Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Prologue
Severus Snape was truly alone.
That is the conclusion Hermione comes to as she slams closed the last of the case files on her desk.
No family. No friends.
Orphaned at sixteen. No other known extended family members. No close friendships, unless you count the Malfoys. Only estranged coworkers. A few stifled business relations with a couple of professional colleagues in the potion world, or some obtuse apothecary.
No children. No lovers.
He was just…alone.
Truly. Utterly.
Hermione didn’t know what to think. So, she stares at the moving picture of Severus Snape that is paperclipped to the front of the stack of papers that condensed his entire life to a few pages. The black and white photo sneers at her for a moment, before raising a brow at her as if to say, You’re still here? in a blatant taunt.
She fights the urge to glare back at him.
“...Granger?” And a knock on the door.
Hermione startles as she snaps her gaze to the direction of the voice, while covering the picture with a random book that happens to be on her desk.
“Ah…right on time. Come in, Malfoy.”
She gestures to the seat across from her desk. He hesitates for a second, his silver eyes passing over her messy stacks of books and papers that fills the small office.
There isn’t much decor—she believes in utility, efficiency, productiveness—and it shows.
Despite being in this office for well over five years, there are only two personal items. A half dead fern she was gifted to by Neville sits miserably on the edge of shelf—tittering on the edge like it's considering tipping over itself just to end its suffering. And an entirely silly pencil holder of a lion with its jaws wide open that has its mouth stuffed with her muggle pens that Luna had found for her.
It isn‘t impressive.
(But then again, she isn’t trying to impress Draco Malfoy.)
He didn’t sneer exactly, but purses his lips in a small show of discomfort or maybe distaste, before sitting himself in the chair gingerly as if it would somehow swallow him whole. After apparently deeming it safe, he leans back and crosses his ankle on his knee and gestures her to speak like it was his own personal fucking throne.
What a pompous—
Hermione clears her throat.
“How’s Adelaide? Scorpius?”
Hermione wouldn’t say they were exactly friends. But over the years they’ve mingled with the same people, studied with some of the same interests, and formed a brittle truce.
He’s a posh prick. She’s a bossy know-it-all. Not much has changed, really.
But he apologized for his past behavior one day. And she’s too tired now to hold on to hate. Somehow, they have moved past blood purity, petty names, and broken noses—and put their past behind them.
A feat, in part, thanks to his wife.
Adelaide Malfoy, née Vidal, is muggle-born aristocracy with a philanthropic will to change the world. She is single-handedly rewriting France’s Wizarding legislature to expel bias and rebooting Beauxbaton’s curriculum with a polite, unyielding hand—and a seductive smile that has whipped both Malfoy and all of France to submit at her feet.
She also happens to be Hermione's secret superhero.
(How Malfoy snagged her is a true mystery.)
“She’s well. Busy.” Malfoy nods, politely, “You should come see her and Scorp one day, if you're free.”
Hermione offers a kind smile in agreement. One day. Maybe after all of this—
“Before we begin Malfoy, I’m afraid I’m going to need a Vow.”
“Draco is fine, please.” He snorts, “And you must think of me as an idiot, if you think I’d agree to that.”
“Malfoy,” She blatantly ignores his request, “I must insist.”
Silver eyes narrow at her, “Without any information whatsoever?”
“I’m afraid so.”
He is clearly hesitant. She could only imagine the inner-Slytherin screaming at him to not make deals with unknown factors.
“Look, Malfoy—” Hermione almost rolls her eyes. Almost. “This is the Department of Mysteries. It’s sort of standard procedure here. I can’t tell you much until I get a Vow of Secrecy. But I can tell you…”
She lets her voice sing pleasantly in lure, as she rolls her wand between her fingers. She knows every dip and swirl of the vines on her wand and finds comfort in them.
“…that it has to do with someone directly associated with you. And you’ll definitely want to hear what I have to say.”
Malfoy narrows his eyes further at her, and Hermione almost smirks.
“...Or, you can walk out that door, right now, and forget I ever called you here.”
She shrugs lightly, just to play it up a bit. And when his face goes blank as stone, she knows he is Occluding hard, as he thinks this through.
Oh, this is fun. It isn’t every day she gets to hold something over Draco Malfoy.
“A Vow, please.” The words lull off her tongue almost as a song. “...and we can start right away.”
His jaw ticks for a moment as it tightens in a grimace. He then rubs the platinum stubble along his chin for a second and uncrosses his legs as he leans all his weight forward while resting his elbows on his knees. His silver eyes pierces hers in a harsh stare, and a truly devilish smirk flits across his lips.
It is obviously an attempt to intimidate.
But she is Hermione-fucking-Granger, and very little intimidates her these days.
“Alright, Granger. I’ll play along.” He removes his wand from his ugly lime green robes that clashes horribly with his pale complexion, and points at his own wrist.
“I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, vow…” He raises a brow towards her.
“On my life and my magic.”
“...on my life and my magic…that I will uphold the secrets of Hermione Granger, unless notified otherwise.”
“Or our task is complete.”
He studies her a little longer, maybe a bit shocked by her putting a clear end date on an oath, before repeating, “...Or until our task is complete.”
She nods her approval and taps her wand to his wrist. A gold thread of magic weaves itself around his wrist in a thin bracelet before disappearing all together.
“Right.” Hermione clears her throat.
Draco snorts and rolls his eyes at her, “Out with it, Granger.”
“Okay—I don’t really know how to say this.”
“Here’s an idea: use that endless amount of verbiage in that big brain of yours—”
“It really might come as bit of a shock—”
“For fucks sake, please—” he covers his eyes with his hand in frustration.
She takes a deep breath and blurts out,
“I want you to help me save Severus Snape.”
Malfoy freezes as soon as the name tumbles from her lips, and he snaps his eyes open to meet hers. Silence smothers the room for a moment, before she audibly hears him swallow.
“...you want to…save Severus Snape?”
“Yes,” she breathes out.
“As in…?”
“As in, I want to make him—not dead.”
Multiple emotions flicker across his face as if he had forgotten to Occlude all together. Disbelief first, then anger for some reason. He shakes his head violently for a second, before narrowing his eyes on her.
And says in a hollow, toneless voice, “How? ”
Hermione tries to slow the pounding of her heart a little. She has to sell this or it will never work.
“Well…for the last five years, my job as an Unspeakable has been to study Time.” Like that clears it all up. “More specifically, it has been my job to take all of the broken Time-turners—that my friends and I so thoroughly helped ruin—and do something with it.”
She takes a deep breath.
“So, I did. I collected all the sand from the Time-turners. And with a whole lot of complex spellwork, runes so old Nicolas Flamel would struggle with, and a heavy hand of arithmancy—” her voice softens to a whisper, like if the words weren’t said loud enough then couldn’t possibly be wrong. “...I think I found a way to use it.”
Malfoy is so still she isn’t sure if he is even blinking.
“It’s going to take a lot of trial and error, but I think—” Gods, please let this be true. “I can sort of…'pluck' him from his timeline.”
He blinks at her.
“Explain.” He demands, but then must have realized his rudeness so he adds, “—please.”
Hermione fights the urge to chew on her lip.
“Using the Time-sand and a sample of DNA—” Oh, well. Muggle terms. Fuck. “DNA is—”
“I know what DNA is, Granger.”
Oh, well that’s pleasantly new.
“Using a sample of someone’s specific DNA, I can hone the Time-sand to find that individual and essentially extract them from their own timeline. I only have a limited amount though. So, we will have to be systematic in our approach, but in theory—”
He snorts again. And she narrows her eyes at him.
“In theory, I would start young…pull him at set intervals at a time, for a certain amount of time, to create a constant. And then as we get closer and closer to the exact time of his ‘death’ we extract him, and the overall timeline would remain unchanged—”
“How would you know that?”
She blinks at him. “Know what?”
“The exact time of his death.”
“Oh—I was…well, I was there.”
He swallows hard and gives a terse nod.
“That’s why it can only be him, Malfoy. The timing…it has to be impeccable. I can’t just go back grabbing people willy nilly. It would destroy the integrity of the timeline. One wrong move, and Voldemort could win.”
She thinks of Fred. And Remus. Tonks. Lavender. Colin. Moody. And all the others she would happily attempt this for, but would never work.
“But him…I know that exact place and time. If we do this right…”
“Nothing changes.”
She nods. “And…I should note: they say the body was never found at the Shack despite us leaving him there…They also say that his portrait at Hogwarts never appeared, even after years...”
His eyes widen as he catches on. She always knew Malfoy was smart, this would have taken Harry and Ron ages to fit together.
“You think you’ve already succeeded.”
She wants to laugh at that. It is a theory of hers. But really, how she gets to that result is still the true mystery, isn’t it?
“I’m not sure.” She states honestly. “Maybe what they say is true. Maybe…some vengeful Death Eater transfigured his corpse just to spite him, and his body is just simply missing. But…”
“But maybe not.”
Hermione is definitely chewing on her lip now, “Right.”
Malfoy takes to staring at her floor in intense thought as if he is going through every possibility and every outcome. She waits patiently, for a moment before continuing.
“That’s why I need you, Malfoy.” She says quietly. “Even if—and seriously, please understand this is an enormous ‘if’—I do extract him correctly. He will have half his neck ripped out, Nagini’s venom coursing through him, and be seconds away from bleeding out.”
She could almost see the puddle of blood that was running down Snape’s chest as he slumped against the wall of the Shrieking Shack.
“And you are his best chance. Despite what people say about you—you are a brilliant Healer, Draco Malfoy. St. Mungos is fucking stupid to keep you on suspended duties. Your skill with charms, and potions are truly inspirational.”
Gods, it felt wrong complimenting him so much, but it was true. She’s read everything he’s published. “And above all, you are personally invested in his recovery. And with the nature of the…conflict people seem to have with Snape. He needs an ally.”
Distrust is apparent on his face, as he stares her down.
“What I don’t understand, Granger—is why? Why do you want to save him? ”
Ah, that’s the question isn’t it. She fights the visceral impulse to tell him that she doesn’t need to explain herself to him.
To him, maybe she is just intellectually curious? Maybe she is just doing the right thing like so many other Gryffindors claim. Or maybe she simply wants to play God.
But Hermione has thought about this. She’s laid in her bed late at night in the dark, and let waves of thoughts, and questions, and feelings pile up into her secret reasons. She has rationalized, justified, and queried every one of them.
And they belong to her—
But she will give him just one.
She lets out a long, slow breath as if the words could just turn into vapor and float away, instead of having to mean something solid, something real.
“This war—” the words roll off her tongue with so much vitriol she feels like blood, and venom, and ink were dripping from her lips and oozing down her chin.
“—has taken so much from me. It has stolen, and robbed, and cheated, and stripped so much. I can’t—” No. That’s not right. “—I won't let it take one more fucking thing from me.”
She meets his gaze and hopes he can feel all of it: the wrath, the despair, the weariness.
“And now…I have the chance to steal something back from it…right from its greedy, undeserving hands. Wouldn’t you take that chance?”
Quiet echoes in the room.
Then—
His eyes light up, and his head tips back—and he laughs.
A wild, bold sound that Hermione has never heard before beside his cruel chuckle occasionally. Then he smiles, a razor-sharp grin that looks like he would tear out a throat with his bare teeth.
And Hermione thinks she’s found a friend.
“Granger.” Malfoy says it like it’s his new favorite word. “I’ve been called all kinds of names, and done all kinds of terrible things. But this is the first time…I’ve ever been asked to do a heist. And I’m happy to do so.”
He chuckles darkly, and Hermione grins.
Screw fate. She never believed in it anyway.
“Let's be the best of thieves, Draco.”
They were going to steal Severus Snape right from Fate’s grasp.
_