Three

Still in shock she might be, but Hermione was not sufficiently addled that she did not know Dark Magic when she saw it. She cast spell after spell over the mirror, but it revealed nothing more than the wizard reflected in it. He suffered her diagnostics with only a hint of impatience. "Who created you?" she demanded, casting the Veritas spell commonly used on inanimate objects.

He seemed pleased and confused at once. "Well, well. Hermione Granger...that little Muggleborn girl with her hand in the air, So you're Headmistress now. What happened, did Minerva die in the battle as well? Candidates a bit thin on the ground?"

Her desire to understand what she was seeing fought a brief skirmish with the temptation to tell him to stuff it. "Minerva retired seven years ago and is in excellent health, thank you very much. But you...you died! I was there." She cursed herself silently. Even now, this wizard could reduce her to a babbling fourth-year. "Two different Death Eaters testified they'd burned your body."

Snape imperiously crossed his arms over his chest. "And you took the word of Death Eaters? How trusting you are." He snorted. "Did anyone bother to check if the ashes were actually mine?"

That derailed her. She had been told the ashes were Snape's remains, but ...

Snape gave her the I-thought-so sneer she had grown to hate in her six years under his tutelage. "And you were supposed to be the bright one."

"Oh, yeah?" she challenged, feeling at once irritated and excited. "I'm not the one trapped in a mirror, wonder boy." She paused, a thrill racing through her. "Although it has done wonders for your looks. You haven't aged a day."

"What do you mean?" He walked closer, as if the mirror were a window he could look through. He peered at her carefully, as if truly seeing her for the first time. "How old are you?" he demanded.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to ask a witch her age?" she shot back, but her heart was clipping along in a most un-aggravated way. Bickering with Snape was probably the most exhilarating thing she had done in twenty years. "If you must know, I'm forty-five this coming September."

Snape stared at her, his dark eyes huge with shock. He looked poleaxed. "Forty-five?" he whispered, his eyes drinking in the sight of her. "Aberforth, why didn't you tell me?"

Hermione turned to the older man. "Tell him what?"

"That so much time had passed," Snape answered, his face twisted with confusion and something much harder to define. The excitement died in her breast. His eyes met hers, stripped of his usual brittle coldness. They were large and dark and achingly vulnerable. They made him look even younger. In a low, small voice, he whispered, "Has it really been so long?"

They both turned to Aberforth, who sighed heavily. He grabbed the third whisky-filled glass and placed it on the table, where it reflected in the mirror. "Sit down, both of you. This will take a while."

Hermione sent her Patronus to inform Dave and her house-elf Toidle she would be gone from the castle for the rest of the evening, and made herself as comfortable as possible on the ratty old chair. In spite of his obvious discomfort at her scrutiny, she could not take her eyes off the man in the mirror. She was still not one hundred-percent convinced this was the actual Severus Snape (Never trust anything if you can't see where it keeps its brain) but her gut told her she was in the presence of her former professor.

It disturbed her that, while time had stood still for him, he bore so little resemblance to the man she held in her memory. His teeth were just as crooked, his hair just as unkempt, his complexion just as sallow as she remembered. His clothing was of the finest quality, a deep black wool robe with his trademark buttons marching in an orderly line from throat to hem. The style had been quite fashionable in the years following the war but it now looked dated, like an old photograph. It was rather rumpled, and looked damp in places, especially around his neck. There was a bandage around his throat that looked freshly applied.

He was slim and wiry, and still carried himself very stiffly, as if he distained being touched by the world. With the twenty-twenty vision of maturity, Hermione realised it was all a trick. These weren't merely physical ticks and idiosyncrasies wrapped up in a never-changing costume. They were props to hide behind.

Where she had only seen and remembered defiance and anger, she now saw fear and a sorrow that went deep, down to the bone. It had always been there; she just had not known what she was looking at. He was still severe-looking, even ugly, but knowing him as she now did, she could not help but combine the individual, unattractive ingredients and find the completed product altogether ... fascinating. He looked like a creature out of time, a statue in a show window, or a very old Muggle photograph...both untouchable and heartbreakingly real.

She stared at him so hard he grew skittish, so she looked away to give them both some breathing room. That seemed to relax him a little, and he took a sip from the glass of whisky reflected in the mirror, grimacing at its appalling taste. Hermione quickly looked back to the one on the table; it had not moved.

"Yeah, he can use the objects reflected in the mirror," Aberforth said, as if she had voiced some challenge about it. "If I place books there, he can read 'em. If I place food or drink, he can consume 'em."

"How did you come to be in ... possession of this mirror, Mr. Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.

Aberforth filled his own glass, and sat down heavily on an old ladderback chair. "Ariana found him. It was during the battle, and I just happened to come up here and saw her. She was frightened and obviously upset. Somethin' going on in that Room at Hogwarts."

He nodded toward the portrait's door. "I went in, and the Fiendfyre had just about gutted it. You could barely see for the smoke. I heard... somethin'. That's when I found him."

Hermione shook her head in amazement. "We were there as well. Vince Crabbe started the fire. It eventually killed him. We barely made it out in time ourselves." She turned to Severus, who was obviously not enjoying being spoken about as if he were not in the room. As he listened to the conversation with wary, hooded eyes, she asked, "Who did this to you, Professor?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I don't know. I remember being attacked by the snake. I remember you and Potter, and giving him some memories. Then I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew I was in here, and the mirror was surrounded by fire."

"Do you remember everything else? Your life before that night?"

It seemed to be on the tip of his tongue to reply with a remark that would leave the air sizzling with emotion, but he stopped himself. "I remember everything, Headmistress," he answered, using his honeyed voice to convey all that his words could not.

Hermione regarded him thoughtfully. Just as time had given her better insight into her former professor's personality, it had also eroded his ability to obfuscate undetected. He was telling a version of the truth, but not all of it.

She turned back to Aberforth. "So you saved him from being destroyed. What I don't understand is why you didn't let anyone know?"

"Wasn't my secret to tell."

"But─"

"Why should I? So the Ministry, in their wisdom, could vilify the boy in a trial that would have put a three-ring circus to shame?" The look he gave her would have made milk curdle. "Do you think they would have passed up an opportunity to make a spectacle of him? There's many a wizard would have paid to see them destroy this mirror with him in it. They would have sold tickets and claimed it was for war reparation."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. In the days that followed the final battle, passions were running high and wild. It wasn't outside the realm of reason that the Ministry would have found Severus Snape a particularly useful scapegoat on which to hang their grief and thirst for vengeance against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

"You...you could have brought him to Hogwarts," she replied lamely.

Aberforth snorted in derision. "Oh, yes. That's the perfect place for him! And let my brother start influencin' you all on how to take care of him? Severus would've ended up like some sort of exhibit, paraded out every year like a freak at a fun-fair! How long would he have lasted? There's a lot of rocks at Hogwarts and a lot of orphans looking to blame someone."

Snape scoffed, "Don't be so sodding melodramatic, Aberforth. You know that doesn't work."

Hermione looked at Snape. "What doesn't work?"

For the first time, he did not bother to hide his discomfort. "When I first realised my ... situation, I agreed with Aberforth. While my life has never been very pleasant, I had some small degree of autonomy. I was mobile, at least." He looked around at his environment. "I am trapped in a mirror, Headmistress Granger. I cannot live and I cannot die, and most of all, I cannot escape. I surmised that death was preferable to this half-life."

The words were spoken dispassionately, but Hermione's heart ached for him. "You thought by breaking the mirror, you could free yourself. One way or another."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "Since I had no idea what would happen, I decided to take back whatever control I could. Anything was preferable to this...even death. So, at my insistence, Aberforth tried to break the mirror."

"What happened?"

"Nothin'," Aberforth answered morosely. "I tried every spell I knew. I hit it with everything I could get my hands on. They all just deflected off the damn thing. I even tossed it down the stairs. It just bounced."

"And I'm afraid all I got was a bloody nose and a bruised arse for his troubles," Snape interjected ruefully. "Aberforth brought me every book he could find that might shed some light on how to break the spell, but I found nothing. This is where I am, and apparently, this is where I will remain."

Something did not add up. Oh, a lot of things did not add up, but the most telling was Snape himself. When he spoke those words, there was no bitterness, no sadness, no defiance, no resignation, either. If anything, he seemed accepting of his fate...almost serene. The prospect of eternity locked in a mirror held no more pain for him. Hermione did not know whether to admire or pity him.

In any case, Hogwarts wouldn't be headed by a mirror. "You may well accept your situation, Professor, but I don't." Hermione stood. "I have the wealth of Hogwarts' extensive library behind me, and now that I'm Head, I have even more resources. We'll find a way."

Aberforth looked sad but resigned. "I knew the moment you found out, you'd start bossin' him around." He looked at Snape beseechingly. "It's your life, Severus. Say the word, and you'll not move from this room, no matter what Miss High and Mighty says."

"Mr. Dumbledore, I don't think..."

"You're safe here. Don't you know what will happen when the Wizarding world finds out about you? You can't believe she can protect you."

"Now you listen to me, Aberforth Dumbledore," Hermione said, her temper boiling into anger. "The last person who underestimated my ability to protect a secret found the word 'SNEAK' written across her face in purple zits, and twenty-eight years later she's still trying to get rid of them. I don't need you, nor anyone else, to tell me how sensitive this is."

Snape was watching her carefully. His neutral expression revealed very little, but Hermione wanted to believe she saw hope in his dark eyes. When Aberforth tried to respond, she held up her hand.

"I have reasons of my own for wanting to free Professor Snape, and I'm not going to let anyone harm or harass him in the process. Your help in the matter is preferable than going forward without it."

For a moment, the room was silent. Then Snape said, "Aberforth, would you please give me a moment alone with Headmistress Granger?"

The old man shot Hermione a warning look, but finally turned and left the room. The door shut softly behind him, and they both waited until they heard Aberforth's heavy tread lumbering down the stairs.

Alone, Hermione turned back to her former Professor, who was studying her intently.

"I have only one thing to ask you, Professor," she began, and was a little surprised when he chuckled. His features did not soften with mirth like most; if anything he seemed harder, more inflexible. He appraised her coolly.

"Just the one? You have grown up, Miss Granger," he replied.

"Don't be an arse," she shot back. "I need to know: do you want to be free? Is that why Mr. Dumbledore is so reluctant? Have you expressed the desire to remain where you are?"

He rolled his eyes impatiently. "What a ridiculous question! Of course I want to be free!" he growled, with a tint of resentment in his voice. "Aberforth is a good enough host. He saved my life. He made me welcome here, and I've been as content as a wizard trapped in a mirror can be.

"Had fate been different, perhaps I would be an exhibition piece in Hogwarts. Perhaps I would have gone mad from the isolation and loneliness. He saved me from that as well."

Hermione felt her face flush. This time Snape's features did soften. "He's also a very solitary man with no one but goats for company. I've been a captive audience for twenty years. Not that I have any right to complain," he added. "All things considered, it could have been worse."

He met her eyes with his. "Even trapped here, I am aware of my environs. As Aberforth hinted, I can eat and drink, and interact with the reflections behind me. I also feel the changes in temperature." He looked away pointedly. "I'm the one Aberforth heard in the Room of Requirement. I was screaming for help... the reflection of the flames, you see ..."

Hermione's hands flew to her face in surprise. "Oh, dear gods, it must have been awful."

He regarded her with a singular quirk of his brow. "You have a most un-Gryffindorish gift for understatement."

She found herself smiling at him, and wonder of wonders, he smirked back. "So, Headmistress Granger, where do we go from here? Admittedly there is little I can do to stop you, but I think I at least deserve to know your intentions for the outcome."

"I am going to make sure you are the next Headmaster of Hogwarts."