Series Info: Non-DH compliant. A slow-paced but action/mystery filled fic with SSHG. Things will start picking up after several chapters. Snape does not die after being bitten by Nagini. He goes into hiding after being saved by some of his admirers. Several years into the future, he is acquitted of his actions against Dumbledore, his status as a powerful wizard is recognized by others and he is reinstated as the headmaster of Hogwarts. Hermione returns to Hogwarts to pursue a teaching career under the mentorship of Snape and Mad-Eye Moody. A mysterious but powerful force starts to cause trouble at Hogwarts and its upto Hermione and Snape to get to the bottom of it.

Chapter Summary: Hermione struggles to complete a mission that might save Hogwarts from a mysterious power.

Patience of the Immortals - Chapter 1

It was dark in Hermione's room and moonlight bled through the cracks of her covered window. She sat on her bed leaning against the stone cold wall. Her dry and parted lips hid in the darkness but her eyes were illumined. An opalescent teardrop slipped across the gray of her cheeks. She felt tired – tired of crying, tired of grief and tired of being what she didn't want to be. If there's nothing I can be, thought Hermione, I'll be a martyr. The idea filled her with a feeling of finality and of peace.

She rose out of bed and lit the candles around her bedroom with a flick of her wand. They came alive with a jittery light. A tall mirror towered from ceiling to floor at the other end of her small room. She saw herself in it, standing amidst the splayed pieces of parchment, split ink and ruffled quills – a tattered form. Her hair was unruly, her robes frayed and wrinkled and her eyes were no longer of this world. They belonged to the few who knew what lay ahead with utter certainty.

A distant thunder broke the silence. The heavy wooden door shuddered to her left and blew dust at her feet. The candle lights flickered violently and started fading. Hermione stood unfazed; watching her reflection, till the last of the light was gone. There was no more magic to sustain them - no more magic left in the entire castle but what was within her and the foolish few who stayed to see her plan through. Hermione had felt proud when she explained it to everyone present at the Hog's Head pub. Moody was especially ecstatic. He roared over a mug of fire whisky, "There's a hero in you yet!". Severus had squeezed her hand till it turned blue. He wasn't happy but he saw it too. It was the only way to save Hogwarts.

A second thunder sounded, followed by the sound of shattered stone and broken glass. It was more of an explosion somewhere within Hogwarts. Hermione felt it roll under her feet. The heavy door rattled in darkness. She reached for her wand and gripped it tightly. It didn't feel heroic now. It felt futile and senseless; as senseless as her presence at Hogwarts. What was she doing here? She hadn't been a witch for half her life. Why should she give her life to save magic, something she doesn't even understand?

Hermione raised a shaky hand and pointed it at the door. She felt it shudder but it didn't open. Frustrated, she tried again, more forcefully.

A blast of ice cold wind caught her square in the face and it was followed by a deafening crack of shattering wood. Hermione was chilled to the bone and she was bent over, coughing up the dust that she had breathed in. She took a moment to regain her composure and ran her wand across her body, getting rid of the dust and grime.

Slowly, she raised her wand, pointed it at the entrance and lit it. The light radiated in a diffuse globe, scattering in the fine dust that hung in the air. She could see bits of stone in front of her. Her bedroom door stood ajar and a large crack ran across its face. The dusty hallway of the teachers' wing loomed outside. Doors flanked either side of the passage and the walls were adorned with portraits, mostly empty of their magical inhabitants. Some had chosen to stay and merely days after the crisis had begun, they were unable to move about and after weeks, they started fading. It had looked gruesome to Hermione but she was sure that they didn't feel pain.

She took a few steps into the hallway. Another explosion sounded, this time more distant, but she could feel it all the same. The doors rattled against the hall. There was no one in these rooms, Hermione knew, but as she crept along the silent passage way she remembered their former occupants. She was proud of some of them, they had done their duty valiantly. Most had deserted however, leaving only a handful behind. A handful of martyrs, she thought, foolish ones, just like Minerva.

"And…four" she whispered.

Another small earthquake rumbled beneath her feet. Three more to go.

Slowly, she inched her way towards her goal and she hoped that others were doing the same. She thought of what she needed to do. She went over the incantations she needed. She uttered every syllable in her mind till they were heard clearly through the thoughts of panic and fear and exhaustion. If Severus was right, then this was all futile, but it was they had to do. He knew it too. They all knew it. They had sealed their plan with the unbreakable vow. Oh Severus…, she though, if only…

The fifth explosion sounded. Barely as the sound reached her, she was swept off her feet and slammed sideways into a wooden door. Her jaw hit something metallic. Kneeling, she gasped in pain and her thoughts were still with Severus. He was reaching out to her and holding her hand. He squeezed just as he had done in Hog's Head but it was painful now. He squeezed harder and harder and the pain grew unbearable.

"Severus!" Hermione cried out but the pain was mounting. The fire climbed up her wrist. She wanted to see it but her eyes were shut tightly. She had to relax. Hermione loosened her jaw and tasted blood. She opened her eyes slowly.

She was lying against a wooden door with her cheek propped against the handle. Her wand was on the other side of the hall, hidden in a pile of rubble. Cones of light shined out the rocks at various angles. Hermione struggled to get up. Her left wrist hurt when she tried to move it and with every breath she took, she a sharp pain in her throat, as if something was lodged there. She limped towards the rubble and fished out her wand from the rocks.

She felt afraid, not for her own safety but for the state of the mission. Her thoughts grew more concerned about the others. Were they alright? She wanted to contact them, somehow, and see where they were but Moody had expressly warned against it. Any potent magic might attract its attention.

She looked around her. She was almost at the end of the length hallway but she was nowhere near the great hall. She felt the darkness of the castle pressing down on her, goading her to give up. Where was Moody? Lupin? Severus? She thought that if she could see them even for one second, she would be convinced to carry on. Two could stand a fighting chance or at least, fail as one. The loneliness that she had somehow shut out for the past few weeks came crashing down on Hermione.

Moody had warned her against this. He had tried to make a soldier out of her. He had told her that this would happen, that when things got worse, the thought of dying alone would come to haunt her. A lump formed in Hermione's throat and it grew tighter. She felt tears stream down her face.

She heard Moody's booming voice in her mind.

"Pain is an illusion!" it yelled, "Master your mind and you'll see through pain. If you feel broken, hurt and absolutely exhausted, take a step forward! That's what you want to do. Not give up!"

"Take a step forward!" she repeated in her mind and instinctively moved away from the rubble. She silenced all other errant thoughts and focused on the only one that mattered: get to the great hall. She knew that the others would be there - Moody and Snape and Lupin, waiting for her with their wands at the ready.

Panting, she walked forward. The pain was unbearable but without thought, she placed one foot after another. She walked forwards with a singular mind, with the mind of action, oblivious to the bleakness around her. She didn't see the burnt out classrooms, shattered staircases and empty portraits. She didn't see the suits of armor charred to a crisp black nor did she see the holed stain glass windows leaking grim moonlight into the halls. She walked around craters on the floors and around sections of walls that were completely caved in. Hermione walked in a daze, half awake and half dreaming of her ecstatic reunion with her friends, till she reached the top of the grand staircase that led down to the great hall.

The double doors guarding the entrance of the castle and the atrium of the castle were in pristine condition. The floors were spotless and the walls and ceiling was undamaged. Everything was as if someone had just cleaned them. The grand staircase looked like it was newly built except that the entire right half of it was missing, as if it was vaporized or the builders had intended to leave it that way.

Hermione's gaze slowly swept across the hall till it landed on the double doors that led into the great hall. Beside it, a strange, log-like figure slumped against the wall. It looked brown, like the bark of a tree and from a distance, its texture looked coarse. She found it puzzling. A tree bark? She found it odd how someone, if there's someone responsible, would leave a tree bark lying the middle of a pristine hall.

She descended the staircase, gripping her wand tightly at her sides. Her gaze never wandered from the figure. A premonition came over her. She felt her neck grow hot. What if it was something dangerous? But it could be anything she thought, anything at all. Somehow, she had to know what it was.

As she edged closer to the figure, she noticed that it had branches. Two long drooping branches fixed at its sides, almost like arms but it had no legs. The bottom of the figure was a solid round. The brown color came from a crusty and scaly coating that covered the entire thing. As she moved closer, she could see some of it flaking off and some littered at its sides.

Cautiously, Hermione moved forwards and knelt beside the figure. She gently touched it with her hands and some of the brown coating slid off. It was hard and it poked into her skin. The clearing she had made with her touch revealed a harder, more solid layer underneath and underneath the layer, there was a faint outline of what looked like the back of a hand.

Hermione froze. With bated breath, she realized what it was. Her hands began to shake but she needed to know. Nervously, she began to wipe near the top, near where the head should be. The scales dug into her palms. She started to bleed but she kept digging till most of the scales were gone and only the solid body remained. She peeled the scales off her arms and leaned closer towards the outline of the head.

Hermione reeled back in fear. She pushed herself away from the figure till her legs lost grip. Panting heavily, she scrambled to pull her wand out of her pocket.

"Severus please…" she whispered "Please be alive…"

She crawled back beside the transfigured form. His entire body was changed. How could this happen, how could it to someone like him? Hermione kept her eyes away from the sight of his face. She had seen it before, the pained expression of the Cruciatus curse but she had never seen it frozen, in permanent agony.

She flicked her wand at Severus' body and whispered a counter-spell, but there was no response. In a fit of panic, she flicked her wand again and again, till she exhausted her salvo of counter spells. Hermione felt desperate. Severus needed help now. Such transfiguration could do serious harm if it was left alone. Her eyes searched around the hall frantically for anything it could find, anything or anybody that could help.

Hermione raised her wand to her temple. She had to contact them, Severus needed help.

"Fariosa Inca-"

The explosion caught her mid-spell. It blew open the doors to the great hall and sent her hurtling headlong inside it. Hermione crashed into a table and slumped along its side. How many was that? She tried to think. Five? Six? Her thoughts were racing between Severus and the mission. The mission was important she knew but the sight of Severus had wiped all concern off her mind. The counter spell had to be deployed exactly at the seventh explosion. She tried to remember.

Hermione felt for her wand. It was still in her hand and still in one piece. The counter curse was fresh in her mind but when did she have to say it?

She tried to get up, to get into a better position, but it was useless. It hurt even to breath. She could manage only shallow and rapid gasps.

Raising her wand to her chest, she murmured, "Episkey".

Her chest felt very hot and then it grew very cold. She felt as if a weight had been taken off her. She took a deep breath and rested her head on her arms.

"Four" she thought, "Four explosions before the hall and one now."

Silently, she went over the incantations in her mind. She had to get it right the first time, exactly when the seventh explosion sounds. She closed her eyes and waited. She knew that the sixth explosion could be anywhere but the seventh would be in the great hall – whoever they were, they would arrive no place else.

She closed her eyes and listened intently. Something told her that the sixth explosion would be far off. She slowed her breathing as much as she could and tried to relax. It was almost here. She was here, she was alive and well. She could complete the mission and Hogwarts would be saved. Her expression was serene but it bore no hint of peace. As she lay there, tired but hopeful, with her wand at the ready, she felt a powerful blast of air tear across the great hall.

The energy that coursed through the room paralyzed every muscle in her body. The sound of the explosion deafened her. Bits of stone and wood were suspended in the air, mid flight, hovering magically beside a brilliant blue orb that had appeared in the middle of the great hall. It rotated slowly in mid air. Waves of heat emanated from the orb in all directions. Hermione felt it wash over her, burning her skin.

She shielded her face with her arms. Splinters of wood that were not caught by the orb lodged into her wrists and into her neck. The heat was intense and the roar of the explosion still endured.

Hermione felt no fear. She felt no devastation about her failure. All thought stopped at the moment of the explosion and what was left of her consciousness stared in absolute amazement at the spectacle in front of her. She knew that she had miscalculated and that her mission had irrevocably failed yet she stared in absolute stillness at the force that was the cause of so much suffering and so much death.

Hermione blinked. With great effort, she raised her wand high into the air and uttered the incantations for the fiendfyre curse.

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