Roman Holiday

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“So,” Harry said, plopping into a chair opposite Hermione and pinning her with a skeptical look. “Let’s hear it, then. And it had better be good.”

They were tucked away in her favorite secluded corner of the Restricted section. As it was Saturday, even the portraits were occupied elsewhere; only Madam Pince remained in the library with them, and she had been too busy polishing the brass fittings on the thirty-eight volumes of The Wizard’s Encyclopaedia of the Weird and Fantastical to even look up as they entered.

Hermione eyed him speculatively. He wasn’t going to like the truth, she knew that without asking. But even given all night to think about it, she hadn’t been able to come up with a less objectionable lie.

Besides, she was tired of lying.

“Look, Harry,” she said. “You know I don’t want to quarrel with you over this. But I might as well tell you, it’s true - Draco and I are seeing each other.” Harry’s jaw tightened.

“That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?” he asked. “Just - ‘it’s true, we’re seeing each other’?” He scowled. “Sorry, Hermione. You’re going to have to do a little better than that. Keep talking.”

“What do you want?” she asked him icily. “A blow-by-blow? Or have you already had that pleasure, courtesy of your little Visual Aid to the Teenage Voyeur?”

Harry reddened. “It was an accident,” he muttered. Hermione snorted.

“Bullshit. You have to tap that thing with your wand and state your intentions; otherwise it only shows you professors. Either you fed his name into it specifically, or you asked it to track whoever I was meeting.” She curled her lip contemptuously. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Harry shot back, glaring at her. “At the very least, your memory’s obviously been compromised. After all, you’ve managed to forget every slimy, underhanded, sneaking thing Malfoy’s ever done to you - to us - long enough to spread your legs for him.” He paused, a muscle working in his cheek. “Or are you thinking with something besides your brain, these days?”

Oooooh, was he ever asking for it now. “That’s a cheap shot,” Hermione snapped, stung. “And I have my own reasons for excusing Draco’s past.”

“That good a lay, is he?”

Hermione gritted her teeth, tempted almost beyond sanity to slap that nasty, smug look from his face. “I expected this from Ron,” she said, hanging onto her composure by a thread. “But considering what you went through after your name came out of the Goblet of Fire two years ago, I would have thought that you, of all people, might reserve judgment long enough to hear the whole story.”

There. Let him try and weasel around that logic. She saw with satisfaction that he had the grace to flush - no doubt he was remembering who exactly had been the only person, other than the Headmaster, to believe his story and stand by him.

“You did, huh?” Harry looked chastened, but still dubious. “Is that why you’ve been sneaking around with him, ever since the beginning of term? Because you trusted me so much?”

Well, he had her there. Hermione flushed, but didn’t drop her eyes. “I’m telling you now,” she said, willing her voice not to tremble. “Are you going to listen to me?”

Harry sighed and pushed his head back from his forehead. Age hadn’t softened the lightning-bolt scar; it was as livid as ever above his glass-green eyes.

He hadn’t gotten any better at subterfuge, either. Hermione could see instinct warring with reason on his face, as plain as day, and felt an absurdly strong surge of affection for him when he finally shrugged in capitulation and shot her a weary smile.

“Okay,” he said. “Start at the beginning, then. Just don’t get too detailed about any of the naked bits, okay? My stomach can’t take it.”

**

It took her more than half an hour to get through the whole story. As it turned out, finally spilling the beans felt so good that Hermione stayed in confessional mode perhaps a bit longer than was strictly wise.

Besides, she rationalized, if she didn’t say anything about the Illuminata, the rest of it wouldn’t make sense.

There were still some selective edits in her story, of course. Nothing about the spanking. Or about the way she’d kissed Snape, down in the dungeons, while free of the influence of adulterated substances.

After all, she hadn’t lost her mind completely.

Harry, to his credit, took her tale with surprising calm, though he found certain parts highly amusing (Snape in Bangkok; Lucius Malfoy ripping apart a hotel mattress), and was frankly appalled by others. When she got to the bit about the Fils du Couteau, he actually gasped. The news that she had a bit of Malfoy running in her veins provoked some comment, too.

“Jesus, Hermione,” he said. “Are you telling me that Malfoy is part dentist, now?”

Hermione looked at him warningly. “This is all in confidence,” she reminded him darkly. “If you dare …”

Harry raised both hands, palms out, in a gesture of appeasement.

“Not a word,” he said. “I swear.”

“Not even to Ron,” Hermione insisted, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“Especially not to Ron,” he said. “Are you kidding? He flips out when you talk to Neville. It’s just bizarre, that’s all. I’d never have thought …”

“Thought what?”

He considered this for a minute. “Well, a lot of things.”

“Such as.”

“Well, for starters, that any potion under the sun could be powerful enough to make you want to sleep with Snape.” He shook his head wonderingly. “That you survived four days under an invisibility cloak with Malfoy without cursing his balls off. That he has anything to say, to anyone, that isn’t automatically nasty and cutting.”

She shrugged, feeling oddly defensive. “Well … live and learn.”

Harry ran his tongue over his teeth. He was still staring into space. “That any father could do that to his son,” he said softly. “That most of all.” He bit his lip pensively. “Almost makes me start to feel sorry for him, evil git that he’s always been to me.”

Another surge of affection. Whatever his faults, Harry had a real soft spot for an underdog. Hermione patted his hand.

“You’ll get over it, I’m sure.”

That got a laugh out of him. “No doubt.” He sobered. “That secret-weapon business is pretty heavy, though. Has Voldemort written all over it. How is Dumbledore going to keep him safe? Doesn’t his father have a right to take him out of school, if he wants to?”

Hermione looked worried. Trust Harry to zero in on the heart of the problem within sixty seconds. “That’s what I don’t know,” she said. “We think we’ve managed to save the world, but we haven’t figured out how to save him yet. And I’d feel a whole lot better if I thought that Dumbledore knew any more than we do, but I get the feeling that he’s in the dark, too.”

Harry pushed himself up from his chair and paced over to the window. “It’s too bad that no one’s developed a really good protection charm,” he said moodily, staring out at the school grounds. “All we’ve got is the Armoring Fluid, and that didn’t even save most of us from the Leg-Locker.” He swung back around and looked curiously at Hermione, who was staring at him open-mouthed. “What?”

“A good protection charm?” she asked faintly. Harry frowned.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. So what? We haven’t got one.”

Hermione shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. A good protection charm. Good,” she repeated. “Don’t you get it?”

“No,” he said blankly, and Hermione sighed.

“Harry,” she said urgently. “What happens when you light a candle in a dark room?” Harry shrugged.

“It’s not dark anymore?”

“Exactly,” Hermione said, triumphant. “The darkness can’t exist in the presence of the light. It’s dispelled. The only way to darken the room again is to blow out the candle. But if the candle’s protected …” She trailed off, and Harry, still very confused, just shrugged again.

“Hermione, why do I get the feeling that you’re going all metaphorical on me?”

Hermione ignored this. “Protect the light, and you kill the darkness,” she murmured, as if to herself, and jumped to her feet, suddenly galvanized to action. Harry stared at her in astonishment.

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to Snape, of course,” she said, and to Harry’s utter bewilderment, planted an enthusiastic kiss on his cheek. “It’s been right under my nose,” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. You’re a genius.”

“Um …”

“I have to go,” she said. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

“Me too,” Harry said weakly. But she was already gone.

Shaking his head, he headed for the Quidditch field.

**

Figures, Hermione thought with a touch of bitterness. If you wanted to avoid Snape, he followed you around like the Grim Reaper, breathing down your neck. The second you needed to find him, however, he was as scarce as a virgin in the Playboy Mansion.

Damn, damn, damn. Still panting from her mad dash down the stairs, she slid slowly down the wall outside his office until her backside met clammy stone. According to the schedule posted on his door, he kept morning office hours on Saturdays - eight to ten, to be precise - so chances were good he’d show.

This was important. She could wait.

Ten a.m. came and went, however, with no sign of him. Hermione, rubbing feeling back into her chilled posterior, stood up and decided to check the Potions classroom again, just in case.

The door was ajar - aha! - but Snape wasn’t in the room. Deciding that sitting in a chair was preferable to sitting on the floor, and that in any case he wouldn’t leave the room unlocked through the lunch hour, she ducked inside to wait for him. She’d been sitting there for perhaps ten minutes when she became aware of voices drifting into the room from the corridor.

“ … acting very odd, that’s for sure.” That was Pansy, Hermione thought, and she sounded even more petulant and aggrieved than usual.

“Ever since school started,” agreed the second voice. Hermione thought she recognized it as belonging to Forrest Avery, a Slytherin seventh-year. “Don’t take it personally, Pansy - it’s definitely his problem, not yours.”

“Hard not to,” Pansy said sulkily. “We were as good as engaged last spring, everyone knew it, and he’s barely spoken to me since school started. What am I supposed to think?”

“That he’s cracked up,” Avery said, lowering his voice. “Something funny happened over the summer - no one’s quite clear on what it is, but I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. My father told my mother that he had a breakdown and ran off to some Muggle city - his father had to go after him and drag him home again. And he’s all quiet and strange these days. Doesn’t even pick fights with Potter. Total zombie. I’ll be very surprised if he even takes the Mark, come Christmas.”

“Really?” Pansy whispered, and Hermione could hear the delighted malice in her voice. “Ooooh - what an embarrassment to the Malfoys, if it’s true. Can you imagine?”

“My dad says some wizards just aren’t strong enough to handle it,” Avery said smugly. “Says the idea drives ‘em mad. They can’t take a little blood on their hands.” Clearly, he had no such qualms himself, Hermione thought, and balled her hands into suddenly icy fists.

“Not me,” Pansy said. Hermione shuddered - that rich-girl petulance had taken on a nasty edge that chilled her to the bones. “I can think of some I’d like to spill, all right.”

“I’d like to spill a little of yours,” Avery murmured suggestively. This rather gruesome attempt at innuendo was followed by a coquettish giggle and some wet sucking sounds; apparently Pansy didn’t take his advances amiss. Hermione tried not to listen to the slurping and muttered obscenities floating through the stone wall, with only limited success. If it went on too much longer, she was going to be sick.

A slap, a muffled groan, a chuckle. “Let’s find a little privacy, shall we?” Avery suggested. “The Potions room is open, looks like.”

Oh, shit.

Hermione cast a longing glance at the classroom’s only door. It was already half-blocked by a loutish shadow. She rose from her seat, undecided.

Brazen it out and say hello? Best not, considering that she’d overheard them discussing Death Eaters.

Run? Not very Gryffindor.

Hide? Possibly. Though she couldn’t imagine where.

From the sound of things, Pansy rather enjoyed the idea of possible discovery, and was all in favor of remaining in the corridor for the duration of their tryst - or maybe, Hermione thought, she was hoping to be rescued? Avery, however, had other ideas, and Hermione bit her lip as Pansy allowed herself to be manhandled toward the Potions doorway.

The desk, she thought - behind the desk, and barely managed to slide out of sight before the amorous Slytherins stumbled in, still grappling, and shut the door behind them. Hermione heard the unmistakable sound of tearing fabric, followed by a heartfelt female moan, and grimaced.

She SO did not want to hear this. And by the way - where the fuck was Snape?

Get me out of here, she thought, and shoved fretfully at a particularly uncomfortable outcrop of the unevenly worn flagstones underneath her.

The next thing she knew, she was falling.

**