Chapter 3: Specula Speculae

"I don't understand," the girl said as they walked down the street, Notice-Me-Not firmly in place. "I thought I'd be going to the Burrow in a month's time."

"There's been a change of plans," he murmured. "That location isn't secure, so we've moved to a safe house."

"Where's the safe–"

"I'd prefer it," he interrupted, casting his eyes back and forth across the street. "If we didn't speak more on the matter until we've made it back."

In little time, they were walking up the front path to her house. If she wondered at how he knew where she lived, she didn't say anything. She only fished a key out of the pocket of her shorts, looked around, unlocked the door, and held it open for him. She closed the door and locked it securely behind them, dropping the key back into her pocket. He didn't bother telling her about the wards that had been set up around the perimeter of her property.

"Finally," he heard her mutter, and she began unzipping her hooded sweatshirt.

"It's hot as blazes, girl. Why did you–?"

But as she shrugged out of the sweatshirt, he saw why she'd worn long sleeves. As she turned toward him, his eyes traveled from her bare, sunkissed shoulder down to her forearm, where she began undoing the knots that kept her wand strapped there.

"Creative, Miss Granger," he said, and she looked up at him with an expression of pleased surprised on her face. "But ineffective," he snapped. Her face fell. "If you were really under attack, you wouldn't have time to undo your makeshift holder before you were at the mercy of your enemy."

"Well, I wasn't going to leave the house entirely unarmed, was I?" she said waspishly while heat flooded into her cheeks. "The wizarding population at large may have their heads in the sand, no thanks to the Prophet, but I haven't."

"No," Severus conceded, watching her nod–whether at him or to herself, he didn't know–and stow the wand into her pocket. "Don't let Moody see you do that."

"Which one?" she asked. "The imposter no one noticed for ten months or the one no doubt still recuperating somewhere?"

Cheeky. Severus thought. And then… I will not laugh.

"Well, seeing as the former is dead…"

"Worse than," Hermione said.

Severus nodded. "Worse than."

"Sir," she said after a long pause. "I don't mean to be rude–"

"Preface everything you say with that, Miss Granger, and I'm sure people will start to wonder," he drawled.

He crossed his arms, tucking his forearm close to his chest, and could almost pretend his usual layers of fabric enveloped him. Lack of intimidating attire notwithstanding, the effect was as he'd expected. The girl looked down at her feet, lip bitten, as if she'd been caught out of bed after hours.

"Well then," he said, eyeing the walls of the foyer in which they stood. "If you're going to pester me with questions, I may as well be comfortable for them."

Her head snapped up and a blush spread across her cheeks.

"Oh, uh, right. This way, professor."

He followed her down a short hall. His eyes slid across the many photographs on the walls as they passed: a young woman in voluminous white sleeves grinning as she pressed cake into a man's cheek as he turned away, laughing; the couple standing on a beach and holding on to the fingers of a curly-haired toddler between them who was the only one looking at the camera; the small family crowded around a cake with four candles; a snapshot of the girl, older now, reading a book with furrowed brow with a rose bush in the background…

He tore his eyes away and entered a door on the left. Like the little he had seen of the house so far, this room was decorated tastefully in neutral shades and clean fabrics. There was a light airiness about the room, though it only possessed one window, which gave them a view of the back garden. The window was open, and the breeze wafting in carried the scent of roses. A large low bowl of blue hydrangeas sat on the coffee table. The house gave him the impression of being at the beach or the countryside, not in the middle of the city.

At her gesture, Severus seated himself in a taupe armchair closest to the fireplace. She took a spot on the sofa and twisted her hands in her lap before forcefully untangling them and clasping them at the knee. Once she had taken a bracing breath, he pounced.

"By all means, Granger, keep me at the edge of my seat while you collect yourself. It's not like I have anywhere else to be."

She looked up at him at that, and a storm cloud seemed to pass over her face. Her eyebrows drew together and the heat rose in her face. "I didn't ask you to–"

But she stopped, took a breath, and forced a polite smile on her face. She really didn't do too poorly of a job, he thought. If it wasn't for the tension at the corner of her eyes or the fact that she had begun picking at a cuticle, he could have believed her facade.

"Professor… Sir…" She glanced down at her hands, realized she was still fidgeting, and stacked her fists on top of her knees again. "What I wanted to ask was why you were sent, why now–"

Irritation flared in Severus's stomach.

"If you want to find the safe house on your own, by all means, search the whole bloody–"

"No, I–Sorry, sir," she added when his eyes narrowed at the interruption. "I just meant…I thought Professor Dumbledore would have sent the Weasleys or Professor McGonagall. I wasn't objecting–"

"As it so happens, I am not privy to the details of everyone's social calendar, so I cannot explain to you why everyone found themselves too busy for yet another job of babysitting Gryffindors," he snapped.

Miss Granger recoiled back into the cushions and a pale, stricken look crossed her face. He thought he detected a wobble in her stubborn chin as she looked down. One moment joking with him as no student in their right mind would do and the next moment terrified as any student should be.

And so Severus did what any spy should do when confronted with a puzzle. He observed.

In her attire, she was immaculately if casually dressed. Her movements from the park swing to the walk home were all regular, absent of any twinges or flinches. She reverted appropriately to formality when she remembered who he was, but with startling contrast to her prior demeanor. Was she just different on holiday?

No, he thought, as he continued observing, catching sight of a pile of textbooks ont he other side of the sofa.

All of her cuticles had been picked at and the pinky nail of her right hand was shorter than the rest and lopsided, perhaps from chewing. Her hair, though clean, was frizzier and flatter than usual, as if she regularly ran her hands through it. And there was a red spot on her collarbone where the skin had been rubbed raw.

"Miss Granger."

She looked up at him and, sure enough, began picking at her collar bone. There were shadows under her eyes that he hadn't been able to see before behind the sunglasses.

"Yes, sir?"

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

Her mouth formed a small "o" for a moment. "It's the middle of the–"

"At night," he pressed. "You're having trouble sleeping at night."

"How did you–?"

"Why?"

"I…" She swallowed hard, and he saw the corners of her eyes glisten before she cast her eyes around the room, as if the answer would be written on the wall. "I can't sleep."

"Can't or won't?" he interrupted.

"Both?" Her head was tilted up at a framed painting on the wall, but her eyes were glazed over. "Sometimes I just can't get to sleep. And other times, I…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I have these nightmares and I…"

She trailed off, but he allowed her to do so, having no desire to be privy to the contents of her dreams. It's bad enough experiencing mine. After a silent moment, she blinked several times. He continued.

"Why can't you?"

"I can't stop thinking. My brain, it just–" She raised a hand and waved it inelegantly around the side of her head. "Keeps going. So I read, usually until I'm tired enough to go to sleep."

He examined her over steepled fingers, and then, upon noticing, immediately dropped them into his lap. "What are you reading?"

At that, her face turned pink. Severus raised a brow. What could cause that reaction? Was it too early to be reading romance novels? He cleared his throat, readying to change the subject.

"Defense books," she finally said, looking him in the eye again. "I'm not practicing the spells!" she hastened to clarify, eyes widened and no doubt panicking at the thought of breaking the law. "I'm just going over the theory, practicing the wand movements."

Severus leaned forward. "With your wand in hand?"

Her brow wrinkled. "Yes," she said slowly. "But I don't know what–"

"If your focus is concentrated enough," he interrupted. "You could perform nonverbal magic that way."

She gulped. "Oh."

"Yes, oh," he replied dryly.

This is why I should be teaching defense, he thought to himself. Instead, Dumbledore had hired a man possessed, a fraud, a werewolf, and an imposter. The students knew how to fight kappas–which may prove valuable in the coming years, he admitted to himself–and knew what the Imperius felt like, but they didn't know just how easily they could perform illegal underage magic on accident.

He snorted. Well, he amended, just how easily some of them could perform illegal underage magic on accident.

She broke the silence first. "Can I get you a drink, sir?" she asked with forced brightness.

"Bit early for a drink, don't you think?" he couldn't help saying.

He really needed to stop responding so glibly. This is what comes of not sleeping. He straightened up and, internally, so did his mental walls.

"Yes," she said, and he thought he heard laughter in her voice. "That's exactly what I need my parents to come home and find. Me with a drunk professor."

Before he could scold her, the laughter fell from her face.

"My parents!" she said, eyes wide. "What am I supposed to say? How am I going to explain to them–?"

He raised his hand to stop her.

"I've written a letter. And don't think," he said. "That I won't deduct ten points from Gryffindor if you insist on raising that eyebrow at me, Granger."

He watched as she forced the eyebrow down, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before opening them again.

"And what, sir, does this letter say?"

Her tone was very nearly perfectly polite. And he knew more than one way of messing with the heads of students.

"That, Miss Granger," he said, reaching into his back pocket and laying said letter down upon the table. "Is something you'll have to wait and find out once your parents get home."

She looked down at the letter and frowned upon seeing the address. Dr and Dr Granger the envelope bore across the front in his characteristic spiky handwriting.

"Now," he said, getting to his feet in one fluid movement. "I believe you said something about a drink."

He departed approximately twenty minutes and two glasses of lemonade later with instructions for her to get her belongings packed and to have her parents read his letter by eight o'clock. He left her at the doorway, mid-question, smirking to himself as he turned on the edge of the property and disapparated with a pop significantly louder than necessary.

Stopping back at Spinner's End was, regretfully, necessary.

The temperature was cooler up north, but only just. Severus popped into existence down by the river, then wound his way down the streets, ducking through alleyways to avoid busier intersections. In a few minutes, he was striding up his walk. He couldn't help but compare his house to Miss Granger's. The exterior of the Granger house was gentle and welcoming, as if its wide windows and neat porch said, "Lost, are you? Come in and we'll sort things out. There's a perfectly reasonable, comfortable solution." His house, on the other hand, with its cramped window hung with decades old curtains and a severe overgrowth of bushes said, "Keep out if you know what's good for you."

Convenient, certainly, Severus thought, as he couldn't remember the last time anyone tried knocking on his door. Depressing, also.

Keyed to the wards, he turned the knob without so much as a subtle tingle of magic, and he shut the door firmly behind him. The interior was just as depressing, redeemed only by the shelves and shelves of books that filled the sitting room, the room he most frequently inhabited. He spent most of his time pretending that various other rooms–and the memories associated with them–did not exist.

But he wasn't here to reminisce. Quickly, he changed, setting aside his Muggle attire for his usual robes. As if donning a new persona, Severus felt his spine straighten and his shoulders square as he buttoned his last button. Muggle clothing always made him feel too casual.

"Talk too casual, too," he muttered to himself, looking back on the bizarre morning he had spent in the company of Miss Granger and shuddering. At least three times she had spoken impertinently without him reprimanding her suitably. He'd have to make up for his lack of judgment this evening…

Fully dressed, he threw powder into his fireplace.

"Severus," Albus greeted him from a shelf across the room as he stepped out onto the rug and shook his robes. Ash vanished into thin air as he did so, and Albus smiled appreciatively. "Persian, 16th century. Thank you." He set down a book he was examining on his desk and turned his full attention to Severus. "I wasn't expecting to see you until the meeting. Did Vol–"

"No," Severus interrupted shortly, left hand scrunching into a fist as if to stave off the flash of pain that would have jolted through it. "Nothing from him, yet. He has been calling sporadically. I can't predict his movements. No, I wanted to talk to you about Granger."

If Dumbledore was surprised, he kept it to himself. Instead, he seated himself at his desk and gestured for Severus to do the same. Upon sitting, Albus pushed forward the bowl on his desk.

"Lemon drop?"

Severus shook his head.

Albus took one, sucked on it thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "You left the letter at her house?"

"Yes."

"And you will collect her and bring her to headquarters this evening?"

"Yes," Severus said.

"Then what is the problem?"

"It's not…a problem exactly," Severus said. He narrowed his eyes as he sorted out his words. "She's…"

"Concerned?" Albus asked.

"...No."

"Emotional?"

Severus detected the barest hint of a smile playing about the old man's mouth.

"No," he said. "She's…intuitive."

"I'm a very busy man, Severus. You're going to have to give me the Quick Quotes version."

"She's reading between the lines of the Prophet," Severus said. "She's figured out what they're saying… and not saying. She's not leaving the house without her wand."

"She's not been performing magic?" Dumbledore asked quickly.

"Miss Granger break the law by performing magic outside of school?" Severus asked sarcastically. He decided to keep his advice to himself. "No. But she's clever enough to realize that she might have to."

Dumbledore's brows rose. "Really, Severus, I never expected a compliment from you for any Gryffindor student–"

Severus rolled his eyes. "I'm not–"

"And a friend of Mr. Potter's at that."

"Potter," he spat. "Has nothing to do with–"

Dumbledore smiled. "Well, go on, then. What is it that you're trying to say?"

Severus took a breath.

"I think we've got untapped potential here. And don't go on again about me handing out compliments," he said quickly when Dumbledore opened his mouth. "I'm saying it may prove more valuable than we realize that Potter has a friend with more than a handful of brain cells. And given that, despite those brain cells, the three have recklessly thrown themselves into so much danger in the past, we might actually want to intercede before it comes to that point."

"By means of Granger," Dumbledore said.

Severus nodded. "Correct."

Dumbledore leaned back in his seat, elbows propped up on the arms of the chair, fingers steepled in front of him. He tapped his index fingers against his lips a few times as he thought.

"What do you propose we do?" he asked finally.

Severus stared at the desk in front of him, eyes tracking the whirls in the wood.

"Make her a point of contact," he said. He raised his eyes. "Not a full fledged Order member. They're all too young for that. But if the voice of reason of the bunch has access to certain information, maybe she can be…I don't know, even more the voice of reason. She can keep Potter from losing his head next June by running into something with a half baked plan as we have seen he is accustomed to doing. And if one of them knows, really knows, that they have the ear of the Order, they may actually consult us before Potter throws himself down Cerberus-guarded trap doors, follows the voice of snakes, or chases escaped convicts through the forest."

By the time his speech was over, Severus found himself oddly out of breath. He leaned back in his chair and looked up into Dumbledore's face.

"So you're suggesting we make a spy of her," Dumbledore said slowly.

Severus's spine jolted, and he felt a twinge not dissimilar to the spark he'd felt when he made his Unbreakable Vow to Dumbledore all those years ago.

No, he decided. I will not consign anyone else to my fate.

"For Merlin's sake, I'm not trying to find out Potter's favorite color. I'm trying to keep him alive. Or wasn't that the plan all this time?" he demanded.

"You're quite passionate about this," Dumbledore said instead, examining him.

Severus shook his head and looked down at his hands.

"You don't know," he said, and images arose in his head of the last three Death Eater meetings. Of the rounds of Crucio, of the kidnapped Muggles, of the maniacal laughter and horrid plotting. "I thought it was over," he said to his hands. "I thought it was all over."

Silence stretched between them, and Severus only emerged from the swirl of memories in his head when Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"We're better prepared this time," Dumbledore said.

Severus closed his eyes, exhaling slowly through his nose to keep his temper in check. He wanted to believe him, wanted desperately to believe, as the rest of the Order did, that Dumbledore knew what he was doing, that he had a foolproof plan. But he was in the old man's company too often for that, reporting to his carefully blank face as Severus recounted his summons in a way eerily reminiscent of fifteen years ago, and he saw with each report the wariness in his eyes and the firm set of his jaw. It was the same look he saw in the mirror when he asked himself why he was still doing all this.

There was a scraping as Dumbledore pulled his book back toward himself.

"But you're right. We need all the help we can get. It sounds like a perfect project for you."

His opened his eyes.

"For me?"

"Why, yes," Dumbledore said, hands still resting on the pages. "You are, after all, the one who suggested turning Miss Granger into a spy of sorts."

"Of sorts," Severus said. "But I thought–"

"A spy to the spy," Dumbledore said, and he smiled at his little joke. "What could be more fitting?"

"Minerva, surely, would be a better–"

"Minerva has many responsibilities as Head of House," Dumbledore said.

Severus pinned him with a glare. "As do I."

"And Deputy Headmistress," Dumbledore continued, as if he hadn't heard Severus.

"And I suppose I'm doing nothing whatsoever with the rest of my time such as, hmm," Severus said, pretending to think. "Being summoned across the country at the drop of a hat."

He brandished his left arm in the air.

"Severus, don't be so dramatic," Dumbledore said, dropping all notes of humor. "You are the one who developed this little idea, therefore it seems only fitting that you are the one to see this little idea out, don't you think?"

"I–" Severus snapped his mouth shut with a scowl. Of course Dumbledore's mind was already made up. It would be foolish to continue attempting to argue the point.

"I see cool logic has won out again rather than, what was it, concern and emotion," Dumbledore said, a satisfied smile playing about his lips. Severus looked at him flatly. "Please don't be late to the meeting."

Severus didn't need a gesture to the fireplace this time. He could recognize the dismissal for what it was.