THE PUREST ELEMENT
Hello everyone. This is my first ever fan fiction so please bear with me. I am not sure just how long this is going to be, but it may be quite long. I will try to remain faithful to canon but deviations will be made given the nature of this fic.
This takes place during the summer of Hermione's sixth year making her of age. All characters belong to JK Rowling, I am just barrowing them.
This chapter is a bit slow, I was going to do one large chapter but I've not been writing as much lately as I would have liked. So this is to tide you guys over. Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! I promise the next chapter will come faster.
PS: I'm looking for a Beta Reader/Editor to go over my chapters before I publish them and perhaps even give me feedback. Please message me if interested.
Lupin opened his mouth to say something, to offer an apology, to show some sign of sympathy for Hermione but nothing came out. Her eyes were glassy and it looked as if she was struggling to breath. Before he could find any words the girl let out a loud sob. "How dare you!" Her voice was louder than she had intended it to come it but she didn't care at this point. She was furious.
Hermione stood up, her chair falling back to the floor with the force of her movement. She pointed her finger accusingly at her former professor, anger written all over her face.
"Hermione, please," she shook her head at him. "You knew! You all knew! And none of you thought to fill me in about this? Instead of asking me what I wanted you decided to marry off to some, some, death eater!" her voice was getting progressively louder as she spoke.
She had trusted them, all of them. She had even trusted Professor Snape despite the fact that he had been unbelievably rude to her since the day she first set foot in his dungeons. How could they sit there and decide something as important as her marital status without even asking her what she wanted? What she thought? Her own head of house among them? Hermione felt her chest tighten with emotion, everyone she had ever trusted all plotting against her. Using her for their own gain.
"There was no other choice," Lupin's voice was quiet as he addressed the angry witch. "Honestly, we all thought it best if we work out the details among ourselves. We weren't even sure if it was going to work out, there was the bit about Snape being able to successfully convince you-know-who that Dumbledore didn't suspect his 'true' motives, Kingsley wasn't even sure about the law until recently…" His voice trailed off as his eyes drifted to the table.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "So that was good enough reason to go behind my back? None of you had the decency to even think about calling me down and filling me in along the way?"
Lupin cleared his throat, "Well, Minerva and Nymphadora wanted to tell you." Hermione's eyes went wide.
"So why didn't they!"
"Well, Dumbledore thought we should work out the details first. He's not exactly a person that you want to argue with Hermione," his voice almost sounded as if that much should have been obvious.
Hermione resisted the urge to stomp her feet in frustration. "So you mean to tell me that Dumbledore just wanted to marry me off without a second thought? That he didn't care one ounce what I had to think about things?"
Lupin raised his eyes to meet hers, a curious look on his face. "Well, yes. Severus had the same concerns, considering Dumbledore has been telling him what to do for years now, but that is beside the point. He wouldn't listen to any of us. Do you know what happened to the last person who tried to go against Dumbledore's wishes?"
Hermione blinked as she tried to control her temper. She was taking it out a bit unfairly on Lupin but what else could she do? It took more than a few minutes for the reality of her situation to set in but by that point Dumbledore and Professor Snape had already left. "What, what happened?"
Lupin shuffled his feet for a moment. "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough. Hermione, you're not a child anymore and we will try not to treat you like one, but understand this…The Order, we have to place a lot of trust in Dumbledore, often blindly so. Even Severus has to act without full understanding of what's going on and he's a spy."
"So I am to be a pawn? A part of this ridiculous game of politics that Voldemort decided to start playing?" Lupin nodded. "Better politics than the front lines."
Hermione snorted a sound that her former professor wasn't used to hearing from the well spoken witch. She shook her head before turning on her heel to retreat to her rooms…..
Sleep did not come so easily that night. As Hermione huddled under her thick blankets she felt a torrent of emotions washing over her and she could not stop the sobs from coming. In a matter of minutes she was a wreck, her pillow was drenched and her body shook uncontrollably. She did not cry easily, it was a trait that she was proud of. Hermione Granger would much rather hold her head high in the face of adversity than succumb to tears. But this, this was too much. She had been stupid enough to leave her house after a fight wither her parents, they had been receiving a copy of the Daily Prophet all year and her return home had begun with a row. They had told her that she couldn't go to Hogwarts next year, that things were much too dangerous. She tried explaining that she couldn't just give up her life as a witch but they didn't care. They didn't want to hear any of it. She might have been an adult in the wizarding world but she was still a child back home. Needing time to think she had stormed out of the house, telling her parents she was going to the store for some orange juice.
Hermione instead went to the park down the street from her house. She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't realize how much time had passed. It wasn't until she looked up from the worn out leather swing and saw Mad Eye Moody and Nymphadora Tonks standing in front of her. She had blinked, what where they doing there in all of their robed glory? They couldn't be spotted like that! They told her that she was in danger and apparated her along with them to head quarters. From there was told what happened and she didn't take it so well at first. Once the anger and shouting had died down she had retreated to the library to cry for a full two days. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't had a row with them before it happened. In fact, if she never had a row with them she could have been there to help protect them. She could have defended them herself with magic. They didn't have to be sent away like that, not if she hadn't been so stupid.
Turning her face deeper into the damp pillow, she tried to control her breathing. She couldn't get too wrapped up in what had happened in the past. Instead she had to focus on her future. She really wished that professor McGonagall had let her keep her time turner after her third year. Instead she would have to think of a way to keep things from getting worse. That she could do, she would think of something. There was absolutely no way she was going to marry her potion's professor. If Dumbledore couldn't save her from that fate than she would simply have to save herself. Deciding that sleep was a lost cause for the night, she peeled back her covers, damp from the sweat generated by her elevated body heat, and summoned a quill and parchment. Thank god for small things like being of age, made life so much easier now that she could use magic whenever she wanted or needed to. Taking the quill in hand, she made her way to the small wooden desk and put the quill to the parchment. She would start a list. That's it! A list would her to sort things out and figure out what she was to do.
Her first list was going to be a list of pro's and cons. To marry her professor as the Order wished or not to marry her professor. She started with a list of reasons why she should not, in a matter of minutes the cons list was full of reasons why should not. He was vile for one thing, he was cold hearted, he was rude, he had insulted her intelligence on several occasions, he was her professor, if word got out it would become a scandal, she was much too young to settle down and get married, she was being forced to, she hated being discriminated against for her blood and gender. She stared at the list for a few minutes before taking a few deep breathes and starting on the pros list. She would be safe, she wouldn't be forced into awkward shows of affection, she wouldn't have to talk to him….She paused as she tried to think of other reasons why it was a good idea to marry him. She briefly considered jotting down: first hand potion's experience, but she wondered if he would dare let her touch any of his personal stores or even permit her to watch him brew privately. She sighed deeply and began to trace the quill around the paper, surely there had to be more reasons…After staring at the list for several minutes she bit her lip and turned the parchment over.
She wrote, Alternatives, at the top of this side and wrote, run away, right under the heading. At the present it was the only idea she could think of, but where would she run to? Surely the Order would find her. After realizing that the idea was a bit outrageous she wrote, refuse, under the previous idea. Now, they couldn't exactly force her to do anything could they? If she chose to stay at Grimmauld Place because she felt her life was in danger in leaving, because of a ridiculous new law, who were they to tell her no? It was her life after all. Hermione knew that she didn't really want to give up her education and miss seeing her friends. She honestly didn't know if Harry and Ron would be able to function without her. She was like the glue that held them together, she had been since first year. With a frustrated sigh Hermione set her quill down and gazed at the lists. Of course, she was going to have to go through with this. For now at least. The alternatives had nothing good coming from them other than a sense of righteousness, but where would that get her? Hermione stayed at that table, staring at the lists until she finally fell asleep…
Professor Lupin studiously avoided her the next several days. They ate their meals in silence and the werewolf would retreat to his own room or the library for the rest of the day. In the third day of waiting, Hermione received owl mail from Harry, Ron, and Ginny. She knew that Harry was staying at the Burrow, and she had told them that she was staying at Grimmauld Place. If she had it her way, she would have asked Harry first, as the place had been left to him, but she knew that he wouldn't have minded and she didn't exactly have much choice. She told them that things were going quite well and that she missed them, she told them that she was excited for the year to begin and that she couldn't wait to hear all of their stories about the summer. It was with a heavy heart that she sent the owl off, knowing that she actually dreaded the coming months for once in her life and that she was going to have to lie to her friends about a very large aspect of her life. But it was for the best wasn't it? They wouldn't exactly like hearing that their friend was married off to a "Greasy git" as the boys called him. They would probably make a scene about it and with their temper they would take it up with Dumbledore. The last thing she wanted or even needed was for them to make a scene about it. When it came right down to it, Hermione knew that even if her potion's professor didn't care if they knew, she would. And she would care so much that it was better to keep it private.
On the fourth day of waiting, Dumbledore finally showed up. He greeted Hermione and Lupin with a warm smile and told Hermione that she needed to start packing her things. In two days time Professor Snape would come to collect her and her things would be taken to Hogwarts. She would have the castle to explore at her leisure for a solid two weeks. There was a twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes as he told her that particular bit of news.
"There are things, , that you won't find in 'Hogwarts a History' you know," he said.
Though Lupin had offered him tea, Dumbledore left as quickly as he had come. Hermione was used to his brisk manner by now and simply watched his disappear down the hall. She returned to the wooden chair she was sitting in when the headmaster first appeared and played with a bit of dust. Lupin was hovering near the stove trying to decide if he wanted to brew himself tea.
"How bad do you think it will be," Hermione addressed the werewolf.
Startled, Lupin looked from her to the stove and back again. "I can't say for sure. Severus is…Well, he's an enigma. I don't think it will be sunshine and butterflies, but then again….." He let out a sigh. "He was friends with Harry's mum you know. She spoke highly of him when James would talk down on him. They had a falling out, but apparently Lilly still cared about Severus to some degree, if even sympathy, because she invited him to her wedding against James' better judgment."
Hermione raised an eyebrow at this. "He was friends with her mother? Interesting. Did he attend?" Lupin shook his head as he drew his wand from his pocket to prepare tea. "No…no, he didn't." Hermione nodded. "It doesn't seem like he got along with Harry's father at all." Her voice was thoughtful.
"No, he didn't. And to be honest, I'm not sure if I can blame him. His friendship with Lilly says something about him though. That woman had the best judgment in friends. She was almost never wrong about people," his voice was reminiscent.
Hermione raised and eyebrow at her former professor. "What about Peter Pettigrew?" Lupin shook his head. "Peter was our friend, not hers. She never cared much for Peter. She always said she didn't like his sense of humor." Hermione played with the edge of the table. So someone had cared about Snape, and Harry's mum couldn't have cared that much about a heartless Death Eater. Maybe he had some redeeming qualities somewhere. Or had them and lost them. Whatever Lilly saw in him when they were in school could have been long gone by now. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't bank on a dead woman's opinion.
"At the very least, Severus is a professional," Lupin said as if reading her mind. "There's nothing you should worry about. He may be a bit rude in class but I don't think he would make this any harder on you than it needs to be. Of course, he's bound to feel a little frigid, but I don't see him being completely horrible." His voice was confident and reassuring but she still had doubts.
"I hope you're right Professor. It's hard enough dealing with him in the classroom." Lupin gave her a sympathetic smile as drew two porcelain cups from the cupboard.