Chapters 141-150

Are You Scared?

Hermione stared into the silent mirror. Thank Merlin for that. The fascination of talking mirrors had worn off in her first year. Since then, she appreciated quiet when she looked at herself in a mirror. She scowled at her reflection. You look like shit, Granger, she thought. Her face appeared almost as sallow as her husband’s. Dark smudges bruised her eyes, and the wild tumble of her curls accentuated cheekbones, jaw and chin to the point of gauntness. She knew that she’d lost weight since Halloween. And I feel like shit, too. She tried not to look at her left arm in the mirror, but of course that was exactly where her gaze strayed to, time and again, with every other move of the brush. She shuddered, put her toothbrush away, and quickly rinsed her mouth.

When she entered the bedroom, Severus lay on his back, his eyes closed. Hermione slid underneath the covers.

‘Hold me,’ she ordered fiercely.

He didn’t open his eyes but turned on his side and pulled her against his body all the same. ‘Bossy, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said and moved ever closer to him, pressing her body as close to him as she could manage. He was terribly thin but very strong all the same. Heavy cauldrons and constant pacing was apparently enough to keep him fit. ‘Absolutely.’

She buried her head against his chest, inhaling his scent and warming her cold cheeks and nose. He opened his eyes. They were so dark that she could see no difference between iris and pupils.

‘Are we going to die?’

‘Eventually,’ he replied calmly.

‘Are you—’ She swallowed hard. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Of death?’

She nodded. He gazed at her, with that strange intense look he reserved only for her. His eyes glinted with strange sparks. Love? Is that how love looks at you?

‘Are you?’ he asked, his voice very soft.

That was a reaction she hadn’t expected. She considered the question, her thoughts going back to Halloween and her experience of the River of Death. ‘Yes and no,’ she whispered at last. ‘I don’t know…’

For a while they lay in silence, facing each other. Too many thoughts and feelings constricted her throat. ‘I don’t want to die,’ she choked out at last. ‘Not now. I want to live. With you. I want to become a Potions Mistress. I want to be pregnant with your child. I want to see you hold our baby. I want to go to Harry’s wedding. And to Ron’s. And to Alina’s, one day.’

She didn’t manage to blink her tears away. Fuck, she thought. Oh fuck.

Wordlessly, he raised a black eyebrow. Hermione frowned, torn between exasperation and sudden, inexplicable need. Could he read her mind just like that? Would he?

His hand found her face. Fingertips trailed her cheek. ‘Unless you have a better idea, of course,’ Severus murmured, his voice gentle.

oooOooo

‘This is it?’ asked Hermione and stared at the ultra-modern cubes of the building in front of her. Golden letters attached to the grey front of glass and steel answered her question. This was indeed the ‘Koninklijke Bibliotheek’, the national library of the Netherlands in The Hague.

Anne Flamel nodded. ‘There’s a separate entry to the wizarding levels. Just around the corner.’

It looked like a fire-exit. For Muggles it probably was a fire-exit. But anyone who carried a wand would see a large sign next to the unassuming door, giving the opening hours of the library as well as instructions for how to spell the door open.

Inside, they found themselves in a brightly lit staircase of white marble. Not quite as modern as the Muggle building outside, but a far cry from the Victorian monstrosity of the British Ministry of Magic and the magical part of the British Library.

‘So why are those manuscripts here and not in Paris?’ Hermione inquired as she followed Anne down the stairs.

‘Only the female line of the Flamels stayed in Paris—the Perrier and the Dubois families. Currently Perenelle Perrier holds sway over that part of the family. She’s a top researcher for Chanel—the wizarding branch of the company, of course. The male line of the Flamels moved to the Netherlands where they established themselves as merchants in the Hanseatic League, trading potions ingredients, herbs, and alchemical substances. My grandfather’s still in the business. But my father and my mother are herbologists. “Flamel’s Florets & Fungi”.’ Anne glanced at Hermione with a wry grin. ‘A less than perfect alliteration, I know. But even if I do say so myself, we’re one of the best nurseries for magical and medicinal herbs in Europe.

‘Anyway—the manuscripts of Uncle Nicolas are heirlooms of the male line. But during the last three hundred years no member of the Flamel family had any scholarly interest in Potions or Alchemy, so the manuscripts were loaned to the library. No use in having them moulder away in our cellars if they can be useful for the research of scholars, right?’

Hermione nodded with an appreciative smile.

oooOooo

‘Here’s the passage I wanted,’ Madame Dubois said. ‘It’s a postscript of a treatise on the Deathly Hallows.—Nicolas Flamel researched items similar to the Philosopher’s Stone, such as the Holy Grail, Horcruxes, and the Resurrection Stone quite extensively.

‘It’s in Latin, so I’ll give you a quick translation:

‘The inability of Necromancers to pass beyond the Veil and back is widely undisputed. This argument is based on the fact that the origin of both the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone can be located on this side of the Ninth Gate. However, most chroniclers overlook the significance of the Invisibility Cloak. Different from ordinary invisibility fabrics, the cloak of Ignotus Peverell does not consist of Demiguise hair. Instead my tests have revealed that it is not made of any earthly fabric. It is made of what I can only assume is the very fabric that makes up the Veil from the other side…’’