Rationalisations

Disclaimer: All is JKR's. In case you were wondering.

* * * * * * * *

At eight o'clock on the dot, Hermione stood at the entrance to the Headmaster's office. She was actually apprehensive about meeting with Dumbledore...an unfamiliar feeling. She felt exposed and unsettled, like a wrongdoer being brought to account.

She worried at a fingernail with her teeth and looked up into the gargoyle's bulging, stony eye. What did Dumbledore want with her? Surely the Headmaster didn't have it in mind to question her about... well, about anything. But it must have something to do with Professor Snape. What, though? Her brain, reeling from the emotional onslaught of the day, couldn't come up with any sort of sensible answer.

Best to go up and actually, sort of, find out what Professor Dumbledore wanted. It's absurd to stand here having a staring contest with a gargoyle. But she didn't move.

There was a little divot where the creature's pupil would be if it were living, and she reached up and put her finger on it. Her fingertip just fit into the perfectly rounded hole. She wondered if the stone had been carved by magical or nonmagical means and allowed herself to imagine a Muggle craftsman laboriously smoothing away imperfections in this tiny concave surface. What tool would he use?

Hermione sighed in exasperation. I'm stalling, and it's not helping. 'Humbugs,' she said to the statue and whisked herself behind it as it moved aside.

She paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, calming and collecting herself. The door to Professor Dumbledore's office was ajar, and she could hear voices from within.

'Severus won't like accepting the help...and from a student, too.' That was Professor Slughorn.

'Pish! I don't think he has a choice in the matter,' Professor McGonagall said tartly.

'Precisely so, Minerva. I am not aiming to give him what he likes, Horace. I am more concerned that he gets what he needs,' Dumbledore replied.

Hermione didn't fancy eavesdropping. She knocked stoutly and stepped around the door into the Headmaster's warmly lit office. 'Hello, Professor Dumbledore. I'm here.' Well obviously, Hermione. She scrubbed her clammy hands down the sides of her skirt.

'Miss Granger, do come in.' Professor Dumbledore rose from his chair in welcome. 'We are in need of your help, you see.'

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Horace Slughorn and Hermione Granger emerged into the corridor and the gargoyle slid back into place behind them.

'Well, Miss Granger, this is an unfortunate state of affairs,' puffed Horace as he walked by her side towards the main stair. 'Quite a burden, really.'

'Yes,' said the girl in a low voice. 'I don't know how he bears it. I'm glad, really, to have a chance to help.'

Horace was rather nonplussed for a moment before he worked out her meaning. 'Oh yes, yes, quite,' he averred. He had, of course, been thinking of the additional burden he would be taking on over the next weeks, covering six of Snape's lessons.

The girl walking beside him, on the other hand, seemed quite eager to shoulder her part in this onerous scheme...a scheme that would involve secrecy and subterfuge in addition to the huge piles of extra work.

When they reached the fourth floor, she wished him goodnight and walked briskly towards the library where he had no doubt she would be until curfew, making notes on the voluminous pile of parchments Dumbledore had given her before she'd left his office.

Youth, thought Horace to himself, with a shake of the head that set his jowls quivering. For himself, he wanted nothing more than the comfort of his quarters, a large glass of smooth old Cognac, and a night of dreamless sleep...courtesy of the Cognac.

The day's events had been quite alarming. This castle was supposed to be his citadel of safety. Just now, Voldemort's reach seemed far too long for Horace's comfort. Far too long.

* * *

Albus stirred the coals in the grate. The sparkle and flare of burning Floo powder had dissipated in the wake of Minerva's departure, and the fire itself was on the ebb. Like so many things, Albus thought and then smiled at himself. It was an old man's thought, as natural a response to the waning of the year and of life as it was a foolish one.

Actually, one of the gifts of age was the knowledge that, at all times, as many things are in flower as are fading. It made one's own end seem less cataclysmic if it wasn't accompanied by a general sense of apocalypse. After he was gone, Dark and Light would still keep their appointments with one another, eternally.

Albus noticed his sleeve had got caught up around his blackened forearm, and he shook the cloth down to cover his dead hand. The world would somehow go on without him, true. But he would play his cards ruthlessly to the last moment...and he would do his best to direct the game even after he'd gone.

He hoped the cards would favour Harry Potter and Severus Snape in the long run. Both deserved the chance of long lives in the sunlight of peace, lives full of good work, honour, wholeness, joy, love. None of which they'd find if Voldemort prevailed.

So he needed both of them fit and fighting to the last breath to defeat Tom Riddle, if that's what it took. Every resource must be funnelled to Tom's defeat, every chance taken.

Hermione Granger was an essential support for Harry in his fight. She was peerlessly brilliant, admirably brave; she also had a deep gift for friendship.

Now it appeared that Severus might also be a beneficiary of that gift. The girl clearly felt sympathy, admiration, and protectiveness for her teacher...all had been on display earlier in the hospital wing and this evening in his office when she had readily fallen in with Albus's plans to help Severus recover.

Perhaps she feels something more, as well... This thought had surfaced several times since the afternoon, so he'd have to keep it under consideration. But it made little sense to him. Physically, Severus Snape was no Gilderoy Lockhart, and surely his foul-tempered, sneering persona would do nothing to make up for what he lacked in looks.

Furthermore, Hermione Granger had long carried a torch for Ron Weasley. If Weasley was her ideal, the odds of her having a crush on the likes of Severus Snape seemed long.

No, it was most likely that what Miss Granger felt for Severus was some version of her overdeveloped sense of justice and her dedication to the underdog, coupled with admiration for his intellect.

The point was that Severus needed a friend now; soon, he would need a friend even more.

If all went to plan, Harry...and many others...would very shortly have more reason to hate Severus than ever. That could not be helped...not at all. But if Albus could provide Severus with one real friend in Harry's inner circle, Severus might...just perhaps...have a better chance at the honour and thanks that would be his due when all was over.

Yes indeed. The potential short- and long-term benefits of this plan far outweighed any possible risks.

Albus sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. He was very tired, and the night's work was far from done. He moved away from the fire, now down to dusky coals.

* * *

In the library, Hermione was gaining a new appreciation for her teachers' forbearance. It was actually a kind of torture to have to read forty third-year essays, one after another.

She had started in on the pile with the same sort of constructive attitude she always took when helping Harry and Ron with their homework...trying to get them to develop the best parts of their arguments and support them with sound if basic research.

But by the time she had got through about ten parchments, her lengthy marginal comments had become terse and even scathing: 'See page 67 of Trimble. Read it this time'; 'Use a dictionary'; or, simply, 'No.'

At least I'm getting into the Snapeish spirit of the thing, she decided, smiling wryly to herself as she stood and stretched. Her role in helping cover Professor Snape's workload while he recovered was to keep up with marking papers and exams. It would hardly be fair if he fought his way back to health only to face an avalanche of... this... rubbish.

'Hi Hermione. What are you working on? Merlin, that's a lot of red ink!' Lavender Bloody Brown was suddenly standing right there, reaching out for the nearest parchment, an effort by one Pasiphae Sneed entitled 'Hinkypunks: Mischievous or Misunderstood?'

Hermione snatched the parchment away and rolled it. 'Oh, it's nothing, just... erm, there are a few third-years I'm tutoring. I'm commenting on their drafts for Defence Against the Dark Arts. Erm, yes.' And she began whisking parchment rolls into her bag.

'A few! It looks like you're tutoring half the third year.'

'Well, haha, of course I'm not! These others are... my own... ah, notes. A personal project.' Hermione went beetroot red as the lies shot out of her mouth, one after another. Was Lavender put on this earth to torment her? She had to wonder.

'Oh.' Lavender's expression was, worryingly, shrewd. Hermione hated that. Oblivious Lavender, Bored Lavender, even Teasing Lavender...these were preferable to Noticing, Speculating Lavender. Not a thing to be done now, though. She needed to leave before she lied herself into a corner.

'Must dash. I hadn't realised it was so late. It's,' she glanced at her watch, 'oooh, it's nearly ten. Bye!'

Once in the corridor, Hermione took refuge in a broom cupboard to regroup.

Had that... scene... with Lavender been really necessary? Would it have been acceptable to tell her truthfully what she was doing? No, she decided. She'd done the right thing, if clumsily.

No one was to know yet about Professor Snape's sudden 'holiday'. McGonagall and Slughorn would of course tell the students in tomorrow's DADA lessons, and the news would be generally known by the time Dumbledore stood up at dinner to make the announcement to the whole school.

But the official story would be undermined if it were known that Hermione Granger was sitting in Hogwarts' library marking DADA papers the night before Professor Snape was believed to have left the school.

Her mistake had been in taking the work into a public place and putting herself into a position where she might be forced to lie. She was no good at it. She must avoid unnecessary risks in future, and that would require a functioning brain. Right, so she should really try to sleep tonight, or she'd be a useless zombie tomorrow. A weepy, snappish, useless zombie.

As she hurried along the familiar route from library to dormitory, she took stock.

In the last six hours, she had seen Professor Snape laid out gravely injured in the hospital wing, learned some horrible things, wept for what felt like days, battled to regain her equilibrium, been admitted to the Headmaster's confidence and given an important job, started on that job, and been caught out (again) by Lavender Brown.

And I am in love.

Sometime in the last two hours, the knowledge had lost its dreadfulness. In fact, she felt great. Like she'd moved into the most wonderful house, spacious and full of light. Severus, Severus, Severus, brave lovely Severus, sang her heart.

Stupid, hopeless, one-sided, a disaster, whimpered the unhappy, outmaneouvred sliver of her brain that was still trying to warn against exactly this.

Yes, she coaxed her rational side. This is hopeless and one-sided. That doesn't mean it has to be a disaster. It's still my secret, and it's not hurting anyone. Only... isn't it better that I face the fact I care about him and that I start behaving like his friend, rather than just using him as some kind of imaginary toy...some non-person...the way I have been?

Her beleaguered brain might have whispered that perhaps she protested too much, but Hermione wasn't listening. She was making a short to-do list: tonight she would revel in the sweetness of these new feelings. Then she'd get a good night's sleep and wake ready to give him any practical help she could.

'Bamboozle,' she said to the fat lady and stepped through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room.

* * *

'So you're marking DADA essays and exams while Snape recovers?' said Harry.

It was breakfast time. The three of them were huddled a little apart at the end of the Gryffindor table.

'Yes...well, through to fifth-years, anyway; Dumbledore's taking the rest...and Slughorn and McGonagall will be dividing his lessons between them, at least until the holidays,' Hermione said in an undertone. 'And please, please remember. What I told you goes no further. Officially, he has been called away on family business.'

'Oh right. Because no one saw him being carried into the castle yesterday, looking like Death's ugly aunt,' scoffed Ron.

Only her flared nostrils...and the laserlike focus she suddenly brought to creasing the fold in her napkin...betrayed just how little Hermione liked Ron's choice of words. She was determined, however, not to repeat yesterday's histrionics, and she let it pass.

She took a measured breath. 'Actually, only two students did see it...it happened while lessons were still in session. And Dumbledore had already dealt with them by the time the three of us got the news from Hagrid yesterday afternoon.'

'What? You mean he Obliviated them?' Ron was agog.

'No, Ron, of course not. If you had ever bothered to open your copy of Hogwarts: A History, you would know that it's been illegal for teachers to Obliviate students since 1693. Plus completely unethical and crude.' Hermione reached for another pain au chocolat. Her appetite was back this morning.

'What I mean is, Dumbledore talked to them and made them promise not to breathe a word. Administering Wand-Oaths is not illegal.'

She ripped off a strip of pastry and popped it into her mouth. Personally, she didn't find teachers coercing students into unbreakable oaths any less crude than tampering with their memories, but at the moment she was not much inclined to take the conversation in that direction.

'Do you know who the students were?' asked Harry.

'No.' Hermione frowned, then shrugged. 'It doesn't matter, does it? They won't say anything. We won't say anything. Professor Snape is visiting his mother, who is ill, full stop.'

'I suppose Dumbledore is concerned about how parents would react if they knew one of Hogwarts' teachers had been tortured and dumped in front of the school gates,' said Harry consideringly.

Hermione nodded. 'Parents, yes. The Ministry. The Daily Prophet.' She lowered her voice still further and leaned in towards Ron and Harry. 'The last thing Professor Dumbledore and the Order need is a whole lot of attention on Professor Snape. I don't think Dumbledore is working with Ministry approval as regards most of Professor Snape's work. And it's not like that lot trust him as Dumbledore does.'

'Hey,' said Ron. 'I happen to have several close relatives among "that lot".'

'Ron, don't be obtuse,' she scoffed. 'Your father is a member of the Order, and Percy is a tosser. Anyway, you're not actually taking sides with the Ministry, are you?'

'Just saying,' he mumbled. He didn't know what he was saying, actually. He just felt alienated and irritable. Wasn't Hermione taking this whole Snape thing far too seriously? Why did she even have to be involved? He tried to catch Harry's eye, but Harry was looking at Hermione and saying something.

'We'll have no problem feigning ignorance. Right, Ron?' Harry turned to him and grinned.

Ron blinked, then shrugged. 'Right. Never do, do we, Harry?' He smiled resignedly.

* * *

A/N: Love and thanks to ladyinthecloak for betaing, and to lifeasanamazon for Brit-picking. *squishes L&L*

And thanks go everyone who's left me a review or 2 or 9; even if it's really brief, I love knowing you're out there, reading. *squishes readers*

Thanks to itsybitsybossy for cluing me in to the property law concept of the Dead Hand, and to Wikipedia for telling me it was also the name of a mid-80s Soviet nuclear strategy of mutual assured destruction. Nice.