Chapter 20 - The Marauders, Part III
Severus awoke to find the bright light of mid morning streaming in the open window onto his bare chest. Realizing he was alone, he sat up in a panic before he cognized that the sounds that had awakened him were coming from the kitchen. He glanced over and felt the smile spread across his face and deep into his soul as he saw the curly haired, bare footed Hermione Granger, clad only in his white dress shirt, loading the last cup of tea onto a tray of what smelled suspiciously like pancakes.
"I have yet to determine whether or not you're only a marvelous dream," he said, leaning back on his elbows, the bed sheet lying tantalizingly across his waist.
He reveled in the melodious sound of her laughter as she replied, "I've been pinching myself all morning to answer the same question, my love. Let me save you the bruises," she had traversed the room and leaned in to lay the tray on his lap and give him a quick kiss, "we're both real."
Having deposited the tray on his lap, she bounced carefully onto the bed next to him, sat cross-legged, and dragged a plate of pancakes into her lap. His eyes followed her every move, the slightly awe struck smile never leaving his face.
"Pwees tew me yoo rike paancakes," she muttered through an indelicately large mouthful. Severus' smile evolved into a full-fledged grin.
"At this moment I am quite certain there is no creature in existence that is more beautiful than you are." His silky voice swirled around her like butter.
"Be that as it may, the pancakes hold far more nutrients, so eat up." She giggled as she spoke and he felt his happiness might cause him to explode. As he took his first bite, her pride swelled at the look of surprise and delight on his face.
"She cooks too." His approval made her giggle and fake a theatrical curtsy as she chewed another bite. They ate in silence for a few minutes, when Hermione, again through a mouthful of pancakes, spoke.
"Fo I'f been finking abouth Thirius," her words were barely intelligible through the food she was still chewing, which occasioned a hearty laugh from Severus. She looked at him as if to ask 'what?', but didn't venture another sentence as she was still mid-mouthful.
"Your brain never really has been able to wait for your mouth, has it?" He asked with a tone of amusement in his voice. Now taking a sip of tea, she shook her head vigorously, causing Severus to chuckle again. She carefully finished her sip and, mouth officially cleared, spoke with her normal level of enunciation.
"Sirius' body was never found. It disappeared into the veil. And it did so in a room full of witnesses, Death Eaters, students, and aurors. We aren't going to be able to use the sleeping spell we've been using on everyone else because his body has to disappear." She took another, markedly smaller, bite as she finished, obviously awaiting a response.
Severus chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bacon as he contemplated what she had just said. Apparently his internal sarcastic monologue had finally woken up. He huffed a puff of laughter to himself, occasioning an eyebrow raise from the young witch sitting across the bed from him. Seeing her questioning look, he swallowed his bacon and elaborated.
"I was just thinking how many Death Eaters there are whose bodies I would gladly volunteer to shove beyond the veil." He took another bite of bacon, but Hermione's eyes began widening at an alarming rate.
"Severus, you're a genius!" She seemed to levitate off the bed with excitement. His look indicated that he still had not connected whatever dots she had jointed to create that reaction. Hermione continued, lapsing into her rapid sentences-without-spaces-or-punctuation mode of speaking, "there are so many Death Eaters left out there, and it's not like the Ministry is going to be able to round them all up any time soon, and there's still a great chance some of the more dangerous ones are going to do something that hurts someone, so it would really be killing two birds with one stone, and, well, we'd have to sedate him heavily and switch them at exactly the right moment, but I think if we…" she finally stopped for air and noticed the smile of amusement playing across Severus' face. She frowned, "you're not going to call me cute again, are you?"
"Well now I'm not," he wiggled his eyebrows playfully at her while he spoke indicating that she had guessed exactly what was going through his mind.
"But what do you think of the idea?" she asked, trying to drag him back to the topic at hand.
"If I correctly understood the profusion of words that you managed to fit into one breath, I would have to say that it's positively Slytherin of you, my dear." Seeing her reaction, he quickly added, "and I mean that in the most complimentary of ways."
Her smile changed to one of pride, "thank you" she said, biting snappily into another pancake.
"Perhaps Dumbledore's hat placed you in the wrong house after all, not that you don't posess…" Severus' sentence was cut short as Hermione gasped, eyes suddenly wide, and jumped off the bed.
"Dumbledore! I nearly forgot! He asked me to drop by his office this morning!" Her eyes darted about the room in such a frenzy that Severus couldn't help but chuckle.
"First, you look like a character in one of those cartoon shows for muggle children. It's early yet. No need to go dashing off to see Albus this second," he pushed the breakfast tray off his lap and rose to join her in the middle of the room, "especially not wearing nothing but my shirt."
He bent down and planted a slow kiss on Hermione's lips. She raised up on her tip toes, meeting him halfway and bringing one hand through his silky hair.
"Well, if I remember correctly, someone vanished my undergarments last night." She smiled cheekily at him as she spoke.
"As much as it pains me to do so, we can't have you running off to see the headmaster like this." He waved his wand at her. First, she felt the return of her undergarments. However, Severus didn't stop there. He continued waving his wand as his shirt unbuttoned from her slender form and flew across the room, landing on the back of a chair. As he continued his magic, she felt the appearance of an emerald green bodice that would have resembled a modest version of a corset were it not for the intricate woven straps that snaked up from the top, around her shoulders and neck, and down to the back. As the straps wove her shirt together, she felt form fitting, simple, black dress pants form around her legs. She also grew a few inches as practical, black heels with green details appeared on her feet. Finally, she felt her hair sweep itself up into an intricate bun behind her head.
Glancing in the full-length mirror between Severus' bed and the set of drawers in the far corner of the room, Hermione gasped, fingers tracing the outlines of her intricate top.
"That's more like it," Severus' silky voice lowered to a whisper as he came up behind her and held her to his body, both of them admiring her image in the mirror.
"We should begin examining the possibility that once we're married I might never dress myself again," she intoned with wonder. "Severus, this is beautiful. I mean, it's suspiciously Slytherin colored, but even so…" She turned to face him and planted a lingering kiss on his lips, pleased not to have to stand on her toes to do so.
Squaring herself in preparation for her meeting, she assumed a back-to-business tone of voice. "Okay, I will be back as soon as I figure out what Dumbledore wants. In the mean time, do you think you can select a lucky Death Eater to take Sirius' place?"
"Yes ma'am," Severus drawled in mock submission, causing Hermione to grin back at him as she headed towards the spiral staircase. When the top of her bun had vanished, Severus sunk into his spot on the couch and lay back, letting his mind replay the events of that morning as he absentmindedly waved his wand to clear the dishes from their breakfast.
When Hermione returned to Severus' rooms she was astounded to find Severus had magically suspended a map to float in the middle of the room and had erected a setup that looked like a cross between something from the muggle movie about John Nash and a muggle police station corkboard. He was pacing feverishly in front of it, mumbling something under his breath.
"Love, exactly how long was I gone?" Hermione cautiously approached, not having seen this particular side of Severus.
"You would think the hard part would have been picking only one Death Eater, but that was actually quite simple. The problem is finding that one Death Eater. They are, as it turns out, irritatingly mobile."
Hermione was peering under some of the scribbled notes attached to the map as she spoke, "Who's the lucky winner?" Silence. She turned around to see why Severus wasn't responding and found his face several shades paler than it normally was. Seeing his appearance change so drastically, she approached and grabbed one of his hands with hers. She was going to speak, but thought the better of it and waited for Severus to speak.
"Dolohov," he said quietly, not looking up to meet her eyes.
"Severus…" her words said his name, but her tone clearly conveyed the message 'you don't have to do that'. She squeezed his hand as she continued, "I'm fine, love." Her hand was on his cheek, tilting his eyes up to meet hers. "I'm fine. We can grab any Death Eater, lord knows so many of them deserve it."
"It has to be him. Every time I see your scar….I couldn't protect you. I know that, but I have to do something. You're mine." He said the last sentence as an explanation, not a possessive claim. He was peering so genuinely, almost meekly in her eyes, she could see through his dark eyes to a frightened young Severus, unable to defend his mother from the abusive blows of an alcoholic father. She gently brought her lips to his, not letting go of his eyes until after their lips met. It was a very chaste kiss, but as she breathed her support through his lips she felt his body relax significantly.
"So where have we narrowed it down to?" She said, plopping down on one of the comfy armchairs facing the map. Severus smiled and began showing her the progress he had made in tracking Dolohov's whereabouts.
As the light was beginning to dim as the sun drew closer to the lake, Hermione's anxious attempts at reading was interrupted by a bumping sound coming up the stairs. Whew…that took too long. Hermione had reluctantly allowed Severus to 'fetch' Dolohov alone, after he quite vehemently took the stand that he was not going to put his future bride in any further danger. As a practiced wizard, seasoned in combat, and professed feminist she had objected quite vocally, but seeing the look on Severus' face when he begged her not to go had tipped the scales in her mind. Instead, she had been waiting anxiously for the last hour, trying to pretend she was not concerned for his safety. Now, she saw Severus come up the stairs with the unconscious body of Dolohov semi-floating up the stairs behind him. She couldn't help but giggle, knowing that Severus was fully capable of lifting him high enough that his head didn't knock against the stairs every few feet.
"Any trouble?" She asked, hoping to have disguised the tone of worry in her voice well enough that Severus wouldn't take it as a lack of confidence.
"None whatsoever. Between your locating spell and this cloak he didn't even see me once. It kind of took the fun out of it." Severus mused, as he conjured a table in the middle of the room and guided Dolohov's drooping form onto it.
"So, now I take the cloak and the time turner while you ready some of your pre-made polyjuice potion?" Hermione was back to business now that she knew he was safe.
"Yes ma'am," Severus intoned again, flashing her his patented sarcastic smile as the cloak traded hands. After a few flicks of the time turner and a swish of the cloak, Hermione was back with a handful of medium-length brown hairs. Severus handed her the potion bottle, but interjected as she was reaching to deposit the hairs.
"And you're sure those are from Sirius in his human form, not his anamagus form, yes?" He glanced up at Hermione, wondering if she would catch the subtle jab he had just thrown at her.
"Trust me, a girl spends a fortnight as a cat and she will NEVER make that mistake again." He was pleased to see that she had taken the joke in the spirit in which it was intended. I will never get used to how easy it is to talk to her, he marveled. It hadn't been long ago that all human conversations were quite trying ordeals, yet in a matter of weeks he was tossing jokes back and forth with Hermione…almost as if you were a normal person. He quieted his internal voice of worry with a look at the ring on Hermione's finger. She's my chance at a normal life.
He stroked Dolohov's throat as Hermione poured the polyjuice potion into his mouth. The transformation looked just as grotesque when the subject was unconscious, but nevertheless a minute later the realistic duplicate form of Sirius Black was lying on the table. Hermione waved her wand over him and his ragged black robes transformed into a carbon copy of those worn by Sirius the night of the battle at the department of mysteries.
"You know he'll have to be awakened at the proper moment to make it look believable?" Severus murmured as the last shreds of cloth finished changing color.
"I'll leave that part to you. You can deal with placing Dolohov, while I grab the real Sirius and pull him under the cloak."
"And you're sure the time turner is capable of keeping time still for long enough for us to make the switch?" Severus looked questioningly at Hermione.
"I made a few modifications to it's functional set of enchantments. Care for a demonstration?" Without waiting for an answer, Hermione quickly palmed the time turner, walked over to the now-frozen Severus and carefully pulled his long hair back into a tie, walked back to her previous spot on the other side of the room, and released the time turner. She saw a flicker of confusion on Severus' face as he cognized what had just happened, but then saw his face change into clearly faked irritation.
"Impossible woman," he said, shaking his head. She simply grinned at him and walked to his side, throwing first the time turner and then the cloak over his head.
"Ready?" her bell like voice rang out across the seemingly empty room. Severus once again levitated Dolohov-now-Sirius, but this time kept him tightly pressed to Severus' other side so he would be sure to be covered by the cloak and the chain of the time turner.
"Ready," Severus silky voice rang out for an instant, then in a rustle of the invisible cloak they were gone.