What Little Things Remain

"We were all so busy after Ronald returned that I didn't notice that you were gone for simply hours. When I did I knew, of course, and I left Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey to keep order in the castle. You were long gone by then, Severus; I didn't know that yet, though. In any case, I went to the glade in the Forbidden Forest where Ronald said the duel took place, and there I found you. You were utterly incoherent. I am afraid - I am afraid you had been subjected to Cruciatus at least once. I was afraid, at the time, that you might end up as little more than the poor Longbottoms.

"In any case, I patched you up enough get back to the castle and used the internal Floo to get you to my rooms. I had no choice but to do a temporary memory charm, as you were going into backshocks and I had to calm you down - you do know what backshocks are, of course?"

"When a wizard draws on too much of their power in a moment of emotional distress, they can be possessed by it," Hermione supplied. "But I still don't remember it -"

"Listen and I will tell you why. I didn't know, then, what had happened. All I knew was that I couldn't suppress a memory so potent for long, so I did my best on the past few hours. Once you were calm, the symptoms of backshock went away almost immediately. No more incoherence, no more spasms, no more dry heaves. It was a relatively simple matter to fix you up from the physical effects of Cruciatus and get you to sleep. You were fine, then, for the next few weeks. I believe you were told that you had collapsed from the strain.

"The memory charm wasn't going to last forever, though, and Ronald was displaying signs of severe emotional distress. So I began researching vacuitas. As you know, they're often used at St. Mungo's. It was easy enough to find out how they work: a piece of jewelry is enchanted so that one can transfer the emotional burden of one's memories into it. Then the jewelry is given to a trusted friend, and spells are woven to bind it to them. The friend experiences heightened emotional tension, and the subject whose mind was altered only experiences those memories in a detached fashion from then on.

"I knew the memory of whatever had happened that day was returning when I saw you at the funeral, and there was not much time to lose. I approached you and Ronald about using a vacuita so that Ronald might be an Unspeakable. I didn't tell you that I was also planning to bind your memories into the vacuita. You see, in my research I had come upon a rare case in which a memory was absolutely suppressed by being bound into an object. I couldn't remove Ron's memories of the battle with the Dark Lord; he needed them to be an Unspeakable, and in any case he would never consent to it. All I could do was craft him a vacuita. But you - ah, that was a different case.

"You were not quite right after Harry's funeral. Ronald spoke to me about his fear that you would do something drastic. So I decided to bind the memory of those hours into the same necklace that had been enchanted to form the vacuita. In order to create the vacuita, you both had to be placed in a dreamless sleep. As soon as you had taken the potion and were quite still, I removed the memory charm from you. Then I must admit I used a rather questionable spell to bring your memory of the night after Harry died to light, and place it in a Pensieve.

"As you know, Pensieves merely make a duplicate of the memory one has; they don't take it away. You were very accepting of my placing the charm on you in the first place, by the way - but then, by then you were so disaffected and strange that one can't be sure if you really meant a word you said. You followed my directions, and as soon as you were asleep, I looked in the Pensieve."

Hermione started. "Do you still have it? Can I - I lost that memory, but -"

"I won't let you look in it. I destroyed it. You will have to take my word." The frown this elicited brought a cajoling tone into McGonagall's voice. "Hermione, child, you must believe I did this all for you - for your safety, for your health. If I had meant you harm, I wouldn't tell you about it now." The girl was silent, and McGonagall pressed on, as though by explaining herself she could absolve herself of all blame. "In it, you went to the site of the duel. There were only two burnt-out spots where Harry and Voldemort had stood, and some blood on the ground because of Albus.

"You cried. Suddenly, from behind a tree, Harry appeared. As he came closer one could see his scar was gone. He was untouched, not hurt a bit, and you ran towards him and hugged him.

"And then he put Cruciatus on you.

"It went on and on and on, far past the limits of any human endurance. You can't feel pain in a Pensieve, but it jumped about, like you had fainted and revived many times. Finally he took it off for good. You crawled away and curled up in a ball. Before he left, however, he bent over you and told you, 'Little Mudblood, you will never be able to threaten me again.' I could hear you screaming at him, but the pensieve blacked out then; I suppose you must have tried to curse him without a wand, and that caused the backshock.

"I knew, then, that the Dark Lord was not dead, but I had no idea where to begin looking. If he had truly married his soul to Harry's body, he could easily be anywhere; there is no better disguise than being thought dead. People refuse to believe it. I finished the vacuita, but as a safeguard, I tied the geasa into it. You were asleep most of the day; there was plenty of time. I feared for your life, Hermione. I need you at Hogwarts, and you need Hogwarts to be safe from the Dark Lord. And you could never, never remove the vacuita, or you and Ronald might not be able to recover from the rush of memory."

Snape, who Hermione had forgotten about, lashed out angrily. His face was filled with controlled fury. "Minerva, you fool! The geasa could have killed her. Didn't you expect that by tying them into the vacuita, they would use the vacuita to enforce her restrictions? She's been pulled into those damaging memories for the past three months!"

McGonagall was silent, shocked. "I never expected them to do that," she began slowly and in her primmest manner. "I have always agreed with the theory that geasa are no more than extremely complex magic, created by some Celtic witch -"

"But nobody knows. You're a sorry replacement for Albus, Minerva, if you didn't think of that. Magical interactions are irregular! We say we know the theory, but it's all our imaginations really, and you know that as well as I."

"It doesn't matter now," Hermione cut in. "I think - I think I'd like to be alone, please. And I'd like to stay in Gryffindor Tower, if you don't mind." She smiled politely at both of them, knowing that it didn't reach her eyes, and stood.

"The password is 'silver bells.' I'm in Albus' office, now, and my password is 'Morwenstow.' Come visit me soon. I'm sure you have much to say."

"Maybe I will." She had no intention of doing so, of course. "Thank you. It's a little overwhelming." And with that she left, striding off in a way that made her appear much more confident than she felt.

One might have expected Hermione to feel lost and frightened. Her own mind had been revealed to be fallible, her thoughts and world view incorrect. Professor McGonagall had known about Lord Voldemort and not warned her, not trusted her that far - but it was all immaterial. Away from McGonagall, it was much easier to ignore what was occurring outside the castle's walls - and what had once happened within them. She was still caught up in the feeling of oneness that came from being within the castle, the removal of that nagging worry that lived in the back of her mind.

The Fat Friar and Nearly Headless Nick swooped in front of her, obviously happy to see her again, but besides that, the castle seemed to be deserted. The portraits muttered as she passed, but didn't call out to her. Many of them were out of their frames. The Fat Lady, however, was still there, with several friends visiting her, and Hermione was let in quite quickly. In fact, she wasn't sure if the portrait had even recognized her.

The Gryffindor common room was another matter entirely. She moved through it as quickly as possible, climbing the twisting stairs to the dormitory she'd occupied for seven years. Lavender and Parvati were no longer here, though, and the room was eerily quiet as she stared at it from the doorway. The four-poster beds stared back at her, solid, immovable.

This was no longer neutral ground. Instead it was a place of the past, a place filled with the sort of ghost that doesn't move or talk except in your own mind. There, Ginny helped her zip the back of her sky-blue gown, murmuring how beautiful she looked; there, they all sat on the floor at the feet of their beds, praying that this not be a night when the Death Eaters gained another floor. But these images did not trouble her, or if they did, it was only for a moment. Hermione ran a hand over her face and entered. Today she had the luxury of telling those memories to go away, and she was grateful for it.

Her things had been brought up by the house-elves, and in short order she had decided that there was nothing she wished to do in Gryffindor Tower. Every inch of the place was known to her; long confinement will do that to you. Instead of going over it all and wallowing in the way it was exactly the same, she found her way out of it and headed towards the library. She had some research on geasa to do.

It was very late in the day when Hermione heard Snape's footsteps echo down the long corridors the library shelves formed. She had forgotten the sheer joy of researching, how it leads first down one path then another, how she would so often take ridiculous leaps - she would pick up a book on Rowena Ravenclaw's early life and end up studying the mating habits of Kappas. It was even better without Madam Pince hovering and threatening, worried about the state of the books.

"I thought I'd find you here. Have you had plenty of time to digest it all?"

The voice wasn't unwelcome, and she replied in a friendly tone. "Yes. I've been looking into geasa..." Glancing down at the table, she realized that her entire stack of books regarded the life and times of Saint Morwenna. "I got sidetracked."

Snape smiled thinly. "The bane of all intellectually-minded people - though it usually hits Ravenclaws the hardest." He paused, seating himself across from her. She knew he intended her to explain exactly how she was feeling. She'd gotten this sort of silence from people rather often over the past few months. But as she drew breath to make up a completely idiotic answer, he spoke again.

"So the Dark Lord is in the world once more, and we three are the only ones who know."

"On our side."

"If we have a side, yes. But if Minerva knew and told no-one, I must suspect her. She knew Tom Riddle very well, before you or even I was born. Perhaps too well." His inflections were filled with subtleties in the most Slytherin of manners, implying his distrust of McGonagall, suggesting his hatred of the Dark Lord, insinuating his disdain for the idea of a concretely black-and-white conflict. "She could be loyal to him and never know it, so deep does the conditioning go."

It was almost hard to swallow. Almost, but not quite. Snape's long, white hands played with a page from the open book between them. Hermione watched, intrigued and repelled by the thought that the Dark Lord's hands must have looked very like Snape's.

"Does it still burn you? The Dark Mark, I mean." The words slipped out between her teeth, though she tried to bite them back - why, she didn't know. There was surely no need for pleasantries with this man.

His expression never changed. "Recently, once. In Sacramento. But I wouldn't think you'd like to discuss that time of your life, now that you're back here." The voice that issued from him was cool and steady. She was not fooled.

"It doesn't bother me. I was less complicated, then. You learn new things about yourself every day."

One eyebrow rose - again. What a habit! "But some are harder to swallow than others?"

"Yeah. But stranger things have happened. At least now..." Her voice trailed away, then picked back up. "Is it so treasonous, to want to forget Harry and Ron?"

"I would say forgetting them's an excellent idea, but that may be colored more by my judgement of those two people in particular than by any moral opinion."

"I suppose. But I'm mostly thankful for coming here because I don't have to look at them any more. The past few days I've been seeing their faces constantly, when I was dreaming and when I wasn't too. In a crowd I see him. I look again and it's just another dark-haired boy. And then the memories, and I'm just relieved they're gone." She turned her eyes down and rubbed at the vacuita that still hung around her neck. "But they're all here, aren't they?"

"They are, at that."

Hermione smiled broadly, but tears were clearly brimming in her eyes. "But you see, the vacuita holds all that's left of Harry, and I'd do anything to give it away."

"Yes, but you can't give away what you are, Miss Granger. Our memories are a great deal of our selves."

Shamed, she wiped her eyes as covertly as she could and stood. She had been afraid of bursting with her emotions; this was just as bad, in its own way. "Sorry. I haven't - well." Making to leave, she heard Snape's voice come drifting after her.

"If you were wondering, Minerva sent me. She needs you for a spell."

"Minerva can talk to me herself. It's six o'clock. I expect we'll be seeing each other at table," Hermione shot back, and stalked off to dinner.

The Great Hall was utterly empty; there weren't even any tables in it. Hermione found herself quite at a loss for words. She walked all the way up to the dais where the Head Table normally stood before she saw Dobby, standing by the exit Professor Snape always used. "Dobby is thinking that Miss Hermione wishes her dinner," he said, bowing in a funny way and gesturing to the door. "The masters is eating in the antechamber."

Spew, she thought. Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare, that was it. It had grown fuzzy in the intervening years. I was a little crusader.

"I'm glad you're glad," she responded. "But don't - I know you'd like to be forgiven. You tell me you did these things to me, but I can't feel them, and I don't know if it really was for my own good. I'm not angry with you, but I can't trust you anymore."

"You trust me by staying in this castle."

Hermione smiled. "You think I haven't read Hogwarts: A History? You know I have. Don't act as though I'm a fool. The North Tower of Hogwarts provides sanctuary to all those who seek it. If I truly believed you would hurt me, I would retreat there. Besides, I haven't much choice about staying here."

McGonagall smiled and looked down. "I knew you knew. It was our plan, after all, should the next layer of defenses be breached. The catacombs and the tower."

In silence they seated themselves, for McGonagall had been standing by the fireplace, talking with one of the many portraits that hung the walls even here. There were five plates set out - Hermione, McGonagall, Snape, Madame Pomfrey, and one of the other teachers. On each plate was a different design, obviously tuned to personality and preferences, probably one of Dumbledore's ideas. Snape's had a snake and a coat of arms on it that Hermione couldn't quite read, McGonagall's the Gryffindor crest with Veni, Vidi, Vici printed below it, Madam Pomfrey's a golden caduceus. Her own plate, was decorated with an image of a sleeping lion. How appropriate. The last plate was blank.

"I assume Severus told you that I needed your help for a spell?"

"Actually, I told him that you should tell me what it is you need me for."

"A very Gryffindor thing to do. I'm not sure if anyone's told you - Remus Lupin is to be married next week to a young woman of a very eminent family. He requested that you aid me in the casting of certain protective spells."

Hermione was a little taken aback. She had never been close with Professor Lupin - she had hardly spoken with him since she was thirteen - but even so, she knew what he must have had to overcome. He was probably the first werewolf to be married in history. "Is she..."

"Struck with the sin of Lycaos? Yes. Elspeth was bitten after the Dark Lord called Dark creatures to him. Remus helped her adjust."

Elspeth - the girl she had seen, faintly, through her geas-induced haze. "You need me to play the part of the Maid?"

"Remus requested you."

"Then I can hardly refuse, can I? I'm sure Sirius will approve."

"You'll be expected to attend the ceremony to seal the spell, and Ron Weasley will be there." It was clear that McGonagall knew of the owls she had turned back to Scotland time and again. Before she could elaborate, though, a door opened - it had previously been hidden by clever carving, so it matched the wainscoting - and Snape entered, followed by a very old woman. She was as wrinkled as a walnut's shell and approximately the same color, her white hair standing stark against her tanned face. Her cane appeared to be her wand, enlarged into a smooth stick of ebony. "Ah. Hermione, I must introduce you to Dame Betsey Kneen, most recently known as Professor Sibyll Trelawney."

She nearly fell off her chair. Polyjuice? But how? The old woman was grinning from ear to ear, clearly pleased with the reaction she was getting. "Not many of my old students have seen me as who I truly am. You're one of the few, child, and don't forget it. Minerva, Poppy asked me to tell you she was taking supper in her rooms."

"Betsey has been staying with us ever since the first rise of the Dark Lord," the Transfigurations mistress continued, as though Kneen hadn't spoken. "For most of that time she's been our Divination teacher, although she started off with a run of Defense Against the Dark Arts. People remember a Defense teacher, though. Divination... well, she does her best to discourage them."

The old woman held no resemblance to Professor Trelawney. She was fairly spry, navigating the room with no aid from Snape, but she looked more like someone's ancient maiden aunt than anything. The only hint was the faint, lingering scent of patchouli that surrounded her. "I wouldn't have expected it. So are you truly a Diviner?"

"No less than I ever was, Miss Granger. Kindly keep me to yourself, as it were. Enough time's been spent talking about me as it is - eat." At that word, food appeared on their plates, comfort food that reminded Hermione of why she had always relished mealtimes at Hogwarts. They ate in silence, for a moment, before McGonagall began making small talk with Kneen.

"So this is our maid, Minerva?" the crone asked; it was obvious that if she was involved in the protective spellcasting for Lupin's wedding, she would be taking the oldest position. "I hold with the mundane aspect of her - but I think she's loosened up a bit since she was thirteen. She'll serve wonderfully."