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Chapter Two- Choices

Severus turned towards Hermione with an empty glass vial; mentally

listing the options he had left.

He had tried everything. He had given her his best blood replenishing potions; she appeared resistant to them. He had given her potions that created artificial blood; she was resistant to them, too.

He was running out of options.

The wound on Hermione's neck was still bleeding sluggishly.

Severus had tried all of the clotting potions he knew, bandaged the wound with the best that the Wizarding World had to offer, but still the blood came.

Madam Pomfrey would have known what to do. Severus knew that most of the healers in Saint Mungo's would have known what to do.

But the Death Eaters had made certain that there was no Madam Pomfrey, or any healers. Or, in fact, any Wizarding hospitals, at all. They had been the first targets, the places whose loss would hit the Wizarding World hardest.

So now, the only one to be there for Hermione was Severus.

There was a tinkling sound as the fragile vial was crushed under the pressure that Severus had not even been aware he was putting on it.

"Shit."

He watched, feeling somehow detached from his body, as the blood from the cuts that had been made filled his cupped hand, and then dribbled down its sides.

A drop spilled down, and Severus watched as, almost in slow motion, it fell to splatter on Hermione's chin.

And then he watched as a pink tongue quickly shot out of her mouth and licked the red liquid up.

Severus was no fool. He immediately understood that things were worse than he had even imagined them to be.

'This is the point,' Severus thought to himself, 'where I should stop. She... Hermione would not want this, she would prefer me to let her go than to let her become a...'

Severus knew that Hermione had morals. It was just one of the things about her that had always fascinated him.

When they had worked together, he had debated with her every day about everything from House Elves to Azkaban. Her strength of belief in what was right and what was wrong had struck something deep within him.

Severus had known as he spoke to her that life was not made of black and white. He was sure that Hermione knew it too. But she had somehow managed to avoid the grays, and kept her own firm beliefs and views.

And much as he had wanted to, he could not sneer at her about it. He could taunt almost anyone about almost anything, but in her case, he had found that he did not even want to.

Much to his initial disgust, Severus had only found himself wanting to cherish and protect her, keep her brilliant mind from losing its direction in the maze of grey that he himself was trapped in.

When he had asked her about vampires, Hermione had told Severus that she, like everyone else, would love to have eternal life and the powers that came with being a vampire. But drinking blood was just wrong, and she would never sacrifice her morals for life and power.

'Oh, Merlin,' he thought. 'Hermione will hate me, she could never forgive me for doing this.

'But I can't let her go.'

Shaking slightly, Severus lowered his hand and allowed some of the blood in it to trail onto Hermione's lips. And again, she lapped it up.

So he gave her more.

Half an hour later, a pale and giddy Severus collapsed onto the bed beside a now peacefully sleeping Hermione.

Just before he finally allowed his eyes to close, he noticed that the wound on her neck was gone.

Hermione opened her eyes, and surveyed the darkened room.

The first thing she noticed was a large amount of mahogany. The second was that most of what was not made of mahogany was black anyway. Black armchairs, black walls, even paintings with black themes.

Rather belatedly, she noticed the man sleeping beside her.

'What did I do last night?' thought Hermione.

Hermione took in black hair falling either side of a forehead that, for once, was not marred by a frown. Severus, she noted, was even whiter than his normal level of pallor.

'He looked exhausted,' she thought concernedly.

Over the past few years, Hermione had become accustomed to looking after her old teacher, making sure he eat and slept. Once the man had an idea, he ignored everything else until he had followed it as far as it would go. It had been up to her to make sure he remained healthy.

Although Severus had always scolded her for 'mothering' him, Hermione did not stop. After all, she had always told him, he could not help if he was ill.

She had never told him that when he hurt himself, he hurt her in turn. Never told him that she cared for him, in spite of his bad temperedness and antisocial tendencies.

Hermione had vowed that she never would, either. After all, what would he want with her, an ex-student so much his junior? Strong willed as she was, Hermione did not care for rejection.

Which, of course, was why she was a little shocked to find that she had somehow managed to get into the bed of the man beside her.

After a moment Hermione frowned. She did not have a great deal of experience with sleeping with people, but generally when one did, they usually lost their clothes at some point.

Both she and Severus were still decidedly clothed in what they had been wearing last night. There were no signs at all of anything... well, anything less than platonic having happened.

And then something else struck her.

'How,' she thought, 'have I just been able to see all of this in a darkened room?'

She jumped out of the bed, being careful not to wake Severus, and walked towards the antique mirror that was hanging on the wall.

A few moments later, Hermione concluded that something very strange had occurred last night if not exactly what she had wanted to happen.

After all, one does not tend to wake up in the morning and find that one's eyes, although not outwardly any different, have adapted to see in the dark.

Hermione leant her head against the mirror, and took long, deep breaths. For some reason, this did not make her feel any better. She tried breathing normally, but this too changed nothing. And then, purely experimentally, she tried holding her breath.

A number of minutes later, and not a breath taken, Hermione concluded that something was very, very wrong.

"Night vision," she murmured, "not needing to breathe, no..." she touched her wrist, "no pulse. That sounds like... No. It can't be... Just no."

Hermione put her head in her hands as the memories of last night came back to her.

A flash of white teeth.

For once, Hermione was lost. There was nothing left to do. He would come back for her, if she 'lived' that long.

And only if.

After all, society was hardly tolerant of vampires. The easiest remedy for her situation was clean stake through the heart. It would only be too easy to add her name to the long list of recent causalities, and her friends could mourn another friend lost to the darkness.

The worst thing, Hermione knew, that that this time a day ago she would have agreed with them. Better, she would have said, to put the vampire out of its misery so that it did not have to hurt people.

A new perspective changes everything.

A tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

Hermione's newly sensitive ears picked up a change in the rate of Severus's breathing. A moment later, the lanky man on the bed beside her stirred, then sat up with a groan.

"Hermione. You're... awake."

"You did it, didn't you," she said. It was not a question.

Severus hung his head. "I did."

She sighed. "May I ask why?"

"Of course. You have the right to know."

There was a pause. He did not appear to be saying anything further, just waiting for her to actually ask the question.

'Typical Severus,' thought Hermione. 'Some things never change.'

"Why?"

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but I was too weak. I know you- or at least I feel that I do. I know what you would probably have preferred. But I couldn't let you go, Hermione, I just couldn't. It would have been too much of a waste."

Hermione was still for a moment. As he had been talking, a strange feeling had begun to come over her. And now she felt like she was burning- but was somehow freezing as well.

She turned on the bed, and shifted closer to Severus. Raising a hand, and feeling the strange sensation going through it, she touched his cheek.

"Severus," she whispered, "if you could feel what you have done to me."

The man tried to look away from the eyes that were glinting at him, but was unable to tear his gaze away. In fact, he could not seem to summon the will to move at all.

He knew that he should be struggling against her, had read in countless books about the bloodlust that came over vampires just after they had changed from being human.

But, Severus reminded himself, it was all his fault, so who was he to stop her obeying her nature?

"It hurts, Severus. Inside I am burning, but I am so cold. I am dead, Severus, whether I am moving about or not. And I can't help it. I don't want to do this..."

Hermione suddenly shuddered, her head tilting back slightly. Severus watched, transfixed, as two sharp points protruded from between her lips.

"Severus," she said, sounding choked, "I can't stop."

With that, she wrenched his head back and plunged her teeth into his neck. Severus jumped at the initial pain. And then the pain stopped. The teeth were replaced by a tongue, stroking his neck gently and lapping up the blood there.

As he felt himself going limp, he fell back on the bed and Hermione went with him. Closing his eyes, he saw a multitude of colours flash before them. All he was only truly conscious of was the weight of the woman lying atop of him.

And then it was over. Hermione sat back on her haunches, and surveyed the man below her.

Already, the fog that had clouded her mind allowing her to think of nothing but the need for blood had cleared, and she was coming to terms with what she had done.

'I drank blood,' she thought. 'And I enjoyed it.'

'I can never forgive myself.'

"Why did you stop?" came the quiet voice of the man on the bed with her.

"What do you mean?"

"You could have killed me. It would have been easier that way. Why didn't you?"

"I don't kill, Severus. I will never kill. I didn't when I was, well, alive. It doesn't change now."

"Maybe I don't want to live."

Hermione gave him a sad smile.

"I will not do it. You made my decision for me, but I will not for you. You will not die by my hands.

"I think that now all I have left to do is excuse myself. I will make my way from here, Severus. Do not try to follow me, please, or recruit anyone else to do so. Goodbye."

With that, Hermione stood, and straightened the robes that she was still wearing from the night before.

With a last sad look at Severus, she turned from him and swept out of the room and away from everything she had ever known.

All that Hermione knew was that now she was better off alone.

Thanks to my huggable reviewers- so many for my first chapter! You rock my... er, slippers! Thanks to Laurie, remus4me (sadly, I am the Queen of the Cliffie. There will be worse to come...), Squashes (me, big headed? I'm the MOST modest person in the world ever! LOL), Madnutterfan, Slytheringirl22, Natsuyori, Alma1 (that's just fine! In fact, it's better than fine!), sexy severus, Maydelynne Rae, Amy Lee (I'm trying my best to avoid clichees. I'm bored of them myself), Egyptian-Princess, Katrina Tonk, Princess Starseed 1987, Talon McGreggor (damn those plot holes! LOL), Grand-Illusion, Anja, Druscilla Danuliete and Kail Ceanni(I changed the dustbin thing! Oooops!).

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