Chapter 9: "The Dark Mark's Magic"

McGonagall froze in her tracks and turned to Hermione, "Why did Severus use legilimency with you?"

"He thought I was pitying him," she started as McGonagall smirked and nodded. "I told him that it was compassion. He did not know the difference, so I showed him. Was that wrong, Professor?"

McGonagall took a deep breath, "No, Hermione, if that's is all it is."

"Yes, Professor," Hermione answered. "Did you think that, well, there was something physical going on between us?"

McGonagall looked Hermione deeply in the eyes, "Yes, child, I did."

"Nothing like that at all," Hermione pleaded. "But if you want to relieve me of my duties to take care of the Professor, I will understand." She thought that he would never understand, but he'd have to get used to the idea anyhow.

"You understand, dear, how inappropriate it would be if you were to become, shall we say, involved?" McGonagall warned.

"Yes, of course. I would never consider it for a moment. While I can't speak for Professor Snape, I doubt the notion has even crossed his mind. Well, I have had no sense of it. I'm just happy that he doesn't act like he used to in class toward me," Hermione finished up.

"In class?" McGonagall had a new fear to contend with. "Why whatever does he do in class?"

"You know how he is – gruff and snarky. He does not like anybody but his Slytherins. As much contempt for Gryffindors as he has, I'm surprised that he even lets me be in the same room."

"Humph," McGonagall snorted. "Go on back, child. Hopefully, we can get him back to the hospital wing shortly and this will no longer be the slightest issue."

"Yes, Headmistress," Hermione headed back to her patient.

Snape was reduced to pacing the floor from his bed to his workbench. The cane the Room had supplied was a most useful tool for him. His knees were still not happy with the most recent treatment they had received. He was very relieved when Hermione stepped back through the door. However, he never let his face show any emotion. Feelings were bad things for this is what his father had instilled in him at a very early age. He was not about to break with a policy that had kept him living thus far.

Hermione raised her wand toward him. His eyes grew wide and he stepped back as she cast the spell, "Legilimens!"

He resisted her until she spoke gently, "Severus, I need to know something if I am to continue to be your nurse and, well, companion up here."

With some trepidation he replied, "What is it, Hermione?"

She stepped closer and began to move about in his mind, looking for traces of anything related to her. She drew very close and reached out to his arm. She took his left arm, at the Dark Mark, into her hands. His chest rose as he drew in a breath against the intrusion. The physical Mark held magic of its own. The fact that it had been sliced through did not stop some of the magic from working its way to the surface. He tried not to resist her too much, fearing that he'd lose her if he did.

The magic in the Mark took them to the day he received it at the hands of Voldemort. He gasped. Hermione looked on in a mix of horror and wonder.

Her mind whispered to him softly, "How could you?"

"I was young and foolish. I was looking for power," he tried to control his voice to keep it in the same tone as hers.

She watched the Revel in honour of the newest Death Eaters. Snape closed his eyes wishing that this had never taken place and that she had never seen the horrible man he was. His fear was that when she had satisfied her curiosity that she'd simply leave him alone in the Room of Requirement until the Ministry came for him.

"Was it because of what Harry's father and Sirius did to you?" she asked.

"In part," he said ashamedly.

"Your father, too?" she continued to investigate.

"Yes, in part."

They stayed in silence until he broke in.

"You know this was my worst moment, or nearly so. It set things in motion that I am having to live with to this day," he reminded her.

She watched him abusing Muggles in a Revel. Snape bowed his head unable to watch himself or the fellow Death Eaters. Hermione took his hand in hers.

"I understand, Severus," she offered.

"How could you?" he was bitter and more than a little afraid. "You never raped and pillaged."

"No, but it doesn't mean that I haven't desired that kind of destruction to be meted out on my enemies," she said truthfully. "I may not have acted out on it, but it does not mean that given the same set of conditions that I would do any better than you did. I noticed that you, unlike the others, killed no one."

He sighed and broke the eye contact between them. He skulked over to a corner and plopped down in a chair. He waved her off when she tried to follow him. He sat there for half an hour just rubbing the Mark as if he could will it away along with the horror of those memories. He wondered if it would be useful to obliviate Hermione's mind of this incident. Maybe things could go on as before. He was going to miss her presence more than he had imagined. When she went off with McGonagall, he had been sure that she'd never return then. That left him with the certain knowledge that Hermione had found a place within him that he would be loathe to give up. What she did next completely dumbfounded him.

"I forgive you," she said gently.

When the words finally registered in his self-pitying brain, he stopped rubbing the Mark and looked up.

"What did you just say?" he wanted to hear it again just to be sure.

"I said that I forgive you for all that went before you came back," Hermione looked him in the eye. "Come here, Severus."

He rose and returned to face her again. She raised her wand again and the spell was cast again.