Christmas was a nightmare. I am in hell, Severus thought as he ate his breakfast on Christmas Eve. Very few students had remained, luckily. The staff had, though. The Carrows had started drinking as soon as the students left and hadn't really let up. While that meant they were safely holed up in an office somewhere passing a bottle back and forth making dirty jokes (not terrorizing students), that left Severus without back-up. And the staff didn't have as many students to put on a professional face for.

This is hell.

He missed his children. He missed his wife. He missed his friendship with the professors, or at least the camaraderie they'd shared. He missed the ease of the life they'd had in Australia.

He was fairly sure he was developing an ulcer. He'd caught himself drafting a letter to Hermione about it, thinking to ask her the best way to get rid of it. Since that wasn't a possibility (her wards kept owls out, and it was too long of a conversation to have with their spelled hands), he'd resorted to flipping through books on Healing in the library after hours.

It was just past sundown when his palm tickled.

The fuck did he do to that snake? Hermione had written, the lines thicker than her usual writing.

Nagini? he wrote back, putting his feet up on the coffee table and getting ready for one of what he was coming to think of as their 'palm conversations.'

It's a constrictor; it's not supposed to bite.

Who did it bite?

Harry.

Bad?

I need antivenin.

He pocketed his pen, getting up and leaving his sitting room. He bypassed the stairs entirely, using the flight charm to control his descent.

"Severus?" Dumbledore's portrait asked. A few of the others fluttered and tutted in their frames. He ignored them all, especially Dumbldore.

He had plenty of antivenin. He'd stocked it in bulk since Arthur Weasley's attack, though he'd only had to use it once since.

Where? he wrote on his palm, pocketing the antivenin, then an extra four doses for luck.

Edinburgh.

He Disapparated, then almost broke his key off in the lock because he was in such a hurry to get the door opened.

"What happened?" he asked, slamming the door behind him.

"He had the snake watching Godric's Hollow."

"What?"

"I didn't know it was that intelligent."

"It's not."

"It was animating a corpse. Living in Bathilda Bagshot's skin. Waiting."

Severus's skin crawled. I don't want to know how he did that. That's some disgusting Dark magic…

"Exactly."

He nodded to her, then looked past her at Harry Potter. He was lying on the kitchen table, as Severus had himself so many times.

The boy was pale and shaky, unconscious. His forearm had puncture marks, leaking blood lazily but constantly. Hermione had her clever gauze spell going as when she'd amputated Dumbledore's cursed arm, little white pads darting down and wicking away the blood, vanishing when they were saturated.

"He broke his wand," she said. She leaned against the counter by the sink, and he could see her hands shaking as she rubbed at her forehead, pushed a curl out of the way irritably.

"What happened?"

"Ron left. I had to refactor everything." She handed him a dropper, and he used it to give Potter six drops of the antivenin beneath his tongue. Then he wet a bit of gauze with the antivenin and pressed it to the wounds. "We needed to do something to be noticed, stir up action so that we could react. We don't know where the Horcruxes are; we need to create a way to make him try to protect them."

"So you went to where, Godric's Hollow?" The last he'd heard, that was where Bagshot had been living.

"Yes. Harry had never seen his parents' graves, or the memorial."

"Sounds like a fun little excursion." He sat back from the boy. The punctures on his arm had stopped bleeding. Hermione stepped in, using a different dropper to apply Dittany.

"Would've been fine if the damn snake wasn't there."

"What happened?"

"It tried to get Harry alone. I almost didn't realize it wasn't Bagshot. I ended up blasting out a window and Disapparating while we were falling. The Dark Lord was there. Just for an instant as we were falling. He almost had us."

"He wouldn't have got you."

She shrugged, rubbing her forehead again.

"You have a headache."

"I looked into his mind. He was having a vision like he used to. The Dark Lord revisting all the times he's failed to kill Harry so far."

"I thought those had ended." He didn't like it when she called him 'the Dark Lord.' She did it for his benefit, he knew, since saying 'Voldemort' made his Mark twinge, and now it was Taboo. She could've called him You-Know-Who, though. It felt wrong when she said it.

"He had one the night we took him from the Dursleys'. I'd forgotten about that."

"A Horcrux connection?"

"I think so."

"It's only linked with the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. His fury when Potter escapes breaching the barriers he himself has created since the disaster at the Ministry."

"Do you think I can tell him everything? Do you think it could be discovered?"

"I don't believe the Dark Lord will attempt to look into his mind, no."

"But you don't think I should tell him?"

"No," he said after a brief hesitation. "He's not ready for it. And with Weasley gone…"

"I know."

Potter began to wake, and Severus stepped back. He gave Hermione the extra vials of the antivenin, kissed her, and hurried back to the Apparation point before he was seen.

"Harry, it's all right, you're all right," Hermione said, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"No… I dropped it… I dropped it…"

"Harry, it's okay, wake up, wake up!" Finally, he opened his eyes. Hermione almost sighed with relief, but he looked so scared that she couldn't quite relax. "Harry," she whispered. "Do you feel alright?"

"Yes."

It was a lie and they both knew it. He was pale and clammy, and while the punctures on his arm were sealed the area was still puffy and red. He would be alright, though, so she let it slide.

"We got away," he said.

"Yes. You've been unconscious, though."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

"What happened?"

"You had another vision. And the snake bit you; I had to get the antivenin. We shouldn't stay here."

They could've stayed in the flat, but she didn't want to. It had been her haven with Severus; she didn't want to hide away there with Harry.

"One of your safe houses?"

"Yes. In Edinburgh. I lived here for a bit before I went back to Hogwarts for that last half of sixth year."

"Last year."

"For you."

He groaned, looking over his injured arm instead of contemplating her time travel. She didn't blame him.

"We shouldn't have gone to Godric's Hollow," he said after a moment. She shooed his fingers away from poking at his arm and began wrapping a bandage around it to discourage him from picking at the scabs. "It's my fault."

"It's not your fault. I wanted to go, too."

They were quiet for a moment. Harry looked around from his spot on the table as Hermione packed her things back into her satchel. She handed him a clean shirt; he'd sweated through the one he was wearing.

"What happened, Harry?" She already knew most of it from her little jaunt into his head, but she'd rather hear it from him.

"Bathilda must've been dead a while. The snake was… was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric's Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I'd go back."

"That's disgusting."

He nodded, shuddering.

"She didn't want to talk in front of you, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn't realize, but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to You-Know-Who, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he said to keep me there… and then…"

She caught a flash of his thought, his memory. The snake emerging from Bagshot's neck.

"…she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked." He looked at the bandage on his arm, hands closing into agitated fists. "It wasn't supposed to kill me, just keep me there 'til You-Know-Who came."

She wondered if, with practice, Harry might be able to communicate with the Dark Lord the way Nagini was. It was a bad idea to try (because they might succeed, and then what?); there was too much that could go wrong. It could be useful, but it could also backfire horribly.

"Where's my wand, Hermione?"

"Harry…"

"Where's my wand?"

She pointed. She'd set it aside when she'd brought him in, keeping him upright using a Hover Charm. It lay there, the wood splintered in two, the pieces held together by a strand of phoenix feather. Harry picked it up, cradling it like a wounded animal. He held it out to her, cupping it in his hands, eyes pleading.

"Can it be fixed?"

"Reparo."

The dangling half of the wand resealed itself.

"Lumos!" Harry said. The wand sparked feebly, then went out. "Expelliarmus!" he tried, pointing it at her. Her wand jerked but that was all. Harry's wand split in two again.

"Harry," Hermione said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"We'll—we'll find a way to repair it."

"I don't think we're going to be able to." That was one thing she'd learned from having kids; tell them the truth even if they weren't going to like it. "Remember when Ron broke his crashing the car? It was never the same again; he had to get a new one."

Harry nodded, looking despondent.

"Well," he said in a falsely matter-of-fact voice, "well, I'll just… make due."

Severus was having a very strange dream.

He was twelve; it was the summer after his first year. His hair was shaggy around his shoulders, greasy from going unwashed; his clothes were hand-me-downs from his father, overlarge and stained.

He lay on the single green hillside near the park. He'd played there with Lily, met her during the summers. If it were a memory, she would've been beside him cloud-spotting. It wasn't a memory, though; it was a dream.

Hermione lay beside him on the hill. She was twelve, too. He knew because he'd known her at twelve—bushy hair and buckteeth. She wore a cerulean-blue sundress, a child's version of the dress she'd been wearing the first time they'd had sex; his favorite dress.

In the dream, they simply lay in the grass together. They didn't talk about the clouds; they didn't talk at all. They simply lay there and looked up. It was peaceful.

He woke weeping.

I fucking hate that snake.

It had been a choice of getting Harry out before Voldemort arrived or burning the snake, and she'd chosen Harry. It had been a close thing, though. She'd been worked up enough that she almost would have liked to face the source of all their problems and read him the riot act.

Listening to the church bells of Godric's Hollow chime in Christmas Day, she'd blown up a mirror, getting glass all over herself in the process, and then grabbed Harry (whose main focus had been stopping his own bleeding after the snake bit him) and jumped out a window.

I fucking hate the snake, and I hate heights and I hate falling.

She'd given Harry the copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore she'd found in Bagshot's house. She'd read it while he slept, and it had made her grouchy enough that giving it to him had seemed like a good idea.

"You need a wand," she said, throwing down her quill. She'd been working the arithmancy, and it all circled back to that.

Harry looked up from his book, then cast a forlorn glance back at the counter where his shattered wand still lay.

"I have a wand."

"A wand that works."

"We'll just take one off somebody the next time—"

"No. We're going to Toulouse's."

"To Tou-who's?"

"Toulouse's. It's a wand shop in Chemin de Traverse."

"Chemin de Traverse?"

"I'm taking you to Paris, Harry."

\\

Getting Harry Potter out of the country for a weekend hadn't actually occurred to her. The plan had always been to stay hidden and end the war. The minute they arrived in France, however, it was like something had unclenched in him, some angry tension had released.

She wondered if it was distance from Voldemort as a Horcrux, or simply knowing that he wouldn't be attacked when he walked down the street.

"Where are we going?" he asked, but without any particular urgency.

"Toulouse's," she said, pointing. It was a large storefront with a big window at the front and wands on display, a dark violet awning hanging over the door.

Chemin de Traverse was the French equivalent of Diagon Alley. It was cobbled, smelled of patries (the entrance was through a boulangerie, not a pub), and full of people. It was cheerful. People shopped and chatted, sat on shop patios. She'd visited several times when she'd been training as a Healer, and it hadn't changed much at all. (Which made sense because it had really only been a year.)

They weren't at war, and not one of the people passing by gave Hermione or Harry a second glance.

Toulouse's had once been owned and operated by a man named Toulouse, but he'd been a better businessman than wandmaker. (The story went that he'd fallen and broken his neck trying to collect wand wood—or that he'd been gored by a unicorn when he was trying to pull hairs from its tail—or attempted to use dust from manticore horns as a wand core… it changed with the teller.) The name was the same, but now it was Louis and Danielle Joly. Hermione chatted with Louis while Harry tried out the wands Danielle handed him.

It took an hour and almost a hundred wands, but they left with what they needed. After that, they wandered. They ate lunch on a bistro patio and people-watched.

She hadn't planned for it to be a weekend in Paris, but it was the first time Harry had been anywhere. She'd had dull ski trips with her parents, but he'd been lucky to see the local zoo.

They rented a room in a Muggle hotel and saw the sights. They had a morning at the Louvre, and an early picnic dinner in sight of the Eiffel Tower. They made the circuit of the wizarding sights, but Harry seemed more impressed with the things he'd seen in books growing up than more magic. (If he was anything like her, that was because she'd come to expect magic to be fantastic and lend itself to fantastic sights. Muggle art was different.)

Sunday night, when neither of them could sleep because they were anticipating—dreading—their return, Hermione made him a cup of tea and sat cross-legged, facing him.

"What?"

"I need to tell you a few things."

"Like what?"

"First," Hermione said, holding up a hand and withdrawing the vial from her satchel, "I'm going to take Veritaserum."

"Truth potion? Why?"

"Because I need you to know that I'm telling you the absolute truth."

He narrowed his eyes at her. She could practically see the gears turning over and over in his head, trying to guess at what she was up to. She resisted the urge to use Legilimency to find out what, exactly, he was expecting.

"Let's put our wands on the bed, shall we?" she suggested after a moment's thought.

"I'm not going to hex you."

Actually, I'm worried you'll try to Apparate away…

"Just do it. We're having a conversation. I'm going to tell you the full truth, and you're not going to like some of it. Probably most of it, actually. I didn't like most of it."

He frowned. After a long, thoughtful moment, he put his wand on the bed next to hers and rejoined her cross-legged on the floor.

"Okay, Hermione. I won't hex you."

"Right."

Three drops of the potion would last an hour, and she hoped she wouldn't need any more than that.

A/N: A short one for the first this week... sorry. There's oddness afoot in life, at the moment, so I didn't have as much time to write as I'd like. The next chapter will be longer, and probably up Saturday.

Many thanks to PoleauPotter for the help: Chemin de Traverse is much better than la Rue Facile!

Cheers!

— M