Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Vespertine	By : BrownRecluse Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 3610 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: All characters and elements that comprise the wonderful world of Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling. I’m just borrowing them for a bit of non-profit fun. Also, I used to be known as BrownRecluse, but a name change was long overdue. ;D

Chapter List
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Expecting to see the park where she’d played as a child and a familiar house at the end of the street, Hermione opened her eyes. Although she was standing in the middle of a familiar street, fire had gutted many of its shops. On either side of her, broken windows stared balefully, like sockets of empty eyes. Before the war, Apparating hadn’t been allowed on school grounds. She’d probably made accidental contact with the vestiges one of those wards when casting her spell and had been thrown off course. She could think of no other reasonable explanation for why she’d landed in the middle of a dark and deserted Diagon Alley.

Then she heard the sound of rough laughter and breaking glass. Not so deserted then. She closed her eyes, conjuring an image of her mother playing the piano, and quickly turned.

She didn’t recognize the place at first. Cloaked in darkness, all forests tended to look alike. Then she heard something moving through the trees. Something heading towards her. Something large. She drew her wand and summoned light. Eyes, too near, flashed white. Hermione screamed. Startled, the doe leapt over a boulder, splashed through a pond, and then fled into the woods.

Hermione plopped down beside a fallen log to catch her breath. The rocks, the pool, the little clearing just beyond: now she recognized the old campsite. While it had been a home for a time, it still wasn’t her home. Obviously, she’d done something wrong again. Leaning back, she let the night close in around her and recalled Professor Twycross’ lecture: One has but to recall The Three D’s: Destination, Determination, and Deliberation. One must be completely determined to reach one’s destination, and move without haste, but with deliberation.

She’d done everything right, so why wasn’t the spell working? “One more time,” she said, rising with a sigh. Her head ached and her stomach felt queasy. “I want to go home. Home: that is my destination; I am completely determined. Home, to a room with flowered wallpaper and a soft blue bedspread. I am determined to reach that destination without haste but with deliberation.” Closing her eyes, she turned widdershins again.

A cup clattered against a saucer. “Merlin’s beard!” Arthur Weasley looked up from a puddle of tea on the kitchen table. “You gave me quite a fright, Hermione. I thought you’d gone. Did you forget something?”

“Apparently. Did you have any difficulty traveling tonight, Mr. Weasley?”

“Not at all,” he said, mopping up the spill. “Why?”

Sinking down on the bench opposite him, she told Arthur about her adventures in Apparating. When she’d finished, he said, “You’re right, it could very well be vestigial magic. When so much numinous energy is released in one place, it’s bound to leave shadows of itself behind. I could feel traces of it at Hogwarts earlier tonight. That, coupled with inexperience—now, don’t argue, Hermione. You’re still young and however talented, still new to this. I’m sure that’s all it is but just to be safe, I think you should stay here tonight. I’ll take you to London with me in the morning, if you promise you’ll take the tube from the Ministry. Whatever it is, it’s best you let it wear off. I wouldn’t want you landing in the middle of some Welsh moor,” he said, chuckling.

“Thank you, Mr. Weasley. I think I’ll turn in now,” Hermione said. She started to rise but then stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot. Something strange happened after you left.”

He leaned across the table. “Not another intrusion I hope?”

Hermione told him what she’d witnessed at Snape’s tomb and the specter’s strange words. “It talked about a path with no end and no beginning, almost as if it were trying to warn us off.”

“It’s a riddle, certainly, and a sanguine one at that. Still, I think I’ve heard it somewhere before. Heard it or read it...” Arthur’s face clouded. “A dragon, you say?”

“I thought it was a Patronus, but Professor McGonagall said that no wizard could change his Patronus. Do you think that’s true?”

“We knew so little of Severus; perhaps it’s a familial symbol of some sort. Whatever it is, its mystery will have to remain until morning.” He yawned.

Each headed to bed and night passed without further incident.

Hermione awoke to find Mr. Weasley bustling about the kitchen in high spirits. After breakfast, he whisked her away without a hitch; in a blink, the two materialized in an alley near the Ministry. “Now, you’re to go straight home without using magic and stay out of trouble.” He hugged her. “Though Hogwarts won’t reopen until September, you’re still a Head Girl, remember.”

“Believe me, Mr. Weasley, I never try to find trouble,” Hermione said, laughing. “I never have to.”

He waved her off with a smile. Her words from the night before as well as Sybill’s strange pronouncement still haunted him, but he’d be damned if he’d let either ruin his good humor. He made a mental note to visit the Department of Mysteries and then, slipped down the alley and through a familiar back entry.

Being a department head had its perks. The line was shorter and the stall more spacious. The loo had a low cistern with a silver button on one side and the water in the bowl was always blue, the color of a summer sky. The stall’s sides, which were always cool to the touch, looked like slabs of green stone, but the railings that ran the length of their sides were, to Arthur’s mind, the nicest part of all—no more sloshing and sliding about. Using these now, he hoisted himself up, stepped inside, and when he was ready, pressed the button. A whish-swoosh later he was standing in the Apparation Foyer.

He made his way into the main concourse, admiring the new fountain at its center: a circular pool edged in smooth stone from whose center jets of colored water erupted at regular intervals. Overhead, an enormous screen undulated; shaking hands, Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Muggle Prime Minister beamed down. Well, Kingsley was beaming; Mr. Blair’s smile looked a little thin. Chuckling to himself, he waited for three words to appear at the bottom of the image, a slogan summarizing Kingsley’s agenda for his term: Unity, Equality, and Tranquility. It was a beautiful a sentiment for what promised to be a beautiful day! Humming to himself, he headed around the fountain to the edge of the concourse, passing a kiosk that held the latest editions of the Quibbler and Daily Prophet. He picked up a copy of the latter and after exchanging pleasantries with the attendant, scanned its headlines. No mention of Hogwarts or clandestine memorial services anywhere: perfect. It was a new day, a gorgeous day indeed, he decided, one made even more glorious by the owl he’d received just after sunrise: Molly was coming home.

“Mr. Weasley! You’re just the person I’d hoped to see,” Connie Burbage, Charity’s niece, looked up from behind the display of small Muggle artefacts she was installing on a series of wooden tables and podia. Some, like the torch that ran on a thumb switch, the palm-sized radio, and the fat fellow with the red, light-up nose he recognized instantly; they’d occupied space on the shelves of his old office for years. Concerning the last one, he didn’t quite understand the purpose of teaching children complex surgical procedures, but he loved that bloke with the wishbone next to his heart and the sound he made when someone touched him in the wrong spot. On the floor nearby, she’d painted a series of colored spots and next to them was something resembling a flattened weathervane, only indicating colored hands and feet where the cardinal points should have been. Behind it was a sign: Test Your Agility in a Game of Twister (No Spells Required). When he’d been promoted, Kingsley had allowed him to choose his successor in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department; naturally, he’d chosen Connie, a witch who’d been raised by Muggles. She had Charity’s curly hair and bright smile. At the moment, she was also standing in the midst of a hopeless tangle of black and orange plastic cords, whose near ends converged in a long, black box. The box also had a tail, although shorter than the others.

“I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said. “Do they bite?”

“Only if you’re careless.” She pulled one out of the box and held it up for him. It had three prongs at the end. “And of course, only if there’s a power source. I’d hoped to install a completely interactive display, something that would really give wizards a taste of Muggle life—let them stand in those shoes, so to speak—but to do that, I’ll need electricity.” She indicated a large box with a glass front and an aerial on top. Next to it sat a smaller box with a little door and a panel of buttons. Arthur couldn’t help noticing that one button was called ‘Popcorn.’ “Do you know where the Ministry’s infrastructure overlaps with its Muggle equivalent? I know there must be outlets around here somewhere, I just need to lift an edge of the cloaking veil.”

Arthur ran a hand through his hair. “Ministry Custodianship could help you with that more than I could, but why couldn’t you just charm them? Your aunt had a smaller one of these telly-visions at Hogwarts and it ran just fine without electricity.”

“She did—and Professor Dumbledore knew?”

“He allowed it for educational purposes. She demonstrated how it worked in one of her classes. The castle’s a convergence point for so many ley lines, I expect all she had to do was tap into them. Then she made us all drinks in one of these whirly-mixits”—he pointed to a blender—“shakes, she called them—delicious! Albus, you know, had quite a sweet tooth and Charity was happy to oblige. His favorite drink was something called a ‘Doctor Who.’”

Connie spluttered and dropped the cord.

“I’ll bet her things are still at Hogwarts,” he said. “I’ll send for them.”

Still giggling, Connie said, “Yes, thank you. That would be—”

“Mr. Weasley! You’ve gotta come now! There’s been a breach—well, not a breach exactly, but he’s there again and he won’t go and Miss Puddergust says that if you don’t get rid of him for good this time, she’ll send him back to St. Mungo’s in a purse! I don’t know why a purse, exactly, but I think she’ll do it.” A girl who couldn’t have been older than Ginny tugged at his arm. He didn’t recognize her, but the steel grey robe she wore told him immediately where she worked and who the he in question was.

“Lockhart again?” A corner of his mouth twitched. Arthur always found Gilderoy’s impromptu visits amusing.

The girl nodded. “We keep telling him, the Department of Wishful Displacement doesn’t exist to fulfil romantic wishes, but he won’t listen. I don’t know how he slipped past Security this time, but he just burst in, insisting we’re preventing him from finding his true love.” Then she whispered, “The family we were about to relocate is terrified and their Field Marshall is in an uproar. What if he recognizes someone?”

“I assure you, he’s quite harmless: the poor man can’t remember his own name most of the time, much less another wizard’s.” Arthur said. “Still, his Healer needs to rescind his day passes.” Nodding his good-bye to Connie, he started away with the girl, only to have an officer cut him off at the elevators.

“Sir, I need you to dispatch an Auror,” he said. “It’s urgent.”

“An Auror? Where—and for what?”

“Wiltshire. The Manor.”

He didn’t have to say which one. “Lucius up to his old tricks again?” Arthur snorted. “What’s he done now?”

“There’s been a murder, Sir.”

“I’ll do it at once,” Arthur said, wondering whom Lucius had killed.

~~~o0o~~~

Hermione stared up at familiar bricks and mortar, climbing ivy, and that silly shrub that always reminded her of a giant, green gumdrop. Home. She was finally home! She plucked the spare key from the hollow of a ceramic frog, grateful to find that some things remained in their proper place. No cars sat in the drive but her parents liked to leave early for work. She didn’t know what she would say to them, but having the day to herself would give her all the time she needed to form an explanation. Expecting to be alone, she turned the key in the lock and stepped through the front door.

“About time you’ve returned.”

Hermione screeched and dropped her backpack by the couch. A sheet covered it, along with the dining room table and her grandmother’s antique cuckoo clock. The room was cold, the coffee table and sideboard wore a coat of dust, and the air smelled stale, close. No one had been in the house for months. “Oh, it’s just you, Mrs. Stokes,” she said to the diminutive woman who always wore a red scarf over her curlers.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.” The cleaner set down her mop and bucket. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“The Tube took longer than I thought.”

“Did it now?” Mrs. Stokes nodded knowingly.

“I guess my parents are still on holiday then,” she said in the most nonchalant tone she could muster.

“Holiday? That’s rich. They’re right where you sent them, girl. I knew that couldn’t have been their idea to just pick up stakes and pack off to Australia, and when I saw what you did to those pictures, I knew for sure,” she said. “Tell me, before you took the train, did you try Apparating here first?”

“How did you—”

“Dumbledore posted me here, of course, straight after your eleventh birthday. He did it for all students of vulnerable birth. Harry Potter wasn’t the only one with a wizard watcher.” Curlers rattled as she shook her head. You still don’t know why it didn’t work, do you?” Neither waiting for nor expecting a response, she continued: “You Obliviated your own parents, you silly girl. Now, just like them, this house has no memory of you. None. No memory at all.” She waited for this to sink in. Then, smiling, she said, “I’ve wanted to tell you that for some time. Do you have any idea what an utterly cruel and stupid thing you’ve done?”

“I did what I had to do to protect them,” Hermione said, tilting her chin. “But the spell should’ve worn off by now. It’s been almost a year.”

“And it would’ve, were they wizards; didn’t they teach you that at school? That’s why there’s rules about using magic on Muggles.”

“Then I’ll find them and reverse the spell.”

Mrs. Stokes laughed. “You should know by now, it doesn’t work like that, girl. That charm’s got to weaken in its own way and in its own time. It could take at least a year or maybe more.” Mrs. Stokes picked up her cleaning tools. “Plenty of time for you to think, so I’ll leave you to it. Dumbledore’s gone and you’re old enough to take care of yourself; my work here’s done.” She vanished.
A year or more...Cruel and stupid...No memory of you... Hermione threw herself on the sofa and bawled.
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Vespertine