Well, Guys… I do hope you are finding this fic to be quite interesting. I appreciate your support a lot and I wish to say: thanks to those who appreciate my work. What do you think of the story so far? Some things will be answered in later chapters so… stay tune.

Well… here it is; chapter 20… enjoy!

Chapter 20: The mirror of the dark desire

"I love him, Gin," Hermione confessed her feelings for her Potion's Master and current husband to her best friend.

"Of course you love him. Why would you have married him if you hadn't?" she asked with a big innocent grin on her freckly face.

"No, Ginny. You don't understand. My feelings towards him have changed a lot since the last time we talked. Let's say I love him more now than I've ever loved anyone in my life, but we are going through a rough period in our marriage, do you understand?" she asked, trying to explain the situation to her red haired friend.

"I don't want to discuss this with you, 'Mione. Don't get me wrong; I love you, but your choice in men is not particularly normal and furthermore Snape is my professor and I certainly cannot picture him in bed," she tried to say, but Hermione who looked puzzled at what Ginny was saying interrupted her.

"Ginny, this is not like that at all. Things here in the castle are not as they used to be with Malfoy in between us," she said. Ginny looked surprised and shocked at this; Hermione couldn't quite figure why.

"'Mione, Malfoy has gone. He is not here anymore; he gave a silly little speech today at breakfast, speaking highly of your marriage to Professor Snape and how you two were a couple with principles. Then, we all had breakfast while Malfoy kept chatting with your husband; they looked really amused at what they were saying. He, then, suddenly stood and without saying a word he left. One can say his mission here was over," she simply explained to her best friend who had missed breakfast that morning as she had decided to go directly to Professor Flitwick's classes.

Hermione smiled. Yes. His job at Hogwarts was done indeed. He, sure enough, had spoken to her husband and they had made plans to destroy Dumbledore somehow. She knew little about it but if Lucius Malfoy were involved the scheme would be utterly predictable.

"Are you going to be ok with Snape?" Ginny asked with a worried expression on her face; an expression that resembled Molly Weasley's a lot.

"Yes, I think so," she lied. But she knew for a fact that now she was alone, for neither Ginny nor Harry and Ron were there to comfort her; no one was there for her to speak her mind about her marriage with Hogwarts most feared Potion's Master; no one was there to listen her moan about a fake marriage that had caused only pain. She had never felt more alone. Not even in her bachelor days in the library when she hunted for consolation in books. She was in love but she wasn't loved and she wondered if it was true that the more she loved him, the more he hated her… because he hated her. She knew he hated her for using her body as a weapon in a silent war against evil.

After kissing Ginny goodnight, she departed towards her old chambers but when she reached them she understood that her Head-Girl badge was no longer on her chest and that the dungeons were now "home" at Hogwarts. She belonged next to Snape now, in his bed, but suddenly she remembered that the cold chambers of Severus Snape were not as warm as she thought they would be in her honeymoon days.

But as she reached the narrow corridors that led to Severus chambers she heard her husband's voice. She quickly hid at the end of the corridor where she could easily hear him speak. Little did she know that what Severus had to say would arouse different feelings in her heart.

"You fail to understand that I love her," he whispered to someone, to something, Hermione couldn't quite distinguish from where she was standing, "I really do love her," he added as if his previous words wouldn't have been clear enough.

"Who does he love?" she kept asking to herself while still listening to his husband's manly voice; that manly voice that made her wet between her legs. But it took Hermione seconds to realize that the person, the thing, standing in front of him was not answering back. And he looked like he didn't care; he looked like he didn't care at all. In fact, the only thing bothering him was the bare presence of the person, of the object, that stood silent amidst the silence.

"I love her, yes. That, however, has nothing to do with the fact that I also detest her," he added, resting his forehead on the person, on the object's surface.

"He is speaking of me," she said to herself; her heart filled with pain. Of course he was speaking of her; who else could possibly arouse such contradictory feelings in his heart, if not Hermione Granger herself?

The person or the thing standing in front of him never answered. In fact, that person- that object- was not making any noises at all. But Severus's rage grew stronger for the minute; she could tell because of the little vein on his neck that she used to kiss when making love; that vein was now accelerating pumping blood to his head, as if the oxygen would prevent him from destroying the object- the person- into pieces.

"STOP! STOP!," he desperately shouted, grabbing his hair like a madman, "who brought you here? Who? Where you supposed to be discovered by her? THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Destructio!" Snape shouted pointing with his wand towards the thing standing in front of him. And as soon as the green light touched the surface of the object that Hermione would soon discover was a mirror, the object blew into pieces, finally resting on the stone floor of the dungeon's corridors.

Snape's body, Snape's hair was covered in glass and Hermione noticed that his cheek was also covered in blood because of the cuts the glass had produced on his hands. Little did Hermione know that a particularly big chunk had flown directly into his left calf and that his journey back to his chambers would indeed be a painful one.

While she watched her husband painfully walk towards his room, she started thinking about the mirror he had destroyed. Could have been the mirror of Erised that Dumbledore had used during her fist year to protect the Philosopher Stone?

But all her doubts were dissipated when she carefully and silently walked to where Snape had been standing only minutes ago and taking a piece of mirror on her hand, discovered what had driven her husband so bloody insane.

It was her hanging from a thick theatre rope; her face covered in blood.

But the image was so incredibly real that it scared Hermione and so with a loud scream she threw the piece of glass on the floor where smaller pieces of glass reflected dead Hermione's.

"Miss Granger!" he shouted from the far end of the corridor, with his leg covered in blood because of the glass, "Please, walk with me. I am having trouble with my left leg," he asked, his hand stretched as much as he could. She was so shocked about what she had seen that she ran towards her husband and wrapping her arms around his neck, she hugged him.

They silently walked towards Severus' Chambers. She served him as a crutch, for his calf was so badly injured he could barely walk. But they felt extremely lucky; they were together. For when people face death they find love to be the only assertive antidote for pain.