Hermione stared at Snape. He still had his face turned away from her. The raindrops fell hard on the window outside.

"Drink this", he said. It took a few seconds before she realised he held out a cup to her, filled with something that looked like milk. "Don't worry, it's a potion that will keep you awake for a while before you can go to sleep again."

She took the cup and sipped it, still unable to take her frightened eyes off him, like a deer staring at a hunter.

"How?" The word escaped from her lips like the smallest breeze, but he heard it.

"I...", he began. Where to start?

"I assume you have already tried a hundred different theories", he said. "And you've had to dismiss them all. But what you never realised was that you were right from the start."

Seconds that felt like an eternity passed before Hermione asked, almost whispering:

"You're a... vampire?"

"You have already studied those, yes, and thrown the idea away since it seemed impossible. But what not many people know is that there are two kinds of vampires. The Muggle vampires that you have been reading about... and the Wizard vampires. No one knows much about them, because they are so rare. But I know everything. I am one."

He paused and Hermione drank everything in her cup. The potion gave her some strength.

Snape rose from the bed and took a few steps away from it, and now Hermione saw that they were in his rooms. Her heart was screaming inside her chest, she was alone with a vampire.

She tried to speak, but she couldn't control her own voice. Eventually it came back to her.

"You... attacked the students."

"Yes", he said with his back turned against her. "It was the first time I've ever tasted human blood. I became a vampire six years ago, in the usual way. Another vampire bit me, and made me drink of his own blood. At first... I can never describe the fear I felt. Then I found out about a potion, a sleeping draught, called Dormatica."

A memory woke up in Hermione's mind. A Potions class, long ago. They had been told to make that potion, for him! But the calmas leaves had all been dead.

"The Dormatica is not only a sleeping draught", he continued. "It can be used as a tranquilliser, to control my... blood thirst, and reduce it to a minimum. Through these past six years, my food has consisted of animal blood. Maybe you have noticed how there are many more bats in the dungeons than usual ever since the attacks began."

She merely nodded to herself.

"No one knew about what I really am, except for the Headmaster and the other teachers. And it would have stayed that way, had not all the calmas died. Without them I couldn't brew the potion, and mere animal blood was not enough for me anymore. I fought my hunger for as long as I could, I have twisted and turned in my bed trying to tame it. But thanks to the Dormatica potion, the vampire in me is not me anymore. It is another personality... A murderous creature which stops at nothing to get what it wants."

"But the doors were all locked during the nights," Hermione said.

"As I said before, you only know about the Muggle vampires. But I am a wizard, I can do more than they. I can stand the day and the sunlight, and I can transform myself. I used to turn myself into smoke or mist and soar on the night air outside the castle. I got into the rooms through open windows, cracks in the wall, anything I could find, and inside I took my normal form again. And I drank. I couldn't deny that I loved it, that the taste of human blood filled me with yearning for more. I hated myself more and more everyday for what I had done, and I'll never know why Dumbledore didn't fire me."

"Maybe he thought you could handle it. He trusted you."

"He must have", Snape said, and Hermione almost thought she saw his shoulders shake. "I had failed him, and that almost hurt more than everything else.... Then there was you."

He turned around and finally looked at her. He saw how she trembled with fear in his large bed, but she didn't run away or scream. She stayed...

He found his voice again.

"That day, in the library... You held me close to you, you weren't afraid of me, like everyone else. A small ray of happiness pierced the darkness I was imprisoned in. Just for that moment, my fear and hate for myself melted away, and I swore then and there that I would protect you, even at the cost of my own life."

He lowered his head a bit, as if he was crying, and the fear released Hermione's heart. She felt the tears rise in her eyes. One of them fell down her cheek. A tear of pity and love for this man in front of her who had lived through something that was far worse than Hell could ever be.

"And... the night I came to you for help...?"

"I know fear like no one else, but I have never been so afraid as I was that night. I could have run into you in a corridor, and then there would have been no hope for you. But I missed you, and I had just got back to my rooms from the Slytherin house when you knocked on my door. I was back to normal, the monster was satisfied for the night. And you came..."

She gasped. She had slept in the same room as a vampire. But when he spoke again she relaxed, his voice sounded like pure silk and velvet, and it gently stroked her heart.

"Last night there was the Halloween dance. I hadn't eaten for a week and the hunger was tearing me apart, it never leaves me. Right after that dance with you... it took over. I was desperate, all I wanted, all I could think of, was blood. So when the fog came I stretched out my hand and grabbed an arm without seeing who my victim was. I took her away, I noticed it was a girl, and I drank her blood in a dark corridor. I drank until I got dizzy, somehow her blood was better than everyone else's, and it made me shiver like never before. All too soon I realised... that it was you I held in my arms, it was you I had nearly killed."

Hermione's hand flew up to her neck, and for the first time she noticed that there was a scarf tied around it.

"Am I bleeding?", she asked.

He trembled and lowered his eyes, not daring to look at her anymore.

"Not much", he said. "After I had seen your face, and the markings on your neck, I fell apart. I took you here and put you on my bed, then I started working on the potion I gave you. Soon you will fall back asleep again, and you probably won't wake up for a week. But I needed to tell you the truth, I have wanted so much to tell you. You have made my misery a little easier to carry, just by being who you are..."

'Just by being who she was'... Could it mean...?

Hermione turned her body to the side and put down her feet on the floor. She was still wearing the dress from the dance. Now it was partly shredded.

"Lay down again", Snape said, but she took a few trembling steps towards him, locking his eyes to hers.

"Go back to the bed, you are too weak", he said. She didn't listen, and suddenly she tripped. She fell, and Snape rushed forth and caught her in his arms. She laid her arms around his neck as he supported her and helped her stand.

"Why do you say that? Why do you tell me these things?" she asked, and now he noticed that she was crying. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her back to the bed, where he sat down with her on his lap. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he felt her warm tears wet his black robes.

"Because I love you, Hermione", he said, and it was as if a heavy stone had fallen from his chest. "I have loved you so long, and while it tormented me, it made me happy, it gave me hope, because I knew I was still human. I knew you could never love me back, that I could never even tell you what you did to me with just a look. Holding you in the library, watching you sleep here in my dark room, like a beautiful angel in a beast's cave, and dancing with you, those are the best memories I have."

"Stop", she sobbed. Her heart was beating loudly inside her, it sang and whispered, and at last she let it speak. "I love you too, Severus, don't you understand that? I don't care what you are or what you have done, I love you, with all my heart!"

He held her closer to him and gasped. A single tear ran down his cheek, the first tear he had shed since he was a child. She loved him? Could it be true? After what he had done to her, and to many others? He almost didn't dare to believe it, but when he felt her cheek against his own, and felt their tears mix as they kissed each other, he knew his dreams had come true.

"Do it", she said as their lips drifted apart.

She raised her chin and revealed her neck to him. She took off the scarf and showed him her smooth skin, offered it to him.

"I can't", he said, but he felt the hunger stir in him.

"You have to", she said. "Drink."

He couldn't resist. He leaned forward and his lips brushed against her skin. He inhaled her scent, tasted her with all his senses, he got dizzy and drunk with hunger and when his sharp teeth pierced her neck once again he heard her give a short, painful scream.

He tore himself away after drinking only a few drops.

"I can't do it, don't ask me to!", he shouted.

He saw the pain reflect itself in her face, and the hate he felt for himself filled him so he could barely breathe. He had done it again, he had caused her pain, he had failed her in every way.

He moved her away from his lap and got back on his feet.

"Hermione...", he said, his voice trembling. "I read aloud to you as you slept, and I put a spell on my voice so that you would hear it. I woke you up for a reason. I have made a decision, and I wanted to tell you everything... before I go through with it. But I never thought it would be like this..."

She rose from the bed again, and he ran to her, ready to catch her if she fell. But she stood up and looked at him. In her eyes he saw only love, and so much pity.

He suddenly noticed something in her hand. She was clutching it very tightly, but she didn't even know it was there. It was a unicorn horn.

"Hermione", he said. "I have got something in common with a Muggle vampire."

He took out his wand and pointed it at her arm..

"Erecto", he said, and Hermione's arm was stretched out in front of her, straight and strong like a branch on a tree, and it pointed the sharp horn at him.

She understood what he was doing.

"No!", she screamed with the tears running from her eyes, making her cheeks shimmer, but she couldn't lower her arm. "Don't do it! Severus, don't!"

"Don't you see?", he asked. "I have done horrible things, and I have done them to you. I will never forgive myself, I can't be cured from this fate. The Dormatica would be useless for me to take now, I can't control it anymore! If I continue living, there will be more and more victims, until I loose my soul, and kill them instead of just leaving them barely alive. And someday, one of those victims will be you. I will never risk that, I swore to protect you at any cost!"

Desperately, Hermione tugged at her out stretched arm with her other hand, but it was solid as a rock, and the point of the unicorn horn was aiming directly at Snape's heart.

"Save them", he said, and his voice was calm now. "Kill me to save everyone else."

She kept crying, but her mind suddenly became clear. She knew he was right...

"My love...", she whispered.

"My hope...", he replied.

With a cry she fell forward, and the glittering unicorn horn hit Snape in the chest. It shredded his robes, pierced his skin, and eventually Hermione felt it sink deep into his heart.

The blood stained his robes and made the silvery unicorn horn red. He gasped, and started to breathe heavily as he sank down to his knees. She fell to the floor as well, and cradled his head in her arms as he laid down on his back.

"I'm so sorry", she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't... be.", he said, and she saw that he wasn't afraid anymore. Only love came from his black winter night eyes. "I.. love you..."

"I love you too", she whispered, and the look in his eyes started to fade.

The last thing he felt before he died were her tears falling on his face....

She closed his eyes and gently kissed his lips. Her sobs were very quiet, all she heard was the rain outside.

He was gone....

She took Snape's wand from him and pointed it at the fire place.

"Ardeo", she whispered, and a fire started to burn at once. She threw the wand away and gathered all her strength to drag Snape's body to the fire place. She took a hand full of Floo powder from a pot on the floor, threw it in the flames and stepped into them, holding him tight to her.

"The Headmaster's office."

They were immediately taken away, and after a bumpy ride, Hermione landed on the floor in professor Dumbledore's office. The portraits on the walls were sleeping, but the old wizard was still awake, and he jumped to his feet when he saw her, dragging the Potions master behind her.

"Professor Dumbledore..." she said.

Then she fell to the floor in deep sleep, exhausted with sorrow.