Half Magic

V

More blackness, of course. Her flashlight beam caught on sacks piled high into virtual mountains against the walls. Naturally, the various root vegetables stored here would be kept in burlap bags. She wondered if any spells had been cast to keep the potatoes and rutabagas and such fresh, and whether those spells even still worked.

I suppose it would depend on who had cast them, she thought, as she moved forward into the cellar. Even the sweep of her robes against the stone floor seemed unnaturally loud. If it's the house-elves' responsibility to do such things, then I suppose the spells would still hold, but --

Her thoughts broke off then, as she thought she saw a flicker of movement on the far side of the room. She stopped abruptly.

Snape's voice, pitched just above a whisper. "You saw it."

"I saw -- something." Nothing tangible, just the barest hint of motion. It could have been rats, she supposed, although there wasn't anything particularly reassuring in that thought, either.

His flashlight beam raked the room, probing into the shadows. Hermione moved her own flashlight so its narrower, more focused ray joined with his.

A flash of gold, slanted and malevolent. That was the only impression her mind could grasp. The shape...had no shape. It roiled and twisted in the darkness, seeming to take the shadows in the room upon itself, black swallowing black.

She stepped backward. Her foot tangled in her robes and she stumbled. If it hadn't been for Professor Snape reaching out to catch her, she might have fallen. But his arms went around her, keeping her from doing herself any more harm than a wrenched ankle. A shock went up her right leg, a stabbing pain that was compounded as he set her upright and then propelled her back toward the door.

The pounding of her heart wasn't quite enough to drown out the rustle behind her. Whatever that thing was, it was moving straight toward them. But fear made her ignore the throbbing in her ankle, and she ran.

At least she hadn't dropped the flashlight. Its beam touched the iron ring in the door, and with a gasp of relief she grasped it and pulled the door open. It wasn't until she and Snape had reached the relative safety of the sixth cellar that she realized he had purposely hung back, as if to block her from the monster which had made the seventh cellar its home.

A scraping sound, and the door shuddered once, twice. Instinctively, she backed away, even as Professor Snape again moved to stand between her and the creature. But it seemed to decide that the heavy oaken door was too much of a barrier, for after that initial assault an uneasy silence fell.

Chivalry? she wondered then, and gave a quick glance upward at the Potions master. Or merely a cold-blooded assessment that he was larger and stronger than she, and therefore more capable of fighting off the unknown monster they had faced?

Hermione didn't know. All she did know was that they seemed to be safe...for now.

"Have you ever seen anything like that before?" she asked.

"No." Was it her imagination, or did he sound just a bit out of breath? "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Bit of a twist to my ankle, but I don't think it's sprained." Now that the adrenaline had begun to ebb somewhat, she paused to evaluate the damage. Not much, she decided, after she put her weight on her foot and shifted from side to side. "Just a wrench. I suppose I should have worn a shorter cloak."

"Indeed." To her surprise, he offered her his free arm. "This will make the return trip go more quickly."

She could have argued, but he had a point. Even though she knew she hadn't suffered any permanent damage, the truth was, her ankle did hurt. His offer of support made sense. Why, then, did it feel so odd to take his arm and lean on him as he guided her back through the maze of cellars?

Because it's Severus Snape, she thought. Once upon a time I would have guessed that he'd leave me to my own fate in that cellar...and I would have been wrong. Whether he had changed, or whether her perspective of him had simply altered with the passing of time, she couldn't guess.

"So the house-elves weren't lying," she said, more to keep her mind off the ache in her ankle than anything else. Yes, once she was safely back in the upper levels of the castle, she could start formulating plans as to how she might translate that one confused glimpse into something she could research, but for now she just wanted human voices to keep the dark and the pain at bay.

She couldn't really see Professor Snape's expression in the darkness, but a flicker of amusement edged his voice. "No, I suppose not."

They reached the door to the fifth cellar, and he opened it. Hermione saw a square of yellow light in the ceiling at the far end of the chamber, where they'd kept the trapdoor propped open. A wave of relief washed over her. At least soon they'd be out of this dank cellar.

Hauling herself up the stone stairs was tricky, since she had to keep as much weight off her right foot as possible, and of course there was no railing. The staircase was too narrow to allow them to ascend abreast. Grimly she mounted the steps, cursing her bulky clothing. Really, if she'd been thinking she would have packed some jeans and a few jumpers along with the rest of her garments. Wizard garb could be impressive and beautiful, but it wasn't always the most practical choice when it came down to maneuvering through tight spots.

But at last she emerged into the blissfully well-lit hallway, Snape only a few paces behind her. As she watched, he turned and let the heavy trapdoor fall shut once again.

"The creature appeared to have difficulty with doors, but I see no reason to give it an open invitation," he said.

Hermione repressed a shudder. Those baleful golden eyes seemed to have imprinted themselves permanently on her retinas. "No, I should say not," she replied. Then she took a few limping steps in the direction of the stairs that would lead them to Hogwarts' ground floor and gritted her teeth. This was going to be a very long walk.

At once Snape was beside her, wordlessly offering her his arm. Again it was on her lips to refuse, but since Disapparation or any other wizardly means of getting around was impossible at the moment, she let herself lean on him. It did feel a bit better when she could keep some of the weight off her right foot.

The silence between them seemed to stretch out forever. She said hurriedly, "Have you ever seen or heard of anything like that before?"

His reply was immediate. "No. It could not be a basilisk, of course, even though that was my first thought when I saw those eyes. But a basilisk would have frozen both of us immediately."

True enough. When she had been felled by the basilisk during her second year at Hogwarts, she hadn't even caught a true glimpse of the massive snake. Her memories of that time were still muddled. Sometimes in her nightmares she was haunted by glowing eyes like those she had just seen in the seventh cellar, but were they a fragment of true memory or merely a phantom image confabulated from Harry's retelling of his battle against the basilisk?

In any case, they had faced this monster and survived with nothing worse than a wrenched ankle. It seemed obvious enough that the seventh cellar's latest inhabitant wasn't a basilisk, but unfortunately, rack her brains as she might, Hermione could think of nothing else it might be. Her Care of Magical Creatures classes had given her a fairly firm grasp of the fantastic beasts that inhabited the British Isles, and indeed most of the world. This creature seemed to match none of those descriptions. Besides, she was fairly sure either Hagrid or Professor Grubbly-Plank would have mentioned a beast with the unusual ability to dampen all human magic around it.

If the beast were even the cause for magic's failure at Hogwarts.

Some expression of frustration or anxiety must have crossed her face, for Professor Snape said, "If you would like to sit down and rest a moment -- "

"No," she said at once. Her ankle hurt, but the pain was something she could tolerate, especially with him lending her a steady arm to lean upon. "Better I get back to my rooms and then rest. All it probably needs is a few hours with my weight off it, and there's an armchair and footstool in my sitting room that would be perfect for that."

He nodded and stared forward once again, his expression grim. Then again, his expression was almost always grim, so Hermione couldn't extrapolate much regarding his mood from that. Most likely he merely looked forward to depositing her in her rooms and getting her off his hands for a few hours.

She would have liked to go to the library and begin searching through the bestiaries there to see if she could unearth some bit of information she'd forgotten. But the library was clear on the other side of the castle, and it would be a bit much to ask of Professor Snape to let her cling to his arm as she hobbled her way over there. No, the most she could hope for was that her wretched ankle would feel well enough after some time off it that she could make her way to the library under her own power.

At last they reached her room, and she gratefully pushed the door inward. From there it was just a few more weary feet to that blessed overstuffed chair. She sank down into it, releasing Professor Snape's arm, then tugged the footstool a little closer and placed her feet upon it.

"Madam Pomfrey is away," he said. "I would suggest summoning a house-elf for some cold cloths."

The bell dedicated to that purpose sat on the table next to her chair. Cold compresses and hot tea, she told herself. That's all I need. She reached for the bell. She would call for one of the house-elves to assist her, and she and Snape could discuss what they had seen while her ankle recovered from its ordeal.

But that did not seem to be his intention. He gave her the smallest of nods, said, "I shall let you rest, then," and swept out of the room.

Hermione stared after him for a long moment, wondering at his haste. Then she shook her head and picked up the bell.

***

It wasn't right that he should still feel the pressure of her hand on his arm, or the weight of her body against his as he caught her in the cellar. It had been pure instinct that made him reach out to keep her from falling to the ground. It was what anyone might have done. So why did his foolish brain persist in dwelling on those sensations?

If anything, he should be focusing on that unknown creature in the seventh cellar. Some undiscovered relative of the basilisk, perhaps? The wizarding world was full of many strange and wonderful things, after all. And its fauna had never been his area of expertise.

Yes, that was better. Think of the problem, not the drift of chamomile that he'd caught from her hair, or the look of obvious gratitude she'd given him as he offered her his arm. He knew her ankle must have been painful, and yet she'd uttered not one word of complaint as they made the long trek back to her guest suite. Neither had she even stopped to rest. How many other young women could have managed as well in her situation?

Not many, he guessed. Very well, so she had some admirable qualities. And she had grown up to be quite a pretty young woman. That didn't mean he should be standing here in the hallway outside her room like a lovesick fifth year mooning after a comely classmate. There were far more important matters he should be attending to.

Scowling, he turned away from her door and strode down the hallway in the direction of the library. Hermione Granger might be brilliant and accomplished and cool in a crisis, but he still had resources that she did not. He'd been an instructor here for too many years not to know a good many of Hogwarts' secrets.

Madam Pince was a wily creature and changed the password to the staff-only private room in the library at regular intervals. However, he somehow doubted she would have thought to guard the place in a fashion that wouldn't require magic.

His suspicions were borne out when he entered the library, passed through the restricted section, and slid the panel aside that would allow entry into the tiny chamber which held books deemed too dark or dangerous or obscure for the students to read even with a professor's permission. Normally he would have been required to speak Madam Pince's latest password to gain entry, but the panel gave no resistance, instead moving quietly to one side as the spring-loaded mechanism yielded at his touch.

Once inside, he pulled the torch out of his over-robe's pocket and began scanning the shelves for likely titles. Some of the books weren't true books at all, but older parchments secured between leather covers to keep their contents safe. Several of these looked promising, and he added them to the growing stack near his feet. Bestiaries, of course, but also volumes having to do with Hogwarts' earliest days, those times now hidden in the murk of history.

At length he had a sizeable pile, one that stretched the limits of what he thought he could safely carry back to the wing where the guest apartments were located. Perhaps he could have summoned a house-elf to assist with porter duties, but he wasn't sure he wanted to trust a house-elf with such sensitive material.

But you're willing to trust Hermione Granger with it, he thought, and gave a little grimace. Trust was not something that came easily to him. However, she had been summoned here by Minerva McGonagall to solve this mystery, and keeping possibly vital information from her would do no one any good. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he couldn't think of anyone better suited to combing through these dusty volumes and finding the information they both sought.

He moved as quickly as he could, considering the burden he carried. Once he reached the door to Hermione's rooms, he awkwardly shifted the books so he could reach out and knock. Her response was immediate.

"Come in."

Her face lit up when she saw him...because of the books in his arms, he told himself quickly. It couldn't be because she was that overjoyed to be back in his presence.

The smile faded, however, as she took several of the volumes from him and apparently got a good look at their titles. "Where did you get these?" she demanded. "I've never seen any of these books before."

In anyone else, the presumption that she could have memorized the title of every book in the Hogwarts library would have been laughable. In Hermione's case, Snape suspected it was nothing more than the truth.

"The staff-only room," he said. "Surely you didn't think every volume in the library was freely available to the students?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," she retorted. "Purposely withholding valuable information like that? It goes against everything education is supposed to be about!"

For some reason her indignation amused him rather than the opposite, as might have been the case in the not-too-distant past. He didn't want to stop to consider why his attitude might have suffered such an alteration.

"Some information is dangerous," he drawled. "Not all students were as accomplished as you, Miss Granger. It's entirely possible someone could have done himself an injury."

Her mouth compressed into a tight line. Rather, he had the impression she was attempting an imitation of one of his famous scowls, but her full mouth made it veer dangerously into pout territory. He repressed a smile of his own.

"I'm sure there could have been a way to allow students access to those materials in a controlled fashion," she said. "Just because you persist in the belief that all students are dunderheads doesn't make it a fact."

He forbore from replying that it wasn't his belief that all students were dunderheads. No, it was an indisputable truth borne out from far too many years of grading incomprehensible essays and watching expensive potions ingredients destroyed by cack-handed fools who couldn't be trusted to butter a biscuit.

"That is a discussion for another time," he replied. "For now, I would suggest it might be of more use to actually study these materials to see if they can yield any information as to the identity of our yellow-eyed friend in the cellar."

At once her expression shifted from annoyance to remorse. "You're right, of course." She opened the topmost book from the stack in her lap and murmured, "Amazing. This is a description of the building of Hogwarts itself, from one of Rowena Ravenclaw's first students."

"I'm sure it's fascinating, but unless the author is describing how no one could practice magic at the castle and the means they used to remedy the situation, I'm not sure it's of much value."

Hermione let out a little sigh, then gave a reluctant nod. "True, I suppose. I just wish -- " A shake of the head, followed by a rueful smile. "Knowledge for its own sake is a wonderful thing, but I know for now it's necessary to stick with the task at hand." She set that book aside, then picked up the next one.

"I shall go through these," Snape said, indicating the books he still held. "If I find anything of interest, I will of course let you know." He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.

"Don't go."

Incredulous, he glanced back at her. A flush had risen in her cheeks, but her eyes didn't flicker as they met his. She went on, "That is, I should think it might be more valuable if we looked over this material together. That way we could compare notes on the spot. Don't you think so?"

Of course. It made sense, he supposed. Stupid for him to have thought she had any reason for him to stay other than the fact that two heads were, as they say, better than one.

In reply, he moved across the room and retrieved a chair from the small table by the window. Then he set his stack of books on the side table next to her chair.

"Let's get started," he said.