LAST TANGO IN PARIS “You’re joking, right?” The three heads in front of her – jet-black, snow-white, pearl-grey – shook as one. Hermione sighed, leaned forward in her chair, pushed aside a pile of research so she could put her elbows on the table, and swiped her knuckles over her aching eyes. “This is insane, and so are the three of you. After all the trouble that … that creature caused – and it’s only sheer dumb luck that got him into the sapphire – you want me to deliberately let him loose again? I don’t think so.” “Under ordinary circumstances,” Snape said, “we’d be inclined to agree with you.” He exchanged a quick glance with Sal, as if to say: See? I told you so. “But if our hypothesis is correct, and Cornelius Fudge has been funding the Death-Eaters since their conception, then I think the risk is justified. It means the whole Ministry, or at least its governing body, is corrupt and has been for years—“ “—which of course we knew anyway,” Dumbledore cut in, “if you’ll pardon the interruption, Severus. But nothing has ever been proven, and no one’s been in the position to bring serious charges before now.” He fixed Hermione with that steady blue gaze (still strong and clear enough to make her forget that the rest of his face had aged fifteen years around it when she hadn’t been looking) and lifted a shaggy eyebrow. “Cornelius Fudge isn’t an evil man, I don’t think,” he went on. “But he’s a weak one, and sometimes that’s worse. And I won’t always—“ He broke off, and Hermione finished his sentence in her head: I won’t always be around to keep an eye on him. “Agreed, and agreed,” she said, wishing he didn’t look so thin-skinned and ancient. “But let’s not forget, this is Voldemort you’re talking about freeing. If this backfires, it could set us back fifteen years.” Her hands were cold, and she tucked them into her armpits to warm them. “You didn’t see him, back then,” she said, “but I did. And what I saw scared me. What’s to stop him, once he’s free, from slithering off and reforming his evil playgroup again?” “We are,” Sal said, looking rather pleased at the prospect. “Besides which, this is the right thing to do, Hermione. Don’t you want to know the truth?” “If she doesn’t,” Joséphine said from across the table, “I certainly do. But what makes you think he’s going to tell it the way it happened?” She shrugged. “I mean, being evil and all.” “I’ve thought of that as well,” Dumbledore said, and sent Hermione another searching Wedgwood stare. “All we need you to do is Release him, Hermione. We’ll take care of the rest.” Hermione thought for a moment, then nodded. “All right,” she said. “But if Voldemort’s going to walk us down Memory Lane, we shouldn’t be the only ones to hear it. Neville’s got too big a stake in this not to be there.” “I’ll get him,” Joséphine said, pushing back her chair. “Anybody else?” Hermione nodded. “Harry,” she said, careful not to meet Snape’s eyes. “If anyone has a right to ask questions, it’s him.” Nobody argued with her. * According to Sal, it would take a day or so to renew the Binding Charms on the dungeon room where they’d kept Malfoy. This suited Hermione just fine, as she and Joséphine had been up all night poring over the results of the MRI scans and hadn’t slept in nearly two days as it was. “Feel like we’ve gotten anywhere with this?” she asked now, stacking books into neater piles and gathering glossy photographs into a manila folder. Joséphine shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “We know what we don’t know. Good place to start.” Hermione laughed. “True.” “Tell you this, though,” Joséphine said after a moment. “It’s not just a matter of removing scar tissue, is it? There’re whole big chunks gone missing.” This was the truth they’d been trying not to talk about all night – the deep grooves and divots in the corteces of both scans, as if something malevolent had sprung its claws and raked great swathes of tissue from the outer surfaces of the frontal lobes. Prolonged intense pain could cause irreparable damage and scarring to the cortex – or so said the books – but this was something else entirely, or at least looked like it. Hermione sighed and pushed her chair in closer to the table. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “Just not right now. I’m dead on my feet.” Joséphine hummed in agreement, paused at the door. “Get some sleep. You look wrecked.” “Thanks.” “You know what I mean.” “Yeah. I know.” Hermione glanced at her watch: six o’ clock. Dinnertime. The minute she stepped outside the library, she’d be caught up in the bustle and chatter of students headed to the Great Hall. There was a spot saved for her at the Head Table, she was certain. And the food would be excellent – rich, filling, far too much of it. Not tonight, she decided, and sat down on the little expandable chaise nearest the fireplace. Ah, that was better – the most comfortable bed she could remember, actually. There’d been more than a few nights, her first year or so in Egypt, when she’d gotten herself off to sleep thinking about this bed, this fire, this womb-like room that closed around her like an unblemished eggshell, warm and translucent and unbreachable. Meech the house-elf had brought in a tray of fruit and sandwiches earlier that afternoon, the remains of which were still on the coffee table next to the chaise. Hermione lay back, peeled an orange, and had barely finished it before sleep came tugging at her eyelids. Hands still sticky and fragrant with orange-oil, she closed her eyes and let herself fall. When she woke up, Snape was beside her. ‘Beside’ wasn’t the word, actually, as much as ‘on top of’ – he was leaning over her, one hand tangled in the short curls at the back of her neck, the other snuggled possessively into the dip of her waist. “Oh, did I wake you?” he murmured against her lips. She could feel him smiling. “How clumsy of me.” She shifted her head on the pillow – that’s funny, there hadn’t been a pillow there when she went to sleep – and did her best to muster a grumble. It came out a sigh instead. “I thought you’d gone back home. I didn’t think you’d come here.” “Funny thing about that,” he said, trailing his lips across her right cheek and pausing just near enough her ear to make the inside of her head buzz when he spoke. Hermione felt every erogenous zone on her body tighten and pulse. “All that warding tired me out – didn’t feel like making the trip, after all. I must be getting old.” The hand at her waist was sliding south, which made it hard to think. “You sweet-talker, you,” Hermione managed, and felt certain susceptible bits of her turn into pudding when he chuckled and nipped her earlobe. “Oh, that’s not the only reason.” “No?” “No.” Somehow he’d turned her head to fit more comfortably under his, slid those magic lips back to hers. “My bed in Montana’s covered in cat hair.” She’d almost forgotten, Hermione thought, how good it felt to laugh and be kissed at the same time. That clever bit of wizardry presently happening between her legs didn’t hurt, either. “And they say romance is dead.” “Do they?” He cupped the back of her neck more securely, twiddled the fingers of his other hand, and hummed in satisfaction as she writhed underneath him. “What do you think?” “I think,” she panted, “that if you want to catch up with me, you’d better hurry up.” He didn’t move. “Oh, you go on,” he said against her mouth, and sent her over the edge with his kiss and those clever guitar-pick fingertips. “Don’t worry on my account. I imagine I’ll be along later.” * It was funny, she thought afterwards, how careful they both were not to say the words, even while they picked each other apart at the seams – how even as he turned her inside out and threw himself after her, that the unspoken tenderness vibrating between them could feel so delicate, so sharp-edged and ephemeral. Too much happiness tempts the Fates, she remembered him saying, and had a brief clear-eyed vision of Bill, the last night he’d been alive, squeezing her hand in the darkness and yawning. Love you. Love you too. This wasn’t at all like that – or was it? “Lift up,” Snape was saying now (another funny thing – she might call him ‘Severus’, sometimes, but she’d forever think of him as ‘Snape’), and she felt something cool and smooth graze the small of her back, heard a muted click under the covers as he brought his hands together at her abdomen. “All right.” “What’s that?” she asked sleepily, and felt his arm snake around her shoulders. “Nothing. Sheets were rumpled, that’s all. Chafing me.” “Liar.” “Yes, well.” He didn’t budge. “Go to sleep. It’s late, and I’d rather like to be up and away before Potter and Weasley decide to come bursting in here at sunrise for a ten-year reunion.” She frowned into the darkness. “They don’t have a key.” “You’ll pardon me for my lack of confidence in that reassurance.” “Oh, for Merlin’s sake. You could at least try to be civil to them, after all this time.” “I could,” he agreed. “And a hippogriff could fly out of my arse and stay for afternoon tea, too. But I don’t think either of those things likely to happen.” She yawned. “You never know. Maybe we’d better tell Meech to bring up some extra scones, just in case.” “Go to sleep, Hermione.” “All right,” she murmured, and nestled a little closer to him. “But only since I haven’t got anything better to d—“ Silence. * |