Chapter Text
Throwing myself into the weekly prompts from P&P...and this one already ran away with itself!
Prompt:
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she intoned mirthlessly.
“Who is trying to kill us all.”
His voice came from the doorway behind her.
It was a last resort, to come to this place. This room. This…object.
John Dee’s shew-stone. His Black Mirror. Oh, not the small obsidian disc in the British Museum, no this was the original cut from Whitby jet and framed in aging brass. It stretched out square to six foot and only powerful magics could form it. Hold it. Protect her…
The discordant hum of it pricked at her flesh.
…because this mirror; it could look back.
But she had to know.
Hermione drew in a long, chilled breath and exhaled, steaming white in the cold air and the flicker of the stone chamber’s single, guttering lamp.
Something…moved within the deep blackness of the mirror, a slow twist of grey, the slide and curve of smoke and it lifted the hairs on her arms. Dee had delved into the old magicks. The deep magicks. Magic without wands and words. And this mirror expected an…exchange. Something of hers, of her, for the knowledge she sought.
Some said John Dee forged it. Others, in ancient scrolls almost lost to time, said the mirror was older. Ancient. Created by magic itself…
“I…”
She swallowed and wet dried dried lips. For a long moment, she closed her eyes and fought to focus, to pull her magic around her. An offering…and protection.
“What and where are the horcruxes made by Tom Riddle and Vol…He-Who-Must-Not-Be- Named?”
Her heart thudded and beat hard in her ears. Gods, she’d almost called the Death Eaters down on her with the use of his stupid anagram. And the dank cellar in the ruins of Dee’s grandfather’s house had only one way out.
The pull of magic thickened in the air and set her teeth on edge. Could it know something so far from its making? Or had she opened herself to this artefact for nothing, nothing at all. But…
They had hunted without a clue, nothing left to them by bloody Dumbledore than the fact that horcruxes existed and were a part of his soul. They’d blundered into Slytherin’s necklace and destroyed it with the oddly convenient find of Gryffindor’s sword…but now? Now what?
Hermione pressed her lips together and denied the need to tell the mirror to hurry the hell up.
Ron and Harry were half way up a welsh hill, bound in some of her fiercest wards with the belief that she was down at the farm shop, pulling together fresh supplies. That she would do after. If she had an after…
The smoky depths of the mirror lightened, silver threads of magic drawing themselves against the underside of the jet.
“Three have been…freed.”
Hermione slapped a hand to her mouth to stop the escaping gasp. She hadn’t been expecting a voice. Looking back. Oh… Was the mirror…conscious? After a pause, filled with silence and the flicker of flame and her own quick breaths, she willed herself to speak. “His diary, a ring and the locket.”
“What remains…”
It was a low, male voice and achingly familiar, rich and smooth, sliding over her skin and swirling…strange needs within her flesh.
Hermione bit her lip and willed herself to focus. She was not thinking about what the mirror could want from her or the nature of old magicks. Not in that moment. Not for a second.
“The Diadem of the Witch Ravenclaw in the Room of Many Things.”
Hermione frowned. Hogwarts? They had to get into Hogwarts? The school currently overrun with Death Eaters and the Headmaster’s murderer? She held down a groan. Had Dumbledore been oblivious to a horcrux in his own bloody castle?
“The Cup of the Witch Hufflepuff in the vault of the Daughter of the House of Black.”
There were only three left. Andromeda, Narcissa or Bellatrix?
Hermione closed her eyes. Andromeda, no. Malfoy had the diary and Riddle would hardly place an item of such value with this follower’s wife. Fuck… Not only was it in the fortress that was Gringotts, Riddle had very likely entrusted it to his most devoted and insane of followers. Bellatrix fucking Lestrange.
Gods, she wished she didn’t know any of this. Ignorance was easier; to hold on to the believe that they had any chance of succeeding in their quest.
“Caught in the flesh of the Familiar Maladictus at his right hand.”
His snake. Riddle had fixed his soul in a snake. A snake that had once been…human?
The wizarding world was completely insane. Could she hand in her witch card and run off to be a dentist? Now would be good.
And the mirror hadn’t finished. The spark of magic still thickened within it.
Seven horcruxes.
There had to be only a sliver of his soul left in Riddle’s remade body.
“Caught in the flesh in your Brother-in-all-but-Blood.”
Hermione’s knees gave out and she flopped like a rag doll to the cold stone floor. No, no, that couldn’t be right. Her throat tightened and the ache in her chest burned hot and fierce. Not…
Harry.
Harry was a horcrux.
And…
And Dumbledore had fucking known.
Had been leading him like a pig with a ring through his nose to the moment he had to fulfil a stupid prophecy. To die at Riddle’s hand.
“No…”
It was a growl ripped from her.
“I will not allow him to die. I will not.”
“You know the truth of your question, Witch Granger, now you will pay the price for my knowledge.”
Hermione sucked in a steadying breath and pushed herself up. She would not meet her fate sitting on her arse on cold, damp stone. She lifted her chin. “I’m ready.”
“Are you?”
But that smooth dark voice wasn’t…wasn’t in front of her, wasn’t the mirror… It was behind her—
A half-cry escaped her.
Leaning against the stone arch was the tall, lean form of the smirking murderer, Severus Snape.