A/N: The title of this chapter translates to "In the name." Thanks, as always, to Luna and TimeTurnerForSale.
In Nomine
Harry could not have spoken even if he had known what to say…
/x/
"The line, Severus? It's right here."
/x/
"Of course not!" Minerva could not see his hand behind his back…
/x/
The sun was just slanting over the garden wall and into the kitchen as Severus set a mug of coffee before Hermione, sipping his own as he sat next to her.
The tear on the narrow braid caught the sunlight and blazed darkly. With a proud gleam in his eye, he tossed his head slightly, flicking the braid off of his neck, hiding it behind the rest of his hair.
Hermione caught her breath, and the corner of his mouth moved slightly.
"I love it when you smile."
"That wasn't a smile."
"If you say so…" A lingering touch, and she was out of his mind.
They drank their coffee quietly, neither wanting to break the silence.
A noise from the Floo did that for them. On their feet, wands out instantly ready.
Then Hermione laughed. They were threatening a bowl of steaming porridge and a warm scone.
"Molly did say she would send meals," she said, slipping her wand away.
Severus scowled. "You might have warned me."
"And what fun would that have been?"
His scowl deepened, and she laughed again, picking up the tray.
"What if she'd delivered it in person?"
Hermione stopped laughing, but her eyes twinkled mischievously.
Severus groaned inwardly.
"The wards, Severus. Remember? Besides, she's just following orders. My research is to continue uninterrupted," she said, innocently, handing him the bowl of porridge.
"Thank you," he said, but he was eyeing the scone.
Hermione held it away from him. "None for you. It's your fault we're out of flour."
Grimacing slightly, he ate his porridge.
Hermione picked a bit off the scone and considered him carefully. "When are you going to have to report?"
"I shall go when you leave for Hogwarts. You are taking her, yes?" He nodded toward the garden, where Tayet was again practicing pulling out of steep dives. Severus was reminded of the Wronski feint, and his lips twitched.
"She usually follows me. She's rather fond of the lake." Hermione winced as Tayet zoomed closer than ever to the ground, before pulling out of it. "Honestly," she muttered. "Doesn't she have any sense at all?"
Severus' mouth twitched uncontrollably, and he couldn't repress a chuckle.
"What," Hermione demanded, still watching Tayet.
"She rather reminds me of you."
Hermione arched an eyebrow at him.
"Stop that," he said pleasantly.
"No." Equally pleasantly.
"Do you know what you're going to say?" he asked her.
"They'll want to know about Tayet, of course. I'll tell them what I told Minerva, unless she handles that part. They're going to want to know how I found Pettigrew; Minerva assumes that I've been working with Malfoy - "
"Draco?"
"Of course Draco. She did seem to think, for a moment, that it might be his father, but - "
"She suspects, Hermione." His tone was too quiet.
"What?"
"She suspects. She's shrewd. Something you've done – said, the way you've held your head, a gesture, something – something has given her the idea that something about this is too sophisticated for Draco, and too Dark for you."
Hermione considered, turning her mug in her hands, replaying her recent interactions with the headmistress. "Perhaps…"
He looked at her seriously, and she sighed.
"Okay, probably, then." Hermione sighed, and set her mug down next to her half-eaten scone. "I'm not very good at hiding anything."
"I've noticed."
She shot a wry look at him. "Still. I don't think she suspects that it's you."
"Probably not yet – although the thinking that led her to Lucius should lead her to me." He pondered his reflection in his coffee.
"So between the coffee and the phoenix, it's only a matter of time?"
"The – coffee? What?" He was startled.
"She offered me coffee. I was trying to read the old crank's gestures - " she gestured with her head toward the hallway, "and I said yes. One does acquire a taste for it, after all. She still thought that meant 'Draco.'"
"She will cling to that illusion for as long as she can. Her mind will shy away from me while she allows it to." He set his mug down a little too carefully.
Hermione said nothing. She reached for her mug again, but set it down without drinking. "Severus," she said.
He knew that tone, and his eyes grew more alert. It was the tone in which she had always said "Sir," right before asking a question that would connect a current assignment with one the curriculum wouldn't cover for two years.
"Severus, why isn't Tayet red?"
He swirled his coffee and finished it. After checking the angle of the sun, he Summoned the pot from the sideboard and refilled their mugs.
"Probably because she was born of something at least proximally Dark."
Hermione tilted her head and thought about that. "Right on the line, I should say."
Severus' eyes warmed. "Chaos."
"And I'm supposed to tell that to the Order."
"I wouldn't."
"Why not?"
"Did you spend any time with Fawkes?"
She shook her head. "Not really."
"His personality was not unlike Dumbledore's."
"But she reminds me of you." Her eyes widened in horror. "Oh, dear."
Him? He was startled. "Blast."
Together – "Damn."
Severus suddenly found his coffee mug extremely interesting, and Hermione inspected her scone with minute attention. Their faces seemed to color slightly. It could just have been a trick of light from the early morning sun -
Tayet zoomed in through the window and looked at them both, then trilled joyously. She was, without question, amused.
- but it wasn't.
Tayet zoomed back out the window and performed a dizzying series of ascending spirals.
Hermione broke another piece off of her scone. "So what are you going to tell Voldemort?"
"That rather depends on what he asks me."
"And if he just asks you to report?"
"I have some experience improvising, Hermione," he said cautiously. "If he knows Pettigrew is dead, then I will blame it on Pettigrew's carelessness at allowing himself to be captured. No loss. If he does not, I will allow him to believe that Pettigrew's nerve has snapped."
She looked at him. "And will Voldemort believe you?"
"Possibly." Severus shrugged. "He will probably be more interested in my investigation."
She glanced at him. "The Dementors?"
"What's gotten them so excited, yes."
"Oh, dear."
"Pettigrew, Tayet – they are all variables. The more variables he believes are in play, the more distracted he will become. That could be useful, when the time comes."
"And if he doesn't believe you?"
He reached a hand to her hair.
After a moment, she nodded.
He stood. "Accio cloak."
Hermione watched as he made the transformation into a Death Eater.
He paused before putting on his mask. "If they give you an opportunity to strengthen their belief that you are working with Draco, take it."
"Of course… but why, in particular?"
He regarded her calmly. "He wants to finish school too, Hermione, if he lives."
"I should have thought Durmstrang."
"Indeed. But England is his home."
She nodded again.
He put on his mask, and Tayet landed on the windowsill and appeared to scowl. "Time to go."
"Severus, wait."
He looked at her, eyes hardening, from behind the mask.
She reached up and kissed him before he could object.
He tried to pull away, but her hand clenched in his hair. A low, menacing growl emanated from his throat, but her other hand came to his throat and rested there, her fingernails grazing, sharp, on his pulse.
His gloved hand closed, tightened over her wrist.
Leaning into the feel of her skin and the skin he couldn't feel through his glove he was lost briefly in the darkness and she held him there.
She ended the kiss and smoothed his hair off his mask. His eyes were bold. Proud.
"Now," she said. "Now it's time."
/x/
"Think we'll finally find out what Hermione's doing?" Harry asked Ron as they walked up the lane to the Entrance Hall doors.
"Yeah," said Ron, "probably. Hope so. Bloody strange not having her around."
Harry glanced sideways at Ron. He'd known they had put an end to that side of their relationship, but wasn't really sure how Ron was taking it. Then he shrugged.
They were lagging a few steps behind the rest of the Weasleys. Kingsley was behind them, and Moody was thumping along several paces back, bringing up the rear, save Tonks and Lupin, who were still at the gates. Everyone was rather carefully not looking back at them.
Everyone except for Moody, whose magical eye kept swiveling in its socket.
"Didn't think Ginny was ever going to stop whinging." Ron changed the subject, shooting a look at Harry. "Mum," his voice pitched an octave higher, imitating her, "I'll be much safer at Hogwarts than here without the rest of you, Mum…"
"I'm glad I wasn't within hexing range when she found out she had to stay behind with Fleur," Harry grinned.
Ron rolled his eyes in agreement.
/x/
Several minutes later, they were filing into the headmistress' office.
Hermione was already there with a stack of parchments, making notes on a list that already bore evidence of several revisions. Her fingers were ink-stained. Without realizing they were doing so, Harry and Ron both relaxed slightly, even before she looked up at their arrival.
Hermione, parchment, and ink stains. Three pillars of their childhood, intact before them.
Then she caught their eyes and smiled a greeting before turning back to whatever she was working on.
This should have been normal as well.
But it wasn't. Not really.
Neither Harry nor Ron could have said how or why, but when they saw her smile they knew, somehow, that nothing would ever really be the same again.
"She looks tired," Harry said inadequately, as they moved to a pair of armchairs before the headmistress's desk.
Ron looked at him. "Yeah."
/x/
In a moldering, abandoned factory near Spinner's End, Severus stood before Voldemort.
"And is he dead?"
"I cannot say for sure what happened to him after I gave him his orders."
Voldemort hissed slightly.
Severus did not move, did not speak. Only an occasional, steady, unhurried blink revealed him as human.
A thin silence stretched for several heartbeats.
"He outlived his usefulness, Severus," Voldemort said finally. "I should have silenced his simpering long since."
Severus understood the subject to be tabled.
Voldemort gestured him closer, and he obeyed. "And do I sense progress, the scent of this new, sudden chaos that has so incited the Dementors?"
Severus nodded once. "I have found her, and even now she moves in the traps I have laid for her."
"Excellent, Severus, excellent." Voldemort's fingers moved, independently of each other, playing the gleaming dust motes that were traveling upwards in the filtered sunlight. "And what is exciting them?"
"One newly working toward Dark magic."
"Ah…" Voldemort's fingers waved slowly. "And who is doing these workings?"
"A Muggle-born witch."
Voldemort hissed again. "Her name?"
/x/
"Miss Granger, are you ready to report the initial results of your research?"
Hermione nodded. "Yes, Headmistress." She explained the Horcrux Indemnities, and outlined the gist of her Arithmantic workings – the same version she had outlined for Minerva.
"Ginny?" Harry and Ron said, involuntarily, as Hermione explained the first and weakest of the Indemnities.
Minerva silenced them with a look. "Miss Granger, as the diary and ring are long neutralized, if you could please summarize your work on the locket and the cup?"
"Of course, Headmistress." Hermione was grateful. She had been uncertain how to explain the ring without revealing too much about Dumbledore's death.
As Hermione described the first Horcrux formula, Molly held tightly to Arthur's hand, and the twins, heads bowed, stared at the floor, glancing as one to their parents when Hermione described the formula's resolution in Molly's name. Charlie's face darkened to an angry red, and Bill examined at the ceiling, eyes bright.
As Hermione described the second formula, Minerva kept her hands carefully clasped in her lap.
Moody's magical eye clicked quietly as it swept Dumbledore's portrait, but otherwise the Auror did not move.
Tonks moved closer to Lupin, resting a hand on his arm.
Kingsley listened dispassionately as Hermione brought the second description to its end.
When she finished explaining the second formula, Bill's eyes narrowed slightly, and he appeared to file some question away for later.
Harry and Ron stared at Hermione, but Hagrid beamed. "Tha's brilliant, Hermione! And a new phoenix, to boot!" He looked at the assembled Order for confirmation, and there were murmurs of assent. Molly and Arthur raised their clasped hands slightly to her in salute, smiling – sad, worried, but smiling.
Hermione closed her eyes.
Bill was already glancing at Hagrid uneasily.
Minerva glanced reflexively at Dumbledore's portrait, then looked again, more closely. He was in his usual sleeping posture, but there was something different. She couldn't put her finger on it, and turned her attention to Hermione.
"Miss Granger, we are all grateful for your finding a workaround for the first two Indemnities," she began. "And the question of the new phoenix will certainly be a matter for conversation before we adjourn. However…"
The silence in her office was absolute, save for the clicking of Moody's eye.
"However," Hermione continued, straightening her spine, and delivering her remarks to Minerva. She could not look at Hagrid. Nor Harry. Nor even Ron. "The remaining Horcruxes are animate. That is, they are contained within living creatures."
"Nagini?" Harry hissed.
The Order turned to him, agape.
"Parseltongue, Harry?" Ron muttered, under his breath.
"One of the Horcruxes is Voldemort's snake, Nagini," Hermione said. Harry shot her a grateful look, and she tightened her lips in what should have been a smile. There was absolutely no mirth in it, and Harry realized what had made his stomach drop when she'd looked up to greet him.
For the first time in their friendship, Hermione's eyes had flicked to his scar first, before meeting his eyes. He was used to this from those raised in the wizarding world. Even the Weasleys did it sometimes, when they were tired, or if they were thinking about something else.
But Hermione had never done it before.
Never.
He sat slightly straighter and looked at her intently, and Moody's magical eye swiveled to stare at him.
If Hermione was aware of either shift, she gave no outward sign of it. "We believe – the Headmistress and I – that because Nagini is rarely far from Voldemort's side, she will have to be killed as the first blow in a final confrontation." She looked at Harry. Oh, Harry, she thought. I am so sorry. Her eyes were shadowed.
He returned her look intently.
She looked away, back to her notes, and waited for a question. She did not want to answer it, whichever one of several it would be.
Bill's quiet voice barely disturbed the taut silence. "It's Hagrid, isn't it, Hermione."
She closed her eyes and nodded.
The conspicuous sound of everyone looking somewhere else, then -
"NO!" Harry shouted, leaping to his feet. Ron was on his feet behind him.
"And the witch's name, Severus?"
Severus' eyes glittered darkly. "Granger."
"You're WRONG, Hermione!"
"I wish I were, Harry," she said, quietly.
He was across the room, grabbing her arm, before anyone else could react. "You ARE. You HAVE to be."
Bill shook his head. "She's not, Harry."
Harry didn't hear him. "How do we know you're right? How do we know you're not being used, by Voldemort? Or one of his spies? Hermione, you're wrong, you have to be." He turned to the rest of the Order. "She has to be wrong." His eyes fell on Hagrid, who seemed to be frozen. He wheeled back to Hermione. "How could you?"
/x/
"Granger, yes… a friend to That Boy."
"I believe there is a growing rift between them."
"She is the one whose scent I taste, Severus?" Voldemort's eyes gleamed.
Severus inclined his head, his eyes a hard, black mirror.
Voldemort's mouth opened in what passed for a smile.
"An excellent strategy, Severus…" Voldemort tasted the air with his tongue. "And not without its satisfactions, yes?" He gestured smoothly. "Continue your investigation, then. You are dismissed."
Severus bowed and turned. His cloak was still rippling when he Disapparated.
/x/
Harry jerked Hermione's arm and her quill flew, spattering ink onto her face, Harry's glasses, and several nearby portraits, including Dumbledore's.
Her eyes flashing, she was on her feet, her arm tight, tense, her fist closed - immobile, trapped, but physically daring him to shake her again.
"Fine, Harry," she spat. "Who would you rather it be, then?"
She waited, her eyes boring into his. Harry said nothing. Neither of them blinked.
"Mr. Weasley, this time?" she asked in a voice devoid of pity.
His eyes widened, and his grip on her arm loosened.
Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she looked at him, eyes flashing dangerously. "Not Mr. Weasley, then? Ok, then who, Harry? Who?"
Harry took a step back, and Hermione matched it.
"Miss Granger," Minerva began, weakly.
"Ron? Or Ginny?" Another step. "WHO, Harry?"
Harry's eyes narrowed.
Her hair moved about her, furious, as her voice rose. "You choose, Harry, you point, and choose, YOU decide who's going to die. YOU DECIDE, Harry."
In the ringing silence, Lupin moved toward Harry, and Bill toward Hermione.
Hermione held her hand out, and both Lupin and Bill froze. Quietly, even calmly, she said, "You're not the only one with burdens, Harry."
The sudden contrast in her tone washed over the Order in a chill wave.
She stepped away from him and turned to Minerva. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, Headmistress," she said, evenly. Turning to Hagrid, she whispered, "I'm sorry…"
And before the Order could recover its wits, the door was closing behind her.
Feigning sleep in his frame, Dumbledore could have sworn he heard the rustling rippling of Severus' cloak as she left. Brava, Hermione. His face was serene, a mask of sleep, despite the apparent efforts of the ink-spattered book that was insistently nudging his hand.
