The Valley of the Shadow

A/N: With my gratitude to AnnieTalbot, who beta'ed, as well as to Indigofeathers, Anastasia, Machshefa and Melenka, for their inestimable contributions and unstinting support.

This chapter is dedicated to everyone who was at the sneak preview at Terminus. *blows kiss* ~ Ari

33: The Valley of the Shadow

It had been quite unpleasant enough without his bleeding through it.

Four dark-robed figures made their separate ways down the stairs.

In the low-arched stairwell, their footsteps echoed sharply. Hermione heard each step as a single question spoken into silence.

No one step answered any of the others.

Out of time.

"Turn left and continue down the corridor," Severus told Shriver and Billings, who had reached the bottom of the stair.

Hermione paused, waiting for Severus to draw even with her. In a whisper low enough to blend with the echoes, she said, "They mean to arrest me tonight. Billings is an Auror."

Severus shot her an inquiring look. "Not an Unspeakable?"

"His marks were too low."

He nodded, filing that information away.

As she stepped out of the stairwell, Hermione saw that the torches were lighting only as the Ministry wizards neared them, snuffing out as they passed. She and Severus followed, wrapped in shadow.

When a torch hissed out by his left ear, Billings flinched.

Hermione cocked a glance at Severus. His eyes, dancing with dark amusement, stayed locked on Shriver.

With the corridor stretching endlessly downward before her, each single light flaring, snuffing out, its shadows seeming to bid her onward, beckoning, welcoming, Hermione somehow sensed the certain, absolute weight of the castle's massive stone vaults, somehow felt them soaring, stories above.

Finally, the last torch flared, revealing the door to Slughorn's chambers. "No further," Severus said quietly, leaving that torch lit.

The Ministry wizards halted and turned to face them.

As Severus and Hermione drew past the last torch, their steps fell together, their shadows stretching upwards to the Ministry wizards' faces.

Shriver's lip curled. "Bit dramatic with the torches, there, Snape. But then, you always did prefer the dark." He worked his mouth as though enjoying the taste of something.

Severus' expressionless eyes flicked to Shriver's wand. "The word you seem to have forgotten is Lumos."

The Unspeakable's nostrils flared once, but he said nothing, mouth still working.

"Sir?" Billings asked quietly, nodding toward the door. "Technically, the Head of School has to give us leave to enter any private quarters."

The unwholesome movement of his face stopped. Shriver frowned then jerked his head at Hermione. "The professor will have to do."

"Sir?" Billings repeated.

"Just knock, Billings," Hermione ordered quietly.

He obeyed.

They all heard Poppy's muffled, "Enter," and Billings held the door open for the others. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside, Mr. Snape," he said. "Procedure."

In the torchlight, Shriver smiled – a slow, oily smile. His eyes glinted with triumph, and again, Severus saw his hunger.

He gambled. Brushing around the Unspeakable, Severus strode into the room, his cloak rippling as he turned smoothly, his eyes boring into Shriver's back.

Finding himself between Hermione and Severus, Shriver held himself absolutely still.

"I think you might be more comfortable were you not standing between us, Mr. Shriver," Hermione said quietly. "I give you my word I will not hex you in the back."

"Your word?" Shriver snorted.

"I have made no such promise," Severus observed from behind him.

Scowling, Shriver turned abruptly into the room.

Hermione followed, a small shadow limned in torchlight.

Billings closed the door behind her.

The snick of the latch catching echoed in the empty corridor.

---

Billings' quiet knock had disturbed Poppy's silent vigil. She'd been expecting some interruption, whether from Severus or the Ministry, but when Severus entered only to silently whip about, Poppy gasped.

She was reminded that she had never seen him in a duel but realised that she might very well be about to.

Severus angled back to allow an older wizard to enter, followed by Hermione.

All three of them bursting with raw tension, fairly itching for an excuse to draw.

Not on my watch, Poppy thought, instantly on her feet. "I presume one of you will explain."

Billings and Shriver both drew breath to speak, but Severus' voice slipped smoothly through the shadows. "Madam Pomfrey, our apologies for the intrusion – and its manner."

From his tone, Poppy assessed where he laid the blame.

"Yes?" Poppy turned to Shriver, smoothing her robes. Her hand brushed over the pocket where Minerva's ring lay, and she felt something – some spark, some warmth – she wasn't sure which, but she knew what it meant: the castle had chosen a new head, and that person was nearby. Her eyes flew instinctively to Severus. Wouldn't that set the Ministry on its ear? Well, with them sniffing about... best say nothing just yet.

As Shriver stepped forward, Billings stayed by the door, effectively barring any exit. "Madam Pomfrey," Shriver began, "you are, I believe, the school's Healer?"

"Of course I am."

Shriver's eyes swept over the form of Horace Slughorn. "Tell me, Madam, is it your usual practice to sit vigil at the bedsides of those who have already passed on?"

Poppy sniffed.

"An answer, if you please."

"If this is a formal inquiry, Mr..."

"Shriver," Hermione supplied quietly. "He was head of the group that dealt with us after Godric's Hollow."

Poppy threw a startled glance at Hermione before turning to the Unspeakable. "Mr. Shriver, then. If this is a formal inquiry, what is its object?"

"Could you please describe the circumstances surrounding the late Headmistress Minerva McGonagall's death?"

Poppy's hand moved over her pocket. Again, that small spark of something. "She'd had a weak heart for years – as I've sworn to officially."

"I'm speaking of her actual death, Madam, not her condition." A patronising smile. "Was there anything... hm... unusual about the circumstances?"

Something about the way he said "unusual" raised the hair on the back of Poppy's neck. "'Unusual'?" she repeated frostily. "The only thing unusual about it was that it was so long in coming."

Shriver's face radiated scepticism, and again the patronising smile.

Poppy bristled. "If that's why you've come, I'm afraid you've wasted your time." Something in her tone added, "And mine."

"Madam Abbot notified us, quite properly, of suspected Dark Arts practices at the school."

"The Dark Arts?" Poppy didn't trust her eyes. She came around the bed, placing herself between Shriver and her patient. "The Dark Arts had no hand in the headmistress' death, Mr. Shriver. Of that I am quite certain."

As the Healer passed in front of him, Severus countered her movements. Half a step brought him closer to Hermione, leaving ample reaction room for them both. A small flicker in Shriver's eyes revealed that his movement had not gone unnoticed.

"Your certainty is precisely why, with your permission, of course, I'll need to examine you for traces of Dark magic; specifically, the Imperius Curse."

"Are you questioning my professional judgement?"

"Of course not, Madam," Shriver said dismissively, reaching for his wand. "But where there are suspected abuses, the Ministry feel it best to be absolutely certain."

Poppy could no longer control her eyes, which ranged from Severus – a contained pillar of coiled tension – to Hermione – strangely small, almost invisible in shadow. The Healer tried to rally. "Do you mean to tell me that because of a perfectly natural death – one that was expected – you come from London in the middle of the night, to throw your flashy Dark-detection spells about this place of rest?" Poppy sniffed. "How very... flimsy."

Billings shifted uncomfortably.

Shriver merely raised his wand. "If you're ready?"

Poppy felt the air go out of her. What a nasty piece of work he is... Determined to destroy Professor Granger, right or not... "You're going to do it with or without my permission, aren't you?"

"It's for your own safety and peace of mind, Madam."

"Both were significantly better before you arrived."

When Shriver gave no indication of lowering his wand, she opened her arms. "Get on with it, then, but be quick about it."

The Unspeakable concentrated and began a low incantation. A thick strand of viscous smoke emerged from the tip of his wand.

Knowing what Shriver's spell would reveal, Severus took advantage of the man's diverted attention to steal a glance at Hermione.

She was standing somehow alone in the increasingly stuffy chamber, seemingly untouched by the closeness of the air and the thickening smoke.

As if she felt his gaze upon her, she turned her head slightly toward him and gave a slight nod, as if to say, "I'm ready."

It comes. Although she could not see him, he nodded back.

The smoke rose from Shriver's wand, a single immense pillar that separated into four undulating strands. Each strand coiled upon itself, rearing to strike.

Shriver slashed his wand upward. One smoky strand shot almost lazily around the Unspeakable himself, twining slowly around his neck. At a short gesture, that strand evaporated.

Two of the strands shot straight to Hermione and Severus, surrounding their necks and bathing their faces in an eerie glow.

The fourth hovered uncertainly around Horace Slughorn. Slowly, the rope of smoke thinned, flattened, and settled like a shroud over his form.

No one breathed as Shriver brushed past Poppy to stand at the bedside. Twice the Unspeakable passed his wand over the former professor's body, both times hesitating over his heart, where the withered flower stem that was the tiny ghost's silent tribute lay.

Finally, Shriver frowned and, pointing his wand directly at Slughorn's chest, he muttered a short, harsh incantation, an incantation having only one purpose: to identify a Horcrux.

Billings stood suddenly straighter.

Shriver turned toward Hermione, his face a leering mask of triumph, his voice seeming to carry with it the winds of Azkaban Island. "So."

Hermione lifted her chin and said nothing, her eyes glittering in growing challenge.

"That dead flower there is a Horcrux, Healer," Shriver said shortly, not taking his eyes from Hermione.

Hermione's gaze was aloof, but behind it, Severus felt more than saw the intensity of years of restraint waiting, just waiting.

Give her an excuse, you bastard.

"A Horcrux?" Poppy's voice shook, but she stood resolutely by the bed. "That's impossible. The professor wasn't murdered – he died of natural causes."

"Another weak heart?" Shriver breathed, his eyes gleaming as he stared at Hermione. "Quite an epidemic of 'natural causes,' Healer. You've sworn to that on his certificates as well, have you?"

Poppy sputtered, but there was no mistaking his tone: no documents had been filed on Horace Slughorn, and he knew it.

Severus broke in. "As your junior colleagues are no doubt learning from Minerva's portrait, both the late headmistress and I can testify that Horace Slughorn was not murdered."

"Your testimony being above reproach, eh, Snape?"

Neither Severus nor Poppy missed the fact that the Unspeakable's voice had grown thicker, huskier, since finding the Horcrux. Severus balanced himself carefully.

Billings coughed. "Excuse me, sir, but..."

"Arrest her," Shriver ordered shortly.

"Which one?" Billings asked.

"The one with the noose of smoke around her neck. The one who's tainted by the Dark Arts."

Billings drew himself to attention, but made no move toward Hermione. "Of course, sir, but I need to know the specific charge?"

"Murder."

"–ere have been no murders committed here," said the Bloody Baron, drifting through the wall with Neville and the tiny ghost in his wake. "As all of the ghosts will attest. Unforgivable curses are recorded in the castle's very bones." He sniffed haughtily. "This is a school."

Shriver didn't notice that Hermione's eyes had grown wide – enormously wide – nor that tears had appeared on her face as she gazed, for the first time in over twenty years, on the face of Neville Longbottom. "The testimony of ghosts is problematic," Shriver noted blandly, "as they cannot sign their statements."

"I can," the Baron countered. "The little one as well."

"Neville?" Hermione's voice rang into the small chamber. "Neville?"

"Billings!" Shriver barked. "Arrest her immediately."

"Hi, Hermione." Neville waved.

"NEVILLE!" Hermione flew past Billings, the coils of roiling smoke that branded her as Dark trailing, forgotten, from her neck. She opened her arms and then stopped, short. "I – oh, Neville," she said, her voice softening from tears to mist. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Well... you sort of did, you know," Neville said, his face alight with a quiet smile. "For a while, anyway."

Hermione felt a light tug at her sleeve, and she looked down to see a small, open face looking shyly up at her from a soft cloud of translucent hair.

"Hello," Hermione said.

The tiny ghost waved.

Glancing toward Neville, Hermione kneeled down. "You interact with corporeal matter?"

A confused look crossed the small ghost's features.

"You can write – and pull my sleeve?"

The little ghost nodded.

"Then... if you don't mind too much, could you maybe give something to Neville for me?"

A shy, trusting smile appeared on the little ghost's face, and she nodded.

Hermione opened her arms, and the tiny ghost flew into them, embracing her fiercely, freezing her tears solid on her cheeks.

Then the little ghost darted to Neville and hugged him with such force that they were both carried backward.

Then she blushed the faintest pink, her outline blurring as she giggled silently.

Neville ruffled her hair. "It's okay. I get it."

She blushed harder, her entire being the color of a single drop of the teacher's favourite scarlet ink diluted by twenty-two years of tears.

Shriver cleared his throat. "How touching. Nonetheless –"

Hermione ignored him, her gaze resting, amazed, on Neville. His face shone with the confidence it had always held – that she would devise a clever path through whatever trouble presented itself.

But Hermione wasn't planning. Straightening up, she said, simply, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Neville."

"Well," he began, "I think you had something important to do, didn't you?"

Hermione nodded slowly.

"And whatever it was worked – and of course it would, because you thought of it."

"Not just me," she said, but the softest echo of the smile that had once revealed her joy in her own intelligence crossed her face, and Neville recognised it.

"Maybe not just you, but I know it had to have been your idea," he countered gently.

"Ron had something to do with it too, Neville." She couldn't meet his eyes.

"And it cost you both, enormously, didn't it."

She looked up, and saw in Neville's eyes what she had never hoped to see again.

Trust.

He smiled sadly.

With a last, amazed look at him, Hermione stood straighter, turning to face the Unspeakable. Her low voice carried a sweep of silk on stone. "Shall we do this now, Shriver?"

"Billings, take her into custody," he ordered.

Billings moved forward, his wand pointed steadily at her throat. "Professor –"

"Her name, Billings," Shriver barked.

"Sorry – Hermione Granger, on the authority of the Ministry of Magic, I am placing you under arrest for..." He glanced at Shriver. "I still don't know the –"

"The commission of an Unspeakable crime," Shriver supplied.

"She has committed no such crime!" Poppy finally found her voice. "You see I've not been Imperio'ed, and Horace Slughorn's death was brought on by a wasting illness – there have been no murders committed here!"

"Billings!" Shriver ordered, his face darkening.

"How stupid." Hermione's voice slid home in the darkness, and her eyes glinted with the memory of Ron's soul in the moonlight. "How very stupid of you to presume on my silence yet again."

"Outside," Shriver ordered Billings.

"Sir?"

"Now."

The Auror left, closing the door softly behind him.

Hermione was still looking at Shriver. "I'm quite surprised at you, Shriver."

"For?"

"For making the same mistake as Voldemort. Underestimating me is what killed him. Funny that you, who know the truth of what I'm capable of, should make the same mistake." The corner of Hermione's mouth twitched mockingly. She cocked her head toward the door Billings had just exited. "That junior Auror could cause a bit of a problem for you, I'd say."

"He'll do as he's ordered."

"Perhaps." She pursed her lips. "But the thing people miss about Hufflepuffs is that they're not always obedient. Give them cause to question their loyalties, and..." She let her words hang. "No. For that kind of blindness, pick a Gryffindor, every time."

"You knew he was an Auror."

Her shrug was deceptively light. "Only a 'Pass' on his Arithmancy N.E.W.T. Not nearly high enough for the Unspeakables. No, Mr. Shriver. There is nothing wrong with my memory. Not any more."