Roman Holiday

Chapter Sixty-Four

As long as she was in the library, she’d might as well read.

Hermione wound her way through the darkened stacks, rigid with righteous outrage and the beginning niggles of something that might have been disappointment. Serves you right, she thought, her lips tightly pressed against the hurt. You should have known better - he’s got his own agenda right now, his own baggage. He doesn’t want to hear anything from you but grovelling.

And that, she decided fiercely, he wasn’t going to get.

“I wanted you to need me, and you didn’t.”

Hermione snorted.

The narrow-minded, autocratic, silver-spoon-up-his-ass, inflexible little prick. If he’d bothered to think tonight, instead of wallowing in all that damned self-pity and indulging his Inner Snape, he’d have realised that that was exactly why she was there.

Well, no more. She didn’t need him, not this resentful sarcastic I-Am-Alpha-Male version of him, anyway. She’d gotten herself into the mess, she’d get herself out.

And if the Veritaserum was indeed her prospective iceberg, at least she saw it coming. She ducked into the Potions aisle of the Restricted Section and used the penlight-wand to find her way to the Vs.

Edwin Razorscuff and the Making of Primitive Veritaserum.

No.

She moved on to a smaller hand-bound volume that looked rather like a doctoral dissertation.

To Tell the Truth: Modern Uses of Veritaserum.

Interesting, but not exactly what she was after - and if it was indeed published in 1804, the date on the binding, any of its pretenses at modernity could be, Hermione felt, safely discarded. She blew some dust off the binding of the next book, stifled a sneeze, and peered at the faded gilt lettering.

When Potions Fail: Veritaserum’s Broken Promise.

Ha - this was more like it. She removed the book from its place on the shelf, flipped it open, and frowningly perused the preface.

Upon Edwin Razorscuff’s discovery of a truth elixir in the late 1700s, the wizarding world believed itself to be revolutionised. To this day, Veritaserum is widely regarded as fail-safe, a longtime standby of employment agencies, courtrooms, and parents of small children. However, the author of this volume presents compelling scholarly evidence that Veritaserum is a manipulable substance, and not to be trusted implicitly …

That was all she needed to see. Hermione dusted off the rest of the book, stuffed it under her arm, and headed for the exit, glancing at her watch once she reached the corridor leading to Gryffindor Tower.

Almost two-o’-clock. And the inquest was at ten. Plenty of time.

Tamping down the thought that a real Gryffindor wouldn’t even have gone looking for this book, she set off down the hall toward her bedroom.

Four hours later, she was still reading.

**

Ten a.m. found her waiting outside Dumbledore’s office, along with Harry, Ron and Ginny - all fidgeting - a strangely sated-looking Snape, and her Morose-But-Still-Cute ex-boyfriend, battling fatigue but feeling marginally hopeful.

As it turned out, Veritaserum was more scientific than its poetic name, and had a great deal in common with its Muggle cousin, the polygraph. This was good news.

Hermione wasn’t an expert on how the polygraph worked, but she knew it measured physiological responses: perspiration, breathing patterns, the involuntary movement of certain muscles. The concept behind its creation had been that deceptive speech or behaviour triggered certain measurable physical phenomena, sparked by a jolt of adrenaline. Veritaserum appeared to be the other side to that coin: the potion worked to muffle that adrenaline surge, so that any response requiring it couldn’t be voiced.

Which meant, of course, that she had a choice to make. The weak link was obvious - no truth, after all, was absolute. The question How did you get down from the ceiling? could be answered in at least two ways: I used the Imperius Curse, or I told him to untie me. Both statements, equally true.

Of course, if the question happened to be: Did you cast the Imperius Curse on Lucius Malfoy?, or Did you keep eight of your fellow students trapped in a star sapphire for the entirety of Christmas vacation?, her room for dissembling disappeared. There was only one way to answer those: you bet your ass.

In other words, she was hoping for essay questions, and not true-or-false.

But that made her wonder: wasn’t she just better off, telling the truth?

She was still pondering that question when the downstairs gargoyle jumped aside and a small crowd of Ministry Aurors rose into view, surrounding in their official midst a person Hermione didn’t at first recognise.

Then she looked a little closer - and gasped as she realised it was Rita Skeeter.

Hermione had heard from all the various eyewitnesses to the café scene about Rita’s complicity in Malfoy’s Polyjuice scheme, but she’d been unconscious during Skeeter’s brief appearance at Hogwarts for interrogation, and hadn’t awoken until long after the Aurors had taken her away. That poisonous bitch, Ron and Harry called her, and Hermione hadn’t disagreed with them - even taking into account all those mean-spirited Daily Prophet articles of two years ago, it was hard to imagine that she’d stoop to malevolence like Malfoy’s in her quest for revenge.

Now, however, she found indignation battling with sympathy at the sight before her. Rita had always reminded her a bit of Mrs. Boggs, the receptionist at her parents’ office who sold mail-order cosmetics in her spare time - ill-advised in her fashion choices, certainly, but also indubitably well-groomed. She suspected that Rita prided herself on being impeccably (if a bit heavily) made-up: certainly Hermione had never seen her without her lips matched to her nails, her handbag coordinated with her shoes, her hair shellacked resolutely into submission.

This cowering, sallow-skinned woman in the brown prison robes with her broken nails, her scratched arms, her lank hair - brass-red, still, but streaked liberally now with grey - didn’t even look like Rita Skeeter’s shadow. Hermione met the madly rolling eyes with her own and couldn’t help shuddering; with pity, with revulsion, she honestly didn’t know.

Both, probably.

And then Rita Skeeter laughed, a horrible harsh broken sound, and wrenched free of the Aurors holding her arm long enough to face Hermione square-on, and gather her saliva, and spit.

“Stupid little bint, you’ll get yours,” she hissed. “Don’t even think you’re safe -“ and then the Aurors had grabbed her arms again and hustled her in a flurry of uniforms and fading imprecations into Dumbledore’s office, and closed the door behind her.

Hermione stared at the gob of thick whitish spittle on her shoe - one of Giulia’s black Prada loafers, with the elegantly curved stacked heels and the narrow silver buckles; she’d worn them to give herself a touch of her cousin’s Roman bad-girl confidence - and started to shake.

Stupid little bint. You’ll get yours.

Around her, Harry and Ron and Ginny were hovering and talking and touching, but she couldn’t look at them; they were blurry, or she was dizzy, or both - and oh God, she should have slept last night instead of reading that stupid Slytherin book!

And then a strong black-robed arm materialized in front of her, and she grabbed it gratefully and was whisked away from the chair, away from the gabbling of her friends and Draco’s silent stare and the door through which Rita had disappeared, around a corner and into a little curtained alcove. She sank onto the cushioned bench where he deposited her, teeth chattering, and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Here,” Snape said curtly, and waved his handkerchief in front of her face. She stared at it blankly.”

“I’m not crying.”

“For your shoe,” he said. “Wipe it off.”

Her hands were shaking too hard to hold the handkerchief. She looked at him appealingly, and he shook his head.

“Do it yourself.” Steel in his voice. “Pull yourself together, Miss Granger. This isn’t Hollywood, it’s real life.”

That’s right, kick me when I’m down, Hermione thought resentfully, and grabbed the square of crisp white linen with a surge of annoyance that took the edge off her shakiness. By the time she’d swabbed at her shoe and sat back up, she felt much steadier. No doubt that’d been his intention, she thought, and handed the now-crumpled hanky back to him.

“Thank you,” she said grudgingly. “I’m sorry - I don’t know why I let that get to me.”

“Don’t you?”

He was sitting beside her but looking straight ahead at the curtain, rather as if they were riding together in an automobile. It was a position that invited confidences. Hermione drew a deep breath.

“I haven’t slept,” she started - then, when he made a soft sound of disbelief in his throat, decided to cut to the chase.

“I’m scared.”

“Of Rita Skeeter?” Now he sounded amused, damn him. Hermione scowled at the impassive profile next to her.

“No! Of testifying.”

“Oh?”

She hummed impatiently. “I used an Imperius Curse on Malfoy,” she said. “I used a Trapping Spell on Voldemort - a spell I’m not even supposed to know! I could be sent to Azkaban myself, just for the Imperius alone. And if they find out what I did before Christmas …”

She was shaking again - just voicing the problem made it seem that much bigger. Snape sighed heavily, and shifted so that he was looking straight at her.

“You’re not the one on trial, Hermione,” he said. She shook her head.

“But it’s still illegal! It’s more than illegal. It’s unforgivable.”

There was a swoosh of black fabric, a muttered curse, and then he was kneeling in front of her, gripping her chin with one elegant strong-fingered hand.

“Look at this,” he said harshly, and released her in order to yank up the left sleeve of his robes. She stared uncomprehending at the pale unmarked skin, at the blue throb of his wrist.

“It’s where the Dark Mark used to be,” she said, and he let out a laugh that was half a sob.

“Exactly,” he said, black eyes boring holes in hers. “Where it used to be. Where it no longer is.”

Her lips trembled. “But what -“

“What does it have to do with you?” He leaned closer, so closer that she could smell the mint on his breath. “You did this,” he breathed. “You. Doesn’t that prove anything to you?”

“I -“ she began, but he didn’t let her finish.

“Hermione,” he said. “If you can get rid of this, then nothing’s Unforgivable. Not anymore.”

And then he was kissing her.

**

She was so soft, so sweet - like honey on his tongue, like a perfectly-still butterfly, poised on the back of his hand. And she didn’t hesitate, didn’t hold back from him, just sighed and gave over and hooked those small strong hands in the back of his collar, the sensation of her calloused fingertips on the back of his neck turning him to cornmeal mush, to stone.

He’d kissed her in anger, he’d kissed her in haste, but he’d never kissed her for comfort, and he’d never kissed her out of love.

So now he did, and it was electricity in his brain, water pouring over his palms, the missing piece of the puzzle, dug out from under the davenport and clicked triumphantly into place. Cradle her, cosset her, kiss those wet eyes and save the salt on your tongue - salt like ocean, salt like spray. Tell her she’s beautiful. Tell her she’s safe.

He rocked her in his arms, he stroked that honey-silk hair, and when they finally drew back from each other, he looked her straight in her eyes and lied.

“Hermione,” he said, “don’t worry about the Ministry. Just go into that room and tell them the truth, and they can’t possibly do a thing to you.”

She gave him a watery smile, and then he was on his feet and they were carrying him toward Dumbledore’s office, because after all they’d been away far too long, and he was needed for witness-questioning in the Skeeter case.

Don’t worry, he’d said, and left the rest unspoken.

I’ll do it for you.