The Best In Us
Chapter 25 of 34
Ariadne AWSHermione returns to Grimmauld Place, looking for answers. She does not expect to find Severus Snape. Best Fanon Het (Quill-to-Parchment, Round 2). Runner-up ~ Best HG/SS, 2006 OWL Awards.
Summary: How to destroy the Horcruxes.
A/N: My eternal gratitude to Anastasia/ttfs for reading this very, very late at night.
Note to readers: If oxygen is needed, a phoenix will fall from the overhead compartment. Please put your own phoenix in place before assisting those traveling with you.
"We can believe in the impossible because we already have done."
"So, all we have to do is do the impossible, then?" - his tone still held an echo of his laughter.
"Yes." She sounded both serious and undaunted. Chapter 21
---------------------------
... Dumbledore's portrait peeked through his eyelashes at his successor. Masking a sigh behind another snore, he closed his eyes again.
---------------------------
In the kitchen at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, Severus' coffee was cold. He sat, still, eyes unfathomable. He reached automatically for the cup, oblivious to its utter lack of warmth.
"There was an attack planned last night. On Minerva," Hermione said, accusingly, appearing in the kitchen. "They were stopped in Hogsmeade."
Severus spurted his coffee over his mug and hand.
"Did you not know?"
Muttering a fast cleaning spell, he did not look at her. "Hermione, you know very well where I was last night, yet you apparently wish to blame me?" Damn the woman; she was impossible.
Hermione's eyes were still snapping, but she faltered.
"In my position I am sometimes compromised by the fact that the Dark Lord does not tell me everything. He is, after all, a reasonably capable strategist. I? Appear near Hogwarts? Do endeavor to think."
Tayet flew in and landed on the table, looking calmly at both of them.
In the hallway, Mrs. Black strained to hear.
"Yes, of course, Severus," Hermione snapped. "I shall endeavor to think. Heaven knows it's a strain for me, but for you, I shall certainly endeavor to exceed my usual dunderheaded standards."
She turned on her heels and wheeled out of the kitchen.
Neither one of them remembered that she had Apparated without setting off his phoenix charm.
Tayet, claws clicking on the table, walked up to Severus and poked her beak at his heart. She tilted her head at him inquiringly, hooting a question that was equal parts amusement and concern.
Severus' eyes widened. Bloody ridiculous bird. Ridiculous woman. And what the hell is wrong with my heart? He pulled his shirt aside and looked. Faintly outlined on his pale skin, the white circle of phoenix tears was still present.
Tayet trilled, and flew out of the kitchen after Hermione.
"Who let the purple chicken into my Ancient and Most Noble House?" Mrs. Black cackled. The night she had spent dreaming of her past, of her humanity, was but a fleeting memory; still, some of the acid was gone forever from her tone.
Her sense of humor, however, was likely to remain constant. Severus scowled at her as he stalked past.
"And ooooh, the bat's in a temper."
He paused. "Are you by any chance related to Peeves, Mrs. Black? Shall I consult the genealogy of which you are so... understandably... proud?" He arched and eyebrow at her as she sat in her frame, speechless, and spun away.
The absence of his cloak did nothing to dispel the illusion that something rippled behind him as he strode away, an elegant figure of feral, restrained power.
"Lucky little Mudblood," Mrs. Black muttered.
He paused in his progress. "I heard that," he intoned, and turned to face her once more.
Undaunted, she met his eye squarely. "You were meant to. Obviously."
His eyes sparkled with black amusement, although some shadow lingered there, untouched. He inclined his head, and went to find Hermione.
Mrs. Black turned to find Phineas Nigellus sitting next to her. He glanced after the departing wizard and shook his head gravely. She frowned.
Hermione wasn't in the library. Severus rested a hand on the banister and looked up through the open stairwell. Not on any of the landings either. Sighing, he Apparated into the bolt-hole.
No Hermione.
He sat on the still-rumpled bed in the curtained alcove. "Tayet?" he thought, not sure that this method of communication would work.
Distantly, he got an impression of aching sadness, which grew as he tracked it silently through the house.
He found Hermione in a deep window-seat in one of the third floor bedrooms. Tayet was perched on her knee, whirring at her as she absently stroked her wings.
Hermione turned her face away as he paused in the doorway, brushing her cheeks with the back of one hand. "Have you made any progress on how to destroy them?" she asked, her voice empty, an echo of itself.
Severus supposed he should have expected that question. He stood in the doorway, uncertain as to whether he should answer the question or address the deeper one of her distress.
Tayet looked at him as if to chide him for standing still.
He crossed the room and leaned on the other side of the window. "Some," he replied evenly.
Hermione stroked the phoenix, wishing that his presence could ease the emptiness she felt. Molly. Minerva. Hagrid. She leaned her head on the window glass. "And?"
He hesitated, then sat in the other end of the window recess. She shifted her feet to make room for him. Tayet rustled, but stayed perched on Hermione's knee. Hermione continued to stroke her wings.
Severus reached a finger out to Tayet, touched her feathers, and then covered Hermione's hand with his own, stopping her movement.
Oh, no. Hermione swallowed and closed her eyes. Severus having to touch her to talk was never a good sign. The glass was cool, smooth against her forehead. This is how my friends are going to die. Ron's mother. My favorite teacher, the one I wanted to be like... "You've figured it out, then."
"Yes. It's rather simple, really," he said quietly.
"Simple," she repeated dully, her voice hollow.
He rubbed his thumb over her hand, on the line where her fingers met the phoenix's wings.
"They need only take them through the Veil, Hermione."
Hermione caught her breath, and the light from the window blurred beneath her eyelashes. "Wh Why can't they throw them through?"
"Dumbledore tried, Hermione. The Horcruxes have no agency, only soul only something that possesses intent can pierce its barrier."
"So... oh, gods, his hand."
Severus moved his thumb, gently. "Yes," he said softly.
She lifted her head and looked at him. "But that means they don't have to die at all... oh... but - Oh." She leaned her head back on the windowpane.
"I could delay their deaths, but Hermione, that was Dumbledore's choice. It may not be theirs. And it would be... complicated, given my situation."
Not looking at him, she said, "He stayed, in part, for you, you know."
As soon as she said it, he knew it was true. He held himself very still, knowing, then, how Draco must have felt under his whip.
Hermione was silent for a long time, picturing the Veil, a grey center in a grey room, an innocuous, almost trivial, bit of fabric, silent, almost no substance, moving slightly, always moving, gently, timeless... not watching, not waiting, just... there. Whispering.
Severus' breath whispering on her skin. Severus' hair whispering on her skin. Severus' fingertips whispering on her skin.
Severus' voice whispering in her mind.
Fleeting. Soft. Simple.
"You are in real danger of being seduced."
Her throat tightened.
The question was in the air before she could think to stop it. "And the rest? The animate Horcruxes? Nagini, and... " She couldn't say it aloud. She looked the end of the question at him.
He saw it in her eyes fear, acceptance, rage, denial, courage. He drew one knee up and wrapped his arm around it. His voice low, careful. "The snake is straightforward. The Dark Lord tends to keep her close. It is unlikely that any but a direct attack will succeed, and unlikely that Hagrid will survive his retribution. He will be... weakened, inevitably, long before he reaches Nagini."
Hermione leaned her head on the window again, seeing Hagrid's eyes crinkle and his beard betray his encouraging smile... "Our Hermione," he had called her. Oh, Hagrid.
"Of all of us, Hagrid is strong enough, resistant enough to get close enough," Severus continued.
"And only Minerva can handle the Transfiguration," Hermione caught his train of thought and continued it. "And only mothers can match the mothers' sacrifices. As Dumbledore was father and grandfather, to all of us; his strength his wisdom... and Ginny... her trust, her innocence... They're requiring the best we have in us."
Finally, unmoving, she spoke. "I'll tell Minerva. Tomorrow. Unless you think - "
"Tomorrow's time enough, Hermione."
She knew tomorrow for the lie it was, but nodded anyway.
Then something in the quality of his silence made her turn her head to look at him.
He was waiting, watching her. And his eyes seemed to whisper something that he could not say, asking her something, asking her to ask.
"And us?"
He had no answer he wanted to give that would not be a lie.
"Potter's father died buying her a chance to run."
"I'm not going to run, Severus," she said quietly.
"No," he agreed, too easily.
She looked at him, startled.
A deep, rasping breath, then - "The equation doesn't balance that way, Hermione. It's not a one-to-one mapping. There's an inversion. One over seven; seven over one. You are not the inverse of Lily."
Mind a swirling mass of white noise, she searched his face, grasping at the fractured shards of order, forcing herself to focus, to race through the memory of the formulas, seeking the edge she needed, the one that would cut her mind, would sever her from hope unless she could do the impossible and fight it, knowing equally that all would be lost if she failed, that they would lose everything in victory.
He waited.
And then she found it. "You. You counterbalance Lily. You have all along."
He nodded, and only years of rigid self-control allowed him to hold her gaze. If she had the courage to face this, he owed her the courage it cost him not to look away.
"I... I balance James," she said slowly.
He nodded. "Yes."
Her eyelids dropped and she seemed to search for something. The best that was in her. Love, then. The kind you'll die for... ? Do I have that in me? She looked at him, waiting, his hands, his face, his eyebrows, his eyes, watching her. Might as well face it, Granger. Finally, she returned his gaze, which had been steady, if guarded, throughout her inspection. He knows it, too or he will, in a minute. Steady... Her voice strangely clear, a tone from a bell, high in a tower, resonant, a call, a reminder, a comfort, and a challenge. "How. Tell me how."
Had he not been broken, he would have been undone. "Patterns, Hermione. Echoes. Inversions. I've played them out, all the variables, the scenarios, the likely arrangement of the principle actors, the choreography of the dance... For you to... live, long enough, to survive until Nagini dies, you will need to be protected, until.... The best person to do that is me."
"How, Severus," a note of steel in her tone, the blade with which she was keeping everything else at bay.
"And then... when it is time..."
An Unbreakable Vow, a Compulsion - only these could have forced his next words from him.
She watched his soul, in all its shattered beauty, fill his eyes.
"When it is time, Hermione, I will kill you."
Story Actions
To follow, favorite, like, and more either log in or create an account.
Leave a Review
Log in to leave a review.
Latest 25 Reviews for A Walking Shadow
230 Reviews | 5.53/10 Average
Such an amazing, complex story. Hate to see it unfinished, but maybe it will be someday. Faith, right? Thank you, for writing such beautiful tales..
Any chance you'll be able to finish this ? It's such a suspense story, just working up to the climax! I've enjoyed Tayet very much - you have a way with animals.
Response from Ariadne AWS (Author of A Walking Shadow)
...It was finished in '06; I've just not finished uploading it to this site; RL has utterly intervened in my time on fic archives. I think you might be able to find it if you poke around the internet. :)Thanks for reading!
Response from Ariadne AWS (Author of A Walking Shadow)
Hi,
oh this thin line between light and shadow, between earnesty and laughing about the irony, about the funny side of everything.
I am glad he still has his sense of humour.
yes, that woman is the road to hell, but she plasters it with lots of genious and wits and love and passion and fun and perfection.
one really feels how they deserver and need each other.
I like your Snape, may he be non-canon or not. He is adorable.
He was curious to learn about what the Mirror hat revealed her.
Interesting, how Molly took her death sencence.
Always worrying about her family, and now it is her she has to worry about. But it seems she doesn't, or does she?
She couldn’t deny the truth. “I still hate it,” she muttered.
“Good. Use that hatred, when the time comes,” he said. “It will keep you whole.”
I find his advice here very very good and not for nothing I am sure. He is really concerned about her staying whole. He is adorable. also to be seen when he explains about making unforgivables... It is always " am already bruised, so I will do it for you, he did it for Draco, he does it for Hermione, he is a good person indeed.
it's not done because it cannot be done."
Minerva looked at Dumbledore's portrait. "So naturally you had to try."
I love your sense of humour. makes the dark story lighter, more human more alive.
What a brilliant plan!! You are grand.
Let Pettigrew get imperioused, do the job, and 2 Horocruxes are done. great!!
I bet this works out! it sounds just soo clever.
"She seemed to scowl back"... that made me laugh!! Oh sodding Severus makes a big deal out of her trunk entering his bedroom or not. Her entering his real life or not.I can not quite follwo him here. he lives under the same roof with her. he spent a night in the hiding room with her. he shars his mind or her mind when entering there, he shares the knowledge ot her and his death and how and almost when. Where is the problem in sharing a room or a bed, porperly?I have no idea.he expains it with wait...his rigid sense of honour, his saftey net. all right o,k,. but, still, not so understanable. and then he let her choose. Why? she had already, hadn't she.Her responce : "I'd only hit you with it anyway " was rather taking the tenseness away. good idea. and much more natural than anyhting.And thank you thank you thank you for letting us peek at the soo necessary conversation between McGonagall and Dumbledore.tehe.He solved the problem of how to make her trust in Hermiones source without giving it away or giving to much information brilliantly. Trust her Arithmancy? well, if so, then you must only know, that it can only work with the correct information.Good idea of yours!!As so many others are and were.keep up the good job!!
Response from salvamea (Reviewer)
oh, and I agree with the other reviewer!! not being able to finish reading this WOULD be tragic!or anything like that.
What did he offer to put lower?
His hair?
What had happened? I must have missed quite a bit here.
But The Poenix Tears were healing or fixing someting, this much I know.
And Tayet is fully grown, this I also know.
You descirbe it all so marvellously. it is a real pleasure to read it.
Never blunt, or plump. always a little transcendent, like a little behind a veil, weaving your words in a poetical, philosophical way. very interesting.
thank you for sharing!
he let Voldy bind Wormtail to him. Sounds clever. he is glad about it, so it must be of use for him.
Hermione wanted Wormtail, now she has him.
Still am in the dark about how that would help. But it MUST! please...
Their interrupted lovescene got even more intense after the new developements, it seems to me.. phew. quite a scene.
i wonder why she wanted him in these robes. Everyone would have expected her to be absolutely turned off, but no.
Maybe a chance to dis-charm the brutal character of the deatheater uniform.
What will he do about his new task? find her and bring her to me? he will do that? and when and how? and what will happen there and then?
awful.
I am glad I still can click on to the next chapter. But soon enough I will up to date, and then I will have to wait as patiently as ... Tayet for her feathers to grow?
You mentionted it would be some 30 more?
Happy as I am to hear that, I am also eager to hear that the next 30 will not last for 2 years? got a plan? anything?
the whole chapter was soo funny.
especially McGonnagalls reaction on finding out that Dumbledore was well aware of the going ons and awake for quite a while!! her being furious. I would love to hear THAT conversation!!
hope she gives him her piece of mind!! ha!
and seeing Severus so playfull, and right in the middel of a wonderful seduction HE the bloddy VOLDY comes to summon him. Bad timing.! But what would one expect of the person who has no heart, seven souls and none of them good.
bah.
And he is soo close ..shiver...
Your Tayet is just soo adorable.
How she reads the one persons thoughts and acts in their behalf. I love these scenes. touching.
Is she really just one day old? cant belive how much had happened in this very short time.
So many revellations.
Horrible, to know that you have to die, from the hands of someone you love, and that this willl be a gift too, and that all has to be in a certain timetable or connected to some progresses. awful. unbelievable.
They found the Trapping Spell. and he has to cast it. and either he kills her then, or he will die. also horrible.
She says they bloddy well are the main charactes in this story. well, I think they are both right.
Voldy and Harry on the front line, Hermione and Severus doing the mind-work in the back. both lethal.
I also like your Mrs Black, she is quite tamed now, and her Rommy - I want to know what is going on in the library - game... just sweet.
how sweet, Arthur wants to join his Molly in death. He is soo sweet.
I do so hope that he will not have to. and that she will not have to do this.
Hermione saying farewelll to her parents. what a bitter jounrey, a what she will call her last visit. bruta. so sad.
he has no one to say goodbye to.
Minverva is writing letters.
Hagrid? well, he will say good bye to G....
Molly has her family around.
Very touching scenes.
and Severus asking her to come home, oh so sweet.
Now please be quick, and show us what happens at 2 o'clock!!
please!!
What does he mean with his appearance.
have faith!
She worked that out already!!
And how dare he say anything about their "relationship" whatever it may be.
He is so mixed in it, the planner and plotter and everything.
grr.
At least he gave Severus his blessings. sort of.
And he made away with the awful thing hanging between them about his death and guilt or not guilt.
I liked that. Him thanking Severus.
That was the best about his visit, Ifeel.
ah, so they have to take the Horocrux itemst with them through the veil. But how does she mean that they don't have to die then? er?
coming back isn't possible, I thought?
Hagrid will have to kill Nagingi, did I get this right?
Hermione has to give Severus time to run, and when all is done, and Nagini dead, and Harry seperated form his Scar then
HE will KILL HERMIONE??
WHAT IS THAT!???
Why? what for?
Did he make an unbrakable Vow?
About her in person? or about the person he would find fit for the job. And with whom did he make the vow?
urgh, that is soo ugly.
This man!!!
poor Minerva, she took it like a really powerful strong Lady.
wow.
I don't understand. The deatheaters are trying to kill all those who could free or undo the horocruxes? But if they do,then the Horocuxes will be destroyd, I thought?
So it must be the way the people die, that destroys the Horocruxes?
Still in the dark about that.
And poor Hermione had to be veeery strong here. "In what position is he?" well, very often inside her .. mind...
nice chapter again.
It’s not actually impossible to lie about love to someone who has the evidence of your broken soul emblazoned over her heart, but it really is the height of bad taste.
I can't belive it!
He took her on the floor, then, when she cried these black tears? I didn't realise. oops.
and now he wants her love to be safed, but can not provide any love of his own. Tragic.
good hit, Hermione.
I am all caught up now, having somehow lost track of this story. The complications just suck the reader in, don't they? You have to work at understanding, but only because it's richly complicated and savoury. I do hope you come back and finish it.
I love your words are like slow drops of rain....wonderful!! Your Snaape already makes me cry....Alan Rickmans face as he is portraying Severus killing Dumbledore is one of the saddest scenes ever. you have beautifully captured the afetr effects...
I love it I already LOVE it!!
Now things really begin to heat up.
I know Tayet will play a crucial role (hopefully in keeping Hermione alive and/or healing Severus' torn soul that he be able to love again) before all this is done.
Brilliant idea to drop the Horcruxes through the veil. I hope Wormtail's prosthetic hand will be able to pierce it since it is not living flesh, only animated by Voldemort's magic and Wormtail's intent. I suppose intent is the key word here.
Wonderful update, I was beginning to wonder if I would get the chance to finish reading this beautifully written story, because not to would have been a tragedy.
I am completely in love with this story. Thanks for the wonderful update, I can't wait for more.
Phoenix magic is very powerful. :)
Very good, Love the new Phoenix. Looking forward to more.
I think this chapter is key to everything that follows. It's taken a while, but I think I get it. The inclusion of Hermanubis as a healer made the formula so perfect there could not be one name as a solution...it had to be both, but not either/or...it had to be you in the plural. But, because the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts, the prediction of death went up in flames and the phoenix was born. This inverted the passion, desperation, and sacrifice of the formula and its conclusion on the parchment into the faith, hope, and love represented in the phoenix. It is so perfect the way Tayet reflects both the light and the dark of Herminone and Severus combined. Severus' despair, but at the same time rejecting it by tearing off his many-buttoned frockcoat. The spontaneous appearance of both Hermione's and Severus' patronuses. Awe, playfulness, healing, and nurturing. Hermione going back to planning and researching, taking charge, and sending Severus to collect fireflys (nurturing). This is story telling at its best.
Funny, poignant, and a phoenix.
"I'm to stay here while I research. Um...uninterrupted....orders....I have orders."
"It's an acquired taste"...."Dark, bitter, enervating." Sounds a lot like "tall, dark, and brooding."
The agony of getting the formula to work and the wait.....almost unbearable.
The wonder of the birth of a new phoenix....beautiful
Funny, poignant, and a phoenix.
"I'm to stay here while I research. Um...uninterrupted....orders....I have orders."
"It's an acquired taste"...."Dark, bitter, enervating." Sounds a lot like "tall, dark, and brooding."
The agony of getting the formula to work and the wait.....almost unbearable.
The wonder of the birth of a new phoenix....beautiful