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: Thanks for all the encouragement and support! This is the last chapter in which the timelines switch – from now on, it will all take place in October and going forward.

Diagon Alley

October, 1996

Hermione sat frozen once again, stock-still in a chair in the common room, Ginny, Ron and Neville close at hand. The fight at Diagon Alley and losing Harry had forged the four into an inseparable and dangerous cluster. Pansy Parkinson's single ambush attempt to mock Hermione and Ron had turned into a trip to the hospital wing for her, Crabbe and Goyle, and a mere twenty-point reduction for each of the four Gryffindor students involved. That they had been present at the Battle of Diagon Alley could not be hidden and Dumbledore hadn't tried. The hatred expressed by a small number of students – all of them on the watch list long before this – was far outweighed and outbalanced by the respect from the rest, and the deep worry of their professors. The four were given wide berth as they moved through Hogwarts, and more than one Gryffindor first year had turned to his or her prefects with problems of teasing or out-of-bounds magic to find the matter… satisfactorily…resolved.

For their part, the quad had barely noticed, wrapped in plans of helping Harry escape, and in Hermione's case, struggling to keep her mind whole and intact instead of splintered and raw.

Occasionally, a habit adopted since the beginning of the year, Hermione would go silent, and often it heralded a visit to the headmaster, but the three – Neville now replacing Harry – were determined to wait her out, patiently settled for the time when she would inform them of what caused her to go still as sculpture, her hands folded in her lap, right fingers often massaging her left wrist.

The mark had burned an hour ago, and Hermione had hesitated. Instead of going to Dumbledore, she sought Snape's mind, her own pitching camp outside the walls that had only tightened with their every passing encounter, attentive to details he might give her, knowing from his anxiety that today was different. This might be the night they went.

Snatches of unprotected information had come to her if she woke before he did, when he was too tired or she was too close. She knew that whatever the ritual planned for Harry's death, it would happen on Halloween. Ten days from now. Any rescue attempt would necessarily take place between now and then. And Snape was there now.

Her fingers twitched, this time the right hand faintly warmed. And a moment's distraction…

Yes. It was tonight. And they had been kept deliberately in the dark.

'Right now,' she whispered, and shot to her feet, sprinting for her dormitory. The other three jumped. She had been deathly still for an hour, but they bobbed to their feet with her, Ginny giving chase where the boys could not.

'What's right now?' Ginny asked, searching the older girl's face as she entered Hermione's room. Since Harry's capture over a month before, Ginny had become aware, with a strange sense of kinship, that something weighed on Hermione, something different yet similar to the gut-twisting fear reverberating with pain and loss that woke Ginny in the middle of the night, something greater, stronger, more consuming – and that something was an emotion she battled against with all her strength.

Hermione breathed deeply, steadying herself to return Ginny's concern. 'They are going to the-' she searched Snape's flickering wards – Where am I going? Flashes of images – a house on a hill, dilapidated stonework, ivy obscuring a once-grand doorway, grey stones, tombs-

'The Riddle House.' She vividly recalled Harry's description of the graveyard after their fourth year, when he had come out clutching Cedric's dead body.

'Harry?' Ginny followed instantly.

'Yes.'

'The rescue is tonight. How are we getting there? You haven't finished learning to Apparate,' Ginny's voice was rising, losing its prematurely adult tone and sounding more childish in her growing terror.

'Portkeys,' Hermione replied grimly. 'We always knew that they didn't want us going.' She produced a plain watch and a tin can.

Ginny could only stare at her for a moment, then shook her head in slow amazement. 'I could kiss you.'

'Wait until Harry's back here safely,' Hermione responded, her expression apprehensive. 'This is going to be worse than the Department of Mysteries.'

Ginny flinched, but her brown eyes hardened in determination. 'When he's back, I'll kiss him. How did you know where to charm them to go?'

'They aren't charmed yet. One will take us there, the other will be touch-activated to bring us back here.' She concentrated on the watch, the cheery fireplace, enfolding armchairs, plush red carpet and steep, worn stone work of Gryffindor's common room carefully drawn in her mind's eye and transferred to the object. She felt a faint tingle, the face of the watch glowed for an instant, and she sighed as she laid it on the bed.

'That one will bring us back.'

'Sort of strange that you can Portkey in and out of Hogwarts when you can't Apparate,' Ginny remarked as Hermione lifted the tin can. The other girl opened one eye.

'You can't really. The Portkey has to be made by a teacher – or in the headmaster's office.'

'Is that what you've been doing there?' Ginny asked, her dark eyes growing wider.

Hermione opened her mouth to dissuade her, and stopped, closed her mouth and allowed, 'Yes.' Why correct her? The real reason was one a mere handful of people knew, and she the only student. If Ginny did not believe this – admittedly only partial – lie, she would have to believe another one.

No, Dumbledore's willingness to leave Hermione to sit in his office many nights that Snape had been called to Voldemort had given the girl ample time to read theory, practice the basic spellwork to adapt an ordinary object into one that would hold a Dislocator Charm. And eventually, in no more than ten minutes while the headmaster had stepped out, she had transformed the two simple items she carried with her into Portkeys, ready to receive the spells that would specify them to locations and activations.

She had felt a weak sense of guilt at betraying his obvious trust in such a manner, but now that the moment had arrived to use that which she had made, her remorse had completely vanished. There were some things more important than obeying rules. Rescuing Harry was amongst them.

'Get Ron upstairs to his room. Professor McGonagall will be coming soon to check that we are still here.' Whether she would arrive on her own intuition or the headmaster's orders, Hermione didn't know. Her Head of House had given no intimation of knowing of her favourite student's precarious feelings towards the former Potions master, but there were questions that McGonagall had never asked that Hermione thought she might if she were truly ignorant of the situation.

Ginny obeyed her. Since Harry's capture the two girls had grown increasingly closer, knit together by what the younger witch could not name, but it was characterized by tight mouths and a grim determination that neither Ron nor Neville possessed. And in the last month, when she awakened in the middle of the night for days in a row, shaking and sobbing with fear, stumbling up to Hermione's four-poster bed, the girl had held her, stroking her hair, rubbing her back, murmuring that it would be all right, that Harry had survived through much, and that surely someone would have told them if he had come to harm.

When Hermione walked into the boys' dormitory, she stopped short. 'Neville-'

'I just told Ginny all this,' he said stiffly. His cane leaned abandoned against his bedpost, but his limp had still been pronounced enough that afternoon. The hard chips centred in his eyes told her that he would not be denied. But she had to try anyway.

'Neville…' she swallowed, 'Neville, you almost died last time. And you're not yet totally recovered-'

'My leg will be fine,' he interrupted. 'I cast Strengthening Charms on it.'

'That will hurt you more when we return,' Ginny whispered, distress brightening her brown eyes.

'I can heal later.' His gaze met Hermione's with a completely untouched and unfailing resolution. 'We can only help save Harry now.'

Hermione's voice was hoarse as she played her final card, hoping her guilt would trump his resolve. 'It was my suggestion to Dumbledore you come with us to Diagon Alley. You cannot imagine, when I heard you were in Intensive Care-'

'Hermione, thank you.' He lifted the crushing weight that had burdened her ever since she had heard of his near-death in the battle, absolving her with three sincere words. 'I wanted to be there. I needed to go. And I need to go now. Harry has endured more than all of us combined. And you are the only friends I've ever had that have believed that I could do better, who didn't just compare me to my brilliant mum and dad. How can I abandon him and you now just because of a little time in St. Mungo's?'

Hermione stared at him, beyond the ability to speak. 'That's why I let him come,' Ginny told her.

'All right then,' she conceded, and she knew when her vision blurred as she gave him a smile that tears threatened to spill out. She had the tin can in one hand. 'This one will go when I touch it with my wand. But this,' she extended the watch in the other hand, 'is touch activated. So only use it in extreme danger – other than that, we'll place it at the meeting point and all touch it at exactly the same time to come back safely. All clear?'

The other three nodded, and each stretched a hand to touch the tin can. As Hermione readied to transport them, Dean and Seamus tore into the room.

'We're going too.'

The four exchanged looks. They had all been to battle. Dean and Seamus were eager, but untried. And each had firmly put a finger on the can, looking at her expectantly.

'It's dangerous.'

'We know.'

Hermione debated the merits of arguing with them, knowing that if their Transfiguration professor should find them, they would not be going. She shrugged her consent. It was, after all, a war. If Dean and Seamus felt ready to volunteer, she would not stop them.

'No heroics,' she warned. 'We make a plan and follow it.' The two nodded without hesitation.

The tip of her wand gently bumped the tin, making a soft tong and they jerked forward, the six of them spinning through the dark.

**********

Minerva stopped pacing. She threw a glance at the clock. Seven minutes since the summons. Severus had wanted Hermione Granger kept from the fighting and the rescue.

And given the power of the girl's bond to him, she had to know by now what was happening, in spite of their many precautions.

Minerva threw open the doors leading to Dumbledore's rooms and sprinted along the corridors with a speed that seemed impossible for her nearly-seventy years. If she was lucky, though some inner voice warned her she would not be, she should reach Gryffindor Tower in time.

**********

September, 1996

Hermione very nearly skived off Defence class, sitting and picking over her lunch, dreading what she knew was to come. His presence in the two days since she had healed him in the hospital seemed to stun her. She could not keep her eyes from following him, the burning heat of recalling his hands on her arms and the surety of knowing how much he wanted her, yearning meeting yearning with a desperate hunger.

But her thoughts, always open to him, sparked a flash of anger and a direct order that he let her hear from his place at the head table. Don't even think about it, Granger. There will be ten points from Gryffindor if you decide to go…missing.

And she went, keeping her head and hand down, performing flawlessly and without a sliver of recognition.

Snape was aware of her heightened attention, at meals and even in class, felt the drawing, her inability to look away, and he wished, not for the first time, that she had an increment of his self-discipline.

Discipline that abandons me at the worst possible times, he thought disparagingly. He could hear her running over the aftermath in the ward endlessly, and the sweetness lacing her remembrance, her cherishing touch of his face, memorizing the hard planes and angles of a forbidding sculpture with her hands and not her eyes, was threatening to undo him as he, too, re-lived the event, wishing passionately that he could have stripped her of the flimsy hospital gown and felt every inch of her, from her long, strong legs to the curls that tumbled down her back.

But nothing could be gained by such thinking, despite the fullness, the complete joy and total pain the bond brought him. Every other feeling he had ever endured was a shadow when faced with the consumptive intensity of his emotions centred around Hermione. But his time grew ever shorter. Within the next nine months, he would kill the most powerful wizard in the world, and be forever sentenced to exile, and desire or no, she would loathe him and herself for his actions. More so because of it. He could not allow her to touch him again.

**********

Only a week after the hospital incident, Hermione's arm burned again. This time there was no panic. Swiftly and methodically, she packed her bag, notes and books going in neatly. Cold and pale, she crossed the common room, exited the portrait with all the dignity she could muster, and then sprinted to the headmaster's office.

Panting the password, she was partway up the stairs when suddenly, the connection always closed to her opened wide, and she heard his voice as if from a great distance:

Diagon Alley! The desperation of the cry left no doubt as to what was going on there. For the second time in as many weeks, she entered a professor's office without knocking and announced without preamble, 'The Death Eaters are attacking Diagon Alley.'

There were no questions, no verifications, no delays. Dumbledore rose, turned to Fawkes and said, 'Minerva.' The bird vanished in flame. Dumbledore gazed down at the girl standing in front of him with over-bright eyes and all colour leeched from her cheeks. She did not deserve this baptism by fire.

But neither did the rest of them, and yet he was going to give the order.

When his wife arrived, he said quietly, 'Minerva, please bring Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and his sister Ginny to Diagon Alley. The Death Eaters have attacked. Miss Granger and I are going now.'

'Albus, surely the Order-' she gasped, eyes wide with horror. The look he turned on her made her well aware that he knew what he was asking.

'I will alert them, but they will not get there soon enough. This is our army.'

'These are our students!' she blazed.

'Yes, and in Diagon Alley, living and shopping right now, are in excess of a thousand witches and wizards, some of them newborn, many with children of their own, few with duelling training, much less experience in fighting a guerrilla war. We owe them our protection- now, not later!' Whatever the effect of Dumbledore's withered hand and the intangible impression of his waning magical ability, it seemed insignificant now, the aura of his power rising palpably as he made his decision. 'I have no choice, Minerva. We cannot let them rampage the alley.'

She met his eyes for a moment, her own dark gaze as intense as the blue, then bowed her head in acquiescence, her disapproval muted by understanding despair. The Ministry had no standing army – only Magical Law Enforcement and the Auror Corps. Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix were indeed as close as they came to having a defence.

'I will ward them all from harm in every way I can,' the headmaster promised his wife quietly. He waved his hand, and a fistful of bottles floated to him. He placed them on the desk, save for one, which he handed to Hermione.

'This will keep ballasts from falling on you,' he said quietly. She drank it without hesitation. As the liquid, cold like ice, squeezed down her throat and into her stomach, she felt the rap on her head and the runny-egg feeling on her hair that marked a Disillusionment Charm. 'And that should keep them from seeing you too easily. Are you ready, Miss Granger?'

She nodded, and then, 'Bring Neville too, Professor. He wants to fight.' Her face hardened, the cold lines of hatred incongruous on one so young. 'Especially if Bellatrix Lestrange is there.'

The sorrow in the headmaster's eyes glittered as he nodded a hesitant 'yes'. He was placing his students and indeed, the hope of the wizarding world, in danger, deliberately driving them into hell's mouth, with only his wards to keep them from harm, and they themselves a barely-existent line of defence to save the lives of other innocents. But waiting would prove fatal for far too many, and these children had to learn quickly, for they would have to finish the war on their own.

'Neville Longbottom, Mr. and Miss Weasley and Potter will join you momentarily,' McGonagall said shortly. 'I will also be there.' Her long strides covered the room in a few paces, the door closed, and Dumbledore was left watching the oak apprehensively. But he shook himself free of that instantly, and extended his arm as if escorting her to a ball instead of a battleground.

'Take my arm, Miss Granger. We will go using Side-Along Apparition.' She grasped his arm in one hand, her hand clenching her wand in the other, disbelief at his decision to take them into violence, trusting his ability to care for them. They would be warded.

'Visualize Diagon Alley, Miss Granger. And when we arrive, in spite of the enchantments on you, duck.'

Hermione closed her eyes and readied herself, imagining with all her might the bookcases lined with tomes in front of the great glass windows…

An immense pressure squashed her, pushing her breath out and making it impossible to draw another…

And she was in front of the Flourish and Blotts, the great windows she had seen in her mind's eye shattered behind her with fires blazing to consume the bookshelves.

But Hermione had no eyes for the tragedy befalling the store behind her. Dumbledore vanished in an instant from her side, organizing the rout of the innocents as marble, brick and granite crashed like bombs in the street, sending shards of stone to bury themselves in glass, merchandise and human flesh. The smell of smoke immediately clogged her mouth and nose, making her gag.

And in well organized units, she saw the sweeping black robes of the Death Eaters moving easily, killing and torturing… their delighted laughter clashing brutally with the sounds of screams and despair of those scrambling to get out of their way.

Fury flared in her so strongly it nearly drove her to recklessness, but she ducked first, recalling Dumbledore's orders and feeling a disbelieving flash of panic followed by a deep anger from her Defence professor as he registered exactly where she was.

Shaking her head to banish him from her thoughts – he was in the Alley and still alive, that was all she needed to know – she squatted behind a pile of grey-veined marble that could only have come from one of the missing columns on Gringotts Bank, pulled out her wand and aimed it at a black robe topped with a white mask.

'Cervicus Reductum,' she hissed. The Death Eater, his wand on a boy cowering next to a woman, shrieked in pain as the base of his spine cracked in half. Hermione smiled grimly. They had been caught dangerously off-guard and unprepared in the Ministry, only to agree that it could not happen again. Their study this summer would pay off.

She saw another Death Eater aiming for a red-head, undoubtedly one of the Weasleys, probably one of the twins, who was standing to Stun one. She lifted her wand and squinted through the growing haze.

**********

Ron and Harry Apparated in right behind her. 'Hermione!' Harry pulled her down as lances of spell light crashed over their heads, toppling another store front of stone. Hermione noted that under the pressures of battle, her Disillusionment Charm had already begun to fade, and her body seemed to be flickering in and out of easy visibility.

'We're here,' Ron announced unnecessarily. Hermione turned her back to him, pressing against him.

'Harry, on this side!' She pulled him into the triangle, their wands facing outward. The fleeing witches and wizards were scrambling toward the Leaky Cauldron and the exit of the alley. Some Muggles on the other side of the brick wall were in for nasty surprises. Hermione pointed to the end, where they could see the Death Eaters amassing around the melee, adults and children dropping to their wands, easily picked off as the bottleneck kept the crowd from escaping.

'Right. We're going to that end, where everyone is trying to get out!' she shouted over the constant noise. 'But we have to move like this!' The boys nodded, eyes glittering, they started forward in a rotating triangle, wands issuing jets of light that felled the black shadows moving towards them.

**********

Snape could feel the girl appear in the alley, felt her fear, her anger and her hatred. The strong, dark emotion fed him, and he streamed it back to her, the only way to keep her moving quickly enough, lending her power to cast the spells she needed to use to stay alive.

He glanced down from the rooftop to watch her, scything through Death Eaters with Potter and Weasley, their triangle strategy an intelligent one, three shields merging together to protect them, the trio only partially visible- each Disillusioned, though the charm seemed to be failing. As a beam of yellow light narrowly missed Hermione, he sucked in his breath, his hands gripping the gutter.

The Boy-Who-Lived was drawing his fellows as honey attracts flies. Glittering light slashed through the smoke, multicoloured flashes of lightning blending with one another and cracking against the golden glitter of their shields.

A shout as Weasley stumbled, a deafening shock of fury as Hermione's Slicing Hex found its mark on one of his comrades...Snape was pouring sweat as he discreetly began to fire curses at the other Death Eaters, the fray now so thick that it looked like a nest of black ants had besieged the shielded teens.

As soon as he saw her home safely, he was going to have Dumbledore's head on a plate, Vow or no Vow.

**********

Right! The instruction was so strong her arm seemed to jerk of its own accord, her mouth forming the words to a hex she wasn't entirely sure she knew. The Death Eater, closing in on a heedless Ron, flew backwards into a mostly-intact building, collapsing as his head struck the brick.

'Thanks, Hermione,' he murmured fervently. She nodded, distracted, his words and the noise of the battle both distant. Snape was here, watching her…

But the next blast, fiercer as more Death Eaters poured towards them from the entrance arch, penetrated their combined defence, throwing them down like so many shards of pottery. Hermione could taste blood in her mouth as she surged to her feet only to see Ron land ten feet away, the crack of his arm audible even through the laughter.

Help us! The thought escaped before she could censor it, and instead of a direct promise, confidence poured in. She could fight. She had to. She dropped into a crouch, wand extended towards the Death Eater striding in front of her. She Petrified him, and he toppled over in mid-stride like a figure abruptly turned to cardboard.

'What is this?' an amused voice spat into the morning air. A voice she recognized, one incongruously from both the Quidditch World Cup and the Department of Mysteries.

Lucius Malfoy. Her dark eyes blazed with a renewed hatred, Snape's loathing compounding her intense dislike of the untouchable aristocrat.

'One Miss Granger, I believe,' he mocked. 'Better clean up after your boyfriend, Mudblood. Blood stains, I hear.' She did not follow the gesture of his wand to look at Ron, but kept her eyes on the grey ones behind the white mask.

He advanced on her, slow and lazy. Harry had ceased moving behind her, but she did not dare turn to him either, but only locked gazes with Malfoy, Snape's advice suddenly in her mind. When they attack, you will see it in the eyes first. The wand may feint, but never the face. Watch their features, for they will betray the true intent.

She stumbled as her foot struck and bent on rubble, she bent to break her fall, her eyes flickering downwards for an instant – a gash opened on her arm and she gasped as her skin separated cleanly as a gutted fish, blood spewing forth to stain her hands. Her hair was in Malfoy's grip, her head jerked backward so he filled her vision. He bent lower, and his mouth moved right by her ear, his voice rough and sneering.

'Beg, bitch.'

**********

'Will she survive?' Dumbledore lifted his eyes to the man standing over him as the old wizard crouched next to the body of Hermione Granger. She lay draped over smashed brick, her heart pumping blood out a severed artery to waterfall over the dusty red, staining it a darker hue.

'Headmaster…tell me,' Snape's voice was barely a whisper – a question of desolate desperation. Dumbledore raised his head and saw what answer he must give, regardless of the truth. He needed Severus Snape – whole, well and undistracted. The dead and the dying lay strewn about them – the young professor could not afford to worry about this girl now. His long hands were already reaching for her, and Dumbledore could see the crackling white-blue of the bond snapping at his Potions master's fingers, seething to jump the gap, to heal the badly wounded girl in front of them.

But he was too tired. He could not afford to heal her – especially if she was already beyond their reach. The older man stilled the younger's hands, feeling them tremor with Snape's effort to remain on his feet, shaking his head. 'No, Severus, you cannot.'

He sighed, his own wand going to her chest, murmuring spells to heal the hole blasted in her left lung. The blue-white light seemed all the brighter in the darkened alley, and they watched as her tissue began to knit back together, splintered ribs becoming whole.

He nodded, exhaustion extinguishing the light in his blue eyes. 'She will.'

Snape straightened, withdrawing his hands and closed his eyes for just a moment, the tension relaxing around his mouth. Nothing would ease the burning in his chest, the bond that linked him to the girl on the ground flooding her pain into his heart and lungs. He nodded slowly, ignoring it, the headmaster's reassurance assuaging a much greater fear. Then his eyes snapped open, and his customary cold brilliance echoed in them, the mind-numbing pain that Dumbledore had seen there disappeared, the tautness fleeing his shoulders. Without a second glance at Hermione, Snape strode away, growing fuzzy in the lingering smoke as he sought others.

Fires of all colors cast hell-shaded shadows on the remaining walls of Diagon Alley. Windows were shattered, gaping like open mouths of jagged teeth. Marble from Gringotts pillars had hurtled from the sky like a deadly rain to shatter glass and break holes in wood, brick and granite walls.

Diagon Alley… by the time he knew, it had been too late to divert the attack. Voldemort had wanted it to be a complete surprise. No one had been told. He had called all of his Death Eaters together and Apparated them, en masse, to the Alley. Snape had sent warning as fast as he could….

…but the Death Eaters were profoundly efficient. Even though they were as surprised as the witches and wizards they descended upon, they had instantly organized themselves by cell, coordinating under Avery and Lucius. All of Snape's assassins had Apparated onto roofs and fire escapes, picking their individual targets easily, blasting Muggle-borns, setting fire to stores and killing the Ministry members in the area. It had been all too easy to destroy the unprepared haven in a matter of minutes.

He stepped around blood, lifting bodies, checking pulses. Too many had none. He saw the Weasley clan gathered near the Leaky Cauldron. Mr. Weasley was supporting the dazed and bleeding owner of Flourish and Blotts, Molly was shaking visibly even from this distance, taking a head count as Bill, Charlie and Percy picked through the rubble. He could see the red hair of one of the twins, but he could see the tension in her craning neck: Molly was looking for Ron.

Good luck to her, he thought grimly. Weasley had been with Potter, the determined sidekick forever at his friend's side. And wherever Potter had been, that was where the fighting had been thickest. What had possessed the headmaster to bring them into this? To deliberately risk the boy he had struggled for more than five years now to keep safe and out of the Dark Lord's hands? And he knew, looking at the devastation around him that Dumbledore had brought all the fighters he could, in the hopes of keeping innocents safe.

But the fighters had included Hermione...

His robe caught, and he turned around. A small, slightly pudgy hand clutched the corner of his cloak.

'Professor…' Snape winced. Neville Longbottom. He gazed at the boy, closed his eyes at the sight of his mangled legs. Even with magic, Neville might be crippled for life.

'Help me?' Neville pleaded, a tongue darting nervously over dry lips.

Snape bent and removed the rubble from the boy's body. A broken arm twisted so grotesquely the bone glistened white through shredded skin, and blood streamed freely from his mouth and a wound near his temple. The powerful wizard's mouth dried instantly. Internal bleeding. If Neville didn't get to St. Mungo's now he would die.

He squatted, lifted the boy to Neville's staunched screams of pain-

-and nearly dropped him. His arm seared angrily, and he could feel that the Dark Lord was wondering where he was. He gasped. He had to go-

'Lupin!' he barked. Remus Lupin spun around in mid-stride. 'Get Longbottom to St. Mungo's. I…have business.'

Remus noticed the way his childhood enemy soothed his left arm when the werewolf took the bloodied bundle. 'Good luck, Severus.'

Snape nodded curtly, unable to sneer. As he Disapparated, his mind returned to the image of Hermione's body, broken open, her life's blood feeding the cobblestones. For the first time in many years, he had to master his breathing, and the rage of savage thoughts tearing through his mind as he appeared in the graveyard behind the Riddle House. As his wits returned in their cool, unbreakable fashion, another, more familiar emotion emerged. Revenge smoldered inside him.

He took a deep breath and counted to ten. He could afford no unseemly displays, even while his blood seemed to boil from pain, worry and fear. Personal fear. He swallowed the loathing that rose like vomit in his throat.

That had to wait for later. He ruthlessly turned off all the emotions that had roared to life inside him, feelings that would end his life shortly if Voldemort chanced on them while rooting through his thoughts.

In due time, he would discover and kill whoever had nearly murdered his Hermione.