IMPORTANT A/N 1: I'm "due" for a wondrous familial change any time now, and I'm not sure when I'll resume our weekly schedule afterwards. This is NOT me putting this story on hiatus. This is me taking a brief leave in order to see to my family and myself. I'll be back as soon as I can (I might even get a couple more updates in if possible). Until then, please wish me love, light, and luck.

A/N 2: I flipping love you guys. And this story. And Hermione. And Snape. And especially you guys.

Chapter 19

It felt like her parents would never stop hugging her, and Hermione hugged them back just as fiercely. Relief surged through her in waves as she examined them both, and she couldn't help but cry. Her mother joined her, and her father looked teary-eyed.

"Hermione, my dear, we've missed you so much," her mother said, face buried in Hermione's cloud of bushy hair.

"It's been very hard without you," her father said, and he wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter and held them both fast against his chest.

"I know," Hermione said. "It's been awful."

At last, the three drew apart, and Hermione had a chance to look around. She gasped at what she saw.

"This place is… it's so different."

Her mother smiled widely, and brushed the last tears from her eyes.

"It's better, isn't it?" she said, smiling proudly. "That professor of yours did a lot of it, of course, just as he'd promised, but your father and I have made a real project of making the place truly liveable."

"I think you've gone past liveable," Hermione said, smiling back at her mother. "This place looks great."

It was spotlessly clean - that was the first thing Hermione noticed. But not just that: the floors had been stripped of the old, mouldy carpeting to reveal highly-polished hardwood; there was new furniture in the fashionably-decorated living room with a blazing fire in the grate; through a doorway, Hermione saw a tiny kitchen with old appliances but new cupboards.

"How did you manage all of this?"

"Professor Snape did quite of bit of magicking for us," her father said, "but we insisted that, after he'd made the biggest changes, he just get us the materials to fix the rest up. It's kept us busy, and I think he's quite pleased with the place now."

"Wait," Hermione said, frowning a little, "he still comes here? Often?"

"Not so often at first," her mother answered, "but I think he took pity on us sometime during the fall. He comes, what – " she looked at her husband, who shrugged, "perhaps once every ten days or so now? I suppose it's when he finds the time. He joins us for dinner, usually, and sometimes for a game of something afterwards."

"A game?" Hermione felt incredulous – Snape had never said a word.

"Sure," her father answered. "The man's a dab hand with cards. We're lucky we never play for anything but the fun of it. He'd fleece us if the stakes were higher."

Hermione smiled to herself, resolving to prod Snape's mind during their next lesson to see one of these card games.

Her parents showed her to the guest room – they had the master bedroom, which Snape had magically enlarged for them – but hers was the tiny room at the back of the house. It was clean, but Hermione immediately sensed magical traces all over it – not the recent ones marking the rest of the house. These were faint, but impossible to ignore, like the traces of magic in her own room in their old, abandoned house. Her parents left her to unpack her rucksack and make herself at home, and she started to explore. The tiny desk beneath the window held nothing but a few old magic textbooks. The walls were blank, the wardrobe empty, but when Hermione opened the desk's single drawer, she found a small collection of objects that made her first gasp, then smile. An old Slytherin House tie, a shimmering prefect's badge, and a faded banner bearing the English National Quidditch team's colours.

Hermione turned and surveyed the room again. Closing her eyes, she thought of the times she had seen glimpses of Snape's childhood. The room had been dingy then, the bed on the opposite wall, the wardrobe had been stained, and the windows had been almost permanently shuttered, but it was the same room. She suppressed a shiver at the thought of sleeping in Snape's old room – it was an odd, unsettling thought.

It was late, but Hermione and her parents stayed up into the night talking. Hermione was careful to stick to subjects that wouldn't obligate her to lie to them outright – her success in (most of) her classes, her status as Head Girl, her ideas of what her future might look like in the wizarding world. She kept the details of the war, and the truth of who was really running Hogwarts carefully locked out of the conversation. In return, her parents told her more about their renovations, about how they spent their endless time in the house, and about how Snape had magically enlarged the tiny back garden into a large park that they could use for exercise. When it was just past two in the morning, they all finally said goodnight, and Hermione retreated back to Snape's tiny bedroom.

It was cool up here, and Hermione changed quickly into her night things and dove into the bed. It was comfortable enough despite how the mattress dipped at the centre and, tired as she was, she drifted off to sleep almost immediately, despite the strangely comforting scent of wood smoke and herbs trapped in between the sheets.

The next day passed almost too quickly and Hermione, conscious that this would be the only time she'd see her parents for months to come, tried and failed to stop worrying about Harry and Ron and their upcoming mission. She spent time cooking with her mother in the afternoon, and then she followed her father into the large greenhouse in the evening. It was full of flowers they had planted throughout the time they'd spent here, and Hermione worked in there for a while, renewing the heating charms Snape had set up, and devising other ways to improve the space.

They had their Christmas tea late in the evening, and Hermione had to excuse herself briefly for a supposed bathroom break; the parchment hidden in her jeans pocket had grown suddenly warm, and was now an inky black. After the brief exchange of code words, the boys told her that they were setting off to Godric's Hollow.

"Good," she sent back quickly. "I can't talk long – I'm with my parents and we're having Christmas dinner, and they don't know…" she trailed off for so long that the words disappeared from the parchment, "much of anything."

"Right, well wish them a happy Christmas from us," Ron wrote back.

"Are you both comfortable with side-along Apparition under the Cloak?" she asked, not for the first time.

"Yes, we've been practicing like mad."

"Good. Let me know how everything goes as soon as it's safe to do so. Remember to keep yourselves as hidden as possible. And remember to watch your backs."

"We will, to all of it."

She signed off quickly, with the feeling of dread wedging its way deeper into her gut. The idea of the boys finally abandoning the safety of the woods for the very place where Harry's parents died was disturbing, but there wasn't much else for it. This was the only lead they had, and they had to follow it up.

She was getting ready for bed when the parchment, which she'd placed carefully next to her pillow, turned black once more. She gasped and quickly warded the door to keep her parents from entering. They'll be asleep by now anyway, she thought vaguely to herself. She tapped the parchment, and was about to begin the usual careful greetings, when Ron's loopy writing – untidy at best, but this time almost illegible – ran across the parchment.

"Hermione we've only just got away. The snake – you-know-who's bloody SNAKE was waiting in the house for us!"

Hermione's mouth went dry, and she tapped the parchment immediately with her answer.

"Are you both okay?"

"Yes, but I think we only just got away. The snake tried to keep us there – I think it was calling You-Know-Who to come and get us." He paused for a moment. "Harry's in a bad way."

"Did it bite him? Is he poisoned?"

"It did, but I don't think it poisoned him, if that makes any sense. He's just… Hermione, he's ranting. I don't know what to do."

"Where are you?"

"What – you can't – "

"Ronald, tell me where you are this instant. And give me a specific landmark to Apparate to."

He told her, and Hermione jumped up, already pulling a jumper on over her pyjamas.

"Stand just outside the range of the protective charms. Make sure you can get us both back inside that tent. I'll be there in two minutes."

She had barely finished Apparating before Ron was engulfing her in a huge hug.

"Gods, 'Mione, it's fucking good to see you," he said into her neck.

She pushed him away gently.

"You too. Where's Harry?"

Ron took her hand and led her into the circle of protective charms. Harry was inside the tent, writhing on a camp bed.

"Did you treat the snake bite?" Hermione asked.

"I tried a Healing Spell, but I'm not very good at them."

"Get the dittany for me, will you?"

They had to remove the beaded bag from Harry's sock before they could Summon the little bottle from the depths of the bag. Harry thrashed as they did this, and then caught Hermione's arm in an iron grip. He dropped something heavy onto the floor, and Hermione did a double-take when she saw that it was a copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. She looked back at her friend, and firmly dismissed the book from her mind for the time being.

"Harry, I'm here," she whispered, brushing a strand of hair from his sweaty forehead.

"He's going to kill them," he answered harshly, his eyes wide and distant. "He's in the house. He's going to kill them."

"I know," she answered, shuddering at what he must be seeing but unsure of what to do. "But you're safe now. You got away."

Ron handed her the bottle of dittany, and Hermione carefully dribbled a few drops onto the snake bite. She and Ron both sighed with relief when the skin immediately began to mend itself.

"You were right," she said to Ron. "It didn't poison him. You-Know-Who still wants Harry alive."

Harry thrashed again after Hermione released his arm. She reached over and removed his glasses lest shatter from all the sudden, jerking movements.

"What's wrong with him now?" Ron asked, looking pale under his freckles.

"I… I'm not sure. It seems like he's having visions of some sort."

"It was scary, right before I wrote to you. He'd started talking like… I don't know, maybe like You-Know-Who."

Hermione regarded Ron, feeling her own face paling.

"The connection," she said slowly, "do you think the connection has been reopened because of this?"

"I think it might have been open all along, actually."

"That's… that's really, really bad, Ron," Hermione said, looking down at Harry. She conjured a rag and a basin of cool water and mopped his brow. "If You-Know-Who has this kind of control – "

"I don't think he's controlling Harry," Ron said firmly. "No. I'm sure he's not. I'd have noticed. It's just the two of us, right? You notice when the only other person you've seen in six months goes barmy."

They kept up the quiet, whispered conversation while Hermione continued to soothe Harry as best she could. He thrashed about for what seemed like hours, before subsiding into a feverish, fitful doze.

"I think he'll stay asleep now," she said, standing up at last. "If I weren't so unsure of what he's going through, I would consider giving him some Dreamless Sleep or something else to keep him quiet. But it might do more harm than good."

"You're leaving?" Ron asked, standing too.

Hermione smiled at him warmly, sadly.

"I have to. I shouldn't have come at all – just like you said. My parents will be beyond worried if they wake to find me away, and it's…" Hermione cast a quick Tempus, "four-thirty in the morning. I hate to leave them alone much longer."

She looked down at Harry again, before bending and giving him a swift kiss on the cheek.

"Give him my love when he comes to, okay? And let me know if he gets any worse. I don't know what else we can do for him, but I'd at least like to keep abreast of the situation."

Ron nodded, and Hermione turned away to exit the tent. He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"I didn't tell you everything," he said sombrely. "I… it happened really fast, 'Mione. And there wasn't any time once the snake came out…" Ron reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wand so disfigured it took Hermione a beat to realise what it signified. "I cast a blasting hex - I didn't even mean to do it, mind you, it just happened - and it must have caught Harry's wand."

Hermione reached out to touch the phoenix wand where it lay broken in Ron's palm. She felt like crying, like screaming out into the woods, like letting her knees buckle and staying here until morning being comforted by her two best friends. She drew herself up instead.

"That's a setback," she said at last, closing Ron's fingers back around the shattered wand. "It…it isn't good. There must be a way…" She trailed off before thrusting her own wand towards him. "Take mine, Ron. Give it to Harry. It won't be the same, but at least he can use it until something better – "

"Have you gone barking?" Ron pocketed the broken wand, and batted Hermione's offering away. "You need that more than either of us do, the place you're going back to. We…we'll make do."

"Right. But let me know if you change your mind." Hermione peered out of the tent. The night still held, but she knew that dawn would not be that far off. "I really have to go now."

Ron stepped out with her, embraced her, and let her go.

Hermione Apparated back to Spinner's End feeling profoundly exhausted and deeply worried about her two friends. It had been right to go to them, even though she hadn't been able to do much for Harry. It had been –

She stopped short on the front lawn of the house. There, on the steps of the porch, his face set in lines of fury, stood Snape.

A/N 3: Dun dun duuuuunnnnn... I'll try not to keep you all waiting too long. xox