Arithmancy for Muggles

Chapter Fifteen:

Harry hummed under his breath as he chopped the mushrooms. There was something soothing about the rhythm of chopping vegetables into even slices. The mushrooms sizzled when they hit the hot pan and Harry inhaled the intoxicating garlic-butter-mushroom-scented steam.

“Harry, we're having company for dinner.” Wrestling with her briefcase, purse and coat, Hermione waddled through the front door unceremoniously. “What's that smell?”

“Mushrooms.” Harry stirred a pan of vegetable stock just coming to a simmer. “I'm making risotto.”

Bumping the front door closed with her knee, Hermione dropped purse, briefcase and coat on the floor and stepped out of the pile to peer over Harry's shoulder. “I'm going to get fat if you cooking like this every night. What did I do to deserve you, Harry?” She smooched his cheek before returning to hang up her coat and put her things away.

“Who's coming to dinner?” Harry paused to count the shrimp defrosting in the sink, and wondered if they'd have enough.

Hermione paused in the doorway to the bathroom, “Luna Lovegood,” she answered before pulling the door closed behind herself. When she emerged, several long minutes later, Harry was waiting for her.

“What do you mean, Luna Lovegood? She doesn't know I'm here, does she? She can't know. She'll tell everybody. She'll tell Dumbledore! What do you mean?” Agitated, Harry returned to stir the mushrooms in the pan. They were starting to burn. Quickly, he turned the heat down a bit and added the rice.

“Calm down, Harry. She doesn't know you're here, but I think maybe we ought to tell her. She doesn't have to reveal your location, but I think you should give her an interview. Luna's not stupid. She knows how to keep confidential information confidential.” Hermione wasn't sure it was a good idea, either, but she couldn't ignore the opportunity. “It seems you held a press conference this afternoon at St. Mungo's. She's going to tell us what you said.”

Harry blinked, frowned, blinked again. “What?”

“Luna said you were scheduled to speak at a press conference today at St. Mungo's. You didn't, did you?”

Shaking his head, mutely, Harry denied this.

“So, something is up. I trust Luna to get to the bottom of it, however improbable or inconvenient the story might be.” Hermione kicked her shoes off and detached her earrings. “I'm going to change into something more comfortable. This has been one long day. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

“But it's Monday,” Harry corrected. “Isn't it?” He shrugged at Hermione's retreating back and went back to the stove.

When Hermione returned, looking much more relaxed, she watched Harry open a bottle of wine and pour some into a pan. Stirring with one hand, he reached into the cupboard for a wineglass and poured some more of the wine into it. “Here. Drink this.” He pressed the glass of white wine into her hand. “I need to show you something.”

“Is it something good?” Hermione asked hopefully.

Giving the risotto another stir and a little broth, Harry smiled shyly. “I think so, but I don't want to do this in front of Luna. Just give me a minute.” Carefully, he cleaned the chopping knife and set it reverently in a drawer. “I was going to surprise you over dessert, but…” Harry shrugged and rummaged under a pile of half-crumpled newspapers.

Sipping the wine, Hermione leaned back against the kitchen counter. The wine was pretty good. When did Harry learn how to choose wines?

“Ta da!” He flourished the length of alder Ollivander had given Hermione. “Hedwig donated some feathers, and I figured out how to core it this morning. I oiled it as I was making the stock this afternoon.”

“Oh!” She didn't move.

Harry offered the completed wand anxiously. “I did it for you.”

“Oh.” Hermione had to her her glass of wine down. “There I go again.” She sniffed. “Harry, you didn't have to do that. I was going to…”

“…when you got around to it,” Harry completed. “It doesn't matter who makes the wand. Ollivander makes all our wands and it doesn't seem to bother us. You've been taking care of me. I thought I'd do a little to take care of you. Is that all right?” He was nervous now, almost in tears himself.

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione threw herself into his arms, crying. “You made me a wand!”

Putting the wand down carefully on the table behind him, Harry put his arms around Hermione and patted her back, soothingly. How nice it was to feel like he had some measure of control over the world. He pressed a kiss to the top of Hermione's head.

Hermione froze.

“What? I'm sorry!” Harry jumped back.

“No, I saw something in the window.” Hermione's eyes darted from the window to the front door. Her vigilance was rewarded. Someone knocked. “I'll get it,” she sprinted for the front of the flat.

“Ms. Granger.” The scathingly resonant tones of Severus Snape in high dudgeon filtered through to the kitchen.

Harry listened curiously. He didn't hear anything more for a long moment. “Hermione? Are you okay?” Harry left the risotto to fend for itself and peered into the front hall.

Hermione and Snape jumped apart, staring at each other. Hermione was trembling with suppressed emotion.

Harry glared at Snape.

Snape coughed and nodded to Harry. “There was a press conference today at St. Mungo's. Harry, or some reasonable facsimile thereof, described for the press a catalogue of mental instabilities. Following these revelations, the Ministry of Magic declared Harry Potter a ward of the court, with Arthur Weasley his legal guardian and sole executor of his estate.”

“Shit.” Hermione dashed away, leaving Harry and Snape alone in the front hall.

“Let's wait in the kitchen. She should return in a moment.” Harry felt awkward performing the host's duties.

Silently, Snape followed Harry, reaching for Hermione's half-drunk glass of wine and sinking into a chair.

Harry stirred the risotto. “What are you doing here?”

“I am in no mood for hostilities from you at this time, Mr. Potter.”

“That wasn't hostility, that was confusion.”

Snape finished the wine and tapped the glass gently on the table. Harry, feeling like the maitre d' at a particularly tiny restaurant, refilled the glass under the professor's baleful glare.

“Do you realize how important you are, Mr. Potter?”

“I don't want to be,” Harry denied.

Shaking his head slowly, Snape insisted, “Nothing can change that now. You are, perhaps, the most important wizard in the world today.”

Harry returned to stirring his risotto. “I am not. Dumbledore is still much more powerful than I am.”

“I didn't say most powerful, I said most important.” He sipped at the wine in the now-filled glass. “If I had but a lever long enough and a place to stand…”

“You'd move the world? But where?”

Snape scowled. “How am I supposed to know? Miss Granger is the one with the lever to hand.”

The woman in question returned with a bundle of charts and a leather-bound notebook Severus recognized all too well. “Harry, where did I put my pen?”

Harry made some suggestions and Hermione disappeared again, distracted by her quest for writing implements.

Someone knocked on the door. “I'll get it!” Hermione called out, her footsteps thumping towards the front door. “It's probably Luna.”

“Ah, has Miss Lovegood finally tracked down our exiled arithmancer?” Snape inquired calmly. “Between the two of you, I suppose my position has become entirely redundant.” The empty wineglass tapped the table and Snape's head landed in his hands.

“Hermione! I've been dumped!” a woman wailed. It didn't sound like Luna.

“Yes, Margie. Men are bastards. Come on in and meet two more.”

Hermione ushered a red-eyed woman into the kitchen. “Harry, Se… er, Pro… er, Snape? This is my friend, Margie Grant. We work together at the bank.” Over the sobbing woman's head, Hermione mouthed silently, “She's a muggle.”

Snape's expression, when he raised his head, was inscrutable. Harry muttered, “Well, duh.”

The young woman sniffled. “Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were entertaining. If this isn't a good time…” she broke off forlornly.

Apologetically, Hermione began, “Well, actually Margie, this is not…” The woman's shoulders slumped. “…not a problem because Harry is making risotto, and you know there's always room for one more at the table when risotto is on the menu.” Her false cheer turned to a look of pleading towards the two gentlemen in the kitchen.

“Yes, please have a seat, Miss Grant.” Severus gestured to an unoccupied chair. Harry poured another glass of wine and held the bottle up to see how much was left. Deciding there wasn't enough to bother with, Harry topped Snape's empty glass as well.

Margie accepted the chair and the glass of wine, meek and sniffling. “I'm so sorry to be a bother.”

Abandoning the men with a weeping female, Hermione escaped. “If you'll excuse me for a minute, I need to find my pen.”

This may have been a mistake. “So, er, Snape, is it?” Margie peered at the dark wizard. “You're the one who works in Scotland, right? Hermione's been telling me about you.”

Spluttering, Snape brought his sleeve up as a shield. “Excuse me. Hermione said…?”

“She didn't tell me what you do, though,” Margie admitted. “Are you on holiday? Or does your work bring you to London on business? It must be hard for you to live so far away.”

“Not really,” Snape wheezed, stalling for time.

Margie nodded. “With modern transportation, it's not such a long way, is it?”

Snape, who had apparated from Hogsmeade, simply coughed into the crook of his elbow and said no more.

“And you, Harry? What is it you do?” Margie shifted to face Harry in the kitchen. The glass of wine had given her cheeks a rosy glow. The color matched her bloodshot eyes and raw nose.

Harry added more stock to the risotto and kept stirring, carefully keeping his eyes on his work. “I'm sort of between positions right now.”

“The unemployment figures are horrible,” Margie sympathized. “The whole situation is horrible. I don't know what the government is thinking.”

“Actually,” Snape broke in, “Mr. Potter has no need to work. He's a fair way to being independently wealthy.”

“Was,” Harry pointed out meaningfully.

“Nonsense. It's a temporary aberration,” Snape insisted.

Margie watched this exchange like a judge at Wimbledon. “What do you mean?”

Harry panicked. “Pro… er, Snape is my broker,” he lied.

“Oh! I can see why Hermione is so interested in you, then.” Margie reached up to pat Snape's shoulder. “They way she talked about you, I thought she must be crazy, but it's a real meeting of the minds, huh?” She smiled soppily. “It's so romantic.”

Snape looked as though he'd been frozen in the middle of a particularly painful bowel movement. Harry turned his face away and sniggered.

The doorbell rang.

“Harry? Could you get that? It's probably Luna,” Hermione called across the flat. Harry gestured helplessly at his risotto.

Snape rose. “I will answer the summons of the bell.”

“No, no, no!” Margie insisted. “Mr. Snape, why don't you go help Hermione look for her pen,” she elbowed the taller figure in the ribs with a wink, “and I'll answer the door.” She slipped through the kitchen, brushing against Harry suggestively on her way to the door.

“It's not what you think,” Snape began, sinking back into his seat and bracing for the inevitable.

But Harry just snickered. “How daft do you think I am, Snape? The girl's a muggle. Hermione obviously had to tell some sort of cover story about you. I'm just surprised she couldn't think of a better dodge than the most implausible May-December romance since Dumbledore quit the field.” His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “Hermione and Severus, sitting in a tree…”

Hermione entered on that cue. “Harry Potter, what on earth are you driveling on about?”

“Your muggle friend is under the mistaken impression that you and lover-boy here are the most romantic couple since Abelard and Heloise." Harry simpered. “Oh, Mister Snape, I can see it is a true attraction of the mind!” He pretended to swoon. “Oh, bugger. The risotto is burning.” Turning down the heat and adding more stock occupied all of Harry's attention for a moment.

Looking around, Hermione asked, “Where is Margie?”

“She went to answer the door,” Snape informed her, stiffly rising from his chair. “I shall fetch your slightly inebriated colleague and whomever she has discovered at the portal.”

Hermione stopped him by placing a gentle hand on his arm. “We need to talk.”

“We can discuss this later.” He swept out of the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Harry asked, more amused than alarmed.

“I wish I had time to figure it out.” Hermione uncapped her pen and attacked her master chart. “But it looks like the Minister is moving more quickly than I'd hoped.” She circled whole branches of possibility and crossed them out.

“Arthur.”

“Hmm?” Hermione capped her pen and squinted at her notes.

“His name is Arthur. Arthur Weasley.” Harry insisted. “He has a name.”

Hermione frowned. “Of course he does.” She picked up Snape's book and rifled through it, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip.

Setting his spoon on the edge of the pan, Harry took a deep breath. “You always call him The Minister. You never refer to him by name. Why is that? You know him. We know him. He's not a pawn or a cipher in some equation, he's a human being.”

“Of course he is, Harry.”

“Hermione, are you listening to me?” Harry asked desperately. “You can't just treat him like a thing. He's… he's Arthur!”

Frozen, Hermione stared at her chart, silent.

“Hermione!” Harry reached out to shake her shoulder.

She looked up, color draining from her face. “No.”

“What?”

“I need to recalculate.” Hermione brushed Harry off and flipped open a notebook, scribbling formulae as quickly as her hand would move.

Confused and hurt, Harry went back to stirring the risotto, adding a little broth. If it was too salty, only Harry knew why.

***

Severus edged around the open doorway. Hermione's muggle friend was found leaning against the outer wall in carnal embrace with a tall young man whose hair was a suspiciously familiar shade of ginger. Snape cleared his throat.

The man began struggling in the young woman's embrace. The muggle girl broke the kiss with a sigh.

“Snape,” the young man croaked over he shoulder.

“You, too?” Margie asked, mildly surprised. “I'm Margie.”

Snape smirked, arms folded across his chest.

“Er, no, that is, I'm Ron.” His voice did not crack, but he gulped, his prominent adam's apple bobbing.

“Nice to meet you, Ron Snape.” Margie hiccupped.

“Uh, no, that's Snape.” Ron nodded towards the forbidding figure in the doorway.

Margie giggled and released him. “Oh, don't mind him. Severus and I are old friends, now.” She went up on tiptoe and pressed a wet kiss on Snape's cheek.

Heroically, Severus resisted the childish urge he had to wipe the damp spot on his face. It felt just like being pelted with a chunk of improperly filleted slug that had been steeped in potent alcohol.

“Oi! Snape, what are you doing here?” Evidently, Ron had recovered his composure.

“I might ask you the same thing.” Snape curled his lip. “I was invited.”

“Oh!” Margie beamed at the two men. “You already know each other! Good, because I don't think I'm up to making introductions right now.” She put her hand up to her forehead. “Suddenly, I don't feel so well.”

Ron and Severus both reached for the muggle woman as she collapsed.

Staring at each other over the fallen woman, Snape broke the tense silence. “Well? Shall duel for the honor of carrying the fair maiden?”

“What?” Ron frowned, stumped. “Oh!” Enlightenment. “I can carry her if you like. Just get the door.” He hoisted the muggle into his arms and preceded Snape into the apartment. “Oi! Medic!”

A muffled shout and a clatter of feet, Hermione skidded into the hallway. “Ron?”

“Hermione? What are you doing here?” Astonished did not begin to describe Ron's expression.

Hermione frowned. “What do you mean? This is my flat. And what have you done with Margie?”

“What have you done with Harry?” Ron shouted. “I know he's here.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Ron!” Hermione rolled her eyes. “Stop being so melodramatic. Help me get Margie onto the sofa.”

Ron resisted. “No. She's my hostage until you tell me what you've done with Harry.”

Hermione, who did not like this tactic one bit, lifted her eyebrows. Her voice was cold and implacable when she said, “Harry? What Harry would that be, Mr. Weasley?”

It was at this point that Ron began to realize how poor his tactical judgment had been. Flanked by an angry Hermione Granger and an irritated Severus Snape, Ron had both hands occupied by an inebriated (and more than passably attractive) female. His wand, fourteen inches of willow, was still tucked in the back of his trousers where he'd stashed it when surprised by that first unexpectedly pleasant embrace. “This is a conspiracy!” Ron insisted. “How much did you pay her to distract me?”

At Hermione's brief flash of confusion, Severus volunteered dryly, “Your Ms. Grant was engaged in occupying Mr. Weasley with a practical exhibition of her osculatory abilities.”

“She kissed him?” Hermione sighed, coming forward to redeem her friend from the arms of Ron Weasley. “I'm sorry, Ron. Her boyfriend's a complete tosser and I'm afraid she's feeling a little vulnerable right now. It had nothing to do with you.” She scooped Margie from Ron's arms as Snape plucked the young man's wand from his waistband. “I'm busy and I haven't got time for this.” Taking Margie, she left Ron and Snape alone together in the front hall.

“Well,” Ron began, bluff and brave as he could manage, “How's teaching this year?”

“Pounding important information through thick skulls makes me only slightly less cranky than three rounds of Crucio.” Snape crossed his arms again, and loomed, an effect he found was diminished only slightly by his carpet slippers. It was a wonder Ron had not commented on them yet, but the Weasleys were not generally known for their perceptive observances.

However, Ron was clever enough to pick up on the threat. “Oh. Well. I don't suppose you could tell me what you've done with Harry?”

“Done? With Harry?” Snape was growing tired of this conversation. “I haven't done anything with Mr. Potter.”

“But Harry's here. I know he is. And he's in danger. I have to find him.”

Frowning, Snape relented. “What makes you think he's in danger?” This could be serious.

“This.” Ron fished a small disc out of his pocket. It was dark blue, almost black. In the center of the disc was a small face that looked a lot like Harry, frowning. Above the face was a small decoration that looked like a dagger, glinting oddly in the light. Below it was an icon that looked like a little flame, flickering blackly against the dark background. “It's linked to Harry. He's unhappy and he's in danger. See? He's being threatened by fire and sharp edged weapons.”

“Threatened?” Severus tried not to laugh, as he began to understand. “How can you be sure?”

“Well, he's within touching distance…”

“Hermione?” Snape called, cutting across Ron's attempt at an explanation.

Hermione reappeared, her hair disordered and her cheeks a bit pink. t?” t?” She rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth.

“Mr. Weasley is under the impression that Mr. Potter is in danger, surrounded, as he is, by fire and sharp objects.” Snape almost managed to suppress his smile.

Rolling her eyes to heaven, Hermione sighed, “Oh, Merlin. Are you still using that thing?” Hermione snatched the disc from Ron's hand and tossed it onto a pile of mail. “That's a horrible invasion of Harry's privacy.”

“But, Hermione!” Ron begged.

“What's all the noise?” Harry asked, peeking in from the kitchen. “Oh, hullo, Ron. I suppose you've come to confiscate the rest of my assets, have you? Well, you can have my wand, but everything else here is Hermione's and you're not touching it.” Harry disappeared, reappearing a moment later with two pieces of splintered stick. “Doesn't work now anyway. Maybe you can give it you your Dad for Christmas.” He tossed the broken wand casually at Ron's feet.

“But…!” Ron spluttered. “Harry!”

Tugging gently at Snape's sleeve, Hermione drew him down the hall away from the conflict. “We'll let them settle this without us. I need your opinion on something.”

Severus allowed himself to be led around to where Hermione had spread her work on the floor near the comatose muggle.

“Do you see what I see?” Hermione asked, gesturing towards the freshly inked master chart.

Kneeling on the floor, Severus took his time studying the branches. Leaning over the work, he saw where Hermione had eliminated some paths and crudely sketched in some others.

“What's this?” he asked, indicating a point with the most possibilities radiating out from it.

“I have an enlargement of that section,” Hermione offered when she noticed him squinting. She unrolled another sheet and laid it on top of the messy one. “That's the point where the Minister of Magic declares Harry Potter a ward of the state.”

“Ah.” The outward lines curved in a number of directions, but most of them converged upon a second point, thick and black with possibilities. “It makes this second point fairly inevitable. What does that point represent?” Severus asked.

Looking anxiously up at Margie, snoring gently on the couch, Hermione delayed. “It's not for months yet. Years, even. The best calculations give us maybe a decade, at the outside.”

“What is it, Hermione?”

Hermione bit her lip, but said nothing.

“Hermione,” Snape growled.

“A total blockade between the magical and muggle worlds.”

Snape's expression did not change. He sat back on his heels. Looking at Hermione, anxiously waiting for his response, he gave in to impulse and simply said what was uppermost in his mind. “Oh, bugger.”

Hermione knelt beside Severus and pulled his hand into her own. “Sorry, Pyramus.”

Bringing Hermione's hand to his lips, he saluted the back of it chastely. “I never did like that story. What other options?” He pointed at the chart. “I see at least two lines that don't hit that point. How do we get those futures?”

“Ah, well that's a bit tricky,” Hermione confessed. “Do you remember a while back there was this bloke named Harry Potter who single handedly defeated this self-proclaimed Dark Lord and banished him to the outer reaches of oblivion?”

“Yes,” he agreed warily, squeezing her hand gently.

Hermione tried to smile, failed, and settled on solemn neutrality. “We bring him back.”

Severus frowned. “Who, Harry?”

“No,” Hermione shook her head. “The other one.”

“Voldemort,” he hissed.

“Tom,” Hermione corrected shakily. “I prefer to think of him as Tom.”

“Bugger all.”

Hermione and Severus knelt side by side, hands clasped, eyes locked on each other.

Margie mumbled something and turned over in her sleep.

“And you leave my sister out of this!” Ron shouted from the front of the flat.

Hedwig tapped at the kitchen window, but nobody heard her.