A/N: I know Snape is slow in making an appearance here—at the risk of sounding like George R. R. Martin—he is coming. Snape will be here before the week is out (as far as the posting schedule goes). Beyond that, I don't want to give spoilers for my own fic. I love you all, thanks for your patience lol
"You know that I can't help myself
Help myself, help myself
I try but I don't do too well
And I know I disappear for days
And it keeps you awake
I almost bend it 'til it breaks"
"A Little Messed Up" – June
September was largely unremarkable.
Hermione returned to Eileen's house a week after learning of her identity with the completed paperwork for the old witch to sign.
These had been submitted to her supervisor, and, after having sat in on several preliminary meetings regarding Eileen Snape's status, Hermione was fairly confident that she'd be recommended for permanent placement.
There had been a small amount of fuss about her case, but after it had been established that she was both a long-standing victim of domestic abuse, by a muggle partner, and that she had lived the majority of her life outside of the magical diaspora, and indeed could not have practiced magic since having given her wand away, it was decided that there was no practicable way for the old divorcee to support herself, particularly in the world of wizards.
She was to be a ward of the Ministry, until either her passing, or until some far-off member of the Prince clan wanted to claim her (and according to Eileen, this was neither likely, nor possible as far as she knew of her family's continued existence).
With that settled, all that was left was to request certain provisions from Magical Law Enforcement.
Hermione had been loath to tell Harry about Snape's mother.
It wasn't for any material concern over Eileen's safety, but rather for her privacy. She worried that the young man would act, as he ever did, like the determined blood hound he had grown into in adulthood. Always scenting trouble in the air.
Harry had a nose for intrigue—and it hadn't yet steered him wrong. Hermione simply hoped that he wouldn't read any subtext into why Eileen had emerged from hiding when she had.
The woman herself had cleared up that small question when they had finalized the paperwork.
The muggles had evidently switched to a computerised system only very recently. A stupid error. That was all it took. A stupid error, and a woman who was too disempowered to fight for her own livelihood: and "like magic" Eileen had sarcastically said, her housing of thirty years was no longer hers.
She'd taken the last of her small allowance, whatever she could wear and pack into the smallest knapsack she could construct for herself: her prized teacup, a stack of moulding sweaters and frocks, fifty years old each, and some photographs, she'd said. That was all she could manage to keep.
Hermione could scarcely understand how the witch could survive with so little, even mentally.
The very idea of losing valuable resources had her clutching and holding her purple beaded bag to her chest with searing anxiety.
It'd been almost ten years since she'd been on the run in the woods, but she'd never once allowed herself to unpack the very essentials out of her hold-all. What if I need them?
What if she lost her flat? What would she do without her tent? No, she hadn't used it since '98, but what if?
Evidently, Eileen knew "what if." She'd taken her last few bank notes, paid for a train to London from Birmingham, and had, in essence, turned herself over to the wizards. Without knowing whether she was walking into a situation in which she'd be exposed as the mother of a Death Eater, or whether showing her face would lead to her ex-husband finding her, in some capacity.
It was Eileen's bravery, her willingness to do that which clearly terrified her, that allowed Hermione to begin writing the short memo to her friend, requesting they meet for lunch sometime soon.
If Eileen felt comfortable exposing herself for help, coming to Hermione and broader wizarding-kind at large, just for sanctuary, the least she could do was to ensure that she got the proper protection from any Death Eaters that might want to take revenge against Severus Snape's family.
That was how the young witch found herself parked at a cast iron table outside an eatery in Croydon near the end of September. There was yet a frisson of heat in the air, though mornings and evenings were beginning to turn crisp.
She'd not been waiting long, though she'd had time to put an order in at the café already and had emerged with a plastic clamshell of discouraged looking greens and an exorbitantly over-embellished (and overpriced) cappuccino. The artful dips and swirls her barista had painstakingly laboured over were ruined in an instant when she took a sip: all of the perfectly laid foam was now a moustache on her downy upper lip.
Ten quid for thirty seconds of loveliness. That was city living for you.
Her oldest friend approached her while she was otherwise occupied, cleaning her face.
"'Lo there, 'Mione!"
She dipped her face down low, wiping at it furiously, while her arm—still as if it had a mind of its own after all of these years out of the classroom—shot up and waved him down. After a moment of dabbing at her cappuccino-stache, she joined her arm with her voice in hailing him over.
Harry greeted her briefly, where they exchanged the pleasantries she was beginning to associate with strained adult interactions, and then excused himself into the café to place his own order.
"Bloody starving," he'd explained in short, "Ginny's got her hands tied up with the boys, and I had a case call in at three in the fucking morning. Haven't had time to get anything in yet," he'd said, patting his lean stomach.
He emerged moments later with two to-go cups of strong, black tea and a pre-wrapped corn and tuna sandwich, balanced carefully in the crook of his elbow.
Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Are those any good?" she asked, giving a dubious look at the sandwich.
"I didn't want to wait on something hot." He replied, sitting and immediately removing the cellophane.
Hermione merely shrugged, "I brought biscuits for afters."
"MMmmyou're a lah-uf saver, 'Mione," the Deputy Head tried to say, around mouthfuls of tuna and mayo.
His friend wrinkled her small nose. "Really Harry," she said, discreetly passing over a small pile of napkins, "you're getting worse than Ron, now."
"That's what Ginny says, too," he grinned, smacking his lips noisily.
"I don't really have the time," he continued, still scarfing down the sandwich as quickly as he could stuff it in his mouth, "I haven't taken a lunch in... fuck... in years." Finally, he wiped his mouth. "And when I'm home, I don't even have time to feed myself—not with James firing mashed peas off the walls." He started in on the tea, withdrawing six sugar packs and doctoring each brew with three apiece.
Harry Potter had grown enormously since 1998. Not only in physical size, but as a person as well. Hermione remained proud to call the man a friend.
The Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement was a man of medium height (though he had grown substantially since his school days) and a sturdy build. He'd never reached the levels of bulkiness that Ron seemed to naturally drift toward, but he'd widened out to become an adult that other adult wizards might take seriously in a late-night brawl.
His black hair, ever mussed, was beginning to creep back up along his temples, and Hermione was certain that she saw a few salt and pepper specks emerging around his ears. He still looked young—after all he was only twenty-six—but he'd aged faster than either of his best friends. A likely combination of his genetics, and, Hermione guessed, the considerable amount of stress he suffered on a day-to-day basis.
She could only compare him to Ron, really. Even as both of them had two children apiece, and stressful, responsibility laden jobs to boot: Harry was clearly more tired, more worn down by the day to day exercises he participated in.
"You said you were woken up at three last night?" Hermione asked, mostly for the sake of conversation if for no other reason. She had speared a limp piece of carrot with her plastic fork and was mechanically forcing herself to eat the uninspired veg.
"Hah! No, I was already up. I was called in at three—and now Ginny'll be sore at me when I do finally make it home." He said, rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses. "Albus was fussing all night, and he wouldn't go down—and then I had to leave her with him all morning." His face was a mask of regret, but also exhaustion.
"I'm sorry to hear it, maybe I could take the boys sometime..."
Harry snorted. "You don't want to. Trust me, you'll be mental after a day of it."
"They're not so bad!"
"No, of course not," Harry continued, "I love my boys. But I don't know if you're cut out for that nonsense."
Hermione frowned, feeling somehow slighted, but not sure what her friend meant in the most explicit sense. "You could let me try, you know. At least you'd get a break."
"Yeah..." Harry murmured, around another bite of sandwich. "Yeah, I know Ginny's been wanting to go on holiday to Ibiza..."
"You should go!" Hermione interrupted. "You haven't gone away just the two of you since your honeymoon."
Harry sighed, all of the energy he had blown into their meeting with seeming to melt away before her eyes. "I know I should take her to Ibiza, 'Mione, and I know you say you're fine watching Jamie and Al, but... I don't know if you realize how different it is to watch our kids for a couple of hours versus... overnight, you know? Or for a couple of days." He took another careful sip at his tea. "I dunno. Maybe Molly could—"
"Harry James Potter! I don't know whether to be outraged or hurt," she forced him to match gazes with her. "You really don't think I have what it takes to keep up with your kids for a week—"
"It's not about—! It's not about keeping up with them, Hermione, it's about... it's about having patience with them, isn't it? You're not the most patient person in the world, and kids are just... they can be dumb sometimes." He finished lamely. "Kids can be dumb and, well... you don't like dumb, do you?" The question was clearly rhetorical.
It was common knowledge.
Hermione Granger didn't do dumb. Or suffer it for any length of time, willingly.
Something about the conversation felt like it was ripping a gaping wound in her heart, but she couldn't quite figure out why. She felt powerless to fight what, she knew, was likely a somewhat well-informed impression of her. It was feeble, but the final thing she had to say to her oldest friend was nothing more than a very weak protest.
"Kids aren't 'dumb' though... I know that. I know they're just kids, Harry."
He sighed, and she could tell he was sad to say no as well. "I know you mean well, Hermione, and I'll ask Ginny—I can do that much." What he didn't say, what he struggled not to say, still floated between them.
Hermione Granger shouldn't watch his kids because, like the reviled spinsters of old, she was too impatient, too results-oriented, too staid and stuffy to suffer little children come unto her happily.
Hermione Granger shouldn't watch his children because... Well. Possibly, for the same reasons, Hermione Granger shouldn't be a mother.
Of course, he didn't say so. But he needn't have. She'd had round-about conversations each with Molly, Ginny, Hannah, and her own mother to the same effect. "But you're so smart! You wouldn't want to waste your time all day—cooking and overseeing toddlers playing: you'd kill yourself, Hermione!"
All of them had said it. In one way or another. As if that were some sort of compliment.
She didn't think ill of them over it. The comments had been meant sincerely. Perhaps it was some attempt at ameliorating the pain they imagined she felt over being alone.
She wasn't hurting terribly over being alone, though... or at least she didn't think she was.
True, she'd never had much luck in the romance arena, but she'd had opportunities.
They'd simply never... gone anywhere.
The men she'd seen, both the summer before leaving Great Britain and during her stay in Australia, had seemed mostly content to see her biweekly— more if she was lucky, but there was always something that stopped the relationship short of becoming a committed pair.
What was it, she wondered, that brought two normally level-headed people into the shared delusion, the folie à deux, that was being in love?
Was it excitement? She'd had that. She'd been taken to some truly lovely restaurants in Muggle Sydney on one weekend trip with a former beau, early on after the war.
Was it the ability to relax? Not likely—if anything, relaxing on a beach in Bondi, an activity she was intimately familiar with, hadn't cemented her relationship one warm December in her third year of University.
She'd enjoyed her holiday with the blond graduate student she'd dated on-and-off for the better part of four months... but ultimately had found that she didn't enjoy the time she spent with him where they were obliged to speak to one another. Laying out in the sun with him? That she could do—but to talk to him?
Hermione shuddered in remembrance: he wasn't a bad guy. But he had been boring. A bit childish. Smart enough, but without... without the penetrative sensemaking that Hermione preferred to engage in herself.
When the alternative was company that taxed her patience, why shouldn't she enjoy her solitude? And she was never truly alone, anyway...
She saw clients all day, attended to their needs, be they physical or emotional: she could cope with the most heartbreaking degradation of human mental faculties into some sort of pre-conscious state—the devastating consequences of Luenfelders'—and that wasn't even to speak of the other states of being she witnessed come and go from her care at Waldweirness!
To think that she would be too impatient with an innocent little baby—whether for making noise, or producing full nappies— or a toddler, for flinging peas and demanding attention... did they not understand what she did every day?
She expected and demanded sense and rationality in most adults she chose to spend her time with, particularly outside of work, but she was capable of differentiation. Babies, small children, the impaired at any stage in life? She had almost unlimited patience for them.
After all, what else was she going to do with her time? Being present with them, while they explored the world, in the case of the children, or tried to maintain meaningful interactions with it, in the case of the adults: not a moment of it was time wasted, to her mind.
Why be impatient when you're right where you ought to be at that moment? It took as long as it took—whether to master using a spoon or to learn how to dress oneself. There was nothing more important, she understood, than the most basic building blocks of how a human being structured their time, interacted with their insular world. If the foundation was shaky, so too would everything be that was unfortunate enough to be built on top.
And then she was blessed enough to go home—where the man who understood her need for absolute silence best greeted her and demanded his dinner, (cubed rump steak, as ever). In return she was graced with his orange, purring warmth while she ate her own supper and pored over subjects that interested her... Or, more recently, knitted, while watching telly.
The urgency of her research had seemed to wane. Passing subjects came and went, but—the steady march of Luenfeldters' was unmovable. That had been one of her final conclusions at University.
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if someone could invent a cure? For any number of things, she was sure. Not her this time, though. This was being in the thick of it in a different way.
There was no justice or injustice in whomever was unfortunate enough to develop wizarding dementia. But there was humanity to be found in interceding with the course of the disease. By supporting the family, or the suffering individual directly.
And that was living, she decided. Living was getting down and dirty with the unfairness of life—the unfortunate consequences—rather than trying, in vain, to prevent it outright.
Come what may, Hermione Granger would greet Life on its own terms.
That was why, rather than take offense that Harry and Ginny would worry so much about her watching their children for a few days, she only shrugged and thanked him.
"I know Al's just a baby, I get not being comfortable with me taking him, but it could also be that I watch Jaime for you. Maybe Arthur and Molly could take Al,' and then it wouldn't be such an imposition."
Harry seemed to think on the preposition for a moment before grinning widely. "That could work," He chomped loudly on his sandwich for a short stretch. "Yeah, that'd be great—Jaime's a whirlwind of course, but I think you guys could have some fun together."
"It'll be a blast, Harry—I promise! We'll have loads of fun together!" she smiled, already thinking of items she could pick up on her next trip to the craft store.
"What about your job? You can't exactly take time off—"
Hermione gave an almighty snort, "You're one to talk."
To his credit, Harry grimaced. "Yeah, I'm no good about that, am I?" He posed, sheepishly.
"It's not like Hannah or Ron take time off either—and they're up at four in the morning every day!"
It was Harry's turn to snort. "Seriously. Can you imagine back in Hogwarts, trying to get Ron up at four? If you'd told me he'd do that every day, willingly, no less, I'd have said you were barmy."
The witch smiled brightly and shrugged. "We all grow up, Harry."
"Yeah. Yeah we do." He agreed, swirling the tea around the bottom of the first cup. "I still need to know what we'd do with Jaime during the day, though. Sure you could drop him with Molly too, but that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"
"We'll figure it out. It doesn't have to be immediately, after all. Just let me know when you might like to take Ginny away, and we'll figure out particulars then."
He smiled back noncommittally, but then again, Hermione had been somewhat expecting that. This wasn't the first time she had offered to take James for a few days to give the Potters a break, but it was the first time that Harry seemed to be considering her offer in a serious light.
"I'm sorry to be brisk, 'Mione, but I have to get back to the main office here soon." Harry leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, putting himself more level with his much shorter friend. "I'd love to catch up more, but it'll have to be another time. We could plan a supper, and maybe then I could talk to Ginny with you, and we can figure out a good plan—"
"That wasn't why I wanted to meet today, Harry—though I'd love to do dinner."
"Oh! Erm... what was it then?"
"Well... I actually needed you in a more official capacity."
Her friend chuckled. "Old folks giving you trouble?"
Hermione only smiled, her fondness for her friend growing, even years after having known one another. "No, nothing like that."
"Blimey, Hermione, what is it? Who've I gotta beat up for you, then?" Harry's peridot eyes twinkled at her; his mirth felt contagious.
"A client of mine needs additional security."
Her friend quickly sobered. "Your warding has always been great, 'Mione..."
"No, she's in considerably more danger—potentially—than I can take sole responsibility for."
"Potentially?"
Hermione gave him a pleading look. "That's... that's all I can say for now. Unless you'd like to meet her."
Harry sighed and drew his hands down his weary face. "If I'm using departmental resources it has to be on record, you understand that."
"I didn't say it couldn't be on record! I just... I just want you to meet with her first—so I can explain things—and then perhaps you'll understand."
The Auror's eyes narrowed. "Am I going to regret this? Is she some criminal?"
"Nothing like that, I promise. I don't know that she's done anything criminal at all."
Harry leaned back in the metal bistro chair, he surveyed his friend with a calculating look. "Then I'm afraid I don't understand. What's there to explain?"
Sighing, Hermione leaned forward and held Harry's gaze. She placed both hands palms-down on the table for emphasis. "I'm asking for you to trust me here, Harry. When you meet her, not only will you understand, I think, but I'm sure you'll actually agree."
"Agree with what!? You're being awfully shifty about this, 'Mione."
"That she needs protection. That's all. Just that. Just some extra wards. I'm not asking for Aurors posted in Waldweirness or anything. Perhaps a foe glass, or dark detectors..."
"Just who is she afraid of?"
Hermione granted Harry a somber look. "Death Eaters."
The Auror snorted incredulously. "All of them were wiped out years ago! Aethelfromm had anyone with a Dark Mark executed, you know that."
"Sympathizers then. You know as well as I do that even with how vicious Aethelfromm's purge was that it couldn't have gotten them all." She frowned, warming to her topic. "I'm not sure how you could even suggest that they're certainly all gone—some of them were thought to have escaped to the continent, and Harry James Potter—I know for a fact that you've caught enough cattle-branded morons to prove that the purge wasn't entirely effective."
"Fewer than ever." Harry mumbled, somewhat embarrassed. "And there's no proof they were Death Eaters during the war. Probably did it to themselves, later."
"That may be, but there are clearly still cells that band together under the Dark Mark. Who cares whether Voldemort's still involved anymore: true believers certainly don't. It was never about Riddle. It was about the movement. It was about the Blacks' motto: 'Toujours Pur,' and the Lestranges' motto... goddamn it, what was it again?" she asked rhetorically, wracking her brains to remember.
Her friend supplied it for her readily. "Corvus oculum corvi non eruit."
Hermione glanced up at him, surprised that he could remember it so easily.
Harry shrugged. "I've lived in Grimmauld Place long enough to remember the tapestries."
"But yes, though. You're right, that was it," the social worker amended, "'A crow will not pull out the eye of another crow.'"
"What has that got to do with new Death Eaters?"
"Pure-blooded solidarity. Not all of the families were involved in the war in the nineties, and plenty of them didn't even sympathize with families like the Malfoys and the Lestranges, but Aethelfromm treated them all like criminals after the war. They had to prove that they weren't Death Eaters, rather than the burden of proof being on the Ministry to prove that they were."
Harry didn't reply, he simply waved his hand, signaling that he was following. He'd started on his second tea by now.
"Don't you remember? I'd understand if you didn't, the press was having a field day with you at the time—but don't you remember that they called in all of the pureblooded male heirs for questioning? Even when they fought with the Order against Voldemort? They took Neville in for questioning for Merlin's sake!"
Harry blushed uncomfortably "The department let him go again, after a bit—"
"They kept him for questioning for three days, Harry."
"They didn't take Arthur Weasley in," he groused.
"No, they didn't. And I'm not entirely sure why, but I could hazard a guess: Ron and I were right there alongside you, and Molly killed Bellatrix Lestrange. You were a very public item with the youngest Weasley daughter—it wouldn't have looked good to question the Weasley family's motives."
"I'm not exactly sure what your point is, Hermione. Nothing came of the questioning."
"That's where you're wrong—" she cut in. "Anyone with a Dark Mark was executed. This we know. I left before, but I know you were there when they killed Draco Malfoy and his parents,"
"Yes, and Rosier, and Yaxley, and Dolohov—" Harry began to list off on his fingers.
"All of the old guard, yes." Hermione paused to gather her thoughts, "So we know that the line of Death Eaters created by Voldemort ended with them. And Aethelfromm placed strictures and taxes on their families and inheritances—which leads me to understand that they no longer have the power they used to have."
"No," Harry agreed, "They're pretty well hobbled."
"Right, so where does the line pick back up? That's the question I'm proposing to answer. So, anyone with a Dark Mark was executed—and this we can understand," she struggled, finding it difficult to justify killing even monsters. "But then what did Aethelfromm do? He demanded fealty from the other Pureblooded families. They, exclusively, had to pay the taxes he levied to fix Hogwarts and Gringotts, they had to make public apologies—they were barred from marrying anyone else that was also a pureblood."
"I'm having a hard time seeing the problem, Hermione: why should they get to continue living the way they did? It caused problems."
"It's a problem because before the taxes and public humiliation they didn't hate muggleborns or half-bloods, but now they do! Now they feel justified in hating muggle-ness, modernity— whatever we want to call it—because being pureblooded was made into an example of backwardness and hatred and was posed as a foil to... to the new good, to the muggle. There's no inherent problem with two people meeting and falling in love, is there?"
Harry shook his head no.
"Then why can't two purebloods marry anymore?"
"It's to prevent arranged marriages, 'Mione—you know that."
"Yeah, but it's not clear that all, or even most pureblooded marriages were arranged." She deadpanned. "What if Arthur and Molly couldn't have been married? Does that strike you as fair? Do you think they only married each other because they wanted to 'continue living like purebloods and causing problems?'"
Harry looked flustered, so Hermione took a deep breath and attempted to reel the conversation back to something approaching a friendly communication again: "They're mad. That's what I'm saying. They're mad at being treated like criminals when many weren't, and I think the young ones don't remember anything about what... what the real Death Eaters did," she said with a grimace, rubbing her scarred forearm, "To them, being a Death Eater is being able to not have to apologize for being pureblooded. So now you have the dumb ones going and branding themselves again."
"Well, they'll find a flash of green light at the end for their trouble," her friend grumbled.
"Yes." Hermione didn't argue against his invective. Whether newly minted Death Eaters in the post-Voldemort age did or did not deserve execution she couldn't entirely decide on, but the facts were unavoidable: a Dark Mark was a death sentence.
"I'm still not sure what your point was in regaling me with the history: history I already knew, by the by." The Auror spat, with some asperity.
"I think it's radicalising them. Treating them like that in the aftermath, I mean. And all of the extra laws and punishments for the war— how long is that supposed to go on for? How long are the families that weren't involved supposed to atone for their cousins who were? One generation? Two? Or for the foreseeable future? Perhaps even forever? I just don't think it's helpful."
Hermione leaned on one hand, propped up on the café table, and stared out into the street, her eyes tracking the cars as they zoomed past. "I understand wanting vengeance, I do. I understand being... being angry" her hand clawed in midair for emphasis, "about what purebloods have done. I carry scars that remind me every morning what hatred looks like—and it's become remarkable that now I see the seeds of hatred manifesting again... Taking root again. That vengeance doesn't pay out in the end, Harry. When we're hurt," she palmed her heart, "and we decide the only remedy is to share the pain back in equal measure onto whomever we think caused it— you'd think it'd make you feel better, right? But it doesn't," she winced. "It doesn't— I mean, when I've ever done that it's only ever made me feel like... Like a sadist. Like I'm being terribly cruel."
Harry stared at her, sadness in his gaze. "Oh, come on, when have you ever done something like what you're describing, Hermione? You're practically an angel—"
"Lavender Brown? Sixth year? Marietta Edgecombe, in fifth?" Hermione asked, meeting his eyes. "I know you want to see the best in me—and for me to see the best in me too, Harry, but that isn't what this is really about. If I had a chance, to do what Bellatrix did to me back to her: it wouldn't feel like justice." Hermione shook her head, softly.
"Let me put it this way. For the past thousand or more years the purebloods have hated the muggles and any muggle intrusion into wizarding space, right?"
"More or less, yeah," Harry agreed, sipping at his disposable cup.
"And we learned in History of Magic that that was a learned aversion: that Wizards self-segregated because they were being burned or murdered in large numbers, yes?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"So their initial aversion to muggles was due to a profound fear of violence— which you could say I feel—that your mum felt—at the prospect of being around certain purebloods who sympathized with Voldemort. So, they changed their own fear of violence into a defensively aggressive stance toward muggles and muggleborns. Which, ironically but understandably, caused muggleborns to fear the purebloods.
"My fear is, that the wheel is turning again, Harry. That these specific taxes and laws against purebloods will make them feel like they have to be on the defensive, and after a while, that will get frustrating for them; we could see them lash out again, we could see a whole new Voldemort. And for what? Getting even? Making them pay?" Hermione shook her head and caused her curls to bounce around in an almost complete circle.
Her Auror friend looked troubled. He was slouched, his fingers drumming impatiently on the metal café table between them. Finally, he straightened and met her gaze, "I'm not saying you're completely off base, Mione, I'm really not. I think that's really far-fetched though. A Death Eater is a Death Eater is a Death Eater, in my book. I just don't think their reasons for joining would be that different: of course, they want a new Voldemort—these are just the ones that missed the boat on its first... Well... Second launch."
Hermione's eyes were like sun-kissed amber, alight with inner fire. "Severus Snape's reasons seemed somewhat different."
Her friend groaned and sunk to the table "You would go and bring him into this,"
"Well, you went and named your son for him, I think he's owed at least some consideration in this discussion."
"Besides, we're talking about new Death Eaters."
"Yeah, but it's worth thinking about old patterns if you want to have any hope of understanding new ones."
Harry shrugged somewhat helplessly. "I'm really late, 'Mione. I'm not meaning to whinge and beg off, but this wasn't really what I had time for today—"
"Oh!" Hermione's face was the picture of surprise, "Oh Harry! I'm so, so, sorry! Really, Harry, I didn't mean to carry on, but it's about that official business..."
"How was all of that in any way related to official business?" He griped, frowning at the brunette witch with consternation.
"Do you have the time, this afternoon? For a house call?"
"Only if it's official business, Hermione! I told you—"
"It is! It will be. You'll want to do this, I assure you."
"Fine," the black-haired wizard huffed. He stood abruptly from his seat and began brushing crumbs off of his corduroy jacket with brisk motions. "Fine... just, where is it? Waldweirness?"
"Yeah, in the Ministry housing."
Harry gave an impatient sigh. "Don't you already have security measures there? Magical signature checks and the like?"
"My client doesn't have a wand, she can't be keyed into certain types of wards."
"Doesn't have a—no, nevermind. Nevermind at all. Let's get on, if we must."
Hermione could read her oldest friend's irritation; it was flowing off of him in waves. If she didn't know him as well as she did she might have been nervous, but Harry Potter was a reasonable man. She felt quite sure that as soon as he met with Eileen himself, he would drop the pretense of having more important things to do.
They began to walk together toward the most secluded apparition spot: a shadowed alley under a terrace and a few steps behind a flower stall.
Harry was still simmering in his indignation. "Just tell me this, Hermione, if nothing else: why doesn't this woman have a wand?"
"She gave it away."
"To who?" The Auror was practically sputtering now, incapable of imaging what might bring a witch or wizard to part, willingly, from their wand.
"Whom, Harry. She gave it to her son. To take to Hogwarts."
At this, Harry seemed to be more understanding. "Ah... er... is he still there now?"
The question nearly stopped Hermione in her tracks. She had almost forgotten that Harry didn't know whose mother she was taking him to, "What, her son? No! No, he's... He's dead."
"Mmm. That's unfortunate." Her old friend muttered with sincerity. He was, perhaps, thinking of his own sons at home.
"It is, yes." She replied, trying her best to evade more penetrating inquiries.
They were nearing the apparition point now, and they briefly joined, locking elbows, to side-long apparate to the deceptive wire fencing that marked the entrance to Waldweirness' Ministry housing units.
The short-lived moment harkened back to their adventures together, apparating across the English countryside, almost ten years earlier, and Hermione felt certain that the warm glow of their friendship was still strong, even now, even as they had grown apart.
She only hoped that Harry would maintain his newer, more professional demeanor with her uniquely sensitive client, rather than acting with the rash abandon he had been infamous for in his younger years.
The chain link fence creaked open at the tap of her wand and the pair entered the seemingly derelict factory grounds.
The strong glamour that produced the impression of faltering concrete and rebar wavered indecisively before their eyes before falling to the underlying reality that was the Ministry brick houses.
Hermione led her friend to the end of the row and down another alley, smack in the middle of the development.
"Oh! I'd been meaning to ask—how's that Christopher chap doing?"
"I'm sorry?" Hermione was scarcely listening, too absorbed with her anxiety over meeting with Snape's mother.
"He'd gotten lost? Few months back?"
"Oh!" She'd almost forgotten. The hullabaloo surrounding Christopher's not infrequent disappearances were one of the main sources for her standing relationship with the Aurory. "He's... He's as well as you could imagine, Harry. I can't exactly give any more detail than that,"
"Yeah, yeah, I know—"
"He's okay though, Harry." Hermione gave a small smile. "I'm sure he'd appreciate that you'd asked after him."
In fact, Hermione wasn't sure that Christopher would have acknowledged Harry's interest at all, but she felt certain that her friend's heart was firmly in the right place, and that he only wanted to know out of concern for her charge's welfare.
Harry only nodded. He at least did understand the constraints of confidentiality.
Finally, they were mounting the steps to Eileen's small front stoop. Unlike many of the other houses, whose occupants had had time to settle in, she had no ornamentation of any kind to signify that an individual of note resided on the premise.
Some of the other residents had conjured chairs or hammocks overlooking the street, and on nicer days (today was threatening rain) they would often call out to her on her rounds from their stoops: and sometimes her duties were as straightforward as passing out biscuits and groceries directly into their hands without having to stop inside for a longer visit.
There were some tenants that had cultivated small gardens on the meager space the small steps provided—indeed, one of Eileen's neighbor's houses looked like a small rainforest, with hanging macrame planters swinging from every available foot of the small awning, and trunks of larger trees growing out the windows, which the witch who tended them never shut. Indeed, her affection for her plants was so committed that it appeared the house had a head of green hair (though in truth, they were branches and leaves) sprouting from it.
Next to this house, Eileen's appeared most humble.
"Here we are," the small witch mumbled to herself, jogging up the steps. She didn't allow herself a moment to think about it anymore than she already had but simply rapped her knuckles against the wood grain with brisk force.
Harry loitered behind her, shifting from foot to foot. They didn't have to wait for long, for the door creaked open slowly and Hermione could see Eileen's drawn face pressed between the frame and the door (which she had only opened up an inch or two).
One black eye peeked querulously at them from inside the house, followed by a thin nose, and a tightly drawn mouth. Naturally, she first caught sight of Hermione.
"Oh—it's you." The door opened a few inches further, allowing them a glimpse of Eileen's full face. She evidently hadn't caught sight of Harry yet, but he must have seen her, for Hermione heard from behind her a sharp intake of breath.
This got Mrs. Snape's attention.
The woman quickly drew the door back and tried to close it in front of herself. "And who's this?!"
"Do you remember, Eileen, a few weeks back, when I said I'd bring an Auror out to ward your house for you?"
"Might've given me some warning, girl!"
The younger witch sighed a very put-upon sigh. "I know that, I should've done. I'm sorry—but Harry had some time today, and it might've been weeks before I could have gotten someone else to come out—"
The door opened to them and Eileen Snape stood before them, in all of her diminutive glory, limned from the back in light from the glow of her (newly enchanted) house lamps.
She glowered at them for a few awkward moments, neither of the younger adults knowing quite how to proceed, before Harry, his professionalism kicking in, at last attempted to introduce himself.
"Erm, hello—"
"You're Harry Potter." Eileen supplied for him, looking unimpressed.
"I—yes—"
"I know you from the papers. You look the same as you did." Her arms were crossed against her bosom. She had managed to render both of them momentarily speechless, and quite embarrassed besides.
"Well, come in! There's no use in loitering on the stoop," Eileen sighed, ushering them over the threshold.
The two friends followed the older woman into the house as she made her way toward the kitchen at the back.
They trailed a few steps behind, but with this small lag, Hermione was able to observe that Eileen's sitting room (originally furnished with a single small settee and a side table opposite the fireplace), had been added to. She spotted an assortment of small stones on the mantle next to a grouping of framed photographs. On the settee itself was piled a small mountain of wool yarn, the same Hermione had brought by since her last visit, connected to a gauzy shawl that draped, unfinished and mid-row, between two long, aluminium needles.
Eileen had somehow managed to procure a radio set, which took the center spot above the fireplace, where a mantle clock might have otherwise been. The soft sounds of wizarding wireless floated throughout the house, currently a guest talk show of some sort, and gave the impression that the home was less empty and lonely than it truly was.
It was clean enough. Even in the soft midafternoon light there weren't many dust motes floating about: but nothing could lessen the impression of emptiness. Eileen Snape was a woman of very few possessions.
The three entered the kitchen one right after another. Harry finally seemed to remember himself.
"I... er... I ought to more formally introduce myself, madam, my apologies..." He addressed himself to Eileen's back, which she had turned on them in order to prepare a kettle, "though you already know my name... I am Harry Potter, yes, but I am also the Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement. I'd be pleased to be of service to you," he held aloft his right hand to Eileen as soon as she had turned back around.
After a moment's indecision, she grasped it with her own pale boney one and shook.
"Eileen."
"Eileen, yes—I'd be pleased to be of service to you," he rephrased with his highest possible level of courtesy.
Harry's demeanor had shifted since seeing the woman at the door. He had seemingly matured before Hermione's eyes into the very picture of responsibility and respectability. Hermione could still hardly be sure whether he knew with whom he was speaking or if this was simply how he might treat anyone.
Eileen's cold black eyes bore into Harry's sympathetic green ones. Goading him in a way not dissimilar to the way her son once had.
"Eileen Snape." Their hands still grasped; Eileen's tightened into a vice grip. Her eyes narrowing into flinty pieces of charcoal in challenge.
Harry, to his infinite credit, didn't react at all, but only shook her hand more firmly. That seemed to answer the question of whether he recognized the old witch. (Though Hermione could not have known, he had indeed seen the woman a number of times in their professor's memories).
"Madam Snape—of course."
Finally, Eileen released his hand and spun about to set the kettle on the front-most hob, which she felt grateful to have been able to ignite (given that, by law, most wizards and witches couldn't use magic until they turned seventeen, magical households in muggle cities often would use gas powered cookers that anyone might operate).
"You look older than I thought you would," she murmured with her back turned. Her shoulders were stooped, and though her eyes moments earlier had shown some sign of a fight, she now looked entirely sad once more. "I thought..."
Harry said nothing, perhaps waiting for the woman to continue. Hermione had expected he might have taken offense to such commentary, however, he was as still as he might have been for a funeral. His hands were clasped in front of him, his posture straight and correct.
"I thought you'd be like a boy, somehow. I never got to... I never got to see him as old as you are now—it seems impossible, for you to be older than he was, when I last saw him."
She didn't have to say who he was, everyone in the room knew, and everyone knew that everyone else knew too. It was an odd moment. Where the novelty of two new people meeting one another was subsumed by the truth that they already knew far too much about one another: and that much of that shared history was unfortunate.
It did not, in fact, feel so very much different from a funeral. Impossibly, it felt to all of them as if they were only there because of one man: brought together on this morning, in spite of the sheer improbability of it all, by someone who had died nearly ten years earlier.
It took a moment for Harry to cast about for something appropriate to say to a mother who clearly was still mourning the son she never got to know.
"I don't think Professor Snape was ever unfortunate enough to have as many grey hairs as I have now, Madam Snape."
It was like an olive branch.
Eileen took it.
She smiled slightly at the floor, almost a shy smile. Soft, and sad, but not unpleasant and waved them toward the two chairs. Hermione was obliged to conjure another chair, and another mug besides, before all three of them could sit down to take tea together.
For several awkward moments there was silence, such that one could hear the birds outside and the soft whirring and creaking of the house as it settled.
After several beats, when it finally seemed that Eileen had nothing to say, and that Hermione might not find her voice in time, Harry addressed the table:
"I hope you'll allow me to get straight to business—mind you, I'm grateful for the tea, Madam."
Eileen only nodded and bade him continue.
"Hermione said you have concerns over your safety here. I'll admit, before I knew who you were I was a bit skeptical, but at this point," Harry coloured slightly in embarrassment, "at this point I think we can all agree that you make a rather obvious target. Do you know if anyone knows that you're here? That you're alive?"
Eileen shook her dark head without a word. It seemed that she didn't know exactly how she felt she should speak to the Auror: the presumptive consequence and cause of her son's bad deeds and decisions.
"It won't take long for them to know," Harry continued. "I don't know what kind of organisational structure there is left, anyone who joined along with your son is probably dead by now, but I do suspect that the newer Death Eaters seem to view the Professor as a reverse martyr of sorts..."
"How do you mean, boy?"
Harry coloured up to his ears. "I wasn't able to clear his name, Madam. He is still, in the eyes of the Ministry, a Death Eater. But the other Death Eaters... they'll know he betrayed their Lord. His name may have become a bit of a rallying cry used to scare snitches and would-be informers. While Hermione and I were there to see him go—"
Eileen gasped in alarm and glanced at Hermione with a look that screamed betrayal.
"I wasn't sure that you knew—we never did recover a body... the higher ups maintained him as a wanted suspect in the murder of Albus Dumbledore—against my wishes. Against all our wishes. And against evidence to the contrary."
"You were... you were there?" the grieving mother asked, with an accompanied groan of abject misery. She turned to her social worker, "You were there, and you didn't say so—why?"
Hermione, to her credit, grimaced with shame. "At first, I didn't know, Eileen—remember? For the longest time you were 'Nora' to me,"
"But what of your last visit? Or the time before that? Why didn't you TELL ME?" The older woman all but shrieked, her voice raising at the very end.
Even yelling in anger, Eileen seemed frail and unthreatening. More a pity than any kind of dangerous predator.
Hermione took a deep breath and looked the distraught mother in the eyes (a more difficult endeavor than you might imagine, given how the woman seemed to avoid all eye contact).
"I'll tell you anything you want to know, right now, right here. Harry and I—we can tell you how the Professor—"
"Severus!" Eileen insisted.
"How Sn—How Severus died." There were a few beats of silence while Eileen seemed to consider the offer. "I'm afraid we can't tell you what happened to him after what we saw. We'd had to leave for another part of the battle."
"Was it... was it quick?" Eileen breathed in a hushed whisper. "Was it at least the killing curse? Was he in pain?"
Hermione and Harry exchanged mournful glances that seemed to answer the question more directly than words could. Eileen sensed this as well and shook with repressed tears. Clearly, her son had died in a monstrous amount of pain.
Harry cleared his throat and looked to his hands, which where gripped tight around the plain ceramic mug. He took several moments to compose his answer.
"Hermione and I... and our friend Ron—we were all behind some boxes, in the Shrieking Shack,"
"The where?" Eileen broke in, confused.
"Oh yeah, I suppose that would have been built after you left school,"
"Well, it was for Remus," Hermione reminded him gently, with a hand on his shoulder.
Harry nodded sadly. Mourning, still, for their werewolf friend. "Yeah, it was for Remus. He went to school with your son—same year. It's this old house, on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, all boarded up—"
"Oh, the old Humphries estate, you mean?"
Harry glanced at Hermione, "Is it?"
Hermione only shrugged in response. "Must be—I guess it may have been there before Remus came to school, and then they must have started calling it the Shrieking Shack because of him."
"Mmmm. Well, if the old Humphries estate is at the end of the lane, to the east of Hogsmeade—"
Eileen nodded in confirmation.
"If that's it," Harry continued, "That's where we were. There's a tunnel, a tunnel that Dumbledore made, that goes from a tree on the Hogwarts grounds to the shack. And in front of the entrance to that tunnel, from the shack side, there were stacks of boxes hiding the tunnel: that's where the three of us were."
Harry cleared his throat and took a sip of his third tea of the day.
Hermione, instead, picked up the thread of the story. "The Profes—Severus, was, at that time... well, we believed at least... we thought he was Voldemort's right-hand man—"
Eileen flinched violently at Riddle's assumed moniker.
"Tom called him." Harry finished for her. "He called him to the Shrieking Shack to assist him. And when he got there they spoke for a bit, and the Professor was still trying to convince Riddle that he could be of use to him."
Harry swallowed thickly. "Voldemort... He... He thought the Professor was the owner of the Elder wand—"
Eileen gasped in alarm. "You mean my wand really was-?"
"No!" Hermione rushed in, "No, not your wand. The Professor killed Dumbledore, and Dumbledore had the Elder wand."
Harry nodded. "Your son never mastered the Elder wand though, that's what Voldemort didn't realise. He wasn't there when Dumbledore was killed. Before the Professor cast the curse, Draco Malfoy disarmed Professor Dumbledore. He, Draco, became the wand's master. And almost a year later, I disarmed Malfoy." Harry cleared his throat.
"Tom didn't know any of that. I think... I think at the last moment, Snape knew—he knew what Riddle was thinking, about the wand, you know? I saw in his eyes in that moment; he knew what was coming.
"Voldemort: he had this great big snake—his familiar—Nagini. She was trapped in some kind of magical floating orb. And—" Harry made a flying-and-then-crashing motion with his right arm and hand, almost imitating a plane hurtling into the ground, "He sent the cage onto him. So, his head and shoulders were in it." Harry swallowed thickly.
He didn't have to say what happened after the cage attached itself to their Professor's shoulders.
"Then Riddle went away—to find me, but the Professor he left there on the floor of the shack."
Hermione was crying now, and so was Eileen, but neither made a noise.
"We still didn't know, that he wasn't a Death Eater, you know? But we came out. To see him.
"Even now I don't know why," Harry stared without really seeing into the swirling steam rising from his tea. "I guess... even though he killed Dumbledore... he'd actually saved us so many times... I still don't know why we did, but, we came out and showed ourselves." The young Auror rubbed the back of his neck in vexation.
"He was bleeding terribly, from—" and Harry lifted his head aloft and to the side to expose his jugular "—here," he said, rubbing a hand at the bottom of his throat.
"I'm ashamed to say we didn't stay longer. I'm ashamed to say that we didn't... we didn't try to stop the bleeding." His hands trembled with grief. "The damage was... erm... extensive."
"It took all of his strength, I think, but the last thing he did for us was to give us his memories. Memories about him. About his work for Dumbledore... Memories about... about my mother," Harry gulped around a lump that seemed to have formed in his throat.
"He was gone... by the time you left?" Eileen whispered.
Hermione reached out a hand to lay on top of the elderly woman's arm. "We think he was, Eileen. He had bled so much... I mean—it's hard to say, hard to remember much of what happened that day, but... I think he was gone then." She finished, nodding gently. Perhaps sensing Eileen's mounting anxiety, she added: "It was over in a matter of minutes. I can't say he didn't suffer, but it didn't last a very long time."
"Later on, that night, when I was facing Voldemort, I yelled out about his betrayal, so everyone could hear. I wanted Tom to know. I wanted him to know that Snape had hated him and everything he had stood for."
Harry was staring at the table, rather than either of the witches that he sat with.
"It wasn't enough for the Ministry, no. And by the time we managed to make it back to the Headmaster's office, Snape's—your son's memories had deteriorated in the penseive. But the Death Eaters heard. Riddle heard.
"In light of the threat the remaining Death Eaters may pose to you, I'm not sure what good a few simple devices or wards would actually do. We could provide you with a few dark detectors: to let you know if someone is lying or sneaking about, but those would have to be kept inside your house. They're hardly much good to you for use on the porch. And, the area is too densely populated, and the other residents are too often... er... senile, for me to think I could put up a whole lot of warding. They'd trigger it as often, or more so, than potential threats would."
Harry rubbed his eyes, which had the effect of pushing his glasses up his forehead and into his hairline.
"Our best bet," he said, clearly thinking aloud, "might be to get you your own wand again—"
Eileen was silent but shook her head sadly. There was fear in her eyes.
"Er, Harry—" Hermione, gently broke in, "Mrs. Snape doesn't feel her magic would work for her." At his puzzled glance Hermione tried to send him a message with her eyes that suggested he not push it. Thankfully, the man was no longer the oblivious boy he had once been.
"Ah." Perhaps that was the most tact he was capable of. He looked like he desperately wanted to ask why, but Hermione continued to widen her eyes at him—warding him off. Just in case, she pressed her heel lightly into the toe of his boot.
"Yes," Hermione said, more loudly this time. "Yes, sometimes, it may be common, for our residents to not have the full control they were always used to having, magically." She continued, with as much diplomacy as she could muster.
In truth, it wasn't at all common for a witch or wizard to either lose control entirely of their magic, or to give up practicing it, unless in an advanced stage of senility: but Hermione had her suspicions about the origins of Eileen's anxieties surrounding her own magic.
It was likely less an actual block or inability rather than something psychosomatic: her memories of horrors and beatings surrounding her own powers sufficient enough to try and repress them entirely.
Even if it were possible for Eileen to do magic: Hermione wasn't sure she would trust the results, especially for defensive magic or warding. Without supervision, particularly in the beginning or under duress, Eileen's magic could backfire in spectacular fashion.
In any case, Eileen clearly wasn't inclined to try. The very suggestion had her wringing her hands in her lap and slipping away into a reverie before their eyes.
"We don't have to pursue that option, Mrs. Snape, Harry was just brainstorming." Hermione said softly. Her hand resting on the older woman's forearm.
Harry was now frowning at the table. His green eyes a roiling sea. If Hermione hadn't known the man for almost twenty years, she might have thought he were offended or upset. Instead, she recognized that he seemed to be thinking either very hard, or very far off.
"'Mione, do you remember the orbs from the Department of Mysteries?"
She nodded, and to maintain the civility of the meeting, she rose noiselessly to pour them all more tea. While she was at the cooker, Harry addressed her client.
"Madam Snape, back when we were in fifth year we—and please, don't ask me why or how this was, that'll have to be a story for another time—we found ourselves in the Department of Mysteries. There were plenty of interesting things I could tell you about there, but mostly: we were looking for this... this glass ball. That contained a prophesy."
Eileen was no longer looking at her lap and instead was staring at Harry as he spoke, her head bobbing along to show that she was following.
"Purebloods are familiar with such things, yes. One may contain an enchantment within a piece of solid crystal or glass."
"Good, good. I also know you lived in the muggle world for much of your life: so, I assume you're also familiar with the muggle emergency services number?"
"Nine, nine, nine—"
"Yes. Perfect." Harry rubbed his hands together, his gaze far off. "I'm thinking we could make something... Something you could break—where the enchantment goes off once you break the orb. Just like how the prophesies would play aloud once we broke them," He said with a sheepish grin at Hermione.
Both could remember still how it felt running away through the Department with hundred-foot shelves full of prophesies crashing to the floor behind them, only steps behind.
"Which enchantment are you thinking, Harry?" the younger witch asked as she resumed her seat.
"I'm thinking a patronus: we could set it up to work like a magical emergency number of sorts. Madam Snape," he said, indicating with his hand, "could keep the orbs with her, and if she felt in danger—" he pantomimed throwing an item into the ground. "—she breaks the orb and my stag should come find me. I'd be here in a flash."
"That could work!" Hermione broke in enthusiastically.
"What about before you get here?" Eileen posed, her face a mask of skepticism.
Harry shrugged one shoulder apologetically. "This may sound dumb, but wizards aren't... erm... they aren't ever expecting the more, ah... direct route, are they. Have you considered a cricket bat?"
"Harry!"
"I'm being serious!"
Eileen, however, was making unfamiliar noises. They sounded choked... then a bit like a coughing attack, and it was several moments before Harry and Hermione realized that the old witch was actually laughing.
After several minutes of her hooting, and her pale, veined hands wiping away a tear or two of mirth, she graced them with a full smile that reached her black eyes.
It was a startling vision. For the first time, even though Eileen generally had a sullen mood, Hermione felt she could see the fullest resemblance she held to her son: even though she was quite certain she had never seen Professor Snape smile: at least not like this—this unencumbered, light-hearted, and vulnerable smile.
"My Severus must have had the time of his life with you, boy—but I like it, I like it!" She said with a cackle. "A cricket bat! Me! Imagine! By gor, Severus would have liked to see that," Her shoulders and chest still shook with her giggles.
She wagged her finger at the two, trying to catch her breath. "I think that'll be just fine. Just fine, Potter." Her eyes shown at them like black beetles: as Hagrid's did when he was happy.
"Harry, please," he said, as they all rose together. He extended a hand to the older witch and the two shook, both seemingly finding the other to their liking.
As the three made their way to the front of the house, Harry detailed to Eileen his plan: six orbs, three apiece with Harry's and Hermione's patronuses. In the event that one was used, he swore to quickly replace the orb for her.
He promised to return in a day or two with a box of the objects. And a cricket bat.
At the door, as they said their good-byes, Eileen grew quiet and pensive once more. Before the door had closed, she cried out for the two to wait, and rushed back into the house and up the stairs.
Moments later she returned with a soft something tucked under her elbow. She looked defensive, and embarrassed, but earnest. Without a word, she shoved the small bundle into Harry's arms, smiled shyly at the two, and abruptly shut the door in their faces.
The two friends glanced at each other, perplexed. Harry tugged the piece of fabric between two hands in the air to examine it.
It was a small jumper in olive-green garter stitch. Appropriate, perhaps, for a child of several months to a year old. The hem had been repaired and reinforced with a colour of yarn dyed to match, but that was still a slightly different shade. Inside the collar was sewn a small strip of broadcloth upon which the name Severus was inexpertly embroidered.
"I know I like to make you scared, just to see
How much you care
I'm never going anywhere, mhmm
And I know you play the same games too
But you keep losing, I'm too good
I'm way too good"
"A Little Messed Up" (reprise) – June