A/N: Lots of new readers this past week (some of whom have very ambitiously read this entire story in one sitting) - thank you guys for reading, messaging and reviewing! To the usual suspects: you rock my world with your enthusiasm and encouragement.

Chapter 32

Hermione raced along the dark dungeon corridors, her mind beating as furiously as her feet against the stone floor.

"Miss Granger!" a voice shouted from beside her. Hermione spared only a glance for Phineas Nigellus, who ran alongside her through paintings. "Miss Granger, you must go back. There is nothing you can do – "

Hermione ignored him and carried on through a secret passage that would take her up to the Entrance Hall. Phineas was there when she emerged, but she disregarded the little man again and primed her wand as she crossed the deserted Entrance Hall, listening with all her might for sounds from within the Great Hall.

"Severus has everything perfectly under control," Phineas said from a painting at Hermione's elbow. "There is truly nothing to be done, Granger."

She heard nothing through the thick oaken doors, and so Hermione drew a deep breath, and turned to Phineas. I'm not prepared for this –

"Tell-me-everything-you-know," she said in one quick rush of breath.

"Severus had to make a concession, Granger – it was inevitable. But he will keep the students as safe as he can."

"Has Parvati sent out the DA's fighters?" Hermione demanded.

"She has not – there was no opportunity for an alert to reach her because the Headmaster took measures…" he trailed off.

Hermione glared at him.

"You will tell me what those measures are – in detail – later. And who will I find in there?" she continued, gesturing at the door.

"The Carrows have joined the Headmaster, no one else. Hermione," his voice lowered and a pleading note entered his tone, "lower your wand if you go in there. You do not want to turn this into a fight. You will lose, and… that is the last thing Severus would want."

"Noted," Hermione spat, keeping her wand up as she reached for the door handle. "Anything else?"

"If you refuse to listen to reason, then at least give me a ten second advantage of you," the little man snapped, and he disappeared from the frame without waiting for an answer.

Hermione took a deep breath and checked over her Mind's Eye.

One one-thousand.

He had to make a concession.

Two one-thousand.

Because of what we've been getting away with.

Three one-thousand.

Because of how we've managed the Carrows…

Four one-thousand.

… and kept ourselves safe…

Five one-thousand.

… mostly safe, anyway.

Six one-thousand.

And now… 'it was inevitable,' and so now…

Seven one-thousand.

An image of Neville's formidable Gran in her vulture-adorned hat in St. Mungo's…

Eight one-thousand.

Her obvious pride in her family's tragedy…

Nine one-thousand.

Neville's mum stepping forward with her blank face and blank stare to hand Neville…

TEN.

Snape stood in front of the High Table with Neville Longbottom straight-backed and stony-faced before him. The Carrows, a pair of grinning ghouls, stood at either end of the Hall, one in front of the Gryffindor table, the other close to the Ravenclaws. Everyone else – teachers and students alike – was completely and utterly immobile. Many students were poised with forks halfway to their mouths, with their goblets spilling pumpkin juice down their fronts, or with their mouths open in obvious – and obviously halted – conversation. Hermione looked from the Hall of frozen students and teachers to the dark man.

"What's going on here?" she asked in a voice that sounded stronger than she felt.

"Oh, let me have the Mudblood-that-was," crowed Alecto Carrow, who had already turned her wand on Hermione.

"No need, Alecto," Snape answered smoothly. "I believe that Miss Granger will assess the situation correctly and realise she has but one move to make."

His black eyes met her own, and Hermione felt herself crumble inside; Neville, standing at Snape's left, his hands clearly fastened together behind his back, widened his eyes and shook his head. Hermione nodded once at him; as Phineas said, this was not a fight she could possibly win. She brought up her Mind's Eye again and sank gratefully into the neutrality she found there.

"Excellent," Snape said with a sneer, and turned back to Neville. "Now, as I was saying, Mr. Longbottom before we were rudely interrupted, you have a choice to make this evening. I have projected your grandmother's capture and detainment for you to see –" he waved his wand and the silvery image of a familiar elderly woman struggling against her bonds coalesced between them – "it is up to you whether she is allowed to live or die. If the former, you will dismantle the efforts of your – " Snape's lip curled further – "colleagues, and you will commit yourself to a peaceful ending of your seventh year here at Hogwarts. If, however, you choose to carry on…" he waved his wand and the silvery picture between them turned red before falling away into mist.

"You fucking snake!" Neville yelled, his face blotchy, his voice ringing throughout the eerily silent Hall. Alecto Carrow cackled in answer, and her brother joined in so that the three voices blended together in a cacophony in the echoing space. The other students and teachers remained in their statues' poses. Neville jerked his chin at the immobilized students. "Set them free, first."

Snape shook his head.

"The potion will wear off in two minutes regardless of your decision," he said. "They have little to do with it, although I did want them present as witnesses of your… capitulation," he put a nasty emphasis on the last word, and Hermione felt and filed away a boiling rage. "Your answer – now, Longbottom."

"Yes!" Neville screamed. "I bloody fucking agree!"

"Excellent," Snape said again in that clipped voice.

He waved his wand, freeing Neville's hands, which were balled into white-knuckled fists, before turning away and marching up the aisle between the tables towards Hermione.

"Amycus," his voice rang out, deep and harsh and with an edge that made Hermione's pulse beat faster, "you escort the Gryffindors to their Common Room. Alecto, you will accompany the Hufflepuffs. Miss Parkinson, the Ravenclaws, Mr. Nott, the Slytherins. And," he glanced over his shoulder half-carelessly, half-threateningly at the High Table, "I will expect to see every member of the faculty in the staff room in ten minutes' time. We have many new directives to discuss."

As he spoke, several of the younger students began to move slowly, turning their heads, blinking their eyes. When he reached her, Snape paused alongside Hermione.

"Miss Granger," he said in an undertone, "see that everyone reaches their Common Rooms."

Hermione felt herself nod stiffly, and the dark man swept from her side. She checked the Gryffindor table and saw a visibly shaken Ginny already marshalling the younger students around her, some of whom were crying. She watched as Professor McGonagall staggered forward to put a clumsy arm around Neville. The other teachers came to their feet unsteadily as well, their wands ready in their hands, their wary eyes on the Carrows, who glanced around with smug grins.

"Alright, the Room is clear," Hermione told Neville much later that evening, "are you ready?"

"I still think you should do it, 'Mione."

"No. You've managed perfectly so far. If anyone is going to get food and… and everything else we'll need soon enough into that Room, it's you." Waves of despair washed over Hermion as she spoke. "It's you who needs the Room most right now, after all."

The young man looked down at his shoes, a splotchy, angry blush rising into his cheeks. The evening had sped by in a horrible sequence of events they still hadn't been able to unpack, but neither of them could rest until this was done. Hermione looked down at the Marauder's Map yet again.

"Hurry, Neville," she said. "There are still two junior DEs in each of the Common Rooms, but the Carrows look like they're patrolling the corridors now."

"I got it, 'Mione… just one more minute."

He stood in the hallway across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, his eyes screwed shut in concentration. Hermione glanced sideways at where Phineas Nigellus sat sentinel in a tiny painting of magically dancing fruit. He nodded to her, and she sent him a swift smile. He'd proven his worth that evening by keeping Hermione and Neville apprised of the new regulations Snape was imposing over the school, of what the DEs were saying to one another, and everything else he thought might be useful.

"There!" Neville's voice held a muted note of triumph. "There it is."

The same door as always had appeared in the wall, and Hermione reached forward immediately to swing it open. The room looked much the same, but with a few noticeable differences: it was smaller, the DA's practice space was gone, a hammock swung in one corner next to a chest of drawers and a hat stand, and a new painting of a young girl standing in a dark space had appeared in the far wall.

"You… you kept my dormitory," Hermione said, turning slowly on the spot to take in the changes.

"I did. I thought of asking for my own, but I have a feeling more DA members will be joining us soon enough, and even though I'd like to camp out here with everyone else, I thought you might need your space."

"Thanks, Neville," she said, grateful that he'd facilitated her continued communiqués with Harry and Ron without knowing it. She walked across the room and stood before the painting, whose subject smiled down at her benignly. "What do you make of this?"

"I think that's to do with the food problem," Neville answered. He addressed the painting: "Hi. Do you have something to show us?"

The girl smiled in a vague, slightly sad way and gestured to him.

"Wait, does she…?" Neville looked down at his hand, and back up at the portrait.

"No, you can't possibly – " Hermione started, but he had already stepped forward and – Hermione felt herself draw in a sharp gasp as the painting swung forward. Neville stepped inside a dark passage behind it, and the painting promptly swung shut again. Neville appeared in the painting, his hair, clothing, and skin blending perfectly into the oils as he walked quickly, hand-in-hand, with the young girl down what now looked like a long, deep tunnel.

"This is brilliant," Ginny declared. She, Hermione and Neville sat in the centre of the newly-refurbished DA Headquarters, examining the provisions Neville had brought back from the Hog's Head. "And does he really look like Dumbledore?"

"Oh yeah," Neville answered, putting a tin of biscuits onto a shelf that appeared obligingly at his elbow, "the spitting image, really. He was right surprised to see me climbing out onto his mantelpiece, I tell you, but he was pretty excited when I told him more about us. Like I said," he gestured at the baskets of food he'd piled underneath the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore, "he's got plenty of food whenever we need it, but he did say that we should multiply and enlarge it so that it goes further."

"Of course," Hermione said at once. Relief at this resolution to one of the DA's biggest problems, and sorrow at what was now happening to them warred within her breast, and she turned to Ginny. "How is Michael now?"

"He's…" Ginny shook her head somberly, "I haven't seen him myself, mind, but Sir Nicholas says that they hurt him badly. Thank goodness Peeves managed to distract the Carrows long enough for Madam Pomfrey to get him to the Hospital Wing."

"And the first-year they'd been chaining up?"

"He's back in the Hufflepuff Common Room. Michael managed to release him before they… before…" Ginny trailed off.

"I'm sorry I didn't see it happening on the Map quickly enough to…" Hermione trailed off, the regret rising in her chest and threatening to overspill into outright wretchedness. She took a deep breath and went on, "I think he'd best stay in here as soon as he's well enough to be moved."

"Absolutely," Neville said at once. "And maybe you and Ginny, too."

Hermione looked at the redhead, whose lips were twitching, and who had let a strand of her long hair conceal her eyes.

"No. I can't stay in here, Neville. Ginny should, of course, if that's what she wants to do, and you should as well, but I won't be able to stand it if I just…"

"No. Bloody. Way." Neville's voice was calm, but his eyes shimmered as he spoke in that same strong ringing tone that had brooked no weakness in his earlier confrontation with Snape. "Gran wouldn't want me trapped in here, cowering, especially not after…"

"Then we're agreed," Hermione said. "We'll keep on going. Even if it's only the three of us. We can't ask the rest of the DA to, but we'll… we'll be as careful as possible, and we'll use this place as a point of retreat as necessary, but we'll keep right on fighting."

The other two nodded, but Hermione couldn't help but notice that Ginny didn't meet her eyes, and that Neville wore a determined, but faraway expression.

It's not war anymore, even if we haven't lost entirely. It's siege. And it might just crush us all.

Hermione stood rigidly in her room much later that night. The clock on the wall told her it was long past midnight, the Map told her almost everyone in the castle was abed, but Hermione stood in her room and stared at the blank wall. Everything replayed in her mind, and still she stood there, in that same horrid in-between space. In limbo, she thought to herself, I've been in limbo for months and months. And now… I'm done. And I wish – no. NO more wishing. I want…

She hadn't been asking for anything outright. In her Muggleborn way, she supposed she must have forgotten what she was and where she stood, and so Hermione was intensely surprised when a tall mahogany door popped into existence in the empty wall before her. But she knew where it would lead, oh yes, and she walked forward, feeling resolution down to the marrow of her bones. She turned the ornate silver handle.

The sitting room was dark: a single candle perched on a desk in one corner illuminating messy piles of parchment, haphazardly stacked books, and a tray of flasks and phials. Old, slightly battered sofas stood on a faded green rug, and a much-used armchair was placed before a row of tall, narrow windows. Hermione walked into the room and closed the door behind her – it popped out of existence, and she smiled to herself as she peered out of the windows and into a dark so deep it could only be the lake. It's his old quarters, she realized, unsurprised yet a touch disbelieving, he's attached his old quarters to the Head's Office somehow. Something huge and bioluminescent whooshed by the window as she watched, and Hermione felt the temptation to sink down into the comfortable old armchair, to blow out the candle, and watch the nocturnal creatures of the underwater world sail through the night unfolding before her. Instead, she turned to the three doors along the opposite wall.

One led to a corridor and staircase that, she supposed, would take her to the opulent circular office. The second opened onto a bedroom, spare but comfortable with a modest double bed, wall-to-wall bookshelves, and a gently crackling fire. Hermione shut that door quickly, feeling a flush rising in her chest.

The third door flew open and revealed Professor Snape, his eyes wide, teeth bared, and his wand pointing straight at her heart. Hermione didn't flinch, but Snape did. He'd already mouthed the words of a curse, and he cancelled it just in time. Behind him, Hermione saw a large, breathtakingly elaborate potions laboratory.

"Is that your private lab?" she asked, entirely side-tracked. "I'd love a tour."

"What," he demanded, slamming the door shut behind him and ignoring her question, "the hell. Are you doing here?"

"We have to talk," Hermione answered, stepping back from where he towered over her. She felt herself do a minor double-take when she realised that her professor was missing his usual billowing robes and unadorned frock coat; instead he stood sartorially casual in white linen shirtsleeves and black trousers, and his hair was tied back so that his angular jawline and high forehead were visible.

She turned from him abruptly and seated herself on one of the squashy old sofas. "Please," she patted what turned out to be a deep brown corduroy, "join me."

Snape, his face suddenly blank, walked to the other side of the room to stand with his back to the tall windows. He faced Hermione warily, hands behind him. On his wand, I'm sure.

"How did you get in here?"

His voice was entirely neutral, but Hermione wasn't fooled. She'd unsettled him deeply.

"Why? Are you afraid I breached what I'm guessing must be dozens, no, hundreds of your defences to get here?"

"Was it Phineas?" The dark man glared briefly at an empty portrait hanging between two bookshelves. "Did he lead you down here?"

"No, he didn't. Getting here was something I required."

Understanding flickered in his black eyes, and Snape's shoulders visibly relaxed.

"And why did you require it?"

"Because I have something to tell you."

He sneered, and waved his wand behind him so that a set of deep green curtains came together over the underwater windows. Moving languidly, he sat himself on the coffee table in front of Hermione and crossed one of his legs, perching his ankle on the opposite knee, and clasping his hands in his lap. He was suddenly the confident, contemptuous Potions Master, and Hermione couldn't help the flash of wanting that came over her at his nearness.

"Then I am, as always," he said slowly, "all rapt attention, Miss Granger."

"I've come to a decision."

"How magnificently exciting for you. I await the polychromatic diorama detailing your exhaustive decision-making."

"Shut up your sarcasm, Severus. It's tiresome."

His eyebrows shot up as the mask of neutrality slipped and Hermione smiled gently at his surprise. She reached forward and took one of his long hands in her own.

"I've decided… to trust you."