Augury & Ardor

Harry awoke with a start, scrambling for his glasses from the bedside table. “H-Hermione? Is everything all right?”


“Shh,” she responded, glancing over her shoulder. Ron shifted in his sleep. “Harry, I need your help.”


“What time is it?” he asked, looking out of the darkened window. “What’s wrong?”


“It’s Severus,” she whispered, “I must see him before the trial.”


“What? Hermione, you can’t -”


“I’m not asking you to do anything other than look after Sepharus for me until I get back,” Hermione interrupted impatiently. “I can’t take him, but I won’t be long, a couple of hours, at most. He should sleep through until I return. I – I have to see Severus before the trial. I have to know if this is what he wants or if he’s just trying to do what he thinks I want.”


“You can’t go out alone,” Harry argued, now fully awake. “What if one of Voldemort’s people sees you?”


“It’s three in the morning nearly six months later. I doubt they’ve still got a vigilant search going on.”


“That’s exactly the sort of thinking that’ll get you caught,” Harry hissed.


“I’ll be careful.”


“You can’t go alone,” he repeated stubbornly.


“I’ll take her.” Both heads whipped around to see Ron sitting up in bed.


“But – but…” Hermione stammered, before abandoning her protests, “are you sure?”


In response, he slid out of bed and padded over to pull his clothes off the back of a nearby chair. “I’ll just be a minute.”


When he disappeared into the bathroom, Hermione looked back at Harry curiously. He shrugged in response and slid out of bed to pull on his robe. “If you two aren’t back by dawn, I’m waking everyone and telling them what’s going on. I’m serious, Hermione,” he said when she opened her mouth to speak. “Dawn.”


“I’ll make sure we’re back,” Ron said quietly as he reentered the room. “Well, what’s the plan?”


“A bit of a Muggle adventure,” she said, waving her wand at him before nodding in satisfaction. The long trench coat and wide-brimmed hat she’d conjured were dark and masked his features and build. “Have you heard of a hackney carriage?”


Fifteen minutes later, Hermione cast a Muffliato spell and turned to Ron. Despite the hour and the danger, he seemed unable to ignore the novelty of zipping through the city of London in the back of a Muggle motorcar. “Ron, I want to thank you for taking me, tonight. I know things haven’t been…well…perfect between us, but I want you to know how much this means to me.”


Ron looked over at her and couldn’t help but shake his head at the odd Muggle adornments she wore. A lightweight scarf was draped over her head and tied under her chin, containing her thick mass of hair. She’d flipped up the collar of the coat she’d called a ‘Mackintosh’. “I couldn’t let you come alone, could I?” he asked, his voice gruff.


“Yes, you could’ve,” she replied softly.


He studied her for a moment before his blue eyes softened. Reaching up, he tucked a stray lock of hair back into the confines of the dark scarf. “No, I couldn’t.”


She dropped her eyes at his look and affectionate gesture, unsure of what they might mean and afraid to encourage him. When she looked back up a minute later, the swiftly passing scenery had once again captured his attention.


“How’s he controlling the speed?” Ron asked, when he finally spoke again.


“With the accelerator,” she said, and spent the next few minutes trying to explain the workings of a car and its petrol-powered engine. By the time they’d reached Purge and Dowse, Ltd., she’d only managed to confuse him completely.


The taxi driver drove off immediately upon being paid, leaving them alone on the dark, deserted street. Ron swiftly led her to the store’s picture window and kept an eye out as she spoke to the dummy on display. Instead of it nodding its assent, Ron heard it announce that visiting hours were over.


He groaned in defeat until Hermione hissed, “Hermione Snape to see her husband. It’s urgent. Let us in, immediately.” Then, she tugged on his arm and, as if by miracle, they stepped through the plate glass window into St. Mungo’s foyer. It was deserted, their swift footsteps echoing as she pulled him to the stairwell.


“How did you do that?” he asked in bewilderment.


“By acting as if we have every right to be here,” she replied, hurrying up the steps. “The mediwitches and Healers all know me from my previous visits. As far as they know, I’m still allowed in.”


“It’s way past visiting hours, though,” he pointed out as he hurried to keep up.


“I counted on it not mattering,” she admitted with a shrug when he gaped at her. “If we meet anyone, let me do the talking.”


He nodded, holding up a hand to indicate he had no intentions of commandeering the situation. As if conjured, a mediwitch stepped out of a room just as they entered the fourth floor hallway. The young witch gasped and clutched a clipboard to her chest.


“Don’t worry, Sue,” Hermione breathed out, pulling the scarf off her head. “It’s just me.”


“Hermione,” the blonde sighed, visibly relaxing. “You scared the life out of me!”


“Sorry,” she said with a rueful grin. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, but…” Gripping her lower lip between her teeth, she shot the girl an entreating look. “I haven’t been able to come for so long… If I leave the house during the day, there are reporters everywhere, following me and shouting questions...”


Ron was impressed at how well Hermione had learned to lie since their first year at Hogwarts. Her claim that she’d gone down to fight a troll on her own had sounded lame even to his ears. Tonight, the lie that left her mouth sounded completely sincere.


The mediwitch reached out and laid a sympathetic hand on Hermione’s arm. “When I read that article in the Prophet back in March, I couldn’t believe it! I just knew what they were saying couldn’t be true – not after the way you came in here and visited with him every day. But, then, you stopped coming and the solicitors were here all the time and I couldn’t imagine what was going on.”


“It’s not true,” Hermione stressed fiercely. “It’s very important I speak to him for a few minutes, Sue. Could I count on you to not breathe a word of this to anyone?”


Sue looked up and down the corridor. “The Healer is busy with Agnes at the moment. She’s always worse at night,” she confided. “I was just going to check in on the Longbottoms so I couldn’t possibly have seen you come in, could I?”


“Thanks, Sue; I owe you.”


“Just bring Sepharus next time you’ve got the chance. I miss seeing the little chap!”


“I will,” Hermione promised, giving the girl’s arm an appreciative squeeze before pulling Ron down the hall in the opposite direction. “Come on, Ron.”


In Severus’ gloomy room, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The weak light of the moon was their only illumination, but even so, Hermione could make out the glitter of Severus’ eyes in the dark. The sight was like a Bludger to her midsection and, for a moment, she couldn’t draw a proper breath. Then, his voice cut across the room and she gulped air at the sound, realizing how much she’d missed it.


“The room is warded against spell casting,” he said conversationally. “I hope you thought to bring a weapon.”


Realizing he thought they were Death Eaters come to kill him, she hurried to assure him he was safe. “It’s okay. It’s only me.” A silence so deep it was eerie enveloped the room. His eyes continued to glitter, unblinking, in the feeble light and, finally, she spoke again. “I had to talk to you. The trial is in less than a week and I -”


“Who’s with you?” he interrupted, his voice flat.


“Oh. It’s – it’s just Ron,” she said. “He brought me here so I could see you before -”


Severus interrupted again, his tone scathingly polite, “How gallant of you, Mr. Weasley, to escort Hermione here…and so late at night.”


She could feel Ron tensing beside her and laid a hand on his arm. “We don’t have a lot of time,” she insisted, ignoring the animosity flaring between the two men, “and I had to see speak to you before the trial. I received the paperwork granting me both the annulment and unconditional parental rights to Sepharus -”


A sharp exhalation from her husband and a sharp inhalation from Ron interrupted her train of thought. For a moment, she was silent. Then, she took a step toward the bed and asked the question that had been burning in her breast for months. “I have to know… Don’t you want to see your son?”


For a moment he was silent. Then, in a voice so calm she wanted to scream at him – to rail at him – he said, “Once our sham of a marriage is annulled, you’ll be free to move on. Remarry.” He paused for the space of a heartbeat. “Even if I don’t end up in Azkaban after this trial, my reputation will always be questioned. Is that the sort of father you’d wish for him? A man who, it would always be whispered, was a servant of Voldemort?”

He let that sink in a moment before continuing, with all the emotion of a metronome, “If you’re smart, Miss Granger, you’ll sign those papers immediately and quickly marry someone young and idealistic. If you’re smart, you’ll let that young man raise the child and never tell him who his real father is. It’s best he never knows me.” There was a brief silence before he asked, his tone once again mocking, “Don’t you agree, Mr. Weasley?”


“Yeah,” Ron replied, his voice low, but charged with animosity. “I do.”


“I thought you might,” Severus replied sardonically. When he spoke again, his words were directed toward her. “It was foolhardy and irresponsible to come here, tonight. Your life is not just your own any longer; you’re responsible for a child now.”


“I had to know -”


“And now you do.” Dismissing her, his eyes settled back on Ron. “See that she returns home, safely.”


“Don’t worry, I will,” Ron replied, taking a hold of her elbow. “C’mon, Hermione, let’s go.”


She opened her mouth without knowing what she had left to say. All she knew was it couldn’t end like that – not after months of worrying about and yearning for him.


Ron guided her from the room and, still, she felt words she couldn’t voice burning in her throat, unspoken.


It was well before dawn when they returned, but even so, Professor Dumbledore was waiting in the entryway when they came in. Ron, blushing and stammering over his words, gratefully seized on the elderly wizard’s permission for him to leave. He practically vaulted up the steps and disappeared.


No longer intimidated by him as she once was, Hermione patiently listened to Professor Dumbledore’s admonitions and agreed that, yes, she’d taken a risk. “It was a necessary one, however,” she added, wearily running a hand through her hair. “I had to know how he felt before I signed those papers.”


“And how was it that he felt?” Dumbledore asked.


“He wants me to remarry. He doesn’t want to be a part of Sepharus’ life.” Just saying the words brought a burning ache to her throat.


“Really?” Dumbledore mused. “He said that?”


“Yes,” Hermione replied wearily. “That’s what he said.”


Placing a hand at her back, Dumbledore guided her upstairs. “Often, what one heard and what was actually said are two very different things,” he said kindly. At her door, he patted her cheek. “If you’d grant an old man some of your time tomorrow morning, I can show you what I mean.” She nodded, hardly caring what she promised. Nothing seemed to matter.


Inside her room, Harry was awake and walking Sepharus. He shot her an apologetic smile. “He woke up not long after you and Ron left. I tried getting him to go back down, but he just screamed louder when I did.” When she walked over, the baby grinned, let out a huge squeal of delight and lunged toward her. “How did it go?”


She took her son and buried her face into his neck. When she lifted her head, tears swam in her eyes. “Not well.” Before Harry could ask, she shook her head. “I can’t talk about it, right now. Better get some sleep.” When he reached the doorway, she asked, “Are you off again in the morning?”


He nodded. “To Wales.”


“I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”