I would just like to say a huge thanks to anyone reading. I'm hoping it won't be long between updates throughout this story. However, please feel free to bug me with messages if I am taking too long.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Chapter 4
Hermione continued to try to pull herself free from Snape's painful grasp. He led her over to the desk, shoving her against it and finally let go of her, standing so close that she was practically sitting up on the desk just to try and put some space between them.
"Touch me and I swear to Merlin I'll scream so loud your Muffliato charm will have been a complete waste of time!" she said sounding much less confident than she would have liked.
"You and I both know that is not a possibility, Miss Granger." Snape replied simply.
For a moment there was complete silence but the second Hermione saw Snape reach into his robe, for what she guessed was his wand, she kicked out at him. She knew she had hurt him when he fell to his knees, grunting in pain.
The young witch dove off the desk and ran towards the door. She had just reached it when she heard it snap, like a huge lock had been turned in it. She sighed in frustration and turned to see Snape pointing his wand at the door, she knew instantly he'd put a locking charm on it and she knew it would be a powerful one.
It didn't stop her from trying to open it however, "Alohomora!" she yelled as she hit it with her fists, wishing she had her wand. It was no good, the door didn't budge, it didn't even creak.
"Miss Granger!" she heard Snape yell behind her, he sounded pissed off and she wasn't really surprised after the kick she had just given him. She turned to face him, keeping her back pressed tightly against the door.
She watched as he straightened up and walked towards her. Upon seeing the scared-to-death look on her face he stopped further away from her than he had first intended to. "I do not wish to hurt you." he told her in a tone that suggested anything but what he had just said, "Not only do I need to speak to you I also need to see to the wound on your head." he said sternly.
Hermione reached up and touched her head, wincing in pain. Once more she brought her finger tips before her face and noticed the blood on them. "Why?" she asked, her voice still shaky.
"Why. What?" he snapped back at her.
"You were there, hitting me with curses along with Voldemort and his pathetic followers!" Hermione growled angrily at him. "Why should I believe you want to help me now with this?" she said pointing at her head.
"It is thanks to me that you are even standing there at all Miss Granger!"
Hermione was clearly shocked and confused by his words. Snape knew she didn't believe him. "Why did you let them do that to me?" she asked with tears in her eyes that threatened to fall at any moment. She prayed they wouldn't. It was the last thing she wanted to let Snape see her cry because of something he had done to her, if only partly.
Snape just looked at her. "First, I will tend to the wound on your head. Then I will answer any questions you have." he told her.
Hermione was clearly hesitant to trust him. She kept thinking back to the previous years when she had been in his potions class, the hell he had put her and her friends through. Yes, he had always been a git, a very arrogant one at that, but he had also saved her life before and something inside her told her to trust him.
She stepped away from the door and watched as Snape pulled a chair up for her to sit down on. Still somewhat hesitant, she moved over to it and sat down. Snape felt her body tense as he carefully brushed her hair aside in an attempt to find the wound.
He was silently shocked at how soft her hair actually was, having always thought the bushy hair would be dry like straw, but it was very much the opposite. He quickly found the wound and although not a deep cut it was bleeding quite profusely, but then again most head wounds did so. With a simple and painless Episkey he had the wound cleared up before Hermione had even noticed he had moved round to stand in front of her.
She noticed the gap he left between them and she wondered if it was intentional or not. Still she stood up and stepped behind the chair she had just been occupying, needing something more than just thin air between them. "Thank you." she muttered to him, just to be polite, as she checked the wound, looking at her finger tips she saw no blood.
Snape just dipped his head slightly in response. Truth was, he felt like he would owing her in whatever way he could for a while to come. He would never admit it but he felt unbearably guilty for having inflicted pain on the girl and for letting the others having done so the way they had and for so long. Still he knew if he had intervened the Dark Lord would have made him and Hermione suffer in a much worse way.
Deep down, Hermione wanted to ask a million questions, but for perhaps the first time in her life she wasn't sure she truly wanted to ask them or learn the answers if she did. She took another step away from him and rubbed her eye.
Snape saw her reluctance to ask him questions and so took it upon himself to just explain, "The Snatchers caught you and brought you before the Dark Lord. That much I am sure you are aware of." he began.
"That and the fact they tortured me, including that little cockroach Malfoy!"
"Draco Malfoy is not quite what you think he is…"
"Of course you would defend your little pet, your favourite student! It must have made it so much easier to torture me when you hate me the way you do….!"
"Enough!" Snape told her, his tone telling her he was bored by her outburst.
"If by you explaining this to me you simply mean defending Draco Malfoy's actions then I don't want to hear it!" she snapped at him, shocked by the fact that she was raising her voice to a teacher, even it that teacher was Snape.
"That is not what I intended to do, however, should you feel the need to make this all about your pathetic on-going squabble with Mr Malfoy then I shall not bother explaining it to you at all!"
'What an arse!' Hermione thought to herself as she rolled her eyes. As she glanced up at Snape she suddenly wondered if she had in fact just said the words out loud, he was looking at her with a look that said never say that again.
She quickly turned her head away and shook the thought away. How could he possibly know what she was thinking? Besides, he always had that look…unless that was because he knew everyone was always thinking horrible things about him. She found herself quickly sitting down in the chair, confused by her own rambling thoughts. Desperately wondering if there was any truth to them.
"Despite what you think about Mr Malfoy or even myself you will come to learn that from now on we all need to work together."
Hermione looked at him in disbelief. "They only way I would work with Malfoy would be to read him a map that will direct him to the nearest tallest cliff and then give him a helpful shove off of it!"
Snape just glared at her, before he took a deep breath and was about to continue when Hermione began firing her questions at him, her anger making them fly out of her mouth like angry bullets. "So why did you let them torture me? Why was Malfoy sitting at the same table as Voldemort and why were you for that matter? How come the Snatchers took me and not Harry or Ron and why were they chasing us in the first place? Why didn't Voldemort just come after us himself and…."
"ENOUGH!" Snape yelled at her, even he was shocked by the amount of questions she had just asked in what he was sure was one breath. "One. Question. At. A. Time!" he told her clearly. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. He then decided to try to answer the questions she had already asked, the ones he could remember before he had switched his brain off to her. "Why Malf…Mr Malfoy was there is not your concern…."
"When he's torturing me I would say it is!" she growled at him.
"Miss Granger, will you let me explain or do you insist on interrupting me every five seconds!"
Hermione sighed and looked at him defiantly, git, she thought to herself. Again getting the same stern look he had shot at her before.
Snape had suddenly completely forgotten all her questions. The only thing he knew now was how much his head was aching and how exhausted he felt. "By the time I was finally able to get you away from Malfoy Manor you were barely alive. You were bleeding from such dark and rare curses that good magic could not save you. I had no choice but to turn to the dark arts."
He had thought it would be wise to shorten the story as much as possible so he could tell her and get the hell out and away from her, but the shocked and scared look he now saw creeping over her face told him he had made the wrong choice.
"There was no other way." he told her, sounding more like he was reassuring himself. He wanted to continue but wasn't sure how to. "Nothing would have worked. You had lost a significant amount of blood and all the blood replenishing potions in the castle would not have helped you. They simply would not have worked." He said, making it as clear as he could.
"What spell?" she asked.
Snape shook his head at her. "All you need to know is that my blood saved you. In order to do this my blood had to be drank and mixed with yours."
He suddenly wanted to launch forward and catch the girl in his arms as she doubled over and heaved but he forced himself to stay standing still.
Hermione put her hand over her mouth and although she could not stop the sound that escaped her mouth she was able to not throw up on the spot where she stood. She had to force herself to not think about having drunk Snape's blood because when she did she felt sure she would throw up. She took in three big gulps of air and asked, "Wh… Ho…. What does this mean?" she asked, her thoughts all a jumble inside her head.
"It means that your blood will forever be joined with mine."
Hermione felt the nausea wash over her again, she wanted nothing to do with Snape after Hogwarts yet here he was telling her she would share his blood forever. "Can you reverse it? Can you get your blood out of me?" she asked.
Snape wasn't surprised that the thought of his blood mixed with hers repulsed her so. "No!" he told her. "There is no way to change this. The only thing that can possibly break the connection is death."
"But I don't want to have any connection to you forever!" she spat coldly at him.
Immediately he replied, "Then perhaps you think death would have been the preferred option." He couldn't help but snarl at her.
"You gave me no choice!" she yelled at him.
"I gave you back your life!" he yelled back at her.
"By giving me your blood through means of the dark arts! So what else does this mean? I know you may think it but I am not stupid so I know that no spell or curse found in a dark arts book won't have some horrid and vile side effects or something attached to it."
Snape looked at her, wondering if he should tell her when she seemed so hysterical, but he knew she had a right to know. "You belong to me now." he said simply.
Hermione gasped and fell back against a desk, catching herself before she slumped to the floor. "I…I…what?"
"You belong to me now. If I so chose I could command your every thought, your every move. However, I have no desire to do so. "
"Oh lucky me!" Hermione snapped back at him.
"I wish Voldemort had just killed me." she muttered.
Snape winced, was he really that bad to have to share a life with forever more? He immediately knew the answer to his own question. "The Dark Lord wished me to save your life so you can be used as an ally. He wishes for you to spy as such on Potter and report back to him, hoping it will inevitably help bring forth Potter's demise. " He daren't tell her that it was actually more of his suggestion she be spared from the death eaters, and the Dark Lord himself, for this reason.
"Like hell!" Hermione shot at him is disbelief, "I would never ever do that to Harry. I would rather die first!"
"You will not need to nor will you need to die Miss Granger. However, in order for you to survive you must act like you are doing just what the Dark Lord asks of you."
"So what am I supposed to do, just lie to him?" she asked
"Exactly." Snape replied.
"And when I tell him nothing or I lie to him you really think he won't just kill me? You think he won't know that I'm lying to him?"
"You will make sure he doesn't think you're lying to him." Snape said. His tone was more like a warning.
"And just how am I supposed to do that?" she asked as she crossed her arms across her chest.
"You're a smart witch, you work it out." he snapped at her.
Hermione suddenly thought back to the lessons Snape had been instructed to give to Harry, until they had come to an abrupt end. "Occlumency."
"Yes."
"I can't do that." she told him shaking her head.
"The insufferable know it all doesn't in fact now it all it would appear." he said with a satisfied smirk.
Hermione glared at him and shook her head, you're an arse she thought as loud as she could as she continued to glare at him.
The way he snarled at her only deepened her belief that he could somehow hear her thought. "It seems that I will have no choice but to teach you it then."
"Voldemort will know and when he works out that I have no intentions to help him, he'll kill me."
"I won't let that happen." Snape told her. "Now go. You will come to my office tonight at 7pm sharp and we will begin your lessons then. Do not be late! I believe that to start these lessons sooner rather than later would be in both our best interests."
Hermione could only look at him for a moment she could feel hot tears filling her eyes, burning. She suddenly realised she had no choice in this but still she had to ask, "I can't say no to this….can I?"
Snape looked back at her in silence for a moment before he very slowly shook his head from side to side and simply said, "No."
TBC
Thanks so much for reading. Please, please review and let me know if you want me to continue with this.
