A/N 1: It has been too long, dear readers, and I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.

Chapter 29

"How'd it go?" Ginny asked as soon as Hermione arrived back at the Room of Requirement.

Now she bloody chooses to learn about follow-through, Hermione thought breathlessly to herself. She'd returned to the DA headquarters slowly, letting her rushing blood cool, and practicing her 12 times table over and over to get her mind off of –

"It was fine," Hermione answered firmly, walking past Ginny and into her private dormitory. Ginny followed.

"Fine? Fine?" Ginny closed Hermione's door behind the two of them with a sharp snap. "'Mione, did you find anything out? Did you manage to question him? Did you – "

"Can you leave me alone for five fucking minutes?" Hermione snapped angrily, whirling around and glaring at her friend.

Ginny's lip curled into a sneer.

"No, actually, I can't. You see, someone has appointed me to gather intelligence for the DA, and I can't do that if our own leader refuses to share what happens between her and the leader of our enemies. So, no. I can't leave you alone for five fucking minutes."

Hermione felt herself bristling, felt all of the confusion of the past few hours rising in her gut. Her head still hurt from her overuse of Occlumency, and she dared not engage her Mind's Eye now to deal with this. Ginny stepped forward abruptly and put her hands on Hermione's shoulders.

"You can tell me," Ginny said, her voice suddenly quiet, "you can tell me what's really happening because, Hermione, I don't believe that you and Snape are just up there briefing or debriefing or whatever other hogwash you've been telling us. No one else seems to have clued in, but I know you. And," her eyes shimmered, "you'll recall that I've always trusted you with my secrets."

Hermione stared into Ginny's eyes, and replayed their long friendship: the hesitant way Ginny had approached her in Second Year; Hermione's pleasure in first recognizing and then expecting the undeniable strength in the diminutive girl; the letters they wrote back and forth whenever Hermione spent time with her own family; and the whispered conversations in Ginny's room at the Burrow. I still love Harry, she'd told Hermione one night, her voice small and wavering. I know I shouldn't. I know it's dangerous. But I can't help it.

The anger melted away.

"I really can't tell you…" Hermione said slowly, and the stunted admission felt like a weight lifting from her shoulders. She went on, "He's… I couldn't even tell Harry about what – what's really going on…"

"But Harry asked you as well, did he?"

"Of course he did, ages ago when we were all at the Burrow. He clued right in, just like you have. But I really can't tell you anything more."

Ginny looked over her shoulder at the closed door before stepping even closer to Hermione to utter her next words.

"Is he really on our side, Hermione?"

Hermione stepped away so abruptly that she almost stumbled. It was too much to hear Ginny's rich voice speak those words – they resounded in her chest as though her friend had struck a gong.

"I don't know," she said with perfect honesty. "I don't know. But I'll find out, Ginny."

"You know who we should ask, don't you?"

Hermione felt a wave of panic.

"No, Ginny, this has to stay – "

"Yes, yes I know," her friend said impatiently, cutting Hermione off. "It has to stay completely secret because if it gets out that we think one of the DEs might be a turncloak… I know. Anyway, I was going to suggest that we ask someone with even more secrets than you."

Ginny gave her a significant, almost comedic look that made Hermione release a brief, reluctant chuckle.

"Who's that, then?" she asked.

"Dumbledore, of course."

They stood in the intelligence room – the brain chain, as Ginny had dubbed it – and faced a line of empty portraits. At Ginny's call, a sharp little man sidled into one of the frames, his eyebrows raised sardonically.

"Oh no," Ginny said at once. "I didn't mean for you to come. Get out."

Phineas Nigellus spared Ginny a smirk before turning to Hermione.

"Miss Granger, how may I be of service?"

"Not a chance!" Ginny said. "Get out, Black, and let someone useful into the frame."

"Ah, and who did you have in mind, Blood Traitor Weasley?"

Hermione stepped forward and raised a hand to cut off Ginny's angry outburst.

"We want to see Professor Dumbledore, please."

The little man raised an eyebrow.

"For that, Miss Granger, you'll have to take up Divination and make contact with the other side."

"She clearly meant his portrait, you slimy Slytherin bast – "

"Ginny!" Hermione snapped. "I meant his portrait, Professor. Would you please bring the portrait of Professor Dumbledore here for us?"

"He won't speak to the two of you together," the former headmaster told her. Casting a smug glance at Ginny, he continued, "The rust-plumed harpy will have to remove herself."

"Oh, a ginger joke," Ginny snarled, "how very original."

Hermione took Ginny's wrist and turned her forcibly away from the portrait.

"Please, Ginny – I need to talk to Dumbledore, and I think Phineas might be right to insist on my being alone to do it."

"After everything we just discussed?" Ginny asked angrily.

"Yes. I won't be able to speak freely in front of you, Ginny. I can't tell you everything, but I promise I'll answer the question you raised as best I can after talking to Dumbledore."

"Right," Ginny said, throwing another furious glare at Phineas Nigellus, who made a rude little shooing gesture in response. "Right. I'll be in your room."

Hermione stood in front of the portraits once more after Ginny closed the door behind her.

"Would you kindly get him now, Professor Black?"

"Hmmm…" the little man said, squinting upwards and stroking a hand over his pointed beard. "I think not, actually."

Hermione sighed – this wasn't unexpected.

"Allow me to rephrase, then," she said, careful to keep annoyance out of her tone. "What may I offer you, Professor Black, in exchange for conveying Professor Dumbledore's portrait here for me?"

Phineas Nigellus regarded her beadily.

"You are a great deal quicker on the uptake than you once were, Miss Granger. I will have to tell our esteemed Headmaster that his lessons have improved you in more ways than one."

"So?" she demanded, her patience wearing thin. "What do you want?"

"I want to know what happened just now between you and Professor Snape."

"No," Hermione said at once, cursing Hogwarts – it's the least private place in the universe – and frowned at the deceased Headmaster. "Not a chance."

"Then I would like to sit in on your little pow-wow with Dumbledore."

Hermione weighed the demand against the question she needed to ask, and she decided to put her lessons with Snape to good use. If there was one thing the dark man had taught her, it was that she must ask the right questions.

"Done."

The little man left immediately, and didn't return until five minutes or more had passed. Phineas took one painting, and Dumbledore took the one next to his, and the latter faced Hermione gravely. She realized that, despite everything, it was good to see the wizened man. Even in this reduced state, his was still a comforting presence.

"Miss Granger, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked mildly.

"I have a question for you, sir," she said.

"Just one?"

"Just one."

"Then by all means," the portrait said, waving an arm in generous invitation. "Ask your question."

Hermione gathered herself carefully and tried to keep her emotions from her voice without using Occlumency.

"Did you instruct Professor Snape to kill you?"

She watched the silver-haired man, and pointedly ignored an outburst from Phineas Nigellus. Dumbledore tilted his head to one side, regarding her, and Hermione felt as though she stood before a radiograph as she waited for an answer. At last he inhaled softly.

"Severus Snape," Dumbledore said carefully, "completed his mission in every way I asked of him." He paused significantly, never looking away from Hermione. "Except one."

Her eagerness overspilled, and Hermione felt her fists clenching, her nails almost breaking the skin of her palms.

"And that was?"

Dumbledore smiled sadly at her.

"I am not permitted to say more at this time, my dear."

Ginny sat on Hermione's bed, legs crossed at the ankles, a chocolate biscuit held daintily between her forefinger and thumb.

"Want one?" she asked, offering Hermione the tin at her elbow.

Hermione took one, and nibbled a corner.

"Where did you get these?" she asked.

"Ernie and his team have been down to the kitchens talking to the house elves about supplying the Room with food."

Hermione sat down next to Ginny.

"And?"

"They can't. Not directly. They're supposed to supply the Great Hall, and any students who make their way to the kitchens, but sending food up here would have to be on direct orders from the Headmaster."

Hermione sighed and finished her biscuit.

"That's a dead end, then."

"Do you really think we'll need to move people in permanently, 'Mione?"

"Yes." Hermione said, brushing crumbs off her coverlet. "It's a matter of time, but yes, and I don't fancy the idea of constantly stealing food to bring up here. We need to operate independently."

"So…" Ginny raised her eyebrows expectantly and reached for another biscuit.

Hermione sighed again and shrugged.

"Dumbledore was sort of a dead end, too," she said quietly.

"But what did he say?"

Hermione recounted the conversation, and was surprised to feel relief cascade down from her clenched jaw and into her shoulders. It was incredibly good to share some of the weight she'd carried for so long.

"Huh," Ginny said thoughtfully. "What an unbelievably annoying, Slytherin-type answer."

"Quite," Hermione answered, feeling her lips twitch at the corners.

"If he's anything like the other Headmaster and Headmistress portraits, he won't be able to disobey outright orders from Snape."

"Right, but you've still managed to get a lot of the former Heads to work with the DA?"

"Oh, sure," Ginny said, stretching out on Hermione's bed and almost knocking the tin of biscuits to the floor. "Dilys explained it to me ages ago. They've got orders from the current Headmaster, but they can also act in Hogwarts's and the students' best interests as they see fit."

Hermione shook her head a little wonderingly.

"That wasn't in Hogwarts, A History."

Ginny rolled her eyes pointedly.

"Well, if it's not in a book it mustn't be true."

Hermione poked her friend in the ribs and stretched out next to her, staring up at the dark ceiling.

"So?"

"So."

"We assume he's not."

"Until I can get evidence to the contrary, yes."

Ginny turned onto her side to face Hermione.

"And how do you feel about that, 'Mione?"

Hermione turned to face Ginny. She felt a single tear trail down her temple and slide into her hair.

"I don't know, Gin."

Ginny looked away for a moment, her pretty brow furrowed, before she looked back into Hermione's eyes.

"How do you feel about… him, Hermione?"

Hermione felt the burning heat rise in her chest at the question, the undeniable, palpable emotion she now associate with Snape…

"I want him to be with us. So badly."

Ginny nodded and then was still, her cheek pressed into Hermione's pillow.

"Find out, then," she said.

It was the enunciation of the mission Hermione had set herself at Christmas, and something about having it uttered aloud – from Ginny, no less – made the weight fall right back onto Hermione's shoulders.

The DA carried their mission forward tenaciously over the following weeks: Ginny gathered as much intelligence as she could, and she sent Neville's fighters out to break up confrontations between DEs and DA members wherever possible. The castle's ghosts and portraits proved again and again to be valuable allies, and the DA managed to make good on Harry and Ron's suggestions to impair the Carrows almost continually. Amycus was Confunded by Neville weekly; Alecto was given several astronomical doses of U-No-Poo thanks to Dobby; the Third-Year Gryffindors doused Amycus's classroom, office, and private quarters in Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder whenever they could; Alecto's nose was bitten off by a particularly vicious Nose Biting Teacup (she finally stopped taking meals in the Great Hall after that); and both Carrow's offices were so full of Dungbombs, Nifflers, magical fireworks, and Fanged Frisbees that neither sibling could retire in the evening without performing hours of clumsy spellwork. And finally, Peeves had been assigned by Neville, whom he had taken to obeying with ruthless enthusiasm, to pester the two DEs every hour on the hour. The Poltergeist threw bits of chalk at the Carrows in the hallways, blew raspberries whenever they spoke in their classrooms, sang loud, mocking rhymes at them in the Great Hall, and dripped water (and worse) on their heads at night to prevent them sleeping. As they'd done with Umbridge, the other members of the Hogwarts staff suddenly developed severe incompetence and were unable to help the Carrows in any way.

Hermione saw little of Snape, who canceled three Friday evening lessons in a row. She thought endlessly of this, wondering if the Headmaster was avoiding her purposefully – his eyes, always tracking carefully over the house tables at mealtimes, seemed to pass right over her. Hermione took to following his movements as much as she could on the Marauder's Map, which showed her that he was, in fact, away not just Friday evenings, but during the rest of the week as well. A thousand times she thought of marching up to the Head's Office to demand an explanation for all the cancellations. He's avoiding you, the niggling voice said in her mind, he regrets what happened last time and he's disgusted and you need to stop thinking about that anyway and focus on finding out if he's a turn cloak, but oh God, that kiss… and so on in a circular inner monologue that never seemed to end. Although she still practiced her Occlumency daily, Hermione found herself using much of her psychic energy for preventing this monologue from surfacing.

Phineas Nigellus still followed Hermione doggedly throughout the castle, and he confirmed that the Headmaster had been away a number of times, and was cancelling their meetings for that reason.

"Where does he go?" she asked in an undertone one evening as she made her way to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"Oh, wouldn't you just love to know."

"He's not on the grounds when I check the Map, so I know he's left the school completely at least twice this past week alone."

"And what makes you think I'm aware of the locations of his sojourns outside of Hogwarts?"

Hermione glanced sideways at the sharp man, who shrugged one shoulder at her. She carried on up the corridor.

"I think you know more than the other Headmasters' portraits, Professor Black. You're the only Slytherin amongst them, after all, and I think Professor Snape is more likely to trust you than anyone else – perhaps in the whole castle."

The portrait bristled.

"If you are implying that I sympathize with the current administration's apparent political leanings, you are quite mistaken!"

"That's not what I meant," she said in a measured tone as she rounded a corner. She waited for the little man to catch her up in a landscape painting before carrying on. "Unlike most in my house, I don't think that all Slytherins are on You-Know-Who's side."

Phineas Nigellus's austere expression cleared immediately.

"Oh, you are learning, Miss Granger. That was almost subtle. Brava. Not," he waved a hand dismissively, "that it will induce me to reveal anything about our respectable Headmaster."

Hermione felt herself smile before she walked up to the girls' bathroom.

"I'll see you in a bit, then, sir?"

"I will await you here, Miss Granger. Enjoy your clandestine meeting."

"Yes, I hope it'll be more productive than this conversation has been."

Phineas Nigellus rolled his eyes, and Hermione took a deep breath, and entered Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Draco Malfoy stood waiting for her, his hip braced against a sink. Moaning Myrtle herself hovered nearby, looking fervently at Malfoy, her lower lip trembling.

"Off you go then," Malfoy told the ghostly girl, not unkindly.

"Will you visit me again soon?" the girl asked, a distinct whine in her voice. "You haven't been down to see me in ages and ages, you know."

"Of course," he answered, giving her a wink.

Myrtle beamed at him, cast Hermione a superior sort of look, and zipped into her toilet. Without missing a beat, Hermione put up the usual privacy enchantments, ensuring that they wouldn't be overheard.

"What did you want to see me about, then?" Malfoy asked after she'd finished casting the spells. "I gather my – what did the weasel bitch call it – intelligence has been useful, given what your lot have managed against the Carrows lately."

"Don't," Hermione snapped, "call Ginny that in my hearing ever again, Malfoy, or I'll let her have right at you next time she tries."

He sighed.

"Reflex. Apologies."

"Yeah, right," she mumbled. She collected herself before speaking again. "I have more questions for you."

"And what do you offer in trade?"

"Well, most of the First and Second Year Slytherins are in the DA now. Are there any in the Third Year who are interested in membership?"

Malfoy's pale eyes narrowed.

"The questions?"

Hermione braced herself, and decided on sincerity with this particular Slytherin.

"Where have you and Snape been going together these past few weeks?"

Malfoy didn't skip a beat.

"What makes you think we're going anywhere together?"

Hermione narrowed her own eyes in turn.

"I've ascertained not once, but twice this week that you and Snape have both left and returned to the castle within ten minutes of one another. You're not leaving nor returning together, but I think you have the same destination. I've seen it before, naturally, but I haven't noticed it happening this frequently." Hermione watched him carefully before carrying on, "And I know that the Carrows leave on alternate days, and not as often."

Malfoy let out a short sigh.

"So what do you really want to know, Granger?"

"Why does You-Know-Who summon you and Snape together?" Malfoy crossed his arms over his chest and sneered at her, and Hermione felt her back straighten rigidly. "Is it to do with what you two discuss during your weekly Tuesday meetings?"

"It's to do with the fact that the Dark Lord knows how close Severus and I are, and he sometimes uses that to his advantage during our summons."

Hermione felt her stomach roll over at the implications of that, and wondered why Malfoy hadn't been summoned this evening although Snape had been. She moved on quickly, missing her Mind's Eye and the neutrality she used to access continually through it.

"And what do you and Snape do together Tuesday nights?" she asked.

"What do you do together Friday nights?"

"I'm asking the questions, Malfoy. Answer me or you'll get nothing out of this."

Malfoy smirked at her, uncrossed his arms, and turned to one of the tarnished mirrors suspended over the sink behind him. He adjusted the collar on his shirt before running a hand lazily through his hair.

"Why does it matter to you, Granger?" He turned back to her, his eyes alight. "Are you trying to plan something for one of those nights when the two of us are away or…" he smirked again, "are you hoping to cultivate another Slytherin ally?"

"I told you – "

"Fine. I'll answer you." He stepped close, and Hermione felt herself holding her breath. "Severus and I discuss this." Malfoy waved a hand between their two chests. "Among other things, we discuss the DA, the students' safety, and our respective relationships to you, Miss Granger."

He walked to the door of the bathroom, breaking the privacy charms and speaking over his shoulder.

"I'll expect enrolment for all of the Third Years, Granger. And the Fourths as well."

Hermione didn't answer, and Malfoy walked smoothly from the bathroom. She turned to the tarnished mirror, and closed her eyes.

A/N 2: Next chapter is written but needs a tweak or two before I post it. Hopefully it'll be up early next week. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!