Chapter 3

AN: Thanks go to my beta firefly_124 and my Brit-picker saracen77!

Chapter 3

Her work desk feels cool against her cheek as Hermione lies with her head on it. Filing cabinets stretch into the hazy distance, taunting with the idea of a bounty of knowledge that doesn't hold true.

The discovery the day before was significant – they're definitely on to something. But it's quickly grown frustrating as well. What does it all mean?

A search of the texts in Severus's personal library turned up no spells that used a three-month-old baby. Even his darkest book, titled simply Grimoire, an imposing old tome of human-skin paper tattooed with blood ink, had only a few spells that mentioned the use of infants, and all of those used newborn blood. And unless they've purchased something new in recent years, Severus is certain that Hogwarts's Restricted Section has nothing either.

She rubs at the faint headache lurking behind her forehead.

They need something more specific to go on, and Circe they need it now.

Banging on the desk in frustration, she sits up and pushes her hair off her face.

There has to be something.

Picking up her quill, she begins scribbling across a fresh piece of parchment. The information is the same, but perhaps going over it again will show a clue she's missed.

A quarter hour later, she's staring at the sheet with an intensity bordering on ferocity – nothing, nothing, and more nothing! She begins looking again, eyes skimming from the top down, when a cup of tea floats into view in front of the page.

"Severus!" She looks up. "You startled me."

"And with what you are currently working on, such is not comforting."

"Yes, but according to what you told me, if anyone tries to spy on me, even from a distance, the modified Sneakoscope you gave me would spin like mad." She takes it briefly out of her pocket to show him, then grabs for the cuppa.

Smirking, he nods at her in approval, then pulls out his wand to cast a series of cloaking spells. "Still, now that your fears are confirmed that something untoward is occurring and that Ministry officials must in some way be involved, we should be more careful."

"I know. I was just caught up in trying to suss out what to do next. But I've got nothing. You?"

He shakes his head. "Minerva owled back to say that Hogwarts has not purchased any new reference texts for the Restricted Section – all extra monies have gone to reconstruction, as you can well imagine – but that I was more than welcome to look at what they do have."

"Right. When should we go?"

He sets down his cup and looks even more serious than usual. "We should not go."

"What?"

"Hermione." He clears his throat. "We have been spending an inordinate amount of time together. If our actions have caught the attention of any of the parties concerned in this ...," he waves a hand at the parchment she's been working on, "then the fact that we appear suddenly inseparable will only incite further scrutiny."

"But we've got to work on the project together! I suppose I could Portkey directly into your house in the future, but what if we need to investigate something together?"

"We could ... arrange a cover story as to why we are spending so much time in each other's company."

"All right, yes, good idea."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Hermione thinking, and Severus shifting slightly in his chair.

"Well?" she asks. "You've obviously got an idea, and I don't, so spill."

"Since you are a woman, and I am a man," he shifts in his seat, "and a great deal of the population tends to accept heterosexuality as the predominant mode of sexual orientation ..."

"Circe, Severus! Just spit it out."

"We could pretend to be romantically involved."

"Huh." She picks up her cup and drains it. Damn fine tea the man makes. Setting the cup back into the saucer with a resounding clink, she leans forward. "All right, it's a good idea. But if we're going to do this, we need to do it well. I expect you to take me to dinner and such."

His eyes widen slightly – his shocked look, she now knows.

"Come on, Severus. Is the thought of having to talk to me about things not project related so horrible?"

"No, not at all." He raises an index finger. "But no flowers."

She nods with a little laugh. "No flowers – check."

"And I am still visiting Hogwarts alone. I have some work on my research I can do to obscure the fact that I am going for any other reason. You, on the other hand, have to stay here." He points at her desk.

She whacks the offending piece of wood. "I'm really starting to hate this job."

"I agree that your abilities could be better used elsewhere, but we might never have discovered the issue with the Muggle-born otherwise."

"True. And I have dinner plans to look forward to at least." She smiles at him. "Where are you taking me?"

That startled look again, so subtle it would be unnoticeable on anyone else. Instead of answering immediately, he pulls out his wand and cancels all the cloaking spells. Only once the tea set has been cleared away does he clear his throat and say, "I am not sure, but I will find something appropriate by this evening. Seven o'clock?"

"It's a date." She grins, even as she wonders why her words make the normally unflappable Severus Snape walk away with the barest hint of nervousness in his step.

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Interlude is a posher restaurant than she expected – also much more romantic.

Tiny candles float in the air around them, pretty yet never close enough to be a distraction. The food is good, her pestoed gnocchi quite good in fact, the red wine complex and dense. She takes another sip. "What is this again?"

"A 1994 Borolo."

Another sip. "Well, it's fabulous."

He smiles and tips his glass to her. "Yes, it is."

Pushing her almost-empty plate away, she says, "It's all fabulous, and I don't think I left room for afters."

"We shall just have to finish off the wine then." He pours the remainder into their glasses and signals the waiter to clear the plates.

Hermione settles back into her seat, glass in hand. They filled dinner with talk of Severus's research project and what he found at Hogwarts today to aid it – a rare instance of bubotuber pus being used to cure shingles in 1794. Now she wishes they could talk about their project.

"There is another reason I picked this restaurant than simply the wine list."

"Really? The candles?" She can't help a spot of mild teasing – the wine's made her a bit silly.

Affecting a mock glare, he replies, "No. The privacy screen." Severus waves his wand at a plaque set into the wall beside their table, and suddenly the rest of the room fades into a blur, sound completely muffled. "And in case Interlude's Charms caster is not exactly all the advertisements claim he is ..." He adds a few additional cloaking spells. "There. We can talk freely now."

He greets the look of surprise she can feel pulling at her face with a smirk, saying, "Lean in towards me," which causes her to feel even more surprised.

"What?"

"People can still see our outlines, so we should make it appear as if we are having a tryst of some sort."

"Oh, right." She leans forward to match him until they stop with their faces side by side.

"Minerva was correct. There were no new texts. And as I thought, there was nothing that matched the parameters of the spell we are looking for."

Her shoulders slump with disappointment. "What are we going to do?"

"We must find another avenue of approach."

They sit, his breath sounding in her ear, warmth from his skin radiating out to hers, and she can taste his scent on the back of her tongue, mingling with the wine.

It's been too long since she dated, and this is ... nice – better than nice.

But very not on topic.

She shifts a little, and Severus moves too.

"What if ..."

"Yes?"

"What if we were to determine when the phenomenon first began?" Severus says. "Perhaps that would provide a lead of some sort."

"All right." Her mood lifts immediately at the thought of something to try. "I can go back through the lists tomorrow morning both before and after the eleven o'clock filing. As long as it hasn't gone on for centuries, I should have something by the time you come for lunch at one."

"Lunch?"

"Lunch." She grins. "After all, it's my turn to ask you out – I am a modern woman."

He huffs the faintest of chuckles, and perhaps it's the candle light, perhaps the wine, but for whatever reason, Hermione turns her head and kisses his cheek.

Severus jerks back and looks at her with his patented look of not-quite-surprise. "What was that for?"

Settling back into her seat, she says, "I suppose it was a thank you for helping me with the project. And it was also for authenticity." She waves a hand towards the rest of the restaurant.

"Authenticity, yes." His expression remains somewhat distracted and thoughtful as they finish their wine.

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Severus Apparates them to her door and stands waiting while she lets herself in. When she turns to say goodnight, he leans in and busses her cheek with his lips. Remaining close, he breathes into her ear, "Authenticity indeed. One never knows when one is being observed." Meeting her startled look with a small smirk, he pulls back and waits for her to enter her flat before disappearing with a pop.

Hermione leans against the inside of her door, heart racing, hand pressed to her flushed cheek.

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At noon the next day, they make small talk in the appearance of a social visit until reception delivers the sandwiches, dropping out of thin air to land with a thud and a plop.

Hermione picks them up and hands the firm one to Severus. "Looks like mine's gone all squishy as usual while yours seems a bit dry."

"Also as usual." Upon unwrapping it, he lifts a corner of the bread and pokes at a red-stained piece of chicken tikka. "No butter. Why would they make me a sandwich without butter?"

"I think it all ends up on mine, and then that's done it – butter quota all used up." The bread won't even hold as she tries to take a bite and instead sags away as if trying to escape her teeth.

They eat quickly in silence, him finishing first, and she gets in one last bite of tuna and sweet corn before pointing at him and waving her hand all around them.

Nodding, he pulls out his wand and creates a bubble of cloaking spells around them.

Hermione wipes her gooey hands on a serviette. "The good news is we have a stopping point, and it's not centuries in the past." All trace of lightness has gone from her voice. "It sounds so wrong to say this, but at least the babies have only been dying for ... for a few decades instead of longer."

Severus cocks an eyebrow in query.

She swallows in an attempt to get her throat to work. "1976, that's the first year it began, or the first year with a good four discrepancies on the list. We could go and double-check everything again with the Muggle records to make sure, but the pattern is exactly the same."

"I trust your judgment and think that we should move forward with the investigation instead of having Mr. Potter hack away at one of those infernal contraptions again." His brow creases, and he sits tapping the sandwich wrapper before him for long minutes. "I am afraid the date means nothing to me."

"Me neither. It's too hidden, too ... too subtle to be Voldemort, and the dates don't match up."

"I agree that this does not feel like something he would do."

"Maybe if we can suss out what was going on at that time in the Wizarding world it might be a clue."

He nods. "The best initial resource would be the Daily Prophet."

"And I have copies of every one that's been printed." She walks over to place her hand on a particular row of filing cabinets that are a bit larger than most. It stretches into the distance, growing smaller but not stopping.

His eyes follow the trail, and his lips twist into something half smile, half grimace. "I suppose we should begin then."

As he walks beside her down the long aisle, he bobs his hand along, keeping the bubble of cloaking spells surrounding them.

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"Circe!" She throws down the paper she's been reading for the last five minutes. What a pity that abusing parchment doesn't make any satisfyingly loud noises. She could do with a good crash or clang about now.

"You found something?"

"No. Not unless you count another run of that stupid article on someone called Atremia Arcklebuck. I mean, how many times do they need to say that she grew the best variation of fluxweed known?"

"What?"

"Not that there's anything wrong with fluxweed, mind, it's just that –"

"No. What was her name again?"

"Atremia Arcklebuck."

"That cannot be correct. Fluxweed was last perfected in 1874 by a woman named Glendida Glossauer. I have never heard of an Atremia Arcklebuck."

"Which means?"

"How many times have you seen this article?"

"Two or three at least. Hold on." She taps her wand against the nearest copy of the Arcklebuck piece and murmurs one of her searching spells.

Drawers snick open along the row, and papers pull themselves from the stacks they'd already made. Soon, the air is a whirl of fluttering Prophets so thick they begin to pat against her. Hermione flicks her wrist to the right and directs the swarm to an empty spot of floor.

The pile is a good five feet high.

"Circe! How many times did they run that article?"

"It is a Fictum Spell."

"A what?"

"An artificially created piece of writing that has been used to replace what was originally printed. I've heard of them being used upon occasion by a corrupt politician in a cover-up, but never anything to this degree."

Walking over to the stack, Hermione sees the fake Arcklebuck article on the front page. She waves her wand over it, trying a few simple diagnostic spells. "Nothing!" She drops the paper, this time really wishing for a satisfying crash.

"No. It is undetectable by magic."

"Kind of sloppy then to have used it so many times though."

"Not necessarily." Severus walks over to the pile and pulls papers from various parts of the stack. "These date from the mid-1950s through to 1978, so it's only an instance or two per year. Most people would never notice."

"Well, can we get back what was originally printed?"

"Not with these. The charm for doing this is quite powerful – it changes every paper printed everywhere magic can reach. We would need to find a set that had been locked away behind a magical shield."

"And wherever could we find that? I've never heard of any collection that's taken those precautions."

He's quiet for a few moments before saying, "I know of such a collection."

"Really, where?"

"At my house."

His face holds the careful expressionlessness of years ago.

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The sitting room in Spinner's End feels even smaller that evening, a little greyer, with Severus subdued and staring at the wall as he speaks.

"It turns out that much of the reason my father despised magic was due to the fact that he was something of a ... a sensitive, I suppose it could be called. He could tell when magic was being done or when magical artifacts were near. I actually believe that is what drew him originally to my mother. But feeling power and having none of it himself ... it did not sit so well with him, and he grew to hate it."

Still not looking at her, he continues. "My mother, ever the clever type, created a chest in the attic that she extended the interior of and shielded so that he could not detect that magical items were stored inside. She would receive the Daily Prophet while he was out of the house and hide it before his return."

He shoots a quick glance her way. "I have never opened it since her death."

"Why not?" she asks softly.

"Before I began school, she read the newspaper to me every day and told me how I was a wizard and this was my world. I ..."

After a moment, Hermione lays her hand on his arm. "You wanted to leave it all intact as a ... a sort of tribute to those times. I understand."

He nods once and stands abruptly. Flicking his wand towards the kitchen, he levitates a large brown steam trunk into the room. "It seemed prudent to retrieve it myself. My mother had set a series of Muggle booby traps on the ladder that only she and myself knew how to pass. It was, one might say, overkill – my father was rarely sober enough by the time he came home to climb a ladder." He gives a sardonic twist of lips. "Although tripping the first was enough to keep Wormtail's curiosity in check."

She gives him a small smile. Hermione can tell he's using a spot of humor to overcome his discomfort, but it's fairly amazing that he's shared this much, so she goes along with the mood shift.

The hinges creak as he lifts the lid, and a puff of air that smells faintly of rosewater spreads into the room.

On top lies a series of Parchments, all topped by the Hogwarts crest – Severus's grade reports.

He pulls them out with careful hands, saying, "She somehow talked him into accepting that I would need my wand and magical texts over the summers to study, but she never tried for herself."

Hermione wants to say that it's because his mother loved him, but he knows that, must know that on some level, and this is already quite personal for him.

Next comes a handful of photos, both Muggle and Wizarding. Hermione only gets a glimpse as he flips quickly through them, but almost all are of a young Severus, sometimes alone, sometimes with a dark-haired woman – a grown version of Eileen Prince.

Then, another set of Hogwarts papers, these yellowed with age, Eileen's.

The top tray of the trunk is left filled with the small mementoes of a life: a preserved rose bud, an ancient and battered Potions text, a handful of colorful Gobstones polished smooth by long use, a small music box, the bottle of rosewater. How small, how weightless, how easily Severus is able to lift it and set it aside.

Yet how important.

His hand ghosts across the items, touching each one briefly, before he returns his attention to the trunk.

The expanded area begins beneath where the tray rested, and Severus uses his wand to levitate stack after stack of newspapers from the space until the sitting room fills.

"It appears that we have 1958 through 1976 here. I imagine that even without the earliest years of the Arcklebuck use, we should still be able to discern a topic or pattern." He clears his throat. "If you use one of your sorting spells to remove the issues we are interested in, will you be able to return them to their correct locations as easily?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Holding the list she made earlier that day in her left hand, she taps at it with her wand, summoning only the issues on it. They slip out of stacks and rise into the air to hover over her, and once they're all there, she flicks her wand and sends them to the table.

Already picking up the top Prophet and flipping through the pages for the one indicated on her list, Hermione takes a few moments to realize he hasn't joined her. She looks up.

"I need tea. Would you care for some?"

"Yes, thank you."

He leaves for the kitchen, and she hears the sound of water running and the clang of a pre-electric kettle set on the hob.

He's gone a long time.

He makes it the Muggle way.

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Hermione immerses herself in reading. Here is what she'd always hoped her job would be – researching a fascinating topic. There are only two problems: babies dying, and her actual job never entails work like this. She vows to consider the second once she's done with the first.

Starting from the earliest instance, Hermione reads five articles quickly, looking for major ideas. Something tugs at the back of her brain, a correlation that she can't quite grasp yet, and she keeps going. After skimming ten, she has an idea of what she wants to focus on, so she starts from the beginning, reading carefully and taking notes.

When Severus returns with tea, she waves the latter half of the newspapers over to his side of the table and places the list of what pages the articles are on between them on the sofa. "Look for trends," she says distractedly.

He hmms a reply and starts in on his own stack.

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A little over two hours later, Hermione breaks the near-silence of rustling parchment and scratching quills by tossing hers down to stand and stretch. "Circe! I think I've done my back in. Toilet?"

"There is one located off of the kitchen."

She takes a few steps, then thinks to say, "You almost done?"

"I will be by the time you get back."

That sounded almost snarky, she thinks. He must be feeling better – or at least normal.

And indeed, he was right. By the time she returns, he sits reading over his notes.

Once she settles back beside him, she says, "So I can sum up most of what I found using these two headlines: 'Rising Number of Squib Births Continues!' and 'Another Successful Fundraiser.'" She holds up the corresponding Prophets from the early 1960s. "You?"

"My results are similar."

"Which means we have two sets of correlations here: the first being that pure-bloods were giving birth to ever greater numbers of Squib babies. Most articles say it began around 1954."

"And it continued through 1975. Then the articles changed slightly and began to discuss that the incidences of Squib-births had lowered and that it appeared to have been a self-correcting phenomenon."

"Hmm. I wonder." She looks at her notes again. "And the second thing appears to be a set of articles outlining the social activities of a group calling themselves the Pure-blood Sanctimonia. I couldn't see anything unusual about what they were doing – fundraisers, luncheons, etc. – but someone must have suppressed it for a reason."

"Their functions were reported very early in the 1970s, but less and less as the decade wore on. Either they were fading as a vital club ..."

"Or they decided to become something more secret. So many names were listed in the early articles that it seems half of the Wizarding world must have been involved." She holds her list out for him to see.

"Then that is another thing that changed over time. By 1973, it appears the Pure-blood Sanctimonia had shrunk in size. Only one new member was admitted."

"Really? Who?"

Severus holds up a Daily Prophet. On the front, a beaming Umbridge pins a small badge onto the front of Lucius Malfoy's robes. He then turns and offers the camera a younger version of his superior smile. A small group of indistinct figures stand in the strangely shadowed background, only their hands fully visible as they raise them to clap, flashing into and out of the light.