Chapter 20: Acknowledging that which is in ourselves...

In a cosy storefront on a back street of Muggle London, a woman sits at a round, rickety table. Light shines from the cards laying before her, far stronger than the weak sun streaming through the room's shuttered windows.

An elegant finger traces the outline of the image in one of the cards, a blindfolded figure holding two swords, crossed at chest level. Tapping the card, she nods as she moves it further away from the array. She trails her fingertips along the spread until they rest on the central card. "Temperance," she murmurs, rubbing it against the card laying beneath it, then moves her hand to the one directly opposite. "Eight of wands," she says. "At last."

She smiles and looks towards the door as if waiting for guests to arrive.

"Well done."

The room was crowded, thought Hermione. Between the wafting scarves and dusty tapestries, there was hardly enough space for the table and chairs, wobbling on their spindly legs, in the centre of the room. Adding seven full-grown adults stretched the space nearly beyond its capacity.

The old woman seated there, swathed in layers of diaphanous fabric, scarcely looked up when they came barrelling through the door. She only smiled and went back to fiddling with the cards lying on the tabletop, their colours brilliant even in the muted light. It was, Hermione thought for one irrational moment, as if she'd known they were coming.

"We're sorry to barge in on you like this," she stammered, "but..."

"It's hardly an intrusion when you come through the door like civilised people," the old woman said. "Most wizards just pop right in without a by-your-leave." She shook her head as if about to scold those inconsiderate wizards. "Doesn't matter anyway." She waved her hand vaguely. "I've been expecting you."

Severus raised an eyebrow.

"You instructed us to come back. Of course you were expecting us."

The old woman's lip curled just a bit and she huffed.

"You've brought the others. Good," she said. "They need to hear, too."

"What do we need to hear?" asked Harry, angling towards the front of the group.

"Where's the other one?" she asked, tapping a card.

"The other what?" Harry looked alarmed.

She narrowed her eyes, peering at the cluster of people huddled by the door.

"Him," she said, pointing a long finger at Ron.

Ron stood up straighter and ran his fingers through his hair.

"What do you need with me?" he asked, glancing anxiously at Harry.

The old woman snickered. "Don't need a thing with you, young man," she said. "It's you who needs." She turned her attention back to the cards.

Hermione cleared her throat, and the woman looked up again.

"Sorry to be a bother," she said. "But you have something of ours."

"I do, indeed," she said. "I expect you'll be wanting to know how to use it, hmm?"

"Well, yes," said Hermione.

"Then sit."

For a disorienting moment, Hermione felt just as she had that afternoon a scant week ago. Exhaustion etched into every plane of her body, despair saturating every cell.

Sit, the old woman had said, and she had. It had been the first bit of letting go, the first time she'd stopped struggling to understand or control that which had long since exceeded her grasp.

Sit.

The old woman might as well have said, Surrender that night.

Surrender.

Sweet, but only when it was safe, and safety had been a long time coming.

She breathed deeply in the dusty air and felt Severus's hand squeeze hers just before she released it.

Hermione sat.

~~**~~

For a split second, Severus hovered there, feeling adrift...the five others crowded behind him, Hermione perched in the only available chair. It felt like forever, hesitating there, unsure where he belonged. Was he to again be invisible in the crowd? Alone, neither here nor there? Or...

He stepped forward, conjured a chair, and settled in next to Hermione. She slipped her hand into his again and sighed.

The old woman smiled.

"Good," she said, eying Snape. "I thought so."

"Thought what?" Hermione asked.

The other woman didn't answer, only leaned back in the chair and let her eyes sweep the room.

"It is much better now," she said finally, "but unless you take the final steps, the poison will finish its job. You cannot hope to outrun it."

Severus leaned forward, glancing at the array of cards, but more focussed on catching the tarot reader's eye. "We have no intention of trying to outrun it," he said. "We want to repair it but don't know how." Severus felt his heart pounding. "Do you?"

The old woman reached a long-fingered hand across the table and lay it atop his.

"Card-wielder," she said, "you already have the answers from your own reading. All you need from me is the anchor."

"Anchor for what?" asked Hermione.

The old woman looked at her, exasperated.

"You wouldn't go below without something to anchor you, would you?"

~~**~~

Hermione's head hurt.

"Must you lot always interrupt each other?" she muttered. Severus was stroking the nape of her neck, but still, she wanted to cry. "Please," she said more loudly, "let the woman talk."

The fortune-teller seemed unperturbed by the chaotic response of the witches and wizards crowding her room. They seemed unable to contain themselves, each new bit of information like fuel to flame, sending them spinning, peppering one another with anxious questions they had no hope of answering.

"Madam" asked Severus, "may I enlarge your table and bring in some additional seating for the rest of the group? It may facilitate discussion if..."

"If they're not all standing around like a bunch of chattering budgies?"

"Indeed."

The old woman had no sooner nodded than Severus had conjured chairs set around the magically enlarged table. There, Hermione thought. Now, perhaps, they'd find out what lay before them.

The fortune-teller seemed to agree, because she was looking at the cards with more purpose than she had done.

"Did you know that I'd thrown a spread for you before you ever came through my door?" she asked.

Hermione shook her head, startled. "No, I didn't."

"Your aura was in the air, and I wanted to know what was coming."

She could only imagine what the woman had felt that day. No matter how accustomed she'd grown to the shadow, its talons ripping into her until they drew blood, its echo...like the ricochet of debris from a malicious spell...on those around her had always been undeniable.

"What did you see?" Hermione asked, her voice soft. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know.

The fortune-teller looked directly at her, deep blue eyes shadowed with sadness.

"I saw a passionate woman who had nearly given up on herself," she said. "Out of balance, poisoned from within. Tortured with unremitting conflict. Stalemate." She looked at Harry and then at Ron. "You had to let go your struggle for control...learn your way bit by bit." She reached out a gnarled finger to touch a card, and Hermione realised that the spread she was referencing was lying before them on the scarred wooden table. "You had to learn that you weren't powerless...no matter how it appeared." She looked at Severus. "And that there was someone you could trust."

Hermione's chest was tight. "Yes," she said, looking at Severus. "There was. There is." Her voice was rough, and she threaded her fingers through his.

"Then what did you see in the cards you laid down when Hermione got here?" he asked.

"When you were skulking in the shadows?" she asked with a smirk. "I'll show you."

In a flash, the cards were back in their pile and she was laying down new ones.

"I saw the remnants of her passion, her determination to repair the injury. What it had taken out of her to stand up to all of you." She looked at the others, and Hermione wanted to reach out to each of them, to tell them that it was okay. That they hadn't been able to help themselves any more than she could have when in the grips of shadow. "The cards told me that if you could break free of intellect alone and reconcile with the others, that you might heal. All of you might."

"How did you know that Severus was here that day?" Hermione asked.

The old woman pointed to a card: a priestly figure on a throne, and then to another, a jester, his pack on his back, embarking on a journey, and finally to a kingly figure holding a sword. "The cards told me he was already here. The bearer of the light."

Severus snorted. "Hardly."

The fortune-teller raised her eyebrows.

"You argue with me?" she asked.

Hermione thought she heard Harry and Ron stifle a laugh. She shot them a look, and they lowered their eyes to the table, so reminiscent of their schooldays that she nearly laughed herself.

Severus shifted in his chair, his lips pursed. "If you knew me, you would know that I can hardly be considered the bearer of light."

The old woman huffed again. "I know all I need to know about you, young man," she said. "Now, where is it?"

"Where is what?" he asked.

"The rest of it."

He looked puzzled until she reached into the folds of her cloak and drew out the ball of gossamer light she'd woven that day and tucked away for safekeeping. "This belongs to you," she said, "but we'll be needing the rest of it before I can send you on your way. So, where is it?"

~~**~~

It hadn't occurred to any of them to bring it along, safely tucked away as it was in the Room of Requirement. That night at the Burrow, huddled around the luminous tangle of threads, they'd soaked in the light as if it were water, the strands fading away like snowflakes in the sun, leaving only the dimly glowing threads that they'd taken back with them to Hogwarts.

"Can we send a message to Minnie, then?" asked Arthur.

"That should suffice," said Severus. "Will you do the honours?"

Arthur looked uneasy. "I don't know that I have the..." He cleared his throat. "I don't know if I can."

Severus nodded. He understood Arthur's hesitation. Conjuring a Patronus took an unusual amount of positive magical energy.

Would the others expect him to call for the headmistress. Could he do it? Conjure a Patronus? And even if he could, did he want to expose himself, thus?

"I'll do it, Severus," said Neville. "I'm feeling a good deal better, and I suspect that my injury has been mitigated by working the ground as much as I have these past few years."

Relieved, he gestured to Neville to go ahead. In a moment, a silvery mist issued from his wand, and Neville shook his head, discouraged. Severus stood and walked around to where the younger man sat and silently placed his hand on his shoulder.

I have confidence in you. He didn't say it aloud, but he didn't need to.

He felt Neville take another breath and lift his wand.

"Expecto Patronum!" he shouted, as if volume might help. Whatever it was, something had, indeed, changed, as a tortoise emerged from his wand and, in a move far more swift than its flesh and blood counterpart, sped off towards Hogwarts.

"She will come," Severus said, and the fortune-teller nodded.

"Good," she said. "I expect she will bring back more than you expect."

"Always with the mysterious," muttered Hermione, and Severus squeezed her hand again.

"You've gained more than a passing acquaintance with the mysterious this past week, haven't you?" he whispered so that only she could hear. He smiled at the dawning brightness in her eyes and the hint of a smile that told him she agreed.

And so they sat, the eight of them, resting there with the cards still spread out before them until they heard a sharp pop outside the door followed by a firm knock.

The door creaked open and Minerva McGonagall strode in, box in her arms. The energy in the room shifted, like a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Headmistress," said Hermione, rising to greet her. She took the box and turned to the fortune-teller.

"Join us," said the old woman. "Please. You have something else we need."

~~**~~

Looking at the two tangles of light side by side, Hermione couldn't believe she hadn't recognised the threads when she saw them for the first time in the Room of Requirement.

As if responding to the presence of their hosts, the formerly dim strands grew brighter and brighter. Luminous and intricately looped and knotted, each was like flowing fabric, every strand both gossamer and strong.

The fortune-teller cupped one in each hand, drew them together, and blew. The tendrils of light shimmied as if attempting to move, but fell helplessly again in the palms of her hand.

"One is missing," she said. "Which one?"

The looked at each other, confused.

"All of you are here." She lifted her hands. "Except for one of you. We need essence from each one of you or else the repair won't hold."

"All or nothing," muttered Ron.

"Wasn't there an image for each one of us in the Room, Hermione?" asked Ginny.

There had been, she thought. So, who...?

"Neville!" she said.

Neville looked vaguely nervous, as if he'd just been called out for not doing a project he hadn't remembered being assigned.

"Severus and I were here when you..." She gestured with her hands. "And the Room had frozen images for the rest of you, but not Neville. Maybe because he came in with us. I don't know. We need one for Neville. Can you?" She looked at the old woman, an ache in her chest. What if she couldn't do it? What if all would be lost because they couldn't access Neville's...what had she called it? Essence?

"Breathe, Hermione," Severus murmured, running his hand up and down her back. "She took them from us, she can find Neville's." He looked at the fortune-teller. "You can?"

"Of course I can," she said impatiently, turning to Neville and tucking the cards away and shuffling the pack. "Pick one," she said.

Now he looked alarmed.

"It's okay," Hermione reassured him. "It won't hurt you."

Neville nodded and reached out and pulled a card from the deck, placing it face up on the table. A young man on horseback, wielding a sword.

"Brave," she muttered.

It radiated light, as if the figure within was just behind a window with daylight at his back. The old woman reached out her hand and cupped her hand around the light streaming from the card, and Neville gasped. The light brightened, and Hermione knew that it had been joined with his own. With a grunt, the fortune-teller pulled the strands sharply and nodded, satisfied.

"Now," she muttered, gathering the other two knots together with the third and blowing until it seemed to Hermione as if she were holding a flame in her cupped hands. "Now, you," she said, looking up, and Hermione understood that they, too, needed to do the same. Awkwardly, gently, and with fierce concentration, they did. One by one, they stood and walked over to where the old woman held a sliver of their essence in the palms of her hands and added the breath of life to the flame until it flared bright, then faded to a gentle glow.

Cradled in her weathered hands was a smoothly woven nimbus of light.

"It is done."

~~**~~

It was almost anticlimactic, Severus thought. The two...no, three...tangles joined together. And so what?

"Now what?" he murmured.

"Now," said the fortune-teller as if he'd expected an answer, "we ask your elder where to find the place behind the mirror."

All eyes turned to the headmistress.

"How should I know?" she asked, startled.

"I expect you know the lore better than most," she said. "Is there no place, no legendary site, where secrets dwell behind the glass?"

The headmistress fidgeted and dropped her eyes to her hands, folded on her lap.

"Minerva?" Severus had never seen her looking quite so uncomfortable.

"There is a place, but it's not to be spoken of," she said. "Besides, it's apocryphal. Nobody knows whether such a site actually exists, and if it did, where to find it."

"What if it's the spot we need, Professor?" asked Ginevra. "If it's the only way, would you keep it from us?"

The headmistress bristled.

"I never said I would keep it from you, lass," she said. "Only that I don't know whether it exists, nor where it might be, assuming it's real."

"What is this place, Minerva?" asked Severus. "Real or not, what are we talking about?"

The headmistress hesitated only for a moment. "There is an inscription in the Head's office. It's engraved into one of the oldest stones of the castle. They say that the founders themselves left it there."

"What does it say?" asked Potter.

"Sub terra, a inlecebra glaciata, post atrocem speculum, fons artis magicae fluit."

They looked blank.

"It means: Beneath the earth, behind the black mirror. Frozen by enchantment, magic's wellspring flows."

"What the bloody hell does that mean?" said the Weasley boy.

The headmistress turned to look at him with an expression even Severus couldn't approximate, and the young man shrank back into his seat.

"It's like a puzzle, Ron," said Hermione, already busy transcribing the words on a slip of parchment she had pulled from her pocket.

Severus shook his head, but couldn't help but warm to her keenness when faced with an intellectual challenge. As much as her unflagging enthusiasm for her subjects and guidance of her classmates had irritated him whilst she was his student, he thrilled to see it now. It presaged a healing he was eager to witness in her even more than in himself.

"Beneath the earth, behind the black mirror," she muttered.

"Like a cave?" asked Potter. "Dumbledore took me to a cave..." He stopped short, glancing at Severus.

"The night of his death, Potter?" No use tiptoeing around the matter, and besides, it might prove useful.

"Yeah. That night. But there wasn't anything frozen or black, I don't think. There was a lake, though, and it was black. It was dark in there, though." He trailed off.

"Minerva," said Severus, looking at the parchment Hermione had handed to him. "Is the inscription punctuated the way you said it, or do the words run together?"

"I suppose they might be said to run together, Severus." She wrinkled her brow. "I haven't given that inscription much thought in years, but now that you mention it, there aren't any markings for starts and stops."

"So, it might say, 'Behind the black mirror, frozen by enchantment'? Meaning that it might be the black mirror that is frozen rather than the wellspring."

"Yes. I believe it could. Oh!" The headmistress paled.

"What is it, Minnie?" asked Arthur.

"There is a place, deep in the mountains behind the castle. My great-grandfather told me of it and once, when I was a child, we went hiking near there. He said it was sacred ground and we couldn't come near. But the sun was high, and it reflected off the surface. You could see it for miles around, though I expect most people didn't know what caused it." McGonagall grew silent, staring off into the distance.

"What was it, Headmistress?" Hermione asked, speaking into the hush that had fallen around them.

"It was a cave," she said, glancing at Potter. "Its mouth was covered by a raging waterfall. No matter the season, my great-grandfather said, it would always be there. A shield, he said."

"What does it protect?" Neville asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"Nobody knows for sure," she said. "But legend has it that inside that cave lives one of the sources of all magic." Her eyes grew wide. "But no one can go in there. It is said that nobody has ever made it past the waterfall to access the cave inside."

~~**~~

Hermione froze. Slick shadow rose up, triumphant, and wrapped its long fingers around her. She felt as if she were falling down the raging waterfall to the rocks below. A fool for believing she'd made it to the summit for good.

This was it, then. The end of the road. They had no special magic that would allow them past. And even if they did, they couldn't take the chance of contaminating a place so sacred when it might jeopardise the magic of so many. Not for the benefit of so few.

She looked at Severus and as her heart swelled, the shadow receded. They would stay close to one another, she thought, for as long as they could. Huddled together until the poison ate through the reserve they had built from each tender look, every loving touch, and from an abiding trust that had sprung up like heather amidst the brambles.

"It's okay, Headmistress." Hermione's voice trembled. "We'll just..." She shook her head.

"You can't mean that you'll let things continue as they are, Hermione," said McGonagall. The headmistress looked horrified.

"You just said it yourself. We can't get inside," Hermione said, anxiety rising to choke her. "And even if we could, how could we be sure that we won't just contaminate it?"

The headmistress shook her head. "Old legends and apocryphal tales are far less important than the fate of the seven of you," she said. "It is unthinkable that we should stand by and allow this illness...this poison...to ravage you when there is something that might reverse its course." Her jaw was set in the way Hermione remembered from the days when they'd silently battled Dolores Umbridge and a corrupt Ministry.

"It's such a big risk," Hermione whispered, her throat tight.

The tarot reader glanced at the headmistress in silent communication, and then reached out, covering Hermione's hand with her own. "Nobody promised you certainty. You will not know. You will just do. Trust in yourself and in each other." She looked around to the others. "It is what you all must do. I see no way around it. There is no other choice."

~~**~~

No choice.

Severus paced the length of the Room again, ignoring the others sitting together around the table in the centre of the space.

"Severus, would you sit down? Please," begged Minerva, her eyes tracking his course back and forth, back and forth across the room. "You're making me nervous, and I don't have to plumb the depths of some unmapped cave."

No choice. Again. Was that to be the story of his sorry existence? Forced once again down a road not of his own choosing.

"I don't want to do it," he said again. "There has to be another way."

"Severus," said Hermione, standing right in his way, "it's the answer we've been hoping for. Why are you so against the plan?"

"If there were a plan," he said, "I might be opposed to it. Or not. But as it stands, we wander through the forest until we stumble upon a mythical cave guarded by a waterfall. At which time we...unlike all others throughout history...manage to enter it to find... what? We don't even know what we're looking for."

"Doesn't that sound familiar?" muttered Ron.

Harry looked murderous for a moment, but Hermione interrupted.

"He's right, isn't he? We didn't know what we were looking for during the war, did we? We had to forget about having a plan. Besides, our plans had a tendency to go pear shaped, anyway."

Severus scowled.

"We did all right at school, though, didn't we, Neville?" asked Ginevra. "We didn't have a plan, exactly, but we knew how we wanted things to go, and we pushed where we could, and retreated when we had no other option."

Neville nodded, distracted by the lotus flower that he'd brought into the Room. To tend, he'd said. It had been too long without his attention and needed some care.

"We're trying too hard," he said, stroking a silky white petal with his fingertip. "The old woman was right. There's no way to know going in. We'll have to trust that magic naturally wants to repair itself, yes?" He looked up into a sea of incredulous faces.

"I'd say that's a fine plan, indeed," said Filius.

"Says the man who will stay safely in the castle," muttered Severus.

"Would you like me to come along?" he snapped. "Because I will. I will stand by you until this is resolved...one way or another. So don't you dare..." His eyes blazed.

Severus put up his hands as if to ward off sparks. "I'm sorry, Filius. I'm sorry. I'm just..." He sighed and shook his head.

Filius clasped him by the arm, and Severus closed his eyes. "Do not doubt for one moment that I stand by you, Severus. All of you." And the fierceness of his expression said what he could not say aloud. That he regretted what had not known, what he had not been given leave to do when Severus had been hidden in the shadows.

Severus's chest was tight, and he finally stopped pacing.

"Thank you, Professor," said Hermione. The others echoed her as Severus settled himself on the couch next to her.

"Professor Sinistra," said Harry. "Have you determined when we should set out?"

"Best I can determine is that a full moon is most auspicious. Other than that, I don't think it much matters," she said.

"That's tomorrow night," said Ginevra, her voice shaking. Harry gathered her close, and she laid her head on his chest.

"Sooner is good," said Ron. "This waiting is killing me." He huffed at the astonished expressions around him. "What? What did I say?"

"Never mind, Ronald," said his mother. "Soon it won't matter." She reached out to clasp her husband's hand. "Hopefully."

Hope. Yes, indeed, thought Severus. It would have to be their guiding light.

~~**~~

They set out at midmorning, fortified by the best breakfast the Hogwarts house-elves had to offer and carrying more for the road. It had been like a leaving feast, Hermione thought. As if the elves were sending them on a long journey.

There must have been something in the air. The students fairly bristled with tension, and the staff hovered around the seven of them as if they might crack at the slightest disturbance. Hermione thought they might all be on to something; everyone was on edge, eager to get on with it.

"It's not much of a map, but it'll have to do," said the headmistress, handing Severus a roll of parchment at the front gates. "At least it shows you the general direction."

Severus nodded, tucking the scroll into his robes right next to the pouch holding the still glowing nimbus. "Thank you, Minerva. I'm sure we will find it helpful. Your efforts tend to be."

They looked at one another for a moment, and Hermione wondered how many times before they had put their heads together over a dilemma...out of sight of the students, of course.

The headmistress sniffed and then put both her hands on Severus's shoulders. Hermione thought she might have hugged him had she not feared being flung halfway across the forest for her trouble.

"Be safe, Severus," she said, her cheeks ruddy with emotion. "Be well."

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Cleared his throat and nodded. The nod of his head seemed the signal for the others to crowd around, claiming the embraces Severus could not.

"We'll be back soon," said Harry.

"We always come back, don't we?" said Ron. "Eventually." More softly.

"Don't worry about us, Headmistress," said Neville. "We'll be okay." He sounded to Hermione as if he was trying to convince himself as much as his former Head.

And yet, his back was straight, and Harry's eyes were bright. Ron looked restless, ready to set off, and Molly had given Arthur one last lingering kiss and Ginny one last hug.

The sun was high in the sky, and it was time to go.

~~**~~

A/N: Alpha and beta reading thanks to Annie Talbot and DrinkingCocoa, whose words of guidance and incisive observations always make the story better. Thanks also to Scoffy for the outstanding Latin translation. *hugs

Thanks also to Lady Karelia for beta reading at the speed of light, and to JunoMagic and Kittylefish for words of support and encouragement in the final hours.

'What final hours?' you may ask.

Well...

The final two chapters of the story are complete. Chapter 21 will post Monday afternoon, and Chapter 22, the final chapter, sometime on Tuesday.

Thanks to all of you who have read, reviewed, and been so enthusiastic about this story. I hope you enjoy the final two installments.

*hugs you all