She stood at the edge of the dusty shelves, gazing past the last rows of tomes stretching to the ceiling and the bookcases covered in layers of dust that might not have been disturbed for hundreds of years. But what would have once captured her imagination and excitement now passed her by. The music soared in her veins, thrumming power, and she felt she could hear the breathing of the wood and stone, of the lazy autumn night itself as she stood in the dim book-lined corridors of the library.
It was plaintive, then joyful, solemn followed by bouncy, mellow turned into trills. Did no one else in the silent room hear it? It was the most glorious sound she had encountered for many years, since she stopped taking lessons, sweet and full and rich… though if Professor Slughorn were to be believed, it was blessing that no one else seemed aware of the melody that suffused her being.
She crossed the few steps to the window, willing her breathing to quiet, trying to listen…
The strains of the sound floated to her cleanly as she stood by the lattice. They were coming from the grounds.
Whirling, long curls flying behind her, unruly as ever, Hermione exited the library at a pace barely slower than a run. Without her cloak, without protection and without consideration that in fifteen minutes she would be both out of bounds and out of curfew, Hermione sprinted to the small side door just outside of the doors leading into the Great Hall, unbolted it with hasty, clumsy fingers and hurtled out onto the lawn.
Compelled by Professor Snape's command and drawn by a desire stronger than curiosity- whoever played was someone who would understand her, someone willing to take the risk- starved of companionship for all of her life, Hermione's body guided where her mind and even her ears could not. When the wind whistled to drown the music, her feet knew exactly where to lead her, and she followed the force that tugged at her toes and pulled her unerringly forward.
Unlike her last blundering attempt, Hermione moved stealthily, the music clearer and purer as she approached. For a moment she stood in the shadow of one of the great pines that lined the outer edges of the forest, head thrown back, eyes closed, bathing in the sound. She could feel the crackling stir of magic snapping at the ends of her hair. Whether student or adult, these players were virtuosic, and their skill evoked and stirred to life the magic that surrounded the school. Earth, cool wind, water, damp leaves, thick moss, the wildflowers that carpeted the forest floor and a thousand other smells imprinted themselves in her nose, magic thick, oozing around her like a bee in a stream of honey.
Breaking her self-imposed spell, Hermione started forward again, creeping ever-closer, entering the forest only with extreme care. And drawing close enough, she parted the dangling branches in front of her face to see two silhouetted forms under the trees, neither speaking, fingers flitting over their instruments in improvised time. Hermione's hands curled and rippled over an imaginary harp, its real twin sitting in a room under Gryffindor Tower twenty-three years from now, and her vocal cords ached with suppressing her desire to join the musicians in their practice.
Squinting into the moonlight to keep her body's tangible reaction from betraying her presence, she narrowed her eyes to slits, trying to determine who the players were.
Long, pale fingers flashed over the silver keys of the clarinet, and as the player rocked forward, a shadow slung down to mask his features.
No, not a shadow. Hair. Hermione controlled her instinct to gasp by biting her tongue to clip the sound. That black hair and those hands could only belong to one person. With a clarity that staggered her, she reached for the nearest tree trunk and leaned against it, vividly recalling the searing intensity of Professor Snape's gaze as he had given her this assignment. "Find the clarinet." She had found it. And the player. And, somehow unsurprisingly, it was him.
888
"Remus!" James slid his arm around his friend's slender shoulders, giving him a rough hug at breakfast two mornings later.
"How's your mum?" Sirius asked solicitously from the other side.
"She's, you know, the same as always." Remus did not have to fake the fatigue and listlessness in his voice.
"She's not getting any better?" James sounded genuinely disappointed.
"No, you prat. 'Same as always' usually means exactly that." Sirius swatted James gently on the back of his head. When the other boy batted him back, Sirius ducked, and James' long arm instead clunked against the back of Remus' head, knocking him forward into his plate.
"James, drink your coffee before engaging in fights," Remus muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Your aim is off."
"Sorry."
"Boys." Lily sniffed disapprovingly. Hermione smiled at her, shaking her head. "What?" Lily demanded, catching the end of the gesture. "They should be being nice to him, not kicking him around."
"Boys are like puppies," Hermione told her, spreading her toast with black raspberry jam. "When they beat each other up, they're having fun. Remus wouldn't want them to make a big deal of his going home. He's worried enough about his mother as it is- they would only make him more anxious if they crowded him with questions and treated him like glass."
"Hmmph." It was clear Lily thought little of this line of reasoning as she dug into her kippers. From the other side of her, Trina narrowed her eyes at Hermione. Shrugging, Hermione scooted down the bench to where Ludo Bagman sat across from the Marauders, now deep in conversation about Quidditch. She squashed her sigh and picked up the paper. Better to listen to convoluted plans to beat Slytherin's game strategy than endure the censure of her dorm mates.
Behind the newspaper, Hermione's eyes turned distant as she focused on her internal object. For two days, she had wrestled with what to do about discovering that Snape was the player she sought. It was clear from the adult Snape's reaction what she would do, and that he would help her, but teenage-Snape seemed, if anything, more surly and withdrawn than her professor. As a Gryffindor outside the Slytherin hierarchy, she was fairly certain that as far as he was concerned, she did not exist.
And there was the matter of the other. The slight frame and long, plaited hair left Hermione reasonably certain that the viola player was female- but the high cheekbone thrown in relief by the moonlight indicated a girl well into puberty. She was slight, but not short…clearly someone older, someone close to her own actual age. But it was certainly no one Hermione knew. And she had not made a plan for a third person. Snape had mentioned only himself, and the Echo.
If the Echo is a person, perhaps she is the Echo… the young woman mused. She quickly shook her head to dispel that thought. Professor Snape had said 'find'. It was unlikely, then, that it would be so easy as all that. And she, too, had had an instrument in her hands. But there was no reason to think that the Echo could not be a human being. Harry was researching Horcruxes and soul-splitting with Professor Dumbledore, after all, so it was not an impossibility that a person might contain a magical anomaly.
"Erm…Hermione?" Pettigrew was poking her shoulder. She slapped his hand away automatically, as if it blazed with an open flame. The hurt in his eyes and pouting lip was all too evident as Sirius raised his eyebrows at her from across the table, but he merely said, "It's time for class. We can't let you sit there all day- James would fail without you take notes for him."
"Right. Sorry." The smile she tried for failed as she looked at Peter, and she quickly dropped her eyes under the cover of picking up her bag. She could feel Lily Evan's eyes on her back, the other girl having observed the awkward exchange, and the puzzled frown on her face followed Hermione out the Great Hall doors.
I can't, I can't, I must be mad not to be able to act better than this… Hermione knew her violent dislike of Peter Pettigrew and automatic, irrepressible reaction to him hardly kept the secret of her odd mission. If anything, it was coming closer and closer to destroying her cover. But in his voice, every time it reached her ears, she could only hear the frantic pleading mumblings of a desperate, balding murderer who had betrayed Harry's parents, two people she was coming to regard as friends of hers in her own right.
Sighing as they filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, she settled her bag on the desk she shared with Remus, pulling out her book as usual. As she sat, Severus Snape brushed by her, sitting with his partner, Timothy Wilkes, a pale, slender boy who would have reminded her of Draco Malfoy had his hair not been dark and had he not had the spark of humor in his slate-grey eyes that the Malfoy heir most distinctly lacked.
Snape did not bother to pull his book out of his bag. Shaking his black hair forward to hide his face, he sat slumped at their shared desk, his posture indicating a confident boredom. He had every right to. Never having opened his book in class- by all appearances, he didn't even carry it- he was capable of answering any question presented to him by Professor Torrenwright and could counter in practice any hex, jinx or curse on the first attempt.
Hermione tapped her quill on her desk, contemplating the boy seated two desks up and one over from her. She had to find a way to speak to him, but she had instantly, intimately associated herself with his dearest enemies. Hardly the best speaking terms.
Still, she had done it…and the momentary intensity her professor's eyes had held in Dumbledore's office buoyed her assurance that it would not be a miserable experience for them. Her resolve stiffened, she put the spinning threads of what she could say to him in the back of her mind and bent her mind towards listening to her professor.
888
After lunch, Hermione screwed up her courage. Diffindo had worked on several occasions for emergency warnings and conferences between classes. So she would simply split his bag down the middle and pounce while he cleaned up.
"Where're you going?" James asked, bewildered as Hermione stood halfway through a bite.
"Just remembered something," she lied to him around a mouth of hot pasty. "I need to check the library for my History of Magic essay."
"Would it kill you to let that wait until this evening?" Sirius asked, but his black eyes glittered with warmth as Hermione shook her head. She had easily gained the affectionate 'Know-It-All' title in these first two and a half weeks, and Sirius had no qualms about letting her check his essays for class.
"See you in a bit." She stuffed a last bite in her mouth as she swung her bag over her shoulder. Snape was just leaving the hall in the company of the boy who seemed to both control and protect him, Rodolphus Lestrange. She watched their not-quite-easy interaction for a moment, a cautious relationship, growing more comfortable, between allies whose loyalty and pecking order had been long-since established.
She hurried out after him, only to be stopped by a long arm that ended in pale, flawlessly manicured fingers right outside the doors. The hand tightened on her upper arm and spun her to look into one of the faces of her nightmares.
Lucius Malfoy. And behind him, leering slightly, the would-be executioner of Buckbeak, Walden Macnair.
Her lip curled instinctively as her other hand crossed her body to seize the wand hidden in her robes.
"None of that." He released her arm with a warm smile, throwing up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. Her right hand wrapped around her wand anyway as she threw a quick glance over her shoulder. Snape was soon to be out of range of her hex.
"I was headed somewhere," she told Malfoy icily. "Is it your habit to stop people cold without so much as a by-your-leave?"
Macnair chuckled from his position of relative safety behind his friend. "Feisty, Luci. You might want to be careful with this one."
But Lucius merely smiled at her. It softened all of the angular planes of his face, and the sparkling grey eyes that his son would inherit seemed to focus on her alone as she looked at him. Hermione felt her face reddening and twisted slightly to escape his gaze. Had she not known what he was, what he would become, she would have found him quite charming. The delicate attention he was paying to her face- and only her face- was difficult to shut out. As it was, she could not keep her body from heating in response to the kind of appraisal that no boy in her own time had ever given her.
"I apologize." He made a courtly little bow to her. "You are always in a hurry, and always in such company as would hex me rather than look at me that I simply had to seize my chance." Macnair guffawed behind him.
"All puns intended," Hermione remarked, trying to keep her voice chilled as her intellect clamored with her instincts.
"Of course. You are of age to visit Hogsmeade, yes?"
"Yes," she replied hesitantly.
"Excellent. Would you care to come with me on our first weekend?"
Hermione stared at him. Under the shock ran a sudden desire to burst into laughter. Did this memory rankle in the older Malfoy twenty years from now? Inviting his son's Muggle-born rival on a date? "Go with you. To Hogsmeade?" She snorted and tossed her hair back, ready to deny him-
"Malfoy." Hermione felt three people at her back, and relaxed a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Sirius, James and Remus stood solidly behind her, and Sirius' wand was out and pointing past her shoulder at Malfoy. James' was at Macnair. Remus' wasn't out, but his hand pressed gently against the small of her back, offering her comfort.
"What's going on, Hermione?" he asked.
"Nothing. Malfoy just asked me to Hogsmeade." She knew there was a lingering tone of wonder in her voice, borne not of flattery but of her sheer inability to believe what she had heard.
Sirius' wand shook with anger, but there was nothing wavering about his voice as he said stiffly, "Hands off, Malfoy. She's allergic to scum."
Malfoy laughed easily, a sound both like and unlike the sneering of his son, and backed away. Without acknowledging either the boys or their wands, he said, "When you decide to think for yourself, come give me your answer." Macnair shot her a cocky grin and a wink as he followed his friend.
As they rounded the corner, Walden frowned at Lucius. "You gave up easily."
The charm had left Lucius' features, casting them back into their customary mold of cold, patrician beauty. "She is four years younger than I am, and friends with those Gryffindors as well as being a Gryffindor herself. I hardly expected her to say yes. But, one should always at least attempt the easy route. I will simply have to find another road to what my master wants."
"Are you sure she's the one?"
"He is," Lucius told his friend in a clipped tone, dropping his voice after flicking his wand to ensure no one was within listening distance. "He finds it entirely too convenient that the beginning of his investigation of the Echo and this girl's arrival at Hogwarts coincided so neatly. Couple that with the recent surges of distortion in the magical field around the school and he's sure a powerful student is causing the problems by playing music. She is powerful, Avery says she completes all class assignments dead perfect in no time at all, and she may well play music- who else would who just arrived this year? A first year? It takes guts to flout wizarding law, and she attempts- and succeeds occasionally- in keeping Sirius Black in check. She's got guts. Who else would it be?"
"Mmmhmm. Good points, " Walden drawled lazily and rolled his eyes at his friend. "But face it, what you like about it is that she's a looker."
Lucius' mouth twitched. "I won't lie to you about that. It is pleasant to have such an… interesting prize to pursue."
"What's your next strategy?"
"I've given her a challenge. She might decide to take me up on it. But, if she doesn't…" Lucius smiled ferally, his eyes diamond hard, his teeth barely showing through taut lips. "As our master has taught us, there's more than one way to skin a Mudblood."
888
"Stay away from him," James warned her savagely after he and Sirius had finished roundly abusing Malfoy for his forwardness. Hermione stopped in the middle of the corridor. The boys continued two steps more, like water flowing around an entrenched log, then halted, turning to face her.
"You think? James Harry Potter, I can think a few things through on my own," she snarled. Her throat constricted around the name, anger, confusion and the faint stab of missing Harry and Ron making her voice squeak at the end.
"Of course," Remus hushed her quickly as two students passing by threw them curious looks.
"That's not what he meant at all." Sirius rushed to his friend's defense. "He just, you don't know Malfoy like we do-"
Bet me, she thought dangerously, and knew some of the thought flashed in her eyes, because Sirius silenced instantly. Flip and arrogant though they could be, none of the Marauders wanted to see their newest friend's undeniably powerful fury unleashed on them.
"Hermione? I wasn't- I didn't mean you can't see for yourself what kind of person he is, but Malfoy is very used to getting his own way, and-"
"He'll go to any length to secure it. I know," Hermione finished the sentence softly. Like father, like son? she wondered. No. My Malfoy never acted like that. A prat, yes, spoiled, yes. Oozing charm while lying through his teeth? Not his style. Effective, but not his style.
"You're sure you're all right?" Remus' light brown eyes were staring into hers, concerned etched into the lines on his forehead. "He didn't touch you at all?"
"No," Hermione smiled to reassure him. "No, he just invited me to Hogsmeade. But he didn't mean it in the normal way a guy invites a girl to go with him…"
"I can promise you he did," Sirius spat. "Listen, Hermione, no matter what anyone says about me and 'callous heartbreak', which I'm sure you've heard at least a dozen times from Trina, I am nothing compared with Lucius Malfoy. He thinks you're pretty- and he'll bed you if you let him."
Hermione stared at him, her previous thoughts forgotten. As far as this Hogwarts knew, she was not the seventeen years of her actual age, but the thirteen that Dumbledore had told them. Her stomach roiled as if she was going to be sick right there in the hallway.
"But, I'm only-"
"Thirteen. Doesn't matter," Sirius continued harshly. "Rumor has it that Malfoy has slept with every girl in Slytherin fourth year and up, and most of the seventh year girls in every house. Don't ever let him near you."
"And if he does come try again, tell us. Even a seventh year can't fight all of us," Remus said firmly.
Hermione felt a sudden rush of affection followed by yet another bitter-sweet reminder of Harry and Ron. Sirius and James were all fire and action, even their wild hand motions and fidgeting stances reminded her of Ron. Remus stood next to her, hand on her arm, offering her quiet support and a core of strength that had not quite settled in his more flamboyant friends, much as Harry had learned to do. And even Peter…
To her surprise, he was giving her an honestly concerned look so like one of Neville's that she could forget his traitorous future for an instant, and for the first time, reached to touch his arm, the stretching of her mouth genuine. They had closed around her protectively, and she had, for the first time, an inkling of the loss Remus would endure with the deaths and betrayals of these friends.
"Thank you," she whispered, and found her lower eyelids flush with tears. She bowed her head to hastily wipe them away. Harry and Ron hadn't quite figured out crying girls yet, and she couldn't imagine these boys would be any less uncomfortable with them.
"We couldn't let that pig touch you, Hermione," James was saying earnestly. "Never."
"Speaking of never," Sirius turned the conversation deftly, sensing it was time to move on, "we'll never win the House Cup if we're all late to Potions this afternoon."
They glanced at the clock hanging overhead in the hall, Hermione gasped at the time, and the five of them pelted in the direction of the dungeons.
888
Derailed by Lucius Malfoy in her earlier attempt, Hermione aimed her wand carefully at Snape's bag. Quidditch practice was always right after Potions for the Gryffindor team, and she knew she could count on the boys to take off without her if she showed any signs of dawdling to ask questions. Snape was headed down one passage while the end of Peter's robe disappeared around the other…
"Diffindo!"
The bag split. In their reliably Slytherin fashion, the boys Snape was walking with continued on, and Avery even kicked an ink bottle so that it deliberately skittered far out of Snape's reach.
She could see the tight exasperation in the boy's shoulders as she hurried up behind him.
"Excuse me, but-" That was all the farther she got. Without facing her, his wand flicked into his hand and directly at her heart.
"Kindly tell me what is so desperate that you had to ruin a school bag to say it?" he whispered sibilantly. When his black eyes locked on hers, Hermione forgot she was breathing. Fear and loathing argued for dominance there, radiating chilliness from fathomless darkness. "Then again, I suppose destruction of other's property is an easy habit to acquire from Black."
"I'm sorry," she stammered.
"Sorry?" The curl of his lip made it clear that the word was one he had heard too often, and with little sincerity attached.
"I can repair it." Her voice found more sure footing as Professor Snape's orders echoed in her head, driving her inexorably forward. "I will in a minute."
"That you can fix it is immaterial. Why did you break it to begin with?"
"I need to talk to you."
"I'm not interested. Potter and Black can talk to me themselves."
"This isn't about them!" she snapped.
An arched eyebrow. She sighed. "I am sorry. I will fix your bag." With a wave of her wand and a swift "Reparo," the bag sprang back together. The eyebrow shifted from judgmental to unwillingly impressed.
"Proficient," he murmured. Hermione stared at him. It was not her professor, only the child version of him, but still, some part of her squirmed pleasurably to hear his approval.
His eyes lifted to hers again after he had given his bag a good long stare. The coldness in them had abated, and while they weren't warm, the loathing had also vanished and Hermione knew she had been granted a reprieve.
"I…I play an instrument," she started, offering information on herself first. But as the last work left her mouth, she knew it was a mistake. Doors slammed shut behind those eyes, and the thin mouth pinched together. He swung his head, breaking eye contact, and bent to scoop his things into his bag.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked softly, all the danger returned in his hissing 's'.
"Because I know you do too," Hermione replied. Misstep Number Two. He jerked upright, and his wand was out again, the point nestled in the hollow where her collarbone joined her neck.
"Say one word, and I swear, I'll curse you to silence for the rest of your life."
"I only wanted to ask you-"
He shoved the tip of his wand farther into the space, stretching the skin, making it harder to breathe. When she was almost gagging from the force, he leaned very close to her ear and whispered: "No questions. Don't come near me again." He pulled his wand from her throat, backing away quickly to finish putting away his books.
Hermione's hand was at her throat. Her eyes prickled with tears, mostly from the wand that made her breath rasp in her throat, but also from disappointment and defeat. She rubbed the rapidly reddening spot with a finger.
"And remember," his fathomless eyes glared at her over his shoulder, "if you tell anyone, you'll end up in Azkaban."
He strode down the hall. Even at thirteen, he unbuttoned his over-robe just the right amount to let it flare outwards from the waist downwards, making him appear larger than he was.
As he vanished, Hermione rested against the stone of the walls and let her tears come in earnest. Every day she felt the pressure of her failure to succeed in her task for Dumbledore mounting, and now she had reached what appeared to be an insurmountable barrier: Severus Snape's harsh personality. She knew it was he who she was looking for, but she didn't know how to gain his trust or even persuade him to hear her out.
Such a comfort to know that some things never change, she thought sarcastically, angrily wiping her tears on the back of her sleeve. Just like in the Shrieking Shack, when he had refused to listen to their explanation of Pettigrew's livelihood, now he fled before she could truly talk to him about it.
"Don't come near me again." "What am I supposed to do?" she whispered in frustration to the corridor as her throat closed over once again. "How am I to get to him?"
Unsurprisingly, the grey granite had no solutions.
888
"Are you all right?" Remus asked as she made her way into the common room. She blinked at him and hastily ran her hand over her face.
"I'm fine," she lied. "Just a little…well, my potion for Slughorn wasn't perfect," she invented, knowing that the wolf in him could smell her distress.
Some of the admiring professor he would be shone in his eyes for a moment as he shook his head. "I'm sure yours was still better than everyone else's."
"Except Snape's," she muttered, sharp exasperation coloring her tone.
"Don't let James and Sirius hear you say that," he chuckled as he dipped his quill in his ink to start a fresh line on his Arithmancy chart. "Even in that tone of voice. They don't think he can do anything well."
It definitely goes both ways, Hermione remembered wryly, her thoughts drifting to the vicious fights between Sirius and Snape even as adults. "Why aren't you at Quidditch with them?" she asked.
"Quidditch is fun to watch, but not when it's all training maneuvers." He shrugged. "I got bored. Peter might squeal watching James catch the Quaffle every time, but since he always catches it, that sort of takes the anticipation out, doesn't it?"
"That always how I feel watching Harry play," Hermione agreed without thinking. "He's always going to catch the Snitch- victory is essentially guaranteed. It's not as much fun knowing the outcome."
"Harry?" Remus asked.
Hermione's mouth snapped shut to prevent herself groaning aloud. Secrecy indeed. It didn't take three weeks to start blowing it…
"A friend of mine at home. The boys school near the Institute always came to our dances and parties and I got to know him. Superb Quidditch player."
Remus nodded and turned his attention back to the parchment desperately trying to roll up as he insistently pushed it flat, scowling as the black ink smudged and pooled on the dry sheet.
Hermione sat, twisting a lock of hair in he fingers as she contemplated the boy trying to save his homework in front of her. She had been debating since his transformation to tell him she knew, and offer him her help. It was clear that James and Sirius didn't yet know… but they would surely figure it out soon. "The better part of three years...", and they were Animagi by the end of their fifth year. It had to be soon.
Maybe I tell them, she thought suddenly. I could. He said they 'figured it out', so maybe I don't. But he also didn't tell me so much… about my being here, about any of this…
The golden sunlight lit dust motes fluttering over an empty common room. Everyone else was out in the autumn air, in their clubs or in practices. There couldn't be a better time.
But a sense of awkwardness bound her tongue. What could she possibly say to him? Er…Remus, about that werewolf thing… There was nothing to say. She could wait for James and Sirius to discover the truth instead of making him endure "discovery" twice.
And as long as Snape refused to hear her out… She didn't need trouble with one or all of the Marauders. Ron had long since proven that boys could be just as sensitive as girls, about and sometimes more so. James and Sirius were likely to chuck her out as soon as they learned she was actively seeking Snape's company anyway.
More withdrawn indeed. Not for the first time, Hermione wondered about Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape and whether he had ever broken the Legilimen's defenses. It was unlikely… but any clue to as to how to break through the closed boy's walls would be welcome.
"See you later, Remus," she said absently as she started up her staircase.
888
In her room, Hermione slumped on her four-poster, dropping her bag absently by her feet.
"Don't come near me again."
Sorry, Snape. I have my orders. From you.