Crow's Nest

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Chapter 2: Crow's Nest

The alarm clock sounded a shrill, demanding cry at 5:30 am. Hermione Granger had been watching the numbers change since they read 4:43 and was, by now, almost fully awake. Her hand darted out of the sweaty covers and crashed down upon the plastic button before the thing could ring a second time. It was a horrible sound which she waited for in a dreadful sort of anticipation. She fumbled in the darkness for a moment, her hand making an awkward angle with the wall and not quite finding the light switch. Fingertips brushed against paper, and she heard a sheet rustle as it fell to the floor.

Her salt-encrusted eyes squinted ineffectually against the naked bulb which seemed to hang far too low above her bed. It filled the tiny little flat with a sickly yellow glare like a harvest moon and, for the briefest of moments, made everything look alien. The ugly shapes and shadows resolved themselves sluggishly into familiarity, and with some resistance, Hermione remembered.

She had moved into this new place over three weeks ago, but it didn't feel like hers yet. Every day she woke up in someone else's home, living the borrowed shell of someone else's life. This latest place was particularly offensive. It was a skinny rectangle, with stains on the ceiling, peeling walls and a pockmarked orange lino floor . Her bed took up the entire width of one end while the telly, kitchenette and bathroom were all crammed at the other. The whole thing was about the size of the Potions storeroom and even had the faint cloying mildew scent of the dungeons.

It didn't matter much as Hermione was going to move again next week. She was already packed or, rather, she had never really unpacked. She lived out of her suitcase. Her perfectly Muggle suitcase that weighed a ton and only had room for everything if she rolled up her shirts. She missed her beaded bag, but she couldn't risk the spell, assuming she could still do it in the first place. The brightest witch of her generation hadn't so much as waved a wand in months. The case lay beside the bed, locked. Ready, in other words. She could leave at that very moment if need be, and there wouldn't be a trace of her left here, if not for the mass of the posters she had begun to put up.

It was a misnomer to call them anything so grand. They were mostly sheets of Muggle printer paper, though there were some scraps of old parchment amongst the number. There were notes, letters, drawings and other scribblings that weren't quite any of those. She had begun making them when she was living in Hackney, and the tradition had followed her to three addresses since. She wasn't sure if they were anything of any worth, other than giving her something to do in the evenings. Hermione recalled something her mother used to say about trauma and psychology, but it didn't much help. She still had little idea of what had been done to her and none at all of what she could do about it.

All the same, she liked to have them. They covered every inch of the wall beside the bed. She had even begun to put them on the ceiling, so that at night they could be the last thing she looked at. She kept a thick stack of paper and a sharp pencil beside the alarm clock so that she could scrawl down the things she saw before they slipped through the cracks in her mind. It was quite ironic, really. She had once been so proud of her mind, as she had been so proud of her magic.

With a great effort and all at once, Hermione pushed herself out of bed. Her left foot made contact with the sticky, cold surface of the linoleum floor; her right landed on the bit of paper that had fallen.

It was a dreadful likeness of Harry's face and some barely legible scribbling. The word 'cloak', in capitals and underlined, caught her eye for a moment. She peeled him off her foot.

"Sorry, Harry," she muttered, her voice croaky from the nightmare.

She didn't put him back to his space on the wall, but instead took him with her to the kitchenette only a few steps away. On the fridge was a large drawing of Ron. It was an even worse likeness, but its expression made Hermione smile so she had pinned him there a few nights ago to grimace at her while she ate.

"Morning, Ron," she said, only slightly seriously. "Brought you company."

She moved the magnets around and managed to line their gazes up. It made her smile despite herself.

Foregoing breakfast altogether, she stepped into her cramped, lime-scaled bathroom and had a shower cold enough to turn her skin red. She put the usual stuff on her face – being sure to cake it on thick enough so that she could barely recognise herself – put on a dowdy outfit and managed to be out of the house by six.

With her coat collar turned up, she slipped silently into the street. The little lane was empty and quiet, its residents still sleeping. As always, she was the first waking creature of Raven Row.

This was Hermione's life now.

She hated it, but she knew that she was lucky to still have one.

It had been difficult, at first, when the streets had been crawling with Death Eaters, and she had been too frightened to use her Muggle bank accounts and had no idea where to find the right sorts of people. But that was over a year ago, and she was getting the hang of it now. She didn't like to use magic in case they were tracing her (or worse, in case she couldn't), but there were plenty of Muggle solutions to those in the know. Some bills pressed into an open hand in a certain alley bought a new name. Hair dye and makeup worked almost as well as a potion or a spell. Minimum wage jobs didn't ask too many questions.

Her name was Jane Puckle: she was a redhead, a failed student at the Art college and now a hotel floor scrubber.

It was a hateful life, but it would do until... Well. Hermione had no misgivings about this anymore. In the beginning, she had thought about making her life so many things. She had thought she would find the other survivors and reforge the Order. She had thought that she would avenge her friends. She had thought that she would undo what had been done to her.

'Until' was never to be. From time to time, as if proving her own sanity, she caught herself wondering why she clung on to such a life. Fortunately, the question of how to keep doing it usually pushed the problem of why to second place. She almost felt guilty, sometimes, of how easy it was to work, eat and sleep without thinking of the future. The same could not be said of the past.

As Hermione stepped down the street, she tucked these thoughts duly away and let her mind be absorbed by the material, mundane and Muggle.

She walked down the street to the station, she commuted, she walked up another street, she put on her work gear, pretended to care about the other girl who worked there, scrubbed.

Nothing remarkable happened until lunchtime.

_______.......O......_______

Snape was at his desk. It was an ostentatious thing in ebony and green dragon skin, and even had carved snakes. It had been a house-warming gift from Rabastan and Snape had to wonder if Lestrange hadn't based the gift on Lucius's tastes. Or even if it had been intended for Lucius, once upon another age.

The house still felt new, though it was where he spent all his time these days in the service of his Lord. He still did not understand the miracle of his survival or the greater miracle of the Dark Lord's forgiveness. He had not witnessed it first hand, but the story of Potter's defeat was of an effortless, humiliating one, and perhaps he had that to thank. Or perhaps the Dark Lord simply could not afford to lose another seasoned supporter, so many having fallen. He tried not to dwell too often on this. Snape had seen too much to step down such a slippery path. But his mind wandered more than it used to.

Whatever the reason, when the Dark Lord at last claimed his open victory and took his coronation as Sovereign of Britain, Severus Snape was given his place back and his share of the spoils besides. He was reinstated as Headmaster, made a member of the Wizengamot and 'special correspondent' of the new Minister. In truth, Snape had no real duties except to wait for the Dark Lord's call.

And brew a certain potion to his Lord's specification. Powdered Cinnabar, nectar of Ambrose, a bezoar, crushed amber, jelly of the African bee. And a full pint of Unicorn's Blood. Deep red and viscous with the scent of Frankincense. Cinnabar, Amber and Unicorn Blood were for preservation, obviously. Bezoar purges the body. Bee's jelly provides nourishment. Snape had considered every possible analysis of the draught. It was potent restorative – a variant on the deathstopper for someone with a slowed metabolism and perhaps instability of mind.

But for whom? The Dark Lord was in no danger now – Potter was dead and the Dark Lord was the master of the Elder Wand. He couldn't be killed even if anyone dared to try. Yet every month Snape made this curious potion and delivered it unquestioningly to the Dark Lord's own hand. To question openly was to die, now as much as ever, and Snape needed to live.

And live in more comfort than he was used to. What was a 'war hero' without the reward of a vault of gold and property?

So it was that Snape spent entire days at his ill-fitting desk serving the one master he had left. The work was generally a different flavour to what he had been used to for eighteen years, though on this day he felt an unbidden and largely unwanted return to form.

In the morning he'd had a Floo call from the Chief Peacekeeper. They had caught scent of Longbottom, Lovegood and Ginny Weasley on a port at Dover but had lost them again. Vanished into thin air. Undetectable, uncursable, unSummonable. Which could mean many things, but was especially suggestive of one.

Snape had spent the morning looking over the problem. Spread across the desk was his dossier on the Undesirables. A year old, they had been thumbed frequently and were beginning to curl at the edges. He lined them up and surveyed their faces coolly as they blinked up at him. A pathetically small number had survived the final battle. McGonagall and Aberforth were officially missing, as was Granger. He amended the sheets for Ginny Weasley, Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. Sighted at Dover.

There were now certain actions he must take – and an urgency to his other project. He took out a bit of parchment and scrawled a quick note to the head of foreign affairs.

Mr Chang,

-S. Snape

For a moment he considered alerting the Dark Lord as well.

His Lord did not like to be kept ignorant of news, but neither did he like to be troubled for small matters. There had been no rebel act since the capture and execution of Molly Weasley six months ago, and these three would not concern the Dark Lord as much as Snape's continued efforts in finding McGonagall and Dumbledore's brother.

No. This was a mere crumb of ill news could wait.

There was, however, business that couldn't wait now, in light of these three. He had been wavering about it for a fortnight and had made over a dozen plans. It was time to finally realise one of them.

He quit the office and went upstairs to change out of his robes.

________.......O.......________

Hermione had dinner in a bistro on Charing Cross Road, opposite the Leaky Cauldron. It was too loud, too expensive and by far too close to the Wizarding World, but something in her that was daring and wild chose it before she had a chance to think. It was the sort of daring that was born from confused and reckless fear rather than courage. Tonight she needed to see the Leaky, to watch the people coming and going and to know what they were doing.

She was also too scared to go home. If they – if he – was watching her, then she had to stay where there was a good crowd to hide in. That much she had learnt.

The problem was, she still couldn't be sure. She had seen something, but she saw something at least once a fortnight. Paranoia was a part of being on the run.

She forced herself to stop feeling for a moment and really consider the evidence. In her head she ran over the entire thing again, trying to remember it exactly as it really happened.

There had been rain, and the lunch crowd had tracked mud all the way across the foyer. There had been a particularly stubborn patch that wouldn't shift by the lounges, and really, if she hadn't stood exactly there, she mightn't have seen him at all.

He was sitting in one the armchairs by the back wall, and from her perspective it was just possible to make out his profile, cast in shadow under the fringe of greasy hair, and a hand, scribbling in a thick journal.

She had lingered and watched him, making sure to keep her head bent low and only to observe from the corner of her eye. She had to admit that it could easily have been a Muggle man with a big nose. He wasn't dressed too strangely and he didn't look too out of place – he was even using a ball-point pen.

Then, he was a half-blood and could surely impersonate a Muggle better than most wizards could. There was a was a horrible familiarity in the way he bent over and the way his hands moved as he wrote – all sharp strokes and forceful turns - how often had she seen him do just that at his desk at the front of the class?

Then there was the thing that happened after that. As he put his journal back in his briefcase, a tiny scrap of paper fluttered out of it and disappeared somewhere under the table. He did not appear to notice and went on his way, thankfully towards the lifts and not towards Hermione.

Hermione grabbed her chance and picked it up, pretending to clean around the chairs.

She wished she hadn't. The writing was unmistakeably his. She had deciphered it countless times for Harry and Ron. The overly tall T's, the D's that looked like B's they so long was the stem and strange, cursive E's that were wholly out of place in the mass of spiky text – it was as unique as a fingerprint or a Patronus.

There could be no doubt, as unlikely as it was, that Severus Snape had been in a Muggle hotel. The same Muggle hotel where she worked. Hermione did not believe in coincidences on principle.

Hermione took another long swig of her wine for courage.

She enumerated the facts, as she knew them.

Snape was Voldemort's right-hand man, a traitor, a spy, and a murderer. He would have followed here - would be watching her now. Which meant - she forced herself to think, to rationalise&mdash which meant he would wait until she'd finished here, until it was completely dark and there were fewer muggles to deal with. He would follow her home, Disillusioned, wait until she reached a quiet spot and then... Would he kill her? No. He would torture her for information – or more likely turn her over to Voldemort so he could do it himself.

That certainty of this outcome had a strangely calming effect.

Harry and Ron were both dead. As far as she knew, so were the others. She had been given a year more than what everyone else had. She was effectively a nobody now, and it didn't matter to anyone if she died. As to the information they wanted... they would never get that out of her, which was something.

She drained her glass and finished the last bite of her dinner with only mild hand tremors. She never looked away from the Leaky, but no one had left the building, nor had she heard any Apparations nearby. Which meant, probably, that the Death Eaters had apparated remotely to lay an ambush for her. They probably already had her surrounded on all sides.

For a moment, she considered her limited options. If she were Harry, she might prepare some last words about heroism and truth and sacrifices. Ron would probably add an insult for which his captor would make him pay later. They would tell her to swallow her fear and, head held high, simply stride out to let them take her.

She smiled faintly to herself. This was not quite true or fair. Both of them would want her to try something a bit less lame. She thought she ought to try to please them.

A crude and impossible plan took rapid shape in her wine-loosened brain. She could use the bathroom window and sneak into the back alley. And then – if there wasn't a Death Eater there – she'd levitate herself onto the roof, maybe. Surely she could manage a Levitation Charm. If she was silent, they might not find her. If she was not, it was her duty to take down as many as she could. She remembered Peter Pettigrew and the explosive charm. It was the sort of magic that worked in desperate situations, she hoped.

Casually, Hermione slipped her right hand into her coat pocket and found her wand. It's handle felt a little alien in her hand. Without a backward glance, she made her way to the restrooms and pushed open the heavy door that proclaimed 'Ladies'.

All the stalls were empty, and she breathed a sigh of relief for small mercies. The door was a slow-closing one, and she had to wait a little before locking it.

The mirror gave her an idea. She squared up her enemy, pointed her wand at own face chest and concentrated with all her being on the Disillusionment Charm...

She never got the chance to cast it.

Her body went rigid, though she never heard the incantation. Overbalanced, she fell backwards towards the hard floor, only to be caught by an invisible, vice-like grip on her shoulders.

"You were not easy to find, Miss Granger," whispered the familiar, dangerous and disembodied voice of Severus Snape.

-o-

Author's Notes : A cliffhanger is my way of tricking you into reading more. ;-)