MORE PROGRESS THAN NONE
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.
A/N: This fic is not intended to be DH-compatible, but may contain DH spoilers. (I may possibly write an alternate DH-compatible ending after posting the original non-DH ending.) Thanks to all my reviewers and especially to Lady Memory for finding time in this busy season to preview.
The story till now: Since Harry's first year, Snape has been easing his troubled mind by sending time-spelled letters to a twenty-years-on Hermione. It's now fifth year...
Hermione,
Is it not bad enough to be caught between the Dark Lord, the Order and the Ministry without meeting your earnest, reproachful eyes at every turn? Cease and desist, you silly girl. I said nothing to your idiotic friend last week but what he very well deserved and needed to hear. If he cannot concentrate well enough to follow the steps written on the board in front of him, how will he cope when he has to keep multiple outcomes straight in his head? He is the only one who can vanquish the Dark Lord; his life will only get harder from now on. And stop vetting his homework. He needs to stand on his own two feet, with your friendship merely an extra aid, instead of a crutch.
The proof of my point is that his work today was almost acceptable, although his written homework, barring your input, still leaves much to be desired. I shall continue therefore to teach him as I see fit. Try if you can, instead, to convince him to stop uselessly butting heads with someone whose secondary purpose in coming here is finding an excuse to expel him.
Her primary purpose seems to be preventing an imaginary rebellion against Fudge by denying the students practical Defence lessons. The fools! If Dumbledore had wanted to be Minister, he could have accepted the position any of the multiple times it was offered him.
I find myself wishing I could have tested Longbottom's Shrinking Solution on her instead of on his toad. She might be slightly less unbearable shrunk down to her proper size. "Hogwarts High Inquisitor"? "Powers to inspect her fellow-educators"? However "eccentric" Dumbledore's appointments may have been in the last few years – and honesty compels the admission that they have been eccentric in the extreme – they pale before Fudge's determination to discredit our greatest bulwark against the Dark Lord. Should Albus Dumbledore ever fall indeed, the Ministry's fall would not be long-delayed.
Minerva tells me you recognised a small part of this, the bit about Ministry interference in Hogwarts, and even explained it well enough for your dunderheaded friends to understand, which shows at least the beginnings of independent thought. I cannot say I've seen any sign of it in your schoolwork, however. Beware of hubris! The story of how you challenged the toad in your first class with her has reached the staffroom and caused much guarded mirth behind her back, but was it worth the risk? Choose your battles carefully.
It's a pity I can't send this to the child you where it might do some good, instead of to your adult incarnation twenty years too late. However, it is a satisfaction to be able to say it to one of you, at least.
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Dear Hermione,
A public meeting in the Hog's Head, that haven of thieves and informers? What were you thinking? If you imagine that Dumbledore's brother being the proprietor is any recommendation, I urge you to think again. Yes, he is nominally a member of the Order – but so is Mundungus Fletcher, and your friend Potter's late run-in with Dementors while supposedly under Fletcher's supervision should be enough to disabuse you of that folly.
Still, I suppose you have begun to exhibit some initiative, even if your attention to discretion leaves somewhat to be desired. Learn from this setback to look further than your own aims to the wider consequences of each action. Her eye is even more firmly fixed on the three of you than before. Be very careful.
...
Have I not told you many times to stop assisting your dunderheaded friends in class? Potter would learn more from paying attention to his brewing than from attempting to eavesdrop on my conversations with Madam Toad, or, for that matter, with anyone. If he refuses to focus in class, he must make up the deficiency out of class in written work. So stop looking at me like that, you aggravating girl. He leans on you far too heavily and will be completely lost without you when the time comes to leave this place and face his adversary. No doubt you imagine that you will always be together and I suppose you intend to do your utmost to ensure that, but you can't guarantee not to be separated and then where will he be? How will he survive?
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Hermione,
Can't you talk some sense into your friend's thick head? He is in the very gravest danger and all he can think about is Quidditch and beating Draco's brains out? What does it take to get through to him? Minerva is at her wit's end.
I wish I could hope for Hagrid to talk some sense into him, but goodhearted as he is, sensible Hagrid is not. (Nor any fonder of Malfoys than Potter is.) He hasn't been back a day and already he's managed to clash with Madam Inquisitor, if her mutterings in the staffroom tonight are any guide. (Surely even Hagrid cannot have hoped to excuse his absence with stories of "sensitive skin" and "fresh mountain air".) It will have to be you, therefore. Use the brains you currently waste on propping up your friends' laziness and persuade Potter to pull his head in.
(You're laughing at me, of course. If only the jest is not too bitter for laughter. How foolish to expend my energies sending a warning that must, of its very nature, arrive twenty years too late. Laugh, then. Laugh for all of us. If in your future time there is reason and freedom for laughing, our sacrifices now will not have been in vain.)
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Hermione,
I despair of that boy. You have not half his natural talent at mind-magic, but I'm convinced you must have made more progress (which is to say, more progress than none) in half the time I've wasted trying to din the principles of Occlumency into his stubborn wooden head. If anything, he has got worse.
Mysterious Ministry corridors and locked doors, Azkaban escapes, suspicious deaths and injuries to Order members ... None of these are any of his concern. (I concede that his vision of Arthur Weasley was most timely. Nevertheless, we have wider concerns than the fortunes of individuals, however loved.) He has (or should have) but one objective this year, to keep himself inaccessible to the Dark Lord, and that boils down to two tasks that no one can do for him, to keep his head down and his mind closed. Is it too much to ask that he attempt at least one of them?
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Dear Hermione,
Yes, yes, very amusing, no doubt. I admit that even I have cracked a smile (secretly) at the sight of the toad in full cry after copies of the latest Quibbler. How you children must be hugging yourself. And, yes, I can see that there were some strategic advantages in combating the Ministry's determined obfuscation of the evidence.
(Disadvantages, too; while the Ministry has closed its eyes to the Dark Lord's return, He has found it expedient to refrain from open war. When this period of deceptive quiet ends, as end it will, far too soon, the massacres will begin. Surely your adult self can see – has seen, I imagine – that delaying the war until Potter's majority is (was) by far the preferable option. But in my experience, this is beyond the reasoning of a child.)
The Weasley twins must be jealous. And Peeves. All their mischief put together pales into insignificance compared to what you children surely see as glorious mayhem. I could almost wish (what I can never allow myself to wish, for well I know it can never happen) to bend time and speak to you – the adult you – in person to ask who thought of it. Something in your smug expression suggests the hardly believable thought that it was you.
Guard your face, child. Guard it as securely as Potter needs to guard his mind. (No progress there, I'm afraid.) Dumbledore and Potter are the Ministry's primary targets, but they would not disdain the secondary target of separating Potter from his support base, from you and young Weasley, and Madam Toad would be delighted to expel you, in particular. It was not wise to mark yourself as her personal enemy in your first lesson – all in support of your friend, Potter, of course. How very Gryffindor.
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Hermione,
Are you satisfied now that you've driven Dumbledore from the castle to protect you? Are you satisfied? Idiot child! Cannot you leave adult's work to the adults, and concentrate on becoming the person – the people – you will need to be? I've no patience to talk to you tonight. Foolish, foolish children?
S
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
Hermione,
If I hadn't sworn to protect that brat with my life, I might have killed him tonight.
I left to tend to a student and returned to find him in my Pensieve. Has he told you, I wonder? Has he told you why I refuse to teach him again, or fobbed you off with some lie? I suppose you know, at the least, what he saw. (If not, I shall certainly not tell you. I wish I could forget myself how I pushed away my dearest friend with one unmeant insult.)
Amidst the familiar shame of my worst memory is a new sharp sting that comes with knowing that you would have been more loyal, you would have forgiven. Those two dunderheads have repeatedly hurt you and each other, sometimes sending you to Coventry for weeks at a time, but it has never brought things to an end between you.
It doesn't change what I feel. Love is not lessened by its unreason. I didn't love Lily for her constancy or her friendship, I loved her – I love her – because she was Lily. But yet, I didn't want to know that she was in any way lesser.
It doesn't change anything. Is the sun less warm because there are bigger stars, shining alone where we can't see them? Do we long for morning any less, knowing it could be brighter did another star shine in its place? Lily was my sun. I want no other.
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
That boy will be the death of someone soon. Doesn't he see how his reckless actions wreak havoc on all his friends and supporters, how he forces them to sacrifice themselves to protect him? First Dumbledore, and now the Weasley twins gone from the school. Will he never learn?
(And you, Hermione? Why didn't you stop him? Surely a resourceful girl like you could think of something to do or say to hold him back. Try harder next time.)
(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
You foolish child! Cannot you contrive to avoid almost getting yourself killed for even one year? Not even one? What possessed you to waltz off to the Ministry after hearing Potter give me his message? Oh, don't tell me, you 'forgot' I was an Order member. You suspected me of being an Umbridge-supporter, all appearance to the contrary. You thought me too stupid to comprehend the warning. What, you idiotic child, what? I am out of all patience.
You lie now in the hospital wing. Again. I've just delivered Poppy a fresh load of potions while you pretended to be asleep. But my hearing is sharper than you realise. I heard someone whisper sorry as I left the room, and I know, as clearly as if I'd been watching, that it can have been no other but you. Sorry, indeed. You should be. You will be. The respite is over, and now the war begins.
S
A/N This fic assumes a strong memory of canon. For those less obsessed, I provide a guide:
The first letter, which refers mostly to the first week of lessons, was sent in the second week of school (ch 12-15);
the second in early October (Umbridge's inspection of Snape's lesson was two days after the Hogsmeade visit of DA recruitment) (ch 16-17);
the third in November, after Harry and the Weasley twins were banned from Quidditch for life (ch 19-20);
the fourth in Jan/Feb, far enough into the Occlumency lessons for Snape to know Harry wasn't trying (ch 25);
the fifth in late February after Harry's Quibbler interview appeared and was immediately banned (ch 26);
the sixth in April, shortly before the Easter break, when the DA was discovered and Dumbledore fled (ch 27);
the seventh two days later, after Snape caught Harry in his Pensieve (ch 28);
the eightth after the Easter break, when the Weasley twins' decoy attempt to let Harry use Umbridge's Floo went wrong (ch 29);
and the last shortly after the DoM fight (ch 37).
Since canon follows Harry almost exclusively, it's not clear what Snape knew or guessed, and when. Naturally, there would have been times when he guessed wrong, for example, his supposition in the second letter that Hermione might have known the identity of the Hog's Head's barman.
The post-DoM hospital wing encounter is not canon. OTOH, Harry wouldn't know if it had happened, as he was the only one of the Ministry six who didn't need any medical treatment that night.