"Ginny?"
Hermione could hear the worry in Harry's voice the moment he came barging through the front door of Grimmauld Place. He slammed the door shut behind him and ignored Hermione and Luna in the corridor as he called again,
"Ginny?"
She appeared then, looking worn and tired, from where she sat on the stairs. The moment Ginny and Harry saw one another, they merged into one tangled being. Ginny threw her arms around Harry's neck and squeezed tightly, and for the first time in as long as Hermione could remember, Ginny Weasley cried. Her back heaved as she suddenly dissolved into tears on Harry's shoulder. There were countless emotions wrapped up in Ginny's crying, Hermione knew. She missed her brother. She'd been terrified for Harry. Even so, it was startling to see the usually-stoic Ginny so thoroughly collapse.
"Hermione, have you got any tea?" Luna Lovegood asked gently from beside Hermione. It was a graceful means of leaving Harry and Ginny alone in the front corridor. Hermione figured they could debrief the trip to Hogwarts once everyone had calibrated their emotions. So she just nodded to Luna, paying no attention to the sound of the front door opening and shutting again as Severus walked into the house.
In the kitchen, Hermione's hands shook as she filled a kettle with water and set it to boiling. She dropped a tea bag into three separate cups as Luna settled into a bench at the table with a heavy sigh.
"What is this place?" Luna asked lightly, and Hermione heard Severus' footsteps at the kitchen doorway as she answered Luna.
"This is the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "It's the ancestral home of the Black family. Professor Dumbledore and his allies used this place to meet and discuss matters related to defeating Vo… him."
She nearly broke the taboo, catching herself before it was too late. She began pouring hot water into the tea cups and sniffed. Behind her, Luna made a little sound of assent. Then Severus' dark voice said from the doorway,
"Miss Lovegood, I do not mean to break straight into interrogation, but it would be helpful if you could tell us how it is you found yourself in Dungeon Seventeen."
Hermione stared down at one of the cups, watching the inky swirling in the water as the tea steeped. She heard Luna sigh, and then the girl said,
"Well, Professor, my father's newspaper printed an article recently to which the Professors Carrow took exception. I was called into their office one day, and when they pushed a copy of The Quibbler at me and demanded an explanation, I thought perhaps they were skeptics about the urgent situation of Norwegian lake selmas. There are many who don't even think the selmas exist, you know, much less that they're in grave danger of extinction. My father's articles on the matter have been -"
"Miss Lovegood," Severus interrupted sharply, and Hermione turned around to see him cross his arms over his chest as he loomed over the table. Luna nodded and licked her lips carefully.
"As it turns out, sir, the Carrows weren't concerned at all with lake selmas. They handed me a copy of The Quibbler with a different headline. HOGWARTS HEADMASTER ABDUCTED BY DEATH EATERS, it said. And, do you know, sir… my father wrote that article because that's what he believed. And I did, too. One day you and Hermione were at the school, and the next day you weren't. I knew just enough to think something awful had happened. Well, as it turns out, the Carrows didn't want to hear that theory. They didn't want to read their friends' names in The Quibbler as possible suspects in your disappearance. So Professor Amycus Carrow told me that I would be put in the dungeons until my father learned to be quiet."
"And… how long were you there?" Hermione asked carefully. She watched Luna's pale eyebrows crumple as she seemed to be thinking very hard, and then Luna asked,
"Well, what day is it today?"
"The tenth of January," Severus answered briskly. Luna nodded and gave a sad little smile.
"Eight days, then," she answered, and Hermione felt a spike of horror crash down her spine at the thought of that. Then she remembered the way Luna had been curled up in sleep when they'd found her, and she remembered the awful Piger Hex that had been cast upon Dungeon Seventeen. Hermione wondered whether Luna had been sleeping all that while, and she asked,
"Are you hungry, Luna?"
"Do you know, I am very hungry," Luna nodded. "Have you got something to eat? Chestnuts, perhaps? I have quite the fondness for chestnuts. Boiled or roasted; it doesn't matter much to me."
A half hour later, Hermione had managed to Transfigure a tin of beans into chestnuts for Luna, and she and the Ravenclaw girl and Severus had sucked down two cups of tea each. Finally, the kitchen door swung open and Harry and Ginny came walking it, both of them a bit red-cheeked. Hermione tried not to smirk as she wondered just where Harry and Ginny had been all this while. Instead, she made the two of them tea, as well, and soon there were five at the table.
Harry spent ten minutes explaining how he'd cornered Draco Malfoy, how he'd made his way out to Dumbledore's tomb and had felt profound disgust and discomfort at taking the Elder Wand off of Dumbledore's body.
"Cracking open his grave like that," Harry said, blinking slowly at staring into his tea, "Seeing him look as though he were just sleeping… and then taking his wand… it was all a bit much. It's something I'd be more than happy to have Obliviated from my mind entirely."
Hermione wished she could do that for Harry. But she had heard far too many horror stories about Obliviations gone wrong after being poorly performed, and she pinched her lips. Ginny took Harry's hand in hers and squeezed it.
"Professor Dumbledore would have wanted you to have the Elder Wand, Harry," Ginny assured him, "No matter what getting it involved."
"So, Miss Weasley," Severus interjected tightly, "Have you got the diadem?"
Ginny nodded once. She reached into Hermione's Expanded bag, which she wore at her hip after Hermione had urged her to take it to Hogwarts 'just in case.' Ginny rifled around in the bag, seemingly working her way past all of Hermione's belongings. Then, at last, she pulled out a dark silver crown and placed it on the table.
Hermione stared at the diadem for a long moment, far too frightened by the horcrux to touch it. The diadem reflected the light dully from its tarnished surface, but the sapphire in its center glistened brightly. Hermione swallowed heavily as Severus and Harry took turns explaining to Luna just what the diadem's significance was. Voldemort had created horcruxes, they'd explained. They'd told her of how he'd split his soul to avoid death, and Luna giggled quietly. Severus scowled at the girl as if she were quite mad, but Luna said,
"Well, it's rather childish, isn't it? To destroy one's soul, over and over, just to stay alive? That's an ambition that comes from feeling very afraid, I should think. It's silly, and it's childish, but in a way I think I feel rather sorry for him. To feel as though these horcruxes are the answer to his problems."
Now it was Ginny who stared in open-mouthed surprise at Luna. Before Ginny could interrogate Luna on feeling 'sorry for Voldemort,' Hermione cut in.
"So, we have managed to destroy several horcruxes already. Helga Hufflepuff's cup, Tom Riddle's old diary, which was destroyed years ago…" Hermione flicked her eyes to Ginny for a brief moment and watched the other girl color. Then Hermione looked back to Luna and added, "A locket."
"And a ring," Severus said abruptly. Hermione frowned and shrugged across the table at him. She certainly did not remember destroying any rings. Severus sipped at his tea and set it down, dragging his fingers through his hair and looking very tired. Hermione noticed a few grey strands in Severus' hair as he touched it. She had never noticed his hair greying before, but she could certainly see how all of this was wearing on him. Severus sighed and said, "Albus Dumbledore obtained a ring that once belonged to the Gaunt family… to the Dark Lord's family. He put it on, rather foolishly, and the ring cursed his flesh so severely that he would have died within weeks of putting the ring on. I made him a potion to stave off the curse, but Dumbledore knew he was dying. He insisted that I kill him, to protect Draco Malfoy. He knew the ring's curse was killing him. He destroyed it - smashed the stone - and I now firmly believe that ring was a horcrux."
Hermione felt her heart pounding as she took in all that Severus had said. Her lips felt dry and cold as she looked about the table. Harry and Ginny were wide-eyed as they processed it all, but Luna looked utterly serene.
"What did the ring look like?" she asked curiously, and Severus sniffed as he shot back,
"What difference does that make?"
"Oh, it's just… the Gaunt family has long been rumored to be descended from the Peverell family, you see. The ones from the Tale of the Three Brothers? My father once told me that the Gaunt family possessed an heirloom ring with an ugly black stone, and that the stone inside was the Resurrection Stone from the story." She laughed gently and sipped at her own tea, and then she shrugged and said in an apologetic voice, "I suppose my father does say strange things from time to time."
Severus still scowled across the table at Luna, and Hermione flicked her eyes back and forth between the two of them as she waited for Severus to speak. At last he mumbled,
"Potter, was Dumbledore wearing a ring in his tomb?"
"Erm… I wasn't exactly examining his fingers," Harry admitted. "I didn't see a ring."
"Is it the Resurrection Stone, Severus?" Hermione asked firmly. She could feel tension radiating toward her through the bond she shared with Severus, and she watched him nod tightly.
"Yes, I believe it probably is." Severus glared down at the diadem on the table, prodding it with his wand as he asked Hermione, "Have you got the wyvern dagger?"
"The wyvern dagger? The one I gave you?" Luna asked, and her voice was practically cheerful. "Oh, I'm so glad you've found a good use for it outside the Potions classroom!"
Hermione tried to smile at Luna, but it came out as a grimace. She took her Expanded bag back from Ginny and began searching through it as Severus said in a stiff voice,
"Miss Lovegood, may I ask where it is that you obtained the wyvern dagger? And why it was that you felt compelled to gift it to Hermione?"
Inside her bag, Hermione's hand closed around the handle of the wyvern dagger. She froze when she heard Luna answer smoothly,
"I received the dagger as a gift from my Uncle Caliban. He was an Auror, you know, and he was killed this last year under very mysterious circumstances. In his will, my Uncle Caliban left the dagger to me. He left a note in which he told me that he himself had obtained the dagger through less-than-honorable means. He gave me firm instructions to pass the dagger along to 'someone who will make honorable use of it.' Oh, and he specifically requested that the dagger make its way back to one Severus Snape. So I gave it to Hermione! I hope I've fulfilled my Uncle Caliban's instructions. He was always a very kind person."
"You did the right thing, Luna," Hermione insisted, feeling dizzy as she pulled the dagger from her bag. The wyvern blade glistened in the dim light of the kitchen, and Ginny Weasley asked skeptically,
"You're going to destroy the horcrux with that?"
"Wyvern scales are enormously powerful, Miss Weasley. You would know that, if you'd paid attention in Potions during your third year." Severus sniffed and did not look at Ginny, but the red-haired girl scowled deeply at her old teacher.
"Right," Hermione sighed, closing her fingers more carefully around the handle of the dagger. "Everyone… move toward the walls, just in case."
"Shall I do it, Hermione?" Severus asked quietly. He stood and gave Hermione a meaningful look as her old friends moved carefully toward the edges of the kitchen. Hermione looked back at him, at his dark and sorrowful eyes, but she shook her head.
"I'll do it," she murmured. Severus nodded and pursed his lips, and he tugged at the hem of his tailored frock coat to straighten it as he moved away from the table.
"Protego," she heard Severus murmur, and she watched him flick his wand in an arc in front of Harry, Ginny, and Luna. Hermione felt an aching love for him in that moment, but she turned her attentions back to the dagger and the diadem.
"Right," she said again, her voice shaking as she hovered the dagger a few inches above the diadem. "Three… two… one…"
It was just like the other times; the blade of the wyvern dagger sliced straight through the diadem's metal as though it were made of butter. A great gash of a wound appeared at once in the tarnished silver, and Hermione suddenly felt overwhelmed by an awful sense of fear.
She felt as though there were insects beneath her skin, and she was momentarily distracted from the diadem by the sensation. She clawed for a brief moment at her flesh, and then the fear transformed into an odd sensation that she were completely alone in the world and that no one loved her. The fear shifted and morphed quickly into a paranoid anxiety, then into a whirling, banging sense of being overwhelmed.
Hermione fought through the fear, knowing that the horcrux had been protected with defensive curses. Whatever curse Tom Riddle had placed upon the diadem was making her feel deep fear in an attempt to keep her away. But Hermione knew she had no choice but destroy the horcrux. She pulled the wyvern dagger up into the air and sliced it downward again. For what felt like an eternity, she hacked and stabbed at the diadem. All the while, she was completely overpowered by the sickening fear. Insects beneath her skin, the distinct feeling that Death Eaters waited just outside the kitchen. The vivid image of her parents being tortured to death, and a sort of hallucination of Severus being dismembered.
Somehow, Hermione staved it all off, all the awful thoughts and feelings, and just kept bringing the dagger down onto the diadem. Over and over she struck, until she felt herself being pulled away by a strong set of arms. She nearly turned and stabbed the dagger at whomever was holding her, but she realized the dagger was no longer in her hands. The fear dissipated, almost at once, and Hermione was left feeling empty and confused as she heaved and hiccupped with sobs.
She was on the floor of the kitchen, she thought distantly. Severus was cradling her against his chest. She could smell him, could feel him. She could hear him murmuring into her ear, chanting her name like a prayer as he stroked at her hair.
Hermione felt exhausted then, and as she opened her eyes and looked about with embarrassment, she did not see Harry, or Ginny, or Luna. She raised her sodden eyes to Severus' face and asked in a cracked whisper,
"What happened?"
Severus stared down at Hermione, his black eyes flashing. "I could feel your fear," he told her, and she knew he must be telling the truth. Their bond of Magnum Verbum Honoris transmitted strong emotions like fear very clearly. Severus kissed Hermione's forehead and continued, "It was terrifying, to feel the little bit of it that I did. The diadem was clearly destroyed halfway through your rampage. Miss Lovegood Banished the dagger safely across the room and I sent the three of them upstairs to wait while you…"
While you come to your damned senses. That's what he'd meant to say, Hermione knew. She shut her eyes and shook her head firmly.
"The diadem was cursed," she began, but Severus interjected,
"That was obvious. You need to sleep, Hermione. If the fear I experienced was even a tenth of what…" He sounded very angry then, and he said in a hiss, "I should have done it. I should not have allowed you to put yourself at risk. I'm sorry."
Hermione frowned at him, wondering whether he was sore where he sat on the floor. But she shook her head and said, "It wouldn't have been any better. Can you pass me my bag?"
Severus heaved himself from the ground and helped Hermione to her shaking feet. She looked about and found her wand, tucking it safely away and studying the ruins of the diadem on the worn wooden table. Severus had been right; the diadem was obviously ruined. It was now a smoldering twist of deformed metal; the blue sapphire had cracked into a thousand shards that lay like vibrant dust around the mess.
"Evanesco," Hermione whispered, holding up her hand and pushing her magic forth from her throat. She was almost too tired for wandless magic, and the spell quivered in her palm for a moment before hurtling forward. Then the pile of destroyed metal and the dust of the sapphire Vanished into nonbeing. Then Hermione knew beyond any doubt whatsoever that the horcrux had indeed been destroyed.
She looked to where Severus stood holding her Expanded bag, and she mumbled, "There's a bottle of Invigoration Draught in there. Give it to me, will you?"
Severus hesitated, and he shifted on his feet. "Invigoration Draught?" he repeated skeptically. "I should think you'd want something to help you sleep."
"No." Hermione shook her head and stared at Severus. Her entire body felt heavy and sore, and she asked again, "May I have the Invigoration Draught, please?"
Severus cocked an eyebrow at her and rifled around the bag for a moment until he pulled out a small green phial. He held it out to her, and Hermione took it with a grateful nod. She uncorked the phial and tipped the sickly sweet mixture back, swallowing and closing her eyes.
The sight of Hermione overcome with fear, blinded by her violent stabbing of the diadem, had troubled Severus more deeply than anything he'd ever seen. He had beheld tortures and murders. He had been witness to all manner of injustice and tragedy. But the sight and feel of his wife as she destroyed the diadem had struck him straight through.
Now he watched Hermione drink an Invigoration Draught, and he wondered again why that had been the potion she'd wanted. She should be upstairs in their bed, Severus thought, with her mind cleared by a good dose of Dreamless Sleep.
Instead, she had begun bouncing on the balls of her feet a bit, and she smiled warmly as she turned to Severus.
"Much better," she said bravely. He knew full well that this was all the Hermione Granger Method of Pretending to Be Fine. So he pinched his lips tightly and took the empty phial back from her. He tucked it away in the bag and said,
"I think we all need to relax the remainder of the day. I told Potter and Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood to find something to amuse themselves upstairs."
"There are a games in a wardrobe on the third floor," Hermione said, and her voice was now a bit breathless with energy. "Wizard's chess, and Gobstones, tarot and playing cards… I'm sure they're up there having a wonderful time together."
She nodded vigorously, and Severus thought that she should not have drunk the entire vial of Invigoration Draught. It had been too much, he thought, and he sighed as he asked her,
"Perhaps you ought to go up there with them. It seems you now possess abundant energy that requires an outlet."
He realized almost immediately that he'd spoken to her as though she were a daft first-year student, but Hermione did not seem angry. She shrugged and shivered a bit as she said,
"No. I don't want to play Gobstones. Nor wizard's chess. Ron… Ron used to love wizard's chess, you know." Suddenly her pretty brown eyes glistened, and she trembled a bit as she whispered, "Oh, God. Severus, please kiss me. Make it go all go away, will you? Kiss me."
He knew that it had all hit her then, the weight of what her life had become. And Severus knew there was nothing more he could do for that. He flicked his wand at the kitchen door and muttered a quick Colloportus. The lock on the kitchen door clicked, and Severus set his wand on the kitchen table as he felt a determination course through him. He could not erase Hermione's pain, nor her fear. But he could, at the very least, help her burn off the excess effects of the Invigoration Draught. And he would do it in such a way that, even if for just a moment, Hermione forgot how miserable and frightened she was.
He seized her by the shoulders and backed her up against the larder door. Hermione let out a soft oof when her back crashed against the door, but Severus silenced her by pushing his mouth down hard against hers. She had asked him to kiss her, after all. And today, he reckoned, they both needed this. Badly.
She tasted sweet and warm when Severus plunged his tongue between her lips. He could smell the earth on her, probably from when she'd landed in the forest outside Hogwarts hours earlier. He tangled his fingers in her messy curls and massaged at her scalp as he kissed her, and she squealed into his mouth. Her hands flew to Severus' chest, and her fingers began flying down his front as she worked at the buttons.
For a brief moment, Severus considered how easily a Locking Spell was undone with a simple Alohomora. He thought about pulling away from Hermione and insisting that she go play cards upstairs with her friends. But he didn't; he let her push his cloak and jacket off of him instead. He shook his arms from the sleeves and wriggled until the heavy material fell to the floor in a heap. Hermione's little hands were cold on his skin as they coursed around his chest and back, and Severus shivered.
Calefiant, he thought firmly, seizing her hands in his, and her skin warmed instantly at his touch. The magic that flowed between his skin and hers was so powerful then, as it mingled with their bond, that Severus felt his knees nearly give out. He jammed Hermione harder against the larder door with his hip, and she huffed quietly as he began to grind against her. He rubbed his thigh carefully between her legs, twisting slowly and pushing so that her womanhood was massaged even through her denims.
Hermione wrenched her eyes shut and squeezed Severus' hands more tightly, and her bottom lip shook a bit. Severus watched her closely as he used his thigh to stimulate her. Her skin was like fresh milk, except for the dusting of pale freckles that danced across her nose and cheekbones. Her lips were the color of fresh peaches. Severus knew they tasted even better than peaches, though, and he kissed her to remind himself of that. He was right. She was delicious.
Hermione sighed onto Severus' lips, and her hands moved desperately between the two of them. He felt her fingers nimbly working the buttons on his trousers, and then he heard the zipper on her denims scraping as she pulled it down. He swept his own hand beneath the hem of Hermione's sweatshirt, his fingers grazing up her soft belly until he cupped her breast in his palm. He squeezed her through her bra, and Hermione squirmed up against the door. Finally she yanked her mouth away from Severus and whispered breathlessly,
"Table… table. Please."
Severus could not help but smirk at her nearly-incoherent state. He'd worked her into a proper frenzy, it seemed. He stepped away from her and watched her writhe out of her denims and pull her sweatshirt over her head. She moved quickly, her cheeks pink and her breath quivering between her parted lips as she did. Severus suppressed a throaty sound of want for her as she popped off her bra. Instead, he kicked off his own boots and trousers.
He realized with a distant twinge of humiliation just what was happening. He was about to bend Hermione over the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place and fuck her senseless, all while three other young Gryffindors waited (doubtlessly concerned about Hermione) upstairs. For some reason, the thought of making Harry Potter uncomfortable only served to bolster Severus' confident happiness.
He put his hands on Hermione's waist and guided her toward the table, pausing for a moment to drift his fingers between her thighs. He touched the pads of his fingers to her nub and she gasped, clutching anxiously at Severus' shoulders. Her eyes shone wildly as he touched her, and she mumbled in a helpless voice,
"Take me now, Severus. I need… I… please."
A niggling corner of Severus' mind thought that the old kitchen table would give Hermione's naked body splinters. So he snatched his wand from the wood and pointed it at the surface of the table, whispering, "Lenireligno."
The table shivered for a moment as the wood sanded itself, and Severus put his wand back down and turned to Hermione.
"Lie down on your back," he instructed her, jabbing his chin toward the table. She obeyed, backing up against the wood and scooting up onto it. He held fast to her hips with one hand, clutching his throbbing cock in the other. He watched her lean backward until she was lying flat on the table, and then Severus wrenched Hermione's hips nearer to the edge. He stared down at her, taking in the beautiful curve of her waist. He studied the soft mounds of her small but round breasts, the way her back arched a bit in anticipation. Severus was nearly overwhelmed by how badly he wanted her, and he thought it was much better than the fear that had overtaken them both as Hermione had destroyed the diadem.
He guided the tip of his member toward her sodden entrance and used his thumb to trace circles on her as he pushed slowly into her body. Hermione moaned rather loudly, and Severus hoped that her old friends had situated themselves far enough away not to hear. But then he found he didn't care at all about who heard Hermione's sounds of pleasure. All he cared about was the snug feeling of her wet tightness around him, and he grunted softly as he pulled out of her and pushed in again.
Hermione's knees held fast to his waist, and Severus stroked the outside of Hermione's thigh with one hand while he fondled her womanhood with the other. He felt the grind of his own thrusts on his fingers as he touched her, and this only spurred him onward.
"Fucking hell, Hermione," he whispered, rather against his will. Hermione's hands clutched helplessly at the table, then reached up to nestle tightly in her own hair. She wrenched her eyes shut as if she were in pain, and she squealed and arched her back a bit further. Severus rubbed her harder, quickened the pace of his bucking hips, and then she fell off the cliff. Her pleasure rolled off of her in waves, transmitting directly to Severus through their intense bond. He nearly lost himself at the feel of her clenching around him, at the sound of her crying his name.
"I love you," Severus whispered, knowing she was too deep in her own climax to hear him.
Severus let her finish, watched her gasp and smile, and then he bucked hard against her a few times as his own pleasure coiled and burst. He jammed her hip tightly against his own as his seed volleyed forth, and he groaned loudly through clenched teeth. He collapsed down over her on the table, his hands smacking the wood as he hovered over her body.
At some point, the heat and the throbbing were gone, along with the intense pleasure. Severus pulled himself from Hermione, fumbling for his wand to clean them up. He helped Hermione heave herself from the table, and he passed her her clothes one piece at a time from the floor. They dressed in silence, and as Severus finished buttoning his frock coat, he heard Hermione say hoarsely,
"The ring. Dumbledore's ring; do you really think -"
"It is the Gaunt family ring, from what I understand," Severus corrected her, adjusting his cravat about his neck as Hermione nodded. Severus continued, "Yes. I do think it is the Resurrection Stone. I had never considered such a thing, but it all makes perfect sense now. How it is that Xenophilius Lovegood came to believe such a thing about the ring, and why it is that Caliban Lovegood left the wyvern dagger so deliberately behind when he died… all of that is, as of yet, very mysterious to me. But our immediate concern should be on destroying horcruxes and uniting Hallows."
Hermione nodded again, looking determined. She was still trembling a bit, but it seemed that the excess energy from the Invigorating Draught had been thoroughly drained of her. Now she seemed caught somewhere between steely resolve and tearful despair. Severus caught her face in his hands and stared at her honey-colored eyes for a long moment.
"Of all the 'brave Gryffindors' in the world, Hermione Granger, you are by far the bravest. Never doubt that."
Hermione's eyes shimmered with tears, but her throat bobbed and she nodded as Severus planted a kiss upon her forehead. He reached down to pick her wand up from where it had clattered to the floor, and he closed her fingers around it. Then he kissed her cheek and murmured,
"Now, get upstairs at once and play a few rounds of Gobstones, will you?"
"Yes, Headmaster," Hermione said, and she slid off the table.
"Erm… and then I think it's just this… Fieri Fusilli." Hermione jabbed her wand toward the bowl before her, into which she had emptied a tin of bland white beans. She curled her wand into a long loop as she incanted the spell she read off a page in a book of cooking spells. The beans shivered and shook for a moment, and then they began to Transfigure themselves into fusilli noodles.
Beside Hermione, Luna Lovegood made a satisfied sound, and she nodded and said, "Well done, Hermione! I always did prefer the curly noodles to spaghetti."
"Well, good," Hermione sighed, "Because there's no spell in this book for any other sort of noodle, anyway."
CRACK!
Hermione startled as the air before her shuddered with the sudden arrival of someone via Apparition. She immediately clutched her wand more tightly, for she was not at all expecting anyone to land in the kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
She nearly dropped the book she was holding when she realized it was Kreacher the house-elf who'd appeared in the kitchen. Beside her, Luna Lovegood said serenely,
"Oh! It's a house-elf. Hello, there, sir."
Kreacher ignored Luna, staring directly at Hermione. She narrowed her eyes, her heart still thudding in her chest. She set down the book of cooking spells and caught her breath. They'd not seen nor heard from Kreacher since coming to Grimmauld Place. Hermione had been wondering distantly what had become of the house-elf, but now he stood in the kitchen scowling and clutching a small parcel in his stick-thin arms.
"Kreacher heard the Mudblood in the kitchen a few days past... in the throes of passion," the house-elf croaked matter-of factly. Luna gasped quietly beside Hermione and said indignantly,
"You ought not use that word with her, sir! It's really -"
"It's all right, Luna," Hermione said gently, putting her fingers on Luna's elbow. She knew that Kreacher had been taught hatred by his old family. She turned back to the house-elf and said in a conciliatory tone, "I'm sorry if I… erm, if I bothered you, Kreacher. Was there something you needed?"
Kreacher coughed quietly. "Kreacher heard the Mudblood's husband speak of Master Regulus' friend. Many times did Caliban Lovegood pay a visit to Master Regulus. Many times did they speak of something else I heard the Mudblood discuss… a 'horcrux.' Many times did Master Regulus discuss this with his good friend Caliban Lovegood. Here. Take this."
Kreacher shoved the parcel in his arms toward Hermione, frowning deeply as his bugged-out eyes darkened. Hermione took the parcel, her hands shaking a bit as she tried to mumble some semblance of a thanks. She turned the little bundle over it her hands as Kreacher said gruffly,
"Master Regulus would want that it be read now. Even by the likes of you. Take it and read it. Goodbye."
CRACK!
Kreacher disappeared with a snap of his bony fingers, vanishing into the air before Hermione's eyes. Hermione felt baffled as she studied the little parcel in her hands. She wished, all of a sudden, that Harry and Severus had not gone out to the Muggle supermarket for groceries, and that Ginny were not in the shower upstairs. To be standing alone in the kitchen with Luna, with such a mysterious package, felt abruptly disorienting. Hermione raised her eyes from the wrapped bundle to Luna and shrugged lightly.
"Perhaps we should open it."
"Oh, yes. I should like to do so, if it's to do with my Uncle Caliban," Luna agreed. She cast a quick warming charm over the bowls of pasta she and Hermione had been working on, so that they wouldn't go bad on the counter, and she brushed off her hands on her apron. She moved to the bench at the old wooden table, and Hermione followed with a numb anxiety in her chest. She set the bundle down on the table before them, remembering the matter-of-fact way Kreacher had given it to her. She yanked on the twine binding around the bundle and the thin paper wrapping fell apart.
A thick stack of papers fell out, and Hermione gasped quietly. There were photographs piled on the top. She and Luna began thumbing through the magically animated, black-and-white photos. There were images of Sirius and Regulus Black as children with a pale blond boy - several years younger - that was unmistakably related to Luna. He had the same almond shape to his eyes, the same cheekbones, the same silvery hair.
"Oh! That's Uncle Caliban there!" Luna breathed. "When he was just a boy! And in this one… that's my father with them! Why, I had no idea that my father and my Uncle Caliban were such good friends with Sirius and Regulus Black as children. How fascinating. It rather warms the heart, doesn't it? To think of one's parents even younger than oneself? We often think only of our parents as adults. It sometimes behooves us to imagine our role models as children…"
Hermione ignored Luna's rambling, focusing on the photos. As the stack got smaller, the boys in the images got older. Soon they were wearing Hogwarts robes, standing around a Christmas tree in the parlor of Grimmauld Place. Sirius Black had on a Gryffindor Robe, and Regulus a Slytherin one, while the Lovegood boys wore Ravenclaw attire. As the boys in the photos aged further, Sirius and Xenophilius disappeared. The last four or five photos showed very somber-looking teenagers - just Regulus and Caliban. Hermione turned over the last photograph and saw ink scrawled in tight script.
'Regulus and Caliban. March 1979.'
Hermione felt a sense of dread as she set down the photograph. She looked up to see that Luna had begun reading a few of the letters in the stack. The girl's blonde eyebrows had furrowed deeply, and Hermione's unease churned in her belly. Luna handed over the letter in her hand, and Hermione silently read it four or five times before she said quietly,
"As soon as Severus comes home, he'll need to see this."
She read the letter a final time, realizing just how instrumental Luna and her family had been in Severus' and her success to this point.
'Caliban,
I know that you have never agreed with my taking the oath to become a Death Eater, old friend. Day by day I become more assured that you were right all along about that… especially since I've become more certain that the Dark Lord has split his soul using horcruxes. You were right about that, too. I had thought you quite mad to even suggest such a concept, you know. After all, what sort of wizard - Dark or otherwise - would attempt such insanity?
But you were right, Caliban. It's a locket. I've no idea how to destroy it, or what to do with it. There must be something out there stronger than this madness. If there's magic powerful enough to split the soul into an object, then there must be magic powerful enough to destroy the object. But I can't think of what that would be. You're a Ravenclaw. Think about it, won't you?
I'm very certain that all of this will be the death of me. He knows I've got regrets. I'm not sure when I'll be able to write next, if at all. Use that silly brain of yours for something noble, won't you?
R.A.B.'
Severus jolted awake, jarred from one of the more disturbing dreams he had experienced in a great long while. He stared at Hermione's form beside him. She was peacefully asleep. He snatched at the moss agate stone from the bedside table and glared at it. Luna Lovegood had given the moss agate to Hermione at her birthday last year. Wasn't the stone meant to impart useful dreams to the inhabitants of a space? He felt rather like tossing the rock at the window, or Vanishing it, but he forced himself to set it down and to lie back again.
As Severus wrenched his eyes shut and stared at the ceiling, he recalled his awful dream. He'd been sitting in The Three Broomsticks with Hermione, in what were obviously far happier times. Then, out of nowhere, Sybill Trelawney had plopped down at their table. Her pale eyes had rolled back in her skull and she'd begun rocking frantically back and forth. She'd begun foaming a bit at the corners of her mouth and her voice had been low and droning as she'd said,
"The Dark Lord will be defeated when at last his nemesis snuffs out the last remnant of his soul. The Master of Death shall snuff out the candle while clutching once more the first Golden Snitch. The snake and the boy on the very same day… the Master of Death shall snuff out the candle while clutching once more the first Golden Snitch."
Then Sybill Trelawney had slumped over on the table, unmistakably dead, and Severus had jolted awake and grabbed at the moss agate in anger.
Now he lay staring at the ceiling and had to wonder whether the stone had worked, after all. Earlier in the day, Hermione and Luna had called a bit of a conference in the kitchen once he and Potter had returned from the Muggle supermarket. Severus had put the tins of beans in the cupboards and had then pored over letters and photographs at the table. There had been all sorts of evidence that Caliban Lovegood - along with Regulus Black - had known about at least one of Voldemort's horcruxes.
By the end of the day, Severus speculated that that was why Caliban Lovegood had stolen the wyvern dagger from him as a sixth-year student, and why he'd left it to Luna at his death. Now he'd dreamed what may well be an actual prophecy, imbued into his mind by the mystical powers of the moss agate, and he felt compelled to rouse Hermione. He leaned over to her and shook her shoulder rather roughly. She groaned quietly and rolled over.
"Whassamatter?" She whispered hoarsely. Severus grunted and tapped her cheek to rouse her more firmly.
"Wake up, Hermione," he said quite firmly. "It's important."
Hermione's eyes fluttered and she sat up quickly. She rubbed at her eyes and blinked through the darkness, reaching for her wand. "Lumos," she muttered. "What's wrong?"
Severus adjusted her eyes to the eerie white light and said, "I dreamed a prophecy, I think. I'm not certain that it works like that, but… I think it did. I think it worked that like that."
Hermione looked concerned. She set her wand down upon the covers and nodded. "What did you dream?" she asked in a determined tone.
Severus squeezed his eyes shut and thought hard. It was important that he remember the 'prophecy' as close to verbatim as possible. He replayed the dream in his mind and said, "It was in the Three Broomsticks. Sybill Trelawney sat down and went into a frightful trance. I've seen it before; it was just the same. She said, 'The Dark Lord will be defeated when at last his nemesis snuffs out the last remnant of his soul. The Master of Death shall snuff out the candle while clutching once more the first Golden Snitch. The snake and the boy on the very same day… the Master of Death shall snuff out the candle while clutching once more the first Golden Snitch.' Then she slumped over and was dead and I woke up."
He opened his eyes and looked to Hermione. There was an expression of abject terror on her face. It quickly morphed into a look of steely resolution, and she nodded and pinched her lips.
"Right," she said. "The 'first Golden Snitch.' That'll be the first Snitch Harry ever caught in Quidditch, right? That's… that's 'a thing' in Quidditch, isn't it? I confess I don't know much about the game, but Harry told me once -"
Severus nodded. "For Seekers, it's often kept as a trophy. I wouldn't be surprised if Potter kept the first Golden Snitch from his first year. But I've no idea what significance that would bear in all of this."
Hermione shut her eyes and shook her head hard. "The Hallows," she said at last. "Could… could there be some power in the Snitch? 'Master of Death'? I mean, that has to do with the Hallows. Perhaps we were wrong about the Resurrection Stone. Perhaps… It's so silly, but perhaps the Snitch is… no, no, I'm just tired. I'm not thinking clearly."
Severus felt a little wave of realization come over him then, as he remembered a conversation between himself and Dumbledore's portrait back at Hogwarts before he'd had to flee.
'Severus, there's a book I should like for you to buy Ms. Granger for her birthday… Ende of Deth. Oh, and there is a Golden Snitch, you'll find, in the upper-left drawer of the Headmaster's desk. The one that opens with the small silver key. Leave it there until such time as it's fit to open the drawer. At that time, give it to Harry Potter, will you? It is very important. It was his first Golden Snitch.'
At the time, Severus had focused only on the book recommendation for Hermione. He'd utterly ignored Albus Dumbledore's insistence to give the Golden Snitch to Harry Potter. Now he explained the conversation to Hermione, and her face went even more white in the light of her wand. She nodded.
"Dumbledore did something to the Snitch," she murmured.
"He put the Gaunt family ring into it," Severus pronounced, sounding more convinced than he felt. "The Resurrection Stone."
"So, if Harry's got the Snitch, and the Elder Wand, and the Invisibility Cloak, then he'll be the Master of Death?" Hermione breathed. "That leaves…"
"The snake and the boy on the very same day," Severus nodded, repeating the words from the prophecy he dreamed. It meant, he knew, that the horcrux inside Potter and the horcrux inside Nagini the snake would be destroyed on the same day. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "The Master of Death shall snuff out the candle while clutching once more the first Golden Snitch."
Hermione was silent for a long moment. "I've no idea how much stock to put into dreamed prophecy," she admitted at last.
"Nor I," Severus sighed, "but it's all we have to use just now."
"So, what do we do?" Hermione demanded. "We go barging headlong to where he is? Kill the snake?"
"No, silly girl," Severus said rather unkindly. "I'll need to somehow get to the Headmaster's office and obtain the Snitch from the upper-left drawer of the desk, just as Dumbledore said. And then we go - all of us - to wherever the Dark Lord is. The snake Nagini will be with him, of course. We will need to be in touch with the Order as soon as possible. We will need to strategize. This will be a battle, an ambush. Potter will need to go head-to-head with the Dark Lord, and of course the snake will need to be killed first. But we will need the entire Order in this. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Arthur and Molly, the twins, Bill and Fleur, Charlie and Ginny Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Hagrid… obviously Tonks is pregnant, but we'll need her, too. We'll need Neville Longbottom. Miss Lovegood. You most especially."
"And you," Hermione said rather fiercely, pulling her hands up to hold Severus' face. She kissed him then, far more insistently than Severus had been expecting. He tasted sleep on her and knew he must be disgusting just now, but she did not seem to mind. She held his face tightly, pressing her lips against his and edging toward him on the bed.
He knew why she was being this way. A keen sense of desperation had come over her as she had realized what Severus had known for ages. There was going to be an end to all of this, and they were probably going to die. They had been destroying horcruxes successfully to this point, of course, and they might even have a theory on how to provide Harry Potter all three mystical Deathly Hallows at once. But the reality was that they were going to plan a massive battle, that they were going to deliberately pit Harry Potter with Voldemort in a final fight to the death. The odds of any of the Order surviving - including Severus and Hermione - were dim at best.
Hermione knew that. She was no fool. And so she had begun to kiss Severus as though tonight were the last night they'd ever have together. It wasn't, of course. All of these grand plans would take weeks to materialize. But it seemed as though the gravity of the situation had hit Hermione like a sack of bricks to the face. Her little hands began drifting around Severus' bare chest in the darkness, coursing and searching as though she would find safety on him. Her mouth moved to his neck, and Severus groaned quietly at the urgent feel of her mouth.
His own hands moved on instinct, hooking beneath the waistband of her flannel pyjama pants and wrenching them downward. She shimmied out of them and kicked them away beneath the blankets. Severus let his fingers drift between Hermione's thighs as she kept kissing his neck, and there he felt a blossoming warm moisture. She bucked her hips against his fingers and squealed quietly, and Severus felt himself harden at the sensation of it all. He pushed Hermione's shoulder gently and rolled them both until he hovered atop her.
He stared down at her through the ghostly white light of her wand. The black strands of his hair hung between them, dangling over her cheeks as she reached up to tuck it behind his ears. Severus saw Hermione's wide eyes wet with unshed tears, saw the way she'd set her brave mouth into a straight line despite how her bottom lip trembled.
"Go ahead and cry," he told her, sounding perhaps more aggressive than he'd intended. Hermione Granger was not one to give in easily to petty emotion, but emotion just now was not petty. They were about to work out detailed plans for a battle that would cost many lives. Harry Potter was quite likely to die. Severus and Hermione were both quite likely to die. He reached down and brushed his thumb over her shaking lip, staring at her wet eyes as he said more firmly, "Do it. It's fine. You've earned it. Cry, Hermione."
She did. She shut her eyes and the tears leaked out, first from her right eye and then from the left. They wormed their way down her porcelain cheeks and dripped onto the pillowcase, and Severus made no effort to catch them. Instead he leaned down and kissed away the streaks left behind on her skin, and he whispered in her ear,
"You have been so very, very brave. And you will continue to be brave, because you have no other choice." He kissed the hair beside her ear, wet with tears, and sat back up. Hermione nodded up at him and said in a hoarse whisper,
"It was you who taught me how to fight."
"No," Severus insisted, shaking his head. "I taught you wandless magic, and only just. You hardly needed instruction with that. I've been watching you fight for a very long time, Hermione Granger, and I shall be honored to fight alongside you until it's all over. However it ends."
She shut her eyes and put her hands on his chest, pressing her palms flat against his skin. Severus relished the feel of the bond they shared, the swirl of magic pulsing between them feeling particularly strong tonight.
"Make love to me, will you?" Hermione whispered, and Severus answered by arranging himself on his hands above her. He gently parted her thighs with one knee and guided himself into her body.
He glided in smoothly, for she was more than ready for him. She felt tight and slick, and Severus growled quietly at the delicious squeeze of her body on him. It always felt good to be inside of her, of course, but it felt particularly good tonight. It felt particularly necessary tonight. He paused once he was nestled snugly within her. He took a deep breath and paid full attention to what it felt like in that moment, knowing that his opportunities to experience this might be limited.
She smelled like spring rain. Her breasts were soft as they pushed against his chest. Her breath was warm as she huffed unevenly into the crook of his neck. Her arms were snaked around his shoulders, holding fast, and he liked the feel of that very much. Her knees were clamped around his hips, and he memorized the way she pulled him against her. The walls of her womanhood twitched with anticipation as he paused inside of her, urging him to move, and Severus grunted quietly.
He finally pulled out and pushed in again, and Hermione cried quietly against Severus' shoulder. Any other time, he would have yanked himself from her and asked if she were all right. He would never have kept thrusting if she were crying. But tonight he said nothing and kept going, for he knew exactly why she was crying, and he knew that she wanted him to continue.
Severus circled his hips in a slow, steady pace for what felt like an eternity. The world was utterly lost to him; for all he knew a year had passed and London had been blown to bits outside the house. His skin tingled and a sheen of sweat took him over. His muscles ached at how he was perched, at how he pushed and angled himself. But Severus did not care. All he wanted was to keep moving within Hermione, to keep feeling the snug warmth of her forever.
At one point, Hermione's little gasping moans grew a bit louder. Her knees tightened on his hips, and her hands clutched his shoulders more tightly. She actually had the gumption to drag her teeth against his shoulder, and Severus hissed at the feel of it. And then he felt her walls clenching and tightening around him, felt her go slack in his arms, heard her voice keening his name.
He whirled her over, all of a sudden, driven to an unexpected frenzy by the feel of her climax coming through their bond. He turned her over onto her stomach and pushed the small of her back down onto the mattress. He yanked her hips upward and drove himself into her, thrusting much harder and faster than he'd done before. Suddenly there was no tantric, romantic bliss between them. There was only the intense feel of him grinding against her body. Severus squeezed Hermione's backside so tightly he distantly wondered whether he would leave bruises on her delicate skin. He felt her finish around him again, felt the swell of her pleasure in their bond, and that was it. His seed erupted into her, jetting forth in volleys as he grunted and snarled like a beast.
He gasped for air, wishing he had water to drink and suddenly feeling very old indeed. He was exhausted and sore and everything felt very good. Severus flopped onto his back on his pillow, more concerned with sleep than with water or bathing or anything else at all. He felt Hermione curl up against his chest, and her face was sodden with tears. Then Severus remembered how it was that they'd gotten around to such an activity in the first place.
Oh, yes, he thought bitterly to himself. We were discussing the apocalyptic battle that's to come. The one in which Voldemort will hopefully die at the hands of a 17-year-old boy who is a horcrux. Yes, that battle. The one in which many lives, Order of the Phoenix and Death Eater alike, will be lost. That battle. Oh, but first, I must risk my life returning to Hogwarts and steal back a bloody Golden Snitch. Oh, yes. That was how we got around to sex. I'd forgotten.
Severus shut his eyes and reached one hand over to the moss agate beside the bed. He drifted his fingertips over the rough stone, sincerely hoping that once he fell back to sleep, there would be no more dreamed prophecies. Perhaps, he hoped, the damned stone could make him think about delicious food, or a particularly well-brewed potion.
He was asleep before he could direct any more snark toward the moss agate. He dreamed that he was walking along a sunny beach, tossing stones into the water. It was not an altogether unpleasant dream, and in the morning, Severus felt surprisingly refreshed and prepared to face reality once more.
Author's Note: I apologize for the unacceptably long delay between updates! I have had a lot of personal commitments in the last few days, and just was not able to find time to write. So, I do apologize and promise I'll be writing a lot more in the upcoming days. Thanks for your patience!
Easter Egg #1: The name "Caliban" comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Easter Egg #2: In crystal lore, moss agates are used to keep bad dreams away or to induce prophetic dreams.
Easter Egg #3: A wyvern is a two-legged creature with a dragon's head and a reptilian body, and a curled tail. Generally, wyverns can not speak, while dragons can. It is worth noting that Newt Scamander did not believe wyverns to be real; their existence is thus controversial even within the wizarding community and it's therefore an animal whose powers might appeal to the Lovegood clan.
Thank you so very much to those who have left reviews on the last few chapters! Your feedback is incredibly valued. Love to all!
Three days after Severus' prophetic dream, Hermione stood beside their bed, tugging the blankets neatly into place. She could have used her wand to do it, of course, but there was something oddly cathartic about yanking the covers up around the pillows until nary a wrinkle was upon them. She smoothed the topmost blanket for the fifth time, running her trembling palms over the dark brocade as she thought about where Severus was right now.
He was at Hogwarts. It was only six in the morning just now, and he'd already been gone for a half hour. He'd Disapparated well before sunrise, with the intention of sneaking into the castle and making his way up to the Headmaster's office to obtain Harry's first Golden Snitch. He was going to speak with Dumbledore's portrait, too. Of course, the portrait was not an actual representation of Albus Dumbledore, but there may well be more useful wisdom that the real wizard had imparted to his portrait before his death.
Hermione was not certain how long Severus would be gone, or when he'd be back. She felt queasy and anxious. She'd long ago gotten herself dressed and ready for the day, though the day had no concrete plans. She sighed as she stared at the bed, unable to find a single fault in how she'd made it. There was a gentle knocking on the bedroom door then, and Hermione raised her eyes to see the door push slowly open.
"Ginny," Hermione breathed with a measure of relief, grateful for the distraction. Ginny Weasley flashed a half-smile at Hermione and tugged Harry's ratty old robe more tightly around herself as she stepped into the bedroom. In her hand, she held out a bit of paper, and she sniffed as she said quietly,
"Found this yesterday in the room Fred and George used when they were here. I… thought you might want to see it."
Hermione furrowed her brow as she took the crumpled paper from Ginny's hands. At once, she recognized the barely-legible scrawl that had belonged to Ron Weasley. Hermione felt her eyes go hot and burn as she sank into an armchair before the fireplace. She smoothed the paper carefully upon her lap and began reading Ron's writing.
Fred and George,
I woke up this morning to find my duvet covered in real, genuinely cold snow. No doubts as to who's responsible. Ha-ha. Aren't you two hilarious? If I wake up to any more strange weather, you can bet your last Galleons that I'll have Hermione ensure both of you are aptly punished in manners so foul even you two haven't dreamed of them. Neither of you will be able to sit for a week. She can do that, you know. Take your snowstorms and bugger off, will you?
R
Hermione swiped roughly at the tears that had begun streaming down her face. She could just see Fred and George Weasley sending a snow cloud down to hover over Ron's bed, to dribble snowflakes onto him as he slept. She could just see Ron penning this angry response, scrawling out odd threats while his cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. Hermione gulped heavily and brushed her fingertips over the writing on the page.
"Oh, Ronald," she whispered, "You lived like a boy, but you died like a man."
"Keep that," Ginny Weasley said, lowering herself into the chair opposite Hermione. "Fred and George have one or two other threatening notes from Ron already. That one mentions you. Keep it."
Gratefully, Hermione nodded and folded up Ron's note to his brothers. She reached for her wand and built up the fire a bit, since the room had gone cold. She and Ginny sat in heavy silence for a long moment, until at last Ginny said,
"Do you know, I asked Harry to marry me?"
Hermione's face flew so hard toward Ginny's chair that her neck ached. She stared, wide-eyed, at the other girl and demanded, "What?"
Ginny nodded at the fire. "It's true. He thinks he's going to die. He doesn't think that he's going to make it out of this alive. And I wanted to know, no matter what happens to him, what it felt like to be married to him. I wanted him to know what it felt like to be married to me."
Hermione felt her mouth fall open, but she nodded. She could hardly blame Ginny. It would be very hypocritical to criticize Ginny for wanting to be married in the midst of madness. Of course, Harry and Ginny were both very young to be thinking about marriage. And Ginny wouldn't even be seventeen for another eight months. She couldn't legally marry even if she'd wanted to do so. Ginny kept talking, though, and suddenly everything made sense in a rather awful way.
"I know full well that I can't actually marry Harry," she said plainly. "Even if I were of age, which I'm not, it isn't as though we can walk anymore into the Ministry of Magic and request a marriage license. So I asked Professor Snape about the means you and he used to marry one another."
Hermione felt her stomach sink as she met Ginny's eyes. She pinched her lips. "Magnum Verbum Honoris."
"Yes." Ginny nodded crisply. "Except, as Professor Snape tells it, the problem with such a marriage is that it's not exactly advisable in a situation where one spouse is very likely to die. Can you suppose why that would be? He told me, Hermione, that two people in a bond like yours can't live without each other. That if one person dies, the other will soon follow. So I can't bind myself to Harry with a vow like that, you see. He wouldn't do it, because he thinks he's going to die. But you knew this when you married a man nearly twenty years older than you. What… what were you thinking, Hermione?"
Hermione chewed her lip and shrugged as she mumbled, "All I know is that if Severus were dead, I wouldn't want to live without him."
"What a silly and suicidal thing to say." Ginny snorted out a bitter laugh and shook her head. Hermione felt herself grow warm with anger. She suddenly flashed back to the day Dumbledore had died, the day that Ginny had ratted her relationship with Severus out to the room full of allies. She sat up a bit straighter as she reminded Ginny,
"My husband is at Hogwarts right now searching the Headmasters office for Harry's first Golden Snitch, because it's the only tiny hope we have of keeping Harry alive. My husband is putting his own life at risk to save Harry. Does that mean nothing? Why on Earth must you and I always argue, Ginny?"
Ginny did not answer. Her pale, freckled cheeks flushed a dark pink and she looked a bit ashamed as she eyed the letter Ron had written to Fred and George. It lay neatly folded in Hermione's lap. Hermione touched it and asked again,
"Why must we fight? I only want to be friends with you."
"I think that you and I are both headstrong people who want the same things - for ourselves and for others," Ginny said carefully, "but we sometimes have different ways of achieving those things. I don't mean to be rude to you, Hermione. I need you as my friend. Forgive me… for today, but most especially for the times I have not been so loyal as I ought to have been."
She stared at her fingernails for a long moment, and then Hermione nodded so that Ginny could see out of her peripheral vision. Ginny cleared her throat roughly and pulled herself from the chair. She knotted Harry's old robe more tightly about her slim waist and said in a cold, matter-of-fact tone,
"Luna's downstairs. She's managed to Transfigure six cans of butterbeans into a full breakfast. Between the two of you, my cooking spells are utterly put to shame. Will you come and eat something?"
"Yes. I'll be down in a moment." Hermione flicked up the corners of her mouth and watched as Ginny left. She sighed and stared at Severus' battered old pocket-watch on the bedside table. It was her half of the Oraverit pair; Severus had taken the iron pendant with him to Hogwarts. Hermione hoped that very soon Severus would appear out of thin air beside the pocket-watch. He'd be safe and sound and would have Harry's first Golden Snitch with him.
But she stared at the Oraverit for a solid three minutes, and nothing happened. At last, Hermione pinched her lips and left the bedroom. There was breakfast downstairs, apparently, and Hermione did not want to let it go cold.
Severus moved through Hogwarts as an unseen wraith. The corridors glided past him as though they existed on another plane. The stone arches, the statues and busts, the stained glass windows, the towering columns and intimate cloisters - all were near enough to touch and feel, and yet wholly unreachable. Severus had disguised himself with perhaps his best Disillusionment Charm to date, along with a powerful Muffliato, the silencing spell of his own creation. As he moved through Hogwarts Castle, he felt quite like a ghost come back to haunt his own home through the Veil.
It was still early enough that the school's campus was sleeping. Portraits snoozed in their frames. The corridors were empty and still. The frigid air outside was black with night, though it neared six in the morning. Severus ascended several flights of winding stairs in a row, pattering upward with quick and steady footfalls. He reached the third-floor corridor and only then realized how hard his heart thumped in his chest. He paused for a brief moment to catch his breath, smoothly pulling his body into a niche in the wall where a bust of Norvel Twonk stood guard.
He leaned his head back against the cold stone wall and sighed. In his hand, his wand suddenly felt heavy and unwieldy. It was odd and undesirable to be in Hogwarts just now; he wasn't exactly here for social purposes or to conduct his ordinary work. This was a mission into hostile territory. The air crackled with enemy magic. It was exhausting.
Severus heard a set of rapid, clicking footsteps suddenly, and he yanked himself further into the hollow space behind the bust as he jabbed his wand out before him. He was invisible and silent, he knew, but just the same he stood at the ready. The footsteps - female, judging by the click and pace - grew closer and closer until Minerva McGonagall came into view.
Severus lowered his wand and suppressed the instinct to call out to Minerva. She was his ally, after all; he ought to perhaps let her know that he was here on a mission for the Order's cause. But, of course, that was hardly something Severus could do just now. He became grateful for his own self-control when Minerva said in a quiet, hoarse tone,
"Oh. Good morning, Filius."
Severus narrowed his eyes and saw little Filius Flitwick wobbling down the corridor, coming from the opposite direction that Minerva had done. Flitwick toted an enormous bag behind him which appeared to be enchanted with a feather-light charm. Flitwick inclined his head respectfully to McGonagall and said in a dark tone,
"Morning, Minerva."
"Where are you headed so early this morning, Filius?" Minerva's voice was as warm and kind as Severus had ever heard. There was no hint of suspicion, no subtle accusation of mischief. It was a genuine inquiry, a question from a concerned friend. Severus was unaccustomed to those who utterly lacked duplicity. Minerva McGonagall was a marvel in that regard.
"I'm actually just coming from the library." Flitwick jabbed his thumb backward at the massive sack of books. "I spent my entire night reading about the Epoximise charm. Sleep is not a luxury that has come easily to me of late, I'm afraid."
"But sleep is not a luxury, Filius. Sleep is a necessity," Minerva McGonagall admonished. She tutted a bit and then said more gently, "Perhaps get yourself a dose of Dreamless Sleep from Horace Slughorn. It may help."
Filius Flitwick sighed and sounded very tired indeed as he asked, "I presume, Minerva, that you've seen yesterday's Daily Prophet?"
"I have not," Minerva sniffed. She crossed her thin arms over her elegant robes and shook her head. "I've been avoiding the rag in recent months. They no longer print the news; they print propaganda. I'm not interested."
"Well, what they say may be infuriating, but it's hardly boring," Flitwick insisted. He rifled about in his bag for a moment and then thrust a wrinkled newspaper at Minerva. She took it, and Filius jabbed his little hand toward the front page. "See there? MUGGLE-BORN REGISTRATION PROCEEDING SMOOTHLY."
"What utter nonsense," Minerva sneered. She began to read the cover story aloud, her voice dripping with hatred. "'Minister for Magic Pius Thicknesse has announced that the outcomes of ongoing Muggle-born registrations have been expeditious and fruitful. Thanks to the steadfast efforts of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, it is estimated that ninety percent of Britain's Muggle-borns have been properly registered with the Ministry. Head of the Commission, Madam Dolores Umbridge, assured the public recently that the registrations are being carried out with the utmost compassion toward the Muggle-borns…' Oh, Filius. I can't read any more."
She thrust the paper back down toward Flitwick and looked ill as she shook her head. Minerva and Flitwick finally bid one another farewell, though it felt more as though they were wishing each other luck and courage for the day. Then they each continued in the way they'd been going, and Severus was left alone again in the corridor.
He breathed deeply for the first time in many minutes, feeling a cold sense of dread wash through him as he made his way up to the Headmaster's tower. He may have been Disillusioned, but the gargoyle did not seem to know or care about that fact. The portal to the stairwell opened willingly for Severus despite his disguise. The castle, it seemed, still regarded him as the rightful Headmaster, after all.
Severus padded up the stairs to the Headmaster's office, feeling sick to his stomach as he made his way into the room. The space was dark and chilled, and the period of disuse had allowed a thin veneer of dust to settle over the bookshelves and portrait frames. On another occasion, had Severus not felt so rushed, he might have made an effort to clean the place up. But today he was on a mission, and he made a beeline for the Headmaster's desk. He reached into the pocket of his dark robes and extracted the tiny pewter key that had been passed down to him. He jabbed it into the upper side drawer in the Headmaster's desk as he'd remembered Dumbledore telling him to do. He ignored the sprawled parchments all over the Headmaster's desk; they were tasks left half-finished from when Severus had fled the place six weeks earlier.
The little drawer unlocked with a quiet click as Severus turned the key a half-revolution to the left. The drawer smoothly opened itself, and inside there was but one object: a gleaming golden ball. Severus gulped heavily and picked up the cold, shining Snitch. He studied it for a brief moment, and then whirled around when he heard Dumbledore's voice from behind him.
"It won't reveal its secrets to you now, Severus. Nor will it do so now for Harry. All that matters is that the Snitch be safely in his possession. When the time is right, the Snitch will help him."
Severus scowled up at Albus Dumbledore's portrait as he tucked the Snitch safely away. Even in death, the old man was condescending and cryptic. Severus opened his mouth to make a snide remark, but then he heard a woman's voice clear her throat from his right. Severus turned his attention up to the portrait of Dilys Derwent, who had been the one to make the noise. She was perched in her frame on a wooden bench, wearing severe 18th-century black velvet garb and a Healer's hat.
"Headmistress," Severus acknowledged, bowing his head. Dilys Derwent just nodded and said in an impatient voice,
"Professor Snape, as you may know, I also have a portrait at St. Mungo's Hospital. I think you may be interested to know what transpired there just yesterday."
Severus narrowed his eyes, feeling worried. "Please do tell," he said smoothly.
Dilys Derwent smoothed her black skirts and said in a prim tone, "I was watching the everyday happenings of the hospital intake. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then in came a woman who walked up to the check-in desk and, brazenly as you please, she cast the Imperius Charm upon the witches there. She wormed her way up into the patient wards. I was naturally concerned, so I decided to use other portraits to monitor the situation. This woman eventually came back out to the main lobby with a Levitated patient - a man I recognized as one Edward Tonks. He's been brought in just a few days earlier after being attacked. He's an Auror, it seems? But this witch just Levitated Mr. Tonks right over to the Floo Fireplace. The workers were still cursed. And she tossed Floo Powder into the fireplace, screamed, 'Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire!' and disappeared into the green flames. She took Edward Tonks with her."
Severus felt ill. He was quite certain he knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, but just the same he said, "Have you any notion who this kidnapper was?"
Dilys Derwent's portrait nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes. I've seen her at St. Mungo's before. It was Bellatrix Lestrange."
Severus pinched his lips and nodded tightly. "Thank you, Headmistress." He turned his attention back to Albus Dumbledore's portrait and said, "Am I now to rescue Ted Tonks in the midst of all this, as well?"
Dumbledore's portrait shrugged. "It sounds to me, Severus, as though an all-out assault on Malfoy Manor is inevitable. If it is possible to spare a captive Ted Tonks during your victory, I should think such a bonus might be highly desirable. Now, you will see to it that Harry gets that Golden Snitch, won't you?"
"Yes." Severus nodded and patted the Snitch in his breast pocket. Then he nodded crisply and pulled the iron rune pendant from under his shirt. He clutched it tightly in his fist and shut his eyes as he said, "I thank you all for your assistance. Please understand why I mustn't tarry. Good day. Oraverit!"