HP and the Price, part 9 (Patreon)

“Thanks, Neville,” Hermione said as she leaned against one of the random stairs that lined the edges of the dueling room. She wasn’t used to being behind the other students, and she was starting to understand why people got so frustrated with her. It didn’t feel great to be the last person to get the right answer when Snape asked a question or be the slowest to produce a shield.

“No problem.” Neville tucked his weird-looking wand into a wrist holder.

Hermione sat on the closest step and pulled a leg under her while she studied Neville. “You’ve really grown. I remember back when you couldn’t levitate a feather.”

Neville laughed. “That was a lifetime ago, but yeah. I guess I have grown. I keep thinking that when all this is over, I’m going to go visit my gran, and she’s not going to recognize me.”

Hermione hoped his grandmother was still alive. Regent Longbottom hadn’t been seen in public since the year after Neville vanished, although she would have access to the family tapestry, so she would know he was alive. Hermione hoped that the woman didn’t assume Neville had suffered the same fate as his parents. Knowing his background, knowing how strongly his family had always supported the light and Dumbledore, Hermione didn’t understand how he could believe some of the lies Snape was peddling.

Neville studied her back. “You know, you’re learning this stuff faster than I did… faster than Thea,” he offered. There was the Gryffindor urge to help others. He hadn’t been totally corrupted.

“But I’m so far behind.” Hermione nearly wailed the words, and then she ducked her head, embarrassed. “I suppose class rank really isn’t the goal here.”

“Nope. Learning enough magic to avoid death by False Lord is the primary goal of Prince Keep.” Neville seemed largely unbothered by the thought of going to war. Ron would shuffle his feet and his gaze would dart off to the nearest shiny object. Fred and George would get a determined glint in their eyes and press their lips together. Even Dumbledore would grow quiet. But Neville talked about the coming war with the same ease that he might describe the weather.

“Do you want to come meet Norbert?” Neville offered.

Hermione nearly choked at the thought. “No. I’m good. Really.” Maybe Snape had taught the others some Dark magic that allowed them to avoid death by dragon, but she would rather avoid their so-called dragonry.

Neville shifted before he sat on the step next to her. “Are you good?” he asked in a serious tone, one that invited her to trust him. Sadly, Hermione didn’t. He’d had been around these Slytherin too long. Even Harry Potter was nothing like Hermione would expect from a Light family. He laughed when the duels devolved into Unforgivable curses. He offered Dinae a high-five after a particularly cruel comment. He was as much Slytherin as the others, which wasn’t surprising given that Severus Snape had raised him. If the Fae were behind this, they had a lot to answer for.

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Neville didn’t pretend to believe her.

“Neville, do you believe all this stuff about wild magic versus dark magic?”

Neville drew a deep breath and seemed to consider his answer. “Yes,” he finally said. No arguments, no justifications or excuses. Just yes.

“Why?” Hermione couldn’t understand how he could be so duped.

Neville chuckled. “I’m tempted to draw a chart and start mapping out spells,” he said, which didn’t make any sense. But then he leaned back against the railing and asked, “Since you were raised muggle, I suppose you know all about World War II.”

“Yeah, but I’m surprised you do.”

“Severus went through a whole tactical defense and warcraft phase,” Neville said with a shrug. “I see some of Hitler’s ideology in the False Lord.”

“A lot of it,” Hermione corrected him. “The self-aggrandizement, dragging a whole world in chaos, the use of terrorism. Hitler knew that bombing runs would never break England’s defenses, but he bombarded London just to terrify people and force them to give in to his demands. That sounds a lot like the sort of terroristic raids the Death Eaters love.” Hermione had often bemoaned a lack of muggle education at Hogwarts because wizarding kids could stand to learn from the mistakes of history—and not just wizarding history.

Neville nodded. “When the Allied forces invaded the continent, do you think they did it feeling joy in their hearts?”

“Excuse me?”

“Joy? When they picked up their guns, did they feel joy?”

Hermione crossed her arms. “What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m fairly sure those men were angry, and they wanted to punish Germany for the war. I think they had the same sort of anger and vengeance that fuels the Killing Curse.”

Hermione’s temper flared. “No. Don’t even suggest that righteous anger and vicious racism of the Death Eaters is anything alike.”

Neville held up his hands. “You misunderstood me. I’m not saying the purpose is the same or that they are morally equal. I’m just saying that both feel like they have a right to take vengeance. Of course the Death Eaters are wrong. So very wrong. I mean, Hermione, look at who you’re talking to. My parents didn’t deserve what happened to them. No one deserves that. But the Lestranges and the British troops and the Aurors and the Germans—they all felt anger. Given magical ability, each could wield the killing curse, and some would argue that the British in World War II and the Aurors should have used it more.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

“You can’t define emotions as good or bad. People call fear bad, but my fear of the False Lord will keep me from running into danger when I am the least proficient with offensive spells. Anger is negative, until anger motivates all of us to hone our skills so we can stop the False Lord. Shame makes an abused child hide their real emotions, but it can also motivate us to not act dishonorably. You can’t divide emotions up into good and evil when the reality is that every emotion can be either.”

“And so, logically, I should believe that spells are equally impossible to divide,” Hermione snapped, unwilling to let him dance around his conclusion. She would rather cut to the meat of the argument. “Except that some spells are evil. The Death Eaters don’t use Imperius to teach skills; they take over people’s free will. They make people commit atrocities.”

“Which is atrocious,” Neville said, “but the Death Eaters are to blame for that, not the curse.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “You sound like an American arguing for the right to own a ridiculous number of firearms.”

“Really?” Neville’s eyes grew wide. “I’ve never talked to an American, about firearms or any other topic. But my point still stands. The curse is not to blame, the person casting it is.”

“And if the curses are banned, then there is a clear line in the sand that people cannot cross. The minute you allow people to justify their actions, they will push the ethics of the curse farther and farther.”

Neville nodded. “That’s a good argument, so it might be wise to ban the curses in all but the most critical cases—things like instructors teaching advanced techniques that rely on fine muscle control. Everyone else would face Azkaban if they even attempted the spell. I imagine it could be licensed the way apparating is.”

“Maybe that would be an interesting debate topic in the Wizengamot, but nothing you’ve said justifies the evil the Death Eaters have done.”

“You’re right,” Neville said, “nothing justifies the evil they’ve done. I would never argue otherwise. My parents deserved a life. Harry didn’t deserve to lose his parents, the muggles who were tortured didn’t deserve that. The Death Eaters are evil and all of us are committed to stopping them.”

“Yeah, like a Carrow wants to stop evil.” Hermione knew she was being unfair because the Nott family was even more Dark, but Thea had clearly broken away from her family and Dinae… she hadn’t.

Neville gave her a disappointed look. “I know you’re smarter than this,” Neville said. Harry and Thea had finished their duel with the Fae and Neville walked onto the dueling circle without casting a look back at Hermione.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hermione was reading Vitalizi’s Art of Magick Most Grand when Severus came to sit next to her on the sofa. His presence made her skin crawl. He was the embodiment of all the evil she had fought against since coming to Hogwarts. But he was also the sarcastic man who cooked pancakes and threatened to transfigure all of Dinae’s clothing pink if she did not control her temper. The two versions of Severus Snape clashed in her head until she had a terrible headache every time she interacted with him.

And unfortunately, that was a lot since she was so far behind, academically speaking. He had tutored her in every subject, and had introduced her to new subjects like wandlore, spell crafting, advanced curse breaking, and dark magic. Of course, he always called the last one wild magic or Fae magic.

“Have you completed the reading?” he asked, even though she was in the middle of the book. Of course, she had finished and was now reviewing in order to clarify her ideas, but she resented that he knew her well enough to recognize that.

“I am not finished studying the specific arguments.”

“Which arguments are giving you trouble?” Severus sounded so calm, as if he wasn’t trying to brainwash her to abandon Dumbledore and his ideals. However, Hermione was not so easily swayed.

If he wanted to play this game, she could play it. More than that, she could win it. “The author posits that the ancient families have Fae blood, and that the inbreeding maintains a certain level of Fae magic, which allows them to wield the dark spells.”

“Wild spells, Ms. Granger,” Severus said.

She narrowed her eyes, and did not correct herself. “However, I am able to access these dark spells just fine. The argument for blood purity is, therefore, factually inaccurate.”

“The overall argument, yes,” Severus agreed.

She blinked, suspicious about why he would have yielded so easily.

“However, the connection between Fae and the ability to cast a wild spell is not necessarily invalided.”

Hermione snorted. “Muggleborn here. That contradicts the whole theory of blood purity.”

“You keep referencing blood purity, but in the wixen world, what is more significant than blood?”

Hermione frowned. Blood was the key of most of the darkest spells, and even the cornerstone of most goblin magic. Blood carried a person’s magic, and even one drop was a powerful dark magic ingredient. She frowned. Blood was important because of what it carried, not because of the red blood cells. “Magic? You think there’s magic purity?” She wasn’t sure how that was different than blood purity. It sounded like another distinction with no difference. Voldemort would consider her a mudblood either way.

“Not pure as much as connected to the Fae,” Severus said. “I suspect that is why the old families continued the Fae traditions such as Yule and Ostara far longer than the more progressive families. They hoped to maintain a connection to the other world.”

“The Potters and Longbottoms have always been Light families, and both Harry and Neville can perform these spells, so that contradicts your theory.”

“I grew up with Frank Longbottom and James Potter. Both celebrated the old holidays. Frank even petitioned to have them reinstated at Hogwarts, although he lost that fight.” Severus grimaced.

“Okay, but there is still me. I don’t fit your pattern because I have perfectly muggle parents and grandparents and one very non-magical uncle we don’t talk about. There is no Fae blood in me, and yet I am learning all these spells you insist are inaccessible to wixen who have lost their connection with the Fae.” She crossed her arms, certain that she had the winning argument. If the difference between light magic and dark lay in a person’s connection to the Fae courts, then she wouldn’t be able to touch any dark spell. But she could. She was learning everything Severus could put in front of her, even when she questioned the morality of learning a cutting spell that would resist healing. Of course, her morals wouldn’t keep her from using it on Death Eaters if they came for her or her family, but she still, in principle, objected to such dangerous magic.

“You are remarkably talented with wild magic,” Severus said. “You are learning far faster than any of the other children.”

“I am not a child, and I would prefer you to stop speaking to me as though I were.”

He looked down his nose at her. “Ms. Granger, I have socks older than you.”

“According to you, you have not had access to shops for ten years, so that is not surprising.”

The corner of his lip twitched, and Hermione felt a twinge of righteous glee at having won that point.

“Be that as it may, your success means that either Vitalizi’s argument is invalid or one of the premises are untrue.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes, suspecting a trap even if she couldn’t see one. “Yes,” she agreed slowly. “And since the premises appear true, I maintain the argument is invalid.”

“Unless a premise is false.” Severus held out a scroll. Hermione took it, wondering if she should cast a few reveal charms before opening it. However, she still wasn’t sure of her new wand. When she cast, the results could be unpredictable, so she avoided using her wand when her emotions were riled. She simply unfurled it. Her mouth fell open when she read the spell.

“You can’t be serious!”

“It would explain why you have such an innate connection to wild magic and why Prince Keep is changing you faster than the others.” Severus lifted an eyebrow.

“I am not a changling!”

“Perhaps not. You could be a halfling or simply Fae-touched. If a changling is not exposed to human magic, they may never release their own. So perhaps one of your muggle grandparents is a Fae who never learned to access their magical core.”

The very idea was so preposterous that Hermione wanted to laugh in Severus’s face. Her. Part Fae. Hermione Granger—the great champion of muggleborns everywhere. Not only was the idea stupid, but it would invalidate the work she had done to make other students accept people like her. Muggleborns. Mudbloods. The idea was anathema to her.

“I would have thought you would have relished the chance to prove your premises correct and to, therefore, invalidate Vitalizi’s entire argument,” Severus said softly.

“Manipulative old bat,” Hermione muttered as she pulled out her spell knife to nick her finger and perform the simple chant.

“I have been called far worse,” Severus said without any heat in his words.

As Hermione chanted, she felt the river of magic rise up around her, throbbing, pulsing, swelling into a flood. When she practiced reciprocal curse breaking or dark magics, the river would sometimes rise around her so she felt she was swimming in magic, navigating the currents. But now she was drowning it. And the currents had become rapids. Bits of reality sparkled around her, like a painting on glass that had been shattered so she could only see fragments.

She saw a woman crying. A doctor’s office. A man holding his wife. The scene focused on a thick plant that hung from the doctor’s ceiling in front of his window. Outside a car park waited under a cloudy sky, but she focused on the crystal tucked lovingly between the dark green leaves.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “but this last loss nearly took your life. There is always adoption. You could give a child a good home.”

The woman looked up and Hermione trembled when she saw her mother’s face—younger, tear-stained and in pain.

“Monica, maybe a baby isn’t meant to be. But we can still be parents. We can still raise a family. We can adopt a dozen children, and each will love you more than the previous.”

“Wendell,” she cried, and Hermione felt it. She felt the moment when magic pulsed. Something wild and joyous broke free of that plant and that tiny crystal, and when Monica and Wendell Granger stood to leave the fertility clinic, the wild seed went with them. Changlings weren’t stolen children. They were children gifted to the world.

The magic surged and once again Hermione was lost in the current, reality shattering around her so that she caught pieces of it. Her mother laughing about the impossibility of Hermione’s hair and how every leaf and twig in the yard would tangle in her unruly locks. Her father swinging her around in a circle as the wind sang to her. But then the magic grew dark as if a cloud had crossed the sky.

Hermione saw a woman sitting in front of a battered backyard grill. She chanted slowly, inviting the Fae into her home as she burned herbs to honor them. Inside the house, a man yelled. “Eileen, where’s dinner?” The woman whispered a quick prayer for the Fae to protect her sweet Severus. She picked up the baby and hurried inside as the man yelled again.

The voices who had attended Eileen’s prayers felt a shadow pass as a child slipped out of the world and onto the otherworldly path that only humans could follow when they died. They slipped into the home and looked down at a plump child laying on her stomach. The child was pale and perfectly still. A long finger touched the body and joy and love rushed into the corpse. Hermione saw a painted flower on the side of the crib with “Lily” underneath.

They could not stop human anger from touching Severus, but they could give him joy. That would answer the prayer and build another delicate thread to connect their world to the human world they loved to explore. Each Fae changling and halfling and quarterling, each answered prayer and touched child was one more thread, one more slender bridge on which they could slide into the world. Each allowed magic to flow into the human world. If those threads broke, magic would slowly fade away, and the Fae would lose all those children they had cast out into the world to learn and grow and return to the courts with that knowledge. So often the children chose to walk the path of the humans who passed, but some returned home. They would maintain the bridge for their children.

The world spun, and this time she saw not a slender filament but a solid bridge connecting human lands to Fae. A fire burned brightly in the center, and Hermione realized she was looking at Prince Keep. She could see herself laying on the floor, Severus holding her gently. Thea and Neville and Harry all crowded around, their worry palpable despite the fact that Hermione had never been able to read people. Others’ emotions had always been a puzzle that she couldn’t quite decipher.

But now she saw the bright panic in Neville and the deep well of concern in Harry and the fear that wrapped itself around Thea. She could even taste Dinae’s terror that Hermione would die, leaving a dead body to rot in their keep and her fear that Hermione would live and continue to upend the family that she clung to.

Severus was hers in a way that her birth family never had been. He held her when other adults had badly hurt her or ignored her pain. Harry was hers. He played with her and learned with her and never told her that she wasn’t good enough if she didn’t show enough grace or impress the right guests. Neville was hers because he was gentle in a way that hadn’t been possible in her old life. He was proof that if there was a day when she wasn’t strong, her family would still love her because they loved him. And he was proof that she was worth love because even when she was mean, his shield charms always protected her first, even before himself. And Thea was hers because she would listen to all Dinae’s fears. She knew they were real. She had suffered the same horrors at the hands of family who had twisted power and fear until they were a weapon to use against children. Thea understood her. Thea was hers. They were all hers. And Hermione threatened her family.

Hermione’s heart ached as she realized how much Dinae loved and how that deep well of love fueled the hate she felt for Hermione who had come into her home and refused to listen. She was so very afraid that Hermione would turn this home into the sort of battleground her birth home had been. Hermione had started to silently cry before she slid back into her body.

“Deep breaths, Ms. Granger. Take a moment to center yourself.” Despite the fact that the ability to read emotions was slipping away, Hermione could hear the concern. She was a child, and Severus had never been protected as a child. He wanted to do better. He wanted to be better. And he was frustrated with himself and the world because he rarely knew how to achieve that goal. He was so deeply frustrated.

With a final gasp, Hermione was back inside her own body, looking up as everyone stared down at her.

“Merlin. Are you okay?” Harry asked.

She stared at him. She had seen his mother. Lily Evans had died, and a Fae had joined the world, not as an answer to the Evans’ prayers—they had never known that their birth child was gone. Lily had been a gift to answer Eileen Snape née Prince’s prayers. Severus and Harry had been linked since before Harry’s birth. Hermione struggled to sit up, and Severus helped her back up onto the couch.

“Do I assume I was—once again—proven correct despite the obstreperous denials of a child younger than my socks?” Severus asked, one eyebrow raised in a challenge.

When Umbridge had challenged Hermione, Hermione had wanted to set the woman’s stupid pink suit on fire. However, she had to admit that Severus might have a point. He was magically brilliant, and after seeing the Fae-reveal spell in action, she couldn’t deny that she had been wrong and he had been right.

“My mother carried me, but the Fae created her pregnancy.”

Severus’s eyebrows went up and Neville whistled through his teeth. “A full changling?” Neville asked. “Merlin, Godric, and all the wizards on high. That’s amazing. And all those pure-bred nobs never knew you have the purist blood of all.”

Hermione flinched.

“Not blood,” Severus said. “If she had Fae blood, she would look like one of our visitors. She has Fae magic.”

“Harry’s a halfling,” Hermione blurted when everyone’s gaze had been on her too long. Maybe it made her less than nice, but if she had to deal with this new reality, then Harry did too.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hermione lay on the moss, looking up at the ceiling of the dueling chamber. She knew that winning against the Fae was impossible. Obviously. Still, every time she ended up on her back or worst, unconscious, she got more frustrated. It would help if they would offer a shimmer lesson again, but that opportunity had passed months again, back when Hermione had been childishly holding onto simplistic theories about good and evil.

She rarely thought of herself as an idiot, but that had been idiotic. And now she couldn’t shimmer. Oh, Harry tried to explain, but it didn’t help, and humans couldn’t use the Imperius curse well enough to teach something that complex.

On the other hand, the other four could shimmer and it didn’t help them at all. In fact, Dinae and Neville were flat on their backs next to her.

“Ow,” Dinae said. Even two months ago, she wouldn’t have been willing to show that much vulnerability, so Hermione counted that as a success.

“Double ow and raise a potentially sprained shoulder,” Hermione said.

“Sorry. The shield fell too fast for me to warn you,” Neville offered.

Dinea groaned as she stood. “Not your fault.”

“Um, it was my shield, so it kinda was,” Neville whispered. Dinae punched him in the arm before going back to the steps and sitting down heavily. Harry and Thea moved to the dueling ring as Severus reached Hermione and offered a healing potion.

Hermione sat up and gratefully took it. Sometimes she wondered if the training was excessive, but then she considered how much wild magic Voldemort had on his side. Most of the dark families were terrified that magic’s connection to the Fae was being strangled, and it was, so even families that abhorred the blood purity bullshite were standing with the only Lord to embrace wild magic. And the worst part was that Hermione didn’t know how another war would solve anything. How did cutting your enemy down in battle translate into finding a way for wild magic to exist without those who abused it turning to world domination?

“Better?” Severus asked.

“Much.” Hermione stretched her sore shoulder before she got to her feet. The Fae had been standing silently aside, but when Hermione tried to retreat to the stairs, the Fae intercepted her. They stared into her eyes, and the cool prickle of their attention down her spine. They took a step closer, and Hermione felt the pressure in her mind like a polite knock on a study door.

“Of course,” Hermione said, hoping this was a lesson in shimmering. The Fae slid into her mind, and Hermione relaxed into the hold. The Fae pulled a short, silvery blade from their robes, and Hermione’s hand reached out to take it. Then her body slid into battle stance against Harry and Thea. She had switched to fighting in skirts, and the Fae took advantage of that camouflage, shifting her weight to one side in preparation for a feign and redirect.

Hermione felt the silent power of a shield spell fill her and then move into her left hand, where she held the sword. Where wood transferred magic, the metal held it, locked it between the molecules in their neat matrixes. Harry and Thea attacked in a flurry of spells, and Hermione cast silently with her wand, holding her sword up in front of her to block their assault rather than dancing through the hexes. Thea and Harry shimmered out of existence, and Hermione cast a new shield and shifted her blade to rest against the small of her back as she whirled around in search of her opponents. Thea was attacking from one side and Harry the other. Hermione faced off against Harry, twirling through his silent curses, while the shield at her back absorbed Thea’s.

One slashing blow with her wand and Harry went flying backward. Her body spun to deal with Thea and Dinae and Neville threw themselves into battle. Neville’s shields were too much for her to take down without making herself vulnerable to Thea, so Hermione’s body attacked the other woman, stunning her before focusing the battle on Neville and Dinae. Dinae was throwing killing curses and slashing curses that could have decapitated Hermione in a heartbeat, but the Fae knew how to move the body—how to twist and dance between each danger. And Hermione now knew how to use a sword to carry her power, and how a sword worked different than a wand.

Neville’s shield fell, and one blasting curse incapacitated both him and Dinae. Hermione stood, her head slowly tilting. It was the oddest feeling to have the Fae control her body, but she trusted them. It was ironic that she trusted a creature that every book described as fickle and dangerous. However, she understood them. They didn’t value her survival since her death would free her to choose between moving onto a human afterlife or a return to the Fae courts. However, they did value protecting the connections between Earth and the Fae realm. They valued the mission—stop Voldemort from corrupting wild magic and stop Dumbledore from accidentally cutting Earth off from the source of magic.

Control returned and Hermione blinked. “Wow,” she said as she considered the silver-gray sword in her hand.

“Were you using that sword to cast a shield spell?” Neville asked. He had the most powerful shield spells out of any of them, so of course he would focus on that.

“Yeah,” Hermione said, breathless at the idea that she could maintain two spells at once—one offensive and one defensive.

“Okay, I want to do that,” Neville got up and walked up to the Fae, waiting for them to take control. The next hour or two passed with the Fae presenting each of them with a blade before training them in how to push magic into the sword and hold it there while fighting. By the end, they were all sweaty and exhausted before Severus stepped onto the dueling grounds.

“The war is clearly coming. The children have outstripped me, so I must develop my dueling skills.” He took his wand out and snapped it in two. Hermione flinched. The Fae had delivered a wand for her without snapping her old one, which she considered a great blessing. Her new wand had infinitely more power, but she would have cried if Severus had snapped her wand the way he had Neville’s.

Watching Severus snap his wand made it clear that he would do anything to win this war. Considering that he had spied on Voldemort for Dumbledore, that should have been obvious, but hearing those stories from the war were not the same as watching the wizard snap his own wand.

The Fae tilted his head to the side, and Hermione could see the way Severus’s whole body had gone stiff. Slowly, the Fae reached out to claim the two halves of Severus’s wand. The Fae held it so that the two broken halves met in the middle, and then they closed their fist over the break. When they opened their hand again, Severus’s wand was whole. The Fae held it out toward him.

When Severus took the wand back, his hand was shaking. “At least teach me to fight. You have never trained with me.”

The Fae took a step backward, and Severus took a matching step forward. “I need help in order to fight beside the children.” The Fae blinked at him. “They are children,” Severus said. “They should not carry the burden of their parents’ and grandparents’ mistakes. They don’t know what they face. This is my war. My fight.” Severus’s word came faster and faster.

“Severus,” Harry said gently. Severus glanced over, and with a shimmer, the Fae vanished.

Severus let loose with a string of profanity—both muggle and wixen—that made Hermione blush.

Harry moved to his side and put a hand on Severus’s shoulder. Severus whirled around and grabbed the front of Harry’s robes. “I will not lose you. I lost Lily because I was too much a coward to risk my own pride. I thought your idiot of a father stole her, but the truth is that I discarded her, and I will not do the same to you. I have raised you. I have loved you. I will not allow the Fae to send you into this war without me. And if I must beg, then I will.” Anger shone through his features, and a cold shiver went down Hermione’s spine.

“Neither of us can make the Fae do anything,” Harry said softly. “And I love you too, so I will do anything to come back to you so you don’t have to blame yourself. I promise. I’m not the idiot Gryffindor you sometimes accuse me of being.”

Severus took a shaky breath. “But you are not Slytherin enough to protect yourself first.”

“Then we’ll all protect him,” Neville said as he moved to Harry’s side.

Dinae moved to his other side. “Personally, I’m Slytherin enough for all of us, so I’ll kill the False Lord and every one of his followers with my bare hands before I let any of us die.”

“Here, here,” Thea added as she moved to stand behind Dinae.

Hermione felt like an intruder who happened upon an intensely private gathering, but then Neville held out a hand toward her. “We’ll protect each other, won’t we?”

Hermione stood a little straighter. “We will. We will all survive together.” She took Neville’s hand and let him pull her closer.

A single sob slipped free before Severus schooled his features. “I could never understand Lily’s death. I swallowed my pride and begged the False Lord to spare her, and he had promised he would, only Dumbledore returned with tales of her sacrifice. I didn’t understand how she could stand there and allow herself to die, but I understand now. I know why a mother would choose death over losing her child.”

Harry wrapped his arms around Severus. “The False Lord learned to regret going up against Lily Potter. After all, Fae, even changlings with their powers limited by human form, are powerful creatures. But now we have a changling, a halfling, and a lot of old, wild magic. We’ll win, Severus. I promise, we’ll win.” Hermione found herself in the middle of an awkward family hug. Someone’s elbow was in her side and someone kept getting tangled with her hair, but she didn’t care. She hugged whichever family members she could reach with all her strength.