Author's Note: I had some things here I was hinting at. If anyone can decipher them, let me know. I've no idea where I was going with this. Anyway, next chapter's new.
Chapter 6: Who Framed Draco Malfoy?
It was only a few hours later that he saw Hermione again. She was wearing more clothes this time, thankfully, a muggle shirt and jeans. She wasted no time before she plopped herself down on his bed and searched his eyes.
"I want you to help me," she said finally. "Though I haven't been back in my time long, I spent the months in your era thinking about how I even got to be there. Draco is trustworthy and would never do anything to jeopardize my life, and he sure as hell wouldn't risk going to Azkaban by trying to kill me in front of the Minister of Magic."
Severus had not suspected Draco either. He'd spent a great portion of the last twenty years thinking about the same thing she was wondering about now. The only difference was that he had not had time to spend investigating this as he didn't know how it would happen, who would have any information on it, and he was too busy fighting with the Order and just surviving to be concerned, but now the war was over.
"There are a few possibilities as to how whoever did this to you did it. That's the first step in solving this mystery. The first possibility is that someone did this through a time activation spell. They got a hold of Draco's wand and cursed it to fire a certain spell at a specific time. That's easily done assuming that he doesn't sleep with his wand in his hand, and even more likely, if this was the case, it could've been done as the routine Ministry check-in/scan was being done. That would mean that it is not only a Ministry employee, but also someone who knew Draco would be with you at a specific part of the day, in the Minister's office. It's highly unlikely that someone could have planned it so perfectly that they would've known exactly when to have the spell go off," Severus pondered, more to himself than to her.
"We cannot completely ignore that idea since the person who put the spell on the wand obviously managed to muck it up. Time travel spells are very complex, and for it to be confused with another spell is intriguing in and of itself. I'll have to do research on similar spells and curses. Maybe a word, a meaning, or something of that sort was mispronounced or confused. Whoever did it was bright but sloppy, and I bet they're not above trying again," Hermione added, a determined look on her face.
Severus was amazed that she was not frightened out of her mind. Most people would have gotten protective orders issued by the ministry, and hell, she was friends with the Golden Boy. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that she could've had a squad of Aurors tailing her and following her at all times. Of course, most people weren't war heroes, and no one else has Hermione Jean Granger.
"I was thinking that the perp might have pulled a Severus Snape on a more complex level," she said with a smirk.
He raised an eyebrow and gave a smirk of his own. "A Severus Snape?"
Her own eyebrow quirked, and she said, "He or she may have fired the spell through Draco's wand. That also allows for the possibility of fucking it up since Draco has a strong enough connection with his wand for it to want not to betray him."
He had also considered this. A strong enough witch or wizard could have easily used a channeling spell to have whatever spell they fired, fire out of Draco's wand. She was referring to what he did to send her home, making it look like the incantation was fired out of Remus's wand. Of course, he hadn't had time or patience, or even enough knowledge at that point to successfully send it out of Remus's wand. He was faking it.
"There's a range to those kinds of spells so the person who did it, once again would have to be a Ministry employee, and they would have had to see his actions through a two way mirror or some sort of spying device. This possibility is even more unlikely than the last," Severus said.
Hermione sighed loudly, nodding in agreement.
"It could have been an optical illusion spell. The caster may have been in the room but overwhelmed you with what they wanted to happen," Severus suggested.
"You act as if I haven't been faced with that sort of magic before, the unforgivable kind. I would have immediately detected that magic was present even if the others were not able to," Hermione spat bitterly.
"Yes, but you weren't focused. Even I would not have been focused in that situation. If the caster was able enough, you would have never known, especially with all the protective magic in the Ministry anyway," Severus said, partially lying.
He did not underestimate Hermione's ability. On the contrary, he thought her to be the most capable witch he had ever encountered. However, Severus was a trained spy who had been in the smack middle of two wars, and there was no way in hell that anything could deceive him anymore unless the magic was cast by Dumbledore himself.
"You're lying, but that's alright for now. I was thinking I could start with some research on spells that could be confused with time travel spells. Of course, I doubt there's much knowledge about time travel spells since they're illegal and very hard to perform. So, I'll have to start from the ground up. I was thinking you could look into the dark magic of it. Maybe it wasn't a spell at all. Maybe it was an object laced with an original spell like a portkey mixed with a time travel potion. I wouldn't survive in Knockturn Alley, but you obviously could," she said as she got up from his bed.
"We'll meet back in a week's time. I assume that time will be adequate," she said as she walked out the door.
"Yes, that will be 'adequate,'" he mocked as she closed his door. Stupid bint.
He stared at the door after she left. Gods, every time she came in the room, he wanted to bend her over and fuck her. Hard. The way he'd never been able to when he was a teenager.
Knowing he had to get his mind off the cries she would undoubtedly emit, he slowly began the task of getting out of bed. His body still ached. It wasn't his muscles that hurt, like they did whenever he'd had a good 'Crucio!' It felt like his bones were going to burst out of his body. Swinging one leg over the bed, Severus nudged himself closer to the edge, following the step with the other. He stood up, his body screaming at him to lie back down. However, he was more stubborn than his body's craving for well-being was, and so he put on his robes and walked out the door himself.
He wasn't more than a few slow and arduous steps into the hall when he saw the fiery red hair of Bade, walking straight toward him.
Awkward was never a word that Severus could associate with a moment. Other people might have, but he never did. Why let a situation dictate his behavior? However, now Severus felt distinctly unsure, and awkward because of it. There was one of five people in his life that he didn't hate, and the only one who could annoy him and still be liked, walking down the hall, and Severus wasn't sure how to react.
He wasn't angry that Bade had cursed him, but knowing Bade, he was probably still angry at Severus. He would have to let the other man make the first step so that Severus could see where they stood.
Once Bade was near him, he froze and stared.
"Are you going to apologize?" The man asked, anger flooding his eyes.
Severus's eyebrow simply quirked in response. Severus did not apologize often, and he didn't see any reason for the man in front of him to ask for one.
Bade quickly drew his wand and tried to curse Severus, but Severus was much more prepared and shielded himself, wordlessly retaliating, a dark lavender light shooting out of his own wand.
Bade sprang out of the way to avoid it, the spell hitting the wall and causing the house to shake with the power of it instead. Severus pointed at the ground, causing it to become slippery, also causing Hudson to slip and fall. Snape took this opportunity to fire another spell at him, but Hudson was not down that easily, using the substance on the floor and raising it up, causing it to wrap around the spell in a brown, gooey mess, and firing it back.
Severus cast a spell to stop all objects in the vicinity to freeze including the pictures on the walls. He pushed the altered spell out of the way and barely dodged the next one that Bade had already fired. It was too late to put up a barrier especially since the hue of the spell was unfamiliar to him. His only option was to fire one back and hope his was stronger.
The red and yellow spells hit in the middle of the hall, the reanimated portraits screaming for help and the house still shaking. They battled for a few seconds before they exploded where they met, landing both Severus and Bade on their arses.
Breathing heavily, both men looked at each other and lowered their wands. Bade, not having previous injuries, stood up and dusted himself off. He walked to Severus and gave him a hand up.
"Are you well enough to help me pick out a new owl? I'm afraid mine died of old age," said Bade.
"I suppose it wouldn't further injure me," Severus said, letting go of his mate's hand once he was stable.
"Let's go then," Bade said, looking at the wreckage of the hallway, cleaning it up, and passing a very confused Harry Potter and Arthur Weasley on the way out the door.