Disclaimer: Clearly, Harry Potter and all associated books, movies and paraphernalia do not belong to me. Many thanks to JKRowiling and others for their patience.
Potions and Poisons
June, 1998
'Charlie.' A young woman with long brown hair and a sweet smile greeted the second Weasley son as he entered the kitchen behind his youngest brother, and she moved forward gracefully from the sink, hand extended. 'Lavender Brown.'
'So this is your girlfriend that Mum wrote me about,' Charlie grinned, taking her smaller, smoother hand and squeezing it gently in his rough palm. 'Every bit as pretty as she said.'
Lavender laughed gently. 'Knowing your mother's effusive praise, you probably expected another veela.'
'No. Fleur is all very well for a sister-in-law, but one part-veela in the family is plenty,' Charlie replied quickly.
'You already finished visiting your parents?' Ron asked quietly, surprised to see her there.
Lavender shivered faintly, dark eyes haunted. 'It's not safe to go and stay, Ron. I just wanted to make sure they were still fine. They are.' She turned, tray balanced with sugar and milk already in hand. 'Tea?'
'Thank you,' Charlie accepted, pouring a spoonful of sugar into the black liquid. As he reached for the cream, he heard a long sigh, blowing out breath in a careworn sound that reminded him sharply of his father. But as his eyes cut to the door, expecting to find the balding older wizard, they landed only on his younger brother and Charlie felt a peculiar lump settle in his stomach as he truly registered the difference in Ron's countenance. His enthusiastic greeting at the door had covered the changes in the young man. Gone was Charlie's reckless, too-easily-angered sibling, his familiar brother.
The last of six boys, Charlie knew that Ron had always suffered from the need to live up to the high standards set by his brothers. As a result, his brother had often tried too hard, felt he could not possibly be good enough to bear the family name, and been intensely uncomfortable in his own skin for most of his life. His place at Harry Potter's side had, for a time when he was younger, exasperated the condition, and Charlie had often been impatient with Ron's sulks and fits of temper when visiting his family.
But now…like the young leader of the Order, his brother displayed a maturity beyond his years, the stamp of a life tempered by loss too often and too early. The soft light of love that ghosted through his eyes as he gazed at Lavender was not the awkward explosion of the sexual lust and tension of a teenager but an older, wiser and more enduring emotion. The lump in Charlie's stomach expanded, like spoonfuls of porridge sticking together, guilt adding to their weight. Skirmishes had blossomed into full-blown battles, and he had remained away, distance shielding him more effectively than any magic. The world had not remained in stasis, and both the Order and his family bore the mark of the turning times.
'Ron?' he prompted gently as his brother made no move to sit. But Lavender was at Ron's side, pulling him towards the table and guiding him into a chair, the lamp over the chequered tablecloth throwing light into his pained eyes.
'What is it?' she asked quietly.
'Harry. He's still…' Ron's jaw clenched around his words, 'he's still being an arse about Hermione.'
'Harry is not swift to forgive,' Lavender murmured.
'His lack of trust in her is going to get us killed!' Ron snapped. 'We've never been successful in any fight against Voldemort without her. But Moody has him convinced…' he stopped, clenching his fist on the tabletop.
Questions were spinning through Charlie's mind faster than whirling dervishes, each clamouring to be the first off his tongue. He focused himself. The most important thing to learn was…
'Your letters from Hogwarts always said that Hermione and Harry were inseparable. And I've heard Moody praise her intelligence and courage himself. What happened?'
The next word that Ron uttered carried resentment, wonder, anger, bewilderment and resignation rolled together in five letters.
'Snape.'
~888~
February, 1997
Sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains around her bed, slowly pulling Hermione to wakefulness. Her eyes snapped open, her heart jolting a faint surge of adrenaline as she worried about missing her first class, but even as she flipped over to see the glowing numbers on her night-stand clock, she remembered that it was Saturday.
Ron's b-day, she saw the note she had scribbled to herself on her calendar, probably at Christmas when she had received it.
Unfortunately, when she sat up to reach for her trunk and retrieve the present tucked there, her stomach roiled violently. She stopped mid-motion, waiting for the nausea to pass, only to feel the pressure rising. Clapping a hand to her mouth as bile rose into her throat, she sprinted for the bathroom she shared with Lavender and Parvati, immensely grateful that both of her roommates were still sleeping soundly as she thrust back the toilet seat and knelt over it, retching violently. It occurred to her dimly as she wrestled with her first round of morning sickness that this was not subtle, that she would have to find a way to mask these mornings where her body rebelled against existence. Hermione didn't fancy the questions that were bound to result if Lavender discovered her condition.
Assuming, of course, that there was something to discover.
The thought of shedding her baby brought on a second bout of nausea. She did not know whether her bondmate had divined her swirling confusion about the options confronting them and their child during her extensive foray into his mind. Nothing he had said indicated that he had eavesdropped on her thoughts or that he, himself, had any solutions to offer.
'Mum, look!' Ten-year-old Hermione had watched a pair of robins painstakingly building a nest just outside her bedroom window. The young witch had been utterly entranced, and every day that spring, the family had watched as the mother robin lay three speckled eggs, faithfully sat on them as her mate brought her food, hatched them and ceaselessly fed the scrawny chicks until they grew into the spitting images of their parents.
'Isn't life beautiful?' Jane Granger had hugged her daughter when the first of the babies had successfully completed a flight around the tree, landing triumphantly to twitter away at its siblings.
Leaning her forehead against the cool porcelain of the sink next to her, Hermione wondered what had brought on this slew of memories – it seemed she rarely went a day without some thought of herself as a child, or a moment with her mother... She sniffled, nose stinging as previously-unnoticed tears made their way down her face.
Abortion? Could she be so cold? She had approached her unexpected pregnancy with the same mindset that she used to tackle her Arithmantic equations – heedless that, occasionally, the fact that two-and-two are four is irrelevant, that sometimes an incalculable number of factors must be examined.
'I have no issue with helping you get what you desire, young woman. And I very much want you to be sure what that is.' The medi-witch's words came back to her, and Hermione felt a surge of gratitude for the older woman's gentle guidance, given honestly and without judgment.
But what, then, will you do? Her mind asked quietly as she flushed the toilet and scrubbed her teeth, grateful that her stomach seemed to have settled slightly. As you will not be abandoning the fight as Severus hoped, and even in desperation it remains true – no mother would ever risk a new-born by keeping it in a war-torn environment if she had any other choice...
She spat out the last of her toothpaste harshly, glancing at her reflection in the mirror. She winced automatically at what she saw there, studying herself for the first time since Christmas. The last six weeks had been very unkind to her…her eyes widened in horror as she wondered whether she had, unknowingly, already sabotaged any possibility of bringing her child to term. Her own state of health was so precarious…
She was pulling a jumper over her head and yanking up the fly on her faded jeans before she could think about it. She needed to see the medi-witch right away. She had faithfully swallowed each potion the matron had handed to her, but in spite of racing through the many books with their layers of advice on personal hygiene and eating habits, she had failed to enact half the ones she probably should have.
'Consult the father…' Another piece of the matron's advice fluttered down from her memory.
Probably a sound thought. He was a Potions master – and she no longer doubted that Snape desired the well-being of their child as ardently as she did. She had felt her bondmate's resignation, his readiness to consign them both to another world. She had known his contentment at the thought of a peaceful existence where he could not follow, lover and child removed from the constant threat of spiralling violence. 'Your safety is my solitary concern.' And rather than flee with them, he would stay to stand beside the boy who hated him – the son of a man who had tormented him as a child, godson to a man who had nearly killed him.
He had more than earned the right to discuss this with her as two adults making a very serious decision about their lives. If she expected him, a man with a lifetime's experience of hiding his feelings, to open himself to her, she had to be equally trusting.
She realized with a start that she was smiling in anticipation of seeing him, treasuring the new-found knowledge that glimpsing him in the Great Hall or between classes and watching him teach would no longer bring her pain, but an intense, quiet pride. His obsidian-hard eyes rarely turned to her in public, but when they did, she could hear the echo of his voice: 'For the days I have not said it...I love you.'
She rose as she finished knotting a shoelace, grabbing a package from her bed-side table. If she hurried, she should be able to consult the nurse and still reach breakfast in time to meet her friends. Today was Ron's birthday, and she wasn't going to miss the delight on his face when he opened her gift of a new bottle of broom polish and sleek, streamlined, silver Quidditch goggles. The past week had brought a painful awareness of how withdrawn she had become from her friends as well as her academics, and a hollow ache had taken up residence in her chest when all except Harry had automatically turned from her at the Gryffindor table – not snubbing her, but in the manner of one granting privacy to a semi-dangerous creature.
She and her friends had been granted fewer and fewer childhood pleasures in the past months, and as Voldemort's star continued to rise, they would be scantier yet. She would find a time to talk to her bondmate, but now she would go the hospital wing for some nutrition potions that would hopefully add some colour to the truly dreadful pallor of her face, and then it was time to start making up for six months neglect of her friendships.
~888~
Blaise Zabini had chosen his seat for the morning carefully, affording him a good view of both the huge oak doors of the Great Hall and the Gryffindor table without betraying his interest in either. It was a Saturday, and he had both his schoolwork and the Prophet to ensure that he had all the time in the world to wait for Hermione Granger, hopefully sans her normal escort of three or more. Granger intrigued him. Potter, his ginger-haired sidekick and various assorted hangers-on most emphatically did not.
Unfortunately, he knew the likelihood of getting Granger alone was limited almost to the point of non-existence. Draco Malfoy was too absorbed by his current task to mark the significantly altered behaviour of the Gryffindor triad that had obsessed him for five years, but the dark skinned boy had not been so distracted. Though he had never before bothered focusing his sharp mind on the politics of Gryffindor House, he had been studying them since September to remedy that lack.
This first term, the group had more-than-doubled in size, the dedication of the sixth-year students to one another in the field strengthened to the point of impenetrability. Potter and the Weasley girl's relationship had clearly been on the rocks, though it had surprised the Slytherin to note that it seemed to have nothing to do with the declining interest of either party. Rather, Potter had been slowly withdrawing himself from all of them after he had returned from...wherever he'd been in October. Zabini frowned. No one who knew was telling. There were rumours that he had been captured in a battle in Diagon Alley – the same battle that had wounded Granger and nearly killed Longbottom – but no one could confirm or deny these reports. When he had come back, the "Chosen One" wore a distant, unseeing stare, a glazed look in the green eyes betraying his obsession with some internal struggle or complex thought.
Granger had become even more of an enigma – pale, occasionally hunched in appearance, practically radiating exhaustion. She and his Head of House seemed to have had some strange altercation during the summer months. The young man would never forget Snape's expression of rage mixed with terror on the day he had viciously banished Granger from Defence Against the Dark Arts. Then had followed the strange incident with Neville Longbottom...and the even more disturbing self-defence against Parkinson's attack. Blaise snorted to himself. The Slytherin had never displayed talent that would set her equal to Granger in any field of magic. The duel on the stairs had been a stupid stunt – borne of desperation and frustration.
Snape had come to the rescue then, as well. Coincidence? Blaise Zabini didn't much believe in random occurrences. Especially in a school governed by magic.
He turned the thought over and carefully set it aside. He would have to observe Granger and Snape in class.
But it was Weasley who had surprised him the most. Keeping his head down and his smile firmly fixed, he had displayed a maturity that Zabini had long scorned the youngest son in the line for lacking. Staunchly standing by both of his friends, personal pain at their growing secretiveness shoved out of the way, he had been aided by Neville in deftly defending both of them from the rustling whispers, questions and speculation.
It seemed his patience and loyalty had paid off at least halfway. Granger – obviously depressed since the beginning of term – had begun to pull herself out of it, and for the past several days she had been noticeably distracted, but the sinking weight of sorrow and anger that warped the very air around her had dissipated.
A flash of titian hair pulled him from his thoughts, and he let his eyes track Ginny Weasley – the first of the quad to put in an appearance today – as she entered the hall. His mouth quirked in disappointment and puzzlement as her expected companions did not follow on her heels, her brown eyes sweeping incisively down the Gryffindor table as she craned her slender neck. She clearly did not find what she was looking for, so she took a seat, leaving plenty of room for her friends to join her and started to reach for toast.
It was the first time since the beginning of term that any of them had arrived at the table alone on a weekend. Maybe he would get lucky...
Less than two minutes later, Harry Potter came through the great doors at a dead run, nearly sending a second-year Ravenclaw flying as he couldn't check his speed and knocked into the boy. Zabini let his paper drop casually. In contrast to the past months of contained emotion that seemed to border on lethargy, Potter's movements now recalled fully the student who had erupted in emotion the previous year, terror rolling off him in almost palpable waves.
Harry skidded to a halt in front of his girlfriend, features dead white. It took only a few gasped whispers for her beautiful, expressive face to hit the same complexion. She started for the door, only to be stopped by Potter's arm. Another hurried exchange, so quiet that every straining ear could catch no more than a buzz, and she sat down again, trembling, her eyes fixed on the exit as Potter sprinted back out.
She did not move to touch her partially-eaten breakfast again.
Fascinating. What in the name of Seven Merlins could be happening this morning? It was hardly nine o'clock and already Potter was acting like the Apocalypse was due today.
Granger entered not another five minutes after that. Her pace was unhurried and she, too, swept the Gryffindor part of the hall with her eyes – but by now, Ginny Weasley was on her feet and rushing forward, the older witch's entrance clearly the signal she had been waiting for. They met in the middle of the hall – Zabini watched Granger's body tense in expectation of the worst – and after no more than a swiftly-delivered sentence, both girls turned and ran.
He sighed, shoved his paper aside and unenthusiastically dug into his pancakes. If the tightly-controlled glances of mutual panic were anything to go by, it looked like his chances to speak to Granger today had just been nullified.
~888~
Hermione skidded to a halt next to her raven-haired best friend in front of the infirmary doors. One hand was already reaching for the handle when Harry's fingers tightened around her wrist.
'We can't go in. No visitors until this afternoon, after he's had time to sleep,' he said, almost mechanically, and Hermione knew he was furiously trying to tame his frustration at the medi-witch's orders.
'What happened?' she panted. 'How is he? Ginny just said...poisoned?' Hermione's cinnamon eyes begged the bright green to lie to her, to reply in the negative. Not Ron. Not Ron. Let one of us have been spared disaster this year.
It was easy to underestimate the third member of their trio. He possessed neither Hermione's brain nor Harry's uncanny survival instincts, and he came from a large family of intelligent and powerful witches and wizards. Hermione knew that Ron was still adjusting to his status as "the other one" – the Chosen One, the Brilliant One...and their shadowed, but ever-present, wheel. A boy who could crack jokes on the Quidditch team or when facing fatal disaster. Someone they both desperately needed to lean on. Ron's steadiness was sometimes the only one to keep both of his lime-lighted friends on this side of sanity.
Abruptly faced with the very real prospect of losing him, Hermione alternately cursed and pleaded with every god she'd ever heard of. Not Ron. Harry had always been in danger, and, she knew, always expected to be. It had given him a premature edge, even at eleven, and left him better prepared for adventures like the one in the Riddle house first term. But Ron had never been a target...even in the Department of Mysteries, he'd merely been in the way...
As was Cedric Diggory. And Sirius Black. And even Harry's mum... The list of people who had died for the crime of standing directly between Voldemort and Harry was staggering. She realized that her lungs weren't drawing air, that unshed tears threatened to choke her and that anger followed not far behind.
It's his birthday, for Merlin's sake. Can't fate leave us alone for one magic-forsaken day?
'Poisoned,' Harry confirmed tersely. Hermione wondered how she had missed them – it had to have been mere minutes between when she had downed the extra nutrition potions the medi-witch had offered her and Harry had arrived with Ron. Chocolate and forest eyes locked on the infirmary door with silent, single-minded intensity.
'Is he going to be all right?' Ginny whispered, tears streaking down her face to carve red tracks in her skin.
'He was still breathing when we got here. I shoved a bezoar in his mouth, and Madam Pomfrey said that cleaned out most of it immediately, but...he was so white,' Harry whispered. Hermione felt her heart contract as Ginny's freckles stood out even more vividly with fear, and she reached out to take the other girl's arm, squeezing gently. Ginny had lost as much as the rest of them this year, and more than most of her fellow students. She was brave, smart and cool in a fight, and Hermione felt the savage claws of guilt sink into her heart as she realized that she had forgotten that, sometimes, Ginny was also just a sixteen-year-old girl. How often had the older witch held her during their first term, stroking her back to comfort her from nightmares both waking and dreaming? The claws flexed. Yet another thing she had forgotten in her consuming problems with her bondmate…Hermione could feel Ginny shaking violently under her fingers and glanced at the brown eyes no longer filled with water, but with a strange numbness.
Hermione could almost hear the mantra running in the younger girl's head, a variation on one they had all adopted as the skirmishes began to verge on full-blown battles. Swallow it. I don't feel. No grief. No pain. Put it away. There will be a time and a place later...later...
'Madam Pomfrey is never wrong. She healed both of us during the Chamber incident,' Hermione consoled, finding herself almost believing her own words. 'And your de-boned arm, Harry.' Mention of that never failed to wrangle a smile from everyone – both at the professor who caused the problem and Hermione's crush on said professor at the time. 'If she says Ron's going to be fine, then he's probably already awake and wondering why we haven't brought him any chocolate frogs.'
'You're right,' Harry said, taking a deep breath and blowing it out. He gave her a crooked grin that did not quite manage to reach his eyes, but it was still a better effort than the distant distraction he'd maintained recently. 'Of course. You're pretty much always right. But still...if you'd seen him...'
The jade behind the glasses went as hard as stone as Harry started to pace, more energy and presence than he had shown in months seething from him as he expounded on the theories and fears that had occupied him since the beginning of the year, most of them only half-supported by the evidence they had, the rest half-formulated in his private thoughts.
Unfortunately, Harry Potter's instincts were uncanny, and Hermione now had the important task of derailing any brainwaves the young hero might have about his blond nemesis.
'Katie is Imperius'd in Hogsmeade, given a cursed necklace, and told to deliver it to someone here. Presumably me. She fails, touches it, and ends up in St. Mungo's. Apparently, Snape can't do anything for her here.' The name rolled off his tongue with its patented snarl, and Hermione restrained her automatic desire to protect her bondmate by reflecting that Snape's pronunciation of Potter sounded very much the same. She doubted either man would find her insight interesting.
'Now, Ron's birthday comes around. He has a few Chocolate Cauldrons with Love Potion in them-'
Hermione stared at him, thoughts of Snape completely dislodged and replaced by horror for her friend's carelessness. Here they stood, wondering if death might claim yet another person dear to all of them, and the whole thing could have been so easily avoided...'I warned you – why didn't you just chuck them?' Her voice was far sharper than it should have been, but Hermione couldn't spare energy to care. If Ron didn't recover-
Harry had the good grace to blush, even as he shot her an annoyed glance. 'I forgot. I knew not to eat them – I just threw them in my trunk and never thought about it again...maybe I would have tried to give one to Dudley over the summer...watching him moon over some girl he's never met – and a witch at that, would be worth being grounded for a month...'
An unexpected, mischievous smile graced the corners of his mouth and Ginny glanced to Hermione hopefully, feeling her heart lurch. She hadn't seen this particular face of Harry Potter since Sirius Black had fallen through the arched veil at the Ministry of Magic. The face of a boy, not a hero or a soldier.
But even as the red-head's black mood lightened suddenly at this evidence of the Harry Potter she had first met and adored, seriousness clouded his face again, the persona of the matured man submerging the teen he should have been once more.
'So Ron and I hurried down to Professor Slughorn for the antidote-'
'Nothing in your potions book?' Hermione asked sharply. For all the miraculous help the strange text was giving Harry – it had been annotated by someone who was clearly a genius in several branches of magic – she had never managed to still the unsettling feeling the book gave her. The spidery handwriting filling almost every margin definitely belonged to a hand she knew – someone so obvious she shouldn't be overlooking them.
Both Ron and Harry had attributed her occasional snide remarks to jealousy that an unknown person had the temerity to be better than she was in an academic arena. She allowed them to continue with that interpretation, although, as school was rapidly slipping down the rungs on her ladder of priorities, anyone observing her closely would know that jealousy of the Half-Blood Prince's useful brewing tips were not cause for her reaction to the text. But it was easier to let them believe in her previously all-consuming academic ambition than struggle to explain her vague feelings.
She reflected that last year, nothing would have stopped her from combing every section of the library until she found an answer, or at least a reference that pointed her in the right direction.
But it wasn't last year. And aside from a few cautious remarks whenever Harry pulled out a spell that cast the previous owner of the book in a dubious light, Hermione had largely put it from her mind. Between Horcruxes and her pregnancy, there simply wasn't the time to follow up on a school kid attempting to be enigmatic.
Harry was glowering at her. 'I didn't stop to take the time and look,' he snapped. 'You know how potions are. He could have needed something that would take days, or even weeks, to brew. Polyjuice and Veritaserum take a month, Felix takes six. How could I know this wouldn't be the same? Plus, I figured someone must stock love potion antidotes in this place, and even if it was going to take only an hour or so to make the potion, asking Slughorn was a lot faster.'
'Probably smart, considering that the halls are packed with a thousand or so horny teenagers, all equipped with their own cauldrons and ingredients to make them,' Ginny acceded with a nod.
'And you didn't think about it,' Hermione injected, smiling. Harry opened his mouth for another retort, stopped, shrugged.
'True. It's not like I spend my free time making potions, unlike some people I know.'
'I can't help it if I don't need The Idiots Guide to Potion Making to create my own,' she teased gently. Almost instantly, she re-focused on the incident at hand, forestalling any rejoinder Harry might have made. 'Then the antidote was poisoned?' she guessed.
'No,' Harry shook his head, shoving his haphazard black locks away from his eyes. 'That was fine. Ron drank it, and it worked perfectly. Then Professor Slughorn made a joke about having a drink to cure the pangs of "disappointed love" and he poured us all some of his mead.'
Harry stilled suddenly, and turned to Hermione, his eyes blazing in his face. She winced inwardly and prepared for the barrage she knew was coming, wishing that the sudden return of life to her friend's features were coming under different circumstances. 'But he said the mead wasn't meant for him,' Harry whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse. 'He said it was a gift he was supposed to pass on to Dumbledore.'
'Like the necklace-' Ginny breathed, her brown eyes snapping with the same fire as her boyfriend's. 'And, exactly like the necklace, it didn't reach its intended destination. Harry, what if-' Hermione nearly rounded on the younger witch in fury. The last thing she needed was for Ginny to start connecting Harry's bridges for him.
'The necklace wasn't for me? If it was for Dumbledore? This time, we know the target was the professor-'
A wave of disillusionment drenched Hermione, temporarily turning off her brain as a tide of blistering anger followed on its heels. Malfoy. The target was Dumbledore. The headmaster deliberately refused to send the son of Lucius away – a decision that might yet cause the death of one of her best friends, just as it had put Katie Bell in St. Mungo's, where she still languished.
And she had watched Harry sob, believing himself to be the reason for Katie's condition...
Pawns, she thought. All of us. If Ron had died in Slughorn's office, the headmaster would doubtless be showering his family with condolences, an investigation would be set up and reveal nothing...all while deftly harbouring his murderer.
As am I, she realized bleakly. She knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Harry was correct. She knew who had brought this round of fearful pain to Ginny's brown eyes and Harry's renewed and burning obsession.
But if Draco was expelled and Snape did not fulfil his Vow… Tom has ensured that my death can put us much closer to ending the war. The ruthless headmaster used himself as much as any of the rest of them…
But Ron had almost died…
Rage and an exhausted sorrow filled Hermione, blinding her with red, and she didn't know how she strangled the scream that fought for release from her throat. Too many options, too many people, too many lives. She couldn't do this, couldn't betray them...
It is not a betrayal, she suddenly heard Snape's mental voice resounding in her head. The strength of his speech surprised her – he had to be somewhere within in the nearest few rooms. Hermione, this is the price you must pay for knowing all that you know. Do you wish Potter dead, too? If he discovers the secrets you're hiding, he will follow Draco and force a confrontation. Draco may be weaker than his father, but he is without Potter's streak of Gryffindor nobility, and willing to kill in battle. If they fight now, Potter will fall. Snape's mental voice was mild, but demanded compliance nevertheless. Would you leave the Order without a means to gaining access to or destroying the Horcruxes? The world needs Harry Potter.
As it didn't need Ron Weasley. The second sentence went unspoken, but it was there as surely as if it had been uttered. Hermione's stomach knotted furiously and she forcefully swallowed the feeling of physical illness. Dispensable. They always had been. She and Ron and Ginny and Snape...
Everyone except the Chosen One. That is, after all, the definition of the term, she heard her bondmate's tired, understanding voice. 'Keep Potter away from Draco.' The command echoed even as she felt Snape shut himself away again, leaving her with the cold weight of her duty.
She hated sitting at the grown-up table.
'Dumbledore was a potential target,' she heard herself saying, sliding back into the role of protector. When Harry glared at her, she returned the look with equal heat. 'It's likely,' she conceded, unable to lie outright to her best friend convincingly, 'but don't narrow your field too early. Then you could miss other pertinent information.'
Harry cocked his head in a gesture of acquiescence. 'Assuming it's for Dumbledore then, again, the intended murder weapon goes astray,' Harry murmured. He locked eyes with Hermione, the determination and obsession of the previous term springing back abruptly, the brooding demeanour that had characterized him until this morning completely banished. 'Malfoy is up to something, Hermione. I heard him and Snape talking about it before Christmas. They're in this together, and if Malfoy isn't behind both the necklace and the mead, I'll eat my Firebolt.'
He started for the exit. Ginny frowned at his impulsive departure. 'Aren't you going to be here when he wakes up?'
Harry halted, turned his head to look back at the girl he loved and gave her a reassuring smile. A frisson of fear rippled down Hermione's spine. 'They're in this together.' Snape's point was well-taken. Whether or not Draco could kill Professor Dumbledore in cold blood was one consideration. He would, undeniably, shoot to kill Harry if they duelled. Under no circumstances could her irrational friend learn the improbable truth. The green eyes were already painfully aged, so tired behind the anger and fear that drove him to action. 'I will be here when we are allowed to enter,' Harry promised with all the finality of a vault closing in Gringotts. 'But Malfoy isn't going to get anything else into Hogwarts.' His eyes flickered over both of them, anguish surfacing briefly before it was once again buried beneath hardness. 'I've lost too many already to risk his stupidity costing us someone else.'
Snape's sentiment exactly. Except it worked in the reverse. It was Harry they couldn't afford to lose.
The door slammed against the wall yet again as Lavender Brown was rushing in, ashen faced and wild-eyed, and Harry slid past her as both girls hastened to explain that Ron was not – they hoped – in critical condition.
~888~
'Thank you, Severus,' the crowd of students and family heard Madam Pomfrey say inside the ward. All bodies tensed, ready to explode through the door as soon as she granted them permission to see their friend and brother. The sun had set, the last vestiges of twilight fading over the tops of the trees and none of them had been able to stir themselves from the room for the hours following their hasty arrivals, worried that in their absence, they might miss admittance.
As Snape reached the door to survey their worried faces, his familiar sneer settled over his features, black eyes locking on Harry's rebellious green. 'Perhaps Harry Potter should be added to your list of dangerous substances to come in contact with,' he recommended to the nurse in his silkiest voice. 'Like his father, he has an astounding ability to cause pain to those who get too close.'
With that, he was moving through them, leaving a stunned Harry in his wake, the seething loathing that permeated the jade whenever Snape was near held at bay by the verbal beating that so neatly echoed Harry's own thoughts of self-castigation.
Hermione deliberately stepped to the back of the crowd as the Weasleys gave the Slytherin identical frosty glares, pushing past him to enter the hospital. As the last crossed the threshold and the door swung closed, she called his name, stopping him before he made it out of the waiting room.
'Professor Snape?'
He turned slowly, his carefully cultivated look of indifference flickering slightly as he met her eyes, part curious and part-warning. She had never dared approach him openly in the castle and outside of class. They both had parts to play, and he had always been grateful that she was not, as the headmaster had said, the kind of girl to cause scenes.
'Miss Granger?' The lilt in his voice was coldly impersonal.
'I…' She almost instantly reverted to their connection, vividly aware of the number of spying devices the Weasleys had developed, and how broadly they interpreted their rights to use them. Don't taunt Harry like that.
She could feel him bristling, the edges of his mind becoming spiny at her reprimand. No? he replied challengingly. Should he walk, as the headmaster wishes, free of the consequences of his actions? 'Should he fly blindly through his days, lining his path with the dead and the wounded because he will not learn?' came the bitter question.
The image that he bounced back to her was a picture, stripped of the emotion that had darkened his voice. The way their faces had looked to him just moments ago, the crowd including herself, Ginny, Lavender, Fred and George and Harry, pale, haggard and distracted, standing together restlessly, too close, as if their mutual body heat could chase away the chill of fear, waiting for hours to be allowed inside.
You have spent too much time here. You, Potter, the youngest Weasleys. This friendship has taken its toll on you. See how different you look. That image was overlaid by a memory of the Sorting, and the round faces of those same peers shining with pure excitement, wonder and mischief shocked her. They were strangers, utterly unknown to the Hermione whose whole brain seemed occupied by war and survival. Had she ever been so childlike?
Yes. Potter has cost you this. And much else. Though the words did not make it through their bond, she could feel the weight of them rolling behind, accompanied by snapshot images jumbled together too quickly to make sense, but threaded through with an increasing sense of loss and despair.
I chose, she responded firmly. It was my choice to follow him. Do not provoke him with spite – we both know he will hate you enough when the time comes.
There was no surprise at this revelation, but an added weight of heaviness that took root somewhere in her abdomen. I am all-too-aware of that. I also recognize that he is fortunate in his companions – your loyalty will keep his self-loathing from consuming him whole. You are his support. But I…I am his mirror. I am what he can become, and he must not take that road. Which means he must come to understand that his actions have consequences and that he cannot lead you recklessly.
He doesn't. Severus…you have admitted that I have grown up. Let yourself see that Harry has also.
When he lays waste to everything he touches?
Harry is outgrowing his immature impulses, she countered quietly, and his fear of the human cost in terms of those dearest to him is almost crippling. He would rather see us survive than avoid the road you've taken. If he believed that walking your path would end the war fastest and help the most people, he would instantly set out upon it – at a dead run.
The pale wizard could see the conviction snapping in the amber-brown fire of his bondmate's eyes and ground his teeth, his love for the young woman in front of him directly at odds with a hatred he had nursed for over twenty years.
But it did more harm than good to loathe Harry Potter. Albus Dumbledore would not always stand between them to sort through their myriad issues. June loomed closer with every passing day. Be that as it may, the boy still has much to understand. His faint concession rippled through the back of her mind.
Is there still time to speak tonight?
I do not know. Our contact should be kept at a minimum – there are too many eyes in this castle.
The young woman's hand fluttered over her abdomen again, drawing Snape's glance and a wondering softness to the black that she had never seen before. The sallow features tightened slightly and he nodded.
He will be all right? she asked quietly, her thoughts skipping back to the Gryffindor Keeper.
He will. He is merely exhausted from the effects of the bezoar. The resources it demands from the body to purge itself will leave him shaky for a few days.
'Hermione?' Ginny's head poked around the door, saw her closest female friend standing stock-still in front of the Defence teacher. She frowned as they both startled at her presence, as if they had been utterly absorbed by something – but they didn't seem to have been talking.
'Did he light into you too?' the red-head asked, forehead wrinkling as the door snapped closed on Snape's black robes.
'No. No, I was asking him about bezoars and their effectiveness. How's Ron?'
'Come and see for yourself,' Ginny replied. 'Sleeping, mostly, but...'
As Hermione moved past her with the air of one very much preoccupied, Ginny remembered Harry's worry about Snape and their unpleasant teacher's unprofessional attitude toward Hermione during the fall term. She made a mental note to speak to her boyfriend about it. Snape taunting Harry was old news, but they had all been worried about Hermione, who was just emerging from her fragile condition. If he renewed his hostility, she might backslide. Ginny cast a dark glance back at the door their teacher had just vacated. While she had never adopted her brother's and boyfriend's enduring hatred of Snape, she certainly felt no sympathy for the man.
And if he was a threat to Hermione's well-being, it meant he stood in the way of their success. Ginny's jaw tightened as she returned to her brother's bedside. She could think of several ways to make his classes extremely...disagreeable...if he proved to be a problem...
~888~
'But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas,' Ginny was saying one more time, having latched onto Harry's theme from their morning talk. 'So the poisoner could have just as easily been after Dumbledore.'
Which he was. Desperate indeed, when anyone who'd ever spent five minutes with the man would know... 'Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well,' Hermione said softly, careful to steer clear of acknowledging any of the names thrown out during the discussion. 'Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself.'
'Er-my-nee?' Ron's voice croaked from the bed, but his eyes didn't open, even as Lavender squeezed his fingers and the ward went still, eyes straining with the sudden intensity of their focus.
An incomprehensible mutter, his brow relaxed, and his heavy breathing indicated a return to sleep. Lavender's dark eyes filled with disappointment as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
The door banged open, and all of them jumped. Hagrid came striding into the ward, his warm black eyes fixed furiously on the hospital bed. 'Bin in the Forest all day! Aragog's worse, I bin readin' to him – didn' get up ter dinner till jus' now an' then Professor Sprout told me abou' Ron! How is he?'
Harry jumped quickly to reassure him, reading the tension practically radiating from the half-giant. 'Not bad. They say he'll be okay.'
Hagrid gazed down at the boy sadly as the twins and Ginny hurriedly shoved their chairs backwards to accommodate his bulk next to the white bed. 'I don' believe this...jus' don' believe it. Look at him lyin' there...who'd want ter hurt him, eh?'
As his gaze travelled first to her and then lingered on Harry, Hermione felt her heart squeeze painfully. The teachers of Hogwarts had watched them grow, fostered their brilliance, disciplined their misbehaviour. But Hagrid had sheltered the three of them from storms of rain and tears, prejudice and danger. He loved them as dearly as any parent, and watching his honest, worried face now as he looked over Ron tore at her.
'That's just what we were discussing,' Harry said quietly. 'We don't know.'
'Someone couldn' have a grudge against the Gryffindor Quidditch team, could they? Firs' Katie, now Ron...' Hermione stifled a smile. Only Hagrid...but then again...her smile faded as she reflected that their lives would be very much easier now if the cause were indeed something so inane as the air sport.
'I can't see anyone trying to bump off a Quidditch team,' George dismissed it.
'Wood might've done the Slytherin's if he could've got away with it,' Fred pitched in reflectively.
Hermione almost rolled her eyes in disbelief. Boys and Quidditch. Was Snape the only member of the whole gender who wasn't obsessed with the game?
'Well, I don't think it's Quidditch,' she ventured, voicing what Harry had already started to piece together, hoping that her words might urge him to caution. They never had before, but there was no denying that seeing Ron double up as poison ripped through his body had affected a change in her friend. Whether for good or ill remained to be seen. The driven look that had returned to his eyes was the gleam of the predator. 'But I do think there's a connection between the attacks.'
'How d'you work that out?' Fred asked, frowning.
'Well, for one thing, they both ought to have been fatal-' attempted warning one – 'and weren't, although that was pure luck. And for another, neither the poison nor the necklace seems to have reached the person who was supposed to be killed.' She looked directly across Ron's bed into the haunted eyes hidden behind perfectly round rims to drive her point home. 'Of course, that makes the person behind this even more dangerous in a way, because they don't seem to care how many people they finish off before they actually reach their victim.'
The twins cocked their heads as if considering her logic, Harry's expression of grim determination didn't shift and Ginny's eyes darted between the best friends as she weighed what Hermione had said.
But before anyone could speak, the older Weasleys tore in, Molly reaching out to embrace Harry fiercely. 'Dumbledore's told us how you saved him with the bezoar. Oh Harry, what can we say? You saved Ginny...' her daughter's face darkened at the memory – Ginny hated being remembered as a child that had to be rescued, 'you saved Arthur...now you've saved Ron...'
Sorrow flared brightly in Harry's eyes. If it weren't for me, none of them would have been in that position in the first place. 'Don't be...I didn't...' he stammered as Molly crushed him against her shoulder.
'Half our family does seem to owe you our lives, now I stop and think about it,' Mr. Weasley said, his voice tight with the stress of the day and the relief of not having lost his son. 'Well, all I can say is that it was a lucky day for the Weasleys when Ron decided to sit in your compartment on the Hogwarts Express, Harry.'
A smothering, suffocating feeling welled in the young man, and the dark-haired wizard almost couldn't bear the praise, or the nods of completely serious agreement coming from the ever-mischievous twins, or Ginny's bright eyes. His gaze sought the girl who had balanced him for the past five and a half years and he clutched at her familiar features to retain his sanity.
In her eyes he saw the terrible certainty of understanding, and knew that she knew what he was thinking – that it had been precisely the opposite. That the worst luck of their lives had come on the day that Ron had so quickly jumped to Harry's defence against Draco Malfoy and his bully boys. That if Ron had chosen a compartment with Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan or even Neville Longbottom, the enormous risk to their family would have practically vanished.
To have them thanking him for an event caused solely by his own careless stupidity...
'Only six visitors,' Madam Pomfrey emerged from her office to announce. It was hastily agreed that Hagrid, Hermione and Harry would leave Ron to his siblings, parents and girlfriend, and they beat their retreat in the still awkward silence after the elder Weasleys' profuse expressions of gratitude.
They started back towards Gryffindor Tower, Hermione grateful for the silence that had absorbed Harry. She wasn't interested in playing verbal keep-away.
'It's terrible,' Hagrid murmured sadly as they walked through the quiet halls. 'All this new security, an' kids are still gettin' hurt...Dumbledore's worried sick...he don' say much, but I can tell...'
Hermione glanced at him. The headmaster had made it abundantly clear three nights ago that the only people who knew the true score of the distressing events taking place in Hogwarts were the four of them. Still...it would probably do well to keep all their evasions in line with one another's stories. 'Hasn't he got any ideas at all, Hagrid?' she fished cautiously.
'I 'spect he's got hundreds of ideas, brain like his,' came the typical, stoic reply. Hermione felt her mind ease slightly. 'But he doesn't know who sent that necklace nor put poison in that wine, or they'd've been caught, wouldn' they?' We can only wish, Hermione thought savagely, feeling guilt entrench once more, burying itself in her heart. Malfoy stays, in spite of the risk.
'Wha' worries me is how long can Hogwarts stay open if kids are bein' attacked. Chamber o' Secrets all over again, isn' it? There'll be panic, more parents takin' their kids outta school, an' nex' thing yeh know the Board o' Governors'll be talkin' about shuttin' us up fer good.'
And as we're going to be closed next year anyway, what difference does a few months make? Hermione thought bitterly. But she knew her role as bookworm, and filled her next words with a hearty dose of horrified shock. 'Surely not?'
'Gotta see it from their point o' view,' Hagrid said wisely, as if imparting information Hermione hadn't long chewed over. She knew what her parents would have done if they'd had any indication of what had occurred to her in the past term. 'I mean, it's always bin a bit of a risk sendin' a kid ter Hogwarts, hasn' it? Yer expect accidents, don' yeh, with hundreds of under-age wizards all locked up tergether, but attempted murder, tha's diff'rent-' One would hope, Hermione couldn't censor the thought. ''S no wonder Dumbledore's angry with Sn-'
Both students stopped dead at this customary slip of Hagrid's tongue, Harry's bright green eyes shining with a hard excitement, Hermione's heart growing heavier as dread sank all the way through her. What had the gamekeeper overheard? His attitude towards her seemed unchanged, but that didn't mean that he hadn't heard something incriminating about her bondmate.
Harry's reaction was as predictable as snow in January. 'What? Dumbledore's angry with Snape?'
'I never said tha',' Hagrid replied swiftly, clearly trying to back away as swiftly as possible. 'Look at the time, it's gettin' on fer-'
'Hagrid, why is Dumbledore angry with Snape?' Harry's voice had risen with the blazing in his eyes, and both Hermione and the half-giant glanced quickly down the halls, ensuring that no one was within earshot.
'Shh,' Hagrid hushed fiercely. 'Don' shout stuff like that, Harry, d'you wan' me ter lose me job? Mind, I don't supposed you'd care, would yeh, not now you've given up Care of Mag-'
'Don't try and make me feel guilty, it won't work,' Harry countered firmly, the man he was growing into stepping firmly to the fore, submerging the younger Harry Potter who was Hagrid's friend. 'What's Snape done?'
No matter how old or young you get, it's always about Snape, isn't it? Hermione quashed the resentment before it could find vocal expression, but she couldn't halt her train of thought. It's never about the fact that Dumbledore expects everyone to sacrifice all they have for his goals and tries to manage everyone's lives for them. For the love of Merlin, he manipulated you, too, Harry, for all that time about that prophecy and still...if there's an argument, it must be Snape's fault... She shook away the emotion-tainted rant. In all fairness, Snape shared the headmaster's priorities, as did she, and knowing her bondmate's volatility – this year more so than ever – a fight probably had been at the younger wizard's instigation.
'Well – I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he – Snape – didn' wan' ter do it anymore-'
'Do what?'
'I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit overworked, tha's all – anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him.'
Hermione wondered when this conversation had taken place. Before or after the meeting that had irreversibly altered the course of her own life? Had they been arguing about her? Or maybe about the task that Dumbledore had asked Snape to perform? She knew now why her bondmate had resisted telling her the truth – and she couldn't blame him. How much had she hidden from her parents, not wanting to worry them and unwilling to surrender her magical education?
She filed away Hagrid's information as something to run by the headmaster and her lover – along with the fact that they should clearly limit their conversations to the aging man's circular tower. Every portrait in Hogwarts could, collectively, keep a secret better than the gamekeeper. Including Sir Cadogen and the Fat Lady.
'All the Heads o' House were asked ter look inter that necklace business-' Hagrid was saying hastily.
'Yeah, but Dumbledore's not having rows with the rest of them, is he?' Harry murmured, giving her a swift glance that was clearly supposed to convey something. Hermione arched an eyebrow. She certainly wasn't going to help him advance his disturbingly correct theories.
'Look,' Hagrid was responding in kind, giving Harry a disappointed look that the warm black eyes had never turned on the boy hero before. 'I know what yeh're like abou' Snape, Harry, an' I don' want yeh ter go readin' more inter this than there is...'
A skeletal figure was approaching behind the broad back. 'Look out,' Hermione hissed swiftly.
The wizened caretaker of Hogwarts castle shuffled forward, a look of delight on his face. A glance that only grew more pronounced as he glared at two of his least favourite students – the pair that had managed to permanently disable Dolores Umbridge the year before. A swift spat with Hagrid, defending their right to be out and about, just beginning to wind up, the two students quickly ducked away, sliding through a tapestry and up a ramp that would deposit them fifty feet from the Fat Lady.
Much to Hermione's dismay, Harry took up his preferred seat in a worn red armchair, staring into the shifting flames in a position that she had long since recognized as Harry's posture of absorbed thought.
'It's late,' she ventured hesitantly. A quick glance at the common room clock told her that it was moving towards midnight. 'We should probably get some sleep.' Her bondmate's well-developed sense of caution seemed to preclude their meeting tonight and the delay piled worry on top of her almost overwhelming anxiety after Ron's poisoning.
'Go if you want to,' Harry finally muttered in reply, a hand vaguely waving at the staircase.
'Harry-'
'I've got to figure out how this ties together,' her friend snapped aggressively, glaring at her for interrupting his concentration. 'Malfoy, Snape...maybe these Horcruxes that Dumbledore is teaching me about. Ron could have died today, Hermione. The person drinking that mead was definitely meant to.' Fingers rubbed over his scar in frustration, anger, bitterness and fear running through his eyes. 'Dumbledore won't take me seriously about a threat that is obviously inside Hogwarts. What if Malfoy tries again tomorrow? What if it's you next? Or Ginny? How can I sleep when I'm the only one who thinks this is a real problem?'
'How will you solve it or anything else when you're sleep-deprived?' she shot back firmly. 'Ron didn't die, Harry. He's in the hospital wing, getting better, surrounded by people who love him. You can continue worrying in the morning.'
Green eyes glowered at her, and Hermione folded her arms, leaning against the wooden banister and making it clear that she was waiting for him. He had turned back to the fire, ready to out-wait her, when Hermione felt someone behind her on the staircase, and turned just in time to see Cormac McLaggen blow past without even glancing down, his bulky form headed straight for Harry.
'There you are, Potter!' The Seeker jumped, his wand shooting from his pocket so fast it seemed he had Summoned it to him. McLaggen ignored it. 'I've been waiting for you to come back.'
Harry cut her a beseeching look, and Hermione nearly snorted at the irony. Twenty seconds ago he had been pleased to brood in front of the flames, and now he wanted a way out? She shook her head sweetly, thanking the luck that had sent the arrogant boy tumbling down the stairs. Harry was not in a talkative mood right now, and she could think of no better way to encourage him to go to sleep than dodging McLaggen's ever-running mouth.
Flashing her best friend a bright smile behind McLaggen's back, she mounted the stairs.