Disclaimer: Not mine, this is a non-profit tribute to the work of JKR.
A/N: My deepest apologies to those who have been waiting (I hope I still have some readers after such a hiatus!) This story is not, and never will be, abandoned. It can be very difficult to write at times, but it will definitely be getting finished. Thank you all for your patience! As always, thanks go to my beta, Trinka, who has re-worded many an awkward sentence for me as well as regularly tending my muse in her sulks.
Limits of Power
After his quiet declaration, the Spirit of Oak stepped back into deep shadow, allowing himself to be re-absorbed by the wood from which he had sprung, returning the forest to the creatures of the present. As tree-bark eyelids closed over his solitary human feature, Hermione gazed at her unconsciously, but undeniably, well-chosen companions. Their exhales streamed like steam from the Hogwarts Express, crystals mingling, starlight highlighting features both familiar and utterly foreign– the mysticism lent by the night, by the music, by what they had learned and the duty they had been called upon to fulfill casting them in older molds from a time of kings, when wizards with their power had ruled the world. Hermione shivered with an abrupt premonition. They were no longer students but warriors.
"It's freezing out here," Lily declared abruptly, teeth chattering violently. Her words and youthful voice broke the mood and erased the grander vision, returning them to their reality as just four stiff and chilled teenagers standing on grounds that would certainly earn them each detentions for a week if they were caught. Hermione lifted her head to study the darkened castle with some misgiving, trying to remember where all of the entrances into the castle itself would be marked on the Marauder's Map. Entering via the main door or even the smaller one of the caretaker would be exceedingly risky – it was too much to hope that only these select few had heard the melodies that had rebounded from the mountains as if being created by the blanketing sky. Teachers were probably already crawling over the lawns looking for them.
For her. Dumbledore would already know that the music shaking the foundations of stones and trees had stemmed from her command.
"We can use the Slytherin entrance," Severus said quietly, as if following her thoughts, and she glanced at him sharply, faintly unnerved. That her teacher had always seemed aware of their antics was something she had chalked up to his formidable skills of observation and his compulsive relationship as the hated protector of Harry Potter. For this fourteen-year-old to already hint at the trait that had Harry muttering darkly about illegal mind-reading was unsettling, to say the least.
"We'll have to," Klytemnestra agreed with a puff. She and her cousin started off, the Gryffindor girls following them, when Hermione's eye was caught by the frost-glazed purple-ish tones of the elderflower vine that had been her initial reason for this late foray into the night. Her gaze travelled up the vine as it looped around the trunk, climbing in circular patterns as was its nature, where it would tangle with greenery when the tree bloomed again in spring.
Such a very simple task. And yet, coming to perform it had changed the course of her life and her world.
She leaned over and began stripping the flowers, no longer encased in ice, storing them in the leather pouch she had thrust into her pocket for this purpose.
"Hermione, what...?" Hermione could hear Lily's hypothermia-induced exasperation, the tremors of her body coming through her voice. "Of all times to be gathering plants-"
"These are what I came for. You don't think I left our dormitory in the middle of the night, when the temperature is well below freezing just to give Lucius Malfoy a chance to capture me and end up meeting a tree spirit, do you?"
Lily opened her mouth, inclined her head in acknowledgement of the older witch's dry words and shut her lips, moving forward to assist in stripping the vine.
"What do you need these for? We don't use them in Potions. Professor Slughorn said their acid make them a poor base."
"So he did. These are for a bit of extracurricular research," Hermione replied blandly. Lily threw her a sharp look practically wasted in the dark, but the witch from the future could tell her friend was displeased with her secrecy by the tilt to her head and the flip of her red hair.
"The boys." She wasn't asking.
"Perhaps," Hermione conceded quietly, shooting a glance over her shoulder to see the Slytherin duo standing a few feet away, still shrouded by the barren branches of winter and likely frowning at her sudden interest in herb-picking. They had both proven themselves beyond doubt tonight, but she dreaded the confrontations that would occur if Slytherin's dark prince and Gryffindor's golden son ever knew the import they both had in her world.
"Are we going to stand here all night?" Oath of fealty or not, Klytemnestra's voice rang sharply in the cold air as Hermione stuffed the last elderflowers into the small bag, pulling the drawstring tightly.
"Of course not," she replied as she and Lily floundered back to them through the snow, and the four teenagers commenced dodging and weaving through the shadows rampant at the edge of the tree line, keeping themselves off the glittering white expanse of the Hogwarts lawn.
888
Hermione entered the Great Hall slowly the following morning, scroll in hand. James and Sirius half rose from their coffee – everything had been declared "normal", by the standards set for such a state at an institution of magic – at seven o'clock, allowing them all to rush to their dormitories, change and hastily perform their hygienic routines while the elves re-set the Hall. But in spite of the reassurances of their teachers, a defined heaviness had settled over the school, the air charged with suspicion born of fear, limbs trapped closer to bodies as if afraid of stirring the dread with flamboyant movement, and the Hall and corridors remaining unnaturally silent for a body of a thousand adolescents.
James blinked as Hermione ignored them and made an arc towards the Slytherin half of the room instead, walking with an understated dignity that somehow fully matched the more formal mood of the castle. He hesitated, his impulse to meet her in the middle of the room and demand where she had been the previous evening arrested as she broke tradition and crossed the invisible line running between the rival tables.
"What the devil-?" Sirius muttered, a frown marring his face as he likewise checked his forward momentum. James shrugged, darting a glance to the doors again as another witch strode through them.
"Evans," he said brightly, flicking his fingers in that direction.
"Following Hermione," Sirius countered as, indeed, the red-head spared no glance for her new boyfriend, her dormmates or breakfast and instantly joined Hermione with-
"Snivellus?" The incredulity in Sirius' voice brought Remus Lupin to his feet, joining them in staring to where Hermione was now deftly inserting herself into the Slytherin table, gently pushing aside the fourth year that had been seated next to Snape. Lily flanked his other side, and the parchment Hermione had been clutching was unrolled before them, a terse, whispered conference taking place between the triad and the striking young woman sitting across from them. The rest of the table recoiled from the unlikely quartet, as if associating with Gryffindors was an air-borne disease.
Sirius and James both heard the hiss of Remus' breath as Snape laid his hand over Hermione's forearm, the gesture politely solicitous, but assured enough to know that his touch would not be re-buffed, his half-seen expression betraying anxiety. Their friend smiled at him briefly, shook her head in response to an unheard question and stood, Lily coming with her as they crossed to their own side of the Hall.
"What was so important you had to talk to Snivelly about it before even saying good morning to us?" Sirius snapped snidely as Hermione walked up to them, the handsome Gryffindor doubly irritated – both on Remus' behalf and her clear evasions regarding the sarcastic Slytherin in their previous conversations. His kind-hearted friend clearly knew the greasy, awkward boy who's highest aspiration seemed to be creating more curses than the rest of the student body combined, and she had also found some cause to be civil. Even friendly. And the pureblood scorned by both his family and his lifelong peers couldn't reconcile a world where Severus Snape was worthy of Hermione's notice.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore's asked me to meet with him later today – and he asked me to bring Severus and Lily," Hermione replied in kind. The stress she placed on Hogwarts' least-favorite child's given name was almost a physical slap, and all three boys winced. "It would be stupid to send an owl when he sits right there, so I just told him myself. 'Morning, James. Remus," she smiled at the others. The boys nodded stiffly, the tension in their stances a wordless support of the tallest Marauder and an unspoken indictment of Hermione. She ignored them in favor of seating herself, pretending enthusiasm for the laden breakfast table.
"Why with Sni-Snape?" Remus quickly corrected himself. Hermione had made it clear that she would brook no insults directed towards the sallow Slytherin that had, for some unfathomable reason, acquired her favor.
So much so that he could touch her with ease. Despite his acceptance of her decision regarding their friendship, envy bared its green fangs in the werewolf's gentle heart.
Hermione shrugged as she fabricated, deliberately moving to fill her plate and cup so that she would not have to meet their eyes. "We were all working in the library last night when everything...happened. I'm sure he just wants to fill us in on what he told you."
"Weird," James said thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "He didn't really say much. Just a warning about not being outside after hours and not to worry too much because the castle's safe."
Sirius shivered, and Hermione watched a look of deep concern cross her friend's usually cheerful, devilish face. When he spoke, she was grateful that the previous night's unusual events seemed to have expelled Severus from his thoughts, though she shifted uncomfortably at the grave fear tinging his tone – a hint of the older man emerging from the carefree boy. "I'd wager there's a lot he wasn't saying, though. We all felt that – it was powerful, James, and no matter what the Headmaster said, I don't think they have it under control. He probably just doesn't want a bunch of kids worrying about it – since we couldn't do anything anyway."
"It was beautiful," Remus said, eyes lighting rapturously. "Did you hear the way it started? I could smell cherry blossoms – just the way it is in the last week of April when they start coming out everywhere."
"That was dandy – until the brass came in," Sirius muttered.
"Shut it!" a fifth year near them snapped irritably, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "We're not supposed to talk about it."
Hermione sighed and pulled out yet another textbook, knowing her studying would erect a much-needed barrier between herself and her peers. It was obvious from this morning's solemn pall that they needed to find a solution to their practicing and the effect it had on their surroundings very quickly. As she started to read, she noticed that the boys were not engaged in their usual cheerful banter that customarily revolved around two things – Quidditch, and gently teasing Peter about whatever he had forgotten the day before. A swift glance over the top of her book revealed the pudgy boy busily scribbling another two lines on their History of Magic essay, but Remus, Sirius and James were all watching Snape with a single-minded intensity that fomented a pit of unease in her stomach.
Their glances were anything but kind.
888
Lily craned her neck, looking for the Slytherin pair as they neared the gargoyle. Hermione merely smiled. "I'm pretty sure they want us to go up without them. We committed a breach today, crossing to their side of the table and forcing them to acknowledge us. It doesn't do to be seen getting too friendly with a pair of Gryffindors."
The younger witch shook her red hair in exasperation as they muttered the password and stepped onto the spiral staircase. "House rivalry is probably the stupidest thing about Hogwarts. I don't know why the Founders were so short-sided as to actually build it into the institution of the school." Lily cocked her head to one side as the stairs moved them upwards. "If they wanted a way to break us up, why not by age? They could have a different dormer for every year. But instead we're all involved in this ridiculous internal war just because some ragged piece of head gear roots around in our minds and declares that we're more suited to this House or that House." Hermione smothered a smile, recognizing another Lily rant in the brewing. She had thought the very same thing several times. The Sorting Hat had given lectures on unity the past two years in her own life – a peculiar turn for the very thing that divided them into warring camps at age eleven.
"Think about Professor McGonagall," Lily was continuing. "She's a brilliant witch, but if you ever watch her argue about Gryffindor's Quidditch prospects with Professor Slughorn, she instantly gets red in the face and is more likely to deduct points from the next Slytherin she can. It's so senseless."
"A very astute observation, Miss Evans," Dumbledore's sparkling blue eyes greeted them at the top of the stairs, and Lily's face went scarlet as if being drenched with beetroot juice.
"That is...no disrespect..." the girl fumbled, making an intense study of her shoes, but Hermione could see the Headmaster struggling valiantly not to laugh.
"I'm sure you meant none, and I shall take none," he said gaily, waving them in. "I, too, have wondered why we indulge in such a peculiar tradition, but the House system does have some good benefits as well – older students taking the chance to mentor younger ones, for example. And Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff have very little difficulty co-existing with the other Houses. I am afraid Gryffindor and Slytherin, however...we suffer from some very old prejudices." He steepled his fingers as he sat down behind his desk, gaze more serious now behind the half-moon spectacles. "Prejudices that, unfortunately, get stirred and re-stirred, spitting sparks like a cauldron never allowed to properly settle."
"To that end," he brightened again slightly, "I am delighted to see the two of you working with some Slytherins in a true gesture of inter-House-"
He stopped, for Severus and Klytemnestra had just appeared in the doorway. Hermione was grateful for the interruption. He knew they were working together, and she didn't have to think hard to extrapolate that the seemingly-omniscient wizard therefore also knew what they were working on and with. She swallowed. Dumbledore had saved her from Mrozcek – would he be so sanguine about her latent and largely uncontrolled power now that she had accidentally thrust it through the bones and blood of the castle's thousand-plus inhabitants?
"Come in, come in," Dumbledore gestured. Severus instantly claimed the seat next to Hermione, tossing both girls a quirked smile. Hermione could not help herself as her mouth twitched in response. Coming from the reclusive boy, the unguarded glint in his eye was practically a beaming grin. His black-haired cousin made to sit next to him, frowning as she took in not one, but two, remaining chairs. Her expression of puzzlement was matched by the Headmaster's.
"Forgive me, Miss Zabini, but is your sister indisposed? I thought the note made it clear that she was to attend as well."
"Sir...she..." Klytemnestra cursed herself for her instant collapse of composure in front of the powerful wizard – she had come prepared to address this very issue, after all, they could hardly hide it from him and he could probably help them – took a deep breath to control herself and lifted her chin to look the aging man in the eye. "My sister is no longer at Hogwarts, Professor."
Dumbledore stared at her, unmoving for a moment as fear coagulated in his abdomen. If news of last night's occurrence had already leaked out so swiftly that the Zabinis were removing at least one daughter, damage control would be nearly impossible. "I see. Precisely what does that mean? Your parents have not notified me-"
"My parents will have received my owl just this morning. It was not their decision or doing. Kassandra was taken from the grounds, sir." For all of her years practicing manners under stress, the sixteen-year-old's voice shook as she whispered the last. "By force."
The fear materialized abruptly, taking a far more immediate form. This was an entirely unforeseen conclusion to last night's already cataclysmic events. "By force?" he repeated carefully, as if begging her to reconsider her wording. When her affirmative nod was the only answer, he continued heavily, "This is a serious charge indeed. Please tell me exactly what you witnessed or heard to bring this accusation against a fellow student or staff member."
Hermione took over deftly, allowing her proud ally to regain a dimmed mantle of the regal arrogance that came to her so secondarily. The Gryffindor witch told most of the story, as she had been the only one actually present when Kassandra had vanished. A thunderous look settled over the bushy eyebrows as she painted Lucius Malfoy's role in the abduction.
By the time she had finished, Severus, Lily and Klytemnestra adding their short testimony as to how and where they had found her, the Headmaster's usually cheery eyes held a mix of sorrow and anger so palpable they seemed to surge from him in waves, permeating the office. "You said Voldemort?" Hermione jerked her chin downwards in confirmation, and the blue and brown gazes locked, information bypassing words, her steady gaze telling the older wizard that this was not a statement born of wild hysteria but based on true knowledge. Hermione knew what Lucius Malfoy had become, and she had a scar running across her chest to prove it.
"If he is Marking them so young..." The long nostrils flared in a physical outlet of otherwise suppressed emotion and then questioning eyes turned away from their internal focus and back on the youngsters in front of him.
"You have named Kassandra Zabini, now missing, as the primary assailant, playing the French Horn and assisted by Lucius Malfoy. You also...felt...with your music that there was a third person you did not see, am I correct, Miss Granger?"
"Yes, sir," she answered.
The learned wizard rose in a fluid motion that belied the aching of his joints, seizing a pinch of Floo Powder from a silver dish on his desk and tossing it into the fireplace. As the flames roared their neon green, he bent over at the waist in a flexible gesture and his head disappeared, the tail of his beard flickering between the office and the other side. No more than a few seconds later, he was standing back, and the portly form of Horace Slughorn was materializing under the immaculately polished, grey-veined marble mantle.
"Yes, Albus?" Their easy-going Potions professor sounded distinctly disgruntled as he brushed ash from his teaching robes and straightened the forest-green vest straining slightly at the belly. "I really don't appreciate being interrupted while revising my NEWT schedule-" He stopped abruptly as he took in four of his favorites sitting poker-backed and apprehensive in front of the Headmaster's desk. The same quad plus Kassandra Zabini that had been so markedly absent from the Great Hall the night before.
In a moment that Hermione would recall for the rest of her life, one that greatly altered her opinion of rotund wizard, she saw genuine relief spark in his eyes as his eyes met the four of them, tense but unharmed, and his first words blew through his walrus mustache with the swiftness of one who has been holding his breath. "Thank Merlin you're all right." An unexpected surge of compassion and respect filled the Gryffindor witch. Slughorn might like to sculpt the Ministry through his years' worth of cultivation, but it couldn't be denied that he had a genuine fondness – perhaps akin to an uncle's regard – for those he had dubbed his "rising stars".
"Yes, Horace. These four are all right."
Slughorn halted mid-step, hearing the emphasis and following it, his gaze quickly darting over them again. He paled slightly as he noticed the missing daughter of his House. His head snapped to Klytemnestra. "Your sister, Kassandra..."
"Gone," Dumbledore offered softly as he re-seated himself, sky-colored eyes drenched with sadness as well as fatigue.
"Where?" Slughorn's head swiveled like an owl's to the older wizard. Around his private table, backed with rich, heavy, green drapes and impressively silhouetted by the fire, it would have been funny. Here, the daylight refracting harshly from the snow to combine with the sun's pale winter rays streaming through the narrow windows, his obvious desperation could not have made it less amusing.
"We don't know. Miss Granger was just telling me a thoroughly disquieting story. However, I need you for a quick verification, Horace. Was Lucius Malfoy present last night when you counted your Slytherins in the Great Hall?" Slughorn frowned faintly, his mind not following the Headmaster's, and his shrewd eyes adopted the slightly far away look of a man in recollection. To Hermione's total dismay, he began to nod his head, balding pate glaring in the white mid-morning light. "Yes. He was there. I told you last night, Albus, that the only three missing from my number were the Zabini twins and Severus here."
Dumbledore let out a long breath as he turned his concerned eyes back to his students. "So you see, you are going to have difficulty proving your story," he told them seriously. "Horace can testify that at the time we took stock of the situation, Mr. Malfoy was squarely where he belonged. We can no more account for his movements before we all gathered in the Great Hall than we can for anyone else's – Malfoy could claim that he was in the library doing homework, and we would only have your word, Miss Granger, against his." Hermione ground her teeth, and the wise man she had looked up to for years allowed his mouth to curve with a mixture of sorrow and sympathy, his words the echo of those he would say in the hospital wing twenty years from now, when the subject was the innocence of Sirius Black. "I believe you, Hermione, but you will find that not many others will. Lucius Malfoy's father, Abraxas, is extremely well-thought of at the Ministry. He's been out of the country on a special assignment for the Department of Mysteries for the past six months, but there are plenty of his colleagues who will defend his son." His mouth faded back into a grim line, although his gentle compassion grew more pronounced as the spectacles turned towards Klytemnestra.
"I fear that your sister's disappearance is going to create more trouble for the four of you than anyone else."
"Why?" Lily asked.
This time he inhaled deeply, as if bracing them for the words to come. "Because unfortunately, the only people we can show were missing at the time Kassandra Zabini vanished are the four of you."
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"You have it?" The raw excitement vibrating from James Potter wrangled the first genuine grin Hermione had bestowed upon them all day. Her demeanor through all of their classes had been one of tight worry, likely to snap at any sign of interruption since her meeting in Dumbledore's circular office that morning. There had been nothing to say following their professor's grim and accurate pronouncement. If the blond aristocrat had managed to deliver Kassandra to where he had taken her and return in time to gather in the Great Hall with the others, there was no objective proof. And if Voldemort was willing to Mark those still at Hogwarts, simply pulling up Lucius Malfoy's left sleeve and hoping to see the gruesome skull betraying his oath was a laughably naive thought. The newly-forged quartet had left the office in seething silence, each burning with the desire to do something – and all knowing that their hands and wands were tied.
At first eager for details – none of the Marauders had yet made it inside the Head of School's private domain – Sirius' questions had abated with her increasingly heated glares as the sun had set, dinner had come and gone and even homework had been finished.
But all queries had now been abandoned in favor of sifting through the now-pressed and ready-for-use elderflower leaves that she had tumbled out across Sirius' crimson duvet cover, splashes of lavender the boys were collecting cautiously like precious amethyst.
"When did you get it?" Sirius asked, carefully stowing a handful in a special pocket. "And where?"
"In the Forbidden Forest. Yesterday," she answered wryly.
"Yesterday...when did you have – wait! You weren't in the library with Snive-" the severity of her glance caused James to grudgingly swallow the taunting nickname and force a resentful, "Snape, then, last night. You were outside!"
"Yes," she admitted, and before indignation could cloud James' face, Hermione hurried to explain. "But I wasn't going to say that aloud in front of the whole hall. All of us were missing, Professor Dumbledore assumed we were all together." Remus and James swapped intensely relieved looks in front of her baffled eyes, but before she could ask, Sirius pressed quietly:
"But then...did you see what caused it?" She had clearly momentarily derailed from the purpose that had been driving him since before Christmas.
"Or who?" Remus put in.
"No," she lied calmly. "I heard it, of course, but we needed the flowers, and," her shiver was unfeigned as she reflected on the potential fall-out of their actions less than twenty-four hours before, "I wasn't going to stay out there with it."
Some of her distress had clearly cracked the facade she had constructed for the day, because she found herself engulfed in a tight hug on both sides, Sirius and Remus wrapping their long arms around her and tangling in her hair so that the mahogany curls obscured her vision and invaded her mouth. "Boys!" she protested, though she could clearly hear the laugh in her voice, "I can't breathe!" With a final squeeze both friends pulled back, Remus shyly clearing the hair from her face with one gentle hand.
Before his tongue could voice what the soft hazel eyes were already asking, Hermione was forging ahead, rising from the bed and forcing a sparkle of adventure to banish her fears. For the moment, she had a potion to brew. A complex potion that made Polyjuice look like child's play, and in spite of the world that had radically shifted between last night and this morning, she was still looking forward to standing over it, watching it bubble, the unique smell of heated metal, magical flame and various ingredients tickling her nose.
"Where are we going to make it?" Peter finally asked the question she had been waiting for.
"I'll show you." Her excitement transmuted from act to reality as they scrambled to their feet, bags bulging with the weight of the books they were using for research, and she gestured to the door with a waggle of her fingers. They would not be brewing in the girl's bathroom where she had worked with Harry and Ron. Cracked mirrors, slippery floors, Moaning Myrtle and the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets were hardly ideal conditions for Potion-making. They had long since discovered a better site. "It's on the seventh floor along a certain stretch of corridor. A little unplottable place called the Room of Requirement..."
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"You said there was a witness present when Kassandra disappeared?" Anthony Zabini asked sharply, drumming his fingers on the small, intricately-carved side table holding his untouched cup of tea that had long ago stopped steaming and was now decidedly lukewarm.
Dumbledore inclined his head to the temperamental Italian wizard, making no attempt to hide his severe grief at having to impart such news. Kassandra had disappeared two nights ago. Her parents had spent the previous day with Magical Law Enforcement, and had now come to Hogwarts to comfort their remaining daughter and hear first-hand the account of events as given by Hermione Granger.
"There was indeed," he said quietly. "A young woman in her third year by the name of Hermione Granger. She is ready to answer your questions if you want me to show her in."
"Please." Elizabeth Zabini's voice was stiff and strained with repressed emotion, and the Headmaster could not help but be impressed by the enormous force of will at the aristocrat's beck and call. Raised in a society of rigidly adhered-to rules and manners, the descendant of the ancient and powerful Prince line loved her children dearly, and only the faint redness rimming her eyelids betrayed her grief in this public setting.
The aged wizard bowed his head and moved to his office door without further words. Though his knowledge was vast and the breadth of his experience with healing wounds of all kinds was unparalleled, there were some pains for which even the best wordsmiths could not craft comfort. Though childless in the traditional sense of the word, the Headmaster had dedicated his life to literally thousands of them, and he felt quite acutely the loss of his student. How much worse it was for her parents.
Knowing that the slender witch from another time had been waiting on the stairs for some minutes, he turned the brass doorknob and pulled back the heavy oak to allow her entrance. Hermione stepped over the threshold for the second time in as many days, giving him a nod of deference before turning her eyes to the parents of the dichotomous Slytherin twins – one had tried to kidnap her, and the other had sworn her undying loyalty. Where would one of Britain's highest-ranking couples fall in the balance?
The Gryffindor's eyes first fell on the wife, and as she met the woman's dark gaze, something of the rather handsome face reminded her of Professor Snape from her original age. Perhaps it was the high cheekbones – or the space-black eyes that had such potential for expression, and were just as plainly strangling those feelings as she stood there.
But the comfortable, queen-like carriage of her tall, well-proportioned frame spoke volumes about Klytemnestra's demeanor, and, without meaning to, Hermione found herself dipping her head in a half-bow, her neck gracefully arching in an acknowledgement of the social order and their respective places within it.
From Mrs. Zabini's striking but remote features, Hermione allowed her amber eyes to travel to the husband – the same height as his wife, deeply tanned and unable to keep completely still, his feet and hands tapping unconsciously, though whether out of discomfort or sheer anxiety, the teen could not tell.
But when she locked eyes with him, curiosity meeting curiosity, the world tilted one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.
The office faded, and, as with Alexander Mrozcek when she had first met him face-to-face in the forest several months ago, music replaced speech, lines of notes flooding her brain and arranging her vocal cords. This man knew music, understood its power, respected the magic it drew on. She could hear chords reverberating in her ears as she stared at him, their lives' shared passion bridging the gap between them, filling the void-
-a wrong note sounded through her mental symphony, like velvet rubbed the opposite way, similar to Kassandra's invasive horn two nights prior and wholly unlike the unified, joyous recognition she had subconsciously granted Mrozcek. The knowledge they both possessed betrayed him, and Hermione jerked her gaze away as she began to squirm with the wrongness of the notes. Fear instinctively fixed her eyes steadily on her shoes to prevent a re-connection, and she saw neither the paling of Anthony Zabini's face, or the torturous pain that replaced the momentary ecstasy there.
The Sicilian stared at the wild-haired, brown-and-golden-eyed Gryffindor girl in front of him and swallowed hard. The rush of life still trembled in his limbs, summoned by his many years of learning and practice coming to their pinnacle, meeting the latent power of the Echo's magical safeguard. There could be no doubt that Mrozcek had been absolutely correct. The girl standing in front of him was the Node, the most powerful witch born in a millennium and a half.
And one day he would either kill her, or die himself in the attempt.
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"Lucius Malfoy?" Mrs. Zabini repeated quietly after Hermione had completed her tale. The young witch nodded sharply. She knew little of Lucius' father – although she had gathered from a brief interaction between Draco Malfoy and Professor Slughorn at the beginning of her sixth year that he had been widely regarded as a good man. Nevertheless – this family likely orbited the same stars as the Malfoys, and probably knew them personally. They would take exception to her accusations – already significantly doctored, because they could not reveal what Kassandra's role in the abduction had been without breaking the oath of silence they had sworn to Mrozcek. Hermione knew that Mr. Zabini was already too-well-aware of who she was, but their peculiar moment had apparently gone unnoticed by both her professor and his wife, and she was reluctant to illuminate any further understanding on his part.
"But Anthony – Abraxas...?" Clearly, the dark-haired witch had no need to complete her thought out loud for her husband to fully catch her meaning. But Hermione saw a brief look comprised of disgust, loathing and anger flash through the wizard's bright black eyes before his face smoothed back to his business visage.
"Abraxas has been a close colleague, but we've not seen his son since before the boy started at Hogwarts. And he is-" here there was an infinitesimally small pause, as if Zabini were forcing his next words off his tongue in a civilized tone, "-currently out of the country for the Ministry, often away on business. Who knows what guidance Lucius has had in the past seven years? Many sons do not choose to follow in the paths of their fathers."
And, unfortunately, some do, he thought bitterly. But the brand that was still new enough to ache under his long silk sleeve throbbed at the traitorous flicker, and he managed to keep his features impassive.
The tilt to her chin indicated Mrs. Zabini's acceptance of her husband's explanation, and she turned her sorrow-lined but piercing gaze to the Headmaster, effectively dismissing Hermione now that she had filled in the details. "Do you have any authority to act?" she asked, and a coldness previously lacking imbuing her refined voice.
Dumbledore shook his head slowly, making his beard sway. "To my great displeasure, Madam, I do not. There is no tangible evidence supporting Miss Granger's story-"
"-except, of course, that I returned my daughter to school for the second half of her fifth year and she is no longer present," the witch returned.
The gracious older man spread his hands in a gesture of deference. "Madam Zabini, I will not claim to understand the fullness of your distress, but, believe me, I share in its essence. In all my years at Hogwarts, we have never had a student deliberately abducted from these grounds. The wards make it impossible, or so-" he raised a long finger to forestall the inevitable objection, "we thought. To have this happen at all, much less while I am responsible for your daughter's well-being, is a source of the deepest worry and shame. I cannot convey how much I wish to see justice done and truth served, but how? We have no idea where your daughter has been taken and the world is all-too-easy to hide in. The word of an unknown thirteen-year-old against that of a wizard from a well-respected family with eighteen years? She was the only witness, Madam, and there are any number of scenarios to be conjured up by a defense lawyer. How do we know that your daughter didn't simply arrange to flee, leaving Miss Granger behind to make her excuses and point the finger of blame?" At the look of outrage painted on the faces of all three members of his audience, the corners of his mustache lifted sadly in a smile that did not reach his eyes. "We all know that version to be false, but the defense could throw it and another dozen like it in our faces, and the Wizengamot truly would not know for all the proof that we cannot produce."
"No authority indeed," Mr. Zabini murmured, aware of the young witch's wary eyes on him. He had no idea what she had felt during their unspoken but revealing encounter, but if her guarded expressions and words were to be trusted, she had in some way divined his purpose – and he did not know whether to feel fear or relief for such knowledge.
They were interrupted as the door thrust inward, all further questions or inner musings cut short as his elder daughter by six minutes pushed open the door and stepped into the office.
"Miss Zabini." The Headmaster's voice managed to carry a trace of rebuke for her unannounced arrival even as the overlying tone was one of sympathy.
"Headmaster," the Slytherin returned the greeting quietly and then turned to her parents, the training of a lifetime keeping her quick steps from turning into an all-out run. But the eagerness with which she reached out to her mother warmed Hermione, even as she felt her chest tighten with longing for her own. Though she had embraced a world that excluded her parents at the beginning of her magical education, her mother would always remain one of her needed anchors outside the war-torn environment, and she treasured the peaceful harbor of her parents' house and affection.
"I don't suppose you have any further information, Kly?" Mr. Zabini asked gently, and as Hermione caught the morphing state of his handsome features, her perception adjusted slightly. The magic she knew next to nothing of had told her he wished her ill – but the burning of a father's love softened his composed face as he took in the sight of his remaining daughter, and the young woman felt her innate sense of justice prick her uncomfortably, unable to consign him purely to the world of those who wished her harm.
"None." The fifth-year's regret was genuine. "I wish I could even add my word to Hermione's-" all three adults took notice of the casually-dropped first name. Dumbledore was delighted that the civility he had noted at the beginning of this term had deepened to friendly interaction, and her parents both lifted eyebrows in surprise. The Gryffindor had never before been mentioned in letters or conversation, yet their child clearly knew her reasonably well. "But I wasn't there."
An awkward pause fell over the office following this demurral – the family unused to experiencing their emotions in front of others, the two Gryffindors wondering whether their presence was still required. When it was clear from the cut of Mr. Zabini's glance that they wished to be alone, the Headmaster of Hogwarts bowed his head. "Miss Granger, if you would be so kind to accompany me, I have a few matters I wish to consult with you about. Mr. and Mrs. Zabini, you are, of course, welcome to stay here for as long as you wish. I will have one of the house-elves attend you and Miss Zabini should you require anything."
Hermione took her cue from the twitch of his hand towards the exit and started down the staircase, hearing the sweep of his heavy velvet robes as they scrapped down the stairs behind her.
When she reached the bottom, she automatically moved to step out to the right, the way that would return her to Gryffindor Tower, possibly by way of the Room of Requirement, where she could check their simmering potion. For all its complexity, this particular formula only needed four days to brew, for which she was grateful. Sirius was practically ready to boil over himself with impatience. She would not hesitate to classify the man she had known as impetuous – but as a boy, the handsome youth was very nearly recklessness personified. She glanced at her watch, feeling the nip of time at her own heels. Sirius and James would probably be slicing and adding dung-beetle eyes right now-
"Miss Granger, I would appreciate it if you would take a walk with me," the Headmaster halted her footsteps, and she spun, eyes widening. He chuckled. "I did not merely use that as a ruse to get us both out of my office, though it may have seemed that way. There is a subject of the utmost importance that we ought to discuss."
"Sir?" she queried hesitantly. Was this the part where he told her she had to take her dangerous and attention-attracting powers and leave? She had been surprised at his lack of questions the previous day in the meeting with the others – perhaps he had simply been saving them for a private reprimand and dismissal.
He smiled semi-apologetically, twinkle returning to his gaze as a mischievous tone invaded his voice. "I find that the Forbidden Forest has much to recommend it as a place for a bit of thinking at this time of year."
Hermione felt as if she'd been sucker punched, all the breath leaving her in one audible whooosh. He knew. He wanted her to take him to the site of their unintentional summoning.
She could hardly deny him. To her knowledge, no one said 'no' to Albus Dumbledore. "Of course, sir," she replied, maturity betrayed by recovering her aplomb much faster than any third year and many grown witches would have in the same situation. She reversed direction and started down the passage to her left, leading them. "It would be my honor."
888
"I am not going to expel you, Miss Granger," the soft, almost-amused voice came from behind her as they stamped through the snow. Hermione winced involuntarily at the powerful wizard's inadvertent reading of her dismal thoughts.
"No?" she responded, and turned to look him full in the face, worrying creasing her forehead and bringing her teeth forward to nibble on her lower lip.
"No. I sent you here – and if your story about Mr. Malfoy and the misguided Miss Zabini has brought one thing very much to light, it is the constant danger you are in. Alex Mrozcek said that your station as the Node makes you the most powerful witch in the world. I imagine that Lord Voldemort would go to great lengths to secure such a talisman in his arsenal." He cleared his throat and the eyes that radiated such abundant energy glowed with compassion. "I cannot cast you out for him to find. In addition to the damage a long-term incarceration with Tom Riddle would do to you, it would be a terrible mistake in the war. In spite of Mr. Malfoy's breach, Hogwarts remains one of the safest places in Britain – and I confess," the sky-colored orbs crackled with eccentricity, the familiarity of the doddering Dumbledore from her first Welcoming Feast oddly soothing her, "you are quite a puzzle. I have no wish to let such a fascinating study out of my sight."
The young woman arched an eyebrow at her Headmaster, wondering if he was pulling her leg, awkwardly certain that part of him was dead serious. She, too, possessed a scholar's mind, and the idea of studying someone deliberately inserted into history like the deft slice of a surgeon's knife tingled in her brain as well.
But it was peculiar to be the object of such curiosity.
"What are you hoping to find in the Forest, sir?" she asked him.
"Find? I am not so sure that I am seeking, Miss Granger. But I do believe that returning you to the place where you performed such astonishing magic will answer a few questions."
"Placing the animal back into its native habitat and observing how it reacts?" she replied dryly. He surprised her by laughing aloud, a rich, barrel-chested sound entirely at variance with the slender frame that housed it. He did not color in embarrassment nor counter her claim, but tilted his head, conceding her victory.
"Astute, Miss Granger. But then, your intelligence has not been in doubt since your very first lesson here."
A memory of Professor McGonagall praising her eleven-year-old self as the elder witch held up a matchstick just beginning to show signs of going silver at the ends danced in front of Hermione's eyes, and it was with a strange jolt in her mid-section that the young witch realized that this memory was not accompanied by the bittersweet longing that had become an almost permanent backdrop on her emotional landscape. It was...removed. As if it had happened to someone else, or so many years ago that it was now simply a remembrance, without feeling of any kind attached, like an event from her very young childhood.
Frantically, Hermione scrambled to summon up memories of Harry, Ron and her other friends from the Hogwarts that she defined as her own, dashing madly through the past few months, discarding recollections of Sirius' laugh, of James' Exploding Card castle, of Snape's secretive and delighted smile, swimming past Lily's bright eyes as if diving deep into a Pensieve to re-discover something precious-
And as the stream came, Ron's white face after his poisoning on his birthday; the bright smile he had turned on her only a few days before she left; Harry's eyes shining with glee as they watched Catherine Wheels cavort inside the Great Hall, setting fire to Umbridge's robes, the caress of loneliness twined around her. She reached for it, wrapping herself in it, savoring the sting she had fought for so long, clutching the line that led to the future – and the life she would return to. Relief accompanied the pain she had focused on submerging for months. She could not grow accustomed to this world. She was here to learn, only to learn...
Lily's gleaming jade gaze replaced Harry's, Snape's solemn but not-yet-hardened and cynical face covering Ron's boyish one, and the feeling of loss sharpened abruptly. She might have come as a student and a soldier, but there was no denying her attachment to this place so like and unlike her own, especially the inhabitants, who overlapped themselves in the shifting patterns of her recollections.
"Miss Granger?" the Headmaster's voice cut short her too-oft-repeated spiral into worry and anger – the ever-present disadvantages to knowing what the future held.
"Sorry, sir," she murmured, and realized that she had stopped at the frozen shore of the steel-grey lake, staring at the hard surface where late afternoon rays skated to pool in blinding puddles. Her gut was shivering – she had not gone to the Headmaster's office equipped for another journey into February's unforgiving weather.
"I should have let you return to Gryffindor Tower for your cloak," he noticed her suppressed trembling and waved his wand. A delicious warmth settled over her, and she watched the snow around them fold in on itself as it melted slightly from the Warming Charm. "I'm afraid my eagerness to start out on this tempting quest for knowledge interfered with my common sense – do accept my apologies."
Hermione smiled. "I can hardly refuse them, sir, when you have made me warm anyway."
"Most gracious. Shall we continue? Were you actually in the Forest, or just on the other side of the lake?"
"In the Forest, sir." The gentle wave of his hand was an invisible push forward, and Hermione continued, finding a trail of Hagrid's massive tracks and stepping in his footprints, preferring not to break her own new path in the glittering and crusted snow.
They reached the far side of the lake surprisingly quickly – and the young witch was grateful for her curious Headmaster's unexpected silence. In spite of the quantity of information the dryad had imparted to them, there was much she simply could not explain satisfactorily – like the automatic, instinctive and almost entirely uncontrolled use of music that had rippling effects on the world as a whole.
As they crossed the tree line into the darker world of the forest, the large oak she thought she might recognize now in her dreams looming only a few yards in front of them, the Node felt a frisson of power tingle in the soles of her feet, climbing up her bones. It was distant, but with a steady cadence that fell into rhythm with her beating heart. The ground suddenly molded to her prints, as if making specific spaces for her feet, guiding her homecoming. She was abruptly and completely aware of the mud under the snow, and the slumbering roots of the giants around her buried in the frozen ground. This was the land that had come to her direct aid, and she could feel its recognition running through her, a complex matrix in muscle and collective memory.
"What do you feel?" Dumbledore's quiet, neutral voice asked behind her, sensitive, as always, to changes in his environment.
"Connection," Hermione whispered, and she closed her eyes, opening her hands so that her palms faced the oak still partially obscured by several smaller specimens, breathing in the air that also seemed to stream into and around her, bathing her, ready to perform whatsoever she willed.
"Fascinating. On what scale?"
"Faint...if a brass band marched through, they would drown it out, but, for instance..." she lifted her hand to grasp the narrow tip of a tree branch next to her, a low note vibrating in her throat, almost a growl more than a musical sound. The elderly professor held his breath, fighting the urge to silence her, the prejudice against such song ingrained so young that to protest it seemed common sense and second-nature.
Her voice modulated a half step up, and Dumbledore was astonished to see the branch move forward ever-so-slightly, growing a quarter-inch at the Gryffindor's command. Cold smothered him, twisting his previous curiosity in his gut. It had been one thing to sit in his office with a cup of tea and learn the history that the Keeper's Concilium had seen fit to tell, maintaining the illusion that the subject remained confined to the world of theory and academics. It was another thing to actually witness even so small a manifestation of her power.
A distinct mewl of protest came from the roots she had just discovered beneath her, and with a feeling of guilt, Hermione stopped, and turned her brown gaze on the tree with an apologetic smile. "Sorry," she told the plant.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Growing during the winter is unnatural – she is sleeping. For me to force the beech to awaken is unkind, to say the least. Especially for something that is no more than a test of my own abilities." So saying, she ducked forward, her goal the gnarled oak of her summoned spirit, and the wizard behind her noted an unconscious grace that she had acquired between leaving the bright, sun-lit lawn where she had been stiffly aware of her status as his student and the shadows of these trees, where she unknowingly felt herself a queen. Unease rumbled louder at the back of his mind. Here it was her power, and not his, that held sway – for all his many years of learning and accomplishment, this young witch had been endowed at birth with a magic he could never hope to comprehend.
"Here," she announced with certainty, pulling to a halt some thirty yards from the edge of the wood. "This is where I was the other night. This oak tree."
Neither the aging professor nor his enigmatic student knew what they were expecting as Hermione tentatively took up her place in the center of the sunken snow, overlapping footprints from two nights ago plainly visible in the large ring of white the four had trampled flat, preserved by the clear weather. The prickly tenor of her connection to the earth resounded slightly louder within her, and she could feel the sluggish nature of the dryad, slumbering as well.
But as the minutes wore on, Hermione facing her new mentor's home and Dumbledore maintaining a respectfully wary distance, nothing else occurred. The forest remained as still as any normal winter's day, when most of its inhabitants had either migrated or were hibernating.
"I'm sorry, sir," she ventured hesitantly, turning back to face the azure eyes. "I don't think anything is going to happen."
The Headmaster's face betrayed neither surprise nor disappointment. Indeed, observing the young woman's fluidity – a quality she lacked within the imposing walls of the school – and the way the beech had grown at her command had been quite enough for the curious wizard for today.
"It's quite all right, Miss Granger. As I told you, I am not sure that I expected anything to 'happen'. Wandless magics rarely manifest at our convenience. However, it has become abundantly clear to me that this is what I sent you to learn, and we must find a way for you to do so without disturbing the rest of us every time you practice. The perils for everyone are far too great – the number of owls I've had to answer in the past forty-eight hours confirms that the hysteria against your gifts is growing. We have thirteen students who will be withdrawn following that display."
His tone was not accusatory, but Hermione's hand flew to her mouth as her cheeks colored in mortification. He smiled at her. "I do not blame you, and if what you have to learn is so critical I would risk sending you two and a half decades through time to seek it, I have no doubt that the trade is fair. There is simply no reason to encourage a repeat panic since there are ways of containing it."
It was Hermione's turn to observe as the elderly man closed his sharp eyes and slowly drew his wand. For a long moment, silence dominated the wood, his breathing so deep and even that she wondered if he had fallen asleep on his feet. When the end of his wand erupted in a silver Pegasus, the young witch gasped, stepping backwards involuntarily as the magnificent Patronus – so different than its cousins, the skeletal thestrals, beat its feathery wings and launched itself through the brittle, ice-crusted canopy and into the blue sky.
Her anxiety over who Dumbledore might be summoning was allayed as she watched it wheel in a tight circle just overhead, tracing the same spherical pattern above the treetops over and over again. She was only vaguely aware of her professor muttering a few spells behind her as she watched the glittering beast weave to and fro – reaching for her new connection with the air to determine its purpose.
The answer rebounded so gently she strained to catch it, holding her breath as if hearing something of critical importance over a crossed wire.
Protection. The Pegasus was creating a private pocket in the school's defenses uniquely keyed to her and her gift.
"That ought to do it," Dumbledore announced behind her, his more corporeal voice severing her link as the Pegasus dissipated. Hermione turned to him to see his eyes sparkling with good humor. "I must ask you and your friends to limit your playing to this twelve-by-twelve foot area," he told her briskly, twisted fingers sweeping to take in an area that she was relieved to see included her oak. "The wards have been adjusted to allow for the enormous fluctuations you cause, but only right here. The castle's shields will, in effect, absorb all the magical echo you create, keeping us from hearing you and from feeling the effects of what you're playing."
Hermione stared at him, acutely aware of the enormous trust that he had placed in the hands of four children. Power that could irrevocably alter or destroy the world. "Sir-" Words failed her. There was no way to express both her gratitude and the back-bending weight of responsibility he had just set over them.
The understanding expression that stole across his grooved face, the sadness that tinged his eyes, told her he had read her features and the wizard of more than one hundred years sighed. How had it come to this? Using children to fight screamed against every moral fibre of his being – the young and the innocent where those who were supposed to be most protected. But more than twenty years from now, they were losing, and fate had once more twisted itself to make the most likely candidate for victory a seventeen-year-old student.
But despite her prodigious abilities, the young woman in front of him was still in many ways only a girl, and he could see the heaviness bowing her frame, the too-old look she had worn when he had first met her peaking in her eyes.
We can only be what we are. No more, no less, he recalled the quiet words of Armando Dippet from many years ago when the then-Transfiguration professor had expressed deep-seated worries about Tom Riddle. That the Headmaster would gladly adopt the girl's burden as his own was immaterial. He could not, and so had to leave her to carry the sword, unable to do more than indicate the correct direction for her march.
His hand fell gently on her shoulder and squeezed, the slender, slightly crooked fingers belying his strength, their firm grip a testament to his regret and support. "Do not feel the need to say anything, Miss Granger. Miss Zabini's disappearance is proof enough of the dangers you will encounter and the strength you will need to overcome them. I would spare you if I had the ability."
The Node and The Chosen One. What a pair we shall make, Hermione thought grimly of Harry, hammered over fire to forge a savior from his first year of age, restraining her desire to lash out at the older wizard for the unfairness of the universe. Dumbledore was, after all, merely human. Regardless of his seeming omnipotence, he neither constructed nor truly controlled the events that had shaped her life.
"Thank you, sir," she managed quietly.
"Now, I think afternoon tea is being served and as you had an abridged lunch, you should probably get some nourishment," he said, purposefully steering her out of her realm and back into his dominion. "Never forget, Miss Granger, that if you need anything, all you need to do is ask."
"Yes, sir," she answered dutifully. Headmaster and pupil made their way across the lawn in stillness, too wrapped in their own thoughts to make an effort at anything resembling normal conversation.