Disclaimer: The works of JKR are in no way mine, nor do I have any illusions that they are. I am exceedingly grateful that she allows us to play in her universe.

Author's Note: Reviewers are wonderful!

Defences

October, 1996

Snape stood at his ease in the circle of Death Eaters. He had discovered the careful arrangement of his limbs that made him look confident – it kept his compatriots off their guard, for few of them appeared as relaxed in the presence of the Dark Lord, and it pleased Voldemort in some indefinable way, power mirroring power. And it gave him time to think.

Ten days. It was October twenty-first, and he had ten days before the ceremony that would strip Potter of both magic and life, granting both to his false master and effectively doubling the descendent of Slytherin's possibilities for immortality. The next time he would stand in the Riddle House, it would be to watch the son of his rival bleed to death, his skin flayed from his body in one of the darkest rituals invented by wizardkind. He controlled the shudder shooting along his spine. Potter would have to be rescued tonight.

He casually stuck his hand into his pocket and touched the sherbet lemon given to him by the headmaster. He felt it heat briefly.

'When you activate it, give us half an hour. I will summon everyone going, and all will be in position for you to free the boy then.'

He had gone to the headmaster briefly before reporting tonight. Dumbledore would be ready, the Order standing by. In half an hour, Snape had to find a way to get hold of Harry Potter and free him without looking suspicious – and carefully plant the seeds to place the blame somewhere else.

Lucius was too unbelievable a target, Rookwood and Macnair not trusted enough… Wormtail. Snape smiled coldly behind his mask, grateful that no one was looking at him as Avery conversed with their Lord. Wormtail owed the brat his life, Potter had saved him in the Shrieking Shack from Black and Lupin. And Wormtail possessed a treacherous nature, ready to throw in his lot with whoever looked like they were winning. It would be perfectly understandable if Potter escaped into the hands of Albus Dumbledore at Wormtail's bidding.

'Severus!' He strode forward at the sound of his name, used exclusively in the private company of the Circle of Pure-bloods, sinking to one knee and bowing his head to the warped wooden floor.

'I am here, my Lord.'

'I know you are,' Voldemort said lazily, his cold voice slow. 'Rise.' Snape stood and covered the rest of the distance.

'Come with me.' The two left the room. The rest of the Death Eaters knew to wait for them to return. In silence, they strode the creaking, ancient halls of the Riddle House. Both men found their way in the dark blindly without effort. They were at home in darkness, accustomed to the swallowing black that had long concealed and consumed them.

'How has your research been coming?'

'Well, my Lord,' Snape replied.

'And? Is there any reason at all that I cannot do as I plan? The lingering protection that Lily Potter granted the boy...it will not interfere?' They stopped near the door, the moonlight shed enough to see faces, and Voldemort was turned so that his livid red eyes could glare into Snape's black ones as the latter shook his head.

'His blood is now yours, my lord. There should be no complications.' Snape obediently opened his mind, handing his lord the memories of long hours of research, quelling his nausea for the subject and deftly shunting those precious hours with Hermione beside him out of the lithe wizard's reach.

'I tell you the truth,' Snape said after Voldemort withdrew his mind, satisfied. 'I am no traitor like Wormtail to conceal some special magic or trap from you.' Snape hesitated just the right amount of time before adding, 'And speaking of Wormtail, my Lord, I think we may have some trouble brewing.'

'What kind of trouble?' Voldemort's lazy drawl had been the end of many a careless man. The absolute unruffled appearance of a casual, noncommittal lord meant that Snape had his ear completely – but would not be privy to any reaction.

'He is bound to the Potter boy. As you must know, Potter saved his life two and a half years ago. I would merely advise that we keep him as far from the Samhain proceedings as possible.'

Voldemort nodded. 'A wise precaution. One I intended to take anyway. It is good that you thought to warn me. But what, my faithful servant, made you think of it now?'

'Desire to see you succeed at last, and knowledge of what could potentially, whatever the unlikelihood, bring us to failure. Wormtail can serve you faithfully where Potter is not involved. When he is, it becomes tricky. Potter is key to your strength, now, my Lord, and we have him in custody. At Samhain, he will die. Wormtail will be forced to act if he is present. That is all, Master. I mean no intentional disrespect to your servant.'

'As usual, you have done your studying,' Voldemort said idly. He smiled quietly at the younger man, an expression with traces of gentleness that most wizards – followers and enemies alike – would swear he was no longer human enough to make. Severus Snape was young enough to be his son – and, in his own way, the Dark Lord enjoyed their similarities. Betrayed by both the Muggle and magical worlds as Voldemort himself had been, the rising wizard had seen much of his own life mirrored in the excluded-but-powerful young man freshly graduated from Hogwarts. A peculiar affinity the Dark Lord had never felt for anyone had bonded them from the instant his Mark scored Snape's pale flesh – a pride and hope not strictly limited to what he thought the young man would accomplish for him.

His heart had blackened with scouring cold when Lucius Malfoy had told him that Severus Snape had betrayed him. But that had simply been Lucius angling for first position again. He had never forgiven the boy, five years his junior, for stealing his glory and power as the Dark Lord's right hand man.

For Severus had returned to him dutifully, kissed his robe and reeked of remorse for believing him dead and delaying him in getting the Philosopher's Stone. And now, when Narcissa had run to him for help, he had dedicated himself to a bond readily and willing, a bond requiring him to kill Albus Dumbledore…no, no traitor this. His assassin's readiness to continue serving had thawed the top layer of ice over his newly-beating heart.

'As for Wormtail, he will be handled, Severus. Have no fear of that.'

'At your command, Master,' Snape murmured deferentially. With the Dark Lord it was always a game…but one that left occasionally him with a terrible, illogical feeling of guilt. Voldemort invested little emotion in other people – they were too fickle, too disappointing and too dispensable. But Snape knew, with the surety granted to a practiced Legilimens, that Voldemort trusted him, especially now, with a completeness and respect granted to few others. Dumbledore wasn't his only adopted father. This powerful and power-hungry man with red eyes and pale skin who had taught him the meaning of learning everything about magic and men was the other. The one he would kill for.

The memory of Hermione, standing in a doorway at the Burrow, flushed from Quidditch, caused his breath to catch in his throat. Polar opposites, the Dark Lord and his beloved. Father or not, this was the man he had to betray.

'Come. In I must go and return to my waiting Death Eaters,' Voldemort sighed, and Snape winced. There was, occasionally, an air of melancholy about his lord that made the man almost human. The sallow man followed his master inside, casting a look over his shoulder at the gravestones that glowed white with the moon, regretting the end of the peace. The Dark Lord in good humour was a rare thing these days. And Potter's escape would doubtless send him into weeks of brooding punctuated by rages.

He sighed internally. Twenty-five minutes. How was he going to get Potter out?

**********

Dumbledore felt the lemon sherbet in his pocket heat. 'He is summoning us,' he said softly, his book hitting the table as he hastily rose.

'Severus?' Minerva asked from the armchair across from him.

'Yes. He'll have the boy out in a half hour. Kindly alert the Order. I am going to my position.'

'Albus, be careful.' She knew she hardly needed to give him warning, but it always felt good to remind him.

He reached over to squeeze her hand gently. 'Of course, my love.' He Disapparated, and Minerva Flooed the Burrow, where the guard was waiting.

'Severus just called Albus. The escape will be under way in thirty minutes,' her head told Molly.

'Get ready to move out!' she heard Alastor roar as she pulled herself back out of the fire. She retired to her armchair, but the book no longer held any interest for her, so she rose and paced instead.

It was going to be a long night.

**********

September, 1996

The N.E.W.T. level Defence Against the Dark Arts class was scheduled for Wednesday and Friday afternoons. With the Slytherins. Harry and Ron groaned at this stroke of bad luck. Hermione ignored them.

'You're lucky he's teaching Defence,' she snapped tartly as they continued complaining over breakfast. 'Where you both got an 'O'. You wouldn't even be in Potions if Professor Snape were still teaching it.'

'Yeah, I guess. But at least Potions was never my favourite subject,' Harry groused.

'Think about it – at least you're good at it,' Ron offered, recognizing their friend's rapidly growing impatience with the subject. 'He won't be able to take as many points off.'

Hermione barely heard them as they scraped their books together and left the table. Her heart was in her throat, hammering hard. She had no idea what he would do, how he would act. Her rational mind promised that he would be the same cold man he had always been, but the part of her that had imprinted the searing sweetness of his touch in her body memory prayed that something of their summer would glitter in his eyes. The longing, and the guilt from knowing that she should not long, tore as her as they queued outside the door. She had spent years dreading the moments required in his presence, but she had never been more apprehensive about them than today.

The door opened, the pressure of his mind twined with hers grew infinitesimally greater as he stepped into the corridor to greet them. 'Inside,' came the cold command.

Without a whisper of spoken sound, they obeyed.

It was the first time he had seen her up close for two days, and Snape was relieved to see her eyes fixed firmly on her books as she trekked past him, he could feel her embarrassment, her guilt…but the raw need pulsating through her blood keyed to his body, and he felt with horror his only partially-unwilling rise to the occasion.

'I have not asked you to take out your books,' he hissed sibilantly as he moved towards the front of his classroom. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and knew that Hermione was hastily stowing the text that she had pulled out almost automatically. 'I wish to speak to you and I want your fullest attention.'

He had reached the head of the room and now towered behind his desk, black eyes sweeping over them. They shifted uncomfortably in their seats as the silence stretched and the man before them seemed to test and weigh them, an appraisal unlike the dismissive sneer that the Gryffindors had come to expect and the indulgent blind-eye his Slytherins were accustomed to. Hermione noticed him purposefully skip over her, his eyes lingering instead on Harry and Ron – the first slightly longer than the second – before continuing.

'You have had five teachers in this subject, I believe. Naturally, these teachers will have all had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion, I am surprised so many of you scraped an O.W.L. in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the N.E.W.T. work, which will be much more advanced.' Once again, his eyes sought and found the young hero. This was, undeniably, Potter's best subject, which was, in turn, the older wizard's second reason for wanting the job. As a potioneer, Potter was a failure. But defence came to him naturally, and he would advance more quickly with a fully qualified instructor. The boy hated him and the feeling was intensely mutual. But he could teach Potter what no other wizard would...

'The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo.'

'This will be an advanced level research and application class in addition to using a textbook. You will be researching and mastering individually assigned counter-curses and creatures. It will ensure,' his black eyes glittered as they narrowed at Harry and Ron, 'that there is no cheating or reliance on those more intelligent than you to pass this course.' His eyes glazed over Hermione, settling on Draco, sitting at the front of the class and paying polite attention.

'To get your hands back in practice, today you will handle a variety of different curses and repel them using a non-verbal Shield Charm. No, Miss Granger, if your classmates do not understand the advantage of being able to perform unspoken magic, they do not deserve to be here.' Hermione flexed her fingers, embarrassed and irritated at herself for anticipating the question and almost allowing her hand to hit the air. 'You have an hour to read, partner and practice."

Hermione opened her copy of Confronting the Faceless and turned to the correct page. Harry and Ron both copied her actions, eyes skimming the pages. It was all information that all three knew and had previously employed. She could not stop the smugness at knowing he could not fault their performance of the charm – perfection in casting would make it all the easier to perform by force of will alone.

He felt her surge of self-satisfied confidence, and the arrogance of it infuriated him. She had been hospitalized less than three months ago for her inability to defend herself well enough. The flashing of his eyes betrayed his irritation as he swept over to her, coldly glaring down his nose at the Gryffindor witch. 'I daresay our resident Know-It-All can do it perfectly after a short read. Show us all your expertise in this subject, Miss Granger.'

Hermione lifted her head and her wand, trying to keep herself from panic at having triggered his temper, assuming a dueling stance across from Harry. No sooner had she shifted on the balls of her feet when a curse lanced towards her – directed not from Harry, but from her professor. But his mind was not so closed that she could not read his intent from three feet away. Her hastily thought 'Protego!' rebounded the curse perfectly, forcing him to step aside lest he be struck with his own spell.

Her eyes turned on him, heated rage for his total lack of fair play pouring into him from the girl only a few steps away. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he struggled to hold his tongue. He dared not snap at her, fueling the anger threatening to override him. He backed away, the physical distance relieving just minutely her feelings of fury and injustice. It was a powerful insight as to what his students thought of him, what she thought in particular, and for a moment, he was appalled at the person he glimpsed in her mind.

But that could not last. Her rapid deflection of the curse aimed to humiliate undermined his authority – and the longer he waited to do what the class knew was coming, the worse it would get. 'Very lucky, Miss Granger,' he hissed. 'Since your command is so excellent and your language so verbose, I'm sure you wouldn't mind writing six rolls of parchment on the subject by next class, would you?' Sniggers from the Slytherins as he turned away.

You bloody bastard! The thought echoed violently, and he rounded on her. For an instant the world narrowed to the two of them, brown eyes and black locked in equal wrath-

-only to be replaced by something new welling within and flowing between both of them. Snape hurriedly tore his gaze from her before it softened with craving, Hermione's fury already ebbing in the face of a far more powerful emotion. As he returned to his desk, he was aware of the stillness of the room, the unique silence of people staring avidly, the tense waiting to see what would happen next.

'I believe you all have work to do?' His voice was sibilant, and in unison, heads bent back towards books, eyes sought partners and wands were drawn. But nothing could halt the darting glances, the Slytherins were watching their professor with curiosity, the Gryffindors watching Hermione with amusement, awe and confusion. Something had transpired that no one in the room understood – the anger raw in both faces as they had stared at each other after his outrageous assignment, and his decision to step away rather than give her detention.

It had been his first thought – before he had recalled why it was that he had stopped going to the Burrow to begin with, and knew that especially now, four hours alone in a room with her would be either bliss at the price of endangering them both and causing them nightmarish guilt, or an evening of slow, almost inexplicable torture – him grading papers and her doing some mild, menial task not fit for her brain, both of them slower by effort of studiously reigning emotions both theirs and not theirs.

And Snape truly did not know which scenario would win.

**********

'I'm not going to say that it wasn't nice not to be his guinea pig for a change, but...What's Dumbledore playing at, letting him teach Defence?' Harry asked irritably as they left their lesson for the Great Hall and dinner. 'Did you hear him talking about the Dark Arts? He loves them! All that unfixed, indestructible stuff-'

Hermione stopped dead in the corridor and turned to face her best friend angrily. Snape had pushed her, and she had shoved back, reacting to him on a high of adrenaline and their strange, shared emotional charge. She was tired, she could still hear her heart jack hammering in her ears and it was time that Harry opened his eyes to one of the many truths about the isolated wizard.

'Well,' she said coolly, making an effort to still the uncharacteristic anger boiling upwards, 'I thought he sounded a bit like you.'

She could see she'd stunned him as completely as if she'd hit him with a spell.

'Like me?' came the weak reply.

'Yes, when you were telling us what it's like to face Voldemort. You said it wasn't just memorizing a bunch of spells, you said it was just you and your brains and your guts-' here she took her leap, knowing, even as she said it, that it was true, and that it was a truth she never would have looked for without having felt some of what it was to be Severus Snape. After all, Harry was not the only person at Hogwarts to have stood in the presence of the Dark Lord more than once, '-well, wasn't that what Snape was saying? That it really comes down to bravery and quick thinking?'

'I...' Harry looked to Ron, but the red-head merely shrugged, his blue eyes apologetically admitting that he thought Hermione had a point. Without waiting to see if Harry would agree or not, Hermione continued to dinner. Her roiling feelings ensured her lack of appetite, but at least then the boys would have food to occupy their mouths instead of continuing to demonize their professor.

**********

Snape awakened mouth dry and tongue heavy, as if he had been running…no…

He closed his eyes again and shut his mouth, swallowing and trying not to recall the all-too-lucid dream. But the stickiness of his nether region did not permit him to simply close his mind and return to sleep.

Summoning his robe, he stumbled to the bathroom to clean himself, sharp loathing rising with bile in his throat. Dreaming of a student. He had never dreamt of his students, even in the most mundane way, and a dream that involved this student, and so much of her skin, soft and hot, key parts tender and swollen from their exertion…

**********

Hermione did not know one could wake with such an intense feeling of mortification. She had often come out of sleep terrified, joyous, exhausted like she'd been running – but never embarrassed. She could feel her professor against her, inside her, the sparse and rough black hairs of his chest tickling her, the swift, caressing movements of his fingers…she shivered pleasurably, and thought, with equal amounts of pleasure and shame, that her semblance of self-control might collapse the next time she laid eyes on him. Her flights of imagination were becoming ever more detailed, her mind wandering paths that she had not allowed herself to know existed before. She had never even had such a dream about someone her own age, but this one had been so real – she ached with a desire for release, the warmth turning into frustration as her body finally understood that no such release would be forthcoming.

Dreams…the faint pressure at the back of her mind was sharper and the variations of his emotions flowed into her. He, too, was awake…and unguarded. As self-loathing reared its head, another, terrible thought occurred to her.

She knew that now she was blushing in the darkness of her bedroom. Had he seen that dream? Had they shared it?

**********

The first week this year was, she was certain, the longest of her life. Hermione had mutely done her added assignment and silently handed it in. Keeping her mind in order in his class was difficult, but he did not come near her again, and she was both relieved and disappointed. For a passion that had to remain unconsummated, she found her thoughts turned increasingly to him, paying attention out of the corner of her eye to his habits and to the flashes of information that came with even the slight relaxation of his Occlumency-gained shields.

That night, as she was looking up the conjunction of Mercury and Venus' orbits for calculations of star runes, she felt her left wrist sear unexpectedly. A short cry of pain escaped her mouth, attracting stares from around the common room, and bringing Ron, Harry and Ginny to her side.

'Hermione?' The deep caring that Ron still nursed for her shone in his large blue eyes. His hand travelled to where her right hand had convulsively grabbed her wrist and prized her fingers off.

The skin was smooth, unbroken.

'What happened? Are you hurt?'

'No,' she whispered, as panic seized her. Snape. That was the only possible explanation for the abrupt pain where a Dark Mark would be branded – if she had had one. She stood suddenly.

'Hermione?' The three rose with her.

'I just – I forgot – I have to go see Professor Dumbledore.' It was not a credible lie, her unfocussed eyes glittered wildly, panic evident in her suddenly-hitched breathing. Their bond had not lent her Snape's sense of bending the truth, but she was not concerned with that as she massaged the knotting tendons in her wrist, already halfway to the exit. They left her alone to race across the common room and out the portrait, watching her with baffled expressions.

'She left everything here.' The worry in Harry's voice was evident as he looked over the books and note-filled parchment, Hermione's cramped, neat handwriting legible only at nose-length. But the disarray of the table was unlike their friend. She had always kept scrupulous care of everything she owned that even remotely pertained to the academic world.

'Anybody else have the feeling she's not telling us something?' Ron asked, his eyes still on the closing portrait.

'Something important,' Ginny agreed.

**********

Out of breath from panic and speed, Hermione halted in her dash to the headmaster's office only when she reached the gargoyle and realized that she did not have the password. She stared at it mutely, left arm still tingling with the after-effects of the summons, praying for it to open to her. The number of sweets in the wizarding world far outweighed her patience to stand here guessing.

But perhaps Professor McGonagall…She resolutely started down the corridor to find her Head of House.

'What is it, Miss Granger?' McGonagall rose from her desk instantly as the girl entered. The fear in her eyes stalled questions, and the older woman did not even think to reprimand her student for charging in without knocking.

'I need to speak with the headmaster,' Hermione told her.

McGonagall was around the desk in an instant, reached to put an arm around the girl's shoulders, and saw her rubbing her left arm.

'Are you hurt?' she asked gently, without thinking. Her student shot her a glance of pure terror, dropping her right arm immediately. There were no marks-

McGonagall paled, her level-headed student's consuming alarm suddenly making sense. 'Come with me,' she ordered. Hermione obeyed without question, turning and following her professor back down the corridor that she had just come from.

'Acid Pops,' the older witch snapped tersely. The gargoyle sprang aside and they were both on the moving staircase.

At the top of the stairs, McGonagall rapped on the oak smartly, and faced Hermione with features much softer than the hard planes and lines that characterized her teaching persona. 'Miss Granger…' and she hesitated. She wasn't supposed to know. What comfort could she offer the girl? What consolation would Hermione be capable of hearing? Her fear for the man gone was too uncontrollable, the horrors of what he would face too violently imaginable for gentle words to take their place in her mind's eye.

The door opened, her husband sparing her the need to say anything. She settled for a squeeze of the girl's shoulder, applying slight pressure to push her into the office at the same time.

'Miss Granger needs to speak with you, Albus.'

Dumbledore nodded, leading her in, the door closing on his wife's already retreating back. 'By all means, Miss Granger, please sit,' he motioned her to a chair. She remained standing as he went around his desk and seated himself, her hands clasped behind her back rigidly, legs slightly apart in a conscious imitation of military attention. The attitude was so much like her vitriolic professor's that the Head of the Order could only stare for a moment, wondering

She had wondered, interspersed with bouts of mind-rending fear, what she could say to him. He clearly knew that their relationship was not strictly one of student and teacher, had known before either his employee or student had. He also knew, beyond a doubt, where Snape was this evening. She would not need to tender explanations.

'Professor Dumbledore,' and she was surprised to hear her voice ringing in the silence, reflected from the windows, 'I am reporting for duty if Professor Snape should need me.'

He stared at her, and though a smile twinged the corner of his mouth, she saw no echo of it in his eyes.

For his part, the ancient wizard gazed into the pained dark eyes of a girl without whom they likely would not win the war, and hated himself. Not quite yet seventeen. But she knew what she was required to do, and knew too that he would ask it of her. So she had come, trained along with her friends to his hand. Dumbledore's Army indeed.

'Is he all right, sir?' she asked into the silence, as it took too long for him to speak.

'You tell me, Miss Granger,' he replied evenly. He could not make this easier for her now. His error in not telling Harry all that he should have known years before had been paid for by who-knew-how-many lives. Hermione Granger was strong enough to hold her own, and he had to make sure he knew it now, in less than a year. Less than a year. The difficulties of this day would soon seem blissfully easy by comparison.

Hermione was startled that Dumbledore made no attempt to answer her, but had referred it back to her, no explaining, no excusing. And she understood as she looked into the blue eyes that held kindness without twinkle, firmness without mercy, that the headmaster was not looking at Hermione the student, but Hermione the adult.

There was no thrill in knowing that the greatest wizard of the age regarded her not as one of his vast army of children, but as an individual. If anything, the weight she carried suddenly bowed her shoulders. She was responsible for the life of the most dangerous, most intelligent and most ruthless member of the Order.

She hurtled mentally down the path that Snape's mind had worn in hers, and with careful concentration she felt… nothing. His barriers combined with physical distance to completely eliminate all but the imprint, the awareness of him in her mind.

Panic returned full force, and she swallowed it pitilessly. 'I don't know.'

'Then none of us can say.' Dumbledore's voice calmed her from habit, but his words were not soothing, nor did his expression convey confidence of Snape's well-being. She would have no cushion, no half-truths, evasions or reassurances. Not tonight, and thought she did not yet know it, never again.

**********

Hermione winced in pain as the barriers came down, throbbing spreading down her arms, tip-toeing across her back, sliding down her hips and legs, setting her nerves on edge, the physical equivalent to nails dragged over a blackboard, causing acute discomfort, but lacking the brutality of what he was feeling.

McGonagall watched her closely as the girl squirmed. She had been in her Head of House's office for most of the night, waiting for Snape. She had found herself not one jot tired, only fearful, as the tick-tock of the clock passed midnight, then one, then three…

A final jolt of pain pitched Hermione out of her chair, to her knees – inflaming her, blinding and deafening her…

'Miss Granger! Hermione!' McGonagall seized her arms, sitting her up. The girl was gagging with the force of the adopted pain and the Transfiguration teacher cursed. Of course they hadn't thought of this, her incapacitation through the growing strength of the bond…

'Hermione, you have to stop the pain,' she ordered gently, kneeling next to her. Tears poured down her student's face, and Hermione shook her head, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to move.

'You have to,' her teacher murmured, pulling the unruly tangle of hair away from Hermione's face. 'You have to come with me. He will need your help to heal him.'

Hermione dimly heard her professor through the roaring, the raw sensation brought with his arrival in the castle. She seized that fact, clutched at his mind, now open and fully revealed…

'Lucius Malfoy,' she whispered, the first of the jumbled thoughts she was hearing. 'Lucius Malfoy is out of Azkaban. He tortured-' Her breathing was laboured, but the hatred in her eyes sharpened undeniably, making the black centre of her pupils blaze. Stilted and slow, she stood, and started out the door, her professor at her side.

Hermione gripped the hatred, the power of it kept the pain at bay, gave her the will to walk with bloodied and beaten feet up the staircases and through the hallways to the hospital wing.

The white ward was before them, the door opened, and Hermione slumped on the doorframe, hatred vanishing with need, callously driving herself to perform. Magic twisted in streams of blue-white from her heart, her throat and her abdomen towards Snape, bridging the gap without needing to touch him, flowing into him where he lay awake, red staining the sheets beneath him, gazing at her with his heart in his eyes, her wild tresses the only thing he could see through his blood-sullied vision.

**********

'Minerva, would you say something to them? Anything at all will do,' Dumbledore said quietly. The sagging black loops under his eyes as he laid Hermione on the bed next to her bondmate elicited her pity, and Minerva touched his shoulder.

'I will.'

For Hermione's magical outburst had awakened the entire staff and brought them pounding to the hospital wing. Elsewhere in the school, students woke and rolled over uncomfortably, the dim feeling of a power that was both inexplicable and utterly uncontrolled washing through and over them.

Harry stirred in his bed, his scar soothing for a moment from the constant ache it endured now that Voldemort was strong again, and thought of Hermione. She had not been back after her hasty departure. His debate to rise and seek her out was stifled by sleep. Perhaps she really had gone to see the headmaster, and had gotten back late.

**********

Snape woke, feeling tender and sore, but no worse than that and easily much better than he ever had post-torture before. He groaned a little. Lucius and Walden's predilection for using knives…and they had been oh-so-careful to leave him just conscious and able enough to Apparate. Their lord would not have been pleased if he had died, especially since this session had not been done on Voldemort's orders but simply for private fun…

He bitterly wished that his master would forbid such practices, but he knew it amused the powerful wizard no end to see them fight amongst themselves for his favour as long as it did not impede their services when he commanded them.

Relief that was not his own bubbled in his chest, lightness pulling away the shroud of his dark thoughts, and he turned over to see Hermione Granger lying on the next bed, watching him, both minds completely unguarded-

-the rush of love and gratitude that burned though his mind and into hers made her blush and beam. Snape only barely caught himself in time as his mouth longed to twitch upwards as well. Without thinking, she reached for him, rising to walk towards him, and as if in a mirror, he sat up, his hand extended to match hers, their fingers meeting, skimming over each other, slipping past palms to hesitantly caress newly-healed skin exposed by their hospital gowns. He closed his eyes as her second hand joined the first, rose to his chin, brushed his thin mouth, explored for the first time with fingertips only just developing calluses.

The contact did for them what distance never could. It brought the harmony of feeding a craving, their desire no less, but seeming more tamed as long as he could feel her skin beneath his hands…

He had ceased breathing, and so had she, the peculiar feeling of double arousal – hers and his own – pervading him and heightening it. His gentle caress turned to a hungry clasp, and she willingly moved forward, swaying closer to him, allowing him to reach more of her, any of her that he wished to touch, delighting in each other's bodies for the very first time-

He snatched his hands away from her and slammed his wards back in place. When he opened his eyes again, she was back on her bed, eyes flat with stress and tension. He sensed neither resentment nor disappointment from her, but a frustration so compelling he nearly crossed to kiss her, if only to lay the burning of his lips to rest.

Do not blame yourself, she warned as he angrily thrust the curtains around his bed closed to dress. His complete, swift loss of control rattled him. There were few places in Hogwarts as public and as constantly watched as the hospital. But she had stretched out her hand, and he had been unable to prevent himself from meeting her, from the enchantment of cherishing her smooth arms under his hands.

Then whom should I blame? he asked brutally. A man grown. A spy...and so affected by her that he would gamble it all on a glance, a word, a furtive touch.

I am going to get us both killed.