He didn't come back at all that evening. She had sat in the upholstered bergere - she wasn't sure why she had been compelled to do so - for hours it seemed before succumbing to a fitful sleep. The logical side of her (for she now had to differentiate between her forced affectionate side for Snape and her logical side now) reveled in his absence, enjoying the late night solitude near the fire. Her body however hummed with discomfort and she was forced to wish against her will that he would return soon.

When she awoke in a rather chilled and victimizing jerk the sun had just begun to rise but still her professor was nowhere to be seen and the room remained unchanged.

She looked out the small window just above the grass and watched as a small group of Quidditch team members started their day with a run around the pitch. Her sense of calm was owed greatly to the fact that he wasn't around – she could tell – and he was asleep. For once in what seemed like a dreadfully long time, she felt clear headed and she realized she hadn't been seeing things with the precision she was used to.

She walked around the chambers, for the first time alone and unencumbered and saw how decidedly tasteful it was. There were no pictures, no personal mementos, but yet his touch was evident in mostly everything – the chairs, the draping, the carpets. They were refined in a way that she thought was distinctly him – tasteful but subdued.

She saw the volume he had obviously been looking at over at breakfast, still sitting at his preferred place, on the table. A yellowed, old tomb with no cover any more, his page held by the scrap corner of an old essay. The page it was open to relayed information she supposed was specifically about her predicament and she sat in his spot and took a hopeful look.

There wasn't much there at all. He had told her that from the very beginning. They were working with something so antiquated that books rarely even mentioned it unless for historical purposes. This book was just the same. No information about curing or relieving symptoms. She turned the page to see if there was anything else about perhaps her tattoo or the curse but the subject had changed entirely.

She read what little there was and before she could help it, her eyes were blurring the words and the tears she'd been trying to hold back broke through. She was nothing better than a house elf to her professor. A lucky exception of course, practicing free will on occasion, but a house elf none-the-less.

She tried to think back to her capture. Perhaps the key to her arbitrary enslavement could be found in the casting. But there was nothing from the ritual or the casting to remember. At one point she was in the diner, she was grabbed by a hooded figure and the next she was lying on the settee in Professor Snape's rooms. It had been like a muggle surgery.

Where had Voldemort gotten a hold of magic like this if there was nothing in any books to learn about it? What had been his source? There had to be something, somewhere that laid out the mechanics of a curse like this. But where? Definitely not in these chambers, and she had been explicitly forbidden to leave them.

She lowered her head in her hands. It was warm with fatigue and emotion. Her palms pressed against her aching eyes as her shoulders shook with her despair. The entirety of her life rested on this one man and he was nowhere to be found, had in fact abandoned her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He had taken to sleeping in the headmaster's chambers out of necessity.

They were lavish, much too lavish for him, and the rooms looked as they did before Dumbledore's death. The first night he hadn't slept very well at all, the memory of the man he killed saturated in to the walls, the paintings, the various unidentifiable objects that surely held some kind of strange purpose.

His first act after killing Albus Dumbledore had been to ward off these rooms, with the intention of never having anyone – including himself – enter them again. The acute pain, the very real emotional distress of having killed anything let alone his mentor and guide, had forced his hand. He hadn't wanted anyone, especially Death Eaters to roam around the older man's personal belongings and foul them as they did most things.

Being there now was even harder than warding them off. But it was for the best. He remembered her on her knees, begging him to put an end to it, to make it stop. He could not allow any more scenes with Hermione like this to unfurl. The gut wrenching realization of just how uncontrolled he was had made that clear. She wouldn't experience any more discomfort on account of him. And so he stayed there the second night and so on.

He would check on her during the day, making sure everything was as it should be. She seemed resigned, quiet, a little angry perhaps but these were none of his concern as long as she was safe. He never discussed anything with her, only told her he would be quite busy and thought it would be easier for both of them if he stayed in the Headmaster's chambers. The implications of his reasoning were clear enough to the girl and he assumed she would not want a repeat of that night, just as much as he did not.

What was left of Albus' things after his will had been realized, Fawkes' stand – the bird had long ago abandoned the school after his master's death – and piles and piles of dusty books littered the office. He dared not touch anything in fear of Albus' memory and tried to remain outside of the chambers for the better part of the day.

Without the added concern of the girl (abandoning her no doubt, his pride could see it no other way) everything had seemed to regain a somewhat normal pace again. He was able to think clearly again – to aid students and alleviate the Carrows' iron wills a bit. He had started thinking again about Potter and the mission he was to face. He'd known about the Horcruxes – for a while – privy to them in a number of ways but he knew not how many or where. If the boy had any sense, which he suspected he could, he wouldn't go looking for his friends. Once again he had been put to the begrudgingly difficult task of watching for the boy's life. Yes, everything seemed somewhat sane until Minerva McGonogall had demanded his audience after lunch on the third day.

She always looked a little affronted to him. Perhaps it was the size of her eyes, or her posture, but he had always felt as if he had just said the wrong thing. As she sized him up from in front of his desk, she looked absolutely livid and he ascertained that this time he had indeed done something terribly wrong.

"Remus Lupin was here Severus."

"So he must have told-"

"Told me about Ronald Weasley. Yes."

There was not much to say about that. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep it to himself forever, and the fact was that he hadn't intended to either. He remained silent, unsure of what to say.

"Why? Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"We had more pressing issues-"

"More pressing issues? What could have been more pressing?"

"The issue of someone who is alive Minerva. The issue of a young girl who's life is seemingly over. The issue of a young girl who has been currently trapped in my chambers for three weeks like some kind of convict. That was the more pressing issue."

She was silent. He had silenced her but his anger tore through him with his own words.

"How?"

"By fire."

There was no sound between the two, except for the numerous soft ticking and hisses seemingly coming from animated machines. He still did not regret withholding the information even now seeing her despair, he knew it had been for the best. Hermione Granger was alive, and she needed them more than any dead memory ever would.

"Does Miss Granger know at least?"

"Absolutely not."

He thought she would argue with him. She didn't. There was an illogical sense to that, that they both agreed on. The girl would be no better with the knowledge of her best friend's death.

"And the curse?"

"I've found little so far. I've currently been trying to alleviate the… symptoms as I work." He would never reveal that she was suffering for his sake. He supposed that if it hadn't been for his orders to stay in his chambers, she would have likely sought him out, as the guilt of having left her and the terror of what he had done to the headmaster had made him as distraught as ever. But McGonogall did not ask. She stood and turned to the large windows. They held the view of an entire school, an ancient school. And in the blaring September sun he saw her as the frail, old woman she was. Her face was worn down by stress and anger, her body much sharper and angular than it had ever been as he remembered. She was a woman who no longer knew, what exactly she stood for.

Below them, unbeknownst and kept in hiding, Hermione Granger was alive and well. For one minute she was sitting at the fire, reading on of the books her Professor had generously allowed her to take and the next she was overcome with an emotion stronger than she had ever felt as her tattooed arm burnt ferociously.

Without consideration, she was on her feet in an instant, looking for the way to end her suffering. Her body moved her forward, against her will and she nearly bounded to the heavy iron wooden door of her jail cell.

Used to the way her body would deny her exit, she was surprised, through her discomfort to see herself within proximity to the handle and took it experimentally in her hand. He had set wards to repel intruders, but he had known her binding to him would be enough to keep her trapped. But the door opened with little effort and without thinking she was flying down the Potions Corridor saving no time for observation or freedom.

Her body was taking her she knew, to wherever the desires of Severus Snape were.