Iridescent Snow

Chapter Two: Be This the Whetstone of Your Sword

Dead by Avada Kedavra. She hadn't written them a letter in a week. She hadn't even been there with them when... it had happened. The room suddenly seemed devoid of air, and her head started to spin. Fawkes flew down from his perch and placed himself at her knee, nudging her hand with his beak and trilling softly. With the infusion of strength from the phoenix, Hermione looked up through the blur of her tears and saw Dumbledore settle down before his desk again, the flowing robes that the old wizard favored draping loosely over his chair.

"Hermione, Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape will escort you to the morgue at the Ministry of Magic. Your Muggle relatives have had their memories modified. They believe your parents both died of carbon monoxide poisoning and that their bodies are currently at the coroner's. You will, of course, be excused from classes for as long as you need to put your affairs in order," the headmaster stated kindly.

She somehow found the wherewithal to nod at this, and standing up on shaky legs, followed Snape's retreating form out of the office. McGonagall brought up the rear in their sad little procession, and as they emerged from the tower into the corridor, Hermione felt the Transfiguration professor's thin hand drape around her to pull her into a comforting one-armed embrace. This unusual show of affection only made the lump in Hermione's throat grow larger, but she tried to give her Head of House a smile, anyway.

Professor McGonagall was more than adequate company for this trip, especially in her strange new motherly persona, Hermione thought idly, and she wondered why Dumbledore would wish to send Snape along with them. The man had remained completely silent during her exchange with the headmaster, and as she watched him plow ahead of them, his robes billowing behind him, Hermione observed that he was obviously not pleased to find himself in the position of accompanying her. She certainly had no desire to impose upon her dour Potions professor...

Her question was answered, however, when they rounded a corner and were met by Harry and Ron, both carrying their brooms and looking like they had run a great distance in a very short amount of time. Professor Snape stepped aside with an impatient huff. His face pale and anxious, Ron hurried forward and gasped, "Hermione! We...we just..." He struggled to speak, panting between his words.

Harry, who appeared equally ragged, finished, "Ron's mum just sent an owl, we just heard about your parents, Hermione! We're...very sorry," he faltered, looking stricken. A split second later, Harry broke into a hideously silly grin. Before Hermione's addled brain could figure out what was going on, though, the boy had hastily raised his elbow to cover his mouth while turning a bright shade of red.

"Er..." Ron cleared his throat awkwardly and stared at the ground.

"Sorry," Harry murmured from behind his robe sleeve. "It's...you know, the Lockhart Lolly."

In spite of herself, Hermione felt the corners of her lips lift. "Oh, it's quite all right," she breathed in faint amusement. "Put your arm down, Harry, and let me see properly what Fred and George cooked up this time."

With another reproachful glance at Ron, Harry lowered his arm, and Hermione saw that his mouth was stretched out in an exceedingly wide smile, white teeth glistening in a truly Lockhartesque fashion. After a few moments, the smile faded into a grimace and then Harry's mouth resumed its normal shape. "It comes and goes," he explained sheepishly. "The candy causes me to walk around smiling like a bloody idiot at the most inopportune moments." Looking about him, Harry suddenly noticed the presence of the glowering Potions master and Professor McGonagall, who was looking increasingly irritated herself. "Uh...what's happening, Hermione? Where are they taking you?"

"They're taking me to the morgue to claim the bodies of my parents," she responded in a miserable tone, feeling her briefly forgotten sadness returning anew.

"We'll go with you!" Ron declared emphatically. The red-haired boy gripped his broom as if about to mount it.

McGonagall actually hesitated at this, and looked to be debating whether or not to grant them permission. The Gryffindor Head dabbed at her eyes absently with a lace-hemmed handkerchief, and Hermione, who had no wish for the added presence of her well-meaning friends, was just dredging up the words to refuse them, when Snape slunk his way from the shadows of the wall and placed himself before them.

"You'll do no such thing, Weasley. It is Granger's parents who are deceased, I believe, not yours. If you set foot out of this castle, you will find that the rest of term shall be rather unpleasant for you--however short that term may prove," the Potions master interjected silkily.

Professor McGonagall looked rather relieved at having the decision made for her and simply nodded sternly at the two boys.

Outraged, Ron snarled, "But Professor--" at the same time Harry protested in a wounded tone, "That's not right!"

Sighing, Hermione placed a hand on both their elbows and said, "Thanks for your concern, but I agree this time that it's best for me to...just get this over with, if you know what I mean. It's pointless for all three of us to go."

That seemed to subdue them well enough, and after bidding her friends goodbye, she was on her way again, her professors in tow. Snape had barged out into the courtyard without looking back, and Hermione felt an odd sense of gratitude to him for interceding on her behalf, though she knew he had done so out of spite for Harry and Ron rather than any concern for herself. But Dumbledore apparently had foreseen this development and had sent Professor Snape along to ward off any other unwanted attention, for McGonagall seemed to have lost her edge. It did make sense, Hermione considered sadly. Professor McGonagall had known her parents and had met with them to discuss her progress during school, whereas Snape hadn't...plus Snape didn't care about anyone anyway.

When they arrived at the phone booth leading to the Ministry of Magic, Hermione was again surprised when Snape took the phone receiver from her hands and brusquely informed the Ministry that they were here to "see about Miss Granger's parents." Dazedly, Hermione pinned the badge that fell down the coin chute to her robe. According to the badges, they were "visiting the deceased."

Hermione tried not to look at any of the doors they passed when they stepped out of the lift. She still remembered the trip she had made with Harry and Ron to the Department of Mysteries two years ago, and the memories made her skin crawl. Presently, they arrived at a door tucked away at the end of a narrow passageway on which hung a crooked little sign saying, "Morg." The portly wizard sitting at the reception desk was nodding off over a half-eaten ham sandwich when they arrived. Hermione hesitantly pressed the bell sitting on the counter, and the man jerked awake with a snort and peered at them blearily before grunting, "Can I help you?"

Squaring her shoulders, Hermione tried for a calm voice, though it still cracked. "Yes, I'm here to inquire about my parents, David and Jane Granger, who were killed by uh...You-Know-Who this morning."

The reception wizard seemed unfazed by the mention of Voldemort. He merely hefted himself up from his chair, dragged open a filing a cabinet, and muttering to himself, waved his wand over the folders sitting inside. "Let's see...Graley, Grambo, Grandel...Granger. Here we are. Muggles?" he asked, looking down at the two files he held in his hand.

At Hermione's nod, the Ministry wizard waved them through the doorway, into the cool, dry room that housed the morgue. The dim space felt appropriately depressing. The floor was a washed out grey, and the stainless steel walls each contained a grid of rectangular panels. Hermione swallowed nervously as she imagined what must lay behind the walls. The man ambled leisurely to two adjacent panels and tapped them both with his wand. Immediately, they popped open like drawers, and a bit unsteadily, Hermione made her way over, Professor McGonagall following close behind.

The sight of her parents, lying there side by side, in the long narrow boxes, caused the bile rise in Hermione's throat. She stood rooted in place, unable to breathe, as the reality of her parents' deaths was finally laid before her eyes. Her father, still wearing his flannel pajama top, slightly thinning hair mussed with sleep. Her mother, in her white night shift. Both wore hauntingly peaceful expressions, as if they were in a deep slumber and waiting to be reawakened, she thought fleetingly.

She was vaguely aware of Professor McGonagall conjuring a chair behind her and pressing her firmly into it. She sat there stiffly for a few moments, and then tentatively reached out to grasp her mother's hand. It was cold...so cold...Holding the lifeless hand up to her cheek, Hermione bent her head and cried.

The minutes stretched on, the silence punctuated only by the sounds of her own muffled sobbing, until finally, she felt a hand slide beneath one arm and gently pull her up. "Come, Miss Granger, you need to go home and rest. Severus, you, too," came the abnormally soft voice of McGonagall. Her Head of House seemed to have regained her equanimity, and Hermione, struggling to her feet, belatedly realized the oddity of Professor McGonagall shepherding Professor Snape about. Looking up, she saw the stony Potions master staring fixedly at the remains of her mother, his eyes dark and shadowed, his mind far away.

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With a groan, Hermione sat up in bed and kicked away the warmth of her covers. She reached over to her nightstand and clumsily patted a hand over her Muggle alarm clock until she finally managed to silence the shrill beeping. Sunlight streaming into the room caused her to squint, and sluggishly, she glanced about, half-expecting to see the maroon curtains that hung around her bed in Gryffindor Tower. Instead, she found herself staring blankly at the crème-colored walls of her own bedroom.

The momentary confusion was quickly dispelled, however, as memory surged forward like a swelling tide. Dead. Her parents were dead.

Closing her eyes and drawing her knees up against the rest of her body, Hermione willed herself to breathe through the overwhelming tightness that had settled into her chest. They hadn't done anything to Voldemort. They didn't even know the monster existed... Clenching her head between cold fingertips, she felt her eyes burn with tears, and she wanted nothing more than to fall back against the mattress, burrow her way into the bed clothes, and cry herself back to sleep, as she had done the previous night, when utterly spent with grief and anger, she had parted ways with the professors, Apparated into her house, and tumbled her way into bed.

She could not go back to sleep, however, much as she would have liked to, and perhaps after a good, hard, Obliviate to her own head. There was a house full of Muggle relatives to look forward to, and by the looks of their incredulous faces when she had walked past them on her way to bed last night, she had yet to come up with a convincing explanation for how she arrived in the middle of the night without so much as opening the door.

The heel of her hand scrubbed at her cheeks, wiping away the errant tear or two that had squeezed its way out. With great effort, Hermione forced her legs over the side of her bed. She had not bothered to change out of her school clothes after coming home, and now, the material of her skirt stuck to her thighs as she stood up, while her robes tangled messily around her. Slowly, she shuffled over to her dresser and dared to look into the mirror. Her hair was a tangled and unruly mass, the curls having escaped the tight knot she had used to restrain them. With a shaking hand, she reached up and brushed one strand out of her face, only to notice that her eyes were red and swollen, and her complexion pasty. For a few moments, Hermione stood transfixed by this ghastly image staring out at her from the mirror.

"Hermione Jane Granger," she mouthed to the reflection, watching her chapped lips move soundlessly around her name.

Who was she, really? Strangely, she had never truly pondered this question before. She supposed that she was the studious Head Girl, always surrounded by the books that delighted her. She had never thought about what would happen to her after Hogwarts. Or considered the fact that she would not be a student forever. Why should she, when she was so content among the old, dusty tomes that she found in the Restricted Section, books whose pages contained something different each time she opened them, books whose authors talked back to her, and even books that were supposed to drive the unsuspecting witch or wizard mad if they read them too much? She wouldn't have minded if she had to spend ten more years at Hogwarts, even if only to scrape something new each day from the volumes populating the library.

She remembered in fifth year, when she, Harry, and Ron had met with Professor McGonagall to discuss their future plans. Harry had been so certain that he wanted to become an auror, but she had picked up one pamphlet after another, unable to find a profession that truly appealed to her. It had seemed so early then. She was Hermione Jane Granger, Hogwarts student, and that was good enough for her. She would think about the future when she received her OWL scores. And then she had decided that she could wait until the end of sixth year.

But now, at the cusp of her graduation, she had yet to figure out her next destination. With her parents obliterated by a madman and herself suddenly responsible for all their assets, she realized with dismay that not only was it time to decide what to do with herself, but that she would also no longer have the luxury of being just one among many students toiling at her books with her life neatly contained between the protective boundaries of the castle.

Hermione blinked at her wan counterpart. Never did she imagine that she would feel so utterly terrified by the idea that she would have to do something...

A knock on her door pulled her out of her gloomy musing. Quickly, she shrugged off her Hogwarts robes. Furtively shoving them underneath a pillow, she called out dully, "Come in."

A mousy-haired woman entered the room: her mother's sister. "Hermione, dear..."

"Auntie Cathy," she acknowledged quietly, wincing at her aunt's taken-aback expression. She wondered just how bedraggled she looked.

Cathy's eyes glistened as she whispered, "My poor child." Hermione allowed herself to be pulled into her aunt's arms. "I am so very sorry."

"It's...all right," Hermione responded lamely. She hoped her aunt would release her soon, as she felt dangerously unstable in the embrace of someone who so resembled her mother. "Um, thanks for coming."

To Hermione's relief, Cathy let go of her. "Of course!" The woman looked her up and down appraisingly before declaring, "You need breakfast. I've laid it all out on the table. Your uncle and I have been talking about your parents' funeral arrangements, and we thought we'd help you with them, but you have the final word, of course. Fill up, and then come into the sitting room to discuss David and Jane's eulogy." With that, her aunt blew her nose, shook her head, and left the room.

Hermione sat down on her bed again after the door closed. The thought of arranging her parents' funeral made her feel queasy. In her bitterness, all she wanted to do was lash out in sarcasm. "Poor David and Jane are dead because a raving lunatic is aiming to off my best friend," certainly would not do.

She had been bleakly contemplating a spot on her comforter for some time, when with a start, Hermione remembered that the Muggles in attendance would know nothing about Voldemort. They were all under the impression that her parents had died in their sleep! Even better, she thought sullenly. She would have to make up outrageous lies. Hermione frowned. But there were going to be wizards there, too, she was sure. Harry, the Weasleys, and she imagined Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore would definitely show up. They knew the truth. They would appreciate the sacrifice her Muggle parents had made for the wizarding world. She refused to masquerade behind fabrications when they were perfectly aware of what had really happened. But she couldn't very well break the International Statute of Secrecy, could she? Especially with such sensitive material?

She considered holding two separate services, but quickly rejected that idea. One funeral would be harrowing enough. Perhaps a magical screen under concealing charms on which she would broadcast a separate eulogy? No, that would be too distracting...With a sigh, she looked around the room disconsolately, until her eyes fell upon the sheets of parchment that had accumulated on the floor beside her bed. Cocking her head, the young witch sat up straighter and regarded them thoughtfully. She reached down and grabbed one sheet, her notes from last year's Charms class. Absently, she pulled out her wand, and after a moment of deliberation, pointed it at the writing and murmured, "Celare."

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Carefully weighing out one last aliquot of moonshade, Severus spelled the row of vials shut and stored them away for use the next day with his fourth years. A wave of his wand cleared the work bench, and the Potions master stalked out of the laboratory, heading towards his private quarters.

As soon as he was through the door, Severus made for the sideboard and poured himself a glass of wine, then thought better of it and substituted it with cognac. He would need something strong tonight if he intended to finish marking the stack of essays that awaited him. With a sigh, Severus lowered himself wearily into his office chair and downed a bit of his drink. Leaning over his desk and propping his head up with one hand, the professor shut his eyes and allowed the soothing, earthen flavor of the cognac to coat his palate before slowly swallowing it.

Albus, once again acting in his capacity as an interfering nuisance, had arranged for him to chaperone Granger's pity party. The headmaster had some hare-brained notion of forcing him to confront his past. As if he hid from it, Snape thought angrily. The sight of Granger's grief had resurrected too many old memories, calling forth the ghosts that persisted in haunting him, though he valiantly banished them from his presence with each new day. Her horror-filled eyes, her plaintive questions, and her anguished cries had all unnerved him more than a Death Eater meeting.

It had been a long while since a crisis such as this had befallen a Hogwarts student. With a grim snort, Severus realized that the only similar incident that had preceded this episode had involved none other than the celebrated Lily and James Potter. The parents of the wizarding world's revered hero. And Potter had been a mere two years old when the event had taken place. Longbottom could be counted, too, if one wished, but Frank and Alice aren't quite dead, and their son, too, had never known his parents. Diggory, well, Diggory was dead, wasn't he?

Granger alone was subjected to a head-on blow. Tragedy did seem to follow the young lady around, for the Head Girl lived a most wretched existence. An existence not unlike his own, Severus thought with a wry smirk. Buried in books, with no semblance of a social milieu save for trotting in Potter's shadow or minding dunderheads such as Weasley. Though he seemed to recall a passing fascination with house-elf welfare. The girl was pompous in her abundant knowledge, and no amount of point deductions in class could put her off from reciting entire passages of the textbook.

But it was not the addition of yet more misfortune to Granger's life that had affected him so. Nor was it the vivid reminder of his pledge to the Dark Lord. In fact, for a long while, he had successfully lived with the knowledge that he routinely pointed a wand against the hearts of Muggleborns, murdering them with a softly spoken incantation, and that he had oft stood by watching impassively as young children were tortured to insanity. For those sins, Albus had insisted, he had long made atonement. Severus knew better, though. Having blood on his hands had simply ceased to concern him. It was a matter of growing comfortable in his iniquity.

Indeed, the sordid legacy of his Death Eater days and the promise of eternal damnation for his cursed, black soul were not the reasons that he sought the blissful respite of fine drink. He quaffed the remainder of the cognac and savored the numbing emptiness that followed. No, not the nameless, faceless Muggles and half-bloods. But rather the memory of another child from a different time and place. A child who, like Granger, had wept before the body of his dead mother, wand clutched tightly in his convulsing right hand. A child who had then appeared before the Dark Lord to announce that he had performed what his Master had commanded of him. A child who had not yet succeeded in casting Avada Kedavra in a steady voice, since it had been but his first time.

The professor often wondered which of the fates had such a twisted sense of humor as to allow him to continue to exist.

Reaching forward he brought his hand near the candle that sat on his desk. The heat made his fingertips prickle, and impulsively, he darted his thumb out and immersed it in the liquid wax that had pooled at the base of the flame. He hissed slightly at the pain, but with a strange sense of satisfaction, he watched intently as the translucent liquid slowly solidified into a cap of glistening white wax. His flesh was an angry red beneath where he peeled the layer off. He crumpled the now-brittle material between his fingers, and the flecks fell piece by piece onto the surface of Tarquin Duffy's essay.

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The chapel was quiet when Severus arrived. The formless buzz of many hushed conversations lent a heavy, almost soporific quality to the atmosphere. He slid silently into the pew where Albus and Minerva were sitting, trying not to stare at his colleagues, who were looking out of their element in Muggle garb. His own clothing was quite enough to divert him. Muggle notions of proper dress for a male certainly did not take into due consideration the need for movement. Or for adequate concealment of private body parts. Against Minerva's advice, he had still retained his usual heavy cloak over the...suit--he believed was the name of the ensemble--for he would not suffer having his backside on full display to the general public.

It looked as though Minerva was not yet done with him. The witch leaned past Albus, who was sitting between them, and whispered archly, "Fancy seeing you here, Severus. Were the Grangers friends of yours?"

The menace of a woman had her eyebrows raised, and Severus responded coolly, "That is none of your concern, Minerva."

If she and Albus were under the impression that he was here out of sympathy for Granger, then they were both even dafter than he had imagined. Gryffindors were second only to Hufflepuffs in their appalling emotional displays. He was certain that Granger had no need of him to fill out the ranks in the parade of teary-eyed mourners, he thought with a disdainful glance at the pew occupied by Potter and the Weasley clan. Yet, Severus was loathe to admit that he himself did not completely understand why he had felt compelled to attend the Grangers' funeral. He wasn't naïf enough to believe that he was doing penance.

But in the past few nights, he had been more sleepless than usual. Fragments of his past had seeped into his exhausted mind, causing his brain to be awash in fevered remembrances from days of yore. When he had been young and foolish, eager for acceptance and approval. Even after the third night, when out of sheer desperation, he had sprung up from bed and commenced pacing about his chambers, the phantoms did not cease to follow him. They hounded him mercilessly, snaking up from the dark abysses of memory--a lithe and elegant form slowly crumbling to the ground, the faint sound of an expiring breath, the searing gaze of glassy eyes. Bloodless, but a blood crime nonetheless, against the very one whose life gave rise to his own.

Despite the passage of two decades, these memories alone would not be wrestled into submission. Perhaps the knowledge that all other atrocities he had ever committed paled in comparison to this one had helped him take his Death Eater days in stride. But the sight of Granger that day at the morgue had undone it all. The idea that he had had a hand in creating scores of other orphans like her was suddenly unbearably vile when it had not affected him before. And the all-too-stark reminder of what he had done all those years ago...

Albus had taken to patting his knee. With a reproachful glare, the Potions master jerked it away. "Severus, you know I did not request your presence here today. None of us, least of all I, would have thought any less of you had you stayed at Hogwarts with the rest of the staff," the meddlesome old fool was saying.

Ah yes, Albus knew, didn't he? It enraged him that the headmaster knew and was using it against him. Severus could not think of any response that didn't include name calling, so gritting his teeth, he remained silent and flicked open the program sheet with angry gusto.

He skimmed the biographies of the deceased and the sundry photographs that were attached until his eyes were arrested by a lone line in the middle of the page.

Be this the whetstone of your sword

Beneath it was written, "The death of my parents is too tragic for me to communicate through the few paltry words of a eulogy. But they lived full, good lives, and I ask that we all let their sacrifice be our inspiration, a bright beacon of light for wizardkind. Let us rally our strength to win this war against the forces of the Dark so that no more innocent lives will be lost."

Furious, Severus tore his gaze away from his program and found the diminutive form of Granger sitting in the front pew. How dare that reckless, arrogant child flout Wizarding Law, and in the most egregious manner! One and the same, all these imbecilic Gryffindors...

He was in the midst of choosing a suitable memory modification spell for the Muggles in the vicinity when the corner of his eye caught the unmistakable bluish tint of a magical screen. With barely contained astonishment, he held the paper nearer and examined it more closely. The paper was indeed spelled. It looked as if Granger could not resist flaunting her talents once more, Severus thought. The girl had produced the text in a magical medium visible only to wizards and then superimposed the screen atop the program intended for Muggles.

Severus' brow furrowed as he realized that it was really quite an impressive bit of magic for a witch beginning her seventh year at Hogwarts. The spell would have required some form of magical recognition embedded into it, as well as a variant of a disillusionment charm, material that was not generally learned until the apprentice level.

He again considered Granger, sitting rigidly in her mourning clothes, her face obscured by a bit of black netting. For an excessively talkative teenager, the craftsmanship and skill evident in her magic was truly astounding.

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When it was his turn to process past the open caskets, he gave Miss Granger a brief handshake and said formally, "I wish you well." A startled look passed her face before her hand warmed a spot on his robe sleeve, and she said softly in return, "Thank you, Professor."

Some days later, after Miss Granger had returned, he was doing his nightly rounds in the corridors when he caught sight of her emerging quietly from the library, arms laden with books.

He recalled the words she had written: "Be this the whetstone of your sword." He was not one for starry-eyed idealism. The high-minded rhetoric the girl had presented during the service had not fooled him. He knew all too well the results of nursing obsession, of being abandoned by fate to lick one's wounds. And he saw with grim clarity the possibility of her being driven to...regrettable ends to avenge the death of her parents.

He watched her cautiously close the library door and walk in his direction. It was long past the permissible hour for roaming through the castle, even for the Head Girl. His jaw muscle twitched. Swiftly, he backed into the shadows, then turned and retraced his steps down the corridor. Miss Granger was a Gryffindor, and one of the noblest color, he decided with an inner sneer. He yanked at the edge of his robe. The sword, in her hands, would be used to slay none but dragons and basilisks.

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Author's Note: Shakespeare fans may recall Malcolm's famous line, "Be this the whetstone of your sword" (4.3.231), from MacBeth. MacDuff had just found out that MacBeth has murdered his wife and children, and Malcolm is encouraging him to avenge his family's deaths.

Many thanks to Potionmistress and Natalie for betaing this chapter.

Reviews much appreciated!