Jewel of the Nile

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It wasn’t true, Hermione thought dimly, what they said about your life flashing before your eyes. After all she’d come to expect from a Grand Exit – movie reel in fast-forward, regrets and satisfactions flying higgledy-piggledy like so much emotional confetti – death, in reality, seemed disappointingly anticlimactic … just a twig-thin tendril of green light behind her closed eyelids and a feeling of bone-deep resignation: well, I guess this is it, then.

She knew she was dying – after all, hadn’t he said the words? hadn’t she felt the little stab of his wand under her ear?

But it wasn’t quite how she’d imagined it. Not at all painful, for one thing.

And then, she’d never expected it to take this long, either.

Curious, yet oddly detached, she opened her eyes. And blinked in astonishment.

The streamer of green light was still in the air – hanging, as if suspended. Maybe he’d missed, Hermione thought, though he’d been standing so near her that she didn’t see how that was possible. Or maybe his wand had malfunctioned.

Maybe it had just bounced – could a curse do that? In any case, it had yet to strike her, but instead began to wriggle sinuously through the air … curving, as she watched, round the back of her neck to drape her opposite shoulder. In another moment, before she’d had the chance to adjust to the thought of wearing the Killing Curse like one of Gram’s silk shawls, the leading end of that thin green vine began to burgeon, to blossom … to hiss.

A snake.

She was wearing a snake.

Hermione, who’d once stroked a tame black snake at a petting zoo, at the tender age of six, and had regretted that brash move ever since, fought back a shudder – she’d never been a reptile person, and her brush with the Basilisk, back in her second year at Hogwarts, hadn’t helped that relationship along any. But the serpent on her shoulder – jade-brilliant, cool as Ming lacquer – wasn’t paying any attention to her. Its unblinking eyes were fixed on the wizard opposite her, the imposter with another man’s face who cowered now against the interior wall of his own Barrier with a slack-jawed, uncomprehending stare that said, plain as Plato, that he was out of his depth.

"Wait," Hermione said – if indeed Mikhail had somehow managed a body-snatch, she wanted him back in his own skin before the Apocalypse hit – and, to her surprise, the snake paused, winding its poison-green tail round her left wrist in a caress that was almost reassuring. Hermione fumbled in her pocket, drew out her wand.

"Finite Incantatem," she said clearly – why she hadn’t had the wherewithal to do that before, she had no idea – and watched with relief as Severus Snape’s austere features faded into unfamiliar blond ambiguity. The snake hissed, an evil sound like a deflating tire that made Mikhail blanch.

"Who are you?" he whispered, clawing at the invisible Barrier behind him with tense white hands. "What are you?"

"I’m not sure," Hermione said truthfully, her fingers flying unconsciously to the amulet at her neck. It was warm from her skin, and seemed to vibrate against her hand with suppressed intensity. She shifted her attention back to Mikhail; he didn’t seem to have heard her.

The snake hissed again, and showed its fangs, the sky-blue lining of its mouth. "Wait," Hermione said again, but this time without much hope of being obeyed.

You could slow Death down, but you couldn’t stop it outright.

The flat diamond-head puffed; the slim body thickened like a time-release photo, sapling-turned-to-oak in a fast-food nanosecond. The hissing grew louder, and louder still, filling the interior of the Barrier with an ocean of sinister sibilance. Hermione felt her palms go sweaty as the snake slid free of her shoulders and reared to its full height, its colour flashing brighter and brighter as it burst skin on skin in repeated morphing, savage and blink-quick, until it was as big around as her upper arm, her thigh, her waist.

Yikes.

Mikhail, white to the lips, had begun to mutter under his breath. Hermione couldn’t understand the language, but she knew a prayer when she heard one. If she’d remembered anything from her childhood Sunday mornings at All Saints, she would have been tempted to join him.

Next to this, Voldemort was nothing. This thing wasn’t just an Evil Death Lord, wasn’t just a wizard turned to the Dark. It was an out-and-out monster.

Standing on end, it was taller than either of them, its scales the size of Hermione’s palm, the unblinking feline eyes like Fiestaware salad plates under its heavy half-lids. Its head on its slow-swaying torso was still turned toward Mikhail, for which Hermione was grateful – even so, there was no missing its final transformation, as with a sound of ripping silk the snakeskin gave way and fell, and out stepped –

Sekhmet.

Tall. Still. Glowing green as an oasis, green as the heart of summer, her lion-head a badge of honour on her Amazon’s body. For a moment, those penetrating cat’s-eyes swept back to Hermione’s, swept and halted and held, and then moved on to the whimpering Mikhail, who made a piteous sound in his throat and pressed himself flatter against the Barrier.

The lion’s mouth didn’t move, but Hermione heard her words anyway, clear as sugar in hot tea.

The blood they spill shall shrieking turn upon them.

Beyond the Barrier, Sybil Trelawney gasped and pulled herself unsteadily up to her knees. Hermione watched the breastbone of the Goddess rise and fall, watched it inflate.

Sekhmet roared.

And Malfoy’s hired killer was engulfed, screaming, in a column of cold green flame.

**

Much, much later.

"Here," Sybil said, holding out a steaming mug of tea; "take this." Hermione, curled in the corner chair with an afghan over her knees, wrapped her hands obediently around the mug and felt her fingers warm.

"Thanks."

"You should probably eat something."

"I’m okay. Thanks anyway."

Sekhmet was gone – that burst of green fire had only lasted a second or two, and by the time the smoke cleared, the goddess had vanished, leaving behind her only a small heap of murky grey ash that had once been a wizard. The ashes were still on the carpet; Hermione hadn’t disturbed them when she brought down the Barrier, and even Cleo – who was normally all about dust bunnies and the dispersation thereof – gave them a wide berth on her wary post-Sekhmet scuttle toward the back of the apartment.

Smart cat, Hermione thought now, and sipped at the tea – hot enough to scald, and far sweeter than she normally took it. No matter; the mug was one of the big latte cups she’d stolen from home – creamy almond, with blue snowflakes on it – and just holding it made her feel better, as if she was indeed back in her mother’s quiet English kitchen, drinking spiced cider and watching it snow through the wide low windows, while Crookshanks played tag with the toes of her stockings and the sound of her father watching football on the television drifted in from the den.

She was suddenly, unbearably homesick, and took another sip of tea to hide the tremble of her chin.

"Well," she said. "What do we do now?"

**

"What do we do now?" Hermione asked, and Sybil felt her eyebrows rise.

Quite a cool customer, Miss Granger was; there she sat, sipping tea with steady hands as if she hadn’t just been on the receiving end of the Killing Curse, as if there hadn’t been a twenty-foot snake-turned-goddess breathing fire in her living room barely half an hour ago. To look at her, you’d never know she’d had such a nasty shock.

Then again, she thought, we usually have the strength to do what we have to. Aloud, she said, "What do you mean?"

Hermione sipped at her tea again. "Just that," she said. "What do we do now? Do you think Malfoy will try again?"

Sal cleared his throat from his seat at the end of the sofa, making Sybil start – she’d forgotten he was there, he’d been so quiet. "Possibly," he said. "Whether he’ll be any more successful or not is harder to say. That’s quite a bodyguard you summoned."

"Yeah." Hermione stared moodily at the pendant, now lying in a swirl of silver chain on the coffee table. "It is, isn’t it?"

Silence.

Sybil opened her mouth to speak, bit her lip, then decided – what the hell, she’d might as well say it.

"I think you should take a couple of days off, Hermione," she said, easing herself down on the sofa next to Sal, "and come back to Hogwarts with us. You’ve had a hell of a scare." At Hermione’s doubtful look, she pressed a little harder. "And Albus will want to hear what’s happened firsthand."

Hermione shook her head.

"No."

Sybil’s eyebrows went up again. "No?"

"No." Hermione set down her tea, fisted her hands in her lap. "I’m not going back there right now. It’s not possible."

"Why not?"

Hesitation, then a look so haunted that Sybil’s breath caught in her throat.

"Because," Hermione said, casting down her eyes. "If I go back to Hogwarts, I’ll see him." She shuddered, just once. "And I can’t, not right now … I just can’t."

"Him?" Sybil asked, puzzled. "You mean Dumbledore?"

Hermione picked up her mug, presumably to hide behind it. Sal cleared his throat again.

"Severus," he murmured.

Sybil frowned, uncomprehending – Severus? What does he have to do with this? – then,

as his meaning sank in, her mouth fell open in shock.

"Severus?" she mouthed at him. "You mean, Severus and …" – here, she jerked her head toward Hermione – "were … are …?"

Oh, this was worse than she’d thought.

"Why don’t you want to see Severus, Hermione?" Sal asked quietly, and Hermione jerked under the words as if he’d struck her.

"You don’t understand, either of you," she said, the words coming out so loudly that they both turned to stare at her, surprised. She seemed at once annoyed with herself for speaking, and relieved that the secret was finally out. "The last time I saw him – the last time I spoke to him … well, it’s complicated; suffice it to say that we parted on uneasy terms."

She gestured helplessly toward Sal. "You know how it was. How it is. It’s all a dance, he and I – we waltz all round the issue, and we never talk about it. But even if we never said the words, I still knew. Or thought I did."

A deep, trembling breath. "And then – to stand there and hear the Avada Kedavra in that voice … well, it was like last winter, all over again, when Malfoy did … well, what he did, and all the while I knew he wasn’t Draco and yet it didn’t matter what I knew or what I didn’t, do you understand?"

Her jaw was set, her eyes glittering but relentlessly clear. "You get to know a face. A voice. You don’t forget the things you hear, or the things you see; they’re all still there, no matter how you poke them down, how you try to forget. And after that happened – with Malfoy, I mean – I couldn’t ever look at Draco again … and not see Lucius."

Sybil was beginning to understand. "So you’re afraid …" she began, and Hermione cut her off.

"Hell, yes. Yes. He thinks it’s easy for me, but it’s not – I can’t just walk away and tell myself not to feel, and have it work. But what if …"

That stubborn little chin was beginning to waver in earnest now. "What if it’s ruined, now? What’ll I do?"

She stared into the half-empty mug of tea. "I want to go home," she said, her lips trembling, the words so quiet Sybil thought at first she’d imagined them. "I want to go home. And even now, I know it won’t do any good. Damn it."

That’s adulthood, all right, Sybil thought heavily, chest aching hard with sympathy she knew she couldn’t offer outright. When it’s gone so far wrong that Mum can’t fix it, you’re really grown up. You poor kid. She watched, admiring, as Hermione fought off the tears, as she bit her white lips and drained the dregs of the tepid tea and tossed back that mop of curls in a gesture so bleakly defiant it made Sybil want to applaud.

More to you than I gave you credit for, Miss Granger. Just goes to show – we’re none of us right all the time, are we?

"I think the two of you should go back," Hermione said finally, in a voice that hardly shook at all. "You’re right – Professor Dumbledore needs to know what happened. And between the two of you, you’ve seen everything that happened tonight."

"And you?" Sal asked. Hermione shook her head.

"I’m staying here."

Sybil hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"I’ve got things to do," Hermione said, a bit more steadily. "Work to do. I’ll be fine."

"Albus might –" Sal began, but Hermione held up her hand to stop him.

"Tell him I’ll owl him this week."

"But –"

"Sal."

"But what if –"

"It won’t," Hermione said flatly. "Besides –" she nodded toward the jade amulet – "what can you think of, that can get past that?"

Good point, Sybil thought. Still …

"Be careful with that thing, Hermione," she said, eyeing the pendant warily. "Be careful, period."

At that, Hermione laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound.

"I always have been," she said. "Can’t you tell?"

**