Disclaimer: I own nothing that you see here. All characters belong to the wonderful and talented Ms. J. K. Rowling.
Thanks go to Southern_Witch_69 for beta reading this story for me. She’s been motivational and encouraging.
Harry pulls me into a quiet room off of the main hall, and mutters, “Muffliato,” at the door. He has the courtesy to conjure me a chair and a glass of ice water before he begins his speech. Well, it’s more like a string of accusing questions.
“How long have you known where he was? Where has he been hiding all this time? How close are you to him? Don’t you realize what he did? Hermione! Whose side are you on anyway?” The volume of his voice rose with each consecutive question until he was yelling. It was no more than what I expected. Harry has always been biased when it comes to Snape. I just wish that I’d realized that sooner. We all want to see the best in our friends, though.
As with Ron, I love Harry for who he is. I don’t have any grand expectations for either of them. They grew into the men that they are now, and I doubt they’ll ever change. Just as they love me for my faults, I love them for theirs.
I brush a stray wisp of hair, which had escaped from the tight twist, out of my face. I know better than to start arguing with Harry now. I need him to listen to reason, and that is best done when he is calm.
He seems to realize that I haven’t even bothered trying to answer his questions, and he stops. “Hermione, I know you’ve been looking into Dumbledore’s murder. You’ve never lied about that. What I want to know is why you really brought me the evidence. I want ” no ” I need to know why your report was written in such a way that made Snape look like some bloody martyr! You know my view on this. I will NOT do anything to help acquit that murderer.”
“If it bothered you so much, Harry, why didn’t you ask me this when I first brought you the file?” I ask calmly.
The growl that can be heard under his breath is unnerving, and the flicker of fire that I can see behind his glare is almost frightening. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d be scared.
“Harry, he’s blameless in this,” I dare to assert. “And you have the final piece of evidence that can exonerate him.”
“I don’t have anything of the sort. Do you think that if I had evidence to clear him that I ” an Auror ” would withhold evidence? Do you honestly believe that I would have spent the last seven years looking for the man?” Harry brings up his hand and runs it through his hair, causing it to look more disheveled than normal. He is pacing about the room now and fidgeting with his hands.
With his reaction to this bit of information I find myself wondering what he truly would’ve done had he known that I suspected he held a final piece of evidence in Severus’ defense. My report had been written as impartially as I could. It’s painfully obvious, though, that Harry only saw the things in my statements as confirmation of Severus’ guilt. Admittedly, this final bit of evidence even existing is just a theory that I have. I never wanted to have to rely on it if it wasn’t truly there. I gave Harry my report hoping to first garner support for Severus and then search for more evidence before he was detained.
His eyes are now glittering with unshed tears. “You didn’t see it, Hermione. I watched him raise his wand and kill Dumbledore. No hesitation. His face was contorted with pure evilness. You didn’t see it! You don’t know!”
I stand up to comfort my friend, this boy that had been forced to become a man in the blink of an eye. His life was filled with large stepping-stones, which made Harry into the man he is today. These ranged from the moment he grabbed the point of the hat and pulled it off”after it had pronounced him a Gryffindor”to the various adventures that no child should attempt to losing every person that became close to him. I could not imagine losing all of the people that he had, especially after he had grown so close to Sirius, Dumbledore, and Lupin. “I know what happened, Harry.” My arm wraps around him as I continue, “But I also know the other half of the story.”
“You are being ridiculous, Hermione. You can’t possibly understand,” Harry replies. He shrugs off my arm and moves away from me.
It’s hurtful that he doesn’t even want my comfort and understanding; he obviously feels betrayed. I expected it, and I only know that it’ll get worse. He thinks he wants to hear everything, but in truth, Harry only wants to hear what he wants to hear. “You have to go back to your study, Harry, and pull out those accursed gadgets that Dumbledore left you. That is where the evidence is that will clear Severus.”
“Severus? Severus? When the bloody hell did that man become Severus?” He is ranting now; that is never a good sign. I think he finally realizes that as well. Harry throws himself in the chair he’d conjured for me and audibly forces himself to take slow deep breaths. After several strained minutes, his anger is back under control. “Start at the beginning, Hermione.”
I eye him warily. I know what I need to say to him, but I also know that this is going to be one of the hardest conversations that I’ve ever had with him. Before I start, I say a small prayer of thanks that Ron and Ginny aren’t in here right now. I can only fend off one of these hot-tempered people at a time. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for over fourteen years.
It’s true; Harry has spent the last seven years searching for Severus Snape. Though to say that he’d been searching consistently for that time would be a lie. There was the year when we were searching for the lost Horcruxes, and Severus just happened to be one of the other things that we were looking for. Then, Harry had to get through his three years of Auror training, and then he began work. Although, the Head of Aurors, at Harry’s request, did turn the search for Snape over to Harry the moment that his training was complete.
I say that I’ve spent three years doing the research as to what really happened that night. That was how long I actively started on the project, though it wasn’t how long I’d been thinking about it. There were so many pieces to the puzzle that never set right with me, and listening to Harry go on about his investigation and what he’d like to do to Dumbledore’s murderer was enough to cause me to want to make sure that the man was truly guilty.
I pull out my wand to conjure another chair and sit down across from Harry. Sighing, I lean back and say, “All right, Harry. I’ll start at the beginning.”
This is not going to be easy for me to do. There are things that I know that he’ll truly not want to hear. However, I owe it to him to tell him the truth.
“It all began shortly after Dumbledore was killed,” I start.
Harry jumps to attention, unable to contain himself. “You’ve been plotting against me, your best friend, for that long?” he shouts.
“Harry, if you’re not going to listen, I won’t tell you a bloody thing!” I snap. His face doesn’t relax, but he, thankfully, closes his mouth. “Yes, it was when I first told you about the information that I’d found about Eileen Prince and that how I figured out that Se-Snape was the Half-Blood Prince who you’d been taking all of your advice from during our sixth year.”
Harry winced visibly at that. It always hurts him to be reminded of his folly.
“Well,” I continue, “you had also told all of us the reason that Dumbledore had trusted Snape. I’m sorry, Harry, but the reasoning, even at that time, just didn’t set right with me. I mean, when had we ever known Dumbledore to do something so shoddy. It didn’t make any sense. McGonagall, the Weasleys, and Lupin”they were all stunned. We all trusted Dumbledore, and there was no reason to think that he’d ever let any of us down. So, why would Dumbledore expect everyone else to trust Severus Snape, if his reason wasn’t truly a strong and valid one?”
“I told you, Dumbledore told me that he trusted Snape because””
Holding up my hand to stop him, I jump back in. “It was a rhetorical question, Harry. Now, quit interrupting.” His eyes narrow, but he relents… for the moment at least. “No, Dumbledore did NOT specifically tell you that that was the reason that he trusted Snape. You inferred that all on your own based on information that you’d received. I realized that when I asked you to relate exactly what Dumbledore had said to you. The way that you worded things, again, set off a few alarms. Filing the information away for later use, I helped you.
“I stood by you. Please remember that. Ron, Ginny, and I stood by you through thick and thin, Mr. Potter. We love you. I wanted to believe you whole-heartedly. But I couldn’t deny my inner voice telling me that something was off.”
That damn wisp of hair is back in my face, tickling my cheek. It’s annoying as hell. I tuck it, once again, behind my ear and take another sip of my water before I continue.
“The following year, when we were finally going after Voldemort, it came up again. Severus saved our lives. You were too blind to see it, but he did. If it wasn’t for the way that he distracted Voldemort and actually goaded Pettigrew into doing something… we would have all been killed, and Lord Voldemort would now be ruling supreme over the Wizarding world.”
“He didn’t do anything!” snapped Harry, as he stood up and began pacing. “Snape just spat out his nasty little insults at Wormtail. The fact that Wormtail owed me a life debt was the reason that he turned on his Master. It had nothing to do with that other turncoat!”
Jumping to my feet, I shout, “Don’t you dare call him that! You have no idea what he went through! None! He may have his faults, but Severus is a good man!” It takes every ounce of self-control for me to calm myself down. The glass that I had been holding is now shattered in a thousand pieces on the floor. It is only then that I notice the icy water that had sloshed over the front of my dress robes. A muttered Reparo and a quick Warm Air Charm clears the mess.
Apparently, I caught Harry’s attention with my last spirited remarks. I finally notice that he’s watching me closely, almost as if he’s figured something out. After several long minutes he asks, “Just how well do you know him, Hermione?”
COS quote from chapter 13: He grabbed the point of the hat and pulled it off.
A/N: I know that these chapters are short, but part of the challenge guidelines was a word limit of between 1000-2000 words. Next up: Hermione will at last begin to speak-up and tell her story.