J.K. Rowling owns all characters, and this work produces no profit.

Severus V

I thought I had tasted every kind of terror at one time or another. The first time I was punished by the Dark Lord himself, and the first time I realized he meant for the other Death Eaters to amuse themselves with me. The first time I understood Greyback was included. The way I felt when I heard about which family The Dark Lord was targeting. The sick plunge of fear, an intensity of fear I had almost forgotten, when I saw the re-activation of my Mark and knew what I was going to have to do.

None of them compared to this moment. I'd take any of them again, beg for them, rather than remain conscious of Hermione Granger, notably lacking any trace of the Benevolus, sitting comfortably across from the chair that holds my bound body.

Draped casually in her armchair, she wraps her fingers loosely around the wand in her lap and gazes at me with an expression it would take poets years to doesn't speak. Why doesn't she speak? Damn these bonds! I want to throw myself at her feet and beg her to kill me; I want to sprint to the lab and fetch my death potion. But I can only stare, aghast, at the woman I enslaved to tend my weakness.

Dust motes dance in the air near the window; my eye is drawn to them as the only moving thing in the room. All else is suspended; oh, let it be suspended. Maybe if nothing moves I'll never have to move either.

"Look at me," she commands, and I shift my eyes back to meet hers. I know I should say something, but my throat closes up when I try. All I can do is wait for her next words.

"Let's get a few things clear right away, Severus. You're dying to know when I broke out of the spell. You're praying some of the Obliviate still holds. Don't hold any hope, Severus; I've known since the first few sessions and I've been in control almost since then. I remember every moment we've spent together."

My body has started to tremble, tiny spasms migrating from my shoulder down to my fingertips. I manage my first sentence in this new world. "Why didn't you stop it all? Why did you come here with me?"

"At first, I kept silent while plotting revenge," she replies. "Then I decided that your plan is worth trying, and I knew you needed me to get through it. In the last few days, I realized that we won't succeed unless I can be a full partner, so...the sweetly compliant Hermione has to go. Sorry."

My reply gets stuck in my throat. I try again, and fail. There are too many words wanting to come out at the same time. Seeing my difficulty, she smiles wryly. "Trouble talking, Severus? Then just listen. Listen well, because I'm going to tell you the new rules for our little project."

"First," she continues, "you will not harm yourself in any way, nor will you make any misguided attempts to atone by carrying out some suicidally dangerous plan. You owe life is mine, and you will not spend it without my permission. Second, you will work with me as an equal, and focus on killing Voldemort. You will not waste my time with apologies, and you will not slink around timidly. If we both survive killing him, there will be time to talk about what you did to me. Third, you will furnish me with a full account of how you developed the Benevolus spell, and give me an oath never to use it or share it with anyone else. Do you understand?"

I nod. Hermione waves her wand and the ropes unwind themselves. "Now," she says, "I could do with some breakfast. Would you mind, while I read over my notes? My illness has cost us enough time."

Dumb, I obey. What else is there to do? She said she didn't want to hear any apologies. I'll do what she wants. Anything she wants, and hope that in the fullness of time she'll punish me as I deserve-and then, perhaps, grant me release.

The next few days are awkward. No matter how determined I am to follow her rules, it's impossible for me to fall into my previous manner with her. I've been so spoiled by the presence of a (presumably) uncritical audience that I don't know how to talk freely with this version of Hermione. She's surprisingly tolerant of my slips, sending me a stern look when she notices them and requiring me to talk about potions until I loosen up again. We return to our work on the potion, and the research is progressing well. The silence of the lab, punctuated with our observations and instructions, begins to lend a feeling of normalcy again.

It's different now, of course. Hermione's opinions are expressed without the diplomatic sweetening needed to maintain the pretense of being under the spell. I'm learning about the real Hermione, and I find out she's even more brilliant than I knew. I also learn that she's sarcastic, fierce, single-minded and impatient. Much like me, she does not suffer fools gladly.

We sleep separately now, of course. I wanted to sleep on the couch in the living room without changing it, but she gave me one of those stern looks and transfigured it into a bed. The nights are long without her in my arms, and my nightmares are worse without the comfort I have been stealing. I don't think she is sleeping very well, either. The skin under her eyes is translucent, and her movements are clumsy in the mornings. We work late, and she decides when we quit-and it's usually not until I show signs of being overtired.

We're eating lunch when the black owl comes through my window. There's only one owl that can reach me here, and my heart pounds as it always does. Hermione glances away as I open it, as if to give me an illusion of privacy, but her attention returns to me when she hears my strangled gasp as a single strand of hair falls from the center of the scroll. My pallor and the sudden trembling of my hands betray my reaction, and she plucks the letter from my shaking fingers before I can think to protest. As she reads, the letter's words echo in my brain, and nausea builds as I try frantically to forget what it says:

My dear Severus,

I hope this letter finds your delicious self well, and that the idiots and scum at Hogwarts aren't too much of a burden. I have exciting news-for the first time since our Lord's return, he says the time is right for carrying out the Dolorus Consensi. It will be a welcome increase in our Lord's power, and I know your loyalty will remain steadfast when I tell you that you have been selected to participate. How I shall enjoy watching you put to rest the doubts voiced by certain members of the Inner Circle (and that's not the only thing I will enjoy watching, my dark and tasty one.)
The ritual is set for the night of the next new moon, so you have one week to brew the potions needed. Enclosed is a hair from your co-participant, a lovely thing if I do say so.

Until then,
Lucius

Flashes of memory bombard me, and I can only faintly hear Hermione retching and gasping nearby. There's something wrong about that, but I can't process it yet. I'm caught like a fly in amber, riveted to a scene from fourteen years ago.

Her screams, piercing the night, echoed by his. Every thrust, every slice, every touch of the hot irons bringing doubled shrieks of pain. The young Death Eater raping and torturing the Muggle girl, but suffering the pain of everything he does to her. But only her blood flows over the earth, and when her heart stops beating, his goes on. Intact in body but not in mind, he is shoved aside as the Dark Lord revels in the energy created by the bonded agony of the pair.

When I manage to open my eyes, I see the bathroom door ajar and my sense of unease returns. What is wrong with Hermione? Surely the letter portends nothing good to her eyes, but her reaction is too extreme. Walking to the doorway, I look down on her as she huddles against the tub and speak to her in the harshest voice I've ever used. "How do you know about the Dolorus Consensi, Hermione? Tell me!"

She pushes a sweaty clump of hair back from her forehead. "Severus, I don't know anything about it. It doesn't exactly take a genius to know that a phrase bastardized from the Latin for "shared pain" describes something horrible. I'm just upset at the thought of you being forced into it."

"You're lying," I state flatly. "I've acted stupidly, but I'm not stupid, Hermione. I know a gut response when I see one."

She sighs and pulls herself to her feet. "I'm going to the lab."

She strides off, and I follow. "You're not leaving this conversation, Hermione."

"I know, Severus," she says wearily as we enter the lab. "But there's something here I'm going to need."

"What? What could possibly explain you knowing? I can't believe you have some sort of tie to the Death Eaters, and I certainly haven't told you-" and it hits me. I haven't told her, and she knows. She knows a detail from the horror buried in my mind.

The night after I killed Albus.
The dreams.
The sense of her presence.
The memories, all of them, every unthinkable one.

My eyes, fixed on hers, must have dilated in horror. A vise seems to close on my throat. I thought I wanted to die a week ago when I realized she knew about the spell, but that was nothing. I want to do more than die now; I want never to have existed, never to have been here to taint and mutilate the finest mind I have ever known.

Her eyes are sad as she plucks a Calming Draught from the shelf and holds it to my numb lips. I start to push it away, and she slaps me, hard, across the face. "Drink it, Severus. Now."

As the potion takes effect, I'm able to speak again, and the words tumble out brokenly. "It was that night, wasn't it, you were there, but how, how did you get in, oh Gods that's what was wrong with you for three days, you saw it all, you felt it, what have I done to you?"

Taking my arm, she guides me to a chair and pushes me into it. "I didn't want you to know," she says quietly. "You're paralyzed enough with guilt as it is, and I thought this would break you. But now that it's done, you're just going to have to bear it, Severus."

And so the next phase of our strange relationship began.

After the first shock, I settled into a numb acceptance. I was still forbidden to harm myself, and the killing of Voldemort had to come first. But the way I treated Hermione changed-any hint of I'm-older-and-wiser that might have been lingering was gone. We were truly equals now; if anything, I saw her as the stronger. She had walked through it all, all in one journey, and she had not taken her own life when she was able to be in the lab again. She had not overdosed on Dreamless Sleep, or swallowed hemlock, or taken any of a hundred things easily found there. She had made breakfast without slicing into her flesh with the shining blade. She had proved her strength beyond a doubt-and she was no longer a child, or even an adolescent. She was far older than her years now.

"You're using a Silencing Charm at night," she says matter-of-factly one afternoon as we dice ingredients.

"So are you, I would guess," I reply. I suppress a wave of horror at the knowledge that she shares my nightmares now.

That night, as I prepare for bed, she calls me from the bedroom. Coming in, I see her propped up against the headboard of my old bed, her flannel nightgown buttoned, her unruly hair braided for the night. She throws back the covers. "Get in."

I pause too long for her patience, and she gives me that stern look. "I don't want to talk about it, Severus. It's a simple, practical choice. We work better when we get quality sleep. Now get in here."

Gingerly, I obey, lying carefully beside her without touching. With an impatient huff, she moves against me and snuggles her head against my chest, pulling my arms around her until we're entwined in what used to be our regular sleeping position. I hold her, the way I thought I never would again, and soon her breathing becomes soft and regular.

"I won't go," I insist over breakfast the next morning, after the best night of sleep I've had since Hogwarts. "This spells the end of my use as a spy. I won't do it."

Hermione looks at me with compassion but no pity. "I know you better than to think it's your own potential suffering that makes you say that, Severus...but you've been forced to hurt people before. Even women. And this is our best chance to get the potion into Voldemort! None of the variants good for longer distance are working out. We have to get Voldemort to drink it...and your memories of the ritual include him drinking a potion near the end, don't they?"

"Yes," I sigh, cursing her memories. "A complex potion that includes the hair of the victim and the blood of the torturer. At what he judges to be the height of the couple's agony, the Dark Lord casts a spell and drinks the potion. The spell somehow sucks in dark energy created by the pain, and the potion helps that energy be absorbed into his system."

"So it's our perfect chance, like I said," Hermione presses. "And it's even possible the girl could live-if the plan works, and she hasn't died yet, we can heal her!"

I get up and pace the room, angry and aching. "Yes, Hermione, I'll have lots of time to cast healing spells while fighting off enraged Death Eaters who have just witnessed the death of their leader. You're reaching. You want me to accept causing one more horrible death for the Greater Good! Emulating Dumbledore now, are we?"

"How dare you compare me to him?" Hermione hisses back, her eyes flinty. "Yes, I am asking it of you! That girl is already their prisoner. She will meet a terrible end with or without your involvement. With it, at least her death will mean something! Do you want her used up and thrown away, just like thousands before and after her?"

"Tell that to her!" I shout.

"I would if I could," Hermione says sadly.

Our eyes meet again, and my anger drains away. I'm left with only the truth. "I know you're right, Hermione. I know it."

She walks over to me and puts her hand steadyingly on my arm. "Then what is it, Severus? Why won't you?"

"Because I can't." I fumble for the right words. "After what I did to you...something has changed, and I just know I couldn't do that to her, hurt someone innocent and unwilling, no matter how much I know it's necessary. I'd betray myself, and then she and I would die for nothing. I have to find another way. I have to."

"Are you absolutely sure, Severus?"

I don't look away from her. "Yes, I am, Hermione. I'm not just saying it, I swear. I know it somehow, the way you know something in a dream. It won't work."

She gestures me back to my chair, and takes her own. We sit in silence for several minutes, a silence that begins peacefully but begins to grow heavy as her expression shows her deepening thoughts.

"What if she were willing?"

"What?"

"The woman. What if you had a willing partner? What if she knew what was at stake, and what she would have to go through, and agreed? Could you do it then?"

I open my mouth to tell her she's being ridiculous, but can't get the words out. The thought is a horrid one, twisted and macabre...but it doesn't trigger the same gut-deep denial I have been feeling.

"Hermione-I don't know. Maybe. But how would it be possible to explain to her beforehand, and how could there ever be any kind of informed consent to something like this?"

"That would be difficult," she admits. "But we don't need to. We can make a substitution."

I scoff. "You want me to find someone, get them to agree to this horror, brew the potion with their hair, bring them to the ritual and blithely inform the Dark Lord that his chosen subject wasn't good enough for me?"

"Not at all, Severus." Hermione's eyes shine with a strange light. "I want you to bring a surprise victim, a very special one that will please the Dark Lord greatly. One who will be irresistible to his followers as well. And the only woman in the world capable of truly knowing what she's signing up for."

With a triumphant smile, Hermione Granger plucks a curly brown hair from her scalp and holds it out to me.