A/N 1: And now, let's deepen things a bit, shall we?

Chapter 13

Hermione navigated the halls in half a panic. The Entrance Hall, she kept saying to herself in a litany, they'll be somewhere near the Entrance Hall. She turned sharply and ran down a set of stairs –

"Careful, idiot girl!" a voice snapped from the wall beside her. "Unless you want to spend the evening having your leg bones repaired in the Hospital Wing."

Hermione almost fell down the stairs in surprise. Phineas Nigellus smirked at her from a landscape painting, and she jumped the trick step she'd completely forgotten in her haste.

"Do you know where they are?" she gasped as she continued – Phineas's dark shape followed alongside her through portraits as she passed them.

"I do not," he answered. "And you had best take your bleeding-heart Gryffindor self back to the Headmaster's Office."

Hermione ignored him and carried on. Almost there, almost there. At the hallway adjacent to the grand staircase leading into the Entrance Hall, she paused; if she continued this way, she would be completely visible as she descended. Dumbledore had also said that part of the staircase had been destroyed –

"The passage on your left, behind the tapestry of Wendelin the Weird. You will find a small staircase leading down and into a broom cupboard adjacent to the Entrance Hall."

"Thank you," she breathed to the portrait, which rolled his eyes at her.

"I will await you in the Entrance Hall – there are, of course, no portraits in the broom cupboard."

A thought hit Hermione abruptly.

"No!" she said, and Phineas Nigellus frowned at her tone. "No, would you please go to the Hufflepuff Common Room instead? Find Ernie Macmillan and tell him 'Code word Pied Piper.'"

"And what will that accomplish?"

"He'll evacuate the DA to the Room of Requirement. The DA faculty allies will supervise, and then seal everything off."

To her surprise, the sharp little man disappeared from his portrait without another word. She refused to think over the implications of that for the moment – he knows… he must know about the DA, but does that mean...

Hermione followed his instructions in her turn, taking the dim, dusty staircase down. It was longer than she would have thought, winding down in a rickety wooden spiral, and almost completely dark at the bottom. Hermione stepped carefully around the mops, buckets, and brooms piled haphazardly in the small space. Voices permeated the thick wood door, but just barely. She pressed her ear to it, wand at the ready should she hear her friends' voices in distress. It was the loathsome voice of Amycus Carrow that spoke.

" – the little slag. She Reducted the bloody Entrance Hall and almost crushed Alecto here. When I find them again, they'll be begging for – "

"Alecto, have you anything to contribute?" said a different, eerily calm voice. "Do you know where the girl has gone?"

"There was others with her, Snape," Alecto Carrow answered in her shrill voice. "That Longbottom what's always making trouble – and the Ravenclaw girl, the barmpot one."

"And we found this – this thing the Weasley chit dropped."

"Hand it over," Snape's voice sharpened.

"What is – "

The question was cut off by a loud thump, and then a cry from Alecto. Another thump followed swiftly.

"Obliviate," came Snape's voice, softly through the door.

Hermione stood still, hands over her mouth, eyes wide in the dark. What is he doing? Did he just…

A shuffling from outside the door, like the rustling of paper, and then a drawn-out sigh. She held her breath as footsteps – Snape's, if she was right that he had felled the other Death Eaters – came slowly across the floor, and stopped parallel to where Hermione stood trembling.

"Hide and seek is unbecoming at your age, Miss Granger."

She gasped. The door swung open. The dark man stood before her, outlined in the uneven light of the damaged Entrance Hall. The Carrow siblings lay prone beyond him, and Hermione confirmed for herself that her friends were nowhere in sight.

"Do come along," Snape hissed, and Hermione looked up into his livid face and glinting eyes. Something dropped in the pit of her stomach. She took an unconscious step back into the cupboard. His hand snaked out and grasped her wrist. "I do not have time for childish histrionics." He stepped forward, into the small space. "You will accompany me to my office, into which your ridiculous cohorts have broken, and where you will all answer for this evening's insanity."

Snape propelled her back up the hidden staircase, and then through the castle by the same route she'd taken downstairs. Hermione tried to sort through her panic and confusion. She had to come up with something to help her friends. She checked her Mind's Eye, which was up and functioning, but she couldn't help returning again and again to the two loud thumps she'd heard through the door. And the Memory Charm. Why did he cast a Memory Charm? To distract herself, she returned to what she did best when confronted with this man's mercurial place in this world.

"H-ow do you know?" she demanded, almost out of breath from trying to keep up with Snape's quick pace. "How do you know they are in your office?"

Snape glared down at her without breaking stride before waving something in front of her face. The Map. She tripped. Had it not been for his firm grip on her upper arm she would have fallen.

"Do try and keep your feet, Granger."

They'd arrived at the Gargoyle. Hermione watched numbly as Snape folded the map and tucked it into an inner pocket of his robes. He gave the password, nudged Hermione onto the moving staircase ahead of him, and a moment later they burst into his office.

The sight of her three friends, mouths agape, Neville perched on a spindly table and reaching up to retrieve the sword from its mounting on the wall, would have been comical – hilarious – in other circumstances. Now, however, Hermione could only stare at them in mirrored horror as Snape stepped forward deliberately, his wand raised.

"And what have we here?" he intoned silkily as he took in the tableau. "Longbottom, dismount from that table before it collapses beneath you. Weasley, sit down in that chair at once, and put your wand away – you have already lost this fight. Miss Lovegood, replace the objects that have been knocked to the floor." He pulled Hermione to stand before him as well, and she raised her chin defiantly. "Miss Granger. Explain."

Hermione glanced behind her at her friends. Luna gazed back steadily and shrugged her shoulders. Neville, sporting a brilliantly bloodied nose and two black eyes from his run-in with the Carrows, looked away. But Ginny… Ginny glared right back at her with a blazing look that made Hermione want to slap – or hug – her friend, she wasn't sure which.

"What's to explain?" Hermione answered at last, turning to face Snape once more. "We made a plan to take the sword from your office. Things went a little wrong, obviously."

"You formulated this plan?"

"NO," a loud voice cried. Ginny had stood up once more. "No. I made the plan. Hermione had no idea about it until… well, I guess until you did." The younger girl gave Snape a sneer worthy of any he himself had ever bestowed. "She wasn't interested in helping us get the sword, so we went behind her back."

"I see –"

"She's lying," Hermione said, pushing all the conviction she had ever felt into her voice. She didn't even need her Mind's Eye right now. The lies came to her as though she'd rehearsed them, as they had when she had been in another office years before, confronting another dubious Head of Hogwarts. "I told you, Ginny, that we stick together no matter what – even if things go wrong."

"No," Ginny looked stricken now, her face crumpling, tears standing in her eyes. "No, 'Mione, don't do this."

Snape had been watching Ginny and the other two with interest, tracking their reactions to this exchange. Hermione leaned forward and brushed her hand against his. Black eyes snapped to her face at once, and she felt in her bones that what she was about to say was true. She held his hand loosely, awkwardly, in her own, pushing the conviction into his eyes, into his skin with hers. She felt a dark, rising tide of response – his magic? – and suppressed a shiver before pressing on.

"It's my fault, sir. It was all my idea. The punishment should fall on me."

He studied her for a moment, and Hermione felt the weight of his eyes on hers – Legilimency, she thought briefly – before he looked away, pulling his hand out of hers and running it briefly through his black hair.

"Mr. Longbottom," he said, "you and Miss Weasley will escort Miss Lovegood to her Common Room. You will then retire to the Gryffindor dormitory. You will all have your first detention of many at seven o'clock tomorrow evening with Hagrid. Dismissed."

Neville glanced at Hermione, who shook her head. He beckoned to Luna and turned to leave, but Ginny stood her ground, glaring at Snape with open hostility. The air around her seemed to shimmer with the force of her anger.

"And what about Hermione?" she demanded.

"I will see to Miss Granger here and now," Snape said smoothly. He stepped forward so that he towered over Ginny. "Get going, Miss Weasley, before you make her punishment any worse."

Ginny glanced at Hermione, her eyes still blazing, unshed tears making them brighter.

"Go," Hermione said, infusing her voice with meaning. "You'll need to call off the Piper."

Ginny nodded, grasping the code word immediately, and then the three of them left in single file. The door closed behind them and, spine straight, shoulders back, Hermione turned back to Snape. How would he punish her for this? Would he feel betrayed? Would – oh God – would her parents pay the price for this evening's insanity, as he had called it? But no… if he did that their agreement would be void…

"Your friend is a poor liar," he said smoothly, before waving to one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Do be seated, Miss Granger."

Hermione took her usual seat. Ginny was a bad liar, it was true, and for that she felt a mixture of regret and profound relief. Snape sat across from her, his knees almost touching hers. He leaned forward to place his elbows on his thighs, and Hermione felt herself draw back a little. The obvious exhaustion she'd noted previously during their lesson had been replaced by cool ferocity. This close to, the set of his jaw, the thin lips, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks – it all added up to a man who might be capable of anything on a night like tonight.

It's always the same with him, Hermione thought, dropping her eyes to the floor. I think I've won, just for a moment, and then –

"You, however, are an excellent liar," the dark man said, putting paid to the running commentary in her mind.

He's already won this staring contest, hasn't he? He's already won all of this. And yet she still felt the weight of his gaze, of the intentions behind it, shelved as carefully as any item in her own Mind's Eye. His presence wrapped around her, something heavy and choking, and she couldn't help it: she looked at him. His face had softened, the lines lighter than they'd been a moment before.

"One can only admire it."

She couldn't help it. As always, she responded to him. She played into his hand. She let herself be led by the elbow, the shoulder, the throat, to precisely where he stood to execute his perfectly laid plans.

"Admire what?" her voice came out low, the conviction of earlier sucked out with the exit of her friends, with the proximity of this man, alone once more with her in this room. She glanced behind him and confirmed that the portraits were – of course – empty.

"The excellence with which you alter the truth, Miss Granger. You can bend reality with such a silver tongue, did you know?"

"What do you mean?" she whispered, unable to look away this time.

He was still close to her and she felt a certainty in her gut that eye contact was, with this man, tantamount to physical touch. She felt an urge – preposterous at a moment such as this – to reach out, to place her hand against his gaunt cheek, to feel his stubble against her palm, to create a connection that might, like a blown fuse, cancel out the one he held with her now.

"You hear, Granger, but you do not listen. I have told you in clear, precise diction precisely what I mean."

"I – I…" Her voice dropped off, like something weak and dying. Hermione straightened with an effort and glared at him. "Just get on with it, Snape."

"With what, exactly?"

"My punishment."

He leaned back and glanced down at his fingernails in a gesture that felt intimately familiar.

"Perhaps you are too accustomed to Gryffindor authority figures. Understandable, given the infestation Hogwarts has seen over the last years." He looked back at her, a grim smile spreading over his face. "Slytherins are never punished by their Head of House for lying. They are, however, reprimanded for being caught doing so by the wrong person. You, Miss Granger, have been caught by the right person."

Hermione replayed their conversation with lightening speed. Fuck…

"I – "

He cut her off with a motion of his hand.

"You were protecting your errant friends – your lieutenants – from their own stupidity. It is an action to be admired particularly since it was, as I said previously, well done." He grinned at her, his eyes horribly cold, the expression incongruous on his pale visage. "You have earned plenty of praise from me this evening, have you not, Granger? I had best stop now, or risk inflating that bushy head of yours beyond all proportion."

Her mouth was open – gaping – she knew, but she couldn't seem to stop. He continued to regard her, still grinning that horrid grin, and Hermione felt herself redden.

"That's it then?" She felt breathless, but she refused to succumb to the relief waiting just below the knots in her belly. No relief could come when this man sat before her, coiled like a snake. "Detention with Hagrid for my friends, and… that's it?"

At last, the expression on his face neutralised. He steepled his fingers, and leaned back in his chair. He was suddenly calm, normal.

He's so controlled, she found herself thinking. Always. Just when I think he might lose it, he leans back and –

"The situation has been contained for this evening. Your friends will be punished, and the instructions I gave you at the start of the year have been fulfilled on your part. I am satisfied with the situation." He glanced up at the sword on the wall. "That, of course, will be removed from this office. And I advise that you pull rank on the three dunderheads who almost upended our school this evening."

Hermione nodded, and shifted. It was late, and she wished to leave Snape and his abruptly closed presence, his sudden reticence. But she remembered something from earlier, and she couldn't help pushing her luck.

"And what about the Carrows?" she blurted.

His eyes snapped to hers, and her pulse quickened.

"What about them?"

And, just like that, the room was too close, the breath seizing in her chest. Calm down, damn it. Stop reacting to him. The strangest part was… she almost enjoyed it, this intensity, this tension. There was something almost addictive here, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. And so she steeled herself, and asked her question.

"I heard you knock them out and Obliviate them. Why?"

"As I told both you and Mr Malfoy at the start of the year, all detentions associated with you are to be with Professor Hagrid. I simply ensured that that would remain a standard despite tonight's events."

"But you can't – I mean, they're supposed to be in charge of all – "

"And what, Miss Granger, would happen if I had allowed them to deal with this particular situation? What do you think they would do, given how far your little friends escalated things?" He leaned forward once more, and grasped her chin in his hand, forcing her to maintain eye contact as she tried to look away. His black eyes were as earnest as she had ever seen them, the expression startling in its honesty. She felt the same dark connection as when he'd grasped her hand, flowing from his skin and into her own. Her stomach leapt. "This is my school. And I have been given the authority to run it as I see fit. Anyone – and I mean anyone who threatens the safety of my students will be dealt with as I see fit."

He stood abruptly, and Hermione jumped to her feet. Snape stared down his nose at her for a long moment. She awaited his dismissal, but he continued to regard her. Finally, he reached into an inner pocket of his robes. Hermione immediately stiffened and –

He grabbed her wrist in an iron grip.

"I am not going to curse you, girl." He released her wand arm, and, for the second time, waved the Marauder's Map in front of her. "Here." He thrust it into her hand. "Now get out of my sight."

A/N 2: Tell me what you think of this shifting, strange dynamic ;)