Light and Shadow

Three years ago
The Third Task, Triwizard Tournament, June 1995

A flash of white lights up the arena. The spectators explode in a triumphant roar.

But before Hermione can utter a sound, her always scrupulous eyes zoom on the two figures sprawled on the grass.

Hufflepuff yellow. Cedric.

And red.

Gryffindor red. Or is that—

Blood.

Both motionless.

Hermione moves.

Her feet propel her as she jostles by the front rows and flings herself over the barrier.

“Harry!” Her shriek is lost in the throng.

“Harry!” She totters to a stop in front of him. Her knees give out as she grabs his shoulders. “Oh, Harry!!!”

There is blood everywhere. A gash on his forearm. Lacerations all over his face. His glasses are fractured. “Oculus Reparo!” The cracks disappear. Hermione doesn’t know why she bothered. But it seemed meaningful. Like how she’s done it dozens of times.

“Harry!”

He is not responding. His pulse is still.

“Help!” Hermione lifts her head as she realizes she was crying for help in Harry’s bloody shirt. “Help!!!”

Someone pushes her aside.

Professor Moody.

“Please—he’s…” Hermione chokes on a sob. She can’t breathe. There’s blood on her hands. She gags at the sight.

It’s just blood, she tells herself. She’s seen a lot of blood over the years. Hers. Harry’s and Ron’s. This is fine. He’s merely injured.

Why can’t she breathe?

Numbly, Hermione watches Professor Dumbledore rush over. He confers with Professor Moody. The most powerful wizard and the most feared Auror will certainly know what to do. They will fix Harry. She has to believe that. She feels useless, her arms dangling shakily, her vision in and out of focus like a Muggle camera. Her mind automatically combs for cures when a person has no pulse. Out of all the books she’s read, there must be a solution. Why aren’t Dumbledore and Moody casting spells? What’re they waiting for?

She approaches again. Harry may be their favorite student. The Chosen One. But he’s her and Ron’s best friend. She can’t just sit it out.

Hermione stumbles on something. Something with a faint glow.

The Triwizard Cup.

Her world becomes a spiral.

She’s going to pass out. Harry is on the verge of death, and her Gryffindor heart is having a stupor. She almost laughs.

Hermione keeps spiraling.

Wait—she can still think. Vertigo churns her stomach. Her faculties are alert. This is not her losing consciousness. This has happened before. She recognizes it now. When she went to the Quidditch World Cup, she traveled through a portkey. It was the same whirling sensation.

Hermione topples into darkness. The ground is…soft and wet. Mist billows around her. The sky is part of the black void. She registers the coldness. An eerie, foreboding silence. To her right is a gravestone of a grotesque sculpture. Shadows stir. A foulness permeates the air, clogging her nostrils and repelling her magic. She doesn’t need the knowledge in her head to identify this wrongness. Dark Magic.

Suddenly, she involuntarily hurtles forward, the grass whipping her face.

“Ah…what do we have here?” A sibilant voice slithers like a snake. It is not human. Hermione trembles. “What is this, Wormtail?”

Wormtail.

Hermione freezes at the name.

The Wormtail who betrayed Sirius and Harry’s parents.

To Lord Voldemort.

This is a dream. Hermione closes her eyes, willing this nightmare away. There’s some sort of glitch in the Task. This is part of the Tournament. A…simulation like the rescue in the Black Lake. Or Boggarts.

“My Lord…” The quavering response smothers Hermione’s train of thought. “She looks like…a Hogwarts student, my Lord. A Gry—Gryffindor.”

“I am not blind, Wormtail!”

Hermione is violently flung up in midair, her limbs outstretched. Before her is a thing with the frame of a man but the likeness of a snake and cadaver. Wormtail hunches at his side. Men in black robes surround them.

Hermione stifles a scream. Her Gryffindor bravery wavers for the first time in her life. Somehow, she knows deep down what’s happening. But she refuses to show weaknesses.

“My Lord, if I may.” The sycophantic voice of Lucius Malfoy drifts to her.

This cannot be happening.

The reptilian man lets out a cold chuckle. “Yes, yes, Lucius. How eager you are to prove your usefulness.”

“My Lord.” Malfoy dips his head. “This girl is a friend of Potter and the Weasleys. Hermione Granger, if I remember correctly. Draco told me she’s a Mudblood.”

No. No.

Hermione thought she knew fear. Fear was when the troll was about to squish her in the bathroom. It was when the Basilisk snared her in its gaze. It was the bottomless hood of a Dementor. But she was terribly wrong about the true form of fear.

“A Mudblood?” The man…Voldemort drags his tongue over the word.

“Yes, my Lord.”

The curse came faster than a bolt of lightning.

“Crucio!”

Hermione finally screams.

She writhes and falls face down. The pain seems to shred her to a thousand pieces. She cranes her neck and is almost surprised to find her arms aren’t missing, her flesh intact. Surely that level of pain would have damaged her thoroughly. She’s faintly aware that the Cruciatus curse doesn’t inflict physical wounds, but the only thing coursing through her mind right now is pain.

“Nagini,” Voldemort says. “I am afraid your first meal since my revival will be this filthy thing. Still, she is Potter’s Mudblood, superior to the Muggles you had to endure.”

Without warning, sharp fangs sank into her face in a powerful strike. It’s less painful than Cruciatus but concentrated like a surgeon’s scalpel. Blood blindfolded her as a snake the size of her thigh tears her apart. She can’t feel her face.

Her mind begins to slip…

A sound of Apparition.

“My Lord.” A familiar voice jolts her more strongly than the snake’s bite.

“Severus, is that you? A belated reunion.” Wee malice in the greeting. The snake halts its attack as its master turns his attention to the newcomer. “Here I was, thinking how Dumbledore’s good graces have treated you well.”

Severus Snape.

Professor Snape. Why is he here? Has Professor Dumbledore sent him to save her?

“My Lord,” Professor Snape intones. “I have remained at Albus Dumbledore’s side as I had before the Potters ambushed you. And now, I return to you, my Lord, to serve once more.”

“Indeed…” Voldemort hums. “Legilimens!”

Snape gasps. After several minutes, Voldemort withdraws his wand. “Good, Severus. I am pleased.” The other Death Eaters shift uncomfortably.

No. This is all…wrong. Impossible.

Professor Snape. Voldemort’s follower.

She has to get back to warn Professor Dumbledore. She…her body is liquid fire. There’s something in the snake’s venom. It’s making her dizzy and numb. She whimpers.

“Who is our guest, my Lord?” Snape narrows his eyes at Hermione.

“Oh, yes, Severus. I forgot my manners,” Voldemort says as the snake circles back to her. “She is a student of yours at Hogwarts.”

Snape takes a small step toward her. “Ah. Potter’s obnoxious Mudblood.” He comes to her side, looking down at her. Hermione musters all that’s left of her, molds it into hatred, and drills the emotion into Snape.

“She is Nagini’s dinner.”

Snape appraises her, his expression a mask. “Forgive me, my Lord. I have a proposal that will…make this Mudblood more useful than a slab of meat.”
“Oh?”

“Yes, my Lord,” Snape says smoothly. “This particular Mudblood has interested me for quite some time. She is one of my most talented students. If it wasn’t for her, Potter and the Weasley boy wouldn’t have made it alive in their first year. The Mudblood would be a valuable subject for my research.”

Voldemort tilts his bold, skeletal head. “You have been faithful, Severus. Consider the Mudblood my reward to you.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

“Now, Lucius. Gather our old friends. Bring me my servants who have been loyal despite my indisposition and the traitors who will suffer for their betrayal. It is time for a visitation of Azkaban.” Voldemort Apparates before Malfoy can reply. Malfoy casts a suspicious glance at Snape and Apparates with the rest of the Death Eaters. It’s just Snape and Hermione now.

“You…coward…” she says through gritted teeth, feeling her end coming. “Why…”

Snape swoops down beside her. “Relax, Miss Granger.” He begins to mutter complicated spells she’s never read about.

“What…are…you…doing…to me!” she demands. She’s struggling to crawl away. She’d rather die than be Snape’s lab rat. Her hand is too benumbed to clasp her wand.

“Sleep, Miss Granger,” Snape says as her sense of reality splinters. “Sleep.”

Darkness claims her.

Three months later

Hermione is dying. She doesn’t have to be a genius to know this single fact. Snape didn’t tell her where she is. Or how long it has been since Nagini ravaged her. Since Voldemort came back. Since Harry…

Hermione wrenches that thought away. There’s only the darkness that cocoons her whether she’s asleep or semiconscious. The darkness is frigid. She can’t feel anything but the cold that has seeped into her bones.

It is so cold that it burns.

A warmth caresses her forehead. Her eyes flutter open. A man with a cascade of silver beard and half-moon spectacles hovers above her. Two blue discs pierce through her like they always do.

Professor Dumbledore.

No. This is not real. It’s an illusion Snape wants her to see. To feed her a sliver of hope and then squash it to destroy her.

Hermione tries to speak, but her throat fails her. Instead, she heaves her chest until her lungs hurt.

“Rest, Miss Granger,” the image of Dumbledore soothes her. “Professor Snape has emptied his personal stocks of potion ingredients and two-thirds of mine for you to recover to this state. You will be particularly curious about the miraculous procedure he devised for you.”

Hermione closes her eyes, not giving in. Dumbledore sighs. “You don’t believe any of this. But allow me to convince you. You may recall Lord Voldemort has returned in the graveyard where you received your injuries.” Her mouth quivers. “After Voldemort gave you to Severus, Voldemort intended to find your parents, Hermione.”

Her breath ceases. All her hatred and pain convert into dread.

“Do not worry. They’re with the Order. Safe for now. Would you like to see them?”

Not trusting this Dumbledore, she doesn’t answer. He sighs again and recites her parents’ names and address. Only the Headmaster and Head of House have this information. Relief floods over her as tears streak down her cheeks. Her entire body shudders with the confirmation that Dumbledore is real. He is here. She hasn’t been forgotten.

Immediately, her lips begin to form words. Severus Snape. Snape. Death Eater.

“Ah, that is a wrong deduction, Miss Grander. It’s alright. I won’t take points from Gryffindor.” He winks. “You see, Professor Snape has been my spy, spying on Voldemort by spying on me for Voldemort. A ‘triple spy’ is the Muggle term. Severus stopped Voldemort from killing you. If he had arrived a moment later, Hogwarts would have lost an exceptional young witch. Any questions so far?”

Hermione replays everything Professor Dumbledore has just revealed to her in her mind like how she reconstructs a lecture right after class, so the material will be carved in her memory. The Order? She asks silently.

He smiles. “The Order of the Phoenix. I founded it in the first war to combat Voldemort. It is currently active as he rallies his forces in preparation for this war. Sirius, Remus, the Weasleys, and Severus are in the Order. Alastor and another Auror, Kingsley Shacklebolt, are the leaders.”

She nods. Now the inevitable. Ron?...Harry

“Mr. Weasley has started his fifth year as a prefect. He has grown into a different boy—a man after Harry died,” Dumbledore says laconically. “I am sorry, Miss Granger.” He doesn’t console her further. He knows she doesn’t need it. Nothing will alleviate the chasm Harry’s death has sundered her. It’s too much for her to deal with at present. She files it away. She has the rest of her life for it. Dumbledore seems to understand for he simply gives her a sad smile. He looks like he’s aged decades since she saw him in that arena.

“Your parents wish to visit you.”

Hermione mulls it over. If she sees her parents, then what? They’ll be worried sick about her, and she can’t do anything to reassure them. The Order sounds like a safe haven for them, but how long will it last? Her parents are Muggles, babysat by wizard warriors. Even if the Order doesn’t mind, her parents won’t be able to live like this forever. Logic dictates only one option for her family. She says before she could regret it, send them away. Obliviate.

Dumbledore is silent. “I will see to it myself,” he says solemnly.

Australia, she says. He nods.

Ron. My friends. I want to see them.

“That is where the situation complicates, Miss Granger. If I tell your friends about how Severus saved you directly under Voldemort’s nose, Severus will be vulnerable because none of your friends can resist Voldemort’s interrogation if caught. No one knows about you except me, Severus, and your parents. Soon, that number will be two.” Hermione sags. Resigned. Then what is she supposed to do? Lying here as her friends fight the Dark side? Dumbledore seems to read her thoughts. “However, there is an opportunity for you to contribute to the Order. If you should agree, we shall commence with my plan I set in motion for you.”

Hermione lets eagerness and determination radiate on her face. Harry died, and she just stood by. She didn’t—couldn’t—do a thing.

His lips tighten. A slight sign of hesitation. “Severus will explain it to you. Miss Granger, I must warn you that it is highly risky, and it will test the boundaries of your physical, mental, and magical abilities. It is perfectly understandable if you decline.”

Hermione shakes her head. She severed ties with her parents who she loves the most in the world and forsook her friends who have made her who she is. What’s more for her to lose?

“Thank you, Miss Granger. Severus will take care of you and train you. He is the bridge between you and the Order. I trust him with my life. You can trust him.” He briefly looks down and up to meet her eyes with sorrow that wasn’t there when he talked about Harry. “I am sorry, Miss Granger.”

Snape bombards her with information while she’s in bed. There’s something comical about the arrangement. Here she is, getting nightly, one on one lectures from Severus Snape.

Inwardly, Hermione is grateful and a tad giddy. She knows that he’s sacrificing his personal time to be her tutor and physician. She can’t determine how willing he is behind his inscrutable mask. But it doesn’t matter. Her secluded recovery is so humdrum that she craves the monotonous droning of the Potions Master. Sometimes, her mind wanders to her family and friends. When was the last time she went home? Christmas last year? When was the last thing she said to Ron, or Ginny, or Professor McGonagall before Voldemort upended her life? There’re so many ‘lasts.’ Snape has been teaching her Occlumency to make this tumultuous twist of her fate bearable. Accept, compartmentalize, internalize. Accept the losses. Compartmentalize the grief. Internalize the resolve. Not her losses. Her grief. Her resolve. But the. She absorbs them into her being like the sea weathering a storm. Losses, grief, resolve, and her are one. The sea welcomes a storm and dances with it. The sea becomes the storm.

“Today’s topic is your condition,” Snape says unceremoniously.

Hermione blinks. He has avoided it for weeks. Maybe he wants her to be psychologically primed for this conversation. She is somewhat irritated that he’d think she’s weak.

“To rip the band-aid off, as Muggles say,” Snape continues, “Nagini’s venom in your system is under control. But it will spread, and you will die from it. Eventually.”

Hermione stares.

“However, I do not know when that will be. Depending on how you do in the next few months, it could be a couple of years or decades.”

Death is not an unfamiliar notion to her. Near-death experiences are a yearly occurrence when you’re friends with Harry Potter. It is coded in her Gryffindor soul. But a slow death…Hermione takes it in. Accept. Compartmentalize. Internalize. Harry and Cedric didn’t have the luxury of processing their deaths.

Alright. She still can’t speak.

Snape opens a jar with a slender, minute snake inside. It skates to his palm and instantly locks eyes with her. Her skin prickles as her heartbeats drum in her ears.

“Easy. It will not hurt you.” Strangely, Hermione believes Snape. She feels an inexplicable kinship with the snake. Like she knows it means her no harm.

Hello, girl. A serene, lilting voice purrs.

Hermione gapes at the snake.

No.

No.

Is she dreaming again?

Snape only nods. Her reaction seems to validate something for him.

Parselmouth? She asks, incredulous.

“Yes. It appears Nagini’s venom is altering you in various ways.”

Harry?

“No. Potter was a Parselmouth for a different reason.”

Hermione frowns.

“I do not have permission to share it with you. Ask Dumbledore if your curiosity is impatient,” he says. “You may be wondering how the…alterations in you factor in Dumbledore’s plan.” He enunciates the two words with distaste like there’s a cockroach in his mouth.

You disapprove of it?

“My opinion is not important. Dumbledore’s decision. I obey,” he states. “Tell me, Miss Granger, how would you counter the Dark Lord? How do you battle darkness?”

With light.

“Yes, but how? How do you place that light, kindle that light without the darkness noticing?”

Hermione knows the answer.

She’s known it for all these weeks, months of the mantra of accept, compartmentalize, internalize.

It’s the sea and the storm.

By becoming the darkness, she says.