"How…" Hermione muttered past the thick pain in her throat. Her hand fluttered up to cover her mouth in sheer shock, "how are you here?" she slowly approached the darkly dressed professor who stood stock still with the same old sardonic look on his face. She was near enough to touch him with her fingertips when Lucius wrapped an arm around her shoulders to stop her.
"Let go of me!" she shouted, "I saw your dead body! I thought you had died Severus…" she shouted angrily at the unaffected man, "do you know how that felt?! To think I would never see you again! That I would never hear your voice! And yet here you are…" the barrage of emotions were overwhelming and confusing. On one hand she wanted to slap him for making her live with the pain of thinking him dead, on the other hand she didn't want to let him know just how much she had truly cared about him at the time of his death and on yet another hand she wanted to run up and jump into his arms.
A girl could only take so much.
"Stay back Hermione." Lucius warned her lowly.
"Let me go Malfoy! You could at least give me this…" she looked at him pleadingly, knowing he full well understood what she wanted.
"I can't let you do that." He told her levelly.
"Severus, tell him to let me go." She turned towards the professor and begged.
"I cannot do that Hermione. You need to stay as far away from me as possible. I only came to serve as an example and proof of Lucius's claims." Her confusion mounted tenfold but she stopped fighting against him.
"What do you mean?" she began, her mind working a mile a minute as to what he could be hinting, "You aren't a part of the Inferi are you?" she asked hesitantly, praying to god he wasn't.
"In some ways I am… but in many ways I am not." Her head began to hurt.
"Will one of you just give me a clear answer already?!" she hollered, tears springing to her eyes. The desire to reach out and touch him was damn near overwhelming her…
"He's been made a vampire Hermione…" Lucius muttered lowly after a few moments of her sobbing silently. Her first instinct was to laugh at the ridiculousness of his claim but something made her stop. Vampirism was the grey area in wizarding; there had been claims of vampire's wellbeing for centuries but never had there been any substantial evidence to back up those claims other than Sanguini but even he had been fleeting and non-informative.
"You lie." She spat at him, her eyes still glued to the professor who looked the same as he always had.
"He is telling the truth." Severus confirmed and, much to her intense horror, flashed her a wicked smile to reveal a pair of lethally long sharp incisors. Her stomach churned at the sight but she was completely unable to move or say anything; the gravity of the situation was that heavy.
"Severus… oh god…" was all she could muster. She began shoving at Lucius again, desperate to disengage his iron like grasp on her.
"Hermione don't…" he muttered, tightening his hold.
"Let me go, I'm an adult; I know what I'm getting myself into." She whipped her head around and glared at him with such intense pain it made him ache much to his confusion. Against his better judgment he loosened his hold and dropping his arm, allowing her to go free and tentatively walk towards the dark man still standing stiffly in the doorway. Severus stiffened noticeably with each step she took towards him; her scent wafted in his direction making his fangs drip with saliva, how sweet she would taste on his tongue…
The hell of it was it wasn't just her blood he was thinking about.
"Severus…" she muttered, stopping short just a few inches so she could stare up at him in amazement and grief. Slowly she raised her hand, her fingers outstretched to brush against the thick black fabric that made his robes. He hissed when she pressed the pads of her fingers more heavily against him; the heat of her skin tangible through the many layers of clothing separating him. He could feel the tiny flutter of her heartbeat through the thin layer of her skin and it made him ache.
"You shouldn't be this close to me," He muttered thickly, his fangs taking up more room in his mouth than he was used to even after all this time. He had never felt desire this pungent before even when the Dark Lord would bring fresh young humans to his room; none had ever smelled as intoxicating as her vanilla tinged aroma, "especially given your current state of undress." His eyes darted down to take in the view of her tanned, unblemished skin and pert breasts that only succeeded in making him harder and more hungry for her. He couldn't deny that he wanted to touch her too, to take back those years when everything was more simple and they held a guileless student teacher relationship; when she hated his guts and constantly outperformed everyone like the insufferable little know-it-all that she always would be… but things had changed too much, even in those last few months she had grown and blossomed into a strong willed, hard headed woman which only served to make him feel more for her than appropriate…
"I can't believe that you are here… in my bedroom… alive." She muttered, staring at him like he was a ghost.
"Alive is hardly the word I would use to describe myself." He muttered sardonically, pleased when a small smile lit up her face.
"Do you see why we need you?" Lucius piped up from behind them. He slowly approached the two of them, his eyes searching Hermione's once they met, "Without your help he will raise all those who aided him and died… then he will make them all this." His hand motioned towards Severus.
"Are you the only one he's made?" she asked.
"Vampire yes; Inferi no," he began, gulping against a particularly strong wave of bloodlust, "I am still obliged to follow his orders but I have a free mind and almost completely free will but the others he's made are entirely at his mercy… he made me as a sort of experiment but when he attempted to make another it went severely wrong and he is unable to reproduce the results he had with me. Knowing you escaped successfully he sent Lucius and I to find you at all costs knowing that although you are a mudblood you hold the answers he needs." He explained.
"Why doesn't he just open a book? All the information here," she tapped her temple, "came from those."
"He had all books destroyed once he took power. None were spared, not even those that would have been of use to him. He feared someone from the 'resistance' would get a hold of one and use it against him. So the knowledge everyone had before is the knowledge we are all stuck with." Lucius offered. She wanted to laugh at the stupidity of the situation but held her tongue.
"He's just going to kill me once I give him what he wants." She stated bluntly as if daring them to contradict her.
"Not necessarily." Severus retorted like she knew he would.
"And what makes you say that?"
"You would be far too useful to him to be killed. The repercussions of his actions are not lost on him so he needs everything he can get his hands on. You help him and he will let you live… but of course we have a plan in mind for when he regains the power." Lucius told her.
"And that is to kill him?" her eyes darted between the two wizards.
"Yes." Lucius muttered.
"Why the change of heart? You were his right hand man Lucius and now you want to kill him? Sounds like a crock of shit to me." She snapped venomously.
"He killed Narcissa… After Draco died during the post battle while trying to capture a few half-bloods Narcissa went mad and began preaching against him… needless to say he did away with her not long after she began defying him." years old heartache resounded in his voice but she refused to feel pity. It was just what they all deserved.
"So here's how I understand all of this," Hermione began, shrugging of the nagging sensation of remorse that was creeping up her spine, "you want me to accompany you back into his clutches where I shall then aid him in creating more vampire Inferi half breeds to serve his every whim. Then when he regains power you are going to kill him and that's that?"
"Essentially…" Lucius nodded.
"You sound like you're leaving something out."
"This is all going to take a considerable amount of time, he won't just leave it be once you give him sufficient information," Severus explained, "begin able to raise the dead and create vampires out of them successfully takes a long time to master. He will want to keep you around until he is able to achieve just one then he will want to kill you but we need something to give us an edge, something to convince him that you will be a loyal and useful to him."
"But I won't… be loyal that is." She interjected.
"Yes but we need him to think that you will so no more lives are lost, especially yours." Lucius finished for Severus.
"Your mind will be the greatest asset to rebuilding once we defeat him, without you the next generation will be a bunch of bumbling idiots… we haven't the expanse of knowledge that you do to educate them properly when it comes time for that." Hermione felt like her head was primed to explode given the plethora of planning and information she was being given but she held back, interested to hear what they had in mind.
"So what exactly is in this for me? Because it just sounds like you are planning to use me." She asked.
"His death and the assurance that the next generation of wizards will not live in ignorance and fear." Tempting…
"You have me nearly convinced… but what is our 'edge'?" she steeled herself against what she expected to be an entirely repugnant proposition.
"We need to convince him that you are entirely loyal and a worthwhile asset to him," Severus began cautiously which only served to scare her more, "he needs to have no shadow of a doubt of this."
"I am entirely against this plan of action as well but it is the only truly convincing thing we could do." Lucius interjected making her look at him in shock and fear; it had to be bad.
"Tell me now." She demanded hotly.
"We need you to… marry Lucius."
