Ch 38
Old Ties Bind
Snape approached the Malfoy manor feeling the pressure of their ancient wardings against his senses vanish, and was surprised to realize he had not entered their home as a friend in over three years.
"Lucius," he greeted grasping the proffered forearm firmly feeling the uncomfortable…almost oily magical signature of a genuine dark mark against his hand authenticating his colleague's identity. Snape scanned his face rapidly for the characteristic symptoms.
His face was pale, a light sheen of sweat around his mouth, and his eyes bloodshot. He'd been exposed to the toxin. The man did not look as he once had. His face was haggard, graying bags framed tired, nervous eyes, and his once white blonde hair was now quite grey at the temples.
"You do not look so well, my friend," Snape said.
Drawn features tightened, "And you look far better than I have seen you in many years."
It was true. It was almost as if he had taken Hermione's vitality into himself along with her power, and like the others they had revived he had been strengthened by the ambient magic she had called forth. She too had been replenished by the power that had run through her like liquid fire, and as she returned to full strength it was apparent she had been changed by her prolonged contact with true power. It was as if her very blood had gotten the taste of ambient magic and now knew how to store it. She fairly crackled with it at times. The wand was almost superfluous. She merely had to throw out her hands to send tendrils of power to do her bidding.
"After we have spoken, please let me treat you. I have seen this illness before. It will not resolve itself without aid."
Lucius gave him a searching look, "Why would you help me?"
"We have been friends a long time. I still consider you and Narcissa my blood, even if you have of late chosen to sever our association."
"Hn," the other grunted stepping back from the door to admit him, "Please, come in. You must pardon us for closing ranks, times have been hard."
"Of course. What was it you needed to speak with me about?"
Several minutes of walking brought them to the family wing. Entering once Lucius had taken down the warding he entered the family sitting room. He was shocked to see the state Narcissa was in. She sat, wilting into her chair, but sitting because her pride demanded it, her pale, bluish, lips parted as she gasped weakly for air. Draco was beside her wiping his mothers brow with a damp cloth, but he himself was not healthy either.
"My God, Lucius! Why did you not call me sooner?" He strode quickly to Narcissa's side rummaging in his robes for the appropriate potions.
"It came upon her suddenly. She has not been well for quite some time, the decline was rapid."
Snape cursed, the toxin was meant for the damned serpent. It should have barely touched a healthy human. He had not accounted for a frail woman already weakened by illness.
Brushing Draco aside he lifted her head pressing a small vial of bright blue liquid to her lips, "Drink Narcissa, it will help you breathe."
Familiar cornflower blue eyes shot to her husband's face in askance and Snape growled, "Damn Narcissa, I would not poison you of all people. Surely you know me better than that."
Her tired eyes met hard black and scanned his face, perhaps looking for the young boy she had taken a shine to so long ago. Obediently she drank and he released her, watching her face and chest with clinical attention as her breaths eased and her lips grew pinked.
"Good, you two next," he ordered, proffering two more vials, "This is not the full treatment, just a basic remedy to help your blood oxygenate. You'll all need further blood cleansing. You're all suffering from a toxin released into your blood by bacteria that enters through the skin. The toxin binds to the oxygen carriers in your blood so that no matter how much you breathe you won't catch your breath."
"We once more are in your debt, Severus," Narcissa murmured weakly her color returning, as her husband and son both took cautious swallows of his brew.
"Think nothing of it," he muttered robotically as he checked Draco over for further ills. He had been exposed the longest… though being young and strong it had affected him the least of the family. Still… pale, breathing through the mouth, clammy sweat on the brow marked its effects on him.
"Are you dizzy, nauseous or having trouble concentrating?"
"I've had a headache," Draco admitted.
It was Lucius who brought up the crux of the issue, "Can this bacteria infect animals as well as humans?"
Snape's head came up suddenly and his eyes focused on Lucius, "I haven't the slightest idea. Do not tell me…."
Narcissa's pale hands were white knuckled in her lap. She was the forfeit if anything befell Nagini.
"Let me see the creature," The order was brusk, business-like, and it soothed his panic stricken audience.
"Will we be able to get to it, once the time is right?" McGonagall asked.
"If we can find a way into their warding, yes."
Silence reigned, these were no fresh wards that could be blasted by power or cracked by wit. They had been in place for generations upon generations, protecting the house of Malfoy.
Hermione, who was perched on the arm of the chair one of the twins was fidgeting in piped up, "They have a point somewhere on the property that is free of apparation wards. It's a failsafe. An escape route and an entrance to the manor for the family."
"How do you propose we divine the location of this familial secret?" Dumbledore inquired skeptically.
She pointed at her head, "I have the memory of the place."
"How did you—?" Harry began.
"It's back from my time with Bellatrix," Hermione lied smoothly.
"Severus can—"
"I'll—"
She and Snape began at the same time, only to be cut off by a disapproving Dumbledore and Mrs. Weasley.
A brief bout of chaos struck the room, during which few were silent save the two who had spoken first. Harry was particularly vocal about his opinions of Snape's suitability as a legilimens.
In irritation Hermione snapped her fingers causing a bright flash of light which stunned the room into silence, "You have no choice in the matter. It's my head, I'd prefer if a limited number of people were screwing around in it."
"I can—" Dumbledore started to interject.
Hermione shot him a dark look, "I don't like what you did the last time you were in my head."
McGonagall helped smooth the moment over as she had many similar situations before this, "It's not relevant. If needs be we can jerry rig a pensive. The point of the matter is we can get into the estate. Good, who can kill the snake? I suggest myself along with two others. Albus? Will you accompany me?"
"I want a shot at the bastard," Mr. Weasley spoke up.
"It's a Crimson Cinnit," Luna said holding out a large book towards him.
"A what?" Neville stared fascinated at the print of a brilliantly colored, salamander type creature swimming in a hot spring.
"A Crimson Cinnit, it's a type of salamander that likes to live near cinnabar deposits. It lives in the sulfurous hot springs that deposit the cinnabar and eats the red cinnabar crystals. That's how it gets the brilliant coloring. It exhales mercurial fumes as a defense."
"And this will help us how?" Neville was still watching the bright colored creature swim around his drawn habitat. The book said they were very rare, living mostly in remote portions of Slovakia, Peru, and some areas in Spain.
"Mercury dissolves gold, and mercury happens to be is one of the more poisonous materials known to man."Luna had hopped up from her chair and was bouncing with excitement, "We just get a cinnit and put it into some sort of air tight container with the diadem. As it breathes the diadem will dissolve and the cinnit's innate magic should destroy any horcrux remnants."
Neville smiled widely at her. He tucked the book under one arm and grabbed her hand, "C'mon, let's go convince someone to believe you."
With great conviction Luna said, "They will believe me."
Hermione awakened with a silent gasp, a cold sweat on her brow. Slowly she relaxed back into her cot, trying to align her breathing with that of the two boys soundly sleeping on cots to each side of her. After what seemed hours of failure to fall back to sleep she crept on soundless feet out of the library, nearly tripping over Luna in the process.
Her internal clock said it was around 1 am.
Restlessly she headed down the hall, no destination in mind. This time she ended up in one of the storerooms she had not spent much time in. It was empty, a blessing, and so she wandered aimlessly studying the items within the room.
He found her there sometime in the early hours of dawn.
"Hermione? Have you slept at all?"
She jumped spinning to face him at the intrusion of his voice on her musings, but quickly relaxed, shrugging, "No, but you have not either."
He smirked slightly, it was true.
"Dreams?"
She shrugged again not looking at him, "I'm not a child."
"Nor am I. Children sleep much more soundly than you or I could hope for."
She shook his words off restlessly, but was drifting closer to him, though she did not consciously notice this, "They had not been disturbing me of late, two nights now… I had hoped…but that's foolish."
He had not moved from the door, but she was now within arm's reach though her back was to him, and her attention on the rarified ingredients he kept here. He would not have done it if he had slept in the last 48 hours, but he had not, and nor had she, so when his hand touched hers, strong arms and broad frame caging her up against the shelving, relief almost caused her pale face to smile, as tension and nerves faded, under the solid warmth against her back.
It was a left step and duck to evade his touch, but to do that would be to give up the tranquility he gifted her, so she stayed, allowing his arms to follow the line of her outstretched hands down to her waist, his weight slowly shifting to press down against her as his arms curled around her slender ribcage. Silence was comfortable and right, as exhaustion crept over them weighting limbs like lead.
"Should sleep…" she mumbled feeling him hum in response against her back.
Slowly, gauging her reaction, he dipped his face down into the crook of her neck. His breath was warm, and she could feel the slight scrape of stubble against her throat. His lips pressed against her, but it was not a kiss, it was simply closeness. It was a comfort.
"Can't keep holding you up…" she managed to get out past the exhaustion weighting her tongue.
Her world spun suddenly and then she was being supported by strong arms. She must have drifted off then because she only came to when he jostled her slightly by dropping onto the cot in the corner of his lab.
She mumbled unhappily at this as it upset her tenuous hold on his neck causing her to slide down into his lap. With a bit of a twist she was able to curl tightly into the sheets, satisfied to feel him murmur some sort of apology as he rolled to his side willing to take up whatever space she left over.
The opening of the door accompanied by a strangled sort of squeaking noise startled Hermione awake, and she bolted upright, her hand already flying for her wand, only to be impeded by a large hand pushing firmly down between her shoulders pinning her in place. From the corner of her eye, she identified Severus as the owner of the hand keeping her down, his other braced across her lower back, ebony wand already pinned on the unfortunate who had startled them awake.
"Sorry! So sorry!" she heard a Weasley twin squeak out before the door slammed shut.
Adrenalin faded and grogginess gripped her limbs and she relaxed boneless into the bedding. Severus released her, and pocketed his wand before his right arm crept around her once more, securing her against his chest, ostensibly to prevent her from rolling off the narrow cot.
"We should prolly—" she mumbled incoherently.
He squeezed her waist gently, his thumb stroking her lower back coaxingly, having managed to find the exposed skin between her cotton shirt and pants, "Sleep."
She was curled up against his chest, cat-like, when he woke. Her face burrowed into his shoulder away from the cooler air of his lab. Taking in her utterly relaxed posture in his arms, it made him feel exhausted in a way that was not at all linked to physical sleeping. He rubbed his face a muttered curse losing itself in his palm. When he eyed her sidelong he saw that he had wakened her and cursed again.
With an abrupt heave he came to his feet making a beeline for the door.
A hand on his sleeve stilled him and he released the handle with a dull shhick as it swiveled back into place, "I have taken an… inappropriate liberty. It will not happen again."
Slender arms, surprisingly strong, wound around him and held him fast to her, to prevent his retreat, "Can you, for just a moment, stop acting like I'm going to take one look at you and scream rape? I can't take all these mixed signals. I… do not dislike to be held by you."
Taking the slender hands clenched in his shirt he pressed them against himself, pulling her closer for an instant before he pushed her away, "Submitting to my baser desires is not something you are under any obligation to do. Just because you can endure it is not leave for me to make you."
"Please, stop pushing me away… I—"
Then the door shut, cutting off her words and he was grateful… a moment more and he would have taken her back into his arms, and held her close though she screamed and fought to be released.
Damned man! Why at every turn did he heap self condemnation and guilt on himself? Did he have a need to be vilified? Her anger rose brightly on her cheeks, and confused her for she was not angered at him, no. What other could she ask from the man, but utmost respect? Nothing. Her claim was nothing but a title, and a brand. Why should a man, who prized control above all else, do aught but fight and shun a magical tie which bid him do things he found repulsive.
He was struggling to excise her from himself, and who was she to demand he not. Who was she to say that it hurt her more than him when he turned such chill eyes to her… when she could see behind the façade, when she could see how hard he struggled to do it. When she could feel his desire on her skin so close and warm it was like a dark cloak drawn tight around her. Not a threat, or a demand, just a coaxing gentle pull on her senses, his effect on her was like the tidal pull of dark waves on the sand. He was causing slow, gentle change, molding her… it was elemental. Ignoring it wasn't going to make it go away.
Could he not feel it too?
Laughs manically, ahh poor, poor Snape. What's a lad to do? I hadn't realized how much I missed writing Snape. He does make me happy. Look it all, my new year's resolution has lasted the first week of the new year, this is an accomplishment for me.