As They come to take you from me this time, my madness has receded some. I know now that I am hiding me, not them. They now savage you to find me. No more, please, you shouldn't suffer so that I can cower here in the shadows.
I don't know how, but I clung so fiercely to your mind that we both went with Them. When you faltered, it was so easy to cover you in my embrace. What a strange sensation, to protect another's mind from the Dark ones intrusions.
I became overwhelmed with the feeling. Not power, something greater. Guardian. I left your secrets un-probed by my new talents, but the Dark ones...so many interesting secrets. I left a seed behind, as I have regained a few of my more important memories just now.
I know you hear my thoughts, please answer, look up, SEE me.
'Crazy girl, now I conjure your image freely, without your presence even?' but you are questioning yourself. Hmm, maybe you don't feel me here with you. Ok then, sleep for now. It frustrates the demons so.
Well, maybe still a bit mad. At least the incessant giggling has stopped.
Strange how I look about and see the cell, feel the cold and darkness surrounding me. Yet, I know that where you are is bright, flickering with evil and dark ritual. Don't fret my fussy teacher, I leave Their outward workings and hidden desires where they are. I'm still reeling from my own time spent at their hands. Your mind is like a library, so carefully catalogued but nearly impenetrable. Except to me, trying my level best not to abuse this stroll into your hidden fortress. But I'm sorry my darling, I need something just now. A way to make you understand before I slip back into myself, as pleasant a journey as it will be.
Spinning now, why? Seeds carefully sown are already bearing fruit. It is your voice, calling through the darkness, shattering the crushing silence, "Answer me now! Don't give up now, They brought me back in the dark. Why? So early?" I feel the commanding tone in my very skin, tingling with what is to come.
'I hear you, be quiet, do not speak aloud again. Please, try to follow, I'm slipping back so soon, too soon...Severus?'
You are following, fumbling in the darkness that isn't really there, on limbs you don't actually have. 'Don't work so hard at it. You want to find me, so there I am.'
'That simple? Did you do that or did I? What charm is this Miss Granger, that you so easily invade my brain and yet yours is chaos itself.' you leave your questions behind, though I am about to give you all the answers you want. See, the path is shorter now. Come with me, lie on the grass and listen to my plants grow.
You are still the severe Potion master, now that I have made you attire yourself I am faced with school robes! Not here in my playground, please. And you wonder why you feel a deviant monster. See, no longer the schoolgirl, now the fully mature woman in the summer dress shopping in Diagon Alley. You thought I didn't see you. If I'm so clever then how did I miss my most imposing teacher following me for over an hour through 4 stores? I know, not lustful, you were concerned. But now I am, as you were seen that day, and had you not wasted time making sure I got my new shoes and haircut unaccosted you might have been gone. And you would not be here. With me. About to fight for your life.
"Ah, so good of you to understand finally Professor. If you believe it is real, then it will be," I nearly purr at you in my glee. You look just amazing lying stretched out beneath the tree I'm perched in. The garden is different now, you look confused a moment.
"I fail to see what there is left to fight about, and please call me Severus if you insist on looking at me like that," and the silky tone of your voice negates the disdain and disapproval written all over your face.
"But you have changed, is this a young Severus here? Yes, so much younger, near my age then?" I ask with great amusement. He's trying so hard to make this easy for me. To make me more comfortable in his company, not realizing that I already was. My voice (my VOICE, my inner voice is all there is left now I think wryly) changes, trying to convince him of my appreciation of him, just as he is, "Change back, but not the robes, your stalking clothes. You are going to get very angry with me first," I tease from above, just out of reach, for now. "We have plenty of time, as you can see. Would you like to know WHY? Truly?"
"Who is with us?" and just like that you are on your feet, staring at the company I brought back with me. A snake, long and silver in the sunshine winds his way down my tree toward you. "Is that what I think it is? You did this, got this from MY mind!!" You roughly pull me from the tree to face you. I share all that happened tonight with you, and the idea I planted that They should give up on you, that I have somehow escaped and you had nothing to do with it.
"I found him guarding a passage deep within you, somewhere important. The only secret you kept from me, once you were aware it was me," and I show you that I didn't pass your sentinel, merely coaxed him here with me. "I need you to understand what I can do, tell me why I can. I haven't a wand, or anything else. And my mind was nearly destroyed, yet here I am, and though I know this is my version of the abyss, why does it strengthen me? Tell me, you must know somehow," the desperation in my voice scares even me. I never noticed how tall you are, ever so much taller than me, and just now it makes me feel so much better, safer somehow. In this brief moment I pause to show you everything, let you peek into the swirling mess of my conscious thoughts as well. How I removed my voice and left it at Hogwart's so as to say goodbye to my parents and leave the letter with George. The hands in the dark when I was so nearly done, the school just a few more moments from me. I allow you access to the dark place I keep the next week of my life. Go, look, but you go alone, its all right. When you return I'll ask my final questions.
I wait forever on the edge of the path, you just ahead trying to steel yourself for that walk. Finally you turn back to me.
"No, I won't look there, Hermione. I saw enough before. They took your final innocence didn't They? The ability to walk alone unafraid. To trust a man's touch. Your first time... I saw enough. Your mind is too vivid for me, I always said you had too much imagination, Miss Granger," the critical note in your voice is strangely comforting now. Finally, you take me in your arms, "They will never hurt you again, you know that now, don't you? I will not let them." Forgive a tired old man, you implore me, unaware that I can hear you. Your body in the cell rasps loudly at this and I fear what I may be doing to your mind, is it permanent? I'm calmly resolved to see this through, possibly our last day on earth. I know that time here passes slowly, it will feel like so much longer, but never enough. Like a shining dream, I try to capture all this for you. That's why I don't recognize this garden, and why you are so confused....
"This is an estate, somewhere my mother took me once as a child. It was just before I got my letter for school, 10 years old then. An aunt's house, if you go around these trees here, the water you hear is running into a duckpond," you tell me gently, I have never heard this tenderness in your voice before. You are still holding me, cradling my head in your hands. "I don't know how you did this, why you can. I've never heard of such strong telepathic links, nor such sanctuaries before. But then, I've not been raped..." I cut off your self-loathing with my fingers on your lips. So soft, but strangely set. Determined not to give in, but wanting so badly to make me feel... what, better, whole, SANE?
"Silly man, this will do it. Maybe both of us. I don't understand, but what do we have to lose? They come to kill you tomorrow, and I can hide myself from them, but I am dying already, you know that don't you? See the weakness settled into me, starved and fading. Give me this, willingly, because you want to. Trust that tomorrow, hope will find us well. There is a fraction of hope," now you stop my mouth with a gentle kiss.