A/N 1: And we're back!

Chapter 21

She spent the next days with her parents, but much of the time in the evenings Hermione shut herself away to write messages to Harry and Ron. Harry was recovering well from his injuries, but had, according to Ron, withdrawn substantially at the loss of his wand. He'd demanded that Hermione read through Skeeter's book after learning that she, too, had a copy of it. And, after much hesitation and teeth-grinding, Hermione had finally sat down to absorb Skeeter's verbose, grotesquely self-effacing prose. It had not made for fun reading, but she had found herself particularly drawn to the copy of one letter that had been included in the pictures section of the book.

"Where is Harry now?" she demanded of Ron one night. "Is he alright? I need to talk to him about something."

"He said he fancied a walk."

Hermione glared at Ron's writing.

"And you let him go? Alone?"

"We're in the middle of that forest you mentioned, 'Mione. There's nothing here that's out to get us. And we've been following your orders to the letter. No mentioning You-Know-Who by name – Harry almost did the other night, though, I actually had to thump him – and we've stopped wearing the Horcrux for good."

"Good, how do you feel without it full-time?"

"So much better. You were right… of course. It was really starting to get to me. It kept…" Ron's scribbling slowed down. "I… started thinking weird things about you… and Harry."

Hermione felt her cheeks pinking slightly, and she grounded herself by looking around Snape's old, now-familiar bedroom. She took a deep breath before writing back.

"That's nonsense, Ron. I miss you both, as you well know. And there's nothing going on that you don't know about." Hermione bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. She'd lied without even realising it, without even –

Ron was writing again: "I know, Hermione. I just miss you like mad, that's all. It does stuff to your head, you know. Being out here all the time with barely anything to eat and nothing to do but think of Horcruxes. You were right, though, about the locket. We keep it in Harry's pouch now. I don't even like looking at it, really."

Hermione nodded to herself, glad that her precautions had finally sunken in with the boys. But something niggled at her, bothering her.

"How long has Harry been gone?"

Ron took a moment to answer, and Hermione pictured him staring at the ceiling of the tent, trying to calculate.

"I don't know… maybe twenty minutes?"

"Maybe you should go out and check on him."

"I can't do that without packing everything up, Hermione. You know that – you designed all these protective spells around me."

Hermione almost kicked herself.

"Of course. No, you're right. We'll just wait until he comes back. In the meantime, I've got an idea for another plan, maybe even in the next few days."

Hermione told Ron about the symbol she had seen in Rita Skeeter's book – the odd eye that Dumbledore had used in place of the letter A for his signature – and about remembering that Xenophilius Lovegood had been wearing a necklace with that same symbol during Bill and Fleur's wedding all that time ago.

"And you reckon he knows something about all of this, then?" Ron wrote back. "Seems a bit thin, doesn't it?"

"It does, but it's the only thing I've been able to come up with since –"

"Yeah – hang on. I think I hear Harry coming back."

Hermione waited impatiently. She cast a Tempus charm and sighed at the late hour. Her sigh turned into a yelp when something large and silvery appeared before her in Snape's room. It was a Patronus – Harry's silver stag lit up the dim little room, and then opened its mouth to speak in her friend's jubilant voice: "Hermione! We've got it! We've got the sword of Gryffindor. The REAL ONE! Ron's just destroyed the locket!" It was followed by loud whooping and cheering that had Hermione Silencing the room lest her parents awaken to Harry's loud voice. She snatched up the twinned parchment and tapped it with her wand.

"Harry!" Her writing was, for once, as untidy as her friend's. "What do you mean? You got the actual sword? From where?"

"I found it in a pool in the forest!" Harry wrote back, his scrawl almost incomprehensible. "I was just out walking, and there was this shining silver doe – it might have been a Patronus, I don't know – so I followed it, and it led me to this pool. I saw the sword at the bottom, so I jumped in – it was bloody cold, mind – and grabbed it! It was amazing!"

Hermione frowned deeply to herself, torn between annoyance at her friend's insane wandering in the woods, and her happiness at the fact that they were one Horcrux down, and that they now had the means to destroy the others. She decided to go with happiness, and she and Harry exchanged hurried messages back and forth, marvelling at what had happened. Ron jumped in now and again to add how he'd destroyed the Horcrux, which had put up a frightening display he refused to describe, and which was now thoroughly deceased.

Finally, Hermione shook herself, and told Harry what she'd already said to Ron about their next move.

"You're right," he wrote back. "It's a long shot, but that mark keeps coming up for a reason. Ron and I'll go and ask him about it in the next day or so."

"Be – "

"Careful, yes, I know."

"Seriously, Harry. I know that Mr. Lovegood has been very supportive so far – the Quibbler has been publishing nothing but positive stories about you – but you've got to be prepared for anything. You-Know-Who planned for you to visit Godric's Hollow. You never know – "

"I know, 'Mione, I know. We'll try for the day after tomorrow. I figure we'll plan a bit, take a few precautions, and then go for it."

"Okay, Harry. I'll probably be back at Hogwarts by then, so I might not get any messages right away, but please do let me know how things go."

"Will do."

It was two days later when the knock came at the door. No, not a knock. Hermione almost dropped the plate she was drying upon hearing the loud series of thumps coming from the front door.

"What was that?"

"Ah, that professor of yours must be here," her father answered. He took his hands out of the soapy water and dried them on the towel Hermione still held.
"Does he always knock so –"

The sound came again: two loud knocks followed by a huge thump.

"We figured it out ages ago. It's the rhythm to "We Will Rock You" by Queen. Professor Snape does it three times in a row and we know it's him."

"What if…" Hermione stopped as the sound came for a third time. "What if it's not him?"

"He gave us instructions to go down cellar if ever we think there's a problem. He didn't let us down there for the longest time, but he said it's rigged it up special now so that it'll protect us. It's like a panic room, but magic."

Her father left her standing dumbfounded as he strode down the hall towards the front door. Her mother came back into the kitchen from the dining room, a vase of the enchanted forget-me-nots clutched in her hands.

"Ah, I suppose it was too much to ask for one more day together," she said to Hermione as she set the vase down.

"This is more than I ever expected," Hermione answered, giving her mother a hug.

She'd been expecting Snape for days now; her bag was already packed and by the door, the twinned parchment and the Map were stowed safely in an inner pocket, and her wand was always up her sleeve. It had been a wonderful handful of days, and now Hermione dreaded returning to Hogwarts – to the Carrows, and the pressures of the DA, and especially to the oddly stimulating lessons with Snape.

She pulled away from her mother as Snape himself entered the kitchen, chatting quietly with her father.

"Professor," her mother said, rushing forward to shake Snape's hand. "What a shame – you just missed dinner. If you'd like, though, I can make up a quick plate of something for you now you're here."

"No, thank you, Dr. Granger," Snape replied. "Your daughter and I should make our way back to Hogwarts at once. I apologize for this abrupt interruption of your evening, and your time together. I would have given warning had it been possible."

Hermione wasn't surprised at his seeming kindness after all of her parents' stories about him, but she did have to tuck away her incredulity at hearing Snape address her mother with such deference. He turned to her, and Hermione quickly brought up her Mind's Eye.

"We don't have much time, Miss Granger. I'll wait for you outside."

He shook hands once more with each of Hermione's parents, and then left the way he'd come, pausing only to pick up Hermione's rucksack from where it lay by the door.

She brushed the tears away impatiently after she closed the front door behind her. The house looked as ramshackle and horrid as ever, but knowing that her parents stayed warm and happy within, where Snape had made a lovely haven for them, made Hermione long to throw the door open and run back inside. She shook her head slowly to herself, before turning to find Snape at the bottom of the porch steps. His face reflected the full moon as he peered up at her. He was pale, as always, but with dark circles etched beneath his eyes.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Hermione descended slowly and paused on the last stair, where she stood level with him.

"No," she said frankly.

He nodded, examining her face carefully.

"I'm – " she shook her head. "I wasn't ready in September, when I didn't know what to expect. I'm even less ready now when – " she cut herself off, and brushed a last tear from the corner of one eye.

"When you do know what to expect."

His dark gaze never left her face, and Hermione found herself smiling at him, a bleary, watery smile. It was odd to see him back here, to feel so familiar around him on this now-common ground, and to know that this tenuous cordiality between them would evaporate as soon as he Apparated them back to the castle.

"I wish this could all be different," she said before she could stop herself.

"As do I." He spoke the words so quietly, so low, that Hermione barely registered them. "Come."

She allowed him to lead her out of the little front yard, down the back alley, and then – by the force of his shadowy magic – to the Hogwarts she now dreaded.

It didn't take long for the peace she'd felt in her parents' presence at Spinner's End to dissipate. After getting back to her little bedchamber in the Room of Requirement, Hermione spoke to Harry and Ron. They updated her on the nonsense Xenophilius Lovegood had told them, and then they told her that Luna had been kidnapped by Death Eaters.

"How?" Hermione demanded immediately. "When?"

"We're not sure," Harry scrawled back. "I think it was recently enough – probably right after she got on the Express. You saw her leave Hogwarts on the Map, right?"

"Of course. I made sure everyone left the castle and grounds safely."

"But you've not heard back from anyone over the hols, have you?"

Hermione paused for a moment, biting her lip.

"No. But I figured that if there were any issues, one of the DA would have contacted me."

"Except that you're pretty much at enemy central, aren't you? And they wouldn't know how to get you a message safely."

He was right, of course, and this was something Hermione hadn't quite foreseen. A frisson raced down her spine as she wondered what other circumstances she'd failed to foresee.

"This is terrible," Hermione wrote. "Who did you say saw you leave Lovegood's house?"

"Two Death Eaters, I heard the name Travers for sure. And Selwyn, I think. They didn't see Ron, though. We'd agreed that he would wear the Cloak in case of an emergency so that no one would have grounds to go after his family."

"Yes, I remember going over that with you," Hermione answered. "But Luna's father didn't tell you anything else about where she was?"

"No. There wasn't any time to ask questions, Hermione. It all happened fast, and we had to get away."

"Of course. I just… I don't know where this leaves me and the DA."

Harry's writing was replaced by Ron's loopy hand.

"It's escalating, 'Mione. I know things haven't been easy over there, but I think it might get harder. Lovegood said they took Luna because of what he was writing in the Quibbler, and Harry and me saw a new edition he was printing. It had the usual 'Undesirable Number One' bollocks all over it. Be very careful."

Hermione nodded to herself, thinking rapidly of Hagrid's idea for a Support Harry Potter Party. She signed off soon after, and took up the Marauder's Map and saw right away that Snape was in his office. Hermione jumped up. I'll go see him. I'll ask him exactly what happened to Luna, and I'll demand – what? What could she demand? Assurances that the other students wouldn't face similar fates? Although the DA could protect its members from some of the casual violence of the Carrows, they couldn't do all that much if the Death Eaters decided to target specific members for capture. They were sitting ducks. And if she confronted Snape about Luna now, he'd know that she'd gotten intelligence from outside of Hogwarts. She shook her head to herself.

But she needed to do something with all of this pent-up energy – all of this panic and anger and helplessness. She walked out into the larger Room of Requirement and started pacing in the DA headquarters, which quickly elongated into the Room of Hidden Things. It was beyond frustrating: one of her friends, and one of the most prominent leaders in the DA, no less, had been kidnapped and might be facing torture, extortion, possibly even execution. And Hermione could do nothing. And it could – it would happen again. She knew this in her bones. And they had nothing.

She looked around the Room again, realising that her last thought wasn't entirely true…

A/N 2: It is good to be back! I'm not sure when the next chapter will drop, but I will be working on this story steadily again from now on. Thank you all for your patience.

A/N 3: I missed you guys :D