes. She glanced out of the hospital wing window. The moon was full and had risen high over the trees of the forbidden forest. It would be a clear night.
"You don't turn seventeen until March 16th -"
"Professor you invented that date when I arrived here. I'm considerably past the age of majority."
"How considerably past?" Rabastan asked curiously.
"None of your business."
"Regardless, Miss Black, you are unwell. You have been the victim of two attempts on your life in recent weeks, and you were injured in your struggle today. I know that it can be difficultto resist the summons of the Dark Lord, but Madam Pomfrey can help. An enchanted sleep would -"
"I'm not going because he's burning me to make me," Hermione said flatly. "I'm going because I have to. I need answers, quickly."
Bracing herself, Hermione took the Dark Mark pendant from her pocket. She unwrapped it, taking care not to touch the hot metal, and levitated it carefully over her left forearm.
"What is that?" Dumbledore said.
Hermione didn't reply. She touched her wand tip to the pendant and whispered the spell that would dissolve the binding. The metal trembled and then a thin back stream of smoke trickled down and into Hermione's arm, spreading across the skin like a dark rash, forming slowly into the skull and snake.
Hermione hissed between her teeth.
"Does it hurt?" Arabel asked, tightening her grip on her.
"Yep."
It spoke volumes to the understanding among her friends that not a single one spoke out against Hermione's decision, not even Severus. He had been unhappy but he remained silent. They stood, to a man, by her side. Rabastan and Arabel had brought the robes and helped her dress while Alecto had cleared the hospital wing and Regulus had cleared the route through the school. Severus had vanished down into the dungeons, clutching a list of instructions, and with a half-manic look in his eyes.
"You see Professor," Hermione said, straightening. "This is why we still had to deal with him for twenty years in the future. Because people were afraid to act decisively until it was too late. They played caution, never realising what it would cost."
"And what about what it would cost you personally?" Professor Dumbledore said.
"That sort of thing didn't trouble you anymore by the time I met you in the future."
"He's going to kill you," Regulus said. He avoided her eyes. "I don't see what other outcomes there could be. He's going to see what happened in your mind and he's going to kill you."
Hermione sighed.
"Reg, my side fought him for years. Sometimes we were captured and interrogated. Don't you think I've got more tricks up my sleeve than that? Have a little faith."
As if her words had summoned him the hospital doors flew open and Severus half-sprinted through, waving a vial of silver liquid at Hermione.
"I've done it," he gasped, skidding to a halt beside her bed, his chest heaving with exertion. "Is it too late?"
Hermione took the vial and inspected the potion within, taking the lid off and sniffing the contents.
"It's perfect," she said with relief.
Severus nodded, bending over with his hands on his knees, his chest heaving with exertion.
"What is that?" Professor Dumbledore asked, adjusting his glasses and reaching for the vial.
Hermione put it into her pocket.
"No time Professor. Ask Severus to give you the notes. I've got to go."
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Nothing like a bit of self-isolation to give you writing time….even if that self-isolation is on a very small boat with a five-year-old.
Keep safe.
Cas
