Plan B

Chapter 4

Snape contacted me several times over the following two weeks; always to say that he’d dropped more reference books for my perusal off at my parent’s home. Never once did he ask to meet me in person to discuss anything that I’d read, or to check up that I’d even read the materials. Not that he really needed to do so. The man had been my professor for six years of the last seven years; he knew my work ethic. The boys were fortunately oblivious. That was perhaps a sad commentary on my life; the fact that my head stuck in a book was so commonplace that it did not even rate raising an eyebrow from my mates. Whereas if they’d bothered to even look at one of the titles they’d probably have a shit-fit. Ah, oh well, it’s better this way.


After spending the morning breaking camp, lugging supplies around, traveling, soaking through my clothing, warding the crap out of the new site, and making camp once again, Snape summoned me through the mirror. Great. I looked like shit, and he wanted to chat. After hiding once again in the loo, I pulled the burning mirror out of my back pocket. This time it was wrapped in a scrap of wool and warned me without producing any first, second, or third degree burns.


“You rang?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow at my scowling co-conspirator. I swear, if scowling were a sport the wizard could play for England.


“The preparations have been made, I’d prefer we perform the ritual tonight,” he said without preamble. Apparently I looked shocked at the pronouncement because he sneered at me. “What, the redoubtable Miss Granger is not prepared?”


“I just didn’t expect this so soon.” I gritted my teeth at the childish quality of my bewildered voice as it tripped past my lips without my bidding. Really, I must work harder at whipping my internal censor into submission when ridiculous things just drop out like that.


“Indeed,” he said with another sneer.


Once again composed, I gave a mighty sniff and affirmed that I would be ready. He gave me lay lines to a rock circle appropriate for just such an auspicious event and a time to show up. Eight o’clock. Tonight. I nodded and closed the mirror’s connection.


Here it was, the moment of truth. Could I trust Snape well enough to join him at some random location knowing full well I could be happily waltzing into a Deatheater trap? I hadn’t given Snape any assurances when I'd asked him to portkey to my parent’s house. Heck, he didn’t even know that was the portkey destination, it could well have been an Azkaban cell. And though it seemed like I’d just walked up to the Malfoy manor, pitched a few stones, and carelessly apparated away when it suited me, I hadn’t gone unprepared. Nor had I allowed myself to ‘hang-out’ with Snape unprepared either. But both of those events were on my time, my planning, and my terms. Showing up at some rock circle didn’t sit right, but I had hours to get there and figure things out.


A wizarding Atlas identified the lay lines and the rock formation in Surrey. The rock formation was known, and catalogued, and referenced by name, but very little information was available. After cross referencing all available data with the limited library I’d brought with me, I came up with not much more than the Atlas had given me, which is to say nothing at all.


Making excuses with the boys was harder. At first I told them I had to do a welfare check on my elderly Aunt Eugenia, but they wanted to tag along hoping for tea and chocolate biscuits. So I leveled with them. I confessed that I’d lied about meeting Aunt Eugenia, but the truth was humiliating. I needed to see a physician for my cramps. My female cramps. With lots of female things involved. I hate this excuse, it only perpetuates the mythology of the weaker sex, but in all fairness it does the trick. The boys tried very hard to be supportive without actually turning green. And then treated me as if I were incubating the plague. I gathered my items, bid them a fond if not slightly stilted farewell and apparated to Surrey.


I’d been to a town in the vicinity of the rock formation on a muggle school trip once before. This was all before I’d known I was a witch. So I returned there, familiarized myself with the bus routes, and hopped on several of them until I got close enough to the site that I could walk. Which brought me back into mosquito territory, but as I’ve come to realize, this is all for the ‘greater good,’ which meant I needed to suck it up and deal. I just wish I knew of a clothing charm or a spell to keep those buggers away. Alas, not everything is fixable by magic, and I haven’t the extra dosh for bug repellant or else I’d be bathing in it daily.


The woods were nearly as thick as the Forrest of Dean, but with a ‘point me’ spell I was able to locate the rock circle rather easily. I didn’t dare approach the center, the damned place pulsed with a cold magic. I couldn’t name the uneasy feeling that pervaded my bones, but something here spoke with a warning of danger. Then again it could just be nerves or an ill-settled roast beef sandwich. I prefer to think of myself as a realist and not given easily to fright.


Still, there was no point in actually sitting within the rock formation, no real need. So I found a good climbing tree, hoisted myself up, found a comfy branch, pulled out a book, and settled in for a long wait.


I did not wait long. Well, not terribly. Snape arrived a few hours later, though well before our eight o’clock rendezvous time. If he noticed me gangly hanging about in the tree he didn’t acknowledge my presence. He directly began setting up all sorts of wards. Many I recognized as protective wards I’d used on our tent, but many of them I couldn’t divine their intent. Oh well, it mattered not. Snape was alone and by all appearances keeping up his side of the bargain.


After warding absolutely everything within the perimeter he began to prepare the circle. I watched fascinated as he laboriously consecrated it, then poured table salt around the whole damn thing. It seemed very funny to me and a giggle nearly escaped giving me away. The idea that after lengthy incantations and quite a bit of heavy elemental magic he used table salt seemed perversely simple. Ah, but then I suppose sometimes the simplest of solutions is often times the best.


And wasn’t that my aim for the evening anyway? Finding horcruxes is maddeningly difficult, it’s not like a proper scavenger hunt where you go from one clue to the next. There didn’t seem to be any clues at all. And the junk that Dumbledore left us may have meant something to him, or is probably supposed to mean something to us, but without some form of a key the puzzle is meaningless. Tonight we’d be cutting to the chase. Get rid of Voldemort. Everyone goes home happy. The end. Simplest solution.


“I know you’re up there, you might as well come down,” he called tonelessly. Well, that answered that question. But honestly did he expect that I’d just show up without being prepared?


I hopped down from the tree only slightly turning an ankle on the landing, swung my bag over my shoulder and sauntered over. I felt like saying, ‘Yeah I twisted my ankle. I meant to do that. Going to make something of it,’ but thankfully my internal censor was on the job this time. Snape eyed me as if he’d heard it anyway. I hate when he does that.


“Have you eaten?”


“A bit before.”


He gestured idly to his own leather satchel laying on a rock, “There’s food in there if you get hungry, we may be in for a long night.”


“How so?”


“Ideally we won’t be summoning just any demon. I’d like to prefer to deal with a higher class of demons known as harbingers rather than handle scavengers. If scavengers scent us they could descend upon the place and we’ll all be lost. You, me, that bit of soul you’re carrying, all of us. That’s a fate I’d like to avoid if you don’t mind.”


“Agreed,” I shivered.


“It may take some time before we can get a demon that’s to my liking, and I’m sorry to say Miss Granger, but I’m very picky when it comes to dealing with demons.”


I nodded, how could I dispute this? But then this is why I took the risk in the first place and called for Snape. I may not trust the sneaky bastard with much, I haven’t forgotten or forgiven what he did to us, but this was his forte.


He perched casually on an outer lying rock and threw me a sandwich.


“Anything else I should know,” I asked.


“Let me do the talking. I don’t need your foolish Gryffindor interruptions. There will be no question and answer session with the demon. You will not have the chance to badger the demon or show off your knowledge of demonology. And in all things be careful with what you say, a demon won’t hesitate to twist your words around for its own perverse pleasure, so speak what you mean plainly. Furthermore if you’re asked to speak you’ll keep your tone respectful and you will not under any circumstance make eye contact with the demon. Much like a legilimens can see within your pretty little head through eye contact, the demon can use it to draw your soul straight out from your body. Is that understood?”


“Yes, of course,” I automatically responded, my throat dry, but not from the chicken salad. The books hadn’t mentioned anything about making eye contact.


“I will need your power and cooperation with maintaining the protective circle and if need be combating anything that slips on through. We will offer the demon Tom Riddle’s soul, give up the trinket, ensure that all the pieces of the soul are accepted and close the connection. You and I will drive whatever lingering dark magic clinging to this place away, at least to the best that we can, and then my dear Miss Granger, we will leave this place. And I hope never to see you again. If we can both manage that I will consider this night a success.”


Numbly I agreed, wondering how this could be that when the moment was so completely real, finally happening, it felt so distant and hollow. For hours I felt that way. Mind and body numb as we worked to clear the site, scowering and pulling up underbrush, most if not all of it by hand. We never touched the inner circle that was rimmed in salt, and I couldn’t find the voice to ask why. I doubt he’d appreciate the question. My sweat soaked body was a beacon of light to every mosquito within a hundred kilometers at least. They all honed in, found me, and feasted as I toiled.


Snape caught me as I slapped my hand on my arm catching three blood-fattened insects. They were the true harbingers of evil, and I was happy to see them die a horrible squishy death. He looked at me like I was half crazed, pointed his wand at me and muttered, Hermatus and went back to pulling ivy from rocks. I was going to have to remember that one. Those little fuckers buzzed around me, but they didn’t land.


By eight o’clock the site looked well maintained and cared for. There were also a lot more rocks than I noticed before. Not that any of them were particularly high. Unlike the big tourist traps, the biggest some of these monoliths got were to my waist, and I’m fairly short, even for a girl. I did however find one with what appeared to be futhark scratched in the side and running over the cusp, but I couldn’t read it even though I’d taken top marks in Ancient Runes.


“Are you ready?”


I looked at him sharply, amazed that time had sped by so quickly and almost without my notice.


“Yes,” I responded dumbly finding my voice.


“Splendid.”


He took a position just outside the untouched salt encircled area and motioned me to join his side.


His deep baritone voice called out into the night, he confidently sang words I’d seen in the books, but daren’t utter myself. Not once did he trip over a syllable or err in his enunciation. The wizard, the man, knew what he was doing and was well prepared for this. I felt confident in my reading, but what was reading when compared to serenading a demon?


The center of our stone circle flared before a decapitated head from a bad 1980s science fiction flick appeared, gnashing its’ jagged teeth and howling as if the hounds of hell were pursing it. Which may have been correct. Snape flicked his wrist at the demon that was banging against the protective warding trying to get out and the demon disappeared, ostensibly back to whatever layer of hell it came from. I had a smart-ass comment prepared, but wisely kept my mouth shut.


None of the next seven demons were to his liking and they were all sent away. Each time he summoned one and got rid of it appeared to take a very serious toll on him. He’d stripped down to a linen shirt, but it was clinging to him from perspiration. I’d never realized how toned the man was and had to give him mad credit. That, and he was the most magically gifted wizard I’d ever seen in action. I’d never even seen the Headmaster put forth such effort.


Not that I passively stood still. Each time a new and disgusting demon popped on in the warding was further strained and I worked to keep the site integrity preserved, which in itself was draining.


Finally, when I really did think the whole night was going to be a draw as we couldn’t keep exerting this level of energy a different kind of demon appeared. At first it was nothing more than a human shaped shadow, a dark opaque form with fuzzy edges, but as it began to coalesce and become more concrete a man appeared. Or what would pass for a man, I would make the mistake of calling him human. Without physically describing him as anything more than a man, he was simply not, for reasons I cannot describe. I could feel his presence, and he was not. I was curious, but my curiosity was not runaway enough to attempt to look to long at him for fear of making eye contact. But he was lanky and drawn, with whispering robes that flowed about him in nonexistent wind, their essence flowing in a way that fabric could never achieve. I kept my eyes focused on the robes and his extraordinarily long fingers.


He seemed to satisfy Snape’s requirements, and for that I was grateful.


“Who is the originator that calls me forth? Who fashions my presence?”


Somehow I expected a big booming voice calling across the ages with some magnificent echoing effect, but the longer he stayed the more solid he became the more normal and surprisingly average his voice sounded. I was taken aback and therefore more on my guard. Somehow the idea of the demon becoming more solid the longer he stayed was a frightening thought.


“We do,” Snape replied evenly. “I have called you, and she courts your favor.”


“To what purpose Wizard?”


“The Witch has a soul to sell you.”


Instinctively I held up the horcrux. It dangled from my fingertips, and though I held it lightly the soul inside seemed to scream and move. I got the distinct impression if it could have crawled up my arm and back around my neck it would have. What a delightful thought, the Dark Lord’s soul fragment was a pussy.


“An interesting soul,” he commented without betraying any hint of human emotion, the voice itself seemed mechanical. “To obtain all of the pieces will be a challenge, but then this is a worthy soul. I have not seen such an intriguing soul in three thousand years. Name your price and I’ll consider your offer.”


“My price is that you take the soul and never allow any piece of it to escape into our realm again, not ever, not for any purpose.”


My head whipped so fast towards Snape that my muscles strained. That was what I was going to ask for. That was my plan. How did he know? He just took the very words from my lips. Bargaining with a demon meant that both sides had to be satisfied, a deal brokered with a demon was supposed to be a give and take, and since there wasn’t anything I ever wanted from a demon, and the only thing I ever wanted in the world was to be free of the fucking pile of shit dangling from my fingertips, it seemed appropriate that this would be the bargain, but damned if Snape didn’t beat me to it. Admirable that he should spend his one wish on ridding the world of Voldemort as well.


“Witch,” the demon addressed me, “name your price.”


Oh shit. My body clenched from toes to teeth. I couldn’t just say, ‘no, I’m good, really thanks.’ I was included in on the bargain. We both summoned. I held possession of the soul; I had to name my price. If I fucked this up, I fucked up the whole bargain and all would be lost. More importantly the demon was becoming more and more corporeal by the minute, which really was never a good sign.


Think fast Hermione, I chanted. What do I want? If I could have anything in the world, what would I want? Nothing dark. Nothing that could be misconstrued. Nothing that could cause any form of pain or misery. What did Snape say? Watch my words. So, if Voldemort was dead and my whole future lay before me, what would I want? Power, no never, that was wrong to ask for, and a fool’s path. Knowledge, from a demon that could be dangerous. Love. It was more than ‘the power that he knows not.’ There was never anything wrong with more love in the world. How often have I worried and fretted that I’d live my life alone and unloved, with nobody to ‘have and to hold.’


But to ask for love from a demon was wrong. If love and lust potions weren’t enough of a warning of the perversions from demanding love, I don’t know what was. To ask for love from a demon might mean that he’d magically compel someone to love me, and dear gods I wouldn’t want that. No, not love. Companionship? I felt his eyes upon me, heavy and probing, and yet I would not lift mine to meet his. But how to phrase it so as not to trap me, or anyone else?


“You desire company, a friend. More than a friend Witch, you desire a mate. You fear the darkness, you fear rejection, more than anything else you fear loneliness.”


“I would never compel anyone to suffer my presence,” I said strongly, nearly lifting my eyes to meet his.


“No Witch, you wouldn’t. Your terms are acceptable. Our deal is sealed.”


From my fingertips the bruised soul essence trapped in the locket released itself, flying swiftly to its new master. I shivered again as Snape banished the demon, repeating his words again and again in my head, sounding them out with my lips. ‘No Witch, you wouldn’t.’ Did that mean I wouldn’t, but he would? I never stated what I wanted. I never stated plainly that I didn’t want him to compel anyone. I can only dearly hope I didn’t just fuck myself.


Snape and I silently cleared the woods, erasing all traces of our presence and the Dark magic that’d been used. His eyes followed me and I knew he was somehow worried about my bargain.


He grabbed his satchel and I my handbag. The night was already well advanced, and no doubt the boys would be panicky, but before we both disapparated, walked away as we had planned, I turned my eyes to his and softly said, “Thank you.”


He returned the gesture by inclining his head and murmured, “It was my pleasure. Thank you.”