A/N: Welcome to the new follows!
They landed panting and covered in blood in Dumbledore's office. A harrowed and exhausted Hermione trying her best to hold, the large old wizard up long enough to get him on a chair
"I'll get Professor McGonagall…" Hermione said, the stress and panic evident in her voice
"No… Severus… Get… Severus…" Dumbledore wheezed
Hermione nodded and threw a handful of power in the floo and stuck her head in. "Professor Snape!" She called yelled with all her might. When the shocked man surfaced with McGonagall behind him she managed to cough out "Help… Dumble…. dore…. Office" as she had inhaled a bit of the ash
The two professors stepped through to find a bloody Dumbledore wheezing in his chair. As Snape rushed over to him, McGonagall took Hermione aside and asked her sternly "What happened?" But the sweaty girl just fainted in her arms
—
"Harmonia Nectere Passus… Harmonia Nectere Passus… Harmonia Nectere Passus!" Draco and Blaise chanted over and over again on the broken vanishing cabinet until they were exhausted.
"Anything?" Blaise asked
"Not yet…" Draco said picking up the chalice he'd put in there
"It's going to suck all the magic out of us before we can fix it…" Blaise huffed sitting down
"Let's call it a night… it's almost 3am and we've still got to finish 1 scroll for Binns…" Draco said giving Blaise a hand
The boys snuck out and began making their way to the dungeons when they heard Snape and McGonagall's voices
"You're sure there was no traces of the curse on Ms. Granger?" McGonagall asked
"No Minerva… She seems to have collapsed from exhaustion of her magical core…" Snape said
At the mention of Hermione, Draco peeked from where the boys had hidden to see McGonagall levitating a limp Hermione up the stairs towards the Hospital wing.
"Didn't you say she claimed her familial magic?" McGonagall asked still worried about her student
"Yes, and it was a perfect énosi…" Snape said
"What on earth did Dumbledore make her do that exhausted her magic despite that?!" McGonagall said her worry laced with anger
As they disappeared around the bend, Blaise held Draco back "No… He's with McGonagall… We'll got wait for Snape in his office…" He whispered and steered a reluctant Draco towards the Dungeons
—
"Lucius!" Narcissa was shocked to see her husband waiting in her chambers as she finally decided to retire for the night. She rushed to him and hugged him "What are you doing back? You're not nearly well enough…"
"He summoned me…" Lucius said as he held his arm to feel the mark warm
"What did he want?" She asked softly as they sat down on the bed
"I have to dethrone the present minister of magic…" he sighed "… Politically and swiftly…"
"And take Rufus Scrigamor's place?" Narcissa asked wondering if there was a way this could actually be of any advantage
"… Ha… no my love… he wants me to install Pius…" Lucius said defeated
"Thickneese?" Narcissa asked when Lucius nodded she spat out "Well, he might as well install a troll while he's at it… the man is as daft as a doornail!"
"That is the point, isn't it love…" Lucius sighed as Narcissa got up to change "You are back for good then?" She asked as Lucius helped her
"Yes, why?"
"And our guest in Germany?"
"He is still very much in our residence…"
"Good… I need his…" Narcissa thought about it for a moment then said "… experience… to help with the hunt…"
"I see… He mentioned some rather disturbing facts about our guest in the west wing…"
"Yes, well I've had no luck in discovering anything about that, besides I hardly think that should take precedence…"
"Do we have any new leads?"
"Some…"
"Where from…"
"I have my people just like you have yours…" Narcissa said giving him a soft sly smile making Lucius remember exactly why he'd insisted his father break her contract with Tiberius Nott.
"How is Draco…" He asked as they lay down
"He will be okay…" She sighed then added "… he has to be…"
"Is Snape?"
"Yes…"
Lucius held on to his wife as she curled into him and gave her a kiss on the nape of her neck. He had healed up enough in Germany but he'd not slept peacefully without her beside him.
—
"I'll get Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley…" McGonagall said a little relaxed once Madame Pomfrey had tended to Hermione
"No…" Snape said
"They will want to know…"
"I know someone who wants it more than they do and will be grateful to be here with her alone…"
McGonagall nodded in understanding "I'll leave you to it then…"
She had barely said that when Ron and Harry burst into the infirmary "What happened to 'Mione?" They said panting from the running
"What on earth!" Madam Pomfrey said stepping out of her office with all the ruckus
"I'll deal with this Poppy… thank you…" McGonagall said as Harry and Ron took a seat next to Hermione. "Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter… what on earth are you doing out of bed at this hour?!"
"Hermione was going to meet Professor Dumbledore…" Harry explained "…but then they both disappeared off the map so we were keeping watch to see when she got back…"
"Yea!" Ron added "We were taking turns but we mighta… sorta… nodded off and when we woke up she was here with you… So we came… is she all right?" He added conceded
"Ms. Granger is perfectly fine, her magic is simply exhausted…"McGonagall said "… and while I understand that you were concerned about your friend, I am still taking 10 points from Gryffindor each for breaking the rules and I will be confiscating the map… now! Hand it over…" McGonagall said sternly with her hand out. Harry pulled it out reluctantly but before he could wipe it Snape had snatched it from his hands. "Now… return to your dormitories, you can come see in the morning…" She said ushering the boys out.
Once the two of them were off, Snape looked for Draco Malfoy and found him pacing in his office. "Handy little thing…" He said handing the parchment to McGonagall before leaving the hospital wing
—
Once Snape had eased his godson's mind and let him see Hermione, he took a vial of a special pink potion from his cabinet and headed out to the forest. He collected the first untouched drop of dew that was kissed by the rays of the rising sun into the vial and the potion turned blood red. He then took that to the Headmaster's office.
"Put 2 Drops a day on the hand, when the sun is at high noon, with the incarnation - 'purificabit magica' repeated 7 times after application" Snape said handing him the vial
"Thank you Severus…" Dumbledore said tired
"Don't thank me… It takes 2 years to brew this potion… I will have to source more of it somehow…. There is no halting such a spell forever. It will spread, eventually, it is the sort of curse that strengthens over time." He said with a hint of rage in his voice "Why?" Snape asked "why did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realised that. Why even touch it?!"
Dumbledore grimaced "I … was a fool….Sorely tempted …"
"Tempted by what?"
Dumbledore did not answer immediately, with an effort, he straightened himself in his chair "Well, really, this makes matters much more straightforward…"
Snape looked utterly perplexed
Dumbledore smiled "I refer to the plan Lord Voldemort is revolving around me. His plan to have the poor Malfoy boy murder me… Now, I should have thought the natural successor to the job, once Draco fails, is yourself?" Dumbledore said as off-handedly as if he were asking Snape to do his laundry for him
Snape raised an eyebrows and his tone was sardonic as he asked, "Are you intending to let him kill you?"
"Certainly not. You must kill me." There was a long silence, broken only by an odd clicking noise. Fawkes the phoenix was gnawing a bit of cuttlebone.
"Would you like me to do it now?" asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"
"Oh, not quite yet," said Dumbledore, smiling "I daresay the moment will present itself in due course. Given what has happened tonight," he indicated his withered hand, "we can be sure that it will happen within a year."
"If you don't mind dying," said Snape roughly, "why not let Draco do it? Or better yet, let the Dark Lord do so himself. Claim his ultimate victory…"
"That boy's soul is not yet so damaged, and I don't think Tom's soul can take any further damage"said Dumbledore.
"And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?"
"You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation," said Dumbledore gently "I ask this one, great favour of you, Severus, because death is coming for me as surely as the Chudley Cannons will finish bottom of this year's league. I confess I should prefer a quick, painless exit to the protracted and messy affair it will be if, for instance, Greyback is involved – I hear Voldemort has recruited him? Or dear Bellatrix, who likes to play with her food before she eats it."
"You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect this small service of me!" snarled Snape, and real anger flared in the thin face now. "You take a great deal for granted, Dumbledore! Perhaps I have changed my mind!"
"You gave me your word Severus…" Dumbledore said
"And have I not kept it all these years?! Have I not lied and cheated and put my life in mortal danger to keep my word to you!" Snape was yelling now
"Very well, I will tell you this one thing… There will come a time – after my death – do not argue, do not interrupt! There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake."
"For Nagini?" Snape said listening sharply
"Precisely. If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him, under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Harry."
"Tell him what?"
"Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself on to the only living soul left in that collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to, and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die."
"So the boy … the boy must die?" asked Snape, quite calmly
"And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential."
Another long silence. Then Snape said, "I thought … all these years … that we were protecting him for her. For Lily."
"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength," said Dumbledore closing his eyes to rest as the curse took it's toll on him "Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth: sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will, truly, mean the end of Voldemort."
When Dumbledore opened his eyes, Snape looked horrified. "You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?"
"Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?"
"Why did you put on the ring?" Snape asked coldly looking at the ring now enclosed in a glass case
Dumbledore shut his eyes again and said "I think you should leave now Severus… I will take care of the ring myself…"
See you next week!
Please review!