Eat your meal, Hermione admonished Harry, mildly amused that he had asked her about the growl rather than Draco. We're going to have a nice discussion when we get back to the common room.
Can I go visit Hagrid? Harry asked hopefully.
She gave him a mental smile. Nice try. If your boyfriend and I are fighting over you, then you're going to be present.
But— he started to protest.
Eat, she repeated.
Draco was mashing his food into an unidentifiable paste on his plate in an entirely undignified manner, and she imagined he had worked out that she and Harry were talking to one another and excluding the Slytherin. No doubt he was busy making all sorts of stupid assumptions.
The meal resumed rather quietly. Since those in close proximity kept craning their necks and keeping an eye on them, they couldn't talk about anything important, and the type of casual dinner conversation they might have had was rather ruined by the fact that Draco was having a fit of the sulks. Ron was always one to prefer eating to talking anyway, and if just she and Harry struck up a conversation, she could probably save everyone the trouble and write an official love letter to the Prophet and have done.
As soon as Harry had cleared most of the food on his plate, the two of them rose as one but made sure they didn't move from the table until Draco was on his feet as well. He'd looked as though he was considering being rebellious and not getting up, but even in his temper, he seemed to realize how that would look; he wasn't about to let her wander off with his man.
Hermione bid farewell to Ron, whose puzzled frown showed that he'd picked up on some of the tension but likely had no idea what had caused it. Her wave at Ginny resulted in a commiserating glance that showed that even that far down the table, the youngest Weasley had picked up more of what was going on than her brother. No surprise there, really.
Draco actually tried to go to his own room, but Hermione told him in no uncertain terms that he was coming with them. This had resulted in a martial light glowing in his eyes, but she'd simply added that if he preferred to arrive in the common room Stunned and Mobilicorpused, she'd be happy to accommodate him.
It would probably have been a little more diplomatic to have Harry request the other boy's presence, but it was too late for that now; Harry seemed to have taken up a silent and as invisible as possible policy.
The three of them marched to their common room without further conversation. Harry immediately flopped onto the couch, and Draco stood there with his arms crossed and the look of disdain on his face that she remembered so well from years previous.
Reminding herself that there was no reason for her to lose her temper just because Draco looked in danger of doing so, she recited the Elder Futhark once more, glad she'd hit upon this method of anger management; she seemed to need to employ it rather frequently when it came to Slytherins and stupid best friends. Since she didn't particularly want a screaming match, she carefully sat down in an armchair as per usual, leaving the rest of the couch wide open for Draco.
"Draco," she began, "I'm doing my very best to love you like a friend."
Surprise chased away the disdain on his face; this was not the opening gambit that he had anticipated. There was still tension in his frame and he hadn't sat down, but his expression had tempered slightly.
"As a friend," she continued, "I'm going to tell you quite plainly that if you try to tell me that I'm not allowed to touch my best friend Harry anymore, we are going to quarrel."
Draco's lips tightened. "Why would you think I would say such a thing?"
If he hadn't looked so damn combative, it might have worked better.
"Because you growled at me at dinner today when I touched him."
"I would never do anything so uncouth," he protested.
Looking at Draco, Hermione couldn't decide if he was bluffing really well or if honestly hadn't noticed what he'd done. The only other person in the room who could corroborate her story was Harry, and she preferred not to make him take sides.
She sighed. "All day, people have been challenging your position with Harry. They're daft and stupid beliefs on everyone else's part. They're not true."
"Of course not," he said dismissively.
The Malfoy hauteur had come out, and she knew that Draco wasn't going to let this one go. She rose and stepped right up to him and saw him nearly go for his wand, but she stopped when there was all of six inches between them.
He's yours, she said, cutting Harry out of the conversation and speaking straight to Draco. He doesn't want to be anybody's but yours. Do you mean to tell him whom else he may have contact with?
Of course not.
He sounded moderately less brazen in his own mind but still as though he was maintaining the fiction that he had done nothing peculiar at dinner.
I'm going to tell you something, Draco Malfoy, she said intently. If Harry had to choose between you and me, I believe he'd choose you. But if you force him to make that choice for no reason, you'll hurt him very badly. He was finally regarding her as though her words were worth considering, and she stepped back from him as she offered a final, The decision is yours.
"I have to work on the Weresbane," she said, not looking at Harry as she passed him.
It was a relief to close the door behind her. She knew that Harry hadn't wanted to be there, and she hadn't wanted to drag him into the middle of it, but she hadn't been having that argument with Draco for her own health. It was Harry's happiness that had concerned her, and if he'd decided to interject—with an assertion of his feelings for Draco, even, as that could hardly be misconstrued—she wouldn't have taken it amiss.
She continued on her way through to the lab to see how the Weresbane was doing. It would be too bad when others actually knew the schedule of her potion-making because then she wouldn't have such a ready-made excuse. The cauldrons still had almost six more hours to simmer, and she wouldn't be able to work on it again until after she made it through the meeting this evening. If it looked to be going later than half ten, though, she really would need to cut it off to get back here.
The three cauldrons looked to be in fine order, so she sank onto one of the stools and stared blindly out the window. The Forest looked shadowed as always, but the grounds were still full of light.
Making herself some tea, she hoped that Harry and Draco were doing something constructive in the common room that didn't involve sex. Not that sex wasn't lovely, but given what had happened today, it was clear to her that actual discussion needed to occur, not just a physical affirmation of affection.
She sipped at the hot liquid, feeling absurdly comforted as it slid down her throat. To be fair to Draco, she supposed Harry did have a history of choosing her; their earliest arguments in the new year had often consisted of Harry taking her side over Draco's. She hoped some calm reflection made him realize that those were moral issues over which Harry couldn't compromise. When it came to picking people as an overall life choice, she was sure that Draco would win.
Still, since that was the one choice that she'd admonished Draco not to try to force Harry to make, he was probably feeling insecure, which was one thing that a Slytherin would almost never admit to. It was she whom Harry had come after despite the possible danger, and it was Draco who'd been left at the castle to worry.
People were most emotional and least rational when it came to those they cared about dearly. Expecting perfect behaviour from either Draco or Harry was an exercise in futility. And, she snorted to herself, given that she was the one who'd just run away because her emotional issues had become too large to handle—after rashly rushing off to rescue the man she loved—she wasn't in a position to cast stones.
As the evening grew later, she realized that they hadn't actually set a time for the meeting, but eight felt like the default, and she hoped that everyone else had formed the same opinion. Her running away had left important information up in the air for longer than was pleasant for anyone. She still had no idea how Severus had been found out, nobody but she knew how she'd rescued him, and at some point she'd really like to find out why her rescue warranted Severus's attempting to kill her.
She emerged from her lab shortly before eight and found that Harry and Draco were seated on the couch. If they'd been unclothed during any part of her absence, it didn't show now.
"Better?" she asked, figuring there was no point in pretending that they hadn't had a row last time they'd seen one another.
"Much, thanks," Harry answered.
Draco rose to his feet and came to stand in front of her so that he could formally offer his hand.
"I apologize, Hermione. I will endeavour to behave with more decorum in the future."
She shook his hand immediately, smiling faintly at him.
"I don't expect you to be perfect, you know. But Harry's my best friend, and I can't pretend otherwise."
"Understood," he answered. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Harry had come to stand with the two of them, sliding an arm round Draco's waist to give him a sideways hug, and the blond relaxed against the Gryffindor. She was relieved that there appeared to be no hard feelings between them.
"Are we going up?" he asked.
"You're sure this is a meeting you want to be at?" she asked.
Harry looked at her incredulously. "I've been waiting ages for answers. You don't honestly think I'd miss it, do you?"
She shook her head, conceding that there might even be some safety in numbers. After all, she didn't think Harry and Draco were about to attack her, and that just left Severus and Albus, and as far as she knew, the latter hadn't threatened to kill anyone recently. This meant she was now facing better odds than she had been a few minutes ago when she had been potentially going on her own.
Given Harry's protective streak, he would probably defend her if necessary, and Draco had a habit of defending Harry, so she was probably covered. It would be nice to have some friendly faces, anyway, and she was pretty sure that no matter how annoyed they might have been with her for leaving, Harry had gotten over it, and Draco was now on his best behaviour.
They left the common room together and made their way up to the headmaster's office. She wondered how many huge and important meetings she'd be participating in within this office before the end of the year. Those early years at Hogwarts, she'd barely seen the room. This year, it seemed as though it were at least once a week that she was popping up there and being chastised or learning important information or sharing crucial news…. She wouldn't mind taking a break and ceasing to warrant the notice of the headmaster of Hogwarts for a little while. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen until after the Final Battle, and she'd be leaving Hogwarts then, anyway. She'd gotten mixed right into the very centre of the war.
As the griffin opened for them, still not insisting on a password, she realized that the headmaster's office was important for other reasons as well; she couldn't avoid it if she wanted to access the magical centre of Hogwarts.
They rode up the steps in silence, and she tapped lightly on the door, despite the fact that she knew that Albus knew that they were there; it would still be rude to barge in, and she waited until they were given permission to enter.
"Harry, Hermione, Draco," Albus greeted them, sounding that infuriating mixture of pleasantly surprised and omnisciently aware. "How nice to see you. Tea?"
Since Hermione figured she'd want to be doing something with her hands and would likely get thirsty with the amount of talking that she was going to need to do, she accepted the liquid, and Harry and Draco followed her example. Waving her hand over it, she neutralized the Calming Potion, watching Albus's eyes twinkle, almost as though he had put it in there just to see her get rid of it. It wasn't she, after all, who was in danger of losing her temper.
Severus arrived in his normal flurry of black precisely as the last toll indicating eight o'clock died from the clock Albus kept on his mantel. This meant that the Head of Slytherin had his ascent from the dungeon to the Headmaster's office timed to a tee, and Hermione hid a smile.
She was seated in an armchair on the right-hand side of Albus's desk with Draco and Harry a little closer to the fire, since Harry would take any opportunity to bask in front of an open flame.
Severus, unsurprisingly, sat as far on the other side of the room from her as he could physically get. They were all nominally still facing the headmaster's desk, leaving him in charge of today's little encounter. Albus offered Severus tea and was curtly refused.
"Thank you all for coming," the headmaster reiterated now that they were all present. "There are a few questions that have been raised as a result of the events of last Monday. Hermione, if you could please outline the events as they occurred for you." He smiled at her encouragingly.
"I will answer what I can," she corrected, not daft enough by half to suggest that she'd tell them everything that had occurred, "but I believe it would be more logical to hear first why my actions were necessary. The rest of you may have heard this story, but I have not."
Severus did not look pleased at the prospect, but she looked at him implacably. If he wanted answers from her, he had to reciprocate. Given how their last private meeting had gone, Hermione felt the only way to safely ask was in the presence of others.
The Slytherin let out an irritated huff, but he spoke. "When the spy the Dark Lord had placed amongst the werewolves failed to return to him after the full moon, he was … deeply displeased. As I was the mostly likely Death Eater to be aware of the man's fate, I was questioned extensively. I disavowed all knowledge of what had occurred. Although I had maintained all along that I had been deliberately excluded for obvious reasons from anything to do with the Weresbane, the Dark Lord was desperate for answers and chose not to believe me. He tried to take by force the answers that I would not give, and I had the misfortune to utterly resist his intrusion."
It took her only a moment to work out where this was going. "You displayed too much power."
"Just so," he agreed. Harry blinked at him, looking confused. She didn't much like the fact that a bit of cordiality on Severus's part caused such shock, although she had to admit that such moments were starting to surprise her, too. "He immediately realized that I had a higher level of power that he had previously been aware of, and it didn't take him long to surmise the cause. His anger was … immoderate. I'd taken what he thought of as his, and I'd hidden the fact from him. He wanted to know who the Pure Adult had been."
She swallowed but did not ask, and his lips curled up slightly.
"I did not enlighten him. I imagine he realized when you came to my rescue?"
He asked even the question sourly, and she wondered if he would have sounded happier if it had been someone else who had performed the rescue.
Shrugging, she responded, "He may well have guessed that it was one of the Pure Adults who came after you given the amount of power that I expended in order to liberate you, but he did not see me."
"My last recollection is of being tortured by the Dark Lord and a group of Death Eaters." This was said with the hint of a question, as though he doubted the reliability of his memory.
She nodded, trying to banish all the horridly clear images that immediately came to the fore of her mind. "They were still at work when I found you."
"Yet you say they didn't see you?" he pursued suspiciously.
"I Stunned them all," she answered, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "And then I got you out of there."
There was a moment of shocked silence. "You Stunned the Dark Lord?" This was from Draco.
She gave a short assent. "They were preoccupied. I had other priorities."
"But the Dark Lord was Stunned? In your power, and you just left him there?" Draco asked again, his voice rising an octave.
She looked to Harry, who was staring at her without anger, a fact for which she was rather grateful.
"Voldemort survived the rebounded Killing Curse when Harry was a baby. We don't know everything he's done to keep himself alive, and I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have any stronger-than-the-Killing-Curse spells in my arsenal for everyday use. Solace's spell is the only spell I believe can kill him, and it couldn't be performed in that dungeon."
To even have a chance, she would have had to consign Severus to death, and she had been unwilling to do that.
"I didn't know how many Death Eaters were in the house. I didn't know how long Voldemort and the Death Eaters I Stunned would remain unconscious if I went for reinforcements. And given the power I had expended to get there, it is unlikely I would have been able to perform Solace's spell properly. Solace left enough blood to perform the spell once; we're not getting any second chances."
The plan they had was a good one. A mostly good one that had a bit of a flaw in the getting the information to Voldemort part at this point, but she believed they could figure something out.
"Right," Harry said definitively before anyone else had the chance. "So no, Hermione couldn't have killed Voldemort because killing him requires the plan we've already come up with, the one that couldn't have been carried out last week. So that's all there is to it, understood?"
It didn't look as though it were altogether understood, but with Harry being altogether collected and rational about it, it looked as though no one else was going to fly off the handle.
"Whatever you say," Draco said, managing to sound mostly resigned.
Albus, too, looked relatively understanding, although Severus's expression was much harder to identify. Did he think that she should have tried to strike Voldemort down while she had the chance? It was not something he had ever attempted in his years of being a spy, not even recently when he had more power than ever before. So maybe he understood some of her reasoning even if he didn't want to admit it.
At least Harry understood. There were days where she almost wondered why they weren't a couple, except then she saw him with Draco and she thought about how she felt about Severus, and she remembered that she wasn't the least bit attracted to Harry romantically. Oh, well.
"There is no point in discussing what cannot be changed," Albus said diplomatically.
Snorting to herself, she wondered how he'd feel if she agreed with that argument and therefore refused to say anything more about what she had done.
"Let us discuss something rather more pertinent," Severus said darkly, perhaps sensing where her train of thought had led her. "Do you realize what he would have done to you if he had caught you?"
Hermione thought this was a particularly stupid question, but she reminded herself that she wasn't going to lose her temper in this meeting and forced herself to respond calmly. "Tortured and killed me much as he was doing to you. I took every possible precaution to ensure that didn't happen."
Harry, Severus, and Albus all opened their mouths to protest.
She overrode them flatly. "You can't tell me that I've made myself more of a target because we all know that's not possible. I'm Harry's Muggle-born best friend, I've helped thwart Voldemort for years, I'm one of the Pure Adults he was searching for, and I've cured lycanthropy. You also can't tell me we could have waited for one of you to come up with a better plan; I assure you that there was no time to spare."
"Has it not occurred to you that Severus may have preferred to die?" Albus asked.
She frowned fiercely at him, able to detect nothing but seriousness in his question. She had trouble finding her voice. "If only one of you had informed me that he was trying to kill himself, I could have spared myself a great deal of trouble."
"Of course I don't want to kill myself," Severus snarled. "I would not be here if that were the case."
"Then I have no idea what you are talking about," she said, letting honest confusion colour her tone.
It was Albus who answered, his expression very grave. "Poppy informed me that you gave Severus unicorn blood."
"Yes," she agreed.
"What?" To her surprise, it was Harry who protested. "You gave Snape unicorn blood?"
"Professor Snape, Harry," she corrected automatically, "and the answer is the same 'yes' it was five seconds ago."
"But you—" Harry cut himself off with a visible effort and seemed to have to work for a long moment to rephrase. "You want him to live 'a half life, a cursed life'?"
Hermione let out an astonished huff of breath. After everything that happened, she had somehow managed to forget that she was the only one who knew that detail. She couldn't quite bring herself to forgive Severus utterly, but at least she better understood his anger.
"Of course not," she answered. "This does not leave the room."
They all nodded their agreement, at least half of them fully aware of how seriously she was binding them to this fact. She had the spell cast wordlessly and wandlessly with barely a thought; when it came to the secrets of her herd, she needed more than a simple assent to secrecy.
"The blood that I gave you, Severus, was a gift from my herd mare for a service that I rendered her. Unlike that which is taken by force, freely offered unicorn blood has no negative side effects."
"You have unicorn blood that has no negative side effects?" Severus repeated, voice very flat.
"Had," she clarified.
"You used all that you had on me," he said blankly.
She shrugged. "You had need of it."
He recovered enough to say sourly, "I don't think your herd mare approved of that choice."
Her response was biting. "You didn't make the best impression. She was defending someone she considers a member of her family from what she believed to be mortal peril."
Albus interceded. "It is a shame she misjudged the situation, but clearly no one came to any harm."
Hermione and Severus stared at one another, neither of them venturing a comment out loud about Castina being wrong or no one being hurt.
The headmaster interrupted their staring match with a change of subject.
"You have not explained what you did to Lucius Malfoy."
Everyone else looked at her with surprise, especially Draco. It was he who demanded, "What does my father have to do with this?"
It appeared that despite the week that had passed, all the known details had not been shared between all the interested parties.
"I went to Lucius to ask him for his help in finding Voldemort," Hermione answered somewhat evasively. "He agreed to assist me."
"He was in a coma until yesterday," Albus prodded. "Tonks found him in that state when she went to check on him following your visit."
Hermione swallowed. Putting Draco's father in a coma had really not been one of her goals. She understood a little better how Albus felt sometimes, though, because even knowing that he'd been in a coma, she doubted she could say that she wouldn't have made all the same decisions if she had it to do over again.
If there had been better options, she would happily have chosen them, but she believed she'd done the only thing that could be done to save Severus under the circumstances. And it was hard to claim that she would have at least better-informed people when she was aware that doing so would likely have led to them trying to stop her.
She said what she could, visions of Harry being stuck with the Dursleys for a decade dancing through her head. "I'm sorry that he was injured and very glad to hear he has regained consciousness."
Draco's and Harry's eyes had gone similarly large, and it was Harry who finally said hesitantly, "You didn't torture him, right?"
"Of course not," she answered, more amused than hurt because if she were being honest with herself, she knew full well that she'd been teetering on the edge of using force if questions had not garnered her the answers she sought.
She was very happy that it hadn't come to that because there really seemed to be very little she wouldn't do for Severus.
He was looking at her with a funny expression now, and she wondered if she'd just let too much of her Slytherin side show. She resumed her narrative. "I asked for his assistance, and he consented. He knew what I was doing was unprecedented and could have unpredictable results."
"And what is it, precisely, that you did?" Albus queried.
"Death Eaters are connected to Voldemort; I capitalized upon that connection."
"Come again?" Harry said, brow furrowed in confusion.
"I used Lucius Malfoy's Dark Mark to Apparate to Voldemort's location."
Harry's jaw actually dropped, and Severus's eyebrow rose sharply.
"You did what?" Draco gasped.
"But you couldn't—" Albus began.
She shrugged. "As impossible as it seems, I did." She gave them a brief outline of her theory and how she had been able to follow the link between the two men.
"You are forgetting one point." The headmaster offered her another verbal nudge.
She nodded. He was clearly in the sort of mood to show that he knew more than anyone else. Nothing new there, really.
"I asked him if he wished to continue serving Voldemort. He said he did not."
"What did you do?" Draco demanded.
"Severed the connection as I Apparated," she admitted.
It was that, she was sure, which had put him into the coma.
Harry was staring at her uncomprehendingly again.
"Lucius Malfoy is no longer a Death Eater," she responded to the unspoken question. "At least, inasmuch as you're not a Death Eater if you don't have the Dark Mark. I removed it."
"You removed Lucius's Dark Mark."
This was Severus, and she looked up to meet glittering dark eyes.
"I did," she answered. "It's how I knew it was possible to remove yours."
"You didn't ask me first."
She couldn't help scoffing but managed not to laugh incredulously. "You made your desire not to be one of Voldemort's minions clear years ago, Severus. I probably would have asked for the sake of politeness, but you were unconscious on the verge of death, and he was torturing you through the Mark. It was interrupting your healing process."
"That's what drained so much of your power and knocked you out," Harry exclaimed suddenly. "I didn't understand what was happening."
She nodded. And thank you, rather belatedly, for that boost in power.
Running about Scotland in unicorn form had given her plenty of time to realize that the influx of power she had felt as she had fought not to be crushed in the backlash of severing the link had to have come from somewhere.
You looked like you could use it. You realize I'll have to kill you if you try anything like that again?
You realize I'll have to try something like that again if I, er, have to try something like that again?
Fortunately, Severus only had one Dark Mark, but she couldn't stop being who she was.
Yeah, Harry admitted with a sigh. He knew her rather well.
"You'd already expended a great deal of energy that evening," Severus put in, bringing her back to the verbal discussion. "Why would you do that, too?"
"He was hurting you with it," she tried to answer. "I had no intention of rescuing you just to have him kill you from a distance."
It was that response or screaming, "I love you, you complete prat!" and there were far too many other people present for the latter option.
"Are there any other astonishing displays of power which you should share with us now before it takes us badly by surprise later?" Severus asked.
Barely managing not to roll her eyes, she was glad she hadn't been holding her breath for even a minimal show of gratitude.
"Nothing that immediately springs to mind," she answered the question as he opened his mouth to no doubt ask it more persistently. "I went to Tonks to get the location of the safe house. I went to the safe house to use Lucius's Dark Mark to get to Voldemort's location. I went to Voldemort's location to rescue you, and I brought you back here to be healed."
Harry coughed loudly.
"What?"
"You forgot to mention how you got back to Hogwarts," he said, clearly amused.
She didn't think it was such a big deal, personally, but from the expectant look on everyone else's faces, it was clear that Severus hadn't been informed of this little detail. She wondered who had taken the time to inform Harry since he hadn't even been present when she arrived. Poppy must have told Albus, and Hermione supposed it had done the rounds from there.
"I Apparated," she said flatly. Harry cleared his throat yet again. She continued reluctantly, "To the hospital wing."
It took a moment for the import of what she'd said to fully register with Severus. "You went through the wards."
She nodded. "You needed assistance as quickly as possible."
Fawkes appeared from Albus's quarters and alighted on her shoulder, rubbing his beak against her cheek. She couldn't help smiling widely at him, pleased that she'd evidently been forgiven. Sharing the limelight right now was definitely her preference.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at everyone else. "I shouldn't have left Fawkes out. He came to the hospital wing to offer his assistance as well."
Severus blinked at her. "You're saying I was given unicorn blood and phoenix tears?"
She nodded. "And virtually every healing potion Poppy had on hand, and we still weren't entirely certain you were going to make it."
Severus looked at Albus accusingly. "I believe your summary left much to be desired."
"I hadn't realized," the headmaster answered. "Poppy felt it was her duty to inform me about the unicorn blood, but I thought Fawkes had gone to see with his own eyes that the two of you were safe and sound." His tone was almost apologetic as he looked at Hermione.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Severus demanded, not missing the look exchanged between the two of them.
"It means he's almost sorry that he told me I shouldn't have gone," Hermione interpreted. "He's saying he didn't realize how badly you'd been injured."
Albus sighed. "When I saw you in the hospital wing, Severus, I hadn't realized the amount of care that you had already received."
"You mistook my half-healed body for freshly tortured?" the Slytherin said sceptically.
Albus didn't quite meet their eyes. "I don't think you realize quite what a state you must have been in when Hermione found you, Severus."
Harry and Draco nodded, for they, too, had been in the hospital wing when Severus was partially healed.
"How did I look when you found me?" he demanded, turning to her.
She regarded him very soberly, not wanting to answer but realizing that it wasn't a truth she could reasonably keep from him. "Broken. Tortured to death."
The room suddenly seemed stiflingly quiet, and Fawkes let out a soothing musical trill. She was reminded of the ability that Harry had confessed to her while they were out in the Highlands. There were times where it really was helpful.
She brought her hands up to stroke Fawkes's feathers gently and was able to continue. "By the time we got back to Hogwarts, I'd done my best to stabilize and bandage you, but given how extensive your injuries were, I had no idea how long the unicorn blood was going to last. I asked Fawkes to come straight away, and then Poppy began to treat you." She smiled suddenly. "At least I understand why Poppy was being so weird now."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
Hermione sighed. "She wouldn't let me stay to ensure that Severus was all right. Threatened to call Albus and everything."
Draco opened his mouth, the look in his eyes indicating that he was clearly going to challenge such a threat having any effect on her, but Harry took pity and spoke first.
"I wondered why you weren't there in the evening."
Mentally, he was much more inquisitive. What actually convinced you to go?
Something else. There was no way she was getting into that—even mentally—right now.
Out loud, she answered, "I thought I'd wait until you were out of the hospital wing, Severus, so I could see with my own eyes that my efforts hadn't been in vain."
"You appear to have got over that desire rather quickly," Severus said snidely.
She shook her head slightly. "The castle interfered. Wouldn't let me go see you."
Albus eyebrows had risen almost to his hairline.
"It kept turning out the lights. I imagine it was right after you told him about the unicorn blood, Albus," she pointed out and had the pleasure of seeing him squirm slightly. She looked back at Severus. "I don't think the castle fancied my chances alone with you."
It would remain a mystery, she supposed, what would have happened if she'd gone to see him in his room and he'd snapped as he had when he'd found her on the grounds. After all, his last memory before he woke from the healing sleep was of being horribly tortured. To awake against all expectation only to be told that he'd been horribly cursed for the rest of his life right before Hermione came blundering in to verify his health would probably have been disastrous.
"I'm sure Severus didn't mean you any lasting harm, Hermione," Albus said, and she wondered how many years it had taken him to perfect a reasonable mixture of chastisement (for what he evidently viewed as an exaggeration on her part) and conciliation (for her ruffled feelings).
Albus, of course, hadn't been there. She knew Severus had had every intention of causing her harm, and she noticed that Severus still made no attempt to defend himself.
She felt particularly stupid for having failed to realize why Poppy was so upset, and she wished that she'd thought to clarify a great deal sooner about the freely offered unicorn blood. But she was still sitting in a room full of the people who had at least some idea of how much she cared for Severus, and she would have hoped that at least one of them would have believed that she would never injure him like that.
She desperately wanted him to live, but she knew that Severus would willingly die before he became like Voldemort; Severus had never fled from mortality as far as she could tell, and she would never damn him just so that she could selfishly keep him with her.
Severus, especially, hadn't been operating with all the facts, and she knew that he had a bad temper on him, but it hurt that he had assumed so readily like the others that she was trying to do him harm. But then, he was rarely the sort to look for the positive interpretation of events. He'd had a long time to see the worst in people and to see them act out the worst on him.
And everyone else had been angry with her for reasons that had validity. She had left without Harry and Draco, she'd used Ron and Tonks, she hadn't kept Albus advised of what she'd been doing, and she'd breached the castle's wards without a second thought.
They all knew that she'd been rescuing Severus and were annoyed with some of the details of the way she'd done it. But Severus hadn't asked any questions. He had assumed that, rather than saving him, she'd actually been trying to horribly punish him in some way. And really, how stupid was that? If she'd been trying to punish him, she'd have bloody well left him to be tortured to death by Voldemort; she would never have risked life and limb to come get the daft prat.
It was actually so illogical that she was having trouble grasping that Severus had thought it for so much as a moment, let alone long enough to find her and storm out to actively try to injure her.
The more she thought about it, the more upset she got, but discussing it right now wouldn't help; it was clear she wasn't going to get an apology from Severus.
"We're all fine now, and that's what matters," Hermione said as dismissively as she could.
She knew that their relationship had been really quite bizarre this year, but it had never been she who'd started them fighting, and everything that she'd done for him had been kindly meant. The fact that he'd seriously entertained the notion that she'd destroy his life in some petty revenge told her that he didn't know her at all.
All this time being wrapped up in thinking about him, of being affected enough by him that she actually ran away from Hogwarts and the entire war, and he didn't trust that she wasn't trying to torture him for the rest of his life. Really, that as good as said that she'd decided that Voldemort was killing him too quickly for her tastes so she'd come rescue him in order to make him suffer for a long time. That was … asinine!
Severus and Albus had to have been thinking something along those lines, and it was really very insulting. Harry, from his reaction earlier, hadn't known about the unicorn blood, and if Harry hadn't known, Draco probably hadn't, either. That meant that the two of them and the castle were the only ones who'd retained any faith in her, and that might well have been only because they didn't know about the blood.
"It was, indeed, the best possible outcome," Albus agreed blandly.
She tried not to grind her teeth, reminding herself that she'd wanted to end the conversation, so she had to let the matter be dismissed.
In the interest of not losing her temper, it was probably better to end the whole discussion sooner rather than later.
Rising to her feet, she offered Albus a forced smile.
"If you'll excuse me, I have a potion that needs minding."
"Of course," the headmaster answered immediately. "We wouldn't want to interrupt your important work."
Harry and Draco rose as well, but Severus remained in his chair, and she was relieved that she didn't have to worry about an immediate confrontation. She and the boys trooped back down the stairs to their quarters.
As soon as they reached the common room, she bid Harry and Draco goodnight and headed to her lab. She still had a little while before she needed to get started on the Weresbane, but she preferred to be lost in her own thoughts than stuck ruminating on someone else's.
Although both she and Severus had been forced to reveal more than they had wished, at least they had managed to keep that awful final confrontation to themselves. That it was likely because Albus thought she had overreacted and the situation was not nearly as serious as it had actually been was an annoyance, but it was likely still worth it in the end. This way, she didn't have to worry that Harry would attempt anything worse than a punch nor that Albus would be forced to discipline one of his staff members. She hadn't gone to the trouble of saving Severus so that he would be sacked.
Sinking down onto one of her lab stools, she thought about making tea, but it seemed like a lot of effort at the moment, so she continued to sit with her feet propped up on the metal rungs, knees supporting her elbows as she considered what she had learnt this evening.
Although no one, not even Severus, had said so, it had essentially been her fault that he'd been caught. It was her potion and Roger that Voldemort had become suspicious about, and it had been her choice that had given Severus the extra power that had confirmed to Voldemort that there was something wrong. Between all those factors, there wasn't really any way around what she had done, inadvertent as it had been.
She was now left feeling rather surprised that Severus hadn't decided to stand up at meal time and announce her culpability to the world. He probably felt that rescuing him was the least she could do as repayment. Maybe that was why no one had thanked her.
There was still the matter of his helping fetch her when she'd run off rather than washing his hands of her entirely, but she supposed he must have wanted her brought back because he'd needed these questions answered. It would have been annoying, she had to concede, for him to have to spend the rest of his life believing he'd been cursed.
That was no doubt reason enough to enlist Harry's aid to come after her. Severus had made no attempt to speak with her himself, after all, just used her best friend to get to her and then assigned her a whole bunch of detentions. That was pretty much business as usual when it came to Severus.
Now that he had the information he sought, he could spend the rest of the term being annoyed with her. She would serve detentions that she didn't feel she deserved, and no one would notice anything amiss.
If he'd really decided that rescuing him didn't cancel out getting him caught in the first place, then it would be a miracle if this upcoming week of detentions was the last she received. As blasé as she had been about the prospect of seven weeks of detention, she didn't want to suffer through them. But she would do what needed to be done.
Right now, that meant completing the next stage of the Weresbane Potion.
It was a relief to know that this part of her job, at least, was straightforward. She didn't have to be concerned that the potion was going to turn on her or assign her detentions. All she had to do was follow the procedure that, by this point, she knew by heart, and at the end of five days, she would be able to bring hope to some sorely afflicted people.
The Weresbane, at least, she could get right, even if she seemed to be making only mistakes as far as everyone else was concerned. So she would concentrate on her cure and ensure that these people, at least, were brought happiness.
At breakfast Wednesday morning, she realized that although Viktor was back from his sudden holiday, he hadn't spoken so much as two words to her. She'd been missing for the entire first day back from break, and he hadn't even stopped by to check and see how she was. He was looking at least as surly as he used to as he sat up at the High Table, and sitting as he did next to Severus, it was like they were a little cabal of ill-intent directed at her once more. Hermione began to avoid so much as glancing at that end of the table.
It was her fault, she knew that; she had rejected him. But she'd done her very best to be kind about it. She'd been honest with him, and surely he couldn't really have wanted her to pretend? They needed to continue to function together for the rest of the year, so couldn't he see his way to being polite? She sneaked another look at his glowering countenance. Not, apparently.
The gossip mongers would no doubt soon work out that she and Viktor were on the outs, and that would surely be linked to the holiday fiasco. For all she knew, she realized, Viktor might think that she had run off with Harry. He might think that Harry was the one whom she was in love with.
She barely resisted the urge to bang her head repeatedly against the table and see if that made her feel better. If he actually thought that, then she supposed there was every reason for him to glower; she'd been living with Harry for months and Viktor probably felt that she'd led him on.
What happened to common sense when she was in need of it? Severus was enough to drive her mental, but now she had Viktor and Draco acting weird, too. She could only hope that what she'd said yesterday really had some permanent impact on the blond Slytherin. She could avoid the two professors to a certain degree, but if Draco was determined to make her life difficult, he had a lot of access to her, and she needed some peace.
You all right? Harry asked.
Hmm?
You don't look very happy, he said gently.
She offered him the barest of sad mental smiles. I'm not terribly happy, Harry, but it's nothing for you to worry yourself about. Although.... Do you think you could start gearing Ron up for the possibility of not meeting with Viktor on Thursday?
Harry's eyes went first to the redhead and then past him to the staff table.
Uh, sure. You really think that's going to be necessary?
She let out a huff of breath. I'd prefer he didn't loudly broadcast to the entire school on Thursday his shock and incomprehension as to why Viktor isn't joining us, yes.
But—
Fortunately, she didn't even have to look at him pointedly before he let go of that question. Glare at him pointedly enough, and he eventually realized she didn't want to discuss the topic.
Right, he agreed hurriedly. I'll make sure to talk to Ron after Transfiguration.
Thank you.
Harry could tell the other boy the truth if he really wanted; Ron would probably find it funny after all these years that Viktor had declared his feelings for her only to be turned down. It might balance out his annoyance that he didn't have personal time with one of his idols. He might be quite upset, but as long as he vented those feelings privately, she didn't care. What had happened with Viktor was a debacle that she would just as soon never speak of again.
Although…. Pansy was over at the Ravenclaw table today, as these were the students least likely to ostracize her simply because of the House she came from. She was always welcome to join Hermione and Harry's group, but as it tended to make at least a portion of the Gryffindors jumpy, the Slytherin girl didn't like doing it terribly often. Since so many of the Slytherins had joined the DA, relations had improved, but old prejudices were difficult to shake. Pansy was rather prudently maintaining her habit of sitting wherever she liked as a Prefect; if she had to more permanently cut herself off from the Slytherins, it would take everyone else a little while to notice.
Hermione had observed before how well Pansy and Viktor had gotten along at the picnic. If she could convince Pansy to pursue this interest, it might end happily for everyone. Viktor was a pure-blood and had plenty of international renown, so it would probably even be considered a good match for those who cared about such things. Hermione knew how much it mattered to most pure-bloods, even if it seemed like complete nonsense to her, and if it gave her an extra edge when she tried to convince Pansy that it was a good idea, then she'd make use of it. She could probably manage to talk to the girl after Arithmancy if she sent Draco off to find Harry, which he'd want to do anyway if Harry had spent the lunch hour with Ron….
There were moments where she was certain that she'd become Albus's apprentice without even noticing. She wondered if meddling with the goal of the other people's happiness made it more forgivable.
The Weresbane didn't need work until just before midnight, so when Harry asked to speak with her that evening after dinner, she didn't feel as though she could refuse him. Heading into her lab nearly seven hours early was a bit much, even by her standards.
Now she knew why Draco had made himself scarce the moment dinner ended.
They sat down on the couch, Harry fidgeting with his hands, and Hermione waited to get properly yelled at for leaving Harry and Draco behind. She wasn't going to apologize again, but she did understand that she had worried her friends, and if it made them feel better to yell, then she could probably handle it.
"I'm sorry," Harry said, eyes wide and guileless.
She blinked in surprise, no longer certain what it was they were discussing.
"For a particular reason?" she asked. "Or just in general?"
He smiled at her, the skin crinkling around his eyes as he said self-deprecatingly, "I ought to have been a little clearer when I started, oughtn't I? I know Snape wasn't the only reason that you ran."
She grimaced, not wanting to discuss this at all.
"I need to get this out," Harry said a little desperately. She sighed and nodded, and he continued. "We were all angry with you, and the last memory you had of pretty much all of us was of us yelling and being really quite daft. We were upset, which I think you've realized we had some right to be, but we didn't handle it sensibly. We didn't give you the chance to explain, and no matter how annoyed you've been with me, you always let me tell you what I'm thinking."
She appreciated that he'd noticed.
Harry sighed. "Mostly what I'm sorry about is not believing you when you said he was in trouble. When you were laying everything out in Albus's office, I realized how much we all just dismissed you."
She hadn't actually talked much about that part of the rescue from what she could recall, but Harry had thought about it anyway, apparently.
He ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than usual. "I never realized just what it's like to be the person who doesn't have a connection to Voldemort, to be the one standing there not knowing where this information is coming from and having no reason to believe except that it's a friend who's saying it."
He frowned fiercely for a moment, but met her eyes firmly as he said, "I should have trusted you. You might sometimes have doubted the things that I saw—and rightly so—but you always supported me because I was desperate and I needed help." He swallowed, and she knew he was remembering his godfather's death. "I didn't try to help you, I just came up with reasons why you were wrong. I assumed that I had to be right because I wasn't feeling anything, and I left you feeling like you had to do this by yourself. I'm very sorry."
She smiled warmly at him. "Thank you, Harry, for the apology." It was likely the only one she was going to receive, so she'd have to savour it. "But you shouldn't feel too guilty. No matter how supportive you'd been, I would still have gone alone."
"But it was dangerous," he protested. "I'm still upset about that, you know."
Her lip curled. "I'd be very surprised if you weren't. I know just how dangerous it was, Harry, but think about what I did. There's no way I could have Apparated through the Mark with another person. There would have been a better chance of our being caught if lots of people had gone, and if you'd tried to go, Ron and Draco would have wanted to come, too, and before you know it, it would have been a positive army trying to rescue Severus.
"There would have been a debate over what to do with Voldemort if we'd even got that far, with people wanting us to try to kill him on the spot without preparation. My concern was that Severus be got to safety, and that was best done as I did it."
Harry let out a gusty sigh which she took to mean that he didn't like it but he accepted what she'd said.
"So," she asked, amused, "do you want to tell Draco it's safe to come in now?"
Harry grinned at her. "I did tell him to wait in the bedroom. Wasn't sure how annoyed you were going to be."
"Given that you started with an apology, you took me completely by surprise," she answered. "I thought we'd begin with you being upset with me."
Harry snorted. "It's a pleasant surprise for both of us, then." Mentally, he added, You want tea, Draco?
There was the impression of surprise, and then, Sure, and Draco appeared by way of Harry's bedroom.
"That was fast," he said brightly.
She and Harry laughed, and Harry summoned Winky to ask for tea.
A few hours later, as Hermione worked on the Weresbane, she couldn't help but lament once more that she was working on it alone. She had nearly lost Severus to Voldemort, and she had never managed to share this potion with him. He was alive now, free of Voldemort's influence for the first time in nearly twenty years, but there was so much bad blood between her and Severus that she didn't suppose she could tender an invitation that he would consider accepting.
It wasn't really practical for this batch of the potion, anyway. Because she had started when she returned on Monday rather than working out the optimal time to brew, this batch's schedule was a little off. She'd be working until three in the morning tonight, and she'd be starting work again at half four on Friday morning. If she needed to sleep like a normal person, she'd be in trouble.
A reminder of her unique sleep requirements made her think about her herd. She still hadn't been out to see Castina, and until that meeting was accomplished, Hermione didn't feel that she could go out in unicorn form at all. No matter what had passed between them, it was her herd mare's Forest, and Hermione didn't even want to Mask herself and walk around the grounds, given how close they were to the Forest itself; it felt too disrespectful.
Fortunately, she'd recently spent days in her Animagus form, so she wasn't physiologically obliged to transform; she simply desired to do so. She craved comfort, she wanted to get out of the castle, and she rather fancied telling her herd about the week she had had. Having never spent that long in unicorn form nor travelled that far, it was an experience she would like to share. Harry had grasped the idea of stretching his wings, but he couldn't fully comprehend what it felt like to be a unicorn or how her experience had differed from what he understood as either a human or a phoenix.
As she continued to chop, grind, mix, and stir, she reflected that she didn't really have time to spend with the herd, given that large chunks of her night were being taken up with the potion, but the desire was still there.
Mouth screwed up into a thin line, she reflected that she'd had plenty of practice this year repressing her desires; this would simply be one more urge to add to the list. She needed to get the Weresbane sorted, and then she could deal with the next problem.
It was nearly four before she made it to bed, which meant that she got up to a regular person's schedule. She missed the alone time that she normally got in the morning but didn't have anyone to blame but herself, so she shrugged the feeling off. She continued to hand in her holiday homework. She was sure that there were students in the Gryffindor dorm this week who were trying to finish the assignments that should have been done long ago, and she was glad that she was not counted amongst that number.
Many of the N.E.W.T.-level students were beginning to stress in earnest about their bonus projects which had to be handed in by May first at the latest. All her professors had reiterated to her that curing lycanthropy in February more than equalled all the projects she could have handed in.
Those students who were at all logical—which meant most of the Ravenclaws and some of the Slytherins, predominantly—had already submitted theirs. The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, by and large, were beginning to look a little harried. She knew that Harry intended to present his modified shield to Tonks for DADA, but she had no idea what else he was doing and trusted that if he'd needed any assistance from her, he would already have asked for it; she wasn't going to take on any other tasks voluntarily, so she was leaving everyone to their own devices on this one.
Taking the opportunity to not meddle from time to time was surely good for her.
Whatever Harry had said had done the trick; Ron didn't look happy, but he also didn't look surprised when Viktor didn't attend their get-together on Thursday, and the redhead didn't ask why the man was absent. Since they were now all of five weeks away from N.E.W.T.s, there was plenty they could be doing instead of discussing Quidditch, and Harry even made an adorable effort to suggest that that was why Viktor hadn't come.
Not even Ron looked as though he'd bought this excuse, but everyone was too polite to say anything. She knew how much Ron would have preferred Quidditch over the N.E.W.T. prep, but even he made a praiseworthy effort to get some revision done. She sometimes wondered if this had solely to do with the fact that Molly would never forgive him if he failed them all, but she knew he'd be nothing but insulted if she asked. He was trying, finally, and that was what mattered.
Friday at half four, with her arms one again immersed in still water as she submerged the Weresbane, she found herself thinking that although there was no way that Viktor would be here now, if it was a potion made by someone other than her, she was sure that Severus would be present. Even if it meant that he'd be a complete terror in class, he'd want to watch this process. He'd be asking picky questions and probably have criticism about this or that choice that she'd made…. She sniffed, reminded herself that contaminating the potion at this point would wreak complete havoc, and did her best to put Severus out of her mind completely.
By a quarter to six she'd sealed the potion for its twenty-four hours of uncontaminated wait time. She spent the next hour preparing the Weresbane leaves and birch sap, and by the time she'd cleaned up completely, it was time to begin the day just like a regular person. When Harry saw her, he didn't even bother to ask how long she'd been up, just shook his head.
Draco actually inquired, so she explained a little about the timing of the potion. It amused her how the Slytherin simply refused to accept that she needed so little sleep. She knew it was abnormal, but as far as she was concerned, he'd accepted far more bizarre facts.
It was seven o'clock in the morning and perhaps not the best time to pursue the topic, but Hermione'd been up for hours, and she decided to do it anyway.
"What is it that bothers you so much about this?" she asked, sitting down next to him on the couch.
"It's inexplicable," he answered immediately, turning to her with a particularly dramatic arm gesture. "You and Harry are both Pure Adults. He sleeps more or less regularly; you don't. It doesn't make sense."
"You're assuming that my being a Pure Adult is why I don't sleep."
"Isn't it?" he demanded.
"Not directly," she answered. She looked over at Harry.
Time to reveal another one of our deep, dark secrets?
Mentally, Harry grinned at her. Yes, please.