There And Back Again - Part 1
If Hermione thought the spare Dark Arts classroom was disturbing enough during the daytime, the eerie silence of the room at midnight was far worse. Only a sliver of torchlight spilled inside the door from the corridor beyond, falling upon a few broken desks, some abandoned candles, and a number of splattered bloodstains someone had evidently forgotten to clean up.
Swallowing back nausea, Hermione vanished the blood and finished placing a number of protection charms around the doorway. Then she summoned the Wizex from her shrunken knapsack. "Draco," she whispered clearly.
With a tiny pop, he immediately appeared beside her, stumbling once before he caught himself on the doorframe.
Hermione instinctively reached for him, but her hand hesitated a millimetre from his shoulder. "Sorry; are you alright?"
Draco straightened gingerly. "You'd think when the Sovereign was inventing the House-Wizard bond he'd have been thoughtful enough to build a bloody pre-Apparition warning into it. I've no idea how House-Elves do it with such poise."
"I don't even know how you can joke about that," Hermione said tightly. "I told you, you could have walked down with—"
"No," Draco shook his head. "No, this is far easier than trying to fit the both of us under your Invisibility Cloak. The bond's exploiting me; we might as well exploit it." He peered around the door and into the torch-lined stone corridor. At the other end of it was the vampire statue that hid the passage to Lucius Malfoy's prison.
Except for the flickering lights, the entire hallway was still.
Draco placed his hand on the smooth stone, glancing above his head at the archway. "Muffling charms, I assume?"
She nodded. "And disillusionment charms. Anyone who looks inside should see an empty classroom."
"Unless they enter the classroom."
"For which we have this—" Hermione held up the Invisibility Cloak, "and this." She lifted her wand.
Draco smiled slightly. "Then heaven help anyone who breaches this door." But, as quickly as it appeared, the smile slipped from his face. He visibly hesitated, then turned back to look at the shadows of the spare classroom. He stiffened.
Ginevra had tortured him in the same space only a little over a week earlier.
"You're certain this is alright," Hermione said tentatively.
Draco didn't respond, his chest rising and falling in an extremely controlled rhythm. Finally, he said tautly, "It's a… bit smaller than I remember it." He blinked once, then turned back to her. "Right. How much time have we got?" he asked briskly.
Hermione took that as his answer. "Ten minutes." She pulled the Marauders' Map from beneath the Invisibility Cloak and held it out to him. "About the time to start monitoring this."
Draco took the folded parchment from her with a tense smile of thanks and produced a small penlight that looked like the one she'd given Pansy. He wandered a few steps away and shone it on the Map, his hand gripping the creased paper so tightly a part of Hermione was afraid he might crumple it.
He'd changed into all black clothing, the first time in Universe B she'd seen him in such a colour scheme. Merlin, with it, he really was the spitting image of the Draco Malfoy she'd known and hated — all that differed was his looser, longer hair and blatant facial scar it partially hid. Hermione shook her head in amazement. Six months ago, never in a thousand years would she have ever imagined she would someday look at that exact profile and feel — feel —
Before Hermione could finish the thought, she realized with a lurch she was staring at him.
She hastily looked away away and gripped two Puking Pastilles in her pocket, mentally repeating her distraction alibi once more. Heaven forbid she would have to use it, but she needed to be ready if she did. She'd decided a Portable Swamp or any other form of anonymous sabotage wasn't an option: with the Hangar explosion fresh in everyone's minds, it would only lend evidence to the possibility that the "accident" had been deliberately caused by someone other than Hagrid, Fred and George, potentially spurring a disastrous full-on investigation of the student body.
No, a simple but severe bout of illness — such as continuous vomiting — would be the most surefire way to temporarily lead the subject of her distraction, whether it was McGonagall or even Lily Evans, out of the area and to the Hospital Wing.
Thankfully, activity at the castle seemed fairly slow that evening. She'd noticed while carefully perusing the Marauders' Map earlier that even the number of investigators at the Hangar had dwindled significantly. From the way Kingsley had gone on that afternoon, she'd assumed they'd be working around the clock to take advantage of the forty-eight hour student curfew, but she supposed they also needed to sleep at some poi—
Granger. Do you copy?
Hermione jerked, then fumbled with her wand for a second before she remembered Harry's instructions on how to respond to his voice… in her head. At her scrabbling, Draco looked up at her, his gaze concerned.
She gestured at her ear. "Thought transmitter," she explained.
He chuckled, returning his attention back to the map. "You're handling that well. Merlin knows what I'd do if I suddenly heard Evans' vainglorious voice in my head."
Granger!
Hermione winced. "Bloody — Sorry, he's resorted to bellows for attention." She turned toward the corridor and swiftly reached her first two fingers to her skull directly behind her earlobe, pressing a tiny circle of felt fuzz she'd placed there only a half hour earlier.
Yes, I'm here! she thought vexedly. And I'd rather you didn't shout in my head, thanks very much!
Well, respond quicker, then, he retorted.
Hermione rolled her eyes in irritation. She glanced down at the face of the Wizex, which she'd shrunk to fit her wrist. You're early. Has something changed?
No. I'm confirming again that our maps match. I don't want us marching to the beat of different drummers. Harry was as adept shouting orders mentally as he was in person. I've got Ioan Jodprey finishing up prefect rounds by the Trophy Room and McGonagall moving inside the Headmistress Office. Everyone else is where they should be, target area speaking.
Hermione relayed his words to Draco. After a few seconds, he nodded. "We're the same." He flipped the parchment over, running his fingers over the folds until he stopped at the bottom left corner. Hermione had discovered earlier that their particular corridor was split between both sides of the map, which made it highly inconvenient to simultaneously keep a careful eye on both hallways feeding into either end of it. "No one's approaching from the west, either."
We're a match, Harry, she thought.
Good. I'll come by at the prearranged time, then. Keep an eye on McGonagall.
The foreign voice in her mind ceased, the classroom abnormally silent in comparison. The skin-coloured communication device was another apparently unreleased invention from the Ministry of Muggle-Magical Technology Integration. Harry had ambiguously described how he'd oh-so-conveniently nicked a set during a tour he'd taken of their R&D Office that summer for "career considerations."
Between those and the memory restorative potion, all his explanations seemed too extraordinarily convenient. Hermione knew he was deliberately withholding critical information from her, and she hated that. To begin with, Snape seemed as shrewd — if not more so — in this world as he was in hers. She doubted he would make it so easy for anyone to waltz along and help themselves to this invaluable potion, even his - his godson. So how had Harry really managed to get his hands on some of it?
Hermione leaned against the doorframe and surveyed the empty corridor, crossing her arms to ward off the disconcerted edge creeping into her stomach. Harry had said something else earlier that bothered her equally — something about pieces moving of which she had no awareness. At the time, she'd been too incensed for other reasons to pursue the comment, but now she couldn't shake the words from her mind. What did he plan to do with Lucius Malfoy's secrets once they learned them? And, perhaps just as importantly, to whom would they be providing it?
"You look like you're severely rethinking this," Draco noted quietly.
Hermione refocused back on him in surprise. At some point, he'd come to stand across from her in the doorframe, probably so he could have a view of the hallway as well. "I'm not," she said quickly.
"You without a doubt most certainly are." He scanned her face, his own filled with concern. "Why?"
Merlin, there again was that confidence he'd always had, that he - that he knew her that well. Hermione supposed he really did now, but it jarred a memory from the night before that she'd almost forgotten.
"How did you know?" she asked, perplexed.
Draco froze. His brow furrowed. "How'd I know… what?" he asked slowly.
"Druridge Bay," she said. When he still seemed uncertain, she explained, "Druridge Bay, Northumberland is one of my favourite places in the entire world. When you had me… imagine that beach, last night, you described it… perfectly. Down to that ratty old blanket my grandmum made." She become more astonished as she recounted it. "How did you… know that?"
He blinked rapidly. "I - I—"
Granger.
Hermione jumped as Harry's voice in her head said matter-of-factly, I'm going in now. I'll cover my own path. Let me know immediately if we have a threat at the statue.
Her attention zoomed back out to the dim hallway. Well, despite her doubts… it was too late to abandon the plan now.
She reached up to her ear. Right.
"We're on," she whispered to Draco.
After a beat, Draco said in a low voice, "He's passing us right now."
Hermione shifted slightly so she was standing right at the edge of the open door, holding her wand tightly. But she neither saw nor heard anyone — Harry, of course, was also wearing his Invisibility Cloak. She pressed the transmitter. Harry? Do you notice us at all?
After a pause, he responded, No. I wouldn't have even looked that way if you hadn't reminded me. Your protection charms are strong; good.
Some seconds after, he reported, Granger. I'm going in.
Hermione knew Harry must have already used his own map to make that decision, but she glanced at Draco regardless. "He's entering. No one's coming?"
Draco flipped the parchment over so he could examine the other end of the hallway, holding the penlight closely to the left corner. "Yes. Not within walking distance, at least. McGonagall's still in her office."
We're keeping watch on the halls, she thought to Harry.
In the distance, she could just hear the vampire statue slowly scrape open, and close again.
Except for their breathing, and Draco's somewhat frequent flipping of the map, only a stiff west wind pummelling the castle could be faintly heard. As the minutes passed, Hermione kept a tight grip on her wand with one hand and the Puking Pastilles with the other. She glanced briefly at Draco, but his eyes remained locked on the creased expanse of parchment, his long fingers spread between what she imagined were key points on it.
"Can you ask how it's going?" he eventually murmured tensely.
Hermione nodded understandingly and put a hand up to her ear. Harry. What's your status?
He didn't respond for several seconds. I'm replacing the wards, his voice thought. I'll be bringing him out under the Cloak, so don't throw a wobbly thinking I'm alone.
She frowned. What do you mean, you'll be 'bringing him out?'
Harry sounded impatient. You don't actually think I've left him conscious for all of this, do you?
Hermione pressed her lips together disapprovingly; of course he would jump at the opportunity to take the less humane course of action. She glanced at Draco, who was watching her intently. "Everything's fine," she said in a low voice. "You're father's going to be — under the Invisibility Cloak."
"He stunned him, didn't he?" Drco asked flatly.
Hermione hesitated, unwilling to lie to him but reluctant to cause him further concern. "He didn't say."
Which was true.
A dull, distant scraping briefly drew their gazes back to the corridor — the statue was opening back up. Draco tensed even more, if that was possible, and Hermione quickly nodded toward the Marauders' Map, if only to help get his mind on something else. "What about McGonagall… is she still in her office?"
He flipped it over, scanning it briefly. "Yes." Worry creased his forehead. "Isn't it a bit late for her to be working?"
"I imagine with this sort of disaster comes a lot of paperwork and press releases," she said logically. "Anyway, last night she seemed like she'd still been awake when… "
Harry casually walked past their doorway then, and she trailed off. He was holding the lit end of his wand above his own Marauders' Map, his face completely unconcerned in the torchlight of the hall. He appeared for all the world as though he was simply out for a casual stroll.
Hermione pressed the Thought Transmitter. Good luck, she thought.
She saw him reach up to his ear a second before he turned the corridor. I'd prefer to leave luck out of it, he snapped back. I'll be in touch.
Silence descended back on the hall.
"This is strange," Draco said after a few minutes, a taut edge to his casual tone. In two steps, he'd crossed to her side of the doorway and tilted the map toward her, gesturing toward the right corner. "Look. Shacklebolt is literally the only person at the Hangar site right now. Two hours ago, the place was crawling with Sovereignty agents. Why would he send them away?"
Hermione's forehead creased. "I noticed their numbers were decreasing earlier as well, but I didn't think they'd leave the scene entirely."
"Or that Shacklebolt would stay. Alone. Something about this isn't right, Hermione."
Hermione shook her head, frowning. "Even if they think the explosion was an accident, it's still a major disaster site. I cannot believe they'd abandon it entirely," she said nervously. "At the very least, they'd post a few sentries there around the clock." No, the Minister of Investigation there by himself, so late at night? That was concerning. "Perhaps they do have sentries — creatures, not people," she proposed. "The Map wouldn't be able to read them."
"Yes, but that doesn't explain Shacklebolt." Draco shook his head, his expression deeply ruminative. "The only supposition I can come up with is that he wants to be alone to conduct his own…"
He stopped speaking abruptly.
"His own investigation," Hermione breathed in realization. Worry twisted, knife-like, in her gut, and her heart began to pound rapidly. Swiftly, she locked eyes with his visibly troubled ones. "You don't think he suspects it was anything other than an accident, do you?"
The apprehensive lines around Draco's eyes immediately softened. He dropped his hand with the penlight, lightly resting his fingers on the side of her wrist. "Whatever it is he's doing, I'm certain it won't involve you."
But what if it did? What if the Sovereignty had partnered with Muggle forensics to develop the capability to trace any magical residue back to its caster? What if they had begun to question why none of the surveillance cameras had captured the rampaging trolls in action? What if they wondered why every single animal in the Hangar managed to escape the building before it exploded?
She suddenly felt the desire to flee, though where, she didn't know. "Where's Harry? Have they made it to the Room of Requirements yet?" she asked tensely.
Draco returned the penlight to the parchment, pouring over the map. His brow furrowed deeply. "No. They're still out." He gestured toward the centre of the Map, sounding baffled. "There. Outside the Duelling classroom."
"The Duelling classroom?" Hermione echoed in disbelief. That wasn't anywhere near the most direct route to the Room of Requirements. She shoved herself alongside him so she could peer down at the map as well, then reached a finger behind her ear. Harry, where in the bloody hell do you think you're going? Tell me the entire plan, now!
Her words summoned no response.
Harry—
A whisper of a whoosh and an abrupt depression in the air itself startled her from her one-sided correspondence.
Hermione jerked her gaze to the hall, just in time to see every ball of light from the torches lining the corridor simultaneously sail through the air toward a single point beyond the far end of the hallway, and vanish.
She was enveloped in blackness.
Hermione froze, clutching her wand in a death grip.
The air around her suddenly became as cold as ice.
Oh damn.
"Draco…" she whispered in dread, "where's McGonagall?"
She heard him clicking the torch on and off, but no light appeared from it; the desperate noise sounded like a death knoll. He cursed. "Hermione—"
Before he could even voice the obvious problem, Hermione swiftly lit her wand and held it over the parchment. He flipped it over to the side bearing the Headmistress's Office. It was so cold now she could actually see her ragged breaths emerging in small puffs, which briefly disappeared entirely when he pointed to the last place McGonagall had been.
She wasn't there.
Hermione frenetically began to search the map, her frantic gaze tracing down every nearby hallway and corridor. "There," she said suddenly, pointing. "She's—"
She stopped speaking abruptly, gaping in arrant horror at the three labels floating closely together… on a very direct pathway to their location.
Draco's hand clutched her arm in an iron grip.
Such electric fear and shock exploded through her body that her mind careened to the edge of a blackout. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.
Holy mother of Merlin.
They were coming for him.
Draco ripped down the map, grabbing her wrist. "We have to go," he said, pulling her toward the door. When she planted herself in place, he hissed, "Hermione! We have to go, now!"
"Not yet!" She quietly swung the Dark Arts door until it was nearly shut and pressed the Transmitter, her heart thudding so hard she felt each painfully bulging beat in her temples. Harry? Harry, we have a massive problem; you have to do the spell now, right now! Harry? Harry!
Sweet Merlin and all the ghosts… if Harry was still gallivanting around on the second floor rather than safely hunkered in the Room of Requirements casting the Shadow Double Curse…
They would never make the switch in time.
Harry, where are you? Harry!
"Damn it, the Transmitter's stopped working!" she exclaimed.
Draco shook her arm. "Hermione, forget it! It's too late, it's over!"
She ignored him and plunged her hand into her pocket, yanking out a Puking Pastille, her hand trembling so badly in the frigid room she nearly dropped it. Determinedly, if somewhat irrationally, she twisted the wrappings on it to unravel it —
Before she knew what was happening, Draco had captured both of her wrists in his hands and had pressed her against the classroom wall with a strength she'd never expected him to have. "No!" he hissed as heat exploded through her body. "Are you mad?"
She struggled against him. "Draco! The distraction—"
"There is no bloody distraction, not with this!" The raw terror in his eyes sent the identical, cold emotion ripping through her chest. "He'll see right through you, right through me, right through these wards… They will know everything, Hermione! If we don't leave now, they'll—"
Hermione desperately ripped a hand free and pressed it against his mouth, in the same motion wandlessly extinguishing the light of her wand despite her protection wards.
In the distance, she could faintly hear the sound of muffled voices, though through the mostly-closed classroom door, she couldn't tell what they were saying.
Operating purely on instinct, she summoned the Invisibility Cloak with a pulse of her hand, and threw it over the both of them, then relit her wand under the Cloak's concealment. As if he knew what she was thinking, Draco lifted the Marauders' Map, grasping his violently shaking wrist with his other hand to steady it.
What Hermione saw on it confirmed her worst nightmare.
"Please keep walking, please keep walking…" she repeated over and over in the form of a prayer.
But she could only watch helplessly as Minerva McGonagall, Lily Evans and Albus Dumbledore entered Lucius Malfoy's empty cell.
In Hermione's nineteen years, she had faced down death on more occasions than she ever wanted to recount. But watching her entire life potentially unravel in front of her through a piece of parchment generated a strangely detached feeling of horror in her chest, as if she were following a fictional drama in a book or on a television show, not reality happening less than twenty-five metres away. She was unfamiliar with Dumbledore the Sovereign's character, so she was unable to fully conceive what might happen next… until Draco did for her.
"We have no more than fifteen seconds before the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen emerges from that tunnel in a cold rage," he said in a low voice, his extraordinarily composed tone veiling what his shaking hands could not.
Hermione blinked. "Right."
She yanked the map from him and shrank it, shoving it into her pocket. Without pause, she reached down and grasped his hand firmly, stretched her other hand toward the handle of the classroom door, and extinguished her wand light, though the Invisibility Cloak was still draped over the both of them.
The next hallway was only a few yards to their left: it led to the outer wings of the castle, to escape.
They just had to make it around the bend.
She steeled herself, clutching her wand. "I'm dropping the wards."
Draco's hand gripped hers back more tightly in response.
She took three rapid breaths and pulled open the door. They slipped past it and plunged into the utter blackness of the still-darkened corridor. With a wave of her wand, she dropped the protection charms around the doorway — she couldn't afford to leave them up for someone like Dumbledore or Lily Evans to find.
Instantaneously, every joyful emotion and thought she had was sucked from her body.
She gasped.
Draco's arm abruptly snaked around her waist, pulling her to a stop. "Dementors," he breathed frantically in her ear, clasping her right hand so tightly it began to lose feeling.
But were they behind them — or in front of them?
Hermione desperately looked back in the direction she knew the vampire statue to be, but all she could see was darkness. Depression grasped at her, every fear that had ever haunted her in this world and her own closing in on her mind and sapping the very life from her body.
The Dementors had clearly detected them if their effect was already this powerful.
Frantically, she lifted her wand, but Draco must have felt the motion because he pushed it down. "Not — the Patronus—" His faint voice was weak. "He'll sense it — they'll know we're here—"
And then, from behind them, came the terrible sound of heavy, rattling breaths that belonged to neither her nor Draco.
Scrabbling against the overwhelming depression eating away at her mind, Hermione latched her determination to the one thought that made sense: Get far enough away that she could cast the Patronus without detection.
She clutched Draco's hand. "Run," she breathed.
And then she sprinted forward as if death itself was chasing her, stretching out her arm to run her fingers along the stone wall as a guide. She didn't care if the Cloak covered them fully; the darkness of the unlit, ground floor corridor was so thick that she doubted even Moody's magical eye could see them.
Suddenly, the wall dropped off. Hermione tugged Draco to the left into an equally vast expanse of blackness.
She didn't know when she stopped running until her dragging feet stumbled and she nearly fell. Draco's limp hand suddenly yanked her backward, as if he himself had slid to the floor. Every jinx and hex and curse that had ever been flung at her stabbed at her skin, Bellatrix's maniacal laugh and House-Witches' screams from her Dark Arts classes reverberated through her ears, while a herd of mutilated centaurs lay strewn across the vast expanse of her mind and everyone she knew, everyone lay dead…
Her head began to swim, and she collapsed to her knees. Unfathomable despair filled her soul, and she knew the Dementors must have been nearly on top of them. Her head felt like lead, but she managed to look behind her…
Then she saw them. Four floating spectres towering above them, darker than even the blackness of the hallway itself.
She gripped her wand and attempted to lift it… but somewhere in the distance, echoing off the corridor, she heard the scraping of the vampire statue, opening up again.
They would undoubtedly see her Patronus if she cast it now. She couldn't use it.
They would die if she didn't.
They would die if she did.
Another presence fell heavily against her, masking her view of the Dementors.
Draco, her mind registered dimly through the dark fog rapidly closing in on her consciousness. Draco was… Draco was shielding…
Shielding.
With a lurch, her slowing heart began to beat again.
Masking. Shielding.
The rattling breath was right above them...
No.
With every ounce of will in her soul, Hermione lifted her wand, her hand moving agonizingly slowly through air that felt as thick as mud.
She was not going to die here today.
When her wand connected with Draco's body, she summoned whatever magic was left within her and cast the one Invisibility charm that had the power to not only mask them from sight and human-presence-revealing spells, but also mask their emotions, their life-force… including from Dementors. But it was so difficult that even the Patronus Charm was considered the easiest protection in comparison.
In the darkness, she couldn't even tell if it had worked. Her arm lethargically dropped to the floor, and she weakly shifted it until she felt it collide with her side. The Dementors' greedy pull was relentless, and with more energy than she felt she had, she fiercely thought, Occaeco!
She let out an exhausted breath of air.
Nothing changed.
The suffocating darkness still penetrated deep inside her. The sound of Bellatrix laughing still echoed through her mind…
"Expecto Patronum!" shouted a voice that was not her own.
Blinding white light exploded before her eyes. Quickly, Hermione squeezed them shut, gasping in relief as the overwhelming depression siphoning the life from the very air she breathed vanished in an instant.
Her head slumped back to the ground. The ice numbing her skin began to melt away, and she slowly became aware she was lying flat on her back. Her eyes cracked open again to see the tail end of some massive, glowing creature charge around the corner into the vampire statue hallway, from which radiantly warm light, rather than blackness, was now emanating.
Rapid footsteps and a dark, cloaked figure followed the Patronus, but whoever it was passed right by them and turned down the next hallway without a second glance in their direction.
"Severus," Lily Evans' distinctive voice suddenly said in surprise, so nearby that Hermione's exhausted senses didn't even have to strain to hear her.
The footsteps stopped abruptly, and then the last voice Hermione had ever expected to hear said, "Your… Your Grace." He sounded stunned. "My Lord — Viceroy Evans — Headmistress —"
"Severus Snape. You're quite a long way from your classroom and your quarters," said the unmistakable, omniscient voice of Albus Dumbledore. "What brings you to this area of the castle at so late an hour?"
Merlin, that voice was simultaneously one whose sagacious counsel Hermione had desperately hoped the impossible hope of hearing once more in her world… and one that she had desperately hoped she would never have the dangerous misfortune of ever encountering here in this one. She held her breath, praying that Snape, whatever he was doing there, kept them all from coming around the bend.
"Your Grace, we've asked the faculty to assume extra patrol duties inside the castle since the incident." It was McGonagall who spoke now. "Professor Sprout was to keep vigil tonight, but she's unfortunately taken ill. Severus was kind enough to volunteer in her place."
"Is that so," Dumbledore said, his conversational tone much more forceful than Hermione remembered it being. He sounded agreeable enough, but she could just detect a distinct thread of deliberate calculation and the implicit threat of absolute authority lurking beneath the surface. "How very noble of you. I see Minerva has chosen her faculty well."
Slowly, she felt her strength returning in the form of warmth that began to trickle from her chest through her limbs and down into her arms and feet. Draco still felt like a deadweight on top of her chest, and she lethargically reached up to reassure herself that he was alright. Her fingers landed on the back of his head, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light where they lay, she realized with a start that her hand appeared to rest on thin air — the Invisibility Charm had worked.
Blindly, she stretched out her other hand, feeling for his own arm. When she found his fingers, she squeezed them hard.
He didn't respond.
Panic overtook her, completely blotting out the nearby conversation. What if she'd been too late? She couldn't imagine why they would perform the Dementors' Kiss so arbitrarily, especially not at a school, for goodness sake, but what if — what if they already had, on him?
Hermione slid her other hand down the length of Draco's invisible head, brushing back some of his silky hair, then dug her fingers into his shoulder and shook it sluggishly.
Come on, Draco, come on…
Slowly, his hand tightened very weakly around hers.
She let out a heavy breath of relief as her panic receded, and she heard Lily say, "… you who the Dementors sensed." She sounded strangely disappointed.
"Given three of them came swooping straight at me, yes, I'd say so," Snape responded somewhat impudently, given his current company.
"And when you saw them, you assumed… what, exactly, that would have compelled you to repel them so violently?" Dumbledore asked perspicaciously. "Surely you've been informed Dementors have been placed around the castle to guard it. They are our allies, not our enemies, yet you reacted as if they were the latter. Name your cause, Severus. Why would you have done so?"
"My first and only thought was to protect children, your Grace," Snape replied so angelically Hermione wondered if someone was impersonating him — badly — on Polyjuice potion. "I hadn't realized Dementors had been invited inside the castle as well. Had I known it was your Grace who summoned them, I certainly wouldn't have taken such drastic action."
"And that, my dear man, is a grievous error. You should not make such concessions of judgement, not even to me." The light radiating from the corner brightened considerably. "Indeed in this case, your instincts were true. These particular Dementors are currently serving another purpose, one which you were right to guard against. You must excuse their aggression; they've been provided… somewhat different instructions as to their response toward unexpected presences."
"It should have occurred to me to alert you of their presence in the castle tonight, Severus. The fault really is mine, your Grace," McGonagall admitted.
"No, no, there's no need to concern yourself, Minerva, no harm has come of the incident," Dumbledore said, sounding mollified, while Hermione followed their exchange of blame-sharing pleasantries in bewilderment. None of them sounded angry, nor even the slightest bit concerned that Lucius Malfoy was bloody well missing. "In fact, it's quite fortuitous that Severus and I should cross paths. I understand from Lily that a potion of particular significance to me is nearing its completion. I would very much like to see it."
"Of course; it would be my privilege," Snape said smoothly.
"Shall I alert him of the delay?" Lily asked.
"Yes, please do. No doubt he has plenty with which to occupy himself in the meantime. Now, shall we?"
Kingsley, Hermione realized. Kingsley wasn't conducting his own investigation of the Hangar explosion… Dumbledore was.
Their voices slowly faded, as if they had begun walking quite leisurely back down the far corridor. Swiftly, Hermione summoned an Extendable Ear from her knapsack, disillusioned it, and levitated it toward the end of the corridor, listening as the conversation continued.
"I admit your Patronus has left me rather intrigued, Severus. A… what was it, again?"
"A stag, your Grace." For some reason, Snape sounded particularly disgusted about this, before he continued in a more neutral tone, "After my godchild's. I'm quite fond of him, as the First Viceroy may have mentioned."
"The boy can produce a Patronus, can he? An impressive feat for a young man, especially since—correct me if I'm wrong, Minerva, though I don't expect I am — the Patronus Charm is not a standard element of the Hogwarts curriculum."
An unnaturally hard edge had entered his pleasant voice.
"The curriculum was changed at the start of the Second Intervention." McGonagall sounded nervous. "All children of age or very near it were instructed in untraditional protection charms, should the insurgents have turned the Dementors against us. I assure you, the Office of Magical Education approved every addition."
"Did it, now. That's quite interesting. Lily, make a note to deal with Randall Scamander. I do believe he's quite exceeded his term of office."
"Gladly," Lily said, sounding pleased.
McGonagall seemed dismayed. "Oh, Your Grace—"
"Minerva, I assure you your information was not the cause, but the confirmation, of such a decision. I've had another candidate in mind for months… Hogwarts will appreciate this change." Dumbledore quickly returned to the earlier topic of conversation. "The family Cervidae - quite popular these days, it seems. Young Harry's father was an unregistered stag Animagus as well, was he not, Lily? It's quite curious that your son should hold a disgraced figure in such esteem. You've sought help for him, I assume."
Hermione's ears perked up, and she strained to hear the waning conversation through the Extendable Ear.
"I'd like to think I've managed to stamp out any baseless fantasies he may have had about the days before James Potter became… unhinged," Lily sounded like she was eating tar. "It's certainly the fault of an over-active imagination; there's no chance he could possibly remember what it was like."
"Can you blame a growing boy for seeking a father figure?" Snape asked.
"Perhaps you've forgotten the definition of godfather, Severus."
"One should never underestimate the longevity of childhood memories, they stem from a powerful awareness far greater than that of most adults," Dumbledore said nostalgically, sounding so similar to the great wizard Hermione had once known it nearly broke her heart. "I myself fully recall leaping on my bed when I was only two years old, refusing to let my mother put me to sleep at the usual time because light from the fading midsummer day was still streaming through the windows. To this day, my great-grandniece swears she can remem…"
The faint conversation disappeared entirely.
Hermione waited exactly forty seconds before she reached a hand up to her ear; her faintly shaking finger twice missed the small felt pad before connecting with it. Harry, are you there? Answer me, damn it!
She didn't expect it to work. It didn't.
She desperately itched to conjure several muffling and warding charms around them, but resisted. Even the most powerful magic had its limitations, and the Eighth-Level Invisibility Charm had one weakness: If Hermione cast any additional spells while Invisible, doing so would nullify the charm's effects, and they would immediately become visible again. If Dementers were still anywhere near the vicinity, she would much rather rely on the Eighth-Level charm's protection than her Invisibility Cloak, for now.
Slowly, she sat up. Draco had shifted the bulk of his weight off her minutes earlier, but she still felt an invisible force pushing down over the width of her stomach and against the outside of her right hip. "Draco…" she ventured cautiously, reaching down —
He yelped as her finger collided with something soft. "That was my eye…"
Hermione swiftly withdrew her hand. "Oh, I'm so sorry—"
"Well, at least I know your abuses are from concern. Or, at least… I hope they are." Draco's voice sounded quite weaker than hers did, as if their encounter with the Dementors had affected him significantly more. "Why — Why are…?" She felt the remaining weight against her vanish. From the audible exertion to his tone, Hermione guessed he was pushing himself to a sitting position. "Why can't I…?"
"We both are," she said, guessing his thoughts. "The Eighth Level Invisibility Charm. It makes—"
"Anyone who uses it invisible to Dementors," he finished, sounding slightly astonished. After a beat, he said, "Hermione, I have never heard of anyone completing that spell, especially not under duress, and especially not twice. You — You marvellous human being, you just saved both our lives. Again."
And then, incredibly… he let out a short breath of air that sounded almost like a laugh.
Hermione was astonished. "How on earth can you find this a laughing matter?" she exclaimed. "This is a disaster! We almost just had a kiss with death, the bloody Sovereign is roaming the castle as we speak, I can't reach Harry, and we don't even know what happened to your father—"
"But that's just it. We do." She heard Draco shifting position. "I don't know how. I don't know why. But if Albus Dumbledore walked into that cell and walked back out without any reaction whatsoever, then Evans must have done the spell, and it must have worked!"
Hermione shook her head. "But that's impossible. Harry was still moving in a very visible location right before Dumbledore arrived. He couldn't have completed it."
"Unless he cast it as soon as he left the hallway," Draco said, though now he sounded more wishful than convinced.
"He wouldn't have. This is Harry we're talking about; he would never do something so risky in a public place."
"But clearly they didn't think…" Draco trailed off and sighed. "You're right. Something doesn't add up," he said. His excited tone had vanished. "Bugger. I was so hoping this had simply been the one plan that had... had actually gone according to plan."
Hermione couldn't agree more. She echoed his sigh heavily. Kingsley, she trusted she could fool; even Lily Evans, perhaps, but... Dumbledore?
"Draco," she said quietly, plucking worriedly at the fabric of the Invisibility Cloak, "Dumbledore's here to examine the Hangar himself."
For a long time, she felt as though she was sitting alone in the deserted corridor. "If anyone can hide something from that man, Hermione, it's you," he said finally, his voice gentle. "Believe that you did the best you could, and let it be. You can't do a thing about it, and thinking about that will drive you mad." He paused. "Let's just focus on what's right here in front of us. Yeah?"
Hermione soaked up his reassurance gratefully. She didn't know how it was possible, but somehow, he always seemed to know exactly what to say and do to make her feel better.
She smiled tiredly and nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her, and started to process the conversation they'd overhead. The Lucius Malfoy switch wasn't the only mystery she'd detected. In addition, Dumbledore believed Snape was still brewing the potion, not that it was completed. Which meant that either Harry had lied to her, or that Professor Snape had, incredibly, lied to the Sovereign's face to cover all their arses. Or both. Why?
"Hermione, please say something so I know you've heard what I just told you."
"Sorry. I heard you. I'm thinking. Not about Dumbledore," she added with another weak smile. At the very least, she could safely assume Harry hadn't begun the spell before Dumbledore had entered Lucius Malfoy's spell. At the same time, the spell must have been completed by then, for no suspicion had been raised. Realistically, the only possible way that could have ever occurred was if Harry had—
Her lips parted as the realization struck her. "He used a Time Turner," she breathed, then spun in the direction she supposed Draco was sitting. "They didn't know your father was missing because he wasn't. The Shadow was already there in his place."
For a moment, only silence met her declaration. "Didn't you say the Transmitter wasn't working?" he asked, sounding doubtful. "Evans wouldn't've had any idea of the urgency of the situation here, he was relying on us to tell him that. Does he even have a Time Turner?"
Hermione frowned, gnawing pensively on the edge of her lip. "I… don't know. They're so difficult to obtain. I had one in third year, and McGonagall had to jump through tens of legal loopholes to get me it. Then again, he is 'the son of the Viceroy,'" she said in a satirically lofty voice. "Can we think of anyone else here who might have one?"
Her mind wandered to McGonagall's office. Sure she would be be most logical person at Hogwarts to be given Time Turner clearance. Unlike the Headmaster's Office during Dumbledore's tenure, though, McGonagall's seemed free of miscellaneous trinkets and clutter. She certainly wouldn't leave anything so valuable and unstable as a Time Turner lying about, which, given their time constraints, would be a problem.
Draco paused. "There is Kendra D."
"Kendra Dee?" Hermione's brow creased thoughtfully. "I have never heard that name. Is she a student here?"
"Oh, I mean-" She could hear the faintest tinge of a smile in Draco's voice. "You wouldn't have; she doesn't exist in your world. Kendra Selveretnam Dumbledore, the Sovereign's great-grandniece. She'd be a.. seventh year now. Ravenclaw."
Hermione could feel the beginnings of a knowledge-void headache coming on, and she put a hand to her aching forehead. She thought she'd heard the word 'grandniece" escape Dumbledore earlier, but he'd been far enough away that she wondered if she'd misheard. She could certainly see Dumbledore as a doting uncle, even this version of him, but she couldn't imagine prickly Aberforth as a father.
More than that, given the fame and power of the Dumbledore name, how had she-as-My not crossed paths with this Kendra Selveretnam Dumbledore yet, especially if she was only a year behind Hermione?
"Does he have a large family in this world?" she asked in amazement. Merlin, she desperately needed to do some biographical reading, stat…
"Not large. Some on his sister's side; his brother never had children." He paused, then said confidently, "Kendra's got one. As long as she's here now, we could probably take it from her and return it all in the course of a few hours, while she's still asleep."
Hermione blinked back her astonishment that Ariana Dumbledore had not been killed in this universe and held up her hands. "Wait, what? Hold on. What do you mean, 'as long as she's here now?' And how do you even know she has one? The confidentiality agreements surrounding their use are ridiculous."
Draco hesitated for several seconds. Hermione abruptly regretted she'd asked: Pregnant pauses after searching questions usually meant he'd come across the information sometime during his captivity. "Draco, you don't —"
"No," he said, though his voice was taut. "No, it's - fine. Finnegan… wanted to date her earlier this year, and she turned him down. I… overheard him complaining about it," he said carefully. He took a small breath; when he spoke again, he sounded more assured. "While I'm not entirely sure she swings in his direction, not that that would ever stop him from trying to go for it with a Dumbledore, apparently she was recruited as a Chaser for Puddlemere United this fall, but she's still studying here, too. She told him she was too busy taking every elective available before she graduated to get involved with anyone. Quite clearly, she's using a Time Turner. I don't know how she splits her time between Hogwarts and Puddlemere, though."
Well, that would explain why Hermione had never seen Kendra before, then: advanced classes, and insane Quidditch hours. Though it certainly made sense that if anyone could get their hands on a Time Turner and manage the complex sequencing of events and potentially disastrous consequences if used incorrectly without losing their mind, it would be Dumbledore's great-grandniece, Hermione shook her head, frowning.
"It isn't all that clear, necessarily. I was given my Time Turner for somewhat similar reasons as Kendra might have been, but it's hardly ever done. No one once guessed that's what I was using to attend different classes at the same time, they just assumed I was some sort of mad genius. Time Turner use… Is it more commonplace here?"
"No, not that I know of. Finnegan had no idea."
"Then why would you have jumped to that conclusion?" Hermione asked perplexedly.
Draco paused. When he spoke again, there was an unexpectedly defensive edge to his tone Hermione had never heard before. "Well, how else would she pull it off?"
Hermione blinked in confusion, then shook her head. Whatever it was, it wasn't worth mulling over now. "Alright. Well, that's our best lead, then. Since we're having this conversation, we can postulate that Kendra must be here tonight and that we brought Harry the Time Turner, not the other way around. Which means… we," she scrambled for the Invisibility Cloak lying in a heap beside her, threw it over her shoulders and pulled from its folds the Marauder's Map, "need to find out where he is."
She lit her wand and Draco materialized immediately; as expected, the use of additional magic had nullified the Eighth-Level Charm and their invisibility. He looked paler than usual but otherwise alright, thank Merlin, and he scooted closer to her after she cast Disillusionment and Muffliato Charms around them and spread the map out on the floor. They both pored over it for several minutes before Draco said, "For the love of…" His voice sounded slightly strangled. "Hermione. Look on the second floor. Near where we last saw Evans."
Hermione quickly shifted her gaze… and stared at the label Cassiopeia Longbottom.
She blinked and scrubbed at her eyes, then stared at the map again. The name hadn't disappeared. "You cannot be serious," she hissed. "He asked a child to be part of this? There are Dementors out tonight!"
"In his very thin defence, I imagine he didn't know there'd be Dementors here if not even Snape did," Draco pointed out.
"Don't defend him; I'm quite certain he doesn't have anyone's best interests at heart but his own!" Disbelieving rage began to bubble inside her. "What is she doing there? Oh, I'm going to kill him!" Seething, she began to fold up the map. "We have to—"
He reached for the parchment, firmly holding it to the ground with a pointing finger. "Hermione, stop. Think about where she is."
Hermione gritted her teeth, forcing her thoughts away from murdering Harry Evans before he single-handledly destroyed her sanity and refocusing on the map. Peia's dot was situated in the middle of the second floor girls'…
Hermione sat straight up.
In the middle of the second floor girls' lavatory.
The second floor girls' lavatory that was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
"Bloody Morgana," she whispered. Then she gaped at him in shock. "You know?"
"Riddle was a close family friend; he may have mentioned it once," Draco said offhandedly with a casual shrug of his shoulder, as if knowledge of the secret entrance to the legendary chamber of Salazar Slytherin wasn't a big deal. "What I don't understand is why Evans would take my father or Peia there. None of them would be able to open it."
Hermione stared down at the name on the label, her thoughts shifting rapidly. "Unless one of them can." But the idea of that sweet, insightful little girl being the product of Bellatrix and Lord Voldemort, even though he wasn't Lord Voldemort here, was almost too unbelievable to voice. "Draco… Who's Peia's father?"
For a moment, he didn't respond. "Hermione, you can't possibly believe…"
"Why not? Bellatrix worshipped him in my world," she said sardonically. "Maybe the same was true here."
"But it wasn't." She could tell he was genuinely upset. "Aunt Bella loved Rudolphus. You could… you could see it, just by the way she talked about him. They had planned to elope right before he was… before he was killed, in the final days of the First Intervention. Mum told me Bella was devastated. She and Riddle, they— their relationship — it's completely different. They're close, but not like that. When they're together, they're like - like two parts of the same machine, like… generals so united against a common enemy they hardly see or hear anyone else. That isn't love, that's…"
He trailed off.
"Perhaps it is," Hermione said quietly. "Perhaps it's just a different sort than you and I understand it to be."
He was quiet.
"Draco, I know this is your family I'm analysing so objectively and challenging things you've believed to be true your entire life, and I am sorry for that," she said sympathetically. "But just because Bellatri - Just because Bella loved Rudolphus doesn't mean something couldn't have happened with… with someone else. These things — They occur. It could explain why Peia's a Legilimency and Occlumency prodigy. So was Volde— Riddle," she corrected hastily.
Draco let out a slow breath. "Your points are... valid all, I just - I need a minute to get used to the idea."
Hermione nodded in understanding. After a moment, she gathered up the map and stood. "Don't resign yourself to it yet. We don't know for certain it's true." She glanced down the dimly lit hallway, where the torchlights had flickered back to life following Dumbledore's departure. "But I rather expect we're about to find out."
A/N: Ah - the intrigue! To borrow from the tagline of the latest Scandal episode… #GoodSnape? #BadSnape? Where do you think his loyalties lie? Was Dumbledore's appearance a surprise?
Originally I had considered ending the chapter when Dumbledore walked into Lucius Malfoy's cell. Luckily I really am a nice authoress, so I didn't. :-)