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.

Blaise's Offer

June, 1998

Harry Potter couldn't stop the chill that crept down his spine, spreading to all the nerves in his back. Gringotts had always been intimidating – marble inlays and green-leather desks a symbol of old-world power, the lavishness that literally only money could buy – a place calculated to make one feel small and insignificant.

Now, more than a year and a half after the brief but harrowing and highly destructive Battle of Diagon Alley, the great structure had not been repaired. Columns tottered where they had once stood proudly, great chunks of them ripped away. The front part of the vaulted roof had collapsed into rubble and although all the bodies had been long since cleared, the blood stains had been left – the clean-up crews too exhausted to rid the ground of their ghastly markers. Every scrap of wood and leather had vanished – the vaults were underground, untouched and still accessible via the small, grubby shop nearby that the goblins had hastily converted into a pale shadow of the entrance hall, but witches and wizards (Mundungus Fletcher most likely amongst them) had stripped the once-grand trappings from the fallen bank, pawning the pieces as desperation crowded in on the population.

The young leader of the Order could barely believe he had come here for money just two summers ago. Gringotts exuded the long-time emptiness of a ruin, a fortress abandoned in ages past, not the casualty of a recent conflict.

Shaking himself to ward away his unwelcome thoughts, he held his silence in spite of his unease, keeping his ears open in the blackness, his experience-honed hearing keeping track of his partner where his eyes failed, listening for the light step that was uniquely hers – a blend of her Animagus form and years of training in battle.

An uncomfortable resentment towards his professor flared for a moment as silence met his ears, the former Head of Gryffindor having halted in the dark. He and Minerva McGonagall had passionately disagreed this past year, and though he had no doubts that her commitment to the Order and their victory was absolute, he had long mourned the demise of the woman who had been so strict and yet sympathetic during the years of his formal education. But Moody was correct – she had deliberately harboured Severus Snape. Sheltered him knowing what he had done to Hermione, defended his ex-best friend when Hermione had known what was going to happen to Dumbledore-

-that line of thinking always closed his throat and brought tears of shame and betrayal to his eyes. He ruthlessly choked off both as another voice, previously silent but recently stirring, offered the counter point of view that the Weasley twins had steadily presented while backing Hermione. It was this part of him that whispered benign motives behind the Gryffindor witch's actions, growing steadily louder to match the indignant fury of Moody's gravelly tones in his mind. Charlie's arrival with the dragons had been nothing short of a miracle, the force that would enable them to effectively battle the giants. Hermione had been one of the writers pleading on his behalf with Goblins to join the battle – while he, Ginny and Ron had been hunting the much-needed pieces of Voldemort's sundered soul, Hermione had been building him an army. Not the roughly one-hundred-fifty rag-tag witches and wizards that comprised the Order and its informants and suppliers, but a diverse group ready for combat that could fight the many-varied creatures under Riddle's command.

The worm that had been wondering whether Moody's voice was the one he should be listening to turned over in his heart as uncertainty battered at the previously self-assured child-general.

'Lady Dumbledore?' said a soft voice behind them.

Harry spun, crouching instinctively, the tip of his wand glowing red with a non-verbal Stunning Spell.

'Griphook, Son of Graplin,' he heard McGonagall say pleasantly from somewhere near his left shoulder, her own wand flaring to life with the much less threatening 'Lumos.'

'Harry Potter,' the Goblin inclined his head as Harry leashed the spell, almost too late. The short creature did not look remotely frightened as he stepped forward into the full glow of McGonagall's wand, his sharp eyes locked on the raven-haired wizard. For an instant, Harry was eleven years old again, getting ready to take his first ride into the underground warren, eyes wide, unable to process everything, Hagrid's friendly chuckle at his back...

Thoughts of the brave, now-dead half-giant brought water to his eyes and he bit the inside of his cheek to control it. He could not forge an alliance with his gaze brightened by tears.

'It has been a long time since anyone addressed me by that title,' McGonagall was saying warmly.

'Indeed. How did your late husband get the Sword of Godric Gryffindor installed in his office?' The question was obviously their pre-arranged security check, but Harry turned towards the Transfiguration professor with genuine curiosity. She was notoriously close-mouthed about her long marriage to their recently-deceased headmaster, and Harry found himself listening eagerly, almost against his will, for more information regarding his mentor and predecessor.

McGonagall replied swiftly, her words spare. 'He saved your father's life in Austria. Grindelwald sent his army flocking after the Goblins who had removed a highly valuable item cast in platinum. Albus created the defensive spells that allowed your father's team to escape. As a favour, you agreed to permanently tie Gryffindor's sword to his office and Godric's Sorting Hat.'

Griphook smiled as she passed his test. In spite of the shrewdness to his face, the warmth in the black eyes was sincere, and remained as his gaze roved over Harry again.

'We have heard much of you, Harry Potter, leader of the Order of the Phoenix. Your friend Hermione Granger of the Muggle World wrote of your stand for the oppressed amongst us – and the list is impressive. House-elves. Centaurs. Giants. Werewolves. Creatures others would not hesitate to label as weak, stupid or Dark.'

Harry tilted his head gracefully, masking the frisson of combined gratitude and anger that Griphook's mention of Hermione brought forth. Another of his former best friend's efforts coming back favourably. Another truce extended in his name that no one had seen fit to tell him of beforehand. Consuming resentment was stalled by the ingrained marvelling that all the anger in the world could not smother – that Hermione, and McGonagall, were once again three steps ahead of the rest of them.

'Whole species cannot be labelled. Humanity produced both Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge and Professor McGonagall,' Harry answered quietly. 'How can I claim that others must be one extreme or the other?'

The smile broadened and clever eyes cut to his co-Head. 'You are correct, Minerva, the boy has what many of his kind have been lacking in recent generations.' He looked Harry squarely in the eye.

'I am here to negotiate the part that the Banking Clan can take in your rebellion, and what place my people might occupy when we prove successful.'

~888~

February, 1997

'Adoption?' Dumbledore sounded like he was testing the word as it rolled out of his mouth, tasting before swallowing it. And unsure, once it was down, whether he liked the flavour. 'To completely cut contact with your child? Severus, I know you never expected to be a father, but-'

'I am one now and I will not be irresponsible regarding the life that I have created. I am a professional spy. She is determined to stand by Potter, no matter the cost. She is – we are – aware of the potential emotional pain and have made the choice to endure it rather than place a true innocent, with no chance at self-protection, in the path of the Dark Lord. I concur with her reasoning – especially since, as the father, I will hardly be in a position to offer the assistance she will need to care for the baby.'

'The child...your combined genetics will be a force to be reckoned with,' the elderly wizard sighed quietly, daylight searching night-dark eyes. 'Which is, of course, what Tom is banking on and most certainly desires. I assuredly agree with your plans to keep the child safe...but consider, Severus. What will happen when it is removed from her and the sphere of the Order's protection? I do not know if allowing someone else to raise the child is the best way to get what you both want.'

Snape's pale face wore a bleak expression. 'We will search for a family located outside of Britain and away from this bloodshed. We have too many children fighting this war already. My child will grow up far from the crimes of its father, from the risks undertaken by its mother.'

Dumbledore bowed his head once, conceding to Snape's point, unwilling to voice his primary concern. The chronicles kept by the Ang'guin Weyr told of the unsurpassed power wielded by those gifted with Elemental Magic at their births. The yellowing and water-damaged pages were littered with accounts of destroyed curses, plague victims cured by the thousands, the quenching of hurricanes and other feats that had passed into the worlds of legend.

The kind of power necessary to destroy multiple Horcruxes. But perhaps this unique child was not the catalyst they needed. Maybe another vessel could be found to contain the required magic. It was entirely possible that between them, the bondmates could do the job.

And he, himself, had demanded certain duties from Hermione Granger. Obligations that made motherhood impossible.

'Any help I can give either of you,' he said softly, and the sincerely compassionate quality to his eyes burned the dark wizard's cool response on his tongue, 'you shall have it.'

Snape stood for a long moment in front of the desk that had marked so many important moments in his life. 'Is there any chance whatsoever that I can be released from the task you have given me come the end of term?' he asked hoarsely. He had not intended to ask this question, as he already knew the answer. But the nest of Hermione's sorrow-lined thoughts flitting through the back of his mind drove him to ask anyway.

Dumbledore closed weary eyes, fingers tightened about the forgotten quill between them. The double agent had never made such a request before, no matter the tastelessness of many of the duties he had been asked to perform. 'I would that I could,' his employer said, and the mellow voice was scratchy with pain. 'Merlin knows you've so much more to lose now, and I grieve to know that I will take it away from you. But we cannot run the risk, Severus. We need those Horcruxes. Tom must be eradicated.'

Hope and vulnerability flashed and vanished, leaving Dumbledore with the stiffly respectful Potions master he had hired fifteen years ago. 'Of course. Good night, Headmaster.'

'Good night, Severus.'

~888~

Blaise twisted in his seat as Slughorn genially called their NEWTs-level Potions class to order, a frown creasing lines in the boy's smooth forehead. Their third week of classes since the poisoning had rocked the corridors of the school – and despite the fact that Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were present, the former looking none of the worse for the events marring his birthday and the second radiating a crackling energy he hadn't possessed for months – the third member of the Gryffindor trio was still markedly absent.

It wasn't illness, for Hermione remained two rows behind him in both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and she, too, seemed more...present than she had since before Christmas. A few days ago she had delighted and shocked Vector by raising her hand and promptly offering an answer that left no one in doubt that wherever the young witch's mind had been, it had returned full force to its remarkable excellence and insatiable appetite for all things related to books and multi-line equations. The greying professor had been so pleased with this abrupt return of Hermione Granger, Star Pupil, that she had beamed broadly and awarded Gryffindor twenty points.

But that merely made the lithe young witch's sudden avoidance of the dungeon laboratory for the past three weeks a more puzzling enigma. She had listlessly gone through the motions for weeks, a faded shade of the academic brilliance that Slughorn had elected to include in his Club, and now, when it seemed that she was right back at the top of her form after Weasley's accident, she had, apparently, dropped a class that the wily Slytherin knew – from many years of observation – she enjoyed.

'Where's Granger?' he asked the pale-faced boy next to him. Malfoy looked up, startled, and his grey eyes shot automatically to the back of the room, his almost-white eyebrows drawing together as his knee-jerk reaction betrayed him: he hadn't even noticed that his academic rival of five and a half years had vanished in the past twenty days. Blaise took the moment to notice the deep, bruise-coloured shadows slung under the other boy's eyes, and the paper-white appearance of his skin, hastily shifting his eyes to the front of the classroom as Malfoy turned back, shrugging. This was not at all promising. When did Lucius Malfoy's son pass up an opportunity to gloat about any lapse coming from the Muggle-born witch?

Blaise dawdled at the end of class, his tactic made easier by his life-long coolness towards most wizards his own age. There was no one to nag him into hurrying, or to question his motives. He waited until he was sure that the only things he could hear were Slughorn shuffling papers on his desk and his own breathing before he spoke.

'Sir, what's happened to Hermione Granger?'

Slughorn jumped faintly and Blaise suppressed a snort. The pompous man's Ministry connections and fondness for associates in power made him useful, but the half-Egyptian couldn't imagine his predecessor being so completely ignorant of a student's presence. Not for the first time, Blaise wondered if he should go to his Head of House. Snape was a man in fighting trim, not a previously-retired professor, the saturnine wizard's reactions quicker by half than any other the young man knew.

But Blaise did not know which side of the divide claimed the Slytherin Defence professor's loyalties, and if Draco Malfoy were to be believed, it wasn't the one Blaise himself was now considering. No...he'd have to make due with the Gryffindor Prefect.

Slughorn shifted slightly in front of him and heaved a sigh. 'Unfortunately, Severus has insisted she be removed from my class – it seems her work in Defence Against the Dark Arts is not living up to what he expected and he's going to be giving her private tutorials at the headmaster's orders. He said that Albus agrees that she simply ought not to be taking so many NEWTs...and seven is quite a number. I'm sorry to see her go, but, there you are.'

Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor encyclopaedia, incapable of handling seven NEWT classes? There were rumours of a Time-Turner in their third year, for no one had been able to deny that she had taken every single class available to them – and there simply wasn't enough time. If she could manage that, then seven NEWTs were hardly a strain.

Snape insisted...and through his chill of mistrust and foreboding, the seventeen-year-old wizard suddenly thought of a distinct way to turn this to his advantage. He needed a way to speak to Hermione Granger alone. 'That's really too bad, sir. She's an excellent potioneer. If she'd like some help...I'd be glad to continue tutoring her outside of class time.'

Slughorn smiled beneficently at his student, proud of the Slytherin's offer to help his rival House. He knew that Dumbledore was warier of the serpents' den en masse than of the rest of the student body and was pleased to see one of them strike out for solidarity in what was unarguably the most polarized atmosphere he'd ever witnessed at the famous institution.

'I'll pass that along,' he said jovially. 'That's a mighty decent thing for you to offer to do, Blaise. I hope she can take you up on it.'

Blaise wondered who the professor would be 'passing it along' to, but he dared not ask. Betraying too much investment in this potential alliance would be foolhardy at this embryonic stage – he didn't even know if Granger would talk to him honestly yet.

He could only hope that it was not his Head of House. If the other man had interfered in the witch's learning, it was unlikely that Snape would want to hear of any solutions.

~888~

'Again.'

Hermione swallowed her weariness, ignoring the heaviness of her legs as she once more assumed a duellers' position, glancing at Snape's seemingly loose shoulders and faintly slumping spine under his plain white shirt. The evenly-tempered colleague she had discovered and enjoyed in the Burrow last July had cautiously re-emerged, to her complete delight, over the past few weeks in the privacy of his office. Once again, the man she worked with rarely snapped, but often jibed, swiftly parrying with verbal swords while almost never aiming to wound. But in spite of her condition, Snape had not shifted his demanding curriculum one iota, and his expectations of her were – as they had always been – high.

To that end, he had checked all of his lessons with Madam Pomfrey and confirmed at exactly what points he had to call a halt in order not to endanger her health. In their three weeks worth of private tutoring, he had always pushed her to precisely that edge – taxing her without causing her harm, but resulting in the deep fatigue that heralded dreamless nights.

Transfiguration and Charms, both now one-on-one advanced lessons with her tutors to save her from any accidentally-cast spells in a crowded classroom, were proving to be equally taxing. Even though Snape and McGonagall knew the true reasons for her removal from the usual curriculum, all three professors were treating it as a chance to push her to her utmost, to delve into the mind that had found its outlet for five years in Harry Potter's schemes and homework twice its required length.

The young woman had reluctantly abandoned Potions all together. Many draughts generated fumes that were advised against for the pregnant witch, and that did not take into account the fact that these potions were being brewed for the first time by a group of teenagers in relatively cramped quarters. She had argued heatedly with her bondmate – everybody was in sixth year and nothing had exploded so far. Option after option had been refused. She could wear a mask, she could perform the Bubble-head charm, she could establish a shield, all to no avail. The dark eyes had gone from reasonably friendly to utterly closed-off.

'It takes but ONE accident, Hermione. One slip. You take too many risks. Some of them are vital. This one is not. I would rather not be proven right by watching your blood drain into the floor. I have seen it happen too often already.'

She knew that the necessary lies had been told to placate Slughorn, but no small part of her pride stung at the thought that her fellow students would think her incapable of handling the academic load she had taken. Hermione Granger finally reaches her limit, she thought morosely.

'Miss Granger?' he prompted. 'I was not aware that 'again' meant 'stare into the distance while waiting for your enemy to come along and disarm you'.' Snape still used her last name while training her. He had claimed that he needed to for the sake of compartmentalization. After a few sessions, she agreed. Miss Granger and Professor Snape had no personal relationship beyond a growing mutual respect – which was, in itself, quite a feat for one of his students – and the formality kept them both on-task.

'Sorry, sir. I'm ready.' Her brown eyes found his again and watched impatiently, tension stringing every fibre of her small frame as she strained with the effort not to drop her gaze to his wand. She knew now, from the DA and, unfortunately, from first-hand experience, that only a novice keeps their eyes on the wand-arm. The true intent of every attacker is plain in the eyes.

Even so, Hermione found it difficult to force her eyes away from the place the blast would come from, maintaining the unnerving and reciprocated lock with her teacher. She had discovered that her bondmate's long years of disguising emotion couldn't erase the singular intensity that mounted in the breath before he cast his offence, or the unique spark that it lent to his eyes.

Unwilling to cast spells directly on her, his slender wand of blackthorn was now pointed towards a desk some four yards distant, ready to set it alight. It already bore the scorch marks of her only partially-successful attempts to capture and rebound the spells spraying from his wand.

Mirror Defensive Spells. Until three weeks ago, they were in a highly advanced category of magic that the young woman had only read about. A combination of directional charms, magical shields and re-cast hexes; Mirror Defence was an excruciatingly difficult discipline to master. Snape had assured her than more than half her peers lacked the ability to execute the complicated magic at all, and of the remainder, perhaps a mere handful had the essential magic to cast them correctly.

'And they are primarily used on a battlefield, Miss Granger,' he told her in their first private session. 'I don't need to explain further why they are not part of the Hogwarts curriculum.'

'Shouldn't they be now?' she asked curiously. 'We are not living in peace time, Professor.'

Obsidian flashed with amusement. 'The headmaster will doubtless approve the idea now that your oh-so-Gryffindor voice has been added to mine.' He shook his head. 'What would be the use? The requisite power would mean only a few could be so trained, effectively making them targets for the Dark Lord – either as recruits to be harvested or saplings to be cut before they can cause him too much trouble.'

'Harry...?'

The hint of a smile vanished completely, and Snape permitted himself to lift a hand, settling it on her shoulder in a rare display of mid-lesson intimacy. 'That will be your task.'

So she learned. As much and as quickly as she could, returning to her midnight-readings behind her plush red curtains in Gryffindor Tower, devouring at equal speed the texts regarding her foetus and those volumes that she hoped could save her friends' lives.

But the combination of shield and rebound, sending the magic straight back to the caster and augmenting it with power of her own, was exhausting. And she still hadn't gotten the knack of capturing the offence without extinguishing it.

Every muscle in her body tightened as she forced her eyes to remain on his, waiting for the tell-

-the darkness of his gaze grew absolute, blacker than the shadows in a graveyard. This time, Hermione's wand twitched in unison with his 'Incendio!'. Flames of blue ripping across the air were met by her Freezing Charm halfway to the desk. She twitched her wand, sending another wordless pulse of power – if she could pinch the flame between the two charms them, without crushing it-

-the first charm flickered...faltered...died. Neon fire continued its journey towards the wood-

-Flamma burbled like a child in her blood, recognizing its sibling streaking across the room. Conscious thought was muscled aside by unconscious knowledge, her now-useless wand clattering to the floor. She extended her empty left hand, orange licking forward eagerly, sprinting in a blaze of smoke as it moved to intersect.

Flexible as wand-magic was not, Hermione could feel the element wrapping around Snape's spell, layers of heat making an impenetrable shield. But there it stopped. She had managed to both shield and control the attacking spell, but she could not send it back towards him. The warmth in the room was rapidly growing, sweat trickling down her neck and between her breasts. Withdraw, she thought urgently. Crackling flame did not respond to thought. Her body did. She loosely closed the fingers of her left hand, as if the fire were held by a leash that she could tug back. She could feel the magic's resistance, and it obliterated her bondmate's hex as it reluctantly obeyed, pooling in her palm before leaking through her skin like so much liquid.

Her professor watched the entire event with narrowed eyes, unwilling to interrupt this first semi-deliberate manipulation of their gifts. 'Fascinating,' was his first word when the previously-uncontrolled element clearly bent to her will. Then he lifted his eyebrows. 'However, as we are working with our wands, what was the point of that little demonstration?'

'There was no point, sir,' Hermione sighed, breathing deeply. As with Neville's disaster and Parkinson's duel, her new magic had used up a great deal of energy in no more than a few seconds. 'You've seen how much difficulty I'm having with the confinement part of Mirror Defence. Re-direction is easy, and Shield charms are something I've been brushing up on since fourth year. But I tend to either snuff out the spell or else cause it to explode when I try to contain it. Flamma could do the job – but then I didn't know what to do with it. I had it perfectly ready to rebound, but no way to do so. At least, not without my wand.'

'Indeed. Your ability to apprehend my movements has developed greatly, Miss Granger, but you must remember to cast wordlessly. The brain takes nanoseconds to deliver commands to your wand. Your tongue takes much longer. Proficiency in Mirror Defence is reserved for those who can think their spells and put enough power behind them in rapid succession. By the time a single hex passes your opponent's lips, the mirror should be in place.'

'Yes, sir,' she sighed. A pulse of fatigue shot through her, and she could see his head droop faintly as it hit him as well.

'You're tired,' he said sharply.

'What? Oh – nothing that a little chocolate won't solve, Professor.' She was loathe to stop practicing nearly half an hour earlier than any previous lesson. Her frustration with herself was mounting with her continuous failure.

'Sit down, Hermione,' he commanded, ending their training as he gestured to the armchair near the hearth. She wondered if she should argue and decided against it. She very seldom won disagreements where he perceived her safety was involved.

'Yes, Severus.' He was breaking chocolate at the sideboard, tea brewing on the silver samovar that had grown familiar to her over their evenings. She let her head loll on the chair, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.

Snape turned from where he had poured the tea and halted, his gaze arrested by the woman so peacefully contented in his presence, in his space. She thought of this office – tucked, like Minerva's, behind the one he showed the rest of his students – as a haven, and so it had become. An overwhelming feeling of being too full welled in him, and he beat back the panic that threatened to assert itself. Authority was necessary, intimidation a useful tool, loneliness his life's companion. How could he accept what she offered? The relaxed limbs and abandoned vigilance that told of an unplumbed depth of trust. The rules – the laws – he broke when it came to her, that she was willing to toss aside for him.

'Rules are for homework and dormitory bedtimes,' came her quiet voice, and the amber-brown eyes opened. 'To be violated when something more important requires it. What is love without some form of sacrifice – even if it is just one's own comfort zone?'

'I'm afraid that I have granted no philosophical thought to the subject,' he replied dryly, balking at the idea of entering into this particular emotional topic. 'I believe Miss Brown and Miss Patil will probably have much more to say on the matter. From the highly reliable sources Witch Teen and Simply Enchanted.'

'I had no idea you were so up to date on teen literature,' she replied as he handed her a cup. She brushed her mouth against his knuckles as she took it, delighting in the peculiarity of the match – the pure-white porcelain in his ink-and-ingredients stained fingers.

Hermione made a face as she sipped the bitter brew – sugar nullified the effects of the red raspberry leaves, which were, sadly, not as tasty as the fruit they sheltered. But her lack of iron was one of the medi-witch's chief concerns, and the older woman had hinted that regular intake of this specific herb – especially in the latter two trimesters – might ease her labour pains.

'Surely there's a potion to replace iron in the blood-stream,' she grumbled.

'Your traditional diet of black tea and milk is not recommended, Hermione, as you know. Caffeine is not good for the foetus.'

'Mmmph,' she muttered as she took another swallow. 'I'm trying to cast wordlessly,' she began, returning to her continuing difficulty in completing the necessary sequence for the most basic of Mirror spells. 'But the magic just doesn't come out.'

'The task we have set for you is not an easy one,' he replied, a bite of impatience in his voice. She had learned that just as his patience was extremely limited for those who adopted airs of superiority, he was equally irritated by those who ran themselves down needlessly or expected too much, too early. 'I have already told you that it is an art many adult wizards and witches – including most of the Order – cannot develop or haven't truly mastered.'

'I am not accustomed to having so much trouble with spells,' she admitted.

'No. But Defence has never been your strongest suit and this surpasses what anyone has been taught at Hogwarts for years. Even the Patronus charm which Potter casts with such agility does not need as much concentration or force behind it. Give yourself time.'

'As I am constantly being reminded, time is something we do not have a lot of,' she muttered.

'No,' he answered slowly, 'it is not. But it will be sufficient to learn what you must.'

'I hope so. After all, I've got twenty-four-hour-a-day guard duty on "The Chosen One".'

Snape grimaced as he perched on the well-padded arm of her chair. 'The Daily Prophet has always displayed outlandishly bad taste in its pronouncements, but it outdid itself with that particular nomer – and all the press surrounding it. Surely they could have settled on something less weighty and more inclined to the truth. "The-Boy-Who-Breaks-Curfew-Every-Night", for instance, has a certain appeal.'

'He takes the cloak,' Hermione said, stifling a laugh as she wriggled to get more comfortable on the cushion.

'He also breathes, walks like a herd of elephants trampling a jungle, and has an unerring sense for being precisely where he shouldn't.'

'I wonder...' she started thoughtfully, and her partner could feel another change of subject coming on. 'We should be looking for ways to hone the magic of our binding. We're no closer now than we have been since the hols. Why not use it, for instance, with Mirror Defence?'

Snape shot her a frown as he sat above and over her, his hair casting moving shade over the prominent nose and pale cheekbones. 'We potentially could – but you said you had no idea how to direct the magic after containment, which makes it practically useless. As yet, we have not discovered a reliable way to tap it. It seems to show up whenever it feels like performing and lie dormant the rest of the time.

'It also does not do to dismiss the conventional spells in favour of the new out of hand, no matter how flashy or exciting the undiscovered might be. We will continue to practice the well-known defensive methods. Not only is Raw Magic unreliable and as yet largely unknown to us, it would be preferable to unveil such talents at a time of our choosing, instead of during a desperate accident.'

Hermione shivered. 'Yes...I still can't believe what happened with Parkinson. I'm not sure I could have kept Flamma from incinerating her.'

A fractured fury spiked through her at the name, and her bondmate was unyieldingly harsh when he spoke. 'Pansy Parkinson acted more rashly than I would have ever believed of her. Draco's withdrawal must be hurting her more than I realized. But you are correct. When the elements ignite of their own will, they have always been uncontrolled. For the Dark Lord to come to our conclusion – that Raw Magic can be tamed and used at will – could result in significant problems.'

'He doesn't know, then, that you're researching your half of the elements?'

'Even if I were telling him, there's nothing to say.' Her bondmate scowled, frustration submerging his milder mood as he rolled up his shirtsleeves and rose unconsciously. Automatically, his feet fell into their stalking pattern, wearing the rug in an oft-paced arc like a caged wildcat, pondering their current problem. Several months of frantic research whenever his life had allowed an hour or so had culminated in precisely one conclusion: Raw Magic could, under no circumstances, be wedded to the use of their wands. Hermione's natural flame consuming his wand-driven one earlier correlated with that theory. The two forms were utterly incompatible, and the dark wizard was profoundly grateful that the differing disciplines seemed to at least reside within their bodies peacefully – it was not unknown for opposing magics to tear their vessels apart.

Hermione relaxed in her plush chair and, setting her empty teacup down, she found herself taking advantage of their total privacy to observe him openly, without worrying what other eyes might be on them. The young witch had found in the last three weeks that her life had returned to normal as it hadn't been since the skirmish in the Department of Mysteries almost eight months prior. She had used this restored equilibrium to start cataloguing details about her bondmate that had gone previously unobserved. She had found that in moments of severe vexation he pinched the bridge of his nose, that worry manifested in the way his whole body stiffened – not merely his face or back, but tension radiating from the entirety of his lean frame. But her favourite note so far was the way his hands were almost constantly in motion – whether drumming on a table-top, fiddling with a quill or stirring a cauldron.

She smiled as she watched him reach the far wall and whirl abruptly – the sweeping gestures another habit invented to intimidate. It had carried into his brooding movements of solitude even when he was devoid of the billowing outer robe that had earned him so many unflattering nicknames. Her initial surprise at the total change in the man she had spoken to after their extended mind-link in Dumbledore's office had given way to rueful reflection. She had always felt at least a little like a schoolgirl in his presence – he had many times her years, her experience, and she had ceded him the upper hand in their encounters before she realized she had granted him the power to dictate their terms. She had never acted like an adult – looking to him instead to provide all her answers and direction, so it had not been difficult to understand why he had not treated her as one. Why, in spite of their magic-forged connection and his own genuine feelings, she had remained, first and foremost, an innocent he desperately wished to take care of instead of the partner and confidante she was striving to be. He had continued fighting for her, as he had done since she had attached herself to Harry Potter as a small girl, and he had also kept his secrets along with the sneering, mercurial exterior that protected them.

The Severus Snape who acknowledged her equal role in a battle where they fought alongside one another had emerged only when she threw off the last comforts of her childhood world and met him as a woman, not a girl.

Speaking of which...

'Has Professor Dumbledore mentioned anything further about our...erm...mutual study of Raw Magic?'

'No. He's been remarkably close-lipped on the subject since mentioning it,' Snape returned tightly. 'Which is hardly helpful. Now is not the time to be playing the headmaster's remarkable mind games.'

She frowned, but as another question regarding their peculiar and elusive magic formed on her tongue, her brain derailed, an image from the tall wizard's mind clicking to the forefront of her own.

'Blaise Zabini?' she said aloud, startled by the non-sequitar as she studied the aloofly handsome, chocolate-skinned Slytherin's face revolving in her mind's eye.

He halted sharply, sending her a glare. 'Do you think it possible to peruse your own thoughts instead of mine?' he snapped acidly.

'I know my thoughts – I'd much rather have yours,' she flung back at him. 'I didn't read you on purpose, Severus. But why are you thinking about Blaise Zabini?'

'Do you never tire of asking questions?' he muttered, but the anger had slipped away as rapidly as it had manifested, replaced by a strong hesitation as he turned from her in the quiet that followed. She knew he was wondering whether to tell her what she had stumbled across. The young woman waited, trying not to broadcast the impatience and curiosity that had marked five and a half years of magical education.

Reluctance gave way to a sense of inevitable resignation, and the tall wizard rotated back towards the fire as he spoke.

'Mr. Zabini is apparently concerned for your welfare.' He could hear the stiffness in his voice, so far removed from the semi-ease he had felt before his temper, never too deeply buried, had bristled, and winced at his own coldness, feeling as if he were truly hearing it for the first time in years.

'Blaise Zabini cares about me?' Hermione's slim brows had drawn together in a look of total bafflement, ignoring the tone she had heard so many times before, unable to compose a world view in which the removed son of Slytherin even truly knew what she looked like. Her encounters over the years had always been with Malfoy – surely to the rest of the Slytherins she was just the bushy-haired, buck-toothed, Know-It-All that she had been since their first year?

'I said "apparently", Hermione.'

'I heard you,' she replied mildly, turning this over. 'What did he say or do to give you this impression?'

'He noticed your absence from Potions.'

'Yes, well, that's hardly an indicator,' she said dismissively, setting her teacup on his desk. 'With me gone, he's next best in the class after Harry.'

Snape steepled his fingers, filing away the reference to Harry with others of its ilk. After the boy's barely-better-than-abysmal performance in his classroom for years, he knew that his abrupt brilliance at Potions must be suspect to his peers. The master of the subject wondered if his bondmate had figured out yet who, exactly, was the key to Harry Potter's sudden success.

'He's offered to tutor you privately.' He released that last morsel unwillingly.

Hermione froze. Tutor her privately? A Slytherin she'd never even spoken to? They were both members of Slughorn's club, it was true, but she couldn't recall a single instance even at the exclusive dinner table where he'd so much as said, 'Pass the potatoes,' to her.

An offer of supposed help was precisely the opposite of what she would have expected from the status-conscious Slytherins...

But if Zabini barely knew her, she knew nothing about him. Only that he shared their classes and seemed to have no interest in Malfoy's gang. At that thought, curiosity blossomed. His almost total disdain for the rest of his House was a hopeful sign – perhaps they had little influence with him? A swift review of her encyclopaedic memory provided her with no moments that he had seemed, even briefly, to agree with the bigoted views of his closest classmates.

'Is the offer genuine?' she asked.

'Does it matter?' he countered immediately. 'You cannot brew Potions because of your condition. I cannot teach you now.'

She tapped her lower lip with her index finger, twisting her mouth to one side as she thought. 'I can still learn theory. I think I should take him up on it.'

Snape stared at her, wondering if the behaviour of her rash friends had finally worn a permanent place in her own psyche. 'You have access to every book in my private collection. What can you possibly gain from seeking knowledge from a peer – though he is a competent one – instead of a master?'

The Gryffindor witch was shaking her head, tumbling curls into her eyes. 'I don't think it's just about Potions.'

'Neither do I,' he responded sardonically, glad that they agreed on at least that point. 'But I would say that's precisely why you should stay as far from him as you can.'

'As long as we're in Hogwarts, surely I can speak to him once without taking a great risk?'

'Have you forgotten what Draco Malfoy has been ordered to do inside these walls?' he asked softly, and in the ringing silence that followed she could hear his recrimination-loaded, And what I will accomplish?

'Of course not,' she answered both the spoken and non-verbal reminder. 'But his life here has been...enigmatic at best. Students our age are beginning to make their alliances – on both sides of the divide. Do you know where he will go?'

'The Zabinis are infamously neutral. I have approached his mother on both the headmaster's and the Dark Lord's requests in both wars. She has refused to hear me on all four occasions.'

'Children are separate from their parents. She may maintain her position astride the fence, but are you absolutely certain that he will as well?'

Snape resumed his seat on his stool, staring blindly into the dimming fire. Would Blaise fight if asked? His lord, he knew, had wasted no more time on the family. But that meant nothing for the younger generations' aspirations. Zabini could have easily fallen sway to whatever whispers of power Draco Malfoy and his cronies were passing around the common room, and singled out the female third of the press-splashed Gryffindor group as his entrance fee to the ranks of the Death Eaters.

'I will approach him. As his Head of House, it will be a meeting easy to disguise under routine,' he decided, settling the matter with the finality in his voice.

'I think that wouldn't be wise, Severus.' She stopped him without a hint of trepidation, and as he cast her another glance, he was startled anew at how mature she appeared even with the wild mane surging around her face with every movement of her head, her eyes contemplative. 'Malfoy believes you are on their side. If Zabini has been listening to him, then he's already formed his opinion about you. Everyone knows where I stand. That he has asked for me makes me think he might be willing to enter on our ticket – something he certainly won't tell you if he thinks you belong to the Dark Lord.'

'Or it could be a trap,' Snape pointed out.

Her slender neck swept downwards in a graceful acknowledgement, but her determination did not lessen. 'A classroom can be warded, shields erected around me. My mind is connected directly to yours. If there is danger, we can arrange for you to alert Professor McGonagall and she can intervene.'

She tucked her feet underneath her still-slim body as she leaned forward anxiously. 'Do not write off all the students in your House – it is not just, to them or to yourself. We already know that some of them have selected the Dark Lord. But if we have a chance even for one...we have to take it.'

So different than his employer's slash-and-burn philosophy. Where would they be now if Dumbledore had forced House cooperation years ago? If his serpents had not remained alienated, enduring the boos echoing from three Houses when they flew on the Quidditch pitch, forcing them to look elsewhere for acceptance and appreciation?

Hermione Granger's unbelievable capacity for forgiveness and hope was a weakness that he had, himself, exploited just a few months ago, twisting it to save her life. It was also proving to be one of her greatest strengths. The elderly wizard who spouted beautiful words about the power of love and compassion hedged his bets and chose his forks, disregarding those not woven into the plan. But Hermione saw everyone, and further, she regarded them as equal...this seventeen-year-old witch straddled the divide: in age, in allegiance, in knowledge and in attitude. She had become, by virtue of her own indomitable, un-subdued will, and fierce disposition, the fulcrum where they balanced.

Had Blaise Zabini sensed that? Under the unhurried, apathetic demeanour that had characterized his youth was there a boy who had realized what most of the Order themselves had not?

'We have to take it.'

'Speak to him,' he acceded to her logic quietly, ignoring the spasm of fear that lanced through his gut, insisting that he force the issue. 'But take none of your impulsive Gryffindor risks. Minerva and I will be standing by.'

~888~

That evening, Hermione watched Harry flipping through the heavily-marked Potions text, the familiar script once again gnawing at her as thick, late-winter fog pressed against the windows. 'You won't find anything in there,' she told him quietly. He shot her a glare and returned to reading the minute scrawl, searching for inspiration. Getting Slughorn to part with the necessary memory for the headmaster was proving more and more difficult. To her vague irritation, her eyes snagged briefly on a line of hand-written instructions, the lines demanding her attention. The hand was so familiar, spiky and scrawling, she felt she could almost hear a voice attached to it, impatient and snide, slashing like the strokes of ink. She drew a breath to ask her friend to put the distraction away-

'Don't start, Hermione,' Harry replied wearily, one finger skimming as he read down the page. The pressure to deliver after his last lesson had grown so heavy it round his shoulders like a physical weight, Atlas holding the world. 'If it hadn't been for the Prince, Ron wouldn't be sitting here now.'

Ron raised his eyebrows as if to indicate that the other boy had a point. Hermione waved her quill, shedding puddles of black over the table and Ron's freckled arms. 'He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year,' she said irately. And stopped, her brain freezing as it finally caught up to her mouth.

'If you'd just listened to Snape...' The 'voice' the writing seemed to have was that of her bondmate...she resisted the urge to snatch the volume from Harry to confirm her suspicion. She had seen an old textbook from his fourth year this summer in their eclectic collection in the Burrow, marked on nearly every page – how could she have forgotten, how could it have taken her so long to remember?

Crack!

She jumped, uttering a small scream, and instantly reached for Harry and Ron. Her body had recognized the sound of Apparition, and a crystalline plan presented itself for execution without any permission from her brain. Escape was key – who knew who was Apparating into the castle? All wards could be broken – and the most important people to get out of the way were her closest friends, whom she could remove to the Shrieking Shack with no problem-

'Hermione, it's okay! Relax...it's just Kreacher,' Ron assured her, running one of his broad hands down the back of her hair, wincing as her nails dug into his other arm where she had seized him.

She blinked, reining the panic that seemed so ready to well up in her, embarrassment extinguishing its flames as mortification rushed in. House-elves were, of course, exempt from the magic that guarded the castle. At least Ron had kept her from Splinching all three of them in the anti-Apparition wards.

Crack! She startled again. 'Dobby has been helping too, Harry Potter!' came the indignant squeak of the second arrival.

'Don't do that,' she gasped at the tiny creatures, whose tennis-ball shaped eyes had gone very round as they took in her ashen complexion.

'We is very sorry, Miss,' Dobby murmured immediately, stick-like fingers automatically reaching for his ears in preparation to twist in punishment. 'We would never want to frighten Harry Potter's friends.' She took comfort in his contrition even as she stilled his hands, for it was clear from the delightedly spiteful look on Kreacher's face that she would get no such apology from him, no matter what his compatriot said.

'And Kreacher ought to tell Dobby when he is coming to see Harry Potter,' the small elf continued, looking almost dangerous as he glared at the bent-double former servant of the House of Black. 'So they can make their reports together!'

Reports? Hermione wondered if Dumbledore knew he wasn't the only one with spies in the castle. 'What is this?' she asked her friend, brown eyes going hard. 'What's going on, Harry?'

The young hero sighed, wondering if he should have limited his two rather unorthodox sources of information to appearing before himself and Ron. In addition to her prickliness about House-elves in general, Hermione had taken her stance on the other side of the Malfoy-Snape line and refused to be talked around. Harry quashed a brief flicker of uncharitable resentment – his job would be much easier to complete if he had Hermione's formidable mind and knowledge of the library in his camp.

'Well...' He straightened his back determinedly. 'They've been following Malfoy for me.'

Hermione would have been embarrassed to admit that her initial thought was one of thanksgiving – as long as they had not been trailing Snape. She had spent too much time with him in the past month to survive a spy as versatile as a House-elf.

'Night and day,' croaked Kreacher.

'Dobby has not slept for a week, Harry Potter!'

The Gryffindor witch cast her friend a startled look, which turned to worry at what she saw there – a kiss of remorse far outweighed by eagerness for information.

Predator indeed. What was her best friend becoming?

'You haven't slept, Dobby? But surely, Harry, you didn't tell him not to-' she let the question hang, sickness roiling in her at the thought that this boy who had taken such gentle care of her at the beginning of the term was now taking brutal advantage of Dobby's hero-worship.

'No, of course I didn't,' Harry reassured her quickly, and the gleam of a stalker faded into sincere concern. 'Dobby, you can sleep.' He waited for the elf to nod before pressing onward. 'But has either of you found out anything?'

Kreacher launched into a rhapsodic account listing every perfect quality Draco Malfoy possessed, which Dobby interrupted angrily and then ended with a predictably dramatic run at the fireplace. Quick as ever, Harry caught the small being round his slender middle before he could sail into the flames. When the danger had passed, Harry asked Dobby about the blond he had been freshly obsessed with since Ron's accident.

'Harry Potter, sir, the Malfoy boy is breaking no rules that Dobby can discover, but he is still keen to avoid detection. He has been making regular visits to the seventh floor with a variety of other students, who keep watch while he enters-' Hermione nearly groaned aloud as she heard Harry's Potions text strike his forehead, green eyes shining almost manically as he connected the dots she'd just figured out herself. 'The Room of Requirement! That's where he's been sneaking off to! That's where he's doing...whatever he's doing! And I bet that's why he's been disappearing off the map – come to think of it, I've never seen the Room of Requirement on there!'

'Maybe the Marauders never knew the Room was there,' Ron offered.

'I think it'll be part of the magic of the Room,' Hermione pitched in quietly. 'If you need it to be unplottable, it will be.'

'Dobby, have you managed to get in to have a look at what Malfoy's doing?' Harry's teeth were all but bared in his need for more information, and Hermione felt as if she were watching their House mascot incarnate, claws barely sheathed as he waited to pounce.

'No, Harry Potter, that is impossible,' Dobby answered.

'No, it's not,' the young wizard said immediately, turning back to his friends. 'Malfoy got into our Headquarters there last year, so I'll be able to get in there and spy on him, no problem.' 'He has branded Draco Malfoy, and sent the boy here with a specific task to be completed by the end of the year. Killing me.' 'Keep Potter away from Draco. He is not nearly so subtle as he thinks in following him.' The cracking, tired voice of Professor Dumbledore overlapped with Snape's lower, but no less fatigued, baritone, and Hermione felt her throat closing in fear of failing the all-important task set to her by these wizards. A flash of impatience so pure she knew she had adopted it from her mate seared through her. Why couldn't Harry listen? Or heed the signs? Draco Malfoy was desperate enough to kill by accident – how much worse would it be if the boy he despised above and beyond all others deliberately stood between him and his goal?

'I don't think you will, Harry,' she said, hearing her own voice hollowly through a cocoon of worry. 'Malfoy already knew how we were using the Room, didn't he, because Marietta had blabbed. He needed the Room to become the Headquarters of the DA, so it did. But you don't know what the Room becomes when Malfoy goes in there, so you don't know what to ask it to transform into.'

'There'll be a way around that,' Harry flipped his hand dismissively, jade eyes already distant, clearly planning. Hermione glanced at Ron, worrying creasing their foreheads in identical waves. 'You've done brilliantly, Dobby.'

Kreacher slanted him an unseen look of loathing, and as the elves vanished, Harry turned to them, exultant. 'How good's this? We know where Malfoy's going! We've got him cornered now!'

Hermione was relieved to see that the red-head on her right side seemed equally disenchanted with Harry's enthusiasm. 'But what's all this about him going up there with a "variety of students"?' Hermione wondered, unease tickling her. Was Blaise Zabini one of them? The nascent hope that had blossomed today was in vain if he was playing along with Malfoy...

'Yeah, that is weird...God, I've been stupid,' he whispered. 'It's obvious, isn't it? There was a great vat of it down in the dungeon...he could've nicked some any time during that lesson...'

'Nicked what?' Ron asked, unable to follow the conversation taking place half inside Harry's head.

'Polyjuice Potion...there aren't a whole variety of students standing guard for Malfoy...it's just Crabbe and Goyle as usual! Those two girls I saw him with when he missed Quidditch – Crabbe and Goyle!'

'He's got Crabbe and Goyle transforming into girls?' Ron laughed. The lumbering forms of their rivals would be so...awkward, trapped in the petite bodies they had been walking past for months. 'Blimey...no wonder they don't look too happy these days...I'm surprised they don't tell him to stuff it.'

'Well they wouldn't, would they,' Harry muttered quietly, 'if he's shown them his Dark Mark.'

'The Dark Mark we don't know exists,' Hermione countered swiftly, stifling the tide of guilt she felt as she purposefully tried to steer Harry in the wrong direction by shoving books into her bag and handing Ron's corrected essay back to him.

'We'll see,' Harry replied coolly, plainly irritated at her refusal to celebrate with him at this twisted development.

'Yes, we will,' she responded pointedly. 'But, Harry, before you get all excited, I still don't think you'll be able to get into the Room of Requirement without knowing what's there first. And I don't think you should forget,' she fixed him with a stare, as if willing her warnings into him by forcing them through the bright green orbs, 'that what you're supposed to be concentrating on is getting that memory from Slughorn.'

'I know that,' he snarled furiously, the buoyant mood brought by Dobby's revelations collapsing in the face of Hermione's defiant refusal to listen. He had heard the blond Slytherin talking to Snape, talking about acting, about it being crucial to their success – why couldn't his brilliant friend, who had followed him without hesitation under the school to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone, who had risked her life for him more times than he cared to count, understand this? This task of Malfoy's that would impact all of them? So much more immediate than this mysterious Horcrux, whatever Voldemort had wanted it for...

It left Harry Potter deeply unsettled that Hermione Granger apparently had so little faith in him. The Department of Mysteries had been a fiasco, that much was patently obvious, but they had rushed in on false visions and Kreacher's lies. Now he had solid evidence, a real case, and yet his best friend continually balked...

'I'm going to bed,' he said curtly. He caught Hermione's worried eyes and hoped for a moment that she was about to offer a line, relent just a pace...but she merely murmured, 'Goodnight,' in unison with Ron and the Gryffindor Seeker had to content himself with that as he started up the stairs.

'This thing with Malfoy...I know Harry says he's heard things, but...' Ron was frowning as Harry disappeared up the stairs, uncomfortable with sitting in the middle between his two friends who had so seldom fought, both of them firmly refusing to budge from their entrenched positions.

'Do you really think anything would happen in Hogwarts that Professor Dumbledore isn't aware of?' Hermione asked quietly, testing the waters. Just a year ago, she would have written off her loyal but Quidditch-obsessed friend as too unobservant to have noticed the disturbing pattern she had picked out. But they had all changed enough in the last twelve months for it to have been a lifetime, and Ron had become surprisingly sensitive and watchful. She was sure this was helped by the steady presence of Lavender Brown in his life.

'Dunno, really...Quirrell was possessed by You-Know-Who and he was our teacher. Mad-Eye Moody wasn't even really himself and he was our teacher...Snape was a Death Eater and Dumbledore hired him anyway...' Ron's frown was deepening as he constructed a puzzle he hadn't quite thought about before, his mental chessboard belonging to the Order and the Death Eaters not adding up the way it always had. 'Weird, isn't it...all those people here...at the same time as Harry – and Dumbledore gone half the time this year...Maybe Malfoy couldpull something right under his nose. It doesn't exactly seem like he's paying the closest attention, does it?'

Hermione nodded, Ron's assessment adding weight to the thoughts she had not been able to stifle since the poisoning. She knew the old wizard was doing his best, but sometimes one simply had too many items to juggle. Some of them were bound to slip through his hands.

And Albus Dumbledore was playing life-or-death stakes.

'Hermione?' a wavering voice sounded from the foot of the stairs, and the two friends whipped around in a coordinated movement, Ron rising automatically at the sound of distress in his sister's voice.

'Ginny?' The older witch hurried towards the fifth-year, alarmed by the paleness of skin that contrasted too sharply with the cascades of brilliant red hair obscuring her face, making her look again like the frightened child Harry had pulled from the Chamber of Secrets, and not at all like the determined young woman Hermione knew her to be.

'What is it, Gin?' Ron asked, hastily vacating his chair so that his friend could steer his sibling into it and sitting down across from her.

Ginny took a deep breath that shuddered in her shoulders before managing a self-disparaging, 'Just a nightmare.' Her voice rose again as she gazed at Hermione with eyes still half-wild from the memory. 'I looked in your dormer first...I woke Lavender, I think.'

'Oh, Ginny...' Hermione took the other girl's long fingers and squeezed them gently. 'What was it about?'

'Harry, of course,' the other girl replied quietly. 'He...' She hesitated, then locked eyes with each of them. 'I know he's your best friend, but he can never hear this.'

'Of course,' they murmured in unison.

'Sometimes he frightens me. He's been so...different. Since you were hospitalized,' she looked into the warm blue eyes of her brother, and Ron blew a long sigh.

'I've noticed.'

The youngest Weasley folded herself on the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees in foetal position and resting her chin on top of them. 'He was so savage in my dream...so ruthless...so cold. Mum and Dad had me checked at Saint Mungo's for the after-effects of Tom Riddle's possession years ago, and I'm certifiably You-Know-Who free...but in these dreams, Harry reminds me of him – untrusting, uncaring...' Her voice dropped so that both sixth-years leaned in to catch her words. 'And the biggest problem is that the nightmares just reflect my waking thoughts...he's so hard now, so focused on what he thinks is right...both of you – your depression, Hermione, and your poisoning, Ron...they've hit him hard. He's out to eradicate whatever presents a possible danger to those he loves and he doesn't care who he becomes along the way.'

Hermione nodded, not daring to meet Ron's bright blue eyes, knowing her pain would be reflected there. She couldn't disagree with Harry's girlfriend. From withdrawn and distant, Harry had become combatively, obsessively alive. But not as the supportive, if often volatile, friend she'd had before. She knew he believed he was doing what would be best for all of them...

But she had seen the ugly hungriness in Voldemort's face via Snape's memories, and when the firelight had caught Harry's eyes as he plotted revenge on Malfoy, flame dancing on his glasses, she had seen a glimmer of crimson poison the green.