Chapter 4:

Incarcerous

(Hermione's Memories, Part Two - August 1997)

Hermione felt his fingers grasp her chin and force her head upwards. His contact made her recoil. He had never touched her before, not even a casual tap on the shoulder as he loomed over her cauldron or an inconsequential brush of an arm as he swooped past her in a corridor. To her recollection, Severus Snape touched no one. His fingers were long and yellowing from years of manipulating magical plants and reptile innards. His smell was overpowering as she shut her eyes tightly in a bid to keep him out.

'The spell to force them open is quite unpleasant, Miss Granger. Are you sure you want me to perform it?'

He waited for her compliance. 'One way or another I will find out what I need to know,' he said when she remained steadfast.

'Not with myconsent!'

His reaction to her insolence surprised her. She had expected a brutal reprisal, a spell to compel her eyes to open so that he could force his way into her mind and take whatever he wanted. He let go of her chin with an exasperated sigh, and she saw him screw his own eyes tightly shut when she dared to open hers. His unexpected gesture of quiet impatience confused her, but at least he wasn't hurling Unforgiveables or Disapparating her to his master's lair.

She felt a small advantage and pressed it.

'You have my wand; I'm hardly a threat without it. May I be released from your holding spell? It's rather uncomfortable.'

Snape opened his eyes and contemplated her for a moment. 'Your comfortis not my priority. I prefer you immobile – for now. Perhaps I will consider your release in return for cooperation.' His eyes shone with malice, and Hermione tore her gaze away from their intensity. 'Potter! Miss Granger: where is he?'

She gave him another denial and somehow managed to withstand his loathsome proximity as he circled her slowly. At her shoulder now, she felt his breath upon her neck. He lowered his mouth to her ear, words soft and low with menace and the promise of some unnamed horror yet to be inflicted. 'How much pain do you think you can endure?'

The peeling wallpaper on the wall opposite held her attention. It was a diminished green, she realised, patterned with faded silver Fleur de Lys. The image of the room's former occupant popped into her head – an arrogant, self-important young Death Eater, admiring his Dark Mark in front of an ornate mirror which hung on a wall plastered in shades of Slytherin – but Snape's ominous threats shook her beyond any diversion the image could induce.

She stared at the wall, thought of Regulus and tried to shut out the silky voice in her ear, reminding her of her inadequacies and sneering at her predicament. If he really meant to use the Cruciatus Curse on her she wished he would just get on with it instead of feeding her fear with seductive promises of a pain beyond anything the human body could tolerate.

Her response remained only to stare ahead and say nothing. As long as he was prowling around her, taunting her with images of every wretched victim he had seen writhing at the Dark Lord's feet; as long as he was just revelling in her torment, she was safe.
Suddenly, he seemed to tire of her fortitude. Perhaps he had some other form of persecution in mind as he stood in front of her and released the holding spell with a languid flick of his wand.

As soon as she felt the freedom return to her limbs, she put her half-baked, desperately pointless plan into action and hurled herself towards him. She was exultant when her sudden movement knocked him off balance so that the two of them toppled clumsily onto the bed. Her aim was to make a frantic attempt to reclaim her wand; her only chance now that the momentary element of surprise had presented itself. She was not about to squander this miniscule window of opportunity on considering the reprisals of failure.

The manoeuvre from upright to flailing and entwined was so awkward that her head collided painfully with an angular wooden bedpost as they fell. She was too intent on stretching for her wand, held tightly in his grasp, to consider the highly irregular and abhorrent circumstance of being in such an intimate position with her former Potions teacher. She ignored both the objectionable proximity to Snape and the throb in her bleeding head, but as she lay across him desperately reaching for her wand, she knew that her chance, fleeting and vain, was gone. He held the object she desired so intensely, high above his head, playing with her as if she were a dog begging for her master to throw a stick.

With her opportunity gone, Hermione's mind turned to attack. She dug her knee hard into his thigh and tried desperately to strike him wherever she was able to make contact. She aimed for his head but managed only a trivial, glancing strike. He seemed to second guess her every move, and though he snarled with pain when her knee struck home, his free hand grasped a handful of her hair and wrenched her head backwards.

Impulse drove her to fight back, and momentarily she felt the flesh of his cheek beneath her hand as she grasped at him, claw-like, dragging her nails maliciously into his sallow skin. It felt empowering to cause him physical harm, but the feeling was short-lived; he was stronger than she expected, and it took barely a moment for him to regain mastery of the situation. He grabbed her offending wrist and in a moment had flipped her onto her back, ignoring her squeals of indignation. Her body writhed with futility as he straddled her hips and pinned her wrists above her head. She felt her wand in his hand, digging into her wrist tantalisingly close, but under his control, not hers.

She let out a groan of surrender.

'Enough!' he snapped as she struggled beneath his weight. 'Gryffindor theatricals will not win you House points here.' He slammed her wrists hard into the mattress to make his point. She caught the faint whiff of coffee on his breath; it mingled with the smell of potions ingredients infused in his robes, and the masculine aroma of heat and sweat which she had never detected before in all the years she had known him. The reminder that he was a human being who perspired and drank coffee, only served to increase her loathing – at least, if he was a monster, he had an excuse.

He lifted his head and locked his arms rigidly straight as if he were deliberately creating as much distance as their intimate position would allow.

'You have no delicacy. No finesse and no cunning,' he said. 'How can you hope to prevail?' Hermione thought she was losing her mind when she detected an accompanying look of regret as he spoke his admonishments. But it had disappeared so quickly that she knew it must have been nothing more than an earnest wish, on her part, to see some humanity lurking behind his eyes. 'I did, however, expect a degree or two more integrity from the girl who would set free every house-elf in Dumbledore's employ.'

Snape's casual mention of the man he had so recently and callously finished off infuriated her. How dare he speak the name of Albus Dumbledore with such nonchalance! His former mentor had employed him, trusted him, and believed in him. Did Severus Snape have nothing in his heart but a cold, hard chunk of rock? He seemed impossible to rattle. She had tricked him, attacked him, and shown him her contempt, yet still he remained stoic, barely a flicker of emotion had revealed itself. This would not do. Her sanity needed to see him capable of reacting like a man. She wanted to see remorse, fear, anger, anything but his dispassion – thatunnerved her more than his resentment.

'Traitor!'

His eyes darkened, his cheeks paled, and he grasped her wrists evermore tightly. 'Yes,' he agreed, but no monstrous pride at his foul deeds could be read in those two black, gleaming eyes.

There was a time when Hermione's dreams consisted of nothing darker than images of owls delivering messages of failure and disappointment from her professors. Since her fourth, fifth and sixth years, Ron had visited her dreams – pleasant, uncomplicated images of shared pubescent innocence and the sweet anxiety of longing – until recently, when despondency in the form of every dark and foul creature imaginable invaded her resting mind. Never in the depths of her untamed and turbulent dreams, however, could she have cultivated a scenario involving Professor Snape straddling her whilst she shouted profanities into his face, and him letting her do it.

In one swift movement, he shifted his hold on her – now two wrists were caught in his one, leaving his other arm free to cast Incarcerous. Snake-like ropes slithered from the end of his wand and slinked around her wrists, binding them together. He pulled her arms down in front of her and rose from his position, finally severing their intimacy. He pulled her up into a sitting position and stood before her once again.

'Perhaps you find thatmore to your liking, Miss Granger,' he said. 'Forgive me if I feel it wise to take such ungracious precautions, but there seems to be an issue of trust.'

The two regarded each other for several long moments, until Hermione once more broke the silence with her attempt to break his cool exterior and show him how far beyond his school-room intimidation tactics she was.

She watched his face as she put her question to him. 'Was he pleased with you?'

A dangerous gleam was his only response.

She tried again. 'Were you rewarded?' Hermione would not have believed him capable of withstanding her blatant derision and utter provocation with such resilience if it were not for the evidence before her eyes. He turned and walked towards the far end of the room where the old bureau stood, placing some distance and his back between them, but still he did not reply.

'Did you get a round of applause when you returned with the triumphant news?' She didn't know where this insane bravado was coming from, but it felt as if she no longer had anything to lose but chances, and she might as well take them. He allowed the angry rant. She spoke of his cowardice, his guilt, his immorality. She watched his rigid form from across the room and saw his knuckles tighten as they clutched the edge of the desk, but he did not retort with either a violent spell or an angry outburst. He didn't appear to want her to stop.

Finally, he seemed to recollect himself. He straightened from his position, turned to face her, and returned to where she still remained seated, bound and heated from her recent tirade. She saw fervour in his eyes as he approached, though as a result of what she could not say; it could have been disdain, it could have been anger, yet it seemed to be dismay.

She felt the warm flow of blood, running freely from the wound on her forehead and vowed not to flinch when Snape calmly pointed his wand at her.

She wondered if dying would hurt, or if it would be nothing more fearsome than falling asleep. She suddenly hoped there would be something afterwards, though she had never really been much of a believer in the after life. Now though, it seemed imperative that this life, these seventeen short years, were not it. She was determined to look him in the eye, to face her killer with courage and determination and defiance. His eyes became focused with concentration. Hermione knew that intent was important when casting any spell, but when wielding dark magic it was everything. She searched his face for the hatred and abhorrence she knew to expect as he reached for the emotion needed to cast the curse. She doubted it would be a struggle for him; he had never liked her, always her harshest critic. Her eyes met his, and in them she saw anger and bitterness, but not hatred – at least, not for her.

'Tergeo!' he said, and the blood disappeared. 'Epismendo!' She felt a slight discomfort as the edges of her open wound found each other, joined, melded and healed.

Why — in all that was holy — would he repair her injury if he intended to kill her? Was his intention to present her to Lord Voldemort after all? Another notch, another trophy, another reason to remain at the right hand of his master? His face was bleeding where she had sunk her nails into his cheek. He didn't bother to attend to his own injury, however; his only acknowledgement was to wipe the back of his hand across his face, smearing rather than removing the blood which was already beginning to coagulate. He seemed in no hurry to whisk her away to the Dark Lord. Perhaps he hoped to make her talk before he did so. Turning up with the Chosen One's best friend apparently wasn't enough; he wanted to present her broken and dispirited, having betrayed her friends. She let her eyes fall onto the faint patch of crimson, stark against the pale skin on his hand. The sight of his blood reminded her of his fragility – he was no infallible creature impervious to damage; he could be harmed. The thought stilled the coward in her from making the easy choice and saving herself. Suddenly, she felt herself capable of heroism, and she knew that she would die rather than give her friends away. Her courage did not prevent her from wondering what lengths Snape would take to acquire the information. He was clearly capable of the basest of human endeavours. Would he use the Imperius curse on her? The Cruciatus?

Worse?

She shuddered, but resolved to keep her fear from him. She would show him what it meant to be a Gryffindor. It came as quite a surprise, therefore, when he asked if she was cold. Not even a lingering, balmy evening could penetrate the festering, mould-riddled room that was chill enough, even at the pinnacle of summer, for visible curls of breath to make misty trails with every outward sigh. If this was an attempt at mockery, the master of scorn was lacking his usual finesse – the question seemed genuine.

Hermione shook her head for the sake of defiance, but was relieved when he pointed his wand at a large open fireplace which she doubted had seen so much as a smoulder in years. The spoken word, Incendio, was not required, but the grate was soon alive with the red and gold of warming flames, dancing in the hearth like newly freed Sprites.