Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this story.**

**a/n** - This is the first chapter of a long fic. If the plot is any indication, it will be novel length. Whether it's novel worthy, I'll leave at your discretion. This is a slow building romance, and I mean slow. I hope you enjoy the latest saga in the unpredictable world of SS/HG.

Thanks to Rhiannon for looking over this chapter.

Huge, gigantic, massive thanks go to Michelle for betaing the tar out of this chapter. She pulls no punches, and I adore her for it.

And Shanastay, since she's been kind enough to read as I write, gets a pair of chaps, but just this once. After that, there will be no chaps for her.

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**Volition**

**Chapter 1**

With a sudden and violent start, Hermione regained consciousness. Unfortunately, she could not recall exactly how she had come to be unconscious in the first place.

Although awake, she remained sightless, her eyes closed beneath the weight of some yet intangible thing. Bewildered, and dreadfully cold, she began to shiver involuntarily. Wherever she was, it felt remarkably similar to an icebox, though it smelled more like soggy earth and mildewed concrete.

After a moment to gather her bearings, she attempted to persuade her limbs to function properly. She felt encumbered, her legs too heavy to move and her arms too weak to lift. Her eyes would not open as she wished. Her legs would not walk when she tried. Her mind seemed disengaged from her body, save for the ability to feel.

When her repeated attempts to move failed to achieve any acceptable results, frustration at her circumstances began to overpower her fear of them. Though immobile, she acknowledged that she was standing, for the most part. She was certain that she was not lying down, but strangely, she perceived no burden on either of her legs. It was then that she tried to move her hands to her face, if only to see if she had sustained some injury to her eyes. Unfortunately, this endeavor only alerted her to the true extent of her predicament.

Her hands, bound above her head, were going to be of little help to her. She appeared tethered to the ceiling, or some such place, suspended by her wrists alone.

No wonder her arms would not move, she recognized with alarming clarity. Every ounce of blood had drained from them while she had hung there, insensible.

Proving only to discourage her further, her movement had strained her bindings. She assumed then that they were rope, since the burning in her wrists suggested such. They steadily constricted around her wrists, rasping her skin and leaving a searing pain in their wake.

In order to relieve the tension on her wrists, she attempted to set her feet against the ground. However, the ropes only cinched tighter as she shuffled her toes against the infuriatingly nearby floor. Though it was not the first time, nor would it be the last, she wished for longer legs and cursed her luck.

Along with her emerging consciousness, and growing frustration, came an indistinct pain. As the soreness emerged, it stung at her shoulders and surged within her skull. With each breath, she discovered a fresh, stabbing pain that emanated from her back while the ropes continued their assault on her wrists.

Within seconds, her stomach lurched as the certainty of her circumstances claimed her mind in full. Something terrible had happened; she knew that much. Otherwise, she would have been somewhere else, where it was warmer, and less painful. Otherwise, she would have been able to open her eyes and see what in the hell was going on.

Praying that she was wrong about some or all of her circumstances, she forced her eyes open. She succeeded. Although, save for a thin line of light down by her nose, the darkness remained unchanged.

The weight she had sensed against her face was a blindfold. That information added strength to the surplus of evidence that already pointed to the fact that something dreadful had happened. She quickly reconsidered her assessment. Dreadful may well have been an understatement.

Panic and sheer horror waged war for precedence as she accepted the complete scope of her limitations. She was unable to reach her wand, if she still had it on her person, which she highly doubted. She was defenseless, in every sense of the word. She possessed no means to perform magic. Never before had she been in quite so much danger.

Even as those thoughts barreled through her head, Hermione had the sense, via mindless self-preservation, to stay calm. She understood that if she stayed calm, she would likely stay alive. As an alternative to her disturbing thoughts, she fixed her mind upon deducing where she was, and perhaps why she was there.

Grimmauld Place was the first detail she brought to mind. Her last vivid memory was of an impromptu gathering of the Order of the Phoenix in the dingy kitchen of the house that had been her home for nearly six months.

While the meeting seemed like a recent memory, she could not be sure exactly when it had taken place. The meeting concerned a tip the Order had received, via Floo network, in an unmarked envelope addressed to Headmistress McGonagall.

According to the message, Voldemort, Severus Snape, and Lucius Malfoy were to be alone at the Riddle house later that very evening. Operating under the semblance of invincibility, the three were to be unguarded, thus wholly unsuspecting of an ambush.

If valid, the tip provided the opportunity that the Order had so anxiously awaited. The Horcruxes had been gone for months. Unless the Order received an invitation to wherever Voldemort had been hiding of late, they needed some sort of push in the right direction.

Harry had paced bald places in the rugs at Headquarters in anticipation of the chance to have a go at the man who had killed his parents, his godfather and countless others. Furthermore, and perhaps even more so, Harry wanted more than ever to confront, and likely kill, Snape.

Harry had spent the year and a half following Dumbledore's death regaling Hermione and Ron with sensationalized, blow-by-blow accounts of what he intended to do to both Voldemort and Snape.

During these rants, Harry seemed more than prepared to fulfill the prophecy, which caused Hermione to question whether his enthusiasm simply masked his uncertainty on the matter. She assumed that these fictionalized tales were Harry's way of coping with the thought of committing murder, no matter the justification.

The anonymous tip had answered Harry's prayers. He would have the chance that he wanted.

More importantly, if the ambush proved successful, it would end the war. It all seemed so dreadfully anticlimactic. The Order needed only to sneak into the Riddle house and fell one of the most powerful, yet most evil wizards of all time.

Still, if the end arrived without the spectacular chaos that warfare required, Hermione was all for it. A simple, imperfect peace had long since replaced Voldemort's death as her prime objective.

She had realized long ago that a perfect world did not exist. All she had to cling to was her delusion of a world--one just as flawed and prejudiced as the current world--without the Death Eaters, the murders, or the sleepless nights. She could never understand why such a thing seemed so impossible to attain. She had never asked for miracles.

This thought and many others traveled through her mind during the particularly lengthy meeting to discuss the validity of the information contained in the message.

Once Mad-Eye Moody had returned with the reconnaissance team, he substantiated the note's claims. The Riddle house had proved to be deserted, and both he and Professor McGonagall seemed quite certain that the nameless messenger was _not_ a Voldemort sympathizer who had merely attempted to lure the Order into a trap.

Hermione saw several uneasy glances pass between her fellow members, but no one posed an objection. When everyone's eyes had returned to the head of the table, Professor McGonagall recited the list of the eighteen members of the Order who had previously volunteered and qualified for such an assignment. She then separated those chosen members into two groups.

The first group consisted of Remus Lupin, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Professor McGonagall designated their group as the first to enter the house and passed along explicit instructions pertaining to their duty. Since the Riddle house was to be all but vacant, she feared that too many arriving at once would draw unwanted attention. She directed their group to explore the house, locate Voldemort, the bigot and the bastard, and then await support from the second group before engaging in combat.

The second group included Arthur Weasley, Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Nymphadora Tonks, along with ten somewhat new recruits. This group was to secure the perimeter, take out any Death Eaters that made an appearance while the first group was inside the house, and wait for the summons from the first group, or some sign that the first group was in danger, before setting foot inside the building.

Professor McGonagall elected to stay behind to anticipate word of success, or to send reinforcements, if required. Even though she remained stoic, as always, her disgust at her decision was apparent.

Her confrontation with Umbridge's men years before had caused her permanent injury. Her back and legs possessed none of the stamina that she once had, which left her unable to participate in every mission the Order undertook. She had grown particularly impatient during the search for the Horcruxes. She had never been one to observe others complete, what she deemed to be, her work.

During the six months since graduation, Hermione had wondered often if Professor McGonagall lamented her appointment as Head of the Order of the Phoenix. Though she had taken over the role willingly, she rarely spoke of Professor Dumbledore, and typically changed the subject when his name arose in conversation.

Her grief presented as anger, which did not surprise Hermione. Professor McGonagall had managed to put the school back together before sending Lupin to search out the remaining Horcruxes with Harry, Ron and Hermione. Professor McGonagall had preserved the sanctity of Hogwarts and the reputation of the Order with all the flair of Professor Dumbledore. She had toiled ceaselessly since the day Dumbledore died, and she would not stop until Voldemort's defeat.

However, Professor McGonagall seemed oblivious to her shifting moods and irritable disposition. Although she had never been outwardly affectionate, she had never been quite so openly snappish. Her short temper had grown even shorter since the destruction of the most elusive Horcrux, Merope Gaunt's locket.

Such was her mood at the most recent meeting. Professor McGonagall seemed preoccupied, much more so than usual. She stumbled fretfully over several sentences while Mad-Eye spread the diagram of the Riddle property across the table. She rebuked every attempted interruption to her speech, even Arthur Weasley's, when he had tried to tell her that the teakettle was boiling over.

Hermione understood that Professor McGonagall was fearful for the fate of the mission. The Order had never before gone into such dangerous territory without Dumbledore. Hermione had a feeling that his absence had inspired more courage than fear in all those involved on the side of the light, though she had seen fear present as courage more than once in her lifetime.

With the strategy in place, and the lectures about safety measures sufficiently exhausted, Professor McGonagall closed the meeting. In an excited air, much like that preceding a major sporting event, the selected members of the Order mingled about the kitchen while they readied themselves to embark upon the mission.

Although she realized the dangerousness of the assignment, Hermione gave herself permission to feel ecstatic about the prospect of the coming evening. The premise of victory, and the notion of a real life, provided a fleeting glimpse into a future that she had nearly abandoned hope of ever realizing.

In the time before departure, Hermione moved to the edge of the chattering crowd to find a cup of tea to sip before her nerves got the better of her. Once there, she settled her hands around the steaming cup and felt more like an outsider than anything.

The others milled about the room, seemingly oblivious to the implications of the forthcoming mission. Some shook hands, others clapped each other on the arm. Most exhibited testosterone driven displays of male dominance, but some were worth paying attention to.

Moody stood off to the right, uninvolved in the anticipatory gossip, as he secured his wand in a specially made scabbard on his hip. Strapped to his belt was a leather contraption that featured individual compartments for potion vials and a variety of pointy equipment that he had retrieved from his room upstairs. When he tapped the front of each pouch, the contents soared up into his waiting hand. He practiced the exercise time after time, in a near meditative repetition.

Ron and Harry seemed outsiders as well. They remained sitting, side by side, in the very chairs that they had occupied during the meeting. A very somber looking Ron appeared busy advising a contemplative Harry. Harry nodded in turn to several of Ron's points before he suddenly stood from the table.

He wore a dour face, his brows so drawn that they disappeared behind his glasses. No matter his resolve, Hermione could see his fear.

Harry had held the future of the Wizarding World in his hands ever since Dumbledore had relayed the prophecy. The burden of that responsibility had owned Harry's every thought during the preceding months. Without school, or the hunt for the Horcruxes to occupy him, he had concentrated on nothing but the duty he had yet to fulfill. The prophecy had assigned him that duty before he had ever taken his first breath, and he was prepared to give his last to satisfy that duty, Hermione was sure of it.

However, she realized that Harry's fear had little to do with the mission itself, the fight, or even his potential death. He feared the outcome should he fail, which represented no less than the downfall of civilized Wizarding society and the collapse of the very culture that Dumbledore had given his life to save.

All that set aside, Harry's show of readiness signified that the time to depart had arrived. Hermione joined Ron and Harry as they filed with the others onto the street in front of the house and into the frigid December cold.

Once they had all assembled, Mad-Eye counted down with a show of fingers. When he reached one, they Apparated as a group to the Eastern edge of the Riddle property.

They arrived silently in the stand of trees bordering the house. The benign ambiance of the night left Hermione baffled. She had expected the air to reek of evil, for the moon to shine down blood red to denote the wickedness that awaited them inside. However, she saw only the pristine snowdrifts that dotted the side yard of the very ordinary looking house before Lupin signaled for her to follow.

Hermione, Harry and Ron took care to step in Lupin's tracks as he struck a fresh path through the snow. He led them to the front of the house where a flickering, amber-yellow glow lit the center window of the second floor.

On the other side of that window stood the reason for all the suffering Hermione had ever witnessed in her lifetime. Waiting inside that house was the conclusion that she had desired for so long.

With that rationalization, she suppressed her natural anxiety and replaced it with confidence. In a few hours, she told herself, an entire generation of injustices would be set right. The next few hours, she reminded herself, would forever change her life.

Huddled together in a tight circle, their backs to one another, Lupin, Harry, Ron and Hermione entered the startlingly unguarded house. Dismissing the ease with which they entered, which should have been a glaring warning, they began a very deliberate assessment of the darkened foyer.

They had been inside the house mere seconds when it became clear that they were in danger. A vibrant array of spells rained down upon them. There looked to be several Death Eaters on the second floor landing who were sending the offensive spells.

Lupin directed the group behind a wardrobe just off the stairs. Hermione grappled with her ruined sense of security as the group frantically took cover. Once there, they aimed cautiously at the places where the Death Eaters seemed to have positioned themselves.

Hermione believed that the Death Eaters were still outnumbered. She sent her Patronus out the open front doors to alert the second team. She knew that the Death Eaters were innately cowards who would surrender or retreat should they realize that theirs was a losing battle.

Before the second team could arrive, the deluge of curses abruptly stopped. Harry and Ron attempted to rush the stairs, but Lupin held them back. Just as he did so, a surging thunder filled Hermione's ears. She had no way to know that the sound belonged to the dozens upon dozens of Death Eaters descending the stairs.

When Lupin motioned for them to abandon cover, Hermione did not know to stop him. Instead, she followed, as did Ron and Harry. They maintained their circle, backs pressed together, and entered into the fight for their lives.

The second team soon joined the all-out combat. However, they were little aid to Hermione and the others as they cast spell after spell from their circle in the midst of that growing sea of Death Eaters.

The Order was dreadfully outnumbered. Though they had trained extensively for such an occasion, they possessed no means by which to utilize the training. They could not stop fighting to summon backup. They could not Apparate inside the House. The Death Eaters had them cornered until Professor McGonagall grew suspicious of their failure to report in. Until then, they had to attempt to survive, and attempt to complete the mission.

Lupin began to move their group toward the stairs instead of the still open front doors. He, too, must have had the mission at the forefront of his mind. They were within yards of the first step when Lupin collapsed to the floor.

The flash of green struck his shoulder. Hermione recognized it as a killing curse. She wasted a second in hesitation as she stared at his crumpled form on the floor, but there was no time to mourn the fallen. The objective had always been to protect Harry, to get him to Voldemort so that this whole mess could end. Lupin had known as much.

The three that remained continued the laborious trek toward the staircase that still swarmed with Death Eaters. Mad-Eye and Shacklebolt reached the trio. They added themselves to the circle just as Ron was lost from it.

Along with this memory, a single, stinging tear slid down her cheek. That had been when she had gone numb.

She continued fighting to protect Harry. She had to deliver him to his fate. She could not pause to consider what had just happened. She had to stay alive for Harry.

Hermione screamed every curse she had ever learned as the group made an arduous climb to the top of the stairs. Once there, she chanced a glance down to the floor. The eerie glow of curses swallowed up the remaining Order members. She could not know how many of them remained.

Hermione and the others had barely reached the landing when Shacklebolt took a bright green curse in the side. Again, their number reduced to three.

Mad-Eye led them on toward the door that the Death Eaters had been so enthusiastically defending. When they were within eyeshot of the door, Mad-Eye made a valiant stand. He flung himself into the crowd of masked adversaries.

The crowd dispersed when confronted with Mad-Eye's deranged curse throwing. Before the crowd had a chance to regroup, Harry and Hermione sprinted toward the door. They sent spells, but the spells merely bounced back.

With no other option, they used the momentum they had amassed as they ran and threw themselves against the door. It slammed open upon impact and sent Harry and Hermione stumbling into the room.

Hermione found her footing before she tumbled headfirst into the hearth. She was sure by means of the ferocious pain that her shoulder was dislocated. She would have screamed if not for the sight she saw before her.

Voldemort stood only a few yards away, a smile on his face that displayed every pointed tooth. Lucius Malfoy hovered nearby, his patent smugness unchanged. Peter Pettigrew was barely visible as he cowered behind Voldemort's flamboyant robes.

Harry stepped toward Voldemort so bravely. Both raised their wands at one another. Hermione looked on, petrified. There was nothing for her to do now but pray.

However, before either could utter a curse, someone grabbed her by the arms and slammed her head into something very hard. The momentary stars that followed were her last inkling of events.

The fact that she was now in an unfamiliar place, in pain, and tied up gave her the unsettling feeling that whatever had happened hadn't been good. Her heart ached as she thought that her estimation was again, perhaps, an understatement.

Jarring Hermione from her thoughts, the rusty groan of a metal door echoed through her confines. Muted footsteps soon followed, which grew louder as they approached.

Terrified, she instinctively let her head droop forward. She thought that, if they believed her unconscious, they might leave her alone for a little while longer. As least, they might until they grew tired of waiting and merely killed her.

The footsteps paused as another metal door scraped. Her heart pounded mercilessly as she anticipated the approach. She yearned for the ability to see, if only to know who was coming after her. She wanted the knowledge to temper the fear that suddenly ran unbridled through her veins.

Hermione could smell whoever it was as they neared. The scent nauseated her. Although she could not place it, and perhaps it was her head injury, but it smelled like a perversion of sweet.

"Filthy Mudblood."

The hissed words resonated off the stone as Hermione placed the voice of Draco Malfoy.

"Strung up like a Christmas stocking, except not nearly as pretty."

Draco circled her as he spoke. He stalked her like prey, a callous snicker audible under his breath.

When his footsteps stopped, she could feel something touching her. It was a hand, laying flat against her stomach. His hand, her mind screamed.

It snaked under the front of her shirt. His fingertips grazed her skin as it traveled ever higher until it reached the bottom of her breast. She fought back the urge to vomit as her heart beat frantically in her chest.

"I am sorry you couldn't be awake for this," he said as he took her left breast in his hand.

Every fiber of her being remained focused on not screaming or kicking. She was keenly aware that any such protest would bring something much worse that she refused to imagine.

"Draco! What did your father have to say regarding that?"

The arrival of a new voice caused Hermione to flinch, but Draco seemed unaware of her twitch. He jerked his hand away, but she continued to panic.

Snape, that bastard, was still alive. Lucius Malfoy was as well, by the sounds of it. Had they accomplished nothing in the ambush?

"Father says to keep my hands to the Purebloods," Draco answered, apathetic as ever.

"Precisely," Snape stated pompously. "Perhaps you should find something else to molest while I question her."

Draco snorted before he replied, "I can _question_ her."

"And you shall," Snape said softly. "However, for the time being, I suggest that you run along."

Hermione heard a pouted sigh before Draco's footsteps and the slam of a door.

Although relieved to be free of Draco, she was still painfully aware that Snape had lingered. His nearing footsteps and the torture that was surely about ensue sparked a surge of panic that made playing unconscious increasingly difficult.

"You are awake," he whispered into her ear.

Her sob at his closeness certainly confirmed his theory, she told herself.

"Remain silent," he instructed hurriedly. "Nod your answers. Do you understand?"

She nodded once.

"Excellent," he whispered while he paced to her other side. "Were any such hexes placed around the premises that might be undetectable?" he asked, again in whisper.

Although she shook her head no, she wanted tremendously to speak, or to scream. The suspense rattled her more than the punishment, which she wished he would just carry out and be done with.

"You are not badly injured. I assume you can walk." His voice was almost inaudible.

She nodded her head slowly. However, the reality that death would not find her straightaway actually horrified her even more.

"I shall return," he said before his footsteps signaled his departure.

The large metal door creaked again before she heard voices, one Snape's and the other unfamiliar.

"Did you find out anything from her?" the strange voice asked.

"Nothing," Snape asserted impatiently. "She remains unconscious. Perhaps the next time this happens you will make a concerted effort to refrain from inflicting such harm on the ones that we wish to hold captive. The word captive implies alive, Nott. I realize that may sound complicated to someone such as yourself, however…"

The door closed too soon. The metallic echo disrupted the rest of Snape's words, though Hermione knew that she would have found little solace in them.

Snape had a reason for lying. He probably needed an excuse to do whatever it was he planned to do to her when he returned. If she were lucky, he would kill her. She preferred that end to torture, or worse, enslavement.

Her own pessimism frightening her more than her predicament, she opted to ignore all else and concentrate on the Order, and her expected, yet unlikely, rescue.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - Thanks to Rhiannon, who looked over the first draft of this chapter.

Another **huge** thanks to Michelle for betaing this chapter around about eight thousand times. Her guidance makes this story better and better…

Thanks to Shanastay, my loyal pre-reader and coaxer.

Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing. I hope you enjoy this installment as much as the first.

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**Volition**

**Chapter 2**

With nothing else to occupy her time, Hermione allowed common sense to fill in several of the lingering gaps. She was, most likely, still in the Riddle house. The cellar, perhaps. She presumed that the Order was organizing her rescue, if they even believed she had survived. How she expected them to find her secreted in some remote part of the house, or some other house for that matter...

She wasted a few moments with another attempt to free herself. She had gathered a bit of strength since her last endeavor, but she realized quickly that the attempts were causing her more pain than they were worth. Her right shoulder was most certainly out of its socket and completely useless.

An eternity passed into deafening silence. No other visitors came to look in on her. She expected to hear something soon. She hoped to hear anything at all, if only to put an end to the interminable wait.

She staved off her exhaustion by swinging her legs from time to time. The pain the movement generated kept her awake, and the action provided a sense that she was accomplishing something, even if it was meaningless.

After a lull that may have spanned hours, when she had begun to wonder if they had left her to die, she heard the loud, metal door open at last.

At the sound, Hermione resumed the unconscious pose. She preferred not to draw undue attention to herself, if possible, until she knew that this person had come for her.

The footsteps grew steadily louder as they advanced. Hermione's heart sped faster with each nearing step, both in anticipation and dread. Something was about to happen and she was glad for it either way.

The footsteps had yet to stop when the ropes slithered away from her hands. Unsuspecting, Hermione crumpled to the floor.

The pain flared in her shoulder, almost more than she could stomach, as she collided with the concrete. Freed from her restraints, she reeled in both relief and discomfort. The pain she had felt while immobile had tripled upon her collision with the ground.

With her good arm, she tore the blindfold from her face as she rolled onto her knees. The torch-lit room around her gradually came into focus. Through her blurred vision, she found Snape, the only other occupant of the cramped room. He hovered over her, expressionless, the embodiment of indifference as he gazed down upon her suffering.

"Stand up," he ordered.

Her mind eerily calm, shocked by the pain, Hermione shook her head and gestured to her injured arm. Snape stooped forward, his head tilted to the side. He set her with an impatient glare that she preferred not to provoke further.

She found her voice, but it was pinched and weak. "My shoulder," she managed to say.

Snape drove the tip of his wand into her shoulder, more forcefully than she believed necessary, before he returned to his full, threatening height. Though the pain abated from her arm, she still could not lift it.

"I…" she began.

"Silence," Snape sneered as he strode toward the front of the cell. "Get to your feet!"

Hermione did as instructed, mindful of her unsteady footing on the slick concrete and the fresh soreness developing in her legs. No sooner than she had managed to stand, ropes shot from the end of Snape's wand. They coiled around her wrists, following the path of the previous burns as they rebound her hands in front.

"Go," he ordered, inclining his head toward the open door.

Justifiably shaken, Hermione walked in unhurried steps toward the barred wall.

"Right," Snape directed as she crossed the threshold.

The hallway exaggerated his voice, the sound tormenting her already frayed nerves. Again, she did as instructed and started down the narrow corridor to her right. They passed a few other mercifully unoccupied cells along the way. She was thankful to see that no one else was dangling from the ceiling in any of them.

When she reached the rusted, steel door at the end of the corridor, it opened automatically, allowing her entry into a dank, dimly lit room that appeared to have no other doors or windows.

The door slammed shut behind her. She spun around to see Snape standing just inside. Terror sparked anew. The thought of what he would do to her, alone, in this windowless room, quickly overshadowed all else.

"Close your eyes," he told her, markedly less hostile than before.

"Why?" she asked out of habit.

"Do as I say," he said lowly as he passed her to the opposite wall where he began rapping his wand against the topmost row of stones.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Close your eyes!" he bellowed impatiently, his voice reverberating harshly in the smaller room.

This convinced her, enough so that she was not about to ask another question. She waited, her eyes obediently shut, until Snape took her by the elbow. He led her forward until her toes hit something, possibly a step. Then, without further instruction, he released her arm. He was apparently more confident than she was that she could climb an unfamiliar flight of stairs without the aid of sight.

The climb was time-consuming. To sustain her equilibrium, she had to test each tread before she felt secure enough to step up. Most bizarre of all, Snape had yet to goad her on. His footfalls emulated hers at the same, steady pace.

To calm herself she counted the treads, one and two and so on, until she reached ten and something brushed against her right shoulder.

She recoiled, automatically opening her eyes. When she saw what had touched her, she immediately understood why Snape had told her to close them. Hanging from the wall, impaled on some sort of spikes, was a dead body--Lupin's body. She quickly shut her eyes, but not before the vision of his dead, sunken eyes had seared into her memory.

Snape's wand nudged her in the back and she resumed the climb, burdened by the notion that Ron and Harry were among the bodies suspended on the wall, unless Voldemort had an even more gruesome means by which to desecrate them.

To prevent any possible hysterics, she refocused her thoughts as she continued up the never-ending flight of stairs. One, two and then three she counted before she sensed the soothing warmth on her face.

Snape pulled her to a halt by the back of her robe as he muttered, "Stand still."

She heard a door close behind them, and felt compelled to know where they were. Praying that this was not another chamber to house the deceased, she opened her eyes.

As soon as she did so, she realized that she was back in the entry room of the Riddle house. The warmth from the skylight overhead thawed the bitter chill in her bones, but the sight of Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy at the end of the hall stole what comfort the sunlight had provided. As they strode toward her, she had almost forgotten that Snape was standing close behind, although his wand promptly reminded her when it slammed into her spine.

"Tell me again why you have to take her," Lucius said. His eyes rested on Hermione for only a moment, but it was long enough to see the loathing that he held for her.

"He has already told you," Voldemort replied in his undulating hiss. "Your son has displayed an interest in her. Severus believes that Draco will ruin any information she possesses if he has his way with her. I concur. Although I doubt she knows anything particularly useful, Severus is convinced that we should not waste the opportunity."

"Have you considered…?" Lucius began.

"She is too strong," Snape interrupted. "Someone has trained her well in Occlumency, which leads me to believe that she possesses knowledge worthy of concealment. Even you can appreciate _that_, Lucius."

Lucius glared in Hermione's direction, though she was unsure if he intended it for her or Snape. Their discussion, namely Snape's reply, had left her unsure of practically everything just then. He was flat-out lying to Voldemort. He had no reason to lie, unless she had no idea what was going on.

"Time is of the essence, Severus," Voldemort said, obviously unmoved by the current dynamic. "I need Potter, so I am willing to allow this for now. If she proves difficult, bear in mind that there are other ways."

He needed Harry. That meant that Harry was alive. He had not failed entirely. If he had survived, and managed to avoid capture, then others had as well.

Heartened by the revelation, she hoped that she was not wrong about Snape. She needed him to tell her what had happened. Then again, he may have lied so that he could kill her in private.

"Yes, my Lord," Snape replied. "However, as I previously mentioned, she will be of more use to us alive. Seeing as Potter suffered the loss of one friend this evening, he will undoubtedly return for her before long."

Voldemort nodded almost imperceptibly. "I understand your reasoning. Nonetheless, her body does not require her mind to survive. Remember that, Severus. I will permit you several days with her." Voldemort shifted his eyes to Hermione, a cold smirk on his lips. "Be sure to make use of them."

"Of course, my Lord," Snape said before his wand prodded Hermione in the back. "Walk."

Almost joyful to be moving away from the presence of those two men, she started toward the front doors, the same doors she had entered through the previous night. She nearly tripped over own feet in her urgency as she strove to keep pace with Snape. She had to take two steps to match his one.

Snape directed her out the doors and down the sidewalk. She was mildly surprised to find it still very dark outside, but then remembered that the skylight was magical. Mad-Eye had pointed that out while they had discussed reconnaissance information at Headquarters before…

She gave up this line of thought as too…well…too _something_. Thinking about that made everything feel too literal. Instead, she focused on Snape's wand, still firmly wedged between two vertebrae.

As soon as they passed through the gate at the end of the walkway, Snape grabbed hold of her forearm and Hermione felt that familiar sensation of air as it forced in on all sides. He was Apparating somewhere. She was powerless to stop him and, not to mention, more than a bit nervous about where he was taking her.

When the wind finished whipping her senseless, Hermione again found herself blinded by darkness. Snape hastily released her arm as he stepped away. She was about to ask where they were when she sneezed.

"Dust," Snape said as light rushed into the room, which turned out to be a dingy, dusty broom closet.

He vanished through the doorway, leaving Hermione to follow cautiously, still uncertain whether or not he planned to hold her captive.

The next room was certainly not a broom closet, though it was no less dusty. It was a brightly lit kitchen illuminated by a large, glass globe that hung from the center of the ceiling. It was small, and quite old-fashioned. Judging by the even coat of dirt that seemed to stretch to every nook and cranny, it had been out of use ever since it had been fashionable.

Snape stepped through an open door to the left. Again, Hermione followed him, in search of the long-awaited explanation.

The adjoining room contained floor to ceiling bookcases across every wall, rendering it a library rather than a sitting room. The floor displayed the same filth as the kitchen, though this room seemed filthier in the low light. An oil lamp on the rickety table beside the sofa supplied the only light, but it provided only enough proper light to illuminate the table upon which it sat.

She stopped as soon as she stepped into the room while Snape crossed to the wear-worn couch that sat along the far wall. As he sat, he took up a carafe from the table and poured a healthy measure of something red into the nearby glass.

Lifting the glass to his lips with one hand, he pointed his wand at Hermione with the other. This was it, she thought. He had waited to kill her until he had a glass of wine. Instead, the ropes dissolved from her wrists, exposing the abraded skin beneath.

As if to signify his goodwill, he placed his wand on the table in front of him and proceeded to disregard her presence altogether. His eyes focused on the coffee table and settled himself onto the sofa in a way that suggested he did this sort of thing all the time.

Hermione clenched her jaw against the pain in her hands and rubbed her still aching shoulder. Snape was not much of a host, or a savior, in her opinion. He could have at least offered her a place to sit.

As she scanned the room for somewhere to sit besides next to him, she discovered the front door to her right. The plain door, with its central, curtained window, interrupted the shelves. Through the flimsy curtain, she saw the distant lights of other houses, perhaps even a town.

She considered rushing the door, but recognized that her urge to flee had less to do with her location than her desire to escape in general. Apart from holding her breath and hoping for a miracle, she had no choice but to rely on Snape, a man she neither trusted, nor cared to speak with, despite the circumstances.

Seated on the old sofa directly in front of her, he was ignoring her, or waiting for her to speak. Although she was grateful to be somewhere other than the Riddle house, she was less than pleased that he was allowing her to remain uninformed about the current state of affairs.

As though aware of her inner conversation Snape raised his arm, wand in hand, toward the front door. One of the bookcases swung suddenly away from the far wall. That particular bookcase had hidden a set of stairs.

"Top of the stairs, on the left," Snape muttered, his eyes now focused somewhere near her feet.

"What?" she asked, sighing inwardly that she seemed to be unable to come up with anything else to say aloud.

"You ought to rest. You will find a bed, and a washroom, which you obviously need," he added. At last, he looked her in the eye, and stared on long enough to make her feel uneasy.

He shifted his attention to the glass in his hand as he added, "Before you protest, your brain is uninjured. You may sleep."

"Um…" she stammered as she patted her right arm.

"Your shoulder will heal," he replied unconcernedly, "which is all the more reason for you to rest."

Her hopes for a healing spell dashed, she recommenced massaging her shoulder. The small twinges of pain it produced distracted her from the tiredness claiming her body.

"Harry…?" she asked warily. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She was not sure why, but she was whispering. Maybe it was to keep him at bay, or perhaps it was the rising emotion. Her mind was too numb to discern which was true.

"Potter escaped," Snape replied. "As of yet, I know nothing of his whereabouts. If it is any consolation, the Dark Lord believes Potter to be alive."

As he spoke the last sentence, Hermione saw Snape shudder in a way, as though he thought he had said too much.

In an attempt to maintain the flow of information, she asked, "And the Order?"

"Arthur, Mad-Eye and Tonks survived. You were the only live captive."

She knew that Lupin, Ron and Shacklebolt were dead, but if what Snape said were true, that would mean the ten others had died as well. Hermione had not learned some of their names. Most had joined in the few weeks immediately prior to that attack.

Mad-Eye and Tonks had enlisted them to reinforce the Order, to replace those who had been lost. Mundungus Fletcher and Elphias Doge had been gone nearly a year, both ambushed while on routine guard duty at the home of a threatened Unspeakable Agent from the Department of Mysteries. From beneath an Invisibility Cloak, Arabella Figg had witnessed their murders, as well as the Death Eaters who Disapparated with the bodies. Otherwise, the Order would have never known what had happened to them.

Hestia Jones had been the most recent casualty, before the slaughter at the Riddle house. She had gone missing from her own home. The Dark Mark had greeted Hermione and Tonks when they reached Hestia's house, leaving no doubt about what had happened to her. The Order made a formal declaration of her death three weeks later.

Hermione's stomach turned at the though of all those wasted lives, and they were no closer to the end. And Snape, emotionless to a fault, seemed unaffected by the tragedy.

She understood then how he could kill Dumbledore without blinking an eye, even while fighting for the side of the light. She could accept Snape's loyalty to the Order based upon the actions he took to save her. However, she could not comprehend how Dumbledore's death factored into any part of the war.

"Why?" she asked aloud as the tears began their merciless ascent.

"Because the others were already dead," Snape said casually.

That was not what she had wanted answered. He was not privy to her inner thoughts. Though frustrated, she was aware that blurting out vague questions would not get her anywhere. Snape was clearly not about to offer up the string of events that had led to Dumbledore's death. Furthermore, she feared that her suspicion would anger him.

Her voice tense, she asked, "What now?"

He gave something between a snort and a laugh. "I cannot say."

"Can't or won't?" she asked, surprised herself by the question.

This at least got him to look at her with his cold eyes, an eyebrow elevated.

"Well, look who's coming around," he muttered. "I cannot. I had no time to plan before…" He trailed off. "Try to sleep, Miss Granger. I need time to think without you…_hovering_."

She opened her mouth to protest, but never got the opportunity.

"Now!" he declared.

"Fine!" she yelled back, for some reason unwilling to allow him the last word.

She heard him attempt to claim it anyway as she huffed toward the stairs. "Please do not trouble yourself with plans to escape."

"Oh…don't worry!" she shot back from the foot of the stairs.

She grasped the handle on the back of the bookcase and pulled it shut with all her might. When the makeshift door slammed shut, several of the books on the other side cascaded to the floor with a series of muted thuds.

That had been the wrong thing to do. She smacked herself absently on the forehead for her indiscretion. This action instantly reminded her of the head injury she had sustained, her head thumping with coarse shockwaves of pain. After massaging her forehead, and reminding herself _never _to do that again, she started up the stairs.

The stairwell and landing matched the rest of the house with its grime and serious need of attention by a team of insatiable house-elves. The landing housed another window, but gray-blue grunge obscured the panes. Two doors stood open, one on each side of the landing. The first door she inspected, the one to the right, revealed a bathroom.

For whatever reason, a hot shower seemed a high priority. She entered, shut the door and recognized with rising distress that the door lacked a lock. She missed her wand terribly as she dragged a nearby table to the door to wedge under the knob.

As soon as she had secured the door, she began to disrobe. Each layer of fabric uncovered bruises that she was thankful to have no memory of acquiring. It was difficult to believe that they had not beaten her while unconscious. Some of the bruises on her legs were larger than her hand, which further explained the pain she was suffering.

She turned the hot water tap on, as far as it would go, and allowed a few seconds for the spray to reach temperature before climbing into the ancient tub. To her relief, it was noticeably cleaner than the rest of the house. The searing hot jets soothed at first, but quickly washed away the shock, revealing the raw grief just below the surface.

Granted a momentary reprieve from fear, she felt safe enough to let the agony came forth with all its vengeance. She collapsed to the floor of the tub, one arm wrapped desperately around her knees as the water cascaded around her.

Of all the fallen, she cried the hardest for Ron. His innocence was lost to a war that he had never chosen to fight. His friendship with Harry had dragged him into the melee. Even so, Ron had stood valiantly against those forces that he was wholly unprepared to challenge.

Ron was her friend, no matter how their short-lived romance had turned out. His wayward smile had cast light into an otherwise dismal time. The thought of his body there alongside Lupin's was torturous.

Before she could purge all the wrenching sobs, the water ran cold and forced her from the shower in a shivering, weeping mess.

While she scanned the room distractedly for a towel, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her washed-out face highlighted the bruise that stretched across her right temple. The most substantial part of the injury hid beneath her sopping mass of hair. The ferocity of the bruise amazed her, even though it had yet to mature. The fact that the blow she had received had not cracked her skull was a miracle.

Reflected in the mirror were the damned elusive towels, stacked neatly on a shelf beside the tub. She dried in a hurry, but realized that she had only her filthy clothes and no wand with which to clean them.

Not about to call Snape for help, she tucked her worn clothes under her good arm and decided that, considering he had spared her Draco's advances, perhaps he was not a pervert. That meant that she could sleep wrapped in a layer of six or seven towels without having to feel the least bit unnerved.

Resolute, Hermione snatched up a few more towels before she shoved the table from in front of the door and thrust it open. Once she had accomplished that, she lost the nerve to cross the tiny landing. She suddenly had an irrational fear that Snape might be standing at the bottom of the stairs, for whatever reason.

With several hasty steps, and a death grip on the towel clutched around her, she scurried across the landing. However, she faltered when she reached the doorway to the next room.

She was a room so sparsely decorated that even modern minimalists would have thought it lacked something. The stark, wooden floor and three walls she could see enjoyed no rugs, pictures, or color for that matter. Stained by the same filth that coated the rest of the house, the walls and floor were a sickly shade of gray, a color permitted to exist only in insane asylums.

The bed, centered against the far wall, jutted out discordantly into the room. Nothing stood on either side, nothing at the foot. There was nothing to distract from the sad, sagging bed that just hovered in the middle of the room.

What did stand out, however, were the crisp white sheets covering the meticulously made bed. An azure blanket lay folded across the foot. Poised conspicuously in the center of that blanket was a carefully folded stack of fabric.

The whole of the room looked to be a surrealist work, where the bed with its precise hospital corners lay superimposed over the picture of a room from an insane asylum.

Nervous to enter such a bizarre setting, Hermione took measured steps toward the bed should the floor suddenly swallow her up and plunge her into some horrid hallucination of Alice in Wonderland.

With the towel still clutched to her chest with white-knuckled diligence, she reached the foot of the bed. To her amazement, the carefully folded stack of fabric was actually a collection of clean robes and nightshirts. Furthermore, sitting atop the pile was her wand.

She dropped her other clothes and took her wand securely in hand, unwilling to relinquish it for any reason now that she had it back. Although, without the use of her other arm, she had to grab hold of the towel before it fell too far.

Impeded by her injury, Hermione decided to shut the door, which once more lacked a lock. After casting a minimal security charm, one that Snape could easily remove, she returned to the pile of clothes.

As she flipped through the pile with her wand, she was somehow pleased that there were no additional under things. The idea of Snape conjuring or supplying knickers was far from reassuring.

Reluctantly laying down her wand, she let go of the towel and pulled one of the shirts over her head with one arm. After a few minutes of struggling to get her other arm into the shirt, she was dressed, but still dissatisfied with the result.

Feeling stupid for not having thought of it sooner, she conjured one pair each of clean jeans and underwear. She was not about to sleep bottomless. Besides, what did it matter if she slept fully clothed when none of this was really happening?

She moved the remaining clothes from the bed to the floor, given that there was nowhere else to put them. She then folded back the blanket across the bed and eyed it with wild self-interest.

She wanted to sleep, more than eating, or drinking, or any of the other things she knew needed doing, included breathing.

In her opinion, she could stop that as well and nothing much would change. The last few hours had been a blur of absurd feelings and unwanted memories. When she awoke, she would have no memory of this place. She had no doubt that she would be joining Ron and Harry for breakfast in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place.

She slipped between the astoundingly soft sheets, tugged the blanket to her chin, and absently rubbed her temple. This thoughtless action swiftly reminded her that a bruise existed there that she would prefer not to touch, as it made her eyes want to pop out of their sockets.

All she could do was close her eyes and will away the pain. The yielding bed brought back the sense of safety along with the ghosts of her most recent hell. Too exhausted to weep, she released her tenuous grip on consciousness and begged sleep to end the waking nightmare.

* * *

Once he had replaced the books, which Miss Granger had so kindly knocked from the shelf, Snape waited as patiently as possible to hear the springs of the bed sag. After a much longer wait than he had hoped, he was able to extinguish every light and candle in the house.

He required the darkness to think, to sharpen his senses, should anyone be foolish enough to seek out his house. However paranoid the action, that same paranoia had saved him on more than one occasion.

Still settled on the sofa, Snape considered what might come next--what he needed to do--but he was without recourse until he received word. Any word would have sufficed. If there was one thing that he hated, it was to be in the dark, figuratively speaking.

A Patronus was too risky. Spinner's End was a very Muggle town and the Ministry would locate him without fail. Magic indoors was safe enough. He had secured the house long ago to be Undetectable, and just before Albus' so-called death, he had charmed the house Unplottable as well.

Albus had assisted Snape in placing Anti-Apparition wards on every room of the house, save for the broom closet. With all the intermingling spells, one had to know exactly where they were Apparating into the house or risk splinching into countless pieces that would be neither repairable nor visible to the naked eye.

Snape's was without question the safest house in England, if not all of Britain. However, casting outside was too dangerous to risk, especially with Miss Granger asleep in his bed.

Nothing had gone as anticipated that evening. It was supposed to have been a meeting of three, except Lucius had seen fit to invite every person ever stupid enough to take the Dark Mark.

As soon as Snape had arrived at the Riddle house, confronted by the gaggle of evildoers, he immediately recognized that their presence greatly jeopardized the plan. Unable to spare caution for haste, he had to clear his absence with Voldemort.

Once Voldemort finally agreed that Snape could leave, he rushed out the front doors and Apparated directly to the Forbidden Forest.

From there, he ran to McGonagall's office, sprinted most of the way actually, having no time to care who saw him. As luck would have it, the halls were empty, most of the students having returned home for the holidays. Snape shouted the password and cursed the Apparition restraints as he ran up the stairs. Although he was convinced that he had taken far too long, he caught her just before she stepped into the Floo.

Minerva thanked him before she left to warn the Order, but Snape wondered why she bothered. He knew, even then, that the operation was a miserable failure.

Snape returned to the house to discover that he had been right. It was too late to change anything. The surviving members of the Order had retreated to the best of their ability. Bill Weasley and Minerva swooped in to retrieve them, all but Hermione Granger.

Taken hostage as soon as she had entered the study, she was far beyond the reach of anyone other than Snape. Though he had not spoken directly with anyone possessing an ounce of authority on the matter, Snape knew that her rescue was his responsibility.

By some stroke of luck, he managed to locate her just as Nott and Goyle were dragging her bruised and bloodied body down the stairs to the cellar. The same cellar which Voldemort had lovingly fashioned into a dungeon.

It took a promise of two cases of Firewhisky, and numerous threats of bodily harm, before they would relinquish custody. Neither of the men would have intentionally killed her, but Snape knew that Nott shared Draco's fondness for the bound _or_ unconscious.

After Nott and Goyle tottered off, Snape did his best to heal the head wound, though he was not proficient enough to remedy the bruising. Conscious that any other heroic measures would seem suspicious, he stowed her in a cell before seeing to the others.

Once he verified that none of the corpses in the stairwell was even remotely alive, he returned to check on the captive Granger. Strangely enough, Draco had provided an honest excuse to remove her from the house.

Hermione was safe in Snape's house, for now. She was possibly safer there than she had been at Grimmauld Place. However, Voldemort expected something from her now, something she would die for if she could not provide it to him.

Too exhausted to even lean forward and refill his glass, Snape was unsure if he had saved her life or merely prolonged her suffering, but morning was all that could answer that particular conundrum.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - Chapter 3. I apologize that this took so long. Thank you all for the reviews. Please enjoy.

Titanic thanks go to Michelle again, the best beta in the entire beta-world.

Huge thanks go to Shana for pre-reading my rough draft, and sneaking back to read the finished product.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 3**

"Wake up."

Everything had returned to normal, so Hermione contentedly ignored that voice. She was much too warm and far too snug to give a damn about the suggestion.

"Wake up _now_."

Ron was doing his best Snape impression again. His ability to mimic their Potions Professor had become chillingly accurate, but he had not done the impersonation since their sixth year. She absently wondered if this was a special occasion.

"Unless you are dead, I suggest that you wake up."

After a jaded sigh, she lazily complied. To her horror, Ron not only sounded precisely like Snape, he looked a hell of a lot like him as well.

Donning his customary black robes and glowering expression, Snape loomed at the foot of the bed. His arms clasped stiffly behind his back, he glared down at her with the same hostility that she remembered so well from the horrifying dream she had only just had.

The revelation hit her without apology. This man _was_ Snape. Furthermore, he was in her _bedroom_.

Seized by panic, her heart beating so fast that she could hear nothing but its terrified pounding, she instinctively pulled the covers to her chin as though they might provide some sort of protection.

The scream that followed this drowsy realization was certainly worthy of a horror film.

Thankfully, her scream worked its way into a shrill question. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"I live here," he answered without once flinching at her horror. "When you have quite finished overreacting, you may join us in the sitting room."

"Us?" she gasped.

Her mind, still grasping to recall exactly where she was and why, seemed unable to process his statement.

"Potter," Snape growled before swiftly exiting the room.

Hermione remained frozen in her panicked pose surrounded by the silent, uneasy calm of the bedroom. From her petrified position on the bed, she calmed what remained of her initial panic and scanned the room for any clue. The same sickly gray walls she had hoped were fantasy still encircled her.

It had happened. It had all happened, no matter how much she had wished it out of being. Another, more substantial shock washed over her. Ron was dead, among all the others. Their mission had failed.

Hermione swallowed her lament when what Snape had said finally sank in. Harry was safe and waiting for her downstairs. With this thought to bolster her, she sat up, although she regretted doing so at once.

Every muscle, tendon and joint in her body ached with sadistic force. What she would have given for a bottle of Muggle aspirin was equal to what she would have paid to wake up anywhere other than Snape's bed.

It took every effort that she possessed to rise from the bed and dress, even though she knew Harry was expecting her. She knew he was alone with Snape, but the more time she could waste while dressing put that much more time between her and the actual truth that Ron had died and that Harry had been unsuccessful.

Nearly fully dressed already, she needed only to transfigure one of the robes Snape had provided into a sweater. Away from the warmth of the bed, she seemed unable to stop shivering, and she preferred that Harry not see the welts that had blossomed on her wrists from the ropes. There would be time for self-pity later.

Now dressed, a bit warmer, and accepting the fact that she could avoid this no longer, she headed for the door. She was ever so glad to see that the heavy bookcase stood open at the foot of the stairs. She had no energy to put into flexing her angry muscles to perform the task.

Nearly to the bottom, she glimpsed the back of a black-cloaked figure as it paced in front of the doorway. The person's hair was very odd, splayed out over his head in seventeen different directions and none of them seemed quite right. It was definitely Harry.

At the sight of him, she easily disregarded her pounding headache and stiff limbs. After jumping the last few steps, she rushed toward him. He barely had enough time to spread his arms before she landed flush against him.

She embraced him, her eyes steadfastly shut. His arms encircled her and seemed to cling to her with the same fervor that she had unleashed on him. She wanted to linger in his arms as long as she could. Knowing that he was alive compared in no way to seeing him, to feeling him. He was alive, solid and so very real.

She opened her eyes just enough to see him again, even if it was only his shoulder. Loosening her grip, she pulled away from the hug so that she could see his face.

This time, she honestly wanted to look away. Harry bore no resemblance to the innocent world she had hoped would exist again when she woke.

He had obviously been crying, his eyes so bloodshot that they distracted from his saddened and pale expression. His clothes were muddied and torn. Harry had obvious lived through a very similar nightmare. That almost meant more to her than the fact that she was no longer alone.

Hermione was about to ask what had happened to him when she glimpsed a figure as it moved toward the open kitchen door. It was something that had to be a figment of her aggrieved imagination.

Much like the night before, she saw the momentary stars. There was no one there specifically striving to knock her unconscious. The sight of Albus Dumbledore over Harry's shoulder was more than enough.

* * *

Snape had been preparing tea for Albus, and the other two, when he heard what sounded a great deal like a body collapsing unhindered to the floor. When he reached the door to the sitting room to investigate, he learned that Hermione had indeed crumpled to the floor in apparent shock at having seen her old Headmaster.

"I thought we had agreed that you would remain out of sight for the time being," Snape said to Albus, who was already helping Harry haul her toward the sofa. "She was to see the boy, and only if she proved strong enough…"

"I had not expected her to come dashing down the stairs as she did," Albus replied with a hint of disbelief while he propped her lifeless form up with several pillows.

"It is far too late to concern ourselves with it now." Snape observed honestly. "Unless you Obliviate her, of course."

The last pillow still in hand, Albus hesitate just long enough to set Snape with a reproachful frown.

"It was but a suggestion," Snape muttered before abandoning the doorway and returning to the tea tray.

Once there, he began to dig through a kitchen drawer for the rarely used smelling salts. He was unable to locate them, but that mattered not. A scream, somewhat more reserved than the one she had emitted only moments before, ended his search.

"I saw him," she was stammering. "Dumbledore…over there…"

Snape picked up the tray and headed for the sitting room. By no means did he intend to miss this.

When he entered the sitting room, he saw that Hermione had Harry fixed with a relentless stare. Her face was pale, but she appeared otherwise alert.

"You did see him," Harry soothed from the seat on her left. "He didn't die."

At these words, she eyed the boy strangely, as though he were mad.

"Yes…he did," she said evenly. She was now speaking to him as though he were mad.

"No…he didn't," Harry affirmed. "I know it's hard to believe."

"Where is he then?" she asked incredulously.

Snape was entertained beyond reason as he watched the scene unfold from the doorway.

"Sitting next to you," Harry said patiently as he pointed a shaky finger at Albus, who had been sitting to her right the entire time.

Hermione turned her head in suit. The expression upon her face gave credence to every Muggle belief related to having seen a ghost.

"Miss Granger," Albus said gently while he smiled his infuriatingly warm smile.

"Dumbledore? Professor?" she sputtered. "But you're…?"

Albus chuckled. "No. Thanks to Severus, I am not."

"But…how?" she breathed.

"Please forgive her, Headmaster," Snape interjected. "Since the knock to her head, she speaks only in questions."

At the sound of his voice, all three turned their heads toward Snape.

He had no further comment for them while he stood there, like an insipid butler, with the tray balanced on his hands. The only reaction that concerned him was Hermione's. True to form, his remark provoked a markedly disdainful glare from her that proved to satisfy his requirements.

Snape sneered back and set the tray on the table, confident that she would now return to her normal self--and she did--although she failed to direct it at Albus.

"Is that tea?" she asked coolly.

Biting back the many other, colorful insults that had come to mind, Snape answered, "Yes."

"Do you have anything else?" she inquired.

After a sufficient pause to stare impassively, he asked, "For example?"

"Coffee? Juice? Anything other than tea?"

She was obviously baiting him.

"All of the above," he answered through clenched teeth.

"In that case, could you get me a glass of milk, and perhaps a few aspirin?"

She did not break eye contact, and Snape almost laughed…almost.

He had insulted her, and she was turning him into a servant, or a nursemaid. Either way, he was out of what little patience he had. Solely because he was under the watchful eye of Albus Dumbledore, Snape thought it wise to postpone further comment while he dutifully fetched her _something else_.

Upon reentering the kitchen, Snape took a willow infusion from his stock shelf and prepared a nice, hot cup of coffee. This was easily the fullest his house had ever been--at least since it had been in his possession--and his skills as a host hinged greatly upon the company he was attempting to entertain.

Although, entertain was likely an egregious exaggeration. He provided something for people to sip so that they would not complain. Besides, it made him seem cultured, which he was, though his background held little influence over his desire to have or to entertain _company_.

By the time Snape returned to the sitting room with her _something else_, Hermione had apparently come to terms with Albus' status among the living.

"It is a long story," Albus was saying. "I promise you will hear it all in time."

Snape set the cup and vial on the table in front of the girl as he said, "If you want something besides this, get it yourself."

He then took the chair across the room from the group and resumed his deadpan gaze at the so-far silent girl. He knew he was being childish, as well as frivolous. He could have simply gotten what she had asked for, but he was not willing to give her that.

He was not going to allow her a moment's misconception about where she stood in his esteem or in his house, especially considering that he knew what was to come. Whether it was refreshments or anything else for that matter, she would know that she was not going to have her way. She already had his bed.

"I don't know where to find anything," she finally said.

"You have a wand," Snape replied. "Use it."

Albus put an end to the unofficial standoff when he said, "Though this is entertaining, I must ask that you both treat each other with as much respect as you can muster for the next few days."

Hermione's head snapped toward Albus. "Few days?" she asked with indignation.

Snape bit his tongue.

"Yes," Albus replied. "You will have to remain under Severus' care. Voldemort may ask him to produce you at any time. If you were seen outside of this house, Severus' life, as well as your own, would be in great danger."

Albus paused, but Hermione had yet to soften her gaze.

When her look of mingled fear and anger had not faded in the least, Albus gently added, "It will only be for a short while."

"I will _not_ go back there," Hermione stated rather emphatically.

"You may never have to," Albus said with a renewed confidence. "However, if you must, Severus will defend you with his life. Isn't that so?"

Again, all three turned their gaze upon Snape, who gave what he thought was an enthusiastic nod. However, given the absurdity of the question, it probably came off as sarcastic.

"Don't worry, Hermione," Harry said.

"Yes," Albus added. "Harry insists upon staying with you until this matter is resolved."

This plucked Snape attention. That had not been part of the original deal.

"Potter? No, he is not."

"I am afraid that you do not have a choice, Severus," Albus replied graciously.

"Like hell," Snape spat. "It is bad enough with one. I _will not_ waste my time babysitting..."

"We aren't children," Harry countered.

"We don't need babysitting," Hermione added.

Again, Snape almost laughed. "Miss Granger, you may want to wait at least twenty four hours after having been rescued to start spouting off such things. As for you, Mr. Potter, I must insist that you _keep your mouth shut_."

Once both appeared adequately browbeaten, Snape shifted his attention back to Albus. "We discussed her, but not him. I would much rather have neither and take my chances."

Albus was taking on his largely underused, stern expression as he said, "Severus, you _do not_ have a choice in the matter. I cannot risk endangering you just now. Harry _will_ stay only until another plan is set in place. To ensure that this plan goes unspoiled, I need you alive. Is that understood?"

Snape hated it when Albus subjugated him in front of an audience, but most of all, this particular audience.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled while managing to stop himself from muttering "Yes, Master" under his breath.

"That said," Albus went on, "we should all make a concerted effort to work together. We are all on the same side, you know."

Both Harry and Hermione looked neither delighted nor rallied. To them, in the not so distant past, Albus was dead and Snape his murderer. Snape could have laughed again.

* * *

Snape stalked off somewhere during the rest of the brief conversation. It was not until after his departure that Hermione grudgingly took the willow infusion and sipped the coffee.

Still reeling from the knowledge that Dumbledore had somehow survived, Hermione refrained from becoming overly critical. However, the further the truth sank in, the more difficult the task became.

Reservations began to form in her subconscious that pertained to why Dumbledore had misrepresented his death, why the Order knew nothing of this fact, and whether or not she still hung, unconscious, in a dank cell under the Riddle mansion.

Even though the thought of an imagined hell was a comforting one, she did not need to pinch herself to know pain. Her shoulder seemed fully functional again, but the pain had returned three fold. Her chest felt tightened by sore muscles and the profound grief that she refused to give voice to should it spread through her entire body.

Instead, she chose to stare at the apparently living Dumbledore and allow his words to filter into her mind for future interpretation. Dumbledore did not give them time to ask questions while he advised them to stay out of Snape's way. Dumbledore specifically instructed them not to agitate Snape. Hermione wondered if he would give the same lecture to Snape. She thought not.

Of course, Dumbledore did not linger either. After he had finished playing Snape's advocate, he had made a few hurried goodbyes and then excused himself to discuss something with Snape before returning to Order Headquarters.

Hermione was glad that Dumbledore was gone. She had trouble looking at him without thinking contrary thoughts that made her think of other things that she would rather forget. She wanted to sit in quiet for a while, if only to process all the new information she had just smacked into, headlong. Although, by the way her head was hurting now, she felt as though that very information was still hitting her over the head. Maybe the willow was wearing off.

Whatever the reason, the post-lecture silence had settled in nicely after Dumbledore's departure and, at last, she had the opportunity to think.

Staying with Snape, at his house anyway, was not nearly as daunting as the indefinite time period suggested. Nor was it worse than the possibility of returning to that horrid house where death literally adorned the walls. She could live the rest of her life without ever going back there.

Moreover, she could live the rest of her life without being Snape's unwilling houseguest for the foreseeable future. She would rather move to Zimbabwe and open a cattle ranch.

It was this sarcastic thought that alerted her to the need to eat. She always got cranky when her blood sugar dropped.

"Are you hungry?" she snapped in Harry's general direction.

There was a long pause before he answered. "I guess we should eat something."

Those were the first words they had exchanged since Dumbledore had left. Neither acted upon them, both trapped in the awkward atmosphere that had surrounded them ever since the living-dead man had gone. Ron's absence suddenly rang through the air like canon fire.

"I saw Lupin," she blurted out.

She was not sure why she was saying it or what purpose saying it served. The sorrow, that she had fought so hard to contain, surged into her throat when the blessedly short-lived image of Lupin's body flashed before her mind's eye. She knew the tears were not far behind.

To avoid losing control in front of Harry--something she had steered clear of up until then--she planned to drop the subject, but Harry turned his head ever so slightly at her words. The pale streaks the tears had left on his cheek were barely visible with his focus still on the floor. He had been crying, and somehow, she had failed to notice.

Feeling the need to qualify her statement before the urge to weep with him overtook her, she quickly whispered, "They tacked him to the wall. Like some sort of trophy."

Harry seemed unable to face her. He kept his eyes toward the floor, his body completely still but for several measured, shallow breaths.

There was a long, painful silence before he asked, "Did you…?"

"No," she answered hurriedly. "I didn't see him."

More than anything, Hermione wanted to comfort Harry, to ease what she knew he was feeling, but she was suffering the very same dreadful ache that no amount of consoling would put right. Aside from that, she knew that opening the floodgates that were just barely holding back her emotions would serve no purpose but to undermine them both. They needed their resolve, now more than ever.

Harry continued to stare unerringly at his feet as he said, "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are having a service…tomorrow."

"At the Burrow?" she questioned offhand.

"At Hogwarts," he answered shakily. He shifted uneasily at her side. "Dumbledore says he'll take us, but we have to be cautious."

"Well, maybe they won't attack us there…" she stopped abruptly when Harry set his sorrowful eyes upon her. She knew immediately that it had been a stupid thing to say.

Harry only stared on, his eyes clouded with tears that had yet to follow the rest to his chin.

At last, he murmured, "I wish he'd never sat next to me on the train, Hermione."

She knew instantly what he meant. There were so many things that she could have said. She could have spoken about how Ron was instrumental in keeping them alive so many times at school. That Ron had used the strategy he had honed, beating them at chess all those years, to help deduce the location of the last two Horcruxes.

Then there was his humor and innocent approach to life that had kept them sane through the rising threat of war. Furthermore, when the war escalated despite everyone's best efforts, Ron never once lost faith that Harry would ultimately defeat Voldemort. Whenever she had lost faith, she knew that she could rely on Ron for his optimism, and his relentless clowning, to ease her mind or strengthen her courage.

There were many more memories--some of them important, others brave, and many trivial. Unfortunately, none of those memories actually reached her lips.

Instead, she said simply, "I wish none of us had ever gotten involved in this."

That was not enough. It was hard to believe that anything either of them could ever say would be enough.

"If it weren't for…" Harry subdued a sob when Hermione laid her hand on his shoulder.

She told Harry then what she had prepared to say to Ron long ago, when the thought of Voldemort taking Harry away from them had dominated her thoughts.

"It wasn't _because_ of you. He was _protecting_ you. You would've done the same."

Harry returned his gaze to the floor. Neither spoke another word. Hermione followed his lead and found a particularly odd-shaped stain on the floor to focus on. She knew that she would have to stow the grief. It would weaken her, and she could not allow that. She would have to press onward for now, for her own sanity, but mostly, for Harry.

* * *

Snape found momentary peace in the study. At least he had until Albus found him. Snape stood at first, but soon reclaimed his chair while the Headmaster prattled on.

He advised Snape to leave Harry and Hermione alone. That he should not antagonize them while they had no means to retreat. Throughout most of the useless sermon, which sounded strangely rehearsed, Snape wondered if Albus had given them a similar lecture.

The only bit of information that Snape bothered to pay any attention concerned the following day. Albus planned to collect Harry and Hermione at noon for the Weasley boy's memorial service. Snape was to have them ready to go, as though he were their nanny. He assumed that they would not be lollygagging in the first place.

It was yet another memorial--another bodiless funeral to add to the already endless list. Many of those had taken place since Voldemort had begun body collecting. He kept each body for one day and then burned them in an overtly ceremonious fashion. He first deemed them decorations, and then sacrifices, that paid homage to no god but the one he now believed himself to be.

Snape had tried to spare Hermione the stairwell. She had watched them die. It seemed cruel to let her see them in that state. Although she had seen Lupin, she had avoided the worst. Someone had seen fit to nail Ron Weasley to the ceiling.

That line of thought troubled Snape. He refused to think about such things while in the study. The study was his refuge, the one place he rarely allowed the war or the misery to pervade. In fact, it was the only room, besides the bathroom, that he actually bothered to clean.

He had added the very small, magical room to the house shortly after his mother's death. It had been his asylum from the pain of her loss, and soon after, his place of escape from the war.

In the center of the room sat a wing-backed chair, covered in garnet-colored, patent leather. Beside it was an octagonal side table that held a silver lamp, whatever he was drinking at the time, and the latest book that he intended to use as a diversion.

The walls and the ceiling were black, and so much so, that they were indistinguishable even when the room was lit. The single lamp cast barely enough light to read by, let alone see the entirety of the room. Snape had considered adding more light, if only to enjoy the ebony hexagram inlayed into the red oak floor. However, his love for the dark always took precedence over any vague appreciation he might harbor for aesthetics.

Without windows, even during the brightest of days, the study remained impenetrable to exterior light. However, the ceiling dissolved at night to reveal the clear night sky.

Having avoided the industry of larger cities, the night sky of the village was untouched by light pollution. Snape used to stare into that murky abyss for hours and forget what evils were transpiring elsewhere. It was easy to sink into a trancelike state in the room, especially if he extinguished the lamp and sat very still.

His chair sat in the center of the hexagram, and Albus claimed that this location added to Snape's sense of security in the room. Snape thought it had much more to do with the practice of advanced Occlumency.

He had been attempting to practice just that for nearly half an hour. He wanted to forget who was in his house and why they were there. If only for a few moments, he yearned to forget about all the work that lie before him that no one else seemed capable of handling. He was also battling the drowsiness that had crept up after Albus had finally taken his leave.

Having had too much to think out the previous night while he awaited further orders, Snape had not slept a wink. Having attended to all the pressing business of the present day, he rested his head against the cool leather and considered taking a quick nap before venturing off for a rousingly cold, very long shower.

That was until he heard the unmistakable ruckus of someone rummaging through his kitchen cabinets. He immediately lost all hope of a nap. He had forgotten to silence the room internally as well.

Shaking his head, he rose from the infinitely comfortable chair and started toward the door, intent on find out what in the hell they were up to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - Thanks to everyone again for reviewing. Kat, this chapter might make you feel better. I hope everyone enjoys this next piece of the puzzle…

Gargantuan thanks to Michelle, the fastest beta in the West.

Immense thanks to Shana, the instigator of many an unexpected plot twist.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 4**

By noon, the troubled silence had worn thin between Harry and Hermione. She had allowed the silence to perpetuate for so long that the mere thought of disrupting it unnerved her. Besides that, she had absolutely nothing that she wanted to say--nothing that mattered anyway.

Under ordinary circumstances, she would have had plenty to keep herself busy, to disconnect her from her thoughts. However, trapped as she was, she had only the surreal notion that she should be in mourning, along with a powerful aversion to that very notion.

She had not looked at Harry since their discussion of Ron. She could not stand to see Harry so miserable, not while she loathed the idea of revealing the same misery she had neatly tucked away.

Instead, she had mapped out several stains on the hardwood floor in an effort to match them to known constellations. As of yet, Orion was the only one that she had managed to map out in the dirt on Snape's floor.

Still plagued by involuntary hunger, Hermione wanted to do something besides sit and dwell on what she could not control. With this thought in mind, she bravely decided to violate the silence by suggesting that they seek out the solution to one of their problems.

She turned to pose the question, but faltered. Harry had slouched forward, his elbows on his knees. She realized straight off that he had stopped crying some time ago. The pale streaks the tears had left on his cheeks were gone, but his eyes betrayed his sadness.

He had smoothed his hair back from his face. Typically, he put quite the effort into keeping his scar covered. However, when he was particularly anxious, he had a tendency to run his fingers through his hair. This was certainly such an occasion. It was the first time Hermione had seen his scar in months.

"Shall we see if Snape keeps anything to eat in this mansion of his?" she finally asked, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

Harry nodded as he pushed his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice muffled behind his hands. He straightened his glasses as he added, "I haven't eaten since breakfast…yesterday."

Though they rose from the sofa together, Hermione set out first. Thankful to have a task to see to, she gladly led the way into the unsettling world of Snape's kitchen.

The old-style kitchen was little more than an L-shaped counter, with whitewashed cabinets above and beneath. Above the antiquated sink was a single window, bordered by yellow curtains that may have been white in someone else's lifetime.

Accustomed to Muggle kitchens, the absence of appliances in a Wizarding kitchen had always bothered Hermione. She had grown accustomed to blenders, toasters and other such kitchen paraphernalia that were useless in the Magical world.

Snape's countertop did not disappoint. It lacked in all things Muggle, but it did offer a multi-tiered rack of bottles to the right of the sink. The bottles varied in size, shape and color. They all contained some sort of liquid or similar substance. She assumed that they were potions, though none of the bottles carried a label.

Aside from the potions, the countertop yielded nothing but layers of grime that had clearly existed unimpeded for quite some time. Left with nowhere else to look, Harry and Hermione began their search on opposite ends of the kitchen.

They quietly peeked inside each cabinet, above and below. Hermione found empty shelf after empty shelf until a lower cabinet delivered a stock of empty vials, larger bottles, and several, particularly undersized cauldrons. None of which were edible.

With every barren cabinet, their stealthy inspection escalated until they were both paying little mind to the noise that they were beginning to make.

They had almost reached the corner section of cupboards when Hermione opened an upper cabinet and screamed. At least a dozen bats came screeching from their roost. They clipped the top of her head and squeaked at the top of their tiny lungs as they swooped past.

She clamored for her wand, paused a second to catch her breath before joining Harry in the task of immobilizing them. Although, Harry seemed to have his own troubles as two looked as if they were trying to mate with his face. She attempted not to laugh when he started shooting spells frantically toward his own head.

The family of bats was unrelenting, a few trying to fly through the kitchen window that was so dirty that they should have known better. Hermione had only stopped one of them when she saw what she would have sworn was Snape.

He had passed directly through the wall to her left and into the room as though from some other dimension.

His materialized form stated, "I see you have found my bats."

"Are you going to help?" Hermione asked hurriedly as she shot a spell at the bat escaping up the stairs.

"No," Snape replied. A faint smirk turned one corner of his mouth as he added, "You let them out."

"What are you doing with all these bats?" Harry nearly shouted when one of the bats on his face fell to the floor.

"They are my pets, Potter," Snape replied, rather casually. "Some people have a dog. I choose to keep bats."

Without another word, or so much as a sidelong glance, Snape strode through the kitchen and into the adjoining room. Soon after, she heard the door to the stairs as it thudded shut, further proof that he would be of no assistance whatsoever.

"Thanks for nothing!" Harry called while he shook the other bat at arms length, which he had successfully yanked from his face.

"Don't hurt it!" Hermione exclaimed when she realized what he was doing.

"I'm not!" he shouted, all the while shaking the poor bat toward the sitting room door. "He's such a _bastard_!"

Taking Harry by the wrist, Hermione gingerly took custody of the tussled bat.

"I agree with you wholeheartedly," she said as she immobilized the unfortunate bat. "Still, we shouldn't take it out on the innocent. They didn't choose to be his bats."

"Yeah, you don't get to choose your _family_, do you?" Harry muttered.

Although he looked as though he would rather throttle them all, Harry helped Hermione immobilize the remaining bats and replace them in their cabinet.

Following the bat incident, Hermione was justifiably apprehensive about opening any more cabinet doors, so she and Harry returned to the sofa.

Again, they sat in preoccupied silence, but for the occasional gurgle of their respective bellies.

"Do you know how to conjure anything?" Hermione asked at last.

"I've never had to," Harry replied.

"Neither have I," she sighed. "Do you think Snape has any cookbooks?"

He shot her a questioning look before glancing toward the kitchen. "I don't think he's a chef, if that's what you're asking."

Although she agreed that Snape's kitchen appeared unused, and most certainly unappreciated, she was still hungry.

"I'm going to check the bookcases anyway," she said as she stood.

"Good luck with that," Harry offered with a roll of his eyes as she passed in front of him.

Each wall of the sitting room housed side-by-side bookcases, except where the front door and the one window directly opposite the door interrupted them. Starting with the case that hid the stairway, Hermione scanned the shelves.

She found books on Alchemy, Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Broomsticks. On the lower shelves, there were books on Candle Magic, an entire section on Druids, and a series about Egypt, but nothing even resembling a cookbook.

As she moved on toward the front door, she located several diverse selections that ranged from Mythological Gods to Healing to Werewolves.

She had nearly lost hope when she worked toward the kitchen door where she found shelf after shelf that held volumes solely on the subject of Potions, but these books alerted her to the pattern. The books on Werewolves, or Lycanthropes, substantiated her theory.

Snape had the books arranged in alphabetical order by subject, not title, with no regard to any other means of classification.

She had half of the room left to skim, and had already passed the section that should have contained Cookbook, so she decided to employ reason. If she were to classify a cookbook, where would she put it, besides under the obvious categorization of Cookbook? Under Rudimentary Spells, of course, even though she had never bothered to learn any.

She ran her finger along the spines until she discovered that he did have a Rudimentary Spells section, in the case to the right of the kitchen door, but none of these books pertained in any way to cooking. The section offered books on sewing and candle making, but not cooking.

Her stomach constricted again and gave a hollow protest in the form of a growl. Her hunger worsening, she reassessed her current strategy.

If she really, honestly, had to classify a cookbook, what would she dub it? When she had been able to Apparate at will, and before the bat-infested kitchen, she would have said only one thing--Useless Drivel.

Having nothing to lose, she walked to the corner case between the window and the sofa. On the first shelf she perused, she found Shape Shifting and Stones. She would have to look lower. This time she saw books about Tantra, Torture, and…Tarot? That book was out of place. However, it would have gone nicely in a Useless Drivel section.

Heartened by her findings, she knelt down and lowered her face as close to the grubby floor as she was willing until she could see the titles of the books on the very bottom shelf. To the right of Divination and to the left of Astrology sat the very book that she sought. It was entitled _1001 Stupidly Simple Culinary Spells_.

After sliding it from the shelf, she dusted herself off as she climbed to her feet. She had to smile at her own resourcefulness. Snape actually had a Useless Drivel section. Still amused, she carried it to the sofa and dropped it on the coffee table.

"He has cookbooks?" Harry marveled.

"Cookbook," she corrected as she sat. "Just the one."

They both stared at the book for a moment, as though a bowl of shepherd's pie might ascend from the moldy cover.

"Don't wait for me," Harry said warily as he shook a finger toward the book. "You're the one who's good with these things."

She was unsure if he meant books or spells, but she was already well aware that, of all her blessings, she possessed absolutely no talent in the cooking department.

Aside from failing miserably at Muggle cooking, she had attempted a culinary spell out of a library book in fourth year. The cup of hot chocolate she had attempted to conjure more closely resembled a bowl of viscous, lime jelly that appeared capable of cognizant thought.

Opening the cover, she instinctively scanned for the publication date, which she found stamped below the simpering and waving picture of the author levitating a three-tiered cake over his head.

This particular cookbook had been around since 1965, making it more than thirty years old. This should have been the first clue that theirs would be a long and arduous journey to lunch, or dinner, as late as the hour was becoming.

She skimmed the table of contents and successfully located the section on sandwiches. Sandwiches should be easy, she thought. How hard could two slices of bread with something in between possibly be?

The first spell featured in the chapter was for a simple ham sandwich. The recipe had the incantation spelled out phonetically, as well as an animated diagram that detailed the wand movement.

Hermione practiced the flick-poke-poke-swish-flick motion slowly while mouthing the words until she felt comfortable. She then prepared herself for the delicious sandwich that she was about to create from thin air.

"Perna Panis," she recited as she flicked, poked, poked, swished, and flicked.

A swirl of white smoke emanated from the tip of her wand and converged over the table. The sandwich took shape, complete with whole grain bread and a thick slice of ham. In mere seconds, the completed sandwich fell onto the tabletop with a plop.

"That wasn't so hard," Hermione commented in surprise as she stared at the product of her efforts. "I don't see why people go on and on about…"

"Well?" Harry interrupted. "Aren't you going to try it?"

After considering it for a moment, she replied, "You have it."

"Are you sure?" he asked even as he was reaching across the table.

Sandwich in hand, Harry turned it once around in his hands, as though savoring every crease of the crust, before stuffing a corner into his mouth. He had just started to chew when, to Hermione's disgust, he grimaced and spat the bite out into his other hand.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed, swiping at his tongue with his sleeve before tossing both the sandwich and the chewed portion onto the coffee table. "That was the worst thing I've ever tasted!"

"What's wrong with it?" she asked, positively stunned.

"It tastes like sand!" he shouted before dabbing at his tongue several more times with his sleeve.

"Sand?" she repeated skeptically as she reached for the remains of the sandwich.

Harry slapped her hand away. "Yes, dirty sand. You _don't _want to try it. Take my word."

She sighed wearily before objecting, "But I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Maybe it takes lots of practice or something," he replied consolingly. "But whatever it is, _that_ isn't safe to eat."

"Fine…Evanesco." She pointed her wand at the table and both the sandwich and the chewed piece vanished. "How about soup…?"

She flipped back to the table of contents and was pleased to see that soup was the first chapter. This chapter's preface mentioned that soup spells were among the easiest.

"Okay, we're going to have vegetable soup for lunch."

"Whatever," Harry mumbled. "As long as it isn't sand soup."

The recipe for the soup was similar to the other, a simple incantation, but this one consisted of only a poke-swish-poke movement. After a few practice runs, she moved the book aside.

"Obsonius," she recited along with the rehearsed wand waves.

The same smoke swirled from her wand tip and began to solidify in the air. She could make out the little peas and carrots in the opaque fog as they materialized. She was almost pleased with the results, until the entire sopping mess splashed onto the coffee table, the floor, and unfortunately, her feet.

The riotous laughter that followed came only from Harry. Hermione could do nothing but gape at the mess she had just made as the lukewarm broth seeped through her shoes and socks. Making matters worse, the stuff stunk of raw sewage.

"It didn't come with a bowl!" Harry howled at her side, doubled over in fits of laughter.

After harrumphing, Hermione replied, "I don't think this would have tasted any better than the sand sandwich."

Once she had used the Scouring Spell on both the table and the floor, she took off her shoes and socks and cleaned them as well. All the while, Harry continued his convulsive fits of amusement at her side. The mess would have been undetectable once she had finished tidying up if not for the clean patch it had made on the floor.

"I'm glad someone finds this funny," she remarked while she retied her shoes.

"I'm sorry," Harry said sincerely as he settled. "That was…" His expression shifted so quickly from amused to heartbroken that it was disturbing. "Ron would have thought that was hilarious."

Her stomach twisted in a nauseous fit. She nodded, aware that Harry now looked as guilty as she felt. She had been so content busying herself with food that she had successfully forgotten about Ron for a moment.

"I'm going to get Snape," Hermione said boldly as she rose from the sofa. "He can't starve us."

Though she could not see him, she could feel Harry's eyes on her back all the way to the bookcase.

Once she was safely in the stairwell, she allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts. She felt horribly guilty for not thinking about Ron, even if it was for only ten minutes.

It was sickening to consider that he would never again come rambling into the room with a sideways smile and an off-color joke. There would be no more Christmases. She would never again have the opportunity to speak to him, hug him, or simply be happy because he was her friend.

She could remember everything that had happened at the Riddle house, in vivid detail. However, when she thought about it, it was as though she were watching it filtered through someone else's eyes. A random someone who would never understand how horrific that had all been.

_This_ situation was unfair. Removed from everything familiar, she could ignore the grief too easily. She could overlook the fact that he was gone, gone forever, and he would never come back. The thought would not process. Although she could replay his death repeatedly in her mind, should she choose, her brain would not accept it as fact.

She wanted to weep again. The fiery roots of fear and regret were claiming her stomach and constricting her chest. It was becoming harder to breathe the longer she stood there. It was about to become much worse. She could feel it.

It had been much easier to forget, to pretend that nothing was wrong. Pretending sounded much better than losing her mind, anyway.

Once she had refocused, she started slowly up the stairs. Along the way, she decided that she would permit herself to remember, eventually. Perhaps that time would come when someone explained to her why the Wizarding World was still fighting this war. That fact was apparently beyond her grasp anymore.

* * *

When Snape reached the top of the stairs, he automatically entered his bedroom. Once there, he could not resist a quick lie-down before the rousing shower that would get him through the rest of the day. 

He had endured many a sleepless night and functioned fairly well on little sleep. However, the previous night, his restless mind had denied him even a simple catnap.

The delirium was setting in now, the nearly paranoid drunkenness that accompanies too many waking hours. If he could only close his eyes for ten minutes, ten gloriously uninterrupted minutes, then he could regain his center and spend the rest of his day avoiding _them_.

After fixing the bed, straightening the sheets and creasing the blanket, he gladly stretched across the middle on his stomach. He was careful to keep his shoes a satisfactory distance from the edge.

With every blink, his eyes burned and took that much longer to reopen. He told himself that it was only ten minutes, and like lead, his eyelids slid shut a final time.

He always enjoyed this particular dream. The single bed was already warm from his body and the lack of air-conditioning in her flat. That summer had been stiflingly humid. It had been a nuisance to him that night, but not just now. It was the warmest he had felt in months.

He was lying on his back, somewhat propped up by several pillows, while he endured the flashing lights from the building across the way. Filtered through the sheers, the lights flickered on and off, again and again, red and then shadows. It was hypnotic.

He was incredibly comfortable, a sheet spread across his thighs and a warm pint in his hand. That was fine with him because it had grown warm with good reason and that reason would soon return from the bathroom. When she returned, he would forget about the drink again altogether.

He could still smell her, cinnamon and magnolia. The cheap cologne that she had sweated onto the sheets, left on him after fulfilling her function.

There was nothing wrong with getting himself off first. It was better this way because his stamina improved considerably after she had put her scarlet mouth to good use. It was not good for much else.

She was just another woman, too Muggle to see him for who he was and too naïve to ask any questions. But then again, she was always willing.

He attentively surveyed the bathroom door while he ran his free hand across a fresh erection. When that door opened, she would be backlit. He would see the blonde hair and none of her face, which he preferred.

She was pretty enough, symmetrical features and gray-blue eyes, but breasts and ass were all that concerned him when lying in that bed. Of course, she had ample helpings of each, and before long, he would be all over both.

A sliver of light grew larger as the door swung open. She moved into the doorway, bare as the day she was born and in some ways none the wiser. The silhouette of her left breast displayed its proud nipple. As she stepped into the room, the freshly shaved lips of her sex were readily visible between her parted legs.

She crossed the room lazily, the crimson light through the sheers illuminating her nakedness in rhythmic bursts.

He set down the pint, and with the next pass of his hand, uncovered himself so that she should know not to dawdle. Although, he was confident that she knew the routine.

She crawled across his legs with a feline seduction as she assumed the position. While she situated herself, facing away on all fours, he felt the familiar surge of lust now that there was nothing to obstruct his view.

While he repositioned himself, he slid his nose up her thigh. He paused to savor her submission. Yes, she was ready, but there was always one thing that she lacked. Although she always reeked of sex, she never had the smell he wanted. It was an innocence that she could scarcely imagine, a scent that she would never have, like sweet buttermilk laced with sin.

That did not matter now though, as he pushed himself up on his knees. He passed the head of his dick through what she had, no matter the quality. It felt just as good, smooth and wet, flushed and ingratiating. He pushed the head in further and placed his hands at the top of her hips. Pulling her back slowly, he made her take him this once before the chore became his. She moaned that practiced moan and he was done with the game. After drawing back slowly one last time, he buried himself hard.

"Professor?"

With a rigorous jolt, Snape awoke, lying atop a very swollen penis.

"Professor, are you awake?"

Dear god, could she not have waited five bloody minutes because all he needed was another five goddamn minutes!

"I am now," he grumbled.

He opened his eyes to see her standing before him, her knees anyway. He was unable to see her face because, frankly, his neck did not bend that way. It would be another minute before he would be in any condition to roll over or stand.

"I'm sorry, sir," she stammered. "I didn't know you were…"

"Get _on_ with it," he snarled, partially into the mattress. "You have succeeded in waking me. Do you want an engraved invitation to speak?"

"No, sir," she answered in a rush. "I…I only came up to ask if…if you could tell us where to find some food."

"There is no food in this house," he replied.

Finally calmed enough, he rolled onto his side and slid his feet to the floor. His back to her, he was still too groggy and half-hard to stand.

Following a snort, she said, "There has to be food."

"No, there does not," he sighed. "I have a magic wand." Silence answered him, so he went on. "There is a book…"

"Yes, I found that," she blurted out. "It didn't help."

"What did you try?" he asked. "You do realize that you should not attempt a twelve course meal…"

"A sandwich," she spat. She suddenly sounded impatient, as though she had the right. "A damned sandwich and a bowl of soup, but neither worked."

He was so very glad his back was to her because a contemptuous smirk had crept on his face that he rubbed away with his hand. "Just because they were not worthy of a five star restaurant…"

"They weren't worthy of anything," she interrupted yet again. "They were inedible."

There went that smirk again. The infallible Miss Granger _did_ have a limitation.

"Did Mr. Potter attempt anything?" he asked.

"Well…no?"

"Just because _you _are inept does not necessarily mean that he is as well." Again, a resounding silence answered him.

"Go downstairs," he instructed as he rose to his feet and smoothed his robe. "Have him try. Perhaps he will prove good for something after all."

Snape strode toward the door. He had no need to look back to feel the daggers she was surely staring at his back.

Once he had entered the bathroom, he turned to shut the door and found that Miss Granger was already standing on the landing, wearing an expression that was unquestionably hatred.

"Enjoy your lunch," he sneered just before slamming the door in her face.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

Enormous thanks to Michelle for betaing this chapter and for putting up with my ramblings.

Huge thanks to Shana for enjoying this modest tale enough to keep coming back for more.

Thanks to everyone for reading. I hope you enjoy this next little bit.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 5**

As Hermione stomped down the stairs, she marveled at Snape's never ceasing ability to find something to mock, some reason to be an insufferable prick. How she wished that they were at Grimmauld Place. At least that filthy, old house had more rooms to hide in, and several more friendly faces.

"He wants you to do it," she stated flatly as she slammed shut the bookcase.

"To do what…run to the market?" Harry scoffed, obviously startled by her sudden, angry return.

"No," she said, a bit louder than she had intended, as she reached him and dropped onto the sofa. "Try a recipe."

He shook his head as though she were joking. "If you can't, then I'm…"

"Just do it," she said quickly, a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice. "At least then we can say we tried."

Harry stared at her, his expression one of mingled disbelief and surprise. He hesitated another moment before pulling the book onto his lap and opening the cover. He was running his finger down the table of contents when she lost what felt like a very slim hold on her patience.

"Here," Hermione sighed as she leaned over and hastily flipped to the sandwich section.

"Uh…thanks," he said softly.

Hermione had never felt more useless in her life. She had always been able to provide before, but mostly she did not like sitting on her hands waiting for Harry to have a go at the damn spell.

"Okay," he finally said, doing a fine job of feigning confidence. "If this doesn't work, I'll make a fire and cook us a bat. Deal?"

Recognizing his attempt at humor, Hermione reluctantly smiled. "Deal."

Harry started the wand movement, and Hermione was about to correct him, when he said the incantation along with the very last flick.

The same white smoke she had seen earlier wafted from his the tip of his wand and solidified over the table. The new sandwich plummeted from the fog and onto the recently cleaned section of the tabletop.

"Do you want to try this one first?" asked Harry, no longer sounding nearly as confident as he had.

"Fine," she sighed.

Leaning forward, she snatched up the sandwich and paused to sniff it first. It smelled like ham, slightly sweet and possibly smoked. Wary of the sandwiches deceptive good looks, she took a small nibble and chewed. The bread was fresh, and overall, it was positively delicious. This made her ever so happy. However, in a horribly selfish way, it also made her jealous.

"Well?" Harry asked expectantly. "You haven't spit it out yet."

She automatically took another, much larger bite before she tried to say, "Good…really good."

Harry's face lit up. "Really? Are you sure?"

Already well occupied by another mouthful, she mumbled, "Mm-Hmm."

A faint smile on his face all the while, Harry conjured three more sandwiches. Hermione willingly devoured one of them as well.

As soon as she finished eating, she managed to conjure two glasses of Pumpkin Juice. Even if she seemed incapable of conjuring food, she knew that she would never die of thirst.

Finally clear of the distracting hunger that had pursued her most of the morning, she sipped her Pumpkin Juice and enjoyed the renewed feeling of calm. This did not turn out to be such a positive thing.

Left with nothing else to focus on, Harry and Hermione again fell into an uncomfortable silence. Except now, she had no hunger pains to take her mind from the situation.

Her thoughts unconsciously traveled back to the previous day, to the dead, to Ron. What would they do with him? What had they already done? She could not bear the thought that she would never see him again.

"So…" Harry said quietly. "You slept in Snape's bed?"

He was evidently trying to start conversation, even though she could have come up with a million topics other than that one.

"Apparently," she snapped. "I wasn't much thinking about it last night."

"No," he replied, his voice hesitant, as though he were in trouble. "I guess not."

Harry did not say another word and Hermione did not mind. Although she would rather avoid her thoughts, she was disinterested in idle chitchat.

Even if she had succeeded at burying her grief for the time, an array of absurd emotions had crept up on her. Each one of these new sensations pained her in its own way.

She wanted nothing but to stop feeling this way, lost and found all at the same time. She felt threatened and safe, stranded and saved. It was too much to take in, trapped in the limbo that was Snape's house. Besides, she knew that they could only avoid the subject for so long.

Talking was supposed to help, that was what everyone always said. She figured it was worth a shot, no matter how much she seemed to detest it at present.

"What do you think they'll do with the bodies?" she asked matter-of-factly, fully aware of Harry's start at the bold sound of her voice in the eerily quiet room.

"I don't know," he muttered, his eyes focused toward floor again. "I imagine I know who does though."

Surprised by his willingness to expound upon the matter, Hermione assumed that he had been mulling over similar thoughts.

Unaware of the acoustic properties of the house, she leaned in closer and lowered her voice when she asked, "Who's that, Voldemort?"

"No…Snape," Harry answered as he leaned closer to her as well.

She replied in a hurried whisper. "You're right. He's Voldemort's right hand now. Should we ask him?"

Harry almost smiled before he whispered back, "Are you mad? Do you honestly think he'd tell us?"

"No," she answered. "But it's something to do rather than sit here."

"I'm sure he told Dumbledore," Harry grumbled. "Hell, Dumbledore probably already knows. If he didn't tell us, I'm sure Snape won't."

Hermione shrugged, unable to say her next thought aloud. Even if Harry was not willing to back her up, she was going to ask and make it known that she wanted answers. They were not children. They were not safe from the truth by being ignorant of it, no matter how gruesome or ghastly that truth turned out to be.

* * *

The shower turned out to be less relaxing than Snape had wished. He tried to remember the dream, struggled to get back to that place where he could finish what nature had begun.

Every time he reached the part that he sought, right when the blood was starting to flow, Miss Granger's voice sounded in his head. Unfortunately, at least once, he thought that she had been standing in the room again.

With a shudder at the thought, he shut off the water and admitted defeat, even though he knew it would do nothing for his mood.

He dressed without hurry. He had no doubt that they would still be hungry. His dawdling was merely his way of avoiding their famished chirps for as long as possible.

Babysitting was one thing that Snape had never thought he would be stuck doing. Now that he had been stuck doing it, he knew that it would never happen again. He would just kill himself next time. You could not look after the weak if you were dead. That was simply a fact.

Once he was finished dressing, he descended the stairs for what was sure to be a monotonous day. When he reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, confident they were lounging on his furniture and ridiculing him all the while, he waited at the bookcase to see if he could hear a snippet of their conversation.

"…I'm sure Snape won't."

What was the boy talking about now? Snape waited for Hermione's pithy yet somehow longwinded reply, but heard none.

It was a simple decision for Snape. He would walk as quietly as humanly possible to the kitchen and then the study. If he were successful, he would be able to avoid them altogether.

Very carefully, he pushed against the bookcase to open it ever so slowly and quietly. Unfortunately, it refused to budge. Apparently, it had become stuck, probably from the force with which Hermione had slammed it earlier.

He knew that using his wand would make too much racket. The case was charmed to open upon one magical command and it was quite a noisy one. Therefore, he pushed harder.

He put his shoulder into it, but the case still refused to move in the slightest. Once more, he leaned into the door with all his might when the damn thing swung open of its own accord and sent him staggering into the room.

Once he had regained his footing, he found Hermione standing before him in wide-eyed surprise.

"Sorry, sir. I was just coming up to talk to you."

Carefully concealing the awe in his voice, Snape ignored her statement and asked, "How did you open the door?"

"I tried a bunch of spells and one worked," she answered as though he should have already known.

"At least now we know that you are not entirely incompetent," he muttered before he tried to walk past her.

"Wait," she said rather loudly. "I have something to ask you."

"Do you?" he replied uninterestedly as he stepped across the threshold and into the kitchen, so very close to avoiding her question entirely.

"What does Voldemort do with the bodies?" she more or less shouted from the doorway.

She minced no words that time, he thought, as he came to a halt. When he turned back, he found that she was indeed standing in the doorway. Her disheveled head of hair, which she had apparently forgotten to brush that morning, caused her to look somewhat crazed. However, her expression had hardened, as though she had readied herself for combat.

"That is none of your concern," Snape replied, the stern tone of his voice leaving no room for dispute.

She snorted before she challenged him. "Of course it is. Why else would I ask?"

He disregarded her question as rhetorical. "Albus has instructed me to avoid details, should either of you ask. He obviously anticipated _this_…"

He paused to gesture haughtily, in reference to the confrontation, but his hesitation allowed her time to speak.

"We aren't children anymore," she hissed. "_Albus_ isn't my father and he doesn't decide what I have a right to know."

However unbearable the thought, she was correct. At the very least, she had a valid point. They were not children, not anymore. Albus made a habit of filtering information to protect the innocent, or those he deemed incapable of shouldering the burden.

Upon weighing his options, Snape knew that he should follow Albus' directive and withhold the information. Bearing in mind that he would not have a moment's peace if he denied the girl, Snape knew that he had to choose wisely. For the sake of his sanity, he made an educated ruling based upon the facts. He conceded to the girl's request without further protest.

"Fine," he said, that one word forcing his scowl to deepen.

Hermione appeared shocked for a moment, but quickly matched his stare. So far uninvolved in the debate, Harry left the sofa and joined her side. To Snape's utter astonishment, the boy kept his mouth shut.

Seeing no reason to delay, Snape enlightened the pair.

"Tonight, after the sun has fully set, the Dark Lord will have the bodies moved to the clearing behind the house where he has constructed a pit strictly for the purpose of the divining ceremony. The focal point of every ceremony has been the disposing of his…_prizes_…in a pyromantic ritual. In the center of the pit is an altar where he sometimes utilizes the bodies to divine any threats against him before he sets fire to their remains. He studies the flames so that he may see into the future, or so he believes."

Hermione's expression remained unchanged. She swallowed hard and took a slow breath before she murmured, "Anthropomancy…? He's going to cut their guts out and play with them?"

"Perhaps," Snape replied flatly. "It depends entirely upon his mood."

"Wait," Harry piped up, a stunned and disgusted look upon his face. "Why would he do that?"

"Because he is insane," Snape readily answered.

Her eyes astoundingly vacant, Hermione asked softly, "Are you going to be there?"

"My rank spares me such things," Snape explained.

Hermione had taken the news much better than he could have expected. He had yet to see a single tear. He was unsurprised. He knew the shock would soon wear off. He only prayed that it would wait until he was free of her.

Her voice clear, Hermione suddenly declared, "I want to see them."

Of all the possible scenarios, Snape had not anticipated this one in the least. "_That_ is not possible."

To his utter astonishment, she marched toward him. Snape could see Harry over her shoulder. He looked just as stunned as Snape felt. She stepped up to him, standing before him like a comrade in arms.

An unnatural gentleness to her voice, she said, "I know where the house is. I'll go by myself if I have to, but I _will_ be going."

"That is ludicrous," Snape challenged. "You would not only be endangering yourself…"

"I know all of that," she said softly. "I'm not entirely sure why, but I know that I have to see him."

Her eyes were shadowed, as though clouds were eclipsing any light that they may have otherwise contained.

Quickly, she continued, "So, are you going to take me or shall I go by myself? I only ask because I'm less likely to die if you come."

Snape could not believe that she was putting him in this position. She would go either way. He saw the determination in her eyes. If her days at Hogwarts were any indication, there would be no discouraging her.

Snape glanced at Potter over her shoulder. To Snape's disbelief, the boy seemed even less keen on the idea.

Given the ultimatum, Snape made the only practical choice that he had at that very moment. "There are five hours until sundown," he begrudgingly said. "Get some rest."

Without waiting for a response, Snape turned away from her. After taking those few remaining steps necessary to enter the study, he allowed his unease to hunch his shoulders for a moment.

That empty expression she had adopted--the one she had worn throughout the argument--was obnoxious, cold and indifferent. The look she had given him upstairs had not been hatred at all, it had been _that_ look.

He was quite familiar with it. He wore it at all times. He was unsure how he had failed to recognize it at first. Perhaps she had not carried it well then. However, this time she had. That was the most unsettling part of all.

* * *

"Hermione! What do you think you're doing?" Harry demanded as soon as Snape disappeared through the wall.

Hermione was not about to answer because she was still considering why Snape had so readily agreed. She must have made a good case. She was sure that she had not intimidated him. That notion was laughable.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed as he moved into her line of sight. "What do you think you're doing? We can't go! Dumbledore…"

"I don't care what he thinks," she answered, surprised by the certainty of those words. "I know that I need to see Ron, even if it's one more time, and I think Snape agrees with me."

"Of course he _agrees_ with you," Harry emphasized, the color rising into his cheeks as he became visibly frustrated. "He'd love to get us both killed. Then he won't have to deal with us anymore."

"That's not it," she said softly. "Besides, you don't have to go. You don't even have to stay here with me." Harry looked rather insulted so she added, "I'm glad you're here. I _want_ you to come, but you don't _have_ to. I asked for this."

"Then take it back." He had dropped the anger from his tone. Instead, he pled with her, his voice shaking on nearly every word. "Please don't do this. I can't…I don't want to see him like that. We saw him die, isn't that enough?"

"I don't want to go, Harry," she replied impatiently. "I _have_ to."

"Yes, you keep saying that." Harry heaved a great sigh. His restrained grief was not lost on her. "This doesn't make any sense, Hermione. What is seeing him supposed to prove?"

Again, she swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat before she said in an unsteady voice, "I didn't say goodbye. I didn't say anything. We stepped over him, Harry. We just left him there."

Harry looked sick to his stomach. "We had to. If we'd stopped, we'd both be dead."

"I know," she replied, her voice cold even to her own ear. "It doesn't seem right though, does it?"

Harry's voice cracked as he asked, "That we left him there?"

Hermione shook her head. "That we lived and he didn't."

"I guess," he replied quietly. He cleared his throat before he added, "I won't let you go alone. You know that."

"I know," she whispered. "I'm going to go lie down now. That willow seems to be wearing off."

She promptly turned away and headed for the stairs. Thankfully, the bookcase was still standing open. She heard Harry sob several times before he cleared his throat again.

She wondered if he would break down once she was out of sight. He probably wanted to burst into tears just as badly as she did. Still, she could not allow it. She could not let it overwhelm her.

She knew that the willow was less to blame for her suffering than the tension that she felt all the way down to her bones. Her every muscle felt strained. Her every thought seemed to be swirling just beyond her control.

A few minutes ago, she had been fine. She needed another distraction. This time a nap sounded like the best bet.

As she climbed the stairs, she considered asking Snape for a Dreamless Sleep potion. He surely had those stashed around the house. Then again, she wanted to trudge through. There was something heartening about the suffering. It implied that she was still alive.

* * *

Snape turned the lamp on this time. He was staring at his hands, one stationed on each thigh. The right index finger was tapping out a message in disjointed Morse code.

Actually, it was just tapping, but he did wonder for a moment if what he tapped meant anything. Perhaps it was something profound, or insightful, or maybe nonsense. Perhaps it was profound nonsense. Either way, he was obviously having trouble clearing his mind of all thought and emotion.

He had agreed to take her and that boy to the Riddle house to see the dead tossed into the pit and set ablaze. After nearly an hour of judicious consideration in his study, Snape decided that he was a fool.

The lack of sleep had made him that way because, under other circumstances, that look would not have bothered him. However, that unaffected stare that she had maintained so expertly continued to bother him.

She should not have been capable of that, no matter what she had seen. She had gone through a very traumatic event, but nonetheless, Snape was concerned for her.

No, he was not _concerned_. He shifted away from that thought. Albus would have been concerned, so Snape had to view her behavior as significant. If the girl were suffering, Albus would want every effort made to put her right. If seeing the Weasley boy's dead body could do that for her, then so be it.

No matter how much Snape thought about it, he was convinced that this particular situation did not occur regularly. Who could proclaim how to handle it? He would simply have to deal with it. He would have to take her to the Riddle house and… He realized then that had to put a stop to this nonsense immediately.

* * *

The bed was exactly as Snape had left it. She could not figure out why he had made the bed and then laid on it, the imprint of his body still visible in the wrinkles of the top sheet.

All she knew for sure was that she wanted a nap. A nice, cozy, uninterrupted nap so that she could focus again.

She curled up on the bed with her head barely raised on the pillow. After pulling her knees to her chest, she tried to make sense of all the noise in her head.

Her emotions felt uncontrollable, and yet in complete check. She felt calm and frantic all at the same time. As though there were a million things to do, but she did not care if they were ever done.

For quite some time, the nap consisted of her lying still with her eyes closed, surrounded by all the thoughts that she was trying so hard to shut out.

She had not heard any footsteps, so no one had come to check on her. Snape was probably still on the other side of that wall, wherever that was. It could have been Italy for all she knew.

With any luck, Harry was napping on the couch. He surely failed to get any sleep the night before. He certainly looked as though he had had a restless night.

At last, her mind began to quiet. She thought that she was actually going to be able to sleep until she heard the footsteps coming up the stairs.

They were measured steps that certainly did not belong to Harry. He was a bounder. He dashed up stairs as though a prize awaited him at the top.

These were deliberate, each footfall meaningful in its own way. There to perform the task, not have fun with it. They definitely belonged to Snape.

"Miss Granger?" he asked from the doorway. He sounded much farther away than it should have.

Was he checking on her? Was he coming to say that he would not take her after all?

"I should not wake her," he muttered, his voice strikingly calm.

He took a step away and she knew that he would keep going.

"It's all right," she blurted out.

She refused to move. If she did, she was afraid that she would never get to sleep. Therefore, she kept her eyes shut while she waited for him to say whatever he had come to say.

His footsteps resumed. As they approached the bed, she heard the hollow thump of something settling on the wood floor.

"Mr. Potter is asleep," Snape said, returning to his more recognizable, uncaring tone. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes," she replied quietly.

She listened intently as the hem of his robe swept across the floor before she heard the faintest creak of aged wooden joints. A chair, he had drawn up a chair.

Of course, she would have known that if she had opened her eyes. Nonetheless, she was so far content with concentrating on the sounds.

He said nothing more at first. Even his robe failed to make any more noise.

"What are you doing?" he asked, almost curiously.

"Listening," she answered honestly.

"To what?" he questioned.

"Just listening," she barely whispered.

There was a pause before he asked, "Why?"

She hesitated for a moment, wondering the same thing herself, before deciding upon, "Because it's interesting."

There was a moment of near quiet, nothing cluttering the incidental sounds.

This time, she heard him shift his weight in the chair as his robe swished across his knees. Were his trousers cotton or wool? She could not distinguish the specific sounds beneath the many layers of clothing. She was listening so attentively that she nearly started when he spoke again.

"What is interesting?" he muttered.

"I don't know," she murmured back. "I can't sleep."

Another moment passed in silence. He shifted in the chair again. She could no longer take the suspense.

Before she had really thought about it, she asked, "What are your trousers made of?"

He did not answer right away. In all honesty, she did not expect him to answer at all.

After a brief intermission, he replied, "Wool."

"Is it worsted?" she asked, more curious about fabric in this instance than she had ever been in her life.

"I believe so," he answered, his voice more cautious than cruel.

Nearly exhausting her limited knowledge of woolen garments, she pressed him further on the subject. "Gabardine?"

"Yes." He sounded confused. "You ascertained all that from listening?"

"No," she replied, suddenly very unnerved by the conversation she had started.

"I see," he said lowly. He took a deep, noisy breath before adding, "I believe they are Italian. Do you wish to see the label?"

She smiled, if only a little. "No. I'll take your word for it."

"Good," he commented.

Again, they said nothing.

She could sense his station in the room much more than before. She felt like he was watching her, like a sentinel, but she could not know for sure.

As she focused on him, this time she noticed a smell that she could not place. It was clean and soft around the edges, muted in its depth and calming to the senses. There was citrus in there somewhere, and something else. She truly could not tell. She also did not think that he would welcome another line of questioning based upon…whatever it was that he smelled like.

Suddenly, his voice interrupted her. "Do you wish to sleep?"

"Yes," she sighed.

"Do you want a potion?" He still sounded oddly confused.

She hesitated only a second before saying, "Please."

"Here," he said firmly. "This should give you a couple of hours."

She heard the subtle squeak of the chair as he stood and the rustle of his robe as he took the few steps to the bed.

At last, she opened her eyes. He was standing over her with an expression that could only be fear. It was understated, but it was most definitely fear.

As she sat up, she took the small emerald bottle from his outstretched hand. "Thank you."

He nodded, then turned abruptly and started toward the door.

"Sir?" she asked gently.

He hesitated in the doorway, but did not turn back.

"Are you still taking us tonight?" she wondered aloud.

"Yes," he replied before he swiftly rounded the corner.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

To everyone who has been reading, thank you! I sincerely hope that this chapter keeps you coming back for more, or at least, happy for a week until there's more to be had.

Monumental thanks go to Michelle who--if this were that movie with Dorothy and the little dog--would be the Good Beta of the North until I changed her name to the Marvelous Beta of the West.

Special thanks go to Shana, who will soon be eating a lot of Creole cooking. Good luck, Shana!

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 6**

After his somewhat peculiar conversation with Hermione, Snape retreated to his study. Once there, he briefly pondered contacting Albus. He would want to know that she was acting strangely. Then again, he would probably show up at the house. If Snape was to take them on this little journey, Albus could not know about it.

Making matters worse, Snape feared that, if he failed to follow through on what had become a promise, she would sink even farther into her altered state.

She was undoubtedly grieving and that, coupled with the trauma she suffered, had instigated a very odd shift in her personality.

The death of the Weasley boy weighed heavily upon her. Of that, Snape was certain. She had not mentioned Lupin, or the others. She seemed concerned only with Ron. Perhaps she could only process one at a time, or perhaps this bizarre calm was an aspect of her character that she rarely displayed.

Whatever the motivation, Snape felt obligated to do what she asked, if only to return her to her usual self. As she was now, he could identify far too well with her, and that alarmed him the most.

He went upstairs earlier to tell her that they were not going, to reiterate that the journey would be far too dangerous. Although, he understood that she was more than aware of the fact. He intended to give her the Dreamless Sleep potion after he told her of his decision, since he assumed that it would upset her. However, the fetal pose she had folded herself into distracted him from his mission.

Snape knew her condition well. She engrossed herself in the mundane to distract from her tragic reality. Occlumency would have done her good, but she was in no shape to attempt to learn it now.

In fact, she was in no shape to be going on a hazardous mission, if only to spy on the ceremony. If her detached state settled in any further she would probably have little regard for her personal safety, making the trip to the Riddle house all the more perilous.

While she slept, Snape needed to sleep and eat something as well. Although what, he had no idea. Under normal circumstances, he would not have to dedicate much thought to it. Lucius and Albus, both notorious food peddlers, were always there with a sandwich and a comment about Snape's dwindling waistline.

Snape heaved a great sigh when he realized that he had not fed himself since… Well, he had not had a day off since… Actually, he could not remember when he had last had a day off. Though it seemed like a simple task, he was surprisingly out of practice when it came to tending to himself. Nonetheless, he had four hours to see to his own needs before the potion would wake Hermione.

Furthermore, he would have to make time to look in on the girl for the sole purpose of ensuring that she was not having a dangerous reaction to the potion. Her emotional state left her susceptible to several side affects. If he were careless, she could very well slip into a coma. At that thought, Snape could not help but be annoyed that she had somehow managed to turn him into her nursemaid.

* * *

As soon as Snape left, Hermione drank the full contents of the bottle and stretched out on the bed. As she rested there, she felt like some sort of Shakespearean character.

Not one in particular, just some nameless, tragedy-ridden youth who had swallowed some variety of elixir to end the suffering. Of course, this potion would only put off the suffering for so long.

She would have to face the suffering soon enough. No potion would save her from it. She knew it waited for her, with all its brutality, in the shadows just outside that house. It would be there that evening, lying in wait, ready to pounce and devastate what remained of her resolve.

She understood the danger posed by returning to the house, especially with Harry in tow. She had no trouble thinking up a myriad of reasons to march down the stairs and tell Snape that she wanted to change her mind. However, cowardice would not stop the steady progression of anger and worry as they quibbled nonsensically in her head. Pretending would not quell the helplessness or the hopelessness. She could not go on feeling everything at once, and to ease that tangle of emotions, she needed to see Ron, even if that meant endangering herself to do it.

Although she knew that her ultimatum put Snape in a difficult position, she was glad to have taken the initiative to do something aside from sit and wait. She could not take another moment of sitting and waiting. She guessed that Harry felt much the same at the Dursley's house. There, he had no hope of escape, no means to fight against the unbidden will that forced him there as a child. It must have been hell.

Quite soon, her eyes grew unspeakably heavy and her mind started to cloud. All of her various moods merged into one, for a time, before the potion rendered her unconscious.

The blackness, the lightless, limitless, nearly impalpable universe that enveloped her, cleared the sibilant rush of thought from her mind. However, as her disembodied spirit hovered in oblivion, she retained a vague sense of self. It was comforting to be so lucid without the constricting wheel of emotions turning in her head. Nevertheless, she was alert enough to wonder why she could wonder. It was supposed to be dreamless sleep.

Hours passed while she floated in that loosely sentient state. She managed to stop thinking and feeling, for the most part, permitting the blackness to flow through her in the void the potion had created.

The war was a memory, long since forgotten. The people were ghosts, fragments of jumbled lives tossed aside like bits of waste paper. The grief was all but gone, scattered to the shapeless wind that supported her weight in that dark, warm void. Time passed slowly with nothing to ponder, no sounds to interrupt her, no voices to convey disappointment or regret.

A blissful eternity passed before she felt a tug at her waist, where her waist should have been, as though giant, invisible arms had wrapped around her middle. They were pulling her down, into the nothingness. She struggled against them, to remain balanced on the intangible breeze, but they fastened tighter. They refused to let her rise.

She fought harder, manic as she tried to wrench herself free. Her resistance was useless against the invisible arms. She was falling far too fast. She knew that the landing would kill her. She knew that the bottom was unbreakable. It would break her instead.

The unseen current of air constricted with brute force, asserting its power painfully as it coiled around her like a snake smothering its prey. She made one more attempt to break free, but she ran out of time. She collided with the bottom so violently that it should have shattered every bone in her body. Still, she felt no pain. She knew only the terror of what awaited her on the other side.

The invisible arms, still tethered to her middle, continued to strain against the newfound resistance. Hermione stopped struggling. She surrendered to the will of the arms determined to pull her under.

No sooner than she had, the bottom began to collapse. The dissonant crackling of broken ice heralded her plunge into the bitter cold, lethal depths.

Panicked, Hermione sat straight up, her breath arriving in terrified sobs. Her eyes shot open. She searched the room frantically. There was no one waiting to harm her, no arms waiting to snatch her away. She saw only dismal, gray walls and an empty wooden chair. Apparently, her fall had been a dream, and a horrifying one at that.

Dreamless sleep my ass, she thought, as she tried to calm herself. Her throat, dry from panting as though she had sprinted to hell and back, burned with every breath. Falling backward onto the pillow, she put a hand to her chest and waited for her heart to cease rapping incessantly against her ribs.

* * *

Sometime during his ponderings, Snape dozed off. After a ravishing two hours, he awoke, feeling rested enough, though disappointed that his sleep yielded no more of the blonde woman.

Having napped, the next item on his agenda was to eat something. Considering the burden of a full meal, he conjured a plate of toast and jam, and then stared at it. After a few minutes of glowering at the blameless toast, he actually ate a few slices before clearing away the rest. There would be plenty of time for that later, after their little journey that evening.

Since the girl was set to awaken within the hour, it seemed an opportune time to emerge from his solitude and check on her condition. It was perhaps opportune, but not at all welcome.

Snape wanted little more than to shirk his immediate obligation and seek additional rest. He envied all those blessed with experiencing a full night's sleep. He promised himself that, someday, he would again know the pleasure of retiring in the evening and rising in the morning. Following this promise, he ignored the aching tiredness and commenced with his nursemaid duties.

Snape passed through the doorway and the kitchen, but halted suddenly in the entryway to the sitting room. There before him was a sight that he surely never expected to see in his house, of all places.

On his sofa was Harry Potter, splayed out in apparent restful sleep, with his cloak draped over his slumbering form. In that instant, Snape hated the boy all the more.

All the boy ever had to do was wait around for someone to _tell_ him what to do, which left too much time for him to concoct his own theories and make trouble. This was perhaps nerve-racking, but nonetheless, did not require a hell of a lot of talent or actual work on the boy's part. Snape knew only the short end of that proverbial stick, the splintered and poisonous end.

With nothing to slow him down, and no urge to disturb the boy anytime soon, Snape was halfway up the stairs when Hermione stepped onto the landing. She seemed rather preoccupied by the few yards of black fabric wrapped haphazardly around her arms.

She flailed her arms several times before the mass of fabric fell to the floor. Muttering a string of expletives as she went, Hermione stooped down and snatched up the fabric. As she disentangled what now appeared to be a robe, she glanced down the stairs. She abruptly froze, in apparent shock at Snape's presence.

In his opinion, she looked no better than she had. In truth, she looked worse. Her brow wrinkled, her eyes darkened and weary, she peered down at him. Her hair, even more disheveled than usual, swelled in two masses of ridiculously tousled curls on each side of her face.

Seemingly recovered from the initial shock, she blinked several times and slipped her arms into the robe, carelessly fastening only one button at the chest.

Halted on his current step, Snape observed, "You are awake."

"Obviously," she replied coolly.

Aware that his comment was rather inane, he let that one slide.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked brusquely.

"Well enough," she replied tersely as she folded her arms across her chest.

He was unclear just why her cold manner surprised him. She had not been so cold when he had last spoken to her.

"Shall we get on with this," he stated, assuming that she needed a few moments to wake up properly before attempting conversation.

Snape turned round and descended the stairs, actually in no way eager to get on with anything. He walked straight into the sitting room and awaited her arrival. He was by no means going to wake up the boy, whose arm and leg now dangled off the edge of the sofa.

"Wake him up," Snape directed as soon as she entered the room and came to a halt.

She again set him with that stare. The stare briefly transfixed him. It was more severe than it had been before. It lacked any depth of warmth, yet it possessed a loathing that exceeded that which he almost expected.

He quickly refocused before he asked in a low voice, "Is there a reason why you are not doing as told?"

Her voice as cold as her gaze, she replied, "Yes. Is there a reason why you're looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" he asked, curious why she asked the question he had thought to pose.

"Like you want to strangle me," she answered calmly.

He thought about how to answer for an instant before saying, "That is how I look at everyone."

She maintained her steady gaze as she said one stiff word.

"Why."

Again, he thought for a moment. In the end, he settled upon snide honesty. "Because, most often, that is what I would rather be doing, as opposed to looking at them."

She nodded ever so slightly. "Fair enough," she sighed, his rationale apparently enough to appease her curiosity.

She broke the stare and stepped toward the sofa where she obediently began the task Snape had requested of her.

Snape recognized quickly that sleep had not helped her at all. If anything, her condition had worsened. He could not risk putting her in a dangerous situation in that state. Luckily, the boy was proving difficult to rouse.

Snape knew he had to question her. There was no way around it.

At last, he commanded, "Follow me, Miss Granger."

With an abrupt jerk of her head, she turned toward Snape, a mildly shocked expression replacing her harsh one. Potter merely rolled over on the sofa, mumbling something about the price of broomsticks.

With her attention seized, Snape headed for the study, confident that she would not be far behind. Her muffled steps pursued him all the way there. As soon as he passed through the doorway, he flicked his wand at the lamp for what little light it would provide.

"I need to know what is troubling you," he asserted when he turned to face her.

She stood just inside the faux wall, her eyes wide as they slowly scanned the room. With her standing in the shadows just outside the bounds of the lamplight, Snape could not read her features. He could see only the light reflected from her eyes as they took in her new surroundings.

"I don't know what you mean, sir," she answered softly

Already frustrated, Snape pointed to the chair as he spoke the order. "Sit."

Suddenly, her eyes came to rest upon him, though she did not say a word.

"Sit _now_," he clarified.

Moving guardedly toward the chair and into the light, she politely asked, "Why did you bring me in here, sir?"

He waited until she seated herself to explain. Adopting her civil tone, he answered, "So we will not be overheard."

He began to pace the stretch of floor in front of the chair as he elaborated, "I do understand that you are emotionally taxed at present, but I will not lead you into harm's way under these circumstances."

"Harm's way?" She let out a grim laugh, her face suddenly stony and expressionless. She went on in a deadpan, dreadfully calm tone. "I'm already _in_ harm's way, if you haven't noticed. It's really just a matter of degree now, isn't it?"

"That is not the point," Snape advised, attempting to reinforce the tone of his voice to convey his growing annoyance.

Hermione's eyes followed him unerringly as he paced. "I am _fine_, sir," she stated evenly.

"You are _not_ fine," he countered confidently. "You are acting the part, however poorly."

"You would be the one to know, _sir_." The comment would have been more childish only if she had rolled her eyes while she said it.

Her declaration prompted Snape to halt, turning his undivided attention on her irreverence.

"And what makes you believe such a thing?" he asked, unable to mask his rising hostility.

Contemptuously coy, she answered, "It was just a thought, sir. An observation…"

He had to stop himself from actually snarling at her. "Stop with the sodding 'sir' business," he warned.

The corner of her mouth twitched in a fleeting sneer. He knew then that, for whatever reason, she enjoyed this.

He took the few steps required to tower over her. When he reached the chair, she leaned back, pushing herself as far as the taut leather would allow. Intent on intimidation, he bent forward until he was nose to nose with the trembling girl.

No longer bothering to conceal his hostility, he went on. "Miss Granger, you obviously think that you have been through a terrible ordeal. I am sure that, in your little mind, you believe it to be insurmountable. However, I am afraid that you are going to have to get over whatever is encumbering you if you intend to get what you want in this instance."

Her eyes narrowed as she hissed, "You don't know anything about my _ordeal_."

"Don't I?" he growled. "You certainly do not plan to compare histories with me, Miss Granger. Do you suppose that your paltry contributions or temporary sacrifices to this war are somehow more important or heartbreaking than anyone else's have been?"

"_What_ war?" she suddenly shouted. She shot forward, latching her hands onto the arms of the chair as she advanced on him.

Snape swiftly righted himself, caught off guard by her unexpected display.

Her voice trembling with fury, she continued. "Do you mean this thing where the only people who seem to die are on our side? This tiptoeing the fuck around…stunning the murderers instead of killing them. Putting them in prison…as though it mattered…because all they ever do is escape and start killing all over again. No, I don't think my plight is any more _important_ or _heartbreaking_ than anyone else's. But I do think that I have the right to be _fucking_ angry about it!"

If she needed to yell at someone, then he would listen. He was pleased to see any emotion coming from her, even rage.

"That you do," he replied as he took a small step back from her unbridled temper. "Nevertheless, I have to be sure that this malaise will not undermine your competence. I will not take you to that house if I think that you may become…irrational."

"That's what you think?" she yelled, slumping back into the chair as she assumed a horribly defeated look.

"I'm just…I don't know what I am," she said, her voice strained. "Ron… Harry thinks it's his fault, but then he thinks _everything's_ his responsibility. Lupin… Oh God, Tonks… And Ginny… I can't imagine what everyone's going through…"

Her voice faded as she brought both hands up to her face. She kept them there for only a second before lowering them.

Tears welled in her eyes as she barely whispered, "You don't give a damn about them at all, do you?"

Snape shook his head as he silently questioned why he had even started this. He suppressed his own frustration at first, but his voice grew steadily louder as he spoke.

"If I gave a damn about every casualty of this…'tiptoeing the fuck around' you think we have been doing, then I would be unable to function. I would be unable to fulfill my duty to Albus, or anyone else, for that matter. If I holed up here to lick my wounds, you would still be _in_ that house with _God knows who_…"

He stopped himself. There was no reason to vent on her. Besides, she did not need to hear his next words. She already appeared to be on the verge of tears.

Hermione stifled sob before she spoke, her voice grief-stricken. "Yesterday, I lived in a completely different world. Certain people were dead, or evil. Certain people existed that…that just don't anymore. You've lived with this for a long time, but it just slapped me in the face, so you'll have to forgive my irrationality."

She hunched forward in the chair. Her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees, she shivered as she silently wept.

"I understand," he said lowly.

He turned toward the door, intending to leave, to allow her a moment alone, but she reached out and grabbed his sleeve at the elbow. He froze, awed by the gesture, until she swiftly slid her hand down his forearm and curled her fingers around his wrist.

Reluctantly, he turned back, but she kept pulling. It was not the tug of a willful child, but the insistent plea of a broken girl.

She was still staring at her lap, at her free hand that she had curled into a white-knuckled fist. Her tears fell next to that fist, each making its own stain in the black wool. All the while, she held onto his wrist with such strength that he could feel his veins pulsing beneath her fingertips.

He saw no tactful way to sidestep the situation, so he stooped to satisfy her tugging. When she stopped pulling, he was so near that he could have reached out and swiped away the droplets of tears that had gathered on the tip of her nose.

"What is it, Miss Granger?"

"Thank you," she scarcely whispered as she released his arm. "Thank you for saving me."

"There is no need," he muttered as he straightened up.

He stood motionless for an instant, for absolutely no reason, none that he could bring to mind. He spied on her quiet torment for a few, very long seconds before he thought to stop himself.

He tugged his watch from his pocket to see how late she had made them.

"Take what time you need to compose yourself," he said quickly. "Or fifteen minutes, whichever is less."

Swiftly exiting the study, he planned to decipher what had just transpired, but that would have to wait. Sitting up on the sofa was Potter, clearly awake.

"Is Hermione up?" he asked thickly before stretching his arms over his head and yawning like a world-weary cat.

"Yes," Snape replied, instantly mindful of where she was and why that was a problem.

He was able to see Potter's clothes, now that the boy was without his cloak. Potter had apparently been unable to change after he had run through the woods as though his life depended upon it, which it had, at that point.

"Go clean up, Potter," Snape advised. "If the Dark Lord catches your scent, Disillusionment will be a waste of time."

Harry only glared.

"Top of the stairs, on the right," Snape added tersely. "And comb your hair. You look like an idiot."

Harry snorted, jumped to his feet and trudged toward the stairs as he muttered, "Well, you _act_ like an idiot."

"However, I have excellent hearing, Mr. Potter."

Harry twitched ever so slightly at Snape's words before starting up the stairs.

Snape was glad to see the boy go. He preferred that Harry not see Hermione exiting the study, should he get the idea that he was welcome to go gallivanting wherever he pleased in the house.

Snape was not fond of having her in there either, but the room had been nearby.

It occurred to him then that Harry Potter was in the bathroom and Hermione Granger was in the study. The sun was setting. Soon, he would be taking them to Voldemort's lair to watch their friend's dead body possibly mutilated and then set on fire.

Snape was sure that his circumstances could be worse. However, he was at a loss as to how that was possible.

* * *

Her emotions were peaked. Yet again, her chest was burdened by the massive grief that she did not know how to process. In an effort to relax, Hermione set her eyes on the seam of her robe.

Dashed lines of black thread dotted the edge, fixed and continuous, obviously sewn by a machine. The thread had a luster to it. It was not silk, most likely polyester. Cotton would have been dull. If only life could be like that thread, constant and orderly.

She should have known better.

In the stairwell, she was angry about the faulty potion, and her inability to put on a simple robe in her shaken state. In the sitting room, Snape's direct order offended her. It was then that she foolishly thought to provoke him, that it might take her mind away from other, more painful things. How could she have known that it would lead her exactly where she did not want to go?

He asked. He brought it up.

She hated to think what her sewn edges had looked like while she sniveled in front of Snape.

Then again, it had been freeing to speak her mind on the war. She never spoke to Harry about such things. She refused to add to his troubles with her selfish ramblings.

It had not been long after joining the Order that she became aware of the benefits of being underage. Ignorance had truly been bliss.

The room that Snape had taken her to was making her tired. All she could see was the obsidian darkness with the oasis of bright, white light in the middle that seemed to fade away mere feet from the opalescent shade.

She would have called the room a study, except a study had other things in it. Occupying this room was the one chair and the table beside it.

Of course, there may have been other furniture pushed against the walls, hidden by the darkness. Either the walls were black or the darkness pervaded them so very much that they seemed to stretch into infinity. It was easy to imagine that someone could walk right through them and trip off the edge of the world.

Hermione remained sitting on that island of light in the middle of the room for a few more minutes. The pointless inspection of her robe had calmed her, but she was surprisingly unprepared for what she knew was coming next, even if she had asked for it.

Her introspection not quite complete, she shook back the sleeve of her robe and pulled back the sleeve of her sweater to see that her fifteen minutes were up. Snape was probably impatient to get on with the customary lecture that seemed to precede all dangerous missions.

Grudgingly, she rose from the chair and tried not to flinch as she walked through what looked exactly like solid wall.

She passed through the kitchen to the open door that led to the sitting room. As soon as she stepped into the doorway, she saw Snape setting a tray on the coffee table.

"Miss Granger," he said courteously.

Startled, she returned his greeting. "Sir."

She walked unhurriedly in the general direction of the sofa. Along the way, she wished the room were a bit larger so that she might avoid him altogether.

Apparently finished arranging the tray, Snape straightened up and turned suddenly. Too soon, in her opinion, since his abrupt about-face trapped her in front of him.

Standing before him compelled her to feel shorter than she actually was. Without looking up, she saw only black wool and covered buttons fastened all the way up to his neck.

Her mind wandered for a moment to how long he took to dress. The seemingly endless procession of buttons down the front of his robe, and the numerous others all along his sleeves, indicated to her that he employed a charm. Otherwise, he would have to spend half a day putting on the button-laden thing and the other half taking it off.

Feeling stupid for staring at his buttons, Hermione shifted her eyes upward. Not that it surprised her, but their conversation had done nothing to change his coldhearted expression.

"I have prepared tea," he stated smoothly. "I also noticed what you did to the floor. You will have to do something about the damage. A finish like that takes years to accumulate."

It was dry as the Sahara, but it was definitely a joke. She may have smiled, had he not been standing right in front of her.

"Tea sounds good, sir," she replied, careful to sound unassuming.

"Wonderful," he said as he brushed past toward the kitchen. Somehow, he managed to balance a pound of sarcasm on that one word.

"Where's Harry?" she asked when she realized that he was no longer on the sofa.

"Upstairs," Snape's muffled voice replied from the kitchen. "I forewarned him of your recent fixation. He went to change his trousers."

This time she smirked, but only because Snape could not see her face. "You didn't," she stated firmly.

She contained the smile quickly when she heard his footsteps headed toward the sitting room.

He walked right by her and placed a bowl of sugar on the tray before he replied, "Perhaps not."

Taking her seat on the sofa, the one she had claimed every other time that day, she was surprised to find herself suddenly nervous. Snape took a seat in the chair on the opposite side of the small room, directly across from her. To ease her nerves, she poured a cup of tea with her still shaking hands and, for whatever reason, decided to talk.

"What is that room anyway?" she asked respectfully.

"My study," he answered, apparently intent upon inspecting the teakettle she had just replaced on the coffee table.

"Study?" she questioned as she added a teaspoon of sugar. "What do you study in there, _nothing_?"

"Precisely," he replied lowly, never once taking his eyes from the kettle.

Oddly enough, that made perfect sense to her. In his line of work, the espionage in any case, he probably was not much inclined to research the theory of relativity, not after death faking or the thwarting of the evilest of wizards.

When it became clear that he was not going to perpetuate the idle conversation, Hermione closed her eyes. Not much inclined to drink, she balanced the cup and saucer on her lap while she hoped for some sound on which to concentrate, something to keep her mind away from any thoughts of that house and what she would surely witness.

To her relief, there almost instantly came a noise. Snape must have crossed his legs. The wool whispered like distant voices as he stirred in the chair. His robe scratched against the twill on the seat cushion and swished as it passed over his knee where it whispered once again as it came to rest.

"Miss Granger."

Snape's imposing voice boomed through her head. Her eyes shot open. She was ever so thankful to find him still watching the kettle.

"Yes, sir?" she tried to ask nonchalantly.

"Do you plan to attend university?" he asked casually.

"Eventually," she replied, releasing a sigh when she knew he had not caught her. "I mean…"

"When we finish tiptoeing?" he finished for her.

She smirked a bit. "Yes. I've already looked into a few Muggle schools, since Wizarding colleges are mostly vocational."

"Mostly?" he asked pointedly as he shifted his gaze up to meet hers. "_All_ would be a more accurate estimation."

"Yes…you're right," she said quickly. "I mean…I'd rather continue with general studies until I can make up my mind about what I want to do. Of course, in all likelihood, that'll never happen."

"You are that undecided?" he asked candidly.

Wondering why she was even bringing it up, she finally said the thought aloud, as casually as if she had said it a million times before. "No. To be honest, I don't see myself living that long."

She was sure that she witnessed a genuine look of disbelief on Snape's face, which consisted of a slight widening of the eyes and lifting of the eyebrows.

She may have elaborated if Harry had not come barreling down the stairs. His leaden feet gave the impression that he had tumbled down headfirst.

As Harry rounded the bookcase, he asked, "Have I missed anything?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - And the saga continues…

Epic thanks to Michelle, the beta who rules the beta world!

Generous thanks to Shana, who will be taking New Orleans by storm…in a good way!

Thanks to everyone who wants to read. Please enjoy.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 7**

"Have I missed anything?" Harry asked, clearly oblivious, as he traipsed through the sitting room toward the sofa.

"No," Hermione answered, a contrived smile turning her lips.

Harry returned the routine smile and took the empty seat beside her. He promptly picked up the teakettle and filled the spare cup while Hermione fidgeted with the cup and saucer she already held. Neither seemed interested in drawing out the conversation.

The boy's impulsive question allowed Snape a glimpse into the unspoken understanding balanced so precariously between the two. Snape had witnessed similar symbiotic relationships among acquaintances on both sides of the war, but this one lent itself to further analysis. Clearly, the boy benefited from it. The girl surely did not.

To Potter, her smile reflected some semblance of happiness. To Snape, she looked crucified. She lacked only the crown of thorns while she shouldered the sins of others.

She acted the part of Harry's subordinate so well that he would never be any the wiser. He would never see the resignation that masked her innocence when she spoke of her own death. Her admission, just before the boy's entrance, confirmed the assessment. She assumed that, ultimately, she would give her life to the war. Of course, she was probably right.

Quite finished with his quasi-metaphoric evaluation, Snape decided to get on with the lecture, though his captive audience had given their teacups their full concentration. In order to shift their interest, Snape harrumphed, rather dramatically. Each started at the sound, their cups rattling on the saucers as they set him with their unblinking stares.

Mustering his most severe, authoritative tone, Snape began, "First, you will both do exactly as I say at all times. No matter your opinion of me, I am responsible for your…"

He paused when Harry began to open his mouth.

Snape raised his voice accordingly. "Silence! I _recognize_ that you are not children. We have touched upon that subject several times. However, you are not invincible either."

The boy closed his mouth with a snap.

Snape pointedly resumed, "I am responsible for your well-being. No matter what you witness, you will stay put. No amount of idiocy will remedy the situation. I expect you to control yourselves. I will not tolerate any foolish displays of hysterics, above all, screaming."

He waited for them both to nod or attempt to question his directive. Both chose the former and kept their mouths obediently shut. Harry stared on expectantly while Hermione's eyes shifted back to her teacup.

Without interruption, Snape commenced with the sermon, "We will Apparate to the stand of trees along the east edge of the property. There will be plenty of cover, but you will disillusion yourselves nonetheless. If you feel threatened at any time, for any reason, you will return here immediately. Leave me to make the necessary excuses."

They both nodded, almost simultaneously this time, so Snape went on.

"If my estimations are correct, we will arrive shortly before the ceremony begins. Even I am unsure of exactly how the Dark Lord will present the bodies. I suggest you both prepare yourselves for the worst."

He paused a moment to allow that bit of news to sink in. Neither Harry nor Hermione blinked. Though her eyes were still set upon the teacup in her lap, she could not hide the dread. It edged in when the color drained from her face.

"Most importantly," Snape went on, "there are consequences for your actions. I will not hesitate to punish either one of you if you attempt to act the hero. Your beloved Headmaster will not be there to stay my hand. Is _that_ clear?"

Again, Harry and Hermione nodded in unison.

Snape cleared his throat and reflexively lowered his voice. "Lastly, neither of you will breathe a word about this to the Headmaster. I will decide how much he needs to know."

Snape paused to allow either of them the opportunity to ask one of their decidedly unnecessary questions.

Hermione's filled the requirement. "How far away will we be?" she asked her teacup.

"Far enough to prevent your murder," Snape answered promptly.

He checked his pocket watch. According to it, they had to leave shortly or they risked missing the beginning of the ceremony.

He looked back to Harry and Hermione, Harry staring on, Hermione eerily forlorn. The boy seemed prepared, if only superficially. The girl had yet to look up from her damned teacup.

"It is time," Snape said hurriedly as he stood. "We must Apparate from the closet, as Mr. Potter is aware. Should anything happen, that is where you must return. If you fail to do so, I will be the one who has to clean up the mess. Take a good look at it before we leave."

Harry and Hermione nodded again, placing their cups and saucers on the table and rising unenthusiastically from their seats. Paying little mind to their lethargy, Snape led the way to the closet. Along the way, he thought that he preferred them like this--tight-lipped and docile. Then again, he was sure they had matured, if only a little, in the time since he last dealt with them.

Upon opening the closet door, Snape allowed them to enter the closet before he pointed his wand at the single bulb that hung into the center of the cramped space.

The Muggle bulb filled the room with its feeble glow, making Snape suddenly aware of just how small the cupboard really was. If he stood in the middle, by himself, he could touch the walls in any direction without exerting much effort. After seeing how crowded the closet had become with the two of them inside, Snape waited a moment to enter.

Harry took up most of the left half and Hermione claimed most of the right. Both inspected the closet like a pair of disoriented sightseers, swiveling their heads in various directions as though they had never seen such mesmerizing cobwebs or awe-inspiring rubbish.

When they seemed finished, Snape asked, "Will you remember enough to return?"

Hermione promptly bobbed her head, but Harry scoffed.

"There's not a lot to remember."

Snape smirked at the boy's assuredness. "I will remember you said that when I mop you up off the floor."

Unable to think of any reason to delay, Snape sidled into the closet next to Hermione, his back firmly pressed against the wall. Hermione immediately leaned away from Snape and into Harry, who turned sideways, his back now to the other wall. If the closet seemed small for two, with three, it was positively claustrophobic.

Hermione's shoulder, pressed against Snape's chest, made movement in any direction difficult for him. Snape was trapped, unable to reach the door to close it. In order to Disapparate, someone had to shut the door.

As a precaution, the closet door did not operate on magic. Sometimes the best defense against magic was to make something innately Muggle, or at least, impervious to magic. In fact, Snape had enchanted the door to open only for a select few--himself, Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. The enchanted door forced all others to knock, allowing Snape the joy of choosing whom to welcome and whom to leave languishing in the broom cupboard.

"Could you please…?" Snape strained to say as he reached toward the door.

"Sorry," Hermione replied as she turned toward Harry.

Snape smashed himself to the wall while she attempted to make room. Harry slid into the rear corner, creating nary an extra millimeter of wiggle room.

"Excuse me," Hermione muttered over the sounds of shuffling feet.

"Right. I'm trying," Harry sighed. "Wait. I can't…move my arm."

"Sorry." She winced as she rotated herself toward the back of the closet. "How about now?"

"That's better," he said, holding the freed limb above his head.

In all their reallocation of space, they had created no more and no less. Snape was still equally pinned against the wall. Again, he reached for the door. Again, he could not get hold of it, any part of it.

"Miss…" Snape began, but Hermione glanced up before he could finish.

She twisted quickly toward Harry, changed direction mid-way, and ended up chest to face with Snape.

He shook his head wearily. Nearly all of the hope for the Wizarding World stood in a closet. Between the three of them, with their collective knowledge and experience, they could not figure out how to fit themselves into it properly.

Fed up, Snape sighed, "Miss Granger, would you be kind enough to get the door?"

As she shimmied out, Snape flattened himself as much as he could against the wall. He considered pushing her out and simply taking one of them at a time. By then, she had closed the door and squeezed back into the middle.

With the door shut, there seemed every reason in the world to get out of the closet. If Snape were to take a deep breath, all three of them would be touching much more than he found entirely tolerable.

"I will take us there," Snape hurried to say through gritted teeth as he stared at anything but the current situation.

Setting his gaze over their heads was not a challenge, but holstering his mind from the abnormal situation certainly was. As much as he had tried to envision himself in a compromising position that morning, this absolutely was not what he had in mind.

"Potter, take her arm," Snape instructed flatly.

He continued to stare over the tops of their heads while they shuffled a bit. Finally, he looked down at the girl. She was staring doggedly at one of the buttons on his robe as though it might think to criticize her.

"Miss Granger, are you ready?" Snape asked quickly.

He felt her flinch as her head snapped up. Although her expression remained fixed, her pupils contracted swiftly, causing her to look much more frightened than she had been only moments before.

"Yes," she breathed in reply.

Snape nodded and reached for her arm. He laid his hand on her trembling shoulder just as she returned her gaze to his chest. After allowing another instant for them to prepare, Snape Disapparated.

* * *

With Snape's hand glued to her shoulder and Harry's cutting off the circulation to her hand, Hermione designated this as the most uncomfortable Apparition of her life. Not just because she had been wedged in a closet with Snape either.

Apparating was never a particularly enjoyable experience. However, her deep-seated anxiety had already tightened her lungs. She already had a headache pulsing angrily behind both eyes. The intense compression of air all around, constricting about her chest like those invisible arms, pounding against her eardrums until they were ready to burst, forced her to panic. Along with the panic came more fear, more thoughts, and more feelings she had no way to avoid.

Their eventual destination terrified her beyond reason. Voldemort and his minions mattered not. The prospect of what she would soon see petrified her, no matter how much she wanted it to happen. As the wind bombarded her, she figured that now was far too late to back out.

In a matter of seconds, they arrived. Hermione found herself in the dark again, encircled by trees scarcely illuminated by pale moonlight. Snow blanketed the ground, but the thick canopy the trees formed overhead soaked up every bit of light, rendering the ground as dark as the surrounding forest.

She was freezing. In her haste, she had not considered the weather. It was still December. A cloak would have come in handy. Involuntary shivers rapidly took hold of her body.

Suddenly, both hands, her only sources of warmth, left her at once. Before she could say anything, Snape's hushed voice answered the majority of her questions.

"We are approximately one hundred yards from the clearing. Stay close to me. Keep your mouths shut. Be wary…"

Snape stopped talking, quite abruptly. Hermione's eyes had not fully adjusted. Even against the pristine background of snow, she could barely make out his outline to understand why he had stopped.

Just as suddenly, she felt someone hit her on top of the head with what felt like a stick.

"Hey!" she whispered loudly. That was before she felt the warmth spread through her body from the point of impact, all the way down to her toes.

"Your teeth were chattering," Snape explained in a rush. "Be wary of traps. The guards rearrange them all the time. Whatever you do, stay close behind me."

Her eyes tuning in at last, Hermione nodded in the direction of Snape's shadow. She was as eager as she was ever going to be to get this over and done. She glanced at Harry, who was standing close on her right. He gave a solemn nod. She knew that he too was as ready as he was ever going to be.

"For God's sake," Snape sighed. "Must I do everything?"

Out of nowhere, the stick whacked her on top of the head again. This time, an icy trickle ran down her back. Mingled with the Warming Charm, her skin felt as though it sought to writhe off her body.

She looked toward the ground just as the Disillusionment Charm claimed her legs and feet. When the charm finished, her entire body reflected the snow-covered ground and surrounding trees.

"Come on," Snape hissed.

Thankfully, he illuminated his wand. Hermione followed first and Harry's footsteps followed close behind.

The snow was shallow, but there was enough of it to make their footsteps crunch jarringly with each step. The silence, so absolute in those woods, made each footfall seem unnaturally loud.

Snape forged a meandering path up ahead, through the trees. Turning this way and that, Hermione struggled to keep up with his long strides.

Several times, she looked about for Harry, but found only his footprints as he slogged through the snow at the end of the line.

Just when she began to wonder when they would reach their destination, the trees began to thin. The murmur of many, intermingling voices traveled on the breeze. Golden light dappled the topmost branches of the trees further up the trail. There also seemed to be something quite large, just up ahead, obstructing her view.

As they drew closer to the obstruction, Hermione saw that it was a briar. It stood at least ten feet tall and looked too manicured to be a natural phenomenon.

As soon as they reached the giant hedge, Snape extinguished his wand and stopped. He turned round so quickly that Hermione almost walked straight into him.

His voice barely audible over the preternatural voices beyond the briar, Snape whispered, "If you hear anything that seems remotely out of place, Apparate back to the house."

He turned back to the briar. With the touch of his wand, an opening the size of a fist burned clear to the other side, allowing a beacon of golden light to flood through.

"Let me know when you have seen enough," Snape instructed lowly before stepping aside.

All of a sudden, faced with the formidable task of looking through the briar, panic overwhelmed Hermione yet again. She tried to search for Harry, for his reassurance, but remembered that he was nearly invisible as well. Her mouth dry and her stomach twisting into furious knots, she stepped up to the opening in the briar, but shut her eyes before she saw anything.

Determined, she gave herself a quick pep talk.

_You can do this. You have to do this. You've come this far._

Snape had positioned himself only a few steps away on the left, so she felt protected. Harry's shallow breaths were on her right, so she was not alone.

She could sense the light through her eyelids. All she had to do was open them. Driving back the fear, she forced herself to look.

From her vantage point, the Riddle house stood, ominous, in the distance to the left, but the house was insignificant to the scene laid out before her.

No more than fifty yards away, six great stone obelisks, at least as tall as the briar, rose up toward the sky. Three to a side, they flanked a smooth square gouged out of the earth. Atop each obelisk flickered a golden fire, illuminating the clearing as brilliantly as daylight.

From her position, she was unable to gauge the exact dimensions of the pit. She guessed that it measured one hundred yards long, perhaps one hundred yards wide. How deep, she refused to imagine.

She could see into the front section of the pit, as though someone had staged it just for her. The only visible wall displayed narrow sets of stone stairs that extended from each corner and curved together, joining in the center to form a stage some fifteen feet down from the edge. A wider section of stairs descended from the stage, into the hollow, out of sight.

As her eyes adjusted to the scene, she noticed rows upon rows of seats situated between each pillar. The graduated arena seats resembled a medieval grandstand. At least a hundred men and women filled them to the brink, all chattering to each other as though awaiting some sporting event.

Some were leaning toward their neighbor in private discussion. Others seemed to be babbling only to themselves. All of them seemed abnormally agitated, expectant, their excitement as evident as their black robes and silver masks.

Hermione had never seen so many Death Eaters. She had no idea that Voldemort's army had reached such numbers. In her shock, without taking her eyes from the mesmerizing sight, she reached out silently to grab Snape's attention. Her hand ended up somewhere on his chest, the many buttons cold against her palm.

"He's got an army," she said, breathless with fright.

"No," Snape replied in whisper, his breath warm near her left cheek. "He commands their presence and they obey. Most fear him more than they fear death."

Just then, the crowd erupted with cheers and applause. Startled, Hermione jumped back, but an arm swiftly encircled her shoulders and steadied her. Enthralled by the scene unfolding before her eyes, she allowed the arm to support her.

A procession of masked, cloaked figures filed from the house, each with a large, black bundle floating alongside. A quick count confirmed that there were thirteen in the line.

Hermione's stomach clenched again, painfully this time. It was happening.

The procession continued to march in single file, nearing the hollow in the earth until the outlines of their silver masks blurred into neutral dots of reflected light. They continued their orderly procession, lining up in single file along the front, between the narrow staircases, until each came to a halt with their shrouded cargo.

To another round of deafening applause, Voldemort materialized in the center of the stage. Dressed in elegant, black robes that slithered in the breeze, he waved contentedly to his approving audience.

Without further ado, he placed the tip of his wand to his throat. In anticipation of his first words, the audience's ovation reduced to a murmur.

"Welcome."

The report of Voldemort's magically enhanced voice boomed through the eerily still, winter air. When the last echo faded away, the crowd responded with another roaring round of applause.

He raised his hands and all fell silent. He began to pace in slow, leisurely steps across the front of the stage. With a flourish of his ashen, bony hands, he grasped the edges of his cloak and crossed his arms over his chest.

He halted in the center of the stage. His posture was that of an overconfident tyrant, his nose high and his intentions suspect. His charisma as evident as his insanity, he flaunted both with pride.

It was no wonder to Hermione that he had amassed a legion of followers. He exuded authority with every swish of his robe. To look upon him was to glimpse a magnitude of magic that few ever accomplished. He could have healed the sick or protected the weak with his many talents. Instead, he chose to rule the many with his unprincipled bigotry. His preponderance of power corrupted him, as all power eventually does.

Apparently finished basking in the adoration of his many listeners, Voldemort began his speech.

"On this night, you have come here to witness my confirmation as ruler and purifier of the Wizarding World. Tonight, the flames shall reveal the sanctity of my empire and the defeat of those foolish enough to resist me. Tonight, you shall behold my boundless powers and the glory that is mine for the taking! I am your Lord!"

Again, the crowd cheered for their leader, until Voldemort raised his hands, instantly silencing the audience. At the very same time, the Death Eaters sited at the top of the stairs began the trek down to the stage, each levitating their shrouded bundles at their feet.

Once the Death Eaters reached the stage floor, Voldemort casually flicked his wand at the two lumps. Instantly, whatever hid beneath those shrouds began to rise.

Hermione knew what those shrouds were hiding, but she was terrified to see firsthand. She held her breath as the shrouds rose into the air, lifted by the forms hidden beneath. Once they rose to full height, nearly as tall as Voldemort, they stopped. The black shrouds fell away to reveal two men, standing at attention like soldiers awaiting inspection.

Hermione slowly released a breath. Neither of the men was Ron.

She knew the name of the man on the left. Samuel. He had joined the Order only a week before the attack. He appeared physically unharmed. However, some sort of horrendous scream had twisted his face and frozen there when he died.

The man on the right looked familiar, though she could not recall his name. The attack had been his first mission with the Order. His shirt hung in tatters. His face looked serene--he might have been sleeping--but deep gashes bloodied his face and chest.

Suddenly, Voldemort raised both arms toward the sky. Both men lifted up from the ground, no less than a foot into the air, their arms stretched out at their sides as though awaiting crucifixion.

"Do you see them?" Voldemort asked, his pompous voice shaking the leaves of the trees. "Do you see what happens to those who oppose me?"

The crowd answered with a resounding cheer.

"Oppose me in life and you shall serve me in death!" he shrieked.

As though they had purposefully taken flight, both men soared downward and vanished into the blackness of the pit. The flames that followed rolled high from the center and licked at the sky for a long few seconds before they retreated into the darkness.

"Victory!" Voldemort declared, obsession reinforcing his words. "I shall have victory!"

The spectators roared their approval of his claim.

Again, two Death Eaters descended the narrow steps, their covered bundles floating a few steps ahead. As soon as they reached the stage, Voldemort brandished his wand like a whip.

The two bundles sprang to life, far too quickly this time. The shrouds fell away. This time, the man on the left was Shacklebolt. The man on the right was Ron.

Hermione lost her breath. Ron's bright blue eyes were wide in terror. Blood matted his vibrant, red hair to the side of his face. There should have been no blood. He died instantly. The Death Eaters must have amused themselves with Ron just as they had Lupin.

Cringing when the crowd cheered, Hermione watched Ron's body rise up into the air.

She thought she was going to be sick. She wanted to kill each and every one of those people for encouraging the depravity, for worshiping it. She wanted them to feel her pain, to suffer. She wanted them to know the depth of her hatred at that very moment.

Her heart bled to see Ron, seemingly alive, strung up like a willing victim. However, she knew better than to follow her instinct to rescue him. She knew that nothing could save him now.

"Ronald Weasley!" Voldemort shouted contemptuously, the echo of his voice shaking the ground beneath their feet. "Friend to Harry Potter. Second-generation member of the Order of the Phoenix! How does Albus Dumbledore's darling Order carry on his good works? By dying at the hands of my disciples!"

If sheer willpower could have killed, Voldemort would have died where he stood. Hermione could feel nothing but utter rage hammering in her veins.

With a casual wave of Voldemort's hand, Ron's body plummeted into the pit. The flames climbed to the heavens as the fire consumed his body.

The arm, still encircling her shoulders, was all that kept Hermione from collapsing to the ground. She tried to suppress the sobs, but nothing could contain them. Nothing could quell the tide of grief that slammed into her in that instant.

"I'll miss you," she whispered to the pyre as the flames gradually slipped back into the shadows.

"Death!" Voldemort screamed. "_Death_ for _Harry Potter_!"

The crowd cheered yet again.

Suddenly, Voldemort raised both hands straight up in the air. The crowd hushed at once.

"We have company," Voldemort hissed.

The crowd burst into anxious chatter before Voldemort again raised both hands, instantly silencing them.

Voldemort appeared to be sniffing at the air, in search of something. "The boy is _here_!" he suddenly screamed. "_Find him_!"

The well-ordered event broke into chaos. The Death Eaters abandoned the levitating bodies in order to follow Voldemort's command. The people in the stands climbed over one another as they attempted to free themselves.

Hermione saw no more than that. Before she had time to consider what was happening, she was hurtling through the air. In just seconds, still panicked and shaking, she found herself squeezed back in the closet in Snape's kitchen.

Snape wrestled them around, fighting to reach the door in a dark contest of elbows. Confused, Hermione did not protest as he pushed her against the back wall and thrust open the door.

Snape hurried across the kitchen. Harry stumbled out in front of Hermione, both hands clutched to his forehead. Still disoriented, she followed him.

He had not complained about his scar in years. Now, as he lurched toward the sitting room, he seemed overwhelmed by it.

"Go upstairs," Snape ordered gruffly as he grabbed a few bottles from the potion rack and thrust them in his pocket. "I must seal you inside."

"What?" Hermione asked, astonished that Snape would leave them unprotected.

"Go!" Snape shouted.

"No!" she shouted back, torn between her concern for Harry and her need to understand. "Tell me why?"

"I must leave," he hurriedly said as he strode back toward the closet. "Now!" he added when he reached them.

He thumped them both on the head with his wand. This time, it felt as though warm water was dripping through her hair and down her back.

"Go!" Snape restated firmly, this time pointing toward the staircase when he said it.

She felt a tug at her sleeve.

"Come on, Hermione," Harry said, his voice shaking.

After maintaining her stare another second, Hermione complied. She followed Harry into the stairwell even though all she wanted to know was why. Why would Snape leave them alone now, of all times?

Once inside the stairwell, Harry slumped onto the nearest step, but she turned back. Snape still lingered in front of the closet, his right hand grasping his left forearm. Voldemort was calling.

Dread twisted yet again in her stomach. She feared what Snape would have to endure because of her, because of Harry. She wanted to apologize to him, but before she could even begin to form the words, Snape lifted his wand.

The bookcase slammed shut in her face. The edges of the secret door flashed a bright white as the door sealed shut. The light dissolved, leaving the stairwell completely dark. The loud squelching sound signaled that the spell had accomplished its task.

Aghast, Hermione stared at the place where she had seen Snape, obstructed now by the rudely shut bookcase, wondering if he would return. She wanted him to come back. She did not want him to leave. She did not want him to die, not because of her.

Harry grabbed Hermione forearm, pulling himself to his feet as he asked, "Do you think he's going to Dumbledore?"

"No," Hermione barely whispered. "He's going to prevent our murder, like always."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - Thank you to everyone following along at home.

My enormous thanks go to Michelle, the conciliator between this particular fairy-tale and me. She is very good at her job.

Another huge round of thanks goes to Shana, who read this chapter months ago and liked it even then.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 8**

With Harry and Hermione safely confined upstairs, Snape stepped back into the closet to answer the call of the Dark Mark. As always, it blazed with an insufferable pain that went clear to the bone while it passed along Voldemort's location. That pain would not abate until he Apparated to Voldemort. More to relieve the pain than anything, Snape closed the door and answered the call.

He reappeared in the clearing, on the very edge of the ceremonial pit.

Mere minutes had passed, making the scene a familiar one. The spectators frantically sought the nearest exits. The Death Eaters scoured the edge of the clearing. The din of numerous panicked and heated voices saturated the air.

Strewn at Snape's feet, nine corpses lay forgotten. Their shrouds fluttered in the breeze, permitting Snape brief glimpses beneath of one bloodied thing or another.

He chose to ignore them and peered into the hollow where Voldemort waited. The Dark Lord had maintained his post in the center of the stage, his nose toward the sky, Kingsley Shacklebolt's body crumpled on the concrete at his feet.

"My Lord, what has happened?" Snape called down, mindfully keeping his voice as unassuming as possible.

Voldemort spun on his heel. His eyes, red as the blazes of hell, openly displayed his fury.

"The boy was here!" Voldemort declared. "During the ceremony!"

"Are you certain?" Snape questioned cautiously.

"Of course I am certain!" Voldemort screeched.

With one twirl of his wand, a fiery whip emerged and sliced through the air until it encircled Snape's ankles. Suppressing the impulse to retaliate, Snape allowed Voldemort to snatch him from the edge.

Crashing to the stage floor, Snape landed on his side with a sickening thump as his bones collided with the stone. He clenched his jaw and disregarded the pain. After rolling onto his stomach, and away from Shacklebolt's remains, he looked up to see the foot of Voldemort's robes.

Snape knew what Voldemort demanded of his inferiors and quickly positioned himself to perform the demeaning gesture. Snape pulled his knees beneath him and rose up on his hands. He managed to force all of the rage from his mind before he took the hem of Voldemort's robe and lifted it to his lips.

When Snape finished, Voldemort stepped back.

"On your feet," he sneered.

With his hatred held firmly in check, Snape did as told. Although, standing face to face with the evil wizard did nothing to help Snape control his emotions.

"What progress have you made with the girl?" Voldemort demanded.

Snape focused every effort on maintaining the clarity of his mind. "My Lord, her mind weakens with every hour. I believe it is only a matter of days…"

"Days?" Voldemort exclaimed, his eyes wide with indignation. "She should be begging to tell what she knows!"

"She is very strong," Snape lied.

He had barely spoken the words when he felt the familiar ache stretch to the very recesses of his brain. Yet again, his mind was becoming a playground for the Dark Lord.

Snape hastily concocted a memory of Hermione bound to a simple wooden chair. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes slits, she wore the look of hatred that Snape had become familiar with while she denied his repeated attempts to gain access to her memories.

"One more day," Voldemort hissed as he released Snape's mind. "If you bring me nothing more by tomorrow evening, I shall take over the task. Tell her that she would do well to surrender what she knows to you and die quickly."

"Yes, my Lord," Snape answered, bowing his head slightly.

He awaited his next order, or his dismissal. Voldemort said nothing. His head tilted to the side, he looked disgustingly like a snake testing the air. He lacked only the flickering, forked tongue.

Having waited long enough, Snape asked, "My Lord, do you require my assistance in the search for the boy?"

After slowly turning his head toward Snape, Voldemort screamed, "Of course I do! Do any of these worthless imbeciles look as though they have succeeded?"

"No, sir," Snape obediently replied.

"Then get out of my sight!" Voldemort shrieked before he Disapparated. The echo of his words hung in the air long after he vanished.

Snape released the growl he had suppressed. Another year of undercover work would kill him. Another month would likely drive him insane. By any conservative estimate, he should have been dead, ten times over. Under similar circumstances, anyone else would have long since given up the crusade.

Nonetheless, he had to carry on with his unenviable duty as Voldemort's sycophant until the war ended. It sounded so simple in those uncertain terms, but it had become infinitely more complicated than anyone ever anticipated.

Two decades of dutiful servitude to the _side of the light_ had passed, garnering Snape the brand of murderer, a reputation as a traitor, and the ever-present Dark Mark. He would have never accepted the assignment had he known how tremendous a sacrifice it required.

Aware that Voldemort liked to watch from close by, Snape abandoned his thoughts and started to walk toward one of the narrow staircases. He nearly lost his footing. He had not noticed the pain with his mind barricaded. The fall had badly damaged his right hip. The pain from the injury stole his breath and nearly sent him to his knees.

Emptying his mind yet again, he jammed his wand into the flesh of his hip and muttered the general healing incantation. It only repaired the major damage. He would have to deal with the undoubtedly massive bruise that would soon develop. His next step less agonizing, he proceeded up the stairs to the surface.

The golden fires shed light on the now empty grandstands. All of the invitees had finally elbowed their way to a clear Apparition point. During one of the previous ceremonies, a few made the mistake of Apparating from the stands. The others quickly learned not to follow suit when they observed the unwitting runaway reappear in the middle of the fire, burned alive along with the other bodies.

Glancing at the ground to prevent tripping over a corpse, Snape recognized the intertwined gold bands on the hand of the body nearest his feet. The hand had slipped from beneath the burial wrapping. Palm down, fingers curled toward the earth, it looked as though Remus Lupin intended to crawl free. Snape stared at the hand longer than he wanted, long enough to regret it.

Lupin ceased being a Werewolf when he died a martyr. It would take several decades for the history books to omit every mention of Lupin's curse. During those years, the writers would embellish upon the detailed account of his fight to the death. It would be a story worthy of rearing stallions, brandished swords, and an Order of Merlin, First Class.

Snape foresaw the text so clearly that he wondered under what context his name would appear. Would it be as a murderer or as a martyr as well?

He promptly quashed the thought. If he lingered there any longer, the Dark Lord would seek an explanation. Snape tore his gaze from the dead and looked out over the drifted snow.

The only people left milling about were the many Death Eaters. They were still engrossed in their exploration along the perimeter of the clearing. Some were surely slogging through the snow and the trees in their search for the boy.

There was nothing for Snape to do but join in and look busy. Perhaps he would do his best to look angry, to look evil. He had become so very good at looking evil.

* * *

Holed up in the grayish, dreary bedroom, Harry and Hermione sat in silence for nearly an hour after Snape's hurried departure. She sat rigid on the edge of the bed. She had lit her wand some time ago and was now studying how the copious dust scattered the light from her wand into unnatural webs across the floor.

Harry remained unmoving where he had collapsed on the floor. His knees drawn to his chest, his face hidden in his arms, he looked like a bundle of black fabric and hair.

There had been no more conversation between the two. They had nothing to discuss. Ron was gone now. Hermione no longer had to envision where or how because she had witnessed it in all its startling and sickening detail. At the very least, Voldemort had not mutilated his body. That was a pathetic consolation.

Accompanying the comfort was a stitch of guilt. She should not have taken any comfort from that horrendous experience, but she did. It was Ron's funeral. It was as much closure as she would ever have and it would have to be enough. It would have been the mass cremation of all those slain in the massacre at the Riddle house if Voldemort had not been distracted.

Snape should have known better. That was her initial thought on the matter. Snape should have forbidden Harry to go along. Snape knew that Voldemort retained some sort of connection to Harry. Snape should have taken only her.

However, she could not blame the entire disaster on Snape. He should have forbidden her to go as well. He should have stopped her from making such a dreadful mistake. She could not bring herself to consider what he was suffering because of her mistake.

Harry's spiritless voice suddenly ended the silence. "I can't do this."

"We have to wait here," she answered absently. "We're sealed in, remember?"

"No," he sighed. "I can't fight him anymore. I won't."

Hermione looked up, astounded by Harry's remark. His glasses lay forgotten at his side while silent tears slipped down his cheeks. Shadows masked his eyes and cast ghostlike fingers across his face.

"How can I win?" Harry asked, his voice strained. "If I stop now, then no one else dies. No one else will die because of me."

Harry had become an expert at suppressing or disguising his every emotion. Hermione feared what might flood from him now.

She hurried to his side and knelt beside him. She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close until he shivered against her.

"This war will go on without you, Harry," she tried to soothe, her own voice sounding pathetic, even to her. "But with you, there's still a chance we can win."

"I don't care about winning anymore," he murmured before a sudden sob shook his body. "Voldemort's taken everything I have ever cared about. I should've died the first time. Then you wouldn't be here. Ron wouldn't be…"

"You see?" she cut in. "He hasn't taken everything. You still have me. Now you have Dumbledore. You aren't alone. Besides that, you cannot take the blame for the actions of a maniac who happens to be fixated on you. Voldemort made this about you. Don't let him deceive you as well."

"But it _is_ about me!" Harry declared, his voice regaining some of its strength. "That sodding Prophecy said so! Dumbledore said so! Everyone believes I'm something extraordinary, but I'm not. I lost again, didn't I? He beats me every time!"

"You didn't make the Prophecy and you didn't conform to it," Hermione said, more sternly than she intended. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, she was becoming frustrated. "Voldemort started this. Now we have to finish it. _You_ have to finish it."

"But…"

"But nothing," she affirmed as she tightened her hold on him. "You can place the blame wherever you like, but every single person who's died knew what they were getting into. They were not ignorant of the consequences. They volunteered for battle, and I assure you, they knew they might not survive. We all knew the dangers involved. We all had opportunities to walk away, to hide, and we didn't."

Harry's sobs intensified, but she kept talking.

"Stopping now means ignoring the sacrifices that have been made. Walking away now gives Voldemort what he wants and I know you don't want that. That is the difference between you and Voldemort, Harry. You care. People don't fight for you because they fear you. They do it because they love you. So many have died for you, for me, for what they believed in. So you can't quit. I won't let you."

At those words, Harry toppled over. Bringing with it all of his troubles, his full burden fell against her chest, the top of his head just below her chin. The weight of his despair alone nearly suffocated her. Settling back onto her heels, she supported him as best she could while he wept.

She had never seen him so distraught. His grief had always maintained a quiet dignity, even after Dumbledore's death, as they believed it to be at the time. Harry had Ron to strengthen him then, and Lupin. At present, she was his only comfort.

So there she stayed, at Harry's side. She eased his grief while ignoring her own. She knew that restraining herself was easier than losing control right along with him, no matter how tempted she was to do just that.

During seventh year, staying strong for Harry and Ron became extremely important to Hermione. She had always been the voice of reason, the foolproof mind of the trio. She took it upon herself to remain even-tempered, praying that it would help keep them all safe.

However, she had been wrong. She failed to protect them this time. The trio was broken forever.

The tears she had kept at bay for so long tingled again. She could not let them succeed. Instead, she concentrated on Harry's muffled sobs and ragged breaths on her shoulder.

She knew that he would feel better once he finished. He had to free the anguish or it would rule him. If he let his emotions control him, he would never end the war. She needed him to win the war. She would carry him as far and as long as necessary to achieve that end.

Kneeling on the hardwood, her legs aching, she held Harry until his shivering subsided. After several hours, it finally did.

She pushed the hair back from his eyes to find him asleep. He had exhausted himself. Without thinking, she shimmied free and levitated him to the bed.

After straightening his limbs, she removed his shoes and pulled the covers over him. Mostly out of habit, she checked the time. It was nearing midnight.

She extinguished her wand and crawled in beside him. She did not care what it looked like. She needed to be near him and she knew that he needed her there.

With any luck, they would both sleep through the night. The morning would greet them soon, along with Snape, safely returned from whatever trouble she had caused.

* * *

Snape fully expected Voldemort to release his frustration on whomever happened to be in his general vicinity. Snape was mindful enough of this fact to bring several painkillers from home, which had miraculously survived the fall. When he felt the pain creeping through his mental walls, he emptied both vials. He hoped they would last long enough to get him home.

Other followers had been tortured to the brink of death when Voldemort was on the offensive, which was becoming a rather frequent occurrence. Some of the younger Death Eaters were soiling their nappies when Voldemort first rose to power. They were unacquainted with his strong-arm tactics. One evening under Imperius or a stint of Cruciatus usually taught them to hold their tongues, or simply avoid Voldemort's line of sight.

Every fresh encounter with Voldemort tested Snape, more so of late. Too many years of the same abuse had taken their toll on him. He had made an alarming number of sacrifices in order to commit himself to the fight, some he could no longer remember. For some time, he had been questioning how much longer he would be able to continue the ruse.

To date, he had handed over every single year of his adult life to Albus Dumbledore and the war, years that he knew he would never see again. Albus was a genius, but he seemed oblivious to the deprivation Snape had suffered because of his assignment.

Snape had trouble seeing his work as anything other than a life sentence anymore. He feared that it would take his sanity, and eventually his life. Twenty years had gone by and they were really no closer to stopping Voldemort. Would all his work truly be for nothing? That thought, crossing his mind almost daily, turned Snape's stomach and inspired him to think about other things, namely nothing at all.

His faux search of the grounds took hours. They were not quick hours. They felt like days, interspersed with plaintive conversation from the dim witted about how angry Voldemort would be if they failed to produce the Potter boy.

After a wasteful eternity spent pretending to search, Snape was actually heartened to hear Voldemort's voice.

"Obviously, the boy is gone," his amplified voice echoed through the clearing. "We will complete the ceremony before any of you may leave."

Snape hindered his aggravation at the further delay. No sooner than he did, the Mark on his arm began to tingle. What did the bastard want from him now? Moreover, why did he have to use the sodding Mark every single time?

Reining in his thoughts, Snape Apparated from the south edge of the property. This time, he reappeared at center stage.

Before him stood Voldemort, flanked by Lucius on the right and Draco on the left. Although Voldemort looked irritated, both Lucius and Draco seemed tremendously pleased about something. The arrogant smirks curling their lips were not there by accident.

"Find out all that you can from the girl," Voldemort stated firmly. "I expect you to bring her to me tomorrow evening. Should she prove useless before then, do not kill her. I will dispense with her mind myself. Draco shall have her when I finish."

A vicious sneer replaced the smirk on Draco's lips. Snape could not imagine what the boy had done to earn such special consideration.

"My Lord," Snape said guardedly, "I have lost many hours of interrogation while searching the grounds. Perhaps you could extend the deadline."

"For what purpose?" Voldemort snapped. "I have been more than lenient with her by anyone's standards."

"Yes, sir," Snape conceded. "However, if she knows the whereabouts of Potter, or any other vital Order intelligence, we would be doing ourselves a disservice…."

"I know exactly what you want, Severus," Lucius interjected in his self-serving tone.

Snape's heart skipped its next beat.

"You do not want Draco to have the Mudblood at all," Lucius accused. "You…"

However, Voldemort interrupted Lucius before he could finish.

"I think Lucius is right," Voldemort said almost kindly. "There is a first time for everything." He paused as he smiled. "Severus, do tell."

"Tell you what, my Lord?" Snape inquired, particularly confused, if not curious.

"Tell me why you want to prolong your custody of the girl," Voldemort replied as though Snape was intentionally playing the dimwit. "Have you taken a liking to her?"

"Of course I have not," Snape answered, a bit too impulsively. "That is absurd, sir, to say the least."

"I do not believe it to be absurd," Voldemort said with a smirk. "You do realize that, as an elder, you are entitled to her above most, especially Draco. You refused any payment for Dumbledore's ever so timely death."

Draco's pallid face became even paler. "No!" he protested, his young face twisting into a scowl. "She's mine! You said so yourself!"

"Draco, shut your mouth," hissed Lucius, who looked unusually wary.

"Listen to your father," Voldemort warned as he turned toward the younger Malfoy. "Do you dare question me?"

"No…sir…my Lord," Draco stammered, visibly humbled.

"Good," Voldemort sneered before pacing toward Snape. "Now Severus, tell me that you will have her."

Briefly dumfounded by the turn the conversation had taken, Snape said nothing.

"You have no reason to be shy," Voldemort almost cooed when he reached Snape's side. "You have urges. She is young, and she could serve many a purpose besides tidying up that grubby house of yours."

In an obvious attempt to steer Voldemort's attention elsewhere, Lucius offered, "If Severus…"

"You are right, my Lord, as always," Snape said at last. "I would like to have her, if you are so inclined to permit it."

At these words, Lucius appeared angry while Draco looked positively crestfallen. However, Voldemort seemed infinitely pleased.

"At last you allow me to provide you with something," Voldemort said sincerely as he laid an icy hand on Snape's shoulder. "You will bring her to me tomorrow and I will take her mind myself. Do not trouble yourself with it now that she is yours."

That was not exactly what Snape wanted to hear, but it was certainly better than the alternative.

"You will join me tomorrow evening," Voldemort continued. "I will take care of her before dinner. Once I am through, she will be quiet enough that no one will know the filth is sitting near the table."

Voldemort laughed unaccompanied. Neither Lucius nor Draco seemed interested in laughter. Snape merely nodded, anxious to take his leave now that so much needed done, none of which he could think about while in Voldemort's presence.

"Go home, Severus," Voldemort concluded in a fatherly manner. "Enjoy her while she still has the wits to fight back."

He clapped Snape on the shoulder before rejoining Lucius and Draco, both still stewing, only a few paces away.

"Thank you, sir," Snape replied, feigning a gratified smile.

He paused only a second to appreciate Lucius' glare and Draco's pout. Snape was glad to have outwitted them, if only with their own misconceptions.

At last, Snape Apparated to the safety of the pitch-black broom closet in his unequivocally secure house on Spinner's End. Removed from Voldemort, he could finally free his thoughts.

Although Hermione was no longer reserved for a member of the Malfoy family, she still had to return to the house. Apart from that, Voldemort planned to absorb her mind, something he had not done since Bertha Jorkins. She was as good as dead when he finished with her.

Hermione's only hope was an advanced branch of Occlumency called Variable Memory. It was what had saved Snape's life for so many years. Snape was sure that it would spare Hermione's mind.

Convinced that standing in the closet was not helping in the least, Snape opened the door and carefully traversed the black kitchen. He had taken many a trip from that closet to the shelf, deliberately located to the right of the sink, on the kitchen counter.

His hip ached, as did his right shoulder. Snape had not experienced abuse like that in some time. That abuse was what had inspired him to amass a potions store for all occasions.

After locating a few of the bottles with square stoppers, he headed for the sofa. He was almost there before he remembered to unseal the bookcase. If he did manage to sleep, he did not want the golden twins banging to get out first thing in the morning.

He found the sofa easy enough and summoned the bottle of Firewhisky he had forgotten to grab from the kitchen. Another fluid wand wave opened the bottle and poured a fair amount into the waiting glass on the table.

He always looked forward to these moments, however fleeting, that allowed him to relax without the fear of imminent danger, when there was nothing but the quiet, the dark, and a hearty drink to help him sleep. The pain relievers would aid that purpose as well.

In the morning, he would have to convince the girl not to attend the memorial. That would probably be the most important task of all. If she chose to dive head first into her grief, she would be handing her mind to Voldemort on a silver platter.

* * *

Hermione was too exhausted to sleep, even with Harry's peaceful snores next to her ear. She tossed and turned, which only frustrated her, and that frustration did not help matters.

Her mind, unable to surrender to sleep, busied itself with thoughts of Snape, his predicament, his impending return. How long had he been gone? Several hours had passed, if not more. She had decided not to check her watch anymore. Over the course of the first hour, she had lit her wand fifteen times to see the hour and the repetition only annoyed her further.

Encouraged by her worries, she listened closely to every minute noise the house made. It shifted and settled on its decaying foundation, creaking and cracking eerily every now and again. The wind droned on against the wall next to her head, whistling through a few gaps in the siding. She waited with growing impatience for anything to interrupt the monotony.

Another long hour elapsed before Hermione heard footsteps. The deadened, hollow thuds sounded like Snape's footsteps. She certainly hoped they belonged to him.

Since sleep had evaded her while she contemplated his return, she thought a quick trip down the stairs would not hurt anything. She could reassure herself that he was uninjured. Besides that, assuming those footsteps were his and knowing they were his were two very different things.

She eased herself away from Harry and rolled silently off the bed. After lighting her wand, she followed a cautious path to the staircase. She tested each stair to make her journey a quiet one, and to prevent a misstep that would send her tumbling down them. When she reached the middle step, the bookcase flashed a pale white about the edges. Someone had unsealed it.

Her wand at the ready, her heart pulsing in her ears, she waited for the bookcase to open. It did not. It remained just as stationary as she had become. She stood completely still, in absolute silence, holding her breath in anticipation of a voice, or some means, by which to identify the person lurking on the other side. Nothing answered her.

After waiting a terribly long time, remaining stock-still all the while, she assumed that she had overreacted and tiptoed down the last few steps. With the utmost care, she pushed open the door just enough to squeeze through into the living area.

The downstairs was equally as dark as the stairwell. Her wand lit up no more than a square foot or so in front of her. If that someone who had unsealed the bookcase happened to be lurking just ahead, she would have never known.

Simply as a precaution, she eased the bookcase shut before proceeding.

"What are you doing up?" Snape muttered.

In spite of the fact that she had come downstairs solely because of him, his voice scared the hell out of her. He spoke the words softly, but in the silence, he might as well have screamed them. She barely managed to get a hand over her mouth in time to muffle her startled scream.

Lowering her hand quickly, she attempted to sound confident when she answered, "I heard something."

"I am delighted that you chose to abandon safety to investigate," he remarked, the disapproval in his tone unmistakable.

Although he was right, his narrow observation annoyed her. She had known straight off that those were his footsteps. At least, she had hoped as much.

"It is no matter now," Snape added, sounding no less harsh. "I need to speak with you, and now seems to be as good a time as any."

This news did not settle Hermione's nerves. It frayed them even more. In an instant, she felt as though she were back at Hogwarts, in detention. Snape was angry with her. She had done something stupid, like sneaking an ingredient into Neville's cauldron to prevent an explosion. Now, she would have to endure a lecture for sparing everyone the singed eyebrows.

Suddenly, an oil lamp sprang to life. Its inadequate, sickly glow attempted to shine light on the sitting room, but it failed. Hermione could barely see Snape who was sitting right beside it.

Disregarding her apprehension, she took the few steps necessary to stand before him and accept her unwarranted lecture. The coffee table was now all that stood between her and her punishment while she compiled a mental list of all the reasons why she did not deserve to be punished.

However, she quickly realized that Snape was not waiting for her with his stern, Professor's gaze. Instead, he was fiddling with some bottles in his hands. They clinked together as he rolled them from hand to hand. He was watching them much more closely than her. He seemed anxious. Of course, she quickly realized how silly that notion was. He was never anxious.

Slouched in his seat, he had not crossed his legs in the dignified Snape fashion, but appeared to have forgotten about them entirely. His knees jutted out toward the coffee table in an almost careless way. Worn by the man who appeared buttoned-up and buttoned-down at all times, the posture alone was disturbing.

"Have a seat, Miss Granger," he said, his voice so low she hardly heard him.

Preoccupied by his appearance, she failed to follow his direction straight off.

His eyes rolled up from the bottles and caught her staring. She could not stop herself from blushing. Thankfully, the room was very dark.

"I am not concerned about where you sit," he said smoothly, "just as long as you do."

She nodded, recognizing immediately that she had a choice to make. She could choose the chair across the room, which was well beyond the bounds of the light emitted by the nearly useless oil lamp. On the other hand, there was the sofa next to, or very close to, Snape.

What should have been a split second decision gave her heart palpitations. In order to prevent further annoying him, she took a few hurried steps and settled on the sofa very close to, but not next to, him.

Although an entire cushion separated their seats, Hermione still felt oddly out of place, and too terribly chummy. Contented that she had acquired the knowledge she sought--that Snape was alive and on the premises--she decided to hurry their impromptu reunion along.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I should never have insisted upon…"

He raised his left hand that now held the three small bottles as he interrupted. "That is irrelevant," he stated firmly. "No harm was done, and I assume your curiosity was justly satisfied."

"Yes," she dutifully replied.

He lowered his hand and shifted the potion vials yet again.

"Then I see no need for apologies," he said slowly. "More importantly, we now have a dilemma."

"What kind of dilemma?" she asked, instantly curious why Snape was bothering to discuss it with her.

"The kind that will prove challenging. Is there any other kind?" he asked in a tone much more identifiable to Professor Snape.

He hesitated as he looked up, toward the ceiling, to the blackness beyond the reach of the lamplight. After he took a deep breath, he continued in a gentler voice.

"I have to return you to the Dark Lord tomorrow evening."

That did not sound so bad to her, not when she considered all of the other, dreadful things that Snape might have said.

"All right, when?" she asked, as though it were that simple.

"Before dinner," he replied silkily, almost jovially. "Voldemort will absorb your mind. Then we will join him for a feast."

Although he was clearly being sarcastic, certain parts of his statement meant nothing to Hermione. Before she had a chance to raise any questions, Snape went on.

"Tomorrow, I will attempt to train you in Variable Memory. It is the only way to protect your mind while providing the Dark Lord with what he wants. We will need all the time that we have to prepare."

Whatever Snape was talking about, it seemed very serious, extremely so, though the magnitude was lost on Hermione. She figured that it was in her best interest to go along until he elaborated.

"That's fine," she said agreeably. "I'll be gone for…"

Snape looked at her at last. His eyes were wide, and disturbed, if that were even possible. It must have been the lighting, or lack thereof.

"You cannot become overly emotional," he insisted. "An excess of emotions would make it impossible for you to grasp the techniques necessary to master Variable Memory. You must master it, or else you _will_ lose your mind."

"Lose my mind?" she questioned, temporarily skeptical. "I thought Voldemort used Legilimency?"

"Absorption is a form of Legilimency," Snape replied, quite matter-of-factly. "However, Absorption grants the practitioner complete control over your memories. The Dark Lord does not want to analyze them. He wants to remove them from your mind in their entirety."

"That sounds an awful lot like Legilimency to me," she commented, failing to keep the cheek out of her voice.

Snape sighed, returning his gaze to the bottles in his hands before he stated, "Absorption is not complicated. Think of your mind as a sponge. It contains everything that you have ever known from the very moment you were born. What Voldemort wants to do is squeeze those memories from the very recesses of your mind and then absorb them into his own."

"So that he'll know everything that I know?" she asked, seemingly finishing Snape's sentence. She had yet to understand what made this any different from plain, old Legilimency.

"Yes," Snape answered, clearly aggravated, as he explained further. "But you will no longer know any of it. Your mind will be blank. You will have no memory of who you are, of anything that you have ever done or learned, apart from your very basic motor functions. You will be able to walk, and perhaps talk. In essence, _you _will be dead while your body and soul live on as though you had never existed."

The cold fingers that closed in around her stomach told Hermione that she finally understood.

"I have to master Variable what?" she asked timidly as she came to terms with the enormity of _the dilemma_.

"Variable Memory," he repeated, speaking slowly yet again. "It will protect what you know while showing the Dark Lord what he requires to see. We will begin with basic Occlumency and work toward it."

Suddenly, Snape leaned forward, nearly slamming the bottles down on the table. With his elbows still on his knees, he turned his head in her direction, his face set in his usual scowl.

"This skill takes years to fully develop," he said emphatically. "I understand that you want to attend the memorial, but this is infinitely more important…"

"I understand," she hurried to explain in order to curb his outburst. "I…I won't fight you on that."

He nodded once as he reclaimed the bottles, although he did not lean back.

"We will begin first thing in the morning, at first light," he instructed hurriedly. "You need to be rested."

"All right," she replied, sensing that he wanted rid of her. "I'll go to bed then, if that's all."

He hesitated as he tapped his right index finger against the nearest bottle. "It is," he answered.

"Goodnight then," she said as she stood.

He acknowledged her with a nod, so she started toward the bookcase.

"Miss Granger?"

Trying not to imagine what he had to say to her now, she reluctantly turned back.

"It would be best not to inform Mr. Potter about this," he advised the bottles in his hands.

"Why shouldn't I tell him?" she automatically asked.

"Because he may feel inclined to protect you," Snape explained, yet again to the bottles.

Considering their recent experiences, Hermione agreed. "All right then. What do you suggest I tell him?"

"Tell him that the Dark Lord may summon us at any time," Snape readily replied, as though he had the story prepared from the start. "If that does not suffice, send the boy to me for further clarification."

"He'll still want to protect me from Voldemort," she countered.

"Yes," Snape said, drawing out the word. "However, he will not seek to protect you from me."

Recalling the failed Occlumency lessons of only a few years before, Hermione understood. Without further delay, she walked the remainder of the way to the bookcase and yanked it open.

Before she entered the stairwell, she glanced back at Snape, who still seemed keen on the vials in his hands. She had not overlooked the open bottle of Firewhisky on the coffee table either. She spent an instant wondering what those smaller bottles contained. However, they were not all that she thought in need of concern.

Isolated from the din of the rest of the world, situated in an unfamiliar place, there seemed to be nothing that wanted to stay certain in her world. Snape seemed to be no exception to this.

Although she remained confident that every notion she had ever formed about the man's character rang true, in one sense or another, it was difficult not to see the man Snape was at the end of a very long day. His posture alone was so very different from what she had come to expect.

In that moment, he looked like any other man, any average man, who might sit alone and second-guess the validity of his work or ponder his limitations. His features were drawn, his shoulders tense, his arms pulled close to his sides. He was certainly thinking, perhaps devising his strategy, or refining it. He had innumerable variables to consider and outlandish odds to reckon with.

Just then, she could not remember what made her believe that he was unfeeling. He was human, had always been, and she had been a fool to think that he was anything else.

To her horror, a glint of light shone in his eyes as they shifted in her direction. He caught her staring, again.

Startled, she hurried into the stairwell and pulled shut the massive door, somewhat harder than she intended. To her displeasure, something rattled loose on the other side and thudded to the floor.

She winced, shoved the bookcase open once more, and sidled around the edge. Her toe nudged the fallen book as she stepped out. After picking it up, she slid it onto a random shelf and thanked goodness that it fit.

Chancing a glance back at Snape, she found that he had now given her his full attention.

"What have those books ever done to you?" he asked nonchalantly.

She donned a tentative smile as she replied, "Nothing, except make me look like a fool."

Without awaiting his reply, she retreated behind the bookcase and took special care to shut it gently this time.

Overall, she was glad that she went to check on him, not that he required her concern. At the very least, she found it comforting to know that he was home.

In truth, she did not mind missing the memorial. She hated the thought of Harry going alone, but she liked the idea of the added distance it put between herself and everyone else's grief. Perhaps she would have time to rein in her own before she had to trudge through theirs as well.

Besides, she had other matters on her hands, much more urgent matters, like protecting her mind from Voldemort. She just hoped that she proved better suited to Occlumency than she did cooking.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - My immeasurable thanks go to Michelle, the self-proclaimed Lizzie Borden of the Beta-universe.

My considerable thanks go to Shana, who has hopefully settled into New Orleans with style.

Now, without further ado, I present the next piece of the puzzle, which has developed into this epic chapter. I hope you all enjoy.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 9**

To Snape's near astonishment, the door stayed shut, which meant Hermione was gone. Relieved to be alone, he returned his interest to the potion vials, the ones he so longed to take.

Throughout their discussion, he felt his joints stiffen as his body attended to the dismal task of repairing itself. The predictable ache followed, no longer eased by the first dose of pain medicine. He could block out the resurgence of pain while he was conscious, but only action would put him out of his misery while he slept.

Thanks to the feeble lamplight, he saw that he had blindly taken two mugwort infusions and one willow from the stock shelf in the kitchen. He hoped they would be enough to serve his purpose.

After picking up the half-empty glass of Firewhisky, which he had neglected in Hermione's presence, he removed the stoppers from each vial with his thumb and drained all three into it. He deposited the empty vials on the side table while he drew circles in the air with the bottom of the glass, as a connoisseur might do before tasting. Of course, he merely sought to mix the swill.

Hesitating only long enough to smell the brew, which stank of alcohol and aspirin, Snape took a cautious sip. Though the liquor dulled the taste, the medicinal bitterness shoved to the forefront. There was just no way to make a pain reliever taste anything less than horrible.

With a few hurried gulps and the occasional grimace, he finished the concoction and refreshed the glass with undiluted liquor. He had to get as much sleep as possible, after all.

His freefall to the stage had done little more than add to the list of places on his body that hurt. Although the right side of his frame pained him more than the rest, it did not distract entirely from the soreness in his back or the slightly queasy fatigue that had more than settled in.

He welcomed the weariness as he might his own bed, if it had been vacant. He allowed the sickly dizziness to own him, to make him weak, solely because he knew that no one required anything more of him that evening. It was his turn to convalesce.

His legs had already given in to the exhaustion. If he chose to stand, he knew he would not be able to for long. His head throbbed as well, from Voldemort's second attack. The man had a vicious way of claiming a mind and it always left a mark, however transitory.

Snape could not imagine how the girl would learn enough in such a short time to defend against Voldemort's skills as a Legilimens. For a moment, Snape nearly stumbled down the path of conjecture, prepared to envision Hermione's demise, or more specifically, the erasure of her mind.

Instead, he ignored those pessimistic qualms. He planned to do his best to prepare her. If he were honest, of all the minds of all the students he had ever had the misfortune to teach, hers was the brightest. To have it wiped clean, for absolutely no purpose, was a waste. Furthermore, handing her memories to Voldemort would serve no function. She would become a walking corpse while Snape would be as good as dead.

Although the prospect of death sounded restful, at best, he knew it was but a wistful thought of his persecuted mind. He had a job to do. Furthermore, he had a worthwhile job to do. Revisiting his Professorial role promised a challenge, one he accepted willingly. If he succeeded, the girl would live. Hers would be the only life he had managed to save in over a year.

Snape had planned to speak with Hermione in the morning, after she rested, unhindered by her newest predicament. Apparently, she had not rested at all.

He had known the girl was the culprit as soon as the floorboards rattled beneath the old built-in. Only she might want something from him in the dead of night.

Besides her attempt at an apology, she mentioned no reason for her excursion besides having heard something. The news Snape imparted most certainly sidetracked her.

He had expected her to argue with him concerning the memorial, but she offered no protest. Apparently, she grasped the extent of the danger headed her way.

Delving into the idea of her possession just then seemed pointless. That detail was immaterial, for the time being. He would eventually have to tell her that Voldemort regarded her as little more than a souvenir. Snape would then explain that her _possession_ was purely an illusion existing only in the minds of the mentally unstable.

That group of miscreants included Voldemort, any direct descendant of a Malfoy, the majority of Pure-blood families, a surprising number of Half-bloods, and the occasional wayward Muggle-born. It was a large group of witches and wizards, and Snape took pride in the fact that he disagreed with them all.

The analgesics were working well. The ache had receded from most of his body as the Firewhisky spread its appreciated numbness through his brain, but it had been a poor choice. As he emptied the most recent glass, a veritable flood of well-repressed memories began to surface in his mind. After reloading the glass, he reclined on the sofa, mindful of his injured leg and the dull soreness that persisted there. After another sip, he was well on his way to reminiscing.

* * *

The walk up the stairs allowed Hermione the time to realize exactly what was in store for her. Upon reaching the top step, she found it very difficult to enter the bedroom. In fact, she felt suddenly encumbered by some gravity far too powerful to resist. Perhaps her knees had given out. Either way, it was as though someone had pulled the pins from her knees when she slumped onto the top step, the enormity of what Snape had said truly settling in.

Occlumency was complicated. Adding an ever more convoluted variation to the skill was daunting, to say the least. Variable Memory, Snape called it. While researching Occlumency for Harry years before, she had read quite a few essays on the subject, and only one mentioned a more advance technique.

The study of Advanced Occlumency, as the essay labeled it, drove more people mad than not. It commanded superior discipline from its practitioners like no other, apart from Legilimency.

The essay went on to say that memories and thoughts, when tampered with, took on a mind of their own, in a sense. Without vigilant care, a person could lose themselves in between the real and the fabricated worlds.

Hermione had not understood what those details meant when she first read them as the article offered no textbook description of Advanced Occlumency, its effects, or its purposes. Now as she shivered on the landing, surprisingly cold and wholly petrified, she understood far more than she wished. She knew then that Variable Memory and Advanced Occlumency were one and the same.

Variable Memory surely involved a working knowledge of the rudimentary principles of Occlumency, knowledge she certainly did not possess. Basic Occlumency required years of study and hours of practice. A person did not decide one day to master it.

Hermione gasped to herself, her eyes the size of dinner plates. Her heart chose that moment to lodge in her throat, beating louder and faster than she thought humanly possible.

She did not have the luxury of years, months, or even days to prepare. She had Snape, an indefinite timeline, and the dubious stories Harry had told her of his Occlumency lessons.

How was she supposed to master something in half a day that she had never attempted before? She had been wrong. She was not going to die for the war. She was going to lose her mind for it. She realized then that she would much rather die.

She stopped the thought short, deciding that now was the time to refocus her attention elsewhere.

* * *

The memories surfaced effortlessly in Snape's mind, unlike each time he had sought to draw them out before. It was as though his first, simpler thoughts freed the rest, only to become lost in the resultant stampede. Powerless to stop them, he closed his eyes and prepared himself to brave the impending rush of history.

His mother's name--her maiden name--was Eileen Prince. She had descended from a very long, worryingly straight line of Pure-bloods. Her family tree possessed several, short branches to almost every Pure-blood family on Wizarding record.

Eileen's paternal grandmother, born a Goyle--which was not something the family admitted openly unless necessary--married a Prince. Eileen's maternal grandmother, born a Nott, married a Lestrange. Eileen's mother, born a Lestrange, married a Prince. Many of the same names appeared throughout the generations, as well as the occasional Black, Malfoy, and Macnair.

The intermarrying, a maneuver to maintain the purity of Wizarding blood, posed a problem every time a generation reached the age of consent and attempted to wed another Pure-blood. There were only so many to go around.

All the while, the purest of the pure further complicated matters with their reluctant reproduction. Most Pure-blood unions produced one child. There were rare exceptions to this rule, but the Princes were not one of them.

Eileen was an only child and the last direct descendant of the Prince lineage. Her parents spoiled her, sparing none of their collective wealth to entertain or educate her from an early age. Along with their indulgence came one demand. That she find a suitable Slytherin with whom to continue the bloodline while at Hogwarts. Her parents knew the Prince surname would die with them, but the continuation of the bloodline mattered more than the name.

Over the course of Eileen's first few years at school, she worried little about the burden her parents had bestowed upon her. Boarding school allowed her a great deal of distance from her family, a distance she grew to appreciate. The fireplace in the common room seemed the perfect place to stow her parents' letters, especially before she wasted her time reading them.

Her parents simply refused to believe that their daughter was one of the least attractive girls in her house. Though Pure-bloods put on a good show, they were just as critical of each other as they were of everyone else. However, they were often blind to their own shortcomings.

Given that Eileen had inherited her mother's long, pale face and her father's heavy brow, she appeared cross even when she was at ease. A mop of stringy, deep brown hair added to the illusion of ugliness. After many a failed attempt with shampoos, soaps, and charms to alter her appearance, she accepted her fate as a plain, ungainly girl.

She busied herself with clubs and schoolwork, distracted herself from the lack of friendship from her schoolmates and her failure to put forth the proper effort to create any alliances. Potions class took most of her attention, her ability to create and invent allowing her to feel confident if only for one hour or so every day. When she was not adding notations to her Potions textbook, she was practicing her other love, Gobstones.

Solely because of her skill, her fellow members of the team elected Eileen Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team toward the beginning of her fifth year. Around this same time, her parents began sending her a monthly allowance of five Galleons, quite a lot in those days, along with their strangely motivational letters.

Their letters always preached at length about her obligation. They specified boys who she should get to know. Perhaps get to know very well. They told of parents who were thrilled about the prospect of a Pure-blood bride for their scarcely pubescent Pure-blood son.

Eileen found it all dreadfully ridiculous. In her mind, the world did not hinge on her finding a mate, or on perpetuating bloodlines. She was still a child, and wanted to continue as one for a while longer.

Although the transformation took place gradually, agonizingly so, Eileen grew out of her gracelessness to an extent over the course of her school career. Not surprisingly, the stigma of the awkward girl she had been throughout her early years, and the clumsy girl she still was, stuck with her as though she was destined to remain the outsider forever.

When her seventh year was nearly over, Eileen had grown somewhat tall and quite slender. Now that she had grown into her long face, it fit quite well with her thin build. She developed very late, having no need for the undergarments her fellow roommates had been wearing for years until she was nearly seventeen.

Her hair seemed to understand the other changes and, if she washed it everyday, it resembled actual hair instead of its natural appearance as a grubby mop head. Sometimes, she even managed to force her bangs to take on a bit of a curl, hiding the heavy forehead she had learned long ago not to dwell on.

By then, Eileen looked quite normal, which seemed a vast improvement from ugly. Even so, she seemed incapable of attracting a Pure-blood, or any-blood, for that matter. Her Hogwarts days nearly over, she was still without a suitor. In spite of everything, she did not view this as a set back.

Her parents' constant needling about her personal life had become nothing more than a mosquito's relentless buzzing. She could disregard it, shoo it away with a casual wave of her hand as long as she wished, because she had become accustomed to it over the years. As of yet, it was harmless. However, somewhere deep down, Eileen knew it was something that would come back to bite her in the end.

After Headmaster Dippet dismissed her class for the last time from the Great Hall, she returned to the manor, prepared to face the inevitable disappointment of her parents. Even though she earned a NEWT in every subject she had tested for, her parents refused to recognize that as success.

They took her failure to seek out a mate, like a well-trained brood mare, as a personal insult. More times than she cared to count, they told her that she had intentionally disobeyed them, that she had put little to no energy into her appearance, into attracting a boy from one of the more prestigious families. They vowed--more to themselves than to her--that Eileen would be married and out of their house by the end of the summer.

To achieve their objective, Eileen's parents arranged many a social gathering during the first few weeks of that summer. They goaded her toward every available Pure-blood bachelor, both young and old. At first, the unending procession of bachelors proved entertaining.

Eileen found the cavalcade of men oddly amusing as they feigned interest in her. Some looked her up and down as though she were a racing broom they might consider purchasing if she had the right kind of Cushioning Charm. Others deemed her unworthy from the start.

Many of the younger men had their pick of the prettiest or wealthiest available witches. Eileen was not pretty, nor was she a member of one the most affluent families. She was mediocre, in every sense of the word, by Pure-blood standards.

The men who did show an interest in her were usually the oldest of the lot. They were not rich men who could have bought a bride if necessary. They were also not terribly handsome.

One such man strode up to Eileen during a garden party at the Malfoy estate, took her hand, and told her that she would do if none of the other girls would have him. Eileen explained to him that she was not a sandwich, that she was not about to tolerate his referring to her as leftovers, and quietly charmed the seam on the rear of his trousers to rip the next time he chose to take a seat.

The man's eventual embarrassment, or baring of his arse, could not elevate Eileen's already dwindling self-esteem. She felt cheapened every time she dressed herself up to do her parents' bidding and prance about for the men they presented to her.

Eventually, she could no longer cheer herself up before, during, or after the numerous parties she lumbered through in search of a suitable match. Luckily, she still held the power of veto, which meant she could say yes or no to anyone. Since she was not interested in her parents' designs for her, she consistently said no.

Eileen wanted to continue her studies and ultimately contribute something meaningful to Wizarding society, besides a flock of Slytherin's finest. The longer she participated in the charade, the more confined she felt.

There were many times, shut up in the palatial room she called her own, when she wondered if the next step would be to cage her up so the men could view her in her natural habitat, then signal their approval with a thumbs up or thumbs down. She did not feel like a princess in a glass case, but like an insect trapped behind a windowpane, trying desperately to break free, but too stupid to figure out exactly how.

In mid-August, her parents confirmed her worst fears, although there was not an actual cage involved. As though all hope had been lost, they began to discuss arranged marriages. Their decision threw Eileen from her complacent denial into all out desolation. Her parents were prepared to coerce her into a marriage, any suitable marriage, perhaps with a distant relative, or with a not-so-distant relative. The idea sickened her.

She desperately wanted something else, something simpler. She wanted to make her own decisions, think her own thoughts. She could not do so with parents who always spoke for her, or at her. Of course, she never spoke for herself, either.

Eileen stopped attending the parties while her parents sought out a deal with the highest bidder. Her parents had yet to mention a dowry, but she was sure one was likely to exchange hands.

Unable to accept the current state of affairs, when the word marriage became synonymous in her mind with the word prison, Eileen began to sneak away to the small Muggle towns that dotted the countryside near the Prince's manor. She craved a setting where people would not look down on her, where they would not judge her. She like the anonymity these hamlets provided. No one knew her, not even by association. Therefore, they all but ignored her, which she much preferred to the company of her own family.

Two weeks into the month of August, she happened upon the meandering stream that wound its way along the edge of a cobbled road called Spinner's End. The stream was the quietest place she had ever visited. The trees seemed to cease their swaying while she listened to the soft voice of the water and reveled in the tranquility that came in the absence of all things magical. From then on, that was where she went to escape.

Even though the stream presented her first safe haven since Hogwarts, it also allowed her a peaceful place to think. Confronted with the thought of an arranged marriage, she almost wished she had accepted the hand of one of the previous men, even one of the loathsome ones. At least then, she would have had a say in the matter.

Some nights, she managed to forget the troubles assailing her and relish the utter silence that surrounded her. Other nights, she wrapped herself in her cloak and wept hopeless, desperate tears, praying that something, anything would deliver her from the constraints of her family legacy. On the last day of August, Eileen received a reply, of sorts.

She was spending another evening in her tranquil hideaway, tightly wrapped in her cloak, watching the current turn the reflected moonlight into threads of silver. She heard what she thought was an animal seeking refuge in the brush before she toppled over onto the ground.

Lying atop her was a very surprised, and now very amused, man. His laugh, so lighthearted and cheerful, eased her initial fright and replaced it with a tentative smile.

While they lay sprawled on the grass, Eileen apologized profusely for tripping him. The man apologized for intruding upon her evening. He explained that he sometimes ambled along the stream instead of staying to the main road, which led to his house.

Thoroughly embarrassed, still lying in a tangle on the grass, Eileen invited the stranger to sit with her. The question escaped her lips before she could check it. Her loneliness burst forth and screamed for company. The scream, merely a timid question, sounded much louder and brasher to her ears.

She denied that her offer had anything to do with his windswept, black hair, or his eyes that amazed her when she first looked into them, eyes that were like still water reflecting the moonless, starless, blackest sky.

To her disbelief, the man smiled and politely accepted her invitation. After righting themselves, they exchanged another round of apologies. The man held out his hand and introduced himself as Tobias Snape. Eileen hurried to take his hand and introduced herself, disclosing only her first name.

A hazy silence followed, the kind laden with the uncertainties of what should happen next. Eileen had very little experience with polite conversation that was not, in some way, about magic. She wished then that she knew more facts about the Muggle world, but Tobias soon opened the conversation.

At first, he spoke of nothing in particular. The peach-colored wildflowers proved a successful topic, as did the hollow tree across the stream. They spent quite some time debating how many owls had taken up roost in it. They never could decide upon a number.

He told stories of his work in detail, which may well have been in a foreign language, because she understood none of them. She discovered quickly that friendly conversation was just as foreign to her as the Muggle world, so she smiled and nodded often.

When not staring at her knees, Eileen tried to look at her new friend. Unfortunately, every time she did, she felt the heat from a thousand suns on her cheeks. Then she giggled. She suddenly hated the way she sounded when she laughed. She thought it sounded childish, and for some reason, she did not want him to perceive her as childish.

Much to Eileen's relief, he seemed unexpectedly reticent as well. When he was not wearing a half-smile that made him look slightly drunk, he was studying the ground and fidgeting with the overgrown weeds.

When a lull in the conversation struck, Eileen asked after his family. Tobias beamed at her for a second, then commenced with beheading the weeds while he spoke candidly about his parents.

His father had passed away many years before, so he remembered little of the man. His mother had lived only long enough to see him enter secondary school. The only possession they left him was their modest house on Spinner's End. He had been on his way there when he nearly broke his neck by stumbling over her.

They wiled away the rest of that evening, and part of the next morning, chatting about nothing in particular. She said nothing of being a witch, and Tobias asked nothing about her vague answers to his questions.

When the sky to the east turned pale pink, Eileen jumped to her feet, fearfully aware of the time. She apologized, adding that she had to get home before her parents found her gone. Tobias seemed to understand. Knowing she would perhaps never see him again, and saddened by the notion, she waved him goodbye. Before he could climb to his feet, she thanked him and ran into the shadows of the trees where she Disapparated.

The following evening, Eileen returned to her most favorite place, burdened with the same worries that kept her from sleeping a wink. Why had the man stayed with her? He could have left at any time, laughed at her like so many before. Those thoughts still churned in her head when she stepped out from the trees and found Tobias, lying on his back in the grass.

She stopped dead where she stood. The man with the spectacular eyes, long legs and, as she noticed then, a rather large nose was either napping or waiting for her. A bird announced its presence behind her, causing Tobias' head to snap up from the ground. His eyes fell upon her and her dumbfounded expression when his half-smile appeared. Then he asked if she would join him on the grass and, of course, she did.

Every evening Eileen visited the stream and every evening Tobias awaited her there. She began to wonder if she was imagining him, if her harassed mind had invented the thoughtful man who was genuinely interested in her company. Not one to spoil her own hallucination, she continued to meet him every night and chat about things she knew nothing about just to be with him.

Eileen felt silly, because the more time she spent with Tobias, the more nervous she became. She was dreadfully aware of his hands as they demolished the weeds between them, mindful of how close they were to her leg.

Sometimes she could look at him when he laughed at some comment she made and laugh with him, like when she let a remark about a house-elf slip. Other times, when he met her gaze, she suffered those thousand suns on her cheeks again and knew something akin to embarrassment. She was unsure exactly what it meant when her stomach twinged as though she had just swallowed a live grasshopper. Nevertheless, the more it happened, the more she enjoyed their nightly meetings at the stream.

Tobias never questioned her reluctance to socialize during the day or to venture beyond the banks of the stream. Her parents knew too many people in the adjacent communities, both Muggle and otherwise. She could not permit anyone to see her away from home, most of all with Tobias. Certainly not when summer had come and gone and her parents had not found a Pure-blood that they approved of to marry her.

Eileen found it easier to overlook her troubles at home now that she had Tobias to think about while she passed the time between their encounters locked in her room. She daydreamed that he liked her, that he could love her, but she soon stopped wondering about such things.

It was the first day of October when Tobias showed up with a treacle tart for the two to share. A few days later, he brought an entire feast of luncheon meats and bread, fruit, and a lovely, though sour, bottle of wine. She had never been on a date, let alone had a boyfriend, so she remained blissfully ignorant of Tobias' intentions until after they had finished the wine. Tobias leaned in during one of her tipsy laughs and kissed her.

Thankfully, she never went into detail when recounting this part of the story, but she did express how beautiful Tobias made her feel just by liking her, even if she knew better.

Eileen and Tobias continued dating, if one would call it that, only at night and only along the stream. Tobias claimed to have nothing better to do than sit with her, talk with her, be with her. He told her stories of his friends, of their many tribulations with the girls they courted. He told her how different she was from any girl he had ever known. She almost winced at that because she knew just how different she was.

Toward the end of October, Tobias asked to meet her family. She was hesitant, mindful of her family's plans for her and the consequences she faced if she deviated from them in any way.

She stalled him. She deferred in every possible way, without resorting to lies. To her annoyance, Tobias was not a man to take someday as an answer. When she could delay no longer, when the guilt of keeping the secret from him hurt more than the knowledge itself, she told him the entire outlandish and wholly implausible story of the Magical world. Initially, Tobias suggested that, perhaps, she was mad with fever.

Eileen laughed away his disbelief and the hand he had testing her forehead. She had her wand with her and, with the burden of the secret lifted, she proceeded to turn her hair every imaginable color. She summoned stones and sticks from across the stream. She levitated a moldering log, and then Tobias himself, to prove that she was not a lunatic. He took surprisingly little convincing.

After that, she felt secure enough to tell Tobias of her family, of every detail surrounding her responsibility as a Pure-blood. Tobias seemed angry, the only anger she had ever seen in him, when he told her that he would not stand aside while she married another.

Rising swiftly to his feet, Tobias asked her to run away with him, to live with him. To Eileen, the proposition was outlandish, apart from impossible. Her parents would use every available magical resource. They would find her and Tobias, and they would not take mercy on him as they would her, their only child. She knew that much.

Tobias persisted, visibly frustrated. He implored her to listen, to believe that she was not property that her parents could buy and sell. He said that she would have him to protect her, that he would marry her, if she would have him. Then he bravely offered his hand to help her up from the ground and lead her away from the only life that she had ever known.

Shocked by his proposal, Eileen could not answer. She went over the countless scenarios of what might happen to them both. There was no way to explain to him the danger of his request. From the stubborn look on his face, she wondered if the threat of death would even faze him.

Eileen did not possess the will to deny Tobias, not when he offered her salvation so honestly and honorably, asking for no more than her trust. She took his hand and never bothered to look back. She placed all her trust in a man that she hardly knew. She did not know yet if she loved him, but she believed that he would care for her. She could not say the same for any Pure-blood she had ever known.

After that night, Eileen never willingly returned to her family. She returned with Tobias to his house, a rundown two-story at the end of Spinner's End. A few weeks later, in an unofficial ceremony solemnized by the local minister, Eileen and Tobias married in secret from both the Magical and Muggle worlds.

She assumed life as a Muggle and began to make a home for them in the house they now shared. Tobias provided their main source of income working at the Mill. Wanting to contribute in some way to the household, Eileen used her knowledge of plants and their magical properties to make various brews for the locals.

Most often, Tobias delivered the potions for her. When he was unable, she risked casting a glamour to disguise her looks so she could make the deliveries herself. From the very first day she left her family, she used her wand only for the simplest of magic. Otherwise, she endangered Tobias and herself. She knew the Ministry of Magic could trace such things and she was not willing to take the risk.

Eileen's fear, which closely resembled paranoia at first, faded slowly as she relaxed into her new life. It was a clumsy transition at first. They learned more than they probably wanted to know about each other in such close quarters. They came to know each other as enemies when disagreements sprang up, and as husband and wife in between. However, it was more than she ever dreamed.

As his wife, she had opinions and rules of her own. She had her own life, her own home, and eventually a love for Tobias that was more magical than any silly incantation. He cared for her, just as she was, and she would not change that for the world.

By their first anniversary, Eileen was very content, as well as very pregnant. An entire year had passed without so much as a hint that her parents were searching for her, but that warning came soon enough. Even with the advantage of magic, it took them an entire year to find her. When they did, they were not pleased about her choice of lifestyle.

Tobias was at work when Eileen heard the knock on the door. Thinking it was another of the town's folk bringing by another bundle of baby clothes, she answered it.

Her father stood on the other side, his expression as cold and disapproving as she remembered. He took one look at her swollen belly and grimaced. Thunderstruck, Eileen stood in the doorway, employing the door itself to support her weakened knees. She knew he would not kill her. She was carrying a child, the child her mother and father had sought since Eileen herself was born. She was not so sure that he would spare Tobias should he unexpectedly return home.

Shaking off a bit of her shock, Eileen invited her father inside. He winced as though she had asked him something disgusting. Instead, he thrust a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ at her. She took it and scanned the pages, concerned that someone she had known had died. Those worries were dispelled when, wide-eyed with disbelief, she found a tiny marriage announcement on the very last page.

She looked to her father for an explanation. He remained as impassive as ever. He said that she had made her decision and, solely because she had obviously consummated the union, they would not contest it. All they asked was that they publish another announcement when the child was born so that the rest of the Wizarding community would know how filthy and deceitful their only daughter had been.

Eileen did not bother to explain to him that she did not care what the Pure-blood community thought of her, her husband, or her child, not in the same way her mother and father did anyhow. She merely nodded, thanked him, and told him that she would.

Without so much as a wave, her father turned to leave. Eileen blurted out that she would let them know when the baby was born. Without looking back, he told her not to bother, that they would read it in the paper along with all her other mistakes.

Eileen never discussed the encounter with Tobias. She preferred that he continue to believe that they had evaded discovery. Eileen preferred to believe that as well, but her less than pleasant exchange with her father had robbed her of the luxury.

Barely a week into the New Year, the baby boy arrived. He was so tiny, helpless, and absolutely gorgeous that she fell in love with him and his father all over again.

They named the child Severus, after Tobias' grandfather. Eileen sent the owl with the announcement off to the_ Prophet_, while Tobias was at work, roughly a week later. As the owl disappeared in the distance, she had the overwhelming sense that something would go terribly wrong very soon.

Deciding she was paranoid, Eileen returned to her new son, cooing softly in his bassinet. No matter what happened, She and Tobias planned to provide him a peaceful, happy beginning in their markedly Muggle home. She did not care to know anything more than that.

* * *

Hermione was no longer tired, not in the slightest. She was sick with panic. She wanted a cigarette. That was what people did. They smoked and paced. She felt the need to smoke and pace. It was not as though her lungs mattered now, not if she was going to lose her mind, in every literal sense.

She pulled back her sleeve and lit her wand. It was barely half past three in the morning. She knew that she needed sleep, but the drive to do so was now sufficiently gone.

Waiting became her only option. Snape surely needed his rest. The fact that he had fallen asleep during the middle part of the day suggested that he had suffered a rough night, no doubt because of her. The couch probably was not a very comfortable place to sleep, but it was probably where he was since he had relinquished his own bed.

Since Snape had launched so quickly into the _dilemma,_ she forgot to ask about his evening. He probably would have admonished her for asking. He would have said that it was none of her business, and he would have been right.

He was not injured. Of course, the fact that he did not have blood on his face meant nothing. The Cruciatus Curse left no obvious, physical wounds.

Another check of her watch proved that half an hour had passed. She would give him two hours. Hermione briefly considered a shower and a change of clothes.

Although a hot shower sounded tempting, the thought of disrobing and exposing her already frigid skin to the almost glacial air made her shiver even more. Instead, she chose to stick with the clothes she had been wearing all day. If she could feel the chill through her robe and the substantial sweater beneath, then nothing was going to warm her up.

Vaguely rubbing her hands together to stimulate circulation, she glanced at her watch again. Still two hours to go. Six o'clock was not terribly early, but it was still quite early. That would leave…well…she did not know how long.

Snape had not mentioned what time they were to leave, just that it would be before dinner. She hoped that dinner meant the last meal of the day. She had heard people refer to a late lunch as dinner. She prayed he meant the evening meal.

* * *

Snape could hardly remember the happiness of his early childhood. Now, that blissful time burned brilliantly before his mind's eye. He had been a little boy who knew nothing of worry and knew even less of magic. Having only a glimpse of that life made him hate the events that followed all the more.

Five years passed before Eileen's past caught up with her. Severus was playing in the living room when the front door crashed open and a man in a very long coat stepped, uninvited, into the house.

Severus stood frozen, not in fear, but in the absence of it. He had no reason to be afraid, but he had every reason to be curious about the towering man wrapped in layers of clothing.

When Eileen saw her father standing over her child, she did what any mother would. She ran forward to protect her son. Before his mother reached him, confused by the horror on her face, Severus felt the smack of the man's hand just before he went tumbling to the floor.

Severus caught himself on the seat of a chair, and cowered near the floor, while the man began to scream at his mother. Severus understood none of what the man said, but he saw his mother begin to cry. As soon as she did, the man slapped her across the face. Severus launched himself at the man, in a feeble attempt to protect her, but his tiny fists were little use against the very tall man in the long robes.

Severus followed their argument into the kitchen, flailing his arms in vain the entire way. The man carelessly swung an arm and sent Severus straight to the floor. He could only look on, now mesmerized by fear, as the man backed his mother against the wall.

To his relief, Severus heard his father yell from in the sitting room. The tall man sent a horrifying ball of light toward the doorway. Severus' father fell quiet.

The tall man then seized Severus' arm and dragged him out of the kitchen. Along the way, he saw his father lying on the floor in the sitting room, wearing the lifeless mask that Severus would later associate with Avada Kedavra.

Severus kicked, screamed, and cried the confused tears that only a little boy could muster as the tall man dragged him from the house. Once outside, he watched in shock as three cloaked figures entered the house and pulled his mother out, as well. She fought against them to no more avail than he had.

The man plucked Severus from the ground like a rag doll, and in a matter of seconds, both were flying through the air. Severus was scared into submission as the force of the air both pushed and pulled them along.

He remembered closing his eyes, which felt like they might jump from their sockets. He did not understand what was happening to him. Most of all, he wanted to go home.

When the frightening journey ended, when the wind stopped, Severus opened his eyes for no other reason than to search for his mother. What he saw was a parlor adorned with furniture that he was unable to comprehend at the time.

Garish wall hangings, end tables adorned with gold leaf, a gleaming, golden oak floor. He had never seen such opulence in his life. The room vaguely reminded him of the church his parents had taken him to, where everything always seemed freshly polished and scrubbed within an inch of its life. A few people milled about the room, looking upon him with prying eyes.

The man set Severus gingerly to the floor. He hurried to seek the shelter of his mother and escape those curious eyes. Through all the commotion, he heard his mother's voice calling to him. He wove frantically between the legs of the people who seemed intent on keeping him from her.

When Severus broke through the crowd, Eileen pulled free of her captors and stopped yelling. He did not stop running until he reached her. She lifted him into her arms where he hid his face in her hair, hid from the people that were beginning to surround them.

Shortly thereafter, the man and his cloaked companions ushered Severus and his mother into another stately, excessively sanitary room. The door shut, leaving them alone together.

Severus spent that night in his mother's arms, too nervous to sleep, while she told him, over and over again, that everything would be all right. That, as far as Snape could tell, was the only lie that she ever spoke to him.

* * *

Hermione gave up checking her watch for the second time that evening, or morning, and let the good side of her head thud against the wall. How could Snape have told her that kind of thing and then sent her off to bed? Was he mental? She hated to think what his bedtime stories sounded like. However, he also said that she needed to rest. That was easy enough for him to say.

She not only had dinner at the Riddle house to fear, but the upcoming lessons with Snape, as well. What kinds of things would Variable Memory entail? Would she experience the nightmares that plagued Harry when he had tried to learn Occlumency all those years before? Was Snape planning to torment her as he had tormented Harry? Again, having scared herself silly, Hermione changed her own subject.

Sleep still sounded like a foreign thing. She had not thought to ask Snape for another potion, but she was not keen on trying another after the ordeal associated with the last. She had no choice but to wait.

It was now a quarter past four, according to her umpteenth glance at her watch. At least time had not stopped completely.

* * *

The next morning, the towering man returned to look in on Severus and his mother, this time accompanied by a matronly woman who kept referring to herself as Grandmother. They insisted that Severus come out and meet all of the people who had come to the house just to see him.

He was too small to protest. His mother raised no argument from the bed where she lay, nearly motionless, as she had been all morning. Snape later attributed her catatonia to some sort of curse on his grandfather's part. Nevertheless, that was the day Snape entered the Wizarding world.

Too young to know better, the world instantly fascinated him. Again, what should have frightened, instead, truly enthralled him. The magical world was a glorious one, and it offered his first chance to distract himself.

His grandparents' first gift to him was a wand. It was old, perhaps passed down through several generations, and within ten minutes, Snape had showered ever piece of furniture in the room with green and white sparks. Soon after, his grandparents tossed him out of the house and into the back garden to prevent any more furniture from going up in flames.

The more he played with his newfound toy, the more he could look past the trauma he had suffered. He could imagine his life before magic or his life after magic as some kind of dream, or nightmare. He was simply too young to know any different.

After Snape's first few months at the manor, his grandfather instigated the first of his countless training sessions. The old man was determined to have Snape prepared to enter Hogwarts. His grandfather said that he would not have a Blood Traitor for a daughter _and_ an incompetent, Half-blood grandson. If Snape had to be a Half-blood, then he was going to be a proficient one.

Defensive hexes, offensive curses, shield charms--Snape's grandfather spared no complexity level when it came to 'catching the boy up', as he called it. Endless, tedious hours were devoted to those lessons every single day. One spell could take hours, or all day, but Snape had to perform the spell or the curse until he got it right. Only then did the old man allow Snape to leave the room. He missed many a meal in the process.

If Snape took too long with a particular assignment, his grandfather sometimes mumbled insults under his breath that Snape often misunderstood when he was younger. It took years for him to learn that Mudblood was an insult, as was Half-breed, and Bastard.

Eventually, Snape began studying alone in the massive library where he discovered that the spells his grandfather taught centered on the practice of Dark Magic. Although Snape questioned why this was, he never did so aloud.

It was through these studies that he learned an assortment of practical magic, as well. While his grandfather taught Snape to fight dirty, he taught himself to be self-sufficient. Rudimentary spells. These came in handy, especially when he did not feel like leaving his room, the one his grandparents had prepared for him, away from the _influence_ of his mother.

Against his grandparent's wishes, Snape visited his mother's room daily. She ignored his attempts to speak with her about his grandparents. Instead, she might comment about his worsening posture or the state of his hair if he had let it go too long between washings. That would forever be the extent of her motherly nagging, absent remarks made while vying to change the subject.

She always refused any attempt he made to coax her out. He asked her to walk with him, to come see something random in the house that he wanted to show her for no other reason than to get her out of that room, but she emphatically refused.

She took her meals in her room, and asked Snape to bring her nothing. She had created a strange relationship with the house-elves, who she never spoke with directly. She would make a verbal request for something, almost in prayer. Then, whatever she had requested, the house-elves provided. She made similar prayers to ask that the house-elves stop attempting to clean. She preferred to tidy up herself, bustling about the room as though she had a household to run.

She was so disengaged psychologically that she appeared happy for a number of years. During the several years before Snape left for school, he wondered if her courage was for his sake, or if she had simply gone mad. Considering that she allowed her parents, whom she had fled, to raise her only child, he always assumed the latter.

He was around ten years of age when she stopped bothering with much of anything. She took up a chair next to the one window in her room that looked out on the back garden and stayed there most of every day.

Snape continued his visits although she rarely spoke, to him or the house-elves. Her eyes focused somewhere on the other side of the glass, she muttered to herself on occasion. Utterly helpless, Snape watched her age before her time in the year before he went off to school. She stopped asking for everything, including food. It was as though she had given up what little control her parents permitted her to have.

Unable to stand idly by, Snape attempted to reawaken her. He had one fuzzy recollection of her working in a garden, so he brought her flowers in the temperate months, and conjured them other times. He hoped that seeing them would comfort her or inspire her, remind her that she was not alone.

On a sunny afternoon in July, the summer before he went off to school, he Vanished the glass from the window to allow that unhindered sunshine to touch her skin. She recoiled from it as though it were poisonous. She screamed, shrieked unintelligible things at him, for the first time in his life. That turned out to be his last attempt to save her.

Everyday when Snape arrived, she looked terribly sad, until a few weeks before the beginning of term at Hogwarts. Snape presented her with his acceptance letter, although he did not expect her to read it. He expected her to gaze out her window and listen to him--or not, he was never sure--while he went on and on about his new books and his brand new wand he had just gotten from Ollivander's the day before.

To his absolute astonishment, she took the letter from his outstretched hand, appeared to read it, and even seemed to don a smile for a flash of a second. Then, without letting go of the letter, she began to speak the first coherent words that had come from her mouth in years. Paralyzed by shock and unqualified curiosity, Snape sat at her side for hours just listening.

Her voice unnaturally listless, she chronicled her life for him. Whenever she recounted the events of meeting his father, he could see a trace of the woman she had been, the woman he could barely recall. He took solace in the fact that some remnant of her survived behind her vacant eyes.

Snape felt as though he had heard those stories every single day of his life by the end of those weeks, but he sat through each rendition. He was unsure if she realized she repeated herself, but he did not have the heart to tell her.

She never embellished the stories. She always told them in a detached fashion that allowed Snape to form his own conclusions regarding his father and the family that had murdered him, even if she never used the word murder.

Twice, she experienced a mere instant of lucidity. It was during those moments that she impressed upon him to act in whatever fashion necessary, while in his grandparents' presence, to do whatever he had to do in order to finish school. She emphasized that neither his grandparents, nor anyone else, could mold him into anything but the man he chose to be. Volition, she called it. He had free will and no one, Magical or otherwise, had the power take that away from him.

That was easy for her to say while holed up in that room, the last one she would ever see. Snape, on the other hand, had to face the outside world alone.

Throughout what Snape thought of as the _Wizarding years_ of his childhood, his grandparents kept him sequestered from other children. He was supposed to concentrate on his _training_. Consequently, he knew no one when he entered school. Although, his grandparents certainly bragged about the training itself.

They told anyone willing to listen that Snape had taken it upon himself to delve into the Dark Arts. That he turned out to be a natural. That perhaps he would amount to something besides a worthless Half-blood, because he _was_ a Half-blood Prince, after all.

Mere weeks into his first year, the word of his prowess with the Dark Arts spread through the school like a plague. This alienated him almost instantly from all the students except those in his own house, Slytherin.

Snape willed the Sorting Hat to put him there, wishing to both appease and please his grandfather. He lived to regret that decision. He was scrawny, and possessed no social skills to speak of. He was not an ideal Slytherin, neither by blood nor charisma.

Isolated yet again, he bricked himself in out of habit. Aside from his schoolwork, he carried on friendless and purposeless for a few months, until the self-entitled Marauders tapped him to be the newest target of their collective torment.

Their senselessness kept him alert and distracted enough to overlook his own social weaknesses. He survived year after year, slur after hex after insult and injury. They humiliated him. They tried to outsmart him. They nearly killed him with a werewolf. _Lupin, the Martyr_, Snape thought drearily. He wondered now if he should have let them.

Nevertheless, he trudged diligently through all seven years until the day he had been waiting for had nearly arrived. However, a few weeks before the conclusion of his seventh year, Snape received the letter from his grandfather. It brought congratulations on his completion of school along with the news of his mother death. She had passed away in the night.

Snape was certain that his grandparents aided the process, or that she took her own life. He stared at the words for a long time, unable to digest them. He had no one with which to share his misery, to express his sorrow. His grandparents would never speak of her again. There was no funeral. It was as if she had never existed.

With no one to remind him of it, Snape successfully ignored the news while at school. He pretended it had not happened. He managed the last few weeks of school without once losing his rigorous hold on his emotions.

When Headmaster Dumbledore dismissed the seventh year class from the Great Hall for the last time, Snape had accomplished the one thing that his mother asked of him. Now, he had nothing to tie him to those people he had been forced to call grandparents for so many years.

As soon as Snape arrived at the Prince's manor, his grandfather offered him a large sum of gold as a reward for his achievement. Though it sickened Snape to do so, he took the money, if only to enable a life separate from theirs.

No sooner than he took possession of the sac of Galleons, Snape called a meeting with his grandfather. After a few well-worded threats on the old man's life, and a few well-placed curses sent at the wall behind the old man's head, Snape walked away from the house a free man.

He then undertook the challenge of finding the house on Spinner's End. This task turned out to be much easier than he anticipated. The bank had taken over the house many years before. The house had been vacant for over a decade, without anyone to tend to it or the accumulated filth.

The bank thought very highly of the unkempt structure. It took most of the gold Snape had exchanged to buy the old place, but he was glad to hand over the money. In a sense, his grandparents had returned part of what they had stolen from him years before.

Aside from the study, Snape changed nothing about the house, not even the dust. Buried beneath the dust was his childhood--the one lived by that other boy in another life. Now, the house would be his home.

Before spending his first night in his old home, Snape went down to the stream that his mother had spoken of at length. The stream had become nothing more than a trickle. The city workers had diverted much of its flow to power the mill. A thin line of water wound its feeble way at the very bottom of the steep streambed. It seemed so poetic to him at the time. He had felt like that water, restricted and distant, most of his life.

There on the bank, wondering involuntarily if he was near the same place his parents had met years before, Snape spoke his final words of farewell to his mother and a few words to the father he had barely known. He promised them that he would make his choices wisely. That he would never allow the beliefs of others to bend his will. That he would work hard to make them proud.

Once settled into his old home, Snape enrolled in a Muggle university in London and began life as an anonymous student. There were no stigmas there attached to his name or reputation. There were no magical lines drawn between class and purity of blood.

Snape made friends at university, not many, but friends, nonetheless. Now that he controlled his direction, his life flowed along quite nicely, and quietly.

He was midway through his second semester when Albus Dumbledore showed up at Snape's house with the proposition. The old man had a favor to ask. A favor that he believed only Snape could deliver.

Voldemort had stepped up his recruitment efforts. He was building an army such that the Wizarding World had never seen. Albus had formed a plan to undermine Voldemort's efforts.

The plan required finding a man willing to infiltrate the Death Eaters and, with luck, become a trusted member. This plan would take years to execute. Albus explained that no one could know of this man's affiliation. The man would work as both spy and saboteur for the Order of the Phoenix. Even those within the Order would not be privy of the situation for their own safety and the safety of the spy.

It was imperative the man who accepted the task maintain his cover under any and all circumstances, which included facing death, if necessary. Furthermore, if asked, Albus would lie to anyone in order to maintain the deception.

That autumn day, swept with an obligation to protect perfect strangers from the same fate suffered by his parents, Snape accepted the assignment with all the bravado of a man who had no inkling of what he was getting into. Not quite eighteen years old, he believed in the invincibility of youth, as well as all the other misperceptions housed by his naïve, underdeveloped brain. He had no way to know then just how much his decision would shape the next half of his life.

He never returned to university. He had neither the time nor the inclination. He understood that he would have to focus on the war for several years, and then he would return to his house and his studies. That was the plan, until the Prophecy.

Though the Prophecy nearly killed him, as well as Frank and Alice Longbottom, it had killed James and Lily Potter.

Those events sealed Snape's prolonged obligation to the war. Trapped by the illusion of evil he had fashioned around himself, a belief that had become too widespread to deny, Snape took Albus' word that Voldemort would return.

He accepted Albus' offer of Master of Potions and Head of Slytherin House, both positions left vacant by Professor Slughorn. The arrangement allowed Snape to maintain the role he had entangled himself in so thoroughly, to continue his dubious double life. Although, the phrase _double life_ implied a life beyond his work, so he never believed it applied to him.

Almost twenty years later, bruised and exhausted on an ugly sofa, an impossible amount of work lying ahead of him, Snape honestly wondered how he survived it all. Lies and deception were all in a day's work for him, as was placating a rampant lunatic and bolstering a wise, though single-minded, old man.

When Snape was nearly asleep, his glass only half-empty after slogging through a lifetime of long-ignored memories, he remembered exactly why he had always loathed Firewhisky.

* * *

Hermione considered lying down again, if only to stare at the ceiling, but she could not bring herself to rise from the floor. She felt cemented to it. That was until a new notion took hold.

Snape was likely asleep. She could go sit in the armchair in his study and wait for the clock to reach a decent hour. It was so dark in there, and quiet. However, she knew that she would be breaking an unspoken rule if she did.

Then again, he would never have to know. She only had to make it through the sitting room and the kitchen. She, Harry and Ron had managed much worse while at school without incident.

Rising slowly to her feet, she stealthily descended the stairs. As though purposefully heralding her presence, each tread creaked underfoot.

Once she reached the door, she started to push it open and grimaced as every inch the door moved resonated through the stairwell. She was positive someone would wake up.

She waited on the landing, waited for either Harry or Snape to catch her. When silence reigned yet again, she carefully edged out and slid the door shut.

Again, it made much more noise than she thought possible, scraping across the floor like it wanted to tattle on her. She held her breath until the case slid into place and the absolute silence returned in full.

The sitting room was darker than before. The oil lamp had burned down, casting only enough light to see the top of Snape's head against the armrest.

It occurred to her then that he could be lying there, unable to sleep just as she was. Before he caught her sneaking about the house, she preferred to make certain either way.

After a series of vigilantly placed footsteps, she arrived at the sofa. Snape was indeed asleep. His ink-black hair lay across his face making him look sallow under the yellow lamplight. His right hand lay atop his chest, clutching a half-full glass that was tipping precariously to one side.

She did not want him to wake up soaked in what looked like Firewhisky. She also did not want the oil lamp to set fire to the house, which seemed only a gust of wind away from becoming kindling. Against her better judgment, she decided to take care of both concerns.

After plucking the glass from his grip with her left hand, she pulled her wand from her pocket with the right in order to extinguish the lamp. She had just raised her wand when Snape grabbed hold of her left wrist. In a moment of panic, she tried to jerk away. Instead of pulling free, she merely splashed the Firewhisky down the front of her robe and dropped her wand.

When she tried to lean forward to pick it up, she moved just enough to feel the tip of Snape's wand against her thigh.

Summarily caught, and about to have her leg hexed off, Hermione uttered the first word that reached her lips.

"_Professor_!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - And then there was Chapter 10.

My most sincere thanks to Michelle, a true fan girl at heart, except that she understands things are not always as stiff as we would like.

My warm regards to Shana, who read this chapter many months ago when it was but a shadow of a rough draft.

Thank you all for reading. Lest I bore you, I present…

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 10**

Startled awake by a vague sense of danger, Snape followed his instincts. He reached out blindly to detain the intruder. When he made contact, his suspicions confirmed, he readied his wand, even though his heart was beating nauseatingly fast and he was not entirely conscious. He could not overlook the sudden resurgence of pain either, but it was irrelevant if he was under attack.

"_Professor_!" The shrill cry sliced through his head like shards of glass.

The intruder was a disobedient houseguest. It was the girl--her trembling, frightened squeal. That simplified matters. He lowered his wand and let go of whatever body part he had grabbed.

"Explain yourself," he grumbled as he tried to open his eyes.

"I…I…" she sputtered, clearly upset. "I…I couldn't sleep."

Reeling from the sudden shift in consciousness, Snape opened his eyes, somewhat, his vision blurred by the ache swiftly reclaiming his sleepless body. Irritated by her interruption and his own susceptibility to the pain, Snape pushed his hair out of his face and sat up.

As soon as he achieved a sitting position, a substantial amount of blood exited his head and left him dizzy while his hip filled with an acute pain. He immediately recognized that he should have taken something stronger than willow, mugwort and Firewhisky. No matter his physical discomfort, he had to put his feet to the floor and wake the hell up.

"What time is it?" he asked lowly as he planted both feet on the floor.

His head, bowed forward, felt too heavy to support while he waited for the blood to return and alleviate the wooziness.

"I am _so _sorry," she whined, taking a swift step backward, seemingly in retreat.

"What _time_ is it?" he repeated more forcefully, lifting his head and disregarding the extreme soreness of his neck muscles.

The veins behind his eyes hammered, promising a fierce headache in the near future, as her figure swam into focus.

The girl hovered on his left, shifting ever so slightly from foot to foot as though she needed the lavatory. She cringed when he made eye contact, further proof that she was perturbed.

"Four, I suppose?" she answered in question. She eyed him cautiously, as though her answer might send him into a violent fit.

"Are you unable to read a clock?" he sneered, putting a hand to his eyes to rub away the drowsiness.

"What?" she squeaked as she stopped fretfully shuffling her feet to stare blankly at him.

"Time is precise, not something you suppose," he sighed, too tired to argue any further.

She did not answer as she plopped down on the sofa. The quake that followed sent shockwaves though Snape's body. He tensed involuntarily, soreness erupting in every muscle, which added the final touches to his headache, now pulsing behind each eye. He took a deep breath, hoping it would prevent him from muttering obscenities, when he detected the pungent odor of grain alcohol.

"Miss Granger, have you been drinking?" he asked as he lowered his hand, his head now hammering so fiercely that her face seemed to distort with each beat of his heart.

"No," she answered miserably, staring helplessly at her chest. "I was trying to save you from dousing yourself with the stuff and wound up dousing myself instead. You're welcome, by the way."

"Well…clean yourself up," he directed, uncertain why she had not already done so. "Unless, or course, you prefer the stench of a distillery."

"I can't," she snapped. The nervousness in her voice promptly gave way to annoyance. "I dropped my wand and I don't know where it landed."

"Why did you drop your wand?" he asked, again in drowsy disbelief.

She glared at him as she replied, "Because _someone_ scared the _shit_ out of me, that's why."

Snape cleared his throat. If she had been a Death Eater prowling about the house, he would not have to apologize for his reflexes, not that he was about to.

"Yes," he said softly. "I am sure _they_ did. Scourgify."

Snape flicked his wand in her general direction. The spell promptly liberated her from the stain and the odor.

"Thanks," she muttered as she inspected the spell's handiwork.

"Now…go to bed," he instructed her, more than prepared to return to a few more hours of rest himself.

"Yes," she replied coldly, glancing up. "About that, I don't know how you expect me to sleep after what you told me."

Snape was at a loss. He was unaware that the matter was open for discussion.

In a fit of sarcasm, he suggested, "Then lie awake, like everyone else."

"No," she countered as she tucked a tuft of hair behind her right ear, a discrete agitation to her tone. "Not when there's work to be done."

The sheer determination the girl was capable of displaying at will impressed Snape, whether or not he felt inclined to admit it. Exhaustion darkened her eyes, which her unkempt hair framed so that she resembled a crazed, although resolute, lunatic. Pale and unusually scruffy, she was a pitiable shadow of her former self, but her indomitable will endured.

If it were at all possible, she was right about the work that needed doing, and he was being selfish about it. The only problem was that this did not bother him in the least. His headache was receding the longer he sat upright, so the hammering now felt like a mere flogging. The invitation to complete his fitful sleep in the study, sitting up in the chair, tempted him far more than their impending lessons.

"What do you expect of me…?" Snape started to say as he rose from his seat.

He intended to stand in a menacing fashion and lecture her before swiftly exiting the room. However, the contusion on his hip caused him to groan as he stood, resembling an old man rising from his rocking chair.

"Are you all right, sir?" she asked, openly concerned.

"Fine," he hissed as he hobbled a few, short steps toward the kitchen.

He paused to let the pain subside. The liquor had dulled his mind enough that he could not relieve the pain. This was another reason why he avoided Firewhisky, or anything stronger than wine, for that matter. It inhibited his ability to block out the pain and had lowered his tolerance to it over time.

"That's funny," Hermione replied dryly, her expression an unsettling combination of worry and suspicion. "I don't remember you limping when you left."

"Nor do I," Snape mumbled as he hobbled back to the sofa.

Very gently, he lowered himself onto the cushion that he had formerly occupied, wincing as he bent his right hip and cursing himself for having been so careless with his medications. Once seated, he rubbed his right shoulder, which joined his hip in protesting his sudden movement. He decided not to punish himself with any further theatrics.

Snape looked to the source of his newest discomfort, eager to rid himself of her as well. Although she gazed back sternly, even stoically, her eyes betrayed her worry, as did her hands. Snape thought that if she rubbed her kneecaps any harder with her palms, she might set fire to them.

"What happened to you?" she asked, sincerely this time.

"_You_ happened," he replied, heaping on the cynicism.

"What did I do to your leg?" she contested, unduly offended, her voice suddenly shrill as her eyes met his again.

"Nothing," he answered in exasperation. "Go to bed."

Instead of obeying, she asked, "Why didn't you heal it?"

Quickly tiring of the conversation, Snape replied flatly, "I did."

"Well…" She drawled, her eyebrows rising into a maddening arch. "You didn't do a very good job, did you?"

After that comment, he was quite ready to relieve himself of her company. "_Thank you_ for that observation, Miss Granger. Now, do as you are told and _go to bed!_"

"What if I can help you?" she nearly shouted back, her formerly restless hands clutching her knees.

"By doing what?" he scoffed, not voicing the honest laugh he so wanted to. "Aggravating me into oblivion?"

"I know some basic healing spells," she explained, as though that were common knowledge. "And you have plenty of books on the subject."

"Do you honestly believe that I will permit you to come near me with a wand?" he asked in exaggerated awe. "I am familiar with the harm you inflict on foodstuffs."

"That's different and you know it," she contested, visibly insulted. "Conjuring and healing are almost polar opposites when you consider the type of magic they require, and food has its own restrictions and limitations. It is much more complex than, for instance, conjuring decent furniture."

She eyed the sofa with disgust and the flimsy wooden chair across the room before she returned her smug gaze to his.

"The distinction between conjuring and healing is clear," he assured her, mindful of his condescending tone that seemed to amplify by the second. "Conjuring food requires a great deal of style and a modicum of skill, one of which you apparently lack. Conversely, healing requires very little refinement, while it demands a degree of skill, which leads me to this query. Are you technically proficient or perfectly inept?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed as the fingers on both of her hands began to drum against her knees.

"Fine," she replied crossly, shaking her head. "Flail about like a wounded seal. You obviously don't want my help..."

She hesitated, never taking her eyes from his, her drumming fingers slowing to a stop, when a tiny smirk slid across her lips. "On the other hand, I could accidentally tell Professor Dumbledore that you took us to Voldemort."

The last thing he expected from her was a threat, and such a cavalier one at that. She was not one to back down from what she saw as a challenge. Much to Snape's displeasure, she now regarded him as her newest contest. Furthermore, she seemed to enjoy this kind of repartee far too much. If he continued with it, perhaps he could find out why.

Instead of yelling at her, he chose that moment to test her. "You would not dare."

"Try me," she said softly. The arch of her brows and the smirk still scheming on her lips meant trouble.

Snape put a hand to his eyes, more to hide his own burgeoning smirk than anything. She was willing to threaten him in order to help him. That was as funny as it was vexing.

"Fine," he conceded from behind his hand. "The book you want…"

"I know where they are," she interposed as she stood.

Snape peeked through his fingers. He watched her walk toward the front door and wondered if he should stop her. It was very dark on that side of the room and she had not retrieved her wand. Besides, there was really no need to make the trip.

Nonetheless, he waited until she had almost reached the proper section before merely summoning the book.

"Accio _Resmarelda's Guide to Healing at Home_."

The book slid from the shelf with a muted hiss, whizzed past her head, and smacked directly into his waiting hand. He set the book on the cushion beside him and used a furtive nonverbal charm to summon her wand.

Hermione halted, turned round slowly, and marched back to the sofa. The utterly unimpressed look she wore brought on another smirk that Snape did not bother to conceal.

"You could have said something," she said tersely, avoiding eye contact as she picked up the book and sat. As an afterthought, she added, "Before I got halfway across the room."

"I tried," he replied smoothly.

"How about…"

He held it out in front of her as he asked pointedly, "Retrieving your wand?"

"Thank you," she mumbled as she snatched it away. "You're ever so helpful."

"Hmm," he replied coolly, astonished that he did not have a splinter. "Research bruises."

In a bit of a huff, she lit her wand and opened the book. Such a simple task should not have been so interesting to Snape. For some reason or another, no doubt because of his stupor, he did not deny his curiosity.

He had seen her nose tucked into every book that the Hogwarts Library contained--no doubt a hundred or so more--so her familiar, hunched pose over the pages was not what attracted his attention.

Just when had she ceased fearing him, he questioned. She probably felt responsible for his injuries. The Gryffindor conscience was limitless. Yet, despite her culpability, she had employed quite the Slytherin tactic to get her way. When flat out asking had failed, she resorted to coercion. He wondered when she acquired that particular talent.

Snape was too tired, too very tired to reprimand her now. He was not at all surprised that she retained the childish stubbornness that had infuriated him when she was his student. As she matured, that stubbornness had become willful and self-serving.

Hermione's voice trickled into his winding thoughts.

"I've found the section on bruises," she said quietly, "but I have yet to see anything about _healing_ them. Making them talk, yes. Which begs the question, who in their right mind would want to make one talk?"

She was babbling to herself, sleep-deprived babbling. Snape rested his head on the back of the sofa. The ceiling, yellowed by more than the waning lamplight, looked like welcome nothingness to his tired eyes.

"Set it on_ fire_?" she questioned aloud. "That would defeat the purpose, don't you think?"

He was so very tired. His body hurt absolutely everywhere now, although the headache was all but gone. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep for a while longer, until the liquor metabolized and he could control the pain. Was that such an awful thing to ask?

"Listen to this," she said with a small laugh. "This chapter's called, _Shaming the Obstinate Bruise into Submission_. I always knew healers were half off their rockers. Now I'm absolutely sure of it…"

He blinked and felt suddenly lightheaded. Struggling against the sensation, he shut his eyes so the sting might wake him up a bit. When he reopened them, he was no longer fatigued. However, he was back in the blonde woman's flat.

It was winter this time, an earlier encounter. Glazed by frost, the windows glowed with bright, silvery light that invaded every corner of the room.

The woman was asleep at his side. For the life of him, he could not recall her name. Was it Amanda? Alana? It started with an A. He was sure of that.

His body was exquisitely numb, as though he had just slept for days. As he stretched his leg, he found hers, a welcome shock of feminine smoothness.

He rolled on his side to inspect her body. She was on her stomach. Folded above her head on the pillow, her arms surrounded a mop of disheveled curls. Hidden by little more than a tawdry, cotton sheet, she was again the faceless body that he craved, which he could appraise without the interruption of her personality.

He moved closer and her body accepted his. There was something superb about the contour of the woman's hip pressed against his stomach. It was natural, as if someone had sculpted her specifically for the purpose.

He rested there for a moment, swept his flaccid self against her thigh while he carefully brushed aside her hair, exposing her neck. With the lightest touch of his fingertips, he traced the back of her shoulders. They were delicate, softly sloped, fragile but strong.

He allowed his fingers to rest at the base of her neck, where the fine hairs prickled under his touch, before his fingertips struck a path from her neck down her spine. They traveled between her shoulder blades, skirting the outline of her backbone as they lowered the sheet.

Every inch uncovered more of her magnolia skin, the occasional freckle marring what appeared a clean canvas, until his fingers fell into the valley where her waist began. He flattened his palm and continued on, pushing the sheet over the rise of her ass.

Only then did he realize that something was amiss. The flesh that met his hand was firm, and there was much less of it. This was a girl, a young woman. This ass absolutely did not belong to his whore.

This time, Snape actually focused his eyes on the woman. The back that he saw was lean and lightly muscled. The waist of this girl, delightfully defined, blossomed into the slender hip snug against his navel.

This was another woman entirely. All the same, Snape remained skeptical. He had never successfully altered one of the Rogue Memories. He had learned long ago that it was impossible. They played out the same, every time. When one emerged or drew him in, such as this one had, he was powerless to deviate from the scheduled path until he completed it or until something or someone interrupted it.

The Rogues had increased in both frequency and intensity over the last several months. His mind produced them when it could no longer handle the strict control essential to the practice of Variable Memory. The Rogue Memory surfaced, demanded his attention or participation, and then returned to its place secreted away in the recesses of his mind. They were but a side effect of Variable Memory, and they were harmless. Irritating, but harmless.

On this February day, twenty years ago, Snape had spent the entire afternoon in bed with Adel, the woman that he, and several others, called their own. The simple fact that he had replaced her with someone else meant that the boundary between his Real Memory and his Variable Memory was deteriorating.

No, he hurried to rationalize. He was not slipping into the world between reality and fantasy. He refused to believe that. He was dreaming, though he had not dreamt once since he began his painstaking adherence to the rules of Variable Memory. The absence of dreams was another unwelcome side effect of the skill, but there were exceptions to every rule.

He had been so exhausted, so utterly spent and frustrated. He had been in so much pain that his mind, in an effort to escape, had repaid him with a dream, and a splendid one at that.

Satisfied with his hasty explanation, he was unwilling to forsake his good fortune. If it was a Rogue, he had to finish it in order to break free from it. If it was a dream, he did not want to waste it since he had no idea when he might have another opportunity to enjoy such a thing.

Pressing his body fully against hers, Snape permitted the lust to seize him. The warmth of her smooth curves silenced his lingering misgivings. She was there for him, waiting for him to wake her, and he was not about to deny her the pleasure of that rousing.

Discarding the pleasantries, he guided his hand over the slope of this new ass until it turned into something else entirely. His fingers parted the flesh of her inner thighs as he trailed his thumb through the hair that awaited him there. She was raw, unshaven. This finding inspired his hips to sway, forcing his now exceptionally stiff dick against her thigh.

He slipped his thumb within to experience her, encounter the temptation hidden there. He closed his eyes when his thumb barely entered her, as he rediscovered the true meaning of the woman's inner beauty.

Would she have it? Why did he want to know? He held his breath throughout a very brief, one-sided internal struggle. Would she think him perverse for doing what he so wanted to? He decided that, as this was his dream, he would do as he liked.

He kicked away the sheets as he scrambled to his knees and buried his nose between her thighs. The animalistic gesture filled his nose with the scent of buttermilk, perverse in its sweetness.

The scent overwhelmed him, animalized him all over again. He would not squander this opportunity. He wanted her, not for the having, but for the taking. He wanted her to give herself to him, give him the innocence that reigned between her thighs.

He could hardly breathe in anticipation as he climbed atop and parted her legs with his knee. He lowered himself onto her as slowly as he could manage with such an undeniable longing steering his mind, blurring his vision, heightening his every sense.

Her ass fit just where her hip had, where he could feel every tiny hair brushing his skin. His chest heaved against her warmed shoulders. His body enveloped hers. He could have easily overpowered her.

He pulled his forearms close to her sides, slipped his hands between the sheets and her breasts. Young, round, small by the feel. She had no fat on her to make them anything more.

He eased his cock forward, but did not force himself on her. She would be ready, willing, before he went any further.

After nuzzling her shoulder, he tasted her skin. He kissed the side of her neck, first kindly and then expectantly when he could restrain himself no longer. He knew she must be awake with his weight bearing down on her, with his breath rushing so insistently over her neck.

Relinquishing a breast, his right hand slithered between the sheets and her belly. He continued to the vulgar shock of hair, slid his fingers through and stroked her as delicately as he could under his body's rising insistence to take her.

He rocked his hips, teasing her lips with the head of his cock while his hand worked to rouse her further. Every single second tormented him beyond reason, but her body was surrendering. Each time he made a pass, she was more willing, more primed. He could stand no more of her torture. He did not want to play anymore.

When impulse conquered him, he begged into her shoulder, "Tell me you are ready."

"I'm ready," she whispered back, her voice weak, but her endorsement clear.

He smiled into her neck. Permission was all he expected, and she was suddenly all that he wanted.

Flexing his hips, he eased himself in. His breath hitched in his chest. Both of his hands held firmly to their respective missions, he closed his eyes to enjoy how real this always felt, how agreeable this new girl was. Most of all, he enjoyed her. He could barely move within her for fear of tumbling swiftly into madness.

"I'm ready, sir," she repeated, breathless.

Her voice was so soft, but no longer muffled by the pillow, so he opened his eyes to see the face of the woman he was fucking.

Tangles of hair draped across her face, her eyes half shut, Miss Granger smiled at him. The horror of the moment had to seep through the many layers of pleasure in his brain before he was finally able to scream.

Mercifully, his eyes opened yet again. His chin was resting on his chest. He was not screaming and he appeared fully clothed. The only remnant of his dream, or whatever circle of hell that had been, was the raging erection buried beneath three layers of clothing.

He hurried to cross his legs, but he had barely lifted his foot from the ground when he remembered his damned hip. It was aggravated again, painfully aggravated. He could not shift away; he could not stand. He was just going to have to hope that she did not notice.

"I'm ready, sir," Hermione's soft voice said again.

His head snapped up. There she was, book in hand, her eyes alert and thankfully focused on his, awaiting his reply. He could feel the shock, as obvious on his face as a mask. In an attempt to retain even a scrap of dignity, he hastily donned the reliable sneer.

"I heard you the first time," he growled, his voice still thick with sleep.

"What?" she asked innocently. "I only just said it."

"Well…" Snape attempted to clear his throat of what felt horribly like embarrassment as he found something to look at besides her. "Get on with it then."

"Sir, is something the matter?" Hermione asked, now sounding suitably alarmed.

"No," he answered firmly.

The blood had mostly returned to other, less conspicuous, areas of his body. However, he had no desire to look at her. When he did so, he could see her lying beneath him, wearing that agreeable smile. He had violated her, even if it had happened in a dream. He would not have allowed it to happen if he had known.

"You look queasy," she observed in a cautious voice.

He was sure that he did. He was also certain that he wanted to aim a Stunner in her direction, if only to get her out of his sight.

"I am in _pain_," he explained, though that was now the least of his worries.

"The spell is rather simple, really," she said, raising her voice a bit, as if she were in a hurry.

"Start with my shoulder," he all but snarled.

He was angry with her for invading his dream, for forcing him to feel this way. His anger seemed to allay his guilt quite nicely.

"The same side as your leg?" she asked quietly.

He replied with a brusque nod as he selected a nice, noncommittal corner of the coffee table at which to stare.

She stood and crossed in front of him to the arm of the sofa on his right. As she situated herself upon it, far too close for his liking, he considered pushing her off, but decided against it. He opted to wait for her to perform the spell, or whatever she was about to do, so that she could go away.

"Um…the _book_ says that it's best to perform the magic directly to the skin." She sounded no more thrilled about the idea than he was.

"Or?" he prompted.

"If something goes wrong, you could lose your arm," she answered assertively. "Well, your clothes might meld with your skin, which could lead to amputation."

Why did everything always have to be against him? Amputation was not that bad, he thought grimly. He could always learn to use a wand with his left hand.

Purely because he was under duress, he started unbuttoning his robe. However reluctant he was to perform the task, he made it through the many buttons with haste. He was doing quite well until he made the mistake of shrugging as he tried to remove it. His right arm stiffened and he heard himself groan like the old man again.

Hermione leaned forward and gently pushed the fabric off his injured shoulder. It was a helpful gesture, though unnecessary, as her fingers brushed his collarbone. At the unanticipated touch of her hand, he gasped, though it sounded more like a reflexive pain response.

Abruptly pulling her hand away, she clamped both hands over her mouth and mumbled what Snape assumed was another apology, which he ignored.

"Perhaps you should try that on your head before you go testing it on me," Snape suggested as he gingerly pulled his arm from the sleeve.

She lowered her hands as she leaned back, a bit of her earlier confidence gone from her voice as she muttered, "I suppose you're right."

He heard the pages of the book rustle. With any luck, the task would keep her occupied for a moment.

Snape chanced a brief look in her direction to investigate the spell that she would soon aim at him and found that she had tilted her head toward the book, but she had her eyes fixed squarely upon him. As quickly as she shifted her eyes to the book, he relocated his coffee table corner. This was going to be more complicated than he had anticipated.

Once finished with the robe, he reconsidered the loss of his arm as he began to unbutton his shirt. If it were his left arm, perhaps he would take the gamble.

He heard her murmur something as he reached the last button. He had his shirt open to the waist. Now he had to expose himself to her. _Oh, that did not sound right at all_.

"Hmm…seems to have worked…" she marveled at his side.

Snape glanced over to see her poking herself in the temple with a finger. The right side of her face was in shadow, making it impossible to see if the bruise had actually healed.

"Tell me when you're ready, sir," she said politely, suddenly meeting his eyes.

He quickly shifted his eyes back to the coffee table as his stomach clenched. Why did she have to choose _that_ particular phrasing?

He nodded and slid his shirt from his right shoulder. There was no need to reveal more than he absolutely had to.

Following a heartfelt gasp, Hermione exclaimed, "That's ghastly! What did he do to you?"

"_Heal it_," Snape ground out, his jaw clenched as he ignored her remarks once more.

"Right," she said quickly, fumbling for a moment with the book and her wand.

At last, the tip of her wand grazed his shoulder ever so faintly as she said, "Rennoxa."

An icy cold spread through his shoulder that sent a hearty chill through the rest of his body. What he would not have done for that five minutes ago…

"It might take a moment, as deep as that looks," Hermione informed him.

Snape acknowledged her with a nod. The corner of the coffee table still required his undivided attention.

His shoulder soon began to thaw, but as it did so, it filled just as rapidly with an itch--a terrible, burning itch. He tried to scratch at it, but that only seem to intensify the itching.

"It might itch a little," Hermione offered, her voice hesitant.

"Thank you for notifying me of that beforehand," Snape snapped as he continued to claw at his shoulder.

At the very least, his arm did not hurt anymore. He felt nothing but that itching, which very well may have distracted him from the other.

"Is it going away yet?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he muttered.

The itch was beginning to recede, ever so slowly. He stopped scratching long enough to pull his shirt back on. He buttoned it in a hurried fashion, stupidly thinking, if for only a second, that they were finished.

"Now, all that's left is your leg," she reminded him.

He paused on the last button. His leg. How could he have forgotten his leg?

"I will tend to it myself," he mumbled as he finished with his shirt.

"But…"

"I _said_ I will tend to it myself."

He stood yet again and nearly whimpered at the sharp return of the pain.

"Would you please stay put?" she asked wearily as she stood with him. "You won't do anyone any good…"

"I _said_…" he began to say before he lost control of the entire situation.

"Sir, you will let me do this," she demanded in a domineering tone that he had never heard from the girl.

In utter amazement, he brought his eyes up from the floor to see the dreadful determination on her face. If the light had been a bit stronger, he would have been able to tell if those were truly tears in her eyes.

"My life depends on you, sir," she went on, sounding calmer now, if only by force. "You're modesty really is none of my concern at the moment. So, if you don't mind, drop your damn trousers."

She advanced on Snape so quickly that he had no time to hobble away. However, he did have time to grab her hands before they reached his waistband.

Once he had her by the wrists, she did not try to free herself. Instead, she seemed defeated. While she stood in his shadow, her expression unreadable, he stood in utter shock at her audacity.

Too soon, all he could see was the top of her head. Her eyes appeared to have found their own corner of the coffee table.

"What exactly do you think you are doing?" he questioned.

She did not reply. In fact, he was not sure she was listening.

"There is a limit to how much insolence I am willing to tolerate and you have nearly reached it," Snape warned as he tightened his grip on her wrists. "If you wish to see that limit, then by all means, keep pushing."

After a shaky breath, Hermione asked in an angry whisper, "Can Dumbledore teach me?"

"Teach you what?" Snape inquired harshly.

"To ride a bicycle," she sneered as she looked up, her practiced hatred on full display this time. "Can he teach me Variable Memory?"

"Yes," Snape answered quickly.

"Then I want him to do it," she declared. "I don't want whatever it is that you have against me to…to cause me to fail."

In all honesty, it had never occurred to Snape to give her a choice of teachers. He was the most experienced with Variable Memory, and assumed that he would undertake her preparation. However, none of these thoughts mattered much as he automatically began to defend himself.

"I will not 'cause you to fail'," he contradicted, his resentment more evident in his tone than he intended.

"You're bad enough under ordinary circumstances," she replied, incensed. "Do you think I want you responsible for my life when you won't even accept my help with a stupid bruise? I'm not trying to humiliate you. I'm trying to help you. Why do you have to make it so damn difficult?"

"I am not…" Snape managed to say before she interrupted.

"You are!" she accused. "You act like you're waiting for me to laugh at you. There's nothing to laugh at, Professor. There's nothing _funny_ about any of this."

At her final word, she tugged at her wrists and Snape willingly released her. She was entirely out of line. She was disrespecting every bit of help that he had given her. What pissed him off the most was that everything she had just said was true.

"How dare you…" Snape began, but the girl refused to allow him to finish a thought.

"I'm not your student!" she exclaimed with wide-eyed vigor. "You don't scare me anymore!"

"You should be afraid," he cautioned as his temper continued to rise.

"Of what?" she scoffed. "You aren't evil, and you can't fail me anymore, so what's left? Are you going to toss me out? Are you going to hurt me? Maybe, but what good would it do to fear you? Boost your ego a bit, I'd imagine."

Of the many things that Snape wanted to do to her in that moment, he could not settle on just one. She had jumped subjects three times. She was obviously unstable. He was furious with the girl. His fury was enough to override his pain response so that, when he started toward her, he barely winced.

"You would do well to fear me," he warned as he advanced.

The smug confidence disappeared from her face as she backpedaled. She seemed unprepared for his reaction, as well as how to deal with it, as she did not even attempt to sidestep him.

"A healthy bit of respect would not hurt either," Snape continued in his most ominous of tones.

Snape took one more step, backing her into the wall of bookcases. Slamming his hands against the books on either side of her head, he leaned down to make sure that she heard his message loud and clear. His face was no more than an inch from hers. She was flat against the bookcase as she stared up, looking less frightened than humbled.

"I take orders from Albus Dumbledore and the _Dark Lord_," Snape explained. "That means that there are already two too many people ordering me about. Do not think, for one instant, that you are going to make it three."

Her voice fraught, Hermione said, "That's not what I…"

"What you meant means nothing to me," he growled, cutting her short. "You are not my equal. You never will be. Therefore, I expect deference. Is that understood?"

She nodded as she turned her head, clearly trying to hide her face in the shadows. Snape placed a rigid fist against her chin and forced her to face him. She reinstated the look of hatred.

"Is that understood?" he repeated.

"Yes, sir," she hissed as she glared at him. "Far be it from me to assume otherwise…Rennoxa."

"What?" he managed to ask before the cold spread through his hip and down his leg.

As he expected earlier, she attempted to step out of his reach, but he forcibly pinned her against the shelves with his chest. Outraged that she would disregard every word he had just said, he chose to hold her captive.

She was again looking away, in either shame or disgust. Again, he used a clenched fist to force her to see how angry she had made him.

"Have you no regard for anyone besides yourself?" he snarled.

"Just because you want to suffer doesn't mean we all have to!" she yelled.

Before he could admonish her further, the itching set in. It was too much to bear while holding her against the wall, for no purpose other than to scare her, so he let her go in order to appease the unappeasable itch.

As soon as he stepped back, Hermione stumbled a few paces away, into the shadows that occupied the unfurnished corner of the room. Meanwhile, Snape rubbed at his hip with all the fury that he sought to unleash on her.

"I'll be in your study," she said before she stepped back into view. She was still displaying the veil of hatred. "You can find me whenever you want."

"For what purpose?" he asked as he scratched.

"To begin the lessons," she answered as she started toward the kitchen door. "I have to be ready by tomorrow, or tonight, whenever. You do remember that, don't you?"

The girl wanted to kill him, or she wanted him to kill her. Either way, she was out of her mind!

"Lessons?" he sneered. "I thought you wanted your dear old, resurrected Headmaster to teach you?"

She hesitated in the doorway, but did not reply. Instead, she stepped over the threshold and disappeared into the kitchen.

Snape let out a low rumble, which grew into an angered growl before he curbed it. Although the itch was abating, his anger had quite the journey to take before it would be anywhere near ready to recede.

Snape took a step toward the sofa and was downright amazed that his hip no longer hurt. Furthermore, he felt no soreness in his entire right side. He thought that he should have her do whatever it was she did on his entire body.

No, she would not escape that easily. She had disrespected him. He had every right to be angry with her, to punish her. He could do plenty to her, especially in their predicament. She had no idea…

Snape curbed his thoughts quickly when he lost control of the situation yet again. His mind flashed the momentary image of her smiling face with her hair splayed out over the pillow. He shook his head, quite unappreciative that his body and his mind were submitting to such ready stimuli. She was a girl--a dim-witted, unappreciative and defiant one.

After wading through two Rogue Memories, the second of which the most disturbing, his mind had become disordered. He closed his eyes and let the anger fade so that he could view the situation judiciously.

The girl's actions were irrelevant. He was putting far too much emphasis on them and not nearly enough on the situation at hand.

She would stand before the Dark Lord in a matter of hours. Snape needed to impart at least a full year's worth of study to her in the interim. Without the knowledge, the girl faced not physical death, but something far worse.

With a spasm of regret, Snape realized that the entire situation had begun with Hermione's offer of help, her threatened assistance. Either way, he had overacted. In a matter of days, her entire world had collapsed. She was in no condition to take responsibility for her actions.

She had not purposefully worked her way into his mind either. He was lashing out at her still over something that she had no control over.

She deserved little, if any, of his aggravation. She had not coerced him into the war. There were many to blame, but she was not one of them. By process of elimination, he had just done a very stupid thing--a very callous and selfish thing.

* * *

Resentment carried Hermione all the way through the kitchen and into the study. She could still feel the linear ache across her shoulders where Snape had forced her into the wall and the shelves housed there.

Using shuffling steps, she located the chair and its cool leather in the center of the room. It received her without protest, which she found odd. Since it was _his_ chair, she almost expected it to rebuke her somehow. Toss her across the room, perhaps.

She should have gone to bed when he told her to. She should have kept her mouth shut. Then again, no amount of should-haves was about to solve the problem she had just created for herself.

Snape had been almost friendly before it came time to start the healing. As soon as she found the proper section of the book, he became guarded and testy. She explained it away as she would a thorn in the paw. Maybe the pain was provoking him. Either way, she had to remain focused if she intended to help him.

Then, after proving that she could heal him, he had to be a pig-headed jerk and opt to suffer. She needed him to be in his less surly state for her own good. Therefore, she let her focus slip. She let impulse drive her next actions and tried to help him by force.

That was a regrettably rash decision. Her mild force only seemed to enrage him, and a horribly calm rage it was too. Contained and imposing while he gnashed his teeth and bruised her wrists. At least she could heal those bruises once they had matured a little.

By the time that she realized she should shut her mouth, he was already backing her toward the wall. She did not try to run because she had formed the silly notion that close proximity might give her the opportunity to heal his leg, whether he liked it or not.

She received the close proximity, as well as a talking to that she neither wanted nor desired. She accomplished her mission to heal him, and received a swift thump against the wall for her effort. Thinking that she should have known better was not helping her now, because she had realized something much more disturbing.

Snape was not concerned with her or any aspect of her troubles. He only cared about himself and that her trouble was now his. It was quite clear to her that he only wanted to help her so that Voldemort would not discover anything she knew about Dumbledore, or about Snape. He was doing nothing more than protecting himself.

He was the same egotistical, opportunistic bastard that she remembered, and now she knew that he could feel pain. The trouble was that, in taking away his pain, she had almost guaranteed herself a fate worse than death.

As the desolation promised to overwhelm her, as she struggled to remain calm, she heard the sound of footsteps--his deliberate, merciless footsteps.

The lamp on the side table stunned her eyes for an instant when it suddenly flickered on, reforming the island of light within the darkness. When her eyes focused, she saw Snape, his shoulders stooped and his lips worryingly taut.

He stepped up in front of her, where he towered, looking wholly implausible without his heavy, black robe. His hands clasped behind his back, he seemed about to instruct her on the merits of speaking only when spoken to.

"Miss Granger," he said in a calm, controlled voice. "I should apologize."

Upon hearing those words, she was quite positive that she had nothing to worry about anymore. Clearly, she had already lost her mind.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own these characters or the world they live in. I make no money from this.**

a/n - Wow, this took long enough, didn't it?

My most heartfelt thanks go to Michelle, who knows her Snape better than any woman, or beta.

My sincere thanks to Shana, who will be happy to know I'm writing more as fast as I can.

And thanks to everyone who has come to read or has returned to read the next installment. Please enjoy.

* * *

**Volition**

**Chapter 11**

The memory of his sordid dream and inadvertent outburst disturbingly fresh in his mind, Snape switched on the lamp as he entered the study. The light illuminated the girl, its pitiful glow confirming that he had achieved his goal, whether he had meant to or not. Hermione, indeed, appeared conquered.

She had thrown herself into the chair. Her legs dangled lifelessly from the edge while her upper body slumped to one side, as though sitting up straight was an exercise too grueling to endure.

Her breathing quick and shallow, she was near tears and did nothing to hide the emotion. She neither blinked nor made any acknowledgement of his presence, apart from the rapt stare she had fixed upon him.

From her petrified pose, Snape assumed the first words would have to be his. After reminding himself that she had not forced him to imbibe a third of the Firewhisky, that he had not forced himself on her actual person, he spoke the words very carefully.

"Miss Granger, I should apologize."

She blinked in recognition. The corners of her mouth twitched and turned up faintly into an anxious smile that more closely resembled a grimace.

"Perhaps," she replied in a dispirited tone.

Her guardedness did not surprise him. He had essentially assaulted her only moments before, giving her ample reason not to trust him. However, mutual trust was imperative if she was to learn anything.

With his aim and his temper firmly in check, Snape decided that allowing the girl even more time to wallow in the direness of her circumstances would only make matters worse. Her sorrow made her weak. Debilitated by grief, her mind would be at its most vulnerable. If Snape could find a way to translate her sorrow into rage, a more galvanizing emotion, perhaps then she would have a fighting chance. Of course, redirecting her grief would not require much effort on his part.

"Stand up," he instructed, his voice cold and the words forceful as he cast off every fiber of restraint he had donned for his apology.

Raising his arm, Snape aimed his wand directly at Hermione without further explanation. Her eyes grew large and nearly crossed as they focused on the unexpected threat.

"Stand up, Miss Granger," Snape repeated, this time provoking her with practiced condescension. "The longer you dawdle, the less prepared you will be when the Dark Lord claws his merry way through your brain. Now, move aside or I will banish you to the sitting room with the rest of the furnishings."

She hesitated only a moment, judging his intentions from behind unblinking eyes, before she scrambled to her feet and moved hastily off to the right.

Snape extinguished the lamp, plunging the room into near-blackness. With another wave, he teleported the chair and all else into the sitting room to clear space for what was to come.

The study's peripheral charms absorbed all sound from within, making it undetectable from without to even the keenest ear. No one, specifically Potter, would overhear. Snape chose this room for Hermione's initial training for that very purpose. Furthermore, the walls were thin in regards to exterior sounds so Snape could hear anything that might transpire outside.

"Sir?" Hermione whispered, clearly thrown by the sudden dark and abrupt quiet.

Snape's vision adjusted swiftly to the new environment. Hermione was but a long stride in front of him. He could hear her breathing quicken, much like a frightened animal. He imagined her eyes to be the size of small saucers as the pupils spun open to compensate for the loss of light.

"Are we beginning the lessons?" Her voice was so faint. She sounded uncommonly nervous.

"Yes," he answered in exasperation. "This is what you wanted, is it not?"

"Doesn't this require eye contact?" she asked hesitantly, her words gaining a bit of volume, but no more confidence.

After a long-suffering sigh, he negated her question with his own, rather contemptuous one. "Do you suddenly doubt my knowledge of the subject?"

"Of course not," she breathed, the statement adamant, as though she might convince herself with it as well. "I'm just…"

"Be silent, Miss Granger," he advised, interrupting her with the stern warning. "What you are is of no interest to me."

Hermione held her next breath, her body becoming noticeably steadier. No doubt biting her tongue all the while, she exhaled slowly. Her temper had sparked, if for only a moment. While that small victory would not stabilize her for long, it afforded him the time to think.

He considered his strategy, something he had all but ignored. His own Advanced Occlumency training seemed a lifetime ago. Albus had used kind words and accommodating lesson plans, which permitted Snape to learn at his own pace. Hermione did not have those luxuries.

Given the constraints of time and the human mind, Snape had no choice but to be unrealistic in his expectations of the girl. When the sun rose, she had to be well on her way to mastering Occlumency.

Even as he thought it, he recognized the absurdity of the concept. The girl was undoubtedly gifted in the majority of her magical endeavors, but she was not superhuman. If she wanted to survive the night--if Snape expected to maintain his role as a trusted, though disloyal, Death Eater--she needed to harness every ounce of determination her Gryffindor heart possessed. They were both about to expend a lot of time and energy for absolutely no reason if she proved incapable.

Tiring even of his own thoughts, Snape easily infused his voice his own blend of surliness and spite as he introduced the first lesson to his newest student, though this version varied greatly from the one he had recited ad nauseam to his first years. In light of her most recent actions, he thought a reiteration of the rules was in order.

"Once we begin, you will speak only when asked to do so. Although you may enjoy listening to your own chatter, I most certainly do not." Snape paused in his speech and allowed the girl a moment to feel affronted. He merely relished her silence.

When he continued, his words flowed quickly, snappishly, expedited by his desire to fill the few hours they had before sunrise with more than verbal instruction. "Listen closely to every word that I say. Focus only on my voice, my instructions. I do not speak in tongues. Therefore, do not ask me to repeat myself. Furthermore, you will not question my commands. Assuming you have understood everything I have said thus far, you may look up."

Obeying the first rule perfectly, Hermione was silent for a full second before she quietly disregarded the third rule. "Look where, sir?"

After folding his arms across his chest, Snape rested the brunt of his impatience on the word and repeated, "_Up_."

He knew she had done as instructed when he heard her gasp. The view she found was much more novel to her than to him, although he valued it, even after so many years.

A sea of dazzling stars stretched above them. Countless flecks suffused the sky with their brilliance across the infinite breadth of space. Teasingly embellished by the charmed ceiling, the stars always seemed near enough to pluck from the sky while they provided the small room with its only source of natural light.

Snape had created the feature on a whim many years before, when his own death had seemed unavoidable, shortly before the Dark Lord had sought out the Potters. The view of the cosmos supplied an unexpected comfort to Snape, even after his most frustrating days. No matter the instability of his personal and professional lives, he needed only to view the ordered chaos of the heavens to understand that even the most miniscule star was a part of an even greater galaxy.

Each indiscernible from the next, each indispensable to the whole, those millions of stars provided Snape with a meager fraction of hope. Perhaps his trials and tribulations held more significance than he had so often led himself to believe.

While Hermione marveled at the ceiling, Snape used a charm to fill the room with minute orbs of light that mimicked those scattered across the heavens.

Albus had invented the glamour for his own amusement, but he had found it useful during Snape's introduction to Variable Memory.

Some of the orbs sketched the heavens like miniature comets while others zigzagged through the air like drunken fireflies. As they spread themselves throughout the room, from floor to ceiling, their radiance fell upon Hermione's face. She was still gazing toward the sky, her mouth hanging partially open. She certainly appeared calmed, if not mesmerized.

"It's like the Great Hall," she observed breathlessly.

"Similar," Snape replied, amazed she had yet to detect the tiny stars dancing about her face. "Actually, it is akin to a skylight, except that it only functions after dark."

His remark grabbed her attention adequately. She closed her mouth and shot him a curious look. However, her attention almost immediately strayed to the twinkling lights flitting around the room.

A few of the tiny stars zipped past her head, skimmed her hair, as though they had a playful mind of their own. Some of the more vivid orbs floated lazily, like bubbles, stirred only when the invisible wind moved. Hermione spun once around as she appreciated the display. When she came full circle, she wore a child-like smile, as though she had just discovered the finer points of a caterpillar.

She extended a hand, palm up, beneath one of the brighter orbs making its feather-like descent. It landed weightlessly on her hand, shining like a tiny, lit candle in her palm. Without knowing, she had just provided her own visual aid for the actual lesson.

"Imagine every memory you possess is like that star, nebulous yet tangible," Snape instructed, raising his voice accordingly to break her fascination with the orb.

Entranced, she merely nodded as she inspected her catch.

Snape doubted if anything would distract her. Then he wondered if he should bother. With the conjured orb occupying her eyes, he could engage her ears without fear of interruption.

Satisfied by this inference, Snape parted the glowing swarm and began a circuit around his student, taking several strides before he resumed the lecture.

"Infinite numbers of these stars comprise your mind and memory. You never touch them. You never experience them as anything more than remnants of sensations and flashes of light and color. Yet you never doubt their existence." He paused for a second, the silence so absolute that it hissed in his ears. He could not force his voice above a whisper when he continued. "Moreover, if something exists, then you can bottle it. You can kill it, flaunt it, or conceal it. You can even compose it."

As he completed his first tour of the room, the echo of his last footstep falling dead against the silenced walls, he saw the girl's eyes flicker briefly in his direction before they returned to the orb. Reassured, Snape went on.

"Your mind's most prized possessions, these vague billionths of knowledge, are accessible at the will of any trained Legilimens. A highly skilled Legilimens will not only access them, but will also interpret them accurately."

Snape paused, hoping the exaggerated silence would garner another glance from her, but it did no such thing. She bobbed her head twice, very slowly, as she bounced the tiny orb in the palm of her hand. Almost hypnotized, she again seemed oblivious to his company. Certain she was paying particular attention to his words, just as he had instructed, he continued his leisurely stroll about the room.

"This is not mind reading, Miss Granger. Legilimency is far more abstract and much more complex than that." As Snape drew nearer to his point, his voice grew unconsciously louder. "The most basic guard against Legilimency is Occlumency, which is useless against the Dark Lord. However, when a practitioner pairs Occlumency with their imagination, they have the ability to deceive, to create entirely false memories, otherwise known as variable memories. This is what I will teach you, Miss Granger, the concealment and the composition of memory."

Snape realized then, however distantly, that he was proud to stand again as a Professor, to impart knowledge that was his to someone devoid of it. In another, much deeper recess of his mind, he found the challenge that fate had presented him quite exhilarating. Luckily, those notions remained dormant and his mind remained focused. Just then, he had no use for idle thoughts or private feelings.

Having completed his fourth lap, Snape halted in front of her. Her attention remained utterly focused on the twinkling light in her hand.

"Regrettably, we must start at the very beginning," he said lowly as he backed away a few steps. "I assume you read extensively about Occlumency while I trained Potter. What did you learn regarding advanced practices?"

"I never found much on the subject…nothing significant…sir," she replied quietly. Her eyes broke free from the orb just as she not only broke the first rule, but also embellished upon the third. "Is this a variation on a wand effect or does it require a specific incantation?"

Blatantly ignoring her question, Snape smirked at her naiveté before he resumed the lecture.

"In the most fundamental sense, Occlumency is the dimming of these stars, of your thoughts and memories, thereby making them undetectable." Snape flicked his wand and all the orbs seemingly disappeared. "They are not gone simply because you cannot see them." He swished his wand and the orbs illuminated once more. "You will learn how to protect the memories you possess, as well as how to fashion variables that will protect your mind and memory. The advanced aspect of Variable Memory is the control it requires. Those details are irrelevant now given that you must learn to clear your mind if you ever hope to produce a variable. If you have questions pertaining to any of this, do not bother. I highly doubt that you know enough to ask anything constructive."

Again, Hermione nodded, closing her hand around the shimmering orb. As she smothered it, the muted light seeping through her fingers waned before it vanished altogether.

Her innocent gaze fell away, a hard-nosed determination replacing it as she withdrew her wand from her pocket. "Tell me what to do, sir."

"Clear your mind," he answered plainly.

She stared back at him as though he had asked for no less than a miracle.

"Emotions, memories, anything weighing on your consciousness will make you vulnerable," he advised. "Imagine whatever you must. An empty room, an open plain…"

Apprehension dawned on her face as she tried to intellectualize his instructions. In doing so, she was defeating the purpose entirely.

Recalling their previous conversation, he nonchalantly added, "…my trousers."

A faint smirk appeared on her lips before she snorted a laugh.

Snape abruptly continued, "Whatever the method you choose, the clearer your mind the better. Do you believe you can manage that?"

She smiled as she teased, "Swish that gabardine around a bit. I'll see what I can do."

Hermione suddenly braced herself, her arms stiff at her side, as if she could steady herself with the sheer power of will. She still wore a smile, but it had wilted noticeably. Evidently, she had not meant to say that aloud.

Bewildered, Snape instinctively acknowledged her taunting with a sarcastic reply. "Shall I rub my legs together like a cricket?"

Hermione swiftly put a hand over her mouth while her eyes flashed. She was suffering sporadic convulsions while she tried not to laugh aloud.

As soon as the words left him, Snape was aghast at his own participation in the exchange. His ever-present scowl deepened as he silently chastised himself for taking part. Irritated by the digression, he intended to set things right immediately.

He cleared his throat before asking pointedly, "May I proceed?"

After another convulsion, she dropped her hand and asked with a mirthful laugh, "With rubbing your legs together?" Her broad smile displayed teeth, which seemed to shine bright white in the darkness.

Snape set her with his most uncompromising stare, though his eyebrow almost refused to rise into a menacing arch and his lips faltered before twisting into a frown. Inspired by her genial grin, a smile threatened to bend the corners of his mouth in the opposite direction. He did not like this one bit. He did not intend to complicate their dealings with camaraderie, even the semblance of it, so he pressed through.

Her amusement promptly deteriorated under his disapproving gaze. She nodded her readiness to continue.

"Thank you," Snape acknowledged coolly as he stepped farther back. "Now, clear your mind. You must clear your mind to close it."

Hermione literally shook away her thoughts. Like an athlete preparing for a match, she rolled her shoulders as she set herself. When she raised her wand to the ready, she inspired Snape to make a hasty change of plan.

"There will be no need for your wand," he informed her decisively as he summoned it.

She made a feeble attempt to grab for the scrap of wood as it slipped through her fingers and sailed the few feet into his left hand.

Snape pocketed it before he clarified his latest classroom regulation. "You will be unarmed when you face the Dark Lord. You must be prepared for that scenario as well."

Sliding her hands over her hips, she appeared unsure of what to do now that she was wandless. For the second time since she had entered his house, Hermione looked as though she wanted to flee. For the first time, however, Snape did not fault her for it. Confiscating her wand had thrown her off balance.

"I understand, sir," she replied softly, her gaze presently devoted to Snape's knees.

"I am going to attempt a low-level attack," he warned. "The defense is really quite simple, as simple as smothering a candle. The clearer and darker your mind, the safer it becomes."

As though it pained her to do so, she tore her eyes away from his shins and locked them with his.

Snape raised his wand as he spoke the incantation. "Legilimens."

Almost instantly, he saw Hermione in his own bedroom, huddled on the floor beside Harry. Cradling him in her arms, she whispered soothing words and rocked him while he wept. Snape immediately withdrew the spell.

"You must do better," he admonished. "That was pathetic."

"I know," she sighed while she distractedly rubbed her temple. "Do it again." She looked him squarely in the eyes. Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Please, sir."

"Legilimens," Snape muttered.

This time, he caught snippets of a conversation. The scene was unfocused, as though he were viewing it through antique glass. From what Snape could hear, a boy was proclaiming his love to her in a bumbling style that suggested a significant lack of experience.

Snape retreated again. Once he had, he realized that Hermione lay sprawled on the floor in quite the graceless fashion.

He reached her with two long strides and dropped to his knees at her side. Before he considered using a spell, he heard her murmur something. He lowered himself closer in order to make sense of it.

He could decipher only one word in her mumblings.

"Can't…"

"You can hear me, Miss Granger. Stand up!" he ordered, convinced she was merely stunned.

"Of course I can hear you," she said dimly. "You're damn near sitting on my head."

Taken back by her reply, but no less annoyed, Snape asked, "Then what seems to be the trouble?"

"I can't move," she replied in the same, soft voice. "You're knee is on my hair."

"How _did_ you become a magnet for such adversity?" his cynical mind wondered aloud.

Looking down, he saw that his left knee had unintentionally pinned her to the ground. He quickly swept the hair from under his knee.

"May we continue?" he asked, his tone far from civil.

"Yes, sir," she sighed as she sat up, her hand returning to her forehead. "That was ghastly," she continued, her words suddenly a bit slurred, her eyes bleary. "You never said it hurt…"

"It eases with practice," Snape asserted, cutting her off and offering his hand as he stood. "The discomfort you feel now is temporary."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asked, her tone suddenly edgy, as she climbed to her feet on her own.

"No," he replied, bristling slightly as he let his hand drop to his side. "I can put a stop to this nonsense now if you wish. I promise not to let you do anything too terribly shameful after the Dark Lord turns you into a senseless automaton." Although he strove to own his anger, it overwhelmed him yet again. His words flowed faster and angrier than before. "Not that it matters. You will not know how humiliated you should be, how repulsed and degraded you should feel, because you will be nothing more than an animal, Miss Granger--an ignorant, emotionless, servile creature. On the other hand, perhaps I can still persuade him to kill you."

Visibly humbled, Hermione shook her head no, her expression blank, wiped clean by the glimpse of her prospective future. Only her eyes betrayed her frustration, perhaps with Snape's many and varied moods. As he glared back, he thought that he could say the same about her.

"That is more like it," Snape observed pitilessly and turned on his heel to return to his post on the opposite side of the room.

"That was Ron," Hermione remarked, her voice faint as she attempted to restore peace, "just after Professor Dumbledore's funeral, or whatever that was."

"Your memories do not require explanation," Snape snapped, her presence suddenly grating on his last nerve. She had apparently forgotten the first rule entirely. "I care not if you traversed the Alps on the back of an elephant whilst translating the _Iliad_…"

"What was that anyway?" She interrupted him as she massaged her forehead. "The funeral, I mean. I guess it was all for show, the tomb and Fawkes…"

Although briefly appalled by her inability to remain silent, Snape identified her unruliness as a stalling tactic. She likely wanted the moment to recover more than she cared for the information. Against his better judgment, he granted her a reprieve this once.

"The deception served its purpose," he replied distantly. Her query brought to mind something Albus had said prior to his faux murder. "Obvious misdirection is effective against even the most skeptical villains."

"Was there even a body?" she asked shyly.

She was grasping for nothing but time. Her hands had ventured to the back of her neck, kneading desperately at the muscles. Eyes closed and head bowed forward, she looked as though she might fall into a deep sleep then and there.

"That was the Headmaster's body, still quite alive, for all intents and purposes," Snape answered with resignation, nearly snorting when her head snapped up in shock. "He was in stasis, so to speak. After a few days, once the school had emptied, Professor McGonagall freed him."

Hermione's eyes grew wide as she asked, "Hagrid carried him… He knew?" Then she gasped. "After a few days?"

"Hagrid knew nothing of the Headmaster's plan." Snape did not mention how foolish the thought of providing Hagrid with such an explosive secret was. "Hagrid is still unaware. Only Professor McGonagall and I know, and now you and Potter. As for the few days…" Snape paused to appreciate Hermione, as still as a statue, while she gave him her undivided attention. "…the Headmaster could only be freed once the danger of discovery had passed. After she dismissed the school, Professor McGonagall opened the tomb and revived him."

"But if he survived, if that was the plan all along, then why…?"

The solution rather obvious in his opinion, Snape cut in, "Because anyone possessing the information, if captured by the Dark Lord, would involuntarily disclose the truth."

"But what about you and…?"

Again, Snape interrupted, one supercilious eyebrow creeping upward as he addressed her pointless concerns. "Professor McGonagall and I are perfectly capable of defending ourselves. On the other hand, you are not, which is why you must learn to do so."

"But why would Dumbledore…?" Hermione simply trailed off this time instead of even attempting to finish.

Snape exhaled noisily through his nose, which was actually a sorry version of a laugh. "The Headmaster chose to disclose the truth to you and Mr. Potter when he took into consideration what you have lost. Now you both are aware that you are not fighting this war alone. However, this knowledge is dangerous, which is why you must master the techniques of Advanced Occlumency, or at least, to the best of your ability. It is not as important for Mr. Potter since the Dark Lord's ultimate goal is to kill him, not delve into his psyche."

Hermione released a trembling sigh as she closed her eyes and raked a hand across her forehead. Snape allowed her a few seconds to dwell on whatever had monopolized her thoughts.

Following a prolonged silence, he finally prodded, "Shall we continue?"

"Yes, sir," she replied with another sigh. Her hand fell with an audible slap against her leg. "I'm fresh out of buts."

For the next hour, progress was slow, if nonexistent. Hermione collapsed several more times. Each time, she recovered slowly and without his assistance, but each tumble strengthened her resolve. If nothing else, she seemed determined to remain standing, and after the third fall, she succeeded at that and nothing else.

Throughout the many failed attempts, Snape saw Hermione's parents numerous times, in various situations. He saw them dote on her as a toddler and punish her for minor rule infractions as she matured. Best of all, he saw their shock upon receiving the letter from Hogwarts.

A Hogwarts Ambassador delivered the letter since the child was of Muggle parentage. Snape watched the recollection of that meeting for several minutes, much longer than he should have. He listened in on the father's myriad of questions while he scrutinized the mother's pride restrained by fear.

The woman looked startled by the news, her hand moving repeatedly from clutching at her throat to covering her mouth. However, the more information the Ambassador provided, the less frightened she seemed of the idea of sending her daughter off to some faraway place to learn, of all things, magic.

It was plain to the naked eye that Hermione had inherited her parents' features. She looked strikingly like her mother. Both women possessed the same unremarkable features, which were neither ugly nor stunning.

The older woman had a small, straight nose, a slightly squared jaw, prominent cheekbones, none of which were especially flattering. Aside from her carefully coifed, undeniably straight, blonde hair and pale blue eyes, she was a much older version of her daughter.

Hermione's father had passed on his dominant brown hair and eyes along with his mess of unruly curls. Though his were much shorter and smoothed back with some sort of styling agent, the waves occupying the top of his head proved his genes had blessed the girl with her disobedient mane. He had tamed his by force. Conversely, Hermione allowed hers to run all but wild. It was a fascinating juxtaposition.

In between several alarming, yet innocuous, childhood memories of a tricycle and a neighborhood bully, Snape witnessed the argument that had taken place at the end of Hermione's seventh year.

During what Snape assumed to be a celebration of the last day of formal schooling, Hermione's parents quietly pulled her away from her friends and led her to the edge of the lake. Once there, they told her that they wanted her home. They feared for her safety in the Magical world. They had allowed her to complete her education, but now, she needed to return home where she would be safe.

Hermione protested vehemently, finally telling them that they could not protect her, that she belonged nowhere else. She told them that she was bound to fight this war and would fight it until her 'last breath' if she had to. She had made up her mind. The Order needed her and she refused to shirk that responsibility. After she told her parents that she planned to live at Grimmauld Place until she helped end the war, or the war put an end to her, Hermione left her distraught parents standing at the water's edge.

As the lesson wore through another hour, Snape found no more memories of her parents, none that he recognized. Her memories had grown murky and more difficult to understand. Although this progress reassured him, he was no less concerned.

He could see exhaustion wearing away at her, but she never once raised a complaint. The same weariness threatened him as well. Some part of him was aware of the fatigue in his limbs and the hunger roiling in his belly, but those were all things that he could look past with his mind alert and his thoughts contained. She could not. For that reason, he left her alone after each failure while she composed herself, and then continued.

Memory after bleary memory passed by until the ceiling began to blush a pale pink as the sun peaked above the horizon. The ceiling threatened to rematerialize and plunge them into true darkness. Nevertheless, the sun's arrival seemed to signify the dawn of other things as well.

On his next attempt to enter her mind, Snape saw nothing. This did not surprise him. He assumed she was in a closet, or some such place. The memory was simply a very dark one. It was not until she began to push back that he realized they had made real progress.

Her resistance felt like tiny fingernails pressing against his forehead followed by the sensation of cool fingers snaking through his hair and prickling the skin on the back of his neck. She was defending against him. It was a feeble and mostly useless defense, but it was an achievement nonetheless.

He withdrew the spell as he bestowed his rare brand of praise. "Whatever technique you are using, carry on with it."

Hermione did not respond. She was busy rubbing her eyes with both hands. In fact, she appeared to be punishing them, as hard as she was digging her fingers into the sockets.

As her hands slid down her face, they revealed the deepening black circles beneath her eyes and the ghostly pale of her skin. She had put quite the effort into the last few hours of training with little sleep to bolster her.

"That…was hard," she replied, her voice hollow.

"Yes," Snape agreed as he crossed the room, "but you have made an immense accomplishment."

And she had, even if she could not fully appreciate it. She had unwittingly met his goal and then surpassed it. As he stood before his student, her face drawn and her eyes half closed, he was unsure if she could sustain the momentum.

She flashed a hint of a smile as she said, "A hell of a lot it'll do against Voldemort, right?

"You have a lot of work still ahead of you," he conceded. "However, wandless defense is a gigantic step. What was it that worked?"

This time she smiled. It was a self-satisfied, but dismal one. "Since the field of daisies wasn't working, I tried to picture an abyss where nothing could exist, not even memories."

Although he could not express it, her inventiveness struck him. Instead of pleading for answers, she found one on her own. It occurred to him then, if for the first time, that she might save her mind after all. However, there was one problem.

"Your abyss does explain the clarity," he replied thoughtfully, "but not the defense. You attempted to expel me from your mind."

"Was that what that was?" she remarked, her smile fading. "I felt something odd, pressure at the base of my skull, so I pushed against it, I guess. I'm really not sure how."

"Good," Snape commented quickly, further impressed by her fortitude. "You are learning, but you must not do anything such as that when the Dark Lord is inside your head. He will recognize it immediately."

"Yes, sir," she replied as she seemingly filed the piece of information away in her mind with the rest.

The room was becoming ever darker as the sun brightened the outside world. Soon, they would be standing in utter blackness when the ceiling reformed. The tiny orbs had already started to wane and vanish as they reached the end of their charmed life.

"This would be an excellent time to rest," Snape said, stating the obvious as one of the orbs fizzed out next to his head. "We will resume shortly, if you manage not to fall unconscious on the sofa."

A sigh of relief escaped her lips. Clearly thankful for the recess, she smiled again.

Snape headed for the door. His thoughts strayed for a moment to Dumbledore, whether or not they would have time for another lesson before he arrived.

"Sir?" she asked as she followed. "What do you think of when you clear your mind?"

Snape did not respond at first because he simply could not. After so very many years of practicing the art, he had stopped using visualization. He merely thought nothing, nothing at all.

"A field of daisies, of course," he answered absently as they stepped into the kitchen.

The much brighter light dazed him for an instant. The glare from the whitewashed cabinets was almost too much to bear as he moved toward them. Fortunately, the thick grime covering the kitchen window weakened the offending brilliance.

After a quiet laugh, Hermione replied, "Thank goodness they work for someone. I'd begun to think daisies were useless."

His back turned, Snape smirked at her deliberate humor as he made his way to the cabinet that housed the coffee maker. He knew he was unable conjure a strong enough brew, so a cafetiere would have to do the job.

"What are you doing?" she asked, the question trailing off into a yawn.

Snape glanced up. One hand had returned to rubbing her eyes, stung first by tiredness and then the obnoxious morning sun. Two fingers pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes closed, as if the pressure had lulled her to sleep. A tangle of frizzed curls, knotted even more by her repeated attempts to push them out of her face during the lesson, had closed in a curtain around her face. She looked as though she had drifted off standing up.

"Fetching the necessary utensils," Snape answered at last, redirecting his focus to the cluttered cabinet, "unless you want to conjure some."

She stifled another yawn before she murmured, "Sir, I highly doubt that would be in either of our best interests."

When he had nearly shuffled all of the old cauldrons out of his way, Snape asked, "Have you a preference…"

Before he could finish his trivial question, the room thundered with a resounding series of knocks. Without a second thought, Snape sprang to his feet and grabbed Hermione, who was thankfully standing directly behind him.

He felt her shriek more than heard it. He had managed to clamp his hand over her mouth before the sound let loose at full volume. Her heart rapped fiercely in her chest, thumping rhythmically against his, and for a moment, he thought his heart had stopped entirely.

"In the study," he whispered.

Snape shoved her toward the doorway. Without protest or a backward glance, Hermione disappeared through the wall. As he watched her go, he sealed and silenced the bookcase that separated the kitchen from the sitting room to prevent Potter from unwittingly announcing his presence.

The knocking sounded again. They were sharp blows against the closet door produced by something other than a fist. After another round of knocks, Snape identified the racket. Lucius was using his walking stick. The man would not dare jeopardize his manicure.

* * *

Still shivering with the adrenaline unleashed by the sudden noise and Snape's swift reaction, Hermione stood frozen just inside the pitch-black study. She reached into her pocket to find the comfort that came with possessing a wand, but she found none. Snape had it.

Mildly horror-struck to be without her wand again, she reassured herself that Snape would handle the situation. He would not put her in danger, unless he was hell-bent on saving himself, but she could not allow the thought to distract her.

Instead of cowering in a corner, as she so wanted to, she remained at the threshold in the hope of finding out the identity of the caller. She heard the repeated knocks, and soon after, the voice of the person doing the knocking.

"You really should repair that door," Lucius Malfoy's sneering voice declared.

"You need only knock," Snape answered coolly.

"Why do you insist on such measures?" Lucius asked. "You had nothing left to fear from the Order once you made this…this _hovel_ Unplottable."

"What do you want, Lucius?" Snape's tone was distinctly impatient.

"Severus, you look dreadful," Lucius observed solicitously. "Did you have a strenuous evening? Why, you aren't even dressed."

"It is a pleasure to see you as well," Snape said, his sarcasm suggesting otherwise. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Straight to business, I see, as always," Lucius remarked, his artificial warmth now steeped in arrogance.

After a measured silence, which no doubt complemented a round of heartfelt glaring between the two, Lucius went on.

"I have stopped by to ask after the Mudblood girl. Your certainty concerning her, I mean."

A horrid chill billowed within Hermione's stomach. Was she the 'Mudblood girl' in question? Almost certainly, she answered herself. Her stomach replied by twisting into a painful knot.

"What _about_ my certainty?" Snape asked calmly.

"The Dark Lord has a _way_," Lucius said in a commiserating voice. "You were not, let's say, _enthusiastic_ about keeping her. Surely, you would be willing to reconsider."

"The Dark Lord's _way_ is final," Snape replied with a note of absolute certainty.

"Of course," Lucius quickly agreed. "Then again, perhaps we could make an exchange? I will give you the choice of ten women, all to your liking, all of whom will be just as accommodating as that whore of yours..."

"You should take care when circumventing the Dark Lord's wishes," Snape cut in hurriedly. "If he hears of this discussion, you will wish he had left you in Azkaban."

Another deliberate silence followed while Hermione's mind churned with the various scenarios that might rationalize what she had overheard. The phrase stuck in her mind was 'keeping her'. Whatever that pertained to was the answer.

Snape broke the deadlock in a voice laden with controlled fury. "You should cease attending to your son's every impulse merely to silence him."

"I did not ask for your advice," Lucius replied with a renewed superiority. "Where is the girl, anyhow?"

"Locked upstairs," Snape answered succinctly.

"Perhaps I should look in on…"

"Perhaps you should be going," Snape interposed.

The disciplined rage in Snape's voice was alarming, even to Hermione in the adjoining room.

"You will not command me," Lucius drawled. "I do not care if you _are _the Dark Lord's pet these days."

"Nor am I concerned about what you think," Snape declared. "Nor do I care what your spoiled child wants. Incidentally, be sure to tell him, if he so much as lays another hand on the girl, I will personally put an end to his suffering. Good day, Lucius."

The closet door slammed shut, startling Hermione so much that she nearly tumbled forward through the magical wall. After the echo died away, she heard Snape's voice again.

"I presume you have been eavesdropping," he called, using the same grim tone he had used to address Lucius. "You may come out now,"

Hermione considered pretending that she had not heard him or any of the preceding conversation. However, she knew better.

Warily, she stepped from the safety of the study into the kitchen. The stark contrast of the early morning sun stung her tired eyes yet again.

The first shape she focused on was Snape, standing before the closet door, eyeing it with all the malice he had directed toward her only hours before.

"Go ahead," he prompted in a stoic fashion.

Having already decided that playing dumb was out of the question, she went ahead and asked, "What did he mean by 'keeping' me?"

Snape released a sigh as his shoulders slumped. He looked suddenly more tired than he had all morning.

After wavering on a string of words, he finally said, "Last night, the Dark Lord saw fit to award you to Draco. By chance, he amended his decision and gave you to me instead."

Wondering how she had become little more than a bottle of wine between friends, she asked, "Why would he _give_ me to anyone?"

"It has become a regular practice," Snape replied dispassionately, his eyes still fixed upon the door. "Certain hostages, usually Muggles, are bestowed like livestock to the most deserving. It appears you are my recompense for a job well done."

Hermione took a second to consider what job that was until she mentally slapped herself. As far as Voldemort knew, Snape had committed murder, along with all the other things he had either done or supposedly done.

"Well," she began before taking a long, rationalizing breath that fell terribly short of its goal.

At the time, she could not differentiate between her anger at Voldemort's ever-increasing lunacy and her frustration with Snape for withholding the information. What else had he chosen not to divulge?

Her face felt warm. Tiny beads of sweat sprouted on her brow. Still heavy from fielding Snape's repeated attacks, her head felt ready to burst. Her veins throbbed in her temples and eyes, the pressure building until she was sure her nose would start to bleed. She could not recall a time she had felt this much rage all at once.

When she began to speak again, she tried desperately to keep her voice from trembling. "I'm yours, then? By chance, you say. Did you happen to pick my name out of a hat or did you spin a big wheel with my picture on it?"

Very slowly, Snape turned his head in her direction. When his eyes fell upon her, she knew she had said something terribly wrong somehow. She was unsure if the anger still bare on his face was new or left behind by Lucius Malfoy. Strangely enough, it only fueled her on.

"Neither," Snape replied tersely.

"Good," she said a little too sarcastically. "I'm glad to know it wasn't pure chance that saved me from Draco." At the mention of his name, her ire rose exponentially and she was powerless to stop it. "Such a lovely boy, he is. Grabby, one might say. Speaking of, if you had delayed any longer in rescuing me, I bet I would have found out just how lovely."

"He's a boy," Snape commented, disguising his frustration rather poorly. "He does nothing more than what his father expects of him."

"I don't care why he does what he does," Hermione remarked flatly, more than aghast at Snape's reply. "How dare you defend him? He brought Death Eaters into Hogwarts. He terrorized…"

"A remarkably astute observation, and yet utterly irrelevant," Snape exclaimed, his voice louder than she expected, which should have scared her. When he spoke again, his tone softened, if only a little. "Through careful misdirection, the Headmaster and I staged the attack on the castle."

"You didn't leave your rooms until Professor Flitwick woke you," she meant to say, but the statement was an accusation. "I know. I was right outside. If you had truly been _lying in wait_…"

"Do you honestly believe we were oblivious?" Snape erupted.

He turned from the door and shortened the distance between them. Fury alive in his eyes, he halted only a few steps away.

"If you know everything, then tell me. How was I to satisfy an Unbreakable Vow?" Snape went on through the calm rage she had witnessed earlier. "What could lull the Dark Lord into a false sense of security? Those are the pertinent questions, Miss Granger. The answers to both arrived in the way of Albus Dumbledore's murder."

Snape's gaze did not waver as he spoke. He appeared possessed, as though the words had fought to free themselves for ages.

"My misstep became our greatest asset when the Headmaster discovered that death is not always so absolute." Snape hesitated, as though gauging how much to disclose, before he added, "When all was said and done, Draco was my pawn, and I played him for all he was worth."

"_Draco_," Hermione spat, incapable of restraining herself, "is as self-absorbed and despicable as his father. If you are trying to convince me that Draco _helped_ you by leading the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, then you'll have to Obliviate me and start from scratch because _nothing_ is going to make me believe that rubbish."

"I would expect delusions such as those from Mr. Potter," Snape sighed, almost in relief. "We _knew _Draco's plans. We _understood _his motives, his unabashed desire to prove himself to his father and the Dark Lord. We used his blind ambition to our advantage. In view of recent events, you might want to reconsider the variables leading up to that battle, and every one since. We have had much more success than you seem to realize."

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? No, you don't, because you left!" Hermione shouted back, now as confused about the business of the war as she was about nearly everything she was saying.

Exhaustion was getting the better of her. Disoriented, her emotions refused her attempts to cage them. Anger readily mixed with fear. Grief merged with passion. Furious tears welled in her eyes. Her mouth went unspeakably dry while her head just continued its merciless pounding.

Snape looked as confounded as she had ever seen him, the whites of his eyes visible as he processed her charge. She had the niggling feeling that she should stop talking again, but pressed on regardless. She wanted to say something and even she was unsure exactly what it was.

"You left us there," she restated, forced to use the hysterically pinched voice she hated. "You left me…_us_…with all those horrible beliefs. We were ignorant of the truth. I understand as much as I ever will that you had a duty to uphold, but duty doesn't change the fact that you left without saying one goddamned word to the contrary. How are we supposed to win a war if we don't even know our enemies? Harry wasted so much time hating you…"

Snape squinted his eyes as if she had just presented him with a very complex mathematical equation. If he questioned her outburst, he did not show it. He certainly did not voice it. He merely studied her closely while he attempted to decipher her outburst.

Befuddled as well, Hermione tried to moisten her suddenly chapped lips with her dreadfully parched tongue. She had no idea what she was saying, or whom she was saying it to. She was furious with Ron for dying and with Snape for living. She was more than angry with herself for living.

Nausea swelled in her belly. The notion that she would have gladly chosen death over her present situation frightened her. Blinking furiously, she ignored the flow of tears carving rivers down her cheeks.

"I hated you, too," she whispered, nearly choking on the words as they left her throat. Whether she meant them for Snape or herself, she was undecided.

His features calmed, smoothing the deep furrows on his brow. His eyes, always shadowed by hooded lids, peered straight at her with empathy beyond any definition.

Worn by anyone else, the understanding look, if that was what it truly was, may have been comforting, even reassuring. Yet, set in his baleful eyes, the look left her flustered. Was he preparing to counsel her or murder her? Judging by the pencil thin line of his lips and movement of his jaw as he gnashed his teeth, she was leaning toward murder.

His voice subdued, he asked, "Do you feel better?"

After all the things that she had heard, that she had said herself, Hermione was thankful that Snape did not offer her any of those empty promises. In the end, she did not believe that everything would be all right, that the honorable would prevail, that there was a rhyme and a reason to all the senselessness of war. Snape uttered none of those assurances of safety or success. He gave only his limitless stare and the meaningless question.

She took her bottom lip painfully between her teeth before she let go of the word. "No."

"You will," he all but whispered through his clenched teeth.

His words encouraged her, more so than she expected. They spoke not of miracles, but of hope.

The rage that had overwhelmed her broke as suddenly as it had arrived. The chilled air of the kitchen felt pleasantly cool on her cheeks. She swiped at her eyes to stem the flow of tears and found only the trails they had left behind. Feeling foolish for her outburst, and more foolish by the second as she sniffled in his presence, she looked to Snape to offer an apology.

He was still staring at her, awaiting her reply, but she now had none to give. Words had kindly forsaken her, so she stared on, hoping that he would continue talking, yell at her, or stop looking.

His whitish skin accentuated his eyes. Devoid of color, each was like an eclipsed sun, though without the dazzling corona. No light dared venture from those eyes.

Her drowsiness caused the scene to unfold in slow motion. Otherwise, Snape was acting abnormally lethargic as he took a step toward her. There was no need for him to do that, she thought in mild panic. She was quite satisfied with the distance separating them.

He took another step. She felt compelled to say something, to stop him, but the words never arrived. If they had, they would have been nothing but mumbled nonsense since her jaw had locked so tightly that she could feel her own pulse through her teeth.

As he neared, his expression changed steadily to something she was unable to classify. Was it interest drawing his brow? She preferred not to consider the matter when there were other things in need of attention.

If he were to take another step, he was going to be distressingly close. Unfortunately, he did just that, placing himself so near that Hermione had difficulty looking up at him for fear of snapping her neck. He studied her with such concentration that she opted to stare at the first button fastened down from his collar. Staring at the button gave the impression that she was paying him attention without actually having to do so.

The button was round, and somewhat shiny. Minuscule veins of sapphire blue wove through the mostly white background.

She wondered if he had always worn the same type of shirt beneath his robes, if the layers of wool had concealed those little streaks of color for all those years. The question was unanswerable as she had never seen him without his robes, and had not contemplated his state of undress until then.

Hermione had managed to chase away her worry regarding Snape's proximity with the aimless thoughts until his hand swept the hair away from her right shoulder. As the gooseflesh rose on her neck, her lungs released what air they held and then some. She stood frozen in place, trapped by her need to remain in his good graces and the distressingly slow evolution of her opinion on the subject.

Snape was coming on to her. But she was wrong. She had to be wrong. She prayed she was wrong. However, the riddle went unsolved as the scene seemingly tripled in tempo.

"Miss Granger?" Snape's voice asked. "Are you aware that the side of your face is orange?"

Still trapped in the molasses that time had become, her mind took a moment to digest the question. At last, when her jaw relaxed, when her verbal skills returned, she honestly did not know what to say.


End file.
