Far as the Curse is Found

Hermione only found out what he'd been up too much later in the evening, when they were all gathering for a light evening meal. She was the last to arrive in the kitchen, where Kreacher had set up a buffet. Given they were in for a lot of treats and an opulent Christmas dinner tomorrow, Harry had insisted they keep it simple and informal for this night. The kitchen had always been their preferred gathering place while the house had served as Headquarters, and under Molly's rule, it had always smelled invitingly of whatever was sitting on the stove. She had kept it stocked with a soup or a stew all the time, as there had been a lot of coming and going in between order meetings, and always hungry mouths to feed.

Just when Hermione was about to enter the kitchen, Draco, who had been lingering near the door, unexpectedly turned to leave the room, meeting her on the threshold. Not for a moment did she believe it was coincidence when they both instantly got caught by the charmed mistletoe hanging above their heads. Harry had placed them pretty much on every doorway, and so far everybody had been keenly aware of and avoiding them.

"Oh-oh..." said Draco, loud enough for everyone else in the room to turn their heads. Remus grinned. "Finally – I thought we'd never get to see any mistletoe action while we are here."

Luna smiled benevolently. She probably thought that kissing was a nice pastime, no matter under what conditions. Harry and Severus, on the other hand, both wore rather peculiar expressions on their faces.

Draco put his arms around Hermione's waist and pulled her close. "Well, looks like we have no choice. Let's get this over with, I really need the loo..." Only Hermione could see his mischievous grin, and only she could hear what he whispered in to her ear when he leaned down. "I'm doing this for you, Granger... Trust me and play along." And with that, his mouth came crashing down on hers in what probably looked to everybody else like a passionate kiss. Hermione, who had still been wondering what he had meant, was totally taken by surprise by his unexpected assault and was unable to react. Though he made no move to coax her lips apart, she had no doubt that to their audience, the way his open mouth moved over hers must look as if he was kissing her deeply and ardently, especially since his hand was cradling her head while his other arm was pulling her firmly against him.

When he finally let go, Hermione was flustered, her lips were red and Draco was smirking. "Here's your proof, Granger..." he murmured smugly into her ear and slightly turned her head so that she was facing the others. Severus' gaze shot daggers at his godson, and if looks could kill, Draco would have dropped dead on the spot. The wordless, but nevertheless blatant proclamation 'Mine!' was furiously expressed by his eyes and the clenching of his jaw, his stiff posture and the fingers that had clenched into a fist.

Totally unperturbed by this, Draco widened his smile. "And there's mine, too..." he whispered, sounding quite pleased with himself when his eyes landed on Harry, whose face wore a peculiar mixture of anger, disappointment and sadness. Remus looked a bit confused, Luna dreamy.

"Sorry, Granger," Draco declared loud enough for everyone to hear when he let go of her. "I just couldn't let the opportunity pass to find out if kissing was only disappointing because Pansy was the wrong girl for me. Turns out you're the wrong girl, too. Don't take it personally. I'll probably have to try a guy for a change. Maybe next time I'll get caught under this thing with Harry, and hopefully it'll be better than this."

"You're a prat, Malfoy!" Hermione said crossly, although in truth, she couldn't really be angry with him. She understood now what he had wanted to prove, and though it irked her that Draco had obviously discovered their secret, he had also presented her with undeniable evidence of Severus feelings.

"Don't thank me just yet," Draco said softly under his breath. "Just wait until he gets caught under the mistletoe with you. I guess we'll both get lucky sooner or later..."

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

Hermione slipped into the library and quietly closed the door behind her, breathing a sigh of relief. As fond as she was of each and every person currently occupying Grimmauld Place's parlour, she felt the need for at least half an hour of solitude before she could even think about going to bed. She hadn't realized how unaccustomed to company she had become. The evenings spent in the quiet of the dungeons seemed to have made her a bit of a recluse, much like the person whose company she so often sought out.

Even after dinner, Teddy had shown no signs of tiring, and Hermione had wondered where the child got the energy to move around so relentlessly and to produce so much noise in the process. True, those were cheerful tones – laughter and a lot of high-pitched squealing – but exhausting nevertheless. At least, she had found it exhausting to watch and listen. Harry and Draco hadn't been helpful in Remus' attempts to calm the kid down. Before Hermione had excused herself, the boys had been busy building toy block towers on the floor that faked real explosion noises whenever Teddy crashed them. The toddler had been so excited by this that he would probably keep going until he dropped to the floor himself.

Hermione settled in her favourite chair in the library and picked up the book she'd last been reading from the side table. This room was her favourite place in the house. Given that it didn't contain anything but book shelves from floor to ceiling and a small sitting group in front of the fireplace, it hadn't required many changes to make it feel warm and welcoming. The curtains had been replaced by new ones of a more cheerful colour; there were new cushions and rugs, and a nice, muggle design floor lamp had been added. Other than that, the library had the typical charm and smell of a place stuffed with books. Too bad the Order had thoroughly weeded out the shelves' content and done away with all the tomes that touched on anything of a darker nature. The remaining books were rather trivial, though sometimes amusing, given that they reflected the rather narrow-minded views and interests of the Purebloods who had collected them.

The library had always been her refuge. Even when Grimmauld Place had been filled with people while serving as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, hardly anyone had ever ventured here. Of course, there was now another person in the house who valued books and quiet, so Hermione wasn't at all surprised when Severus entered the room not long after her.

"I apologize for the intrusion – I thought you had retired," he said a bit hesitantly when he found the library occupied. "It is not my intention to disrupt the quietude you have found here, but would you mind if I joined it?"

"Not at all," Hermione said, amused at his stiff eloquence paired with the slight note of desperation in his voice. "I suppose you seek refuge from all the ruckus in the parlour as well?"

"It's only one kid in there, but I swear it feels like at least ten," he sighed, looking pained. "I find myself desperate for some quiet."

"By all means, you're always welcome to join me..." Hermione smiled, offering a chair. "Harry and Draco really seem to be enjoying exploring their inner child. Entertaining Teddy is just a convenient excuse. I guess it's understandable, given that Harry never had a normal childhood, and I can well imagine that the same is true for Draco. His parents didn't strike me as the types that would joke and play on the floor with him."

Severus snorted. "Hardly. Although he surely had all the toys and gadgets a child could wish for, including building blocks with explosion sounds." He took his time perusing the shelves before choosing a book, then settled down in the chair opposite from her. They sat in amiable silence for about ten minutes, gazes fixed on the books they were reading, until Severus cleared his throat. "So... what was this peculiar episode with Draco all about?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He might have succeeded if Hermione hadn't noticed that he'd been staring at the open page of his book without reading for at least five minutes before finally voicing what was obviously occupying his mind.

"The kiss, you mean?" Hermione made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, he was just being a prat again. He wanted to spur Harry into action, I suppose. And he enjoys getting a rise out of me."

"Did he?" Severus asked after another brief pause. It sure had looked that way. They had looked rather cosy while sitting at the piano together, whispering to each other the whole time. It was pathetic, unreasonable and morally questionable, but he had felt the sharp sting of jealousy even then. When Draco had kissed her like he had done such a long time ago, his hand had instinctively twitched for his wand.

"Did he what?"

"Get a rise out of you."

Hermione looked up. "Yes, he did. But not in a good sense." She frowned. "I think he's on to something..."

"Meaning what?" He hadn't been entirely convinced that Draco wasn't trying to make a pass at her until the little scene in the kitchen, when he had almost blatantly declared his interest in Potter.

"I'm not sure...," Hermione said, looking slightly troubled. "He inquired about us – what we were doing all the time we were supposedly brewing and about the detentions you gave me. He also told me what you once told his father... about how I supposedly earned my grades..."

"Did he now?" Severus said pensively, fixing her with his gaze as if trying to do the same.

"Yes. And he said that he once confronted you about it, but that you neither denied nor confirmed his unsavory allegations."

"Of course I didn't. It's a Slytherin tactic, Miss Granger: Keep your mouth shut as often as possible and let people draw their conclusions from what you're not saying. With Draco, it was especially difficult to find the right balance... I couldn't let on too much, but I still had to try and make him question the obvious."

"It worked," Hermione told him. "He said he didn't believe any of it."

"Draco has always been brighter than most people."

"You know, I still don't get this about you leading the Death Eaters on..." Hermione said, clapping her book shut. Her mind went back to the conversation she and Severus had had in his office a couple of months ago – the night it all had started. Severus had confessed that he had made his fellow Death Eaters believe that Hermione was earning her good grades by most questionable means, demeaning her and himself with the ugly lie. "How could Lucius ever believe what you told him about me? That you were taking advantage of your students in such a way? The two of you were friends... Didn't he know you at all?"

He raised his brow in surprise. "Who said we were friends? He brought me into the Dark Lord's circle and treated me graciously because he thought he would profit from it in the long run. Death Eaters know no friendship. Just alliances."

"But you're Draco's godfather," Hermione pointed out. Surely that had to mean something.

"Yes. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Draco got my protection, I got Lucius' sponsorship. We both hoped it would serve our interests."

"Still, Lucius and Draco should have known that you'd never force yourself on a woman – much less a student – in such a manner," Hermione insisted. Everybody who just knew him a little bit should have known that.

"Whoever said anything about force?" Severus asked back, crooking his eyebrows meaningfully. "There are plenty of other ways to manipulate the innocent: Seduction, coercion, blackmail, bribery..."

Sure, she didn't doubt that he was capable of all of that. Still, the kind of intimacy he had hinted at required both parties to lay themselves bare, and he would have made himself vulnearable as well. The fact that he was such a buttoned-up person in every sense of the word was in stark contrast to the notion of him maintaining sexual relations of any kind with a student, especially one he despised.

"There were plenty of other rumours about you, and frankly, they would have been easier to believe: That you were a vampire, for instance, or that you were only so mean and moody because..." She stopped herself before she could say something awkward and embarrassing.

"Because?" he inquired, as if he had no idea what she was talking about, though Hermione strongly suspected that he just found it amusing to see if she would dare to actually voice it. Of course, she had to rise to the challenge. "Because you had no means of stress relief. There were rumours that you were a virgin." There!

"Indeed", he just said, not twitching a brow. It was impossible to say if he found such speculations outrageous, embarrassing or amusing.

She had always found them ridiculous. The man was oozing sex, at least to those who were receptive to his dark allure. There was no denying that he was a very sensual man – his voice, his eyes, the way he moved his body: so subtle, stealthy, but very powerful and always commanding. She had never harboured doubts that outside Hogwarts he would not be lacking opportunities and willing witches. But he had never given rise to speculations that he might hold anything but disdain for his students, regardless of their gender.

"I never heard rumours of you being a lecher or a paedophile," Hermione told him firmly. "Surely there would have been, if there had been a grain of truth to them."

"Must I remind you that we Slytherins understand the concept of discretion? Surely, if there had been a grain of truth to it, I would have made sure that no rumours ever arose within the castle's walls. Those only circulated among the Dark Lord's followers, who were advised by the Dark Lord himself to not spread them further. Which of course, only served to fuel the gossip."

"But what started them in first place?"

"I did."

"What?" Hermione's chin fell. He had given the Dark Lord and his followers cause to think that he was taking advantage of his female students? "Why would you do such a thing?"

"I told you that when I was a young teacher, the occasional student became infatuated with me. It's hardly surprising in a boarding school full of hormonal teenagers. I was only about three or four years older than they were at that point, and there wasn't a large choice of male teachers young witches could project their awakening desires on." Admittedly, he had taken better care of himself at that time, too. He had only started neglecting himself after Lily had died. He knew now that he had become slightly depressive at the time – finally realising the full extent of the bad choices he had made, finding all of his hopes and dreams shattered, feeling burdened with guilt and grief, branded with the Dark Mark for life and caught in a job he had never wanted in the first place.

"Yes, I guess it is normal for teenage witches to think about and discuss their teachers in a rather inappropriate way," Hermione admitted. "Though I can honestly say that there has never been a Gryffindor who was truly infatuated with you. Well, other than me, that is. But Lockhart and Remus – yes, they have inspired romantic notions in some witches..." Including herself, for a very short while. Fourteen or not – she was still embarrassed about that.

Severus snorted. "You were really never lucky with your male teachers: Not counting the ones that were over a hundred, ghosts, half-giants or half-goblins, you had to make do with teachers that were possessed, frauds, werewolves or imposters."

Well, put like that, romanticizing a Death Eater didn't seem quite so outlandish. "What did you do about girls who became infatuated with you?" Hermione inquired, curious.

Severus smirked. "I gave them an Anti-Delusion-Potion and detention, of course. And made sure they always left my office quite disgusted, sometimes even violently sick from the vile things I had made them do. They weren't able to give specifics, though, due to the Tongue-Tying-Curse I put on them."

"Meaning you made them degut flobberworms or harvest useful organs from mice," Hermione correctly deducted.

"Yes, but that's not what the Death Eater kids chose to believe. Their suspicions – and a few remarks I made towards Lucius – were enough to start the rumours. People always believe what they want to believe."

"You used a Tongue-Tying-Curse to even further such gossip? Why, in God's name?"

Severus sighed. "Because it played right into my hands. The Dark Lord never trusted anyone before he had discovered his or her weakness or most ugly secret. He needed something he could hold against his followers, to use as blackmail if need be. My weakness at that point was Lily, and I couldn't have him know that. So I gave him my position – something I was never particularly fond of anyway, and only retained because he had ordered me to. He wasn't aware of my misgivings, but believed me to be grateful for the job. I also needed to convince him and my fellow Death Eaters that my views on Muggleborns had changed since my own school days – convince them that I held nothing but contempt for them and considered them lowly servants I had a right to exploit. So I made it seem as if I only abused Muggleborns. It helped maintain my cover."

On occasion, it had even allowed him to save one of his students... Muggleborns who had fallen into the hands of the more perverted and sadistic Death Eaters. Most likely, they would have been killed after whatever other fate had awaited them at their hands – if he hadn't appealed to the Dark Lord that his brethren were about to rob him of his favourite playthings. Graciously, he had been allowed to obliviate the girls and take them back to Hogwarts.

"Did nobody wonder why your alleged abuse of female students was never taken to Dumbledore and why no girl ever filed a complaint?"

He looked at her darkly. "Granger – if I had really done any of the things they thought I was doing – I would have made sure that none of the girls ever spoke a word about it. There are means to make people – compliant."

She didn't ask how he had supposedly made her compliant. The seduction part with the promise of better grades had probably been sufficient to convince Malfoy. "It hurts to think that they believed that about you – and me."

Yes, it doubtlessly did. And he still felt responsible for tainting her reputation like that. But it had been necessary – especially with her.

"I'm sorry. But it was a necessary measure of precaution."

She furrowed her brows. "Precaution?"

"I had wanted to be able to claim you as one of my 'teacher's pets' in case you ever got into a situation... like you almost did at Malfoy Manor. Of course, nothing I could have said would have gotten you out of it by then – you were not just any Muggleborn at that point, but one on top of the Dark Lord's 'most wanted' list." He still felt an icy shiver run across his spine when he thought about the day the rescuers of the wizarding world had gotten themselves caught. "Having a reason to claim personal interest in you – however depraved – was meant as safeguard for you just as much as it substantiated my contempt for Muggleborns, and – allegedly, for Dumbledore and his morality. Little did they know that Dumbledore didn't care about morality all that much... not if straining it offered a strategic advantage over our enemies. He was fully supportive of my role in this."

"He knew?" Hermione was shocked.

"Of course he knew. I needed him to have my back, just in case official accusations were made." And he had needed the old man's absolution. Regarding this as part of his official mission had made it a little easier to deal with. Easier, certainly not easy. The fact that he had come to think about Hermione in just the way he had pretended to think about her in the last three years didn't sit well with him and was part of the reason why he had difficulties with their out-of-the-norm relationship.

"I understand. I'm glad then... that you were willing to have your honour compromised to help assure my safety. Though it's still making me feel dirty to think that Voldemort and the Death Eaters thought it was okay for you to do as you claimed you did. That anybody thought they had the right to treat Muggleborns like that – not human beings, but playthings, lowly servants to a supposedly superior race, to live or die or suffer at their mercy."

She had the quintessence of this ideology written on her skin. Hermione unconsciously pulled on her left sleeve, as if to make sure it still covered her scar.

"It shouldn't matter to you what those people who called you a Mudblood believed of you," he said gently, noting her reaction. "They were the scum, the disgrace, not you."

Of course he knew what she was hiding beneath her sleeve, although he had never seen the scar. She was always wearing long-sleeved pullovers. Granted, it was winter now, but even in Potions, when other students rolled up their sleeves, she never did. On the contrary – pulling on her sleeve to make sure it was down seemed to be an instinctive gesture whenever she was reminded of the incident.

"Why are you hiding it?" he asked.

His question took her by surprise. "Excuse me?"

"Your scar. Why are you so desperate no one ever sees it?"

"Because it's ugly," Hermione replied a bit defensively, confirming his suspicion that she was self-conscious about it. "And I don't really need the visual reminder."

"May I see it?"

"Why?" The look she gave him was wary, unsure.

"Because I think you're not doing yourself a favour pretending that it isn't there." He was no psychologist, but it seemed like a rather obvious strategy of avoidance. She literally didn't want to face what had been done to her, and how it had changed her. "It won't work in the long run, you know. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about." Avoidance was his second name. And look how much good it had done him to avoid everything that carried the potential of hurting him and making him vulnerable – like honesty, emotions, other people.

"You never show your left arm, either..." she pointed out, deflecting.

No. That, too, he had always avoided. In part because it hadn't seemed wise to call to his students' attention to the fact that their teacher was a marked Death Eater – Muggleborns would probably never have set foot into his classroom. But that wasn't the only reason... And of course, the Gryffindor he was facing wasn't too shy to name the real one.

"You were ashamed of it, too," she challenged.

"Yes," he admitted. "Because it's a mark of shame – the reminder of a wrong decision, a fatal mistake, the price I paid for my insecurities and my ambitions. But yours are not. They are battle scars. You withstood torture and came out victorious. You should wear them with pride."

She hesitated a moment, and although he could see that she didn't agree with his opinion, she relented and raised her arm, slowly pushing the sleeve of her soft wool jumper up and revealing the offensive word that Bellatrix had carved into her flesh. In angry red, ragged and bulging, the letters stood out from her otherwise unblemished skin. The wounds looked raw, as if they were merely a day old, not almost a year. He immediately understood why and felt icy rage spread through him again. If Bellatrix wasn't dead, he'd find her and kill her, making sure she suffered before she died. "It still hurts?" he asked, only to have her confirm for what he already knew.

"Sometimes. It's tender and sensitive to touch, and no matter what clothing I wear, the material feels scratchy and uncomfortable on it. Occasionally, it burns all of a sudden, just like it did when... you know. It's just phantom pain."

He slowly shook his head. "No, it's not."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I suppose Bellatrix used a knife to do this?" Hermione nodded, confirming his suspicion, and Severus gave a pained sigh. "I saw her use it before. It was her favourite torture device, as it added insult to injury. To a wizard, a blade is crude. Wizards use wands to fight, not blades, knives or pistols that tear visible wounds into peoples' flesh. Denying an opponent even the courtesy of a wizard's weapon is a means to humiliate as much as to cause pain. But the knife was a special design, intended to cause pain even long after the wounds were inflicted."

"Madam Pomfrey told me that it was a curse wound."

He frowned. "But surely it wasn't her who healed you after you escaped... She would have known better."

"It was Fleur. She used several healing charms on me when we arrived at Shell Cottage. It helped."

Severus shook his head. "Only initially. In the long run, it made things worse. Curse wounds like this must not be healed with magic. Bellatrix knew that. She would have healed you herself if you hadn't escaped – to give you these scars as a visual and palpable reminder of the pain she inflicted on you."

Hermione snorted. "As if I could ever forget!" The memory was etched into her memories just as sharply as the letters that had been cut into her skin. "I asked Madame Pomfrey if she could do something about it, at least make the scar less sensitive. But she said that wounds caused by dark curses can never be fully healed."

Severus didn't say anything, but the look on his face told Hermione that he didn't agree with the matron's assessment.

"What?" Hermione asked in a tone that demanded an explanation. "Spell damage caused by dark magic can't be completely undone, that's a fact. Otherwise George's ear could've been regrown, or Bill's and Lavender's scarring wouldn't be so bad."

"The usual healing techniques and potions are ineffective against dark curses," Severus confirmed, but added rather reluctantly: "You can only fight dark magic with dark magic." He unbuttoned his long sleeve, pushed it up and bared his lower arm. Where formally the Dark Mark had marred his skin, only silvery-white scar lines remained.

Hermione took a sharp breath and instinctively made a move as if to touch him. Just as instinctively and almost imperceptibly, he shied away.

"You got rid of the Dark Mark?" she exclaimed, her eyes flying up to his face. "How?"

He gave her a pointed look. "With dark magic," he repeated, wondering if she hadn't understood or was hoping for a different explanation, finding the one he had given too shocking.

But Hermione looked as if she had solved a riddle. "The law of the similar..." she nodded, eyes brightening in understanding. "Of course! But what does that mean? I suppose you didn't kill a unicorn, sacrifice a virgin or cook a baby?"

He snorted. "Not this time. Spells are considered dark if they demand the spilling of blood and the causing of pain. That doesn't mean, however, that it has to be the blood and the pain of anyone but the caster himself. Dark wizards just usually prefer to use someone else's pain and blood rather than their own."

Hermione frowned. "So you're saying magic is still dark if the blood and the pain are your own?"

"Well, it depends on purpose and intent. It might be considered a sacrifice, but blood sacrifices are usually considered dark, too, unless you're making the sacrifice for someone else. "

"So using the blood that is gained by deflowering a virgin is considered dark magic?" Hermione pressed. The thought seemed to perturb her.

Severus, however, found her trail of thought perturbing. What had brought that about? "If said deflowering is done in a magical ritual with the malicious intent of using the power derived from her pain and her blood, it is certainly considered dark," he answered her question, not quite daring to voice the questions that came to his own mind. "Powerful magic can be performed by spilling an innocent's blood or the blood of innocence."

"But surely it can't be dark if the blood is willingly given..." the girl insisted, a curious undertone in her voice that seemed to beg him to agree with her. He couldn't help but wonder... What had that Weasley done with her? Though it wouldn't surprise him to learn that the pubescent boy had lacked the patience, consideration and self-control the act had called for, Severus found it hard to believe that the dunderhead had paid enough attention in Potions class to know that the few drops of blood from a broken hymen were a powerful potion ingredient and carried a power of its own. He would have thought it even less likely that he would use the opportunity to harvest it when sleeping with his innocent girlfriend for the first time, not to mention using it in a magic ritual. And why in Merlin's name would she have agreed to that?

Not knowing how to address the issue, he didn't reply right away, which made Hermione try and strengthen her argument. "After all, it's intention that matters! When you used the 'Avada Kedavra' on Dumbledore, it wasn't dark magic."

That made him raise his eyebrow. "Wasn't it?" he asked back. "One has to summon hatred to perform it."

"Yes, but was it hatred for Dumbledore?" she countered.

Again, he took a moment to answer. "It was only hatred focused on him," he finally conceded. "Hatred for what he had asked me to do. Hatred for what had brought us into this situation, for the Dark Lord and for myself."

"And no hatred was involved when I lost my innocence and saved the blood," she stated firmly.

"You collected your blood?"

"Yes, of course. Why would I waste it? It's a powerful and valuable potion ingredient."

Of course – she would have remembered that. And obviously she had been rational and detached enough to take the necessary steps even in a such a moment... Severus wasn't really sure if he should feel bad for her or admire her for it.

"So – does it mean I performed dark magic?" she still asked, a shadow of doubt in her voice once again.

"No, of course not," he assuaged her. "A woman saving her own blood – that's ancient magic – female magic. It used to be the traditional gift of a bride to her groom on her wedding night. If you ever want to use it in a potion... blood willingly given is pure, just as unicorn blood, and just as hard to come by nowadays."

"Why is it hard to come by?"

"Because few people still know its worth or the correct way to collect it. A lot of witches lose their innocence while still teenagers, in a heated moment. They do not think about the value of what they are giving away. Of those who do, few choose to sell it. Besides, it's impossible to determine if the blood was willingly given or not, and if you add the wrong kind, it will ruin a benign potion. Guard it well, Hermione, it's a powerful ingredient for many healing potions."

"I will." She paused, and when she looked at him again, her eyes had a hopeful expression. "Would I be able to use it to get rid of Bellatrix branding?"

He shook his head regretfully. "You can't fully get rid of it. The magic of her curse is embedded in your skin, in your blood. You can't counter dark magic with purity."

"But you got rid of the Dark Mark!"

"It was different. The Dark Mark's purpose was to bind me to my master. With him gone, the curse was left without an anchor and whatever was left of the darkness I was able to draw into an object." Well, he had drawn it into a small, spelled blade he had kept imbedded in his skin for a while – it hadn't really been a nice procedure. Given that it wouldn't work on her wounds, there was no use in giving her specifics. "Bellatrix aimed to scar, to mar, to brand, and she used a cursed object to do so. It doesn't make a difference whether she lives or not."

"Then why are you telling me that dark magic can be used to fight dark magic if nothing can be done about my mark?" she asked, convinced that he must have told her for a reason.

"I didn't say nothing can be done about it," he corrected reluctantly. "The wound is not healing properly because it was treated magically, which enclosed the curse. It needs to bleed out."

"I'd have to re-open the wounds?" Hermione asked wide-eyed.

"Yes. You'd have to repeat the processes by which those scars were made – with pain and blood. The skin would have to be cut open, the curse would have to be reapplied, and the wounds would have to be left untreated, so they can heal on their own. And you can't use any medication or potion to numb the pain, at least not beforehand, as it would counteract the dark magic of the curse."

"I'd have to do it myself?" Now Hermione looked truly horrified. As much as she wanted to get rid of the ugly scars and everything they stood for... "I don't think I could do that." She shuddered at the thought. The pain and the memories would render her incapable of even finishing a single hateful letter.

"It doesn't matter who does it. But it will be difficult to find a healer willing to help you. Using dark magic goes against their work ethics."

There was a long pause. Then came the inevitable question. "Would you do it?"

Severus suppressed a sigh. He had feared it would come to this as soon as he had mentioned the possibility of removing the curse with dark magic. That's why he had hesitated. He wanted to refuse. The idea of cutting into her flesh, making her bleed and hurting her in the same way Bellatrix had when she had inflicted these wounds upon her was gut-wrenching.

Yes, he had been forced to witness, to perform and to stomach worse acts than this while posing as a loyal follower of the Dark Lord, and he knew if he had to, he'd be able to. But Hermione was no Death Eater the Dark Lord had found guilty of treason, no Ministry official withholding crucial information, and no nameless witch who was to be punished for defying their self-proclaimed leader. She, of all people, should never suffer harm from his hands.

"Would you be able to go through that again?" he asked back, his face serious. "What Bellatrix did to you... I know it was traumatising."

"It wasn't so much what she did..." Hermione replied softly. "What really disturbed me – what still gets to me – was her intention. Not only that she found pleasure in hurting me. She revelled in humiliating me, degrading me by marking me as a non-person, some lower life-form." She looked at her scar, then held out her arm to him, as if willing him to see more than just the letters on her skin. "These scars are a constant reminder of what she and Greywolf thought me to be – a piece of meat to be used for their pleasure. In trying to undo her work, you'd be doing the opposite – you'd be giving me my dignity back."

But he'd still be hurting her in the process. "It would be painful, no matter the intention," he warned once more, needing her to be absolutely clear about what she was signing up for.

Unconsciously, Hermione straightened her back. "If the experience at Malfoy Manor has taught me anything, it's that I'm able to withstand some pain. I'm just wondering if it's worth it... Won't I still have a scar, given that the wound can't be treated?"

"Yes. But it'd be far less visible than the angry red scarring that shows now. Like a normal scar, it'll fade over time and wouldn't be painful anymore."

She looked sadly at her arm. "But the word will remain." It was the worst of it. The word would forever remind her of what she was in the eyes of some Purebloods. Most Death Eaters might have been arrested or killed, but that didn't mean that the ideology didn't live on in the minds of the zealots.

"Yes. Unless..." He reached for her arm again to inspect the scar. Deep in thought, his thumb stroked over the letters on my skin as if he wanting to erase them with his touch. He hardly seemed to be aware of what he was doing, but Hermione noticed, and held her breath at the unexpected gentle caress.

"I can't undo each individual letter that is there," he finally said. "But when I re-cast the curse, I should be able to move and twist them, and force them to rearrange themselves into a different word."

Mudblood? Try as she might, Hermione had no idea how rearranging the letters could yield another legible English word. But maybe even nonsensical words like 'moodblud' or 'oddbloum' were preferable to the offensive word Bellatrix had carved into her flesh. Getting rid of it was definitely worth some pain.

She held her up arm to him. "Do it, please."

"Now?" he asked, taken by surprise.

"Why not now? I'd rather not spend days thinking about it."

Gryffindors. Always taking the bull by the horns. But in this case, he understood. He had gotten rid of his Dark Mark as soon as he'd had enough strength and the solitude to do so. And only after it was gone had he felt remotely clean again.

"I'll have some preparations to do." Like finding a suitable knife. He pointed to the fireplace. "Is it connected to the floo?"

"Yes. But... you can't floo to Hogwarts, can you?"

He smirked. "I can. Privilege of a Deputy Headmaster." He took the box of Floo Powder from the mantel. "Are you really sure about this?" he asked again, hoping that repeating what had traumatised her so much would not undo all the healing she had done since then.

"Yes," she said firmly. "Whatever the scar looks like afterwards – I'd rather remember you trying to help me when looking at it than remembering her meaning to hurt and humiliate me. At least we will change the memory connected to it."

He searched her face, but only found determination in her eyes. He nodded. "I'll be right back."

*'*'*'*

Severus returned about a quarter of an hour later, to Hermione's slight amusement carrying a leather case that almost looked like a doctor's kit. The similarities became even more pronounced when he opened it and took out a bottle of Blood Replenishing Potion, Calming Draught and some Muggle bandages.

"Draught of Peace?" Hermione inquired when she read the label. "I thought I wasn't allowed any potions for this."

"You aren't. This is for me."

"Oh..."

"I thought it might be helpful if my hands weren't shaking with nerves and if I didn't get sick over cutting a highly offensive word into your arm." He said it in a dry tone that was probably meant to sound funny. It wasn't. Not at all. Only now did Hermione realise what she had asked of him. She blanched.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking stricken. How could she have asked him to do this, after he told her that no mediwitch or wizard would willingly use dark magic? Because he had been a Death Eater once and thus shouldn't be queasy? Because it didn't matter if he got his hands a little more dirty? She had never thought about him that way. But she knew that he himself had. She was horrified by her own selfishness. "People always ask you to do things for the 'greater good', disregarding how you feel about it or whether you want to do them. I never wanted to be one of them. Please, forgive me. I'll find another way."

"You... what?" Severus seemed puzzled for a moment, until her words and their meaning fully registered with him. "No, there's nothing to forgive." Of all the people who had ever wanted something from him, she was probably the only one who had earned the right to ask. She was the only one he was willing to help of his own volition, not out of some sense of obligation. But again, he didn't have the words to tell her that. "I wouldn't have agreed to this if I wasn't willing to do it. I'm just not going to enjoy it, but then, neither are you. You probably won't find anyone else who is familiar with the curse Bellatrix used and who doesn't have scruples about turning to the Dark Arts for healing."

"But that's just the thing! I refuse to see or treat you as the person one turns to for the dirty jobs! It's not fair..."

"Hermione, stop it," he said, putting a finger on her mouth. It silenced her instantly. Either that, or his involuntary slip of tongue when using her first name. "It's alright," he assuaged her, "I can do it. And I want to erase every remaining trace of Bellatrix just as much as you do. Not because the scars look ugly – because of the ugliness they stand for. You shouldn't have to live with a reminder of it for the rest of your life when it's within my power to prevent it. I just fear that re-experiencing what happened in Malfoy Manor might transport you right back into your nightmares, and I don't want to end up in them as your tormentor."

"You couldn't," Hermione said in a voice of conviction. "You already have a place in my nightmares. As my saviour."

It was one of these moments again, were her words reached out to him and touched him in places her hands or lips never could. But he felt it, strongly. It was almost painful. But only because those places were not used to tender touches at all and thus especially raw and sensitive. But he knew that the pain and the fear were a part of his own healing process, just like they were necessary for hers.

He pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. "You'd better lie down on the sofa. I don't want you to faint and fall."

Hermione settled on the sofa, and he pulled a chair close so he could sit next to her. Then he took a log from the basket with firewood and, after a moment of contemplation, transfigured it into a long and smooth piece of wood that resembled a splint. He put a cushioning charm on it and a sort of handle on one end before he placed the contraption across his lap. "Here, put your arm on this. You can hold on to the top part if you like, but I'll still need to restrain your arm on it. You will instinctively try to tear it away, and I'd rather not have you do that while I'm holding a knife to your flesh."

"Okay." Hermione tried her best to gather her Gryffindor courage and not to show her nerves. It would only make things worse for him. With more determination than she actually felt, she obeyed, trying to find comfort in the physical nearness of their position. Severus conjured four silken strands of cloth, using two to tie the splint to his thigh and the other two to tie her arm to the splint. Then he spoke a cleaning charm on her arm and took something that looked like a fountain pen out of his case.

Hermione gathered its purpose when he spoke the cleaning charm over it, too. "A Muggle pen?" she asked, bemused.

"It has a rather sharp tip, I'm afraid. It's easier to handle than a knife, and I didn't want to take a page out of Umbridge's book and use a quill. Still, it may be easier if you do not look."

"No. I tried to avert my gaze when Bellatrix did this. I want to be looking at you." It would hopefully erase the memory of Bellatrix's mad and Greyback's lustful face.

"Tell me if you need me to pause or to stop."

"It's only eight letters. Go ahead."

Only eight letters, but she felt every single one of them. It hurt, very much so. But it was nothing in comparison to what Bellatrix had done. She wasn't high on adrenaline as she had been the first time, but she knew that she would survive, that she was in safe hands and wasn't threatened by worse than what she was enduring right now. She also wasn't scared, sick or revolted. Looking at his highly concentrated face while he carefully retraced each and every insulting letter, every so often checking on her with a quick sideward glance, was totally different from looking at her tormentors. As she realised, pain inflicted with the intent to heal by someone who cared was much easier to bear. It was a good kind of pain, if anything such as that existed.

Still, while she refused to make a sound, she couldn't prevent the building of cold sweat on her forehead and burning tears in her eyes. By the time he was finally working on the last letter, they were falling freely, and she couldn't help a hitching of her breath and a whimper escape her mouth before she tightly pressed her lips together again.

"There. It's done," he finally announced, exhaling deeply, too, and quickly putting the offensive tool aside. She was rather pale, but he had to admire her iron will. She had neither cried out nor cursed him nor fainted. "Now I'll have to recast the curse and force the letters into different positions."

"What will it be, then?" Hermione asked, wiping her eyes with her free hand and attempting to make her voice sound firm. "Blumdodo? Old Dumbo? I can tell Luna it's a magic animal I'm chasing..."

"Oh, I think I can do a little better than that," he said, amused by her suggestions.

Hermione struggled to sit up and eyed the freely bleeding wound. "Your trousers!" she then exclaimed. "They'll be ruined!"

He shook his head in disbelief. "Just like you to be worrying about my trousers now! Stay down until after I have put the bandages on you, or you might still faint."

Again, she wordlessly complied. She was feeling a little dizzy. He raised his wand to the bleeding letters on her arm and muttered an incantation. Or rather a curse.

The letters blurred, and Hermione gasped when she felt them heat up. She watched in horrified fascination as they started crawling beneath her skin like small black snakes, interchanging position. Some also turned upside down, others ended up mirrored or inverted. Then all movement stilled and they came to rest in a sea of blood on her arm.

Severus carefully wiped it off with an antiseptic wipe. With held breath, Hermione inspected the result of his work. The letters that had spelled MudBlood in Bellatrix's messy handwriting, now, in an unorthodox, but strangely cheerful scripture read: 'poWeRful'.

"Severus..." Hermione exclaimed in awe and felt tears well up in her eyes again. It was beautiful. Almost poetic. He had taken Bellatrix's derogatory insult and had turned it into a word that literally held power – a word of encouragement and positive reinforcement, a reminder of what she was: A witch, not a victim. And no matter how bad the circumstances... they might make her bend, but they wouldn't make her break.

Overcome by emotion, she threw her free arm around his neck, buried her face on his chest and cried. This time, the tears she shed were tears of relief and of joy – purifying and liberating. And when she felt him awkwardly pet her back and briefly return her embrace, they were also tears of happiness.

A/N: Actually, I did the word transformation in Window's Paint program exactly like described: Mirroring the 'd's into 'p's and turning the M upside down gives you WupBloop, which you can rearrange into powoBpul. Just by twisting, stretching or bending the letters, you can turn the o into an e, the B into an R or even the p into an handwritten 'f'. Unfortunately, Fanfiction doesn't support different scripts.

I'm currently using a print as my profile picture. If I can do it with Paint, I'm sure Severus can do it with magic. :)

Interesting fact: Hermione only gets the 'Mudblood scar' in the movies, not in the books. In fanfiction centering on Hermione, though, this has been treated as canon, as far as I can tell.