Needfire

Chapter 23 – The Wire


\"When I am still I can hear
You speak most clearly

Father can you help me
For the ocean is big
And my boat is small

Find the courage.\"

Movement VI: Innocence. Alanis Morissette.


\"You realize that I am gravely disappointed in you.\" There was no merry twinkle in Albus Dumbledore\'s eyes as he ordered her to surrender her Head Girl\'s badge. The badge, she supposed, would go to Mandy Brocklehurst, whom she liked and appreciated, but still, it was hardly a compensation for the fact it had been taken from her. Not for falling in love with a man who happened to be her teacher.

And yet, Hermione reflected, these are the rules of the world. Never play with fire if you are unwilling to be burned. Unfair, yes, she thought bitterly as she handed her badge to the Hogwarts\' Headmaster. But rules are rules, and they are to be followed and respected. Keep them, or else you must surrender your delicate neck and your Head Girl\'s badge to Madame Guillotine, once you are caught breaking them.

The ancient wizard smiled sadly in return. Now that her head was rolling on the blood-soaked stand – staring at the blank sky, looking for the ravens to come and peck her eyes – Dumbledore might allow himself an act of mercy. Closing her eyelids, he would place two silver coins on her closed eyes. For Acheron on his raft of logs, to carry her to the other side of the river Styx.

\"Minerva,\" he said. \"Please accompany Miss Granger back to Gryffindor Tower. I trust you to make sure there is a bed for her in the seventh years\' girls\' dormitory.\"

* * *

Moonbeams slanted through the archers\' slits lining the wall of the corridor she and her Head of House walked. Professor McGonagall\'s low, sensible heels were knocking against the flagstones. They set a cranky rhythm, which bore pinprick echoes into the castle\'s ancient walls. McGonagall\'s avian, once pretty face was set in determination; clear lines of anger and sorrow carved into it.

Hermione, walking at her side was determined to keep a façade of calm resolve. For a moment, she wished for billowing robes – similarly fashioned to Professor McGonagall\'s tartan ones – to fly all around her in her fury. Robes that would engulf and hide her, the way Snape used to conceal himself behind the loose cut of his robes. She flinched at the notion, never allowing the thick lump of memories stuck in her throat to slow her step. This will not do, Granger. You are stronger that that.

\"We should stop at my… former room,\" she made herself say, realizing they were drawing nearer to the Head Girl\'s room. \"I need to fetch my familiar. He may not be there at this time of the night, but I should check for him anyway. Besides, there are several things I need for the night as well.\"

Professor McGonagall nodded.

Crook, as was to be expected, was missing at this time of the night; probably out pestering the castle\'s rodents. Alarmed to have her eyes suddenly dry, she scanned the room. It had been pale and estranged in the moonlight. Behind her, she could hear her Head of House clear her throat.

The Transfiguration Professor had no way of knowing that Hermione\'s eyes were scorched and dry. Had no way of knowing that the familiar emptiness was nipping at her student\'s heels, she thought bitterly. The man she loved was disgraced and would be departing: it was bound to be greying, now wasn\'t it?

\"May I remind you that I should be escorting you back to Gryffindor Tower?\" The Deputy Headmistress made her impatience clear.

\"There will be no need, Professor.\"

Efficient as ever, Hermione gathered several items she deemed necessary, and shrinking each one, put them into her schoolbag. Then, with the utmost reverence, she turned to her nightstand where the leather-covered volume Snape had given her rested, and gently lifted the tome. First he trusted her with this book, then he trusted her with his body, then he trusted her with his heart. What a strange, fey creature. Doesn\'t the legend say that whoever is trapped in the fairies\' realms is bound to spend there one-hundred years before they can return to the human world…? she was suddenly reminded of the tale. Back home they discovered all their loved ones are gone and the world they knew is no longer. I think it might be the same for me, Snape. The world I knew before I fell in love with you doesn\'t exist anymore. Only in my dreams.

And he loved her, which was, really, all that mattered.

McGonagall, who didn\'t spend her time in the fairies\' realms and was therefore broken-hearted at her supposed betrayal by Snape and Hermione, walked the girl out of her former Head Girl\'s room. She escorted Hermione into the Gryffindor common room, following her through the portrait hole.

Three out of the seven Gryffindors who stayed for the Christmas holiday were apparently awake, and down in the common room. All three of them were obviously surprised to see their Head Girl accompanied into the common room by no other than Professor Minerva McGonagall.

The sharp, not unpleasant face of the Gryffindor\'s Head of House bore an acute expression. One reserved for the lewdest of rule breakers, usually Slytherins, and never, ever for the Gryffindor\'s own Head Girl. The common room\'s occupants, Neville Longbottom amongst them, were immediately alarmed.

\"I will follow you upstairs, where I will conjure an extra bed for you,\" the Transfiguration Mistress told her coolly, in a neutral voice that carried McGonagall\'s words across the room. \"Then you can go to sleep.\"

Hermione nodded, unable to stop her cheeks from flushing. She had no intention of going to sleep, but her Professor had no way of knowing that.

Once inside the dormitory, she was instantly washed with unpleasant memories: Patil and Brown teasing her about her hair and teeth, \"Really, Hermione, what normal boy would ever want to date a beaver-\" mocking her bookishness, her taste in clothing, insulting her Muggle heritage, her smell, her obsessive neatness, giggling; talking about boys in the dark, about what they did and what they would like to do, and who would ever pay attention to this ugly duck of a girl they were forced to share their room with: why, they were practically joyous when she left to have her own room. So she slept with Snape? She could imagine the two of them whispering in hushed voices; carefully intonated for her to hear them. No surprise, they were practically made for each other, Granger and the greasy git.

And still, inside her there was only dust.

She watched Professor McGonagall conjuring an extra bed, cold and impersonal as she told Hermione goodnight and turned to leave the room. Harry was right, Hermione mused. We are so fucked up.

Waiting several moments until she was sure the Gryffindor Head of House could no longer be found in the common room, Hermione descended downstairs, unsurprised to have three pairs of eyes probing her with curiosity. It was never her custom to provide people with information concerning her private affairs, and she didn\'t find it necessary to establish a new habit.

Her hands crossed in her lap, she sank into an armchair in front of the fire, and ignoring Neville\'s truly concerned attempts to make conversation, stared into the swirling flames. Harry would arrive sooner or later, and then perhaps… she could not put her finger on it, but something about Harry was acutely relevant. It was gravely important that if she could not be with Snape, she should at least talk to Harry. Harry would make it somehow better… or else she would have to enlarge that razor she put in her schoolbag just in case, and use it on her wrist.

* * *

\"Hermione… wake up.\"

Blinking, she opened her eyes. The red light spread by the embers still burning in the fireplace trickled down Harry\'s cheek. Mixing with the creamy whiteness of his skin, it imparted a damp, rosy hue to his face.

She yawned, drifting into a painful awakening as the night\'s events fixed themselves more firmly into her memory. \"I\'ve been waiting for you,\" she whispered, her voice bearing an accusatory note.

\"What happened?\" Harry asked worriedly. She could see he was tired – eyelids threatening to droop – and yet, he looked at her, demanding to know if everything was all right.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. \"You should sit.\"

Too tired to object, Harry dropped into a couch at her side, limbs sprawled in complete abandon and his head hanging to the left so he could look at her. \"Tell me what happened.\"

She moistened her lips, grateful for the darkness, for hiding the strain written all over her face. \"We were caught,\" she somehow managed, fingers digging into the armrests.

\"Holy hell.\" Harry held his breath. \"And?\"

\"I was stripped of my Head Girl\'s badge,\" she continued. \"And confined to the common room and dormitories until I\'m graduated. Snape was sacked. He\'s gone, Harry-\" uttering these words, her voice suddenly failed her, as if her throat had been lacerated. Taking a deep breath, Hermione made herself move on. \"I am back to my old dormitory, with Patil and Brown… I have no idea what to do about Ron. I planned to tell him in due time: now it\'s both too soon, and if he doesn\'t hear the story from me first-\" her fingers trembled on the armrests. Nonetheless, now that the conversation topic was relatively safe, she no longer felt the urge to slash and tear burning her insides.

\"We\'ll take care of Ron,\" Harry reassured her. \"And even if the gossipers reach him first, he\'s not the one I\'m worried about. What\'s with you, Hermione? How do you feel?\"

The moles, the moles, she wanted to tell him. Don\'t bring in the moles. Don\'t coil the wire. But he did, and her eyes were no longer dry as she\'d thought them to be. \"He\'s g…gone, Harry,\" she choked, her voice shaking. \"They took him a- a…away from m-me.\"

\"I know,\" he murmured, moving at the couch, to kneel at her feet. \"I know, pet.\"

Reaching his hand, Harry wiped off a tear that rolled down her cheek, then another, stuffing a lock of wild hair behind her ear. \"Come here, Hermione,\" he murmured, gently taking her hand and helping her down to the carpet. \"Come, it will be all right, I promise. We\'ll make it all right.\"

Harry didn\'t attempt to hug her, nor did he do anything but wipe away her tears and clear unruly locks from her face. All he did was whisper nonsensical, winsome promises, which sounded like music to her dizzy, teary-eyed self, and allow his body heat to diffuse; wrapping around her along with the slowly vanishing heat coming from the hearth.

Morning found them facing each other, asleep in front of the renewed fire.

* * *

The Head Girl\'s affair with the Slytherin Head of House was the juiciest piece of meat that had fallen into the beaks of the corpse-eaters ever since the alarming news of the DADA\'s Professor being a werewolf. And as the term began, they feasted.

She was excluded. The school\'s walking joke.

Shunned by her housemates, who had – immediately upon revealing the cause of her dismissal –omitted her from their lot, as if she was the rotten apple in a basket full of fresh, fragrant fruits.

Shunned by the Hufflepuffs, who traditionally followed the Gryffindors\' moral lead.

Shunned and looked down at by the Ravenclaws, after always being a thorn in their side; pretentious lioness that she was, now fallen from her pedestal. They were Ravenclaws after all, and didn\'t hesitate to persiflage.

Only the Slytherins, the beaten, decapitated Slytherins, led by Draco Malfoy, kept their own counsel.

And sweet, loving Ron, who narrowed his eyes and washed his hands clean of her. Deprived of any hope of privacy now that she was confined to the common room and the seventh year girls\' dormitory, with a metaphorical wooden stake rammed into her heart, she watched Ron turn his back, and spitefully – oh, it must have been spitefully, you could always be so cruel when you wanted – walk out of the Gryffindor common room.

Two sixth year\' girls – one of them she had once caught breaking serious school rules and had severely punished – giggled from the corner. Hermione turned on her heels, ready to deduct points, then remembered she no longer had such authority. Ron, you fuck. Couldn\'t you at least hold this conversation private? No, you wanted me humiliated. The way I humiliated you, preferring the vile Potions Master over yourself.

With tears prickling her eyes, and the high, silvery giggle of the girls knocking like church bells in her head, she climbed the stairs to the seventh year girls\' dormitory two at a time. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned against the sturdy, cool surface, only to discover Patil was sitting on her bed, spreading pink nail polish on her toenails.

The tanned girl tightened her lips at the noise, obviously angry to be interrupted in such a crude way. But just like the other Gryffindors, she would not say a thing to the former Head Girl who disgraced them.

It was just like her first year at Hogwarts. No, she thought. It was worse. Because now that she tasted the sweet favour of acceptance; having this taken from her – after her social muscles grew complacent with it – was the most horrible form of torture. And she was falling, crawling on her hands and knees, the grainy dust cutting into her skin. She was not fit for this desert, with her flesh literally reeking with water. All the small desert creatures – rodents and insects and even plants – would come feasting on her corpse once she died. So quivering with water she was.

And the worst; she missed him. He was stuck like a bone in her throat; trapped in the soft tissues draping her larynx. Its sharp ends cut into the moistened flesh and stabbed into her spinal cord. Hundreds of years from now, she mused, when scientists find my skeleton, this bone will still be there. And when they come to catalogue me, they\'ll name me \"The Girl with the Snape in Her Throat\". Funny, right, Snape? I knew it would make you chuckle. Missed him: so hard, that sometimes she thought that the legendary silver thread connecting lovers to each other – connecting her to Snape – was torn, and it was the blood of her heart, streaming from her aorta, which kept her eyes wet. Though there were no tears.

Tired of pretending to be strong, sick from hearing Brown and Patil whispering behind her back while she was attempting to study, Hermione had angrily closed the draperies around her bed and cast a strong silencing charm. Crookshanks, all the while drowsing in her lap, jumped in alarm.

\"Shut up,\" she muttered, a tear trickling down her cheek.

The half-Kneazle yawned, and sensing his mistress\' distress, was now concaving his triangular head into her palm. \'Come on, now,\' purred the tom. \'It\'s only a male. You know what males are like. All thinking with their belly.\'

She stifled a laugh, scratching Crookshanks\' head. \"That\'s what all tomcats off-season are like.\"

\'Well, you know,\' the cat tried a different tactic. \'There are lots of mice in the burrow.\'

\"But there is only one mouse for me.\"

\'Humans.\' Crook\'s whiskers vibrated with distaste as he once again climbed into her lap.

Putting the cat aside – to the tom\'s explicit annoyance – Hermione stretched on the bed. Great, she thought. Not only she was the school\'s joke, slowly consumed by longing, she was once again having imaginary conversations with her familiar.

Crookshanks growled. \'No one else is talking to you, beside the four-eyed git,\' he reminded her. \'I\'d say you should be grateful to me, risking my reputation like that.\'

\"I\'d say you can stuff it.\" Turning her back to the half-Kneazle, she buried her face in the pillows, willing the tears to come. They didn\'t; she knew they wouldn\'t, and yet, biting on the soft linen, she prayed the nothingness would come to an end. At least tonight. It wouldn\'t; the way it didn\'t reach its peak the previous night, or on the night before.

* * *

It had been a week since the beginning of the term and she felt so hollow that she began to wonder whether it was the consumed mass of her soul that vacuumed her further in. Black hole of a human. When a letter from Donna landed in her breakfast once again, Hermione was too exhausted to remove it. Bored, she merely watched the wetness of her fruit salad staining the expensive paper.

At last, it was Harry who reached for the letter.

\"It\'s from your parents,\" he told her quietly.

\"Yes,\" she murmured. \"They have been informed and my mother is all riled up.\"

Harry\'s doll-like face was set in a serious expression. Some other day, she supposed, it would have unsettled her. Today, it merely made her blink. He was too good, too dedicated. His loyalty was a burden. Didn\'t he see she could not return the favour in her state? That she could never be grateful enough, and therefore, thankful at all, for his sticking with her? Ron was his first and best friend, and now she was the cause for their animosity. She sometimes wondered whether having one\'s moral choices so clear made life harder or easier. She still didn\'t know, but in her current state of mind, tended to go for the previous.

\"Hermione,\" Harry pleaded with her, disturbing her line of thoughts and anchoring her back to reality. \"I think you should open this letter.\"

\"You open it,\" she answered, shrugging her shoulders. \"I couldn\'t care less.\"

\"You\'re not being yourself lately.\" His voice was low but intense. \"Come,\" he said. \"Gryffindor table isn\'t the place to discuss this, and I think we should talk.\"

Tiredly, she rose to her feet, doing her best to ignore the gnawing sensation that everyone was staring at her. The chair in which she had been sitting stuck when she tried to pull it back to place. A leg got caught between two flagstones and the noise drew several scrutinizing eyes. Tightening her lips, she shook the chair a little, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead as it squeaked, then finally slid into place.

\"Coming?\" Harry, at her side, was giving her a worried look.

She nodded.

Perspiration was spurting from her armpits; moistening the underside of her breasts; making her hands damp and her clothes sweaty and clingy. She could feel the curious, accusatory, aggravated looks gluing to her form, mixing with her sweat. A certain part of her being was rapidly shrinking confronted with the stares, growing smaller and smaller and smaller until there was nothing left to see. Her motions had suddenly become awkward: moving became difficult task, as if the part of her frontal lobe responsible for coordinating her of movements had stopped functioning properly. Her legs grew limp… so limp she feared she might stumble and dislocate an ankle. She was about to stumble and dislocate an ankle-

\"Hi, Potter!\" a tall, sixth year Ravenclaw was nodding toward them, blocking the hallway. \"Aren\'t you afraid of messing with Snape\'s toy-thing? The greasy git can be quite dangerous.\"

Harry – Donna\'s letter still clutched in his hand – stopped at once, looking as if he had been bitten by a snake. Stuffing the letter into a pocket of his robe, he turned to face the Ravenclaw. \"Care to repeat that?\"

The Ravenclaw, whom Hermione recognized as Thayne Waverly – a pureblood from one of the minor pureblood families – crossed his hands over his chest. \"I asked,\" he repeated, \"If you\'re not afraid to mess with Snape\'s Mudblood toy.\"

Harry\'s eyes flashed. Within an instant, Harry\'s, Hermione\'s and Waverly\'s wands were all drawn, ready to strike. It was not Harry or Hermione\'s curse, however, which hit the sixth year boy with a flash of silver sparks.

\"You show respect for my Head of House,\" a familiar drawl ordered; blond head tilting over the writhing and frothing Waverly. \"Crab, Goyle, take this shit to Madam Pomfrey.\"

In his mastered amusement, Draco Malfoy reminded Hermione of Harry\'s snowy white owl, Hedwig. Draco and Hedwig were both bright; both beautiful; and under their almost heart-breaking beauty; they were both predators.

Once he checked the hallway was clear, Hermione expected Malfoy\'s first reaction to be some scathing remark. Instead, she saw him reaching to grab Harry\'s collar, and nailing the other boy to the wall, he drew him into a long, desperate kiss. She was not surprised to hear her long-time friend mewling and burying his head in Malfoy\'s hair: she was surprised, though, to see Draco closing his eyes, his fingers trailing over Harry\'s cheekbone as if Harry was the one most precious thing in the entire world.

Watching them with her dimming, greying irises, she was somehow filled and somehow hollowed by the knowledge of their love; imprinted onto her cognition. The tears prevented Michael Strogov from going blind, but she had no tears to prevent her from blinding by the iron-white blaze of the sword passing in front of her eyes. What a cruel, cruel world.

Upon breaking off, Draco was the first to look at her.

She merely lifted her brow. \"Not very discreet,\" she noted.

\"Said the mistress of evasion.\"

She nodded. \"Point taken.\"

Harry, back at her side, was clearly having troubles guarding his gaze. \"Hermione\'s right. You should go now.\"

A muscle along Malfoy beautifully defined cheekbone twitched. Like a cat baring his canine teeth. Three seconds later he was gone, leaving Harry and Hermione all by themselves.

Harry sighed. \"The letter.\"

She gave him a quizzical look. \"Now you are evading me.\"

\"Not much to say.\"

\"He loves you.\"

Something in the boy\'s eyes lit up. \"You think?\"

\"He touches you as if you were made of china.\"

Harry blinked. \"Now, the letter.\"

\"Fuck the letter.\"

\"I never heard you talking like that.\"

To Harry\'s utter surprise, she threw back her head and burst into laughter, every fiber of her being shaking with it.

\"What\'s so funny?\"

\"Nothing, nothing,\" she said. \"Just give me the letter, I\'ll read it, then we can burn it.\"

Both relieved and worried over his friend\'s sudden agreement, Harry pulled the letter out of his pocket and handed it to Hermione.

Disgusted at the blots staining the envelope, she opened it with the tips of her fingers, pulling the slightly wet paper laying inside it and shaking it open.

\"Hermione Jane,\" she began reading aloud, for Harry to hear as well.

\"Being informed about your latest affairs, your father and I are practically speechless. I am lacking the words to describe the enormity of my disappointment-\" at that, Hermione rolled her eyes. \"This is the part of the letter in which she\'ll tell me how gravely ashamed she is of me, what a disgrace of a daughter I am, how I nearly caused my father a heart attack, what would the neighbours say, and why, oh why, didn\'t I come talk to her about my problems. On to next part of the letter.\"

\"Taking into consideration the poor supervision Hogwarts seems to provide its students, as well as the troubles you were experiencing, your father and I have decided it would be best for you to come home…-\" her lips were already rounded to give form and shape to the next couple of words, but her voice – her voice seemed to fail her.

\"Hermione…\" Harry asked, gently tapping her shoulder. \"Hermione? Hermione!\"

\"I-am-not-going-home,\" she told him, her lower lip trembling. \"There is no way – no way – I am going home.\"

He moistened his lips, blinking. \"We could tell Dumbledore…\" Harry stuttered. \"Surely if he didn’t transfer you, he wants you here; he knows you\'re important for the fight…\"

Hermione shook her head. \"Don\'t you see, Harry…? I\'m sixteen… Not even great Dumbledore himself can prevent them from retrieving me if they want to. They can do whatever they want… bloody sixteen…\"

\"Shit.\" he worried his lower lip. \"But why are we standing in the hallway? I meant for us to go to this unused classroom that I know of. Come, Hermione,\" he ordered her, tugging the sleeve of her school robe. \"It\'s not far and no one can overhear us there.\"

Lumbering behind him, she let herself be dragged, her peripheral vision blurring then refocusing once Harry closed and warded a heavy oaken door behind them.

\"Any idea when they\'re coming to get you?\" he asked her immediately after casting a strong silencing charm on the room.

Dirty, she thought. The ancient classroom was dirty, with cobwebs hanging from the low ceilings and tiny, crawling creatures that might climb over her body and gnaw their way in. Just being inside, allowing the stagnant, mouldy air into her lungs made her feel defiled. You brought me a pure, white hand to remind me I that I am already clean, Snape, but don\'t you know you were the reason that for once in my life I didn\'t feel contaminated? Fighting a gale of nausea and memories, she offered the letter to Harry, watching him read briefly through the lines.

\"Tomorrow,\" he said at last. \"Your Mum seems to be in a hurry. Any idea why she wouldn\'t send this letter earlier, then? They were probably informed on the spot.\"

Hermione swallowed. \"My father wanted me home at Christmas. He made it clear in the note attached to their Christmas present. He believes that I should be with them if I\'m having any kind of troubles. Mother is rather fond of having a remote controlled daughter. I suppose it took him a while to convince her that I should be brought home.\"

Harry ran a hand through his unruly hair, the fingers of his other the hand – the one holding the letter – pressing into the expensive, stained sheet. \"What will you do?\"

Hermione closed her eyes, settling her breath…Oxygen is the most vital nutrient for our bodies, she repeated voicelessly. It is essential for the integrity of the brain, nerves, glands and internal organs… \"What shall I do… it is clear that I cannot stay in Hogwarts for them to retrieve me. Nor will I enter a legal front with them over my keep. Mine is a scanty case, and it would only cause my parents sorrow and humiliation… which was never my intention to begin with.\" Her lips tightened. \"I must take off, Harry, there is no avoiding it… if only I knew where Snape is…\"

\"Perhaps I could ask questions for you after you\'re gone,\" Harry said impatiently. \"At the moment the question is how we get you out.\"

\"The Shrieking Shack,\" she answered simply. \"We can walk to the Womping Willow in your invisibility cloak, or you could lend me the cloak and I\'d leave it just near the entrance. From Hogsmeade I Floo to Diagon Alley, then I\'m in London.\"

Harry shook his head. \"Are you crazy? You\'ll be caught in an instant!\"

She swallowed, looking for Harry\'s eyes behind the large, ridiculous spectacles. \"That\'s might be true, but not if I have a Secret Keeper.\"

* * *

Looking for the details of the Fidelius Charm was somewhat challenging, especially taking into consideration her permitted range was limited from the start. Harry and Harry\'s invisibility cloak, so it seemed, both came as great assets; carrying books straight from the library\'s restricted section in full daylight.

Since Harry had no access to Hermione\'s dormitory, and she was confined to Gryffindor Tower, the two made use of the empty room off the Northern Tower, where Harry and Draco sometimes spent nights together. Getting there was easy: Hermione sneaked to the place under Harry\'s cloak. She would leave the room the same manner.

Quickly enough, she had turned the two boys\' refugee into a temporary studying area, with even Crookshanks having agreed to sit quietly in Harry\'s arms while the bespectacled boy carried him there. Both of them knew that people weren\'t likely to pay attention to her disappearance. In the common room it would be assumed she was in her dormitory, while Brown and Patil were hardly ever there before curfew, to report otherwise. The two would be too busy chasing boys, hanging around with the other girls or otherwise immersed in their own businesses, to notice their roommate was missing. And to think I\'d ever find it to be a blessing…

Hermione was least surprised to realize the Fidelius Charm was Runes, blood magic. Like most of the strongest, oldest forms of magic, it didn\'t involve a wand, only fierce intention, a blade and the knowledge of Runes. Not having taken Ancient Runes, Harry\'s knowledge of the subject had been sparse. As a result, Hermione had spent several hours lecturing to her friend, showing and explaining the usage Runes. Thorough as ever, she made sure he understood the theory behind the charm and could properly draw the Runes involved in it. First on paper and then with a blade Hermione had dislodged from a single-use shaving razor; over some leather items Harry transfigured.

Not unexpectedly, Harry had been tense all evening. When he told her he was going for a walk, Hermione did not object. Instead, she used her time alone to put her scant property and bustling thoughts into some semblance of order. She was being harsh indeed, but there were several reasons this plan might be least of all possible evils. Staying at her parents\' house never occurred to her. The place held too many hidden stains, like a secret script, written on a clean parchment with lemon juice and only discovered once put over the fire. She loved both of her parents, had her issues with both of them, and knew that living with them was bound to madden her. Staying in Hogwarts was no longer an option. Her parents wouldn\'t send her to another wizarding school either. Nor would they send her to another boarding school.

Fleeing, it seemed, was the only path still open to her. Running away from the Wizarding World she would be bound to live without her wand, seeing any under age witch or wizard was forbidden to use magic outside Hogwarts. Unless she used a Secret Keeper. Which would prevent the Ministry – as well as any other magician wishing to find her – from detecting the source of her magic and tracking it through a registered wand. That is, assuming they had access to the Wands\' Registry. Most important, she knew, having a Secret Keeper would prevent her from being detected; by Dumbledore, the Ministry of Magic, or even Scotland Yard.

She still had some Muggle and some Wizarding money, and had accepted the prospect of being forced to use magic to wind her way back into the Muggle World. Yes, she might be young, but she knew she could make it. Technically.

Get a job. Earn her living. Float above the surface. Until the ropes binding her cognition to reality snapped, and she flew… high, high… like Snape\'s feathered cloak, without a power shield to trap her; until she became one with the moonlight.

Sighing she looked at her hands. Already red and sore from scraping. If I run, will I ever see you again? I know I\'m going to be back in about June, hopefully in time for the final battle, but will you? Are you still spying for Dumbledore, now that the Headmaster sacked you, or are you your own man, now? Where are you, Snape? Did you ever try to contact me? Surely Dumbledore wouldn\'t let you…? Did you really mean it when you said you loved me? I should stop it, and soon, she decided. Before I become a doormat.

She was so immersed in her thoughts that she failed hear the door swing open. The loud squeak of hinges that weren\'t properly oiled was followed by soft footsteps, and the tall, feline figure of Draco Malfoy.

\"Granger.\"

Nearly dropping the book she had forgotten to read, Hermione leaped to her feet. \"What are you doing here?\"

Beside Draco, Harry was removing the hood of his invisibility cloak. \"He\'s with me,\" he said, pale face and thin form incarnated out of moving shadows. \"Draco knows where Snape is, and can get you there.\"

Her blood suddenly humming with yearning, she turned to look at Malfoy. \"Where is he?\"

Frowning, Draco reached to remove a massive, expertly intricate gold band from his third finger. \"He\'s at the Manor. Father wrote to me yesterday. Snape has been staying there since last week.\" Malfoy rolled the ring between his thumb and index finger. \"I won\'t lie to you, Granger. I\'m not doing this for your Muggle born self, and I\'m not doing this for Snape, though I respect my Head of House-\"

Not former Head of House, she noted proudly, but his Head of House.

\"Something amuses you?\" he asked.

\"You were supposed to say: my former Head of House.\"

At that, Draco Malfoy approached her, leaning close enough for Hermione to see her reflection in his lucid, grey eyes. She thought she could smell mint, lemon and pine; cool, airy scent that drifted along the blurry ends of her awareness.

\"Here\'s something you noble Gryffindors can still learn from us corrupted Slytherins,\" drawled Malfoy, his eyes gleaming dangerously. \"No Slytherin is below their Slytherin fellows\' notice. Not even a fallen one.\"

Resuming his place beside Harry, he continued; \"so now, as I was saying, I am not doing this for you, or for my Head of House. I am doing this for Harry. And I\'m asking something in return. I need information.\"

She nodded. \"I respect that. It seems like a fair bargain. What information do you seek?\"

Draco seemed struck at her words. Never expected to hear that from a Gryffindor, now did you? She thought. So let me surprise you, ferret. Some of us are able to know thy enemy, for his flaws, as well as his merits. Moreover, we are able to pay him the respect he deserves.

\"My father isn\'t satisfied with Snape\'s version of your affair,\" Malfoy said at last. \"I\'m not asking you to get into details-\" he hushed her before she might have given him a heated answer. \"The only thing I need to know is what you mean to Snape. This ring,\" he continued, \"is charmed to act as a Portkey. It would take you past the anti-Apparition shields on the Malfoy Manor, past the wards, and straight to the front lawn. And may I add that merely locating the Manor would be impossible otherwise, not to mention breaking into it.\"

Watching the dim light of the candles reflecting off the golden band, she knew Draco\'s price was too high. Not only would she betray Snape\'s trust, she would practically hand him over to Malfoy Sr. But before she could try to convince Draco she\'s nothing but a deeply in love schoolgirl fooling herself to think her vile teacher bears some kind of twisted affection towards her – any other answer, she knew, would reveal the true nature of Snape\'s feelings – Harry burst into their conversation.

\"Draco, you can\'t!\" The Boy Who Lived to Save the Day was shaking his boyfriend desperately. \"I thought Professor Snape was one of your own…!\"

Malfoy\'s face softened as he turned to look at Harry. \"We\'re spying on everyone,\" he said gently, stroking the other boy\'s cheek. \"Knowledge is power. Do you really think my father fights for the Dark Lord?\" Draco whispered. \"He fights for the House of Malfoy.\"

This statement had a devastating affect on Harry, whose shoulders slumped in silent defeat. \"Yes,\" she heard him say, watching the shorter boy instinctively withdrawing. \"Your father fights for the House of Malfoy, in which half-blood Harry Potter has no place.\"

\"Screw you, Potter!\" Draco yelled angrily, reaching for Hermione\'s hand. Opening her palm, he stuffed the ring inside, and gritting his teeth, closed her fingers around it. \"Here, Granger. Take the damn ring; the words to activate it are \'Oderint dum metuant\'. I hope you and Snape are fucking happy together.\"

She acknowledged the gesture. \"Thank you,\" she murmured, intentionally tinting her voice with a note of amusement. The note of desperation in Draco\'s voice was a rather clear indication that no letter would be sent to Lucius Malfoy; no letter containing information Harry would not want it to contain. Nevertheless, Hermione was still careful to mask her feelings in Draco\'s presence.

Stumbling to the wall, Malfoy closed his eyes, and allowed himself to crumple. \"Don’t thank me, Mudblood. Thank Harry.\"

Hermione angled a brow. Years of being taunted about her Muggle heritage did little to abate the sting. \"I need the Portkey,\" she told him, \"so I won\'t share my estimation of your character with you. However, seeing my best friend seems to be strangely fond of your shitty self, I deem it necessary to warn you that if you ever hurt him, I\'ll hex you into next Tuesday. Is that clear?\"

Draco nodded.

\"I\'m glad you see reason,\" she said. \"Now, Harry-\"

The smaller boy was currently occupying a battered couch at the other end of the room; quietly staring at the front of his worn-out trainers. \"Yeah?\"

\"I believe we still have several things to do,\" she told him as he lifted his green eyes to look at her. \"I don\'t know if Draco should be here…\"

Malfoy let out a snort. \"Why, Granger, don\'t you trust me you with your secrets?\"

\"I don\'t even trust you with my spent quills. Now the door is that way,\" she pointed with her wand.

\"Right.\" Malfoy moved to his feet, lumbering towards the door. Harry rose to escort him.

She turned her back to them, allowing the couple a moment of privacy. A minute or two later, when Harry tapped her shoulders, there were tears in his eyes, but he seemed stronger somehow. She remembered not all tears were of sorrow.