Snape Redux

Snape Redux

By April Grey

Chapter Five – Harry’s Tale

It all belongs to Rowling, except for the parts you don’t recognize.

AN: I want to thank LittleBird and NegativeNine for being more than fans, more than betas—for being good friends. They were supportive of me when I was writing fanfics and continued to be supportive when I switched to writing and attempting to sell my fantasy novels. Thank you two for always being there.
-AG


Hermione settled into her bath. Soon she’d be seeing Ron again and Harry hopefully not long after that. She wondered how it was going with him and the Dursleys for his final stay. It had been his only home before coming to Hogwarts so he had to have some sentimental feeling for the place, if not the people.

She added some more “Sleep like a Babe” magical bubble bath and nearly drowned in an exuberance of gigantic pink bubbles.

She loved the boys, but her feelings for Ron had become a bit strange and scary. She no longer felt for him pure friendship, but something more that if taken further could overshadow and ruin everything they’d had in the past.

In addition, like Harry had done with Ginny, Hermione also felt that it would be best to put all relationships on the back burner until after the war was over. She didn’t want to get all muddle headed with amorous feelings just when she needed to have all her wits about her.

Tonight after dinner she would be using the portkey and having her first session with Snape. Just the thought made her mouth run dry and stomach twist with anxiety. But she knew she was right. He hadn’t killed Dumbledore. And hadn’t the headmaster out and out told Harry that when the curse on the ring had struck that Snape’s help had kept him from dying? Why help the Wizard only to kill him later on?

Hermione knew she was right in trusting Snape.

It was still early in the afternoon, but after the past few days of restless and interrupted sleep she knew the nap would be necessary. Learning Occlumency with a master like Snape was an opportunity that filled Hermione with both excitement and fear. She’d do her best to please Snape, but he was a harsh teacher. She wondered as well if Snape would deem to teach a bit of the forbidden art of Legilimency tonight or if that would wait for later? Such teachings were frowned upon outside of Ministry use. Much like Veritaserum, Legilimency could easily be misused. Hermione, feeling like a limp noodle, pulled herself from the bath and headed to her bed. Almost immediately she was asleep. And this time nothing disturbed her dreams.

That evening just before supper at the Burrow was about to begin, Ginny declared that “Ron had all the bleedin’ luck” and stormed upstairs, saying she wasn’t hungry. Hermione suspected that Ginny’s outburst had had something to do with her being there, but deliberately chose not to peek under that rock.

Ginny’s defection left Fleur, Bill, Tonks, Remus, Hermione, Ron and Mrs. Weasley remaining at the dinner table. Arthur Weasley was working late, again, at the Ministry. Percy, George and Fred were assumed to be pursuing whatever pursuits young Wizards followed (hopefully wooing young Witches and staying out of trouble) and Charlie was in Romania. Mrs. Weasley put two large baskets of fresh homemade bread on the table, followed by huge, steaming bowls of Mulligatawny Surprise and pretty soon enough steam was shooting from everyone’s ears to make the Burrow resemble a Turkish Bath.

Halfway through the meal there was a crash and Harry came rolling out from the hearth.

It was difficult to see him what with all the steam, so Harry’s sudden, unexpected appearance created quite a stir.

“By the Gods,” exclaimed Remus standing up with wand to the ready.

“Who ees eet?” asked Fleur. “We were not expecting more companee.”

“Are we under attack?” said Bill, also wand to the ready.

“Oh, it’s Harry. Whotcher, Harry?” said Tonks, waggling a finger in her ear as her steam was whistling a bit. Remus put his wand away and resumed his seat next to Tonks.

Harry coughing, glasses broken, and covered with soot, managed to get to his knees. Ron and Hermione ran to him.

“I’ll set another bowl out for you, Deary,” said Mrs. Weasley nearly bursting with delight. “It’s so good that you could join us.”

Ron and Hermione kneeled by the young Wizard.

“Harry?” asked Ron. “You look a might done in, mate.”

“Are you all right?” asked Hermione.

“Don’t say anything and keep your voices down. Four Privet Drive was blown up and I’ve got the real Slytherin locket right here. You know? The third Horcrux?” said Harry between bouts of coughing.

“Harry? What happened?” said Hermione with more than a dozen scenarios running through her head at once. As an afterthought, she said, “Reparo” and fixed Harry’s glasses.

“I’ll tell you later. Once Mr. Weasley comes home the cat will be out of the bag, but I’d rather not disrupt supper anymore than I already have.”

“Right, but how can you be sure that it’s--,” murmured Hermione, shocked at how they’d found the third Horcrux and it was now in their possession, meaning only three were left to find. It was too good to be true.

“You don’t waste any time do you?” laughed Ron, hitting Harry on the shoulder.

“Ow,” said Harry. “I’m still a bit bruised from the explosion.”

“Brilliant!” whispered Ron. “They probably deserved it.”

“Not if Harry gets in trouble,” Hermione didn’t know what she saw in Ron at times.

Mrs. Weasley, having put down another place setting came over and escorted Harry to the table. “Enough chatting-- you children will have plenty of time for your gossip later. Why Harry you’ve grown so tall, you need some flesh on those bones. You’ve gone all thin.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Looking at his soot-covered hands he said, “Umm. I better wash up first.”

Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand and he was clean. “Don’t want the food to get cold,” she said evenly, ignoring the disbelieving stares of the people around the table.

Bill laughed, “That’s the royal treatment, Harry. All the rest of us have to go and wash up, while you get to eat right away.”

Bill’s face was a patchwork of pink and red scar tissue, which he managed to ignore quite well, not seeming at all in pain from laughing.

Fleur whispered in Bill’s ear and he took her hand and kissed it.

Hermione felt tears well up and applied herself to her food. One day this war will be over and it will be safe to love again, she thought. She looked around the room and said a silent prayer that everyone would make it through the war in one piece.

Just then Tonks, whom Remus had been whispering to, gave a whoop and said to him, “Oh, do let’s tell them.”

Remus blushed bright red, but nodded. He clanked his water glass with a soup spoon and said, “Everyone, we have an announcement.” He stood up, beaming and raised Tonks up to stand beside him. “Well, I’ve decided, I mean, Tonks and I, err, Nymphadora,” (Tonks made a face at her formal name) “here has graciously agreed to be my wife.”

All around the table, Here, Heres were said along with “She’s a jolly good Witch” and “He’s a jolly good Wizard” being sung all off key and at different times.

Mrs. Weasley went all teary-eyed and came round to the couple to kiss them both. She then went over to Hermione and whispered, “It’s the special ingredient in my Mulligatawny Surprise—oysters. Does the trick every time.”

Hermione smiled and nodded, reminding herself to not eat the stew next time she was over. Not unless she was ready to get married.

Mr. Weasley missed dinner completely and Mrs. Weasley set about cleaning up and putting leftovers away for him to eat later.

Bill, Fleur, Remus and Tonks sat at the table, toasting each other with Mrs. Weasley’s special stock of homemade Gooseberry Wine, which kept up a steady series of little honks, and discussing the possibility of the shared expense of a double wedding.

Harry, Ron and Hermione headed upstairs.

“Ginny, guess who has shown up?” Hermione called softly at the Witch’s bedroom door.

Ginny came to the door puffy eyed and in her nightgown. “Harry. It doesn’t matter. We broke up, remember?”

Hermione’s heart gave a lurch. “You don’t want to see him then?”

Ginny smiled, “I’m not feeling very brave right now. Tomorrow. I assume he’ll be here for a while.”

Hermione gave Ginny a small hug and let Ginny head back to her funk. She went and joined the boys in Ron’s room.

“So, spill it,” said Ron. “I could barely eat, you had me so excited.”

“From the beginning, Harry.”

“Well, Uncle Vernon picked me up at the station and he wanted to know why I’d returned early. I had to tell him about Dumbledore. But looking back, I probably should have made something up. Anyway, when I told him he went all sort of pale and weird with his eyes bulging out of his head. I thought he was having a stroke or something.

“When we got to Four Privet Drive he made me stand in the driveway with all my stuff. And he ran inside.” Harry removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“About ten, I dunno fifteen, minutes out comes Aunt Petunia and Dudley with their bags all packed. And then Uncle Vernon shows up with his bags, too. And they all got in the car and drove off. I chased them down the street, at which point Uncle Vernon rolled down his window and threw the house keys at me. He laughed and said the place was mine. He didn’t want it anymore.

“And they left.”

“Whoa!” Ron’s eyes shined. “The whole place is yours? I wonder how much it’s worth? Do you fancy a housemate?”

Hermione jabbed him with her elbow, “That’s not the point. What Harry’s Uncle did would have broken the protective spell, I think.” She frowned, “And then what happened?”

“Well, I wasn’t too sure what to do next. So I went inside and made myself a roast beef sandwich. Aunt Petunia had cooked it for dinner and there were some leftovers. I didn’t see the point in letting it go to waste.”

“Quite right,” said Ron.

“I was sitting there, wondering who I should contact, or maybe just enjoy a quiet few weeks figuring out where the Horcruxes might be—“

“Right, well get on with it. How did you get the locket?”

“I’m getting to it.”

“He’s getting to it, Ron,” repeated Hermione, feeling equally impatient.

“Well, it was just then that the house sort of gave a lurch and everything just sort of exploded. Well, thank goodness Mr. Weasley had set up an illegal floo—“

“Wasn’t that removed?” asked Hermione.

“Obviously not or Harry wouldn’t be here,” said Ron.

“What did you do for floo powder?”

“Aunt Petunia had some glass ornamental candies in a candy dish on the mantle. I’d transformed some floo powder to look like one in case I ever needed a quick escape from Uncle Vernon. I just grabbed the dish, bunged it into the hearth yelled ‘Ministry of Magic’ and jumped in.”

“Well, I suppose the house isn’t worth much any more, then” laughed Ron.

“Ron!”

Harry laughed, “I suppose not!”

“But was there a Dark Mark in the sky? Did you see Voldemort or any—“

“There wasn’t time, Hermione. I don’t know what happened.”

“And that’s where you were since you came home from Hogwarts? The Ministry of Magic?” said Hermione.

“It was bad. The only person who was on duty that late at night was Umbridge, and she called in the new Minister, Scrimgeour.

“Scrimgeour wasn’t going to let me go or tell anyone I was there until he got all the information he wanted from me about Dumbledore and an agreement to go to the Daily Prophet and say what a wonderful job they were doing. Since I refused to cooperate, and what with the house collapsed and no one knowing where I was, they would have kept me there forever.”


“They were able to keep it all quiet from the Order?” said Ron.

Harry nodded. “I think Mr. Weasley found something out because tonight there was some yelling down the hall that sounded like him. And then I was moved to another room. The thing was, the room had another door to it that wasn’t locked. I was able to go through it and found myself in the section where they keep retrieved items, evidence and such I suppose. I guess they thought that was a secure enough room for me.”

“Well, of course,” said Hermione, “I guess with Mr. Weasley finding out they panicked.”

“Anyway, I got bored and started looking around. And I found a drawer marked “M. Fletcher--Confiscated Goods.” I was able to open it and there was all the stuff that he’d stolen from 12 Grimmauld Place! Tonks must have gotten the stuff back from him or told the Ministry to, I dunno. But there was the locket!”

Hermione sat with her mouth open. “That’s amazing. But are you sure it’s “the” locket?

“I’m sure it was the same one I saw in the Pensieve. It had been in 12 Grimmauld Place all this time. Remember how it wouldn’t open for us? It was thrown out, but Kreacher must have retrieved it.

“Then I heard more yelling from down the hallway. Mr. Weasley was shouting my name. I went next to the door and yelled back to him. I heard footsteps and the door opened. But it was this really crotchety Wizard who had been keeping watch over me all day.

“I pushed past him. I might have knocked him over. I-I don’t know--I didn’t look back. I just ran. I didn’t see Mr. Weasley, but the lift doors were just closing, so I threw myself inside and hit the button to the Atrium. From there I took the floo here.”

The three sat in silence. Loud voices came from downstairs.

“Harry’s here?” It was Mr. Weasley, sounding perplexed.

“Well, yes. I thought it was very nice of him to join us for dinner.”

“Molly, if you knew what—“

“But I don’t, so perhaps you should stop yelling and have some dinner and pull yourself together.”

Harry was pale but got up, “Time to face the music.”

“Harry, whatever happens, you didn’t do anything wrong,” said Hermione.

“That hasn’t stopped the Ministry before,” Harry said, “Remember how Umbridge had sent those Dementors against me? I nearly got killed.”

“Harry? Are you up there?” came Mr. Weasley’s voice from the bottom of the stairs, “I’d like to speak to you, son.”

Harry came down the stairs trailed by Hermione and Ron.

Mr. Weasley was standing in the center of the kitchen, looking very red faced. Molly hurried off to the living room, also red faced. Hermione noticed that Tonks, Bill and Fleur had also left. There was just Remus, leaning against the kitchen sink with his arms crossed. And someone he’d never seen before was sitting at the table.

“Harry, first of all, my apologies,” said Mr. Weasley. “The Ministry of Magic sometimes shoots from the hip.”

“Just tell me how much trouble I’m in this time,” said Harry glumly.

“The problem was that you have been abandoned by your legal guardians. The Minister of Magic wanted you to be his ward and I had to rattle some skeletons to get them to let me be your guardian instead.”

“That’s great,” Harry’s eye’s lit up.

“Even so, we aren’t out of the woods yet--“ said Mr. Weasley who was interrupted by the man at the table.

“Perhaps you could just give me your side of it. Just sit down and get it all out,” said the man at the table. He was wearing a lime green leisure suit. He had a small upturned nose and thinning brown hair that he’d styled in a comb-over. His pale blue eyes were large behind a pair of tortoise shell glasses.

“Um, Mr. Weasley, sir. Who’s he?” Harry looked at the man and who stared right back at Harry.

Mr. Weasley coughed, “I don’t like having to do this, but considering their actions, keeping you there without telling anyone, I feel the only way to insure your continued safety and freedom is to go public with this outrage. We wouldn’t want to see you hauled in again and kept under house arrest ‘for your own good’, now, would we?”

The man took Harry’s hand and shook it briskly, “Marcellus Bixby, at your service.”

Harry turned to Mr. Weasley, “Who?“

Hermione’s eyes went large, “I know you! You wrote that exposé on, on, oh yes, the mistreatment of magical animals. I ran across your article when I was researching Buckbeak’s defense.”

“Yes,” he grinned, “I’ve written quite a few exposés on the violation of civil rights in the Wizarding World. Miss?”

“Granger, Hermione Granger.” She held out her hand, which he shook. “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” she grinned from ear to ear. “Just imagine, Marcellus Bixby.”

“A reporter?” Harry sighed. “Like I didn’t have enough trouble with Rita Skeeter?”

“Mr. Potter, unlike Rita I’m a bit of a Ronin.”

“Huh,” said Ron.

“Masterless Samurai. I report to no paper, because I’m a freelance writer. It helps to keep me honest.” He laughed, “I also happen to be married to an incredibly wealthy Muggle. Dot coms, you know.”

He walked over to the kitchen table. “So, Arthur contacted me after having a rather difficult time with the new Minister of Magic. Please come join me. Arthur, could I trouble you for some tea? This may be a late night.” He took out a Muggle style biro and pad of paper.

“In your own words, Harry, I want to get down your mistreatment by the Ministry. And depending on what action the Ministry takes, you might wish to consider legal counsel as well; however, I suspect after a shot across the bow, they will drop the entire matter like a hot potato. Witches Weekly has already set aside four pages smack dab in the middle and their photographer will be over bright and early tomorrow.” He licked the tip of the biro, leaving a little dab of green ink on his lips.

Harry groaned.

Hermione noticed the time. If she didn’t leave right away she’d not be able to make her meeting with Snape. “I should get going; it’s becoming late.”

“Hermione?” Harry looked at her surprised.

“It’s almost midnight and I’m exhausted.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Mr. Weasley, “Travis McTavish our new Ministry Legilimens and Occlumens will be stopping by here tomorrow. He said he’d be here three-ish if he didn’t get held up. Hermione you are more than welcome to attend.”

“Stay here for the night,” said Ron.

“I’d prefer my own bedroom, thanks. Yes, Mr. Weasley I’d love to come to the lesson. Um, Harry I’ve moved out from my parents and into your place, I hope you don’t mind.

“Hermione, you told Tonks and me that--” exclaimed Remus.

“I’m sorry, Remus, but it was an open ended invite. I didn’t lie to you.” Hermione was getting tired of his nose in her business.

“No, no, it’s fine Hermione, but I’m staying here,” replied Harry still frowning at her.

“I think that would be putting everyone in danger. But it’s your choice.”

“Safety in numbers, Hermione,” said Ron. “I’d like to see them try and take us on. And you are always more than welcome to stay with us,” he too was looking at her with a little frown.

“That’s the spirit,” said Remus hoping that Hermione might change her mind.

Hermione didn’t feel right about cutting things short, but she had only minutes before the portkey would activate.

“Thanks for the offer, but not tonight.

“Bye everyone. Thank Mrs. Weasley for the wonderful meal. Well,” she faked a yawn, “I’m just falling asleep on my feet. Congratulations on the engagement, Remus. Give Tonks a hug for me.”

Before anyone could say anything, Hermione Apparated, leaving behind her an astonished group of Wizards.

Hermione arrived in the hallway of Grimmauld Place to find her Little Owl waiting for her on the table.

“Diana, do you have something for me? Can’t it wait?” She pulled out a couple of owl treats from her pocket and gave it to the small bird.

Hermione then took out the port key and checked the time. One minute, fifty seconds left to go. Diana gave an impatient screech and Hermione removed the parchment. It could be from Snape, changing plans, she thought. She opened it and saw it was from Viktor Krum. Viktor had joined a British Quidditch team a few weeks ago. And he was homesick. He was also being pursued by a fan who wouldn’t take no for an answer and--As the port key dragged her away the letter fell from Hermione’s hand.

Tonks came down the stairs from where she’d spotted the girl reading and picked up the letter.

“Well, I supposed we now know where our Hermione has been popping off to,” she said with a wry grin. “Toujours L’amour.”


AN: Additional thanks go to my reviewers: Vickie, Shameless, Snapescat, Sullicn, VampireExotica, Firewall, Anon, siriusluv, Lee and Mya