It wasn't that Snape hadn't thought through the implications of Hermione's mucking about: he had, quite thoroughly, and had even considered the advantage to himself of turning her in. (It was far better to be proactive about it, after all, than to protest later that he hadn't known what she was doing.)

On the other hand, he was almost certain to get part of the blame anyway: he had no illusions about the Ministry's actual opinion of him, no matter the official view. The Ministry would always assume that he was capable of betraying others to the Isolationist movement (for it still existed, as they had to know). At best, they would expect him to do the most personally rewarding thing. And they weren't far wrong, though they probably vastly underestimated the price at which he might be bought.

No matter how well he'd acquitted himself, however much personal risk he'd taken and how much he'd accomplished for the Order, that first decision to join the Isolationist Party would haunt him the rest of his life. (Not that he regretted it. The Dark Lord had been the problem, not the party, and it had worked out well in the end, hadn't it? At least until now, and the Ministry's absolutely criminal harassment: but even that was preferable to the mischief that the Dark -- that Voldemort should have caused eventually.)

The problem of Voldemort had been an internal matter, after all. This involved the ICW. And if he and Hermione were caught, and then prosecuted by the ICW rather than the Ministry....

He shuddered.

He knew what really happened to violators of ICW top-level "standards" -- they called them "standards," but they were in reality laws and prohibitions -- and he was one of the few who did, having searched rather desperately for years for a fellow Potions expert who had disappeared mysteriously. Snape, after going to great lengths, had finally found out what had happened to the man.

He thought he would prefer Azkaban, Dementors and all.

*****

"Well," Hermione said, tossing her napkin back upon the breakfast-table, "I suppose I ought to get my things together...."

"Going somewhere?" he murmured.

"Back to... aren't we?"

"I think not," he said. "I have correspondence to attend to, and I must check on the Common Room.... McGonagall has some ridiculous ideals about House Heads spending time with the little blighters who board over."

"Well, I can Apparate myself back perfectly well --"

"No," he said bluntly. "I don't think it wise to let you out of my sight, for the moment -- you'll hare off directly to the Ministry and muck everything up."

"I will not," she said, indignant. "There's no earthly reason for me to hang about here --"

"You have traveled all this way to spend the holiday with your husband, and any return to town on short notice without me will be viewed with suspicion, as I've already told you," he retorted, pretending far more patience than he felt. "That's reason enough. And even if you don't feel it necessary, I do. If you want my collusion with this madness, you're going to have to take my advice and wishes into account."

"When may I leave, then, sir?" she said with a glower as she rose. "Put it off until tomorrow, and I'll be late. Again."

"As I think you should be," he said. "You and your dear husband don't have much time together, after all."

"And what the bloody hell do you propose I do while you muck about here?" she fumed.

"I really don't care as long as you're not underfoot. Go to the Library. Or if you can find the willpower to be useful, I'd suggest brewing some Pepper-Up Potion for Pomfrey -- she's constantly requesting more than I have time to brew during term, and I'm sure you're competent enough to do that. Provided," he added, "that you don't liberate anything from the stores in the process."

"I wouldn't --"

"Boomslang skin and Gillyweed," he shot back at her. "Not to mention Puffer-fish eyes and an alarming amount of Wolfsbane."

"Not the Gillyweed," she informed him. "That was Dobby. And the Wolfsbane was used on Dumbledore's order, for Lupin, because you weren't available to brew his potion that last February."

Snape felt his eyebrows shoot up before he could prevent it.

"Successful?"

"Yes, with Dumbledore's help. After the second try," she admitted. "Now, do you want me to brew the damned Pepper-Up, or not?"

"By all means," he said, and waved languidly in the direction of the classroom. "It's unwarded now, do your worst -- but do try not to harm the equipment. You do remember how to --"

"Yes, damn it."

"What, by the way," he threw after her as she headed for the door, "were the Puffer-fish eyes for?"

"No idea," she retorted. "But as the Weasley Twins came up with a Bulge-Eye Bromide their last year, I suspect you ought check with them."

She slammed the door on her way out.

Well, that solves those mysteries definitively, Snape thought with satisfaction. Although the Wolfsbane was a surprise. And while she didn't confirm the Boomslang skin, she didn't deny it, either. Not that I needed further confirmation on that.

He'd thought at the time that Granger made a better-looking cat than human, and of course he'd thought the silly girl had got what she deserved. Then again, he'd always had a fondness for black cats.... although he admitted to himself that he preferred Hermione as she was now.

One obnoxious task taken care of, he thought, content. Assuming she doesn't muck it up -- and she won't, no matter how long it's been. Her retention was always quite good. I suppose I ought to get the visit with the brats over with....

*****

Snape did bother to check on Hermione after his excruciating visit to the Slytherin Common Room; much to his surprise he found the classroom and equipment spotless, and freshly-canted bottles of Pepper-Up neatly lined on the worktable -- but no Hermoine.

He checked on the potion's efficacy -- top-drawer, as he expected -- boxed up the bottles, and took them to the Infirmary.

"Oh, thank you, Severus," Pomfrey muttered, glancing up from some paperwork. "If you'd just put them in front of the stores cupboard.... Whyever did you mess about with that on holiday?"

"I didn't, Hermione did," he said, and set the box down before sitting in the chair facing her desk. "I had to keep her busy this morning, as I was otherwise occupied."

"You let someone else muck about with your equipment?" Pomfrey asked.

"She was perfectly capable of brewing that by Fourth Year," he retorted. "And, apparently, Wolfsbane by Seventh Year. Why didn't you tell me when I returned?"

"We were a bit busy by then," Pomfrey shot back. "And as I recall, you weren't in much condition to discuss anything. It had quite slipped my mind by the time you were."

"Ah."

"I've always wondered," Pomfrey said, setting aside her quill, "why you didn't encourage her to apprentice for Potions or Alchemy."

"One: trespassing upon McGonagall's territory. Two: while she asked to be admitted to the advanced classes, she never expressed interest in actually apprenticing. And by the time I thought she might make an above-average brewer, she'd apparently decided upon Arithmancy. Luckily for us, as it happened."

"Yes, I suppose you're right."

"It's not a field for everyone, no matter how competent they are in the actual brewing, in any case," Snape added in a mutter. "The possibility for potentially dicey ethical situations.... She didn't quite impress me as having sorted through those aspects by that time, nor did she seem in the least intrigued with the more esoteric and philosophic problems in Alchemy."

"You hadn't by that age, either," Pomfrey said gently.

Snape probably should have snapped off anyone else's head for that observation: but of all the staff and faculty, he was admittedly closest to Pomfrey. It was hard, even for him, to remain distant with someone who had -- one way or another -- stitched you back together on more occasions that you cared to remember.

"I am not such a monster," he retorted, "as to wish that kind of life-lesson on anyone. With one or two significant exceptions who are, unfortunately, already dead."

Pomfrey gave him a reproving but largely indulgent look -- she must not be taking him seriously on that last bit, and he was, damn it. "She's not using Arithmancy much now, though, is she? 'Populations Consultant' -- that can't possibly involve a great deal of Advanced Arithmancy."

"None at all, as far as I can tell, beyond the statistical methodology."

"That must be terribly frustrating for her," Pomfrey murmured. "Have you spoken about it?"

"Why should I? It's her career, her choice, none of my business."

"Really, Severus? I suppose you're going to try to convince me that you haven't been married long enough to have got to that discussion, either."

"No, not at all. You've quite accurately assessed the lay of the land by now, I imagine, or should have done after dinner last night. Or have you and McGonagall been gossiping?"

"Haven't needed to. Don't worry, the others don't seem to have noticed. Or they chalk it up to your reticence."

"Good. None of their bloody business, anyway."

"But really, Severus, isn't it bit of a... an extreme measure? And risky?"

"Potentially. We're taking appropriate precautions. And if it helps put your mind at ease, the entire thing was proposed by her, not by me -- I was perfectly content to leave well enough alone until the worst happened. She's a far better option than I would have got in the end, Muggleborn or not."

"That doesn't seem like you at all," Pomfrey said bluntly, and Snape sighed.

"I'm tired, Poppy. For twenty years I saw the worst one human being could do to another.... I should have liked nothing better than to be left bloody well alone and to return the favour. This is a respite from the idiocy, and by the gods I decided to take it. There are other advantages, of course," he added, and Pomfrey tsked indignantly, catching his meaning entirely too well. "What, that's all? No lecture on morality?"

"No. The whole nasty business has nothing at all to do with morality, I'm afraid, or at least proper morality. In an ideal world it should, of course."

"Yes, well, the ICW and Ministry have said bugger that."

"Agreed. How is the knee feeling?" she said, abruptly changing the topic.

"Rotten -- I shall probably spend the rest of holiday in London."

"You ought to try a better climate, you know, at least over Break. The Mediterranean, perhaps. Take her with you -- she looks as though she needs the time away, too."

"I might," Snape said, thoughtfully, "save for the fact that I'm on their blasted flight-risk list. Can't leave Britain."

"No --"

"Yes. Have been since late October -- put there just before we were married, apparently. And one is not taken off the damned list, it seems, until one has produced at least one child."

"Good gods, Severus --"

"Exactly."

"Does she know?"

He shrugged. "I haven't told her. Nothing she could do, at any rate. I have no intention of producing a child simply to get off the list. I do have ethics of a sort about that kind of thing."

"I know," Pomfrey murmured. "You've never seemed the type to take that responsibility lightly. I wish I could say the same for others I know." She glanced at him sharply. "You would, though, if push came to shove?"

"Probably, if either of us were in danger. I'd do my best, but it's fair to say that I'm not optimistic about my ability to be a particularly good parent, to vastly understate the matter. Assuming she'd allow me to try."

"You might surprise yourself. You've been a much better Head of House than anyone anticipated, if you'll excuse the back-handed compliment. Does Hermione feel the same about the possibility?"

"Resigned to it, I think. It was part of the bargain."

Pomfrey winced. "It's a terrible thing, to require that of a woman. I remember quite well what it was like before contraceptive potions were allowed."

"I know it's terrible," Snape said heavily. "I know that better than anyone."

"How is she, then?" Pomfrey asked delicately.

Snape glanced upward at the vaulted ceiling, knowing precisely who she meant. "No change since last year. Rather less correspondence, but that's to be expected, they tell me, given the progression of the illness. They appear to have given up, and are simply trying to keep her comfortable."

"That's the best that can be expected, I suppose."

"I owe her a visit. Twenty years of visits, actually, but I simply couldn't bear to do it then. It raked up too many old memories and emotions, put me at too much risk...."

"I know. It's never easy, but with what you had to do as well.... You did your best at the time, you know, but you were only a child."

Snape refused to comment.

"Have you told Hermione?"

"No. Again, we haven't got that far. I suspect we never will. At any rate, it's not something I particularly care to share with anyone." He glared at her. "I shouldn't have with you, except you had me drugged to the gills that time...."

"No, I knew. Things like that go into a prospective student's medical file, you know that. I simply didn't have the... the human side of it until you told me."

"And I bloody well wish I hadn't."

"Oh, give over, Severus. I've not said a word, never, not even to Dumbledore when you started here. And there were times I should have done."

"I'd prefer not to be an object of pity, thank you very much," he muttered as he heaved himself out of his chair, wincing as his knee protested, and made for the door. "At any rate, he knew. He was an Interrogator at the time, I remember seeing him at the hearing."

"Oh," she said, and picked up her quill. "Oh, and Severus --"

He turned with a long-suffering sigh.

"She -- Hermione, that is -- she's very strong-willed, you know..."

"Yes, I had observed that," he retorted dryly.

"... but she's not altogether.... Well, I worry, that's all. Some people are able to deal with trauma and come out of it more or less whole, but I have the impression that she simply shut everything down, afterwards. I haven't seen her at all since that last term, but I imagine that in some ways she's... fragile. And she really is quite young, you know, relatively speaking."

"Yes," he said, "I've had some indication that there's damage. After the fact, of course -- I probably shouldn't have done this if I'd known."

"And --?"

"And I am trying to make allowances, within reason," he admitted grudgingly, aware that his patience was waning fast. "But on the whole she shall simply have to learn to deal with it. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life, if it comes to that, coddling someone who has the intelligence to realise they have a problem, but who refuses to acknowledge it. I got on with it, and so can she."

He glared at Pomfrey, challenging her to argue with him; her lips tightened, but she apparently knew him well enough not to belabour the point, and simply nodded.

He spun on his heels and left the Infirmary.

*****

He found Hermione, finally, in the Library, a few minutes after the luncheon gong had rung. She wasn't alone, though: somehow Marsters had found her (or she'd sought him out), and they were tucked into one of the window-seats in the Reading Room, chatting.

"No, Marsters, you -- Look, watch," he heard her say a bit impatiently; she pulled her wand from her pocket. "You're not doing the Third Operation properly, and this is the result." She muttered an incantation and flicked her wand, and a column of figures danced in the shaft of weak light coming through the window behind them. "Now, look at the second set," she said, and repeated the operation; a set of identical figures flared to life, but with a slightly different set of decimals. "By the time you reach the fifth decimal place over, the figures are off."

"Buh- but that doesn't make any difference," Marsters protested.

"Not now, it doesn't, besides a quarter-mark off," she said. "But it will next year, when you begin on Physical Equations. The Third Operation takes into account all dimensional forces on the Arithmantic action. With Physical Equations it's gravity, mass, and other niggly little bits like excessive heat or cold or appreciable wind speed that might throw the calculation off. With Temporal Equations, which you'll get to Sixth Year, it's passage of time between the action and the desired effect. If you try to actually perform the result with inaccurate figures, who knows what could happen. Has Professor Vector told you about Ali Sedek yet?"

Snape rolled his eyes and leaned against a shelf. She was going off on a tangent to prove a point: he knew the signs from that last, awful year of Order meetings. This idiocy with Marsters might take a while, which was one reason he, as a teacher, never tolerated ridiculous questions about why one had to do something a particular way.

"He's the bl- bloke who first Apparated," Marsters said.

"Right, and what happened?"

"Duh- disapparated in 831 and duh- didn't Apparate back in until 911."

"901, actually, but you've got the point. Apparition and Time Travel are complicated because they involve both Physical and Temporal Equations, but that takes a special Operation you won't learn unless you go into NEWT-level Artithmancy."

"You duh- don't have to do an action for every Apparition, duh- do you?" Marsters asked, horrified.

"Oh, no, not any longer -- they made the Equations automatically render when they developed the charm itself, you see. But the pioneers like Ali Sedek had to, of course."

"Cr- crikey."

"Right, exactly. So you see now why it's important?"

"I guess," Marsters said. "Duh- don't think I'll be doing much Arithmancy, though."

"You never know. It's tough to be certain what you'll end up doing, at your age," Hermione said. "And you can't anticipate how your interests may change by the time you have to declare a field."

Snape was now thoroughly bored, and cleared his throat, startling them.

"The luncheon gong's rung, if you hadn't noticed," he said pointedly.

"Oh," Hermione said. "Well, hang on just a moment. Let's try one more, shall we?" she asked Marsters.

"Nuh- no, that's okay --" Marsters said with a cowed look at Snape.

"Yes, please," she said firmly, and flicked her wand at the equations that still hovered in the air, to erase them and to form another, unworked, equation. "I shan't feel right until I know you've got it -- Here, don't muck about with the paper, just put your hand over mine and think about the numbers. I'd teach you the charm, but it'll take too long."

Snape felt a brief and unaccustomed pang of pity for the boy, being bullied by Chief Swot Granger.

Marsters did as she demanded and painstakingly manipulated the figures, backtracking once when she corrected him, until he'd worked it all out and removed his hand from hers.

"Good," Hermione said. "Spot on."

"But huh- how do you know it's right?"

"That," she said, "is the standard equation for a three-dimensional polygon, and it can be checked this way...."

Another flick and muttered incantation, and the numbers exploded and re-formed themselves into a neat little polygon, proudly spinning on its axis to show itself off.

"Wow," Marsters said.

"Exactly. All right, you -- off to lunch," she said, and gave the boy a nudge. "And don't forget about that until Term starts -- practise."

"Yes, ma'am," Marsters called back as he scrambled for the door.

"That," Snape said after the boy had left the room, "is cheating."

"Bending the rules," Hermione coolly corrected him as she continued to watch the polygon whirl about in the sun. "It's only cheating if you use it to check during an exam."

"We weren't allowed to mix Arithmancy and Transfigurational charms. I suppose it's part of the new method."

"No, you're still expected to know and use the standard method. But the other way's a hell of a lot more fun, and you have to admit it impressed him much more."

He snorted.

Hermione sighed and Banished the polygon before slipping her wand back into her pocket. "All right, I'm ready."

"Do try to smile a bit, this time," he muttered as they walked out the doors and toward the Great Hall. "People will get the odd notion in their heads that we're not happy together. Pomfrey's sussed it out."

"At the moment," she retorted under her breath, "I don't really give a damn what people think."

He very nearly read her the Riot Act, and probably should have if they hadn't been just outside the Hall doors.

As it happened, she behaved herself through lunch. She didn't even protest when he informed the rest that they'd dine alone in his rooms that evening and make an early night of it, owing to their return to London the next morning.

He thought, however -- mulling it over during said private dinner -- that he'd better remind her who was in charge, so to speak, given that she was becoming truculant and rude with him, and for no apparent reason but the delay in returning to London; and so he made up for the previous lost evening by shagging her thoroughly, until she was limp with exhaustion and he was certain his bad hip and knee were about to pop out of their joints.

*****

He woke gasping, sitting upright, skin covered with a thin sheen of cold sweat: and it took a few seconds to realise that he'd been reliving the bloody battle. Again.

It often happened when he didn't have much to occupy his mind: it was another reason he'd been determined to enjoy Hermione's body as much as possible over the holiday. But apparently the tactic was losing effectiveness. (No-one could dispute that he'd made an immense effort tonight.)

He hoped he hadn't wakened her during the nightmare. Pomfrey had told him -- after several nights of listening to him going through it, in the Infirmary -- that he could get a bit vocal in the middle of one, and he bloody well didn't want Hermione to know of it.

He groped carefully for her in the dark, and found her side of the bed empty.

He pulled himself from the bed, crossed to the door, and peered out into the sitting-room.

She wasn't on the settee.

He hurried to pull on pants and trousers, slipped on his dressing-gown and grabbed his wand, hurried into the office, and pulled a tattered bit of parchment from the bottom drawer of his desk.

He unrolled the parchment and tapped it with his wand, and grimaced when the bloody charm activated itself.

He smacked the bloody thing with his wand again and barked out a painstakingly-acquired counter-charm: the words disappeared, replaced with the Hogwarts ground-plan.

"Show me Hermione Granger," he commanded.

"Snape, Hermione Snape, you bloody --"

He snarled at it -- and then stilled when a little red dot labeled "Hermione Snape" appeared in the Great Hall.

He rolled the parchment up, stuffed it back in the drawer, and took off for the Great Hall.

*****

He thought he'd known what to expect, but it hadn't been this.

She must have come in through the main entry, but the doors were closed and he didn't dare try to slip in; so he detoured to the Anteroom and peered around the door there. The candles were lit in the main room, but not on the dais: he cast a charm at the hinges to silence them and crept through, crouching, despite the pain that caused him, behind the cloth-draped High Table to observe her.

She was in the middle of the room, her back to the dais, in nothing but the thick flannel night-gown she'd had the sense to bring from London (or perhaps she'd thought it would put him off, but of course it hadn't). And she was staring up at the mural-panels at either side of the doors.

She turned back to the very first panel, quite suddenly, and Snape resisted the urge to duck, as she might catch the movement. But she seemed totally oblivious: her eyes were focussed on the mural, and Snape had plenty of time to take her in -- sweat-drenched hair sticking to her forehead, her eyes suspiciously bright and her nose distinctly pink (she wasn't a pretty crier, he could already vouch for that), and he could clearly see sweat-stains on the bodice of her gown, even though the room was terribly chilly and she was, in fact, shivering.

As if to answer, she raised her wand, murmured a charm, and the mural sprang to life, playing out the whole, sorry mess from the attempted theft of the Philosopher's Stone.

Bloody fucking hell, he thought, astonished. That's... unless McGonagall gave her the charm -- and I doubt it -- that's damned fine charm-breaking. She can't have been at it for more than an hour, if that....

Hermione followed the action avidly as it ran along the room, only faltering, impatient, when a panel seemed to concern events with which she was intimate.

It's not pride or arrogance, then, Snape thought, and slid beneath her line of sight before she turned to face him. She's... she's looking for the parts she missed, holed up in that damned room.

When he knew it was safe to watch her again -- when the muted sounds that the bloody artist had included in the blasted mural told Snape she ought to be well past the other end of the dais -- he peered over the edge of the table again, and watched as she stood, transfixed, as the last battle played itself out: and then she sank onto a Hufflepuff bench, buried her face in one hand, and sobbed.

Ah, he thought, and slid back down to the dais floor, leaning against the legs of a chair. Fuck.

For once in his life, he had absolutely no idea what to do. Should he go to her, or leave her alone? She wasn't panicking in the way she had been the other night, but this... he had no idea if it might be doing more harm than good. Perhaps it might actually help her, for all he knew.

And what the bloody hell could he do, in any case? This was her own personal demon; she'd decided to face it alone, and he had no doubt she'd be mortified and probably very angry if she knew he'd been spying on her. (And he had been -- he had enough honesty to admit that he'd been more angry than worried, before he'd seen what she was doing.)

She'd quieted, now: he risked another look, and found her standing and scrubbing at her face, and then she faced the beginning of the mural and started the whole bloody process again, with predictable results.

Snape did the most blatantly cowardly thing he could recall doing in a very long time. When her back was once again to him, he fled.

*****

Snape decided in the end that he'd give her another half-hour to work through whatever had possessed her and to come back to bed, or he'd go fetch her on the pretext that he'd only just wakened and missed her. But twenty minutes later the ward at the door of his rooms alerted him that she was back, and he hurriedly shucked off his trousers and pants and jumped back into bed.

A moment later she slipped into the bed-chamber and padded over toward the bath.

"Hermione?" he mumbled.

She jumped, dropped her shoes, and said, "Yes, Severus," as she bent to scoop them up.

"Where --?"

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "I went for a walk. The Quad, not the Grounds."

"Oh. 'S cold, come back to bed before you catch a chill. I can't abide sniffling."

"I will, I just need to...."

She entered the bath and quietly shut the door.

Snape didn't allow himself to sleep until she was safely back in bed and had, almost instantly, dropped off.

When he checked the Quad later that morning before their hurried Apparition back to London, he found that she had indeed made several circuits of the Quad, her shoe-prints clearly visible in the snow -- though whether that was before or after her experience in the Hall he couldn't tell.

*****

London
December 27th, 2007

"Don't do anything this morning," Snape warned Hermione under his breath as the approached the Ministry. "Wait until after luncheon. In fact, I shall stop by to pick you up, and you should excuse yourself on account of the paperwork. Then -- if everyone else goes to lunch -- try to get at the records."

"I'm perfectly capable --"

"Yes, yes, I know -- and under no circumstances are you to attempt anything else today. Just get the information, and we'll discuss it tonight."

"All right. You needn't follow me in --"

"I bloody well do. We've had a perfectly enjoyable holiday, so much so that I've made you late returning, and I can hardly bear to let loose of you," he snapped.

"Fine," she snapped back, and was quite short with the call-box operator.

He kissed her good-bye in the crowded Atrium -- less chastely than the first time -- and sauntered off to the club.

*****

Snape desperately hoped Hermione would bother to heed his instructions; she'd seemed in such a foul mood that he feared she'd disobey on principle. But when he returned the Ministry a mere three hours later -- noting, with great amusement, that Corcoran dodged into the charwoman's closet rather than pass him in the hall -- Hermione was calmly working away at an enormous stack of parchments.

"Good afternoon, my dear," he murmured for the benefit of any listeners passing the office, crossed to her desk, and brazenly leaned across it to kiss her. "Luncheon today?"

"Afraid not, darling," she managed, plastering a smile across her face. "The work piled up so much while we were away...."

"Damnation -- are you certain? I'd looked forward to taking you someplace new."

"No, really, Severus, I'm terribly sorry. If I don't catch up today, I'll be behind for a week. I'll make it up to you tonight, I promise."

"Very well," Snape said, resisting the temptation to throw in a jibe at that last statement, and added a low "Be careful," as he leaned in for another kiss; a sudden movement caught his eye, and he glanced down to see Ronald Weasley, in the photo, pulling a particularly grotesque face at him.

"Cheeky little wretch," he murmured.

"Don't talk about him like that," Hermione muttered under her breath. "Either of them."

"I was speaking," Snape said, "of the bushy-haired one in the middle who's sticking her tongue out at me."

He stole another kiss, and strode out of the office before she could find something to chuck at him; he didn't need to perform Legilimens to know that was precisely what she wanted to do.

*****

Hermione looked terrible when he saw her exit the lift that evening, in the Ministry Atrium; she hadn't been fibbing about the work, apparently, and had tried to do too much on top of a largely sleepless night.

"No dinner out?" he guessed as he took her arm.

"I think I'd fall asleep in the middle," she admitted. "And I don't feel up to much more than tea and toast, at any rate." (She managed to throw in a wan smile for the benefit of the others in the room, he noted with approval.)

Serves you right for wearing yourself out last night, he thought, but there was no spite in it: much as he thought her actions of last night foolish, he was seriously concerned for her health, at the moment.

He steered her over to a Departure floo and followed her on to the Hanged Hag -- the pub with the public floo nearest her flat -- and they walked the quarter-mile to the flat in silence. (She stumbled twice; Snape nearly gave in to the temptation to Apparate her directly home, but there were too many Muggles about, and she insisted that she needed the air.) Once inside -- and once he'd cast a Silencing Charm over the entire flat -- he got her settled at the kitchen counter and, despite her protests, set about preparing what little dinner there was himself.

"I'm perfectly capable of producing tea and toast," he grumbled as he added water to the kettle. "Tell me what you found, if anything."

"Flaherty lived in St. John's Wood," Hermione said. "Walpole Mews."

"And where are they when they're at home?"

"Here," she said, sounding confused. "London, northwest."

"I'm not a Londoner," he shot back. "If it isn't near the Leaky Cauldron, Kings Cross, the bloody Black house, or a club threshold, I don't know it."

"Oh. I'd assumed...."

"Well, don't," he said, pulling the bread from the cupboard. "Presumably St. Pancras is the most likely, then. At least I know that Ashford's east."

"Yes,"

"St. Pancras is also the most obvious, then."

"Well, we have to start somewhere.... What are you doing?" she asked as he poked what he now thought of as 'my toasting fork' through a piece of bread and wrapped a tea-towel about the fork-handle.

"I believe it's known as 'toasting bread.' Aga and I have come to an understanding about what happens if it ends up burnt."

"Oh, good God...."

She got off the stool and wandered into the kitchen, pulled the odd little metal box away from the wall, snatched the bread from the fork, and popped it and a second slice in the box before depressing a lever on the front; the bread dropped into the slots, and Snape heard the box begin to click in a decidedly annoyed manner. (He peered into the top of the box, and noted that the insides had begun to glow.)

"And don't shove the fork in if it sticks," Hermione muttered as she stomped back to her stool. "You'll do an Arthur Weasley and electrocute yourself."

"You'd appreciate that, I'm sure."

"Not if you did a good job of it and killed yourself. I don't care to explain to the Muggle authorities how an adult male with no identification was stupid enough to stick a metal fork into an electrical appliance."

"There's the tried and true under-the-floorboard method," he retorted viciously as he tossed the fork on the counter. "You might resort to that."

"Too risky, the plumber has to come entirely too often."

"Plumber?"

"For the water lines. They're old, they spout leaks all the time. Can't afford to rip them out, yet."

"I've no comparison, of course, but I have the distinct impression that this flat is absolutely terrible even by Muggle standards. Why do you put up with it?"

"All the mortgage I could afford, and that was with an inheritance from my grandparents. London's expensive," she muttered defensively. "I didn't want to let, I wanted something of my own. The neighbourhood's decent, at least."

Snape decided to give her a moment to cool down -- he didn't fancy pushing her into another fit, not tonight -- and busied himself with pulling out the teapot and warming it when the kettle was hot.

"Don't you have a cat?" he finally said to break the silence, and to steer them toward a less-hostile topic. "I distinctly remember you hauling about a huge ginger-coloured furball when you arrived every Term. I haven't seen it."

"Part Kneazle," she said. "Crookshanks. He died last year, and I buried him in the back garden. What there is of it."

He gave up, prepared the tea, and cautiously plucked the toast from its slots when it popped up and set it before her.

"What else," he asked as he poured them tea, "could you find out about Flaherty?"

"Father Irish, mother English, raised here in London," she said, waving away the milk and sugar when he offered it. "Pureblood. Mother's family," she said delicately, "was Nigellus, several generations back."

"Hah," Snape said, and added a generous spoon of sugar to his own tea.

"But Flaherty had no obvious connection to the Isolationist movement -- I was able to check the Index of Trial Transcripts as well as the Census, and there's no mention of him at all. Hufflepuff, 1983, so I suppose you shouldn't remember him as a lower-Former from school."

"No, I don't. And I wasn't hired until 1984, so I'd have missed him as a student."

"He was second vice-president of Mangel and Mortars -- at the headquarters here in town, not the manufacturing facility in Wiltshire -- and had been with the company since he Left Hogwarts. There's a family interest in the company, I believe. Very stable history, moved up in the company rapidly, judging by the press announcements. I checked those as well."

"Married when?"

"1989, to Olivia Featherstone. No children in seventeen years. I wasn't able to find any medical information, so I've no idea if they'd tried or not. But to all appearances, they had no reason not to -- more than financially stable. Wealthy in fact."

"Yet he bothered to go, himself, to France for a damned bottle of perfume every year?"

"Shacklebolt told me he got the impression they were absolutely devoted to each other, and Mrs Flaherty said they'd spent many holidays in France and loved it." She shrugged. "He must have been one of those people who believes the gesture is as important as the gift itself, I suppose."

"Now that you bring it up, how is Shacklebolt involved in this?" Snape asked, suspicious. "Beyond his official duties, of course?"

"Not at all, that I know. I've seen him occasionally at work, of course -- passing in the Atrium, mostly -- but we hadn't spoken since the Order disbanded, until a few days ago."

"Anything else on Flaherty?" he said, buttering his now-cold toast. (Aga did a much better job of it than the electric box, he thought.)

"Nothing. Absolutely law-abiding, beyond avoiding duty on things like the perfume -- didn't even have a single tick for a moving violation or against his Apparition record. I don't dare contact anyone at Mangel and Mortars to ask about him, it's too far beyond my purview. I suppose Shacklebolt might have learned something from them by now, but I don't have a good excuse to contact him, either -- my position isn't like DeLaine's, I have no direct contact with the Aurors."

"Seventeen years," Snape muttered. "Seventeen bloody years, spotless record, and they put him on a fucking list because he was Pureblood and hadn't bred, for whatever reason."

"Right."

"And Shackebolt is certain Flaherty got the bloody notice? He'd signed for it?"

"Yes, that was one of the first things they checked, assuming it was a horrid accident.... How do you know they send out Certified owls?"

"I've... heard about the proceedure, by now," Snape muttered. "Could hardly not. And one of the Slytherin Sevenths turned eighteen last month and got a Certified owl the next bloody day."

"Oh. So, anyway, that's as far as I can go at this point on information."

"Save for retrieving whatever he put in Left Luggage, yes. And determining if it's worth the risk."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"What if it's simply a bloody briefcase of work documents? It was a workday, after all."

"Oh, Severus, come on. DeLaine as much as told me he was up to something, what with having a contact in Calais to do some kind of dirty work for him."

"Yes, I'd forgot that," Snape admitted grudgingly. "But it still doesn't make sense, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the government. If he had no connection to the Isolationists...."

"No obvious connection. And that doesn't take human nature into account. Here we have a man who's desperately in love with his wife -- whom he may be forced to set aside in future, if infertility is proven -- and who believes very strongly in making gestures. In making a statement. He's an executive, he's used to making educated guesses about trends, about how things may develop or play out.... The only flaw that I can see in his plan is that he did it so soon, before the rest of the population are really aware of how it's affecting their own liberties."

"He mayn't have known they wouldn't hear. You said the papers were restricted from some reportage, but he couldn't know, could he?"

"I've no idea, although the fact that he had a helper in France makes me think he might have -- the French Press is quite reactionary about the restrictions, and he might have thought they'd have more luck spreading the word.... But that reminds me, I meant to show you those documents."

She rose from the stool and walked back up the hall to the sitting room; Snape gulped down the rest of his tea, and then followed.

She'd turned on the odd little box in the corner when he got there, and was drumming her fingers impatiently as the box alternately flashed images and went dark.

"These aren't the originals, of course," she explained as the machine warmed up. "They're scans of copies."

"Scans?"

"An electronic copy. Any Auror could find physical documents here, no matter how well I warded them, but it would take them a long time to figure this out. And I encrypted the bloody things and buried them deep on the hard drive, besides, and I doubt they'd even find them, let along decipher them."

The picture finally stabilised, and Hermione quickly sorted through the files (he assumed they were, there were little pictures of files that she was clicking on with the thingey), and then -- with a suspicious glance over her shoulder at him -- she entered a password and opened another set of files.

"There," she said, and stood. "I'm actually feeling a bit more peckish, now -- I think I'll heat some soup. Tinned, sorry. They're all in that directory. Just click on each document, and -- Oh, hell, look, sit down."

He did.

"You move the mouse until you see the cursor -- the little arrow, there?" she said, leaning over his shoulder, grabbing his hand, and placing it on the thingey. "Move the cursor over the document you want to view, and then click twice, very fast, on the mouse-button. It will open in a format you can read."

"I can't hurt it, somehow, can I?" Snape asked, suddenly feeling inept.

"No, no, I've made them read-only, so you won't delete anything if you hit the wrong button. And it's a mack, so you'd have to blast it as you did the alarm-clock to do any damage. If it were a bloody windows system," she threw over her shoulder as she left the room, "you'd only have to look at it cross-eyed...."

Snape ignored the impulse to demand she explain "read-only" and "mack" and whatever the bloody hell a "windows system" was, and cautiously clicked on the first document to the left.

It worked. He blinked, astonished, as the image (looking very like a standard piece of Muggle paper, save for the old-fashioned script) popped up in the box.

LEVEL PLUM CLEARANCE ONLY

This Proclamation of August 12th, 2006, made on behalf of and for the Wizarding population of Great Britain by the Wizengamot, hereby declares that all matters pertaining to the Genetic Health and Welfare of said population, and any collateral matters whether political or personal, civil or criminal, are hereby restricted from reportage by any media agency or organisation, including but not limited to The Daily Prophet, The Evening Prophet, Witch Weekly, The Quibbler, Wizarding Wireless Network, Obscurus Books, Dust and Mildew, Whizz Hard Books, Cassell & Sons Publishers, Little Red Books, or any other method of communication including but not limited to privately-printed books, owl communique, personal correspondence, and any other form of transmission now in common usage or those developed in future.

The Government also prohibits the publication of any such information or reportage of collateral matters by the Foreign Press under the regulations of Paragraph G, Section 92a of the International Confederation of Wizards' "Standards of Acceptable International Media Reportage" Directive of August 2nd, 2006, an addendum to the International Statute of Secrecy.

Any necessary media coverage related to said Genetic Health and Welfare, and any reportage of said collateral matters, shall be instigated by the Wizarding Ministry of Great Britain alone, and shall consist of official press releases, which shall not be edited by the media agency in any way, and which shall receive placement deemed proper by the Press Liaison Office of the Ministry. Editorial comments on said press releases are hereby expressly forbidden, as are the use of any charts, graphs, illustrations, or images which might intentionally or not skew perceptions of the information presented in said Press Releases.

The Editors of said media agencies and organisations are also hereby ordered to withhold from publication any documents submitted to said media agencies or organisations by private citizens, and to immediately submit said documents in the Original to the Press Liaison Office.

Failure to strictly observe the regulations in this Proclamation shall result in a mandatory one (1) year term of imprisonment for the Editors without benefit of trial or any rights previously guaranteed by the Charter of Rights; seizure of personal property to the maximum of 100,000 Galleons; and closure of business premises and seizure of any and all printing or transmission equipment, until such time that the Wizengamot deems Manangement shall be willing to operate within the terms stated herein.

This Proclamation falls under the restrictions of the Top Secrecy Act of 1944, and may not be disseminated, discussed, or submitted into evidence outside the confines of the Wizengamot Council Room, the Ministry. Any outside participants involved in the Proclamation are hereby enjoined to refrain from mentioning its existence under threat of the penalties previously stated herein.

Affirmed unanimously by the Populations Committee of the Wizengamot of 2005-06, as evidenced by the signatures below.

Amelia Susan Bones
Phineas Aeowyth Grendel
Lucrezia Lucille Mockton-Thorpe
Tiberius Ogden
Erasmus Wartworthy
Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic

Snape stared at the bloody thing for a full ten minutes, processing the implications of each paragraph; he didn't even manage to get to the other documents. By the time he was done, Hermione had heated the soup and was standing in the doorway, a bowl in each hand, watching him as he paced the room.

"This is -- it's --"

"Yes, it is," she murmured.

"How do they think they can bloody well get away with it?" he shouted, and felt his face heat as the blood rushed to the surface. "Even during the worst of the Death Eater attacks they allowed the Press to report. Why all the bloody secrecy now?"

"They want the information released how and when it suits them," she said quietly. "If you take a careful look at the press releases, they're almost always biased to include reference to a 'small, refractory group,' who are hampering our progress, as I said in the Faculty Common Room. They've decided to kill two birds with one stone, in other words. They know the Isolationists still exist, know they're still a potential political threat as well as a problem in dealing with the Genetics issue. If they can turn the rest of the population against them now, it will be easier to chuck them into Azkaban, if need be, to get them out of the way."

"McGonagall hit it on the head, then, and the Isolationists are being made scapegoats -- and the rest of the Purebloods along with them."

"Yes. Which is not to say that they aren't causing problems with the Genetics situation -- they are, but on the other hand, much of the problem is caused by the Ministry's approach. And I object to the fact that they are being manouevered into behaving badly so Fudge and the Wizengamot can finally get rid of them." She crossed to the settee, set the bowls on the table in front of it, and said, "Severus, sit down, please, there's no use in --"

"There's no way to get the information out through proper channels, even if there's something in the bloody lock-up, is there?" Snape demanded.

"Not necessarily," Hermione said. "There are the French, of course. And the Americans, they're likely to buck the ICW regulations, they can afford to -- if their vanity is appealed to. And I think Lovegood might as -- "

"I did say proper channels, not ridiculous ones--"

"-- as he's a bit of a maverick," Hermione continued, ignoring the interruption, "and as long as he knew there would be enough furor to get him sprung quickly. Come over here and sit down, before you have a heart attack."

He collapsed on the window-seat instead.

"How could this happen?" he asked her. "I understand withholding vital strategic information, but information that directly affects people?"

"More importantly, information that sways public perception of Ministry actions," she corrected him. "Far more damaging than any factual data."

"I've never given much thought to the possibility of something like this on such a massive scale, never considered it might happen," he said, bitter. "I suppose you think me incredibly stupid."

"No. Who has considered it, really? It's something we all take for granted. Freedom of the Press depends on two things -- the willingness of the government to allow it, and the willingness of the people to demand it. Besides," she added gently, "you've always had other, more urgent things to deal with before. It's difficult to spend time worrying about abstract concepts like a Free Press when you're on the front lines, actively fighting."

"I don't suppose it happens out there," he said, jerking his head toward the street.

"Yes, it does, though not usually on such a large scale," she said thoughtfully. "It depends on the market, in one respect. If there are many competing viewpoints, everything's fine. But when you have the majority of the resources owned by a relative few -- a relative few who impose their own political views and agendas onto the reportage -- then you have a problem. There are more egregious examples, too, like this. Governments that don't allow images or film footage of soldiers' bodies being shipped home, things like that."

"Let me guess -- a number is abstract and easily forgot, but a picture is worth a thousand words?" Snape said.

"Yes, exactly. An image is much more visceral and immediate, like a chart that translates the actual statistics into something most people can really understand."

"But to put an absolute blackout on everything.... How do they expect to control word-of-mouth?"

"Surveillance of floo-calls -- they're already doing that," she explained. "I expect they shall start random sampling of owls, if they haven't already."

He swore again.

"The root problem," she continued, "is that there simply aren't enough checks on the Wizengamot's power. Even in an ideal system, you need one or more agencies that can challenge another, and it doesn't exist in our government. The Wizengamot is our judicial system as well as the legislative one, and there simply isn't another entity to balance or curb their decisions."

"Bloody.... You're taking this terribly calmly," he accused.

"No, I'm not. I've just had nearly a year to process it, and you haven't. I got over my immediate rage quite some time ago."

"And you've stuck with all this idiocy for over a year. Three, actually."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So there might be someone in a position to do something, Severus, or at least someone to leak the information to people who can. Someone who knows what both the Ministry and the ICW are up to. But it's been slow going, and I haven't been able to make contacts as I'd hoped. Everyone's totally cowed by the whole mess. Everyone except Martin Flaherty, it seems," she added in a mutter.

"That alone," he said, stabbing a finger in the direction of the encoding machine, "ought to be enough, if you might only get it out."

"How would that alone help? A document that says simply that the Ministry has the sole right to issue press releases on a particular matter? That's the explanation they'd give, they'd excuse away all the other bits -- they only intended to discourage irresponsible and inaccurate reporting, or some such rot. No, there has to be evidence of an actual cover-up, I'm afraid, or they'll wriggle out of it. Not to mention the fact that if this is the only thing leaked prior to public demand and an investigation, they'll root out my contact. I don't have the right to muck about with his safety -- he's a family to support."

He snorted, and stared out the window at the evening dusk.

"Why did you steal those documents?" he asked.

"Insurance, I suppose. I fully expect to be called on the carpet by the ICW eventually, if all this comes out, and I wanted to be able to mount an effective defence."

"Sensible in one respect," he muttered. "Utterly foolhardy in another, particularly if the Ministry gets to you first."

"I can't cover all the contingencies, damn it," she said, and glared at him; he gave up picking at her motivations and decisions, and let the silence stretch out between them.

"Almost wish you hadn't given up on the Movement?" she asked softly. "If they'd been able to achieve political recognition we probably shouldn't be here, after all. I certainly wouldn't."

"I never did -- I gave up on the Dark Lord." He shifted uneasily, and then admitted, "My views are no longer that extreme, in any case. More due to the fact that I realised it was hopeless than anything else."

He returned to watching the Muggle street; Hermione sighed, and he heard the chink of a spoon against bowl as she gave up waiting on him, and started on her soup.

"I don't know what you think you can accomplish," he finally said, and turned to look at her.

"I don't know, either," she said, and glanced up at him, dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes. "But I have to try."

That deserved a certain respect, he supposed, no matter how foolish and dangerous he thought the whole mess.

She rather reminded him of another young fool he once knew.

"Fine," he said eventually, and crossed to the settee to sit and drink his soup. "We'll try to get hold of the damned... whatever it is, tomorrow. No further action until we analyse it. I need to figure out how to get at it, of course --"

"Already taken care of," Hermione said, and winced when Snape dropped his soup spoon back into the bowl.

"What the bloody hell have you done, Her--"

"Don't throw a fit, please --"

"I'm not.... Did I or did I not say do nothing beyond getting information today?"

"I didn't have a choice -- I had a chance to ask the one person who might really help and be discr--"

"What person?"

"I'm not saying, and you'll see soon enough."

"I knew it," he said through gritted teeth. "I knew you'd go haring off the minute my back was turned."

"Let's get something straight," she said, and plunked her bowl down on the table. "I didn't anticipate having a full partner in this. Certainly not you. I appreciate it, I truly do, because in many ways you're the best possible person to deal with many of the obstacles. But when I see the opportunity to move ahead on something, I'm not always going to have a chance to ask first. So I'm asking you to at least try to trust me on some of the smaller things. I think you can -- you certainly did Seventh Year, and don't think I didn't notice that you were one of the few who did."

"That's not precisely accurate, 'trust.'"

"You challenged aspects that concerned you, yes -- you made me justify them. And that's a good thing. But when push came to shove, you followed through brilliantly. Much better than others I could name," she added bitterly.

He knew precisely to whom she was referring -- Finnegan -- and entirely agreed.

"It's bloody dangerous," he said. "I don't think you really have any idea of the potential for a massive cock-up, particularly when DeLaine said your office floo might be traced."

"It's someone quite trustworthy, Severus," she explained. "And it was a chance face-to-face meeting. Otherwise I'd have waited, truly."

Snape rubbed at his tense, aching forehead with the heel of one hand, and finally gave up.

"Very well," he muttered. "If it all goes south tomorrow, I shall have something to say about it. Not to you, of course, we'll be in separate cells."

"I don't think it will come to that," she said patiently, and took the soup-bowl from his other hand. "It's gone cold. I'll reheat it for you, and then I'm going to turn in early. Are you done with the computer?"

"The what? Oh. No, I'd only got through that first one. I'd like to continue, actually."

"Hmmm. I'll probably find you on the floor tomorrow, dead of apoplexy. No, it's fine, just hit the Power button when you've done, it shan't hurt anything." She giggled as she made for the door -- he'd never heard that from her before -- and he glared at her. "No, it's not that," she said, apologising. "'Haring.' You'll see how appropriate that is tomorrow."

"I'm terribly glad one of us can find some levity in the situation," he shot back.

"One of us has to, or we'll go mad. But then I suspected a total lack of humour would be a significant drawback, with you."

*****

Hermione went to bed shortly after she brought back his soup -- she had, indeed, nearly fallen asleep sitting up, though she'd tried to remain awake long enough to answer any questions he had ('keeping him company,' she'd called it). He'd finally, irritably, ordered her to bed, and she'd been so tired and grateful that she hadn't even snapped back.

Snape was glad she was out of the way, actually. She wouldn't see how horrified he was with the documentation.

She'd managed to smuggle an impressive amount out of the Ministry -- memos from Corcoran; drafts of reports (some with Corcoran's angry and degrading commentary in the margins, refuting her conclusions or ordering her outright to under- or over-state a point); she'd even laid hands on the official, published reports, which showed on comparison just how drastically the results had been manipulated.

He was incensed with one statement in particular:

"I don't give a damn about their bloody rights. Half the bastards ought be in A. -- they don't deserve rights. T.M. wants them out of the way -- change the bloody statement."

What was truly astounding was the absolute gall and shamlessness of it. Corcoran (and, by implication, Fudge) didn't seem the least concerned that their commentary and attitudes might ever be revealed -- a level of sheer hubris and stupidity that Snape found mind-numbing

That, or they'd decided she was too stupid and helpless to ever do something as unthinkable as revealing them for what they were, which was nearly as bad as the first possibility, in Snape's estimation. Whatever he'd thought of her as a student, he'd had to face the fact by her Fifth Year that, of all things, she wasn't those: the way she'd dealt with Umbridge had put paid to any notion that she was a gormless female. (He'd rather envied her the opportunity, actually, and totally approved of the way in which she'd managed the evil bitch. Yet another unacknowledged service Hermione Granger had performed for the Order and the Wizarding World, and long before anyone should have expected it of her.)

The whole bloody mess was so unnecessary, that was the real pity. She'd got hold of the ICW's twenty-year plan as well -- DeLaine had given it her, Snape guessed -- and, all in all, the proposals set down in it were actually very sensible, and very nearly humane. It was the human factor involved in the execution of it that bolloxed it up, he supposed -- that happened often enough, even with good intent, but when you had conscienceless bastards like Fudge and Corcoran deciding to further their own agendas on top of it....

He powered-off the machine and sat staring at the blank screen for a very long time before trying to distract himself with some piece of Muggle drivel from her bookshelves, but it wasn't any use. He was tired himself, too overwrought to go to sleep immediately, and, he admitted, too apprehensive about the enormity of it all.

He briefly considered waking Hermione for sex, but frankly thought that he had insufficient interest to see it through properly. By his age stamina was hard to come by at the best of times anyway, and he'd already indulged more in the past four days than at any time in the past two years. He'd be damned if he resorted to a bloody potion, even if he had one to hand.

She needed her rest, at any rate. It was one thing to insist on his rights when the only thing involved was their idiotic little charade, and something else entirely to put another agent at risk due to unnecessary stress and exhaustion. (Because she was another agent; he had to concede that point, whether he liked it or not, and whether he'd really had much choice in the matter.) And he was absolutely frank in his estimation of what it would do to her. He knew damned well she didn't take any pleasure out of it, not even of the simple physical release involved. Some people could, without a sense of shame or degradation; Hermione Granger wasn't among them, though she'd apparently decided to put up with it. He'd counted on that fact, in truth -- on being able to keep control of her with such a vivid reminder of her foolishness and his rights -- and with great regret decided it wasn't a tactic he could afford any longer.

He bloody well wasn't going to go so far as to sleep on her damned settee, though. It was entirely too short. And he didn't fancy returning to the club to sleep, either -- rather pointless, give the impression they were trying to establish.

He gave up on solving any other problems that night, checked the locks on the doors and windows and warded them all, for good measure, and wandered down the hall toward the bedroom, unbuttoning his frock-coat as he went; he cautiously cracked open the door so he shouldn't wake her (assuming she was asleep, and not sitting up plotting).

Bright moonlight -- it was a full moon, and as always Snape had a brief, unbidden worry over where bloody Lupin was, in what condition, and how many people might be harmed -- filtered in through the curtained window that looked out over the pathetic little back-garden; a shaft of it spilled across the room and over the far side of the bed, where she'd curled up as close to the edge as possible, the light silvering the coverlet and the tangled mass of her hair across the pillow.

She was breathing very slowly and deeply, and even on such little acquaintance he knew she was probably out for the duration.

What kind of mental stamina does it take, he thought as he slowly undressed, to keep pushing on against that kind of bureaucratic idiocy?

He knew what had kept him going, of course -- rage. Rage, and hatred. But while Hermione certainly seemed angry with the whole bloody mess, she didn't seem to hate. Had absolutely rejected that, in fact, when they'd argued over why she cared in the first place, the night she'd gone off the rails and had that hysterical fit.

It was something totally alien to him, this abstract tenacity of hers -- the very tenacity he'd twitted her for at the club a mere four or five days ago. It was, he supposed -- in its own way -- a kind of courage.

He wondered if he should ever understand it, or her.

She stirred when he slipped under the covers, and managed a sleepy, "Hmmmm?"

"I've locked everything up," he muttered. "It's all right, go back to sleep."

"Oh. G'night, then."

By the time he thought to return the sentiment, she was out again; and even a minor nightmare on his part didn't wake her later that night.

*****

Link to Chapter 6 Footnotes

Link to Chapter 7