Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Severus managed to catch Hermione before she hit the floor, but it was a close thing. Shaking her to catch her attention hadn't been a good idea, as it meant that she'd slipped out of his grip.

He'd dropped to his knees as he grabbed hold of her, not wanting to end up underneath her or on top of her. His knees throbbed painfully from where they had hit the frosted glass below.

Bruised knees did not concern him, though. The young woman in his arms did. Severus shifted his grip on her until he could see her face.

Hermione's eyes were still open and unfocused. Only semi-conscious, perhaps?

He freed a hand and waved it in front of her eyes. She gave no indication that she'd seen him, her pupils fixed and dilated. That in itself indicated that she was in pain, but combined with the way she was clutching her head between her hands, almost as if she was trying to cover her ears ...

Severus scowled up at where Fawkes still sang on his perch. "I know you're glad to see her, you daft old bird, but shut up!"

Fawkes snapped his beak shut and gave him a wounded glare. Severus glowered back. A phoenix was meant to be intelligent. Was Fawkes trying to hurt Hermione?

Although the soul-ensnaring song had ceased, Hermione kept her hands pressed against her head. She was still hurting.

"What's wrong with her?" Lucius asked. "Phoenix song shouldn't affect her like that; it doesn't hurt me – and my soul must be far darker than hers. Has the plague somehow tainted her?"

Severus shook his head. His detection spell would have shown Hermione glowing red if that were the case, and anyway ... "Phoenix song isn't meant to cause anyone pain. It merely 'strikes fear into the hearts of the impure'."

"Perhaps the curse breakers were not as good as they were cracked up to be. My lawyers will be delighted if that's the case." Lucius smiled grimly.

"This is not how she reacted to the dark atmosphere in the house. No, the curse breaking hasn't failed."

"Then what's wrong with her?" Lucius threw his hands up, exasperated.

"How should I know?" Severus snapped. "I'm not a mind reader."

"But you're a Legilimens!"

True. While Legilimency was not as simple as reading someone's mind, it might help them to figure out why pain was still plaguing Hermione. Except ...

"She can't give consent."

Lucius snorted. "Worry about morality after she's better. Get on with it!"

"You're not the one who shares a bed with her," Severus muttered under his breath.

He sighed, shifting his grip on his wand. Hopefully Hermione would listen to his explanations before he was banished from her bed.

The first spell he cast was not Legilimens but Rennervate. As he'd expected, it didn't work. Worth a try, though.

Hoping that Hermione was not a natural Occlumens – and not just because he would prefer to avoid the inevitable headache caused by the encounter with an Occluded mind, as it would take time that he didn't have – Severus readied his mind, focusing his concentration and sharpening it to a point, his eyes unblinking as he looked into Hermione's vacant eyes.

'Legilimens.'

One thing was clear instantly: Hermione was no Occlumens. While that allowed him easy access to her mind, the horrendous tangle of thoughts, emotions and memories that awaited him was enough to make him wish that she was one. At least her mind would have been organised.

The swirling mess inside Hermione's head was worse than anything Severus had experienced when attempting to teach Potter Occlumency. And that was without going deep enough to access the contents of her memories.

Severus ventured into the tangled mass of memories. The very first memory he encountered almost disrupted his concentration. His body, drenched with blood trickling from his neck. Seeing himself through another's eyes was always strange, but what really threatened to throw him out of Hermione's mind was his own experience of that moment. The stuff of nightmares; his own.

Mentally shaking himself, Severus moved to another memory. Phoenix song accompanied the shift. He must have followed a mental thread, because this memory was connected to the first. Hermione's hands holding the wounds on his neck together, in position so that Fawkes could cry healing tears onto them.

Wait. Hermione hadn't been able to remember that, it had been among the memories affected by the cure. She hadn't even recognised Fawkes just now, but then she was not a student who had frequented the Headmaster's office when the phoenix had been in residence.

Yet these previously missing memories were uppermost in her mind, not absent or buried in her subconscious. Severus followed the mental thread. The phoenix song was the only way he could unravel the Gordian Knot of Hermione's mind.

Examining the sequence of memories, he discovered two things. One, all of them either featured Fawkes or the phoenix was at least present in them. Two, as a series of memories they should have been in chronological order. But judging by the last memory he'd found, Fawkes appearing in a flash of fire, they were not.

At least this set of memories were ones that he knew the correct sequence of. He could only hope that once he'd sorted them out, the rest of the muddle in Hermione's head would follow suit.

Legilimency itself could only identify the problem; memory modification was called for to rectify matters. Memory modification did not necessarily mean using Obliviate or replacing true memories with false ones. It could also involve untangling a mess like Hermione's.

This was an instant where a spell needed no incantation, verbal or non-verbal. It depended on his intentions and the strength of his will, rearranging the sequence and the connections between them. Severus could only hope that he discovered the correct order, as his own memories of the time were only reliable after Fawkes had healed him, not during or before.

Hopefully his actions would not change her. Meddling with the mind was not to be done lightly. Even so, there was nothing the 'experts' in St. Mungo's would be able to do better than Severus himself where Legilimency was concerned. And he wasn't about to wait if his wife was in pain.

Severus held the sequence of the memories in his mind and shuffled them into the right order. Then he used that as a template to rearrange the original ones in Hermione's head. Finally, he restored the connections between them, redrawing the mental thread.

He examined them once more to be sure that everything worked as he intended. Good. The memories were not tainted by the fog that normally marked false memories or impressions that had been tampered with.

Hermione was on her way to retrieve Snape's body. Outside the Whomping Willow, Fawkes appeared in a flash of fire, unearthly phoenix song filling the air. The damaged tree's feeble twitches ceased as it slipped into healing slumber.

She cast a Cushioning Charm on the floor, then laid him down. Hermione pinched his nose closed, and bent her head down to his.

The memory clouded. For a moment Severus was afraid that something had gone wrong with his efforts. He sighed with relief; he just hadn't examined the memories in detail, just the start and end of each snippet. In the memory, Hermione's eyes were closed, which contributed to the clouding from her prevailing emotion:

Fear. That she'd fail, that she'd do it wrong – it had been years since she had practiced artificial resuscitation under the tutelage of her parents' refreshing obligatory First Aid courses.

In a flash of fire, Fawkes took them to the hospital wing, not trusting them to make the journey under their own power.

Severus withdrew from the untangled set of returned memories. As he had hoped, the rest of the mess was gradually straightening out. He suspected that Fawkes's song had triggered the return of those memories where he was present, which had churned Hermione's usually organised mind into a knotted mess. No wonder her head had been hurting.

He lingered for a few more seconds to ensure that her thoughts were back to their usual state. The temptation to pry into her surface memories was there, but the desire to stay in Hermione's good books – and her bed – was stronger.

The headache hit as soon as he ended the spell and left her mind.

'Definitely need some Headache Relief.' He groaned, massaging his temples in an unconscious attempt to ward off the pounding. Severus cast a baleful look at the instigator of the events leading to his headache. Fawkes's chest was puffed up, his neck craning back, sure signs that he was about to burst into song.

"Oh no, you don't!" Severus tightened his grip on Hermione and Disapparated them both.

Upon his arrival in the bathroom, Severus collapsed to the floor. Judging by the now thunderous pounding in his head, it might have been a better idea to cast a well-placed Silencio on the bloody bird. He passed out.

* * *

Severus awoke to the business end of his wand. Well, that answered the question about how Hermione felt about his unauthorised rummaging around in her head. Or maybe not; she lowered his wand and helped him to a sitting position. Or then again, maybe it did, as she tipped a potion into his mouth with a terse instruction to 'drink this'. He swallowed, resigned to his fate.

Wait. That wasn't Veritaserum, it distinctly tasted of ... Headache Relief? Indeed it was, he noted, as the pounding in his head ceased. So he was forgiven? She didn't want payment in kind for his invasion of her privacy?

"I remember. Helping Fawkes. Saving you." Her eyes narrowed. "I didn't do that much. If Fawkes hadn't been there, you'd be dead."

"I beg to differ. He healed me, yes, but breathing is rather vital, too, don't you think?"

Hermione's lips twisted into a reluctant smile. "I suppose," she murmured. "And thank y..."

There was a knock, muffled by the distance between them and the bedroom door.

Unsurprisingly, it was Lucius. He stepped inside Severus's bedroom and frowned at Hermione as he held out an envelope addressed to her.

"Why would my son be writing to you?" To Severus, there was an undertone of hurt to Lucius's question. And well there might. Relations between father and son were still strained, despite the promising development of Draco attending their wedding.

Hermione took the envelope, explaining while she opened it and extracted the parchment. "Draco asked me to help him find a wife. He seems to think that I'll be able to convince his future bride that he's decent. Er, I mean, he has turned over a new leaf, but he thinks that my ... my endorsement would improve his chances."

She fell silent while she read the letter. "He wants to get this sorted out sooner rather than later."

"Then tell him no. Not today." Severus crossed his arms. After her breakdown the previous night, Hermione was still in a fragile state.

Hermione merely Conjured a quill. "Sorry, Severus, but I have to disagree. Draco's right; if this isn't sorted out, he won't have a choice left. But by the time the owls have gone between us, tomorrow would be better than today to see him."

Severus scowled slightly when she began to scratch out her reply on the back of Draco's letter. He didn't agree, but it was her choice to make. Still, it was better than Draco descending on them today.

"I'll take it," Lucius offered, once she had finished and was scratching out her name on the envelope and replaced it with Draco's. "I have to send that letter to the Prophet's editor anyway." Although Lucius's voice was tightly controlled, Severus could tell that his friend was all the more hurt that Draco hadn't come to him for help.

"Thank you," Hermione murmured, handing the letter to Lucius. He turned on his heel and walked stiffly away.

After he had gone, she turned to Severus. "Draco's not going to want Lucius around when he's meeting me, is he?"

"No, I can't imagine he will."

"I can't help with that." Hermione abruptly turned to face him, a light in her eyes as if something had just occurred to her. "But there is something I – we – can do. I don't think we ever got around to giving Lucius a wedding present, did we?"

Severus shook his head.

"I've got an idea. Diagon Alley should have what I've got in mind. We could go today, just the two of us."

"We will not. Or have you forgotten about the recent coverage in the Prophet? You need a quiet day. I'll go to Diagon Alley."

Hermione opened her mouth to argue.

"Besides, we shall doubtless need to get some gold out of Gringotts," Severus said, sure that would settle the issue.

"So?"

"Ah." 'Of course. She only got those memories back that featured Fawkes.' "Did we neglect to mention that the goblins have banned you from Gringotts for life?"

"What? Why... oh. Something to do with breaking in and out, I guess, huh?"

"Indeed. Potter and Weasley are also banned." Severus smirked at the thought of the worshipped heroic duo at last getting some comeuppance. "I would have to leave you alone to withdraw money, and I'm not about to do that with the press in the current mood it is, today of all days."

"Fine," she huffed. "But surely you don't want to leave me on my own at all, 'today of all days'?"

All too true, he mused, ignoring her grumbling. Why hadn't he thought of that? "I shall go tomorrow morning. I'll be back by the time you've seen Draco. Just remember to tell me what I'm supposed to buy before then."

She nodded. "I'll tell you now."

"You could also tell me what you would like to do for the rest of the day."

"How does you, me, and the library sound?"

He wrapped his arms around her, lips by her ear. "Kinky."

* * *

Lucius stepped back as his study door closed in his face. Obviously Draco didn't want him to be present for his meeting with Hermione. Or to hear anything of it, judging by the complete lack of muted voices from inside.

Perhaps he should be grateful that Draco had at least spoken to him on his way inside, while he was waiting for Hermione to come downstairs. At least he did rate a brief hello, and a question about whether there was a door missing in the corridor. It had been worth altering the house plans just for the startled expression on Draco's face when Lucius had told him about the removal of the drawing room.

Not that it had done much to improve Draco's opinion of him. The suspicious look that swiftly followed the surprise left a bitter taste in Lucius's mouth. It was rubbing salt into the wound to be shut out when Hermione had come down, but no more than Lucius had been expecting.

He touched the door, stroking his finger down it, his eyes half shut. The Manor responded to his wishes, and the door vanished. Another stroke on the now-invisible door, and the privacy charm Draco had used was bypassed. Within the wards, the Master of the Manor could do as he pleased, a secret Lucius had kept even from Draco. Just as well, as it meant that his son had no idea he was being observed; from inside the room, the door would still be visible.

"...exactly do you want me to do?" Hermione was asking. She sounded a little exasperated. "Write an article for the Prophet or the Quibbler? Both?"

Draco leaned forward in his – Lucius's favourite, to be precise – chair. "I was thinking more along the lines of putting in a good word for me with your friends."

"I don't have many female friends. Even less after..." Hermione trailed off, looking away from Draco, towards the door. Lucius could see the raw pain in her eyes.

"I know." Draco hunched down in his seat. He cleared his throat. "But I think I know who I'd like to court. Without you, I don't think I'd have..."

Lucius missed whatever Draco said next. A wand held to his throat was rather distracting. Damn Severus and his silent Apparitions!

"Explain." Severus growled into his ear. Lucius shuddered; Severus was spitting mad. Unfortunately, moving to wipe the spittle away might result in a hex.

"Well, I suppose that answers the question of whether someone standing next to me can eavesdrop too."

Perhaps being flippant hadn't been the best idea, Lucius mused, as Severus dug his wand in hard enough to bruise Lucius's neck.

Lucius winced. "Draco shut me out. I only wanted to hear what his decision would be."

Sparks flew from the wand tip, stinging wherever they touched his skin, but thankfully not hot enough to blister.

"Have you 'eavesdropped' like this on me? On my wife? In our bedrooms?"

"I wouldn't dream of it." Lucius almost cringed at how shaky his voice sounded. He tried to console himself that there was a limit to how composed a man could be at wand point.

The wand jerked against his neck, momentarily pressing harder. Then Lucius was spun around, pressed back against the door with winding force.

Severus was right in front of him, wand pointing at his face.

"That had better be the truth." Black eyes narrowed with barely contained fury. "Wand. Now."

Surely he wasn't demanding a duel over this? Lucius reluctantly reached into his pocket.

"I want a Wand Oath that you will never invade my privacy like this, or Hermione's."

"Don't you trust me?"

Severus gave him a hard, contemptuous look. "Would you trust yourself when it came to voyeuristic behaviour?"

Lucius felt his cheeks burn, but didn't react to the insult. If it took this to maintain peace in his house, so be it. He held his wand tip to Severus's.

"I'll do it. On the condition that you don't breathe a word of this to Hermione."

"Very well." Severus's lip curled. "Much as you deserve her displeasure, she has enough to deal with already."

"I, Lucius Malfoy, swear on my wand, channel of my magic, that I will not invade Severus or Hermione's privacy with magical interference." His wand tip flashed white, sealing the oath. "Will that do?"

"You've left holes wide enough for a Thestral to fly through, but I suppose that's the best I'll get," Severus grumbled.

Still pressed against the door, in closer contact with the house wards, Lucius could feel the privacy charm being lifted. Draco must be about to leave, which meant ... Lucius only just had enough time to put his wand away and have the Manor cancel his eavesdropping spells before the door opened. He stepped away from the door, glancing back at Severus. To his relief, Severus had put his wand away too.

Turning back to the open door, Lucius's face fell. Only Hermione stood in the doorway.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I tried to get him to stay for lunch, but ..."

"He came to a decision?" he asked, changing the subject as soon as he could. He didn't want her pity. He wanted her... No. He was not about to follow that train of thought. Certainly not with Severus standing right next to him.

"He did." Hermione didn't elaborate, her lips pressed tightly together. If Lucius was any judge of a woman's moods, now was not the time to press her.

She turned to Severus. "Any luck?"

In answer, he held up a box marked with the logo of the best jeweller's in Diagon Alley. Not the name, as it was impossible to pronounce even for wizards fluent in Gobbledegook.

Severus handed it over to Lucius. "Not that you deserve it at the moment," he muttered, too quietly for Hermione to hear. Lucius only heard it because the Manor amplified his senses in such instances.

Lucius ignored him. He opened the box. Inside was a fine silver chain. He held it between finger and thumb, testing the strength. For all its apparent fragility, it was as strong as Acromantula silk.

"Thank you, it's very ..." He searched for the right word. "Is it intended to be symbolic?"

Hermione looked away as she covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she laughed. She soon sobered, though. "No. It's for you to wear your old wedding ring on. We've seen you looking at your ring finger as if something was missing, and, well ..."

"It's an acknowledgement of your relationship with Narcissa," Severus continued. "Neither of us expect you to forget about her."

For a long moment, Lucius stood frozen, fingers locked around the chain. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, keeping his stinging eyes on the silver thread. A tangible reminder that he was Hermione's husband in name only. That his heart still belonged to Narcissa. And it did.

It hurt, but it was thoughtful of them. Wearing his ring from Narcissa on a necklace had actually occurred to him. It just hadn't seemed socially acceptable, even if it would have been out of sight of the public. He would have known it was there, hanging so close to his heart. That was what mattered. It was not done. But if it was a wedding present from Severus and Hermione ...

He opened his mouth to thank them, but the threatening ache of the lump in his throat warned him that doing so would result in the release of tears. Lucius just nodded, lips pressed tightly together. Tears swam in his eyes regardless, blurring his vision.

A hand rested on his shoulder and squeezed gently. Another, larger one gripped his other shoulder. Narcissa was gone, but at least he was not alone.

AN: Many thanks, as always, to septentrion and JunoMagic for betaing, and to Kribu for alpha reading.