Hermione had managed three steps through the gates of Hogwarts with Severus right behind her before she began to shiver uncontrollably, her head began to spin violently and she unceremoniously collapsed to the ground. Severus's fingertips grazing over her back in an attempt to catch her but he failed.

The moonlight dancing over her from high in the sky was all the light he needed to see she probably wasn't in the best way. Her feet were not only blue from the cold but bleeding from running barefoot over the gravel. Her teeth chattered and her lips were changing to a purple hue. How she had managed to stand and walk this far actually amazed him.

She looked up at him helplessly, she wanted to stand and to move but her body was too weak, too tired and too spent to attempt it.

He knelt down beside her, scooping her up in his arms, he rose with ease, she weighed hardly anything and he assumed that was thanks to all of the stress going on in her life right now.

She wrapped her arms gently around his neck, nuzzling her cheek into his robes, inhaling the scent of sandalwood and parchment. He had to stop himself from groaning as she did so and he wished right now that their relationship were under different circumstances. The circumstance where he could enjoy her company and maybe even offer her the love and affection she so desired.

He walked slowly, not actually knowing what he was going to be walking into. He hadn't been back since the battle of Hogwarts. He didn't know if it would still be blown to pieces with corpses piled high, or if it had been repaired.

Tentative step after tentative step saw him marching closer to the castle that loomed dark and silent in the distance. He shivered against her as a cold chill ran up his back. He had never known the castle to be this silent, still, unmoving.

Relieved to see that someone had been back in to fix the castle up, it was no longer laying in ruin and the mountain of bodies that once lay in the courtyard of the castle but a distant memory in his mind.

Slowly he climbed the steps and stood at the front door, waiting, worrying and wondering. Would the castle open for him? He was once the headmaster and Hogwarts would always be there for those that returned. And as far as he knew, his belongings still resided deep down in the dungeons where he once lived.

The doors didn't move. The doors didn't open. The doors didn't even make a sound. It was almost as if the castle had died that night the battle took place.

Gently balancing Hermione on one arm he reached the palm of his hand up to touch the door. He couldn't feel any wards or magic shutting the castle up so he was perplexed as to why it wasn't opening. Just as he was about to try to hex the door open, the door came to life. Each intricate lock clicked one after the other, almost as if the castle was coming back to life.

"The castle remembers you," She whispered hoarsely as the last lock clicked into place and the door swung open, each lantern in their hangers instantly ignited, one instantly after the other in an almost domino effect lighting the long corridor. He stepped into the now well-lit castle and was taken aback to see it so still and he wondered if the ghosts or house elves had stuck around.

Quickly he made his way down the path he had taken way too many times to even think about anymore. The path to where he had just about spent his entire adult life. He wanted to say he hated this castle and all the memories that its walls held for him but he would be lying. It was like home for him and he liked being here.

He hazarded a guess and assumed they were the only living humans within the walls. The castle was much too quiet and too slow to open when he approached the doors, almost as if it had forgotten how to function from lack of use.

He pushed the door to his chamber open. She blinked rapidly trying to take in the sights within the dimly lit room as he carried her through. It was almost clinical without a single thing out of place.

Setting her on the bed he lit the fire and cast a warming charm, she was freezing to the touch and if she didn't warm up soon she might just die of hypothermia.

"Your magic is depleted. Only using your magic sporadically over the past few months has weakened your magical capabilities and power. The spectacle you performed back at the Manor coupled with apparating with me hanging on pushed you over the edge, and with being pregnant your magic is diminishing quickly." He stood over her as she lay on his bed. He looked down at her and had to fight every single part of him not to lean down and kiss her cold yet tender lips. She looked so helpless beneath his gaze yet so sweet and desirable.

"Will I be ok?" She asked, propping herself up on her elbows from where she lay on his bed, shakily and slowly. She didn't have much energy left so to do even that was an effort on her behalf.

"I don't know," his voice dark with worry. "A witch without her magic is-"

"Dead," she offered softly, the lump that had formed in her throat earlier was starting to come back with force and she began to feel sick. She didn't come this far and fight tooth and nail for her life to die anyway.

"Exactly." He fished around in his robes for the one thing he needed right now, and it wasn't his wand. Pulling a small dagger out he unsheathed it, the silver blade glistening in the torchlight of his chambers like a freshly polished diamond.

"What are you doing?" Head cocked to the side, worry dancing in the depths of her eyes. Surely he wasn't going to stab her to death?

"Saving your life." The blade lay across the palm of his hand as he hesitated for a moment. Should he do this, or should he just let her die quietly here in the place she so deeply loved and felt at home in? At least it would be painless and humane.

"You're not…" She trailed off, eyes wide opened. She knew exactly what was about to happen. She had only ever read about magic transfer via blood in some dark books, it wasn't common knowledge and it was rarely practiced let alone known about.

"I am."

"You realize the implications of this?" She almost screeched way too loudly for someone as sick and weak as she.

"We are already married and bound by magic so dark it is irreversible, being bound by blood isn't going to change much." He shrugged it off as if it were nothing.

"But why would you do this? Why not just let me die here and you can go on living your life prior to how you were before I came and destroyed it."

Broad shoulders shook with laughter and he thought she was smart. "You didn't ruin my life. Change it, yes. Piss me off beyond measure, usually. But you have shown me so much more. How one person can have so much bestowed up them, so much done to them, to befall them and still carry on the best they can, you are the most resilient woman I know."

"That doesn't explain why you want to see me live."

"I have my reasons. Reasons that cannot come to light right now but eventually you will see."

"So you are saving my life, binding us by blood, the strongest bond in the magical universe which comes with the price of me being transferred a portion of your magical power and ability and you won't even bring to light the reason?"

"Precisely."

"I don't understand you."

"No one does."

"No I've worked out, you like to march to the beat of your own drum."

"Now, where was that?" He muttered to himself fishing around deep in his robes and Hermione wondered if he had an undetectable extension on the pocket of his robes. It would explain why he was able to carry so much in his otherwise regular-looking pockets.

Pulling out a long golden chain with a small golden heart on the end he let it dangle freely swinging side to side like a pendulum.

"This was my mothers… She passed it down to me in a hope I would one day be able to use it, for a woman I would marry and… I would fall in love with, and seeing as you are the closest thing to that I guess it's yours at my mother's request. I guess one of the prerequisites of giving it to you is better than none." He shrugged, eyes fixated on the necklace as it swung carelessly without a worry.

Her heart clenched painfully in her chest. He didn't love her, she got that but it still hurt her so to hear it. To have someone you spend hours upon hours with, talking and hanging around, getting to know them on such a deep level and then stupidly falling for them, even though she would never admit it, it hurt to hear them say that.

"Your magic is dark…" She trailed off, lines of worry etched into her white face.

"Do you want to die, or do you want to forget about that fact and live?" Raised eyebrows questioned her.

"You know this can't be reversed. Ever. If we ever found a way to reverse the magic in which Voldemort placed upon us, we can't undo the bonds of this."

"I know." He shrugged.

Slowly she sat up on the edge of the bed, forcing herself to meet his gaze and was slightly upset to see no emotion sat in the depths of black orbs. For someone about to do something of this magnitude, you would expect them to show be showing some emotion.

He looked her in the eyes as the blade sliced his flesh deeply, he didn't even wince in pain and she wondered at this point if he was even human, or if he had some amazing ability to shut his brain off from his body.

The hot, crimson blood began to slowly trickle from his hand and down his wrist, dripping onto the cold floor below him.

Taking her hand precariously with the fingers on his cut hand he lay the blade over her palm and cut with force. She hissed in pain, trying to pull her hand from his grip but she was too weak and he was much too strong.

Placing the golden heart on his palm Hermione watched intently as the necklace glowed a soft shade of pink. Laying his palm to her with the necklace between them she felt a soft jolt of his magic run up her arm and land in her heart as it exploded around her body. Instantly she felt stronger and warmer but otherwise, she still felt like her normal self.

Severus closed his eyes as their magic met. He felt a little weaker as he focused on channeling a decent portion of his magic to her, not that he would tell her of course but she needed it more than he did right now. She would need it more than he would when she went to face the wrath of Voldemort. Once the tingling in his arm stopped he pulled his blood-soaked hand away from hers. The once golden heart now soaked in their mingled blood.

He wiped it on his robes, blood smearing on the fabric and almost undetectable against the darkness of his robes. Handing it to her roughly he turned away from her.

"Keep that close. You never know when it might come in handy."

Hermione only nodded and had a feeling that the necklace held secrets and abilities that he wasn't about to divulge. She was taken aback at how his demeanor had turned so abrupt in a matter of seconds and watched as he left her sitting on the bed, walking out and leaving her alone.

-o-o-o-o-

Later that night, hours after he had vanished he came back to bed, stripped down to his underwear and he sidled into bed next to her. He felt like he needed to be close to her and she obliged, resting her head on his shoulder.

She felt substantially better after showering and tending to her sore feet with the essence of dittany she had found in his bathroom.

"What drives a person to want to become a Death Eater?" Her voice soft and sweet, the warmth of her breath ghosting over his bare chest.

"When you are young and impressionable, and you are so lost in the terrible world of ours, and you need to find where you belong, where you slide into the world you live in, where you fit in the puzzle." He gently stroked her chocolate brown hair, fingertips gliding softly over the silken locks.

"And the only friend you have ever know or loved ignores you in favor of someone you loathe with every piece of hatred in your soul. And then, then out of nowhere when you are at your lowest, alone, in the deepest and saddest place you have ever been in and they pull you from those depths, treat you as an equal, and show you comradery… It's very easy to be led astray."

"So your entire life could have been totally different had Harry's mother chosen you?" She asked with an interested upward inflection, baited breath waiting for the answer.

The Silence that hung heavy in the air after she questioned him and it told her that maybe she had pushed the boundary just a little more than she should have and she wasn't going to get the answer she thought she would receive.

"We don't talk about that." The stroking if her hair slowed before it ceased harshly. He moved his hand to rest on her farthest shoulder as he stiffened awkwardly.

"I'm sorry… I just thought,-never mind." She rolled off of his chest, rolling over and facing the wall, her back now to him as she wiggled across the bed leaving a gap between them.

"You thought what?" He asked. Rolling to face her back, propping his head upon his hand.

"Nothing. I said forget it," She snapped waving a dismissive hand in the darkened room.

"You thought that because I sacrificed some of my magic to you that it was an open invitation to pry into my otherwise private and terrible life to find out more about me? That you think because I did it, that you have free passage into every aspect of my life, to read me like an open book? To peruse the pages and cast judgment upon me? That maybe, if you delve so deep into my life I might start loving you? That is what you want of me is it not?"

"I think you have the ability to love, Severus," Her voice monotone and bored as she tried to hold back tears. Yes, she did want to love, to feel loved, wanted, needed and desired.

"I think you are asking for things off me that are impossible, Hermione. I don't love, I don't care about you romantically and it would do you well to get those ideas out of your head. You are expecting things off of me that I cannot give nor can I reciprocate. If you want love, seek out the love you need from Draco. I can offer you physical contact, sexual satisfaction, and a decent conversation, but please don't think I can or will offer anything else outside of the realm of pleasantries and fucking you every now and then."

"I think you are just scared to love, to feel, to need. You are worried if you love someone as you did with Lily that they will be torn cruelly from your life like she was. I think you see similarities between her and me, and it scares you. You distance yourself and don't allow yourself to get too close for fear of retribution. You worry that if you did love me, Voldemort would use me as a pawn against you. If you didn't care for me, you wouldn't be around every corner ready to save me, you wouldn't have followed me here when I ran and you wouldn't have blood-bound yourself to me in a desperate attempt to save my life." She sat up in the bed, throwing her legs roughly over the edge she stood, grabbed a blanket and pillows in her arms and began to walk out of the room.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to sleep in the sitting room." He watched as she crossed the room in the almost non-existent light. Once she was gone he punched his pillow repeatedly out of frustration and anger. Could he have been any more brutal towards her?

Silence in the air gave way to faint sobs the carried on the air and through the thin door. He had made her fucking cry her heart out, all because he had to protect her. He couldn't get close to her no matter his heart wanted. He just wished fucking Potter would hurry the fuck up and do what he had to do and then maybe he could tell the little witch how he really did feel towards her. But then in saying that, perhaps that same little witch wouldn't want anything to do with him once she found out the real him, how he was hiding her friends from her and playing the lot of them like a finely tuned piano. No, she wouldn't want anything to do with him and that another reason he was hesitant to tell her how he felt.

The sobs continued to tear from her body, each one harder and more painful than the last. He couldn't help but feel guilt biting away at him that every heart-wrenching sob was because of him, because of everything he had done. Every single one of his hurtful words was spilling from her eyes, her heart breaking into pieces.

She cried with the vengeance of a river flowing out to the sea. She cried because right now she didn't know her place in the world. She was a lost soul wandering in a foreign world with no way of fitting in. She clutched to him because he showed her affection and attention in an otherwise cold and lonely world. She didn't want to admit it but she had begun to fall in love with the old, dour, bitter and evil potions master that she was once petrified of and she hated herself for it. She was carrying his child for Merlin's sake and he still couldn't love her.

He lay in bed, his mind never stopping, never once wavering. Should he go after her and tell her what she wanted to hear? Should he confess that yes, maybe, just maybe he did love her slightly but he was so fucking scared to open his heart to her any more for fear she would be ripped from his clutches like Lily was?

And what about Draco? Draco was closer to her in age and much more suited to her and right now, Severus knew his fate was to probably die a lonely and cold death at the hands of his maniacal over-lord. It was best not to tell her he may have strong feelings for her. It would be better to distance himself from her and allow Draco to get closer, as much as that would pain him. That way, when he perished sooner rather than later, she would have Draco to fall back on, to mend her heart and to help her through. That was the best gift of all he could give to her.

A/N: Here you all go. I hope you like it! There might be a few weeks before I post another chapter, I want to focus on getting my other story, Shattered, completed. It's only got a few chapters to go so if I can get it finished before Christmas that would be amazing.

Thank you for reading my story.

-Aliasmel1