The Runes

Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story are lovingly borrowed from J.K. Rowling.

Special thanks to DreamyDragon_73 and AnnieTalbot for their incredible beta work. This story originally posted at the sshg_exchange. I'll be posting new chapters every three days or so.

Mr Klandestin,

Oh, and if possible, could you ask one of the interns to track down my copy of Kern's Approaches to Alphabet Identification? It looks like someone borrowed it during my absence, and I suspect I'll need it.

~*~

Hermione followed Mosey, the slowest house-elf who ever lived, through the corridors, back to the site of the magical room she was set to investigate. True, Mosey's slow shuffle gave Hermione the opportunity to sketch out a map. But if the elf didn't pick it up a notch or two, they wouldn't get there before lunch. She idly wondered whether the Marauder's Map showed these rediscovered parts of the castle. She scribbled a note to write to Harry later, assuming he'd made good on his promise to reclaim the map after Snape threatened James with removal from the Quidditch team if he didn't stop sneaking out after curfew to explore the castle.

Trudging after the elf, she yawned. The morning coffee hadn't quite kicked in to compensate for the late night she'd spent working through her research proposal. But the fatigue was worth it. Merlin, it felt good to have a project again. She'd been drifting since Ron died. Before the kids had come home for the summer, she'd assisted her colleagues on research here and there. But nothing had captured her interest. Returning to her office post-hols, she'd been desperate for something, anything to wipe away her growing restlessness. She'd been stagnant for nearly a year, and it was time to pick up the loose ends she'd left lying around, both personally and professionally, and start moving on.

Finally – finally – they arrived at the familiar intersection. Snape's wards radiated and prickled at her skin, but she was able to pass them without incident. She bade farewell to Mosey as she knelt to examine the runes inscribed in the hallway. The rune alphabet here was familiar enough, and she transliterated the runes, grinning when a Latin phrase appeared. Hopefully, the room would follow suit. She'd woken at four from a dream – well, nightmare really – about translating seventh century Welsh to Gaelic for cross-text comparison during her first year as an Unspeakable. She appreciated a good challenge, but some projects crossed the line to torture. 

She looked over the sentence, digging in her bag for her Latin dictionary to confirm the translation. "The door opens for the worthy," she mumbled. She glanced at the doorway. The room's entrance stood open. Had the door stayed open overnight or had it opened for her? Or for Snape? If it was Snape, then she was lucky it had stayed open. After a couple days of trudging down here to grant her access, Snape probably would have demanded that the house-elves set up a cot and a chamber pot and lock her in until she'd figured out how to reverse Scorpius Malfoy's condition.

Ignoring a moment of heart-stopping panic that the door would decide to close once she entered, she stepped into the chamber, cast Lumos, and squinted at the nearest wall. She would need to grab some of the lanterns from the office. Otherwise, she'd emerge from the project blind and with a searing case of tendinitis in her shoulder. She grumbled. The runes within the room deviated from the alphabet sets with which she was most familiar. Of course the room wouldn't behave so nicely. 

Hermione pulled a piece of mottled-grey, spell-neutral parchment from her folder. She would need some examples to take to the office when she picked up her reference materials. While she could, theoretically, bring her entire set of resources back to Hogwarts, it was generally not the done thing to take all your texts with you. Inevitably someone would come looking and tattle to the department head that you'd taken Scribing's Runes of the Renaissance when clearly your project covered mid-fourth century runes. For all their professionalism under most circumstances, her colleagues tended to act like spoiled toddlers when it came to sharing rare texts.

She began sketching the runes along the western wall of the chamber. For the most part, the alphabet was familiar. But here and there, the name of a rune niggled at the back of her mind. She'd seen these before, but she couldn't quite place where. Hardly surprising, since it seemed every hundred years or so, some witch or wizard saw fit to adopt their personalised rune alphabet. More often than not, the changes weren't adopted by the general wizarding public. But occasionally, the additions stuck, especially when the glyph proved useful to the world at large, such as the mid-fourth century inclusion of the glyph for potion or the sixth-century addition of runes signifying wands and charms.

She skimmed the wall for additional key examples. Her eyes blurred. She was thoroughly unsurprised to find that the wall was completely covered; she'd suspected as much during her cursory examination the night before. Not a square inch of the wall was clear. She stepped back a moment, flipping her parchment over to the other side.

Following the path of one sentence, she slashed a line on the parchment to illustrate its placement on the wall. One of the symbols she'd sketched earlier wasn't an unfamiliar rune at all. It appeared where her original line intersected a skew rune line. She took another step back and stared at the walls.

They were criss-crossed with intersecting lines of runes. This would certainly be a challenge. Her stomach swirled with a mixture of awe and nausea. Transcribing one rune over another was rarely practised, as the results were fairly unpredictable. Whoever had designed this chamber had built a very powerful magical device.

Glancing at her watch, she gathered up her materials, separating the map of the castle she'd drawn before shoving the remaining materials into a folder and back into her handbag. She walked to the chamber doorway and cast a glance back at the room. It was blanketed with runes. The floors were empty, but all four walls and the ceiling were covered. Best to grab a copy of Petrus Pingo's Drawing Pictures with Words.

She grumbled as she walked up the stairs. The plan to visit her office during lunch meant she was dodging students on their way to the Great Hall. She blanched as she heard mutterings about the Hospital Wing, Scorpius, and "that Rose Weasley." She had to figure out what was going on with that room.

Finally, she reached the castle doors. Unwrapping a sandwich that Mosey had given her that morning, she left the castle grounds and headed down the hill, mulling over the chamber as she walked. The quantity of runes in the chamber made the room a rare find. For one, the sheer time involved to carve even a single phrase into stone typically lent itself to concise speech. Secondly, most witches and wizards had no use for such a significant and long-lasting display. Despite the sun, she shivered. It was powerful, and it lurked in the bowels of Hogwarts. Not a happy circumstance at all. 

She ground to a halt and nearly dropped her sandwich. A chamber. In Hogwarts. Previously hidden. And some unseen force that had attacked a student. She'd have to ask Snape for access to the Chamber of Secrets. 

She wrapped up her lunch, restoring the Preservation Charm. There was no way she could continue eating at the moment. Not with her stomach cartwheeling down the hill in front of her. She took off for the Apparition Point again, her feet pounding against the path as her heart hammered against her chest.

Hermione snorted to herself. If the room had been designed by Salazar Slytherin, it was odd it would have attacked one of its own. Though she wouldn't put it past Slytherin to want to thin the herd if any of his precious snakes were stupid enough to consort with Gryffindors.

Digging in her handbag as she hurried down the hill, she grabbed a Dictoquill and the list she'd started the night before. The quill and parchment hovered behind her as she barked out things to do. Write to Harry to see when he could come to open the Chamber. Grab the two Parseltongue texts that she knew Artemis Powell had stashed in his office. Arrange for an intern to help with the more basic tasks; there was no way she could risk involving any of the students in the translation efforts.

By the time she reached the Apparition Point, she was out of breath and had a list of tasks covering three feet of parchment fluttering behind her. 

Thank Merlin, the department seemed fairly empty when she arrived. And bless Mr Klandestin. The copy of Kern was sitting on her chair. She conjured a box, setting it on the floor next to her bookshelves. She began placing texts into the box, continuing to dictate tasks to the Dictoquill. Ask Snape for access to the older editions of Hogwarts, a History to see if there was any information on that portion of the castle. Write to Artemis Powell for a copy of his research on the Chamber of Secrets. Prioritise a list of tasks for the intern.

She reviewed the books in the box. Yes, yes, she had what she needed with the exception of the texts she needed to grab from her colleague's offices. She conjured another box and began levitating the stacks of memos and forms into it. Oh, and she couldn't forget to set up the blasted WPN tray. All the convenience of not having to ferry paperwork down to the Ministry Archives with the press of a wand. When the damned things worked.

The unfortunate drawback of coming during lunch was that Ministry Technical Support was on lunch break too. The Wizarding Private Network was cranky on a good day, and configuring one to work between London and Scotland.... She groaned. Maybe if she left a note for Jerry with the settings of the one she was taking with her, then he'd check that the one here at the Ministry was set correctly and verify that a test message was received. Best not to replicate the Pinkerton catastrophe with confidential memos being redirected to the Daily Prophet.

She flipped over the wooden tray and trailed the tip of her wand over the series of runes on the back. The tray blinked green. With luck, that would be all that was required to configure it. Setting the tray on top of her box of books, she looked over her list. She'd be ready to return to Hogwarts once she grabbed those other sources. And dropped off her research proposal. And wrote the note to Jerry. She cast a quick Shrinking Charm on the box and tucked it into her handbag.

She stopped at the threshold to her office, forcing herself to take a deep breath. She couldn't afford to have scurrying thoughts. After all, this was research. She needed to shed the adrenalin and force herself to focus. If she was too hurried, she'd miss a detail.

Never mind the fact that something dangerous had been uncovered at Hogwarts. Never mind that Rose and Hugo were there.

The last of her errands run, she left the Ministry, Apparating to her house. Belladonna greeted her at the door, yapping and meowing as she wrapped around Hermione's legs. Hermione reached down to scratch her familiar's head. "Sorry, sweets, but you're on your own again for a bit. I'll owl Ginny and see if she can't pop in to see you."

Belladonna followed her to the bedroom, hissing when she saw Hermione pull out the suitcase. After trying to burrow under a stack of jumpers in the suitcase, she slunk off to sulk. 

Hermione cast Refilling Charms on Belladonna's bowls and left for Hogwarts, glad she'd be climbing the hill for the last time. She wouldn't call herself out of shape, but hills weren't exactly part of her daily routine. She forced herself to slow down as she walked back towards the school. Straining a hamstring wouldn't accomplish anything.

Pulling her to-do-list from the bag, she skimmed over it as she walked, casting a Highlighting Charm over the more critical tasks and trying to decide how to best spend her afternoon. Snape would want to meet again after dinner, and she needed to make sure she had her thoughts in order before seeing him. A research plan then. And a flurry of letters to line up the additional resources she would need.

She reached the castle doors and made her way to her room. Her journey ground to a halt, and she grit her teeth in frustration. She would have to get a copy of the class schedules so she could better time her comings and goings. She didn't have time for this, and she didn't particularly want students to know she was here.

"Mum?" a voice called from the sea of students. Hermione turned to see Hugo headed towards her. "Has something else happened?"

Hermione tried not to wince as several students turned to look at her. "No, Hugo. I'm just here for some research." It was the truth. A bit watered-down, but the truth nonetheless.

"Research? Really?"

It was adorable sometimes, how similar her son was to her. At the moment, however, she needed to curtail his enthusiasm for all things library-related. The middle of a stream of students was not where any discussion of the chamber needed to happen.

"Yes, Hugo. Research. But I need to get going, and you need to get to your next lesson."

Hugo waved and rejoined the herd which carried him up the staircase to what used to be the corridor were Arithmancy was taught. For all she knew, Quidditch tactics were taught there now. Except that Hugo was headed there, so Quidditch wasn't a likely topic. Well, that and the fact that, despite Rose's constant whinging, one couldn't take Quidditch courses.

Hermione waited for the traffic to subside and then returned to her quarters. Perhaps this year she'd make that contribution to the Hogwarts Building Fund so they had the resources to widen the corridors. She shucked her shoes once the door was shut and tossed her handbag and cloak on the foot of the bed.

Curling up on the bed, she pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and her box of books. Tearing off a piece of parchment, she scribbled a quick note to Jerry, double-checking that she'd used the proper codes to direct the message to him rather than a file cabinet somewhere in the depths of the Ministry Archives. Setting the WPN tray in front of her, she placed the parchment inside and tapped her wand against the clump of runes that spelled 'send' on the side. The parchment disappeared. Now she just had to wait for Jerry's response.

Sorting the books into piles as she went, she removed them from the box, occasionally reorganising a stack. An hour later, she had a research plan, an enormous crick in her neck, and a veritable fortress of musty texts.

She would need to brush up on Elder Futhark forms versus Anglo-Saxon and Younger Futhark runes before she returned to the chamber. A brief consultation with Kern's had indicated she was dealing with an alphabet that was pre-twelfth century. The nagging thing about pinning down the alphabet was that the exercise was more about what characters you didn't see.

She decided to switch gears and grabbed another sheaf of parchment from her handbag. Time to tackle some of the correspondence she'd assigned herself in her list of tasks. She settled back against the headboard, propping her parchment against her knees.

She finished the fourth letter and stretched to ease the ache growing in her lower back, making one of the stacks wobble when she moved. She reached over to straighten a teetering tower of texts. Her room was adequate for a guest, but it didn't particularly suit her research.

Perhaps Snape could recommend somewhere else in the castle. The library would work, but its resources wouldn't be needed. The first thing she'd done after being accepted into her mastery program was line her bookshelves with copies of all the runic texts the Hogwarts library carried. Besides, she knew Hugo practically lived in the library, and she didn't want to infringe upon his space. Or put up with the whispering that was sure to accompany her presence.

Mosey popped into the room. Hermione jumped, upsetting a stack of books. Mosey twisted her hands in her tea towel. "Missus Weasley, I is sorry to be startling you, but Headmaster Snape is requesting that you meet him in his office for dinner, since you has not called for dinner yet."

She glanced at her watch. Eight. How was it possibly eight o'clock already?

"Please call me Hermione, Mosey. I'll go to his office directly. Could you owl these letters for me?" She handed over the letters and restacked her books.

Mosey took the letters with a grin, and Hermione found herself smiling in reply. Mosey asked, "What is you wanting to eat for dinner?"

Oh. She had forgotten that staying at Hogwarts would bring a welcome departure from digging through the fridge before giving up and getting take-away. Her stomach growled. "Could I have shepherd's pie?"

Mosey nodded vigorously, and Hermione grinned as she left her room for the Headmaster's office. When she arrived, she found Snape sitting at a square table, roast and veg in front of him with a steaming shepherd's pie on her side. The elves were certainly efficient. And considerably faster than the Indian restaurant in the village.

Snape seemed to favour silence over dinner conversation. This shouldn't have been a surprise, really. It wasn't as if he had a reputation for social niceties, and Hermione tried to recall if she ever remembered him chatting with the other professors during mealtimes when she was a student. Still, it wasn't an awkward silence; he wasn't glaring at her or anything. 

She was finishing her last bite when Snape startled her. "So, how is your research progressing? Do you have any theories on what has happened to Scorpius?"

Hermione took a sip of water. "I spent most of the day gathering resources and drafting a plan for how to proceed. And I don't have any theories. It wouldn't be proper research protocol to approach this with a theory in mind."

Snape snorted. "That line would be more convincing if you hadn't sat up three inches taller after I asked you the question."

She forced herself to remember that this Severus Snape, the one she knew in her adult life, considered himself rather clever when he managed to get under her skin. She ignored the barb and continued, "I'm still trying to narrow down the time in which the room was created and its exact purpose."

Mosey popped in and began clearing the table. "Will you be having coffee, Headmaster?"

"Yes, Mosey. Thank you," Severus answered before gesturing for Hermione to continue her progress update.

"The spells I've cast don't indicate any signs of spectral activity or curses. It's possible that Scorpius activated a ward that dissipated once it was triggered. But my experience and the layering of the runes within the chamber lead me to believe that something within the room attacked Scorpius. That room is protecting something."

Snape grimaced and grabbed the coffee pot that Mosey had delivered, pouring a cup of rich, dark roast into both their mugs. "I don't suppose there's any chance this will proceed quickly."

"Only if I get lucky or the Ministry sends me a fleet of interns to aid with the translation. The number of runes in that room is staggering." She braced herself for the next exchange. Snape was not going to take it well. "I do need to ask you to grant me permission to open the Chamber of Secrets."

It was Snape's turn to sit up taller. "Really, Mrs Weasley. No theories? Mysterious underground chamber that's involved in a student attack. It must be Slytherin's fault, of course."

Hermione ignored his use of her formal name. Only Snape could make something as simple as a name into an insult. "Severus Snape, I am not laying the blame anywhere, but yes, the Chamber of Secrets naturally came to mind. It's an underground Hogwarts room that's opened by speaking a coded phrase. I just want to have a look and see if there are any similarities in the two chambers. One of my colleagues led the research on the chamber following the war, and I'd like to know if I should contact him to see if his research might save me some time."

Snape's feathers seemed to unruffle a bit. "Very well. Owl Potter and I'll arrange for access to the chamber. Seeing as that particular toilet was only used for nefarious purposes." Snape's stare bored into her, as if she would feel guilty for mischief from twenty years prior. "We've warded it so that students cannot use it."

"Thank you, Headmaster." She relaxed into her seat, sipping the coffee. She'd have to ask Mosey to deliver this brew in the mornings. It was divine, and Hermione suspected it was considerably stronger than what she'd had that morning. Perhaps Snape was immune to caffeine at this point. She'd be up half the night. She drank anyway. It was too wonderful to turn down.

She watched as Snape closed his eyes, inhaling the coffee's aroma. He smiled ever so slightly before he took a sip and opened his eyes to find her watching. She raised her mug in salute. "Is there somewhere in the castle where I could set up my research materials? There isn't a desk in my quarters, and I'd rather not use the library."

"Not looking to wrestle students away from the tables by the rune section?" Snape asked, looking smug at his barb.

"I'm not looking forward to carting Ministry-regulated texts all over the castle and wasting time setting things up every day," Hermione retorted.

"Touché, Mrs Weasley. You may use my conference room if you like. I'll have the gargoyle grant you access to the room whenever you need it."

Well, that was a bit more generous than the abandoned classroom she'd expected. "Won't you be needing access to it?"

Snape let out a short bark of laughter. "Hardly. You can't imagine that I call meetings on a regular basis."

"Oh, I thought that perhaps with what's happened to Scorpius, you might have a more heavily scheduled calendar than usual." She'd expected he'd be updating the Board of Governors, at least, with news of her progress.

Snape's posture stiffened. "Draco has asked that we keep the situation as private as possible."

Hermione tried to keep her jaw from dropping. "That's... rather generous of him."

"You may not believe this, Mrs Weasley, but Draco is a good man. And he seemed to calm down quite a bit when I told him you had abandoned your work at the Ministry to work on this case full time."

Hermione stared at him for a moment. "That was rather kind of you, Headmaster. I was just returning to work. It wasn't as if I had a project to abandon."

Snape shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, well, Draco needn't know that. My exaggeration got him off both our backs. More importantly, it will keep Astoria from nagging me."

Hermione snorted. Nothing like a Slytherin to kill at least three birds with one stone. And Snape probably had another three objectives tucked away that he simply wasn't admitting.

Snape continued, "Besides, as a school governor, Draco understands what would happen if word was to get out that a pure-blood had been attacked, purportedly by the children of war heroes. We've made significant inroads at improving relations between houses within the school, and we like to think that some of that tolerance has begun to trickle out into the rest of the world. A setback on that front is to be avoided."

Hermione wasn't sure what to say. She was rather glad not to have her children at the centre of public spectacle, but she found herself chafing at the way Snape politicised it. He was right, though. There were some who would perceive it in those terms. She wondered if that fundamental cause of the war would ever be resolved.

She looked up to find him glaring at her. Wonderful. She'd waited too long to respond and now he thought her a complete prat.

"Mrs Weasley, I must say good night. I have some preparations to complete for tomorrow's classes," Snape said.

Hermione thought Snape could have been a bit more creative in his brush-off. It was hard to believe that someone who had taught for forty years still had significant preparation to do for his classes.

She looked up to find Snape studying her. "We're covering tailoring potions for the magic level of the recipient. I need to review the potions that the students have selected for their experimentation."

"That's rather advanced," she said, realising too late how idiotic she sounded. She was rather jealous of her kids. She'd have done anything to learn such theory at their ages, not to mention its application.

"Yes, it is advanced. And that is why I need to prepare for it. Good night." He gestured for her to see herself out.

Still a bit shell-shocked from the abrupt dismissal, Hermione returned to her room. She flicked her wand at her door and heard the lock click. Trudging inside, her spirits perked a bit at seeing the bright green parchment she recognised as Jerry's. At least the WPN was working. After dealing with a cranky Snape, she wasn't sure she had the patience to wrestle a cranky network as well.

She flopped onto the bed and toed off her shoes, Summoning a pair of pyjamas and wincing as soon as the spell left her mouth. Dammit. The pyjamas had been packed on the bottom. She tore her eyes away from staring at the canopy and turned her head. The Accio had performed with all its usual grace. Her clothes were scattered in a two-foot radius around the suitcase.

The last of her energy sputtered and died. Her eyes blurred. The stupid clothes could wait until the morning. For a moment, she considered changing into her pyjamas using a spell, the way she'd done when the kids were little and too exhausted or contrary to dress by hand. She sighed. She wasn't that pathetic.

Groaning, she hoisted herself off the bed and grumbled her way over to the bathroom, dragging the pyjamas behind her.

With her nightly regimen of dental care completed, she crawled back onto the bed. Curses. She'd forgotten to grab her book from her night table at home. Flipping through the rest of the post, she pulled out a letter from Harry. Thank Merlin he had responded more promptly than he usually did. She glared at the letter, imagining Snape's commentary if they'd had to wait for the Great Harry Potter to respond to his fan mail so she could proceed with her research. Settling into bed, she propped herself against the headboard and unfolded the parchment.

One paragraph in, the crease between her brows had vanished.

Two paragraphs later, she found herself grinning.

And by the fifth paragraph, with its gentle reminders not to let Snape get under her skin and colourful examples of how to translate Snape's invective, she was laughing out loud.

Harry's letter had pierced through the dark cloud that had settled over her when she left Snape's office. Yawning, she penned a quick reply and spelled off the lights.