Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: JKR owns the Potterverse.

AN: Many thanks to my wonderful betas, septentrion and LadySunflower. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

The morning after his wedding did not start promisingly for Severus. Hermione had got up earlier than him, leaving a note to explain that she was intending to make use of the superior array of books provided by the Room of Requirement in an effort to find out how to trace the presence of the probable new Necromancer. The honeymoon was over before it even started, although thinking of the promised sabbatical after this mess had been cleared up helped Severus to regain a tenuous grip on his temper. When he next saw his new wife, he would have words to say to her. Specifically, words about leaving him a note instead of explaining in person about where she was going. Assistance with his morning erection would have been appreciated too.... While not a morning person, Severus did want the chance to try being one now that he had someone to share them with once more.

Having shoehorned Slughorn back into service as Potions master on very short notice, Albus had freed Severus from his teaching duties so that he could concentrate on assisting the other members of the Order in the know.

Severus was grudgingly escorting Potter from the gates to Albus's office when complete darkness abruptly fell, light temporarily reappearing for a few seconds before it was smothered once more. Potter cried out, shocked by the sudden darkness where there had previously been bright sunshine illuminating the corridor. The Auror-in-training was as yet unaware of Hermione's return, something that would soon change.

"Hermione," Severus hissed under his breath, barking to Potter to follow him into the darkness, as he hurried off to the Headmaster's office. Or rather, tried to, only to slip on the hidden sheet of ice that had formed even as he started to move. He swore, retrieving his wand to send a Patronus message to Albus to ask what was going on, only to receive no reply. The same was the case with Minerva. Only then did it occur to him to check with the source, but no answer was forthcoming from Hermione. Severus proceeded to further the education of Potter by reciting his extensive vocabulary of profanity.

A few minutes after the unexpected display of powers associated with Necromancy, normal conditions returned. Severus got to his feet, running all of the way to the gargoyle guarding Albus's office, Potter following closely behind him. A full-strength glower from Severus was all that was needed to persuade it to allow him to step on the rising spiral staircase, where he was disturbed to notice traces of what appeared to be blood.

Upon entering the office, Severus was relieved to see that none of the occupants were bleeding, although all were sprawled on the floor.

"What the..." Potter exclaimed. Severus was inclined to echo him, frowning down at Ronald Weasley, wondering why the young man was already there.

Three casts of Rennervate revived them, Albus looking around wildly, Minerva and Weasley still too groggy to be alert.

"Albus, what happened?" asked Severus, urgently.

A puzzled frown crossed Albus's face as he pinched himself. "Ow! So I am still alive. But why...."

"Albus, tell me!" Severus demanded, exasperated by Albus's rambling.

Sighing heavily, an indecipherable expression on his face, Albus instructed them to look in his Pensieve. Severus and Potter exchanged a puzzled glance, both equally concerned by the grief visible within Albus's twinkle-free eyes.

They stepped over to the stone bowl of the Pensieve, having presumably been extracted from its hiding place by either Albus or Minerva before the darkness fell.

Potter looked back at Albus, nodding towards Ron. "Is Ron all right?"

"Harry, the contents of the Pensieve make any answer I can make now rather futile. Any questions you have can be answered after you have observed the memory, if any remain."

In no mood to be courteous, Severus pushed past the dawdling Potter. He reached over to make skin contact with the surface of the swirling memories, allowing himself to be tugged in.

Severus was frowning at the surroundings depicted in the memory when Potter dropped in beside him.

"We're at the Burrow."

"Really? I would never have guessed, Potter," Severus sneered, pointedly looking at each of the Weasleys present, sitting down to eat their morning meal. "What is interesting is the presence of Narcissa Malfoy."

Potter blinked, staring at the out-of-place head of blonde hair. "I assumed that was Fleur, Bill's wife."

"I heard on the Hogwarts grapevine that the newest Mrs. Weasley is pregnant. She is doubtless still in bed."

"Oh, yeah. I see Bill's collecting a tray for her." Potter shifted impatiently. "Why did Dumbledore insist that we had to see this, Snape?"

"Potter, when one is observing a Pensieve memory, it is sensible to withhold all questions until everything has been seen and heard. Or in words that you might understand, shut up."

Clearly hard pressed not to retort angrily, Potter turned away, his eyes fixed on Ginevra Weasley. As Severus remembered, Minerva had mentioned some months previously that Potter had successfully proposed to Miss Weasley. Potter's exercise of looking at his fiancée was probably a means of keeping his cool, while possibly intending to remind Severus of his own 'loss'.

Potter managed to keep quiet, allowing Severus to observe the rest of the events captured by the memory without too much interruption.

"Percy, why is Mrs. Malfoy here?" Ginevra asked, looking at Narcissa with some distaste.

"Well, Ginny, you see, during the glorious anniversary of the defeat of You-Know-Who, Narcissa and I were able to renew our acquaintance." The most ambitious, pompous scion of the Weasley family puffed out his chest, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses as he sent a besotted look in the direction of Narcissa.

"Glorious?" Ronald muttered, eyeing Percy disbelievingly.

Severus was standing close enough to the twins to hear them murmur 'renew our acquaintance' in unison, making disgusted faces at each other.

"As a matter of fact, with all of you here, now would be an ideal time to announce some wonderful news," Percy all but simpered, reaching for Narcissa's hand and clutching it tightly. "Narcissa has agreed to be my wife."

Potter's startled exclamation blended in with those of the assembled Weasleys: an outcry of disgust from the majority. Even Molly found little positive to say about the infamous Widow Malfoy joining their family.

Folding the Daily Prophet (which Severus noted was from that very morning), the man of the house spoke up. "Percy, are you sure about this?" Arthur stood firm in the face of a poisonous glower thinly disguised as a smile from Narcissa. "No offence meant to you, Narcissa, but my son is on the rebound after his last fiancée broke their engagement."

"Good for Penelope," Ronald hissed to his sister, who nodded reluctantly in agreement. Severus understood her regret; Penelope Clearwater was far more desirable to have as a sister-in-law than cold, beautiful Narcissa.

"Father, I know my family history. Almost all Weasley men have successful marriages on the rebound. I am certain."

"Welcome to the family," Molly said brightly to Narcissa, the indications of her internal agony her wide, strained smile and false tone to her voice.

"Thank you, Molly. It is a great honour to join such an illustrious family."

'So, it was status,' Severus mused to himself. 'Malfoys in the gutter, Weasleys hailed as a family producing heroes. Narcissa had probably been a social climber ever since she was born.'

The Weasley children, barring Percy, snorted derisively into the breakfast that Molly had just served. Before she could give them anything more than a reprimanding look, the famous family clock abruptly let out a sharp chime.

Severus strode over to it, the memory of Molly dashing past him to reach it first. Potter followed, inhaling sharply at the same time as Molly gasped. All hands on the clock were pointing towards mortal peril.

The panic really set in when the crockery began to shatter as the food and drink expanded as it froze, a deep chill spreading throughout the formerly cosy room. As could be expected within a Pensieve, only the breaths of the memories could be seen, neither Severus nor Potter really experiencing the cold in a way that could affect their bodies.

"Arthur! Fleur and Harry's hands, where are they?" Molly called.

"They're not completed yet! Come on, we have to leave. Chances are we'll be in less danger if we go somewhere safer: Hogwarts." Arthur stood, his children and Percy's guest following suit.

"Dad! What about Fleur? She can't move fast in her condition." Bill made for the stairs, but before he could even leave the room, the front door was thrown open, an indistinct shadow passing through.

"Wh-Who's there?" Arthur asked. Molly peered past him, her knuckles white as she clung to him.

The shadow was almost impossible to focus on, but there was a vague impression of slight movement. Severus narrowed his eyes, rubbing a hand across them as they began watering with the effort of watching something virtually invisible.

"Show yourself!" Bill ordered, wand trained in the general direction of the open door.

There was a shift of movement, and then the intruder revealed herself, casting aside her concealing robe seemingly woven from shadows.

There was a moment of stunned silence, Potter choked back a cry of surprise. Severus recoiled, his eyes wide. 'Impossible!'

"Hermione?" Ronald murmured, unable to believe his eyes, a wide grin spreading across his freckled face.

"You're alive!" exclaimed Ginevra, slipping past her brother and running towards her miraculously returned friend.

Ginevra skidded to an uncertain halt when Hermione looked up, her eyes the twin black, inhumanly cold voids of an active Necromancer. She raised her fist, uncurling it to reveal a deadly atomising spark.

An involuntary whimper escaped Ginevra. "Hermione?"

Bill didn't hesitate, launching what appeared to be a non-verbal Stunner. Hermione drew her wand with her other hand, silently Conjuring a shield just in time to ricochet the hex directly back at him, too fast for the Curse-Breaker to dodge. He fell with much of the same grace as a sack of potatoes.

The power of that enspelled shield was tangible to Severus, something that should not have been possible within a memory. There could be no doubt that the wand powering that spell had an extremely powerful core... such as the Chimaera scale within Hermione's. Shaking his head in disbelief, Severus stepped closer in order to examine the wand in question. As far as he could tell, it was identical to the one that had been in his keeping for the past two years. 'This is impossible!'

Before anyone else could attack, Hermione had grabbed Ginevra by her hair, dragging the struggling girl into the line of fire to act as a human shield. Any idea of attacking or escaping her captor left Ginevra when the lethal spark was held within her sight.

"I wouldn't move if I were you," Hermione said, conversationally. A strangled, frightened moan escaped Ginevra.

"What are you doing?"

"Let Ginny go!"

"We're your friends, why are you doing this?"

Severus could not tell which Weasley said what. Nor did he care, standing stock still in front of the ruthless Necromancer who was at once unmistakeable as his wife yet was also a creature that bore no resemblance to the Hermione Gr... Hermione Snape he knew so well.

"Why?" Hermione mused, her tone of voice sending unpleasant shivers down Severus's spine. "Because I can."

Swallowing hard, Narcissa tugged her arm free of Percy's grip. Head held high, she walked over to Hermione, who wordlessly threatened to start atomising Ginevra. Halting within reach, she spoke up.

"You have far more reason to spare Ginevra than you would to spare me. Take me as your hostage instead."

Raising an eyebrow, a smirk quirked Hermione's lips. "Admirable sentiment. But you misread this situation. You see, there's a difference between a hostage and a human shield."

"You're not a killer, Hermione. Now, why don't you put a stop to all this nonsense and have breakfast with us?" Molly murmured, her voice trembling, having shifted to kneel beside Bill's unconscious body.

Only Voldemort's laugh had raised Severus's metaphorical hackles in quite the same way as the malevolent chuckle resulting from Hermione at Molly's words.

"I assure you, I have no problem with cutting the strands of life." Snapping her fingers, Hermione watched with detached interest as Narcissa dropped to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.

Percy fell to his knees beside the prone form of his fiancée, crying out when he couldn't find a pulse. "She's dead!"

Still watching Hermione, Severus searched futilely for any sign of the woman he'd married. 'She may have killed in the past when she had no other choice, but she wouldn't do this. Not my Hermione.'

Only the fact that she was still holding onto Ginny, threatening to reduce the girl to scattered atoms, prevented the Weasleys from attacking Hermione. With the exception of Percy, they may not have liked Narcissa, but she had been a guest in their house.

"Lights out," the Necromancer drawled, using her powers to cause localised darkness to fall. The last thing that could be seen was the malicious grin on her face as she touched the atomising spark to Ginevra's skin.

"No!" Potter echoed the agonised cries of the unseen Weasley family as Ginevra's scream trailed off into a dry rasp.

Hisses and cracks reverberated as hexes and curses were fired blindly, no light from them to be seen in the unnatural darkness.

"What makes you think I'm still over there?" Hermione asked, taunting them, her voice somehow simultaneously thrown to appear as though she was behind each of them.

A choked gasp and muffled thud from where Arthur had been standing heralded another death.

"Gotcha..." Charlie exclaimed, then fell silent, falling to the floor with a thump.

"Arthur? Charlie? No..." Molly's shrill sobbing was cut short.

Bellowing with rage, Fred and George doubled their attack, only to die together.

Percy screamed in his fury, pouring his overwhelming grief into a whirlwind of destructive magic, crashing and clattering resounding throughout the Burrow. Abruptly, silence fell once more, only broken by the sound of more falling bodies.

The chill faded, light gradually returning to a very blurred scene. The Necromancer – Severus refused to believe it was Hermione – had left devastation in her wake. Gradually the view cleared as Ronald shakily got to his feet from behind the overturned table, tears trickling down his ashen face. Hearing Fleur calling for her husband from upstairs, he staggered over to his brother, careful not to step on any of the other bodies sprawled on the flagstones.

"Come on, Bill! Get up! Rennervate, dammit!" Tugging on Bill's cold wrist, Ronald sobbed softly when he finally registered that his brother was dead. He glanced at the other bodies, looking away, shuddering, from the glassy stare of the dead.

Fleur called again, her French accent stronger in her distress. Blinking back tears, Ronald stumbled to his feet. "Gotta get Fleur then get out of here. She might come back."

Severus watched Weasley pick his way out of the kitchen, reaching down to close the eyes of the dead within reach, not having time for anything else. A choked sound came from Potter. Turning his head, Severus observed the green tinge to Potter's face with some trepidation. Grabbing the boy by the shoulder, he mentally reached up to lever them out of the memory.

"Potter, hold it in. Vomiting within a Pensieve memory, no matter how distressing, is not recommended."

After resurfacing from the Pensieve, Severus tugged Potter away from it, just in time for him to throw up all over the office floor, splattering their shoes in the process. Minerva kindly used a Cleansing Charm to eradicate the mess, moving over with a glass of water to take charge of Potter.

"The events depicted in that memory are impossible," Severus stated, sparing a pitying glance for Weasley, who had recovered enough from his time on the floor to remember what he had lost. "Hermione left a note for me this morning, stating that she would be in the Room of Requirement, researching how to find the source of the Darkness."

"It is a little known fact that the Room of Requirement can open a portal to anywhere in the outside world that the operator desires. We only have Hermione's word that she used it only for research today," Albus explained from his place behind his desk, having moved in the time Severus had been within the Pensieve.

"Shortly after Minerva and I had watched that harrowing scene ourselves, Hermione came in. I had no choice but to attempt to knock her out with a cast of Sectumsempra, in the hope that it would subdue her as it did over two years ago. She used her instant darkness speciality and dodged. I think I hit her; the consuming shadows certainly faltered. But then darkness fell again, literally for us. The next thing I knew was a terrible cold, then nothing. I can only assume that she fled."

"I'm surprised that she didn't kill us like she did the rest of my family," Weasley moaned, still slumped on the floor.

Potter had collapsed into a chair Transfigured beside the Pensieve, tears streaming from his hollow, blankly staring eyes, taking little to no notice of the conversation around him. "Oh, God, how could she?" He groaned, a pained, animalistic keening following his words. "Ginny...."

Staring down at Potter, Severus's gaze was for once not contemptuous but empathetic. He knew very well what it was to lose the woman he loved, albeit in different circumstances.

"But this doesn't make any sense!" Severus exclaimed. "The Necromancer responsible for the Weasleys' deaths may have looked like Hermione, but she would never do such a thing."

"I'm sorry, Severus, but if by some minuscule chance that she were innocent, surely she would have stayed?" Minerva shook her head, looking very dubious at the prospect.

"Not if she thought you were trying to kill her."

"I am not Voldemort! She knows that. No, Severus, the fact that she ran reveals her guilt." Eyeing him sorrowfully, Albus hesitantly continued in a voice pitched so that only Severus could hear it, knowing that what he had to say would not be taken well. "I may be able to annul your marriage if you didn't consummate it. Even if you did, I could try to break the binding. With your agreement, it might at the very least weaken it."

"There is no need to resort to that. I know she can't have done it!"

"Severus, you are blinded by your love for the gal," Minerva interjected.

"Inform Poppy of these developments, and we'll see just how deluded I am."

"Very well. She is currently in the hospital wing, stabilising Fleur. Doubtless she will want to know the details in order to care better for her patient. I'll summon her." Albus stood, moving over to the fireplace.

After Poppy had dried her tears, she spoke up in a trembling voice. "Severus is right. Miss Granger could not have done this."

Severus opened his mouth to object to her usage of Hermione's maiden name, only to realise that the matron didn't know that they were now married.

"How so?" Albus asked, looking pale behind his beard.

"Because she can no more reduce anyone to their component atoms than I can," Poppy stated. "Death stripped her of the power to do so. As far as I can tell, she will never get that ability back. She's fortunate that her other Necromantic powers returned so that she could escape."

"If her innocence could so easily be proven, why didn't she stay? I would not have killed her until I heard her defence."

"Really, Albus? Perhaps not on purpose, but would you have been able to keep her alive until someone who could heal her arrived?" Looking uncomfortable at Poppy's questioning, Albus opened his mouth to answer, doubtless in the affirmative, but could not. Severus knew that the old man was wondering if he could have performed the incantation to close the wounds inflicted by Sectumsempra with such negative feelings in his heart.

Albus inhaled sharply, tugging at his beard as a guilty look crossed his lined features. "We must find her. If I did manage to hit her with enough force to shake her control over the enveloping dark, she might be unable to heal herself."

Severus blanched, remembering the hints of bloodstains on the spiral stairs.

"The ice!" Poppy exclaimed. "There was what looked like blood on the stairs as I came up here, but not enough to cause me undue alarm. But the melting ice may have washed most of it away. Where can she be?"

"I sent a Patronus message to her before the darkness lifted..."

Minerva interrupted Severus. "What did she say?"

Severus chuckled hollowly, highly tempted to slap his forehead in self-reproach as the likely reason for Hermione's lack of response occurred to him. "Nothing; I forgot that she has never learned how to send a message using her Patronus."

"I'm sorry, Severus, but you saw what happened to the Weasleys. We could not risk giving her the benefit of the doubt." Albus removed his spectacles, rubbing wearily at his eyes.

"Hermione told us, she told you, that another Necromancer was likely to have brought her back. Who is to say that she was not impersonated?" Poppy suggested, her tone reproving.

Severus nodded slowly. Before the Necromancer had removed her strange robe, there had certainly been time for a disguise to be applied.

"Polyjuice?" Weasley put forward, sounding hopeful that his estranged friend might not have murdered the rest of his family in cold blood. "But... but, if it was Polyjuice, then the real culprit managed to get hold of a part of Hermione when she's been dead for...." Trailing off, Weasley seemed to realise the implications of what he was saying.

"For impersonation to be the case, the new Necromancer had to have been plotting for over two years. If that was so, why hadn't he or she made a move before now? Or perhaps our position is more precarious than we realise," said Albus, absentmindedly tugging gently on his beard.

"Whoever killed them is as good as dead, even if it really was Hermione," Potter snarled, his threatening tone somewhat spoiled by the occasional hiccups escaping him.

"It wasn't her. I know Hermione too well to suspect it even for a moment." Severus frowned over at the Pensieve, a thought that had been nagging him finally brought to the forefront of his mind. "Even if she has recovered her atomising power, I can prove that it wasn't her."

After a couple of prods from his wand, Severus raised a finger to point at the resulting figure of Hermione's impostor, from when her fist had been upraised. "I should have realised this earlier, but the evidence is undeniable. You definitely attacked the wrong witch, Albus."

There was no bonding mark branded onto 'Hermione's' exposed wrist.