“beyond wandpoint” 043 by gingerbred

[beyondwandpoint]

“11 10f Monday - Before”

Severus and Hermione, Harry, Ron, Crooks

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Originally Published: 2017-12-21 on AO3
Chapter: 043

Pairing: Hermione Granger / Severus Snape
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

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Entering the wards isn't quite as good as having them keyed for her, but it's still pretty damn good. That puts another smile on her face. She manages to get herself out of the doorway and into chambers, partly because she doesn't want anyone to see her there, but mostly because she consoles herself that she can repeat the process at any time she likes. She's able to admit she probably will. Gratuitously.

Often.


As she enters the room and looks around, she's relieved to note there aren't bits of house elf strewn about the place. Again she neglects to consider that the ability to Apparate pretty much precludes being eaten by a Half-Kneazle. But Crooks has proven his aptitude at hunting spiders, clever boy, showing a complete absence of fear unlike certain other gingers she could name. That Ron's phobia is no more or less valid than her own fear of heights escapes her. She may still be annoyed from earlier. At some point one would hope she might notice the frequency with which that occurs and take steps, but she's got a rather large blind spot where her friends are concerned. It might speak for her, if not her learning curve.

Once she's further into the room, she spots her familiar. Crookshanks, she's a little panicked to see, has curled himself into the Professor's chair, where he's now snoozing comfortably.

"Crooks!" All that gets her is a half-opened eye. Just the one. "How could you?!" The second eye opens, and he glances at her. Balefully. She fails to register it entirely. "After I told him, assured him, you'd behave!" She might actually be wailing.

His sleep now thoroughly disturbed, Crooks stretches and yawns, and gives her his best disdainful stare, but he'll have to up his game considerably given who his new flatmate is. She's undeterred and pulls, shoves, pushes him from the seat. "This," she indicates... her chair, "is my seat. You can sit here all you like, but stay. Out. Of his. Chair. Do you hear me?"

Still eager to take her shower and now not trusting her familiar further than she could throw him, not that she ever would, but which isn't far as he's a rather weighty boy, she drags him into her room and shuts the door behind them. Scolding noises can still be heard from the other side of the door. Eventually it will occur to Severus to put up a Silencing Charm on it.

As she goes about gathering her things for her shower, she continues to chide the Half-Kneazle. He's fairly unimpressed. Wild Thestrals couldn't get him to sit in the chair she wants him to. Frankly, he can't understand why she does. He loves his witch. He even likes her. But at moments like these, he really has to question her intelligence. Humans simply aren't that bright.

If anyone disagrees, he'll happily point out that a certain pet of the ginger boy's apparently lived with a family of wizards and witches for yonks and regularly attended a school of the same without anyone noticing it was a Transfigured human. And the Head of House calls herself a Transfigurations Mistress... Pfft. Of course, as he's a feline, no one's likely to understand what exactly he's pointing out, much as they hadn't at the time. He had spent the better part of a school year trying to make the threat of the not rat clear, but, no. Nothing. Humans.

Hermione eventually runs out of steam, and in a typically self-deluding fashion where her pet is concerned, decides he's both understood her, which naturally he has, and has come around to her way of thinking, which isn't bloody likely.


She heads off to finally take her shower only to discover that it feels about as good as the wards. She hasn't a clue what the spell is, but holy cricket, it's amazing! Water! Steam! Jets?! Who knew? It's the magical equivalent of that thing her mum has been... had been pestering her father, sadly rubbish at DIY, to get from the building supply store. Now she understands why... Great gods. She decides there's an advantage to the shower over the wards at the door, which is that no one can see her making a spectacle of herself and, not surprisingly, the shower takes longer than usual.

Mercy.


Dressed, her hair still damp despite a Charm, she sets about some tests of the wards. It might just be an excuse to spend a fair amount of time in them, but who's to say? There are some legitimate avenues of enquiry, however, and thinking her familiar now owes her one to redress his questionable behaviour from earlier, she ropes Crooks into helping her with her tests.

Taking advantage of the fact almost all students would currently be in class, she Disillusions herself, stays behind the room's Notice-Me-Not field, belts and braces, and as the wards are keyed to her, she is able to open the door with a simple Alohomora. Now that she can see the hallway is clear, she exits and begins to test when she can feel the wards.

They extend several yards in all directions, but are strongest nearer the door, as she noted before. Obviously they don't prohibit passage, or no one would ever make it in or out of the dungeons. Or if they were somehow open to passage by Slytherins, then no other students would ever make it to the Potions classroom. So that's clearly not the case. She surmises they can't provide all that much useful information on the comings and goings because of that.

That's incorrect. The time they are crossed is actually a very useful piece of information, and she has no idea as yet how specific the information it provides is. Whether there is a distinction between directionality, which House a passerby belongs to, or even which individuals. The first and second are actually the case, the third is not with very few exceptions for whom Charms have been cast, but she's simply not used to asking the right questions yet.

It occurs to her that in order to be effective, there must be a line somewhere that others cannot cross. The hallway is naturally out of the question, and the sill seems likely. That supposition appears reinforced by the fact that it's not possible to see into the room from outside. She has no way of testing that with anyone else without exposing the residence, no desire in the least to do so, and she assumes the Loyalty Vow would prohibit that, if only because she assumes as much. A tidy tautology, but no less true. It's Crook's turn to make himself useful. He feels he already has, but cats and their people so rarely agree on that count.

And so she crouches outside of chambers, the door wide open and calls him. He knows full well he can't cross that sill, and has no intention of running into a wall and instead sits there, leisurely licking his paws. She sticks with it far too long for someone of her intelligence, before relenting, taking the Professor at his word and going to... their icebox, finding some kippers and attempting it with a bribe.

Crooks weighs his options. He finally decides his best chance of convincing her to give him the fish is if he reconciles himself to making the sacrifice in the name of her research. Well, and fish, naturally. Slowly but with determination, he stalks towards the door, only to be stopped in the doorjamb. His already flat face flattens almost comically against something that functions as an invisible wall, and he can go no further.

Hermione, naturally, folds immediately under the guilt, rushing to her pet with comforting noises, hugs, and - most importantly - fish, only just remembering to close the door behind her. Crook's effort, in fact, seems to be worth more fish than she had initially allotted, as she quickly goes to fetch him seconds.

All in all, not a bad take.

---

As the hour comes to an end, Severus can't help thinking this is probably the last non-confrontational class with Potter and Weasley before it all goes to hell. And then he stops himself there and wonders when it's ever been non-confrontational. He couldn't even claim that had been the case today. He stubbornly ignores how he may have contributed to that; it's not the point. The point was he was their instructor, and he demanded a certain degree of respect. He's also more than earned it. He's bloody brilliant in his field.

Well, perhaps not as an educator... Frankly, he hates teaching Potions to the mentally impaired with a passion sadly not matched anywhere else in his life. And then he remembers the bonding and how he's better off not thinking about passion at all anymore. Fucking hell.


Teaching.

There's no joy to be found in keeping the wilfully ignorant from blowing themselves up. On the contrary, it puts paid to natural selection, which offends his sensibilities. Which are very sensible. And his sense of justice, because he's so incredibly just. But just because he isn't always able to act on it, doesn't mean he hasn't got a sense of it, ta muchly.

The students rise to leave, and he calls out to Potter and Weasley. Potter has already palmed his wand again, ready to hex Weasley should the need arise. The sight appeals to something in Severus. Personally, were he Potter, he would... how did Weasley himself put it? Consider it the default. Sadly, he is not. And then he stops to think about the lunacy of that thought and decides the fumes are getting to him. He probably needs to get out of the dungeons. Fortunately, it's the lunch hour.

"Potter, Weasley, the Headmaster would like to see you before you go to lunch."

"We're waiting for Hermione," Potter answers, a little truculently. "She still hasn't returned."

"So I noticed. Just how long does it take to return from the Tower?" Potter's face clouds, Weasley's goes red again at the thought of those lost House points. All five of them. That their chatting had cost them far more doesn't seem to occur to either of the lackwits. Which is part of why he considers them lackwits, naturally. They never fail to disappoint.

"Well, I'm quite sure she wouldn't dream of looking for Weasley in an empty Potions classroom during the lunch hour." They don't appear mollified or inclined to leave. They can remain unmollified until the end of days as far as he's concerned, just as long as they do it elsewhere. Hoping to facilitate that, he concedes, "Very well, if I see her, I'll be sure to tell her where you've gone. Satisfactory? Now may I suggest you move along? It wouldn't do to keep the Headmaster... waiting."

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As she sits there coddling her furry man, she feels a faint disturbance in the wards. She realises she had felt it this morning, too, casts a Tempus to confirm class must have just ended, and then it dawns on her that that must be how it feels when people pass outside. It's just as well, then, that she was back in chambers. When the sensation subsides, calculating that those that were in the dungeons will now have left them for lunch, she repeats her process for leaving chambers, and returns to the hallway to continue her exploration of the wards, or just to stand in them a little longer, it's still not quite clear, when Harry and Ron come hurrying towards her.

For half a moment she panics, the door is wide open, she's standing in the hallway, but she's Disillusioned and flattens herself against the wall, and they take no more notice of the door now than they had an hour ago and simply storm past her, complaining loudly about... Snape all the while. She's still staring at their wake when a certain Professor appears in the doorway.

"May I enquire what you are doing out there, Miss Granger?"


It's all the more startling because she's still Disillusioned.

---

A Finite Incantatem renders her visible again and he steps aside to allow her to pass as she returns to... their quarters.

"Trying to figure out how the wards work," she answers, and he now has to suppress a smirk as he remembers wondering if he wouldn't find her spending a good deal of time in the doorway. It seems that bit of snark was rather on the nose. "So I guess they let you know I was standing there?" He lifts a brow to indicate it was a foolish question, but the bond tells her not to worry, and so she doesn't. Eventually he grows tired of waiting for her to flinch, and finally he nods.

"And why is your... pet in my chair?"

"Crooks!"

She'd only just let him go, too, and there he's already returned to the Professor's chair. It has the advantage, if one chooses to see it as that, not that she particularly does, of no longer leaving her feeling like she's hiding something from him. Obviously that's no longer an option.

Miss Granger chases the Half-Kneazle from his chair, and Severus Banishes the remaining bits of fur to Crabbe's bed. It's satisfying, particularly as he knows a sensitivity on the boy's part had kept any of the others in his dorm room from being able to have cats, or Kneazles for that matter. And it serves him right for not warding his bed.

The boys are idiots.

That sixth year Harper's ginger tom will probably be considered the most likely suspect is simply an added bonus. He supposes this is rather like putting the cat among the pigeons. Winged rats. A perfectly fitting metaphor for the boys if ever there were one.


Miss Granger is standing there behind him with her ginger monster in her arms. "Sir, as I said, I was trying to determine how the wards were set up, and happened to notice Crooks can't cross them." His lips press together in the precursor to a grimace, he has a presentiment of what's to come. "Could you key them for him, too? Please?" Quite. He can't not. But he's not looking forward to it either.

He draws his wand and tells himself it's just like keying them for Sunny was. Well, almost. He has no intention of allowing the Kneazle privileges to bring others into his... their chambers. But he keeps telling himself that, it's just like it was for Sunny. Who knows, if he keeps saying it, he might come to believe it. But as with Sunny, there's no wand involved, of course, which means the magic needs to be keyed to the individual's signature. The process is rather more involved than it was for Miss Granger, and honestly he feels a little silly doing it for a cat, but it can't be helped. He now seems to have a... pet.

Perfect.

Completing the spell startles a 'Mrowr' from Crooks, who then proceeds to rub against the Professor's legs. Leaving more fur on his trousers naturally. He shoots her another withering look in response that has her shrinking where she stands, and then he Vanishes the fur again. To the naked eye, if the Charm is performed silently, it's virtually impossible with something so small to tell if it's Vanished or Banished. It suits his purposes if she takes it for Vanishing. He doesn't actually wish to agitate her, to make her consider what he is doing or why, particularly as he knows the news he has for her will prove troublesome enough.

It is perhaps sensible to see how she has fared today first. He knows that Zabini and Nott will have been in Charms this morning. Draco should have been, but obviously wasn't.

"How did you do in Charms this morning, Miss Granger?"

She seems unexpectedly gratified at the enquiry. "I was able to answer a couple of questions on Golpalott's Third Law and Glasgow's G.U.T.S.," she answers, reasonably pleased with herself. He just stares at her, because that most certainly isn't the answer he was looking for. But by all means, he can't wait to hear how many points she won for her House. There's a brief moment where he even resents putting Draco in the Infirmary, because he knows he'd have been able to field at least one of those questions for their House before he catches himself thinking it, feels guilty, and immediately becomes a great deal more patient in response.

And now he's just wondering why they're covering Potions material in Charms...

He asks, she answers.

"And Potter wasn't able to answer that?" He enquires innocently. "I seem to recall Horace waxing almost poetic on his knowledge of the material last year..."

She pinks. He smirks. At least she has the decency to find it embarrassing. He lets it go. For once.

"I was thinking more along the lines of Zabini and Nott," he tells her more softly. "How well did you manage with having them in class?"

"Better than I expected to be honest. I think it helped once I realised I had walked through the whole bunch of them alone this morning, and it was no different than it had ever been. If I don't change my behaviour, they won't."

Would that were so, but he knows that word will get out. Soon. His memories, Draco's memories will be viewed by certain parties. Those parties will share the details, and there will be knock on effects. But there's some time between then and now, and if she can learn to appear calm in the face of it, when confronting the boys, it shouldn't be as bad as it undoubtedly would have been. Additionally, with the memories he removed from Draco and will himself suppress, he hopes to be able to change the narrative sufficiently that it will be far less traumatic. That might make all the difference.

He focuses on the practical for the moment. "Why did you walk through a 'bunch of them'?" His arrangement with the Baron should have seen to that, and he had escorted her to the Great Hall himself. She should have been with friends... She doesn't answer, merely averts her gaze, and he realises why she wasn't. Even more quietly than before, he tells her, "Thank you."

Her eyes shoot up and she simply smiles at him. It's a pleasant smile, and he appreciates that she hadn't felt the need to comment on his state after the confrontation with Hagrid this morning. He has a sense of wanting to reward that, and also not wishing to follow that... kindness with the almost definitely unwelcome information that the Headmaster is currently speaking to Potter and Weasley, so he asks her instead if she has a quick practical question or two on the wards he should answer for her, and predictably she's... thrilled.

She's concerned with being seen entering or leaving his... their chambers. He explains how to check if the hallway is clear, by listening to the wards. Having experienced the sensation when the students from Potions walked past, she understands what he means. He goes out into the passage to demonstrate it for her, and she quickly gets the hang of it. Then he explains that a Notice-Me-Not on the door coupled with Disillusioning herself will serve well enough if there are people in the hallway. She can then lift the spells when she's well clear of the entry. It's close enough to what she had done earlier that she's annoyed with herself for not thinking of it.

So much so, that when he then breaks it to her that her friends are currently being briefed on... their bonding, she's nowhere near as upset about that as she would have been a few moments earlier. She finds her own intellectual shortcomings so frustrating that it tends to eclipse a good many other things. That will almost certainly wear off, at the latest when she's confronted with the Duo Debilis, but it's a help for now. However, he can't help noticing that she Banishes easily half the books from the pile on the end table next to... her chair back to her room. He correctly guesses that she doesn't think she'll wish to spend as much time out of chambers once the news breaks.

Personally, he thinks she'd do well to enjoy as much of it as possible; things will undoubtedly become worse once even more people are informed. But he keeps his opinion to himself.

"I need to get to lunch, Miss Granger," he tells her instead. She nods her understanding, and begins nibbling her lip in a way that suggests she's hesitant to ask something, even if their bond weren't making that clear. "Would you like to accompany me to the Great Hall?"

That seems to be the question she hadn't dared ask. It amuses him, but only because he has a dark sense of humour. She's commandeered his study, invaded his chambers, her pet is shedding all over his chair, but she didn't wish to subject him to her company on the way to lunch. He can't say she makes all that much sense to him.

"Shall I put Crooks in my room?" She asks. Apparently she at least noticed one of the multitude of disruptions.

He sighs, "No, leave him." But as she summons her books to carry, he just extends a hand to take them, probably because she was considerate enough to ask about the cat. "I appreciate that there are fewer this time," he says as he hefts them demonstratively.

"I wouldn't want to over tax you," she quips. It gets her a raised eyebrow, but they both know that's in place of a smirk. "Bye, Crooks. Behave," she tells the creature as Severus holds the door for her as they leave. He can't imagine any behaving would hold for more than a minute as the door closes behind them.

For all he's carrying her books, just the thought of which has her desperately trying to swallow a smile, they don't speak as they walk through the hallways. He still stalks on ahead, and she still has to trot to catch up. She's wishing she hadn't effectively rejected his attempt to accommodate her yesterday. But she can't go back to change that. She resolves to do the best she can with any openings he provides in the future. But she recognises that he could easily outpace her, if he chose to, and he isn't, so he's still moderating some of his behaviours as well.

When they reach the Great Hall, they again stop. He assumes so that he can return her books and they can enter separately, and he hands her back the texts.

"Thank you," she responds with a shy smile as she takes them. "No, go ahead, Sir," she tells him when he remains standing to allow her to enter first this time. "I think I'll just wait for them here. It's probably better if I intercept them... out here. Before they go in and... I don't think that's a scene we should have in front of the whole..." She takes a steadying breath and reorientates her thoughts. "Wish me luck?"

"Do you think that will help?" He asks, not helpfully. But there's little point to making the situation worse. "Best of luck, Miss Granger."

"You may need to stop calling me that in public," she replies, echoing his words from... their bonding, with a wry grin that doesn't quite reach her eyes. He gives her a slight nod in response, but the muscles around his eyes seem tight, too.