Thresholds

A/N: As always, thanks to Lady Karelia for her exacting beta-read, and to Annie and Indy for their commentary and support.

We're flying Air Demetrios for a bit in this chapter - fasten your seatbelts. Should a loss of oxygen occur, a small black kitten will be provided for your comfort. Pay no attention to the pilot behind the curtain.

Note to readers on TPP: I had an issue and uploaded chapters out of order. Chapters 5 and 6 are fixed now; chapter 5 may be new to some of you who've been following the story. My bad!

Summary: In which confrontation ends in a startling conclusion. Whilst Severus worries at his ripped trousers, Hermione, with Demetrios's help, resolves a dilemma.

7: Thresholds

... as the air filled with the scent of loss, Hermione's shield dissolved.

Can she see me?!

-----

"Professor Snape, I presume?"

When Severus didn't respond, she continued sharply. "There's no point pretending. I don't know how you've managed invisibility as a ghost, but regardless, I do know you're there. I chose that particular combination of scents rather specifically, and Ron would never" - she gestured to the rippling pool of ink, which had settled to the floor after swallowing the canvas – "could never be that malicious."

Severus's smile crept dangerously near the border of "smug."

Mimi was leaning curiously toward the pool of ink on the floor. She twisted, trying to escape Hermione's arms.

Hermione vanished the pool and set the kitten down. "No, Professor Snape. You – or, rather, your ghost – are somewhere in this very room."

He said nothing.

Hermione's eyes swept the room in vain. "Ron will never be able to identify the last scent. It's so delicate, really, that the other scents render it nearly undetectable unless one has enough subtlety to know something's missing..."

Subtlety, motive – the difference was academic. Severus stayed silent as she continued her babbling. As a teacher, never mind a spy, he'd had ample occasion to learn much of value from the ramblings of unsettled minds. He'd cultivated his innate ability to disconcert with a look toward that very end.

"To be perfectly accurate," she went on, "I should have chosen scents from the Shrieking Shack..."

He blinked. Her Amortentia potion smelled like the Shrieking Shack? Great Merlin, she was mental.

"... but then... well, I'm in that wardrobe every morning of my life, and I – those weren't really pleasant odours, were they? The Charm served its purpose, anyway, until – 'Absolutely unbreakable,' I thought, seeing as how you're dead, and no one else would ever think to – Ron assumes I chose the scents with reference to the night he came back, which is exactly what I intended him to think." She shook her head. "I can't think how many mornings he's – which is absolutely none of your business!"

None, he agreed emphatically, although he had the fleeting thought that he must be missing something important.

"Which brings me to the point: What, exactly, is your business with my things, and what the hell are you doing in my flat?"

Mimi looked up at her. "Meee?"

When he said nothing, she flared, "Must you stand there like a bad imitation of an invisible Dementor after that spectacularly nasty invasion of my privacy? Now that you have my full attention, I assume you do have a purpose?"

Severus scrutinized her face hungrily, eager in spite of his derision to see what reaction his first successful interaction with a living person would elicit. "Revenge," he growled.

She had no reaction.

None at all – it was as though he hadn't spoken.

Mimi, however, blinked at him.

"Well?"

Snarling, he spoke more slowly. "Revenge, you idiot."

She snorted. "Fine, don't answer me."

Mimi looked at him sorrowfully and trotted toward him only to stop suddenly, sit down, and shake her paw in irritation. "Meee?"

The cereal in his palm read, "Halp!"

Sniding inwardly about cats' utter lack of respect for the niceties of timing, Severus reached down and untangled the several black woolen threads she had trapped in her claws. Threads from his trousers. Rumbling a warning, he examined his trouser leg and found a small hole at the knee.

Mimi purred and arched into his hand.

Hermione watched the threads leave the kitten's claws and disappear, peering closer as Mimi's fur flattened against Severus's invisible palm. "Oh, dear." Turning her eyes to where she thought his head might be, she spoke in a voice that sounded strangely hollow. "Professor Snape, if you can hear me, could you please say something to Mimi?"

He blinked. Feeling the fool, he grumbled, "You have damaged my trousers."

The cereal changed to, "Thredz hurtz pawz."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Oh – oh, Merlin, no. You poor thing." Her legs shuddered, and she reached down toward the floor to catch herself as she sank to her knees. "Sweet Merlin..."

Severus snorted at her rather extreme reaction, wondering if he had perhaps succeeded in unbalancing her after all. The kitten had clearly not suffered any permanent damage – from threads? Please. Really; the witch would do better to worry less about its ridiculous claws than about –

"How awful," she breathed.

He glared at her in full frontal exasperation. Could one not even finish a thought in this madhouse?

She was pale; her words almost inaudible: "You're not dead at all, are you..."

"Of course I am," he spat, even as the cereal changed to, "Off coursnot."

---

Of everything he had expected to feel since deciding to avenge his own death on the Granger witch rather than the insufferable Potter, he had not expected boredom.

Upon Hermione's startling and, of course, completely wrong-headed pronouncement that he wasn't dead, she'd admonished his general direction to "Please, please stay until I get back" and hopped into the Floo in her pajamas.

That had been two hours ago.

Boredom was not his favorite pastime – especially not when laced with confusion.

Having had the last two hours to recall her nervous ramblings and to reflect on them, he'd isolated part of what he'd missed: It was clear from her insistence on her "choice" of the scents in her locking charm that she had no idea she'd modified the Amortentia potion in its creation.

Shunting aside the implications of her possessing the talent to do nearly impossible Charms work more or less unconsciously – because her intellect was clearly not his problem – he focused instead on the two issues that blasted seventh bubble implicitly raised.

The first, of course, was her association of love with loss. Troubling, if one cared about that sort of thing; he, however, found it an interesting vulnerability, and one he could no doubt exploit should the occasion arise. Assuming, that is, that she would return.

He'd looked for some sort of timepiece in her flat but found none. Close enough to two hours, at any rate. Perhaps edging closer to three...

The second issue raised by that last scent – and, to him, the far more troubling of the two – was that he had without doubt missed something. And when after however many hours of intense reflection, punctuated only by keeping the kitten away from the hole in his trouser knee, he still couldn't quite grasp what it was, he was troubled, indeed.

Mimi pounced on the dangling threads at his knee, catching her claws again and Meee-ing plaintively.

Distractedly, he sorted out threads and claws and went back to thinking, face resting on hand, slowly rubbing his thumb along his jaw-line.

He didn't notice that his knee was bleeding.

Ghosts don't bleed, after all; why should he feel the impossible?

---

Hermione made her way briskly through the library's cavernous grand entrance hall toward the door to the warren of back corridors reserved for staff. The marble floors were cool on her bare feet, and, although the hall was deserted, she couldn't for the life of her dispel her sense of exposure at being at work in her pajamas, and the chill floor wouldn't let her forget it.

Like that nightmare about attending class in your underwear, she thought as she placed her hand on the door to the staff corridors.

Exactly like. Especially, she mused as the corridors branched into a dizzying array of choices, most especially when one's just had one's private memories paraded in so symbolically violent a fashion before one's nose.

By one's former professor.

She shuddered, then scolded herself for thinking nonsensically. Really, she had a larger problem here. If he hadn't actually died – and the kitten was proof of that, although one of her purposes in coming was to double-check a very specific Egyptian papyrus – if he hadn't actually died, what had he been doing for the last several years? Seven, already.

She shook her head sympathetically, taking a short-cut through the Department of Impossibilities, reaching up to touch her wand to the propeller of Amelia Earhart's airplane as she passed it.

This didn't do anything, but all of the staff did it religiously.

"For luck, dear," Demetrios had told her.

"Demetrios," she'd said as he'd floated back down to continue their conversation, "why isn't this Department located at the Ministry? Shouldn't it be in the Department of Mysteries?"

He'd chuckled warmly. "Oh, no, my dear, although it's an easy slip of the mind to think so. Mysteries involve possibility, of course; there is no mystery in the impossible."

She reached for the ship's bell from the Flying Dutchman and rang it twice.

Demetrios's voice echoed from within its brass hollow. "Biblioteke... pardon, Archives..."

"I'm awfully sorry to wake you, Demetrios, but..."

"Hermione? At this hour? Sweetness and light, whatever is wrong? And I wasn't sleeping, of course; I don't, you know... but I treasure your politeness all the same, of course; oh, dear, surprise is so flustering. Come up, come in... what's troubling you, dear?"

She clasped the bell's clapper firmly, and it pulled her up several stories to deposit her on the ledge that marked the archive's back entrance.

Demetrios appeared beside her, placing his translucent arm around her shoulders as he ushered her in.

"Demetrios, I have a problem," she said, reaching for one of the cardigans she kept sequestered throughout the archive.

He regarded her pajamas. "If that's your nightwear, my dear, then I don't wonder that you do. We must have a collection of catalogs somewhere about; they do send rather a lot of them..." He smiled. "I'm sure we can select something more appropriate to the, hm, yes, to your boudoir..." His smile was kind, but his eyes revealed his concern.

Despite what she felt was the very real urgency of her mission, she laughed. "Demetrios, really..."

His smile deepened, but his pale eyes remained serious. "There, my dear; you're the better for laughing. Now, tell me – what is it? Problem with your young man?"

She shuddered. "No, it's not Ron." She didn't mean to emphasize his name, but she did, and Demetrios caught the emphasis.

"Ooo, a love triangle, then?" He said something in Middle French that Hermione couldn't quite catch. "Not the best choice, if the literature is to be believed, but people sometimes do survive... rarely, of course, but nonetheless." He spread his hands.

Hermione laughed again – she couldn't help herself – but the ghost nodded for her to continue. "It's nothing like that. It's just... Demetrios, there's something – someone – in my flat, something like a ghost, but he's not dead; he's invisible, and he has a familiar, and he's really, really angry with me."

Demetrios blinked slowly. "Perhaps, my dear, you'd best start at the beginning."

She nodded and pulled her hair out of her face, twisting it up and sticking her wand through it. Taking a slow breath, she began, "I know you were aware of the second war a few years back."

He nodded.

"You recall the business about Professor Snape? That he was a spy?"

"Severus Snape?"

She nodded.

For the first time since she'd met him, Demetrios looked thoroughly perplexed. "Severus Snape is in your flat?"

"It has to be him," she insisted.

"And how do you know that, dear? Has he spoken to you?"

"I can't see or hear him. But something's there, and it can do magic, and it has a familiar, and –" She hesitated, not wanting to share the details of her locking Charm with her boss, however fond of him she was. " – and I'm nearly certain it's him. Items from the war, small things of which only he, Ron, or Harry would understand the significance – he's been manipulating them to get my attention."

"You're sure Ron and Harry aren't having fun with you?"

"Quite." It came out more disdainfully than she'd intended. She ran her hands through her snarled hair, realized she hadn't even brushed it, and blushed.

"Don't worry, dear, you look quite fetching. Has this entity evinced interest in your books?"

She nodded, and gasped as she suddenly understood their significance. "Oh – yes – the authors' initials were H, G, S, and S."

Demetrios frowned. "You don't mean to tell me you're still organizing according to the alphabet?"

"Well, yes... but just at home, of course." She blushed more deeply than before.

"Astonishing... but that's a matter for another time; do go on..."

As she told him a slightly edited version of that night's events, he interrupted only twice. Once to ascertain that her books were, in fact, unharmed – for some reason he found that very important – and once to inquire about how she'd charmed the cereal.

"Oh," she said. "I based it on principles of Animagism, of course, modified for organic non-sentience in the flour, and isolated and applied the translation aspect of general inorganic Transfiguration. It took a few tries to effect the necessary unity of balance between the polarities, but the theory seemed sound..." She trailed off as she realized she was off topic.

Demetrios's eyes shone with reflected pride. "He'd be so very proud of you, my dear."

"Who? Professor Snape?"

Demetrios laughed. "No, my dear. Aristotle. He was my teacher, you know..." A fond smile crossed his features. "Forgive me for interrupting."

"Aristotle?!"

"Of course, dear. Such a lovely man; I miss him still," he mused softly, but brightened almost instantly. "But now I have you to keep me company, of course, which is equally delightful, and you and I shall learn together."

Hermione's mind tried to encompass a reality where her company was even a pale substitute for that of Aristotle's – some part of her brain kept repeating, Aristotle?! and would not be still. Aristotle combined with the events of the evening to finally push her over some edge, and she broke into peals of only slightly manic laughter. "You did not just compare me to Aristotle!"

"Not in all ways, my dear. Not even all of the important ones. But he would respect the evolution of your Charms. Not even he had any idea what his cat was thinking." Demetrios chuckled. "His guesses were worse than most, you know."

"Cats... of course." Hermione recollected herself. "Demetrios, I need to consult the papyrus we had out when Crookshanks..."

"When your familiar took up a career in babysitting? Yes, dear, of course. May I inquire which roll you need?"

"I'm almost certain there was a passage in that earliest one about the bond between a feline familiar and its wizarding counterpart. Something about spirit..."

"'The spirit flows between them as the spring floods the fields, and thus and only even so are they sustained.'"

"That's the one. The hieroglyph used for 'floods' – if I recall, it's the variant that connotes 'life-bringing' and not the variant used when describing 'death' or 'disaster'?"

"It does indeed, my dear." He nodded approvingly.

"So if the papyrus is correct..."

"Ah, I quite see your point – unlike the phoenix, which can be loyal after death, a feline can only bond with a spirit that is at least esoterically alive. And that delightful kitten... she looks to him, you say?"

"I'm certain of it."

Demetrios nodded again, more slowly. "Then whatever is in your apartment is indeed alive."

"You're sure?"

"Quite. I did not have time when the fire broke out to collect the Bad Papyruses, just those which contained the utmost authority."

Hermione leaned forward slightly. "Dare I ask?"

He laughed. "That particular roll was inscribed by Bast herself. Trust me – when she's moody, which happens quite frequently, it goes blank and refuses to be read at all."

"So Professor Snape is alive."

"It seems so, dear."

"But..."

"Yes?"

She shook her head. "But the fact remains that he's invisible, and although Mimi seems to hear him, I can't."

"Oh. Hmmm..." Demetrios's face grew serious. "Perhaps... perhaps 'alive' isn't quite the right word, then." He zoomed into the rows of metal shelves, and a few moments later, Hermione heard the low gong that signaled the opening of the titanium vault where they kept their most fragile artifacts.

When he floated back into sight, he was already reading. "You were right about the variant, my dear; I was wrong about the translation."

"Translation?" her voice faltered.

"Not 'alive.' 'Quick.' Here." He showed it to her.

She shook her head. "I'm better with the Norse, I'm afraid."

"'Quick', my dear. The difference is subtle, but in this case, quite powerful. It means – well, it doesn't translate into English, but the sense is this: Your professor awaits some judgment yet unmade on which his spirit hangs. How distressing. How very distressing indeed."

"Judgment?" Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Like a trial?"

"No, no, nothing that civil. The judgment he awaits is his own." Demetrios shook his head, apparently overcome by some inner melancholy.

"I don't follow."

"When he died – I assure you, he did die; you will understand in a moment - he was given the opportunity to stay or go, as we all are." He folded his hands as though that settled the matter.

Hermione bit her lip. "And?"

"Isn't it obvious? Apraxia." He opened his hands.

"I'm sorry?"

"'Inaction', my dear, it means 'inaction'. Your professor simply didn't choose."

Hermione considered this. "Apraxia, it's called?"

Demetrios nodded, folding his hands over his middle. "The concept of inaction is the last recourse of the stoic when confronted with skepticism – as a philosophy, mind you, not merely 'doubt'. Something larger. Systemic."

Hermione weighed his words.

Stoic – well, the Professor certainly had been that.

And systemic skepticism? Yes, that was the flip side; he'd earned it, thoroughly. He'd had to, she knew, to keep his cover as a spy, but...

She wrinkled her nose. That was his problem. Not hers.

As was characteristic of Gryffindors when faced with a dilemma of potentially epic scale, Hermione's decision was measurable in nanoseconds. "Stoics? Skeptics? Bugger the lot of them – I want that bastard out of my flat."

Demetrios's rich laughter rang joyously through the entire archive. "Aristotle would approve, my dear. On both points."

---

Note on sources, random allusions, and other delights:

Middle French - although Hermione doesn't understand him, Demetrios is referring to one of the sources for Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle. Not really applicable here, as Severus's opinion of Ron is... quite.

Aristotle - An Actual Historical Personage^TM - who was the real Demetrios's teacher. (No pressure, there.) Any rumours about him and his students are completely unfounded. Also, perhaps incidentially, the author of The Poetics, in which he propounded on the humanistic achievements that are unity and balance.

~ A., twirling quill of excessive geekery.