When Miss Potter was brought raving into the ward, the sky was empty save the stars. As the days passed and Miss Potter did not improve, Severus watched the moon reappear shyly and sketch itself in, night after night.
He did not leave the quarantine ward. He was not well enough for Pomfrey to permit him to go, but he had little desire to—at times. Others, he'd have jumped from the window if the interfering old martinet hadn't spelled it unbreakable. If Miss Potter hadn't been there to arrest his attention, he might have tried it anyway. Imposed isolation and convalescence left one with a great deal of free time, and imposed a maddening measure of boredom.
Sometimes he thought he might lose his mind from having nothing to do but fret—about his future, his House, the girl across the way. He couldn't even smoke. Pomfrey would never allow it; she disapproved of stimulants of any sort and wouldn't even permit him a cup of coffee. He took his considerable frustration out on her, but she bore it grimly—better than he did. His head ached and his throat, too; he felt constantly on-edge and yet listless, lethargic; angry and depressed. He dreamed of moonlight shining through a prison of branches grown over his solitary window, and imagined he heard snarling in the dark.
The strain he'd put on his magic that night of the full moon had resulted (according to worrywart Pomfrey) in the same effect as a muscle sprain, and must be treated as such: basically, staying off it. She took away his wand and forbade him from attempting any wandless spells, an injunction that was only effective because she had the grim good sense to throw a dampening spell over the room. Severus had no choice but to obey her, as bitterly as he submitted to her injunctions upon coffee and cigarettes.
He didn't see any of his students, but they wrote him and he answered. The Slytherin N.E.W.T. students who'd taken over supervising his classes on rotation reported that they found it almost impossible to make the students behave (though his supervisors from other houses did not seem to be having any problems). His Slytherins were being attacked in the upper levels of the dungeons, on the grounds, in the library; anywhere isolated, and increasingly in view of students from other houses. He wrote angry letters to Flitwick, Sprout and Minerva, and received these replies:
Severus, you may be most assured that we are all vigilant in preventing unprovoked attacks on any student. I have, of course, spoken to my prefects about policing the students in their purvey and stressed their duty to all of their fellow students. Yrs, Filius Flitwick
We're looking into it, old boy. –P.S.
We're doing everything we can, Severus, but there are four Heads for a reason. Aurora is the only other Slytherin teacher on staff, and you know how rarely she comes down from her blasted tower. Do get well soon, won't you? Everyone seems worser behaved without you. MG
The attacks kept happening, the reports kept coming. With the fear of his reprisals removed–the mantle of his protection–his Slytherins were suffering. Teaching he did not give a damn about, but for damages paid against his house, the rest of the school would soon regret the day he'd ever been born.
When he was back on his feet.
Once Martinet Pomfrey was certain his back was well enough, she let him sit up and move about, but (in spite of his vows of noble retribution) the only thing he was strong enough to do was pace to his solitary window. The view looked over the loch, as Dumbledore claimed his little chapel to do. It was a view Severus had seem times past counting, and yet, to some part of his soul, starved too early ever to fully heal, it was always welcome, always beautiful. It soothed the nightmares of being swallowed by a living forest.
When he demanded to see Miss Potter, Pomfrey sighed but made no demur. She let him into the room across the hall, identical to his own except for its occupant.
Magical binding, wide strips of a muted, transparent glow across her chest and hips and shoulders, held Miss Potter to the bed. She twisted beneath them constantly with her entire body, and her head tossed on the pillow. Her eyes were rolled back but always moving, and her voice threaded the silence in an unbroken, repetitive mutter.
The sight was. . . disturbing.
"She's been like this the whole time?" he asked as an odd feeling knocked round in his chest.
"Yes," Pomfrey said grimly. "And this is curious. Observe." She cast a complicated diagnostic over Miss Potter. A long web of colored lines formed in the air above her, stretching the length of her body and flashing like a lightning storm.
"That's the map of her magical activity?" Severus said.
"Yes—along with cerebral activity." She pointed her wand at an area of the light-web above Miss Potter's head, which he supposed passed for the brain map. "You know, I'm sure, that we use our brains when we spell-cast. It requires concentration and imagination."
Which explains why our students have such trouble with it; but the thought passed through his mind without stopping, a throwaway insult he had no interest in at the moment. Miss Potter's magic and mind maps were flickering out of control.
"She seems to be doing a great deal more than concentrating," he said.
"Her magic is all in flux—rather like yours, at present. From what we can tell, she was channeling an enormous amount of power, which seems to have something to do with this. Mrs. Patil's opinion was that Miss Potter's natural timeline has been disrupted."
"Her what?"
"I agree, it sounds like fortune-telling codswallop. But under the circumstances, what else is there to believe?"
"People have gone mad from rituals before." But those were Dark spells, usually. Divinations was supposed to be harmless, insipid.
But many things that were supposed to be turned out quite differently in the end.
"Yes," Pomfrey said grimly. "And there is nothing anyone can do. She must wait it out."
"It's been four days." How could her body—her magic—her mind—endure the strain?
"I know," Pomfrey said sadly. When she cancelled her spell and its light vanished, the room seemed that much darker and more bleak.
Remus watched as the latest draft of the letter turned to black and curled in the grate. Then he dropped his quill and rested his forehead in his hands.
His desk and fireplace were graveyards of failed replies and missives. A few early drafts (mostly words slashed into illegibility), splatters of ink, broken quill nubs, shavings of mended ends, littered the surface around him. The hearth was scattered with flakes of parchment that had fallen free of the fire before burning to ash.
The newest addition to his life, a tiny scops owl, hooted from its perch over the mantel, where it had made itself at home atop his old carriage clock. Trust Sirius to pick the most annoying owl ever mistakenly swindled into the post service.
"Nothing for you, yet," Remus muttered. "Or maybe ever." He couldn't send the owl to Snape; he'd kill it, and probably see it as a prank to boot. As for sending it to Sirius, wherever he was, that was out of the question. It couldn't make the trip.
He'd tried writing to Sirius and to Snape, separately, and achieved about the same results: failure. He couldn't get anywhere, not even with Sirius, not even to tell him what had happened to Harriet. The weight of what he was avoiding pressed his quill to stopping.
What could he say, to make up for what had happened? He knew very well there was nothing he could say, which was why the attempt was useless.
He'd intended to visit Snape. He knew he ought to. But every time he stood up to go, he started to waver. Walking out the door was difficult. Getting down the stairs was a trial, slower for every step. By the time he was within sight of the infirmary doors, his feeble courage deserted him entirely, and he deserted his mission in turn, and fled.
Then the letter-writing commenced again, and failed for the same reason as ever.
Minerva had been to see him, to let him know she was very angry with him. So he was avoiding her, too. He avoided everyone he could, in fact, and most people were avoiding him back. Many of the other teachers, whose approval of his staffing appointment had been tepid from the first, were nearly in outright revolt against him now. They had a right to be.
His usual habit whenever the secret of his lycanthropy was unearthed was to disappear. As a man, he was forgettable. People remembered that they'd met a werewolf, that he hadn't seemed like one, that looks were deceiving, but he was forgotten. He preferred it that way. It was too painful, being known as the werewolf.
After every failed letter attempt, he'd look out the window, across the glistening waters of the loch that melded with the horizon like molten metal, and imagine the freedom that would accompany flight. . . The comfort of leaving, even though Dumbledore had adjured him to stay. . . It was what they all wanted, it would be better. . . Staying was his penance, but it put the children in danger—
Is that why you want to leave, or is it so you won't have to endure their disgust?
In spite of every hiss of that dark voice in his mind, the desire to roll up his rug, pack away his clock, take up his plant and be gone from there plagued him every hour of the day and night. Everyone would be pleased. . . except Albus. Albus would be even angrier, even more disappointed, than he was now. . .
(There, Remus had been confused. Albus was more upset over his involving Dark magic than concealing the truth about Sirius and Peter. He had not even asked if the spell could be repeated. Remus had offered the information—it couldn't be, for they no longer had anything of Peter's—but Albus had said, "It would be out of the question anyway. Such magic should never be used in the first place.")
He couldn't argue with Albus, not after everything he'd done.
When he found himself reaching for the clock, the plant, the rug, to pack them away, he asked himself: could he face destroying Albus' faith in him entirely? He didn't deserve that faith, so what did it matter if it was gone. . . or did his not deserving it require him to do something, anything, to preserve it? Was it selfish to remain for the sake of that opinion, if it meant endangering countless others? Or was it more selfish to leave, to remove the danger he caused, because he wanted, needed, to remove himself from their loathing?
He didn't know.
It was the height of irony that, after the uncertainty of the past six months had finally been resolved, he should be mired in uncertainty of another kind.
But that was life, wasn't it? There were always choices to be made: not between the certain good and the certain bad, but the confusing mixture of both. And when it came to choice, for fear of doing wrong he had always done nothing at all.
Except for this once, when he'd made a choice that had been wrong in almost every way.
And now, he had another choice before him.
"Of course it isn't a problem, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall. "You must do what you feel is best."
Hermione pulled the chain over her head and set the time-turner carefully on Professor McGonagall's desk. Even now, she had difficulty letting go of it. She supposed it was the power it held, the promise of knowledge; the idea that if you knew what was coming, really knew, you could fix it. . .
But she knew better. In the past few days, she'd unearthed the darkest books in the Restricted Section about the misuse of time and read them until she felt cold to the tips of her fingers.
"I can't be trusted with it anymore, Professor," she said. "I've misused it terribly."
Professor McGonagall examined her over the rims of her spectacles.
"I was confident in my assessment of your personality when I wrote to the Ministry, Miss Granger," she said. "As you are giving it back to me in full disclosure, I can remain so."
Something inside Hermione that had started to shrivel up paused, shivering; breathless that she should hear a stronger condemnation, yet fully aware she deserved it.
"I believe it would be best if you submitted to me a reflection on your use of the time-turner," said Professor McGonagall, "and a form letter on your withdrawal from two of the classes of your choice. By Friday, yes? And I will speak to your professors as your Head of House."
"Yes, ma'am." Hermione swallowed, her face hot and her body almost shivering.
"If that's all, you may go." Her tone was brisk but kind, and Hermione was intensely grateful even as she hated herself for not deserving it.
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."
Gathering her things, she left, in a measured plod down to the hospital wing. She'd write her letters in Harriet's room so the reflection would be as honest as she could give, with no convenient lapse in memory or culpability.
As she rounded the corner to the infirmary, she was so distracted that she didn't notice she was about to run into someone until her vision filled with patched-up tweed, and by then it was too late.
"I'm so sorry!" she blurted, as a surprised Professor Lupin turned to look at her over his shoulder.
"It's no trouble," he said, and smiled. But the expression looked pale and unhappy, and reminded her of Harriet. . . before. "In fact, it's entirely my fault for woolgathering in the middle of the corridor."
She wanted to ask why he was, but she didn't dare.
He glanced toward the doors to the hospital wing. "Are you on your way to see Harriet?"
"Yes." She swallowed. "I—go to see her a lot. Are—are you going, too, sir?"
"Madam Pomfrey won't allow it. I'm not crucial to Harriet's convalescence. But I'm not her best friend," he added, smiling encouragement at Hermione that made her feel smaller than ever. And he didn't even know.
"But," he said slowly, his eyes traveling the length of the corridor, "I do. . . have business in the hospital wing."
Hermione's curiosity raised its head, but she grabbed it by the neck and stomped it down. It was probably something to do with his lycanthropy. He might need routine check-ups. She didn't know what werewolves needed to survive. All the books she'd read for Professor Snape's aborted essay had had nothing on their care or health, only how to identify and kill them. They'd been quite sickening, in fact. Professor Snape had asked for that type of information specifically, but that was all she'd been able to find.
She'd long ago worked out that Professor Snape was probably still in hospital because he might have been bitten that night he and Harriet were brought in from the woods. He clearly hadn't been infected outright or he'd have been sent to the wizarding hospital, but the possibility might remain.
"I—I hope it's not too unpleasant," she said, now wondering if Professor Lupin were going to visit Snape. It seemed unlikely, considering how horrid Professor Snape had always been to him, more horrid than to any of the other Defense professors; but perhaps Professor Lupin was going to counsel him about what might happen in a week.
How Professor Snape might be reacting to the possibility of his own lycanthropy—after that display in DADA class months ago—Hermione couldn't begin to imagine.
"Visits to hospital are usually doomed to be so," said Professor Lupin with a half-smile, and walked with her to the doors.
There were times when Severus wished he didn't hate everyone so much. It would be something, sometimes, to have someone to talk to whom you really liked, who liked you in return; who was interested sometimes purely because it was you who was talking to them.
He'd had that, once.
He'd have welcomed the presence of such a person now, especially. Even in the realm of wishful thinking, it did not have to be Lily; any friendly, interested party would have done, since he had no one.
The Divinations books he'd ordered sent down from the library, to determine if the same principles that governed Dark magic also governed Divinations, were filling him with questions that could only dissipate into the empty air of his quarantine room. It was no bloody use talking to Trelawney, who couldn't give you the time of day. Dumbledore disapproved of studying Dark magic, and Pomfrey was busy. Miss Potter, of course, was raving (although Dumbledore was so cryptic sometimes that you could hardly tell the difference between them).
He'd settle for a fucking smoke, though.
"Not that you'd know the difference between a Dark spell and a Divinations spell if they hit you on the nose," he said to an (as-ever) unresponsive Miss Potter, "but they appear to be two entirely separate branches of magic operating on vastly disparate lines. In simpler words, they've nothing to do with each other."
Miss Potter's head tossed—he always thought of it that way, not Miss Potter tossed her head—and her body fought the restraints; she muttered, and then said something more loudly. She never stopped talking. Suddenly he felt almost indecent, as if this was no place to try and be caustic, even if it was only by habit.
"Well, since I doubt any of your hapless Defense professors have gone into it at all," he said—unable to help himself—"we might as well begin your education. Dark spells open the caster to powers outside of himself—or herself—to produce a greater effect in spell-casting. You can do a great deal of harm from a low-level Dark spell. Not without cost, of course."
Her hands twisted as if they were trying to grab at something. Yes: not without cost.
"Divinations, however—not that quackery Trelawney torments you with in her tower—is concerned not so much with spells but with the operations of time. It uses magic to obtain insight into the world beyond the present. All of its rituals—from Trelawney's tea-leaves and crystal balls to performances like this one that's landed you in here—are meant to focus you. Divinations wishes to use your powers to bridge the gap between the regular human mind state, which is mostly fixed in the present—this appears to be your trouble, that you no longer are—and the Sight, which can," he glanced at the book on his knees and said mockingly, "'see in all directions at once.'"
The author, or perhaps an illustrator, had inked in a picture of a bare-breasted woman with three faces on her head. He imagined Miss Potter making a face, the way she did in Potions whenever the ingredients called for viscera or eyeballs.
"The spell you and your dimwitted friends involved yourselves in is a ritual meant to augment the power of one's mind-state so that you can connect a significant moment that's been forgotten in the past with an important moment in the future. It's not about channeling power. But from what any of us can tell, you were channeling power—somehow—and a lot of it."
He fell silent, tapping his ragged nails against the age-spotted parchment. None of it made any sense. From the outcome, it was almost as if the girls hadn't done a Divinations ritual at all; but everything they did was part of the ritual. They had not deviated from it in any way.
"Pomfrey says Mrs. Patil is investigating," he said abruptly. "Within her field she's highly respected—however one becomes respected in such an area."
Miss Potter only continued to relate her nonsense. He closed his eyes to listen, waiting for understanding to sift in, like grains of sand in an hourglass. It had become habit by now. But no insight ever came to him, and after a time, the monotony of her babbling always started to sound like running water or white noise. He couldn't concentrate on it. He simply floated in the dark spaces of his own mind.
Hourglass. . . time. . .
Outside of time. . .
"Here you are," said Pomfrey's voice, sounding both exasperated and disapproving. He hadn't heard the door to the room open. "What in Rowena's name are you doing, Severus?"
He did not open his eyes. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"If I could tell, I shouldn't have wasted my breath asking."
"I'd still not have wasted it, if I were you," he said, looking up to glower at her, and received a nasty shock.
She had Lupin and Granger with her, both of them surprised to varying degrees. Granger in particular looked like she'd received a shock she'd rather not contemplate, though she wouldn't be able to help cudgeling her brains over it. "It" could be anything from the sight of him sitting beside Harriet Potter's bed, to seeing one of her professors, him, in his dressing-gown (for which Pomfrey was going to dearly pay).
"Miss Granger is here to visit," Pomfrey said in a tone designed to vacate him from the room.
"I'd never have guessed," he said in his most insulting voice. "Let us only hope she keeps her interference to a minimum this time." Granger looked mortified, even more than his comment warranted.
"She has the Headmaster's confidence," Pomfrey told him sharply. "Go on, Miss Granger. Professor Snape was just leaving."
He stood and walked past them without acknowledging any of them (Granger seemed to be trying to shrink herself through willpower alone), straight into his room, and slammed the door.
Someone knocked. Severus ignored them in favor of pacing about the room, trying to even his breathing. They knocked again.
"Severus?" said Lupin's voice, muffled by the wood. "May I come in?"
"Only if you want your tongue handed to you on a fucking plate," Severus told the door.
There was a pause. Far from feeling elated, he was disgusted (and surprised) that that was all it took to get rid of the spineless bastard—
"I wanted to talk to you," said the door.
Well, there had to have been some reason Lupin was placed in Gryffindor.
"I want you to choke on your own bile, but that isn't likely to happen," Severus barked.
"Well, in fact, I'm lying," said the door. "I have no desire to talk to you at all. But I know I ought to. So here. . . here I am."
This confession was, to Severus' Slytherin nature, interesting enough to give him pause. It always surprised him how Gryffindors managed to convince the entire world how noble they were, not from any inherent nobility, but from a masochistic obedience to the appearance of it. The spectacle of one of them acknowledging this, even in part, was oddly compelling.
He threw open the door. Lupin blinked but did not startle, damn him.
Severus glanced over Lupin's shoulder at Miss Potter's door. Granger was in there, probably listening to every word. He jerked his head to invite Lupin in, and slammed the door after him.
"Silencing spell," he said curtly.
Still acting the part of the noble idiot, Lupin cast one without a demur. A good Slytherin and a sharp Ravenclaw would have refused or put some trigger to end it, should things get. . . messy; but Lupin took that request at face-value. Gryffindors could really be revolting.
"If I do turn," said Severus without preamble, "you can be sure I'll press for execution."
Lupin did not pale or plead. He looked, in fact, as if this had already occurred to him ages ago.
"I think you know, Severus, that you could press for it under the circumstances, whether you turn or not," he said steadily. "The case would be heard for the presence of any human, Muggle or magical. . . but with two of you—one a child—Harriet—I'm sure the jury wouldn't even pause."
Severus agreed with him. It frustrated him to no end that Lupin had thought this through to the point that he could speak of it without wavering. He probably knew that Dumbledore would never allow it. The Headmaster sworn Severus to silence before; he could bring that promise to bear again. He would.
"You might want to hurry, in fact, if you're thinking of pressing charges," Lupin went on. "Before someone else on staff does it for you."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Severus spat. "You've put yourself in this situation."
"I know," said Lupin. Whatever turmoil he suffered internally wasn't visible on the surface at all. It was both bewildering and maddening. Severus wanted to see him suffer for what he'd done—done and failed to do.
Perhaps Lupin didn't suffer at all. Perhaps there was no one really in there. He knew Dumbledore would save his hide again, as he always had.
"Why are you even here?" Severus asked, baring his teeth.
"I thought I'd see if there was something I could do," Lupin said.
"What, to make it better?"
"No. Just. . . for you."
Severus opened his mouth to tell Lupin the only thing he could do for him was die—but then a little thought coughed to get his attention. He paused.
"In fact," he said, "I have a way you can make yourself useful."
"Anything," Lupin said without blinking.
"The entire school is using the excuse of my absence to harass my House," he said, watching Lupin narrowly.
"You want me to stop them," Lupin said, not sounding at all surprised.
"If you think you can manage it."
"Consider it done."
Severus didn't for a moment believe it would be, but it would give him a certain grim satisfaction to watch Lupin fail yet again to exert any moral courage (while he laid his own designs, of course).
"The dungeons are the focal point, but my students have reported attacks in every corner of the castle—mostly secluded areas, though the bullies are growing bolder."
He watched Lupin closely throughout, but there was no flicker of shame or recognition. But he'd known Lupin was good at this—one of the best he'd ever encountered, he had to admit.
"I'll take care of it," said Lupin.
"We shall see," Severus said coldly. He knew his Slytherins would heckle Lupin every step of the way. "Now get out."
Lupin nodded and left without another word. Part of Severus was pleased to have found a way to pay Lupin back, even if it was less than a teaspoon's amount; yet, another part of him wished he'd made Lupin grovel more, had denigrated and repudiated him more. But he was tired. The last part of him wanted to go to bed.
There was no time for that yet, however. He'd had an idea at Miss Potter's bedside, just before those cretins had interrupted him.
"Pomfrey!" he barked, throwing open the door.
Pomfrey hurried into the corridor from the main dormitory, but when she saw that neither he nor Miss Potter seemed to be dying, she snapped a scowl onto her face.
"I am not for you to summon like a servant, Severus Snape!" she told him angrily.
"I need a quill," he said in his best lord-of-the-manor voice, and enjoyed the spiteful pleasure of watching her swell indignantly. "And a roll of parchment—and you will need to cast a dictation spell on the quill. I want to produce a written record of everything she says."
Pomfrey blinked. "How remarkably sensible," she said. "Who would have thought?" And, with that mediocre yet not entirely contemptible parting shot, she left to fetch what he'd demanded.
He set up shop in Miss Potter's room, dragging the study table in from his room and unspooling an extra-long roll of parchment for the dicta-quill, and tearing off a piece for himself. As soon as Pomfrey set the spell, the quill began scratching. It kept scratching without pause. Before long, it had filled a foot of parchment with solid writing, no breaks or stops.
While it scribbled its way along, he copied the first sentence her jargon out backwards and split it off into recognizable words (minus the horrendous, phonetic spelling). He read:
but those blokes in the masks they ran for it when the dark mark showed up in the sky
He sat staring at the page for some time, his quill bleeding black across the parchment, before he shook himself and wiped the ink away with the corner of his dressing gown.
He tackled the rest of the writing with a tight feeling in his chest. Was it was ferocious anticipation or dread? Perhaps it was both.
Translating Miss Potter's babble was hard going because everything was backwards; and because she never paused, because she was not speaking in any recognizable language, the quill wrote it it out phonetically, without breaks. Figuring out where to cut the words was easy enough, but where to begin the next sentence was more difficult. The difficulty was also increased because Miss Potter seemed to be relating only what she had said and thought; the context was obscure, in some places almost nonexistent.
But it became clear, the more he puzzled out, that Miss Potter was not only speaking backwards, she appeared to be experiencing backwards. The part of her litany he'd copied first appeared to center around "blokes in masks" levitating a group of Muggles at the Quidditch World Cup; and then came the Cup itself, next a holiday at the Weasleys'; then time spent with the Grangers after leaving the Dursleys'. . . It was all the opposite of how it ought to happen. . .
His quill paused on the parchment. The Quidditch World Cup was held every four years. . . and it would be taking place in England this very August.
And if Miss Potter was to be believed, at the World Cup the Dark Mark would appear in the sky.
"Hard at work, my dear boy? Is this part of your convalescence?"
Severus did not jump, but he was proud of himself that he did not. The Headmaster stood in the open doorway, looking curiously at the rolls of inked-over parchment and the dicta-quill scribbling full speed. Severus resisted the urge to shield his paper with his arm.
"What do you want?" he asked instead.
"Many things," said Dumbledore, his mustache twitching, "as do we all."
"Unless I can give any of them to you, you'll be wasting your time with me."
"You could," he twinkled, "but would you?"
"It doesn't sound like something I would do." That peculiar, almost indecent feeling returned, as if telling him they should save this comedy-act rubbish for some place other than the sick room of an afflicted girl. "Whatever it is, I hope it can wait. I'm busy."
"I merely wanted to see how you were getting on," said Dumbledore. "And to reintroduce a little vitriol into my life—everyone in this castle seems too agreeable, these days."
Severus sent him a scorching glare, but Dumbledore merely smiled behind his beard and left with a wave. Maddening old—but that was Dumbledore for you: he left when you wanted him to only if he could be sure of leaving you irritated that he'd gone after all.
Well, Severus had other things to occupy his attention at present.
Flexing his hand, he set his quill to the page and continued.
As soon as Hermione climbed into the common room, all attention focused on her, like the beam of a searchlight—as always happened when she came back from visiting Harriet. All eyes turned toward her, all hands stopped whatever they were doing, all ears strained to listen. The same group always sat near the fire so they'd be near the entrance to quiz her whenever she came in: Ron, Ginny, Neville, Parvati, Lavender, and the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team.
"Well?" asked the first person eagerly, impatiently. This time it was Fred. The common room seemed to hold its breath.
Hermione shook her head. The common room sighed.
"Still no change?" Angelina asked, while the corners of the room muttered their disappointment.
"None." Hermione hated sometimes that they made her say it, that they wouldn't just let it go. But it was part of her penance.
Parvati looked just as guilt-ridden as Hermione felt these days. Although all the professors were quite firm that what happened to Harriet wasn't Parvati's fault, she nonetheless felt responsible. And since Hermione was still forbidden to discuss the time-turner, she couldn't tell her. . .
She'd thought about it. Sometimes she wondered whether the trouble hadn't been only her disruption but also the presence of two time-turners in a room that was the center of a time-spell. But—as much as she hated to think it, for how mean-spirited it felt—Parvati wasn't the most circumspect person. Telling Parvati could lead to all sorts of trouble.
She'd have done it otherwise. She really would have.
"Poor Harry," Ginny muttered, an echoing kind of hollowness in her eyes. Was she remembering what had happened last year, with Tom Riddle's diary? "I hope it's not—I hope it doesn't hurt her, whatever she's going through."
"I need to put my things upstairs," Hermione said, to escape from their questions and sympathy; to put some distance between herself and her remorse.
"Her-hermione?" said a boy's timid voice as she turned away. Even though she knew it wasn't Ron's voice, she was still surprised to turn and see Neville—clutching a bouquet of exquisite-looking blue flowers. Their stamen seemed to be made of bio-luminescent crystal.
"Yes?" she asked, trying to sound encouraging. Neville hardly ever said anything these days, but she was pretty sure she knew why. Those beautiful flowers only sealed it.
"I. . ." He looked both anxious and serious to the extreme. "I know none of us can see her right now. . . but I thought, since you could—would you—would you take these to her next time? Only I thought Pomfrey mightn't allow them if I brought them, but if you did—"
"Of course," Hermione said as kindly as she could. The blossoms chimed faintly as she took them from him; an enchanting, delicate sound. "They're lovely, Neville."
He flushed crimson, but still looked very serious. "Hospitals are always so empty." Then he looked embarrassed, as if he hadn't meant to say it. "Th-thanks, Hermione."
He let himself into the boys' stairwell and disappeared. Hermione looked at the flowers and wondered. . .
"What's Neville giving you flowers for?" Ron asked, materializing so suddenly that she almost dropped the bouquet.
"They're for Harriet," she said.
"Oh." Ron scratched the back of his neck. "Thought maybe. . ."
It was nearly Valentine's Day, wasn't it? To Hermione, it was perfectly obvious that Neville fancied Harriet something terrible, but she supposed that, to Ron, the sight of Neville giving flowers to any girl would overpower his reason.
"I wish they'd let me bloody see her," Ron said, dropping his hand and scowling; but underneath it, he looked troubled.
"There's really no point. She doesn't even know I'm there." She swallowed round a lump in her throat.
Ron looked at her, then at the flowers. "Better put those in water, huh?"
Hermione nodded her gratitude, and took them upstairs.
The pygmy owl, whom Remus was beginning to call As Annoying As You Are Small, was twittering about the ceiling in circles when he returned from his visit to hospital. Deep in thought, he looked up at the little thing, which was about the same size and color as a middle-grade dust bunny.
"He made that a great deal easier than he ought to have done," he told the owl, who swooped down on him and tried to perch on his ear. "No," he said firmly, brushing it gently away. "I don't need to walk around with bird shit on my head, thank you."
It hooted good-naturedly and fluttered over to his clock, its default perch. To be fair to it, there was not much else to perch on. He didn't exactly clutter the room with personal belongings.
"In fact," he resumed, picking up his kettle and hanging it over the fire. "He made that a great deal easier than anyone ought to have done."
It couldn't be from disinterested motives—or perhaps he should say, that was it exactly. Snape had not seemed overly interested in his presence at all. Remus didn't have to strain his faculties to surmise that Snape's uncharacteristically cavalier attitude probably had something to do with his meditation at Harriet's bedside.
"So what I'm saying," he told the owl, slowly, "is that Snape's hatred for me. . . pales next to his concern for Harriet. . . ?"
Out loud, it sounded ludicrous; so ludicrous that saying it to an owl was perfectly normal in comparison. And yet, that very much appeared to be what he'd seen. It also fit with everything else he'd been observing over the course of the past few months.
He had no memory of that night in the forest. Everything he knew of it, he'd learned from Dumbledore the morning after; though every devastation had cut less deeply once he'd been assured he had no traces of human blood in his mouth or on his claws, only rabbit. Peter had escaped; Sirius was on the lam again; Dumbledore, Harriet, and Snape knew he was innocent, but to the law he was still a mass murderer. Snape's work on the spell had weakened him greatly, and then he'd dragged himself and the werewolf off a ravine to protect Harriet, and conjured a Patronus powerful enough to repel all the Dementors of Azkaban—for the same purpose.
Now he was sitting with her when she was ill, and ignoring every right he had to excoriate Remus in favor of some other concern. By the laws of emotions, it had to be a deeper concern, to take precedence over other things. . .
The kettle whistled and Remus moved it absently off the fire, but when he sat it on the hub he forgot about it. His eyes drifted out the window, to the quicksilver light of the sun setting over the water, and he wondered.
When the last of the daylight sank into darkness and the firelight seemed almost too bright behind him, he took out a clean piece of parchment, picked up his quill, and did not bother with any salutations.
There is nothing I can say about what happened, he wrote, that would be worth the writing or the reading, but if you need me to try, I will. I can start by saying I've regretted it every day for twelve years, and I'll regret it the rest of my life.
You'll be more concerned with Holly-berry, of course. (Remus never called her that, but since his correspondent was a hunted criminal, they needed to stick to some semblance of code.) She was quite well, bodily, after you'd gone, though rather sad. I wish I could tell you she's well now, but she's had a bit of trouble with a Divinations spell. . .
At another time, he might have concealed that truth to keep Sirius from doing something reckless. What if this report brought Sirius haring back to Scotland, in defiance of all self-preservation? It just might, too. There was nothing he could do for her, but he'd want to be on hand. Remus knew he would. So he wrote it.
For now, Remus had had enough of secrets.
Dark. The world was dark around him.
Closed in.
The tree creaked, thrashing in the wind. Jab the knot with a stick and it will freeze you can get in Snivellus and you'll see—
There were a hundred trees, a thousand. Moonlight through the branches.
The sounds, they were the same. His own heartbeat, loudest of all.
Get out of here.
I'm not leaving—
Severus didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he became aware of a gap in his memory. He'd been slashing lines through the babble on the parchment to make words, but all of a sudden it was dark and his heart was beating hard as the dream dissolved like tissue in water. His skin was prickling in a familiar yet almost forgotten way. . .
It was the sensation of being watched.
Opening his eyes, he found the room around him had gone dark, touched by the color-leeching light of the waxing moon outside. For a moment, the memory of the dream rippled starkly across him.
But the room was entirely silent. Miss Potter had stopped babbling. The bed no longer creaked. The dicta-quill had stopped scratching.
When he looked at the bed, he saw her curled up on her side, her hands tucked up near her cheek, her eyes open and watching him.
He didn't move. He didn't even feel elated. He was suddenly paralyzed by the ridiculous fear of doing something that would set her off again, raving and flailing about.
Wait, how had she moved into that position? She ought still to be retrained.
"My Patronus," she said, in a quiet, half-confiding tone, "is a stag."
Severus stared. He didn't know she'd learned to—
Ah. "Is it?" he asked slowly.
"Yours is a doe," she said.
". . . It is." So, she'd seen that much, that night at the lake. Or was she remembering this from her future memories?
"I wish mine was a doe," she said. There was an odd tone in her voice, at once childish in its simplicity and yet somehow grave.
"The form a Patronus takes has been thought to be indicative of its strength," he said warily, disconcerted to be regarded so unwaveringly. "A stag Patronus is likely more powerful than a doe."
"Yours is plenty powerful. It threw off a hundred Dementors."
This could still be a future memory of the event, though he had to admit it wasn't likely. While he was carefully selecting what he'd say next, Miss Potter astonished him for the fourth time.
"I wish it was mine," she said sleepily. "Then I could see it whenever I wanted."
She closed her eyes. A few moments later, in defiance of everything owed to human decency, she fell asleep. Her whole body relaxed into the profound rest of the near-dead. In the unfamiliar, near-silence of the room, he heard her breathing deeply and evenly.
He slumped in the armchair as all the tension left him at last. Letting his head bump against the chair back, he stared out the window, at the moon growing by the night.