12: Castle Under Attack

Chapter 12: Castle Under Attack

Hermione woke in Severus's arms the next morning. A warning voice in the back of her head reminded her she needed to get upstairs to her room before the others missed her, but the feel of his bare chest beneath her cheek was too tempting to ignore. She rubbed her cheek over his lightly furred body, and the hand he held on her upper back slid to her nape, lightly teasing her hair.

"You should get dressed and return to your room." His voice was thick from sleep and not the least convincing.

"I know." Instead of making any moves toward getting up, however, she turned her head and pressed a kiss to his chest. For once their physical proximity had led to nothing more than cuddling, something they both needed with events accelerating around them. Of course, Severus would deny that he was a cuddler until his dying day. Besides, she doubted he had been up for much more in his exhausted state. She knew his constant wait for the next call from Voldemort made his nights restless.

His arms tightened around her, pulling their bodies closer together. "I feel as though this night has been an idyll, a moment out of time. I fear we will not have another. The end of this situation draws near."

"Summer will be here in a few weeks, then maybe I can arrange to get away from home for a couple nights. My parents won't even know I decided to spend time with my husband instead of the Weasleys." Hermione stopped talking then, a pang in her chest forming when she remembered once again that her parents didn't know Severus and couldn't be introduced anytime soon. When this war was over, would they both be alive? And how would she admit to her parents that she had been married since halfway through her sixth year of school? She pushed the thought away again, unable to do anything about it.

"Thanks for reminding me that I've been sleeping with a school girl," he said, extricating himself from the bed. His tone was cool now. "There's little you could have said that would be more effective at putting me back in my place." He glanced at the clock and his brows lifted in surprise at the lateness of the hour. "You'd best get back to your dorm before you're missed. Madam Pince will be in the library in a few minutes."

Glancing at the clock herself, Hermione bit back a swear word and rushed to dress. There was no time to take him to task for his abrupt change of attitude...not that doing so would make any difference. She ran her fingers through her tangled mess of hair and wished she had set some kind of alarm to wake her earlier. Grabbing her outer robes, she cast the Disillusionment Charm on herself, then Muffliato, and hurried to the hall doorway.

She heard Severus call to her from the other room before she shut the hall door. "Next time you use a spell from that book Potter has re-appropriated, have the sense not to use it in front of me. It makes your assertion that he doesn't have it harder to believe."

"How did he know that?" she muttered to herself as she rushed up the stairs. Before heading to the dorms, however, she took a side trip to the female Prefects' bathroom. She ended the quiet and invisibility charms on herself as she approached, then slipped inside, transfiguring a paper in her pocket into a towel.

A shower ran in the back corner, and Hermione made a beeline to one of the other stalls.

When she arrived at the Gryffindor common room half an hour later, her hair was charmed dry and into some order, and she pulled her robes more closely around her to hide the fact that her school uniform was wrinkled from the previous day.

She shrugged out of her clothes when she reached the dorm room and grabbed up clean ones to change into. Lavender entered the room, her hair still wrapped in a towel from her shower. She eyed Hermione's discarded clothes. "Decided to come back then, did you? Wonder what Ron would think if he knew you spent the night with some bloke instead of in your bed. Then again, maybe he was the one you slept with." She eyed Hermione malevolently.

"Sleep with Ron? Eww, he's like a little brother. Fell asleep in the library. Stopped at the Prefects' bathroom on the way back to save time." Hermione focused on changing her clothes and moved toward the drawer that held her combs and makeup as she buttoned up her shirt. Lavender's ongoing jealousy over Hermione's friendship with Ron was beyond irritating, especially when Lavender was involved elsewhere.

"Is that where that love bite came from? I know some of those books in the restricted section tend to bite, but . . . " she allowed her innuendo to complete the sentence for her.

Hermione looked down at the spot below her collar that held a love bite from Severus. It was a couple days old, and in her haste, she had forgotten to hide it. She bit back another curse and lifted an eyebrow in amusement. "Much as I'd like to claim that was from last night, alas, it's a few days old." She ran a thumb over the spot and remembered the sensations of Severus's mouth there. A smile came to her lips. It was too late to pretend she wasn't seeing someone now Lavender had seen the mark. She would just have to be more careful about visiting Severus in the future. Lavender was just jealous enough to take to following her around to catch her in the act. "I can honestly say nothing inappropriate happened last night. Unfortunately." As he was her husband, it was honest to say nothing inappropriate had happened between her and Severus since late March, in fact.

"Harry and Ron may buy that shite, but I'm not about to. Not everyone is as easy to fool as your little friends." Lavender turned away and flounced off to her own bed to change her clothes.

Cursing her lack of forethought, Hermione turned back to her own grooming, casting a glamour charm over the red spot on her neck. Even if it was below her blouse, she didn't need to take any chances.

*****

That afternoon Hermione was back in Professor McGonagall's office during a free period. She had nearly completed her Animagus change this time, and it was obvious she was a small colored bird, but since the change had still never been completed, she wasn't sure which kind.

After another failed attempt...but one closer to complete than she had managed before...Hermione found herself sprawled on the floor yet again. The change wasn't nearly as taxing this time as it had been the first time, however, and the feeling of feathers prickling through her skin was far less uncomfortable than originally.

"Very good, Miss Granger. You'll be completing the change by the end of the week. Before you know it, you'll be changing for a member of the Ministry. You're doing very well, indeed." The woman all but beamed at her. "How do you feel? Up to trying again?"

Hermione considered whether or not to give it another go. Remembering her promise to Harry to monitor the school while he was away with Dumbledore that night, she decided she shouldn't push her powers any more than necessary. Besides, she had no intention of registering her Animagus accomplishment with the Ministry until after the war was over. Who knew, being a common bird might be a skill to the Order's benefit. "Maybe not today. What do you suppose I've been doing wrong?"

She and the professor settled down to the usual tea and goodies while they discussed the finer points of the change, and McGonagall gave pointers on completing the change more fully.

*****

Severus,

You must placate the prat. For now. Did you get many questions about being out all night?

Hermione told him about her encounter with Lavender, then sighed as she closed the diary, promising to work something out in a few nights. She picked up her school assignments and took them to the room where she was to meet Harry and Ron to watch the Marauders' Map while Dumbledore was away.

Personally, she was sure Harry was blowing things out of proportion. He had been on this 'Draco Malfoy is up to something' trip for months now. She considered it a miracle he never caught her with Severus on that map of his, as often as he scoured it looking for Malfoy. Still, she was his friend, and there was no reason she couldn't keep an eye on the map while doing her homework. If she hadn't been scheduled to be with her husband that night, she wouldn't have even minded.

Then something unexpected happened. Ron saw some names pouring out of the Room of Requirement that shouldn't have been in the school in the first place.

It took no time at all to charm the DA Galleons from the previous year and pull out the Felix Felicis left over from Harry's Potions 'success' on the first day of class. When only Ginny, Neville and Luna showed up to assist Hermione and Ron, Hermione took a deep breath to swallow her disappointment, then passed the vial around, warning them only to take a sip so there would be enough for everyone.

Then the students went onto the offensive.

Hermione and Luna ran into Professor Flitwick in the halls, and at Flitwick's command, they rushed down the dungeon stairs to Severus's chambers.

When she and Luna had arrived at Severus's door, on the heels of Professor Flitwick, Hermione hadn't suspected a thing. Severus called to them, "Flitwick has fainted, take care of him." Luna hurried into the office and Hermione held Severus's glance for just a short moment. For a heartbeat she saw the anguish and longing as clear on his face as she felt it in her chest before a mask of determination took over and he turned away.

She hurried into the office to help revive Flitwick, then skulked through the halls with him and Luna, every step echoing around them. They reached the main floor before they encountered trouble, and thanks to the Felix Felicis, the spells seemed to be deflected out of the way of Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna, and Hermione to help the teachers and late-arriving Order members and Aurors route the Death Eaters.

The desperate look on Severus's face haunted Hermione throughout the fight, and she wondered if he would come out OK. The Death Eaters were supposed to be his comrades, after all. Between her own tasks of fighting the attackers, and what she later realized must have been Severus putting up his own Occlumency shields between them, she didn't recognize his feelings over the next half hour. Other than his consciousness resting in the back of her own as proof that he was still alive and awake, she hadn't time to spare for him.

As she shot a long rope from the end of her wand, incarcerating a Death Eater, Hermione heard shouting as Harry yelled at Severus, chasing him from the castle.

And she learned the worst.

Her soul mate had killed the Headmaster.

_______

AN: I know I'm a bit evil to leave the cliffie there, but I promise a quick turnaround for the next chapter.

A big thanks to Southern_Witch_69 for fixing my punctuation gaffes.