The Flame of Dissension

Hermione realized she couldn't avoid Snape forever. Besides, two days of hiding in her bedroom like a simpering ninny was all she could take.

"Fritzlee," she called out.

The elf appeared and took a bow. "Yes, miss?"

"Do you know where Snape is?" Hermione asked while she slipped her feet into her shoes and smoothed out her robes.

"Master Snape be in the kitchen taking his breakfast; miss be wanting Fritzlee to bring up a tray?"

Hermione shook her head. "That will not be necessary, Fritzlee. Please tell Snape that I need to speak to him and will be joining him shortly."

The elf disappeared with a deep bow and Hermione walked to the small table next to the bed where she kept the picture of her daughter. She traced the contours of the girl's face with an index finger, and a sad smile crept across her face. Despite the pain it had caused her, she was grateful for the small memento of her child, and she intended to let Snape know that.

She went over in her mind what she planned to say to him. She would be concise, fair but honest, kind but uncompromising, and hopefully he would come to understand her position. There was no point in delaying any longer; she straightened her shoulders and marched out of her room.

She found Snape sitting at the kitchen table, his nose buried in a newspaper.

"Good morning, sir."

Snape didn't look up as he answered her. "Good morning, Miss Granger. Fritzlee has informed me that you wish to speak to me; to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?"

Hermione sighed deeply – the man couldn't make anything easy. She considered taking a seat but opted to stand.

"I want you to know that I don't hold you personally responsible for all the evils that have befallen the wizarding world as of late."

Snape's eyes grew wide in what Hermione knew was mock surprise.

"Well, that's a relief," Snape exclaimed as he set down the paper and looked up at her.

Good, I have his attention, Hermione thought.

"And that no kindness that you have shown me has gone unnoticed or unappreciated," Hermione continued. "I, however, can neither ignore nor condone your role in the events that led to my current circumstances."

"I don't expect you to, Miss Granger. I would actually find it rather astonishing if you did," Snape stated calmly.

Hermione nodded. "Then neither should you expect my unresisting compliance with the rules of the system whose beliefs you share."

Snape remained quiet for a moment, his eyes carefully scrutinizing her face. Hermione tried not to squirm under his intense gaze.

"And tell me, Miss Granger, since you seem to be in such a candid mood this morning: exactly what do you know about my beliefs?"

Hermione was relieved to notice he didn't sound angry.

"I know that you believe pure-bloods are superior to Muggleborns."

Snape tilted his head, and his eyes narrowed as he continued to study her. "And what makes you think I believe that?"

"With all due respect, sir, your association with him speaks for itself."

Snape seemed to consider her words for a moment. "There was a time, Miss Granger, when I believed all Muggles to be as innately deficient as my father, and Muggleborns too inherently weak and obtuse to be proper wizards. I have long since reconsidered."

"What made you change your mind?" she asked out of genuine curiosity.

Snape motioned for her to take a seat, and Hermione did, noticing for the first time that there was no food on the table, and that Fritzlee was conspicuously absent from the kitchen.

"A Muggleborn witch much like yourself."

"Who was she?" Hermione asked before she could stop herself; Snape seemed unfazed by the question.

"A friend," he answered simply.

Hermione found Snape's confession intriguing and had to remind herself that the purpose of their conversation was to come to a mutual understanding of their respective positions, not to dig up titillating tidbits of Snape's past.

She took a deep breath to steel herself. "Very well, then. What about torture, slavery and murder?"

To her surprise, Snape remained impassive.

"They are effective paths to power, but that doesn't make them right, or even acceptable."

Hermione frowned. Her carefully designed conversation with Snape was going nothing as planned.

"Is that really what you believe?" she asked hopefully.

"It's what I've believed for a long time."

Hermione grappled for a reason why Snape would be lying to her and came up empty-handed.

"Then I don't understand how you can participate in things you think are wrong."

"You wouldn't, Miss Granger; you're too noble. Now if you'll excuse me, I have pressing matters to attend to this morning. May I assume that you're interested in continuing your lessons?" Snape said, rising from his chair.

Hermione nodded.

"Then I will see you this evening."

She wanted to continue their discussion, wanted him to elaborate about what he thought she wouldn't understand, but Snape was already on his way out the door.

Hermione noticed the newspaper he had been reading still open on the table. She picked it up and glanced at a picture of two men and a woman; all three looked bloody and battered as they stared vacantly into the camera. The headline read: Three Insurgents Captured, Charged With Treason!

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip while she continued to read:

Ministry officials announced this morning the capture of three individuals who were attempting to gain access into the main building of the Harbor Educational Center late last night.

The Department of Law Enforcement is looking into the possibility that these three may also be linked to the kidnapping of a pregnant hand-witch from the home of a pure-blood family earlier this week.

Hermione stared wide-eyed at the photograph of the three suspects, excitement building inside her – this was the first she had heard about any real action against the government since the end of the war! Two of the culprits appeared to be in their teens – too young to have participated in the Second War. The other one however, whom she assumed to be Rufus Ainsworth, seemed to be about her age and looked vaguely familiar, although she couldn't readily place him. She had probably just seen his photograph before in an old newspaper.

She remembered that rumors of Ainsworth's escape had started a flurry of speculation at the Center, each theory more bizarre than the last. The young man had been arrested for openly speaking against government practices – maligning our noble Lord, the matrons at the Center had called it.

She wondered what they had been hoping to take – as far as she knew, there was nothing in the main building of the Center except records of the Muggleborns and hand-witches housed there. Hermione tried not to let her imagination run wild, but it was hard to reign in her thoughts when she considered the possibilities. She had been previously unaware of Snape's visit to Ainsworth just before he vanished – she couldn't help but wonder if Snape was somehow connected to the man's escape. She added the possibility to the list of things she was determined to find out about Snape.

Hermione carefully ripped the article from the page and placed it in her pocket. She crumpled the rest of the newspaper and threw it in the trash.

~*~

Snape had not assigned her any reading, and Fritzlee confirmed that he had left the house shortly after speaking with her. Hermione decided against breakfast; she gulped down a cup of tea instead and set out to explore the house with a renewed sense of purpose. She glanced at the wall-clock in the parlor; it read five minutes to nine. She had to hurry or it would be hours, maybe days before she would get another chance to test a theory she had been working on the prior week before Snape had unexpectedly returned.

Hermione hurried to the stairs and quickly bound up the steps. She turned right at the top and headed down a long corridor. She turned twice more, counting her steps and ignoring the unfamiliar rooms. When she was certain she had arrived at the right spot, she stopped. All she had left to do was wait. A minute later the room began to change until she was once again standing in the room with the portraits.

Her lips spread into a self-satisfied smile – she was now convinced that this particular room traveled in a pattern, appearing twice a day in the same spot: at nine in the morning and six in the evening. She also suspected that the location pattern of the room was somehow connected to the location of the laboratory, since two of the three times she had found the door to the laboratory, she had been standing in this room immediately prior. She glanced around; there wasn't much in the room except for a few rickety chairs, a couple of lamps and the paintings on the wall.

As she studied the mostly empty portraits, she noticed something peculiar about the portrait of a middle aged woman who sat on a rocking chair, a ball of knitting yarn on her lap. Directly behind the woman was a wall-clock similar to the one in the parlor, but with only one hand. The single hand on the clock was pointing toward the number three, not the nine as it should have. She was almost certain that the morning before Snape's return, the hand had been pointing to the number nine, the actual time, otherwise she would have noticed the discrepancy then. It was odd that if the time of day were the same, this particular clock would read a different time.

"Excuse me. Excuse me," she called out to the woman in the portrait, who shot her an annoyed glare. "I was wondering if the clock right behind you is supposed to mark the correct time."

"What is it to you?" the sour-looking woman snapped.

Hermione managed a weak smile. "Nothing, I was just wondering. Sorry to have bothered you."

She looked to her right, in the direction the hand on the clock pointed, and saw nothing but a painting of a small country cottage next to a lake. She wondered – during her first day in the house, Hermione had initially made the mistake of assuming that all the walls in the reading-room were solid, and that there was only one way out of the room.

She slowly walked up to the painting of the cottage and placed her hand against it, elated when it passed straight through the landscape scene. Hermione walked through the wall and into a familiar short hallway – not twelve steps ahead of her was the door to Snape's laboratory. It would take a few more tries to verify that it was not a coincidence, but she felt confident that she had found another clue, and a reliable route to Snape's lab. After that, she would have to figure out a way to get inside – a defeating thought.

~*~

Snape didn't join her for dinner that evening, but he met her in the reading-room afterwards. He marched up to her and thrust a copy of the evening edition of the Daily Prophet into her hands.

"If you wanted to read the newspaper, all you had to do was inform me – there was no need to mutilate my copy," he announced.

"Sorry, sir," Hermione mumbled sheepishly as she accepted the folded newspaper.

Snape turned on his heel and moved to stand a few feet away from her, arms crossed over his chest. "Let me see you cast the barrier spell."

Hermione immediately dropped the newspaper into a chair, widened her stance and pointed her arm straight ahead. When she had concluded the series of movements to cast the barrier spell, precisely as he had demonstrated in the last lesson, Snape nodded his approval.

"Now show me the Repello Circuitum spell."

Repello Circuitum was the first spell they had worked on; it was simple in comparison to the barrier spell, but highly useful during a confrontation with multiple attackers, according to Snape. Unlike most spells that traveled in a single direction, this particular repelling spell spread out from its source in a circular trajectory, driving back attackers in all directions simultaneously. Its effects were momentary and harmless, but enough to give the caster an advantage when surrounded. Hermione mimicked the motions of the spell with no problem.

"Good." Snape withdrew his wand from the sleeve of his robe. "Tonight we will work on a Key Charm."

"Portkeys, you mean?" Hermione asked.

Creating Port Keys was very advanced magic; she wouldn't mind learning how it was done. She was almost disappointed when she heard Snape's initial answer.

"Not Portkeys, Key Charms. Each barrier carries a signature particular to the caster, and there's an accompanying spell to create a key that corresponds with that particular signature. I'll show you."

Snape raised his wand, and Hermione watched attentively as he cast the barrier spell.

"Walk in the direction of the barrier," he told her.

Hermione did as instructed and winced when her nose collided with a solid, invisible wall.

Snape walked to the nearest bookshelf and retrieved a book. Hermione frowned when she looked over his shoulder and noticed that the book was a compendium of recipes for household cleaners.

"The content of the book is irrelevant in this case, Miss Granger," Snape informed her.

He performed a series of quick, jerky movements over the book with his wand, after which he handed it to her. "Now walk toward the barrier."

Hermione slowly approached the spot where she had previously encountered the barrier, expecting her progress to be stopped at any moment; instead, she walked to the end of the room and back without any interference.

She shot Snape an inquisitive glance.

Snape took another book from the shelf and flung it in the direction of the barrier. The book traveled only a few feet before it bounced back and zoomed past Hermione's shoulder to land on the floor behind her.

"I have charmed the book you're holding to act as a key, allowing you passage through the barrier while it continues to block the progress of anyone without a key who tries to follow you. If you manage to create a strong enough barrier, it will even deflect hexes lunged at you from the other side," Snape explained.

Hermione nodded, conveniently ignoring the fact that odds were slim she would ever get to cast a barrier of any strength.

"Theoretically, any inanimate object can be turned into a key," Snape continued, "but the charm seems to act more effectively on substances that have a liquid consistency in their natural state – in this case, the ink on the pages of the book."

Or the magical ink of the tattoo on the Death Eaters' arms, Hermione thought.

After clearing the barrier from the room and the charm from the book, Snape set about showing Hermione how to cast a proper Key Charm.

The charm lacked all the flourish and style of the other two spells, and Hermione soon grew bored repeating the same mechanical motions without any results. She glanced at Snape out of the corner of her eye; the wizard stood next to her, looking as bored and discontent as she felt – maybe it was a good time to engage him in conversation.

"Sir, may I ask a question?"

"Certainly."

"Those three people in the newspaper, the ones charged with treason, what's going to happen to them?"

Snape tensed almost imperceptibly.

"They will most likely be tortured before they are put to death," he answered coldly.

"Do you know any of them?

"I try to avoid commingling with traitors, Miss Granger."

Hermione completed one final swipe of her imaginary wand and began to repeat the motions of the charm. She kept her eyes averted from Snape, pretending to concentrate on the movements of her hand.

"The papers said you talked to one of them," she mentioned in what she hoped was a casual tone – deceit had never been Hermione's strong suit.

"I was sent to interrogate Mr. Ainsworth shortly before his disappearance. You just moved your hand in the wrong direction."

"Sorry," Hermione said, correcting the movement. "And you had never met him before?" she asked.

Snape hesitated for so long that Hermione stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him.

"He is one of my former students. He attended Hogwarts two years ahead of you, but I doubt you ever associated with him – he was in Slytherin House."

Hermione often had trouble controlling her expressions, so she turned her head quickly and continued working on her hand movements, hoping that Snape had not guessed her thoughts. The fact that Snape knew the young man made it more likely that he had been involved in his escape.

"Is it hard to interrogate people you know, watch them be sentenced to death?" she asked softly.

Snape's hand shot out and grabbed hers in mid-motion.

"What you're doing is very dangerous, Miss Granger."

It served no purpose to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about – he was on to her.

"I just want to know," she whispered, aware of the firm pressure of his hand on hers.

"There are many things about me that you're safer not knowing, Miss Granger."

She didn't ask any more questions, and their session ended soon after. But Hermione was still irritated that night when she climbed into bed, convinced that it was precisely the things she didn't know about him that could harm her the most.