Kings, Knights and Bishops

Guard... Check... Mate

By Bambu

~o0o~

Chapter Three: Kings, Knights and Bishops

The Great Hall was decorated in a clash of house colors, red, blue, yellow and green, with silver and gold accents, and the domed ceiling had been charmed to reflect that most halcyon of days, sky blue with clouds of cotton fluff. The house tables had been banished and in their place were small, round tables, appropriately draped with colored linens. The Headmaster was in his most convivial mood... Harry Potter was graduating.

The seventh-year students were seated according to House, awaiting the awarding of their Wizarding Certificates. The high table had likewise been removed, and the faculty was seated upon imposing, ornately carved wooden chairs, reminiscent of earlier years and earlier ceremonies. As if ordered the sun shone in radiant shafts of light through the high windows nestled in the ancient wall behind the faculty dais, and the air sparkled with anticipation... both giddy and apprehensive.

In age-old tradition, the Heads of each of Hogwarts' four houses summoned their candidates, one-by-one, to the elevated stage whereupon they would announce the student's individual accomplishments and present them to the faculty. Each graduate would make their way to the Headmaster, shaking the hands of each member of the faculty as they traversed the dais. Finally, Dumbledore, in all his grandstanding glory, awarded the witch or wizard with their Certificate and, in the manner of a benevolent despot, would present the new graduate to their peers.

Snape sat at one end of the dais, immediately adjacent to the Headmaster. The hall was saturated with effusive good humor, and he thought that the ceremony had already taken two hours too long, prolonged by the extolling of -- for the most part – superficial accomplishments of young adults who exhibited the mental capacities of a Billiwig during the mating season. He'd handled his graduates with typical Slytherin dispatch and diplomacy, and had suffered through the intermediate two houses, while waiting anxiously for the opportunity to put his plans into action. Gryffindor was the last House to present its candidates, giving the pride of place to the young Savior as the final graduate of the day. Snape was tense, but couldn't allow it to be seen, and he assumed an air of studied indifference, ignoring Minerva's clipped delivery while she extolled Lavender Brown's prowess in Divination.

As his elder colleague droned on in her clipped Scottish brogue, he let his eyes rove across the seated students. He noted that Daphne Greengrass had assumed her rightful place next to Draco, her left hand carefully placed on the table to collect and reflect the sparkle of sunlight. The ostentatious emerald engagement ring which now graced her ring finger proclaimed her possession by the Malfoy heir for all to see. Draco preened in the attention of his housemates' envy. Daphne was an ideal choice for his wife, even if the blond hadn't planned to settle quite so quickly. Snape further noticed that Crabbe and Goyle were deployed just beyond the happy couple, their guard-dog duty a reflection of their future.

Beyond the Slytherin table, he observed the Ravenclaws, polite but bored as they listened to McGonagall finish her speech. They'd been the second of the Houses to receive their Certificates and Awards. His eyes paused for a moment on Terry Boot, the strapping, highly intelligent Ravenclaw. Snape had recommended that Dumbledore talk to the young wizard about honing his skills in a direction that might benefit the Order. Dumbledore had beamed at him, as if he was a prize pupil, and Snape had wondered if he had just led Terry to his eventual death. It was an extremely uncomfortable idea, and Snape, once again, had found himself questioning his own loyalty to the elder wizard. It was a concept he'd contemplated at length in the past extremely hectic week. Snape had concluded that the Headmaster's ultimate goal still coincided with his own, and as long as he wasn't compromising Hermione's safety he would willingly bind himself to the older wizard's agenda.

He hadn't confronted Dumbledore about his discovery of the Headmaster's duplicity. It would have betrayed Hermione's confidence in him, and the gift of her trust still had the power to steal his breath. Although he hadn't spoken with Dumbledore directly about what he'd learned, Snape had given his most manipulative master ample opportunity – leading the conversation titillatingly in the right direction more than once -- to divulge the information about her on numerous occasions in the past several days. He had been bitterly disappointed with each fruitless attempt, and had retreated each time to his chambers to brood, and solidify his plans for Hermione's protection. Since her revelation, the spy had been looking for the signs of Dumbledore's manipulation, and his surreptitious excursions had borne the sour fruit that his other attempts had not.

Seated next to the wizard whose strategy had determined his fate, Snape's stomach roiled and churned with the bitter taste of exploitation. The insidious question that had plagued him since he'd seen Hermione's reflection in the Mirror of Disenchantment was never far from his mind: how much necessary information had been withheld from him, and for how long had it been happening?

Among the advantages to decades of successful espionage was the recourse to subtle methods of gleaning information. One of the first things Snape had done after escorting Hermione to her rooms the previous week, despite the urge to panic or hex Dumbledore, had been to modify his version of the Marauders Map. He now knew who, when and how frequently the Headmaster had visitors to his office and his private chambers. Mad-Eye Moody was there daily, and on two occasions Remus Lupin had snuck into the castle in the middle of the night. It wasn't unusual for Order members to have individual assignments; however, this had been the first time Snape had ever questioned Dumbledore's motives and whether they were just and honorable.

The acid taste of bile had almost choked Snape during the first Order of Phoenix meeting after he'd made the decision to shelter Hermione, when he'd listened to Dumbledore and Moody confirming their plans to separate the witch from her support group after graduation. They'd claimed her safety as the guiding reason for the separation. Her parents had never been mentioned – alive or dead. Snape had carefully scrutinized the faces of those witches and wizards seated around the dingy kitchen in Grimmauld Place, looking for any indication that someone else in the Order of the Phoenix thought Dumbledore's plan too callous. McGonagall's face had been pinched with concern and Molly Weasley had mumbled, "Keep her safe, Albus."

Snape had sneered, thankful that he could hide behind his reputation as surly and uncommunicative, as none protested... all too used to doing the old wizard's bidding, assuming that Dumbledore knew best. Snape had ignored his mental accusation that a month previously, he'd been one of the sheep sitting around the table staring at their shepherd... blindly, unquestioningly waiting for shearing or slaughter.

Ironically, Snape had found himself missing the mangy mongrel, Sirius Black, who had been known to loudly and passionately state his opinion on any occasion. Black would surely have fought for Hermione to remain in close proximity to Harry – if only for Harry's peace of mind. But no demurral had been forthcoming from other Order members, and so Snape had kept his own counsel, knowing the precarious position he was in, and recognizing just how easily he'd been placed in the acceptable loss column.

Snape's grim thoughts were truncated as Minerva McGonagall announced, "Professors, I give you Miss Lavender Brown." As one unit, the faculty rose, and the hall erupted into polite applause, intermittent bursts of greater enthusiasm than others. Then the newly graduated witch proceeded down the line, a newly minted copy of her mentor, shaking hands and murmuring pleasantries with her teachers. Sybil Trelawney wailed and clutched the graduating blonde to her chest. In each class, the bottle-lensed Divination instructor inspired one or two sycophants, and Lavender Brown had been one of the most vocal and passionate. Snape shuddered internally and his eyes passed the advancing witch to meet, briefly, the honeyed-brown eyes of Hermione Granger as she sat between her formidable bodyguards.

The visceral impact of meeting her eyes was unexpected and he shifted slightly, careful to give the appearance of flicking nonexistent lint from his robes. Yet still he assessed Hermoine's appearance almost greedily, like a boy tasting his first Chocolate Frog. Her hair was sleek and contained in an intricate arrangement of braiding at the back of her head, her robes were pristine and not a single flicker of emotion crossed her face. Harry sat on one side of her, his hair still as unruly as it had been when he'd been twelve, except he'd grown into a slender, well-proportioned man, with serious and level green eyes. He and Harry would never like one another, but Snape admired the younger wizard's power and loyalty. Ron flanked Hermione on the opposite side, and his frame practically towered over hers. The redheaded wizard had grown taller than any of his brothers and he'd broadened into a competent, rangy athlete with an easy manner, although his temper flared at any potential threat to those he cared for.

Ignoring the spark of feeling that ignited in his chest when their eyes had met, the Head of Slytherin immediately looked beyond her glamourized, perfect face to the Hufflepuff table and Ernie Macmillan. In the past week, the young wizard had blushed every time he'd met Snape's eyes, and the Potions master despaired of the young wizard's survival if Dumbledore ever allowed him entry into the Order of the Phoenix. He was far too easily intimidated. Narrowing his eyes at the young man, Snape almost smiled when Macmillan startled in his seat, his eyes growing wide, their whites showing. A snort built in Snape's chest as he thought that Macmillan would have run from the Great Hall if they weren't at graduation.

His attention was brought back to the dais by the bejeweled and overly perfumed hand being thrust at him, and Snape automatically took Lavender's hand in a perfunctory shake, before she'd moved on to the Headmaster and the older wizard's genial well-wishes.

Subtly Snape snaked his hand into the pocket of his robes, and palmed the slender, parchment-wrapped key he'd carefully placed there before coming to the ceremony. As the faculty reseated themselves and the next Gryffindor was called, Snape carefully fingered the plain bow, sturdy shank, and intricately warded bit of the key to the cottage where Hermione would live in obscure safety. He'd added wards, layered unplottable charms and otherwise stocked the cottage for her residence during the past week. He had shelved his worries over his tenuous existence to focus on protecting Hermione, to giving her the chance he no longer believed he might have.

As far as Dumbledore and the castle had been concerned, the Head of Slytherin had been hiding in his chambers, sulking over his house's loss of the Inter-House Championship... to Ravenclaw. In a series of spectacularly juvenile displays of hormones and bluster, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, kept company by their red-headed and thick-necked sidekicks, had elected the final week before their graduation as the ideal time to determine which was the better, more powerful wizard.

Daphne Greengrass would be ever grateful to Harry for sending his blond nemesis to the infirmary for three days straight. It had given her ample opportunity to cement her place at Draco's side, and, in his weakened state, Draco had proposed to her. The morning after his release from the infirmary, Draco had joined his housemates at breakfast, and he'd visibly paled when the Malfoy eagle owl swooped into the Great Hall carrying a small, green velvet box. Malfoy had risen to the occasion, and his patrician tones carried to the high table even as he'd turned a little green. He'd been well-drilled in pomp and ceremony, and there, before the entire student body, Daphne Greengrass had irrevocably become the future Mrs. Draco Malfoy.

However, instead of sulking in his dungeons, instead of berating Albus Dumbledore or confiding in Minerva McGonagall -- who might have risen to the occasion to defend the cub of her house while destroying any collegial relationship she had with her employer -- Snape had been fighting his cynically tinted fatalism by very carefully preparing a small, rarely used cottage in Wales, near the small town of North Cornelli in the south. The weather was mild and the cottage had been owned by Perenelle Flamel before her marriage, four hundred years before. As Snape had investigated the small thatched cottage on the outskirts of the Muggle town, he'd marveled, as he did every year, at how tidy it had been kept since he'd last seen it, and the remarkable chain of events that had given him custody of the keys. Perenelle had kept the seven-room house after her marriage, using it on occasion for a change of scenery or a weekend getaway. Snape had been humbled by her generosity and was now immeasurably grateful for its existence. It had provided him with the ideal opportunity to secret Hermione away from the eyes of their world.

Snape had met the perennial Flamels when he'd been set to guard the Philosopher's Stone. He had begun a tentative friendship with the elder couple, conducted entirely by owl-post, but it proved remarkably rewarding nonetheless. They'd lived for such a long time that nothing shocked them, and they were understanding and compassionate. Had they lived, Snape thought he might have had one or two more people he could turn to during a time of need, and perhaps Dumbledore might have had another long-sighted mind to rely upon – one which could temper his more callous strategies.

With sharp regret for lost opportunities, Snape remembered how he'd come into possession of the key, and title to the cottage. After Perenelle and Nicholas had drunk the final doses of the Elixir of Life, the couple had set their affairs in order and had peacefully died a short few weeks later. Their extreme age had hastened the process. Snape had received the key in the last letter he'd received from Perenelle, delivered the day of her death. He'd opened it in his office, as was his custom, and the ornate key had tumbled into his hands. There had been a flash of bright blue light and the metal had heated in his palm. Perenelle's letter had been a farewell and had bequeathed the cottage to him, "...for times of rejuvenation, recuperation and solace... it has been my escape from the world for the better part of four centuries. I trust, my young friend, that you will avail yourself of this gift when you most need it. Until we meet again, I remain, affectionately yours...."

It had been one of the few times in Snape's life that he'd cried. And he'd silently thanked her and had taken her advice. For one week each summer, Snape had occupied the cottage. It was unplottable, and highly warded. Over the centuries, Perenelle had layered protections on the cozy dwelling and walled garden such that it was impregnable. The only way in was with the key, or being escorted by the rightful owner. It didn't make for many guests, he'd never had any, but that wasn't the cottage's purpose. He had planned to retire to his small home, and none knew of its existence aside from him and the solicitor, who was bound to silence by magic. Snape had never before shared his hideaway with anyone.

Again and again the necessities of his position pulled him from his chair, and the Potions master rose, shaking hands with a continuing procession of Gryffindors. The only one who drew him from his reverie was Neville Longbottom, whose grip was clammy and his hand was trembling. Snape was kinder than he'd meant to be, merely saying the young wizard's name and curtly nodding his head, and Longbottom had moved on to the Headmaster with a huge grin on his face. He'd escaped his childhood nemesis with his dangly bits intact. His friends applauded him and Ron had pounded him on the back when he resumed his seat. Snape had given the young wizards a withering look for their frivolity.

The Potions master's responses on the dais were automatic, almost as if he was under an Imperius, so removed was he from the succession of Gryffindors crossing the stage. He was instead ruminating about how quickly he'd been able to discard the yoke of bondage and enter into the deception necessary to save Hermione. It had given him a purpose, a goal to achieve rather than focusing on the painful personal implications of Dumbledore's machinations. His need to protect her was overwhelming, as if by doing so, he was protecting the one living reminder of his own humanity. He firmly believed that it was his last and only opportunity to leave the world a better place than he'd found it.

He had no doubt that she was worth the sacrifice.

Snape remembered the clever manner in which Hermione had provided him with the information detailing the Headmaster's plans for her following graduation. She'd arrived in his office five days before, accompanied by her smothering layer of protection, Harry and Ron. He'd actually spared the young wizards a nod of acknowledgement, noticing their breadth and height, for they had proved to be staunchly protective of their dainty friend, and Snape had thought that Dumbledore had miscalculated in his handling of the young savior. As little as he liked the Potter spawn, Snape had to admit that the young wizard was powerful, stubborn and loyal. Ginny Weasley might catch her wizard, but Harry wouldn't easily, if ever, accept the loss of his know-it-all friend.

Hermione had entered his office with an air of hesitation, but he could tell from her steady hands that she wasn't afraid of him. Leaving his head bent, his lank hair curtaining his face, he had searched her features for any sign of her true feelings. He had been unable to detect anything other than her smooth, unaffected countenance. Keeping in line with appearances, he'd sneered at her, holding her gaze to make certain that she'd understood the stratagem. Her features revealed nothing other than polite interest, and he had been relieved and disappointed.

He kept his voice clipped, curt, ostensibly ignoring her red and black-haired ballast. "Miss Granger, to what do I owe the honor of your presence? Classes have ended. You are no longer my student. I can see no reason for you to be here."

"We... er... that is to say, I've come to return one of your books, Professor Snape. I hadn't realized that it was yours until I attempted to return it to the library. Please accept my apologies."

Snape had risen, thinking rapidly; none of the books from his private collection were missing. He'd charmed them all to keep track of their whereabouts. When they were borrowed or he left them somewhere other than his bookshelves, their location was printed on a scroll he kept on his desk. None were marked on the scroll, which had meant that she'd used one of her own books as a plausible ruse to see him and convey something. Clever, clever witch.

"Give it here, then, and ten points from Gryffindor for forgetting to return things in a timely fashion. I shall be happy to have your annoying habit of extra-curricular study out of my hands and out of this school."

She had placed the small, leather bound volume in his hands, and he'd felt a frisson of magic course up his arm. A recognition charm. She hadn't taken chances, and he had found it difficult to refrain from smiling at her skillful ploy. She would indeed have been an excellent spy. It was Dumbledore's loss that he'd decided she should be sacrificed.

"Yes, Sir. Goodbye, Professor."

"Get out, Miss Granger, and take Junior and Red with you." He hadn't been able to imbue the tone with vitriol, instead it had come out as a resigned sigh, and something personal had glimmered in her eyes. An odd twisting in Snape's gut had recognized it.

After the Gryffindor trio had departed, he'd warded his office and opened the book to discover that the pages were blank... until he touched them. He hadn't known what charm she'd used, but he'd been impressed with the breadth of her tuition. He'd noticed that unusual fibers were meshed with the vellum of the book, and had hypothesized that she'd bound bleached Demiguise hair to the pages. For one so young, she had used her time in the wizarding world to great advantage, and had acquired a good deal of knowledge. She seemed to have that rare talent of suiting abstract information to practical application.

Still marveling at her ingenuity, Snape had gained the information he'd needed, his heart beating rapidly as he'd read her thanks and her appreciation for his help, especially given the precariousness of his own situation. As he'd read further, he'd been deeply touched by the underlying meaning of her words, the fact that she'd placed him in the rarified company of her closest friends, the boys she'd faced death with and would willingly give her life for. The universally reviled Potions master had sat in his office for hours after reading her notes and Dumbledore's plans, the once-again blank book held reverently in his hands.

Dumbledore's plans for the Dream Team were straightforward. He would escort them and Ginny Weasley to Grimmauld Place the morning after graduation. Dumbledore had told the threesome to be ready to depart the castle at eight o'clock, and Hermione had made it clear in her notes to Snape that Harry and Ron remained unaware of Dumbledore's plans to separate the three. Her only source of information had been Snape and she hadn't sought a secondary opinion. The Potions master's breath had caught when he'd read that sentence - the impact of just how very deeply she trusted him affected him profoundly.

She'd speculated that Harry and Ron would remain ignorant of the plan to separate her from them, if Dumbledore had his way, until after she'd been spirited away from their side. Her conclusion had been that whatever plans Snape had made would need to be implemented prior to her Dumbledore-scheduled departure from the school's grounds. Once beyond the security of Hogwarts, Hermione hadn't known where or when she would be separated from Harry and Ron. She hadn't wanted to reveal her suspicions by asking.

Finally, Hermione had informed Snape that she planned to tell Harry and Ron about her alternate plans – refraining from mentioning Snape's part and her injury – the night of graduation, when the seventh years would be celebrating. No one would think it odd that the trio wanted some private time to themselves. Hermione had decided to exploit the rumors that had circulated over the years about Harry, Ron and her, and she had been fostering the most salacious of those during the past several days. New gossip about the trio had begun to take the castle by storm, and the majority of the school believed that the three Gryffindors were going to celebrate their graduation in the most hedonistic of ways possible.

Snape had read her message carefully and smiled at her guile. He'd found the carefully concealed, additional page with her official authorization for him to use her Gringott's vault, a numbered vault only, as there were no names used at the Goblin bank, ensuring the privacy of its customers. He had added the details Hermione had written as if they were aconite being added to an extraordinarily complex Wolfsbane potion. Without the addition of that final ingredient, the potion would be rendered inert. However, adding the aconite of her detailed information, the elixir they were brewing would be potent. Snape had simply adjusted his timetable so that Hermione would depart before the Headmaster expected her and after she spoke with her friends.

During the intervening five days, between her delivery of the book and graduation, the Potions master had assiduously kept out of the Gryffindors' paths. Part of him had been disturbed by the salacious gossip which had reached even his ears. He ruthlessly crushed his reaction and focused on his goal, spiriting her away as if Evanesco'd. He'd also noticed that Hermione had been more physically affectionate with her two confederates, and she'd garnered suspicious and speculating looks from Ginny Weasley and Albus Dumbledore, neither of whom wanted their plans for the scar-headed wizard to go awry.

Snape's reminiscences ended as McGonagall called Hermione's name, and he watched the witch who'd placed her future in his hands ascend the steps to gracefully accept the accolades that were so rightfully hers. In some ways, he realized that his faith in her was as deeply embedded as hers in him. He trusted that she was worth jeopardizing his position and future for, knowing with some degree of certainty that there was no other human for whom he would have risked as much. That line of thought wouldn't bear much scrutiny, and he scowled as he listened to McGonagall list Hermione's achievements. Unlike so many of her peers, Hermione had earned each and every honor she was awarded.

This witch was well worth the risks he was taking. After dismissing her value for the past seven years, he made reparation by questioning, for the thousandth time in a week, how Dumbledore could have been so willing to consider her expendable. With a sudden clarity, he realized that the fact that Dumbledore had shown his ruthlessness in his willingness to sacrifice Hermione – the veracity of which he'd never doubted -- was the most significant reason he hadn't bearded Dumbledore in his ivory tower. It had been a fatal mistake on the old wizard's part. That, and his lack of faith in Snape.

Narrowing his glittering black eyes speculatively, Snape watched Hermione smile at her Head of House. She epitomized the ideal witch: dedicated, talented and creative. Her NEWT scores were the highest in three generations, and Snape hadn't realized that she'd earned additional honors in Transfiguration and Charms. Transfiguration was expected, McGonagall had fairly glowed about her student's prowess for years, but Charms was a surprise. Flitwick was a demanding and finicky taskmaster, and only worked with the most talented students. Snape had never heard about Hermione working privately with his diminutive colleague. His brow furrowed and his mouth twisted in a bitter line as he jealously watched Hermione shake the small Professor's hand and accept Flitwick's rather awkward hug.

A rumbling chuckle on his left distracted him, and Dumbledore spoke quietly. "You only have to shake hands with Miss Granger, Severus. After today, she will no longer be your concern, and you need not acknowledge her in the future, if you do not wish to."

Carefully masking his triumph at having successfully duped Dumbledore, years of espionage had bred valuable skills, Snape, replied, "It is not her hand that bothers me, Headmaster. It is the one following her for which I wish to use disinfectant."

Dumbledore glanced at him admonishingly, his lips pursed in disapproval. "Severus... Harry is not... well, I shan't be able to convince you, so just be polite."

Snape nodded, and prepared to greet Hermione, key in hand. She reached him, her hand extended. He quickly wrapped his fingers around her outstretched hand and pressed the key into her small palm. Her face, her perfectly glamourized face, betrayed no hint of astonishment even though he felt her muscles stiffen through their physical connection. He held her hand until he felt her take control of the parchment-wrapped metal, and then inclined his head. "Miss Granger."

He released his hold immediately, and she spoke to give herself time to put her hand in her robes, looking for all the audience to see as if she were wiping her hand inside her pocket. As subterfuge, it was brilliant. None would realize that she had accepted something from him. None would fault her wanting to wipe the greasy git's touch from her body. None would question their mutual dislike... he'd been cruel and unfair to her for seven years, and none would know that there was so much more to their interaction than met the eye.

Hermione tilted her chin, her bland features belying her emotional reaction. "Professor Snape, I'd like to thank you for your interesting classes. They were most informative. Good-bye, sir."

Completely in character, he didn't even acknowledge her final words, looking over her shoulder to his Slytherins as Hermione passed on to Dumbledore and endured the elder wizard's hug and the applause of the other students. Silently he applauded her ability to dissemble in front of the wizard who'd relegated her to the status of prey. She gracefully took her leave of Dumbledore, not a hair out of place, nor a grimace to be seen. If there was a danger to Hermione now, the students... no... graduates of Snape's House were its source, and while he took his seat in unison with the rest of the faculty, Snape noticed the lewd manner that Greg Goyle eyed the young witch. Snape's hand clenched in a fist on his lap, and no one thought it was anything other than the fact that he was going to have to shake Potter's hand.

He watched Goyle's piggy little eyes follow Hermione back to her seat and a strong desire to curse the bulky wizard took root in his brain. Considering what Snape knew of Goyle's sexual proclivities and that he was going to pledge to the Death Eaters within the week, it was providential that Hermione would be securely beyond the massive wizard's reach. Goyle's father had never been able to refrain from sampling his Muggle victims.

And then, Snape rose for the final student of the year, watching as each faculty member greeted Potter as if he were their own. It was almost sickening the fawning that Hagrid dispensed, the half-giant almost knocking the smaller wizard to his knees with his gruff affection.

When Potter approached him, they touched for the briefest amount of time possible and still call what they'd done a handshake, and then Dumbledore had embraced his young hero in a show of favoritism that none could mistake. Snape's lips thinned and he flicked his eyes to Hermione's seat, only to be startled when he realized that she was looking directly at him, and not watching Potter as he'd assumed.

It wasn't a long look, but it was meaningful, and Snape's breath hitched in his lungs. For once in his life, he had absolutely no doubt that he had chosen the right path. All that remained was for her to use the Portkey at midnight and he would be assured of her safety. He wouldn't know until the morning, but he could wait. He had learned how to be patient over the years, even if it was sometimes difficult.

The ceremonial aspect of graduation was complete and it was time to mingle. It was Snape's least favorite part of the festivities, but he spoke quietly with each of his Slytherins and several of the Ravenclaws. He ignored the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, with the exception of noting that Hermione kept within three feet of either Potter or Weasley as if she was tied to them. He clenched his jaw when he saw her touch Potter's arm and Potter threw his arm casually around her shoulders.

After a sufficient time had passed, he could make his escape, relieved that Hooch, Vector and Sinistra had already left. As Head of House, his duties were more onerous, and as he made his way toward the double doors, he saw that Hagrid was surrounded by his favorite students, a huge tear tracking down his cheek which Hermione brushed away with great affection.

Suddenly, fiercely, Snape thought that if he was able to save just one who deserved a better life... or a life at all... then his years of sacrifice and misery would be worth it. His personal salvation seemed to have been embodied in the slender frame of a curly-haired witch of eighteen.

He was just in time to hear Dumbledore reach the small cluster of friends and remind Harry, Ron and Hermione to meet him in the entrance hall at eight o'clock the next morning, and to bring Miss Weasley as well. Snape pushed open the massive door, the influx of light casting his shadow into the Great Hall, a slicing, dark finger pointing across the stone floor toward the honeyed-lashed Gryffindor lioness he had sworn to protect. His black robes flared as he strode from the room. Dumbledore's voice could be heard admonishing Hermione to pack all her books, and he smirked to himself... by eight o'clock the next morning Hermione would already be gone.

~o0o~

Dear Hermione:

Ron... I'm not going to write you a letter because Harry pretty much said it all.

Snape eyed the half-crumpled piece of parchment lying on the small writing table at which the wizarding world's hope for the future had fallen asleep. His lip curled as he finished reading the boys' letter to Hermione. When Hedwig had returned to Grimmauld Place with the letter undelivered, days after she'd been sent, Harry had retreated to the library and warded the door behind him. It had been thirty-six hours before he'd opened the door to let a red-eyed Ron enter.

No one else had crossed the threshold of the room until Snape had broken the wards early this morning following the emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix held in the kitchen, at which Dumbledore had announced his opinion that Hermione was beyond their assistance. Snape's heart had contracted painfully at the old wizard's initial pronouncement, but as the details had been introduced, his roiling emotions had settled. During the three weeks since the school year had ended, Snape had remained at his masters' beck-and-call, layering his deception with plausible visibility. He'd wanted to Apparate to the cottage to assure himself that Hermione was in residence, but had known better. Skillful deception required patience, a virtue that he had learned painfully over the years of dual-service to demanding task masters.

Following the Order meeting, at which Molly Weasley had broken into hysterics and Minerva McGonagall had looked every second of her eighty-odd years, Snape had left the house in his customary manner. He'd returned three hours later, in the still, cool hours of early morning. No one had been awake, including the balled-up form of Ginny Weasley, propped up outside the library door. She'd sat vigil for her brother and the boy she loved. A sneer had crossed Snape's features. He'd seen the leap in her eyes when she'd first heard Dumbledore's announcement. Instinctively, she'd realized this would be her best chance at capturing Potter's attentions, when his heart was breaking over the supposed loss of his best friend.

Efficiently and quietly Snape had broken the Colloportus on the door and crept past the sleeping young witch, entering the library warily. Ron had been snoring loudly on the couch. His eyes had been puffy with grief and Snape had known that the sounds he'd been making were due to congested nasal passages.

Silently, Snape had crossed the library to the small desk and had carefully removed the letter from the clutching grasp of the young messy-haired wizard he'd alternately loathed and tolerated for the better part of seven years. He'd thought that Dumbledore had coddled James Potter's son, but since his life-altering epiphany where Hermione was concerned, he had gleaned bits of information that had painted a very different picture of this very powerful, albeit young, wizard.

His gut had twisted while he read the letter. Each expression of affection had felt as if Bubotuber pus had been sprayed directly on his heart. He'd never, in all his life, experienced the type of friendship that the Dream Team had. Snape had been envious and a little jealous that his own relationship with Hermione, which was in such a state of flux, was so new, so untried that it didn't yield such familiarity. He hadn't allowed himself to hope for a chance to build on the foundation of those incredibly intimate moments he and Hermione had experienced in the dungeon.

Survival had been his focus for the past three weeks, and he'd lived off adrenaline, fear and the Dark Lord's orders to locate Harry Potter. His thread of sanity had been the idealized image of Hermione safely ensconced in his Welsh cottage. It was an image he'd clung to in the face of his masters' discontent... each of whom had expressed their displeasure at their lack of cogent information. Dumbledore had initially been furious that Hermione had evaded his plans, but had accepted her assumed fate with a faux remorse that hadn't fooled Snape, nor would it fool the young heroes when they emerged from their mourning. Voldemort had been incandescent with fury that Potter had departed the school by Portkey and gone directly into hiding. That night, Snape had truly thought his time on the planet had ended. He'd returned to Hogwarts -- staggering, twitching, bleeding -- suffering the aftereffects of several maliciously applied curses. It was indeed magic that Snape had retained his ability to think after the loving application of incentive.

A shifting log in the dying fire snapped his attention back to the present, and Snape glanced around the stuffy room, the half-filled book cases, the old and faded furniture and the threadbare carpet. He realized that there wasn't a thing out of place. Nor was there evidence of the mayhem he'd expected to find as a manifestation of Harry's suffering. This was not the behavior of the boy who had raged at his friends and threw tantrums after the events of the Triwizard Tournament. This was not the behavior of the boy who'd withdrawn into icy disdain and verbally expressed loathing when his godfather had fallen beyond the veil in the Department of Mysteries. This was a different wizard, an adult wizard, and Snape thought he needed to revise his assessment of Harry. A tendril of thought began to unfurl in his brain. Perhaps Hermione's faith in her friend wasn't misguided as her faith in Dumbledore had been.

After several minutes, Snape was still standing over the desk looking at the wrinkled letter. He needed to make a decision whether to let Harry know that she was alive, which would give away his part in her safety, or allow Harry to wallow in grief and possibly have his stable ground crumble further.

Snape concluded that he couldn't make a unilateral decision. He would have to ask Hermione what she wished. It was her secret after all, even though he knew that she trusted him to protect her. He determined to copy the letter, deliver it to Hermione and then let her make the choice.

Gently, Snape smoothed the crumpled parchment on the desk, lying next to Harry's clenched fist, and he pulled a piece of fresh foolscap from the stack kept for writing purposes. Laying the blank paper atop the original letter, Snape placed his wand in the center of the parchment and intoned, very quietly, "Replicato." Instantly the blank sheet was covered with an identical copy of the letter written by Harry and Ron.

At the same moment Snape reached for the parchment, Harry's hand wrapped around his wrist, as triumphantly as if he'd just caught a struggling Golden Snitch. Shocked by his carelessness, Snape flicked his eyes at Harry. The hard glint of emerald in the firelight told him that Harry could indeed be as dangerous as the Dark Lord dreaded, and twining with the spike of alarm in his intestines was a hint of smug satisfaction that just perhaps the Dark Lord was right to fear this young man.

Grimly, Snape realized that the wizard who gripped his wrist was one who'd been carefully groomed over the years by neglect, abuse, terror and the loss of loved ones in order to be formed into a lethal instrument capable of meeting Voldemort on equal footing. Seeing the implacable strength of purpose behind Lily Evans' eyes in this young man's face was unnerving, and there was no doubt in Snape's mind that when Harry Potter faced Tom Riddle in battle and cast the Avada Kedavra, he would mean it.

"What are you doing, Snape?" Harry growled. His voice was hoarse from the crying he'd done for the past two days.

The quiet question roused Ron who was on his feet, wand in hand, as soon as he saw the confrontation across the room. Snape snarled at his own negligence. He'd grown soft over one Gryffindor and look where it had gotten him... placating the Boy Who Lived and his Sidekick.

He was in a position to ease their certainty of Hermione's death. He found himself internally debating his options, and then realized that if he withheld the information – adding a layer of protection over Hermione – he would be following in his masters' footsteps. Both wizards, Dark and Light, would have used the information to benefit their causes. It would have been so easy to do, like breathing. But Snape was ambivalent. He looked between the two men, at their grief-ravaged faces, and was uncharacteristically moved by sympathy for these two who'd loved Hermione for far longer than he. The jolt in his psyche as the depths of his feelings for the young witch spiked through his brain was staggering, and demanded his attention... Was it true? Was it possible?

Harry's free hand clenched in a fist and he rose from his chair, the embers from the fire reflecting a red glow off his glasses. Ron shifted on the opposite side of the library. Unspoken tension writhed in the air between the three and communicated itself clearly in Harry's tight grasp around Snape's wrist.

The current predicament took precedence over Snape's flight of fancy. He couldn't afford for either of these two to spread the news that he knew where Hermione was. Thinking rapidly, not wanting to travel down either of the two paths he loathed with passion and which had damaged him so irrevocably, he tamped down the desire to wrench his arm from Harry's grasp, and neutrally asked, "Will you trust me, Potter?"

Ron's snort of incredulity drew Snape's attention for a moment, but the threat from that quarter was negligible unless Harry decided otherwise. At least years of training had hammered some form of control into the often-impetuous, headstrong Weasley.

"Why?" Harry asked, and Snape met his intense stare with one of his own. To his surprise their eyes were at a level. This was an adult wizard that Snape was facing.

"I am not at liberty to say." Snape would give them no more information, indeed he could not. Besides he'd said more than enough. His statement would have been an open declaration to someone like Lucius Malfoy or Albus Dumbledore, but these Gryffindors were blunt to the point of being painfully obvious, and were unseasoned in the finer forms of fugue. Even as he despaired of this situation working in his favor, Harry seemed to come to a decision and released Snape's wrist.

"All right. But when will you be 'at liberty to say?'"

It was more of a concession than Snape expected, but still pinned him down. He glared at Harry, their eyes the glittering reflection of facets from the earth's crucible, emerald and obsidian. "Do you understand the concept of discretion, Potter?"

The younger wizard's fist clenched spasmodically and his jaw worked as Harry controlled his temper. Snape raised an eyebrow and he noticed Ron shift into a ready stance. Unexpectedly, Snape's lips twisted in a smile. Perhaps there was hope yet.

Harry's suspicion changed into something more like comprehension. "Yes. I will give you a week. After that, I will go to Dumbledore."

Harry then offered Snape the original letter. It seemed that Harry Potter was indeed more than the brawn of James Potter's genes; he appeared to have inherited some of the Evans' intelligence as well. It was about time for it to show up.

Snape nodded his head, and then, with a fierce look at Ron, he crossed the room. "I am certain that your grief will continue to be unabated and that nightmares must have plagued you for the past couple of nights. There is no telling what you might have seen."

Ron and Harry shared a glance and then nodded at him. He almost sighed in relief. They would play along, and he hadn't compromised his ethics. How odd, he thought, that in the last days of his life, Snape had found principals he was unwilling to tarnish. Quietly, he slipped from the room, re-warding the door, and as he passed down the hall, avoiding the hideous troll's leg umbrella stand, he noticed that Miss Weasley hadn't moved in the five minutes it had taken for him to have formed a new alliance. Perhaps this one would keep him and Hermione alive.

Sweeping stealthily through the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, Snape thought it was ironic that his fate now rested in the hands of two partially tried-and-tested wizards, and that he had truly lost his mind. The next moment, he acknowledged that what he was resting his most precious secret upon was the solid foundation of the friendship that existed between the three Gryffindors. Their oft-tried bonds of loyalty had been tested in the seething molten crucible of the Dark Lord's malevolence and single-minded purpose: to kill Harry Potter, his friends and Albus Dumbledore... in that order.

Harry Potter's defeat... time and again... of Voldemort had been an unspoken, unmentioned elephant in the room since the Dark Lord's return. It didn't matter that each and every time the two wizards – the flat-faced, red-eyed thing and the messy-haired, scar-headed boy – met in a fight to the death, some agency came to the younger wizard's assistance: the residue of a mother's love, the sword of a long dead wizard, the shades of Voldemort's most recent murders, Albus Dumbledore and other Order of the Phoenix members, the Giant Grawp and his seemingly tame Acromantula. In each case, Harry had escaped with his life and the lives of most of his friends, while Lord Voldemort had retired from the field of battle with fewer of his minions – lost either by incarceration or incapacitation.

It had become imperative that Voldemort defeat Harry once and for all in order to prove to his Death Eaters that he, Lord Voldemort, was the most powerful wizard in their world and worthy of the title 'The Dark Lord.' Without this single triumph, Voldemort's Dark Order would never prevail, wouldn't entice new recruits to his vision and his cause. Even with family coercion, there were few enough new Death Eaters, as several of the younger generation had refused to take the Dark Mark, earning disownment as a result. But these children had fought back. They'd openly revealed their family's association to the Death Eaters and given as much information to the Aurors as possible. The Ministry had seized family assets and imprisoned three of the Inner Circle: Dolohov, Parkinson and Bulstrode. Malfoy had retained his freedom simply because his family vaults were seemingly endless and he kept Fudge's pockets lined with gold.

Yes, the Dark Lord's plans had become focused entirely on the life of Harry Potter, and as an adjunct, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, which was undoubtedly why he and Lucius had descended upon the Grangers during the Easter holidays. Snape could only imagine the punishment Voldemort had heaped upon Malfoy for having failed to actually kill Hermione, and Snape's heart swelled at the idea of how indomitable she'd proved after her return from such a devastating attack.

No one, other than her closest friends, had known of her parents' deaths. She'd maintained her marks, her extra-curricular activities and her staunch loyalty to her friends, and still graduated at the top of her year. Until that fateful night in front of the Mirror of Disenchantment, Snape would never have known about the attack and have the final proof that he did indeed have pawn-like status in the service of Albus Dumbledore.

Pausing at the entrance to the aged house, his hand wrapped around the brass door handle, the spy turned to look back up the dark, narrow stairs. Standing on the landing, silently watching him, were two staunch friends who had entrusted him with the survival of the third member of their triad. Snape's course had already been decided... had been decided that night a month before, and was now verified. With a tug of his lips into what might have been recognized as a smile, Snape left the house and Apparated into the dark.

~o0o~