Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Chapter Three: Last Meals

Hermione hadn't visited the Leaky Cauldron much in the last three years. Once she turned eighteen, mail-order catalogues had kept her personal stores in check--and good thing, seeing as how browsing the shops located in wizarding hot-spots like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade only served to unearth painful memories. At times she missed the luxury of being able to bury both hands into a bin of frogspawn, or to sit in a sunny patch outside of Flortescue's, sipping on an ice cream soda while pinning though a newly-purchased spell book. But facts were facts: in such heavily populated areas she was more likely to run into old school chums, and very often the first words she'd be greeted with were, "Oh yes, you were Harry Potter's friend, weren't you? I suspect you know what's really happened to him, right? Oh, come now...you can tell me!"

I don't know where Harry is. I don't know why he left or where he's gone to.

Hermione hated not having the answers; to look a person in the face and admit cluelessness was not in her nature, and to be put in such a position filled her with hot humiliation and shame. These emotions only doubled when it came to admitting she had no clue about Harry.

Because Harry left and didn't think you important enough to be let in on the truth? Perhaps he didn't even trust you with the truth?

She could have kicked herself for being such a blasted know-it-all, such an insufferable, interfering youth. If she hadn't sent Harry's Firebolt off for inspection, might he have trusted her? If she had broken a few more rules, would she have garnered his trust then?

If Hermione had been hurt by Harry's departure, Ron had simply been angry. He was like that; not a man of subtle, complex emotions, but a man who felt emotions on a singular basis, and in heady, potent quantities. He was a man quick to put his fist through a wall--even if it was the stone-hewn wall of the Gryffindor common room. Hermione had visited him in the hospital wing, had laughed nervously at the sausage-sized swells of his broken fingers, and it was there that they had kissed for the first time. Not a tender, romantic kiss, but a kiss of the desperate and dying--two people clinging to each other to keep out the cold, to keep themselves afloat. Harry's absence was like that of a missing limb; both could feel him tingling between them, silent in the wake of his absence, and only by pressing their bodies together could they banish his ghost from their side.

Their romance--if that's what you wanted to call it--didn't last long.

For most of her seventh year, Hermione had found herself standing in the middle of the front courtyard, her winter cloak trailing behind her as she looked up to search the sky for Hedwig's familiar outline....hoping, always hoping, that she would catch wind of Harry. She threw herself into her studies, naturally, but ate very little and slept a great deal, the dark circles beneath her eyes expanding until the face in her mirror no longer reminded her of herself. Eventually, she and Ron found that their trysts offered only uneasy solace; alone, they could forget their past lives as one-third of an infamous trio, but together it seemed they were forever trying to squeeze a third person out of themselves, trying to re-create Harry in all the wrong ways. Finally, they slipped away from each other completely--not having it out in a row, as they would have any other time, but reverting to the creatures they might have been, had they not befriended Harry Potter.

Harry's disappearance had changed other things, as well. The Order, which had been struggling to stay afloat since Sirius' death, seemed to dissolve almost entirely; their goal had been to protect and prepare Harry, the one who was prophesised to kill Voldemort. With Harry gone and others dead--Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tonks--the Order's purpose was no longer so absorbing and specific.

She didn't speak to Ron again until she'd been out of school for five months. It was around that time that Arthur Weasley had approached her to come on board for Compu-cauldron project, per the twin's recommendation. If she had known she would be working with Ron, she probably would have declined, knowing that the silence between them would be too much to bear. But, clueless once again, she had entered the Ministry building with a smile plastered across her face--her first real job!--only to find Ron in Arthur Weasley's office, tipped back in a chair with his eyes shut, and stupidly drumming out an uneven tune on a copper cauldron bottom.

"You've got shit for rhythm," she had blurted out, surprising herself. But it had been enough; Ron had nearly fallen over in astonishment, catching himself at the last minute. Their eyes locked, and in that moment Hermione realized that they were both new people. She found herself wondering if this was always the case when loved ones vanish. Do their traces simply disappear into us, their memories germinating inside our own, growing and changing until we no longer recognize the person we once were?

Before, they had come together out of pain; later, they reunited with a common goal: find Harry.

The peeling sign for the Leaky Cauldron squeaked in the wind and Hermione frowned at it, somehow certain that Diagon Alley was the last place she'd find Harry. If he had run from Hogwarts, then certainly he had run from the rest of the wizarding world. No matter; she wasn't here for Harry. She was here to come face to face with one of her least favorite people--Professor Severus Snape. Why was it that each syllable of that name needed to be verbally snipped off in order to maintain proper pronunciation? To have such a name must be like always aiming a pair of shiny, very sharp scissors at the rest of the world.

Though she had grown to dislike wizarding robes, Hermione had come to the decision that it would be best to blend in with the Leaky Cauldron's regular clientele; in light of this, she had donned emerald green robes reminiscent of Professor McGonagall's before finally apparating into the heart of Diagon Alley. She had replaced the favored blonde wig with a more serviceable auburn one, binding the faux hair up in a loose bun and completing the look with the same spectacles she had worn out to Azkaban. In all, her appearance was only a shade off from what her fourteen-year old self had envisioned; as a youth Hermione had always foreseen herself as a scholarly adult--one who worked in teaching and research, who would maybe marry and have children only if she found a man who could cook his own dinner, who was willing to stay at home while she spent late nights at the lab, making one great discovery after another.

Funny how the future seemed to appreciate irony; Hermione had made great discoveries a-plenty--Andy and the Compu-Watch being only two of the more impressive ones--and had yet to receive the credit and payment that was owed her. The wizarding-home version of Compu-Cauldrons was in its final stage of development, and if the Ministry hadn't fired her for interfering with their political espionage, she would have been the witching version of Bill Gates by now.

Good thing she had an espionage ring of her own. Well... sort of.

With her carpetbag full of tricks, she entered the pub and made her way up to the counter, trying to gracefully dodge Mundugus Fletcher (who shot her a quick wink) and another man who were swaying back and forth, singing at the top of their lungs. Tom, the innkeeper, gazed at her disinterestedly as she made her approach.

"What kin I do fer ya?" He asked, taking a long drag from an ivory pipe.

"I'd like a room," she said, giving him a shy smile, her voice altered slightly so that she had a lilting, Irish accent. "For the next two nights, if you please."

"Aye. What name do ya want th' room under?"

"Arabella Pince." She thought fast, still smiling stupidly. "Might I ask a favor of you, sir?"

Tom glanced up in surprise, as if he weren't often asked to consider favors. "Aye?"

Well..." Hermione let out a childish giggle, tracing a circle on the floorboards with the toe of her boot. "I'm new to London, sir. I'd like a room near someone who might keep me company. An older man, p'haps....Someone tall and brooding? A man of letters, if you know one."

Tom squinted at her carefully for a few seconds. "There's one 'at might do ya... though he's known ta 'ave a temper."

"Oh! Just like Heathcliff!" she breathed, widening her eyes until it hurt.

"Who?" Tom frowned slightly. "I'll give ya th' room next ta th' professor. Mind that ya don't bother him now that it's past suppertime, lassie."

"Of course not!" Hermione shook her head vigourously. "Thank you so much for your kindess, sir."

She handed her carpetbag over to Tom and followed him up a dim stairwell; the hallway on the second floor was low and cramped, but she was soon ushered into a reasonably comfortable private room, in which a fire was already burning merrily. House-elves, she thought, frowning. With all the magic they could perform, she thought wizards would have learned to light their own damn fires by now.

Once she'd bid Tom goodnight, she began to unpack her bag. Inside, she had stowed away a set of real clothes, her .38 Ladysmith, the wireless, a small tool kit, and a leather pouch of miscellaneous odds and ends. She was already wearing her new Compu-Watch, and into it she said: "Andy, tell Ron I've managed to get a room right next to Snape."

A few minutes later, the watch tightened, and behind the crystal words began to form.

R o n s a y s h e h o p e s y o u a r e h a v i n g f u n

"Bastard," she muttered. Ron--along with the rest of his siblings--was at the Burrow for the weekend, and was probably too busy mucking about with Fred and George to even care that she was currently positioned only a wall-thickness away from their least favorite Hogwarts professor. Yet another curious aspect to their working relationship was that Hermione, more often than not, was the one to actually snoop around undercover, while Ron preferred to work from their home base, conducting research and fielding leads. A reversal of their school-day roles, perhaps, but Hermione thought it not at all strange considering that it was she who, in the tender youth of their second year, had brewed up a dangerous polyjuice potion so that the three might infiltrate the Slytherin common-room. How was she to have known that Millicent Bullstrode owned a cat?

Even if she did fudge up from time to time, Hermione only trusted herself to get any job done right. And at this thought, she pulled a chair up to the south wall. There was a window over her bed, suggesting that her room was at the end of the hall; this meant that that Snape's room must be just beyond the wall with the fireplace. Retriving a small, hand-crank bit and drill from her tool kit, she mounted the chair and positioned the bit at eye-level. She paused for a moment, wondering if Snape was in his room and, if so, what he was doing. If he happened to be staring at this wall, loose flecks of plaster might well alert him to the fact someone was looking in on him. Surely even someone like Snape didn't sit around all day staring at walls, though, and with only a small amount of reservation, she began to crank the drill, driving the bit in at a downward angle.

Once she'd made a small hole, Hermione brushed it clean and put her eye to it. The room was small enough to view almost entirely, and upon seeing Snape's scowling face--situated only a few metres across and below her own--she let out a faint squeak and pulled away, clapping a hand over her mouth. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but knowing that Snape scowled even in private left her curiously troubled. Even though he'd hurt her feelings countless times as a child--mostly because he refused to acknowledge all her back-breaking hard work--his dedication to the Order had always given her hope that his unpleasant behavior had been part of a grand charade. A well-crafted act in which he unceremoniously crushed student egos left and right, and then sat down with a smile at the end of the day, congratulating himself on his ability to keep the student population on their toes.

Clearly, this wasn't the case. If anything, he looked far more disagreeable than she remembered. Putting her eye back to the peep-hole, she saw that he was slumped in an armchair and staring into the fire, his expression both irate and bored at once. In his left hand he clutched a half-empty bottle of brandy (against house rules, she noted), while his right hand idly scratched at a rather new growth of beard. His robes were shabby and unwashed, and it looked as if he hadn't had a good meal in weeks.

Oh, who cares? So he's depressed. He's been the cause of much student-related depression himself, after all...In the words of the infamous Trelawny: Karma is a bitch, innit?

Hermione lowered herself from the chair, realising that Snape wasn't about to move from his brandy-swilling position any time soon. In addition, she suspected that keeping her eye plastered to the wall all night would result in over-whelming neck crampage; checks every fifteen minutes or so would have to suffice.

On tip-toe (this despite the fact that this was an Inn, and that it was perfectly natural for Snape to hear sounds from the adjoining room), Hermione went back to the bed and riffled through her leather pouch of odds and ends. From an interior, zippered pocket, she retrieved a small hearing aid--a variety easily purchased at any corner pharmacy, but charmed so that it would amplify sound from a very specific locale, and more reliably than an Extendable Ear, at that. Prodding the hearing aid with her wand, Hermione fiddled with it until the charm was just right: she should now be able to hear all sounds from Snape's room as clearly as she would were she sitting right beside him. After wrenching the small, plastic capsule in her ear, she sat back on the bed and began to listen.

At first she heard nothing out of the ordinary; the overlapping crackle of their two separate fires was an odd thing to experience, but within a few minutes she adjusted to it. Snape's fire, she noted, was decidedly of a more 'roarish' quality than her own. He must stoke the wood until the flames suit his temper, she mused.

Temper or not, Hermione found it difficult to erase the dejected image of Snape slumped over in an armchair, his fist curled around a smeary bottle of liquor. Part of her didn't want to believe that such a stony individual was capable of lapsing into depression; it made her consider him as...well...halfway human--this despite the many degrading moments she had suffered under his tutelage. And to think, of all the Gryffindors, she alone had been the one to give Professor Snape the benefit of the doubt, time and time again. So Snape's being an arsehole again, Harry? Well maybe it's just for your own good. So Snape made you burst into big crocodile tears again, Neville? Well maybe if I just help you catch up on swelling solutions, he'll be nicer to you.

Such an unhealthy trust in authority she'd had in those days--thank goodness she'd outgrown that.

When had that trust first wavered? If the Imposter Moody and Dolores Umbridge had dealt the final blow to Hermione's rather blind trust in authority, she supposed it might have been given it's first good shake by Snape himself. It had been agonizing to watch the Potions Master praise the half-baked work of someone like Draco Malfoy, only to turn his nose up at her own perfectly brewed potions, refusing to acknowledge her attention to detail, her eagerness to prove that she loved 'the subtle simmering' of a cauldron just as much as he did. Most of her fellow students had been perfectly content to have Snape ignore their work--it meant that they were, at the very least, coasting just beneath his sarcasma-radar, and probably pulling off passing marks in the process. But in those days, to ignore the academic work of Hermione Granger was to outright insult the basis of her very moral fibre, the verbal equivalent of which would be, You, my dear, are a worthless little witch.

Oddly enough, Hermione's eventual distaste for Professor Snape hadn't been accrued through his refusal to praise her scholarly talent; no, that little denouement had presented itself in one of the more cruel pranks she'd ever endured, followed by the single-most heartless words she'd ever heard from a teacher's mouth:

"I see no difference."

Walrus tusks so long she was practically tripping over them, and yet he had the nerve to scowl at her, to actually bring stinging tears to her eyes.

It was about that time that she'd stopped defending him so much. It didn't matter what he was--former Death Eater, spy for the Order, Potions Master, or all around grouch--she didn't much like it.

Considering this, Hermione sank back into the scratchy pillows, realizing that the sound of Snape's fire and her own, mingling to create a strange, muted cacophony, was a sound that had a lapping quality, like surf teasing along a shoreline. In that hypnotic warmth Hermione felt her eyelids grow heavy, felt it rocking her into something close to--but not quite--comfort.

***

Draco was dreaming: this alone was a rarity, as in the last few weeks the presence of the Dementor hadn't really allowed his sleeping mind the freedom to dream. But here was a dream as big as life, in which he strolled along the harbors of Villefranche-sur-Mer, catching a whiff of sea air as he craned his neck, hoping to glimpse the cerulean waters of the Mediterranean. The entire scene could have been a picture-postcard from his summer spent in Cote de A'zur, the French Riviera, where the wide Bay of Angels was any young couple's playground. Draco had spent those two months longing to live on the water, and this despite the fact that Somae preferred the posh shops and museums found on the Promenade des Anglais. Draco tolerated nosing with high society--to do so was practically his birthright, after all--but high society Muggles made him nervous, with their shiny autos and tiny lap dogs. Still, he had endured the Promenade for Somae's sake, even while the salty sea breeze teased him closer, beckoning like a harem girl.

But in his dream he marched down one of those steep, stone staircases that led directly to the water, and there he found Somae, her hair loose and wind-tousled, outfitted in a dress that displayed her bronzed shoulders. He looked past her and into the waves, loving the clear blue that he could almost see through, accepting it as a sign that the Mediterraneankept no secrets--everything was right there, on display at the bottom.

"Would you do anything for me?" Dream-Somae asked, and her limpid eyes seemed to loot his own for an answer.

"Yes," Draco said, smiling and assured.

"Because you love me, right?"

Draco blinked. His mouth worked soundlessly, but he couldn't speak.

With that, Draco's eyes opened at once. It seemed as though he hadn't been dreaming at all, seeing as how he and Somae had exchanged those very words in the last week of their stay at Cote de A'zur. He didn't even really remember what Somae had been asking him to do, but he'd said 'yes' right away. Yet when she asked him about love, Draco hadn't been able to answer Somae, just as he hadn't been able to in the dream; he'd merely stared at her, watching her pale eyes tear over as his own throat hitched, trying to let loose a reasonable answer.

The truth was, he had said 'yes' to Somae out of loyalty, not love. But how could he tell her that? In his own way, Draco was innately obedient; he had always followed the guidelines issued by his father because Malfoys were loyal to Malfoys, above all others. Draco loved sailing because his father loved sailing; it was a tradition dating back to the time when Malfoys had actually lived along the Provencal coast of France. Draco wore well-tailored robes because it was a habit his mother approved of, just as she approved when he kept his hair a little bit long--just enough so she could reach out easily and brush it away from his face, as if she were picturing the daughter she'd always wanted. In the spirit of this loyalty, Draco had smiled on the day that Somae was introduced as his betrothed. The DeSilver heiress: Draco had been presented with her on his seventeenth birthday--a twenty year-old beauty was a rather untraditional present, but he hadn't complained. The DeSilver-Malfoy marriage would be the grandest pureblood affair of the last twenty years, and to live through it would take loyalty of the highest echelon. If that wasn't love, Draco didn't know what love was.

He did care about Somae; she'd been his stalwart companion for the last three or so years, after all. But there were rare, very brief moments when, as he gazed into a particularly clear body of water, he wondered if he should have gone searching for something else, something that he could earn on his own merits, rather than having it presented to him on a silver platter by his mother or father. Then again, why should he? Especially when he was given all he wanted so freely, without pain and consequence?

And this was Draco's ultimate struggle--or it had been, before Azkaban. He wanted to be a rodeo cowboy, one of those who roped up his prize and earned it through skill and determination. But Draco hadn't been raised that way; instead, he conned others into giving him what he wanted. He donned his worst behavior on occasion, timing it so that others would feel nothing but gratitude when he finally settled down to play nice-nice. Tantrums and other low-down dirty devices were how Draco made his way in the world, and a life with Somae would be no different. She would coddle him when he pouted; she would bend over backwards to see that his every need and whim was met.

Draco sighed. That was his old life, and at times it had been so boring. Yet now he was starting to miss it terribly.

Easing up off his narrow prison bed, Draco walked stiffly over to the toilet and built-in stone basin. There was no mirror, but Draco didn't need one to know that he probably looked horrible. He could feel the angles of his face pushing against his skin in a new way, suggesting that his countenance was gaunt and starved. The beard was an oddity as well; because he'd never shaved regularly, it was soft and fine, like the belly of a small mammal. Just before his trial his cornsilk hair had been cut short, but it was now trailing over his forehead again, nearly plastered there by the heavy grease and dirt that covered much of his body. Grimacing, he splashed some water against his face, rubbing his eyes until they began to sting. He relished the pain a little, because it reminded him that he could stand it.

That was one thing Mudblood Granger hadn't counted on, too. He had seen that in her curious brown eyes--her sheer astonishment that the Dementors hadn't reduced him to a gurgling, incoherent lunatic. Then again, she'd said something about Dementors migrating away from Azkaban, suggesting that their lower numbers were responsible for his rational state of mental health. Yes, but what the fuck does she know? She's the one who's gone starkers, waltzing in here with some kind of rubbish about 'exile'. I'm an innocently-jailed former heir, not a political refugee.

Draco ignored the fact that he wasn't exactly sure what a political refugee even was.

He pivoted away from the sink, frowning. It was less easy to ignore the fact that the Dementors had left him alone for the second night in a row. He didn't want to think that the Mudblood might have been telling the truth about what the Ministry had planned for him, so he concentrated on breakfast, instead. Hungry for the first time in what felt like a week, he headed for the tray on his writing desk; when he was only a few steps away he stopped, confused. This wasn't normal--he could smell real food. As in food that wasn't lumpy oatmeal, dry bread, and a mug of lukewarm, metallic-tasting water. Curious, he lifted the domed lid off his tray by a few inches, allowing the rich, fragrant smell of fine cuisine to set his nostrils twitching before finally dashing the lid clean off, his eyes goggling at the spread before him. This was real food all right, and all his favorites were represented: fluffy egg frittatas sprinkled with truffles; delicate French crepes studded with fresh strawberries; a pot of perfectly brewed tea.

What the fuck was going on here?

Part of him protested that this was not right; that something very wrong was going on. The other part of him was hungry, hungry, hungry, and it propelled his body to sit down before the food and start shoveling it in his mouth by the handful. He ate like a wild animal, ignoring the utensils and smearing berries and cream into his wide-open mouth, gulping them down before the full, rich flavors could fully penetrate his tastebuds. He moaned out loud in mid-swallow, nearly choking as he did so.

"I wouldn't wolf that down if I were you," a voice said. Draco started, still chewing, and saw that the voice had come from a man, a uniformed wizard who had just entered his cell. "You're liable to make yourself sick," the man added, grimacing slightly.

Draco frowned. He knew this guy. It was the same man who had escorted him in and out of his cell during the trial. His name was Bumpster....Brewer....something like that.

"What do you want?" Draco asked, surprised to hear a hint of the characteristic Malfoy drawl in his tone. The good food had lifted his spirits, it seemed. Perhaps Somae's father had actually reasoned with the Ministry and prison officials. Perhaps he would even be moved to a nicer cell--one with a bathtub, he hoped.

"Finish up, and then you're coming with me."

"Oh, really?" Draco's heart leapt involuntarily. Now he was picturing a cell with a window--though if the Island was ugly this time of year he hoped there would be curtains, too. Would he be served food like this every day? God, he hoped so.

Beginning to expect that his lunch would be just as good as breakfast, Draco left some of his frittata unfinished and stood up, delicately brushing crumbs off the front of his prison robes. "I'm ready then," he said, and Bumpster-or-Brewer nodded stiffly and told him to put his hands behind his back, wrists pressed close together.

The other wizard murmured a few well-chosen words, and Draco felt his wrists bind together as they had countless times before. Then Bumpster took Draco's elbow and led him out of the cell and into winding halls of Azkaban. All was dark, and Draco had no time to wonder what was coming at him around the corner, what was lying in wait at the murky bottom.

***

"Sevvy! Have you been at the bottle again? I say...look at me when I talk to you!"

Hermione's eyes sprung open, and she rolled them from one side of the room to the other before finally hauling herself up into an upright position. Dim threads of light were coming in through the window, and she realised that it was early morning, and that she had slept the entire night away.

"Wake up, Snape!" Fudge barked, sounding far more business-like that Hermione had ever heard him. Interested now, she shook her head awake and scrambled for the chair, nearly tripping in her hurry to get back to the peep-hole. Putting her eye to the wall, she saw that Snape did, in fact, look uncharacteristically out of it; there appeared to be only an inch of liquor left in his bottle, however, so the fact that he was conscious at all was a wonder. Had he spent the whole of the night drinking in front of the fire?

Not that I did much better. The thought crossed her mind as she reached up to adjust the volume on her hearing device; Fudge's hollering was giving her weird feedback. Great job checking the peep-hole every fifteen minutes, Granger. Then, as if to compensate for lost time, she pressed her eye to the wall once more.

Snape didn't seem to be coming around much; he stared into the fire--where Fudge's visage was currently located, no doubt--through half-lidded eyes, a lazy snarl working its way across his face. "What do you want?" He asked, his words curiously slurred. "Can't a man bloody sleep withou' a fucking Minishter infesting 'is cosy-wosy fire?"

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. Snape was flat-out knackered, his voice so thick that he sounded more like Tom the barkeep than the severe, ever-proper Potions Master she remembered.

"I have just sent you a most important owl," Fudge said, his voice cold and heavy with implication. "I suggest you pull yourself together by the time it arrives."

"Owl?" Snape asked, sounding as if he'd never heard of such a creature.

"Yes, an owl!" Fudge snapped, his temper flaring. "An owl bearing a certain charm regarding a soon-to-be-exiled Azkaban prisoner."

"Oh, that's right," Snape said, sounding almost coherent for a moment before he once again lapsed into inane babbling. "Idiot blonde...ickle spoiled Daddum's boy Draco Malfoy..."

Hermione almost choked on disbelief again, but then she remembered the last bit of information she'd gathered before apparating to Diagon Alley. According to Andy's Ministry records, Draco had been the one to reveal Snape as a former Death Eater--and in his final speech to the public, no less. It was no wonder, then, that Snape was feeling less-than-fond towards his former Slytherin favourite. Malfoy was the reason that Snape was working under Fudge at all, and, knowing full well how Fudge operated, Hermione couldn't help but feel a flash of sympathy for the hated, former professor. Perhaps I could let him borrow a blonde wig...teach him a bust-enhancing charm or two. Fudge might be nicer to him if he looked a little prettier.

Hermione winced a little at the acidity of her own mental tongue. Living with Ron for the last two years--especially without Harry's calm, sobering presence--had made her more apt to use profanity and insults, it seemed.

"You'd better not let me down here, Sevvy," Fudge said, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. "You and I both know what's in store for you if you do."

"Mmm, yes," Snape said, clearly distracted. Then a firm knock sounded on the door of his room, and Hermione could hear an audible pop as Fudge retreated from the fire.

"Private Owl fer yeh, Mister Snape," came Tom's voice.

Snape struggled to his feet and lurched towards the door, mumbling words that Hermione couldn't quite make out. Tom, clearly startled by Snape's appearance, thrust out a scroll of sealed parchment and then bolted down the hall. Still muttering, Snape shut the door and promptly dropped the parchment to the floor. Hermione watched in wonderment as he managed to make his way to the wardrobe without falling down; once there, he began riffling through his satchel until he found a small phial and uncorked it, dumping the contents into his open mouth.

As if, indeed, by magic, a change came over Severus Snape at once. He shuddered and came to his knees, coughing roughly, like a man who'd come just short of drowning. Then he stood up and brushed his hair back debonairly, straightening his rumbled robes as best he could.

What the hell was that? A hangover tonic? Some kind of alcohol-reversal potion? I need to get Ron one of those, Hermione thought, distracted by Snape's full recovery. Entirely sober now, he walked lightly back to the spot where he'd dropped the parchment. Gathering it up, he sat at the desk and began to study it. Unfortunately, Snape was not a man who read out loud--or even quietly to himself--and Hermione shifted impatiently as she waited for him to finish. Finally, after several readings, Snape stood up and withdrew his wand from his voluminous robes; then he stripped free of the robes themselves until he was garbed in loose trousers and a plain white tee-shirt--the kind Hermione's father might have worn under his work clothes.

This was the first time Hermione had seen the Potions Master without a full set of robes on, and she looked him over carefully, rather surprised to see that he seemed perfectly human: no scales or horns in sight. He was on the thin side, certainly not malnourished, but without the armour of his robes he struck her as oddly delicate. The way he moved to pick up the parchment, in particular, reflected a subtle grace she had only glimpsed rarely in her life. She had seen it before in Harry when he played Quidditch, and even in Malfoy when he sauntered into a crowded room, fully aware all eyes were on him. She felt a burn of faint jealousy at this realisation; it seemed that she herself was capable of doing nothing strenuous without breaking out into a flood of sweat, her hair frizzy and hanging over her eyes. And yet here was the grumpy Potions Master, oddly elegant as he did nothing more than wave his wand over his wrist in slight circles, murmuring small words.

Murmuring!

Frantic, Hermione pointed her wand at her ear, jacking up the volume on her hearing-device.

"Manifesto Extorris Draco...Manifesto Extorris Draco..." he chanted, still swirling his wand over his left wrist. How many times did he say the incantation? Hermione thought fast. Five; she was certain. She hadn't thought Snape would have to implant the locator charm, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. A charm or hex could hit a person once--with devastating or mild effects--but once it hit, it was usually gone. Implanting spells and charms under the skin was done only when long-lasting effects were desired. Women who didn't want to become pregnant could have a contraceptive charm implanted, for example, and vitality charms worked wonders for men who couldn't perform--or so she'd heard. These were their more common uses, and any kind of implanting was highly regulated simply because the effects were more difficult to reverse or alter. But if Snape wanted to tune into Malfoy's location for an extended period of time, the charm would work best if implanted. Of course, not all implants were good or beneficial, and Hermione was reminded of this as she spied the Dark Mark that blemished Snape's arm.

Trying to reassure herself with the fact that the implant charm was Ministry-approved, Hermione hesitated only briefly before raising her own wand to her right wrist.

"Manifesto Extorris Draco..."

***

"Where are we going?" Draco dared to ask, his tone hopeful.

"You'll see," Bumpster grunted, pulling at Dracos' arm a bit rougher than necessary, he thought.

Draco frowned. He knew this particular path quite well; it was the one that led to the entrance of the fortress, and he been escorted up and down this cavern several times over the course of his own trial. Why would they be taking him this way?

"Stop dragging your feet," Bumpster said, poking Draco in the back. When then finally reached a tall door, Draco knew it led to the prison's antechamber--the place where humans entered and exited Azkaban. How Dementors entered and exited, Draco didn't know. Supposedly, they were no longer able to exit at all; an added security measure that had been in place ever since the Dementor Scare of '96, when a small group of Dementors had been lost to Voldemort's control.

The inside of the antechamber was bright, and Draco squinted as he took it all in: the rows steel lockers and bins, a single desk and chair. Another wizard, not much older than Draco himself, nodded tersely at Bumpster from the opposite side of the room.

"This is Barrett," Bumpster said, indicating the other man. "And I'm Brewster. We're both here to officially inform you of your re-allocation into foreign territories that exist outside Azkaban strongholds. This re-allocation will expire in seven years time, upon which your case will undergo Ministry consideration for re-RE-allocation--"

"What did you say?" Draco demanded, his head spinning. "I'm being what?"

Brewster sighed heavily. "Take off your robes, please."

"What?"

"Strip!" Brewster ordered.

Too confused to respond, Draco pulled his grimy robes over his head. He was naked beneath them, and he shifted uncomfortably, feeling on display as the cold air prickled up and down his back.

"Bend over," Brewster ordered, extracting a wand from the pocket of his robes.

"What for?" Draco asked, his voice a high, girlish squeak.

Brewster only frowned, and Draco was met with the distinct impression that he ought to comply...and fast. Turning his back to Brewster, his wrists still bound, he bent over at the waist. Despite the chill in the air, he felt a hot bead of sweat roll down the bridge of his nose. His inner-thighs felt weak, and he thought he might soon collapse.

Something brushed against the small of Draco's back, like a cat's questioning paw, and he jumped slightly. "Stop," he whispered, gritting his teeth together.

"Relax," Brewster said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "This won't hurt." Then the wizard began to mutter a chain of words over and over again, saying, "Extorris Draco...Extorris Draco."

"What are you doing?" Draco asked, more curious now than frightened.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have time to talk," Brewster said, hurrying over to the opposite side of the room. "We only have five minutes before that charm takes effect. Oh, and I implanted it very close to your spine, so don't try to do something stupid like removing it with a bowie knife." Brewster slung open a metal bin and pulled out a set of clothes--baggy trousers and a tee-shirt--plus a pair of unfamiliar, lace-up shoes. "Put these on," Brewster said, and with a slight wave of his wand Draco's bound hands fell apart.

Draco only stared at the two wizards; they stood watching him from the other side of the room as if they didn't want to venture too close to him.

"Look, Malfoy," the other--Barrett--said. "The Ministry is washing their hands of you. Sorry, but there's nothing we can do."

"You mean it's true?" Draco asked, his voice strangled. "I'm being sent into exile?"

"Yes," Brewster said, looking at his watch. "In three minutes."

Realizing he was still stark naked, Draco hurried into the clothes. Unsure of how to handle the shoes, he simply held one in each hand and stood dumbly in the middle of the room.

"What will happen to me?" He finally asked, and his voice quivered in a way that was unfamiliar to his own ears.

Brewster only pointed. "That left shoe is a one-way portkey. Don't worry--it'll dump you out in a safe place."

"But..." Draco trailed off, realizing that much of his body had gone numb with shock, but the area around his mid-section was tingling and lively. The portkey was already warming up.

There was a soft noise behind him, and Draco turned. A door he had never noticed before had just opened, and through it slipped Somae DeSilver. She looked as lovely as ever in crimson robes, a bright Phoenixfeather tucked into her upswept hair.

"Somae?" Draco asked, not sure if he was seeing things.

She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear--a gesture he was painfully familiar with--and then gave him a small smile. He thought he saw--no, he was sure he saw--something like guilt in her pale eyes. Eyes that mirrored his own, except hers were tinged with blue rather than gray.

Funny, her eyes had always reminded him of the waters in the Bay of Angels...clear, calm, and with no secrets swimming beneath the surface.

Except she had deceived him. She must have.

"I'm sorry, Draco," she said, her voice quiet. "But it's for the best."

Before he could respond, the world shifted and she was gone. Or rather, he was.