It was dark when they reached the forest finally, undetected as Vasily had predicted. They stopped before entering the forest, as Snape had finally consented and was allowing Hermione to tend to his wounds. Vasily stood look out at the edge of the trees.
She worked quickly and expertly, sealing cuts and ministering to bruises on his face. She motioned for his robes, and he grudgingly assented, stripping to the waist. He was too thin, she decided, but also wiry and strong judging from the flat muscles. Pale as well, almost sallow. She put her hands on him, felting his breath catch ever so slightly. She murmured quietly, her hands passing over his chest, and she noted absently that his skin was very warm. She moved round to his back, feeling his skin prickle, wondering idly if she was the cause, or if it was the cold.
She finished, and Snape put his clothes back on, noting with extreme irritation that he did feel better, at least on the outside. Inside still quivered like gelatin from Cruciatus. Two days was his usual recovery time after a visit with Voldemort, but this hadn't been any regular visit. It had been a bit more personal than that.
He watched with interest as she mixed a potion then handed it to him.
"Go on, drink it," she encouraged him, gesturing with her hands when he stared at her.
"What is it?"
"Drink it and I'll tell you."
"Miss Granger, I have found it essential to my health to not drink strange potions. Therefore, I will not drink this concoction until you divulge the contents."
She saw there was to be no more arguing, and so consented. "Fine, alright. It's a simple pain-killer with valerian root and phoenix tears."
Snape eyed her skeptically, then eyed the potion, and back to Hermione. "Am I a guinea pig, Miss Granger?"
"Look, Snape, if you're as smart as you say you are, you should know what it will do."
"Very well," he snarled, downing the potion efficiently, then passed the empty flask. "Have you tried this on anyone else before, or am I your human guinea pig?"
She unsuccessfully tried to suppress a grin. "I've been meaning to, but Ron wouldn't ever let me do Cruciatus on him. Didn't trust my potions. So you're the first practical experience, yes."
He scowled. "Practical? What, have you had theoretical experiments?" He suddenly realized the pain, the throbbing inside was easing, until it lingered on the edge of consciousness, still there, though he found he could ignore it with practice.
"Yes, actually, Harry's a genius at computers, so he does all these programs for probabilities in potions or spells or whatnot. So I have a pretty good idea how this potion is going to work."
"Gods, why must Potter torment me even now? Was not seven years enough, that I must now endure this as well?"
"Oh, quit being so melodramatic."
"I assure you, I am not being melodramatic, Miss Granger. I am being honest. I am still under truth serum."
"Well then, since you're being so honest, why don't we discuss what I've done to piss you off so much?" Her eyes glinted, and her face lost all traces of humor.
"You have done many things, Miss Granger," he forced out, "and I think we should discuss them at a later, more appropriate time."
"Fine, but give me one answer first. Was it because I didn't listen to you? Didn't take your scholarship to California?" she asked, anger bubbling below the surface.
He heard it there as well, and did not want to fight her just now, since it would surely attract unwanted attention, but mostly, he lacked the energy to give her a proper row. "Yes. In part." She frowned and he quickly added, "We will discuss this later, I give you my word."
"Very well," she answered, forcing herself to relax. "I suppose I should tell you that there might be certain side-effects of the potion. Just from the numbers." She continued, ignoring his disgruntled look. "Stomach irritation, maybe. Something intestinal."
As if on cue, his stomach heaved, and he expelled the meager contents of his stomach, namely the now-inert potion, onto the ground. He stayed bent over a moment before turning to her.
"You might warn me of side-effects before hand. I believe I would prefer the previous ache to this."
She nodded, acknowledging her mistake, and they joined Borodin at the forest edge.
"This anti-apparition spell runs about 5 to 7 kilometers, I believe. That would cover the town as well."
"That's a bit larger than usual," Hermione mused. "Probably has some kind of detection spell as well. Can you add anything, Professor Snape?"
"I was never involved in security, as my specialty has always been potions, not spells."
"Foolish wand-waving, right?" she asked innocently, ignoring his scowl in response. "Well, they probably aren't expecting people to break out, right? So it should be at the perimeter."
"Actually, I don't believe they will use a detection spell on the forest, because it would be disrupted by werewolves," Vasily interjected. "There is a full moon tonight."
"Then we go through the forest," Hermione decided, glancing up to the large, partially concealed moon.
"Great," Snape drawled. "What's a night of fighting off Death Eaters without fighting off werewolves as well?"
"You don't want to go with us? Fine, you're welcome to find your own way home," she said with a shrug. "Did you get Malfoy's wand? Give it to Vasily, he'll need it."
Snape's scowl deepened and he tossed the wand on the ground near Vasily, who picked it up and began moving into the forest. Hermione followed, pulling out Dumbledore's map and verified that Vasily was indeed leading them in the right direction. She also tried to judge the distance to the edge of the spell, which appeared to be right in the middle of the forest. The forest filled with werewolves on the night of a full moon.
No wonder he's not happy, she realized.
Snape trudged behind her sullenly, making evident his displeasure. She dropped back a few paces from Vasily and was closer to Snape. His face grimaced in pain, though it seemed less than before.
"So, tell me Professor. Your not wanting to be here doesn't have anything to do with Lupin and Black, does it?"
She heard the venom in his voice as he spat, "Of course it does. What else could it be?"
This was obviously still a sore spot for him. She knew that Sirius and Remus were occasional guests at Hogwarts, Order business, she presumed. She doubted their continued presence helped things much. They walked in silence for awhile, Hermione screwing up her courage.
"Will you tell me now?" During his silence, adding, "Why you hate me?"
"I suppose you aren't going to let this rest until then, are you, Miss Granger?"
"Could you drop the 'Miss Granger' bit? I'm not your student anymore, and it's getting old."
Snape glanced at her in the semi-darkness, surprised by the flatness in her voice. Again, silence overtook them. She started when he broke it, his voice so soft she had to struggle to hear him.
"You are right in part. I did not believe you capable of creating that potion."
"Mortalis fallax," she murmured.
"Yes, a most difficult potion, yet you had very little difficulty at all. In your second year, you made polyjuice potion, I've since found out. Even now, you continue to work on potions and spells. You could have done anything you wanted, in potions or charms, and you chose instead to become hired muscle. To use force rather than intellect."
She was stunned. She hadn't expected anything more than the potions project and her refusal of his suggestion of Berkeley, and she was bewildered that he would care so much about her choice of career.
"Is that all? Any other reasons?" she asked sarcastically.
"Yes. You stole ingredients from me."
"Only one ingredient, boomslang skin, for the polyjuice," she objected.
"What about the gillyweed during that Goblet of Fire nonsense?"
"That wasn't me and you know it."
"But it was stolen on account of your friend Potter."
"And exactly what does that have to do with me? Was I personally responsible for the stealing of your gillyweed?"
He glowered at her. "No."
"Since my choice of vocation is mine alone, I do not see how --" She trailed off as she saw Vasily halt and motion towards them urgently. They hurriedly crept up to his position.
"There's one to the left," he murmured. "About fifty meters."
She scanned the forest, spotting the werewolf almost immediately. It was standing over the carcass of a deer, feeding; it hadn't yet noticed them. She cursed herself mentally, knowing that she would have spotted the creature herself had she not been arguing with Snape.
"Tell me, Professor Granger," Snape drawled. "Since you are the resident Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, how should we deal with this werewolf?"
"We stun it, and keep going. It will be out long enough for us to get away."
"And then it would pick up our scent and hunt us down. We kill it."
Vasily agreed. "He is right, we must kill it. These werewolves are exceptionally fast. Plus the smell of blood should distract others nearby."
She relented, and Snape nodded when she asked, "Killing curse?"
They snuck up on the creature, wands drawn. A twig snapped and the creature stared directly at them, only twenty meters away, and it moved towards them.
"Now!" she exclaimed, though unnecessarily. The other two men had leveled their wands at the creature and cast the spell, green light shooting out of both wands. The werewolf stumbled and howled, though it did not fall.
"Anytime you're ready, Miss Granger," Snape snarled, his eyes and wand never leaving the creature.
She scowled at his turned back, aiming her wand at the werewolf and muttering the curse. It was not her first time using the killing curse, had used it once before against a Death Eater who hadn't been shy about trying to kill her, so she killed him first. Not that she didn't regret it later.
A third green light hit the creature, and finally it dropped to the ground. Vasily approached the still figure cautiously, inspecting the now human body, and called back, "It's dead."
They continued through the forest, with Vasily again at the lead, Hermione behind him monitoring their progress by the map, and Snape and his thoughts bringing up the rear.
The mortalis fallax potion. It caused the body of the person to shut down momentarily, to die in essence, then allowed it to resume normal functions. Snape could not recall the exact purpose of the potion, and had to search for it, finding it eventually in Most Potente Potions, though it had not surprised him to see that Granger had been spending time in the Restricted Section of the library. The potion had no true practical applications, and he had been curious as to her desire to make it, but she never volunteered her reasons, and he never asked.
The potion had hovered on the edge of his thoughts from the time she announced her intention of brewing it until term's end. The night of the Leaving Feast, the day before graduation, he sat scowling in his office, debating whether to defy Dumbledore and stay holed up in his rooms all night rather than chaperone. On this particularly bad evening, he was thinking he would rather be summoned to Voldemort and face the Unforgivables, despite Dumbledore's assurances that the evening would be 'fun.' His mind distractedly brought up Hermione's potion, how it might be able to fool Avada Kedavra.
This thought unsettled Snape so much that he decided he must confront Hermione about it. He immediately pulled on his robes and ventured off to the festivities. He found her at last, outside in the gardens, with Potter and Weasley, of course, as well as several other Gryffindors. He managed to separate her from the other Gryffindors, but Harry and Ron weren't about to let Hermione alone with him.
"Why did you pick the mortalis fallax potion?" he asked her, his voice taking a slight edge. "What were you going to do with it?"
She looked at him blankly, answering, "I picked it out of a book, that's all."
"You never considered using it against the killing curse?"
"Against the killing --" she began, her words slightly slurred. She lurched towards Ron and whispered rather loudly, "See? Told you he'd hate my potion."
They've been drinking, he realized, his anger growing. "Miss Granger," he hissed dangerously, ignoring Harry and Ron who had begun edging up protectively. "Did you or did you not factor in the Avada Kedavra curse when you made the mortalis fallax?"
"No, I did not. I just picked it because it looked difficult and interesting," she answered, meeting his stare bravely, though her heart beat through her chest.
"Very well," he answered, falling a step back from them. He regarded her silently. "Tell me, Miss Granger. Have you decided on a career path?"
Her gaze faltered, and Harry nudged her. "Go on, tell him."
Ron nodded. "Yeah, 'Mione."
Bolstered by their encouragements, she met his glare. "I'm an auror. Got accepted with Harry and Ron yesterday."
Snape's eyes darkened, and he was flooded with a myriad of emotions, anger with her for not studying something further, for being selfish with her mind when she should be sharing it, and for putting this potion in his hands that he knew was important, but one that he could not understand. And he hated Potter and Weasley for having been party to this, for surely they assisted her in this conclusion. She saw his eyes flash before hardening, then she saw nothing but hatred.
"No doubt, Miss Granger, it is much easier to follow another's path rather than forge one for oneself," he sneered, his eyes taking in Potter and Weasley, before storming away, his robes billowing.
They crossed the forest with minimal conversation. They had passed the five kilometer mark, but the spell still held. They continued, stopping every once in a while for Vasily to attempt to apparate. Near the six kilometer point, Vasily had in fact disapparated, startling both Snape and Hermione.
Home, she thought. She glanced at Snape with some concern, asking, "Are you alright to apparate?"
"I am not sure," he growled, irritated that he had been forced to admit his worry to her. He had grown accustomed to the pain, but he was still physically exhausted, didn't know if he had the strength to apparate.
"Do you want -- do you need help?"
"Yes, of course! Just hurry!" He scowled as best he could as she stepped towards him, wrapping his arms loosely around her shoulders as she slipped her arms around his waist. He squeezed his eyes closed and felt her arms tighten briefly, and his breathing became forced, then they were gone.
It was still dark when he opened his eyes, relieved to see the familiar path from Hogsmeade, and not snow. As he disentangled himself from Hermione, he saw Vasily attempting to talk to Dumbledore while Madame Pomfrey fussed about holding a potion. Seeing Snape and Hermione, Poppy left Vasily holding the potion and rushed over.
"Severus! Are you alright?"
"Do I look alright?" he retorted. "Tonight I've suffered crucio more times than I care to remember, was given a great deal of truth potion, was beat up physically, and then suffered severe stomach irritation."
"What you need --"
"Is a good night's sleep in my own bed!" His voice was sharp for only a moment, before he softened. "Poppy, I will be fine. I just need rest."
She nodded and turned to Hermione, who waved her off with a simple, "I'm fine."
Dumbledore broke away from Vasily and approached them.
"Severus, Hermione, it is good to have you home," he began, the relief evident in his voice. "I believe we should save all discussion for the morning. I am rather tired myself."
Watching the old wizard suppress a yawn only made Hermione want to yawn that much more. She hadn't realized how tired she was, didn't even know what time it was as she followed the others back to the castle.
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A/N:
Sorry about the over-abundance of action ... kinda got carried away. :) There might be a small delay on Ch 9, as I have a paper due next week. But rest assured, I'll be writing in every spare minute.
Again, thanks for all the reviews, they really do make my day!