A/N: Thanks to Melenka and Luna305. This chapter is dedicated to someone who will never read this story. Ah, humanity.
Of Masks and Mirrors (I)
They watched as the ink eddied. Its progress was hypnotic. And inevitable.
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Hermione stood unblinking, watching the ink swirling, its color deepening, glowing, reflecting hazily on the polished table. She started as a hand touched her elbow, and looked up to see Severus offering her a small flask.
"A Calming Draught," he said.
She waved it away. "I can't; I might need to -"
He ran his hand up her arm, and rubbed it gently. "The calculations are perfect, Hermione. You can do no more with them tonight."
"But if something happens -"
"A modified version, Hermione; this will merely calm your mind, not impair your reflexes."
Her eyes flicked from the parchment to the potion. Finally, she sighed gratefully. "Thank you."
Taking the empty flask from her, he reached for her hand and drew her out of her chair. "Well done, Hermione."
An exhausted smile crossed her lips briefly, but it did not reach her eyes. He drew his cloak around them as if its darkness could protect her from what was happening on the parchment.
The glow emanating from it was changing from stormy indigo to a smoky violet.
He shut his eyes against it and rested his cheek on her hair, and she sighed again, a tired sigh, but her breath was smooth. The Draught was taking effect.
He stroked her hair softly, focusing all of his attention on the feel of it under his hand, between his fingers, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger, jarring one of the slivers of glass he'd not bothered to heal. The abrasion against the small cut heightened his awareness of the feel of all of her – of her warmth, her weight in his arms. Tilting her chin up toward him, he saw dark circles under her eyes. Patience, Snape.
He led her away from the table, toward the fire. He sat in the Transfigured chair. "Come," he said, drawing her to sit next to him.
She leaned against him, her cheek on his chest, staring into the dying fire. It blurred before her, and she blinked. She caught her breath, and closed her eyes.
He was sitting at an awkward angle, the chair arm digging into his back, but he did not move. Placing his palm on the side of her face, holding her against him gently, he said nothing, brushing his fingertips against her cheek, thinking.
The third condition of Lily's Vow, the one that guaranteed his death should the Dark Lord prevail, had been the act of a compassionate woman. Hermione's voluntary binding of her will to his liberation stemmed from a different impulse; one that he did not yet understand. He had loved Lily; who had, for a time, loved him. His feelings for her had been the imperative that severed and bound his life, his soul, filling an outward emptiness with an obscure but irresistible purpose. She – with her love, her gift, her death, and her child – had given shape to Severus Snape, given language to his thought, judgment to his decisions, and reason to his existence. He had long known he would serve his sentence, play out his allotted hour, through the terms of his obligation to her, and find his release either as a sacrifice for a Horcrux or in a suicidal attack on a victorious Dark Lord.
That his death might be a sacrifice was the closest thing he'd known to hope; that it would otherwise be suicide, the closest thing to optimism.
Until now.
He leaned his head to Hermione's, and kissed her hair, gently. He saw her eyelashes flutter, and adjusted his position slightly.
"Hermione?"
"Hm?" She sounded sleepy.
"I believe I've ascertained what you meant by 'medieval.'"
Despite her exhaustion, she laughed softly. "10 points to Slytherin." Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes and smoothed her hair back. Studiously ignoring the glow from the parchment – now a rather vile green, shading towards a rancid yellow – she tilted her head and looked appraisingly at him.
"Severus, do you really hate Harry?" she asked quietly.
"No."
She arched her eyebrow skeptically and waited.
She's getting too good at that. "I hated his father."
"Obviously. I was speaking of Harry."
"Him, I fear."
"You fear Harry?" Oh, the irony. "Because you think he might fail?"
"No. If he fails, I have nothing to fear."
"If it's not that, then what is it?"
"Because he holds my life in his reckless hands."
She turned this over in her mind. "Severus… how absolute is the Compulsion? Is it triggered every time Harry's in danger, or only when you're nearby?"
His voice measured, bitter, he said, "Every single time."
She eased herself out of the chair and went to stand, alert, by the fire.
"Did you never notice how 'convenient' all of my appearances were? His decision to go after the Stone – have you ever heard of 'speed chess,' Hermione? Who found Potter and brought him to the Hospital Wing? I did. When he was in the Chamber of Secrets, I walked every corridor in Hogwarts for hours, in vain – I could not find the entrance. The night in the Shrieking Shack, I was there in two heartbeats."
"But… he was in no danger from Sirius."
"Pettigrew," he spat.
She shut her mouth, eyes snapping.
"And every time I believed the condition bearable – just, mind – Potter would, in his sadistic ignorance, devise a way to increase my torment. I spent the Tournament year with an endless, pounding migraine, because only the great Harry Potter can put himself in mortal danger simply by procrastinating.
"The night the Dark Lord returned, I knew the stakes as soon as Potter touched the Cup. I knew, and there in the crowd, surrounded by children with large eyes and bigger mouths, I did not dare move for fear of betraying the larger purpose. To move a muscle would have resulted in my death, Hermione," he hissed, eyes smoldering, and he rose, a barely contained volcano.
His eyes were molten as he closed the distance between them. "Who alerted the Order to the Ministry, the next year? And the next - I know that Potter attacked Malfoy in self-defense. I felt Malfoy's intent to harm him almost before Malfoy himself did, and Potter's response followed, hard. I oversaw Potter's detentions personally in order to spare my own strength for what I knew - knew - was coming, and in short order. Parking Potter's arse in my dungeon was the only way I could get a break – the only time I wasn't driven to agonized distraction by the Compulsion."
Gripping the mantle with both hands, he dropped his voice. His eyes glowed with manic intensity.
"And that final night, I knew where Dumbledore was taking him. And I waited. I sat, waiting. I sat, reading the book that that boy's dead mother had given me, an endlessly reverberating echo that refused to die. I waited. And waited... and then I knew, and I ran - Flitwick fell, a casualty of my haste. Blindly, from the dungeons. Blindly, through the castle. Blindly, through a battle in which all of the fallen were my comrades. And up the stairs,
"…and into silence...
"And all of my marks, my Vows, my Compulsion, all of what you blithely call my medieval constraints combined on that Tower into one moment, one act, one towering, inglorious sacrilege. I killed him because Narcissa's Vow compelled me to complete Draco's mission. I killed him because Lily's Vow compelled me to protect Harry – have you figured that out yet, Hermione Granger? And I killed Albus Dumbledore because that's what a loyal Death Eater would do, given the chance."
The mantle splintered in his hands. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood glaring at the floor.
"The only thing that held my soul in my body was that the bonds were unified, Hermione. Otherwise, I would have fallen."
She looked at him for a moment, then repaired the mantle with a flick of her wand.
"Severus."
When he did not respond, she took a step closer, hooking a finger behind one of the buttons on her shirt. "Severus," she said more firmly.
He stood, unmoving.
"Severus," she yelled.
He flinched. Her voice echoed in the house which suddenly loomed, vast and empty, around them.
"Look at me."
He shook his head.
"Look at me," her voice blistered with command.
Out of the corner of his eye, through his hair, he risked one glance.
With one finger, she undid two of her buttons and pulled her shirt to expose the mark on her chest.
The empty ring of seven black pearl-sized dots was filling, from the center outward, with a small black roiling cloud.
His eyes glittered - empty, save for a terrible, patient hunger.
