One Word

Summary: The list completed. The kitchen gets terribly crowded.

A/N: One moment herein is owed to Luna305, who suggested it ages ago. (She's started making noises about writing a fic of her own. I'd like to read it.)

Severus scowled and stomped into the kitchen. Death had not improved Dumbledore’s sense of humor.

Hermione’s looked closely at Phineas Nigellus. “I don’t believe you.”

Phineas Nigellus crowed with laughter.

“I don’t,” she said, more firmly.

“Hermione?” Severus called from the kitchen.

She glanced up. He didn’t sound terribly worried, just confused. Fine, that could wait. Turning back to Phineas Nigellus, she raked him with an appraising look. Eyes narrowing, she announced, “You’re lying.”

Phineas Nigellus’ laughter calmed and finally stopped. He regarded her curiously, then coldly. “And what,” he began, every inch a former headmaster, “makes you so sure?”

“Dumbledore's not that callous. Wasn’t. Isn’t. He simply wouldn’t say such a thing. Not that way. Not to Severus.” What he had asked of him had hurt him enough.

“Hermione?” Severus called again. Hermione heard something scrape on the floor.

A few minutes’ staring contest and Phineas Nigellus finally grinned. “All right, girl, have it your way. If it makes you feel better, believe that I lied.” He smiled wickedly at Mrs. Black. “I haven’t had such fun since - ”

Hermione’s fingernails were on his canvas cheek. Phineas Nigellus flinched.

Mrs. Black interjected, “This is my canvas. His is upstairs!”

Hermione scowled. “It wasn’t entirely a lie, was it.”

Phineas Nigellus’ eyes flicked to her fingernails and back to her face. “No. You can be certain that Dumbledore sends his regards, and that he gives you a week. The rest...” he shrugged.

Hermione pressed the canvas harder. Mrs. Black huffed, but did not move.

Severus emerged from the kitchen and froze at the tableau before him.

“It lied, Severus. I think.”

“Slytherins do, sometimes” Phineas Nigellus stated. “That said, the two of you do need to remember your Silencing Charms. You’ve been rather… rude.”

Mrs. Black added, “Purebloods cast them reflexively. To do otherwise is disrespectful. Sign of bad breeding.” She sniffed.

Hermione turned helplessly to Severus.

Severus drawled, “Turpentine?”

“Indeed.”

He gestured for her to precede him into the kitchen, where her trunk lay in front of the fireplace.

He looked at it, then at her, folding his arms. “I assume there is an explanation?”

“Oh. Well… yes. Right.” She could not bring herself to look at him.

“Yes?”

“I’m to stay here while I research. Um… uninterrupted.”

“Really.” Severus pondered the implications of this.

“Orders.” She sat at the table. “I have orders.”

“Orders,” he repeated blandly.

“From Professor McGonagall.” She clasped her hands and stared down at them.

Severus joined her, his face stony. Finally, he said, “A week?”

“A week.”

He Summoned coffee. Hermione made a face at it, but picked up her mug.

“It’s an acquired taste,” he said.

“Dark, bitter, enervating,” she mused. “Yes, I can certainly see how that might take a bit of getting used to.” She looked at him wryly. His lips tightened in a wan impression of his usual smirk.

Her expression grew serious, and his breath caught in his throat.

“Shall we finish the list, then?” Her voice sounded brittle.

He forced himself to meet her gaze. Not betraying the control he was expending to stay still, not to look away, not to reveal that every fiber of his being was shouting “No,” he said instead, calmly, “As you wish.”

She met his eyes only briefly, and dropped her head once more. A week.

“All right, then,” she said softly. “What’s the rest of it? I’ll work the equations and report them to…” She bit back the words “the headmistress.” Having in a very real sense forged the woman’s death warrant, such formality seemed inhuman. “… to Minerva,” she finished.

Severus perceived what she had not said, the decision she had made, and what lay behind it. He acknowledged all of this with a respectful nod. The nod she had earned so many times in his classroom, the nod he had afforded her only mentally, unable to offer even that token respect in a room full of Death Eaters’ children. Well done, Hermione.

She smiled sadly.

“The remaining Horcruxes pose additional complexities,” he began, the words coming from his mouth as though echoing from some deep, hollow chamber. “The fifth is the snake, Nagini. The sixth… ” he paused, then committed himself, “… is Potter’s scar.”

Hermione’s eyes grew wide. “Harry? Harry is a Horcrux?” Memories of conversations, of Harry’s dreams, of his visions, everything flooded back to her. “Of course, yes,” she said, distracted by the echoes of conversations in the Common Room, “it does make sense, and it would explain his problems with Occlumency, but…” She looked at Severus suddenly, horrified. “But Harry can’t die! The prophecy!”

Severus was careful to keep his eyes on the table. He would not look at her, not now. The table, then. His hands. Yes. That would do. Very appropriate. “Dumbledore did not believe that Harry himself is a Horcrux. Just the scar. No more do I believe that that indemnity will be paid by Potter.”

She furrowed her brow. “But the distinction between Harry and his scar – it’s academic.”

Still looking at his hands, he said quietly, “Dumbledore did not seem to think so.”

“Did he explain further?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” She rubbed her eyes, then muttered, “Accio quill and parchment. Accio notes.” And, Accio Dark Arithmantic text I won’t have time to learn before… Her throat tightened.

Severus watched her work the next formula, not moving, barely breathing, his history, his work, his blood, his passion, his sacrifice, all in her hands, in her mind, running through her quill.

She began muttering, “Voldemort, #5: Nagini, the death of Frank Bryce, the gardener…” she paused for a moment, reaching for a thought, but it refused to stay. “SS: Vow to Narcissa, protection, fostering…” She paused, and wrote, “Guard? Guardian? Caretaker?” She closed her eyes briefly. Easier not to predict. Just keep working.

He watched her face as she wrote, watched her shut off the knowledge of the next name even as it occurred to her. He should care about this fifth name, but he did not. The sixth, however…

She worked these elements into a formula and set it aside as soon as it had started its long, swirling progress into death.

Her hand shook as she reached for another piece of parchment.

He reached for her wrist. “Not yet.”

She tried to pull her hand free, not looking at him. “It’s better faster. I won’t have to work up the courage again.”

Yes, you will, he thought, not taking his hand off hers. “Not yet, Hermione.”

“It’s easier this way. Best get it over with.”

“No.”

“I-” she tried again.

In her mind. “Hermione, please.”

She stopped moving and stared unblinking at the table, her face reflecting the muddy green light from the parchment she had just set aside. His voice: “Hermione, please.” Dumbledore’s voice: “Severus, please.” She shut her eyes. No. Her eyelashes were damp, and her eyes, hidden, were full of self-loathing.

He could not look away from her face, bathed in green light. He could not think, could not breathe, until the green had seeped into yellow.

A single tear escaped her eyelashes.

He caught it on his fingertip.

She opened her eyes and saw it there, sparkling, and looked at him searchingly.

A tear takes some time to evaporate. Longer than it takes a formula to resolve. Longer than it takes to ask and answer an unspoken question. Longer than a kiss, longer than conception, longer than death.

Words give shape to silence.

They had none.

They watched it until it dried, leaving a small pinprick of salt on his finger.

Just a tear. Just salt and water. Nothing more.

Nothing more than everything.

-----------------------

Hermione closed her hand over his. The parchment’s glow was deep red, almost brown, and beating very slowly.

Rubeus Hagrid.

She closed her eyes. She wasn’t surprised. His titles, of which he was so proud... The Keeper of Keys and Grounds. Care of Magical Creatures Teacher... Oh, Hagrid.

Severus watched her closely. It was coming.

Finally, she drew a breath and exhaled deliberately. One more name.

She looked at him then, as if asking permission.

He nodded.

She wrote, “6th. Scar. Lily. Died protecting Harry.”

He could not look away.

She wrote, “Draco – failure to protect, failure of mission.”

She glanced at him. He nodded. The 6th fissure, and then a final blow. Killing Dumbledore had cracked the fissures wide open.

She reached to tap the parchment with her wand to set the formula in motion toward its final conclusion, then stopped.

She reached instead for his face and kissed him. Once. Softly. For now. Forever.

“I love you,” she said.

His eyes still widening in wonder as she tapped the parchment.

They waited.

The tension threatened to tear Number 12 Grimmauld Place off of its foundations. Even the portraits held their breath.

--------------------------

The ink flowed, broke apart, swirled, and flowed again.

No resolution.

They frowned.

“It’s not resolving,” he said.

“I see that.”

Still no resolution.

“The formula was perfect," she insisted.

“I know.”

Still nothing.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

She thought. He thought. Eventually she went to the library for a book.

Then he did.

An hour later she went for another.

Two hours later, he brought back three more.

Five hours later, the table creaking audibly under the weight of the books they’d read and set aside, she looked at him.

He was staring at a page, eyes glassy, as if he could by will alone force it to contain information it very clearly did not.

She lay a hand on his arm. He jumped.

“It’s not here, Severus.”

He re-read the last paragraph and turned a page.

She sighed. “It’s not here.”

She reached out, gently, insistently taking the book from him.

Something rubbed her knee, and she glanced down. Lily’s book?

She reached for it and set it on the table.

“I think the answer’s in here.”

“Why?” he asked sharply.

“Would you believe me if I said intuition?”

His eyes, tired, glittered coldly. “No.”

Ok, then. “It rubbed my leg.”

She heard his voice, in her memory: Page 394. She opened it and read, “Isis, Osiris, and Horus.”

Oh, damn. Even in his memory, he hadn’t admitted the existence of...

She reached for the parchment and added “James.”

He glowered. Lily's book touched his hand. He jerked away.

“They were a family.”

“I know that,” he spat, refusing to watch the ink swirl. It was beginning to glow.

-------------------------

A web of blood, scars, and protection.

They sat in the middle.

She watched.

He just waited.

-------------------------

A flash of ozone.

She watched.

Fade to red the color of old blood.

He looked up.

Finally, the pulsing heartbeat in the glow. Different. Arhythmic. Out of time.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. Two…

The first name stabilized.

Severus Snape.

He acknowledged it with an ironic twist of his lips.

But it wasn’t behaving properly; it blurred and resolved into

Hermione Granger.

She had no time to react before it blurred again, then resolved back into Severus Snape.

They watched as their names cycled in and out of focus, alternating with the heartbeats.

They looked at each other in confusion, then the dissonant pulses slipped into sync. They looked again.

One word: You.

The glow intensified, brighter, unbearable, searing.

The parchment burst into flames and fell to ashes.

--------------------------

Two people sat in the kitchen in Number 12 Grimmauld Place, their hands clasped tightly, although neither would ever know who had first reached for whom. Between them on the table, in a circle of ashes, sat a tiny, ugly, featherless bird. It opened its eyes and emitted one pure, perfect note.

An otter the color of winter starlight appeared on the table, peering curiously.

A jackal, only a little darker, put its paws on the table and sniffed. For the first time in its existence, it wagged its tail.

Then it blushed.