Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hogwarts universe, I earn nothing. I am just playing - with a loving heart and neverending joy.
Chapter 27
When Snape heard about the dramatic escape of the trio from Lovegood's house a few days later, his hands were sweaty and he had to work hard to hide his horror. A rescue mission at this early stage and with the risk of being exposed would be the very last thing he needed.
However, that was the last time he heard anything about the trio for months and he could continue to unobtrusively strengthen the wards of Hogwarts, even if that would be only a little help. But in the end, every second might count, that was a truth he had learned on the hard way in his life. Also, this allowed him to control and manipulate the flow of information from Hogwarts, a control that was sorely needed because of the addiction to conspiracy that was rampant among students and teachers.
In the midst of this and the inconspicuous protection of the students from the excessive madness of the Carrows, he had to admit that he had been wrong about one thing: the memory of his encounter with Hermione in the Forest of Dean did not fade.
It was rather as if with her embrace and the kiss - the sigh, Severus, don't forget the sigh - she had forced him to hold on a pillar to prevent him from falling into the abyss of self-surrender. Since then, whether he liked it or not, he pulled himself back onto firmer ground.
Getting the sword into Potter's hands had been the last thing he was able to do for him, for Lily's son, and he had faced the fact that from that moment on his only purpose was to create delays everywhere in the Dark Lord's universe, until he was inevitably exposed and then hopefully would be able to put an end to himself quickly.
And now she had taken this perfect plan and simply thrown it overboard. He couldn't just give up on her.
Even if he owed her nothing, nothing at all, especially not when she constantly brought herself into the most absurd dangerous situations - the thought of letting his masterpiece run defenselessly into her doom at some point, no, he simply couldn't bear that.
He hoped that no news was good news in this case, and that the golden trio was making any kind of progress.
Time was running out.
That hope was confirmed when the dark mark on his arm suddenly hurt in March to an extent it had never done before. He couldn't suppress cursing; the Dark Lord's anger had reached a new level of pain. Something must have happened that Voldemort so thoroughly disliked that he for sure was in a mood for murder - and Severus first thought was that hopefully it had nothing to do with him.
Later he realized that he should have figured out immediately that it could only have been one person who could infuriate Voldemort to that level.
Miss Granger had dug up the hatchet.
A few hours earlier, Harry had broken the taboo in his recklessness; after a wild chase they had fallen into the hands of snatchers and were taken to Malfoy Manor.
The hastily enchanted disfigurement of Harry's face did not turn out to be particularly convincing in Hermione's self-critical opinion and she noted with a thick red marker for later consideration Draco's hesitation to betray his hated schoolmate - if there was any lifetime left for a later consideration, which was highly at doubt at that moment.
They arrived in the middle of a family reunion and Madame Lestrange was obviously in the lead. The moment she recognized the sword in the hands of one of the snatchers, her voice picked up a distinctly panicking tone; even Harry and Ron noticed that.
The inquisition about Harry's identity was instantly forgotten.
"Where did you get that from?"
The screeching certainly was to be heard in every distant corner of the property.
"Got it outta her bag," said the dirtier of the two snatchers and pointed with his nicotine-stained index finger at Hermione.
'Great,' she thought.
How deep she was actually in trouble, however, did not dawn on Hermione until Bellatrix paid a closer attention to her for the first time and her eyes greedily lit up when she recognized her.
"Hermione Granger ..."
For a short moment, Hermione thought that the awful woman just had realized that she was a member of the golden trio. But it wasn't only that.
Unfortunately.
"You again ... That's interesting."
That wasn't good, that wasn't good at all.
Hermione smelled decades of carefully neglected dental hygiene when Bellatrix moved very close to her and purred into her ear without Ron or Harry having a chance to understand.
"You're going to talk to me, honey, aren't you ... or do I have to call for your friend Greyback? He's so longing for you, ... he is obsessed with all the wonderful things he will do to you, sweet butterfly."
She laughed when Hermione couldn't suppress shivering.
"Oh, patience, darling, patience. Can't stand it without him, huh? "
Bellatrix seemed to be turned on in a disgusting way and her interest in the boys was gone. She waved her left arm impatiently without taking her eyes off Hermione. "Take them away."
With astonishing strength, she then pulled Hermione with her into the center of the room
"The two of us are now having a conversation, from woman to woman."
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Harry and Ron being carried away and could only hope that they could make good use of the next unobserved minutes. She had no illusions; she had seen this woman killing her own cousin without even blinking.
She was only alive because Bellatrix wanted to know something, and since she had nothing else to do at the moment, she would spend what might be her very limited remaining life time to find out why these answers were suddenly more important to Bellatrix than the identification of Harry Potter and a triumphiant message to Voldemort.
'How long you can resist to a superior opponent depends on how long you can convince him that your corpse is of lesser value than your living self. The last chance is always an unexpected bluff.'
Her inner Snape looked at her intently and she clung to his gaze, the memory of everything he had taught her and the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, when the pain started.
Damn it, that bitch knew how to hurt a person.
She could not help screaming and wasted no energy on heroic silence, but instead focused her mind to separate herself from the pain. As she had suspected, Bellatrix tried to penetrate her head while using the torture to weaken her victim's resistance. Fortunately, Madame Lestrange's Legilimacy skills were nowhere close to being compared to Snape's.
Hermione swept her out of her memories as if with a wrecking ball, while she yelled at her "Get the fuck out of my head, bitch!"
Not her regular choice of words, but well... there was a certain amount of pressure to excuse this.
The black-haired witch jumped back in surprise and Hermione was granted a brief moment of recovery.
The two women looked at each other, panting, and Hermione noticed that the usual madness of Bellatrix had given way to a lurking attention. Unfortunately, she wasn't stupid.
"Who do you think you are, you filthy mudblood," she hissed between her teeth. "Just because you're spreading your legs for a rat, do you think you are now a big witch? You won't get very far with your tricks, you little freak."
Hermione's mind was racing. So that was it, that had to be it! First Greyback's failure, then the sword and now Occlumency - Bellatrix believed she had an informant from Voldemort's inner circle! A leak to the golden trio, that is the information she wanted to present Voldemort, if possible together with Harry in a buy-one-get-two package.
As long as she believed that, she would at least leave Greyback out of this, who would kill her instantly without waiting for any answer. But Merlin forbid, she must never, ever find out to whom Hermione really owed her skills.
So Hermione fought down every trace of panic and managed to force herself into an inconsequential conversational tone, as if they were sitting together at a coffee table. She had to bewilder her and distract her from logical thinking.
"Oh, but you are completely wrong, my dearest Madame Lestrange."
The icing on the cake was a radiant smile.
"Frustrating, isn't it?"
With an outcry of rage, Bellatrix grabbed Hermione's hair and threw her to the ground.
The coffee table atmosphere had obviously not worked with her.
"Where did you get the sword, you fucking brat?" She pulled out her wand.
"Found it in the forest. A rabbit sold it." Hermione gasped, then screamed as her left arm exploded in pain.
"I'll show you your place, you piece of shit," the witch screeched while kneeling above her and Hermione held up a wall of occlumency with her last bits of energy. She wouldn't give this monster the chance to turn Snape over to Voldemort. Rather she'd die.
"The sword, you bitch! Where did you get the sword? Have you been in my dungeon?" Bellatrix attacked Hermione's mind again and failed due to her massive defenses. She was only able to grasp one picture and that was Hermione, giving her the finger and yelling 'Fuck yourself, you pathetic cunt'.
That couldn't be true, it wasn't possible. A technique like that could not be mastered by a mudblood. This girl was not worth the dirt under her fingernails and refused to give in? How could that be? Bellatrix was furious, but with this open question she could not kill the young woman; the Lord had to take over.
However, she would teach that freak who she was, just to remind her for the short time of her remaining life.
A nothing. A mudblood.
She took out her wand again.
The pain that followed was beyond bearable for Hermione and she was sure that she could not stay conscious for one more second when Bellatrix suddenly let go of her.
As if in a trance she noticed that one of the Gringotts employees was now attacked by her and that Draco's father activated his dark mark. Then all of a sudden there was chaos around her. Ron and Harry were there, each one in the room was dueling against each other, she was pulled up and felt a knife at her throat when suddenly the room seemed to collapse. Still dazed, she noticed to be taken away by Dobby and then there was a beach, a cold wind, she tasted salt on her tongue.
Ron held her and as she sank to the ground with him, she heard Harry crying for help. He held Dobby in his arms and Hermione realized with horror that the elf could no longer be helped.
Snape hurried to obey to the furious call and went straight to the manor. There he learned that his warrior had enlargened the gallery of her personal enemies: after Greyback, Bellatrix has joined the club.
Not to mention Voldemort.
Great Merlin, what was she doing?
Whatever had happened must have hit Riddle hard, and Snape hoped that Potter was intelligent enough to take advantage of this phase of hot anger, in which Voldemort was not completely in control of his thoughts. For the first time there was something like an incredulous glimmer of hope that his own sacrifice might not be in vain after all.