Flexible But Firm

Thank you to Astopperindeath for mucho patience, as my computer repeatedly ate her edits on this chapter.

A persistent knock on the door disturbed my sleep, and I opened an eye just as I felt Severus jump out of bed. He shoved his legs into his trousers and snatched up his wand. He opened the door a crack, wand at the ready.

"Snape! I knew you were in one of these damned rooms. Shake a leg, old man, the wand maker's here," said Charlie

"I will be there shortly," was the curt reply before the door closed in Charlie's face.

I sat up quickly and noticed that at some point during the night he had repaired the damage to the room and that my clothes were folded neatly next to my side of the bed.

I jumped out of bed with an excited squeal, and, throwing my robes over my head, I ran over to him and threw my arms around his neck.

"A wand!" I did a little dance of joy, and it occurred to me that it was my first happy dance since the last time Ginny had caught a snitch or Ron had received top marks on a test all on his own.

Severus circled me with his arms and watched me with a bemused look on his face until he saw my expression falter.

"No," he said, lifting my face by my chin. "Allow yourself to be happy. You have paid your pound of flesh; there is no claim on your feelings. Missing them is acceptable. Feeling you owe it to them to stay in a perpetual state of mourning is ludicrous; you bear no guilt."

He lifted up a hand and smoothed back my hair.

"Things are happening quickly and will only move swifter from here, Hermione. I don't know how many more moments you and I will have before the end. But I want you to know that no matter what the outcome, you are, will be and always have been, worthy. There will always be moments of despair; do not allow them to lessen who you think you are. As for me, I can face what comes knowing I have been loved. It is my hope that you believe the same."

He placed a kiss on my forehead and pushed me away. I was too full of my thoughts to protest.

"Now go get ready. It's almost eight o'clock and that only leaves us four more hours before this place must be ready for its doors to open again."

He waved his wand at my robes, buttoning them up.

"Go find some knickers, woman."

I snickered at his comment and was going to say something about how he was going commando as well, but was suddenly struck silent by his appearance. He stood before me wearing nothing but his trousers, the top button still undone with feet bare and sleep tousled hair and all that pale skin displayed before me with a line of dark silky hair running from his navel down to disappear into his trousers. I don't think I ever really contemplated the beauty of the male form as I did in that moment, and the intimacy of the sight before me took my breath away. I saw him as he was but in two different aspects: one way he looked painfully thin, but if I tilted toward the other way of seeing him he was long, lean and deadly looking. One way saw him as hook nosed and pallid, and the other saw him as distinguished and almost luminous. My mouth went dry.

"Oh, no you don't," he said, turning me and giving a little push towards the loo. "As much as I revel in your desire, we've run out of time. Off you go."

Mr. Ollivander had returned and brought hundreds of wands with him, and the squealing and laughing of the women as they held a wand in their hand for the first time in years was infectious as I entered the room. When it was my turn, I practically danced up to the table. My palms positively itched to try one.

"Hello again, Mr. Ollivander. Thank you so much for supplying us with these marvelous wands," I said to the odd, yet kind looking man behind the table.

"Ah, Miss Granger. Vinewood, ten and three-quarter inches, dragon heartstring core. Gone into some vault hiding under the Ministry, I fear. No matter, I think you outgrew that one anyway. Yes, a little sturdier, a little longer... yes, this one might do. Try it."

He beamed at me as he held a long, elegant looking wand out.

I surprised myself by hesitating, suddenly overwhelmed.

"Go on, take it," said a deep voice over my shoulder. I looked back to see Severus standing behind me. I let him see the nervousness and fear on my face, and he nodded toward the wand and leaned in toward me.

"You're not the Princess of Hufflepuff; take the damned wand," he hissed into my ear.

I recoiled from his words. I had been expecting something supportive. Annoyed, I snatched up the wand and gave it a test flick. It spat out a few sparks and smoke came from the tip.

"Hmmm, no. Try this one," said the wandmaker, and the two of us spent the next twenty minutes swapping wands back and forth trying to find the right one. I was becoming increasingly upset by this point, and Severus had stepped closer and surreptitiously rubbed at the small of my back with his knuckles.

"Here, how about this one. Birch, eleven and a quarter inches with dragon heartstring, flexible but firm." He held out the wand and, as I took it, I felt just the slightest tingle race up my arm. It was lovely, not as elegant as some of the others, but by no means plain. I rolled the intricately carved handle in my palm and then turned and smiled back at Severus. His eyes lit up, just the slightest bit, and he gave me two quick taps with his knuckles.

Pointing towards an empty space to the right of the table, I called up my bluebell flames but instead of a small dancing flame I got a good sized fire. Quickly ending the spell, I looked at the wand and marveled. Clearly some adjustments would be needed, but there was no doubt this was my new wand.

The rest of the morning was spent with Percy, working up an oath for everyone to take to ensure security and working out channels of communication between factions. Once that was out of the way, it was time to get ready to open.

Ollivander was going to go with them to the forest to outfit the rest of our people, and as we all gathered in the foyer, I thanked him one more time and said my goodbyes.

Severus hovered as I hugged Percy and stepped closer still when Charlie came over and threw an arm around me.

"You're smiling a lot this morning. Was there a clearing of the air?" he asked.

"Yes, definitely. Things are much better now," I replied and grinned.

He dropped his voice and said, "Ruby explained after the ritual last night about why the blood had to be taken that way. I hope he explained that to you as well."

"When I finally gave him the chance to, yes," I replied.

"I'm sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion about that."

"Yes, well, you weren't the only one. It's all been straightened out now, though."

"Everything is all mutual and on the up and up?"

I just beamed and nodded.

"And you're prepared to have that," he nodded his head towards Severus, a few feet away and scowling slightly, "looming over you all the time?"

"All day, every day."

"Right then, I still think you're mental, but you're a big girl. One of these days, you're going to have to fill me in on what other things besides being frightfully intimidating constitute 'major swoon factor'." He kissed me on the top of my head and left by the door.

Viktor came up, and even without looking, I knew Severus had stepped up behind me and was positively looming.

"I am going to take my leef as vell, for the moment," Viktor said. He wrapped me in a hug and stepped back. "I vill head back to Bulgaria to see about some details. I vill see you in three weeks, unless things change, yes?"

"Thank you, Viktor, for everything." I hugged him back, trying to put as much meaning into it as possible, and then stepped back, bumping into Severus. I bounced off just a little. "I'll see you when the planning needs to be finalized. Be careful and stay safe," I said.

"As you say, Herm-own-ninny," he said with a smile.

He raised his eyes toward Severus and held out his hand.

"I vill haff your vord, sir."

Severus just looked at it and then back up, eyebrow raised, clearly waiting for more.

"You vill protect her and keep her safe, this I know. But you vill also make her happy when this is over, yes?" The smile had left Viktor's face and the unspoken or else was thick in the air.

The swiftly escalating tension was almost unbearable, and I found myself rapidly getting angry at the two of them and their infantile posturing, but Severus let out a heavy breath, and with a curt nod, reached out and clasped Viktor's hand.

Viktor relaxed, and his smile included both of us as he gave a little salute and followed the others out the door.

Turning on Severus, I grabbed his sleeve and dragged him over to the wall for a bit more privacy.

"That nonsense will stop! I am not some possession or territory that you have to assert ownership of," I hissed at him. "I'm a thinking, rational being, and I'm with you because I chose you, not because I am a tree you marked your scent on so you could claim it as yours!"

The man had the gall to smile. It started as an amused smile, but then he kissed the tip of my nose, and it quickly slid into a smug smirk as he backed away, brow raised and head tilted to the side in challenge, before he spun on his heel and stalked out the door as well.

Clearly he disagreed.

"I think you have just been metaphorically peed on," said Peaches, coming up behind me.

I narrowed my eyes at her, perfectly willing to have an object to take my frustration out on if she wanted to volunteer. With a laugh, she threw up her hands.

"Peace, Princess. I didn't mean to overhear you; I was coming because I think there's something you need to know."

"Now what?" I asked. I couldn't help the sigh that escaped; yesterday had been one of the longest days of my life, and I really didn't want today to be the same. I needed space to sit back and digest everything that was going on.

"You remember earlier when we were all getting our wands, and all the Death Eaters showed up, and Snape disappeared with them for a while?

"Yes, he said they had a small matter of business to attend to and not to worry about it. Why? Should I be worried about it?"

"Well, it seems they have done something either really great or really stupid, I'm not sure which. You should come see."

With a muttered oath, I followed her into the Emerald Lounge to find a handful of remaining Death Eaters laughing and talking excitedly.

"There she is!" shouted Warrington. "On behalf of your loyal knights, I bid you welcome, Milady!" He swept a courtly bow in our direction. As the room erupted in cheers and howls, I looked over at Peaches and raised my eyebrows. She pointed at me to make sure I knew whom they had been addressing.

"Er, thank you?" I replied.

"Tell her, boys. Tell Princess what you have done," said Peaches. The two of us sat on the settee and waited for someone to explain.

"Only that we have all taken an oath," said Vaisey.

"A different oath than the one we all signed?" I asked.

"Well, you know that it was getting confusing referring to us as Death Eaters, right? So we really wanted a new name. I wanted 'The Knights of Slytherin' except, well not all of us were in Slytherin."

"I thought we needed something to also give us a bit of a PR push; I liked 'The Repentant Ones,'" said Warrington.

"I really liked that one," said Theo.

"Bah, I think it was pants. My bid was 'Hermione's Heroes,'" said Greg Goyle. I just raised my eyebrows at that. Theo stood up and came over to us and continued.

"There were other ideas the guys had, like: 'The Granger Guards,' and 'The Black Brigade', and 'Restorers of the Light,' but we all eventually agreed on one, and so we have renamed ourselves."

"I am almost afraid to ask," I said.

"Well, in the end we thought it was best to keep it simple." The other ten men in the room came over and ranged themselves out on either side of Theo. "You're looking at members of 'Snape's Company,' my lady." And he too sketched a bow, followed by the others. Well, Snape's Company sounded a hell of a lot better than Hermione's Heroes.

"Marvelous, as long as you're happy; now, what's this about another oath? It is an oath and not a vow, right? Severus didn't make any of you make an Unbreakable Vow did he?"

"No, just an oath, but a binding one at that. To defend the Wizarding world from tyranny and to devote ourselves to restoring that which our former organization destroyed, to the best of our abilities."

Well, if that was the wording then Severus had actually given them a lot of wiggle room. Thank heavens.

"How lovely. I'm glad you all have a new name and now a mission statement. Was there anything else?"

"Show her, Theo," said Peaches next to me.

"Show me? Show me what?"

Theo actually fidgeted under my gaze.

"Well, you see, we knew there might be a problem, what with Death Eaters fighting Death Eaters and a hundred other fellow soldiers throwing hexes at anyone who looked suspicious, so we need a way to distinguish ourselves, a way to communicate and also to help identify us in combat conditions. We'll be able to be identified with a whispered spell in combat, and Neville's folk will know who the enemy is. It's brilliant, right?"

Peaches huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Stop procrastinating, Theo; show her."

He gave Peaches a scowl and then, with a look at his men, he started to roll up his right sleeve. They all did.

The blood drained from my face as they all revealed marks on the inside of their right arms. The magical tattoo was a serpent protectively coiled around a lightning bolt.

"Theo... why did you choose... this?"

"Well, it's the symbolism, see? They're not all the same; only those from Slytherin have a serpent: Blagdon and Cauldwell have badgers and Copplestone has a raven and, well you get the idea. Anyway, it's about protecting Potter's memory. It's about restoring what we helped to destroy by fighting for what Potter believed in. Sort of taking up the fallen standard." He stopped and looked at me with a terrible desperation in his eyes. "You understand why we did this, don't you? Most of us were too young to have been a part of his death, but we've been living with the consequences without really understanding what the price was. We reaped the benefits of that slaughter. We bear guilt as well. We need this, Granger."

"Oh, Theo." I couldn't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. "Yes, I understand. Well done. Well done all of you." There was a collective sigh around the room, and the men shared proud smiles as they rolled down their sleeves.

Goyle puffed out his chest and excitedly said: "And Snape said we could get new masks too!"

"Oh, Merlin wept," muttered Peaches as she thunked her head down on my shoulder. I couldn't stop the giggle that bubbled up from me even though I knew it sounded slightly hysterical.