Felix Felicis

Phoenix Song, Chapter Twenty-five : Felix Felicis

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. Dialogue quoted from the original HP books is marked with an asterisk.

Without the help of my betas, LAxo and WriterMerrin, reading this story would be a far-less-pleasant experience for everyone concerned. They have my eternal gratitude.

Hermione knew it wasn't particularly gracious, but she couldn't help saying "I told you so" to Harry with regard to the Half-Blood Prince. His attitude was driving her up the wall. Despite a seemingly endless series of detentions, he wasn't particularly stricken with remorse, and certainly, once Gryffindor won their match and he and Ginny got together, Harry spent most of his time in a happy daze.

It disturbed Hermione more than she cared to admit how close he had come to killing Malfoy. Sure, Malfoy was probably a Death Eater, but it wasn't as if he and Harry had met in a deserted graveyard somewhere and duelled for their lives. They were at Hogwarts, in the bathroom, and stupid schoolboy rivalry had almost cost one of them the ultimate price.

It bothered her that Harry could act as if Snape's swift actions erasing the marks from Malfoy's body also healed Harry's conscience. Didn't he get it? Didn't any of them get it? Hermione had recognised the counter-spell Harry had described: it was the "phoenix song" with which Snape had healed her own wound from the Department of Mysteries a year before. That meant that Harry and the Death Eater had used the same spell. The circumstances were frighteningly similar to the situation with Percy's old boss, Mr Crouch, during the last war: would it really be a moral victory of good over evil if both parties were reduced to similar means to achieve their ends?

Hermione's righteous indignation fuelled several hours of library research. She had hoped to uncover something that might make Harry rethink his reliance on dangerous scribbles authored by an unknown source, but the only lead she uncovered was an article about an Eileen Prince. The rather unattractive girl had attended school at the right time, although the brief discussion of interschool Gobstones that accompanied her picture made no mention of Potions. It certainly wasn't enough to convince Harry: the near argument left Hermione fuming, and she decided to take a quick walk around the corridors before settling down to do some study.

Only minutes later Ron came hurtling after her.

"Hermione!" he called, "Hermione!"

"What, Ron?" She was still irritable.

"It's Harry," Ron pulled up beside her, panting heavily. "He got a message from Dumbledore. He has to go to his office right away...I think they're going to go and find one!"

There was no need for him to qualify what the "one" referred to.

"Oh my God!" Hermione covered her mouth with both hands, all irritation forgotten. "Come on, let's wait for him in the common room."

They found a seat well away from anyone else, with a good view of the door. Tension vibrated through their bodies at the point where they touched. Much sooner than they anticipated, Harry was back.

"What does he want?"* Hermione asked, then noting the pinched expression on his face added anxiously, "Harry, are you okay?"*

"I'm fine,"* he replied. Without stopping to talk, he ran up the stairs to the boys' dormitories. Hermione exchanged a telling look with Ron, and they were just about to follow him up when he came back at a run. "I've got to be quick,"* he panted, breathless from the stairs. "Dumbledore thinks I'm getting my Invisibility Cloak. Listen,"* Harry glanced around quickly, then cast Muffliato. "Dumbledore's found another Horcrux and he's taking me to find it. The thing is, that on the way to his office, I ran into Trelawney and she..." Harry broke off for a second, a funny expression twisting his face. "She had just tried to get into the Room of Requirement. She heard a boy's voice shouting with glee, and when she tried to find out who it was, he threw her out of the room."

Hermione gasped.

"What, you mean Malfoy?" asked Ron.

"Who else?" replied Harry, his face grim. "So you see what this means? Dumbledore won't be here tonight, so Malfoy's going to have another clear shot at whatever he's up to."*

"Harry," began Hermione, knowing full well that with Dumbledore absent Malfoy couldn't carry out his plan, but Harry talked over her interruption.

"No, Listen to me! I know it was Malfoy celebrating in the Room of Requirement. Here..."* Harry pressed the Marauder's Map into Hermione's hand. "You've got to watch him and you've got to watch Snape too. Use anyone else who you can rustle up from the D.A., Hermione, those contact Galleons will still work, right? Dumbledore says he's put extra protection in the school, but if Snape's involved, he'll know what Dumbledore's protection is, and how to avoid it...but he won't be expecting you lot to be on the watch, will he?"*

"Harry..."* she said again, more insistently this time.

"I haven't got time to argue,"* he replied, turning towards Ron. "Take this as well..."*

"Thanks,"* said Ron, obediently grasping the proffered object. "Er...why do I need socks?"*

"You need what's wrapped in them, it's the Felix Felicis. Share it between yourselves and Ginny too. Say good-bye to her for me. I'd better go, Dumbledore's waiting..."*

"No!"* Hermione tried to grab hold of Harry's arm but he shook her off. "We don't want it," she said desperately. "You take it, who knows what you're going to be facing?"*

"I'll be fine, I'll be with Dumbledore." His words weren't as reassuring to Hermione as he clearly intended them to be. "I want to know that you lot are okay . . . Don't look like that, Hermione, I'll see you later . . ."*

Harry was off and running again before Ron or Hermione could say anything. Hermione turned to Ron. He looked nervous, but as he caught her eye, his back straightened and he smiled reassuringly.

"All right?" he asked, reaching out and gripping her shoulder.

"Yeah," she replied. "I'll get the Galleon from upstairs. Wait here."

Hermione took the stairs two at a time. The D.A. Galleon was in a decorative bowl on her bedside table, along with the personal Portkey Viktor had given her, a handful of small change and a button that had recently fallen off her school robes. She grabbed the false coin at once and hurried back out. On the way downstairs, she poked her head into Ginny's room, relieved to find the younger girl seated on her bed surrounded by her Transfiguration notes.

"OWLs," explained Ginny with a distracted smile.

"Ginny." Hermione paused. "Um, I haven't really got time to explain now, but it looks like Death Eaters might be about to break into the castle."

Ginny leapt up immediately, grabbing hold of her shoes and pulling them on. "Where's Harry?" she asked.

"I'll explain once we've got as many D.A. people as we can, let's go."

Hermione clattered down the stairs, Ginny hard on her heels. Ron was waiting where she'd left him, Neville by his side.

"Let's go," she said to all of them, gesturing towards the portrait hole. "We can't talk here."

The four of them trouped out into the corridor, and she pulled them into the first empty classroom, opening the door with Alohomora and locking it again behind them. The first thing she did was trigger the contact Galleon, though Hermione thought it unlikely that anyone but Luna would notice. Since even Hermione's own coin had been left beside her bed, she couldn't imagine many others had bothered to carry them round a whole year after the D.A. had stopped holding regular meetings. While Ron filled Ginny and Neville in on the gist of events, skating over the reason for Dumbledore and Harry's departure without mentioning the Horcruxes, Hermione activated the Marauder's Map and poured over it, seeking Snape and Malfoy. Snape was easily located, stationary in his office, but Malfoy was nowhere to be seen.

Luna turned up just as Ron finished his explanation.

"Hullo, everyone," she said. "Are we going to the Ministry again?"

"No," replied Ron, his face grim. "We're expecting the Death Eaters to come here tonight, instead."

"Fair enough." Luna was as calm as ever.

"Listen," interrupted Hermione, "Malfoy's in the Room of Requirement, Snape's in his office. We're going to have to split up. Ron: you, Ginny and Neville keep an eye on Malfoy. Take the map with you. Luna and I will watch Snape...I'll fill you in while we wait, Luna." She looked at the faces around her. Everyone nodded.

"Okay," said Ron. "That just leaves this." He extricated the Felix Felicis from his pocket and held the small phial up at eye level. "I reckon there's enough for one mouthful each." He offered the bottle to Hermione.

"After you," she said, touched by his courteous gesture.

With infinite care, Ron levered out the stopper. Hesitantly, he raised it towards his lips, then paused. "To the defeat of Lord Voldemort," he intoned, holding out the phial as if in a toast. He took a careful mouthful and then passed it to Ginny.

"Wow," he remarked, "that stuff feels amazing on the way down."

"To the defeat of Lord Voldemort," echoed Ginny and swallowed her share of the lucky potion. As the small bottle of Felix Felicis made its way around the circle, they each toasted their victory with solemnity. Hermione went last. When it was finally her turn, she wrapped her hand completely around the phial, holding it up as she proclaimed the toast and then carrying it to her mouth. But she didn't swallow. Hermione kept her lips pressed firmly together and quickly lowered the potion to her side. Surreptitiously, she palmed the stopper from the table, corked the bottle and slipped it into her pocket. Plenty of time to use it later, she rationalised.

"Alright," she said, aiming for the confident tones of someone who had just swallowed liquid luck. "Let's go."

"If I realised I was going to get lucky tonight, I would have worn nicer pants," quipped Ginny as they left the room, sending Neville into flights of nervous giggles. They split into two groups at the stairwell, with Neville, Ron and Ginny continuing on to the Room of Requirement and Hermione and Luna heading downstairs to the dungeons.

Hermione and Luna hovered outside Snape's office for hours. There was plenty of time for Hermione to explain the situation to Luna and plenty of time for Luna to regale Hermione with patently untrue stories courtesy of her father. It wasn't until almost midnight that they heard Flitwick's high-pitched voice shouting about Death Eaters as he ran towards Snape's office. Hermione grabbed hold of the back of Luna's robes and stepped into the shadow of a nearby doorway. Flitwick ran past without noticing them.

"SEVERUS! There are Death Eaters in the castle; you must come at once! They're in the Astronomy Tower!" squeaked Flitwick as he raced through Snape's door without knocking.

"You should probably take your Felix Felicis now," whispered Luna into Hermione's ear.

Before Hermione had a chance to respond, there was a distinct crash from within Snape's office, and Snape himself exploded out into the corridor, his wand in hand. Hermione stumbled forward into his path, pulling Luna with her. Snape stopped abruptly, his eyes flickering from one girl to the other.

"Professor Flitwick is unwell," he drawled. "He seems to have collapsed, and you will need to take care of him. I am needed elsewhere: as you no doubt heard, there are Death Eaters in the castle."

Luna gasped. "Professor Flitwick!" she cried, hurrying into Snape's office without further ado. As soon as Luna's back was turned, both Snape and Hermione gestured for the other's attention.

"Professor," she said in an urgent whisper, just as he said, "Granger," in a low voice.

He continued quickly, "There are some books for you in the second drawer. You will need to come back for them later, the wards have been altered to let you in. Keep them to yourself."

He moved, as if to go, but she caught at his arm to hold him back. With her other hand, she fished the phial of Felix Felicis from her pocket and pressed it into his palm.

"This is for you," she muttered, glancing quickly back to check that Luna was out of earshot and stepping away from her professor.

Snape shot a look at the bottle in his hand, his brows snapping together in surprise. "Felix Felicis?" he asked. "Where did you get this?"

"It's Harry's . . . it's a long story. We divided it up tonight."

"This is your share," said Snape.

"No," replied Hermione unconvincingly. She grimaced, knowing that her body language laid bare her lie.

Snape pushed the phial back towards her, but Hermione shook her head and put her hands behind her back, refusing to take it.

"You need it more than I do, sir," she urged.

Snape looked at her, then down at the potion; he made a quick decision. Thumbing the stopper from the bottle, he raised it to his lips and poured the contents into his mouth. Noting that the bottle was indeed empty, Hermione smiled with delight. She was still grinning when Snape struck.

Moving faster than Hermione would have thought possible, Snape shifted the empty bottle from his left hand to his wand hand and reached out to grip her chin with long, bony fingers. It hurt. His fingers dug into her cheeks, forcing her mouth open and her teeth further apart. Then he kissed her. He crushed his mouth against hers and opened his lips. The liquid fire of Felix Felicis dribbled from his mouth to hers.

Hermione struggled not to swallow, but her head was tilted upward at such an angle that she had little choice. She clutched desperately at his hand, scrabbling to pull his fingers from her face and swaying slightly as her balance tilted. She felt weak at the knees. As she spluttered, and unwillingly swallowed, Snape's mouth and grip gentled. He pulled back just enough that their lips parted, slowly, almost reluctantly. Hermione's heart was thudding in her chest, the infinite, tingling possibilities of the golden luck potion spread through her body like a song. She and Snape stared at each other, their faces barely an inch apart. She could feel the air of his breath against her lips, she could smell his distinctive, smoky scent. His hand against her cheek trembled, then slipped the short distance to rest against her throat, his fingers gently brushing against the line of her jaw.

She wanted to kiss him again.

"Hermione!" Luna called suddenly from the office, her voice panicked and urgent. "Come quickly!"

The whole encounter had taken less than a minute, though it seemed to have lasted for much longer. Snape blinked, and then he was gone, running towards the stairs in long, loping strides. Hermione brushed the fingers of one hand across her mouth wonderingly. She could still feel the memory of his warm mouth on her, her lips still glistened from the violently generous caress. With Felix thrumming though her veins, her concern for him was numbed. She felt certain that Snape would be just fine, that everything would turn out the way it needed to. With a small, private smile, she turned towards Snape's office. Luna needed her help.

Flitwick had cracked his head rather badly as he'd fallen, and neither Luna nor Hermione was game to return him to consciousness without treating the head wound first. Hermione conjured a stretcher, and together the two young women levitated the diminutive figure of their Charms professor onto it. Hermione spent several minutes fussing until his body was on its side, his head slightly tilted back and his airway unobstructed...long-ago memories of first aid classes and the drug in her system increased her confidence that it was the right thing to do.

"We can drop him in the Hospital Wing on our way to the Astronomy Tower," decided Hermione. "I'll levitate the stretcher; can you open the door?"

Luna leapt to do so, and the two of them set off up the corridor, their pace slowed somewhat by the stretcher that bobbed along in front of them. Once they'd consigned Flitwick to Madam Pomfrey's care...and finally extricated themselves from under her keen eye...Hermione and Luna broke into a run. As they drew closer to the tower, they could hear the sounds of the battle ahead, Hermione even thought she heard Snape shouting something over the fray. Yet, when they finally skidded around the last corner, their wands out and ready to fight, the chaotic scene before them was devoid of Death Eaters.

Hermione looked around in some confusion. "What's happening?" she gasped, her breathing irregular from the several flights of stairs she'd just pounded up.

"They've gone," replied Lupin, stating the obvious. "I think they're on their way out of the castle."

"Bill!" The panic in Tonks' voice caught everyone's attention, and Hermione spun towards the sound. "He's still alive! Quick! We have to get him to the Hospital Wing!"

Hermione ran to where Tonks knelt over Bill's sprawled form. There was a substantial amount of blood on the floor, on his clothes and all over the pulpy mess of flesh that should have been his face. The Felix Felicis came to Hermione's rescue, dislocating the horror of what she was looking at from what she needed to do. The golden potion was still singing in her veins, and she tingled with a sense of what had to be done. She conjured another stretcher before her brain had even processed the situation. Tonks was weeping, too upset to focus her wand on her injured friend.

"Out of the way," ordered Hermione, levitating Bill onto the stretcher as Ron pushed Tonks aside and grabbed a frightened handful of his brother's clothing.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked, his voice high and thin with anxiety.

Hermione's control seemed to kick Lupin into action. He put one hand on Hermione's shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze, though he spoke to Ron.

"He was bitten by Greyback; you and Hermione take him to the Hospital Wing immediately. I'll see to the others."

"Let's go, Ron," said Hermione gently, lifting the stretcher into the air. Ron rose to his feet without letting go of his brother, stumbling along beside the stretcher as Hermione manoeuvred it out of the knot of concerned Order members. As she left, Hermione could hear Lupin conjuring another stretcher and ordering some of the others about. She wondered who else was injured. The Felix Felicis was stopping her from feeling as upset as she knew she should, and it bothered her.

"But he wasn't a werewolf," muttered Ron distractedly, "or Lupin would have been too. It's the wrong time of month."

Even through the fuzzy warmth of the Felix Felicis, Hermione's heart ached at her friend's clear distress.

They'd only made it about a third of the way back to the Hospital Wing when Ginny ran up behind them, falling into step on the other side of the stretcher and, like Ron, gripping the nearest part of her injured brother as if physical contact would will him back to consciousness and health.

"Did either of you see where Harry got to?" she asked.

"He came back?" asked Hermione in reply, panic cutting through her drug-induced calm for a split second. Her tight control of the levitated stretcher faltered, but she recovered it after the briefest of wobbles. "Where was Dumbledore?"

"Dunno," responded Ginny. "Didn't see him. Harry went haring after the Death Eaters as they made a run for it."

Concern for Harry and for Snape flooded through Hermione's body. And Dumbledore, does that mean that Snape . . . she cut off that line of thinking abruptly. She would find out soon enough. For now, she had to deal with Bill.

Madam Pomfrey took charge from the instant they crossed the threshold, whipping Bill into a bed and casting a variety of diagnostic charms at his face. Looking grim, she began to clean the wounds; Hermione turned her attention to the two youngest Weasleys. Their doses of Felix Felicis had clearly worn off, and they were both visibly distraught. Encouraged by the drug that still flowed freely through her system, she took hold of Ginny's hand and rubbed small circles on Ron's lower back. Ginny gave her a grateful look, though Ron seemed oblivious, muttering under his breath and never moving his eyes from his brother's face.

When the others arrived, Madam Pomfrey bustled off to see to Neville, though she returned within moments. Noting who had arrived and who hadn't, Ginny looked grim.

"I'm going to find Harry," she announced, pulling her hand from Hermione's and striding off towards the door. Ron didn't move. Hermione was torn, but decided to stay. She felt certain Harry would come to the Hospital Wing as soon as he could: nothing would keep him away from his injured friends.

As Lupin, Tonks and Luna joined Hermione and Ron beside Bill's bed, Madam Pomfrey finished cleaning the numerous cuts and abrasions that marred Bill's normally cheerful, pleasant face and began to anoint them with a pungent green ointment.

Hermione shot an inquiring glance at Lupin. "Neville will be just fine," he responded reassuringly.

"Neville?" echoed Ron, the information that someone else was also injured penetrating the cocoon of his concern for his oldest brother. Hermione patted his arm, and he graced her with a wan smile. "Thanks, Hermione," he whispered.

Harry and Ginny arrived shortly afterwards, relieving one of Hermione's pressing worries. He soon relayed the fact of and the circumstances surrounding Dumbledore's death. Poor Snape, thought Hermione, knowing how little he was looking forward to his task.

"Shh! Listen!"* exclaimed Ginny suddenly, cutting across Madam Pomfrey's tears and interrupting Hermione's thoughts.

Hermione recognised the sounds, though in reality, she'd never heard them: phoenix song. Out in the grounds, Fawkes was singing, an aching elegy on the death of Dumbledore. Like her concern for Snape and Harry, the phoenix song seemed to effortlessly penetrate the dampening fog of the Felix Felicis. The music was both inside and outside Hermione, vibrating in the very flesh of her body, piercing her heart as it wrapped her in an envelope of sound. The sensation was extraordinarily familiar, and the scar across her breast ached in sympathy. For Hermione, the song and her experience of it resonated in her awareness as the memory of Snape. Unbidden tears ran down her cheeks, as she cried for the man Dumbledore had left behind. She wondered where he had gone and what he was doing; she thought about how lonely he would be from hereon in.

Fawkes' song was an exquisite agony. She wanted the sound to last forever, she wanted never to lose the feeling of it pulsing through her veins.

It was unclear how long they all stood there listening, though the spell was lifted abruptly when McGonagall came into the room, the heavy door thudding shut behind her. McGonagall's normally pristine appearance was in abeyance: her hair was dishevelled, her clothes torn and smudged. She, too, had to be notified of Dumbledore's death and Snape's role, collapsing into a chair at Harry's explanation.

Hermione found the speed with which the Order members around her revised their opinions of Professor Snape to be an object lesson in the limits of trust. She burned to defend him, though to do so would invalidate the drastic lengths Dumbledore and Snape had gone to in order to maintain the murderous facade. She had her own role to play, too, and once again, the Felix Felicis came in handy, urging her to bury her face in her hands as she related the heavily edited version of events outside Snape's office. In some odd way, lying to her dearest friends was made easier by the presence of everybody else and the horrific spectacle of Bill's ravaged face.

Once Professor McGonagall took Harry away for a private word, Hermione made her own excuses and left the Weasleys alone with Bill. The Ministry representatives were on the way, and Hermione knew it might be her only chance to retrieve the books Snape had left her.

Luckily, the hallways were deserted, and she made it down to the dungeons without running into anyone. She felt odd as she approached the door to Snape's office, more than half expecting to catch sight of his black robes or to hear his voice. The urge to knock was almost overpowering. Instead, she laid the palm of her hand flat against to wood and pushed. The door swung open easily. Shutting the door firmly behind her, Hermione crossed the room quickly, moved behind Snape's desk and opened the second drawer. There were three books inside. The largest, Secrets of the Darkest Art, was bound in black leather and had a folded sheet of parchment tucked inside the front cover. Hermione withdrew it eagerly and unfolded it to reveal the single word written inside: Polyjuice.

Of course.

Tucking the three books inside her robe, Hermione tuned towards the door that led to Snape's private lab. That too opened at her touch. The Polyjuice they'd brewed together was bottled, labelled and laid out in a neat row on the top of the work bench. There were also several phials of dittany and some basic healing potions. Hermione cast around for something to carry them in, discovering a black felt roll lined with small pockets hanging from the back of the door. She slipped the phials into the various pockets and wrapped it up into a neat roll, tucking it into her robes beside the books. With one last look around, she closed the lab door behind her and re-entered the office. She didn't have much time. As if that thought had conjured the Aurors, Hermione heard steps in the corridor outside: it seemed that her Felix Felicis-inspired luck had just run out.

"Blimey, these wards'll take a while. He didn't mess around, did he?" The man's voice was slightly muffled by the door, and Hermione heard an indistinct female voice make some reply. Her eyes widened in panic, and she glanced around the room. With relief, her eyes fell on the fireplace, and she hurried across to it. Taking a handful of Floo powder, she threw it into the flames. "Gryffindor common room," she said in a low but clear voice. The fire flared green, and she stepped through with an audible sigh of relief.

Hermione stumbled out into the empty common room, pausing only briefly to check no-one was around before hurrying up the stairs and into her bedroom. Toeing off her shoes, she climbed onto the bed and pulled the curtains tightly closed. Then she cast every protective ward Snape had taught her before pulling out the three books from inside her robes and taking a closer look.

It was only because she specifically looked for it that she noticed the name written into the front of Secrets of the Darkest Arts. A clever and subtle notice-me-not charm made it otherwise difficult to discern. What she read there surprised Hermione more, almost, than the horrific contents of the volume: "This book is the property of Eileen Prince."

Hermione told Harry the information that Eileen Prince was Snape's mother...and that therefore Snape was the Half-Blood Prince...the night before Dumbledore's funeral. He took it better than she had expected, but not without several nasty comments about Snape. She intervened unthinkingly when Harry drew a parallel between Snape and Voldemort himself. "'Evil' is a strong word,"* she said firmly, half wishing the words unsaid as soon as they were uttered. You are a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and you have an important role to play, she rebuked herself. There is information that Harry must not know.

Harry and Ron went up to bed soon afterwards, and Hermione seized the opportunity to slip out of the portrait hole. It was almost curfew, but Hermione was past caring. Moving quickly, she made her way across the building to Vector's office and knocked on the door. Vector was in and called for her to enter.

"Hermione, good evening," Vector's smile was more drawn than usual, but still welcoming. Having recognised her visitor, she frowned at the wall and muttered, causing the matrix equations to shimmer back into view. Vector stood over by one blackboard, a cup of Greek coffee in one hand, a piece of chalk in the other. She had clearly been hard at work. She gestured at the calculations with her cup of coffee. "I've been trying to work out why I didn't manage to predict our current situation," she said, her voice tinged with professional and personal disappointment.

"I did," replied Hermione apologetically.

"You did?" Vector turned in surprise. "Sit down," she ordered, pointing towards her desk and moving towards her own chair.

"I had some information from a dubious source, I'm sorry I didn't share it with you but I wasn't sure . . ." Hermione pulled a copy of her version of the equations from her pocket as she spoke, and held it out to her professor.

Vector waved her coffee forgivingly. She had pulled a small handheld blackboard towards her and was scribbling furiously, glancing from Hermione's work to her own. "And you can see a way forward?" she asked without pausing in her calculations.

"Yes."

Hermione waited patiently for Vector to solve the equation. After another few minutes, the older woman raised her head and smiled. She tucked the front white lock of her dark hair securely behind one ear. "As long as you knew, Hermione, there is still hope." Pulling her wand from her pocket, Vector tapped it against the frame of her small blackboard, duplicating the calculations onto a conjured piece of parchment. "This is for you," she said, handing the copy to Hermione. "It's the noumenal alteration curve through which we can filter the existing data set to reflect the current state of events...it leaves Albus as the origin of the overall plan but alters the main actors and the keepers of information."

Hermione was impressed. "That's phenomenally difficult maths!" she protested.

"Thanks," responded Vector with something of her usual spark. "You'll have to keep feeding it with new information, of course, or the equations will stagnate." She folded up the sheet of parchment Hermione had given her and tucked it safely inside her own robes.

"Hermione," Vector continued in a more serious tone, "these calculations could prove very important to you over the next year...and I'm pretty sure it will be a year. Anything you don't have already, you should copy down tonight. I'm going to destroy all record of them after the funeral."

"But..."

Vector silenced Hermione's interruptions with one raised finger. "Severus has seen the matrix, of course, but since it's constantly changing and since he already knew most of the information, I don't suppose it makes that much difference. The thing is, though, that with Albus gone, the Ministry will fall very quickly." Vector drained her coffee and placed the cup on the table. She fumbled in her pocket for a second, then withdrew a very familiar looking silver object. "Your friend Viktor sent me this."

"A Portkey?" Hermione was at a loss, the conversation had taken a very unexpected turn.

"According to the Ministry records, Septima Vector is Muggle-born." Vector shrugged. "As a point of fact, Anastasia Papavasilopolous was also Muggle-born. Once the Ministry falls, life will become more difficult for all of us, but for a Muggle-born foreign witch living under a hurriedly cobbled-together false identity, things could get very sticky very fast. I thought an escape route was in order."

"Oh," said Hermione blankly. "Indeed."

Vector smiled and tapped one finger on a nearby sheet of calculations. "I see that you're also going to be absent from Hogwarts next year."

"Yes," she replied weakly.

"You have the makings of an extraordinary Arithmancer, Hermione. All things going well, it would be my pleasure to work with you again in the future." Vector extended her hand to Hermione across the desk and when Hermione took it, shook her hand firmly. "Take care," she added, bringing the surprising conversation to a close.

On the way back to Gryffindor tower, Hermione detoured past the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Armed with Harry's quite detailed description, it was a relatively simple matter to enter the Room of Requirement and find Snape's old Potions book. Feeling slightly guilty, Hermione tucked it inside her robes. It wouldn't do to leave that behind.

The funeral was every bit as dreadful as Hermione had anticipated. The eulogy in particular was miserable...Dumbledore was an incredible man, and nothing the diminutive celebrant included in his long speech came close to capturing his fierce intelligence or generosity, let alone the manipulative genius of his Machiavellian schemes.

The only thing worse than the speech was the sight of Jocelyn Smith's drawn face. Hermione caught a glimpse of the slight, young girl among the other Slytherin students, the block of them ostracised by the rest of the school body, marked out by Snape's supposed treachery. Jocelyn's miserable face pressed upon Hermione with all the weight of her secret knowledge and the thought of the consequences it would have for those who knew Snape, and most importantly for Snape himself. Hermione remembered the short list of his friends, as enumerated by Professor Vector earlier that year. Of the scant five names, only Lucius Malfoy remained now...and he was in Azkaban. Who else, she wondered, has made such sacrifices in order to defeat Voldemort?

It was for Snape, and not just for Dumbledore, that she sobbed her heart out onto Ron's broad and comforting shoulder, his friendly and reassuring embrace both an anchor and a reminder of how awful it was to lose one's friends.

She and Ron caught up with Harry not long after Rufus Scrimgeour left him, and they settled down under their favourite beech tree, thankful to be free of the crowds. It was weird to sit in such a familiar place and discuss the frightening task that had been left to Harry after Dumbledore's death.

"You said to us once before,"* said Hermione firmly in the face of his protestations of independence, "that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?"*

"We're with you whatever happens,"* confirmed Ron. "But mate, you're going to have to come round my mum and dad's house before we do anything else, even Godric's Hollow."*

"Why?"* Harry was genuinely mystified, the tremulous realisation of his friends' sincerity still visible on his face.

"Bill and Fleur's wedding, remember?"* prompted Ron.

"Yeah,"* said Harry after a short, stunned silence. "We shouldn't miss that."*

Hermione turned her head, looking from one of her best friends to the other. Love and politics, she reminded herself, are a fierce combination. Reaching out with both arms, she slung one around Harry's shoulders and the other around Ron, squeezing them both towards her in a clumsy hug. She and Ron were crucial to Harry's success, she knew that: she'd seen the maths. As long as they were together, there was plenty to hope for. And she, Hermione Granger, had a job to do. She was going to keep Harry alive.

Staring out over the lake, Hermione let herself wonder where Snape was and what he was up to. She pulled the memory of his promise to help her modify her parents' memories close to her heart. He would come, she knew, no matter how difficult it was for him to get away; Severus Snape was a man of his word.

A / N : I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read this story to its end, and to proclaim my eternal gratitude to those who have reviewed. This is the first piece of fiction I have written . . . ever (with the possible exception of a few short stories in primary school), and the feedback and constructive criticism from all of you has made this an incredibly rewarding experience for me; I cannot overemphasise the importance that the reviews have had.

After the enthusiastic response to the question of whether a sequel would be out of the question, I am happy to inform everybody that I am thoroughly committed to writing the next part: Phoenix Tears (or, Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows). I've a horrible RL deadline on June 3, but sometime soon after that I promise to be back with more of the story.

In closing then, I want to re-thank my betas...LAxo and WriterMerrin...without whom this story would be but randomly peppered with commas, and you, of course, for reading.