Of Dust

A/N: Thanks are, as always, due my writing furies: Ana, Indy, Melenka, Annie, and Machshefa.

34: Of Dust

"There is nothing wrong with my memory. Not any more."

Shriver stiffened. On a purely physical level, the change in his bearing was nearly imperceptible, but the atmosphere in the room thickened.

Severus didn't need his eyes to know that the Unspeakable's breath had turned shallow, that Poppy had instinctively withdrawn, pulling even her skirts away from the sudden, imaginary line that Hermione had just drawn between herself and the man she deemed responsible for slamming the cell door on her so many years before.

Shriver ran his tongue over his lips. "The state of your memory is of little interest to the Ministry, Granger."

"Liar." Hermione's voice was quiet, the slap of a soft leather glove on a paving stone.

Shriver matched her tone. "You dare?"

Her eyebrow slashed upward in challenge.

Trapped between Slughorn's bed and their acid stares, Poppy took an involuntary step backwards, bumping the footboard with her spine. The bed frame creaked in protest, and the tiny ghost fled behind the Bloody Baron, her small hand finding Neville's.

"Let us be absolutely clear, Shriver," Hermione said smoothly, and he nodded in a mockery of graciousness. "My research has made you nervous for years – nervous enough to send a delegation to investigate."

"Standard procedure for Dark Arts research."

Her voice took on an edge of scathing derision as she mimicked the questions they hadn't dared ask her. "'How much does she remember?' 'Is she going to reveal what really happened? Expose the cover-up?' 'Will she shake the foundations of our kinder, inclusive wizarding world? ' 'Destroy the myth of the heroic, practically perfect Harry Potter?'" She spat the name of her former friend, rage gracing her features with incandescence. "If I made you nervous enough to force an editor into retirement, to try to silence an entire field of study to keep me quiet, then you know exactly what I did in Godric's Hollow."

Shriver's eyes raked over her face, measuring her, before he blandly responded, "What you did?"

"Please," Hermione scoffed. She shook her head, her angry curls spilling gloriously over her small shoulders. "Tell me, Shriver... have you decided what to tell Harry when he takes office?"

"There's nothing he needs to know."

"Interesting," Hermione replied noncommittally, her eyes taking on a calculating edge as she examined him.

In the flicker of the bedside lamp, the practised blankness of Shriver's face seemed to oscillate between patience and malice.

Hermione's eyes sharpened suddenly as she made some decision, and Neville squeezed the smaller ghost's hand reassuringly. "Tell me, then," she began, a thread of certainty in her voice, "Whatever do you think to accomplish by arresting me?"

In the shadows, Severus' eyes deepened as he realised the path her logic was taking. Well done, Hermione.

But Shriver smiled too – that oily smile again – and Severus saw his shoulders relax. Just a fraction, but enough to send his senses flaring acutely.

Severus' eyes swept the room. Poppy hadn't caught it; she stood clenching her apron in her fists as though it contained some lifeline. Neville and the smaller ghost hovered behind the Baron, one small, wide eye just visible between the Baron's elbow and Neville's slim form.

"It is incumbent on the Ministry to remove practitioners of the Dark Arts from wizarding society. For everyone's protection, including their own," Shriver was saying. He sounded almost bored.

Severus' mind was racing. The man was playing at something, and was confident – no, certain – of victory. He shifted his weight slightly.

"I reiterate," the Baron interceded, "that all Unforgivables are indelibly etched into the awareness of the school itself – and, by association, the ghosts."

"Perhaps so," Shriver replied.

"Rubbish!" Poppy snorted. Her voice was a bit too bright, her hands still twisting her apron, but she continued valiantly, "It's a central feature of the castle's magic – to safeguard the students and staff."

"Whether her crime is Unforgivable is immaterial," Shriver repeated. His oily smile rose into his eyes, and again, his mouth started working in that unwholesome manner. "A crime had been committed, nonetheless."

Severus stepped forward, trading precious dueling space for a better view of the Unspeakable's chest. If he were to make a move, his chest would reveal it before his eyes. "State your business and be done," he said flatly.

"Suspicion of Dark activity warrants bringing her in for further questioning." Shriver's tone was as bland as if he were reciting an elementary procedure manual, but his eyes betrayed a far darker investment in arresting Hermione. One that was...

... personal. Any doubts Severus may have had regarding Shriver's hunger evaporated, and, eyes blackening, that accusation sprang to his lips even as Hermione spoke.

"'Suspicion'?" Her voice was laced with condescension.

She doesn't see it, Severus realised.

"'Suspicion'?" Hermione repeated. "It's not suspicion when you know. No one here has the slightest question regarding what I did in Godric's Hollow, nor the Dark origins of that spell."

"Your Darkness certainly explains his presence," Shriver said, his chin thrusting toward Severus. "Couldn't keep away from that temptation, Snape? Or did you teach her everything she knows?" Shriver's eyes glinted at the word "everything," and he let his gaze fall on Severus.

Severus hissed.

The little ghost's panicked eyes shot from Severus to Hermione, and she darted through the wall.

Eyes flashing, Hermione shot out, "I deduced the three-part spell breakdown on my own, Shriver. The Black family library contained all the resources I needed."

Shriver returned his attention to Hermione, but did not look at her face.

She blushed, eyes flashing hotly, and, as Severus fought to control his wand arm, Hermione raised the fingers of her near hand, very slightly, toward him. He frowned, but acceded to her desire to handle things. For now.

"I think we all agree that bringing me in for questioning is pointless, Shriver. I freely confess that I have used the Dark Arts. As you bloody well know."

Easy, Hermione, Severus thought.

"It's procedure."

"My debriefing after Godric's Hollow would satisfy procedure," Hermione countered.

"Nonetheless, procedure dictates –"

"Questioning me further will establish nothing of which you're not already aware, as you damn well know."

"Surely you don't want to risk a trial," Shriver said smoothly.

"Really? Whyever not?" she retorted coldly.

"Your reputation is at stake..." Shriver began.

"The professor's reputation is only slightly better than my own," Severus eased in, seeking to deflect. "Doubtless worse, amongst her own former students."

"Indeed," Hermione agreed readily.

"... and your position," Shriver finished, as though they had not spoken. "Teaching is, I believe, your livelihood?"

Hermione's eyes turned to ice. "Not that old saw about 'those who can't, teach' – really, Shriver. Enough of these games."

"Games?" Shriver's eyebrows raised in a farce of innocence.

"If you attempt to question me, I shall insist on a trial. It's well within my rights."

Shriver made some show of demurring. "You can understand our position, surely – we've no wish to cause you embarrassment."

Hermione's eyebrow arched up again. "What rot – considering you're the one who stands to lose."

"How do you figure?"

"I shall insist on Veritaserum."

"There will be no need of that," Shriver hedged, but something about his bearing sent Severus' wand hand twitching again.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "It's my right. You assume that any guilty party will lie, will wish to conceal the true nature of their actions. I give you Counter-exhibit A, Shriver, right there, in the person of Severus Snape."

Shriver's eyes flicked noncommittally to Severus and back.

"I rather expect you'll find me quite cooperative under questioning. Oh, yes, I shall be all too happy to speak. About everything."

"You couldn't stop her tongue, that one, even as a student," Poppy confirmed.

Shriver's chuckle raised the hair on the back of Severus' neck. "Couldn't stop her tongue? Was that your experience of her as a student, Snape?"

Severus' eyes bled flat, and Hermione clenched her wand, their efforts not to hex Shriver charging the air.

Almost too casually, Shriver turned back to Hermione. "So, you wish to set up housekeeping in Azkaban, do you?"

"That course of action is inadvisable." Severus' voice shivered in the low chamber.

"It is the standard sentence for Dark wizards. For everyone's protection, as well as –"

"As well as her own, yes, you've mentioned that." Severus spoke over him.

"I fail to see your point."

"Yes, you do," Hermione said.

Poppy glanced at her, startled.

Severus continued, "Even assuming that you could keep her quiet in court – which would raise questions you would not wish to answer – she would pose no small threat to the other prisoners. People do die in prison," he observed quietly. "The Ministry might encounter difficulties if all prison deaths suddenly resulted in spontaneous Horcruxes."

Shriver's eyes narrowed as he considered Severus' words for several moments. "Your point?" His voice conceded nothing.

"The moment of death is the time when the soul is most vulnerable. Any death – not just murder. You concealed that truth long ago, with this as the result." Severus gestured toward Horace Slughorn. "His plight is as much your doing as hers. You cannot bury her again and expect a different outcome."

Shriver's expression was illegible. "One of the times. Death is one of the times, Snape." He turned to Hermione. "Did you, or did you not, create this Horcrux?"

"I did not."

Shriver laughed shortly. "Who's lying now, Granger?"

"She didn't," Poppy confirmed. "I'll swear to it myself."

Shriver ignored her. "You did split his soul."

"I seem to have done."

"'Seem'? Memory slipping?"

"I was asleep when it happened. Therefore, yes, 'seem.' Having no conscious memory of it, I cannot swear to it."

Shriver snorted.

The Baron drifted forward. "I can confirm the professor's statement, having been sent to check."

"Sent?"

"By the Healer and the headmistress. The flower stem was not even in the chamber; the little one brought it with her when we left the professor's quarters."

Shriver's eyes grew hungry. "So how did it become a Horcrux, then? For it is, undeniably, a Horcrux."

"Do you know how souls work when in schism, Shriver?" Hermione asked quietly. "It is your job to question such things, isn't it? Your Dark detection spell proves that you, too, bear the taint of the Dark Arts. Surely you've not wasted the years since Godric's Hollow ignoring the potential implications of my spell."

"Dark echoes are an occupational hazard," he said, "for which I and members of my Department are granted statutory immunity."

Hermione's eyes sharpened. "You've not answered the question. Do you know how a soul fragment works? If it has volition? Awareness? Agency?"

Shriver made a smacking noise with his tongue. "The Ministry doesn't make it a practice to destroy souls."

The twenty-two years since she'd preserved their world crashed down on her through the bones of the castle. "Literally or figuratively, you bastard?"

"Your soul is not the Ministry's concern."

"Like my memory?" Her eyes blazed dark. "Tell me – does your statutory immunity also make you immune to the temptation?"

Shriver said nothing, his eyes glittering eerily in the lamplight.

"Not going to ask me 'What temptation?' Allow me to refresh your memory: temptation is the cost of meddling with Darkness. Which you didn't bother to tell me after Godric's Hollow. Are you asking me to believe that, with all the resources and history of the Ministry itself behind you, you didn't know that that temptation exists? That no matter how deeply buried it would find its own way out?"

Shriver opened his mouth, but Hermione went on, "Tell me... to satisfy my curiosity, if nothing else. How can you resist the temptation offered by a vulnerable soul? So many war criminals still in Azkaban... surely no one would object."

He said nothing, and Hermione nodded sharply. "I know something about situational ethics, Shriver, and the dilemma implicit in free will."

Shriver nodded absently, returning to his interrogation as though following a checklist. "You broke Horace Slughorn's soul involuntarily, you say?"

"I did."

"Then what's to stop you from doing it again, if, by your own admission, that temptation exists?"

"My conscience."

Shriver's laughter reverberated harshly off the stone walls.

"It's true," Severus said. "She has broken no law you can name, as you've never admitted the possibility of the crime. In twenty-two years, she has split two souls: Once to save the world – surely an extenuating circumstance – and once because she obeyed the Ministry's suggestion to forget that she could do it at all. Untempered by conscience, Darkness will out."

"It's consistent with similar patterns in other areas of Healing," Poppy supplied quietly.

"Circumstances are irrelevant –" Shriver began, but Hermione cut him off.

"Then yours is the greater fault." She shook her head slowly, and a single curl caught in her collar. Severus caught his breath. "The real crime wasn't committed by me, Shriver, and not at all recently. And I wasn't the only victim. Not at all."

All eyes in the room turned to Shriver, who refused to buckle. "Average witches and wizards are unprepared to wrestle with such fine distinctions, Granger. Broken souls are an abomination. Government protection is what they want."

"Because their education is insufficient and has been since Dumbledore," Hermione spat.

Poppy gasped, and her hand went again to her pocket.

"If you bring me to trial, you risk revealing yourself as incompetent – for how could you have failed to detect the pall of Darkness hanging over a distraught, wandless teenager? No one will believe that. So you'll be revealed as dishonest – complicit in a conspiracy to perpetrate a fraud on the world. Those are your choices. Incompetence or fraud."

Shriver's face betrayed nothing, and Hermione shook her head again. "I'm rather surprised you didn't kill me when you had the chance."

Something flickered on his otherwise impassive face, and she continued mercilessly. "It would have been easy enough to provide a convincing explanation for my death – 'Stress, trauma, losing her boyfriend, watching him die under such horrifying circumstances...'" Hermione's eyes glinted with rage. "'Poor thing.'"

In the flickering lamplight, a small gleam grew in Shriver's eyes.

Hermione saw it, and her voice dropped. "You suggested it, didn't you? What stopped you from killing me? I had no wand – I couldn't have stopped you."

Shriver said nothing.

"Where was it to have happened then? Not in prison, surely – they still considered me a secondary hero. And not St. Mungos – too many witnesses. No." Her gaze held his as her mind raced.

He waited. Expectantly. Eagerly.

Her eyes widened. "The Department of Mysteries..."

Shriver's slow smile clashed jarringly with his dead eyes as he reached around Poppy to remove the Horcrux from Slughorn's chest. "You perceive my third option."

Even as Poppy and Severus opened their mouths to protest, Hermione spoke. "You cannot mean to kill me now."

"Kill? No. But the Department has certain..." Shriver paused to moisten his lips. "... theoretical questions regarding temptation and – how to put it? – occasions of vulnerability. And, as you are the only living, hrm, expert...." He opened his meaty hands, and a small, satisfied triumph crossed his features. "Our investigations indicate that death is not the only time the soul is vulnerable, Professor. As I'm sure you'll agree."

Hermione's skin crawled as his meaning came clear. She heard Severus swear even as Shriver intoned, "Hermione Jane Granger, you are hereby remanded to the custody of the Department of Mysteries."