A/N: Thank you for the kind remarks :)
Additional Disclaimer: Just to say before it gets too involved - Although there is a lot of general facts and myths mixed in, this is essentially fiction. So please don't get worked up if I've altered things to fit the story, I mean no offence to any of the deitys mentioned.
Hermione had always hated side-along apparition and today was no exception. "Where are we?" she demanded, when she was quite sure that her stomach was staying where it should be.
Snape smiled nastily, "Do you just have to open your mouth for a question to spring out? Or are you feeling unusually dumb today? Look around you, I would have thought it was obvious".
It was true that she hadn't actually looked before she'd asked. Doing so now, she realised he was right, it was obvious. All around them were bookshelves, for as far as the eye could see, encased in an iron framework of stairs and walkways. The light was quite dim but the air was warm and dry, "the Magischebibliothek" she said, too entranced to be embarrassed.
"Heaven on earth Miss Granger?... Although to be exact, we are not in it but under it. You know how the Library works?"
She nodded "It's like the British Library, I was hoping to get a reader's pass for the time I'm here".
Somehow that did not surprise him, "I'm sure that can be arranged".
She turned, "You're trying to fob me off with books?"
"Ah but not just books", he smirked, "Any book that has ever been published in the Magical world, manuscripts, illuminated texts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, minutes, reports, patents... just think about it, the collected wisdom of the ages...".
"You can't keep me here against my will..."
"Against your will? Look around you..."
It was, Hermione admitted, very tempting. Unfortunately she had just discovered something else, "Where's my wand?"
"Ah, that I'm afraid, stays with me until after the auction, oh, and there's wards to prevent unauthorised apparition".
"But you can't..."
He looked amused, "I think you'll find that a kidnapper generally does what he wants". Turning he walked towards a door and opened it, "Feel free to stay here if you wish, although the books won't come to anyone without a staff pass" and with that he disappeared out of the room.
Hermione stayed where she was for a few more minutes, then tried a couple of accio's on books she could see on the shelf nearest her, they didn't move. Well, she'd be dammed if she was going to go begging him to let her out, walking to the nearest staircase she began to climb.
---
It was surprising how many books could be written in a thousand years she thought an hour later, taking a breather. Not only that, but she'd also noticed that as she'd climbed higher and reached the more modern books, they'd been shrunk and stacked, allowing more on a shelf. Some of them looked decidedly odd, with empty spaces the exact size of a book in them, those must have been summoned up to the readers. What if no-one ever came down here? With new resolve she got up and started climbing again.
Finally reaching a door at the very top she found it locked and warded. Banging with her hand did not produce any noticeable noise so she took off her shoe and tried that; it was no good, she could barely hear it, there was no way anyone the other side would be able to. Sitting down on the top step she tried to decide what to do next. Who would have thought that being trapped in a library would have been a bad thing?
Looking around her, she saw that she was sitting near the books most recently published, and idly ran her eyes over the spines. Frowning she reached out towards one, she hadn't seen that on her last trip to Flourish & Botts. It enlarged itself as it came out of the shelf, 'The Boy Who Loved: The Unauthorised Biography of Harry Potter'... written by Rita Skeeter, oh boy, grabbing it she flipped to the index and ran her finger down the pages until she reached Granger, Hermione. Groaning at the number of pages referenced, she turned to one of them and scanned it, a look of outrage appeared on her face. She'd sue, she thought slamming it closed several seconds later, that was if she ever got out of here.
It was then that she realised that Snape had been wrong... well, not wrong exactly, just suggestive and highly economical with the truth. The books might not come to anyone without a staff pass, but she could pick them off the shelf. So, given that she was in the depository for every magical text ever written and apparently had carte blanche; providing she could find it, she could read it. The possibilities were endless, the list of books that immediately sprang to mind, long... but since she couldn't apparate the first thing she needed was to find a way to open the door and she had, she guessed, 24 hours before the auction began. Her brow wrinkled, why did Malfoy want those earrings?
Digging in her bag she pulled out a notepad and pen, "Earrings?" she wrote, swiftly followed by everything she could remember reading in Maly's office. She sucked on the end of her pen for a moment then turned to a fresh page and wrote "Tyet?" Sighing, she stood and stretched, despite recognising it she couldn't remember much, except that it was a symbol of the Egyptian Goddess Isis and the last thing she needed was to write down possibly muddled facts. Wandering down the walkway she glanced at the spines of the books until she found a scholarly looking tome entitled 'Cursive Hieroglyphs, Magical Symbols and the Papyrus of Ani', that might be useful. Moving down to a floor below she saw, 'Isis, Egyptian Goddess of Magic' and 'Divination Readings: Isis, Thoth and the Magic of Tarot'. Pulling out the first, she felt no inclination to break the vow she had made against ever picking up another book on divination and left the other where it was. She would scan through these, then find a book on wandless magic, even if she couldn't find a spell to open the door, there had to be a simple amplification spell along the lines of 'sonorus' that she could do.
---
She wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there, the light had not changed in this windowless place, but the ache in her back and the rumble in her stomach told her it had to have been a couple of hours. She had learned many fascinating things, though how useful any of them were was debatable. She had also learned several worrying facts, the biggest being that Isis had brought her husband Osiris back from the dead. The details it appeared were sketchy and depended on which particular legend you believed, but the fact itself was incontrovertible; he was dead and in several pieces, then he was alive. To her that really did not look good. Glancing down she took up her pen and wrote two words at the bottom of her notes, 'Voldemort resurrection' and a question mark. She sighed then followed it with an exclamation mark for good measure.
All this information however, did not get her any further with the question of why Malfoy wanted a pair of earrings belonging to a 19th century Countess. For that she would have to dig deeper and older and that meant a trip back down those stairs. She looked up, she had not travelled far from the top and the only apparent way out, she could still try to find some sort of spell that would get her through the door. Unfortunately for Hermione, while she knew that the path to wisdom was in knowing that she did not know everything, the fact that she did not, irked... and she'd face down half a dozen boggarts before she'd let him call her dumb twice in one day.
The further down she went the fewer useful books she could find, it was almost as if they had all been deliberately removed. She reached the bottom again and looked at the door he had walked through. Behind it she discovered a small room that had been turned into makeshift lodgings, the principle feature being a large desk, piled high with the type of books she had been unable to find. Apart from that and a chair, the room contained an unlit fireplace with a kettle, a workbench with a cauldron and a few potions ingredients and in the corner, a bed. It was there that she saw the professor, lying heavily across it, fully clothed and to all intents and purposes, dead to the world.
Quickly looking around for her wand, she was not surprised that she could not see it. Glancing to check that he had not moved, she went over to the desk. Finding some notes, she tried to decipher them, but she had difficulty with his handwriting at the best of times and these were just impossible. Pulling out the book that was under them she sat on the chair and started to read.
---
Severus was not exactly sure how long she had been in the room. He had after all, put in a few hours work after he had left her before exhaustion had got the better of him. She couldn't have been there that long, she did look tired though and that chair looked uncomfortable. Nose in a book, she hadn't noticed that he was awake and he grinned a little, he had been the worst fear of many for so long, it made a change for someone to stand up to him, even if her timing was inconvenient. Watching her out of the corner of his eye he sat up and yawned loudly, she jumped and he was pleased to see that he hadn't completely lost his touch.
"Miss Granger, I thought you would have left by now".
She looked up, "Your hospitality was just too overwhelming Professor" she replied.
He glanced at the fireplace and felt a little guilty. Getting up, he lit it and put the kettle on to boil, "what are you reading?" She turned the book slightly so he could read the title, 'Hypatia's Heritage: Witches in Arithmancy, Astronomy and Alchemy', "fascinating" he said insincerely.
"Actually it is" she got up and stretched, waiting until he had finished making the tea before saying, "so tell me about the Tears of Isis".
Severus let out a breath and regarded her for a few moments, "I believe I told you that the less you knew the safer you were".
"Which when you think about it is complete nonsense" she replied, "No-one coming after me is going to believe I don't know anything just because I say I don't. Besides, after a day of being trapped in here I'll know as much as you do anyway. Wouldn't it be more useful if I tried to find out something new?"
He wrapped his hands around the mug he was holding, much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. Still, he should make one more attempt, "Miss Granger, this isn't your problem, you will be doing more than enough by not obtaining those earrings".
"If there is any chance of Voldemort coming back, we should all do as much as we can, don't you think Professor?"
Snape walked back over to the bed and sat down, he couldn't argue with that and perhaps she could find something he'd missed, at the very least she was more likely to tell him what Maly had said. "You remember that for a long time Potter was protected from the Dark Lord by ancient magic?"
She frowned at the subject change then said, "the love of his mother, yes".
"Mmm, love has always been powerful magic. Isis, as you've obviously read, created a potion that could bring the dead to life, as it did to Osiris. Realising however that it would be dangerous in the hands of anyone with evil intent, she protected it with an ancient spell, that uses the love of the giver to work".
"Then I don't see how it will work on Voldemort" Hermione interrupted, "no-one could possibly love him".
Snape sighed, "you forget, blind devotion is a kind of love, Pettigrew cut off his own hand to bring the Dark Lord back to corporeal form".
"But he's dead and Malfoy loves no-one but himself".
He ran a hand over his eyes, "to continue, Isis gave the remainder of the potion to her High Priestess for safe keeping in the temple. But the fact that she had put a spell on it did not stop attempts to steal it, even though it was widely known that if not used in love, the giver forfeited their life. Soon there was little of the potion left, so the High Priestess transfigured the remainder into a number of perfect tear drop diamonds and sent them out into the world with her acolytes, giving them instructions to found new temples and keep them safe".
"So the potion droplets in diamond form are the Tears of Isis?"
"Well done Miss Granger, I see why you were top of your class".
She ignored the sarcasm, "But the earrings belong to a Muggle".
"You know who the Countess of Montenuovo was?"
"The daughter of the Count of Neipperg and Marie Louise von Habsburg-Lothringen, 2nd wife of Napoleon and daughter of the last Holy Roman Emperor" she replied mechanically, wondering what that had to do with it."The earrings came from her maternal grandfather, as I said, a Muggle".
"Actually they didn't, although that may be how it's put in the provenance documents. You are correct that they were Muggles, however Marie Louise's father went to the University of Ingolstadt. At the time it was a centre for crackpot theories and groups based on the works of Paracelsus, Agrippa and Flamel. Francis became obsessed by them and probably heard of the Tears of Isis there. Using his money and influence he set up expeditions to find the diamonds, employing the services, whether known to him or not, of a graduate of Durmstrang. Somehow they managed to find two of the stones, they tried incantation after incantation to get them to liquefy, nothing worked. When Francis died, they were bequeathed to his eldest daughter, it was Marie Louise who had them made into a pair of earrings".
"Didn't the rest of the family object?"
"They were Muggles and didn't believe in Francis' obsession, besides, Ferdinand, his eldest son was an idiot and since the search for their secret had nearly driven the old man mad, they probably thought it was a good thing. When Marie Louise died they were left to her daughter, since she had no children, when she died they were put in a bank vault".
"And now they're being sold".
"Yes, I imagine the Muggles have forgotten they are anything other than an exquisite pair of earrings, if they ever thought otherwise. The stones are being sold to recoup the family fortunes, being flawless their worth is enormous, with the additional secret, practically priceless".
"But if he couldn't get them to liquefy..."
"The world has moved on in 200 years Miss Granger, even the Magical one. Scholarly articles and personal diaries have been published, much more research has been done. It is now believed for instance, that there are more than two diamonds and that they are all needed together before they will liquefy back to the potion. Nothing can be done with these two stones alone, but without them no-one can succeed".
Hermione frowned, "But if no-one knows how many there are, what makes you think Malfoy's going to be able to find the rest of them?"
"The location of each was passed down from High Priestess to High Priestess at the temple of Philae. Eventually they were written down in code when the temple was closed by Justinian in the 6th Century. An ex Ravenclaw scholar called Bartlby Perks published a paper tracing the papyrus to a shipwreck off the coast of Sussex in 1703, he was due to publish an update on the paper last month".
"And he didn't?"
"Oh, he did, according to him it was still in Sussex, intact, in 1915. He also announced that he was going to reveal it's final resting place at a specially convened meeting of Thaumaturgical Society, two weeks later".
"And?"
"He disappeared".
"Disappeared?"
"Disappeared. The night before the meeting".
"So he either actually knew where it was and was abducted, or it was an elaborate hoax and he got cold feet".
"Mmm, it was regarded as a hoax at the time, but I think he knew".
"Because?"
"Lucius wouldn't want the earrings if he didn't think there was a chance they could be genuine. If Perks has given him the parchment, the provenance documents would tell him which ones had been found... he would have two of the diamonds and the genuineness of the parchment would be confirmed".
"That's a big gamble".
"What does he have to lose, the Wizengamot passed sentence in his absence, the Dementor's Kiss" Snape twitched and Hermione was reminded how close he'd been to it, "he has no other choice".
"If Malfoy has the parchment he could conceivably find the rest of them. But he still wouldn't risk his life unless he knew it would work... and he doesn't love Voldemort, so why are you so worried?"
Snape sighed, "I don't know whether it will work using anything but true love, but I do know of one person that is insane enough to try and it's too much of a coincidence not to take it seriously". Hermione frowned at how haggard he suddenly looked, "Bellatrix Lestrange escaped from Azkaban last night".
