A/N: Thanks to everyone for all of the terrific reviews I've received so far for this story, and special thanks to Alex who has reviewed some of my other (now sadly AU) efforts as well!
Implausibility lies ahead, although I've tried not to interfere with the canon. Events described below are my own interpretations, nothing more and nothing less. You may very well disagree with them, or think them too simplistic, but it was the best I could do and I make no apologies for that.
I still don't own anything.
She stared at him, watching in silence as a dull flush spread across his hollow cheeks. He refused to look at her, and folding his arms across his chest he leaned back in his chair and stared down at the floor.
"There are always choices," she managed eventually. His face twisted, betraying anger and scorn.
"No, Miss Granger." He said heavily. "There are not always choices. You have not lived in the adult world long enough to appreciate that. Your view of the world is surprisingly naïve for one so intelligent," he managed the shadow of a smirk at his rebuke and Hermione was briefly incensed into silence.
"Explain, then," she forced out from between clenched teeth. "Tell me why you had no choice."
Snape bent his head further, his eyes still fixed upon the floor.
"An Unbreakable Vow," he said quietly. "A foolishly made Vow that I made in a desperate effort to gain the trust of other Death Eaters."
"With whom?"
"Narcissa Malfoy…" he glanced at her briefly when she uttered a sound of disbelief, but when she didn't elaborate he continued: "She came to me shortly before the beginning of your sixth school year, desperate for my…assistance. Her son, Draco, had received a mission from the Dark Lord himself and she was desperately worried about the consequences should he fail to complete it."
"The mission was…Dumbledore?" Hermione frowned.
"Yes," Snape murmured. "You must understand, Miss Granger, that I was at that time in a very precarious position within the ranks of the Dark Lord. There were few who trusted me at all, and many who were seeking to unmask me as the traitor they thought me to be. The making of the Vow was an excellent opportunity for me to make reparations to them whilst at the same time allowing me to gain inside knowledge on what the Dark Lord was planning. It was not something I was in a position to refuse. I made the Vow."
"Did you know what it was you would have to do? Ultimately?" Hermione could see the faraway glint in Snape's eyes become more pronounced the more that he said to her, even though the light in the small room was fading fast. He shook his head, slowly.
"No. But I was not in a position to admit that."
"That was very reckless," Hermione observed.
"It was the only way! Had I not made the Vow I would have been ostracised from the Dark Lord's ranks, and I would have been good for nothing! You have never been in such a position, so kindly do not judge me!" Snape shifted angrily in his seat, leaning towards her. Hermione stayed exactly where she was; this time choosing to retaliate.
"So far as I know I have never condemned anyone to death, either, Severus! The moral high ground is not yours to choose! Your actions were reprehensible, Dumbledore died because of you!"
The flush had long since disappeared from Snape's face. He was now chalk white, and visibly trembling with what she presumed was anger.
"Do you think I don't know that?" He was clearly struggling to keep his voice level. "Do you think that I have not lived with my decision and the consequences every single day since it was made?" He gestured. "I did not want Dumbledore to die at my hands, I did not want him to die at Draco's, I did not want him to die at all!"
They both breathed heavily into the silence, unable to look at each other.
"You know what an Unbreakable Vow entails, do you not, Miss Granger?" Snape asked heavily. A log in the fireplace shifted suddenly with a loud crackle and Hermione jumped.
"Of course I do." She whispered.
"Then you also know what would have been the result had I not been able to meet the requirements of the vow."
"Yes," she said hollowly.
"What?" He barked.
"You would have died." She lifted her gaze to his, his eyes were glitteringly angry.
"I would not have been alone. The Dark Lord told Draco that he would be held…accountable should he fail in his mission. He would have died too, Miss Granger, most likely along with his mother and father."
"So you were simply trading a life for lives, were you?" Hermione's voice was shrill. "The Malfoys would have been no great loss, by all accounts. Had you considered your own death? Or were you too cow-"
"-I would urge you not to complete that sentence, Auror!" Snape said icily. "If you would listen for a moment instead of persisting in creating a ridiculous commentary then perhaps you would learn something!"
She glowered at him, fingers itching for a wand she did not carry, but said nothing.
"I was reluctant to tell Dumbledore of what had happened, knowing that he would think of me in much the same way that you do now, Miss Granger, but such information could not be contained for long. Dumbledore understood the implications of what I told him far better than you or I could. He was…" Snape closed his eyes tightly, as if searching for a memory which pained him. "Shaken. Events had conspired against us, he said. He did not blame me for what I had done, as a lesser man almost certainly would have. He told me that he was not afraid to die and I…" He shuddered. "I called him a liar. 'There are worse things than death, Severus', he said, and then he looked at his hand, the right one."
"The cursed one."
"Yes. The Dark Lord's work of course, Albus said it was unavoidable but…" He closed his eyes again and this time did not reopen them. "The curse was slowly killing him, Miss Granger, in the worst way that you can imagine. It was consuming him from the inside, he was in constant pain by the beginning of that school year; pain that no potion or spell could relieve. He was growing steadily weaker as well, and when blaming the incident at the Ministry became too implausible he was forced to admit to me that he was…he was…"
"Dying." Hermione pressed a hand to her mouth, horror-struck.
"So you see, he was adamant that I did not break the Vow, and that circumstances be allowed to reach their inevitable conclusions. Four lives, he said, were not to be exchanged for his. He would not permit it."
"When Malfoy confronted him, on top of the Astronomy Tower…" A question was forming in Hermione's mind, and Snape answered it effortlessly, his eyes snapping open and fixing on hers.
"Both Dumbledore and I knew that he would not have the strength to kill," he said heavily. "His previous efforts had showed us enough. We both suspected that I would be the one to cast the Avada, when the time came. I had not anticipated that the time would come quite as it did…I was not prepared…"
"So you had agreed to do it?"
Snape looked pained.
"At first I had refused…it had been unthinkable. Dumbledore was my mentor; he had always shown me more respect than any other wizard I have ever known…I believe he looked upon me as one of his own…" As Hermione watched, he forced a grimy knuckle into his mouth and bit down on it in a concerted effort to control himself. His face was ashen when he removed it. "My hand was forced on top of that tower…I had never agreed to his plan, I had refused him time and time again…you cannot imagine what it was like. I don't know where he had been or what he had been doing with Potter up until that point, but he begged me to do it…" He put his face in his hands; the words were muffled, but clear enough. "He begged me to kill him. I was terrified, full of fear and self-loathing…it was the only way, Miss Granger. I would gladly have died for him, but it…the…" His voice broke, he heaved a dry sob. "The moment the c-c-curse passed my lips I would h-h-have given anything to take it back. But it was t-t-too late. He was dead!"
Hermione Granger sat mute and distraught as Severus Snape fell apart in front of her.
He sobbed only very briefly, deliberately turning away from her as his breathing was reduced to a series of broken gasps and waiting until it was once again controlled before turning back to her and lowering his hands to reveal red rimmed eyes and the weariest expression Hermione had ever seen. She stared at his face for a long time, unsure and frightened about what he had chosen to reveal to her.
Her brain felt as though it were filled with damp cotton wool, heavy and impenetrable as she tried to organise her thoughts. She had been almost completely ignorant of everything that he had told her; excepting the small details that Harry had imparted to her over the years she had never heard the story of what had happened atop the Astronomy Tower and Snape's version of events was extraordinary without question, but was it true?
That he had chosen to tell no one the why of his crime was even more so, but she had the answer to that, at least in theory. He had chosen to administer his own punishment; that being the 7 years he had spent in Azkaban. The decision to execute him had signalled the end of that tenure. He did not want to die for a crime that was perceived by others so wrongly, he had already told her that, and…nor did he deserve to, Hermione realised with a jolt.
Everything Snape had said was entirely plausible; if he had spoken at his trial then he would almost certainly not sitting before her today. Seven years was more than enough time to concoct such a tale, but something told her that, deep down, she did not believe that. He might have been lying to her, but what was the point of that? He was a condemned man; his death warrant was all but signed. Spinning her such a lie was an insane enterprise – she, who had delivered the news to him. It didn't make sense. Her mind raced, and she reached an abrupt conclusion. If the slightest chance of redeeming him remained, she would not condemn this man to death.
"Severus?" Her voice was slightly hoarse, but she stared at him unflinchingly.
"That is all there is, Miss Granger, it is all I can tell you. Make of it what you will…it hardly matters any more…"
"No. It's all right. I believe you." She spoke the words in a rush, and they tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be presented to him, but Snape remained remarkably indifferent.
"It makes no difference, Miss Granger, whether you believe me or not. I was not seeking absolution from you," he said tiredly.
Weren't you? Hermione thought. Possibilities swirled around her head, and she lurched to her feet. Snape squinted up at her in the half-light.
"Severus, I have to get back to the Ministry," she told him urgently. He shrugged.
"I'm going to get help."
"Miss Granger-" The tone of his voice was a warning. "They will think you as deranged as I if you repeat to them what I have just told you."
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "But I have to try."
Wrenching open the door she spotted the guard who had shown her into the prison standing at the top of the corridor. She beckoned, and as he began the long walk towards her she turned back to Snape.
"I'm coming back for you, Severus," she murmured.
Unsure if he had heard her, she was surprised to see him shake his head.
"Goodbye," she said softly.
"Farewell, Miss Granger," his dark eyes blazed into hers for a final time, and he looked away into the bright embers of the fireplace.
Hermione stared at the back of his head for a moment more before turning and striding along the corridor towards the oncoming guard, who was now no more than twenty paces away, and looking at her un-hooded face in some surprise.
"Listen to me," she said, when he was close enough to hear the soft hiss of her whisper. "I'm leaving now. But I'll be back in a few days. I want him moved into a better cell, with a proper bed. I want him fed decently too, and kept warm."
The guard looked a little dumbstruck, but nodded meekly, handing her back her wand as he did so. Satisfied, Hermione nodded to him and turned away before swinging back to him not two paces further along the corridor.
"One last thing…for Merlin's sake give him a bath!"
She did not wait to see the little man's response.
TBC…
A/N 2: There are two more chapters still to come, if you were wondering. Chapter six will see a visit from the Minister of Magic and chapter seven will be a shortish epilogue, which I have already written. Both will be posted in a few days' time.