Chapters 241-250

The Questions that Remain

‘How is Hermione?’ Draco asked.

Severus hesitated. How could three simple words pose such a difficult question?

On the yeti skin in front of the fireplace Scorpius was playing with colourful Muggle-style building blocks, gurgling happily away in a language that only he and Professor Flitwick seemed to understand.

Severus recalled how Hermione had opened her eyes those four short weeks ago.

He pleaded with her, promised her that she wasn’t dreaming, that neither he nor she were dead or dying. Her eyes, brown and beautiful, were just like he remembered them, though huge in a too thin, too pale face. But when she looked at him, he couldn’t tell if she really saw him at all, if she was awake and aware.

Or if she was broken beyond healing.

He gathered her up into his arms. She felt almost like a bird in his arms, hollow-boned and fragile. At least her hair was as it had always been, incredibly brown and bushy. And although it was matted and tangled, it smelt of his Hermione.

Severus exhaled. A carefully controlled measure of breath. ‘As well as can be expected, I’m told.’

Healers had taken turns. And at Lois’ insistence Hermione was seeing a Muggle therapist as well.

A translucent eyebrow rose questioningly. ‘And what do you think?’

‘What do I think?’ Severus sat down heavily. ‘She tries so hard,’ he whispered. ‘Too hard, I think. At night she clings to me and she doesn’t sleep. She’s tries to keep it from me, but I know she is scared of each morning when I have to leave for class.’ A brooding silence followed. ‘She won’t touch a wand. I’m not sure if she will ever be able to use one again.’

‘It must please you to know that the ringleader has reaped his just rewards and is rotting away in Azkaban.’

Severus snorted. ‘And he the one who insisted that they do not kill Hermione outright, as it turns out.—Two dead, three in Azkaban, two escaped, nine thugs in Muggle prisons. Compared to the number of people they killed and the lives they ruined, the term ‘justice’ seems hardly applicable.’

Draco gave his inimitable ghostly shrug, shrinking a little, swelling a little. ‘I find that such things do not bother me anymore. Or at least not the way they did, once upon a time. Sufficient unto one life is the evil thereof.’ He smiled wryly. ‘As a matter of fact, I have it here now, the whole story. Everything put together, as best as I was able.’

He pointed at a neat stack of parchments, ready to be bound into a booklet. ‘This is the gist of 17 scrolls, 31 sheets of parchment and nine boxes of assorted bits and pieces on the wizarding side of things, as well as 27 folders and 42 cdr on the Muggle side.’ Draco cocked his head. ‘Do you want to read it?’

Severus regarded the documents for a long moment.

What could Draco’s summary tell him that he didn’t already know? But he reached for the parchments nevertheless…

oooOooo

Everything had started with Umbridge’s petty viciousness and vindictiveness. When she set out to get back at him after the war.

First she had manipulated the Wizarding Genealogies to send him to Azkaban. Then she had gathered the remaining Death Eaters around her, intent on rising as their new Dark Lady. To her, Voldemort was only yet another half-blooded nebbish.

Due to the most horible stroke of dumb luck ever recorded in the history of magic, she had stumbled over the Resurrection Stone while she was out hunting jarveys for her precious perfume in the Forbidden Forest. After that, gaining the ownership of the Elder Wand had been her highest priority and sadly, her greatest success.

What not even Sybill Trelawney’s gifted great-great-grandmother could have foreseen, was the involvement of the rogue Necromancers of the Inquisition. Brought into contact with Umbridge due to Minister Shacklebolt’s ill-fated idea of a practical office-joke, they had discovered Umbridge’s plans and approached her with a plan of killing all Muggle-born witches and wizards. Driven by her hatred for all half-bloods and half-breeds, Umbridge had been more than happy to strike a deal with them. Only in the end not even the death of thousands of innocents had been enough to satisfy her. She had wanted more: influence, riches, power, absolute control. Over the living as well as the dead.

Without the knowledge of her new allies, Umbridge had managed to manipulate the Leeching Curse and in her ignorance almost destroyed the whole world.

When the Necromancers of the Inquisition had realised that Umbridge was using the power she had gained from their ‘business association’ to create Inferi, they had decided that she must be stopped. And they had stopped her. Quickly, effectively.

But unfortunately they had still hoped to salvage their original plan at that time: to use the upheavals and the division of the wizarding world to accomplish what the original Pacta Maleficarum Segregandarum had failed to bring about—namely, to stop the sin of magic from spreading among Muggles once and for all.

oooOooo

And Hermione?

She was only alive at all thanks to a conversation about angels in a Muggle bookshop that had lasted all of five minutes. But which had somehow convinced the ringleader of the Necromancers that maybe, just maybe, her immortal soul could still be saved.

No archival documentation could ever answer the questions that remained at this point.

How to cope. How to move on.

Severus wasn’t sure if it was possible to truly save Hermione. But she was alive, and she was with him. And he’d be damned if he gave up now.

‘Where there’s life, there’s hope,’ Severus muttered, scowling at Draco’s parchments.

‘And where there’s death, there’s at least an opportunity for a great party at the wake,’ Draco quipped. ‘Or a cheap employee for the Ministry.’ Serious once more, he added, ‘Please, give my best wishes to Hermione.’