Present Concerns

Chapter 10 // Present Concerns

"Oh, Ronnie, what's happened to you?" Molly Weasley was nothing if not observant, and the way Ron gingerly kept touching the back of his head and the way Hermione was watching him like a hawk alerted her to the fact that Something Was Wrong.

Ron gave a quick look around. "I had a run-in with Snape, and I came off on the bad end," he said, gesturing towards the back of his skull.

Mrs. Weasley stopped and paled, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "What did he do?" Hermione had never thought of the older woman as someone to be frightened of, but the look that came over her face would have chilled even Albus Dumbledore.

"Relax, Ma. We know you've been taking care of him. He's going to be teaching us about dueling and stuff. The bump to the head was worth all the wicked cool stuff we learned!"

She pursed her lips. "Well, he didn't have to hit you in the head. Come on now, you're late for your next dose of your potions," she said, and with a wave of her wand, varicolored bottles came zooming out of the pantry. "I'm not going to ask you how you know... Where's Harry?"

It was lucky Hermione was a quick thinker, or the Kneazle would have been out of the bag. "He went to Grimmauld Place for the night. Something about he wanted to sort through some of Sirius's stuff..."

Tears formed in Mrs. Weasley's bright blue eyes. "That poor boy... well, I suppose we should let him be. It's high time he started on that; putting it off never makes it any easier. We'll leave him alone for now, but I am going to call a few members of the Advance Guard and have them stand guard outside."

When she went to the fireplace, presumably to Floo-call one of Harry's 'guards', Hermione pulled her book bag from the hall closet and once more spread her Arithmancy equations on the table.

"You still workin' on that?" Ron asked with his mouth full of one of his mother's fantastic homemade cookies.

"Ron-ald, don't talk with your mouth full! You got crumbs all over my equations!" She hurriedly began to brush the crumbs and chocolate flakes off the parchments.

"What equations are you working on, Hermione? I thought you'd already finished your homework for the break," asked Mrs. Weasley as she came back into the kitchen.

Hermione hurriedly tried to hide the parchments, but the mother of Fred and George was too quick for her. "Is that... oh. I see how you knew." She picked up the parchment, having already seen the warm pink line neatly labeled "M. Weasley". She traced it with her finger, eyes darkening as she reached the place where her pink line met Snape's black line, continuing where the muddy pink line emerged and surrounded the putrid green one.

"Mrs. Weasley... what does that mean?" Hermione was sure the older woman knew something. After some research, she had found that when two lines blur together like Mrs. Weasley's and Professor Snape's, it meant that there was a bond between the two: be it a life-debt, a Wizard's Oath, or any other kind of magical bond excepting marriage.

"I..." she sighed heavily. "I suppose you'd find out sooner or later, so you might as well hear it from me." She ran her finger over the green line, though she did not make contact with the paper. It was almost as if she didn't want to touch it. "As you already know, I am bound by my acceptance of Albus's last wishes to care for Severus. He told me that there was one better suited to the task, but until Severus can learn to accept help from this person the Oath will stand." She looked almost insulted by the fact that Albus had thought someone else to be a better caregiver than she.

"This," she said, her hand still hovering over the green line, "is whoever attacked Ron in the alley. I don't know who it was... but Severus helped me track them down. I think he may have a suspicion, but he wouldn't share it. We cornered him and almost had him... but then he Disapparated. I know we hurt him, though."

Her eyes got a lost, faraway sort of look, and after a moment she shook her head as if to clear it. "Oh, goodness, it's getting late... Ron, your father will be home soon. I have to get dinner on!"

As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she shooed them out of the kitchen and into the living room.

**

Hermione stared at the parchment in front of her. She'd lost her concentration when Ron had started whining about his Pygmy Puff tattoo; she'd had to remove it just to shut him up.

She decided to try a new path. Here, a little lower, her own silver line ran beside the black one, then intersected it, joined by Harry's gold line, Ron's red line, and a bright blue line that seemed to twinkle when you looked at it. Dumbledore. The lines split again, the trio's line rejoining Molly Weasley. Snape's oily black line joined the attacker's line (now identified neatly as L. Malfoy), and a new line appeared. This one was the color of old blood, and Hermione felt afraid just seeing it. Voldemort.

That was a good place to start. She put in variables representing a battle between Harry and Voldemort – this should be easy, all she had to do was pinpoint when or where...

She woke up three hours later in a warm, sterile-smelling bed. The Hogwarts Infirmary. How did I get here?

"Miss Granger, are you awake?"

She stuggled to open her eyes, and the dark complexion and snapping gray eyes of Professor Vector came into view.

"Yes, Professor. What are you doing here? More importantly, how did I get here?" Her head pounded, and her mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool. She reached gratefully for the glass of water beside her bed, ignoring for the moment that she hated drinking water, and gulped it thirstily down.

"You'll be hungry as well. Here." The Professor conjured up a plate of hot, spicy-smelling sandwiches. "Miss Granger, I am shocked. I thought we had covered the dangers of working with Arithmantic equations beyond your skill? You nearly killed yourself – what were you thinking, trying to predict the outcome of a battle with You-Know-Who? It's madness!"

Hermione hung her head in shame, her sandwich held loosely in one hand. "I thought... I didn't know it would be so hard – it's a standard equation, isn't it? Two variables, an event..." She trailed off, her throat constricting painfully. She began picking the crust of the sandwich, having lost all interest in eating.

"Were it that easy, do you really think that one of the Masters would not have done so by now? You-Know-Who is a madman, in case you hadn't noticed. Trying to predict what he will do is a task that even a Master is reluctant to touch. Arithmancy is not Divination; we cannot process things with so many possibilities. What we can do is divine the likelihood of smaller events, see connections hidden from us, and use that knowledge to get an idea of the larger picture."

The dark-haired professor pulled a piece of parchment out of her robes. "This is good work; you're just trying to do too much too quickly. I have taken the liberty of taking one of your equations through to the end so you can see an example of how to go about the more complicated equations. You normally wouldn't be allowed to attempt something this large unless you'd taken an Apprenticeship in Arithmancy, but I'd rather you do it with minor supervision and get a headache than with no supervision and end up dead."

Oh, no! thought Hermione. She must have seen all the names... and Snape...

Her fears must have been evident because the professor gave a short laugh. "Really, Miss Granger, do you think that I would have been allowed to see this if I wasn't a member of the Order? Now, eat up. I conjured those sandwiches especially for you, and I'll be very disappointed if you don't finish them."

Hermione turned her attention back to the sandwiches. They seemed to be made on some kind of sweet bread, with warm spicy turkey and melted cheese. They were delicious, and she'd bolted down one and half of her second when she remembered her manners. "These are wonderful! What are they?"

"Fried turkey and cheese. My mother used to make them for me... Now, I'll leave you to finish eating and rest. Send me an owl if you have any questions about that equation."

Hermione called her thanks as the tall professor left. Unrolling the parchment, she gasped when she saw the complexity of equations the older woman had done. I haven't even dreamed of anything this complicated! I thought I was pretty advanced in Arithmancy, and now I realize that I haven't even touched all the possibilities!

Professor Vector had picked up her silver line where it stopped at the Burrow, with the notation 'You need to refine your parameters so that you won't waste your time tracking everyday things', along with some suggestions for runes to use.

The line had jumped, marking Time: Unknown in Vector's wide scrawl. Her line, entwined with Ron's, was surrounded at this point, by several lines that gave off highly unpleasant energies. The line jumped again, and she saw the muddy pink line from her earlier equation come between her and the other lines. The other lines faded and disappeared, which Hermione remembered symbolized a death of some kind. Deaths were tricky things, for it did not always mean a death of flesh and soul. It could mean a death of a way of life, a death of a mindset – any kind of emotional change that resulted in 'death' of the self.

That wasn't the concern, though. The muddy pink line had separated. Snape's black line held fast, and her line reached over and stopped just next to his. If it was possible for an Arithmantic line to be nervous, this line would have been quaking in its boots.

Mrs. Weasley's pink line rushed for a faded blue line that had previously been simply hovering in a corner, waiting to be discovered. This line reminded her of her favorite pair of blue jeans; frayed and patched, but well-loved and comfortable. The two lines blurred again, becoming a single purple line. Hermione felt a great sadness, and both lines faded.

She was trying to understand what this could mean when a sharp Crack! dragged her from her thoughts. Dobby was standing on her bed, wearing a new sweater. This one was black, an unusual color for Dobby, and it seemed to fit him slightly better than the one Mrs. Weasley had knitted for him (whilst still having just as many pockets). Due to the fit of his new sweater, Hermione fervently wished that someone had thought to give him some trousers.

The elf's expression, however, was one of the utmost seriousness, and so she fixed her eyes firmly on his face.

"Miss Hat Lady, I is coming to take you to Professor Bat-man's room. Dobby has decided that you is not making trouble..."

With no warning other than the snap of his fingers, she found herself on a very different bed than the one she'd been on before. It was hardly bigger than a single bed, and very hard. She tried to peer into the darkness of the room, but could see nothing other than shadowy shapes. A clap of Dobby's little hands lit up the room, and she took in her new surroundings.

If she'd thought the bed was small, it was nothing compared to the closet it was in. It wasn't big enough to be called a bedroom. There was a battered wardrobe crammed into one corner but that was the only other furniture in the room.

"Dobby... are you sure we're in Professor Snape's rooms?"

"Oh yes. This is it! Dobby will watch for people coming," he said, just before he disappeared again.

Oh, dear. This tiny, utilitarian bedroom with its rock-hard bed was Professor Snape's. She wished she'd gotten a chance to tell Dobby that she didn't really need to get in these rooms after all...

She gave a tentative bounce on the bed, and it creaked beneath her. Since she was here, she might as well go exploring. There were two doors in this room, both of them closed. She tried the door on the left, first.

She tried to get the idea out of her head that she was now standing in Professor Snape's bathroom. It was also very tiny, hardly room for a toilet, sink, and counter, all done in the standard Hogwarts style. She'd somehow expected him to have a bigger bathroom, but no matter. A cursory glance around told her that there wasn't anything worth pursuing in here. She left very quickly, hurrying towards the door on the right.

The next room more than made up for the inadequacies of the last two. This was a man who obviously loved books, for his library was more wonderful than anything Hermione could have imagined. She was surprised all of his books hadn't been confiscated. The room itself had to be at least the equivalent of one-and-a-half stories (she laughed at her own little literary pun), shelves reaching up towards... How did he get a skylight in the dungeons? Must be some kind of charm...

There were no paperbacks to be seen here; all of his books were leather-bound and in pristine condition. She idly wondered if he wore white gloves when reading – No, probably black ones.

A massive scrubbed pine desk sat in the center of the room, looking very out of place in Hermione's perception of the tetchy professor. It was covered in a mountain of papers, and she would later tell herself that it was her Gryffindor curiosity that made her go and sit at his desk with the idea of rifling through his things.

**

Present Concerns is a collection of 19 essays that C.S. Lewis submitted to various newspapers and journals. The essays are rather eclectic, ranging from "On Living in an Atomic Age" to "The Necessity of Chivalry". My personal favorite is one titled "On Sex in Literature", in which he calls for the end of "moral censorship of literature" even if "realms of filth" are the result. Interesting stuff.