The Quality of Mercy

Thank you to everyone for all your reviews and encouragement -- it was so gratifying to see the flood of emails after I posted the last chapter. I'm so glad you didn't give up on me (or this story). At least I didn't make you wait quite so long for this update!

Twenty-One: Into the Fire

Oddly enough, what Hermione felt first was not alarm that Harry had somehow managed to track her down, but rather irritation at his interrupting her and Severus just when their research had begun to pick up steam. Really, was there so little work for the Auror Department to do that Harry could just disappear in the middle of the day and come haring off here to Yorkshire?

She'd just opened her mouth to deliver a cutting comment along those lines when Severus inquired in acid tones, "And do you expect to be congratulated on the success of your snooping? All you are doing is interrupting important work."

"Work?" Harry echoed. A look of incredulity passed over his face, but then he paused and appeared to glance past Severus' shoulder, into the laboratory area that had been set up in the dining room. Harry blinked and then frowned.

If he had been expecting to catch them in flagrante delicto, Hermione mused, then of course he must have been quite disappointed. No signs of debauchery or wild abandon here in Severus' homely little cottage, only potions flasks and piles of ingredients. And, of course, the great gleaming sphere of Lucius' blood sample, which still hung suspended over the table like some huge balloon as imagined by Hieronymus Bosch.

"Yes, work," Hermione snapped. "Really, Harry, what else did you think I might be doing up here? I'm assisting Professor Snape with a very important research project."

"But -- but you -- that is, he -- I mean, you said you were seeing him!" Harry spluttered. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?"

"Because, as Mrs. Granger-Weasley no doubt has told you on multiple occasions, it was none of your business." Severus crossed his arms and summoned up one of his more fearsome scowls, but Hermione could tell from a certain glint in his eyes that he was enjoying this unexpected but quite useful bit of misdirection. After all, she had never out and out told Harry she had a romantic relationship with Severus Snape, but only that she had been seeing him. Most people -- Harry included -- would no doubt immediately assume a romantic attachment from such an admission. But since he had no true evidence to back up his suspicions, it shouldn't be that difficult to persuade him otherwise, especially with the proof of hers and Severus' research staring him in the face.

Inwardly she felt a twinge at lying to Harry, but hadn't he proved over and over again that he simply could not handle the concept of her seeing anyone, let alone a man as despised as Severus Snape? Better to let the research be her excuse, at least until the immediate crisis was over. After a cure was found there would be plenty of time to get this whole thing straightened out. Until then, however --

"I was told things in confidence, Harry," Hermione said. "I couldn't go around blabbering it to people...even you."

Harry shoved his ungloved hands inside his cloak for warmth and replied, "Told by whom?"

"If she gave you that information, then it wouldn't be in confidence any longer, would it?" Severus inquired. Then he shrugged and said, "Come inside, foolish boy, before you freeze on my doorstep."

Eyes narrowing at the epithet, Harry nonetheless did as he was told and pushed his way past Hermione. Once inside, he made his way over to the dining room table and gazed up at the oversized jellyfish shape of Lucius' blood sample. "What is it?"

Hermione cast a quick, questioning glance in Severus' direction. He gave her a fractional nod, accompanied by the smallest of shrugs, as if to say, Go ahead and tell him. It will make little difference in the end....

"It's a sample of Lucius' Malfoy's blood, greatly magnified," she answered, then went over to the dining room to stand at Harry's side.

"Malfoy? Whatever for?"

"He's dying," Severus said, in tones so bland he might have been discussing the weather.

Harry looked bewildered. "Dying? Of what?"

"A disease found only in the old pureblood families," replied Severus. He circled the table so that he stood directly opposite Harry and Hermione; the top of his head was obscured by the bottom curve of the sample, and the strange glow from the bits of magical DNA found an oily reflection in his black eyes. Hermione wondered if he had purposely stood there so as to distance himself from her and Harry. "So no worries that any of us could ever suffer its effects."

"Pansy came to me," Hermione offered. "She was at her wit's end, poor girl, for Draco is ill as well."

"Came to you?" The expression of bewilderment on Harry's features shifted to one of amazement. "I thought she couldn't stand you."

"Desperation drives people to do strange things," observed Severus, still in that dry, disinterested tone. "Personal dislike must needs take a back seat when those close to you are dying. And whatever Pansy -- Mrs. Malfoy -- might think of Mrs. Granger-Weasley, that doesn't change the fact that she knows Hermione here was a very gifted scholar. Since of course I was believed to be dead, no doubt Pansy approached Hermione because she thought she might be her best hope of getting help."

"Yes, that whole dead thing," Harry said, and crossed his arms. "How is it Hermione found you, when everyone else had written you off years ago?"

"That tale is hers to tell -- if she chooses to do so at all." Severus shrugged, a gesture elegant in its very dismissiveness. "Suffice it to say that she discovered an anomaly and chose to investigate."

At once Harry turned to Hermione. "The pension records," he said.

"Yes," she admitted. The timeline was off a bit, but after all, Harry didn't have to know that Pansy had approached her quite some time after Hermione had discovered Severus' cottage here in Yorkshire. Certainly there was little chance Harry would have the opportunity to question Pansy himself. "That was what tipped me off. But Pansy had approached me in confidence -- it wasn't as if I could tell you exactly why it was so important for me to locate Professor Snape. But you just wouldn't let it alone, and -- "

"And so now you know the truth," finished Severus, looking none too pleased with Harry's unwillingness to let the matter go. "But, as Hermione has told you, we are in the middle of important work, work which your presence here is delaying. So if you've satisfied your curiosity, it would be best for all concerned if you left."

The brusqueness was vintage Snape. But would Harry be satisfied with what he had found? Certainly Hermione had seen no betraying softness in her lover, not even the smallest glance or inflection that would have tipped Harry off to the fact that she and Severus were far more than simply research partners.

Harry frowned, and pushed his glasses farther up onto the bridge of his nose. "So what's this disease you're researching?"

Barely suppressing a roll of her eyes, Hermione replied, "Just what Professor Snape said. It's an illness that only affects the old pureblood families. Sort of like the Romanovs and hemophilia, if you've ever heard of that." She rather doubted he had; Harry's Muggle education hadn't been very good, and once he'd come to Hogwarts he'd concentrated pretty much exclusively on the subjects he needed to pass his coursework. Any spare time he might have had -- beyond what he required to keep himself out of Voldemort's clutches -- seemed to have been devoted to studying Quidditch. Very likely he could have recited the World Cup champions for the past fifty years, but that sort of narrow scholarship didn't leave much time for studies of Muggle history.

His blank stare told Hermione her guess had been correct. "Sex-linked recessive gene, Harry. Women can't get it, but they can pass it on. Men can be carriers, too, but it takes two people who have the gene to produce a child who'll get the syndrome. Apparently it's dormant unless a man who's carrying the gene tries to use Occlumency or Legilimency."

He shot her an inquiring look. "So Lucius was using Occlumency and triggered it?"

"As far as we can tell, yes."

Without replying, Harry turned to regard the large reddish droplet that still hung, suspended, over the dining room table. "What are the glowing bits?"

"Are you going to assist us in our research?" asked Severus, who crossed his arms and gave Harry a withering stare. "If so, then please allow us to elucidate further. However, if your only motive in coming here was to discover whether Mrs. Granger-Weasley and I were engaged in some sort of illicit affair, then there is no need to fill you in on the details of highly complex research which, most likely, is far beyond your limited powers of comprehension. I trust we have satisfied your curiosity that nothing has occurred here except an inquiry into the link between magic and genetics."

This speech, delivered with just the correct combination of skepticism and scorn, almost made Hermione believe Severus spoke nothing more than the truth. And if he had almost convinced her, she who had lain in his arms and felt him fill the most secret places in her soul, then how could Harry think anything but that she and Severus were partners in research and nothing more?

Harry's eyes had narrowed at the comment about "limited powers of comprehension," but Hermione noticed he did not attempt to argue. In fact, she thought she saw more than a hint of disappointment on his face. No doubt he had come charging up here, afire with righteous indignation and thinking he was going to disturb them during a mad embrace in the Yorkshire version of a love nest -- whatever that might be. Instead, he'd found them hard at work pursuing medical research, of all things. Not the sort of scene to elicit moral outrage, that was for sure.

As annoyed as she might be with him for sticking his nose in business that wasn't his, Hermione knew Harry's actions had been motivated by concern for her. His over-protective stance was wearing a bit thin, but because she understood what drove it, she was able to keep her tone soft as she said, "Time is short, Harry. Both the Malfoys are very ill, and the research Professor Snape and I are doing here is their only hope. We really don't have much time to spare."

Perhaps it was baffled anger that prompted him to respond, "I never thought I'd see you go to this much trouble to help Draco Malfoy."

"We're not in school anymore," Hermione said. "We have to leave those feuds behind us. Otherwise, the War isn't really over, is it?"

She had directed her words at Harry, but she was watching Severus as she spoke. His expression subtly altered, and it seemed he looked at her as if really seeing her for the first time. Then she saw his mouth tighten once again, and he glanced away from her and down at the jars of potions ingredients on the table before him.

To her surprise, Harry gave her a rueful grin. "That's my Hermione -- always trying to save the world. Well, I can see why you'd think you need to do this, even if I might not agree." His gaze flickered to Severus, who stood quiet and watchful across the table. "And I can't argue that Professor Snape is probably the best person to help you with it."

"How magnanimous," Severus drawled.

Harry opened his mouth as if to make some sort of retort, then shook his head. "Not really," he said. "I suppose I finally realized that Hermione does tend to know what she's doing."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she remarked, but inwardly she felt a rush of warmth toward her friend. It probably hadn't been easy for him to backpedal from his confrontation with her and Severus, but at least he seemed willing to admit that she and Professor Snape were engaged in something more than a bit of illicit snogging. What he'd do when he found that snogging and much more had been going on in addition to the research, Hermione didn't even want to guess. Sufficient to the day and all that, she thought.

"Sure," said Harry. He went on, "Guess I'd better be going, then. You look like you've got a lot of work ahead of you."

"We do," Severus replied. "I trust you can find your way to the door."

Apparently deciding any further remarks would be useless, Harry just shrugged and turned away from the dining room table, then headed toward the front entrance of the cottage. Hermione followed along, uncertain as to what she should say next -- if anything. But then Harry paused, his hand on the doorknob, and she blurted, "How did you do it, anyway? Find me here, I mean."

Harry grinned. "It wasn't that hard. Checked the bottom of your shoe lately?"

Hermione blinked. "What?"

"Take a look."

Frowning, she reached down and tugged off her right shoe, then turned it over. Embedded in the rubber tread on the bottom was a tiny golden object that looked like a small metal bead.

"It's a pretty simple charm, just a version of a locator spell. Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but you were driving me nuts with all the evasion, you know. So I put it in your shoe one day while you were out. Didn't even need to Apparate in -- do you always leave your back door unlocked?"

Of course she didn't, but Hermione had to admit to herself that she'd been distracted enough lately to have forgotten to check the back door. Of all the nerve, though -- to enter her home without her permission and put some sort of magical homing beacon on her shoe! Had Harry completely lost his mind?

She knew better than to give free rein to her indignation, not when she was so close to getting Harry safely out the door. Somehow she summoned a watery smile and said, "No, but I must've forgotten after I let Crookshanks out. I suppose you think you're very clever?"

"Not as clever as some people," he replied at once with another grin. "I have to say it's rather nice to have gotten the better of you at least once. But I suppose I should let you get back to work. Looks like you've got a lot to do."

"Oh, loads," she agreed.

"Then good luck, I guess." Finally he turned the knob and opened the door, letting in a wash of pale daylight and a flood of freezing air. He added, "I'll let Miles know you're still sicker than someone hit with a slug-vomiting charm."

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione said, and meant it. With Harry covering for her, she could be out as long as she needed to be.

He winked and left the cottage, then strode across the front yard to the yew tree. Once there, he bent down to retrieve something. As he straightened, Hermione saw that the object in question was his broom. Of course -- the locator charm would have told Harry where the cottage was, but the charm would not have given any information as to the home's physical appearance. Harry could only fly here on his broom, not Apparate the way she had.

With a slight shake of her head, Hermione closed the door. She turned and saw Severus standing a few paces away, arms crossed.

"I trust the meddling Master Potter has taken himself off?"

"Yes. And I really don't believe he suspects a thing. You're quite the accomplished liar, aren't you, Severus?"

He did not smile, but the ironic twist of the mouth he gave her conveyed the same impression. "Years of practice," he said.

Yes, she supposed he would have had years and years in which to hone his skills at dissembling...and for an audience far more deadly and discerning than Harry Potter could ever hope to be. Hermione had the impulse to go to Severus and throw her arms around him, but something stopped her. Even though she had just seen Harry mount his broom and fly away, somehow she couldn't shake the feeling that he might still be lurking somewhere about the cottage, just waiting for the chance to show her words as the lies they truly were.

Instead, she returned to the dining room table, picked up the neglected syringe, and extended it to Severus. "Where were we?"

***

The old-fashioned Muggle clock on the opposite wall hiccupped and announced the hour in a sort of wheezy chime that announced it was far too old for this nonsense, and that they had been up far too late. Hermione gave it a tired glance, ascertained that it truly was one in the morning and not one in the afternoon, and pushed back her chair.

"I don't know about you, Severus, but my eyes are about to go permanently crossed from staring at this thing," she said. "If I don't go to bed soon, I'm afraid I might go blind."

He nodded, but Hermione noticed that his gaze remained fixed on the sample of Lucius' blood, as well as the one which might have been its twin, save for the minutest differences in where the glowing markers were located. That was the sample he had taken from her some twelve hours earlier. While they had been able to take careful notes as to where those variations occurred, so far they had been unable to ascertain which -- if any -- of them might signal the discrepancy linked to the presence of the Scarbury gene. Hermione had a dim recollection of their stopping for reheated lamb stew at some point in the day. Even that brief respite was hours past now, and both her brain and her back were now telling her in no uncertain terms that it was long past time to knock off for the evening.

"Go ahead," he replied. "I'll follow in a while."

Hermione had her doubts as to the truth of that statement, but she was too tired to argue. Without replying, she stood and made her way up the stairs. How had they grown twice as tall as they had been that morning? But eventually she reached the bedroom, where she changed out of her limp clothing and into the warm nightgown she'd brought along. The bathroom was small and barely serviceable, but all she needed at that point was a basin to brush her teeth and wash her face. Having completed those minor tasks, she slid between the cold sheets, then murmured a variation of Severus' heating charm to warm up the icy bed linens. Now her toes were nice and toasty, but she wished he would come to join her so that she could get warm all over.

Darkness embraced her first, exhaustion taking her into deep sleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes. Hermione had no idea what time it was when her slumber was broken by the sensation of Severus climbing beneath the sheets. Not that it really mattered; at least he had finally come to bed.

She rolled over on her side and reached out to him, feeling a lean, linen-covered arm. He slept covered up, as did she. It was too cold in the house not to, warming spells notwithstanding.

His voice in the dark. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's all right," she said at once. "I'm just glad you decided to get some sleep."

"Sleep," he repeated, and made a sound that was almost a chuckle.

Then he was reaching out for her, pulling her close. His mouth covered hers; he tasted of the same toothpaste she had used earlier. Despite her continuing tiredness, Hermione felt her body respond immediately: the rush of heat through her veins, the throbbing between her legs. She reached down to touch him, felt him hard and ready for her. Unlike their joining of the other night, this one was quick and urgent, almost brutal. Reaching underneath her nightgown to pull down her underwear, he thrust himself into her, his heavy coarse hair brushing against her face as he rocked his way to orgasm. His climax arrived before Hermione was ready, and she bit her lip in disappointment. Of course it had felt wonderful, but she just wished it could have gone on just a little longer.

Well, sex wasn't always perfect. Sex with Severus was damn close, though, so she decided it was better to let this one go. She'd just have to see that he made it up to her somehow....

He fell back against the pillow, and Hermione felt the bed shift under his weight as he retrieved his underwear. Luckily, hers was within easy reach; a little scrabbling under the covers, and it was back on as well.

An awkward silence descended. Hermione shut her eyes, thinking perhaps the best thing to do was simply to go back to sleep. But then he spoke.

"Did you wonder why I took your blood as the comparison sample, instead of my own?"

Mystified, Hermione rolled over on her side and faced him, even though it was so dark in the room she could see nothing of his expression. Still, if he wanted to speak, better to hold a conversation in this pose than with her head flat on the pillow. "I suppose I just figured you wanted a sample without any wizarding blood at all in it."

"True, but it goes further than that." Once again Hermione could feel him moving as he shifted his position. "There is a very good chance I carry the Scarbury's gene myself."

Somehow she sensed this had been a difficult confession for him to make. "How is that? I thought your father was a Muggle."

"Oh, he was. Precisely."

"So you can carry the gene even if you're half Muggle?"

"Yes. But the disease will never manifest itself. You can only be a carrier."

The first thought that popped into Hermione's mind was that he needn't worry, as she of course was pure Muggle-born and would therefore most likely cancel out any genetic defects Severus might carry. This presupposed that they might have children together, a notion she thought it probably wiser not to mention. Their relationship was on fragile enough ground as it was.

"So your mother's family..." Hermione began, and trailed off.

His voice in the darkness was faintly tinged with amusement. "The Princes are an old wizarding family. My mother's uncle had it, though of course no one would admit that Scarbury's was the cause of his madness. They all blamed it on a jinx which backfired. But he died in St. Mungo's, as far as I can tell. No one spoke of him in my presence, of course, but I was a curious child, and secrets have a way of eventually being unearthed...at any rate, my mother had a mortal fear of bearing a child who would be afflicted. Why else would she have married my father, save to ensure that her own children would be healthy?"

Why else, indeed. Hermione knew very little of Severus' family, but a few little details Harry let slip had led her to believe Severus had had a difficult childhood, with an overbearing Muggle father who most likely found little of use about the dark, difficult son he had sired. No doubt the letter from Hogwarts had come to Severus like a reprieve from Purgatory.

"I'd always wondered," Hermione admitted. "That is, one always wonders why a member of the wizarding world would take on all the difficulties of having a Muggle spouse. Then again...." Something she had once read bubbled to the surface of her thoughts, although she couldn't recall the exact quote, as it had been in French and her knowledge of the language was spotty at best. "'The heart has its reasons...." She paused, trying to remember how to finish the sentence.

"Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point," Severus said, and Hermione stared at him in the dark, quite as astonished as if he had just announced his intentions to quit the wizarding world and run for Parliament. As if in reply to her astounded silence, he added, "Just because certain members of the wizarding world believe their education should begin and end with what is taught at Hogwarts does not mean all of us share the same opinion."

Hermione had always been of the same mind -- indeed, her determination to attend university had quite mystified Ron, who couldn't understand why anyone would need or want to add a layer of Muggle education to what they'd learned at Hogwarts. But to hear it from Severus Snape, who had always seemed more than contemptuous of the Muggle world despite his half-blood heritage, was quite boggling. It seemed the more she learned of him, the more her belief grew that they truly were soul mates in a way she and Ron never could have been.

"The wizarding world has always been short of philosophers," Severus observed. The wry note had returned to his voice. "And when I found certain things I wished to read had poor translations at best, I taught myself the language. At any rate, I doubt it was a stirring of the heart so much as desperation which led my mother to Tobias Snape. No matter. She wanted a healthy child, and that is what she got. I doubt I was quite what my father expected, but he knew his witch wife would most likely have a wizard son. I'm sure he would have preferred a Quidditch-playing roustabout like James Potter -- that at least he could have understood -- but very few of us in this world get exactly what we desire."

"And what do you desire, Severus?" Hermione inquired. Under other circumstances she would never have been so bold as to ask such a question, but this odd confessional mood of his had given her courage. She had purposely avoided all discussion of their future together, dismissing it as a topic that would most likely end in disaster. But now --

For a long moment he made no answer. Then he said, "A place of my own. Why do you think I came here, after all the wizarding world thought I was dead? I spent half my life working to destroy the Dark Lord. When that goal was accomplished against all odds, I thought I wanted peace and quiet, a chance to reflect. I thought I had everything I needed here. But now -- " He paused. Hermione felt him reach out to push a stray curl back from her forehead; his darkness vision must have been better than hers. "Now I find I have everything I need here, as long as you are with me. I cannot speak to the future, but I do know I have no wish to face a future without you in it." And then he reached out and drew her close, as Hermione wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest.

Despite everything, she thought she had never been happier than she was in that moment. No matter what happened, at least she now knew that Severus wanted her as much as she wanted him. The future, which had seemed cloudy and dark, had suddenly brightened, as if the sun had emerged from a bank of storm clouds. She felt she could face anything, now that Severus had all but promised to spend the rest of his life with her.

After all, what were angry friends, and mysterious diseases, and a disapproving world, compared to their love?

* "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know."