Snamione One Shots

What I Know You've Done

The night was freezing cold as Hermione Granger Apparated into a dimly-lit street, taking a moment to make sure she'd arrived in one piece. Apparition was still a relatively new skill to her, and it was made only more difficult by the hazy directions given to her by nothing more than a portrait, even if that portrait was of the greatest wizard of modern times, Albus Dumbledore.

Gathering her bearings and pulling her best friend's Invisibility Cloak more tightly around her, she walked cautiously up the narrow, cobblestone street, lit only by a few grimy lamps and a sliver of fickle moon.

Her heart beat in nervous anticipation of what she would find at her destination. Could the words of the deceased Headmaster, spoken through the portrait which had appeared in his office shortly after his death, be true?

The portrait slumbered until, following the Headmaster's funeral, Minerva McGonagall returned to the circular office to find him awake, waiting to bear an urgent message to anyone who would listen.

Red-eyed and pensive, the acting Headmistress came to Gryffindor Tower and bid Harry, Ron and Hermione follow her to the stone gargoyle. The former Headmaster asked to speak to Harry first, in private; even Professor McGonagall waited nervously outside. There was silence for many minutes, but then a shout of rage and defiance came from within. After some minutes more, the distraught young man stormed out, swearing the portrait to be hexed, cursed, Confunded, and inflicted with any number of other maladies.

McGonagall returned up to the office for a moment, bidding Hermione to wait behind, while Ron went after Harry to calm him down. Confused, Hermione sat on the cold, stone bench in the corridor a while longer, until the voice of the older woman called her up the stairs to the familiar office.

She wanted to believe what the Headmaster's portrait told her, she really did. McGonagall, sitting in an armchair by the fire while the student and former Headmaster conversed, said nothing, only sniffling occasionally and dabbing at her eyes as they filled with tears upon hearing the Headmaster's tale for the second time that night.

"I would not entrust this task to you if I believed it would place you in danger. You are the only one who can do this, Miss Granger," the old wizard said at the conclusion of his dark narrative. "You do understand that, do you not?"

"I..." she faltered. It felt like she was betraying Harry in even contemplating what the Headmaster was asking of her. Yet she wants to believe it was true, and if that were the case, and still she refused, she would be betraying them all. "Why me? Why not Professor McGonagall? She understands, doesn't she? She believes you."

"And you do not?" the old man asked her from his place on the wall.

She hesitated.

"I want to," she whispered finally. "I never thought he could-"

"Which is why it must be you, dear," McGonagall said, coming up behind her and placing her cold, bony hands on Hermione's shoulders. "I didn't want to believe it myself, but until Albus showed up, I had no choice but to trust young Mr Potter."

"It's not that I don't trust Harry," she argued. "He was there… I just… maybe he only saw what he wanted to see… and you were there, too, and..." She trailed off uncertainly.

"I was, indeed, Miss Granger," the portrait confirmed, the smallest of twinkles returning to his eyes, though they remained sad and worried. "This has to be done quickly – tonight, if you can. We must resolve this matter, lest he believes the plan to have failed."

"Potter is too angry to listen right now," McGonagall added. "And after his recollections to the others of what took place four nights ago, no one will hear a word proclaiming the events occurred any other way. Even with Albus' explanation, they won't trust him again; a portrait can be cursed, and they will believe whatever Potter tells them."