A/N: Thanks, as per always and ever, to Luna305 and Anastasia.
Variables
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.
Severus took his mask off and laid it on the kitchen table before sinking into a chair and burying his face in his hands. Hermione, forgive me.
/x/
Hermione stalked the corridors, hands raked into her hair, pressing on her skull, until her breathing returned to normal.
She was outside the Potions classroom.
She leaned her cheek against the rough, aged wood of the door and closed her eyes. The smell of the dungeon, of the sharp, cork-like wood with its rusty metal hinges, was sharp. Comforting.
/x/
Harry stood, lost, alone, in the middle of the office. "I - "
"Hush, lad," said Kingsley gently.
Hagrid said nothing, but when Harry rushed to him, hugging him fiercely around the middle, he said gruffly, "Our Hermione will find a way, Harry. She'll find a way."
Harry wanted nothing more than to believe him.
But he'd stopped believing Hagrid a long time ago.
/x/
Severus found himself staring at the flashing green on the crude carving of the Astronomy Tower. He pressed his palm over it and closed his eyes.
It felt like nothing.
Just a table.
/x/
Hermione's seeking hand closed around the metal ring that served as the handle to the Potions classroom. It turned in her hand, and she inhaled in surprise.
Glancing around the corridor, she saw nothing but the torchlight reflecting on the slightly dank stone walls.
She slipped inside and shut the door behind her.
/x/
Hagrid was still patting Harry's head with a large, awkward hand. He wasn't looking at anyone.
"How did you know, Bill?" Minerva asked quietly.
"The attacks. It fit the pattern," Bill responded, his eyes averted from Harry and Hagrid.
Everyone was startled when Ron spoke up. "Of course. She's worked it backwards."
Minerva glanced at him sharply.
"It's simple strategy. You envision the endgame and play backwards from there. It's a classic defensive approach when you think your opponent has the edge." Ron shrugged.
Minerva considered this for a moment, but before she could reach any conclusions, Lupin took a step forward. "Harry," he said softly, "the situation is not without hope."
Harry nodded against the rough cloth of Hagrid's waistcoat. Brushing the back of his hand over his eyes, he sat down, but kept his head bowed. He clenched his hands together.
"Hermione appears to have figured out that Voldemort works according to a kind of pattern," Lupin began.
Moody added, "Good thinking. Vigilant."
Lupin continued, "It makes a kind of sense. Dumbledore knew it; it's how he was able to learn so much, in that last year. So much that he shared with you, Harry."
Harry nodded without looking up.
"Voldemort is repeating the pattern of the Horcrux murders in the attacks – probably unconsciously. It's a pattern that works for him, Harry. Hermione knows this. She – we may be able to use his predictability against him."
Ron nodded vigorously. "He's right, mate. If anyone can figure it out a pattern, Hermione can"
"Fine," Harry began, his voice hollow. "How did she figure this much out? Didn't she always say that Arithmancy doesn't work backwards without Dark inflection? That you can't work backwards from a solution without altering the initial equation? What was the word she used…"
"Taboo," Minerva supplied. "She said it was a Muggle term."
Tonks confirmed this. "It is. Means it's not allowed." She shook her head. "A shame, really. Things that are taboo are either really attractive" – she smiled shyly at Lupin - "or really useful."
"She had to have worked it forwards, then," Bill mused, "which means she had to have access to - " He cut himself off, and turned to Minerva. "Who is it?"
Minerva looked at him sternly, but said, "She is working with someone, yes."
Moody growled, "Who?"
Minerva glanced at Dumbledore's portrait, but said, firmly, "That is none of your concern."
"Malfoy," Harry spat. "That look she gave my scar. It has Malfoy written all over it."
Everyone looked at him, stunned. Moody nodded in slow agreement.
/x/
Hermione walked slowly to her old seat in the classroom, inhaling the familiar scents that had lingered in this room, unchanged, for years. Centuries, probably.
She sat down and leaned her head on her arms.
/x/
Tayet wheeled high over the lake. Every flash of sunlight in every ripple was fair game. She was going to catch them all.
/x/
Severus placed his mask over the flashing green carving, and reached for the mirror.
One brush. Reassuring. And -
"Severus?" Her thoughts were frantic.
"Hermione, I had to tell him." It was out before he could stop it.
Silence.
Absence.
His chest felt empty.
"Why?" Very small. Disturbingly young.
"It was the truth. It bought us time. It bought you safe passage to his side, when the time comes. And - "
He felt her assessing, weighing, accepting. Then, only then, curiosity.
He could feel his heart beating again, even before she gave shape to her thought.
"And what, Severus?"
"Scent, Hermione. He caught your scent."
In the Potions classroom, her hand flew to her mouth. "I touched your mask. And we – before you left – oh. Oh, dear. Oh, NO. How could I have been so stupid?"
"Variables change, Hermione. And when they do…"
"… you adjust accordingly and continue the formula," she recited mentally.
It was the first rule of Arithmancy.
"So you hurt me to protect me, then."
"To protect us both, Hermione. I bought us some time. Not much."
He felt her nod.
"Is the meeting over, then?" he asked.
"No; I – I left, for a while."
"Where are you?"
He heard an echo of his own voice – something about "subtle science" and "exact art."
Her name a caress in her mind, as he thought "Hermione, I…" Even unspeaking, he had to stop, to swallow, to breathe. "I should find that disturbing."
She laughed in his mind.
"But I don't," he said. "I… I am touched, Hermione."
He felt her smile linger in his mind.
"Hermione, go to the bookshelf in the back of the classroom."
She did so.
A few moments later, she was tucking a book into her robes and, after a lingering glance to the front of the room where, so often, he had stood silhouetted against the slanting shadows, she left the room and returned to the headmistress' office.
/x/
"So what about the wards, then?" Ron asked suddenly.
"Wards?" Moody asked.
"Harry and I – well – bloody hell."
"Ronald!" Molly started to say more, but Arthur pressed her hand.
"We tried to Apparate to Grimmauld Place, and sort of… sort of bounced."
"Bounced?" Minerva asked, her lips pinched, disapproving on principle.
"Yeah, bounced. There was some kind of rippling feeling and then we were back at the Burrow."
"Ron felt it," Harry mumbled to his hands. "I didn't."
Ron shrugged.
Kingsley and Moody exchanged looks. "You should have been able to Apparate there. Especially Harry." Kingsley sounded pensive.
Hagrid spoke up. "She was born there, wasn't she?"
"Who?" Moody grumbled. This was something unforeseen, and his mood was growing more explosive by the second.
"The phoenix." Hagrid looked around, blinking. "Is she here? I'd love to see her."
Minerva gestured out the window. "She seems fond of the lake. Perhaps when Miss Granger returns, she will convince her to join us."
"She'd be a baby, yet," Hagrid sighed, eyes mistier with thoughts of a new phoenix than they had been since the meeting started.
Tonks and Molly exchanged sad smiles.
"Hagrid, you were saying?" Minerva's voice broke him out of his phoenix dreams.
"Right. Sorry," Hagrid said, gruffly. "It's just that, when they set the wards, an' all, see, with Harry's wand, and Fawkes' feather, see, who'd have thought there'd be a new phoenix, and wouldn't that change things?" He looked at Kingsley and Moody.
Kingsley nodded slowly. "It's possible."
Minerva stood. "Hagrid, are you saying that the wards are now keyed to Tayet?"
"Is that her name, then?" Hagrid got a faraway look in his eyes, and walked to the window that overlooked the lake. "I bet she's beautiful."
Molly rose and went to him. "She is, Hagrid."
Minerva rose to Floo for a house-elf to find Hermione, but at that moment the door opened again, and Hermione walked in calmly.
"Forgive me, Headmistress." She looked at Harry, and he flinched, but she did not look at his scar first this time. "And Harry. I'm sorry."
Tayet appeared on Hermione's shoulder. Hermione looked at her seriously, then glanced at Hagrid.
Tayet took wing and flew to perch on his arm. She tilted her head at him and considered him sagely for a moment. She seemed to reach some conclusion, and announced, "Whirp!"
Her tone brooked no argument, and the collective Order was startled into laughter.
Hagrid reached out a wondering finger to stroke her neck.
But Harry was not to be distracted. "Talking to Malfoy, were you?" he shot at Hermione.
"Potter!" Minerva said sharply, but Hermione cut her off.
"Well, someone is going to have to kill Voldemort's body, Harry, someone who can get close enough to do it, because the last Horcrux is - "
"My scar. Yeah. I figured that out," he said.
"And that someone will pay the Indemnity. It can't be you alone, Harry, because you're going to be busy dealing with the rest of him."
Harry stared at her, mind racing. "Like in the Ministry?"
She nodded. "I think so."
Moody's eye was whirling madly.
"So you think Malfoy can kill Voldemort?" His tone was scathing.
Fixing him with a piercing look, she spoke calmly. "Why is it so impossible for you to accept that someone might change, Harry? To think about what he did, and regret what he did - what he almost did. You know Malfoy'd been crying, that day. Why is it impossible for you to believe that he might want to redeem himself in his own eyes?"
Minerva and Moody peered closely at Hermione.
"Regret? Malfoy? Please," Harry scoffed. "Besides, it'd never work. Malfoy's weak. He'll never get close enough, even if his whole family is - "
Hermione's voice was drawn steel. "Have you forgotten already that he almost managed to kill Dumbledore, Harry? Only his 'weakness,' as you put it, kept him from killing him. He could have done it, Harry. He got close enough to Dumbledore." Hermione was looking at Harry with something like pity - a pity that Molly and Minerva found slightly unnerving.
Harry said nothing.
Then Ron's voice broke the silence. "She's right."
"But it'll never work!" Harry protested. "It's supposed to be me – and… and it's a suicide mission, Hermione!"
Hermione swallowed visibly, and she struggled to keep her voice even. "Of course it is, Harry. But I think it's the only way. If it does work, the battle – the real battle – will take place inside of you."
Harry ran his hands through his hair until it stuck up wildly, a strange laughter rising within him. "This is STUPID," he blurted.
Hermione's response carried some undertone, some whisper of warning. "Maybe it is stupid, Harry. But it's going to happen anyway. The only real question is, are you going to be prepared, or not?" Turning to Minerva, she indicated her notes with a gesture. "There is a trapping spell that Voldemort's used on his victims. It's so Dark I can't write it down – I can't even summarize it. But it exists, and it's the best guarantee that once we initiate a confrontation, he won't be able to run." To the rest of the Order, she said, "If you all will please excuse me, I'll be leaving now."
Tayet whirred at Hagrid, peering up at him through his beard. His heart seemed to lift, and she nuzzled his hand before flying to Hermione's shoulder.
"We shall meet again tomorrow," Minerva said, as Hermione reached for the door. "After we've all had a chance to think."
/x/
Once she was certain she wasn't being followed by anyone, Hermione ducked into an alcove and reached for the mirror. "Severus?"
"Are you finished there?"
"Almost. There's one thing I need to do first."
"Don't stay so long in the library you forget to come home." His thoughts a gentle chuckle in her mind.
"I won't be long."
She took her fingertips off the mirror.
She was not going to the library.
On her shoulder, Tayet warbled her approval.
/x/
Once the last of the Order members had filed out, Minerva cleared all of the armchairs but one away from the desk. She sank into it and, transfiguring one of Dumbledore's whirling silver instruments into a tartan-covered footstool, looked up at his portrait.
"Albus," she said. "The night Miss Granger appeared in the Floo with the startling news that you were really awake, she said she'd finished the list. But last night she said she hadn't seen the last two names."
Dumbledore opened his eyes. "I should think the explanation would be obvious, Minerva."
"She's lying, Albus."
"Of course she is."
"But why?"
"Because, Minerva," he said quietly, "one of the names is hers."
The book in Dumbledore's portrait nuzzled his hand, and it seemed to sigh as he stroked its cover.
