Six Years in a Nutshell (pt 2)

Six Years in a Nutshell (pt 2)

Hermione's ring finger had swollen to roughly the size of a garden slug. Roughly the shape, too. But whereas garden slugs were mottled puce, Hermione's skin was as red as her fiancé's hair and covered all over in rough, sweaty, white bumps. It looked like some pickled thing that belonged on the shelf of Snape's old classroom. She did what any thinking woman would do in such a situation. She thwacked Ron's seeping head, hard (with her right hand, obviously; the left was in no shape to touch anything). He woke with a confused yelp, which woke Harry in turn. They stared. Ron Summoned for dittany (which ever since the War he'd come to believe was some kind of panacea). Harry rubbed his eyes and Summoned for his glasses.

Five Cooling Charms (which did jack-all for the stinging heat in her finger), four Expansion Charms (so the damn ring would be big enough to wriggle off), three hefty doses of Hangover Potion, two Apparitions (Hermione was in no state for anything other than Side-Along), and one inordinately confused Ginny later, they sat in the kitchen at Grimmauld place, the silver ring in the center of the table.

Hermione spoke first. "I'm going to hex her halfway to Antarctica. No. I'm going to give her the old Skeeter treatment. Someone Conjure me an enormous jar."

Ron said, "Hermione, there isn't any her, I swear it."

Harry said, "Maybe Ginny and I should leave you two alone..."

"Don't be an imbecile. That goes for both of you. I mean, Romilda-I've-got-a-sham-scam-of-a-secret-formula-Sloper-Smith-Who's-Her-Next-Victim-Vane."

"Sorry, but what's going on?" Ginny blinked.

"Hermione's engagement ring went berserk. You should have seen it, Gin. Her finger looked like my Aunt Marge's."

"Keep laughing, Harry, and I'll show you another finger entirely," said Hermione.

"I do love you," Ron said. "You know I do."

"Don't get all mopey. Of course I know. Clearly, the ring's flawed."

"But a Romilda ring's never been off before." That was Ginny.

"Not helping, Ginevra." That was Ron.

"'Least I'm using my head, Ronald."

Hermione and Harry exchanged their patented sometimes-I'm-quite-glad-to-be-an-only-child look.

"Maybe something stupid triggered it?" Harry suggested. "Something easy to fix."

"Maybe because I didn't ask your father's permission?"

"Dad would hex you for a sexist pig if you tried any such thing."

"Hermione, your parents are Muggles."

"Even so."

Uneasy quiet descended. For the first time in over five years, Hermione had forgotten about Australia.

Finally, Ginny spoke. "Maybe it's 'cause you never called off your engagement to Snape."

Had any of Grimmauld Place's remaining tenants been standing outside the kitchen door, they'd have heard something along the lines of: "I Severus but don't Snape? He remember did was half Bludger in the clip love time, you with Gin. How in my the practice? Mum! Hell did you find out?" But Susan, Justin, and Dean were sleeping off their hangovers, blissfully unaware of the downstairs goings-on, and so spared the trouble of untangling the chaos that was the heroes of the wizarding world shouting simultaneously.

Hermione said, "I don't remember half the time, Gin. How the hell did you find out?"

Ron asked, "Severus Snape? Did a Bludger clip you in practice?"

And Harry insisted, "But he was in love with my Mum!"

To her husband, Ginny answered, "I know that, dear. You've told us."

To her brother, she said, "Fabrizo Snape, Ron. Wilbur Snape. Of course, Severus."

To Hermione, she said, "Overheard Tonks tell Auntie Muriel." Ginny shrugged.

"Auntie Muriel?" Hermione asked. "How? When?"

"Snape with the potions?" asked Ron.

"He loved her since they were kids," said Harry. "There were all these silver memories..."

"When we were hiding out at Muriel's place. Tonks came round to make sure we'd got there safe, and Auntie Muriel started going on about how Ron'd run off with you, like you were some kind of--not to sound like Mum but--scarlet woman. Especially since Harry was out there as well, and you three were completely unchaperoned. Well, Teddy was due any day, and Tonks was probably feeling a bit hormonal, and she always did like you, Hermione, so she told the old biddy where to shove it, and midway through the rant, she let slip there was a spell stopping you from seeming all that pursue-able, anyhow. I asked her about it after, and Tonks explained the whole thing. I swore up and down I'd never tell, and then the two of us had a good laugh over how Snape would never get laid again in his life. Don't make that face at me, Harry. We didn't know, then. And yes, Ron, I mean Snape with the potions. Who do you think I meant, Snape with the tap shoes?"

Silence returned briefly to the library as all four contemplated a tap-dancing Snape.

Then Harry asked what, exactly, Ginny meant by "explained the whole thing," and Hermione told them. With every word she spoke, she felt Dumbledore's forget retreat a bit more until the fact that it had ever worked seemed preposterous. "But Snape's dead," she concluded. "So that really isn't the problem. Let's just get your money back from Romilda, skip the ring entirely, and put the cash in the honeymoon kitty."

"I don't know," said Ron. "We thought Yaxley was dead, and he turned up four years later in Argentina."

"Snape's different. There was a body," said Harry. He'd rallied for a Hogwarts burial and got it; that was right in the aftermath when everyone (well, everyone except Gringotts) was giving him his way. Only Ginny's conspicuous eye rolling and "spy or no, he still turned plenty of us over to the Carrows" had stopped Harry from planting Everbloom Lilies at Snape's grave. He'd also wanted the tomb to stand beside Dumbledore's, exactly like it except in black, but Hermione had convinced him otherwise. Too Taj Mahal (Muggles had no idea that Shah Jahan had actually completed, then veiled, the black marble shadow version), she said. Snape's obelisk stood peaceful at the edge of the forest where, though the shadows of tall trees fell across it at regular intervals, at least those of the White Tomb never reached.

"Are you sure it was a dead body?" Ron asked.

Shakespeare's third nipple! Any minute now, they'd be revisiting the vampire theory.

"Dead as can be," said Harry. "They did all kinds of tests in case he'd beefed up on some kind of antidote beforehand. He was really, truly, tragically, and conclusively dead."

"And so, clearly, he isn't the problem," said Hermione.

"I don't know," said Ginny. "Tonks never explained the betrothal terms. How would you go about breaking it off?"

"Dumbledore said through mutual consent or return of the binding gifts. But Snape's dead."

"So?"

"So we can't still be betrothed."

"Dumbledore didn't say, through death, mutual consent, or return of binding gifts."

Hell's bells. "But I'm the only one in any position to consent, and I do--" wholeheartedly "--so one hundred percent of involved parties consent."

"I don't think you can trick magic that way," said Harry, frowning. As if whatever the hell happened when he was dead that time in the forest made him the ultimate authority on magical loopholes.

"So just give back the gifts," said Ron. "Simple enough."

"Yeah," said Harry. "Easy as that. Why are you frowning, Ginny?"

"Hermione didn't tell you two who did the binding."

Sirius Black.

Albus Dumbledore.

Alastor Moody.

Nymphadora Tonks.

Remus Lupin.

And Snape, of course.

All dead. Really, truly, tragically, and conclusively dead.

Ron's, "Oh, bloody hell," summed the situation up nicely.

*

Ron took it better than she could possibly have hoped, actually. He didn't yell or sulk or cast pterodactyls as canary payback. "We'll sort this out," was all he said. "We've sorted out worse." That dark, wartime thing they never spoke of flickered briefly between them, and Hermione wondered if his equanimity was because of that, and because the betrothal was another loyal thing she'd done for the War that he hadn't.

Harry, who'd grown more than a touch sentimental about Snape, pouted a bit that the engagement was a betrayal of his mum. Ginny (who handled Harry's piques so much better than Hermione or Ron ever had at school) calmed him somewhat, pointing out that it was yet another sacrifice the man had made on the altar of Lily's memory. Hermione wasn't all that keen on that particular metaphor (commitment to her couldn't be all that odious; after all, Ron seemed perfectly willing), though she suspected the sacrifice Gin meant was never having sex again. Hermione wasn't overfond of soppy Harry, and she liked wig-flipping Harry still less, so, in hopes of speeding the return of plain old Harry, she neglected to point out that nowhere in the silver Shrieking Shack memories did Snape so much as hint at intentions of post-Lily celibacy. Nor did she mention that, as the Order went to the trouble of securing a virgin for the ceremony in the first place, at some point their ex-professor must have moved out of Palmdale. That meant he'd either found some new flower to obsess over or sainted Lily wasn't all that saintly, neither of which was a scenario Hermione cared to present to Harry in his current state of mind.

Once her husband's sour mood had sweetened a bit, Ginny Weasley-Potter threw her head back and laughed.

Ron glowered at his sister, but Hermione found the response reassuring. If Ginny was laughing, this couldn't be a big deal. They'd put things right in a tick. It would only take a bit of research, and Hermione was tops at that.

She hadn't counted on the library at Grimmauld Place yielding nothing.

Ditto for the Ministry and the British Museum. Hogwarts barely crossed her mind, though she owled Madam Pince to double check. Nothing, and no surprise here. It was a just a school library, after all. No matter that it had seemed to be an unsurveyable continent all those years ago.

If it weren't for the incontrovertible evidence (her finger swelled and burned the second, third, fourth and fifth times she tried the ring) that the ceremony with Snape had worked, Hermione might have wondered if Sirius had pulled the "ancient betrothal charm" ex rectum.

They consulted with Romilda, who went over her top-secret notes and said nothing had gone wrong with the formula. When Hermione showed her the photo they'd taken of the second ring attempt, the younger witch looked ill. "I've never seen a match so bad," she said. "Dump the chump and get on with your life."

"I'm standing right here," said Ron.

*

She tried returning the gifts to the binders' heirs.

Harry tried Reparo! on Sirius' teacup to no avail. Then, he actually threw it away. Hermione's heart rose and fluttered Snitch-like in her throat; her best friend was finally happy enough, loved enough, and secure enough to just chuck the broken thing, no matter that once upon a life ago, it had touched his godfather's hand.

Moody had left everything to the Unfindable Home for Retired Aurors. Even with Ron and Harry's department connections, it took over two weeks to make contact. The representative that the home finally sent waited with Hermione in silence for three hours (well over the one hour it would take for any ingested Polyjuice to wear off), then cast a containment sphere around the handkerchief and floated it into a familiar trunk with seven locks.

Tonks' cork and Remus' button made excellent excuses for the four of them to visit Teddy Lupin, who was singularly unimpressed with those particular gifts. He was, however, delighted with the toy broom that Harry brought along. He proved himself both his mother's son (by crashing it into the side of Andromeda's cottage) and his father's (by insisting no one fuss a whit about the attendant bruises and cuts).

Hermione wasn't quite sure how one went about returning a Chocolate Frog Card to an academic institution (and Ron, who still needed Agrippa, lamented she had to at all), but with the exception of their few quest-related essentials, Dumbledore had left his things to Hogwarts, so it was time for her to return to school. Ron and Harry went every few weeks (apparently, Professor Longbottom grew some spectacular extracurricular Dragonweed), but Hermione hadn't been back since (weirdly enough) Snape's funeral. She wouldn't trade her Hogwarts years for anything, but (Dumbledorean Memory Charms excepted) she was less adept than the boys were at forgetting and so was less nostalgic. After all, she'd spent a good deal of her schooldays lonely. Insecure. Spread entirely too thin. Oh, yes, and in fear for her life. Headmistress Sprout (hats off to the governors; she was an uninspiring witch, but an inspired choice to lead the rebuild--that crackerjack Hufflepuff combo of gentleness and grit) accepted the gift, delighted. She'd been looking for Agrippa for years.

Hermione didn't bother asking Dumbledore's portrait for help untangling her Snape mess. Early in his apprenticeship, Dean had explained (and Hermione actually listened when her friends discussed their studies) that portraits worked a bit like the Muggle Internet--they could gather and report information from myriad sources, but, though a skilled painter could Charm an approximate personality, they had neither private memories nor actual consciousness. She didn't talk to Snape's portrait, either, though she did wonder how the canvas rendition of her fiancé would respond to a cheeky "Hello, darling."

She had one more bit of business before meeting Hagrid and Neville for lunch (in Hannah and Nev's quarters, thank goodness. No rock cakes this visit, and no stepping back into the Great Hall, cluttered now with children instead of the wounded and the dead). She asked the Headmistress if she could meet with the Slytherin Prefects, then went down to the dungeons to do so. She waited in Snape's old classroom (Slughorn had wheedled the governors into cushier digs). Even Percy Weasley--who himself was a bit like the Muggle Internet where finding tedious official information was concerned--had been unable to locate Snape's will so, as per wizarding tradition, in the absence of living relatives, his estate went to his school House. When the Prefects--a girl called Ivy Suskind, who stood before Hermione as pale and conclusive proof that the Malfoys weren't the only Slytherins to have bred themselves monochrome, and a boy called Julian Block, whose school bag appeared to outweigh Hermione's third-year one--approached on the Headmistress' heels, she cast Muffliato. The pair accepted Snape's bottle and glove after a brief explanation.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't circulate this story, however," said Hermione. "It's somewhat private."

Ivy sniffed and drew her wand. "I assume you'll want a Vow or something."

"Not at all," said Hermione. "I'm trusting you to remember that Severus Snape was a private person. Quite enough has been written about him already. But if one of you two choose to reveal it... " She shrugged. "It won't make all that much difference to me."

Ivy said, "Our House looks after its own."

Hermione smiled; Neville had told her how his Slytherin students praised Snape as often as they did Salazar, desperate for post-War proof that they weren't bound to turn out Dark. Most of the boys wore their hair long. Many charmed it black. It drove Neville nearly round the twist; they let it fall in their faces to hide the fact that they daydreamed in class. Hermione (wisely) declined to point out who, exactly, Nev sounded like when he went on about his students that way. "I'm sure you do," she assured the Slytherin Prefects. "I'm sure you'll both make Professor Snape proud." That, actually, she was less sure of. She couldn't quite see Snape being conclusively proud of a student (unless it involved flattening Gryffindor at Quidditch).

"You trust us? Just like that?" Julian asked.

Ivy shot him an almost-but-not-quite-Snapeworthy glare.

"I trusted Professor Snape," Hermione said, "and I regret I didn't trust him more." That was the truth, despite his new-found beyond the grave ability to utterly cock-up her love life. "There's nothing to stop you two from following his lead."

Ivy looked at Hermione like she'd grown a second head; Julian smiled. It probably wasn't easy these days to be a Slytherin. Both seventh-years looked so young. Tiny. Like they could fit in a not-all-that-Extended handbag. Draco, Pansy, et al. probably looked much the same back when they intimidated the holy hell out of her. She'd probably looked that young when she hared off with the boys to take down Voldemort. "You two were what, third years, during the War?"

Ivy's face looked a bit pickled. Julian's smile disappeared. "Second," he said.

"It must have been a terrible time here." Terrible for all involved, save the psychotic snake who started the whole thing, of course. Him and Percy's secretary.

"It was." Ivy nodded, then actually smiled.

Hermione thought about how their class was going to leave school, and then the class after theirs would, and then Hogwarts would be wholly populated with students who had never seen the castle at war. "Thank you both for your help," Hermione said.

As the Prefects turned to leave, Julian asked, "Is it true you invented a whole new charm for that famous bag?"

He reminded her a bit of Ron at the end of fourth year, finally asking Viktor for his autograph. "I modified a standard Extension Charm to make it Undetectable, like they do with Ministry cars. The only change I really made was to add a Load Lightener so I could actually carry the thing around." She gestured to his book-bag. "Looks like you could do with some help."

Julian nodded.

"I won't do it for you," she said and thought of the hard time Professor Snape always gave her about helping the boys. She had known even then he was right but had helped them more just because he was so nasty about it. "What I can do is owl you my notes. Look them over, try on your own and let me know if you have any questions." Ron and Harry would blow a Muggle gasket if they heard her help a Slytherin, but the War was over. At some point, they all had to start believing it.

The War was over, but her engagement to Snape was not. Back at Grimmauld Place, Ron's silver ring still burned.

*

In bed now with Ron, there was something decidedly rote to their coupling. They touched each other to prove it was their right to touch each other. Hermione remembered laughing with him in the hotel bathtub. Ron blushed when she told him if she'd known it felt like that, they'd have needed a private tent and the Horcrux hunt would have taken a few years, at least. It hardly ever felt like that anymore. More sex didn't necessarily mean more fun. Who knew?

Most nights it was like dialing a telephone. Pressing the same buttons in the same order to elicit a standard connection.

And she seldom rang.

Ron had no idea. She never imagined she'd be the sort of girl who faked it, never imagined she'd ever have cause to fake it; she knew it was a preposterous, poisonous thing to do to a relationship. It was like Alicia said (Merlin's Muggle Aunt, the older girl had seemed so sophisticated way back then) up in the tower, primping for the Yule Ball. Faking an orgasm is the best way to make sure you never actually have one. Because having heard a faker once, Ron worried when the noises didn't measure up the next go round.

She couldn't tell him. Not when he'd been so ridiculously patient with this whole Snape situation. So the next night, she moaned a bit louder.

They were in love. They were (yes, they were) going to get married someday. They should be able to talk about things like that. They should be able to talk about anything.

Things would perk up once she shook Snape loose; they had to. Until then, she was up cloud high without a broomstick.

Then there was that night. Ron behind her for a fun change, pumping right away. Their standard foreplay had her going enough to avoid unpleasant friction, which was always important. But Hermione felt no fevered thrumming, even with Ron's avid fingers at her clit. She sighed and felt a surging burst of irritation at Severus Snape; this was his fault, obviously; she and Ron had always been impulsive and playful before. Then, to her horror, once the man was in her mind, she couldn't get him out. She shut her eyes. Ron's bedroom became their old Potions classroom. The two of them were back at school and being very naughty. Oh, yes. Out after hours, and anyone could catch them. Oh yes, that was it. Snape could catch them. He could be watching them. Dark eyes in the shadows. Expressionless. No way to tell if he's pleased or repulsed. No way to tell, except--there's his hand, smooth as milk, pale as milk, milking himself. Faster and faster, keeping pace with Ron. Hermione moaned. In her mind, her eyes met Snape's, unblinking. Ron pounded away, oblivious. Those Snape hands. That Snape cock. Gods!

In the moment she cried out, Ron faded away completely, and it was Snape--Snape!--who took her from behind. Her first proper orgasm in weeks had her so thoroughly mortified, she nearly missed Ron's post-coital, "Good, eh?"

He was seldom insecure enough to ask. He'd noticed something different. She had to lie. "Always is," she said and cuddled up to him. The problem with faking it was that a girl couldn't ever stop. Not without opening herself up to all kinds of conversational ugliness. Salivating Cerberus. If Severus Snape could reach out from beyond the Veil to claim her hand, why the hell couldn't Alicia Spinnet reach on through and slap Hermione resoundingly about the head?

*

Harry offered to break out the Elder Wand to override the spell. He looked a little relieved--they'd returned the wand to the White Tomb nearly six years ago, and by this point even Dumbledore must have begun to fester--when Hermione said she couldn't see it doing any good, as the late Headmaster had used it to call the binding fire in the first place.

Ron suggested tracking down the Resurrection Stone and reviving Snape just long enough to call things off. The trio spent an uneasy afternoon in the forest, casting unsuccessful Accios. At the Three Broomsticks afterwards, each sheepishly admitted relief they hadn't been able to unearth it.

"It'd be an ethically murky kind of thing to do, anyhow," said Hermione. "Not to mention setting a bad precedent."

"And the Dead don't want to return," said Harry. Hermione was moved by his placid tone. She thought (not for the first time) that one the War's few great boons was that her temperamental best friend now lived life facing forward, not back. "They've gone... on."

"Snape might've been fine about coming back, though," said Ron. "He always was a bit contrary."

"He was that," Harry said. "Remember that wjamacallit potion he tested on Trevor?"

"Eww, yes," said Hermione. "Shrinking Solution. Even though one of the base ingredients is fresh toad eyes."

"Remember the look on his face when we took the Cup first year?" said Ron.

"And the way he showed Fudge his Mark in the fourth?" said Hermione.

"How about the way he took out Lockhart?" Harry added.

"I don't think anyone could forget that." Hermione laughed.

"Anyone except Lockhart," said Ron, who still felt a bit guilty.

Harry's next idea was to borrow a Pensieve (the perks of being a war hero included regular access to Ministry swag) so the boys could help her go over the ceremony to look for clues. It was sad and strange seeing everyone alive, and it was going to be stranger and sadder still returning to the kitchen at Grimmauld Place with fresh memories of them standing there. Hermione bent low to the ground, in case there was something special about the blue salt Dumbledore had scattered. She made a note of who stood where, on the off chance it wound up mattering. She listened to Snape speak, then Sirius (what had she been thinking?), then Dumbledore. Harry and Ron exchanged an uncomfortable look when Moody warned her younger self off jealous, friend-fixated paramours. That same look cropped up whenever the subject of Slytherin's locket did--someday, she was going to bloody well make them explain what had happened when it opened. She watched the circle, Snape, and her younger self startle when Moody cried out, "Constant Vigilance!" She jumped a bit as well, even knowing it was coming. At least the boys (despite Auror training!) jumped even higher. Hermione opened her mouth to tease them, then shut it. Right before her eyes, her younger self (how could she possibly have gone decades with that terrible hair?) smartassed Snape about Odile Knell, and Hermione felt a familiar fizzing, electric crackle.

An I-know-which-bottle-will-take-us-safe-across-the-fire kind of crackle.

An I-know-what-slithers-in-the-walls kind of crackle.

An I've-figured-something-out-about-Professor-Lupin kind of crackle.

A why-not-let-the-teeth-shrink-just-a-bit-more-kind of crackle.

An Umbridge-deceiving, I-knew-there-was-something-dodgy-about-that-book, let's-see-how-much-stuff-I-can-fit-in-this-bag, maybe-I-really-am-a-know-it-all, wild, delicious, brilliant kind of crackle. Hermione Jean Granger had An Idea.

"Get thee to a Muggle bookshop," she muttered. The boys, never having read Shakespeare, looked utterly confused.

*

Hamlet. Act IV, Scene V. The essential ingredients of Odile Knell's last potion were right there, and wizardkind had been too hung up on their centuries-old scandal to even see it. If he weren't already dead, Snape would absolutely die. Slughorn, too. Any first year (except Neville, maybe, and Harry, and Crabbe and Goyle, actually, who she hadn't thought of in years) knew full-well all Knell's potions shared a common base. All Hermione had to do was work out the order and ratios of the extras, and she'd have it. The Mother of Potions' last great effort: a draught that would allow the drinker to converse with the dead.

Rosemary, for remembrance. The bard even explained Knell's rationale for including the herb.

Pansies. Shakespeare explained those, too. For thoughts. Hermione took that to mean focus and concentration, so she'd wind up talking to the right deceased.

Fennel. Muggle hippies used it as a breath freshener. Wizards used it for eloquence. The brew would need lots and lots of fennel. Pulverized, probably, as the plant's roots, fibers and juice all had magical properties.

Columbine and Rue. Those mystified her for several weeks. She didn't know of a single potion that used either. After nearly a month of listening to her frustrated whinging, Harry (in one of his more brilliant moves since the War) sighed and said he wished Snape's book hadn't burned in the Room of Lost Things. The Prince's Potions text was gone for good, but it might just be worthwhile tracking down Snape's later research. She owled Julian Block, who owled back a copy of Snape's notes on a book on obscure ingredients and substitutions, along with a polite note asking if she'd be willing to write a letter recommending him for a Ministry position. Hermione wished she'd known earlier that the easiest way to wrangle a Slytherin was simple quid pro quo; how much easier would her life have been if she'd only known how dead useful a properly handled Slytherin could be?

Snape's notes were a mess, but there was no question the man was brilliant. Imagine. Squandering a mind like that in teaching. Dumbledore's doing, like as not. Hermione bristled at the waste of it. Just think of the cures he could have perfected; the name he could have made for himself. Eventually, she found his suggestion of rue steeped in columbine nectar as an addition to Draught of Living Death. Finally, a breakthrough. The juice was benign until the addition of rue, at which point it became a potent, slow acting, and often hallucinatory toxin. The Knell potion would bring Hermione to the brink of death (well, more like to the brink of the brink of the brink of death), thus reducing the gulf between her and her soon-to-be-ex-fiancé. She freely admitted she was nervous at the prospect of drinking it. No one would drink so toxic a brew frivolously; indeed, the human body could sustain ingestion once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. Hermione suspected Knell crafted it that way on purpose-- to stave off mourners' addictions. The Mother of Potions' genius was staggering. The rue, though completely non-magical on its own, was able, when combined with columbine nectar, to temporarily bind the drinker's magic. Odile Knell's clever safeguard: making sure the ingredient that activated the potion would also render those who spoke to the dead powerless to command them.

The rest of the potion was simple enough to figure out after that.

Violets. Just sweet enough to remind the drinker that life was rich and pleasurable and well worth living, which should prevent a focused mind from succumbing completely to the poison.

And then the last ingredient: the one Knell drowned retrieving and so never got the chance to add. Swan-of-the-Marsh Lilies, for clarity of vision.

*

Hermione's luck was changing. The potion was ready (at least, her quintuple-checked Arithmantic calculations said the potion was ready) in time for the sixth anniversary of Voldemort's fall. Perfect timing. Folklore held that the Veil thinned a bit for each soul on the anniversary of his or her passing, just as it did for all souls at Halloween and on both Solstices. Not to mention that the annual Ministry shindig, which was stifling and dull and a scab-picking reminder of who, exactly, hadn't lived to celebrate, would be the perfect cover as they sneaked back down to the Death Chamber. Harry and Ron were coming, too (no way would she be daft enough to wander about the Department of Mysteries alone on the brink of the brink of the brink of death and with her magic bound to boot), loaded up with a wide array of healing draughts in case her calculations were off. They bribed Susan, Justin, and Dean with a half month's free rent to Polyjuice themselves for the party so the heroes wouldn't be missed, telling them nothing about Snape, only that they didn't feel up to attending this year.

Ginny was to stick near the Polyjuiced trio to make sure they didn't act all that much out of character. She kicked Dean-as-Harry hard when he looked in the mirror, licked his (Harry's?) lips, and said, "Harry Potter on Victory Day? I'm going to get laid like carpet!" Hermione was a bit put out that she wouldn't actually get to wear her new (and damned expensive) dress robes, but at least Susan-as-Hermione looked sexy as hell. Susan whirled around, showing off, and Hermione saw (with a high degree of satisfaction) that Ron was right: she did have quite the pleasing bottom. Justin-as-Ron was generally too on edge to be all that convincing, but as Ron never seemed all that comfortable at formal events, he wouldn't arouse much suspicion. The real trio, the fake one, and Ginny all carried their old DA coins. Two hours after the start of the festivities, Hermione's warmed against her skin--Ginny's signal that the coast was clear.

*

She could hear the Veil this time. Murmurs, solemn but somehow tender, like when she would fall asleep in church as a child. She thought she heard the distinct sound of a word she knew, but the word slipped from her mind before she remembered what it meant. One of the whispers rose and fell in an unfamiliar tune that she felt she would someday memorize.

"I didn't know, mate," Ron said to Harry. He shook his head and listened, hard. "It's like trying to hold on to water."

Hermione shivered at the quiet sound of a laugh. A laugh she knew years ago; the laugh of someone (she couldn't remember who) she used to know at school. "Let's get this over with," she said. She uncapped the Knell potion.

"If you do talk to him--" Harry began. "Sorry, when you talk to him, do you think you could, you know, thank him?"

"I'll try," said Hermione. "I don't know how long the potion lasts."

Harry looked crestfallen. Ron too.

"I should probably be able to, though," she said. "It shouldn't take long convincing him to break the engagement. It's not as though he was ever fond of me."

"Do you think you could ask him to say hi to Fred, too?" Ron asked. "Fred and all of them?"

"Of course I will. You two keep the bezoars handy. If I'm not back to rights in half an hour, take me straight to St Mungo's. I've written up my notes on the potion, and you have the draught that ought to neutralize it. My powers'll be out for a bit, so--"

"Hermione," said Ron. "You've told us already. We know what to do."

"Trust us. We're Aurors," Harry said.

"Now that's encouraging."

"Hermione," said Harry, "quit stalling."

She raised the vial to Ron, to Harry, and then to her lips. As the liquid hit her tongue, Harry flinched; Hermione felt like an insensitive harridan--of course he felt uneasy when loved ones toasted him then ingested unknown potions. Remember how well it worked out for Dumbledore? Then Hermione felt nothing, but only briefly. She felt very cold, then very hot. Her skin felt like she'd been dipped in oil, then covered in chalk. The potion had no taste. Or rather, the potion had no describable taste. Her senses crisscrossed; she tasted sound and heard texture, and everything she saw had odor instead of color. She walked, woozy and bandy-legged, toward the Veil, which rustled with the scent of empty bottles and summer lightning. One of the boys called her name. Harry, probably--Ron wouldn't sound so soapy bright. One of them, Ron (his voice had loam in it, like good brown beer) said, "Steady, there." He laid a calming hand on her shoulder, and his touch was very feathery and yellow. Hermione did not like this. No, she did not like this at all. She felt the language build in the spaces between her bones. It rose in her throat.

Severus Snape!

Only the words she used weren't Severus and Snape. The words she used meant Severus Snape, but they meant something different and deeper as well. Her stomach roiled, and she felt its contents tilt and re-tilt like a kaleidoscope. This was a terrible idea. At school, she'd envied Harry his Parseltongue, even knowing it might be a bit Dark. Even now, she envied her Morphmouth boyfriend. To have a natural born gift like that... Everything Hermione ever mastered, she had mastered through research and practice and sheer stubbornness. But now, speaking a sudden language, with words that weren't words and that had meanings she had yet to properly learn, Hermione's old envy cracked and crumpled with the distinct texture of walnut shells. She felt the language again and cried out.

Severus Snape!

The Veil smelled metallic, now. Like iron. No. Like blood. Hermione was shivering, and that felt tectonic. She felt like she was the entire world, or like she'd swallowed it. She had to make this stop. She had to reach him. Severus Snape, Severus Snape, Severus Snape.

Severus Snape!

She could feel her veins, a tangle of snakes. She heard the blood beat in her ears, and the sound tasted like her mother's bread dough, only salt-spiked. Harry and Ron were calling for her, but their voices were going stale and musty.

Severus Whatever-your-pretentious-middle-name-is Snape!

Ron and Harry faded away entirely. Everything went white and fuzzy, like a very tepid snowstorm. The sensory hodgepodge stilled. Hermione heard his voice.

No middle name, actually, as befits the elegance of understatement.

Understatement! The man had never been understated in his life.

The horrible gut roiling returned. Her head felt full of sour milk, and Hermione knew she had to make her point now, before she heaved up the potion all over the chamber floor and lost her opportunity for good. The language built and built inside until, finally, the words tore from her throat.

Severus Snape, you owe me a fucking husband!

Brief silence.

Very well.

Relief. She'd done it. He'd agreed. Engagement broken. She had to stop her head's swimming and tell the boys. And then take a nap. A nice, long nap. The chamber filled with the scent of new-turned earth. A strange glow came to the Veil, and the scent grew stronger. When Hermione breathed deep, she tasted the sound of a zipper unzipping. Somehow, she'd fallen to the floor. She had a vague sense of Ron and Harry beside her, wands out. Screaming something about look-at-that-silver-thread, and oh-bloody-hell-it's-unravelling. Then a flash.

Then Snape.

Naked.

Empty-handed.

Looking rather put-out.

When he spoke, she tasted a vivid burst of citrus.

"There had better be good reason for this disruption; Black just dealt me a pair of aces."

A Haiku for My Betas:

Melusin and Bloo

Witty, wise, and generous

They fix my mistakes!

Thanks to all who reviewed and all who ("Imperio!" says madqueenmab) are going to review!

The characters aren't mine. The concept is not mine. Nor, for that matter, is Hamlet. If you think any of this is mine, get thee to St. Mungo's, which is also not mine.