The Quality of Mercy

AN: The first chapter of this story had serious issues when it was posted -- the links didn't work, and when those were fixed, then the link to review was broken. I'm hoping for better luck on this go-'round. This story is AU because it ignores the epilogue to DH, but otherwise I am trying to stick to canon as much as possible.

Two: Discrepancies

Time passed, as it always does. Hermione held out for a fortnight before returning to her post at the Ministry of Magic. The empty days had become too much to bear after that. If her coworkers wanted to talk, she would let them. After all, she had never spent much time worrying about what other people thought.

Autumn crawled along toward winter. Hermione welcomed the shorter days -- if she wanted to fall into bed at barely past eight, then at least she could do it in full dark instead of the endless twilight of late summer. And if she went into work early and stayed late, no one seemed to mind overmuch, except Harry, who would often pause on his way out, survey the mound of parchment on her desk, and then give her a faintly disapproving look. But after voicing his concerns a few times and being shot down on every occasion, he had apparently decided that nothing he could do or say would keep Hermione from working through her grief in her own way.

Oddly enough, she often felt nothing, just a strange numbness that allowed her to get up every morning, go through her daily rituals, and Floo into work as though nothing untoward had happened. It was as if part of her mind had decided that Ron was just off on extended Auror business, instead of sleeping in the cemetery that bordered on his family's grounds. She didn't want to examine her state of mind too closely for fear of waking the despair that must surely lie beneath the emptiness, like a trap buried beneath a pile of dead leaves. Better to leave it alone.

A week before Christmas she was sent on temporary assignment to work in the Office of Financial Affairs. Her regular post was in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, where she had been working diligently to better the lot of house-elves everywhere. However, one of the innovations Kingsley Shacklebolt had implemented involved the rotation of personnel once per quarter so that they could spend a fortnight in a different section and learn something of its workings.

She came into a somewhat depleted office; Financial Affairs didn't boast a large staff at the best of times, and it appeared most of its personnel had taken extended leave for the holidays. Hermione found herself sharing the shabby little subterranean quarters with only one other person: Lucrece Tibbetts, a pale witch of indeterminate middle age who didn't seem at all discommoded by her compatriots' exodus or the fact that she'd been handed Hermione Granger-Weasley, one of the Ministry's most notorious over-achievers, as her office mate during what should have been the quiet season.

"Well, if it weren't for you, I would have been all alone down here," Lucrece confided in Hermione as she ushered the younger woman to the vacant desk next to hers. "It would be too quiet. One starts hearing things." And she cocked her head and looked vaguely off to her right, as if she'd heard something scrabbling away behind the bookshelf in the corner.

Hermione wondered if Lucrece might somehow be related to Luna Lovegood, then dismissed the thought as uncharitable. "I'm sure it will be fascinating," she said in hearty tones.

Lucrece blinked her pale-grey eyes. "Fascinating? Oh, no, I doubt that."

It's going to be a long two weeks, Hermione thought, time off for Christmas or no. Suppressing a sigh, she inquired, "So what should I do first?"

"Oh, erm...." The older woman pushed back the sleeves of her dark-blue robes and sidled around the corner of the desk, appearing to eye the neat piles of parchment its previous occupant had left behind. "It looks as if the pension disbursements need to be expedited. Don't want people coming up short at Christmas, do we?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, I suppose not."

"Here's the list." Lucrece unrolled a long piece of parchment and spread it out flat on the desk in front of Hermione. "All you need to do is check the names and amounts against the master list in that ledger there -- " she pointed at a green-bound book that occupied the left-hand corner of the desktop -- "and then, once they're verified, send the list by owl to Gringott's. Any questions?"

Just whether I'm going to be able to stay awake through this, Hermione thought, but she only smiled and replied, "No, I'm sure you've explained it quite clearly."

"Well, I'll be right over here in case you do think of something," Lucrece said, then went back to her own disk and sat down. Immediately she picked up an enormous red-plumed quill and began scratching away in another ledger, this one covered in what looked like purple-dyed ostrich.

This time a sigh did escape Hermione's lips, but it was a very small one, and the other woman didn't seem to notice. Flipping open the green ledger, Hermione saw the long list of names, written in a crabbed hand, and hoped that her eyesight would survive the experience.

Damn you, Kingsley, she thought. And I was doing so well with those house-elf education pamphlets I'd been working on....

But she knew deep down that while it might have been the current Minister's policies that had sent her down here, he certainly hadn't come up with this particular assignment. No, she'd pin that one on Romilda Vane, who worked in Logistics and had never liked Hermione. No sympathy for Hermione's loss from that one -- Romilda was still unmarried, and looked daggers at Ginny whenever she stopped in to meet Harry for lunch. However irritated Hermione might be by her present situation, she'd never complain. She wasn't about to give Miss Vane the satisfaction.

The list was in alphabetical order, and fairly long; Hermione knew that Financial Affairs handled not only the pensions for Ministry personnel but for Hogwarts staff and faculty as well. It felt odd to see how large Professor McGonagall's monthly disbursement was -- handsome, but still not quite adequate, Hermione thought, considering all the services the Transfigurations professor had rendered the school and its pupils over the years. Still, Hermione knew that the pensions were based on fixed calculations involving years of service and salary during employment, and surely what Minerva McGonagall received every month was more than adequate for her needs.

Hermione worked her way down the list, finding only a single discrepancy. In the master ledger, one Sub-Minister Muddleston's name was scratched out. "What does a strike-through in the ledger mean, Lucrece?" she asked.

The scratching of Lucrece's quill halted. "For whom?"

"Sub-Minister Muddleston. In the Magical Enforcement Department."

"Dead," Lucrece said cheerfully. "Passed away late last month, I believe. Yes, make sure he's taken off the Gringott's list."

Grimly, Hermione drew a line through Muddleston's name on the parchment, feeling an odd twinge as she did so. Probably someone had done the same thing a few months back when Ron had died. She herself now received his pension disbursements, such as they were -- he hadn't been employed at the Ministry long enough to have worked up much of a balance.

Her throat felt a little tight, and she swallowed, hard. You can't let it get to you, she thought. You've had almost five months to come to grips with this!

The constriction in her throat eased somewhat. Taking a breath, she forced herself to move on through the "P"s and the "R"s and the few "Q"s on the list. She came to "S," and then stopped a few entries down, her heart giving an odd little thump at the name she saw there.

Severus Snape.

"Erm...Lucrece?"

The older woman looked up and laid down her quill. "Yes?"

"There's an entry for Professor Snape on here." Thank God her voice sounded so normal!

"Yes?"

"But he's -- he's dead!"

"Is his name in the master ledger scratched out?"

Hermione stared down at the page. Severus Snape's name stood out clearly -- no strike-through, no attempt at erasing the letters. "Well, no."

"Then it stays on the Gringott's list."

For a second all Hermione could do was gaze mutely at Lucrece's placid features. Was the other witch a complete fool? "But I know he's dead," she said after a brief pause, her calm tone belying her roiling thoughts. "I was there when he died."

"Were you, now?" asked Lucrece, with a notable lack of interest. "Well, apparently the Financial Services Office feels otherwise. Go ahead and let it go -- there's a good girl."

Hermione decided to let the "good girl" comment pass for the time being. "But it has to be a mistake!" she protested. "How can you be disbursing pension payments to someone who's dead?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised," the older witch said, picking up her quill once more. "I find bobbles and mistakes all the time. What do Muggles call them? Glitches?" She scratched away at her parchment and added, "I've tried to mention that we need a better record-keeping system, that errors slip through all the time. Once I even said that perhaps we should try using a computer, just to see what would happen, but you should have seen the hand-wringing over that! You'd have thought I suggested serving boiled baby for dinner. At any rate, if his name is on the master list, then the Office of Financial Affairs considers him alive. Even if he is dead."

Feeling positively flummoxed, Hermione turned back to the master ledger and the Gringott's list. So they were paying out pensions to a dead man? What a waste of resources! And if Gringott's was sending out owls with a monthly payment (which was how she received Ron's benefits), to whom precisely were those owls going? If there was no one on the receiving end to claim the money, you'd think the owls would return with their parcels untouched.

Mind working furiously, she tried to recall what little she knew of Snape's family. As far as she could remember from her investigations into the Half-Blood Prince's identity, he had been an only child, but perhaps there was a cousin or some other relative who might be receiving his pension funds. Perhaps Harry might know something. He'd made a few attempts to restore the Potions master's somewhat tarnished image, more out of loyalty to Dumbledore than anything else. However, for the most part the wizarding world didn't want to hear it -- even from the Boy Who Lived, the one who had saved them all from Voldemort. Hatred was a hard habit to overcome.

Well, at least she had already planned to meet Harry and Ginny for lunch today. She'd bring up the mysterious conundrum of a dead man receiving pension benefits, and see what they had to say on the matter. Looking up from the parchment, she cast a surreptitious glance at the grandfather clock that sat in state in the far corner of the room and sighed once more. It was going to be a very long three hours.

***

"You what?" Harry demanded, after the three of them had seated themselves in a corner booth at the Leaky Cauldron.

"I saw his name on the list of pension disbursements," Hermione answered. "It has to be a mistake, doesn't it? I mean, he couldn't possibly be alive."

Harry's mouth settled into a grim line, and Ginny shot him a half-questioning, half-worried look. When he didn't reply, Hermione said, "Well? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"No," Harry said, sounding irritated.

At that point Tom came over to take their orders, with Harry appearing almost relieved by the interruption. However, the intrusion was fairly short-lived, and Hermione wasn't about to allow the conversation to get side-tracked.

"I mean, we all saw him die, right?" she asked.

"Yes!" Harry snapped, then paused, looking a little abashed. "Sorry -- look, that was a terrible night. I mean, there he was, bleeding all over the floor, and then he gave me those memories -- " Once again his mouth closed tightly, as if he were afraid he was going to betray too much if he continued.

Of those memories Hermione knew a little, although Harry hadn't wanted to talk about them very much. Just that they had contained the evidence which proved Snape really had been Dumbledore's man all along, and that everything he had done had been at the Headmaster's behest. There had been more, she was sure, but careful prying had elicited only a stony-faced statement that Harry didn't want to talk about it. After a while she had given up. Their years of friendship had taught her there was no influencing Harry when he got in one of those moods. She'd thought that perhaps one day he would tell her more, but as time wore on and it became obvious Harry wasn't going to reveal any more than he already had, she had tried to convince herself that perhaps it wasn't so important after all. Besides, at the time she'd had more important things to occupy her mind.

"But this Lucrece Tibbetts said it was likely a mistake, didn't she?" Ginny asked, her calm voice helping to ease the tension Hermione had felt begin to crackle between Harry and herself. "After all, we all have personal experience with Ministry mistakes, don't we?"

For a few seconds Harry said nothing, and then he managed a wry smile. "That's the truth."

Hermione knew she couldn't argue with that, although part of her wanted to. "I was wondering if maybe you knew anything about any relatives -- that is, perhaps the pension funds are simply being sent to someone in the family."

Harry hesitated again. "I'd say that's a likely explanation, except I don't know anything about him having any family. There was nothing in his memories -- I mean, he was an only child, and it didn't seem as if he had any cousins or anything like that."

Well, there went that explanation. Hermione wasn't sure whether to be worried or relieved. After a pause, she said, "So you must agree that it's quite odd -- "

"Oh, I'll agree with that," Harry said at once. Then the green eyes narrowed as he regarded her from behind his spectacles. "What does it matter, really? It's just a simple bookkeeping mistake, right? Why the sudden interest?"

As to that, Hermione wasn't quite sure she could give him an adequate answer. Surely it was merely an error, and all she really needed to do was leave a note for the true occupant of the desk she was using (one Magda Appleby, according to the nameplate which sat on the right side of the desktop) that she, Hermione, had found what had to be a mistake. She really should just leave it for the person whose real job it was to sort out the error and be done with it. On the other hand, how could she possibly allow such a mystery to go unsolved?

Hermione lifted her shoulders. At that moment Tom reappeared with their food and drinks, and she applied herself to her chicken pasty in order to cover her confusion.

"I mean, Snape certainly wasn't a favorite of yours, was he?" Harry asked around a mouthful of chips.

"I didn't have favorites," Hermione said, sounding prim even to herself. "All of our professors had valuable things to teach us."

"Even Lockhart?" Harry inquired, and Ginny giggled and almost choked on her own shepherd's pie.

"Even Lockhart...although I'll admit he was more a case of learning what not to do. At any rate," Hermione continued sternly, "Severus Snape was certainly a very good Potions professor, regardless of the way he behaved, and what with everything he did for Dumbledore, he certainly deserved more than the end he got!"

At her words the sly grin melted off Harry's lips, and Ginny sobered abruptly. Harry looked around, as if worried that someone might be trying to listen in on their conversation, then said, "They never found him, you know."

"What?" both Hermione and Ginny burst out at the same time.

Harry sprinkled some vinegar on his fish and helped himself to a mouthful before replying, "That's what I was told. After the -- with the cleanup and everything, the Aurors went all over the grounds looking for missing and wounded people. I told Kingsley Shacklebolt where Snape had died, and he sent several people over to the Shrieking Shack to find him and bring his body back to the castle, but when they got there, the place was empty."

"Why on earth didn't you ever tell me this, Harry Potter?" Hermione demanded. Harry's revelations had sent an odd thrill through her, part excitement...part fear?

"I didn't see how it would matter. The man was gone, and we'd all seen him die. Probably some of Voldemort's Death Eaters went back to the Shack to dispose of the body."

"Or maybe he managed to survive, and dragged himself away before anyone could find him?"

Shaking his head, Harry replied, "That's a little far-fetched, don't you think? I mean, you were there. You saw what Nagini did to him. No one could survive that sort of attack without immediate intervention."

Logically Hermione knew that was probably true, but still she protested, "Yes, but he was the Potions master, after all! Perhaps he carried an antidote to Nagini's venom with him. Or perhaps he took a bezoar!"

Harry shot a sidelong glance at Ginny from under his eyelashes, the sort of look that plainly said, Oh, here she goes again! However, he sounded calm enough when he said, "Maybe that would take care of the poison, but not those quarts of blood Snape left all over the floor of the Shack."

"Blood Replenishing Potion," Hermione said immediately.

"That our Hermione -- an answer for everything," Ginny remarked. "Listen, if you put it that way, I suppose it's possible...barely...but if he's really been alive all this time, wouldn't someone know about it? How could someone as well-known as Professor Snape just disappear?"

"Was anyone looking for him?" Hermione asked, in pointed tones.

Harry and Hermione exchanged another uneasy glance. "Probably not," Harry admitted, after a long pause. "People really wanted to put the whole thing behind them."

"Precisely," Hermione said, a feeling of triumph stealing over her. Was it possible? Could that "mistake" in the Ministry's ledger not be a mistake after all?

Ginny looked troubled, and Harry was making a show of not meeting Hermione's gaze. Oh, there were rivers of bad blood between Harry and Snape, no doubt about it, but she had thought he would have gotten enough past that to see this was a real mystery, and one which demanded some sort of resolution.

"Look, Hermione," Harry said at length, finally glancing up from the mess he had made on his plate, "it's all in the past. Maybe you should just let it go. Even if Snape is alive -- and that's a pretty big 'if' -- I doubt he's going to be thrilled if someone comes looking for him. Anyone who can stay hidden so well that people think he's dead obviously wants to stay hidden."

"You might think so," Hermione retorted. "Or maybe he's just stayed hidden because no one's gone to look for him." With that she dropped a few coins on the tabletop and said, "I have to go."

Harry looked slightly alarmed, and Ginny set down her fork and gazed at Hermione with worried brown eyes. "Where're you going?" Harry asked.

"To find some answers," Hermione replied, then gathered up her satchel and stalked out of the pub.

Instead of heading back to the Ministry, she made her way into Diagon Alley, marching resolutely toward Gringott's. Of course the goblins who ran the wizard bank were notoriously tight-lipped about the doings of their institution, but her brother-in-law Bill still worked there, and she hoped he might be able to provide some of the information she needed.

Hermione asked for Bill Weasley at the front desk, and after a moment's hesitation the goblin who manned the reception station told her to follow him. They moved past the endless rows of counters to a door which led into another long hallway. About halfway down the corridor, the goblin stopped at an undistinguished door of dark wood, knocked twice, then said, "Visitor, Mr. Weasley."

The door opened inward, and Hermione stepped inside. Bill looked up from his desk, his eyes widening slightly when he recognized his visitor.

"Why, Hermione!" he exclaimed, then stood and came around to greet her, pulling her into a quick hug.

Sometime during the exchange her goblin guide had melted away, and the door was shut behind her. Bill lifted a stack of parchment off a chair and said, "Go ahead and sit down." His scarred face showed some surprise at seeing her there, but he still smiled and asked, "So what brings you to Gringott's? Any problems with those investments we got set up for you?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, nothing like that. It's been -- well, you've been very helpful. I'm hoping you can help me with a few questions."

"Questions about what?"

"Well, erm...it's about the pension disbursements."

Bill asked immediately, "Are you not getting Ron's?"

"Oh, no -- nothing like that." Now that she sat here facing her brother-in-law, Hermione found herself questioning the wisdom of her errand. Perhaps it would have been better to go back to the Ministry and plan her strategy from there. But it couldn't be helped now. "No, actually, it's simply that I'm on temporary assignment in the Office of Financial Services, and I'm just trying to get the big picture of how it all works. After we send you the list of pension recipients, what happens next?"

He looked a little puzzled but answered, "That's not really my department, but I'm fairly sure that after we get the list from OFS, we arrange the transfer of funds. Some people just want the money deposited directly into their accounts here, and some get cash brought to them by owl."

Which was the option Hermione herself had chosen, mainly because it was a small enough amount that she used the cash for the odd errand and for pocket money. "So you take a different list to the bank's Owlery?"

Bill nodded. "That's right. We generally send them out the last day of the month so that people will have their funds on the first. But in December the owls go out on the twenty-first, just so everyone has the funding they need for the holidays."

Damn. That was only three days away. Not much time to plan. "So the list goes to the Owlery -- "

"Along with the money, usually in a pouch or small satchel, depending on the amount. Then the owl flies it to the recipient. It's very simple, really."

Simple on the outside, Hermione supposed. She would have to figure out a way to infiltrate Gringott's Owlery, discover which owl was being sent to deliver this month's funds to Severus Snape, and then follow it somehow. All in a day's work. Right.

"Well, that does sound awfully straightforward," she said, and smiled. "Just another question, though -- what if there's been a mistake, and the person the money's being sent to isn't there to receive it? What happens then?"

One of Bill's ruddy eyebrows lifted. "It comes straight back. We'll attempt to make contact by other means, but if we can't, then it's the recipient's responsibility to contact Gringott's and come in to pick up the money himself."

"And if someone's died?"

Almost as soon as she asked the question Hermione wished she could take it back, for a shadow passed over Bill's face, and she knew he must be thinking of Ron. Damn. One of these days her tactlessness really would get her into trouble.

But then Bill's expression smoothed itself somewhat, and he answered, "Again, the owl comes back to us. It happens every once in a while."

"But you discover the error quite quickly, don't you?"

"Of course," he said. Again he frowned. "What's this about, Hermione?"

"Oh, just research," she replied. "You know me -- always looking for things to keep myself occupied."

He didn't appear terribly convinced, but at least he had the good manners to say, "Well, I hope this has helped."

"Oh, absolutely."

She stood then and, feeling awkward, put out her hand. Of course Bill would have none of it, instead folding her into a clumsy embrace and asking, "We will see you Christmas Eve at the Burrow?"

"I wouldn't miss it," she replied, then gave him a shaky smile and fled back down the corridor and out into the bustle of Diagon Alley. The cool air outside helped to clear her head somewhat, and she reached into her pocket to check her watch. Good, only fifteen minutes late. Somehow she had the notion that Lucrece Tibbetts wasn't much of a stickler for punctuality. Still, she guessed she should hurry back. It wouldn't look very good to be too tardy on her first day in the Office of Financial Services.

And if she were really lucky, Lucrece would give her another mindless task, one that would allow Hermione to concentrate on the next step in tracking down the missing Potions master. Somehow she had the feeling that she wouldn't rest until she had some answers.

After all, what else did she have to occupy her days?