A/N: Harry Potter et al belong to JK Rowling, with my thanks for letting me play with her toys.
Thanks for reading! This is my first story and I'm really proud to have over 1,500 views! Thank You!
Warning: There's a bit of squeamish-making if you're squeamish-minded. It's not graphic, but it's there. Again, there will be no gore, sexual content or explicit descriptions.
Beta'd by the lovely and talented Mylady Phoenix =)
CH9 Hermione Granger, Witch.
Monday, November 1st, 1993 (continued)
In the ashen remains of the Granger residence:
"I don't think your studious daughter would appreciate it if you were to deprive her of one of her professors before she even arrived at school", the long haired man drawled out, a smirk upon his thin lips. Those penetrating eyes narrowed as a new voice mocked from behind him. Daniel saw another man in dark robes seemingly fade into view behind the first man.
"Oh how funny Snape, were you going to try and flatter the information out of him? Talk takes too long, he's just a muggle; Crucio him already." the nasally voice taunted.
Daniel practically raged inside his non-responsive body. The enemy stood before him, and he - with his pistol in his hand – was caught. Not just caught, but paralyzed, unable even to shoot the man standing right in front of him, his finger was poised on the trigger! His frustration must have been evident in his eyes, but the second man took it for fear.
"Ohhh, does he know what 'Crucio' is? Oh, look at his face! He's gonna piss'emself!" the crude remarks were finished by a coughing laugh that made Snape take a step away before the newcomer hocked spittle upon the chest of the captive man.
"Hammish, why are you here?" The one called Snape asked, his tone bored as he turned back to the captive form in front of him. He finally got the paralyzed man's attention as he looked into Daniel's eyes, then glanced pointedly downwards. Daniel followed the gaze to see that his pistol was... gone? No, he could still feel it, cold and hard in his hand; it was invisible! The one called Snape turned back to face Hammish.
"Same reason you are Snape," the lanky, hard-eyed man had replied. "We lost too many people last night. This bastard thought he fooled us, but I was the one what Bellatrix told ta'torch this place and then Travers says there ain't no bodies found. I been waitin' here most o'the night, freezin me bollocks off. I pop out for a bite, an'hear you two are all cozy when I gets back. This muggle's gotta pay for makin' me look bad. The Dark Lord tortured me because of this bastard! After I get done returnin' the favor he's gonna lead us straight to their bolt hole."
"Fine, you do it, since you are more... familiar with the spell." Snape smoothly replied, stepping once again to the side.
Hammish began to raise his wand, but the elder wizard grunted, "Idiot, he's petrified. Get up close, so you can see it in his eyes."
Quickly moving forward, Hammish raised his wand once again, a manic gleam in his eye.
.o0o.
Number 12 Grimmauld Place
"Hermione, erm," the older witch seemed quite embarrassed, "I'm sorry, I keep using your given name. When you attend Hogwarts I will need to address you as Miss Granger, it's custom. However, at best, that's months away. What would you like me to call you until then?"
'Wow,' the teen thought. 'Why is that such a hard question to answer? How can I consider...' Sitting quietly, she began to worry her bottom lip as she tried reasoning through the many positives and negatives for each name, and then questioning the motivations for each, when suddenly the answer became very clear to her.
The young woman looked up with a start, yet she spoke with a calm, if somewhat quiet voice. "Please continue to call me Hermione."
A tight smile graced the teacher's lips. Hermione noted that though small, the smile reached her eyes, which made the girl feel oddly pleased.
"Very well, though I could tell you gave that quite a bit of thought. May I ask how you arrived at your decision?" The curiosity was plain on the older woman's face.
"Actually it's for two completely different reasons. One: the reason I changed my name originally was to try to fit in, to be normal. If I'm, that is," the girl exhaled loudly, her eyes slightly unfocused, before she spoke in a low, steady voice, "I am a witch." She glanced up, knowing it was the right term but still looking for the approval she thankfully found in the professor's eyes.
Continuing, the girl once again spoke with her usual precision, though there was a touch of wonder in her tone. "That is a huge change in my life and I think it fitting to mark that change with something equally important, my name."
She finished her thought in a rush of words. "As everyone around here seems to think that's the name I should be called anyways, the name you all have given me, as the witch you all see me as."
Growing silent after her quick outburst, she lowered her eyes to the dark carpet. "I... I think my mum would like it as well."
Hermione looked up to see understanding in the others' eyes.
After a small silence the pair settled in, and Hermione told the professor about her recollections. She included accounts of both of the witch's visits, touching only briefly on the conditions of her parents at the time of her recruitment attempts. They talked for a while about accidental magic and the need for concealing the magical world from the muggles. Hermione was fascinated.
When Hermione asked about the cat figurine - specifically why Minerva had not responded when she was urgently rubbing it - the older witch pursed her lips in a mighty scowl. At first the young woman feared she had said something wrong, but the elder put that to rest.
"I knew you were in good hands with Sirius - 'Lord Black', your host." McGonagall clarified. "He had been watching you since you left school actually."
Hermione's wide eyes held a lot of questions, but the teacher only shook her head slowly. "Right now is not the time, dear. But I promise to explain when the time is right, can you accept that for now?"
The young witch gave the older a measuring look, as if weighing the options she didn't really have. "I suppose, though you can't let it go long, my curiosity will drive me to distraction!" Hermione finished with a small smile to let the professor know she was alright.
Minerva smiled genuinely, already so pleased that she had invested so much in protecting the girl. How she wished she could reveal all the ways that the young witch reminded her of herself as a witch first learning about magic. She did have some things she could - and needed to - discuss. She launched into one of her favorite routines: Telling a new witch or wizard about the magical world.
. . .
Well over an hour later, Professor McGonagall was just exploring the idea of obliviation with her raptly attentive pupil, when someone cleared their throat at the door.
.o0o.
Back at the ruined shell of the Granger home
Hammish had just opened his mouth to speak the spell when a sudden blast of noise interrupted him.
Eyes wide, Daniel watched as the horror of realization crept into the other man's face even before the captive man noticed that he could move again.
"Again!" Snape's voice startled Daniel as he watched the dying man's lips begin to move. Not quite sure why, he followed the command as if he were under a direct order. As Daniel Granger fired twice more in quick succession, he became fully aware that he was killing a man.
Severus Snape was not in the habit of giving praise, so he did not. It wasn't exactly the circumstance one gave praise for in any case. He could easily see by the look upon the face of his charge that this was his first time killing someone. The former Death Eater briefly closed his eyes, realizing how ridiculous his thoughts really were. 'Of course it's his first time killing, not everyone in this land is running around murdering their fellow men as a matter of course.'
Returning his focus to the matter at hand, Severus quickly disarmed the man as Daniel turned his weapon on his rescuer. His action didn't anger the potions master – the man had no idea who he was, let alone that he was being rescued by him.
"I'm on your side. I'm a spy, which is why that vermin treated me as an ally." Severus spoke these words as though in a casual conversation, further confirmation that he was indeed a long way's past being bothered by death.
"Why... why didn't you... stop him, then, why?"
Severus exhaled slowly. He would try to take it easy on the fellow. The man was covered in a dark mud consisting of the ashes of his own home. But his family – what remained of it – was alive, and that was what was important to Minerva, for whatever reason. "I'll owe you one." were her words... as if the Potter affair hadn't made her in his debt enough already. Still, he'd try to be gentle.
"I will explain all of that in a moment," Severus deflected. "I am going to take care of a few issues here. I want you to take what you need from your safe and be ready to go in a moment. Oh, and," Severus waved his wand, once, then again as the magic stripped the grime and ash from the man's clothing and then his body. "There."
He noted with interest that the muggle was warily tracking every motion of his wand, the intense distrust plain on his face.
Snape gestured with his empty hand to the safe behind the now clean man. Turning away, Severus was gratified to hear the door to the safe swinging open again and the rustling of papers. With the misdirection complete, the wizard once again raised his wand.
There was much to do here, but first things first, "One more thing, Mr. Granger?" Severus met the man's questioning eyes with a whispered, "Obliviate."
A few minutes of intense mental and magical work later, Severus began to relax. All incriminating traces of Snapes' involvement in the Death Eater's demise were removed from the muggle's mind.
He found it much easier to work with muggles in this state. They were completely open to his inquiries; he did not have to bother with tiresome chit chat to put their small minds at ease.
He simply conversed with the man quietly, gaining the information he needed, and then smoothing away the rough edges in the distraught father's mind. It was a taxing job and not one suited for the location, but Snape needed this muggle's cooperation to find the balance between hostility and complacency, and could ill afford the possible downsides of stunning the man.
Minerva had been quite clear in her instructions, and he had no intentions of straining the fragile balance that had been achieved in these last few years. Besides, she'd wagered a case of her best single-malt that he was not up to the finesse work she requested… Oh how he wanted to see the sour look on her face as he enjoyed her scotch at the next staff meeting. He might even share a bottle with the old man!
Once he was satisfied that he would have a pliable, if somewhat dazed muggle to work with, he turned to the other unfinished business that needed to be taken care of before they could leave.
Shortly thereafter Snape was absorbed in a very complex transfiguration... one that would make Minerva either impressed or sick, most likely both.
Perhaps due to the experiences of his recent life, much of which was spent in instruction, he found himself speaking to the complacent man as if he were in a class, giving a lecture.
"Mr. Granger, I'm going to use Hammish's corpse as a decoy for you, but I will likely need his body to be found as well, eventually. I am going to use a spell that will allow me to separate his body into two corpses, however the process is not particularly pleasant so please don't look this way."
Daniel obediently turned away, his somewhat glazed view just as unfocused on the broken wall as it had been on the wizard's black eyes.
As he worked, Snape reflected upon the project ahead of him. It wasn't so much the visual element that was disturbing, as that mostly just split the corpse in two and both halves were already re-forming into new, whole bodies as it happened.
It was the sound that made even Severus wince a bit once or twice.
Once he had created a viable corpse of Hammish, he shrunk the body down and placed it in his pocket for later disposal.
Turning, he performed a 'dark' charm on the back of the befuddled man. Severus contented his meager conscience that the pain he surely felt was short-lived. Directing the small amount of blood drawn from the muggle, he lowered it onto the face of the second corpse, all the while chanting under his breath.
Carefully working with a steady wand, the potions master sculpted the spell to use the slightest bit of magic found in all blood to create an exact duplicate of the owner of the burned-down house.
This spell was in fact one of the reasons that he had realized that the Pure Blood rhetoric was nonsense. If the spell required the magic of the donor's blood, and it worked on muggles who, by the rhetoric had no magic… why was it nobody else saw the simple truth? Likely the label of 'dark magic' held sway over common sense, he mused as he worked over the corpse.
At last finished with the most difficult spell work, he began the unpleasant task of making the body appear to have died in the fire. Twirling his wand, he created a small cloud of ashes and whipped it into smoke above the face of the now look-alike Granger corpse. Casting wandlessly with his off hand, he slowly pushed down on the lungs, then lifted up – sucking the smoke into the body.
Becoming absorbed in his work, the Order's spy made a few more modifications, some burns and bruises upon the face, back and arms, charring clothing and flesh alike…
Feeling eyes upon his back, Severus turned and found that instead of remaining entranced as expected, it was a rather clear eyed man that met his gaze.
'Oh, I have an audience,' the wizard smirked, then returned his attention to the 'dead' Mr. Granger and continued the ghoulish remodeling of the corpse, the 'crack' of a broken leg and then…
Paling, Mr. Granger quickly turned around, hands on his knees, leaned forward and emptied his stomach rather loudly.
Frowning, the potions master allowed a small part of his mind to remark upon the unusual nature of a muggle that was able to process information in his supposedly befuddled state. The rest of his energies he continued to devote to completing the necessary – ghastly, but necessary – damage to the corpse.
When he finished he returned his attention to the man that should still be standing complacent, however Mr. Granger was staring at Severus like he was a monster. Which, upon quick reflection, Snape could certainly understand. Even if it did raise an unbidden smirk before he could restrain himself and school his features into his more familiar scowl.
"My apologies, I did instruct you quite clearly," the wizard stated, his ironic sarcasm lost on the man who seemed to suddenly find himself scolded.
"Yeah, I, uh, sorry. I thought you were done when the... they stopped..." His gaze kept wandering back to 'his' corpse laying there in the muck of his burned out home.
"The noises? Yes, unpleasant as I mentioned, however now," and with this the wizard directed the large, fallen section of wall up off the floor, where it stayed hovering. Then, with another few wand flicks, the body and safe were quietly covered by the fallen wall. Finally, after a thorough search – and no small effort to cover their presence – the wizard returned his attention to the waiting muggle. Snape noticed with some satisfaction that if he had accomplished little other behavioral modifications, the man no longer seemed scared senseless of his wand. He had only extended this comfort to cover a short list of people; naturally this included himself but also Minerva, the Headmaster, the man's daughter and, begrudgingly, Sirius Black.
"Now, when they get the missing persons report from your daughter's college, they will find their 'mistake' in reporting that there were no casualties. Have you any other family around Mr. Granger?"
Embarrassed, the man held out his hand to shake. "Call me Daniel. I owe you my life, sir."
Casually shaking the man's hand, Severus motioned for Daniel to press on, knowing his time was not endless.
"Around England? No. I have a couple of cousins in the States, more distant relations in Canada. My wife, well, her sister runs a bed and breakfast in the country. Other than that, she had family in France, but they weren't really close, but, ah, what about Jean, er, my daughters..." Daniel looked around, face pale, and then back into Snapes strangely warm gaze. "Her 'body', did you... is there,"
"Yes." Snape cut in. "I have performed this trickery for her as well. You need not know more than that her identity will be confirmed and to all intents and purposes you will both be declared dead by noon." Snape could tell that this was not going well, and in a rare fit of compassion he cast a mild charm that both cheered and distracted its target. Casting both wandlessly and silently, the dark featured man looked into the stricken father's eyes even as he finished the handshake.
"Very well. Mr. Granger, Daniel, your wife's sister Jane is perfectly safe, you'll have to speak with Mr. Black concerning the details. Now, I have gathered your papers and reduced them in size; also, I'm going to give your pistol back to you. I want you to keep it upon your person and speak with Mr. Black about it, when you have a private moment. He can also undo the charm on your other belongings."
Daniel nodded his understanding as the long haired man returned the firearm, along with a small bundle which easily fit in his pocket.
"Now, we are going to take a short ride, using magic. It's called apparition and it is painless, though a bit..." Severus took Daniel by the arm and the pair disappeared with a *pop*.
Reappearing in the back garden of Grimauld place, "...uncomfortable." Severus finished.
While he waited for the muggle to regain his balance he admired the ward stones as he felt the magic thrum under his feet. The apparition pad Sirius had installed was a clever bit of magic, he had to grudgingly admit, even if only ever to himself.
Turning to his charge, he felt his duty almost complete. He remembered, however, the admonishment of – and a certain wager riding upon – finesse.
"Given the circumstances you'll forgive me for not exchanging pleasantries earlier." The mild sarcasm, which was for Severus a monumental restraint, did not register in the slightest to the other man.
"Daniel, my name is Severus Snape. I am a Professor at the school your daughter will be attending sometime in the near future. I think that you will now see that your impulsive choice to leave the protection of this house was ill considered. You would have been killed outright by that moron had I not been here. A much worse fate awaited should he had finally cast the torture spell correctly."
Daniel took up the dark haired man's hand in a firm grip. His awareness of just how close he had come to death was more intensified by this wizards spells upon Hammish's fallen body than anything the Death Eater had done or said. Still, he knew he owed this man his life, and he was not one to forget a debt.
"I cannot thank you enough with words. I understand that your people are at war. Someday I hope to return the debt I owe, please let me know if I can help."
Severus could not miss the earnest look, or the man's serious tone. He had no idea what aid this muggle could lend, yet he knew he had an ally should he have need. Allies were especially handy if you in turn owed nothing to them, he mused with an inward smile. He motioned towards the house by way of reply.
"Perhaps someday Daniel, however for right now I believe you will find your daughter quite upset with you. Perhaps you should not keep her waiting any longer?" His tone was light, but held no humor, and it was with those words that Severus Snape departed with another *pop*.
. . .
Around the back yard children played quietly. A few had observed the two men arrive in the back corner, and the more curious among them noted that one of the men went inside. A few short moments later the whole house resounded with a joyous cry,
"DADDY!"
.o0o.
A/N: Thanks so much to archaicwords for the review and for your PM's! A special thanks to Tellur for pointing out a ridiculously bizarre issue where the words in italics ran together!
At last! Soon we'll move into the next phase of the story, next chapter: Transitions
Recommended reading is Grief, Faith, and the Future by apAidan This is not a specifically Hermione-centric fic, but rather one which I feel is just beautifully written all the way around.
Blessings,
Majerus