Chapter Thirteen Mirrors, Telephones and Tricks
A moment later the wall swung open again and Hermione stepped through. She held the tiny time-turner in her hand. Snape was surprised. He hadn't expected this. He stepped through with her.
It had been that easy.
She had fooled Malfoy for the second time, just as she had the moment she lay on the floor in his office and Voldemort had walked out and left her there alone. She'd re-discovered the little time turner hanging from the silver chain around her neck. When the two guards came for her and they stepped out into the second floor hallway she had turned the little hourglass and sped away.
Within a minute of having escaped the guards a small, long-fingered hand had pulled her into a hidden alcove. She recognized the long wiggling ears. "Behimie?!"
The elf raised his index finger to his mouth and shook his head. "We's got to hide you missy. The evil one will have all the guards searching. Follow me and do what I do." The little creature slid away into the dark, following the little elf and that's when Hermione learned about Azkaban and its' secrets.
…...
"Why did you return for me?" Snape asked staring at the smoky future duplicate Hermione standing in the stairwell the time turner in her hand. He ignored that duplicate and followed the one headed down the staircase; it was the one inside the Room of Requirement.
Hermione looked back and waved him on. "We don't have time!" she gasped. They rushed as quickly as they could down the stairs. Snape had a moment to see the room at the base of the stairs before they exited and sped towards the dungeons. He noticed Hermione was not retracing their steps.
"Why are we going this way?" he asked out of breath and trying not to stop for the pain sweeping through his arm and shoulder.
Hermione stopped to look both ways down a corridor and then to grab his shirt front and pull him along. He recalled having done the same precise thing to Potter.
"Azkaban is a mirror image of Hogwarts, Professor," she was explaining and pulling and sometimes pushing him along. "It's a reverse. It's a duplicate but not exact. It's like looking in a mirror and it gets people so confused they end up just stopping and not capable of moving beyond that point. Azkaban is incredibly complex. That's why there have been no successful escapes."
"Except one." Snape muttered and was dragged around a corner under a tapestry and down a set of ladder steps. He was climbing down first and found it excruciating to use his injured arm. To keep his mind off of it he gritted his teeth and asked, "How did Black escape? Do you know?"
Hermione peered down at him and lowered her lit wand. "He was an animagi, Professor. He left here as a dog. He escaped the Dementors and the Elves because they couldn't sense his human form."
Snape snorted and continued to lower himself rung by rung. "Do you know what he stole out of Azkaban that the Dark Lord wants so much?" he asked.
They stopped at the bottom of the ladder and she looked at him suspiciously.
"Come now Miss Granger," he smirked. "If you can't trust me by now who will you trust?"
"Sorry. It's just you're not the man I knew as my Professor," she squinted harder. "He would have mocked me for being a know-it-all if I knew the answer. The truth is I don't know. Harry never said Sirius gave him anything. And Harry told Ron and me everything." She grabbed his arm. "We must hurry!"
Malfoy had set lose the hounds and every other creature he could summon that had not been killed by the elves and who remained in the castle. Hermione could smell the mountain troll as it swept by them in the corridor even if she hadn't heard it's Neanderthal mumblings long before. They avoided it and moved on to the next floor and had reached the second floor before they turned a corner and were confronted by Veela.
"Oh, no!" Hermione gasped. She turned to her partner and saw a vagueness creep over his face. "Bloody...Veela!" she exclaimed. She was very aware of the look, she'd seen it on all the males at the World Cup Quidditch game the night Ireland played Victor Krum's team. The men were enamored by the silken beauty of the beasts.
She grasped her wand firmly in her hand and raised it, speaking as loudly as she dared, "Stupify!"
The spell had little effect only to anger the creatures. One by one the half dozen Veela turned from their sensuous female figures to the malevolent bird creatures and happily Snape's trance was broken. His spell against them was much more effective.
Stepping past the sleeping creatures they raced to the dungeons, Snape's arm around Hermione's shoulders. He was faltering and she was becoming more panicked to get back to Harry
…...
Hermione ran to the still figure on the floor. Torches lit the room. She knew before she touched him that he was dead.
"Harry!" she cried and leaning over the still figure. "If we'd only had more time, she wailed.
"Miss know-it-all," Snape said, quietly.
She turned on him in fury and saw him kneeling down in exhaustion and tapping his chest.
"What?!" she shouted, just about to raise her wand on him in her fury. "Oh!" she pronounced with a round 'O' for a mouth. She suddenly understood what he was doing. She hurriedly pulled out her time turner and threw the chain around Snape's neck and pulled him to the floor so she could include Harry. It was a tight fit and they were very close together. Hermione managed a 'thanks' to Snape before turned the tiny jeweled glass.
She closed her eyes and listened, her ear against Harry's chest. When she heard him catch his breath she jerked up nearly strangling all three of them. Unwrapping the chain, she turned him on his back and held his head. The veins on his face and neck were purple and swollen and his eyes milky. She pried open his mouth and uncorked the sapphire blue liquid.
"Drop-by-drop, Miss Granger," Snape warned, holding her hand.
Their hands shook as they dropped the liquid between his lips. It was all she could do to not burst into tears. "Please, please, please be alive Harry. Don't die," she whispered.
Snape leaned back against the wall and turned away. Hermione looked up and then stared at Harry. The ugly black lines were fading and pink was returning to his cheeks. He choked and coughed and the eyes began to focus.
"...mione?" he asked ten minutes later.
"Yes, I'm here Harry," she laughed and held his hand tightly. "And so are you!" She laughed and turned to Snape who had his eyes closed.
"Yeah, I am," he smiled wanly. He sat up and stared at her. "You look different with your hair short. You both look awful actually."
"If the two of you are through with this homecoming, we should think about how we are going to escape," Snape grumbled. He was sitting against the wall and his eyes were closed. Blood was sprouting on the newly cleaned shirt like a rose bud opening up.
"Are you well?" Hermione asked Harry. "I mean altogether?"
Harry nodded and answered, "I am."
"Good. Professor Snape is right. We have to get YOU out of here." She scrambled to her feet and was followed by Harry. "Malfoy and Voldemort are looking for something that you have Harry. He doesn't just want you dead he wants something else."
"But what?" Harry asked, frowning.
"What's a telly-phone?" Snape asked, remaining still. "What does it do?"
They both looked down at him until he opened his eyes.
"Oh, right," Harry breathed. "I forgot about that. What did you mean Pettigrew talked through a telephone to…to Sirius?"
"Just exactly that Harry," she answered looking back and forth between them. "It's a device muggles use to talk to one another- to communicate, Professor," she said to Snape.
"What did they say on the phone?" Harry asked.
"What do wires have to do with it?" Snape asked.
"Pettigrew asked Sirius 'what have you done with it?', that was his question," she said and turned to Snape, "The wires aren't important. Muggles use electricity that runs through the wires to carry the person's voice to another telephone somewhere else."
Did with what?" Harry said and simultaneously Snape sat up and said, "Where else?"
Hermione gritted her teeth and said, "Hold it, hold it, I can't answer both of you at one time and Malfoy's going to figure out where we are soon and come after us." She growled under breath and turned to Snape. "Almost every muggle has a telephone. You call them by using a special number that is the person's number and theirs only. The telephone on their end rings and they pick up the receiver- the thing you talk into- and they talk back." She whirled on Harry, "What did Sirius give you before he died?"
"Nothing," he answered slowly and frowned as he thought about it.
"A mirror," Snape said.
"Yes," Harry nodded slowly, reaching in his shirt. "Yes, but I'd forgotten it when he died and I was so upset about his death that I threw it in the bottom of my trunk." He reached for it and showed it to Hermione. "When Lupin was given the cure, Ramond came and told me this was important. He fixed it for me."
"Ramond said it would be needed," Snape said calmly. "It is a way to communicate to someone."
"I tried," Harry said looking at the mirror thoughtfully, "at Hogwarts, I shouted his name into the mirror." He looked at the mirror in his hand, feeling frustrated. "He's dead, he can't answer."
"It has to have another purpose," Hermione said, reaching for the mirror. "Why would Voldemort want it?" She fingered the gold filigree around the edge and studied her reflection in it. Since leaving the hallway of mirrors her reflection had gotten decidedly dirtier and more tired-looking.
"What's a telephone got to do with it? How could Pettigrew talk to someone who's dead over a muggle phone? Why did Ramond think I needed this mirror? It can't be used anymore to talk to Sirius," Harry asked Snape who closed his eyes again and shook his head. Harry stuffed the mirror back into his pocket. "I have to go up to Malfoy's office and see that phone."
At this Hermione and Snape looked at each other and then Harry. Hermione dropped to the floor and dropped her head in resignation. "We just saved your life and you're going to turn around and risk it again?"
"Hermione." He crouched down in front of her and took her hand and said, "I'm here to kill him. Even if we manage to escape, he's still alive and we don't have this mystery solved." He stared at the mirror in his hands. "Wait for Lupin and Moses and Ron for as long as you can. Get the Rom healer to Snape and then all of you leave the island."
"Moses has experience with this kind of thing," Snape said. "Wait for him Potter. You can't hope to defeat Voldemort even if you are completely well. You're defeating the purpose if you stroll in and get yourself killed." The voice sounded like their old Potion's Master.
"I think time is running out. I either have to act or leave." He took the mirror back from Hermione and turned away from them. "You have to understand. I can't have any of my own dreams- I can't move on until this is finished. I appreciate everything you've both done for me." He walked out into the darkness of the hallway.
Hermione felt the tears falling before she realized they were there. She sat back and let them fall without trying to stop them.
Snape grunted and raised himself from the floor. He stepped by her and looked down, "When they show up, send Moses along to Malfoy's office. Go home with Lupin and Mr. Weasley. You've done your part."
Hermione looked up and nodded in defeat. "Professor, remember everything is a mirror image. You have to do everything like you're…you're looking through a mirror. If you reach for a door knob it will be on the left and not on the right even though it looks that way." She finished and squinted in the orange yellow light of the torches. "This place is tricky.
Snape moved more slowly through the cave-like dungeon and disappeared after Harry.
"Mirrors," she mumbled, "and telephones and tricks. Always tricks!"