A/N: Droxy challenged me to write a vampire!Snape drabble series. I hope she enjoys this little moonlit sonata. I own nothing you recognise. If I did, I promise you we'd all be a little happier. This story contains explicit sexual content.

Remind me again why you decided to be an Auror? Hermione thought to herself, as she dashed around the corner, the black cloak in front of her disappearing elusively through a doorway she'd never seen before. As soon as I run this loser down, I'm turning in my resignation, and this time I mean it.

It was bad enough that she'd allowed the boys to talk her into becoming an Auror. What was even worse was that she was good enough at her job to be in constant demand, which was why she was chasing a killer through Knockturn Alley.

The wizard had a string of offenses as long as her arm, and Hermione was tired of chasing him. He was abnormally unstable for a magical person, and the glee with which he had tortured and maimed his victims was a little too much in the "Bellatrix Lestrange" camp for Hermione's taste.

Hermione calmly followed him as he ducked and dived throughout Wizarding London, leaving a trail of bloodied, traumatized witches in his wake. Tonight, Hermione decided, his luck had run out. With chilling, smug certainty, Hermione made a decision. No more victims. Tonight, he would not be taken alive.

So intent on her gruesome thoughts, Hermione almost ran into him as she skidded around the corner. He was holding another wizard hostage at wand point, and Hermione put up her hand. "Rubens! You're making it harder on yourself. Let him go – " Hermione's words died in her throat as the hostage turned to face her, and she found herself face to face with a dead man – Severus Snape.

"What the hell?" she said, so shocked she all but forgot the reason she was here, deep in the belly of the beast, chasing a psychotic madman. Snape looked surprisingly unsurprised.

"Professor?" she said, and winced inwardly at the high-pitched sound of her voice. Suddenly, she was 18 years old again, looking down at his dying countenance, frantically searching for something, anything, to staunch the bleeding wound. She'd left him there, thinking he was dead, and ran to help her friends. She woke up crying from the guilt of it for years.

But that had been a long time ago, and Hermione had put guilt and remorse long behind her. Seeing Snape here, infused with imperious, chilling calm even at wand point, was so surreal as to be some twisted joke.

"Miss Granger," he said, as if they met every day. "I take it you are the reason this philistine is trying to make an example of me?" He sneered, as if dealing with a recalcitrant first year, instead of a cold-blooded killer. "Will you ask this filth to unhand me?"

"Fuck off!" Rubens hissed, and Hermione, still stunned, realised she needed to focus on him.

"Let him go, Rubens," she said, but her bossy tone of voice was replaced by uncertainty. It was enough of a hesitation, and Rubens smiled his hellish smile, aimed his wand and shouted, "Nex Incidere!"

Hermione felt a thousand knives slash into her body, and blood gushed from her mouth. With a pained cry, she fell onto her knees and looked up. Snape was throttling Rubens with the ease of a dog mauling a doll. The scream was horrible to hear, and as consciousness sparkled and danced almost out of reach, Hermione thought, Well, I said he wouldn't be taken alive, didn't I?

Strong arms encased her, and the wizard she'd feared, trusted, hated and admired said quietly, "Miss Granger, your renal artery is severed. It's too late for St. Mungo's. You're bleeding to death."

"No!" she tried to scream. Looking up into his dark, pitiless eyes, Hermione tried to tell him, No, I can't die! I have too much to do! I have unfinished business! And deep in the back of her mind, a voice was insisting, I can't die! No one has loved me enough!

The dark man held her impassively, looking deeply into her panicked eyes, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting her fear. "I can save you, Miss Granger. But you must give me permission." He took a deep breath, and his voice was soft, almost gentle. "You must ask for my help."

Terrified, she nodded, trying to speak through the gobbet of blood in her throat. "Please!" she managed to gargle out, clutching his shirt, noting with horror the spray of red mist she had aspirated onto his chest.

He inhaled and stroked her face. "Be sure, Hermione. This time, it is forever."

She was having trouble keeping awake, and she nodded and whispered, "Please, sir."

He looked down at her with something like amusement in his eyes. "Alright, Miss Granger, you have accepted my help of your own free will. I will admit, I have longed for this. Longed for you."

With an almost-fond expression on his face, he lowered his head, his long, midnight-black hair falling in her face, tickling Hermione and cutting off her vision. He was on the verge of touching her. "This won't hurt, Hermione," he whispered. In her dying state, his voice shimmered in the air. She could see the words buffet against the currents of the breeze, in dark colours of burgundy and clove, with the scent of patchouli.

Then his lips were nuzzling against her throat, and she whimpered in pain and humiliation, and her former professor laughed against her skin. "Here we go."

When it came, it was glorious. There was a sharp intake of breath, then a screaming shock of pain in her throat, and a murmur from his red, red lips not to be afraid, but to enjoy it, to remember it, because it would only happen this once.

And then it was ecstasy. A thousand orgasms, a thousand passions, rushing down into her body, causing her to fishtail in his strong arms and keen into the alley. Her screaming pleasure was accompanied by his answering moan, and he rocked her in his arms as he fed and sucked her dry.

She floated in a place with no space or time... she was a feeling, a scent on the wind, a scrap of litter blowing gently over the ground by a soft, careless breeze…

Hermione opened her eyes and looked up at her saviour, his eyes closed, licking his lips with ecstatic satisfaction, glowing with health and heat. She was a little dry husk, ready to be discarded. "You promised," she croaked, afraid he would renege. He was ever a will-o-the-wisp in school, giving with one hand and taking with the other. Would he deny her now; would he forsake her?

He smiled at her. "I know, I will," he soothed, his voice a promise itself. He drew open his black coat, revealing pale, perfect skin, caramel-colored nipples the size of pound coins, rock hard in the cool air. A quickly muttered spell, a thin light arching in the air, and a deep gash appeared just above his heart. Blood beaded like a cluster of rubies, and Snape gently adjusted his grip, holding her like a nursing infant.

"The rest is up to you, Hermione. Look at it. Do you want it?"

With her last rational thought, Hermione opened her mouth.

Ask a hundred people what an orgasm feels like; you will get a hundred answers. Hermione would have have told you it was the moment she suckled against the wound at Severus Snape's chest. Her head reeled, feeling his life's blood flowing in her mouth. It tasted like dark, forbidden wine.

Snape crooned and petted her. She grew stronger, hungrier, childishly insistent and wantonly aggressive. He pulled her away from his chest, and covered her mouth with his own, and together they shared first blood. Hermione remembered, and forgot again, until the past and the present had a name: Severus.

He remembered nothing from the time of his death to when he awoke with this thirst.

"I should have come back for you," she fretted, guiltily.

"You couldn't have known. At least you mourned," he said quietly. "No one else did."

Rogue Death Eaters were his first meals, explaining a ten-year-old mystery. At first he thought of taking his own life, but this new undeath was sweeter than his old life. "Immortality is a terrifying concept," he quipped. Lonely, he thought of her, what a fine mate she would make. He followed her, thinking of himself as her protector.

Days passed; Hermione didn't care. He fed her like a waiting chick, sometimes from his own mouth, usually from his breast. He would come from wherever he fed, flushed and ruddy and bloated, allowing her to drink until he himself felt dizzy. She was ravenous, and he promised her that would fade. He gave her chocolate, which eased the terrible hunger, and peaches, which took the bitterness away.

She slept by his side, his large bed covered in impenetrable curtains, encapsulating them in his own little world. He spoiled her. He did not worship her. He venerated and deified her.

On the fifth night they made love. It was hard and deep and fierce, and for a woman who'd always privately thought sex was overrated, it was the most life-changing moment since she died. Severus took her to greater heights, always backing off and starting again, until her climax came. When it did, she pierced his slender throat with her baby teeth, and he came with a shout that almost broke her starving heart.

He told her he loved her. She believed him. They moved quiet as wraiths throughout the world, satisfying their hunger, and healing their once lonely hearts.