Chapter 8 "Playing the Part"
Severus Snape felt the sting of his marked arm more forceful than usual as Voldemort demanded for him to join him. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he knew that it probably had something to do with Harry Potter and if the Dark Lord was angry than it meant that Potter was at least still alive.
Severus flailed his arm over his body and reappeared at Malfoy manor. The Dark Lord was standing in the corner of the room using the cruciations on Lucius Malfoy. Something had obviously gone down here. The chandelier was shattered in the middle of the foyer and Bellatrix, Draco and Narcissa all seemed to be terrified of what would follow when Voldemort was finished taking his anger out on Lucius.
"Get out of my site!" Voldemort hissed at Lucius. Narcissa rushed to his side to help him to his feet and they scampered somewhere else into the house.
To Severus's surprise Voldemort suddenly turned to face him.
He slithered over to him to where he was only a foot or two away, his snake always near inches away from his feet.
"Severus, do you know why I have summoned you here?" Voldemort appeared calm, but that didn't say much.
"No, my Lord." Severus replied humbly. Twenty years working as a spy had taught him to play his part well. He had become a favorite of Voldemort's, but he had done unspeakable things to earn the rank.
"It would appear Harry Potter was momentarily held here, only he was not alone. You see Severus it was you who insisted that the Harry Potter's mudblood friend would eventually lure him back to Hogwarts so I find curious that she was here this afternoon being tortured for information by Bellatrix."
Severus had no idea how Miss Granger could get out of Hogwarts without him being aware of it. Stupid, foolish girl. How long had she been leaving, helping Harry and then returning back to the school?
His thoughts were interrupted with a flick of Voldemorts wand and then a swift fall to the ground with a sudden excruciating pain. There was a reason the cruciatious was a forbidden. It made your body writhe in unnatural positions as you felt like hot pokers were stabbing all the way through your body. After enough time even the strongest of Wizards would be begging for death or be driven mad.
The pain stopped only momentarily. Severus put his hand on the floor, breathing in gasps.
"I have no idea how the mudblood got out of Hogwarts." Severus hated the word, but there were times like this when he had to spit it out.
"Find out how she's getting out. If she's getting out unseen then Harry Potter could very well get in. I entrusted this job to you Severus. It was your idea. Now I am starting to regret it."
Then there was the pain again, only it didn't lapse. Voldemort wasn't just taking out his frustrations he was teaching him a lesson. Snape tried to find the place in his mind where he could see Lily's face and remember why he was doing all of this.
Always.
He didn't have time to register why the face that helped him find calm was in fact Hermione Granger. He knew very little of what it meant only that it somehow helped.
He needed to take the pain for the greater cause.
Finally after what seemed like an eternity, when Severus couldn't move and his bones no longer felt attached to him the pain stopped.
"Torture her if you must. I want to know how she's getting out and if you can't do it bring her to me."
"My Lord" Severus coughed out blood as he spoke to him. "The plan will work, Potter will come for the girl. I am certain of it."
"For your sake you better be certain. You have been useful Severus, but even I do not have the patience for your incompetence. Now go."
Severus hardly found the ability to apparate, but somehow mustered the strength. He didn't make it to his office. He made it to the stairs before he collapsed and then everything went black.
...
Hermione's stone pulsed green in her hand, but it wasn't the indication that Severus was back in castle that she found alarming. She felt the pull of their bind calling out for her. She could hear him calling her. He was in trouble.
Without a thought out plan, she immediately followed the pull and was shaken to see her beloved curled up on the floor in the hallways for anyone to walk by and see. It had not been the first time she had seen him like this. She had grown accustomed to the hours he would be pulled away in order to play his part as a spy and she in her anxiousness would be waiting with several healing potions for when he returned.
Keeping her distance was second priority with him vulnerable like this. He could unknowingly place himself in danger or worse blow his cover by being out in the open like this.
She approached him cautiously. He was knocked out cold and was in bad shape. She put a hand to his face and whispered a charm that would at least bring him peace while she worked on him. She would have to levitate him to his chambers.
She glanced in both directions and when she was sure that they were alone she lifted him in the air with her wand and very carefully, as to not injure him further she spoke his password to his office and then she gently glided him to his bed.
She wasn't sure how she would explain this one to him. Perhaps she could convince him that it had been a dream though she doubted he would buy it. Severus was perceptive and very distrustful. She carefully used a spell to remove him of the first two layers of his clothing, leaving him in a loose long sleeve white shirt and his trousers. She first spelled up some cool water and rag and began wiping away the visible marks on his beautiful skin and then she moved across the room, opened up his personal potion cabinet and quickly through together healing potions and something to help him sleep.
It had to have been the cruciatius. She was sure of it. Voldemort usually enjoyed his "pet" or his death eaters to do his dirty work for him, but when he was feeling particularly nasty he would punish his followers himself. She had no idea what it was he thought Severus did to deserve such a severe punishment. She wasn't even going to try to understand that psychopath. He was nothing, but an evil, overbearing, rebellious teenager with dangerous capacities for tantrums. She knew it was getting closer that Harry would kill him and she was happy for it. Severus had dealt enough at the palm of Tom Riddle.
Hermione returned to Severus's bedside and helped him lift his head up as she urged him to drink the potions. He managed to swallow them down, opening his eyes briefly with a groan before passing back out.
Hermione was tempted to lay in the spot of the bed that had once belonged to her, but she knew the situation would be harder to explain if he woke up and found her beside him.
She charmed a chair over and sat down next to him, using the rag to continue to wipe his brow. She stared at the man she loved. The same man who no longer knew to love her. And she waited.
...
Several hours passed before Severus finally pulled through. His body still felt as he had been hit by the Hogwarts Express, but he could feel the magic of a healing potion slowly patching him up. He had no memory between being at Malfoy manor and getting to his bed.
He found his neck a little stiff, but managed to look at the culprit who had healed him and was dumbfounded to find a sleeping Miss Granger in a chair next to him.
What the bloody hell was she doing in here? How did she even get in here?
His robes were strewn over his dresser and his wand was out of reach. He didn't feel well enough to stand, but he forced himself to have the strength to sit up.
The movement caused Hermione to jump with a jolt. She pushed him down by his shoulders gently.
"Please, don't get up. You're still too weak." She urged him quietly.
Normally Severus Snape would have several things to say to this little witch who was telling him what to do, but he was still so dumbfounded that she was in here to muster up any words at all.
He stared back at the dresser where his wand rested. As if reading his mind Hermione got up, crossed the room and grabbed his wand. Severus grinded his teeth waiting to see if she would cast a spell on him, but instead she simply walked over to him and handed him his wand softly.
"Please don't hex me. You aren't well and I don't care how stubborn you are or how surprised you are that I'm in here, and no I will not explain why, so don't ask. Just understand that you need my help right now and get over it."
Severus let out a deep snort, but otherwise let Hermione continue to take care of him. She went back to his cupboards grabbed the equipment for another healing potion and quickly got to work. Severus watched her wordlessly as she moved around the room familiarly and then came back over to him handing him the bottle with an expression that told him to drink it. He didn't know why, but he did drink it without argument.
...
Being married to a man as stubborn as Severus Snape had taught Hermione quickly how to talk to him, but she knew he would find it overstepping since in his eyes now she was no more than a former student/bait for Harry Potter.
Hermione knew that Severus had a million questions that he was forming possible answers in his head to already. She wanted to answer them, but she had to do it cautiously. They were bound and she wasn't sure if that binding would overpower the obliviate spell she cast on him if she wasn't careful.
She took a deep breath.
"I was walking to your office and I found you on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. You were unconscious so I levitated you here and gave you healing potions and a few charms to help ease whatever you had gone through to put you in that shape."
"It is inappropriate for you to be in here and I hope you aren't expecting a thank you." Severus finally managed to spit out.
"I wasn't expecting one Headmaster. I just thought you would prefer your injury to be private as to not seem weak to the people you are trying so hard to intimidate." She said softly she bit her tongue with the last part. She was speaking too familiar with him. His snide remarks often triggered her to reply with mirrored disdain, but it was dangerous for her to get too close to him. She backtracked quickly.
"Obviously I had hoped that my help would at least keep you from sticking the carrows on me in the future." There, she thought. If he thought that she was afraid for her safety he would convince himself that she did have a motive for helping him.
His face grew impassive and he made no reply to this. She knew this statement probably hurt him. They had spent a night in the astronomy tower when they first started warming up to each other and he had confessed to her how hard it was for him to have everyone think that he was this evil, cold blooded traitor. Hermione had been able to at the time grab his hand and tell her that she didn't feel that way, but now things were different. She wouldn't be able to console him no matter how much it pained her to see him like this.
"How many times have you been in here?" he asked suddenly catching Hermione completely off guard.
"I'm not sure what you mean." She said, avoiding his gaze.
He glared at her.
"Don't. Lie. To. Me." He said. "I have it on good authority that this afternoon you were at Malfoy manor being tortured for information before escaping with Harry Potter and his friend. Yet, here you are in my chambers…the only place where one can get out of the castle, with all the knowledge of where everything seems to go in this room. So I'll ask again, how many times have you been in here?"
So that was why Voldemort did this to Snape. She winced. She had tried so desperately to block out the memory of that day that she had almost completely forgotten that somewhere out there it had only happened today. She instinctively put her finger in her sleeve and ran over the words scarred into her skin like a bad dream.
Snape, still waiting for an answer and extremely observant grabbed her arm and rolled up her sleeve. For anyone else they would say that he showed no reaction to the words printed on her ivory wrist, but Hermione knew this man. She could see it in his eyes, just as she saw it the first time he saw what had been tattooed into her skin. He was furious.
He swallowed and breathed deeply to contain himself.
'Does it hurt' she sensed him asking her, but instead he formed the words, "so you were there."
Hermione didn't answer.
"Seeing as how I am too weak now to severely punish you for breaking about a thousand rules just expect that I will be keeping a much closer eye on you. You will no longer report to McGonagall, but instead you will report to me. No arguments."
"Yes sir" Hermione grumbled. She inwardly cringed. It was going to be very tricky to spend more time with him without giving away the secret she had now been carrying for three weeks. It wouldn't be long if he was so bent on observing her that he would discover it and there wasn't really a thing she could do to hide it from him. She cursed inwardly, but instead she wet the cloth again and moved it over his sweated brow.
She would have to convince him that she didn't believe he was holding her prisoner or the prophecy could potentially come true.
