Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Chapter Eight: Bring on the Daylight

But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die...

She was a long way from Reno, but Hermione could relate to the sentiment just the same. There was a man bleeding on the floor of her phony detective agency--well, not bleeding anymore. Stop the heart and you stop the flow, everything funnels down to a trickle. And the Ladysmith .38 was an odd chunk of metal in her hand, no longer a mere accessory--like a wig or a press-pass--not something handy that offered the illusion of power, and the more dangerous illusion of safety. She had never expected to actually use it.

When dressing up to the teeth, à la Rhoda Rhodes, she often charmed her eyes to appear that same blue-steel colour of the gun barrel, keeping the weapon in a small holster around her thigh. Her wand she kept in her pocket or boot--removing it only in anticipation of sleep. But then a man had attacked, leaving her weak and crawling along the floor, helpless as poor Andy was hauled up and away. She thought it was something like dumb luck that caused her hand to brush up against the pistol, and something more like plain stupidity that prompted her to draw back and take aim.

Funny how it wasn't so hard to hit a moving target; then again, it hadn't felt much different from aiming her wand and casting a spell...only this time there was the disconcerting, accompanying orchestra of blood spattering to the floor, the sharp smell of gunpowder burning at her nostrils. Now crouched at the downed man's side, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and felt out for a pulse where she knew none would be. Letting out a thin sigh, she gently laid his arm across his chest, then reached up and closed his eyelids. The last thing she needed was to see Arlan Brewster's eyes looking at her with silent, entreating accusation.

"Who is he?" Ron asked quietly, still cradling his wounded arm.

Hermione looked up in surprise, realising that she had completely forgotten that Snape and Ron were both in the room with her. They stood not far away, their faces equally pale, though of the two only Ron looked frightened, shying away from her gaze as if this were all a bit too much for him to take. Snape looked predictably grim, though in his eyes she thought she glimpsed a terse sort of approval. It did little to make her feel better. His own past was murkier than week-old coffee--who knew how many people he'd slaughtered for kicks and giggles, be it a result of following orders or simply wreaking havoc in a wacky D.E. hazing ritual.

"What would make a man behave that way?" she asked distractedly, directing the words at Snape in particular. She gingerly touched her hand to her forehead, feeling the goose-egg lump that had formed. "He was so strong...I thought he wasn't human."

"We were so weak," Snape muttered, crouching down beside her, his eyes scanning the body. "Look," he said, parting Brewster's robes open, revealing plain, serviceable clothing beneath. "He is a tall, well-built man...but no more so than Mister Weasley here." He glanced up at Ron, visually comparing the two. "Yet even Ron fell prey to his blows."

"I've been meaning to go to the gym," Ron muttered, turning red. "Membership ran out last month."

"You said you knew him," Snape prompted, prodding Hermione's shoulder a bit. "Who is he?"

"Arlan Brewster."

Only Ron reacted, wincing as if she'd just twisted his bad arm. "Brewster? The Azkaban guard who fancies blonde chippies in sailor suits? Fuck..."

"Azkaban...?" Snape asked, his face darkening.

Hermione nodded, explaining how she had coerced a press-pass from Fudge and used it to visit Malfoy in Azkaban, detailing how she had to first endure a painfully long-winded conversation with the new head of Azkaban security, Arlan Brewster. As she spoke she felt as if she were re-living a nightmare from childhood, something hazy and vague, bright only in the parts that were painful to look at--the feeling of a Dementor breathing against her neck, making her go weak in the knees...and not the pleasant, romantic sort of knee-weakness, either. Swept over by a sudden undertow of nausea, Hermione absently shouldered up to Snape for support, forgetting it was him until he jerked away, evidently startled.

"Sorry," she muttered, reaching up to massage her head again.

He looked her over with an expression of...annoyance? Concern? She couldn't tell anymore. He raised a single hand to her face, fingers hovering just over the bump on her head. "I sincerely hope you don't have a concussion." His tone was biting, as if she had run into Brewster's fat fist on purpose.

"That makes two of us."

"I don't get it," Ron said, lowering himself to where they were sitting. "Why did Brewster come here? And who's his steroid supplier?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Snape glowered. "He wanted your cauldron." He gestured in the direction of Andy, who had been rescued and placed upon a high shelf, still chittering slightly as if traumatised. Hermione considered this possibility. It was true that Andy was one of a kind in that information about the Ministry could be retrieved secretly from his contents--the cauldrons that the Ministry itself used were warded to prevent any sort of 'hacking', as it were. But Brewster was a Ministry employee, and he probably had a cauldron of his own back at the prison office, so what use would he have for Andy? None...unless he wanted to look something up without the Ministry tracking his cauldron-activities.

"But he works for the Ministry," Ron said doubtfully, as if reading Hermione's mind. "Got a compu-cauldron of his own, I reckon."

Hermione nodded in careful agreement. "Not to mention that he wasn't very subtle with the whole break-in attempt, was he? He's dead now...is nabbing Andy really worth that?" Her voice ended in a high question mark, wavering with uncertainty.

Snape glared at them as if they were imbeciles. "Of course Andy's worth it...to someone. Our friend Brewster was just the messenger--or, more accurately, the pick-up boy. He was clearly acting under someone else's influence...couldn't you tell?"

Ron blinked. "He was?"

"Like Imperius?" Hermione supplied half-heartedly. She was feeling quite dull-headed and slow by this point, but was willing to place the blame on her aching head for the time being.

"Not like Imperius," Snape corrected. "Those under Imperius can still be dissuaded by curses and hexes...and in case you failed to notice, I was unable to stop this man with my wand."

"Sorry," Hermione said, gritting her teeth. "Bit busy with the whole 'fighting to stay conscious' thing to notice a little case of wand inadequacy." The insult came out weak; something about having just killed a man sucked the fun right out of sarcastic banter, it seemed.

Snape pursed his lips in disapproval, but before he could fling back a barb of his own, Ron reached across him and pulled something from Brewster's robe pocket. "Look..." he said, holding out the dead man's wand. "This is what we need to find Malfoy, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded slowly, remembering how Snape had exposed the flaw in her earlier plan to tap into Draco's implanted charm. Looking around the room, she saw that that plan would never work now; in his search and destroy mission for Andy, Brewster had ripped most of the maps right off the wall, and their shredded remains were now littered around the room, damaged beyond the repair of either spellotape or binding charm . The magic in them would never function properly again, and they couldn't afford to wait around for weeks while Fred and George churned out a new map of London.

"The maps are a lost cause," she said. "And we had better get rid of that wand fast."

Snape nodded in agreement. "No doubt Fudge's Aurors will be looking for this Brewster once he's discovered missing."

Ron squirmed. "We need a place to lay low. Not the Burrow..." He looked at Snape, sudden inspiration lighting his face. "You must have a hideout, right? A place where you stash your illegal dark arts doo-dads or hold Death Eater revivals? Why don't we just go there? Live off rats and barrels of wine for a few days..."

"I have no hideout, you ninny," Snape said, though his tone was remarkably calm. Hermione was impressed; that Snape was able to cue into Ron's admittedly strange and ill-timed sense of humour was quite a feat.

"We don't need to lay low," she said, smiling confidently at the pair of them, even though she was close to full-on panic inside, her head pounding painfully against the suddenly too-thin walls of her skull. "I'm going to turn myself in."

Ron looked aghast, protesting at once, but Snape only managed to look thoroughly disgusted--more so than usual, even. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, squinting at her over the crest of his over-large nose.

She shrugged, fighting to remain casual. "We all know that the Ministry will sniff out what's happened here eventually. Waiting will only make things worse."

Snape drew up to his feet and planted his hands on his hips, looking down at her as if she were a particularly bothersome potion that he hadn't properly stirred. "If that's guilt on your face, girl, best get rid of it before I slap it clean off," he said, the threat in his tone undeniable. "You're old enough to know the difference between heroics and plain foolishness, and I don't believe for a second that anyone capable of firing a Muggle pistol is particularly interested in playing the martyr. So do spare us the act, Miss Granger. Even Weasley recognises that our best option is to clean up this mess and be on our way."

Ron, to his credit, looked a bit stunned at being included in Snape's side of the plan, but he did nothing to correct him, either, and instead turned to look staunchly at Hermione, as if to say Yes, what he said!

Hermione bit down hard and tasted coppery blood, all in effort to will her chin to stop quivering. "I'm doing this with or without your approval," she said, marvelling at how flat and unreal her voice sounded to her own ears.

Snape opened his mouth to speak, but Ron shot him a quick glance; something in his face must have given the older man pause, because he stood by silently when Ron leaned in close, speaking low so that only Hermione could hear him.

"Let's pretend it's just you and me here for a second...just you and me, like it's been for the last three years." His voice was close enough to come out as warm breath against the side of her face, smelling of milk and comfort, of all things Ron. "Bugger that," he said, his tone urgent. "You don't get cold feet when the game goes high-stakes."

"Yes, but--"

"We wanted high stakes. Fuck if I'll let you weasel out now."

She smiled wanly. "You're the weasel, not me."

"But that's just it," he insisted, failing to return her smile, his face as grim as his freckles and wide blue eyes would allow. "You're not the weasel. Get it?" He swallowed, then glanced over once more at Brewster's outstretched body, paling visibly when lighting upon it.

Hermione knew what Ron wanted; he wanted rebel-Hermione...the girl with plenty to prove but nothing to lose. He had never cared much for the part of her that enjoyed research and books, nor that side of her that was prone to following rules and respecting authority. Forget how far her common sense had gotten them in the past, right now he needed a pissed off witch with a red-hot trigger finger.

Also...she had to admit that laying herself out to the mercy of Fudge's Aurors wouldn't get them any closer to finding Harry or Draco.

"I get it," she said, her voice stony. "I won't turn myself in. For now, anyway."

"A wise choice," Snape said, having overheard. "Though has it occurred to you that tonight's events might be construed as self defence?"

Hermione gazed up at him; he had been such a formidable fixture in her childhood, with his black cloaks that stunk of pickled frog spawn, his face that seemed so unfortunately built for nothing but scowls and frowns. She was surprised to be looking up at him as an ally, but that was what he was--even Ron seemed to recognise it. She didn't know if she liked Snape, but she was beginning to think she could put her trust in him.

"Self defence? Stupefying, maybe...but a bullet through the head?" She shook her head doubtfully.

"We tried Stupefy to no avail," he reminded, tapping his wand against his wrist as if to illustrate its uselessness. "And there is your bruised head and Weasley's broken arm to account for."

"That's right," Ron chimed in. "Plus I didn't even think the bloke was human. I still say he was a dead ringer for a brain-sucking zombie."

"Enough with the zombies," Snape said, reaching out with his wand to give Ron a smart tap on the side of his head. "Were it a zombie, it certainly would have done us all a favour and sucked your brain first."

"Not so. Hermione's the clever one...it would have gone for her first."

"Perhaps it would have simply seen yours as an hors d'oeuvre and Miss Granger's as the main dish...."

Hermione clapped her hands over her ears and let out a shriek fit for shattering wine goblets. "Shut up or sod off!" she raged. "We have a mess on our hands to clean up...and someone could have heard the gunfire. There's no time to bicker!"

"Right." Snape nodded succinctly and used his wand to set the room into motion. The scattered papers and books that surrounded them began to fly back on to shelves--not quite in their proper places, Hermione noticed, but that could always be fixed later.

"I'm going to head up and set my arm right," Ron said, years of brotherly scuffling having given him a knack for healing charms. "I'll fetch your wand while I'm up there."

She nodded lazily in response, noticing that neither of them seemed to have a brilliant plan for disposing of Arlan Brewster's body. Snape might have some old Death Eater tricks up his sleeve, but he certainly didn't seem eager to offer them up at the moment. As for the body itself, it was looking less and less real to her--it was a waxy mannequin, a forlorn crash-test dummy. It wasn't really Brewster, that socially awkward Ministry worker who had a deep-seeded prejudice against all journalists who carried expensive handbags. She touched the tender spot on her head. That Brewster couldn't have done this...could he?

As if pondering the same question, Ron lingered by the body rather than going upstairs, the early morning sun lighting his hair so that his expression was caught in an unreadable blaze.

"What is it?" she asked, squinting and cocking her head at him. In the back of the room Snape paused in his cleaning, drawing himself up and staring at Ron intently.

"I was just thinking that I feel rather sorry for him now," Ron said, his tone thick with confusion. "But when he busted in here I wanted to kill him--or if not him then myself. He radiated badness. I thought I'd never be clean again."

A dim chiming of bells--great big rusty ones--went off somewhere in the vortex of Hermione's memories. Something about Ron's words was painfully familiar, and she found that the feeling he described was accurate. Brewster had made her feel unclean--like something weak and small and unworthy. She had been sweaty and paralysed by nausea, a mutiny exploding in her gut so that she felt she soon might pass out. Either that or go eye-popping crazy. But she felt fine now, even if her mind did seem stuck on the speed of a squeaky hamster wheel.

"Ron," she began slowly, trying to visualize her thoughts so that she could adequately put them into words. "That feeling you had when Brewster broke down the door...did it remind you of anything?"

He circled the body, seeming deep in thought. "Yes," he finally said. "It reminded me of Professor Lupin."

Snape let out a thin, derisive noise. "How appropriate," he remarked, turning back to a broken shelf that needed mending.

"Professor Lupin?" Hermione shook her head with a frown. And yet... "Like the day we first met him on the train, back in third year?"

"Yes!" An expression best described as Eureka! beamed across Ron's ruddy features.

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and over to him, nearly skidding on loose shards of glass as she did so. "The Dementor! A Dementor came on the Hogwarts Express when we met Professor Lupin. Remember?"

"Say...that's right." He nodded in agreement, but Hermione could see that he hadn't quite caught up to where she was.

Snape, on the other hand, had. "A Dementor," he said, moving over to where they stood, stepping almost delicately around the body. "Yes, the possibility crossed my mind, but how..."

"Wait a second," Ron interrupted. "You're saying Brewster was actually a Dementor?"

"Not quite," Hermione said, her brain finally warming up again, excitement flushing all the way down to the tips of her fingers. "He was clearly still a human being, but magic didn't work on him--just like it doesn't work on a Dementor. A Patronus may have worked on him, but none of us thought to try that, did we?"

"He works in Azkaban with all those Dementors...do ya' think they somehow got to him? Infested his brain to make him do their evil bidding?" Ron looked excited now too, though in a decidedly different way--the way one might look when reading a particularly fast-paced novel or engrossing comic book. Snape, on the other hand, remained grim, his face still solemn and ash-coloured despite the beam of morning sunlight that fell over him.

"Think straight, you two," he hissed, pulling them close as if someone might overhear. "Have Dementors ever had an agenda of their own, other to consume? What interest would they have in one Muggle-born witch's novelty invention." He motioned over his shoulder, gesturing at Andy.

"So the Dementors were acting under someone else's orders, then," Hermione concluded, chin upheld staunchly. "It's not as if they haven't strayed outside Ministry control before."

A sudden shower of broken glass sounded from somewhere behind them. All three of them whirled around to see a small woman kick the remaining glass from their front window, then she stepped through the empty space, a long brown cigarette leaking smoke in one hand, and a pink pussy-fur handbag clutched in the other. It was Nova, the Reflection's lounge singer who had, just a few afternoons prior, regaled both Hermione and Ron with her trademark husky rendition of "The Girl from Ipanema".

"The Dementors?" she asked, her voice like syrup rising through gravel, a most un-nerving sound. "That's Scotland's Football league, isn't it? I'm quite a fan."

"Nova?" Hermione stammered, instinctively clutching at both Ron and Snape. "Ah, what can I help you with?"

The songbird surveyed the destroyed room with passing interest, then finally let out a small, unimpressed grunt, as if to indicate she'd seen far more disorder in her day. "I have a case for you, Helen--someone keeps spray painting obscenities on my front door and I'll be a damned if I'm going to stand for it one second longer. Why, I don't even know what a "ducky sucky" is, let alone how to give one. Though if you're too busy to tuck in..."

"Not at all." Ron suddenly leapt forward, all shine and confidence as he held out his un-injured hand and took Nova's delicate paw into his own, shaking it in a gentlemanly way. "We here at Crookshanks' are always ready to take a case for a friend, no matter how big or small."

"I like you, Richard," Nova said, showing her uneven teeth as she smiled and poked him heartily in the stomach. "You remind me of my fourth husband, the Jewish plumber, God rest his soul..." she trailed off, suddenly noticing Snape, whose expression was that of an animal trapped in a freight train's blinding headlights.

"Who're you?" she asked, her mascara-ed lashes narrowing dramatically. "And who's the dead fellow on the floor?"

"Oh!" Hermione squeaked, looking frantically at Ron. "This is our client, Mister Nightshade," she said, indicating Snape. "The dead man is his...brother. He was shot last night at a brothel and....Mister Nightshade wants us to find out who the killer is. So, yes, we were just about to examine the body, weren't we Richard?"

"Righty," Ron chimed in, smiling winningly. "Unfortunately the vengeful brothel owners tried to torch the office while we slept. That's why it's such a frightful mess in here. Please pardon the dust."

"You don't want to mess with brothels," Nova said solemnly, nodding her approval. "I ought to know. Why don't you get back to me later this afternoon, then?" she suggested, holding out a business card.

"Oh, thank you, but we already know the way to Reflections," Hermione said, politely waving the card away.

"I'm at my second job today, Helen." Nova tucked the card into Hermione's hand, forcing her fingers around it. "Mondays I sing at a joint over on Old Compton Street. Only on Mondays, though, cos they've got a truck-load of young birds wanting to take stage over on that end of town, all thinking they got better chops than me, if you can imagine that."

"Of course," Hermione said distractedly, opening her hand to read the name on the business card. The Pink Bishop, it said, in curly pink letters. An address and phone number were listed in one corner and in the other there was a striking graphic of a chess piece.

"The Pink Bishop," Ron read over Hermione's shoulder, a smile still chiselled on his face. "We'll see you there later then, eh Nova?"

Hermione mimicked his smile, thinking her cheeks might soon split from the pain of such a forced expression, well aware that there was no way in hell they would be visiting Nova at The Pink Bishop today--not now and not ever. They had a body to clean up and a mystery to solve. The Crookshanks' cover was blown.

***

Harry Potter didn't know it, but he often dreamt of Hogwarts. He dreamt in colours brighter than any he'd ever seen in the real world, and the details of the castle were achingly accurate, right down to the fine blades of grass that grew on the Quidditch pitch. In his dream he wasn't a participant, but an observer gazing silently over his eleven year-old self, a full grown man who regarded that small boy as if seeing him from beyond the grave. The boy was happy, eyes wide in the discovery of his new magical world, his days packed full of adventure and new friends. To watch him filled Harry's dream self with bittersweet warmth...a warmth that verged on being too hot, too painful to the touch.

Tonight it was the same dream, the ghost of Harry's subconscious floating inconspicuously over the whole of the great hall, as large as the enchanted ceiling itself, and certainly just as see-through--starlight itself passed right through him, catching on the crystal goblets that students clasped in their hands.

He usually watched the boy-version of himself only, mesmerized by the low murmur of his laugh, tentative as it was, and the way his eyes widened in delight when food magically appeared at the table, as if it were a trick that got better each time he saw it. This time, though, his eyes were on another: a pale snarl of a boy in green-trimmed robes, who was not eating, not talking with his friends, but instead glared at the ceiling, his gaze not passing through Harry but trained directly on him, his eyes cold, grey as flint. Who was that boy? Malfoy... Ferret-face, they'd called him.

Quit hiding up there, Potter. You're not fooling anyone, the Malfoy boy said. But his voice wasn't that of a boy...it was Harry's own voice. The voice he possessed in the present, as a twenty-year old man.

Harry woke up at once.

As usual, he remembered nothing...or not quite. His own words still echoed in his head, and attached to them was the unwavering image of Draco Malfoy's young face, proud and pitiless. Harry sat up in bed, momentarily blinded by late morning sun that filled his bedroom, rumpled sheet clutched in each hand. The whispers of the dream were fading fast...and in its stead, something most unexpected whisked in. A memory. Not the blurry shadow of a memory, but a true, honest-to-goodness, vivid-as-a-photograph memory.

He remembered walking through Diagon Alley for the first time, Hagrid pointing out this and that at his side, his pockets loaded down with galleons and sickles. He had stepped into Madame Malkin's dress shop to purchase his very first set of school robes. There he had met horrible, haughty Draco Malfoy, with his curious way of drawling words out as if they meant nothing to him. Harry had disliked him at once, but had at the same time been curiously satisfied to have met him. The feeling was a bit like being a scientist who had discovered a killer plague; the discovery itself wasn't fun, but there was still comfort in gaining new knowledge, a better understanding of the world and its dangers. In the case of Malfoy, Harry had been relieved to discover that there were actually boys in the world who were more unpleasant than Dudley Dursley. It had given him a strange, warped optimism that his childhood maybe hadn't been the most doomed beginning a boy could experience. He had thought there was maybe hope for him after all.

Before Harry could explore the corners of the memory further, a much more recent one pushed through the groggy haze, heated and wine stained. His alcohol-and-pill hangover was not thick enough to obscure the image that now hung in the forefront of his mind: himself jerking off Draco Malfoy in the front room of his flat, nothing more than hand-to-dick contact despite the fact that only a dozen or so centimetres separated them from each other. All he had wanted was for Malfoy to fucking shut up for a goddamn second, but for some reason he'd found it downright impossible to simply ask him to turn off the motor-mouth, so he'd cut off the verbosity in the only way he knew how.

Harry let his feet hit the floor, which was chilly despite the sun flooding the room. Rubbing at his eyes sleepily, it occurred to him that it probably wasn't quite normal to solve day-to-day problems with random handjobs. But if there was one thing he'd learned in the last three years, it was that nearly anything could be accomplished if you knew the right wank to yank; in his experience the world wasn't an oyster, it was a burgeoning hard-on.

But Malfoy came from a world other than the one Harry now occupied--the real world, as Malfoy himself had called it--one where you had to mind a different kind of wand if you wanted to get ahead. The utter shock on Malfoy's face had been enough to allow Harry a glimpse of the vast crevasse that existed between them, Harry cold and numb on one side, Malfoy sweaty and grasping for foothold on the other. Odd that a moment of closeness could be so alienating. In that brief cluster of minutes Harry had felt more alone that he would have felt had he been utterly by himself, so he had thrust Malfoy out into the hallway by force, leaving him with only a blanket for company.

More than he deserved...

Harry partially winced at the thought--mostly because it occurred to him that Malfoy was probably still out in the hallway, and that he'd had at least a good five or six hours to work himself into a frenzy over last night's events.

Pulling himself upright, Harry padded somewhat clumsily over to the bureau and fished a cigarette from his half-empty pack of stale Rothmans. He clamped the filter between his teeth but didn't light it, instead yanking open a drawer and feeling through the sea of loose change and mis-matched socks for his glasses. He wore corrective contact lenses almost seventy-five percent of the time now, but still found that he preferred glasses first thing in the morning, when his eyes were dry and itchy from the dusty air of his flat. He settled the oval wire-rims onto the bridge of his nose and left the bedroom, yanking up his boxers as he moseyed his way to the front door. Half of him hoped that Malfoy would have crept away quietly in the night, tail between his legs, but the other half rallied for him to have stayed put; if he was gone, that would only mean that Harry would have to spend all afternoon looking for him, making sure he wasn't dead and stuffed into a rubbish bin somewhere.

Harry took a deep breath of resolve and pulled open the door. Malfoy was sprawled out in front of it, his tee-shirt twisted around his torso, the blanket tangled up in the cockeyed splay of his legs. If it weren't for the way his lips were puffed out with thick, raspy snores, he might have looked very well like a dead body lying there. Someone, an overly considerate stranger, had tucked a ten pound-note into the waistband of Malfoy's pyjama trousers. Harry hastily snatched it up, figuring that after last night, Malfoy was liable to read a little too deeply into the placement of anything near the vicinity of his lap region--even if it was something as useful as money.

Harry toed his bare foot into Malfoy's side until he grunted once and then sat up straight, blinking at Harry as if he were a distant mirage. Malfoy's hair stuck up from the crown of his head like wild chicken feathers, a sight which caused Harry to self-consciously reach up and pat his own hair into place.

"I'm dreaming," Malfoy said, his voice clear and alert, but his eyes glazed over and looked at Harry without really seeing him.

"Don't I wish," Harry said, removing the cigarette from his lips and tucking it behind his ear. With those words he felt his first genuine pang of pity for Malfoy. He was desperate, he was a lousy shit, but he was also knee-deep in a waking nightmare. If only his nightmare would stop washing over into Harry's own....

"Is it morning then?" Malfoy balled his hands into fists and wiped at his eyes, looking quite like a very small child who had just been drowsed out of a nap.

"Nearly afternoon."

Malfoy lowered his hands and blinked repeatedly, suddenly aware of the fact that he was sitting on the grimy floor just outside Harry's flat. "You kicked me out," he said, his lower lip curling over in a way that closely resembled a pout.

"I'll make coffee," Harry muttered. He pulled the door wide open in a welcoming way, then turned his back on Malfoy and walked towards the kitchen area, his stomach in knots as he did so.

It was no good. But he had nothing to feel guilty about. What was he supposed to have done? Why was Malfoy the only person in the world who didn't know when to shut his mouth? He wasn't sorry.

"You like coffee, I hope?" Harry instinctively cringed at the earnest tone of his voice.

"Only if you've lots of milk and sugar." Malfoy had wandered back into the flat, the blanket still drawn around his shoulders.

"Plenty." Harry removed a small box of sugar cubes from a drawer; yet another difference between them--Harry took his coffee strong and inky black, the more bitter the better. It didn't take long for the coffee to brew, and Harry kept his back to Malfoy while it finished up, his glasses fogging over from the warm steam that rose up from the small, four-cup coffee-maker. He filled two chipped mugs up with the rich liquid, adding several sugar cubes and a splash of milk to one of them.

"Here." He handed the sugared coffee over to Malfoy, who was sitting at a chair that had been pulled up to the rickety tea table.

"Thanks," Draco said. As he reached for the mug the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders slid partway to the floor. Along with it, Harry glimpsed something fall to the ground.

Not saying a word, Harry put his own mug on the tea table and bent over, plucking up the object that had fallen by Malfoy's foot. It was a bright red feather. He held it up to the light, noticing that the vein of the feather was pure gold, and that the barbules were tipped in the same colour.

"This came from a Phoenix," he finally said, laying it on the table.

"Where'd you get it?" Draco asked, concentrating on his steaming drink.

"From you. It fell from your blanket just now." Harry used a fingertip to slide the feather towards him.

"This is your blanket. It's an acrylic blend."

Harry thought Malfoy looked amazingly calm, puffing up his lips to blow on his coffee before taking a tentative sip; then again, he had no way of knowing that Phoenix feathers didn't just show up in poverty-level Muggle flats. Harry remembered enough to know that only the wealthiest of wizards could afford to purchase Phoenixfeathers, seeing how most of them were culled solely for wand-making.

"The feather isn't mine," Harry said, picking it up and twirling it between his fingers. "I haven't seen one of these since I last saw Fawkes."

Fawkes. He was looking at me--eyes glassy with tears? Or were they my tears? I was crying...I was--

Harry shuddered and gulped back half of his coffee, relishing the way it ripped down his throat and brought a flood of sharp, comforting pain into his sinuses.

"Fawkes?" Draco stopped fiddling with his own coffee and finally looked closely at the feather. "Hey. Somae has one of those."

"Somae? Who's that?"

"My fiancée. Remember?" He narrowed his eyes, saying the word 'fiancée' as if it implied something unpleasant, like 'my executioner', or 'my accountant'. It occurred to Harry that Malfoy might finally be remembering last night's discussion of his fiancée, and the sticky conclusion it had inevitably led to. Harry closed his eyes tight and slugged back the rest of his coffee, urging his mind to cook up a rational explanation for what had happened. Malfoy was bound to let loose his accusations any minute now...

"She was wearing hers when they tossed me out of Azkaban...pinned up in her hair." Draco fingered the feather, his expression an odd mixture of pain and nostalgia; though in Harry's experience the two emotions were never particularly far apart.

"Wait, she was there when they pulled you out of Azkaban?" Harry shook his head, a slight feeling of incredulity coming over him, tingling down to the very pads of his fingertips. "Why would they need her there to send you into exile?"

"I haven't the slightest," Malfoy said, shrugging. "At the time I thought she was in on it somehow...was right pissed off about it, too."

"Did she say anything to you?"

Malfoy looked up and a bar of sunlight fell across his face, obscuring his features. "Yeah. She said she was sorry."

Harry felt the incredulity amplify, sending the hairs on his body upright, like tiny antennae.

"But what was she sorry about?"

Malfoy appeared deep in thought, which was a strange thing to witness--mostly because it was clear that this Somae, whoever she was, was indeed someone he cared for. Harry could see this by his vaguely pained expression. It was the vagueness that struck Harry; it was as if Malfoy wasn't exactly crystal clear on his own feelings towards his fiancée. That was more than a bit odd, wasn't it?

"I don't know," Malfoy finally said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, as if he might be withholding something.

"She didn't say anything else?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very. And since when are you so curious about my life anyway, Potter?" Draco retorted, seeming more tired than genuinely annoyed. "Last night you went to all lengths to cut off conversation, as I recall."

"Because why would someone wear an expensive, rare Phoenixfeather just to pay one last visit to her fiancé while he's stuck in the clink? And not even a conjugal visit, at that. Why would she be there at all? And how did this feather get tangled up in your blankets last night?" Harry tilted the feather this way and that, liking how it glowed, ember red, in the sunlight.

Wheels clicked behind Malfoy's eyes. "What are you saying?"

Harry pulled the ten-pound note from the pocket of his tee-shirt and passed it over to Malfoy. "I found that tenner on you this morning. Thought a charitable sort had left it there so you could treat yourself to a decent meal, but now I'm not so sure. Finding a tenner and a Phoenixfeather on the same morning is just a bit too lucky to be believed, don't you think?"

"Wait..." Malfoy studied the feather and the money, eyes shifting from one to the other as the pieces came together. "You think Somae left these things for me to find?"

Harry shrugged. "It seems plausible, really. If she was there when they pulled you out of Azkaban, she would have been present to witness the implantation."

"So?"

"So the implant charm supposedly cut you off from the wizarding world, right? But if she was present for the implantation, I imagine it would be fairly easy for her to use a similar incantation and create a counter-charm to find you." Harry was growing increasingly astounded by his own words. He hadn't thought about how to create a proper charm in years, but now it was all coming back to him, the subtle variations of spell casting, the minute differences between a charm and a spell and a hex.

Even while Harry's own excitement was being stirred by this turn of events, Malfoy seemed almost dazzlingly unsurprised at the news that his fiancée could be nearby, seeking him out at this very moment. "No one told me implant charms hurt, you know," he remarked off-handedly, grimacing slightly. "Makes me rather glad I never had a chance to take the Dark Mark--an implant that strong is bound to pinch more than a bee sting."

"You..." Harry broke off, his eyes catching sight of Malfoy's bare arms. "You never took the Dark Mark. I just now noticed. . .wow, we--I--always figured you would."

Malfoy raised his chin slightly. "I would have," he said, and Harry saw something like defiance--maybe even a twisted sort of strength--flash in his eyes, making him at that moment the petulant child that had intoned judgment on Harry time and time again: You've picked the losing side, Potter. . .

Harry rubbed his own arm instinctively. "Why didn't you?"

"You don't just take the mark whenever you get the whim to, Potter. It's a sacred Father-Son ceremony that has been going on for over a thousand years, but occurs only once per decade, at the close of the tenth passing year." Malfoy sounded vaguely as if he were reading from an instructional pamphlet. Dark Rituals in a Pinch, perhaps.

"So you would've taken the mark if you hadn't been imprisoned in Azkaban. Is that what you're saying?"

"I would have done a lot of stuff if I hadn't been imprisoned, like get my hair cut, for instance. Azkaban changed everything," Malfoy said, looking more and more as if he would rather be talking about something else. "Not that I expect you to understand. . .it's complicated."

Harry stared. "Try me."

Draco turned his palms up in a gesture of helplessness. "Taking the mark isn't the big deal you're making it out to be, Potter. I know you associate it with--what's the thing, that nazi swas-ta-ma-ka?--but if you're me, you just grow up knowing that someday it's going to happen, like losing your baby teeth or developing chest hair. It's just nature's course."

Harry felt his eyes widen involuntarily. After all that he'd seen, after all that he himself had done, it appeared that Malfoy still had the uncanny ability to make his jaw drop. "But it's not nature's course. It's Father-Son you said, didn't you? Then it's your father's course, not nature's."

As if an internal switch had been activated, Malfoy's nonchalant tone suddenly disappeared. A patch of red burned beneath each eye and he scooted his chair out with an audible squeak. "Leave my father out of it," he said, his tone hard.

Harry smirked, unmoved by the suggestion of Malfoy's rising temper. "Every time I wanted to change the subject last night, you wouldn't let me--not until I took things into my own hands at least. Tables are turned now, aren't they?" He didn't bother masking the flat joy in his tone, though somewhere, a tiny part of him was alarmed at how much he was beginning to take pleasure in hurting Draco Malfoy. What was this? His inner-thirteen-year-old's last attempt at revenge? Or was this who he was--what he had become these last three years away from Hogwarts--a cold, unyielding man? Perhaps that was it, and he was only fully realising it now that his memories of boyhood were finally surfacing.

Malfoy glared at him for several seconds, his expression a muted mixture of fury and desperation. "It's no good bringing him up anyway," he finally spat out. "He's dead."

Harry drew back in surprise, a million and one scenarios flashing through his head at once. Deep in the whorls of his spongy memory he recalled that Lucius had been hated and feared by many. Any number of individuals could have done him in--then again, a faulty flying carpet could have done the same. "What happened?" he asked, poking at the bridge of his glasses.

Malfoy looked at him carefully before answering, doubt swimming in his eyes. "Someone murdered him," he said, voice curiously flat for someone describing the death of a loved one. "Though I suppose someone like you would call it justice."

The lingering coffee aftertaste seemed to suddenly burn at the back of Harry's throat. "I'm sorry," he said simply, not sure where to look except for at Malfoy himself. He didn't know if he really was sorry, though. In their far and few between meetings--a number of which he foggily suspected as having involved bodily harm--Lucius Malofy had not struck Harry as Father of the Year, and having just learned of this "nature's course" way of the Death Eaters, Harry wondered if Malfoy wasn't in the long run better off without his father's influence.

But Harry himself had not been better off without a father's influence. Not at all. Funny, he could scarcely remember what his father had looked like in those few photographs he had possessed; even when he shaved in front of the mirror, somehow intuitively aware that he resembled that young man that had married Lily Evans, the specific details of his father's face were now refusing to work themselves up from the coils of his unconscious. He knew they looked alike, but he no longer knew how.

"How did it happen?" he asked, wondering if he'd get an actual answer.

He was right to wonder. Malfoy did not speak, but instead rolled his eyes from side to side, as if suddenly realising that the room was a cage, and his fists tightened around the rim of the table: grimy nails digging at polished wood. There was something in that posture that gave Harry pause. Malfoy had been so cocky the night before, so very much the demanding, spoilt self that Harry remembered--so much so that he bore little resemblance to anyone who had spent a good amount of time in the hive of Dementors known as Azkaban. But that was different now. . .that wild look in his eyes--it reminded Harry of someone. . . Sirius? Hagrid?

"Malfoy..." Harry spoke foolishly, before he could stop himself. "What did you do?"

And then it was as if a single wire snapped somewhere inside Malfoy's body, reducing him to pieces.

"Fuck you!" He shot his chair out from the table, standing up with such force that it toppled over. His voice warbled on the edge of watery tears. "Fuck you!" he repeated, his mouth still working convulsively though no more words came out. He stormed for the door, barefoot and without a jacket, the Phoenixfeather still clutched in his hand.

"Stop!"

Harry's body had a hard time catching up with the word. Malfoy shot out the front door and Harry gave chase, feeling impossibly slow and clumsy; it had been a long time since the pulse of strong emotion had propelled him in any direction, and he had to fight hard to keep up.

"Malfoy..." Harry reached for his shoulder and missed; He was already pounding down the stairwell, each step like an angry canon blast. Harry stumbled and almost fell into the stairwell after him, his glasses knocked askew on his face. The noise he made grappling for the railing must have briefly penetrated Malfoy's fury, though, because he suddenly stopped at the landing and did an about-face.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, breathless, eyes uncharacteristically dark in the midst of his wan face. "Last night..." he paused, frowning. "You wanted me gone. Why help me now, then, after what's been done?"

And after what you did... The accusation hung between them, unsaid.

Harry didn't know what to say. He inched down the steps instead, certain that at any moment Malfoy might bolt like a jackrabbit. A bright streamer of sunlight was coming up from the next floor down, bleaching out Draco's face to the point where it was almost hard for Harry to look at him. It struck Harry at that moment how very little he typically ventured out in daylight. Oh sure, he might trot across the street to pick up coffee or cigarettes, but for the most part he didn't truly live his life until the sun went down.

Quit hiding up there, Potter...

It was the first dream he had remembered in a long time. He wondered if it meant something.

The bright crimson of the Phoenixfeather, still clutched--getting crushed, no doubt--in Malfoy's fist, caught Harry's eye. He reached out slowly and fingered the tuft of it; it felt magically warm, as if the flambé nature of the creature ws somehow still alive in the feather.

"I don't know," he said.

It wasn't much of an answer, but it seemed to be more than Malfoy was expecting. The constricted look on his face relaxed by a few degrees, and he adjusted his grip so that the feather was pinched just lightly between the tips of his fingers, slowly passing it over to Harry.

"If it is Somae's, why did she leave it here? Why didn't she just wake me up and take me back home?" His voice was filled with disbelief rather than hurt, but Harry suspected that hurt was brewing in him somewhere. If Draco could love someone--and it appeared that he could; his father, at least, and this fiancée, whoever she was--then he could be hurt. That was the way the world worked: love opened you up to all sorts of unpleasantries, whether it be the age-old gonorrhea or other, less visible disease.

"Maybe she didn't leave it here," Harry suggested, his tone careful. "Someone else could have left it here, hoping you would think it was from her."

"Oh." Malfoys's face twisted into a snarl--his version of looking crestfallen, Harry supposed.

"But it doesn't matter," Harry added hurriedly. "Either way, it's a sign that somebody is looking for you.

Malfoy shrugged. "They obviously found me. So what now?"

"We find them. We find them first."

It must have been the word We. Whatever it was, Malfoy was now gazing at Harry in shock, clearly halfway to admiration, though he was trying to fight it by deepening his scowl. Harry ignored it and turned to climb up the stairs, fairly certain that Malfoy would follow.

"Potter..."

Harry paused at the top of the stairwell. "Malfoy?" he mimicked.

"I get to carry the feather."

***

"Not to be rude, but one of you--possibly both of you--has a rather severe case of bad breath."

"I do believe we have Mr. Weasley's meal to thank for that."

"Is that your way of admitting that you're the one with the rot-mouth, Snape?"

"Hardly."

"Are you sure it's not you, Ron? I always have to remind you to brush your teeth..."

"Oh Christ. Why do I always get the feeling that if you weren't a witch, you'd be a dentist?"

"Quit talking into my ear like that, Ron. Every time you move your mouth stubble chafes the side of my face. And besides, what's wrong with being a dentist?"

The downstairs had been put back in order, with the exception of Brewster's body, which now lay draped with Harry's old invisibility cloak--given to Ron on the day that he had left Hogwarts. The three were now sitting side by side, lined up like sardines on a small sofa that faced the upstairs fireplace, patiently waiting for Dumbledore to appear in the fire. A cheerful house elf had answered their call, jotting off at once to fetch the Headmaster, but several minutes had already passed, leaving the three cramped and sweaty in the tight confines of their seat.

"What if he's died?" Ron suddenly intoned, poking an elbow into Hermione's ribs for emphasis.

"What, just now?"

"Yes! It would be very. . .whatsitcalled...dramatic irony?"

"Incorrect. Dramatic irony is when readers or an audience know something important that the characters do not. I believe that the word you're grappling for is bad timing."

"That's two words, Snape. I'm just saying."

"I can count, Miss Granger."

"And I'm still alive, Severus. Though I thank you for your concern."

Dumbledore's well-worn face had finally appeared in the fire, smiling genially in that way that tended to mask any semblance of genuine emotion. It had always been a comfort to Hermione when she was younger; to see that smile meant that everything would be all right, despite the terrible odds. Now that she was older, though, she found it vaguely irritating. It made her feel terribly human by comparison, merciless to the pull and tug of her own unpredictable moods.

"Hello Headmaster," Snape said curtly, voice more brittle than styrofoam.

"Yes, Hello Headmaster," Hermione repeated, feeling like a parrot.

"Hi," said Ron.

There was a long pause.

"It was you who called me, children," Dumbledore gently reminded.

Hermione could actually feel Snape bristle at the word "children".

"Miss Granger has something to tell you, Sir," he said, his voice strained.

"Is that right, Hermione?" Dumbledore squinted in her direction. "Go ahead then, child."

"Something happened last night, Sir," she began. "Well, this morning, really...there was a break-in, you see, and a man--though he seemed inhuman at the time--he...well, he went after Andy..."

"Goodness!" Dumbledore looked properly horrified.

"I killed him," she finished.

There was silence. The Headmaster rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then finally shifted his eyes towards Snape. "Severus?" he asked.

Snape spoke at once, as if somehow intuitively aware of what Dumbledore wanted to hear. "It's true he did not appear human; no spells had any effect on the man at all. Miss Granger shot the man in a moment of desperation. Unfortunately, we now know that the man was a Ministry employee. Arlan Brewster, to be exact."

"The Azkaban guard?"

The three nodded simultaneously.

"Ah, well, so it's come to this, has it?"

This time, only Snape nodded.

"Come to what?" Ron blurted out, not bothering to mask his confusion. Hermione leaned dumbly against him, equally confused.

"The latest Dementor activity has been cause for concern amongst those of us who have been in the know. Their recent migrations from the prison suggest that they've stopped toying with the Ministry and have officially joined with Voldemort, certainly in exchange for a share of his power."

"What kind of power?" Hermione asked, feeling her throat dry up ever-so slightly.

"More power over humans, I imagine. Humans are, in fact, what the Dementors feed on. Spiritually speaking. But they rarely get the sort of full access to us that they desire."

"Meaning they don't get to make-out with us nearly so often as they'd fancy," Ron scoffed, though Hermione could feel a shudder run through him.

"In a manner of speaking, Mister Weasley," Dumbledore said, looking as if he were struggling to contain his amusement.

"What the Headmaster says confirms our suspicions," Snape said, his tone an acidic reminder of the severity of their situation. "The Dark Lord has amplified the Dementors' powers so that they can now somehow 'infect' humans. The Arlan Brewster we saw last night was not really Brewster, but a Dementor's puppet, the Dementor itself being a puppet of Voldemort's."

Hermione caught her breath. "Does that mean..."

"He was as good as dead, my dear," Dumbledore said gently, his face very grave.

Hermione waited for relief to wash over her, but got little more than the faintest spray. Accident or not, a man was dead who shouldn't have been, in part because of her. She nodded numbly only because she knew that Ron and Snape were waiting for her to do so.

"The Ministry will no doubt be sending Aurors here before nightfall. Even if they are aware of the Dementor's new allegiance with Voldemort, they'll be looking for someone to blame for Brewster's death."

"That's right," Hermione chimed in, noting that it felt decidedly weird to be Snape's partner in giving Dumbledore the scoop. "Both the flat and the agency are under the names of Richard and Helen, so it's possible that they may find Brewster's body and dismiss him as the victim of a muggle crime. But if they do know about the Dementors, then they're bound to investigate further and find out what Ron and I have been doing here."

"Hmm, yes," Dumbledore murmured, concern deepening the wrinkles in his face. "Are Bill and Fleur still living near Dover, Ron?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps it would be best if you three lay low there for the time being? Just until we know how the Ministry classifies Brewster's death..."

"That would be fine," Ron said, though his tone was somewhat morose. To everyone's great surprise, Bill and Fleur had followed in the Weasley's footsteps and already had three very small children, with a fourth on the way.

"I'm afraid there's not much more that can be done for you three at this point," Dumbledore said apologetically. "But do keep a close eye on that cauldron of yours, Hermione. It appears that Voldemort has taken a rather dangerous interest in it."

Hermione nodded agreeably, though the idea of Voldemort poking around in Andy left her physically ill. Andy was more or less an open window into all the Ministry's intelligence, and would leave Voldemort free to plunder into heaps of top-secret information, guaranteeing he would always be one step ahead of the good guys--if the Ministry could ever be called 'good'. Not that Voldemort wasn't one or more steps ahead right now--no one even knew where he was, after all.

After bidding farewell to the Headmaster, Hermione and Ron retreated to their bedrooms to pack, leaving Snape alone in the living room where he had slept the night before. Hermione took a longer time than usual getting dressed, even though she knew she should be hurrying, stuffing garments into a duffle bag at random--as Ron himself was no doubt doing. Staring into her wardrobe, Hermione realized that she had a great wad of clothing that did not belong to her: sailor suits, vampy club clothes, skin-tight leather miniskirts. . .it was like a little girl's dress up trunk, lacking only in a fake tiara (though she had a feeling there might be one under the bed). Somewhere deep in the back of the wardrobe were her real clothes: sensible skirts and jumpers, most of them many years old and now too tight to wear comfortably. Rummaging, she managed to fetch a pair of worn corduroy trousers off a bent hanger and held them out before her, considering.

She couldn't quite bring herself to pull them on, though, and instead folded them neatly into her bag, quickly heaping an armful of brightly coloured dresses over them. She then cleared off her bureau of assorted odds and ends until only one thing remained: the Ladysmith pistol, somehow looking more dainty and innocuous than she remembered. Picking it up told a different story, however; it had heft to it, enough weight to remind her that it was chock-full of bullets--minus two now. She secured the safety and contemplated throwing it out the window, though with her luck it was bound to hit some pedestrian who would later die of a massive, gun-shaped head wound.

By the time she finally dragged her bag into the living room, Snape had long tidied up his few possessions and was laying back in the sofa with his eyes closed, looking like a man who hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours--which, she realized, was probably the case. She dropped her bag with a thump on the hardwood floor; they could catch up on shut-eye later.

Snape sat up with a start, his expression of annoyance slowly transforming into curiosity when she stomped across the room and snatched her blonde wig off the pink, goose-neck lamp. Wadding it up in her hands, she zipped around the corner into the bathroom and, without ceremony, dropped it into the toilet bowl and flushed.

The blonde hair, now wet and resembling a drowned animal, swirled round and round in the water, finally catching at the mouth of the bowl where it stuck and refused to enter the pipes any further. Hermione reached around and turned the faucet at the back of the toilet, squelching the fast-rising water before it could overflow onto the tiles.

"So long, pussycat," she muttered, letting the toilet seat fall with a bang. She felt slightly refreshed, as if she had just flushed away a part of her that had turned festering and raw overnight. And it was easier to part with than the gun, which was once again strapped in a holster around her thigh, safely hidden under the silky fall of a short kimono dress that, when paired with the black bobbed wig she was wearing, made her resemble a cocktail waitress straight out of Chinatown.

"You've destroyed the plumbing, you know," Snape drawled from behind her. He was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

"We won't be here to use it anyway," Hermione countered, self-consciously arranging the folds of her dress. She felt as if she were fast-developing a case of claustrophobia; it was odd to be in a small room alone with Snape, all while bright overhead lights revealed the distressingly deep crease in his forehead as he pinned her with one of his more brutal glares.

"Is flushing that silly hair your attempt at penance?"

She couldn't be sure, but she thought there was a hint--just the barest smidge--of amusement in his voice. Unfortunately, his amusement was anything but contagious.

"Did you kill Mudbloods?" she asked in a rush, catching even herself off guard. It felt as if her heart were trying to shimmy up her throat. "Did you rape them? Put Crucio on them and force them to do your bidding? Because I saw the look on your face when I shot Brewster, and I wouldn't exactly call it shock."

Snape studied her without blinking, reminding her oddly of a lizard--or a snake, maybe. He was Slytherin, after all.

"I did not kill any Mudbloods," he said. "I did murder a wizarding couple. Supporters of the first Muggle Protection Act as established in 1978 by Millicent Bagnold, the Minister of Magic at the time."

He paused and the small room was filled with the sound of their shallow breathing.

"Who were they?" Hermione asked, voice barely higher than a whisper.

"Edgar and Ulla Bones."

"Susan Bones's grandparents?" Even before he nodded, Hermione knew that it could only be them; the highly memorialized grandparents of a slight Hufflepuff girl who had been born after their deaths, who must have read about the tragedy in scrapbook cuttings from the Daily Prophet.

"Edgar Bones was in the Order. . .and Susan, she was your student. . .how could you look at her day after day--criticizing her potions, no doubt--after. . .you really killed them?

"I was responsible for their murders," he said carefully. "Which isn't technically the same as killing them, in this case."

Hermione stepped back, bumping her tailbone up against the ledge of the sink. She was growing more and more disturbed by the distinct lack of emotion on Snape's face; certainly, he wasn't the type of man to drop to his knees and wail while engaged in confession, but he was so blank. . . almost forcefully so.

Not that being forcefully blank makes any sense; then again, nothing makes sense at this point, does it?

He continued without being asked to do so, though she suspected he was providing her with a minimum of details--perhaps for her sake rather than his own. "It was December of 1980, and I had been freshly marked as a Death Eater, eager to prove myself as capable and willing. When I was asked to threaten an older wizarding couple into withdrawing from the campaign to increase protection for Muggles, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew nothing of the Order then--nobody did--not that such knowledge could have dissuaded me on that evening. Only minutes after I arrived at the Bones' house, I had them writhing in the grips of Crucio. Over-zealous and high on power, I concentrated the curse upon them for far too long. By the time I came to my senses, they were in a state that would assure a life-long confinement to Saint Mungos."

"But they died, instead?"

"Not just then," he said quietly. "Only the most powerful and trusted of Death Eaters were able to perform unforgivable curses, as it took a generous dose of Voldemort's magic to ensure that they themselves weren't caught and thrown in Azkaban for all the Unforgivables they had cast during the Dark Lord's height of power. I had not yet earned such protection. After twenty years of allegiance to the Death Eaters, my father, however, had. He followed and witnessed my foolish activities, then, realizing what I had done, stepped in and finished the Bones couple off. It was an act of mercy, at that point, and very likely rescued me from a deserved life sentence in Azkaban."

"Your own father?" Hermione failed to hold in her gasp.

"The Father-Son relationships of Death Eaters have a long history of strain--it comes naturally with the burden of passing on such grim family business. But now you see that while I did not kill the Bones, it was still I who insured their deaths."

In a dim part of her brain, Hermione was protesting. Yes, they both had to accept responsibility for the crimes they had committed, but there was another figure working magic in the background--and not the happy, Disney kind of magic, either. It was Voldemort, as always, bringing out the worst even in good people.

Snape, good?

True, she had stood up for him time and again, back when she believed that a teacher could never do wrong. And when he was revealed as a double agent she had been somewhat gratified to discover once and for all that he was one of "theirs". . .but still, the undeniable fact that he had been a Death Eater, and of his own volition, had never sat right with her. Because the Death Eaters hated her kind; to them she was the infestation running through their blood--like the AIDS of the wizarding world.

It made her wonder why he had told her his story in the first place. To let her glimpse his jealously guarded past? To make her feel better about having killed a man?

Then again, she was the one who asked him if he had ever killed anyone. Not too bright, that.

And she was about to ask another string of questions she might regret--did he hate Muggles? was he was repulsed by her?--but Ron chose at that moment to thunder his way into the bathroom; she didn't know whether to kiss him or kick him for his decidedly poor timing.

"What are you two doing, hanging out over the toilet? It's time to check out, mates." He did an about-face and thundered back out; several rooms away, Hermione could hear him rummage through a closet, no doubt double-checking that he hadn't left any important Quidditch memorabilia behind.

"Do you. . ." she began, then stopped and swallowed, unable to finish the question.

He looked at her with something like mild concern, then reached out and touched her wrist, just lightly, on the fleshy underside where her watch-band had left reddish indentations.

"I know we had an agreement in which I would be the one to wear this remarkable apparatus," he said, tapping the watch-face twice. "But I think it would be best if you keep him near you for the time being. I wouldn't want to come between you." He almost smiled then, but got stuck somewhere on 'very sardonic grimace'.

The problem was that he had already come between them: between herself and Ron; between her desire to foil Voldemort's plans and track down Harry once and for all; and, more immediately, between a chilly washbasin and the bathroom door. It was a small distance, but it was enough to make a difference.