The Houses Competition (or THC)
House: Gryffindor
Class: Potions
Category (Drabble/Standard): Drabble
Prompt(s) chosen: Secret, Purple
Word Count: 659
Disclaimers/triggers (which would make it a high T - abuse, non-canon death)
Hermione crept in through the secret, never-used door. Her eyes flicked here and there, searching for enemies even though she'd cast Revelio six times already – once at the outer entrance, once for each of the tunnel branches, and twice before she'd dared to whisper the password to this final door, which led to the Headmaster's quarters.
Probably some long-ago Headmaster of Hogwarts had had the tunnels built to accommodate his mistress. She wasn't entirely sure that she approved of the amount of effort he'd gone to, but she couldn't deny that it was coming in useful today, when she needed access to the school -and its headmaster – and had no time to waste.
No time at all; she'd already taken too long as it was. The sleeping draught would keep Harry quiet and ignorant and Ron was…Ron was gone, and there was nothing she could do for him now. Harry, though? She could still help Harry.
She turned the corner, and found herself looking at the business end of a wand, pitch-black angry eyes behind it.
"Christ, Granger," Professor Snape hissed, and made the wand disappear. "What are you doing here?"
"We've run out of food, sir," she said, not taking time to elaborate. She could tell him about the cold, about the constant grinding fear and loneliness, the strain of maintaining the wards, but he didn't need to know that. They were compatriots, unexpected fellow-travelers in this war, not friends. He didn't need to know that she wept at night, he needed to know she could get the job done. And she could, only it was winter and there was nothing to eat at all. "Medical potions too, I need…"
"Come, sit," he said, ushering her to a comfortable chair near a blazing fire. Hermione could almost feel her blood waking up in the heat, and her mouth watered at the sight of a plate of biscuits next to a book with a blazingly purple cover, embossed with gold. Back in the day, she could have made a mint off this dark secret of the Professor's – a Hogwarts professor reading bodice rippers? And she'd read this particular one herself, and it was…she smirked. Well, it was certainly unique, and had made her sad for a while that for all its wonders, the Wizarding World had not yet devised a way to give her butterfly wings that actually worked.
She had time to sneak exactly one cookie, and remove all trace of crumbs, before the professor – the Headmaster, now, she supposed – returned with a basket in one hand and a sack in the other.
"Food," he said, putting the basket on the table. "Medical supplies," he said, doing the same with the sack. His eyes flicked from her to the book on the table, and Hermione found a conspiratorial smile on her face.
"It's a good one, isn't it?" she asked with a grin. "It's a pity the author never wrote another."
His eyebrow climbed his forehead as he stared at her, and then the very smallest of smiles twitched the corner of his mouth.
"It is indeed, Miss Granger," he said. "Would you like to take it along? I have a suspicion there isn't much of interest to read where you are."
"No time for leisure reading right now," she said, casting a careful lightening charm on the basket and slinging the bag over her shoulder. "But maybe when it's over we can compare libraries?"
The professor nodded, and she left.
And that was the last time she saw him until she stood in the Shack and watched him die, convinced that her only ally – the only person who knew the full depth of what she'd sacrificed for the war – was lost to her.
Until one day, weeks after the battle, she returned to her parents' house.
There was a book on her bedside table.
Purple, with gold detail.
And with it a note: Does the invitation stand?