Hermione put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Ooh, wait, can I do it?" He looked at her quizzically. "It's the first spell I get to cast outside of school," she said by way of an explanation.
He gestured her forward, and she could've sworn he rolled his eyes. Choosing to ignore this typical Snape-ism, she waved her wand to unlock the gate. "Alohamora!" She said softly.
The gate was one big, solid door, and as she cast, swirling lines appeared in the door. The cracks separated, and quickly the door split into two halves. "Merlin," she whispered. The two doors were like reverse mirrors of each other. "Now that's some wicked magic," Hermione grinned. Snape, unsurprisingly, looked unenthusiastic. Hermione decided to believe that was because he had seen it before, and not because she was easy to impress.
They strode forward, past a dozen or more rows of wizarding headstones. "Hold on," said Severus suddenly, throwing an arm out to stop her. "Move carefully. There may be traps set."
"If I know anything about Voldemort, there are definitely traps set," Hermione said grimly. Snape hissed as she said the name.
"Do not say his name!"
"Sorry, Severus." She said glibly, but he whirled on her, anger in his eyes.
"the stakes are much higher here than in Hogwarts, Hermione. There will be traps, especially for those who speak of the Dark Lord." He said in a whisper.
But that seemed to be all the traps needed – the words Dark Lord, or maybe the combination of Dark Lord and Voldemort – for something was emerging from the ground.
"Watch out!" She yelled, jumping out of the way of a vine-like object protruding from the ground. "Shite, it's Devil's Snare!"
Snape dodged a particularly long vine, casting incendio with grim determination. "We'll have to get past the Snare if we wish to approach the tombstone!" He said loudly.
"No Shit, Severus!" She yelled back. "Incendio!"
But it was as ineffective as it would've been if they had been throwing water at it; the vines kept coming, writing like the brains from the Department of Mysteries and attempting to get a hold on them. The incendio's didn't seem to be doing anything at all, really. It was as if they had been enchanted to withstand the blasts of flame, or bred for it.
The next incendio Snape cast, Hermione realized that it wasn't recoiling from damage. No, the vines actually multiplied every time they tried to burn them. "Snape, stop!" she yelled, a realization hitting her. "Stop. It's not Devil's Snare!"
He turned back to look at her, narrowly avoiding yet another vine. "Then what is it?"
"A Camodian Strangler! It thrives in warm, damp climates. We're feeding it! You have to freeze it!"
Without another word, Snape turned back to fight, "Glacius!" He yelled, hitting one of the larger vines.
She joined him, and together they made quick work of the remaining vines. "Great." Hermione panted with exertion. "Well, now we know, no V-word. Let's just get this bloody thing."
She was about to step forward, but thought better of it at the last second. "Revelio!" She cast instead, scanning the area for traps. Seeing nothing, she crept forward. "Do you see which one it is?" She whispered to Severus.
"It's halfway down the row. Let's go." He strode past her briskly. "That must've been spelled to react anywhere within the graveyard." They hurried along, passing many unfamiliar names, until finally Snape stopped. "This is it." He said. "This is the right one."
"But it doesn't have a name on it," Hermione said. "How do you know?"
"I remember it. And I can remove all the defenses I placed on it – all except one, which has a permanent disfiguring charm for anyone who tries to dig into the ground."
"What's the charm? Do you know the counter-curse?"
"I never made one." Severus said grimly. "I created this to stop anyone besides the keyed individuals from getting into my trunk during seventh year. It mottled Mulciber's arm when he touched it, then he burned it as revenge. I've never had a need to remove the charm."
"Can't we burn this spell too?" She toyed with the idea of fiendfyre – it would make it easier, just destroy the whole damn cematary if they had to.
"Doubtful," Severus seemed to read her mind. "Dark magic would likely make some of the other defenses react."
Hermione hmm'd. "Then the best thing we can do is dismantle the spells themselves."
"I will be able to dismantle the rest of my protections, and together I believe we will be able to dismantle the dar- his protections without tripping anything else." He checked his watch. "However, we only have an hour and a half before we need to rejoin the thestrals. Otherwise, we won't be able to replace our former selves on the grounds."
"Oh, that's not a problem. I've run out the clock before, and all it takes is another turn back for an hour. Then we'd have to run around and replace ourselves every which way, but at least it'd be fine in the end."
Severus looked at her like she was insane. "Just how often do you break the laws of time?"
"Well, time turners are only supposed to go back five hours total, so I suppose almost every day." She grinned at him, and he rolled his eyes before turning away to dismantle his wards.
He worked efficiently, sweat forming on his brow as he muttered counter-curses, breaking spell after spell; Hermione peered at the web of magic around the headstone, using that special concentration one always used to see spells – she'd heard it called Mage Sight, before. The whole net was a piece of work: layers upon layers of spells. Even as Snape dismantled some, more appeared underneath. Finally, she started to see them thin out, and only a few layers remained.
"I have done all I can," Snape said, standing up straight but looking quite exhausted.
Hermione nodded and stepped up, giving him a bit of time to relax. She recognized one of the curses on the headstone – a slashing curse – and started picking at it. Much like she had with Rita Skeeter's Quick Quotes Quill, she was able to manipulate the strands of magic like they were strings on a piano, strung exactly the right way to make a sound. All she had to do was make sure the "sound," or the spell's effect, didn't hit her or Snape. It didn't matter what the rest of the curse looked like after that, for there would be no reaction.
She made quick work of the slashing curse, but the next one was giving her trouble.
"I have never seen someone break curses in this manner before," Snape said softly. "It makes sense that you would have trouble with this one. It works very differently from the slashing curse." Snape did something Hermione couldn't quite catch, and the spell collapsed, like a marionette cut from its strings.
"Brilliant," Hermione said. Together, they'd be able to get this thing done, once and for all.
It was hard work, and she couldn't tell how much time had passed. It could've easily been a minute or an hour, and she would be none the wiser. Finally, they were left with just the disfiguring hex, still stuck to the ground.
"Where exactly is the cup hidden?" She asked. "Do we have to dig?"
Severus looked a bit disgruntled at the question. "I am not certain."
"How do you not know where it is? Didn't you place it here?"
"If I know him at all, and I have the misfortune to know him quite intimately, he wouldn't have left it where I put it." Snape said stiffly. "I placed it just underneath the headstone."
She groaned. "How does this disfiguring charm work? Shouldn't you be keyed into it as well?"
"No, I am not. I used a lock of hair to key it to him, not myself."
"How fast acting is it?"
"You're not suggesting we try to remove the horcrux by moving faster than the spell?" He looked incredulous. "It'll never work."
"Well a little disfigurement is worth it, if we can make it out without any actual damage."
"While it is… cosmetic, it will be very painful. I suggest we attempt to dismantle this spell like we did the others. Perhaps our combined efforts will be enough."
Hermione nodded, and they looked back at the spell. It was a nasty piece of work, that was for sure, winding around like some sort of localized obscurus. She couldn't see any gaps to target, no weak points in the weave of the spell. It was completely different than any other hex she had seen, including the strange block-like one that Severus dismantled.
"I have an idea." She said suddenly, and Severus turned to look at her. "But you're not going to think it's a good one."
"What is it?"
"I can pull it." She said resolutely. Pulling a spell was similar to cursebreaking, but was used much more often with charms and illusions than hexes. They had one big drawback when it came to offensive magic: to pull a spell, it had to go somewhere. Usually, with a color changing charm or an illusion, the puller would take the spell onto themselves before dispersing it or depositing it on another object. But if Hermione were to pull thisspell, it would mean taking on the effects – if only for a few seconds.
"Absolutely not." Snape said, like Hermione knew he would.
"It's the only way, Severus. You know it is."
"Then I shall do it. You are still my student, and so still under my protection. I will not see you hurt on my watch." He held his wand up, almost as if he were ready to use force to stop her.
She frowned at him. "You know it's been a long time since I was really a student, no matter how I look. I'm an adult, and I'm just as invested as you are in this. And I'm really quite sorry, Severus, but, pertificus totalus!" She said suddenly, taking him by surprise.
He had almost hit the floor before she cast a spell that straightened him up again. With the limited motion of someone hit with the petrification charm, Severus could only glare as she turned away to pull the spell.
She grit her teeth, preparing herself for what she knew would be an absolutely terrible experience.
And once she saw the whole scope of the spell – an annoyingly impressive six square feet – she was ready to pull it. Using her wand like a blind man's walking stick, she reached for the edges of the spell. It was spread like a blanket over the area, poised to react if anyone did more than step on it. And when she had a good feel for all the edges, she started slowly, slowly pulling upwards.
In that special way of looking at magic, she could see the dark spell curling up, looking like a huge unfriendly balloon. Hermione's knuckles were white around her wand, desperately trying to control the spell as it fought her control. She dug her heels into the ground and brought her left hand up to her wand, straining to contain the spell. And at long last, it became smaller and smaller, gathering at the tip of her wand like a funnel cloud.
She let out a yell, and used her wand to whip the cloud away from the ground. It tore against the flesh of her stomach, and her yell turned into a scream of unadulterated pain. It burned, a white-hot agony that made her see stars – and with one last ditch effort, she swiped her wand to the left, flinging the curse away from her and into a nearby headstone.
Hermione clutched her stomach, gasping for breath. It must've been very late at night, for she could only see vague outlines of the graveyard in front of her. She lowered her wand, taking very deep breaths in an attempt to stay upright. But darkness crept over her vision, covering the graveyard in a nice, blank sheet of black.
Hermione opened her eyes slightly. "Miss Granger," she heard, very distantly. A figure was above her, a fuzzy tan something. It looked like a teddy bear she had as a kid, and she had half a mind to reach for it. But her arms were quite heavy, so she just shut her eyes again.
"Hermione!" She heard again, louder this time. Was someone looking for her? She took a deep breath, and suddenly she could feel her head again. It was quite fuzzy, like someone had put her under an imperius. She suddenly felt very light, and wanted very much to return to the nice nothingness she had experienced a few seconds ago.
"Merlin, please let her wake up soon," she heard in that same distant tone. "Hermione. It's time to go, wake up!"
She opened her eyes once more, and this time the fuzzy something came into focus. It wasn't her childhood teddy bear at all.
"Severus?" She croaked. Her brain was starting to feel less floaty and a lot more like someone had dropped a few dozen bricks on it.
"Yes, you insufferable witch. You've been unconscious for a half hour, and you almost killed yourself tonight."
"Oh, is that why I can't move?" She said mildly, still too woozy to care overly much about what he was saying. "We should probably go, Severus."
He didn't seem to know how to respond to that, but he was holding something quite shiny and gold. The cup! She recognized it far too well, for she had been the one to destroy it the last time. And at that thought, a lot of other pesky thoughts came to her. For one, she was in the middle of a London Cemetary with her Potions Professor. Two, the ground was quite uncomfortable, and she couldn't feel anything below her shoulders.
"Did you use a numbing charm on me?" She said incredulously, a bit surprised at Snape's thoughtfulness.
"I did." He said shortly.
She sensed, more than felt, him move towards her, and suddenly she was lifted into the air. "Stop it, Snape, I can walk just fine!" She said, irritated.
He snorted. "You'll forgive me if I disagree, Miss Granger. You are showing several signs of neurogenic shock."
"Bloody let me down. I've had worse."
He heaved a great sigh, but acquiesced. "Very well."
Suddenly, feeling returned to the rest of her body, and Hermione almost doubled over in pain. "Shite," she said, "what the fuck did you put in that curse, Snape?"
"It wasn't meant to reward intruders," he said, and put out an arm for her to grab. "Will you be able to ride a thestral on your own?"
Hermione was in a very severe amount of pain, more than this body had ever been subjected to. She wasn't even sure she could walk more than five steps, much less balance on a skeletal horse in midair without falling to her death. "Oh, absolutely."
He looked at her with a skeptical look she surely would have responded to, if she were feeling a bit better. But he didn't say anything, and they walked out past the gate without much trouble.
"Hi boy," she said as her thestral trotted up to her. "Think you can help me get back to Hogwarts?"
He neighed in response. She wasn't sure if that was a yes or no, but slowly heaved herself onto his back. It was going to be a long, long ride.
AN: Thanks for reading! I was debating whether I should put a warning about violence at the top, since it's rated T. But PG-13 movies have much more violent scenes in them, so I decided it was fine. Poor Hermione took a hit, though!
There were a few references in this chapter. First is Pulling, which references "Time to Spare" by EmySabath. Its an amazing time travel fic that can be found on FFN and definitely worth a read! I've interpreted the idea of Pulling a bit differently (they don't get hurt by pulling curses in Time to Spare) but I'm giving credit where credit is due. Second is Mage Sight, which i think has been used in many places in HP fanfic, but I first read it in "Make a Wish" Rorschach's Blot - another great read, if you haven't gotten around to it yet. It's hilarious!