Without Wand or Wire

"YEAH!!"

Hermione sighed at Ron's whoop of victory. How was it that he had learned to play so quickly? She had thought he would be the only person she would be able to beat! "Honestly," she mused aloud, with more than a little disdain, "I think boys must be born with a gene for playing video games."

Ron popped a crisp in his mouth and spoke around it as he reset the game. "You're just sore because there's finally something besides chess that I can beat you at!" He smirked at her.

She smiled in spite of herself. She might have been annoyed that she couldn't even beat someone who'd never even seen a videogame before this afternoon, but Ron had said just the right thing to make her feel all right about it. And the best thing about it was that he hadn't even been trying to placate her, she was sure! If anything, he was just being his usual, charmingly thoughtless self, and really was only pleased to finally be better than her for a change. There was something comforting in knowing that he wasn't trying to flatter her; he was just stating the facts. She could rely on him to always be honest with her.

So she played again, and again, suffering humiliation after humiliation, and actually rather enjoying it. What were friends for? She never lasted more than a couple of games with her cousin Ewan, whose system it was -- he was letting her borrow it, just so she could show Ron - before boredom set in, and yet here she and Ron had been playing all afternoon!

Of course, when her mother said it was time for dinner, she was rather relieved. Ron was dancing on the edge of videogame addiction, something every male Muggle adolescent she knew of seemed to be afflicted with. Her other cousin, Sadie, had warned her that many a happy couple had broken up when the boy started finding the games more interesting than the girl. Not that she and Ron were a couple or anything! She just thought that spending their summer afternoons playing video games was bound to get old eventually, and she didn't fancy having to compete with a fancy bit of electronics for her friend's attention. Really. This had been a nice afternoon, but she was definitely going to give Ewan his system back ASAP. Hell, if she didn't, he'd probably come looking for it. …

"We should bring Harry over to play!" Ron suggested enthusiastically as they settled at the table.

"Uh, well, I think Harry's already played it, his cousin has all the systems, I think. …"

"Pfeh, like Dudley would ever share anything with Harry!"

"No, no, I distinctly remember Harry saying he'd beaten the high score on that game," Hermione insisted firmly.

"Oh. …" Ron's enthusiasm was definitely curbed. Harry might be his best mate, but it sometimes grated on Ron that the other boy always seemed to be better at everything.

Great, Hermione, prey on his weaknesses. …

"So, Ron, Hermione tells us you've joined the school … what is it you call it? Squid's Itch team?" Mr. Granger asked, oblivious to any nuances in his daughter's conversation with her friend.

"Uh, Quidditch, yeah, I'm the Keeper. It's sorta like your football goalie." Dean Thomas had explained the Muggle sport to him.

"Not only that, but he's a prefect, dear," Mrs. Granger chimed in, beaming at Ron.

Hermione smiled at her plate as she saw Ron's ears glow red, the tell-tale Weasley sign of embarrassment.

"Oh! Just like our Hermione!" Mr. Granger practically crowed. "And have you any plans yet for when you're out of school, Ron?"

"Well …" he looked at Hermione, as if to gauge her reaction, "I thought I might become an Auror." The look he had on his face was almost a challenge.

Oh, Ron, you don't really think you could be an Auror now, do you? It wasn't that he had done poorly, per se -- not by a long shot. He'd gotten eight O.W.L.S.: his DADA had been an Outstanding, which came as no surprise, as had his Care of Magical Creatures; he'd gotten Exceeds Expectations in Transfigurations, Charms (despite his mistake in the Practical part of the examination), and, shockingly, Potions (probably because of the Polyjuice potion question); he'd received Acceptables in Astronomy, Herbology, and History of Magic; and while he'd gotten a Dreadful in Divination, which meant he'd failed that O.W.L, they didn't figure that one mattered too much anyway. But to become an Auror required getting an E-level N.E.W.T in Potions -- and Snape required an Outstanding O.W.L. in Potions to just to qualify for his N.E.W.T.-level class. For Ron to have come so close, just to be turned away from his dream now, especially since one could place at least part of the blame on Snape's poor teaching skills …

"An Auror, what's that?" her father asked.

Thankful to not have to respond directly to Ron, she replied, "It's a sort of police detective among wizards."

"Hang on, I think I remember you mentioning something like that. Isn't that what you were thinking of doing, Hermione? It would be nice if you two could work together, 'ey?" If her father had winked, she would have crawled under the table.

"Eh, one of the things I was thinking of, yes, but not the only," she said, diplomatically. Maybe if she didn't seem all that keen on being an Auror -- which had really been the imposter Moody's idea, not hers (although it didn't sound half bad, now that she thought on it) -- well, if she made it clear she was considering other possibilities, maybe Ron would too, and settle on something he was better suited for. "I mean," she went on, "I could do a lot of good in the Department of Muggle Relations, or maybe the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures, although I really wish they would change their name--"

"What, don't you want to work together?" Ron's voice was laughing, but Hermione could see the hurt in his eyes. Oh, this was not going how it was supposed to!

"No, that's not what I was saying at all!" she protested, pleadingly. "I just mean it's early yet, I just want to keep my options open!" She knew that was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words had left her mouth, although she couldn't really pinpoint why.

Ron was speechless for a moment. "I see," he finally said, curtly. Then, to the great amazement of Mr. and Mrs. Granger, he stood. "Well, when you figure it out, be sure to let me know, 'ey?" And he tossed his napkin onto his virtually untouched plate.

Hermione stood to follow. "Ron, where are you going?!"

He ignored her, addressing her parents. "Thank-you for a lovely dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Granger, but I think I'd best be going." And with that, he grabbed a handful of Floo Powder from the canister by the fire (Mr. Weasley had seen to it that the Granger fireplace was hooked up to the network) and vanished in a blaze of green.

Hermione didn't hesitate an instant before following after.

Mr. Granger asked his wife, "Was it something I said?"

* * *

"Ron, dear, you're back early!" Molly Weasley said in surprise as her son popped out of the kitchen fireplace. "You could have stayed a bit longer, it's not even close to nine--" She stopped short at the look of hurt and fury on his face.

A second later, another familiar face stumbled into the room, shaking her hair free of soot. "Ron, what is wrong with you?" Hermione demanded. "Since when do I have to report to you about what I want to do with my life?"

He whirled on her, incredulous. "Oh! Well, if my opinion means that little to you, perhaps I should just shove off right now! Would that make you happy?"

"What? No! God, Ron, I don't think I even know what you're going on about!"

"You said you weren't sure if you wanted to work alongside me! Does the idea of us being partners really scare you that much?"

"P-partners?" she asked weakly, with a faint squeak in her voice.

The entire Weasley family (sans Percy), as well as Lupin, Tonks, Kingsley, and Mad-Eye Moody, were seated at the kitchen table, their eyes riveted by the scene unfolding before them. Snape stood by Moody and Lupin; he had obviously been discussing something Order-related with them, and was now curling his lip at the interruption. The room waited, breathless, while Ron charged on with his raving, oblivious to the attention that he would normally hold so dear.

"Yes, as Aurors! What have we even been talking about the past ten minutes, if you didn't know that?!"

"I never said I didn't want to work with you, I was simply trying to keep you from--"

"Aurors?" Moody asked them, too loudly to be ignored. "You want to be an Auror, boy?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Ron snapped.

Moody's magic eye swiveled disconcertingly as he talked. "Are you not aware, young Weasley, that to get into the Auror Academy, you need an E-level N.E.W.T. in Potions?"

"Well … no, I didn't know, but I got an E-Level O.W.L. in it, so --"

"Further," Moody continued, "did you not know that Snape here only allows people with no less than an Outstanding-level O.W.L. in Potions into his N.E.W.T.-level Potions class?"

Severus jumped at the sound of his surname, and seemed about to say something, but kept his tongue still after Moody gave him a warning glance.

Ron didn't notice Snape's reaction, couldn't bring himself to look anyone in the eye for a few heartbeats, as all the blood seemed to drain from his face. Finally, he turned to Hermione, mouth agape. "You were … trying to keep me from making a fool of myself," he said, finishing what she had been trying to say earlier, albeit perhaps not in those same words. He let out a weak laugh, then added softly, "Too late for that, innit?" Wordlessly, he raced up the stairs to his room, his footfalls waking the ever-wary portrait of the late Mrs. Black.

Hermione raced after, while the rest of their audience either went about their business or attended to the quieting of the hallway.

Of course Ron's door was shut when she got there. George glared at her as she rapped on it, but she didn't care. "You hear all that, Ron? I'll keep this house awake all damn night if I have to, knocking on this door until you let me in!" She pounded again for emphasis.

"All right, all right!" he called exasperatedly from the other side of the wood. He yanked the door open, grabbed her wrist, pulled her in, and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Ron? You're hurting me," Hermione informed him, calmly.

He raised his hand and found he was still gripping her wrist, hard. He let go like she was a hot iron. "Sorry," he told her absentmindedly as he made his way over to the bed. He sat down with a solid plunk and laced his fingers behind his neck, elbows on his knees. "I've really made a mess of things, haven't I?" She had to strain to hear him.

She sat down next to him and rubbed his shoulder gently with her left hand. "Now what's that supposed to mean?" she asked, then went on before he could answer, "I'll just explain to my parents that you're under a lot of stress, they'll understand!

"Hermione --"

"And as for what happened in the kitchen, well …" she put her fingers around his, comfortingly, "it was an honest misunderstanding, there's no reason to be embarrassed. You just didn't know about the requirements for Aurors! I'm sure in a day or so we'll all forget it even happened."

He dropped his hands down so he could look up at her, her fingers still wrapped around his right hand. "Hermione, that's just it! I didn't know what to do to become an Auror, because I didn't ask! And I didn't study hard enough before, so now it's too late!" He stood up and pulled his hand away from hers so he could pace the room, rubbing his neck. She could see his lip was trembling now, and his eyes sparkled by the candlelight with a hint of tears. "For all I know, it might not have even mattered. I'm not smart enough, like you, or powerful enough, like Harry, to be an Auror!" He chocked back a sob. "Maybe I'm not good enough to be anything worthwhile!"

She jumped up and pulled him into her arms, pressing his face to her shoulder, stroking his hair. After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, clinging to her as desperately as he would life-raft, for he was drowning in frustrations born of a lifetime of always struggling to be noticed and appreciated. The dam he had put in place long ago to stem his frustrations was finally crumbling, releasing those pent-up emotions in a flood of tears. And yet, even now, he fought to hold them back, trembling with the effort.

"Don't you ever say that, Ron Weasley!" she whispered into his hair. "Writing history papers and changing goblets into rats aren't the only measures of a man." He let out a harsh laugh at that. She shifted, hands now cradling his face so that she could look him in the eyes and he couldn't turn away. "You're one of the greatest people I've ever met," she told him fiercely, "and I'm proud to know you!"

They stood there for a long moment. Hermione could feel her heart beating madly in her chest, as if Ron's psychotic owl, Pigwidgeon, were using her ribs for a cage. Her skin was suddenly on fire as he held her close, her lips most of all. She realised, with more than a little giddiness, that she hadn't eaten yet, but there was only one thing she wanted touching her lips right now. …

[Hermione comforts Ron.]

A solid whomp from across the hall startled them both apart.

"I said let me have a go!" came Ginny's demanding voice from the same general direction.

"HERE, NOW!" growled Ron as he stormed out his door to his sister's room, stopping just long enough to grab an Extendable Ear up off the floor. "JUST WHAT DO YOU THREE THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

Which of course woke up the paintings in the hall. Again.

Hermione hurried after Ron, and found him trying to strangle George with the string of the Ear, while Fred was attempting to pry him off. The adults were too busy trying to still the cacophony down the stairwell to have come up for sibling damage control yet.

"Ron!" She joined Fred's effort to pry the youngest Weasley boy off George.

"Just a second, Hermione, I have a couple of cases of fratricide to commit!"

An adult finally made it up to the room. "RONALD WEASLEY," Molly roared, "if you kill your brothers, you can bet you won't be leaving this house again until it's time to go to Hogwarts!"

Reluctantly, Ron finally let go.

"Thank-you, Mum, for that heroic effort to save me," George told her dryly.

"Nice to know our demise would earn our killer a few weeks worth of restriction" Fred added.

"You're just lucky I can't put you two on restriction!" Molly informed her twin sons. She was clearly still angry about their having opened a joke shop.

Feeling rather awkward in the tense room, Hermione suggested she should probably call it a night.

"Do you have to?" Ron asked, not even trying to hide his disappointment.

Fred and George would have said something, but Ginny stomped on one brother's toes, while Molly took the other.

Hermione smiled, rubbing her arms self-consciously. "Yeah, I should. But I'll see you in a few days?" she added, a hopeful note in her voice.

He grinned back. "Count on it."

* * *

"Damn those twins!" Moody muttered. "Just when things were getting good!" He turned his magical eye away from the drama that had been unfolding upstairs and back to his companions at the kitchen table.

Snape scowled. "Moody, have you been watching them this whole time I've been talking to you?" While the rest of the group had been taking care of the screaming portraits, Snape had been filling Moody and Lupin in on the results of his rounds.

"Of course I have been! Wanted to see how it all turned out!"

Snape looked thoroughly disgusted. "So that's why you neglected to mention that I'm no longer teaching Potions, but Defense Against the Dark Arts, so Weasley can actually take Potions now?"

"Yes, that was a bit cruel of you," Lupin half-scolded Moody, smiling.

Moody shrugged. "I can tell him tomorrow. For now, I figured it was more important to take away their reason to fight and give her an excuse to--" he chuckled, "--comfort him. Sometimes love needs a good kick to get it in motion."

"Honestly!" Snape was exasperated, "Lupin, why do you even let the Weasleys stay here? I mean, is this the headquarters of the Order or a drama class?"

Lupin straightened up, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "I'll thank you not to tell me what I can and cannot allow in my house, Severus."

Before anything more could be said, Hermione came into the room. She bid them goodnight and made her way home via the Floo Network.

"Well, seeing as the two of you don't seem terribly interested in what I have to say. …" Snape made his exit as well.

"Bloody gimp," Moody muttered to the empty air.

* * *

"Sadistic hunchback!"

Snape muttered when he was back in the comfort of his own rooms at Hogwarts.

Honestly, why was it that they always looked to him as the bad apple, when Moody took such obvious and perverse pleasure in the discomfiture of others? Snape almost found himself feeling sorry for Weasley and Granger, being jerked around for Amos' amusement. He was half-tempted to slip them both a love potion, just to spoil the man's matchmaking fun. At the very least, it would help to settle things down at Number 12 for the two lovesick teens to just get to it already.

Bah. Love was such a joke, anyway. It was distracting, left you vulnerable, and always seemed to end badly. Look at Remus and Sirius, Snape thought with a sneer, They couldn't even admit how they felt about each other, and now it's too late. And then there was Lily. She'd chosen Potter, and look where it had gotten her. Dead. The thought brought up an uncomfortable mix of emotions in Snape, the kind that left him as twisted inside as a Polyjuice potion, so he quickly shoved such musings from his mind, and focused on working further on his lesson plan.

Except that he quickly discovered love wasn't the only thing that could distract the mind. He had waited so long for this position, he could hardly believe it! But he couldn't escape the shadow cast over his joy by the knowledge of why he had gotten it: quite simply, he was the last possible candidate left. Anyone else was either not trustworthy or had refused the position. Moreover, Dumbledore had given him a firm warning: he was not, under any circumstances, to let his personal feelings towards Potter -- or any other student, for that matter -- affect their schoolwork, the way it had Potter's Occlumency lessons. As if that were his fault! It incensed him to know that Potter was not being reprimanded for poking into his private thoughts, in the Penseive! How could anyone have expected him to continue giving Potter lessons after that … that …

Betrayal. No one knew better about that word than Snape. And when he was alone like this, all his protests, all his illusions, fell away, baring the harsh light of his own truths. He had betrayed his fellow wizarding kind by becoming a Death Eater. And then he had betrayed Voldemort by becoming a double spy, although that betrayal hadn't bothered Snape in the least to commit: indeed, it was perhaps the only thing in his life to be truly proud of. And he was continuing that betrayal to this day.

Oh, not quite like before. Voldemort knew now that Snape was no longer his servant. No, it was the Dark Lord's followers that Snape was fooling now -- or rather, their sons and daughters. Snape knew that a good eighth -- probably more -- of the students in his House, Slytherin, were progeny of Death Eaters, even if he didn't know exactly who. Snape was placed in charge of that house not just because he was the only member of the faculty to have graduated from there, but because Dumbledore knew the students there trusted him. Trusted him enough to confide their secrets to him. It was his duty to keep an eye on them, learn what he could, and prevent them from doing the Dark Lord's bidding. His main targets? Draco Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.

It was hard, playing mentor to a boy that Snape saw so much of himself in, things that he had once taken pride in, but now lived in shame over. Like Draco, Snape had been born to an old Blood family (albeit not nearly as well off.) Like Draco, he had been raised by an abusive father who had taught him from the cradle to hate Muggle-borns. Even now, Snape had to work hard to keep the word "Mudblood" from his vocabulary. And like Draco, Snape felt an overwhelming hatred of the Potters.

Looking back now, Snape knew he had made a mistake that first day, treating the younger Potter so badly. He'd told himself at the time that it helped serve his work, helped him to earn Malfoy's -- and therefore the other Slytherins' -- respect, which in turn allowed him to do as Dumbledore had bade him. He thought it could only do Potter good to have someone who didn't dote on him or treat him like a celebrity simply because of a horrible accident, rather than him earning the prestige through his own actions. But as the years passed, Snape could no longer deny that his main reason for hating Harry were because he looked so much like his parents.

Harry was the spitting image of his arse of a father, and it had given Snape more than a little satisfaction to be in a position of power over him. Severus didn't seem capable of separating James and Harry Potter in his mind. And time had shown Harry to be just as talented at Quidditch as his old man had been, which only made things worse. Harry was earning the respect of his peers. In fact, if anything, it seemed they were far more ready to turn on Harry than they should have been, withdrawing their support on hearsay when there was often no grounds. And while Harry was as adept at rule-breaking as his sire had been, it often turned out to be for entirely the right reasons. Harry had inherited all of his father's courage, charm, athletic prowess, and arrogance, but none of his cruelty or penchant for practical jokes. Instead, he'd gotten his mother's compassion and sense of righteousness.

And then there were those eyes. Lily's eyes, glaring at him with reproach, filling him with guilt because he learned too late to put his old prejudices aside and acknowledge his feelings for her. He'd fallen for a Muggle-born, one that he'd treated like she was less than nothing. It had galled him, like it galled so many Purebloods, to think that someone who hadn't come from a long, proud line of magic could outdo him in the world he was born to. But there it was. She was an extraordinary witch, and he had tried to deny it, even as he'd denied his love for her. And now he had to spend his days looking into her eyes, framed in the face of the man who'd won her away from him.

As if you'd ever had a chance.

And there was love again, trying to distract him. He needed to focus; if he screwed up this time, there were no third chances. Dumbledore would sack him before giving him back his old job; he'd already given Potions class to a former Ravenclaw, Faelyn Daghda.

Snape remembered her from his class when he'd first started teaching. She'd been in her seventh year; having seen her upon her recent return to the Hogwarts, she hadn't seemed to have changed a bit. She was a dark-haired, half-Irish, half-Welsh beauty, and was, if he was not mistaken, second cousin to Mrs. Weasley -- with a temper to match Molly's, if not altogether outdo it. No, he did not think Faelyn's kin in Gryffindor, or their little friends, would find her any easier a taskmaster than they'd found him to be.

He caught himself grinning and set his mind back to his work, struggling to push the distraction offered by soft black curls from his mind.