AN: I can't believe we're at over 100k words, almost 100 follows, and over a year after Chapter 1 was published. Thank you to everyone who's read, reviewed, followed, or favorited. I've enjoyed living and writing in this world again. To have others enjoy it with me has been a surprising bonus.
Chapter 21: Consensum
"You really were brilliant, Harry," Hermione said over dinner the next night. She prodded her potatoes and glanced anxiously at the Ravenclaw table where Luna was stirring her soup serenely. "I just wish I knew when it was coming out."
"I just hope she's followed through on not making me look any madder," Harry muttered.
"Madder?" Neville interrupted across from them. "What are you two talking about?"
Hermione cast a look around, but only their fellow fifth years were closeby, and the few teachers at the staff table–from which Umbridge was absent–weren't paying them any mind. Still, she kept her voice low.
"Harry's given an interview," she said. "About what really happened the night…" She cast a glance at Harry and then said delicately, "The night of the last Triwizard challenge."
"Blimey," Dean said, eyebrows high on his head. "I thought the Prophet was pretty set on your…uh…image. What changed their mind?"
"The article won't be coming out with the Prophet," Harry said, and his cheeks turned faintly red. He, too, lowered his voice. "Actually, it's Luna's dad's magazine."
Across from them was a metallic clatter as Neville's spoon, which he had been dragging through the remnants of his crumble, dropped.
Dean gave a low whistle. He must not have been very familiar with the eccentricity of the magazine, because he only looked impressed. "How'd you swing that?"
Harry gave a brief explanation of the interview in the Three Broomsticks while Hermione watched the other boys' faces in turn. Seamus hadn't said anything on Dean's other side, but he had been pushing his food around on his plate for the last several minutes without taking a bite.
"It was all Hermione's idea," Harry said, clapping a hand on her shoulder.
"Please, Harry," Hermione said, flushing somewhat as Neville turned toward her, surprise widening his eyes before the idea seemed to settle and his gaze grew less pointed, as if distracted by something behind her. "I hardly did anything."
Harry rolled his eyes as Dean brought up the pink elephant who happened for once not to be in the room. "Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public."*
Not long after the three boys left, Hermione tried to untangle Harry's love life for him. It really was baffling how little boys understood girls. And, she thought wryly, it was baffling how she found it so easy to sort things out for her friend and so difficult to manage her own relationships. Before she could think too much on it, Ron and Ginny plopped down opposite her and Harry, recounting the disaster of Quidditch practice.
"Listen," Hermione said, catching up to Ginny as they headed out of the Great Hall. She ducked her head toward Ginny as Harry fell behind to match Ron's funeral march pace. "Technically it isn't allowed, but I think you could really use it. Do you know where the Prefects' Bath is?"
After relaying a series of instructions on how to find it and the new password–rosehip–Ginny stared at her.
"Since when do you break the rules?" she asked, a smile already spreading across her mud-spattered face.
"Please," Hermione said with a casual air. "First year, I was out of bed after hours loads of times."
"And brewing potions in the toilet the year after," Ginny added.
"Helping convicted criminals evade capture," Hermione whispered.
"Helping Harry with his egg last year even though he wasn't supposed to have any help."
"And this year–" But Hermione stopped. "Well, I'll probably just hold onto that information myself for now."
Ginny laughed. "Only because you're already doing me a massive favor will I let that slide." She brandished a finger in Hermione's face. "But I expect to hear stories once term is over."
"Deal," Hermione agreed.
There were some activities Ginny could be made aware of. And, now that she thought of it, maybe Ginny should be joining her with some of it. Not everything, but surely Tonks would be up for teaching both of them. Ginny was a formidable caster–Hermione had seen her work in the DA. In fact, she may even take better to self defense than Hermione, seeing as she had six older brothers. Surely they had wrestled over one thing or another growing up.
"Speaking of this year," Ginny said, throwing a look over her shoulder. The boys were half a corridor behind. "What ever happened to that guy?"
"What guy?"
"You know," Ginny said, elbowing her. "The one you were telling me about at Christmas. It's been, what, almost two months?"
"Oh…" Hermione said dumbly.
Two months. Which meant it had been a month since her disastrous lesson with Snape. One week of anger, which was quiet everywhere except in her own head, followed by a week of resignation. But lessons with Tonks and Harry's interview had served to distract her over the remaining time, such that she barely found herself considering the man, save for minimal moments at the beginning and end of each potion lesson.
She looked down at the stones beneath their feet, feeling foolish for ever having brought the subject up. Because somehow, whether she was angry or doing her best to ignore him, embarrassment seemed to edge her every thought of him.
"That's…not…that's nothing."
"It sounded like something to me…" the redhead muttered, suggestion lengthening her vowels.
"Well, it isn't," she replied shortly.
Ginny's brows rose on her face, scrunching a spot of mud on her forehead. The acidic feeling of guilt filled Hermione's stomach. She reached out a hand to squeeze the girl's wrist, and relief flooded her when she didn't pull away.
"I'm sorry, Gin. I didn't mean to snap at you."
Ginny shook her head, ponytail swinging. "Look, Hermione, if you don't want, you don't have to tell me–"
"There's nothing to tell," Hermione said quickly "Really. I was wrong, incredibly wrong. Just forget I ever mentioned it, alright?"
Ginny must have deemed what Hermione said sincere, since when she spoke, she just said, "If you're sure…"
Hermione squared her shoulders. "I'm positive."
On the fifth floor, Ginny split off from their group with a wave.
"Don't forget," she said to Hermione, a smile on her face that only twitched slightly with uncertainty. "End of term."
Hermione nodded but didn't smile back.
A few minutes later, she and Harry were sat in a corner of the common room, books piled in their laps. Hermione frowned down at Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms, the symbols blurring together in a haze of ink.
"Harry," she said suddenly, crossing her arms and covering the symbols with her sleeves. "Tell me again about Occlumency."
Harry squinted at his star chart, a spot of ink high on his left cheek.
"Er…it's pretty much all the same. Snape pokes around in my head, tells me to clear my head–which I'm sure he think should be easy because it doesn't have much in it," he added sarcastically. He consulted his astronomy text, looked at his chart again, and then rotated the parchment forty-five degrees. "But it doesn't work, and then I go to bed with a headache."
"Right," Hermione said patiently. Her fingers itched to correct the tail of Harry's Draco constellation, but she resisted. "But could you tell me more about what he does? What else does he say?"
Harry looked up then. "I dunno. He just tells me to be calm and try not to have any emotions before bed, because that's when my mind is most vulnerable."
Hermione's brow furrowed. It seemed that her and Snape's minds had been most vulnerable when they were near each other. But once she had felt him on the receiving end of Legilimency, so that couldn't be the only factor…
"That's it?" she asked. "No other techniques or…or advice? Just 'clear your mind'?"
"Yeah, that's it. Why all the questions?" Harry asked.
Hermione was saved from having to reply when Fred and George plopped down next to them, and the conversation changed.
After a week of classes, another bruising lesson with Tonks, and a pitiful Quidditch match, Hermione was in need of good news. Her attempts at emptying her mind before bed had been laughable at best. She had cajoled Harry several times to practice closing his mind, and now she felt she was eating her own words.
On several evenings, she had slipped into bed and cast a silencing charm around herself so that Lavender's snores would not distract her. What had followed was a rush of thought.
Parvati borrowed Lavender's lipgloss but lost it. Ron was in such an irritated mood at dinner. The Cretan soil dittany has grown two centimeters higher than the Hogwarts soil. I need to ask Tonks if Ginny can join our training. What spell will Harry have us practice next DA? I still need to owl mum back.
When "How doth the little crocodile" began playing on a loop in her head the third night, she gave it up as a lost cause and went to sleep.
Thankfully, good news came in the form of several owls on Monday morning. Her heart stopped at seeing the headline bearing Harry's name, and she eagerly tore through Harry's fanmail. While many of them were useless, she was so excited she thought she could bounce right out of her seat reading the letter from one who had been convinced.
Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven only made Hermione smirk.
"–that he just killed Cedric Diggory right there," Hannah Abbott whispered to Susan Bones in History of Magic. "Can you imagine?"
"Did you see he accused Draco Malfoy's father?" a seventh year Ravenclaw said at the sinks when Hermione stopped in the bathroom between classes.
"And Crabbe and Goyle's," her friend said, shaking her head. "I'm not surprised…"
During Arithmancy, a seemingly blank piece of parchment made its way around the room and was magically copied. If Professor Vector turned her back on them to double check her numbers on the blackboard a little more frequently than usual, well, maybe she was just having an off day.
On their way down the Charms corridor on Tuesday, the trio watched as Umbridge shook down a second year Gryffindor.
"You have a copy, I know it. Where is it?" the woman demanded madly, literally shaking the blonde boy by his lapels.
He caught Harry's eye past Umbridge's shoulder, then glared into Umbridge's face. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, chin in the air with a haughty air to rival that of Malfoy. "But I'm going to be late for class."
Just try to silence us now, you cow, Hermione thought viciously in Umbridge's direction.
"What do you have to say about thisss?"
Severus kept his body completely still, cheek pressed into a particularly jagged stone in what he suspected was the Malfoy dungeon floor and into which he had been thrown seconds after Apparating. His eyes moved almost imperceptibly to the partially crumpled magazine the Dark Lord had hurled to the ground beside him. He couldn't read the entire headline of the main article, but he already had it memorized.
Harry Potter Speaks Out At Last: The Truth About He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and The Night I Saw Him Return.
"My Lord—"
The tip of Voldemort's wand pressed into his temple and Severus shut his mouth.
"How is it that the boy is giving interviews when he's supposed to be under your supervision? When Dumbledore isn't letting anyone inside the castle?"
After last year's failure. The words hung in the air unsaid.
The wand dug into his skin when he didn't immediately respond. The tip warmed and felt like a cigarette tip his father had pressed into his arm after Severus "came home too late" at five past.
"Hogsmeade, my Lord," Severus said, keeping his tone even. Any indication of pleading or suffering would only make it worse. "It's the only time—"
Electricity coursed through Voldemort's wand and over Severus's skin. He clenched his teeth, swallowing down a yelp.
"Then you will make sure he doesn't attend any further Hogsmeade trips, won't you, Severus?"
Umbridge had already banned Potter from future Hogsmeade trips, but he didn't need to know that.
"Yes, my Lord."
"This article is going to lead to investigations. There are some who will take it seriously, even if it is in that bin-liner of a publication," Voldemort sneered.
While his wand was still pressed into Severus's skin, he hissed a spell and the Quibbler burst into flame. Severus couldn't stop the twitch in his jaw. To perform two spells simultaneously, and only one of them with a wand, required a high level of sill and finesse. If it had been anyone else, Severus's head would be a fireball.
"How are my followers supposed to carry out orders if they are being tailed by aurors? Plans will have to be accelerated…" Voldemort mused.
The electricity in Snape's face increased, and then, like flicking a switch, it stopped. Severus took a shallow inhale, keeping as still as possible. He felt rather than saw Voldemort lean back on his haunches and regard him for a moment before rising sinuously.
"Bella," he crooned. The woman emerged from the darkness, a mad, dark butterfly at long last free from her prison cacoon. As she approached, Severus's Occlumency responded instinctively, walls rising. Water spilled into the arena of his mind, muffling all thoughts and memories.
"Yes, my Lord?" Bellatrix asked, wand already unsheathed and hanging crookedly at her hip.
"Remind Severus what I think of failure."
"Of course, my Lord."
Their voices came as if from a great distance. Severus slipped beneath the surface of the waves.
Hours later, he stumbled through the corridor, blinking slowly against a swollen eye. It was early enough in the week that students weren't likely to be wandering about at night, which was good, because he really didn't feel like confronting anyone in this state.
He slipped into his rooms and immediately shed his cloak and robes. He brought trembling hands up to his shirt and began undoing the buttons. His fingertips shook when he reached the fifth button and he pressed his fists into his chest, waiting for the tremors to subside. When they were functionable again, he finished the rest of the shirt, crossed through to the bedroom, and shouldered open the bathroom door.
The sight that met him in the mirror was ghastly. His eye was indeed swollen, but it was almost missable compared to the rest of his body. While Bellatrix had liberally applied her favorite, Crucio, she had allowed her creativity to run freely after over a decade in prison. Bruises in shades of blue, yellow, and purple splashed over his body like he was an impressionist painting. Spidery thin cuts wrapped their way around his arms. They weren't overly painful, but healing every last spot would take time he'd much rather spend sleeping. His left collarbone jutted out weirdly. He couldn't tell whether it was broken or dislocated. He'd been Occluding the pain just to be sure to get back in one piece, but knew he'd have to feel at least a little to assess his injuries and range of motion properly.
"The first step to the Wolfsbane potion begins a month in advance by harvesting certain crucial recipes during the full moon," he recited, and then he let his walls slip.
Pain rushed in, sending alerts up to his brain as each body part began to feel again. He thought his ankle might be broken. He focused his attention first on his eye, bringing his wand to bear in a way that always felt unnatural but was practiced enough that the swelling soon decreased.
"Wolfsbane is one such ingredient, and its leaves are even more powerful if rainfall has been as recent as three days…"
He traced his wand along his collarbone and let out a quiet grunt as it clicked back into place. He ran his fingers along the bone and felt the muscle beneath it.
"These leaves may be added whole to the cauldron, rather than sliced as the standard recipe indicates…"
He continued his healing and recitation until he was sat on the edge of his bed, wand sealing the lines on his left arm.
"…which, once powdered, can be tipped into the cauldron and stirred seven—"
Three knocks sounded at his door. Severus's wand stilled and he glanced at the clock. Nearly four in the morning. He had half a mind to ignore it, knowing exactly who it was. But if it was important enough that she seek him out even now at this hour, then she might wait out there until the Slytherins began rousing from bed.
So what? an exhausted voice in the back of his head said. If she wants to wander into the snake pit, more the fool her.
He pulled a T-shirt over his head, shoulder muscles straining from a lactic acidosis spell—something Bellatrix found strangely hilarious—and he padded to his door.
"What?" he asked shortly, throwing it open.
"I know you don't want me here, but I–oh my god." She brought her fingers to her mouth and stared at him.
Ah, the black eye.
He had reduced the swelling, but that was all the better to examine his injuries. Getting rid of the bruising was more of a cosmetic fix, which he'd decided to forego for things more important like dislocated bones.
Granger was fully dressed in her school uniform. Even her tie was knotted at the base of her throat. He narrowed his eyes. Had she never gone to bed or was she already up for the day? Scrutinizing her face, however, he saw that she was not as put together as her attire suggested. There were shadows under her eyes and an almost gray look to her skin. Her fingers–the skin around a couple of her nails had been picked at–fell from her mouth. Her lips were chapped, and there was a spot of dried blood on her lower one, as if she had been biting incessantly at it. Had she not been sleeping?
It's none of your concern.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
She didn't answer for a moment, eyes still roaming his figure like she didn't believe she was seeing him. Or like she was trying to find more injuries.
Nosy.
And then she whispered, "I am so sorry. I…I felt…"
Of course she did. It wasn't enough that he had commanded her to leave. It wasn't enough that they spent any time they were in the same room doing their best not to catch each other's eye. The damn connection still ensured that she be aware that he was enduring yet another terrible night in his wretched life.
He stepped back, already hating himself for what he was about to do.
"Get inside." She obeyed and he shut the door, then crossed the room to his chair. "Talk. Quickly. Then you can leave."
"It's entirely my fault, I wasn't thinking—"
"You aren't thinking now," he said, seating himself.
Wasn't it clear that I didn't want you around?
The girl flinched, as if she had been struck. So that was still happening, too. He was tempted to use Occlumency to shut his mind from hers, but a headache was already stabbing sharply at the back of his eyes, and he didn't want it developing into a full-fledged migraine. He switched his wand to his other hand and began healing his right arm. He could let her in his rooms but he didn't have to look at her.
"I'm. Sorry," she said, voice wavering. Whether with hurt or anger, he could not identify. "I'm sorry that, despite how much you clearly can't stand my presence, I'm human enough to want to see that you're alright. Pardon me."
His hand stilled over a cut. The last words were so heavy with sarcasm, he wanted to scoop them back up and shove them into her mouth. Anger, then. He forced an even breath, then continued tracing his wounds. Above him, the girl huffed and shifted. From the edge of his vision, he saw her clasp her hands in front of herself.
"I should have realized the consequences the article would have for you," she said evenly, formally. "I just wanted Harry to finally be able to tell the truth and I…well, I forgot."
He couldn't help it. Pausing in his spellwork, he fixed her with a pointed stare.
"Lucky you," he said dully. He was pleased to see her blush with shame. "If that's all, you may go."
"Sir, please–"
"Granger!"
The girl jumped, face suddenly pale. Emotions crashed toward him like a wave: shock, hurt, desperate hope, defensive anger. His already fragile mind trembled under the onslaught and he squeezed his eyes shut, incapable of looking at her. Severus's nostrils flared as he let out a long exhale through his nose. He was far too tired to have this conversation, and his mind and body both screamed at him for rest. Her emotions slowly withdrew, a small, tired pain the last tendril to unfurl its hold on him.
"What can I do to make you trust me?" she asked in a small voice.
Even if he hadn't just suffered a burst of her emotions, he would identify the loneliness and loss in it. He felt it himself.
What happened to staying away? a voice in his head asked.
Bloody buggering fuck.
"It is not you I don't trust," he said with forced slowness, as if he were talking to a child. She is a child. He pressed his fingertips into his forehead, applying force to multiple pressure points. "It's our minds."
"Then I'll fix it," Granger said eagerly, robes rustling as she stepped forward. "I–I'll fix my mind."
His head snapped up.
"Don't you dare meddle with your mind," he ordered firmly, glaring at her. "It is one of the best assets we have on our side."
Albus would flay me alive if the golden girl lost her shine.
The girl blinked at him, then looked down at her feet. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, but it wasn't enough to obscure the smile fighting to break free. Merlin. He hadn't meant it as a compliment.
"I have to do something," she murmured to the ground.
He sighed. How was it that he always found himself at the mercy of headstrong Gryffindors?
"Do you have a theory for the cause of the connection?"
"No."
"Do you know what causes the barrier between our minds to thin at certain times?"
The girl's shoulders slumped. "No."
"Then what makes you think you know how to fix it?"
He wasn't being harsh. He was logical. And if she was logical, she'd see it, too.
"I…" she faltered. "I guess I don't know, but I'm betting Occlumency will help and I intend to practice it. Properly. And alone." Her voice grew steadier as she spoke and she finally looked at him, hesitating like a woodland creature in the face of its predator. "I don't think it will work right if we're together."
This connection is a parasite, he thought.
With the two of them in the same room, at best it would ignore their attempts to quench it, and at worse…well… He had never tried to rid himself of the Dark Mark, but he imagined the experience would be just as painful if not more so than it had felt to receive it. Magic, especially dark magic, reacted in unpredictable ways.
Magic that would repeatedly push them together, that would take the will behind their own magic and call upon the other's, that would lay bare their thoughts to one another without their assent… Could it be called anything other than dark magic? It was upon the same basis that spells like Imperio were Unforgivable and that evidence obtained under Legilimency was inadmissible in court.
And like the Dark Lord's promises, it had been appealing at first. It had seemed an advantage. All Severus had to do was cast a curse here, join a revel there, and then it had spiraled out of control. Each spell, each twisting of another person's will, each cleverly-devised trap at the Dark Lord's request gave him a momentary release before the hunger came back stronger. No wonder Bellatrix had gone half-mad before ever stepping foot in Azkaban.
Severus had been like an addict, having had his first taste and glutted himself upon it, he was left perpetually hunting for the next fix. The morning that he looked in the mirror and saw an echo of his alcoholic father, he had done two things: shattered the mirror and begun practicing Occlumency.
And now the pattern was repeating itself. Appealing, the thought of their using the connection for good. Hungry, the prompting of his magic to drink in hers when they began to meld. The seeming solution, once again Occlumency.
Severus examined the girl critically. It didn't take their connection to see the emotions coursing through her: hurt in the turn of her mouth, embarrassment in the flitting of her eyes away from his, frustration in the furrow of her brow…and determination undergirding it all. Gryffindors. She waited for his approval, fighting, he could tell, against any impulse to fidget. He sighed again.
"You are only to practice guarding your mind," he said. Her lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile, and he fixed her with a stern look. "No poking around at memories. No experimenting with hunches. And for the love of Merlin, no thinking in my direction during class."
Heat lit the girl's cheeks.
"Yes, sir. Sorry," she whispered.
"And…" He paused, and she looked at him curiously. He allowed himself one moment to look into her large brown eyes–open, sincere, attentive–before forcing himself to look away. "You have to stay away from me."
"But–" Her voice broke.
"Granger."
He clenched his jaw together, praying to any god that existed for patience. Finally, he dragged his gaze up to her face. Doing so felt like pushing a great boulder up a mountain. His body, exhausted from undergoing torture, and his mind, far too sensitive, strained with even this small movement. Looking her in the eye felt like staring down the Dark Lord while he inflicted Legilimency and Crucio. It felt like being pinned to the ground, flayed, and cut open for her to see every rotten part of his insides.
You are killing me.
Tears gathered in the corners of the girl's eyes, and he knew she finally understood.
"Now get out of here," he said tiredly, returning his wand once more to his arm.
She did.