Two

Again, thanks and a big bowl of Magic Cookie Bar Ice Cream to Stgulik, who is the best beta/editor there is. I own none of these characters; Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Hermione, my dear! What a nice surprise!"

"Nice my apple," Hermione said, with a laugh. "I can see the wheels turning, Minerva. You're all smiles and 'what a nice surprise!' but you're really trying to figure a way to rig your Floo network so it will always be engaged when I try to contact you."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll find a way eventually." Professor McGonagall's ember-wreathed face smiled. "To be honest, I'm surprised I don't hear from you more often. Knowing how much Albus and Phineas love to meddle, I felt sure you'd be calling on me every other day to find out how to shut them up."

"Well, I ... now that you mentioned it, how do you shut them up?"

Minerva laughed. "You know very well you can't. You'll eventually learn to tune them out. Now," she continued, making herself comfortable. "What brings you to my hearth this fine day?"

Moments later, she was no longer laughing. As Hermione told her about the Book of Heads and her conversations with the two portraits, Minerva grew pensive. "Hermione, are you sure about Severus' name?"

"Absolutely," Hermione said emphatically. "Didn't you notice..."

"It's just that, while I was there, Severus' name wasn't. In the book, I mean." Minerva's voice was hushed, but excited. "Don't you see, Hermione? I think this means that Severus is alive after all!"

Hermione rocked back. "How is it that he was nowhere to be seen until yesterday?"

"When was the last time you checked the Book?"

"Well, I ..." Hermione frowned. She felt rather foolish admitting she'd never had the courage to look.

"It doesn't really matter, you know. The real rub is that it's there now." Minerva looked contemplative. "Wherever he is, perhaps he's lost. And you're going to find him."

~o0o~

When Hermione had first come to Hogwarts as a child, it had all seemed so simple: incantations, spells, wand-waving, potions making. Hogwarts had been mother and father; it had given her everything she needed, and now she felt this deeply intense obligation to the castle. It needed Snape, and it was her duty to find him. She owed the castle that much.

Perhaps this was why so few Heads married; Hogwarts gave them everything they needed to feel loved and cherished. Had her poor, doomed Professor felt any of that support and love while he made his lonely way through the last year of his life? She truly hoped so, for his sake.

She spent the next several days looking into every possible lead on Severus Snape she could find. Together and separately, they didn't add up to much. It was one thing to suspect he was alive, but no magic spell or charm or incantation could find a trace of him, living or otherwise. Even more frustrating was trying to speak to someone about him. The subject of Professor Snape was still very touchy. Many, like the Bloody Baron, would not answer any question that carried the merest hint of Snape.

Making her way down the stairs, Hermione stopped at the gargoyle standing guard at the entrance to her study. When Hermione had first become head, she had watched in bemusement as Minerva's gargoyle Bertram stepped down from his perch, and her new guard stiffly saluted the old sentry before ceremoniously taking his place. His name, he had announced with a dignified bow, was Dave. Over the years, Hermione had grown to like him very much.

"Dave," she announced, "I'm going for a little walk around the castle. If anyone needs me, send word with Toidle."

The stone monster nodded with a scrape of granite. "Yes, Headmistress," he rumbled, his voice as deep and heavy as the rock that had once encased him, before some long-ago magical sculptor chiseled him out of it.

Hermione took several steps, then turned back. "Dave, does each Head have their own unique guard?"

"I have stood here before."

Surprised, Hermione pressed, "For whom?"

The stone warrior raised his lichen-stubbled chin. "For the one who was and was not. The dark and the vanquished one. The one who came before his time, and was taken before his hour. The forsaken one, the shamed one. I could not protect him from himself." He bowed his head low. "They say he disgraced his post, that he deserted the castle in its hour of need. I do not believe that."

Hermione's heart clipped along a little faster. "You were Professor Snape's guard?"

"I was, Headmistress, aye. He was a wizard of honour," the gargoyle added. "And I was proud to have been chosen by my brothers to serve him."

"How many gargoyles─ I mean, how many of your brothers guard the castle?"

His hard face creased into a frown of concentration. "My brothers numbered six hundred and seventy-one before the Great Battle. We number four hundred and eighty-three today."

For a moment, they stood together, in silent tribute for his slain brothers. It had appalled Hermione to know that Hogwarts lost more magical creatures in that final battle than actual Wizarding folk.

"I'm sorry so many of your brothers perished."

Dave regarded her with his stony stare. "We are the still warriors. We serve the castle. We defend it." There was pride and sadness in his tone. "How much more glorious it is to die in battle as hard, broken rubble, than to grow smooth and feature-less, worn away by time and the elements?"

Hermione stopped herself from reaching up and stroking his rough cheek. Impulsively, she asked, "If Headmaster Snape was still alive, Dave, would you be happy?"

Impassively, the gargoyle looked straight ahead. "If he lives, should I rejoice or mourn? I should do both, for he was neither alive nor dead when he was my master here."

Shaken, Hermione managed a nod and left Dave at his post.

Dig, Dumbledore had said. Dig where? There was only one place in Hogwarts Hermione knew of where questions had been asked, and answered, but sadly, it no longer had the capability to help anyone.

~o0o~

As she stood before the wall that had once opened on to the Room of Requirement, Hermione cursed under her breath. For years, the best Wizarding consultants throughout the world had tried to reset the room, but the Fiendfyre that had engulfed it on that final night of the battle still raged within, over twenty years on. How many times had she herself stood here while great wizards and witches had depleted their magic, holding the conflagration at bay while others threw spell after spell, trying to staunch the unquenchable flames? The Room was strong enough and sentient enough to contain the magic within, but sadly it was unable to halt its own destruction.

With a heavy sigh, Hermione pressed her forehead against the wall. Even though it was agreed that the Room's magic held it in a separate dimension, she could feel the heat emanating from the other side of the wall. "I need you to heal," she said quietly. "I bet you could find Severus Snape for me."

From the other side, there was a soft, purring hum. Almost immediately the heat dispersed, and the ponderous magic that formed the massive door groaned as the Room of Requirement opened of its own accord for the first time in twenty-eight years.

~o0o~

Hardly daring to breathe, Hermione stepped into the vast room. Mountains of discarded furniture, dressers, bureaus, old books, brooms, robes...everything any student in Hogwarts' thousand-year history needed to hide, stash for later and forget; anything no longer in use or necessary for the running of the school but too serviceable to throw away; outdated and unwanted school books and robes and desks and equipment of every shape, size and function...it was all there. Amassed in great piles, stacked so high they disappeared into the dark ceiling, or haphazardly tossed into teetering mounds of mundane flotsam. The Room, it seemed, catered to all tastes and disciplines.

She walked down one of the narrow clearances, which branched out in a myriad of different directions, like tributaries of a river. Even as she walked, she couldn't stop testing the air for the tell-tale stink of smoke, but all she could smell were dust motes, the sickly-sweet smell of old parchment, the must of fabric and upholstery, stale chemical smells and dander. It was supernaturally quiet, like being in a graveyard.

Winding her way deeper into the endless room, she stopped, and tears came to her eyes. There, in a little clearing, were hammocks, and lanterns and the detritus that all students leave behind. Here and there she thought she recognised a discarded jumper or pair of trainers.

Dumbledore's Army. The last defense of Hogwarts, the scourge of the Carrows. They had made their stand here, aided by house-elves and the rest of the faculty. "And by Professor Snape," she said aloud, her voice whispering through the empty space like a lonely ghost. Snape had surely known about this little band of vigilantes, relentlessly eroding the undercarriage of his authority. "And they still hated you. Were you a brilliant actor, or did you become the monster they needed to hate?"

A sudden creaking noise made Hermione jump, and she put a shaking hand to her galloping heart so it wouldn't leap out of her chest and run screaming from the room. "Who's there?" she demanded, wand at the ready. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and glanced up toward the tall portrait that hung on a nearby wall. A solemn young woman waved at her from the canvas, her eyes intelligent and sad. "I know you!" cried Hermione. "You're Albus Dumbledore's sister ... A-Ariana?"

Ariana nodded and beckoned to Hermione. As she approached, the portrait swung open, and she peered into a long, very dark corridor.

Her Lumos flared in the enclosed space, revealing old tree roots poking from the ceiling, and cobwebs whose owners she had rather not meet. The dirt floor beneath her feet was soft; here and there the heels of her shoes sank into it and she had to carefully unmire herself. It was damp and chilly in the passage, and try as she could, Hermione could not see to the end. For all she knew, it had caved in years ago.

A gruff, dry voice made her jump. "Well, what are you waiting for? You might as well come on up." It sounded peevish, grudging, as if she had interrupted its owner in the middle of something important. "I figured you'd eventually show up, but I wasn't counting on it being so soon. You Gryffindors don't waste any time, do ya?"

Hermione peered upward into the stern, unsmiling face. "Mister Dumbledore!"

Aberforth Dumbledore held out his hand, as meaty and raw as a Sunday roast, and after a second's hesitation, she took it. "Aye, and who else would it be? The Queen of Sheba?"

He gracelessly hauled her down a set of rickety stairs, into a dingy little sitting room. Almost thirty years on, Aberforth's quarters looked every bit as drab and lonely as they had the night she and Harry and Ron stumbled in, on the run from the world.

A wooden table sat against the wall, and beyond it, a narrow bed with a faded, matted quilt. Three or four chairs of no particular style encircled the room. Off to one side, facing the bed, was a full length, rectangular mirror on a stand, its back to her. Across from it, a battered sink surrounded by grey, uneven cabinets. It was the living quarters of a man who had long since ceased caring what anyone thought about him.

"Take a seat," Aberforth commanded, pointing to a chair that might have once been maroon. It was sepia-toned now, sagging in the middle and slick with goat hair. As Hermione carefully perched as little of herself on the chair as she could without falling off, Aberforth grabbed three grease-smeared glasses, poured some unidentifiable reddish-amber liquid into them, then passed one to her. "Yer health, Headmistress," he barked, and saluted her with his glass.

"And yours," she replied, and raised the glass to her lips. The fumes alone made her eyes water, but she gamely took a sip. Instantly she regretted it. It was gutrot whisky, newly distilled, and so harsh it peeled the skin from her throat and made her nostrils feel as if they were melting.

Aberforth laughed as she struggled to keep from gagging. "It needs a few years maturin', but when you get my age you don't count your chickens," he said, and took another deep drink. "Think of this as what you might call the 'angel's share'."

For a moment they regarded one another. Aberforth seemed better at it than she was. The first time she had met him, Hermione thought he looked just like his brother, Albus. Now, with the benefit of twenty more candles on her own birthday cake, she realised nothing was further from the truth. Albus had always been slender, capricious and sly; Aberforth was stocky and tough as old boot leather. He looked like a Hagrid in training, but with none of Hagrid's sweet, innocent nature.

"You look well," she finally said. He laughed, a bitter, rattling sound that said everything about the man.

"Compared to what? I'm an old wizard, girl. Just marking time before I pop m'clogs. Seems you've grown up a bit since the last time you darkened my doors, though."

"Oh, you remember me? You see, I'm..."

"I remember you. I said I was old, not senile."

Another silence stretched on. Hermione had questions, but Aberforth Dumbledore had never been one to invite inquiry.

He took another drink. "How'd you do it?"

"Do what?"

He gave her a side-long, gimlet stare. "You know exactly what I mean. How did you heal the room?"

Taken aback, Hermione answered, "I didn't. It must have healed itself."

His look told her plainly that he did not believe her. "When Ariana found the room was alive again, I knew you'd done it. Only the Head has that kind of power over Hogwarts."

"So why didn't Minerva do it?" she challenged.

He snorted. "Maybe she didn't have any reason to."

"You sound about as cryptic as your brother."

"No need to insult me, girl."

Hermione took another tortuous sip of whisky, and sat back a little more. Aberforth's silences were starting to grow on her. She glanced up to see him watching her so intently she had to stop herself from flinching. "Well, go ahead," he rasped. "Say what you have to say. I'm no idle school mistress who can while away her days sitting around. I've a business to run. Out with it."

Startled by his sudden vehemence, Hermione shot back, "Why do you think I have anything to say?"

"You came here, didn't you? Don't tell me you didn't know where the tunnel led."

"Of course I knew, but I..."

"How did you find out?" He stood up and towered over her, swaying slightly. "Who sent you? That shitsack brother of mine?"

Hermione rose to her feet. While she wasn't exactly afraid of him, she wasn't prepared to take any more nonsense from him than his brother. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Dumbledore. No one sent me. I was looking for..."

"I know what you were looking for, and you can tell Albus that he won't find it here!" His wand was in his hand. "Tell him the damage is done, and nothing can fix it."

"Fix what?" Her heart pounding, Hermione faced the older man, her own wand out. "Mr. Dumbledore, I don't know why you think I'm here, but it has nothing to do with Albus."

"Everything has to do with him!" he shouted. "Meddling old fool, getting everyone to do his dirty work! Hasn't he done enough? Get out, Headmistress, and don't come back. There's nothing for you here."

He looked so wild-eyed and angry Hermione was almost afraid for him. Pleadingly, she explained, "I haven't come on Albus' behalf, Mr. Dumbledore. I was looking for some information on Severus Snape."

If she thought she had upset him before, it was nothing to the rage that overcame him at the mention of Snape's name. He grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the portrait. "Right. I've had enough of you, missy!" he roared and the portrait door swung open so quickly it banged against the adjacent wall. "Get out of my pub, Headmistress, and if I ever see you here again..."

"Aberforth! Stop. I've heard enough. She doesn't know."

Hermione gasped so loudly it came out as a sob. "What's going on?" She met Aberforth's defiant glare, but there was uncertainty in his eyes as well. "Who said that? Who's here?"

"I should think that would be obvious, Headmistress. I am here." The voice rang out with the power and authority that had captivated her from the first day she had ever heard it.

Frantically looking around the room, Hermione cried, "Where are you?"

The voice, which she still heard in her dreams, seemed to curl around her. "Aberforth, please. As I am unable to do the honours myself, I still require your assistance."

Even though she had never heard him speak with such gentleness or pleading, there was no further doubt in Hermione's mind. No one on this earth with the exception of one wizard had a voice like that: dark like treacle, silky as sable. It could make the most mundane subject sound alluring, it could crackle like thunder when raised in anger. It was magical and harmonic as the deepest, darkest ocean, and as intimate as a caress. Hermione's own voice shook as she insisted, "I know that's the ghost of Severus Snape, Mr. Dumbledore. Please let me see him."

To her surprise, the disembodied voice replied rather sourly, "I assure you, Headmistress, were I truly a ghost, I would need no assistance in making myself visible. However, in the circumstances ..."

He trailed off, and with a soft growl of frustration, Aberforth walked over to the mirror standing in the corner. He turned it slowly, as if it were very fragile, until it was facing Hermione. She gaped in shock.

Standing in the mirror, where her reflection should be, was Severus Snape.