A/N: Special thanks to Melenka for a pinch-hit beta and a grateful nod to Indigofeathers for an excellent music suggestion. TimeTurnerForSale's contributions are myriad and fundamental - I've run out of eloquent ways to thank her; this will have to do: Ariadne makes a low, sweeping bow.
Point / Counterpoint
"When it is time, Hermione, I will kill you."
Tayet crooned, softly, plaintively, and looked from Severus to Hermione and back.
Hermione's eyes emptied until their depths matched his own. "Oh. Okay… Okay… Oh."
He didn't dare move – he just sat watching her, the shards of his soul tearing him, from the inside.
"I - " she began.
Tayet crooned more insistently, and stretched her beak out to poke Hermione in the heart.
Hermione ignored her.
"Hermione, I… " Severus began, then stopped.
Tayet poked Hermione again, harder.
"Tayet, what," Hermione said, returning as if from across illimitable distance. "Oh."
She pulled her shirt aside and looked at her mark. The circle was darker, blacker, and – very nearly – filled.
"Well," she breathed. "It seems that I'm going to restore your soul by dying. At your hand." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Lovely. What an honor."
"An honor I share," he said, darkly, his voice breaking corners at impossible angles. Almost to himself, he added, "Mercifully, I will not have to live with that memory for long."
"No…" Oh, gods. After he… Oh, gods, Severus. "No, I suppose you won't."
Tayet threw her head back, opened her beak, and let forth a long, wailing cry.
Severus and Hermione looked at her.
She launched herself off of Hermione's knees, her talons ripping the denim, drawing blood. She circled the room once and vanished.
"Ow."
Severus' hand was over the wounds instantly, murmuring, healing.
She reached up and brushed his hair off of his forehead, and, at her touch, his arms were around her, crushing her awkwardly to him, his head collapsed on her bent knees. His hold was almost painful, but she didn't wince. She continued to stroke his hair away from his forehead, his hair falling back, away, falling back, a black whispering, always already falling. He groaned.
"Shhh," an arbitrary sound. "Shhh. I forgive you." More arbitrary sounds, arranged, conveying meaning. It was all arbitrary, all arranged, a monstrous algorithm cleaving meaning, creating meaning, an allegory for something, and for once she didn't know. "I forgive you."
He held her for a long time, cheek pressed on her knees, clenching her shirt in his bloody hands. Without knowing, not knowing, she took his hair, falling always, already falling, and, dividing it, began braiding.
The pain had cleared part of her mind. "We'll find a way, or not. But we will."
"Hermione," Severus began, entranced by the weaving motions of her hands in his hair. To still those hands… her eyes… her mind… no more questions… rain… His voice broke as he tried again. "Hermione - "
"Shhh, Severus, faith, remember?" Her hands froze mid-motion, and he looked up.
His eyes widened in fear at the look on her face.
"Oh, no."
"Hermione?"
And, unbidden, a memory of the night before, of the morning after, flooded her eyes, and she let his hair fall and put her hands on his shoulders, dropping her head, reaching out for him with her mind.
Her mind touched his; the same memory. Suddenly he was tired, very tired, and very, very angry.
She rested her cheek on his head and murmured, "Faith, Severus. The best that's in us. You already have hope – a broken soul isn't what prevented that, just your... history. And… " her tone changed. "Love. Well, I have that…"
He raised his head, and she looked at him, slightly apprehensively.
Severus' arms tightened around her, even as he was disconcerted by the shadow of the girl replacing the woman and then disappearing again.
"Severus, Lily's sacrifice was made in faith – faith that Harry would live to fulfill the prophecy, but she was no more blind than Dumbledore. Between the two of them, they placed the future of the world on your shoulders – they had faith in you, yes, but for both it was based on knowledge." She let that sink in before continuing. "Thus the Indemnity requires of you your faith. A faith equal to Lily's. From you." A weary, mirthless laugh.
"Ah. I see your point – that may very well be impossible, given - "
Tayet reappeared with a furious screech.
"But the beauty of it is that you can believe in the impossible, because you already have done," said a calm, polite voice. "And given appropriate circumstances and ample motivation, Severus, who can deny that more may be possible than not?"
At the sound of the voice Hermione and Severus both froze, looking at each other, then they turned, slowly.
"How wonderful to see you both again," said Albus Dumbledore. He was sitting in Phineas Nigellus' portrait frame.
Hermione and Severus jumped away from each other.
Dumbledore smiled. He had never seen Severus Snape blush. "Wonderful."
Tayet gave a self-satisfied trill, and tucked her beak back under her wing. Growing feathers was tiring, after all, and popping about from place to place had made her feel vaguely ill. Flying was much more the thing. Thinking about flying – there was something moving in that blue moving lake by the castle, and maybe she could catch it, maybe it might taste good, the sun sparkly on the water… – she fell asleep.
/x/
Mrs. Black elbowed Phineas Nigellus sharply in the ribs. With her bustle and his absurd pantaloons, her frame was crowded. "What is he telling them up there?"
"I'm sure I have no idea," he said, affronted.
"Phineas Nigellus," she said sharply, "don't use the headmaster tone with me. I was in Slytherin too," she reminded him.
"At this precise moment I have no idea what he is telling them," he expanded.
She glared at him. "Obviously. But the gist, Phineas Nigellus. The gist. Surely you know that much."
Phineas Nigellus smiled wickedly.
Mrs. Black gathered her skirts and prepared to switch frames, but he caught her by the bustle and yanked her back.
She slapped him. "You lecherous cretin, how dare you!"
He glowered at her, then withdrew to the far edge of the frame and crossed his arms, wondering how long Dumbledore would need his frame.
For a time, silence reigned on the ground floor.
"I could just - " she began.
"No."
"Just to the hall."
"No."
She huffed and refused to look at him for at least a quarter of an hour.
Behind the glower, Phineas Nigellus was amused, but no Slytherin is ever truly patient unless in the service of some greater plan, and even then it was a question of appearing to bide one's time rather than accepting long passages of it. Centuries in an administrative office, even a magical one, will put a thin veneer of patience on even the most cantankerous of personalities, but it was, finally, only a veneer.
He looked at the ceiling. He wanted to know, too.
/x/
Severus found himself at a loss. How to apologize for killing the man who had ordered him to. How not to want to kill him again for… everything. How not to crumble, how to express relief, how to hide his connection to Hermione, how not to hide it… Stuck in a shifting quicksand of agony and absurdity, he said nothing.
"Ah, Severus," Dumbledore began kindly, "an awkward moment, indeed. I would think a greeting would be sufficient."
"Albus, I- Good afternoon, sir." Sir? He swept his hand across his eyes. Chaos.
He calls him "Sir"? Belatedly, Hermione remembered her own manners. "Good afternoon, Professor. We've – I've missed you." She smiled at him, just a smile, just sad, just relieved.
Dumbledore turned to her and returned her smile, gently. "Good afternoon, Miss Granger. I trust your family are well?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good, good, most excellent Grangers. Very scientific, very logical."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Severus, if you would do yourself the great service of not fretting overmuch about killing me - for which I've not thanked you properly; my apologies - we have an important matter to discuss." He looked over the top of his spectacles at the two of them deliberately not touching each other – "Or, perhaps, two matters; yes, yes, two, I think... and very little time. Phineas delivered my deadline, I understand, and, as I do not imagine that he can keep Mrs. Black from eavesdropping for much longer, let me proceed. What I have to say to you both must be held in the strictest confidence."
Severus snorted, but not unhappily. "You were ever a force of chaos, Albus."
"And you far too married to order, Severus. Far too married. Until you weren't."
"At which point you would always take the other side of the argument."
Dumbledore nodded his calm agreement. "There are always aspects of one in the other, Severus. Your insistence upon binaries… To be expected, of course, but… "
Hermione had the feeling that she had missed most of this conversation. Which she had, of course; it had begun right around the time she was born. Oh, dear.
"Miss Granger, there is no need to blush. As Professor Snape – ah, yes, therein lies the crux of it. As Severus is no longer your professor, at least, not at the moment, and as I am no longer headmaster, I will not pass judgment on you. Either of you. This is war." Disconcertingly, he smiled. "I must confess, though, I have enjoyed your conversations with Minerva. Well played, Miss Granger."
Severus arched an inquiring eyebrow at Hermione, who blushed harder.
"Don't ask. Just – don't."
Dumbledore continued, "Language itself, its interplay of light and shadow, sense and nonsense - a point in favor of chaos, is it not, Severus?"
"More to the point, what is yours, Albus? If indeed you do have one," Severus drawled, finding some semblance of equilibrium in the familiarity of their long-standing debate.
"I should have thought it was obvious. Simply this: have faith. Both of you."
He smiled at them calmly.
"That's it?" Hermione blurted, astonished.
"Not quite, Miss Granger."
Canvas cannot twinkle. That just impossible.
Very seriously, Dumbledore eyed Tayet, before continuing, "Do remember that having once believed the impossible it seems quite likely that one may do so again." He looked at them gravely until they nodded, then he beamed at them. "Excellent. One more thing, before I go. For the creation of a most charming phoenix, 50 points to Gryffindor. And, to Slytherin, 51 – for the phoenix, and one to grow on." He chuckled, and the frame was empty.
His voice echoed in the empty frame. "Not a word to anyone. Especially not Harry..."
