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By Hook Or By Crook by dionde [Reviews - 5]

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This story has been much improved by the kind offices of At Some Actor's West Side Loft

Chapter 2

A Crooked Man

-oOo-



"What are you doing here, Miss Granger?" Snape was looking down his rather long nose at her, using his classroom voice. It seemed rather at odds with their surroundings. The linoleum floor and flaking wallpaper in the dilapidated trailer was probably older than Hermione, and they hadn't aged well. Outside, insects she had no names for sang and chirruped and tweeted, reminding her that they both were very far away from home.

"I should have thought that was obvious."

"Do enlighten me." His sneer hadn't become less vicious in the decade since she had last seen it.

"I'm impersonating Lucinda Avery," she said, trying to look as dignified as she could. Wearing someone else's body, still feeling mangled physically and emotionally, she feared it didn't amount to much. Apparently Snape agreed.

"Really, Miss Granger. Clearly I never would have reached that conclusion on my own."

Well, she wasn't going to play his little game; if he wanted to know he would damn well have to ask. Her glare seemed to have communicated her stance adequately without requiring her to verbalise it; she really had to remember that he was an accomplished Legilimens.

"Why would you undertake such an endeavour?" His heavy sigh seemed to convey that he was playing along momentarily, but on a sufferance.

"That's the real question, isn't it? And I'm not sure how much I can tell you," she said thoughtfully.

"Standards at the Ministry have clearly slipped from abominable to abysmal during my absence, if this half-baked effort to bring Avery to justice is any indication."

Listen to what he isn't saying, Hermione told herself as she struggled to keep her face expressionless. Even if he didn't live in England Snape could easily have found out that she worked for the Ministry, and it was hardly unexpected in any case. She was under cover, in a country whose wizarding population was known for its isolationist tendencies and strict controls on magic. Furthermore, she was pretending to be the sister of a war criminal and former Death Eater on the run from the British Ministry; it wasn't a wild assumption that Hermione Granger might want to bring him to justice.

It was simple, really. Snape had figured it out in less than five minutes, however, so Nagini's attack clearly hadn't affected his intellectual prowess.

"Correct, sir. Although I would argue that it isn't half-baked."

"Since you have failed to express any interest in how you ended up in your present situation, it falls to me to point out that being beaten unconscious by the Death Eater you are supposed to be subjugating hardly constitutes a resounding success."

Well, Hermione had been working up to asking him how she came to be here, wherever here was, so she was rather grateful that he had introduced the topic.

"Why am I here, sir? Where are we, by the way?"

"Hearthside trailer park, just outside Detroit." She was still in the same place as where she had started the evening, then.

"And why am I here?" She didn't bother asking where she was in the trailer park; Snape must have rented a trailer, too. Somehow Hermione didn't think he was here because he had run out of other options, like a majority of the other residents she had come across, but that would have to wait for the moment.

"Because you clearly were in over your head."

"You didn't even know it was me," she pointed out.

"It is generally considered a basic tenet of civil society that bystanders will intervene when they see a man using his fists to render a woman insensate."

Hermione snorted; not if they thought they would get in the way of said fists, they wouldn't.

"You know Lucinda Avery," she pointed out, suddenly recalling that Snape had been calling her by name as she was waking up.

"I knew her, a very long time ago."

"From Hogwarts?"

"Losing your grip, Miss Granger? You should know we weren't at school at the same time." She had known; she just didn't quite know how to ask if her real assumption was correct. Yet again, he seemed to read her mind even though she had been careful to keep her eyes slightly averted.

"Yes, we met because her brother was a Death Eater. Lucinda was happy to support the cause with whatever dwindling funds she still had at her disposal."

"And were you friends?" Hermione asked hesitatingly; she certainly wasn't fool enough to believe that Snape had harboured any sort of amorous feelings for the unprepossessing Miss Avery. It was difficult to imagine anyone less likely to appeal to him.

"We shared some interests." So they had been friendly, then; it explained why Snape had used a nickname when he was trying to wake her up. According to the notes Hermione had memorized, Lucinda had been called Lucy by her family and some of her school friends; the woman hadn't had many close friends after she had left school. It was one reason why her disappearance to join her fugitive brother after the end of the second war hadn't been noted immediately; once people noticed, the trail had already gone cold and the Averys had disappeared into obscurity.

Obviously, they hadn't been quite obscure enough if Snape had found them, too.

"How come you're here, sir?"

"Maybe I wish render assistance to my erstwhile comrade-in-arms," he said blandly. Hermione didn't even bother responding to that. Her head was still sore, but she could feel her wits returning and the pieces were slowly falling into place.

"Avery was talking about an 'old friend' weeks ago, someone who's still got money – that's how you found him, isn't it? That must be how Rockwood got caught in Cambodia!" Snape's expression was utterly uninterested, and she knew she was on the right track. "The word gets passed around that this anonymous benefactor is still looking after the old gang, and if someone bites you come calling. What do you do to them?"

Snape's look of studied indifference could have won prizes.

"All right, never mind. This anonymous benefactor wouldn't be Lucius Malfoy, by any chance? He's the only one who fits- Oh, and that's how you survived, isn't it? You set it up with Malfoy somehow-"

"Your imagination is simply boundless, Miss Granger," he commented with obvious distaste. "You cannot have a scrap of evidence for any of your flights of fancy."

"Don't need to, do I? It all makes sense, sir, so unless you want to tell me the truth I rather think I'll stick with my assumptions." Snape looked like Neville had done something unspeakable to his Potions lab, so she guessed that a compelling alternative explanation fitting all the known facts wouldn't be forthcoming.

"What is your plan of action, Miss Granger?" he asked, entirely disregarding the previous few minutes of their conversation. "Or have you opted for the usual Gryffindor modus operandi of making it up as you go along?"

Hermione didn't really have to think about it; ever since she had opened her eyes and seen who it was, she had known that she trusted Snape, would trust him with her life. It was the least she owed him after having left him to die, and she was suddenly achingly grateful that it wasn't too late.

"By hook or by crook, I'll get Avery to cross the border to Canada. I can't use magic-"

"I'm not an imbecile, I know that the wards at the border would stop you. To say nothing about how much trouble you would be in if you used unauthorized magic in the United States."

"And I can't exactly drug him and drive him across either." Glumly, Hermione contemplated the situation. The recurring wars in Europe and the rest of the world had made wizarding America retract into itself, in a completely opposite reaction to its Muggle equivalent. Anyone wishing to practice magic within the United States had to register their wand, and transgressions were strictly punished.

"You don't think there will be a bit of a strain on the Anglo-American relationship once the news breaks?" Snape asked, his tone making clear just how sarcastic his question was.

"Yes, I expect there will be a dreadful fuss!" Hermione admitted cheerfully. "Kingsley says he doesn't care, though, and as long as the Americans can't prove that the Ministry was involved, there's not really anything they can do."

"So they just dumped you here on, hoping you will somehow manage to drag Avery across the border on your own? The Auror Office wasn't exactly composed of the sharpest knives in the drawer in my day either, but it seems like a particularly poorly thought-out plan. "

"As opposed to yours, then? Which was what, exactly?" In Hermione's quick tally of Death Eaters who had been caught on the run, most had either been found dead by apparently natural causes or been tangled up with the Muggle authorities in some way. Some very nasty prisons out there had even nastier inmates than they thought. "I'd rather not live in a country where the Ministry condones slipping untraceable poison in someone's morning tea, thank you very much. Besides, we're hoping it will send a signal to the other Death Eaters on the run – But that won't be necessary, will it?" she asked, slowly figuring it out. "The reason so many of the survivors haven't been found is because you got to them first, isn't it?"

Snape's expression was the very definition of inscrutable.

"Never mind," Hermione sighed, realizing that he would hardly admit to murder to a Ministry official. Even if he probably knew that she would never turn him in, for at least three completely different reasons. "So will you help me, then? Or are you heading on now?"

"Miss Granger, am I to understand that you're going back?" It was very seldom she had seen Snape drop his mask to such an extent.

"Yes, I am." If Harry or Ron had been there, they would have seen that there was no persuading her to change her chosen course of action. Avery was a piece of scum and Hermione would bring him to justice, if it was the last thing she did.

Snape suddenly looked tired, and brushed his hand across his face. For the first time it occurred to Hermione to wonder what time it was; by the pale morning light slipping in through the cracks in the rotting blinds she could tell it was close to dawn.

"You cannot possibly be serious," he said, in a tone that suggested that he knew only too well that she was.

"What's the alternative? The Americans won't extradite him or detain him, as long as he doesn't commit any crimes here. As soon as he finds out that we're on his tracks, he'll slip away again."

Snape sighed, and Hermione recognized the unusually unguarded look in his eyes. She had seen it in the eyes of her friends after the Battle of Hogwarts, and in the mirror just after the war. It was a look that said enough, no longer, I cannot bear any more of this. Ten years ago, she had seen it in the mirror often enough.

A scrawny, neglected child with eyes too old for his years rose to the surface of her memories; suddenly, Hermione understood quite how much she was asking him for.

"You don't have to stay- I mean, I've no claim on you, it's not like you owe us anything-"

"I'll stay," he said, and that seemed to be that. The shutters went down again.

There were practicalities to be attended to; it would soon be six o'clock in the morning, and for several reasons Hermione wanted to be back in the trailer when Avery woke up.

Snape appeared to have reconciled himself to the fact that she refused to discontinue her mission, and that it had in fact become a joint enterprise. He was crisp and concise while giving her a brief run-down of her injuries and what he had healed so far; fortunately, he hadn't discovered any internal injuries or broken bones. Passive magic, like potions or charmed objects, was undetectable by the authorities; it was only wand-waving, foolish or otherwise, that attracted their attention.

Snape also assured her that Avery would be asleep for at least another two hours; Hermione didn't inquire as to the source for his information.

They compared notes on Avery's movements; since Hermione only knew what he saw fit to divulge to her and what he did in the trailer, which was nothing much, it came as a surprise to her to find out how deeply he had been involved with Hankwell. However, it was only when Snape grudgingly admitted that Avery had received a remittance from the unknown benefactor she now was certain was Malfoy that Hermione realized why she was in her present position.

"Oh God, that's why – the money he gave me! It wasn't an advance, it was the last of the handout…"

"Not quite. He seemed to have plenty left for drinks the following week," Snape remarked dryly, but Hermione wasn't listening.

"Last night- I said it was lucky he asked for an advance from Hankwell like I told him, so he had something at least. That's why it set him off – because it was Avery who gave Hankwell money, instead of the other way around…"

"Avery was always utterly incapable of listening to good advice when it was presented to him. It's almost as if he delights in taking the opposite course of action, and then blames everyone but himself," Snape said distantly, like he was observing from very far away; the outer orbit of the moon, perhaps. Belatedly, Hermione realized that the sun was much higher in the sky than she remembered from the last time she looked, and cast an eye at the clock.

"I've got to get back, it's almost half seven!"

"There is plenty of time still. We are barely twenty feet from your trailer."

"Oh. So what happens now, then?"

"I thought you were supposed to be the professional," he said archly, needling her.

"I was just being polite, actually. I'll tell you what to do, if you prefer that." Snape cast his eyes up to the heavens and Hermione smirked a little; she had learnt something since she was seventeen, after all.

"I'll knock before coming back in," he announced peremptorily. "The loo is the door opposite." Without wasting more words he swept out, leaving her slightly confused but grateful to have some privacy before creeping back to Avery's trailer. Snape left her just enough time to freshen up and use the toilet before he returned bearing a small vial.

"Put two drops of this in his tea-" Hermione snorted; Avery seemed to have jettisoned tea-drinking somewhere on the road between Hogwarts and Detroit, just like he had given up on his ambitions to render the world free of Muggles. "Or beer, then," Snape conceded. "I'm sure you will contrive. It will make him sleep soundly for at least six hours. Once you are satisfied that he has been asleep for at least fifteen minutes, come and see me."

Hermione nodded, pocketing the vial.

As soon as she was standing, all the little reminders that she had been through the wringer returned; Snape had managed to magic away most of the aches and pains, but some stiffness remained.

"Professor Snape – thank you. For everything," she said earnestly, looking up at him. Hermione was surprised to find that he was much shorter than she remembered; the power of his persona made it irrelevant that he wasn't any taller than Harry.

He looked back at her without saying anything, and remained immobile as she hobbled to the door, not acknowledging her gratitude with as much as a nod. Even in Muggle clothing, standing in the middle of a trailer that had been new when Elvis was still alive, he cut an imposing figure, and Hermione caught herself doubting if he really would be there when she came back in the evening.

His return from the dead seemed too surreal to actually be true.

Reality hit her square in the face as she limped up the steps to the trailer Lucinda Avery called home, and all musings on former Potions Masters and spies were banished as she realized that she would have to figure out how to deal with Avery.

She really ought to have taken Susan Bones up on her offer last autumn and gone with her to her karate classes.



By Hook Or By Crook by dionde [Reviews - 5]

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