One is the Loneliest Number

Phoenix Song, Chapter Nineteen : One is the Loneliest Number

DISCLAIMER : The characters and many of the situations described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute. Where dialogue from the original Harry Potter books is quoted by me, the relevant text is marked with an asterisk.

This story would be the lesser without the help of my marvellous betas, LAxo and WriterMerrin...as always, they have my thanks.

Hermione broke into a run the instant that Snape's door closed behind her. She needed to put as much distance as possible between herself and his nasty words. Once she emerged out of the dungeons, however, she slowed to a frantic walk. It was not yet nine o'clock, and there were still a number of people about; she had no desire to cap her horrific evening with detention for running in the corridors. She also had no desire to be seen in tears and she determinedly blinked away those that threatened to fall as she began the climb up to the seventh floor and the safety of Professor Vector's office. For once, the staircases swung her way, and after only one brief detour to avoid a confrontation with McLaggen, she greeted the familiar sight of Vector's door with a sigh of relief. She knocked, then entered, not waiting for permission.

"Hermione," Vector's welcoming smile slid immediately into concern, and her worry beads clicked into silence as she dropped them on the desk. Picking up her wand, Vector conjured a comfy chair. "Sit down, right away. I'll make you a cup of coffee."

Hermione sniffed loudly and felt the first of many hot tears trickle down her throat. "I don't..." sniff, "...suppose you have tea?" she asked, her voice catching.

"A vastly inferior beverage," remarked Vector, "but under the circumstances . . ." She tapped her wand on her brikki, transfiguring it into a kettle, and put it on the conjured flame to boil. Rummaging in her desk drawer, she emerged with some tea things and a large colourful biscuit tin decorated with a sappy scene of Hogsmeade at Christmas time.

Hermione was crying in earnest now. She put her elbows on the desk and covered her head with her hands. "I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"Don't be ridiculous, Hermione. I don't want to hear your apologies. You'll feel better if you just let it out."

Vector let the kettle boil at a natural pace and took the time to warm the teapot before steeping the leaves. By the time she had two cups of tea ready, the worst of Hermione's tears had passed. Hermione took the proffered cup and sank back in her chair, cradling the warmth of her drink to her chest and willingly accepting a chocolate biscuit.

"You must think I'm an idiot," she remarked, smiling rather wanly at her professor.

Vector gave her a mock unimpressed look. "Nobody thinks Hermione Granger is an idiot," she replied.

Hermione exhaled through her nose in a gesture that was half laugh, half sigh. She swallowed the last of her biscuit and reached for another. The chocolate was definitely therapeutic.

"Why are people so difficult?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"I imagine you're referring to a particular person, not people in general." Vector dunked a biscuit in her tea and bit into the soggy part.

"Well, two particular people, if the truth be told." Hermione sighed.

"Boys?"

Hermione assented with something very close to a gurgle of laughter. It was true, in its own way, but thinking of Snape as a "boy" was a stretch. "Not Harry," she added, not wanting to implicate him...alongside Ron, he was one of the two obvious "boys" in her life.

"May I?" Vector asked permission as if she didn't want to pry.

Hermione nodded, her teeth worrying her lower lip.

"Your argument with Ronald Weasley has been evident for weeks." Hermione gave Vector a wry smile of confirmation. "And the other, I would imagine, is Severus Snape."

Hermione's eyes widened. "How did you know?"

Vector tapped a complicated pattern on a nearby scrap of parchment with the tip of her wand, and the full matrix appeared in its convoluted graphical representation. Moving her wand like that of an orchestral conductor, Vector rotated, manipulated and enlarged the particular section that Hermione recognised as that of current events. Then Vector flipped it across the third temporal axis and eliminated most of the visible lines. The two that remained were twisted into a complex relationship, arcing around and over each other, pulled and bent out of shape by the force of their interaction.

"Oh." Hermione stared. She added, rather lamely, "We had an argument."

"I'm not surprised," Vector sounded amused. "Severus is a very argumentative man."

"Are you . . . and Professor Snape . . . friends?" Asking the question, Hermione realised that she'd grown up a lot in the past year. To think of her teachers as humans with outside lives and friendships and faces that they didn't usually show to their students was an odd sensation.

Vector considered the question carefully before responding. "Severus is a very private man. I could count on the fingers of one hand those he considers his friends: Albus, Minerva, Hooch, Poppy." She paused for a second, staring at the large blackboard full of calculations with a pensive expression and her head tilted to one side. "And Lucius Malfoy," she concluded. "Once a month Minerva or Hooch arranges a friendly get-together, people play poker, drink a little, chat about things other than school work. Severus is a pretty regular participant. I go only occasionally, I'm not a very social person these days." She sighed, her normally happy face serious, and gestured at the equations on the wall behind her. "Under normal circumstances, Hermione, it would be unethical to perform such detailed Arithmantic calculations on one's colleagues." Hermione drew a sharp breath of realisation and looked at her professor with a new sympathy. "It's hard, knowing so much about them all. That, for the most part, they don't know I know does nothing to ease my conscience." She pulled a wry face. "It's dangerous, too. They mustn't know that I know, or what I know. My knowledge of Dumbledore's plans is a calculated risk." She grinned at her own joke. "I have to know more of what most people are up to than the Headmaster is really comfortable with. I don't know everything, of course, but keeping to myself makes it easier for him, and ultimately easier for me."

It must be lonely, thought Hermione, like being a spy. Her stomach clenched at the tangential reminder of Snape. Dumbledore wants to limit the possibilities of betrayal. Hermione stared up at the universal matrix, lost in thought. But that leaves the Arithmancer as the weak link...no, she corrected herself sharply with a glance towards Vector, the Arithmancer is the link, not necessarily a weak link. There was nothing weak about Vector. Dumbledore, Vector, possibly Snape . . . and me. Hermione wasn't just a member of the Order of the Phoenix, but one with the knowledge to betray them all. It was a vast and terrible responsibility.

"If it's any consolation," remarked Vector, interrupting her reverie, "I think it very likely that you will repair your friendship with both men, perhaps even having strengthened your bonds by this temporary misunderstanding."

"Hmph." With Ron, perhaps, but I don't even know what I did wrong with Professor Snape. "How likely, exactly?"

Vector smiled enigmatically. "We can't necessarily change the events in our lives, Hermione, but we can change our responses to them."

Hermione wondered, not for the first time, whether Vector was perceptive because she was such a good Arithmancer, or vice versa. Both, probably, she decided, pleased by the Arithmantic elegance of the response: one solution does not necessarily invalidate other solutions.

"You know, Hermione," Vector continued, "I am particularly sorry to see you so upset this evening because today in class it seemed you were somewhat happier than you had been in awhile."

Hermione blinked and reached unsuccessfully for the feelings of well-being and self-confidence that she'd felt on her arrival back at school. Though her conversation and cup of tea with Vector had calmed her down, the bubble of self-content had well and truly burst. "You're right, Professor. I had a nice holiday." Hermione gave herself a mental shake. "I met up with an old friend. I was going to add him to the matrix, actually. We came up with a plan whereby if the Ministry falls he will work to smuggle Muggle-borns out of the country."

From the sudden stillness of Vector's body, Hermione realised that she had said something important. Her professor looked at her with an odd expression. "That, Hermione, is a calculation that I'd be very interested in hearing more about." Somewhat relieved to have moved away from the topic of Severus Snape or the lonely life of the Arithmantic strategist, Hermione shared the salient details of her and Viktor's plan. Within minutes, she and Vector had started to sketch out the beginnings of the relevant equations, a task that would keep them occupied for the next few hours.

During break the next morning, Harry pulled Hermione out into the chilly air of the courtyard and regaled her with the details of his lesson with Dumbledore and his assigned task to get the complete memory of Voldemort's question from Slughorn.

"He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get it out of him,"* she mused. After all, he could have used Legilimency quite easily. "Horcruxes . . . Horcruxes . . . I've never even heard of them . . ."* Another thing to add to the to-do list, then. At least she had more than enough work to keep her busy.

"You haven't?"* The blind faith Harry maintained in her ability to explain everything for him was a little touching.

"They must be really advanced Dark Magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it's going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you'll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy . . ."*

"Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon . . ."*

Hermione felt anger tighten her throat, affecting the pitch of her voice. "Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you'd better do it. After all, when has Won-Won's judgment ever been faulty?"*

"Hermione, can't you...?"*

"No!"* She turned on her heel and walked inside, taking her bluebell flames with her. If Harry thought she was the one that needed to apologise, he could bloody well stand out in the cold by himself.

There was still a good fifteen minutes of break left, and Hermione ducked into one of the study alcoves that lined the courtyard to catch her breath and compose herself before class. That way she might also avoid having to talk to anyone else. Had the alcove been empty, it would have been a good plan, but unfortunately Hermione found herself face-to-face with Tracey Davis, Arithmantic calculations spread around her in some disarray. Davis didn't look very happy, and Hermione's sudden intrusion did nothing to improve her mood.

"What do you want, Granger?" she snarled.

Already upset by her near-altercation with Harry and by thoughts of Ron, the sight of Davis and her Arithmancy work was an unwelcome reminder of the situation with Snape. The sight of the Slytherin girl triggered a sharp pang of jealously, followed quickly by anger at herself for having such a visceral response, then anger at Snape for his horrible behaviour.

"Any luck with your project?" Hermione asked in reply, her voice as falsely sweet as she could manage.

Davis pulled her work towards herself protectively. "Fuck off, Granger," she retorted rudely. "You'll be as happy as all the other little Gryffindors if the curse holds...don't bother trying to deny it."

"I'll take that as a no," Hermione sniped back, turning on her heel and making a break for it.

If Hermione had found Hogwarts lonely before Christmas, second term was far worse. She now had to avoid McLaggen along with Ron and Lavender, which put the Gryffindor common room out of bounds at all times except very early mornings, and it was still impossible to hang around in her dormitory. She saw Harry only at alternate meals and in the library where, despite her best efforts, she'd been unable to discover anything at all about Horcruxes. She missed her private lessons with Professor Snape more than was reasonable, especially given that during DADA he'd managed to escalate his level of general nastiness to previously unimaginable heights.

A couple of hours of intense work had lifted the jinx from Marietta Edgecombe, though it would take a couple of weeks for the spots to fade completely. Hermione kept track of their progress via surreptitious glances during meals, but though the spots were fading, Marietta's malicious glances were as angry as ever. The entire chain of events left Hermione feeling even more miserable. The only place that she felt genuinely happy was the sanctuary of Vector's office, and as a consequence, Hermione spent as much time there as possible.

The calculations were coming along well. With the benefit of Vector's expert help, adding Viktor had been fairly straightforward. Factoring in the assumption that the Ministry would fall, his presence in the matrix had demonstrated a significant reduction in the number of potential fatalities.

Adding Malfoy had been harder, and not only because she couldn't reveal his participation to Vector, but eventually Hermione had resolved the equations to her satisfaction. His formula was definitely connected to that of Katie Bell, and the probabilities were looking extraordinarily high that he was in fact a Death Eater.

She hadn't told Harry, yet...or anyone else for that matter. Ethically, she was hamstrung. Her calculations made the question of what Malfoy would do next rather pressing, but at the same time the evidence was strong that Dumbledore, or at least Snape, already had a fair idea of who was responsible for the original incident. And if she told anyone about her results, she would have to reveal Harry's eavesdropping. Similarly, she wasn't at liberty to tell Harry anything about the Arithmancy calculations, though in this instance her enforced secrecy came as something of a relief. To be completely honest, the mammoth "I told you so" moment was an indulgence she didn't have the emotional fortitude to sit through right now.

With Malfoy's equation stabilised, her next step was to recalculate the probability variables for everything this academic year. Hopefully, his addition to the matrix would prove sufficient to quantify some of the existing imprecision.

Still turning the mathematical structures over in her mind, Hermione wove her way across the castle from Vector's office towards Gryffindor tower. There was still an hour or so before curfew, and she'd timed it with the hope that she might beat the Quidditch players back from practice. That way Lavender would be down in the common room waiting for Ron, and Hermione could get ready for bed unimpeded and without having to witness the spectacle of their reunion.

"Good evening, Miss Granger," Dumbledore's sudden appearance surprised Hermione somewhat; it wasn't usual to run into the headmaster in the corridors.

"Good evening, Professor."

"How timely that we should meet like this. Why don't you come up to my office for a cup of tea?"

It wasn't the kind of invitation that could be easily refused, and Hermione found herself following along in Dumbledore's wake. An initial tendril of curiosity was followed by a thumping panic that something terrible had happened...perhaps to her parents?

Dumbledore made no mention of the purpose of the visit until they were both settled in chairs, cups of steaming tea in hand. He smiled kindly at her over his glasses, fussing with milk and sugar and offering her a variety of biscuits.

"Well, my dear, how are your studies going?"

Some of Hermione's tension dissipated: her parents were okay. What was left solidified into a cold solid lump somewhere below her navel. This was about Professor Snape.

"My work on the Arithmantic equations is going very well." There, that was the truth.

"Wonderful! And how goes the Occlumency?"

"Occlumency is no longer giving me any trouble, sir." Hermione raised her chin slightly and stared Dumbledore directly in the eye, challenging him, almost, to take her at her word. She noted a flicker of something like annoyance in the twitch of his mouth. Did he think that tea, biscuits, and the kindly-old-man routine would have her pouring out the story into his sympathetic ear? She wasn't so certain that she wanted Dumbledore as a confidant.

Dumbledore sat back in his chair and regarded her appraisingly. With his tea cradled against his chest, he reached out his blackened hand and used one finger to twist the saucer in its place. The gesture threw his injury into sharp focus. If anything, it looked worse than it had months earlier; the black had definitely crept further up his arm and now disappeared under his sleeve. Hermione caught herself watching his movements with a horrified fascination and wrenched her eyes back up to his. He sighed and changed tack dramatically.

"It has come to my attention that you and Professor Snape had a falling out."

Hermione raised one eyebrow. There was absolutely no way she was going to discuss the details with Dumbledore. "Indeed? I think that's a matter you should take up with Professor Snape, sir."

The corners of Dumbledore's eyes crinkled into his first genuine smile of the evening. "I did," he replied. "It wasn't the most . . . ah, convivial conversation." Placing his teacup back on its saucer, he held up both hands palm outwards in a gesture of denial. "Listen, Miss Granger, I have no intention of prying into the specifics of the altercation." He paused. "I have known Severus a long time. Long enough to consider him a good friend." Dumbledore shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I would trust him with my life. Yet Severus is, at best, prickly. I don't know what went on between the two of you, but I do know that it upset him."

Hermione said nothing, her face impassive. God, he's a manipulative old bastard. I guess Dumbledore thinks the resumption of our lessons important to "the cause."

"I am an old man, Miss Granger, and I have asked Severus to perform a difficult task. I hope that you won't be too hard on him."

Hermione felt an icy anger. She would like nothing better than to forgive Professor Snape, but if Dumbledore thought it her place to make amends, he was wrong. Oh, she knew that Snape was not the type to apologise...hell, she didn't even think that Ron would ever say sorry directly...but she needed some indication, some gesture that was less acerbic than usual, that for Snape would count. "Is there anything else, Professor?" Hermione was aware that her behaviour bordered on disrespect, but she didn't care.

Dumbledore sighed once more. "No, Miss Granger, you may go."

As she stood to leave, Hermione gave Fawkes a long look. He stared back, his head tilted to one side in a manner reminiscent of Professor Vector. "Goodnight, Professor, thank you for the tea."

Dumbledore accepted her thanks with a nod and waved goodbye with his damaged hand. The long sleeve of his robe slipped down with the movement, exposing his skin to the elbow. Hermione felt a little sick at the knowledge that it was black all the way down.

Hermione glanced at her watch as she descended the moving spiral staircase. She would have to hurry if she wanted to make curfew. Is Dumbledore right? she wondered, turning her feet towards Gryffindor tower without paying attention to the route. Is Professor Snape as upset as I am?

The hands that grabbed her were rough and strong, and they pulled her into a dark alcove before she could react. She was spun into the wall with a thud; the books she was carrying clattered to the floor. A hand covered her mouth while another held the wrist of her wand hand tightly, crushing it. Her struggles were ineffectual. The hand on her face pushed her head back hard, and as she twisted, the stones scraped her cheek and bruised the back of her skull. She tried to kick out at her attacker, but with a low laugh, a large body pressed against hers, effectively trapping her.

"You and me, Granger," said a man's voice, panting slightly. "We've got unfinished business."

Shit. She recognised that voice. Shit.