Hermione was troubled. Draco had reluctantly informed her that Professor Snape's unexpected visit had been yet another check-in, like he had attempted at Christmas. The Dark Lord was growing impatient. Time was running out, after all, and Draco had no more of a plan now than he had when he'd proposed the poison he never intended to make. Whether Snape truly cared or not was up for debate, one that Hermione was not remotely interested in having. There were more pressing matters.
She found it difficult to focus on lessons, though if her professors noticed her unusual quietness, they didn't say anything. Neither did her friends, though perhaps that was because she wasn't unusually quiet around them. If anything, she was only more chatty, to the point that she suspected Harry had taken to avoiding her and her pointed questions about the headmaster, Horcruxes, or the relics lurking in his office —
"Where is the headmaster's office?" she wondered aloud at breakfast. "You've never said. And it can't be that far, or Filch would've caught you out after curfew."
Harry shrugged, clearly uninterested in pursuing this line of thinking. Still, he answered anyway. "It's on the second floor. You know the gargoyle statue? There's a password, and it goes up to the headmaster's tower."
Hermione mulled it over. "It's really just a password? I hope there's more security than that. He must have loads of things more valuable and important than just the Pensieve."
"Yeah, the Sorting Hat's there, too…"
"And he keeps the — the you-know-whats there as well, doesn't he? The diary and — the ring?"
"Yeah, in his desk, I think. You're right; I'm sure he's got loads of security charms and everything… Hey, Ron, did you ask Katie about the new Chaser formations we talked about?"
"What? Oh, no, not yet. I was going to wait for Ginny to come down so I could show them together."
"Where is Ginny, anyway?"
"Probably with Luna," said Hermione. "I think they've got a Herbology project together and went to check the greenhouses early this morning. Or, at least, that's what she told me they went to the greenhouses for…"
Ron wrinkled his nose while Harry shifted uncomfortably. But as Hermione walked past the windows later that day and saw the spring sunshine sparkling on the lake, she couldn't fault Ginny if they'd gone for a snog in the hedges. She was sick of spending so much time indoors; snogging outside sounded much more pleasant than stolen touches in a dusty laboratory.
Though, truth be told, even that felt off lately. Draco had become more reserved since Snape's visit, and Hermione's absentmindedness hardly made up for it. Time was running out on them, but she remained confident that waiting was the best they could do, at least in Draco's case. There wasn't any other option.
The second-floor corridor was not on the way, exactly, but she found herself passing through it whenever the opportunity arose. She'd never paid attention to the gargoyle statue before; it had never seemed any more interesting than any of the other statues in the castle. Perhaps that was by design. Still, she avoided its eyes, out of some unsettling instinct that it knew her too well.
Dumbledore still had not summoned Harry for several weeks.
"I told you, Hermione," he had said with exasperation by the common room fire one night, Transfiguration textbook in his lap, "he told me he has more research to do and that I should spend my time thinking about everything he's taught me."
"But how can you do that when you can't even see the Horcruxes?" she insisted and bit her lip. "Do you think he would loan them to you? Just for a few days, so you can study them. How does he expect you to find the rest if you don't even know what they feel like?"
"I have seen them and — look, I know you don't like it, but I really think all we can do is wait for him to — to do whatever it is he needs to do."
But we can't! Hermione wanted to scream. Don't you see, Harry? There isn't enough time, and how can you be sure Dumbledore has all the answers?
She clenched her jaw and snatched up her bag. The Wolfsbane would need tending soon, and she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Half-Blood Prince's book peeking out of Harry's schoolbag. Another mystery no-one is willing to solve!
She marched into the corridor bristling and began walking at random. There were still a good forty minutes before she needed to be in the laboratory. Draco wouldn't be that early, and she didn't fancy sitting in the tiny room by herself.
So she walked, hardly noticing the other students or chatting portraits. She tapped her finger against the bannister as she waited for the staircase to arrive.
Once Dumbledore was dead, Draco would be safe.
But once Dumbledore was dead, there would be no more to learn about Voldemort or his Horcruxes or possession of the Deathly Hallows.
Was she really the only person who could see the situation for what it was? Why did nobody else give a damn?
She found herself, once again, alone in the second-floor corridor. It was too out of the way; no students returning from the Great Hall would have reason to come by. The last bit of the setting sun shone through the tall windows, casting long, golden beams across the stone floor. She'd been all over Hogwarts at every hour, but this was possibly the most peaceful she'd ever seen it.
"Miss Granger?"
There, in the shadow at the other end of the corridor, stood Professor Dumbledore. Had he been there all along? Hermione couldn't move. She'd been caught, though she wasn't even sure what she'd done wrong. But Dumbledore took a step forward, into the sunlight, and she thought she saw him raise an eyebrow. He looked so tired, and Hermione couldn't shake the feeling she wasn't meant to see him like this, weakened and frail. No-one was.
"H-hello, headmaster."
Professor Dumbledore nodded, resigned. "I expected you would come. You have something you wish to speak to me about, is that right?"
Hermione opened her mouth, baffled, but found herself speaking before she even knew what to say. "Yes, sir. It's about Harry and — and I'm not sure Professor McGonagall knows exactly, erm… so I'd like to speak to you."
"Naturally," agreed the headmaster, and cocked his head in the direction of the gargoyle. "Shall we?"
The gargoyle gave way to them without the need for a password, deferring to Dumbledore's presence alone. Hermione followed him into the tower, keeping a polite and quiet distance behind. Dumbledore moved slowly; she could see his breaths were slow and laboured. Had he been anyone else, she might have offered her arm to support him.
But instead, she bit her tongue and tried to slow her heart and brain. What was she thinking, inviting herself into the headmaster's office? Dumbledore was gravely ill, and she didn't actually have to speak with him. Why would he think she did?
The moving stone stilled and they arrived in a round room exactly as Harry had described. Bits and bobs whirred and dinged on tables and shelves; in the centre, a grand desk of smooth, shiny mahogany stood, adorned with stacks of parchments and other odds and ends. All the walls were obscured by shelves and paintings, all the occupants of which were apparently asleep.
"If you would be so kind as to allow me a moment, Miss Granger? Much like a clock, I find myself in need of a tune-up every now and then." He gave her a weak smile, though Hermione wasn't entirely sure what joke she was meant to be participating in. His black hand was hidden in the fabric of his long robes, and she made a point not to look for it. She couldn't imagine the sort of potions he must need to manage the pain.
"Of course, sir," she said meekly, and watched him slowly make his way through a door. She supposed it must lead to his own personal quarters.
The silence which followed the shutting of the door left Hermione alone with the whizzing contraptions and increasingly incoherent thoughts. The stone was here — it must be! And there was no harm in looking. There couldn't be.
Her throat dry, she found herself scanning the shelves, all the incomprehensible little devices that seemed to fulfil no purpose at all. Magical equivalents of a paperweight. The room wasn't terribly large; it didn't take many steps for her to hover by the headmaster's desk. Tilting her head, heart thrumming and throat dry, she looked at the parchments carelessly left across the top. Dumbledore's narrow, slanted writing covered most of it, though it didn't seem to be anything more scintillating than records and reports for the Hogwarts Board of Governors. How odd it was, to think of Albus Dumbledore, greatest, most powerful wizard of the age, sat alone in his office doing bureaucratic paperwork.
There was no sound from the adjacent room, only the continued hum of the contraptions and the occasional snore of a portrait. Harry had said the Horcruxes were kept here, at the desk. In the desk?
She drifted around the side — now she could see there were drawers running down both sides, in front of the worn, upholstered chair. She kept spare quills and inkpots in her desk drawers. What did Dumbledore keep in his, other than Horcruxes?
Her eyes flickered to the door.
This is madness! This is insane. This is — this is a horrible, horrible thing to do —!
She gently tugged on the brass handle of the top-most drawer on the left-hand side. It slid open with a hollow sound, yet none of the portraits so much as stirred. Peering inside, she found scraps of parchment, quills and broken nibs — no diary. No ring.
If I can just see it, that's all. I just need to see it, and then I'll stop —
She nudged the drawer shut and tried the one below it.
She tried again.
It wouldn't budge, offering the stubborn resistance that only magic could. Her hands had gone cold and sweaty, and they trembled a little, but she reached for her wand anyway. Could it be so simple?
"Alohomora!"
It could.
The drawer slid open. It was deeper than the first, and she spotted half-empty potions bottles, old-looking books, and vials of silver memory. And there — on top of a bundle of worn parchment —
A dark, leather-bound book she hadn't seen in four years. The centre of it had been split open, gouged, and dry rivulets of black ink smeared the front like a bloody wound.
And there, nestled in the middle of the gore, a gaudy ring of unpolished gold, set with a heavy gemstone cracked down the middle.
Hermione's breath faltered, her clammy hands going nearly numb with fear and adrenaline. If the headmaster caught her like this —
She couldn't stop herself. She plucked up the ring from the drawer and held it up, studied the way it caught the light. The band was old and unkempt, but the stone seemed to throw the light at odd angles, like it reflected it somewhere she couldn't see.
In a swift motion, she slipped it into her pocket and shut the drawer with her knee. When Dumbledore re-entered, she was stood precisely where she had been when he left, looking politely interested in the curiosities around her whilst her heart beat so heavily she thought she might vomit.
"Thank you, Miss Granger," he said with a soft smile as he made his way to his desk and leaned against the corner of it. Hermione felt like she couldn't swallow; she'd choke on her own tongue. "I must admit, old age is a far less glamourous occupation than I had hoped it would be. Such is the folly of youth, as they say."
Do they say that? Hermione nodded and made a strangled sound of agreement. He would see right through her — he would know what she did — and she didn't even know why she'd done it, but it was too late now, wasn't it?
"Now, what is it you'd like to speak to me about?"
"I — erm — I —" Stop it! she snapped at herself. If she didn't calm down, she'd faint on his floor. Breathe! "I'm just worried about — Harry's schooling. I mean, based on how things are, and what is to come — what it seems is to come, I mean — I'm worried that he won't be able to finish his studies. Not properly, at least, seeing as how d-distracting and horrible it is for him to be constantly worried about V-Voldemort. And I know the Death Eaters won't wait for him to finish his N.E.W.T.s before they attack — if they attack — and I'm just worried he won't be equipped? If he can't finish, I mean."
Barely aware of what she'd said, she stared at the headmaster with wild eyes. Surely, he would turn on her, look at her with all the imperiousness he still had (which was considerable, in her eyes, given who he was) and expel her on the spot.
But instead, he nodded, looking thoughtful. Tired. "You share my concerns, Miss Granger, as I'm sure you so often do. And I do hope you do not feel slighted by the attention I have paid Harry."
Hermione blinked. "Slighted?"
"You are an exceptional pupil, Miss Granger, and in other circumstances, I would have been quite proud to take you on. I truly wish I could convey to you just how sorry I am that this moment in time — the duties to which we are all summoned — has stolen this away from you."
"O-oh."
Professor Dumbledore looked at her with such pity and presence, and she realised he'd never really looked at her directly before. She'd always been at Harry's side, a satellite, or one of many in a sea of children. "Nevertheless, I have no doubt you will do great things. Though perhaps" — he smiled — "different things than if Tom Riddle had chosen, shall we say, a career in herbology."
Hermione forced her lips into a smile. Was this the Albus Dumbledore Harry knew? This quietly powerful, clever, and wry old man?
"Now, for your question, Miss Granger… I share your concerns. And while there is not much left in Harry's academic training which will make a great deal of difference in his abilities to do what he must, there is, I believe, a great deal of value in time. And that, I'm afraid, is something we are all short on, these days."
Her gaze flickered to his hand, still obscured in the draping of his robes.
"There is also, I believe, a great value in friends, and finding the strength in others which we lack in ourselves. This, I think, is where you are more important than some may think."
Hermione didn't know what to say to that and couldn't tolerate Dumbledore's thoughtful eyes surveying her a moment longer. "Y-yes, sir. Thank you," she stammered, and wondered why it seemed the adults in charge kept implying it was her job to take care of everything. In regard to Harry, at least.
He gave another nod, and Hermione sensed this was the end of the conversation. He shifted his weight back onto his feet and Hermione waited, frozen, for him to take a seat at his desk, peruse the drawer — sense the broken charm — or demand, then and there, that she return what he knew she'd stolen —
But he didn't. Professor Snape was waiting for an audience with the headmaster. Dumbledore bid her good night and expressed regret he had never taken the time to speak with her sooner, and Hermione thought he was also implying he would never have the chance again. Then, with a mild wave of his healthy hand, he kindly dismissed her, and she let the gargoyle take her back to the Hogwarts she knew, where she could pretend she was not a thief and delinquent, with a stolen relic in her pocket and a hesitant Death Eater in her heart.
She walked to the laboratory, breaths shaky, and felt the ring bump against her leg with every step.
