Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Chasm

Chapter 11

The Lair

Snape set Ronald down then spun on his heel. "This way. Quickly."

"Where the fuck…"

"Do you want to stand out here and talk?"

Ronald swallowed hard, and glanced behind him, seeing only dark rock and a sky turning darker. He rushed after Snape entering a large and elegantly furnished manor house and all but ran down the hall to keep up with him.

"Slow down! What the bloody hell is going on here?"

"She is in here," Snape said coldly, opening one of the many doors and standing to the side. "I have done what I can for now. You will excuse me, I am afraid I have to finish what you so foolishly started. We will talk later. I am sure we both have questions that need answering."

"Snape…those men…what the fuck was that? How could they have been dead already? Are you one of them…one of those…those dead…"

"Karl Grobmann and Peter Kurten, two of the Dark Lord's favourite...Koschei, for lack of a better term. He allowed them their minds as in life they were more dangerous then any other in death," Snapes lip curled in distaste. "It is better that Miss Granger fell to the Red Cap then to become their next victim. There are others…many others… that would take her and her sanity with her. As for myself, I died when I took that infernal mark. However, since I still breathe you are quite safe."

Snape nodded to the room beyond the door, then turned on his heel, continuing to a flight of steps at the end of the passageway that only led down.

"Oh no you don't." A dark haired witch pushed Ronald roughly back into the hallway, glaring at Snape's back as he strode away. "I can smell what you've been up to. Those foul creatures carry every kind of disease and pestilence. End of the hall. Shower…twice…and make sure you get under your fingernails and everyplace you cannot see unless you want to be infected like her. Took me over an hour to clean her and I won't have you tromping your filth in here."

"How is she?" He managed to croak out from parched and cracked lips.

"Alive. Wait," she walked back into the room and came back with a container of water. "Drink this. Slow now…you'll go vomiting it back up if not. The bath water is safe enough but we still don't drink it. Take that with you."

"Yeah, well thanks," Ronald tipped up the water to his mouth greedily, forcing himself to stop after only a few mouthfuls.

"Good. Once you shower, don't touch it again. If you are carrying anything on your hands, it's contaminated now. Leave it on the floor in the shower. I'll bring down clean things and some potions for you to take."

"Sure," he nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Sorry, that was a bad idea."

"At least you can learn. Too bad it takes so long." She shook her head and looked at him, making him feel like his mother had just caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. "Now go and make sure you wash your bloody mouth with disinfectant. I don't give a damn what it tastes like and if you don't do it I will do it for you."

She turned back to check on Hermione before gong to Snape's quarters and rummaging around for something to fit Ronald, so anxious and excited to have someone else in this cursed place that her hands trembled. Although the two wizards were the same height, she judged Ronald broader across the shoulders and wider in the chest. Quickly flipping through the shirts and waistcoats they had found in the manor she at last came to a couple of jumpers at the bottom of the stack. Grabbing them and two pairs of trousers Snape never wore she laid them over her arm and started down to the bath. Finding a pair of lace up boots she hoped would fit him. She started back, stopping at the medicine cupboard to collect an antibiotic, a pepper up and a pain reliever.

Slipping into the shower room, she laid out the clean clothes on the sink counter and removed his tattered khakis and boots, using a flannel to protect her hand from touching them as she slid them into a bag that she would later drop into a trash bin. She sighed and fell to her knees and began scrubbing the floor with a disinfectant Severus had insisted be kept in each bath, knowing that if Ronald stepped out of the shower back onto the dirty floor he would have to start over.

"Blimey," Ron gasped as he pulled the shower curtain open, ducking back around the edge to hide his nakedness. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Stay in there until I'm done," she grumbled not looking up. "I said shower twice, now do as you are told, and I better hear you gargling. If I were interested in what you have between your legs, I would have pulled back the curtain myself and looked. " She smirked and sat back on her heels, knowing that he would soon be done. "When you are out you need to go to my room and grab my robe. Two floors up, third door on the right. I have to shower down next after touching this filth."

"Yeah," he sputtered. "You think this is a little overkill?"

"Inferi carry infection. Imagine a dead corpse walking through your house and sleeping in your bed. That should give you an idea of what just happened, only worse. Now it's all over me."

"Snape should have said something before we came in. What about Hermione? And how the fuck did you two get here…for that matter where is here?"

"She's clean now, too late though. As soon as that sword hit her she was infected, only looks like something got her before that."

"Snape?"

"He'll have to do the same as you're doing. Only he cleans his own floor and uses the shower in the lower levels. Now hurry along, we don't want her waking and us up here. If you want your questions answered you best do as you are told."

Ronald pulled the edge of the curtain back and looked hard at her. "It's you! You…you held a knife on us!"

She looked up and saw him glaring down at her. "You must be the smart one, only took you an hour to figure it out," she said flatly, turning back to her task of scrubbing the floor. "I thank you for the chocolate. Is that what you are waiting for?" She asked with obvious amusement in her voice. "Now, wash."

Hermione dreamt of falling walls, bloodied bodies and curses hitting their marks with green lights splashing death behind her. She dreamt of Ronald, seeing him lay down his wand and smile at her as he turned to walk away, a soft voice calling his name on her answering machine as she spun in an unending circle. She frowned, and tried to roll over, as pain sent spasms through her body. A heavy cold weight lay on her forehead, and raising her hand she tried to push it way, lashing out to strike what was looming over her and the sound of her rendering clothes. She screamed out, hearing Karl and Peter's lecherous laugh as she felt their hands ripping at her waistband and watched two children fall into a void, crushed under a giant stone as the leering face of Greyback replaced Harry's and flittered on the inside of her lids. She screamed out for Ronald, telling him to run, to run from Voldemort and saw him in the Malfoy's dungeon and could hear Bellatrix's laughter. Above all else she could smell rotting flesh and rank water.

"She is hallucinating, all her memories getting mixed up inside her head," Constance said calmly, seeing him wince as Hermione shouted out in response to her memory of the message on the answering machine. "Maybe you should leave until she comes to her senses. All her talk…it is just her dreams and nightmares."

Ronald clenched his jaw and continued to bathe her with the basin of lukewarm water Constance had brought him. "The fever started yesterday. If you hadn't taken our supplies…"

"Fool, you still couldn't have enlarged them and she needs potions you didn't have. Snape will brew more when he gets back, it will break the fever for now."

"If it doesn't?" Ron said quietly. "You'll get her out of here, right? You can get her to St. Mungos'?"

"Surely you don't think we stay here from choice?" She looked at him incredulously. "If the potion doesn't work she dies."

"She will not die." Severus' voice filled the room as he swept in the doorway. "You were a fool not to treat the bite at once. You should have cut it out if you had to. She was already in a weakened state when she decided to fight. Now we are fighting both infections, whatever bit her plus the infection that set up from the Red Caps' axe, as well as the injury its self."

Ronald moved to the edge of the bed, lifted up Hermione, positioning her head to loll back and accept the potion Snape held in his hand. "I didn't know about it until it was too late. Bloody hell, what kind of things crawl around in here that could do this?"

"It is not the what but the where, Mr. Weasley," Severus sneered, grasping Hermione's cheeks and forcing her mouth open, pouring in the potion as Ronald massaged her throat. "The smallest scrape can take a life in this infernal place. From what I see she already had a lesion on her leg, it could have set up the infection we see. Lay her on her stomach."

"It won't heal," Constance pushed Ronald aside and exposed the wound inflicted by the Red Cap's blade. "Hit clean down to the bone. The bleeding stopped but the flesh isn't knitting. It looks like it is necrotising, if we want to save the leg we have to do something before it spreads."

"Mr. Weasley, you will want to step outside," Severus said calmly as he levitated surgeon's tools closer to the bed. "We have to open the wound and try to clean out the dead tissue. I am afraid…"

"No …" Ronald said evenly, eyeing the scalpels. "I'll stay right where I am, and it was a blister…a ruddy blister is all."

"As I said, nothing is a simple injury here. Even a blister or a prick to your finger can take a life if broken skin is open to airborne contaminates. Mr. Weasley, the longer we talk the sicker she will become."

"First, I want to know why you are not using magic."

Severus raised his head slowly and studied his face. "I am not a Healer. If you would prefer to wait for one, I will be glad to step aside. Perhaps you have a way of contacting the hospital that I do not. No? Then you may hold the lamp so I can see what I am doing."

It was a week before Hermione could sit up and recognize where she was, separating the dreams from reality. She had smiled weakly as her eyes had first fluttered open to see Ronald's head resting on the mattress, his shock of red hair against the white of the sheets. Entwining her hand amongst his curls, she had slid back to sleep before he had time to register that she had woken. With his touch, her dreams became fleeting, the disjointed faces less disconcerting and the children no longer crushed and dead but running toward Harry across a pasture of sweet grass and gentle breezes.

"She's ready to move," Constance assured Ronald. "Severus wanted to keep her out of it until that leg was on the mend. He says she wouldn't stay in bed unless he did."

"Yeah," Ronald felt the corner of his mouth turn up, "he knows her well. She would have given every one orders on how to change the dressings."

"He's going to wake her and increase her feedings." Constance sat on the foot of the bed and looked at Hermione. "She needs to eat more then a few swallows of broth now and then and you need to get out of this room more then to run to the loo and an hour now and then to see Snape. He is sending up a tray every couple of hours. We can take turns forcing it down…maybe the extra nutrients will help her heal."

"No, I'll make sure she …."

"This isn't a contest," Constance shook her head slowly. "You need to sleep as well and I haven't seen you eat a full meal yet. You need to get in a real bed, not sleeping sitting up. If what Snape says is true and you plan on trying to get back you should be building up your energy. Anyway, it's been years since I have felt useful, I don't mind."

"How do you do it? I understand the tinned foods but how do you manage fresh produce? Snape took me down to the storage rooms the other day, bloody hell…who ever set this place up must have planned for a siege."

"The lower levels have cold frames set up, lights and all. The…the previous tenant had a generator brought in for the electricity." She looked at his face and started to laugh. "I know. If Snape hadn't known what it was, we would have starved to death. Good thing he was Muggle born. When I went to school, I didn't even take Muggle studies. Bloody hell, he had to show me how to turn on a switch and plug in a fucking lamp."

"You tried to kill us." Ronald reminded her.

"I don't try to kill anyone. If I wanted you dead you would have been." She shrugged and reached down to pull Hermione's blanket tighter. "I didn't know who you were…or even if you were alive. It's hard to tell in here. You three of you are the first real people I'd seen since we came. You'll have to learn to see the difference."

"I don't plan on learning. I plan on getting the fuck out."

"He says he wants to talk."

"The Lord requests my…"

"Joking like that can get your throat slit. Do not underestimate him," she hissed. "Remember who you speak of."

"Sorry, I…fuck," he muttered, raking his hand through his hair. "It's been a week. It's about time we talk about more then where to find a tin of soup. Listen… I meant nothing by it…the Lord comment…I didn't mean it. I've known since the last battle that he wasn't what we all thought."

"I'll tell him you are free," she said frowning, not wanting to talk about what had happened all those years ago. "She should have her potions now anyway. They will keep her sleeping until Snape can see her again."

Ronald found his way to the study and politely knocked on the door, still surprised that they went through the motions of civilized living.

"Mr. Weasley, please," Severus indicated a chair across from his desk and smirked when Ronald purposely took one of two wingback chairs that flanked the fireplace. "Before we go any further I want you to look at a chart of gates and tell me about the ones you have used."

"I may ask the same of you," Ronald said coldly.

"Yes and when we are done playing games we can open the doors and invite in the Inferi. As it is, I expect them shortly."

"What are you talking about Snape? This place is a bloody fortress."

"Whose main defence is fear and loathing of the unknown. However, the more contact we have with the creatures of this place, the less fearful they are and the more they are willing to attack us. I am afraid that after your recent foray in the forest they have learned that mere mortals live here. Now, it is only a mater of time. It seems your Miss Granger bled real blood. They smelled it and found they want more."

"Before we keep playing cat and mouse I need to know how you got here." Ron sat forward leaning his arms on his legs and looking up under his brows. "You can start by telling me where the fuck we are."

"I am surprised. Even a Weasley should recognise our surroundings. Is it really that hard to figure out?"

"I know you didn't build this place. You wouldn't have used Muggle inventions such as the generator, or the lamps."

"Perhaps. Perhaps if I had need for others that did not use wandless magic I would have thought to make the place liveable for them in my absence while they prepared for me."

"You wouldn't do that. You don't think you need anyone."

"Think, Mr. Weasley. The darkness, the Inferi, the…the trapping of dead souls, who do you know that is known by his…dark tastes?"

"Voldemort."

"Well done, I was sure you would get there."

"So, the snake, Nagini, she …bloody hell man, we saw you die. Harry went back to haul you into the Great Hall and you were gone."

"Not all is as it seems."

"I need to know how you got in here. We need to find a way out before Hermione…" Ronald swallowed, looking up at Snape's face, feeling like an idiot on the verge of tears.

Severus studied his face and with a curt nod joined him by the fire. They talked long into the night, Snape taking time to light the torches, taking Ronald with him and showing him the procedure for opening the valves to adjust the flow of gas, and how to adjust the wick. He made a point to demonstrate that the layer of light sand he had laid between the torches and the manor, which would clearly show any footprints, indicting the further encroachment of the creatures that lived in this world.

Ronald understood Snape was telling him the work that needed to be done every day in case he and Hermione could not leave. He saw the water purification system, the generator, every window and door and learned which ones were not only nailed shut but warded against intrusion.

"How long do you estimate the supplies will last," Ronald asked as they returned to the study.

"I will have to reconsider the daily rations," Snape said stiffly. "We no longer have fresh fish, not for some time now. I am sure you saw the creek on your way in, and the additional demand of yourself and Miss Granger will cut into our stores. Water, however, is not a problem as you know."

"How long," Ronald said frowning.

"Miss Granger will be moved up stairs. It is not safe any longer to be on the ground level at night. I also would prefer you and her to take rooms in the opposite wing from Mrs. Mulciber and myself. There is no point in all four of us meeting with unwelcomed intruders if the wards are breeched."

"I asked you a question."

"The food will long outlast the fuel."

"And without the fuel?"

Snape smirked and walked to the liquor cabinet, pouring two drinks and handing one to Ronald. "Without fuel you will wish you had starved to death. There are however, a few cases of whiskey in lowest level that may make the end quicker or at least more interesting."

"How much fuel is left? Since it doesn't matter on the number of people in residence it should be a simple answer."

Severus studied his face then leaned back in his chair. "A month. Perhaps a little more, if we conserve and only have cold food. As it is I have already disconnected the heating system."

"Do you have a map…something that can get us out of here?"

"Perhaps," Snape said looking over the rim of his glass. "I spent many years trying to discover the key only to find it belongs to a lock I am unable to open. You see, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Mulciber and I came to be here, as I explained, in a much different way than did you. We can only leave if called, and that, as you are aware is quite impossible since there is no one on the other side with the ability or indeed, the other half of our own mark. Although we are as free to move about, as much as you are free to move from place to place, we will not be allowed to leave."

"I take it she wears the mark also."

"Yes, Mr. Weasley." He set his glass down and scowled at Ronald. "I have a proposition to make you. One that will insure you and yours will be comfortable for a long time. As you know, my estate is not settled. Until I either return or inform my solicitors otherwise, it is mine for another two years. Since I have no chance of leaving here, I will transfer it to you. One and only one condition applies."

"And that is?"

"Mrs. Mulciber means…much to me. I want to see her safely out of here."

"You just said she…"

"I have a spell that when used with a certain potion will transfer her mark to my arm. It hardly matters if I have one or two, as long as she is free."

"What does she think of this idea?"

"She has no knowledge of it, nor will she until it is time for her to leave," Snape said, his face darkening. "She has given up the last ten years of her life for me, that is enough. Without magic, she would not be able to make it. However, with you she stands a chance. One she should take."

Ronald let his gaze fall to the floor. "I'll take her, Snape. Keep your money or give it to Constance. I think she has earned it. I'll think of another payment before I leave."

"I can take you to the top of the summit. It is still open to you and Miss Granger to return through, and I am hoping it is open to one more since Potter took a different option. Now that the only way there is by air, I can drop one of you at a time. From there however, you will be on you own. You will find the instructions of what I feel is the shortest way on my desk, as well as two other possibilities if you find one any of the gates destroyed since my last observance."

"How long has it been since you've been out there? I mean, it's possible that things have changed like they changed on top of the summit here."

"I have taken the liberty of assessing Miss Granger's memories and added her knowledge to what I already have so I am quit confident on the route you must take. Once you are through the entry to this world, I will close it. At that time, you may not return, as all monoliths in the outside circles will then close. However, I will do so in the hopes that you will not be followed. There are those that will sense your presence, and my failure to accompany you as an opportunity to move on to other worlds."

"Hermione is going to…"

"She will not know until it is time. I was quite surprised to see Mr. Black in her memories. Although I knew he had fallen in during the battle at the Ministry I have not personally seen him in these past ten years."

"Then you also know of his children?"

"Yes. I also saw a witch in Miss Granger's memory."

"Mara."

"Mara?" Snape's eyes locked on Ronald. "Did you hear her refer to herself this way?"

"Umm, no, it's her name. It's what Sirius calls her, so I guess she told him."

"Māte, or rather Mara Māte. Māte meaning mother, Mara… translates here to…of all…unless you believe in gods and goddesses."

"Mother of all?"

"An old myth. The more vocal of the inhabitants here talk of her and her world. Māte Land is said to be a land of peace and bliss. The last in a quest to perfection. You can see why even the most…evil…here would find that attractive. "

"I… no…sorry."

"The last hold out against evil. The last place in this foul place where there is hope. A place a creature such as Peter Kurten would delight in defiling."

"Tell me of Mara."

"She is a myth, a myth I am sure Sirius' witch was well aware of and for whatever her reasons took on the name," Snape laughed coldly. "Once Mr. Black leaves her, she shall be alone until her world, like what you see happening around you, is also destroyed."

"I can close it? The world they are in? Like you plan on closing this one?"

"You don't know what you ask. If you do that your friend Mr. Black is likewise cut off from rescue."

"You wanted to know my price for doing what you ask. This is it. Tell me how to destroy it."

Snape nodded in agreement to the price Ronald set, and then led him to the desk where they began to plot Ronald's escape. It was near day light when Snape finally put an end to it and demanded that they all retired to their quarters upstairs. Giving Hermione another potion and warm robe, they slowly ascended to the higher level of the manor.

Snape opened up the door to one of the bedrooms and stepped back to allow Ronald to enter. "Once you are in, you will forgive me for warding the door until morning."

Ronald turned on his heel and glared at Snape. "Then you will understand why I prefer to sleep…"

"Mr. Weasley," Severus sighed tiredly. "I assure you it is for your personal protection. I cannot guarantee that theses walls will not be breeched."

"So you plan to lock me in here with no weapons?"

"No, Mr. Weasley, I plan on warding against unwelcomed weapons finding you."

"Ron," Hermione said softly, shaking her head, already tired from the short walk.

"Fine," he quipped, slamming the door in Snape's face.

"You are welcomed," Snape sneered at the door. "Miss Granger, the next room is yours. The wards will be raised in twenty minutes. If you care to commiserate with Mr. Weasley you will need to so do now."

Hermione walked to the next room and opened the door, pleased when the flick of a switch turned on the lights. It's the little things, she thought, walking through the room smiling, opening a door on the opposite side to find the loo with a real bathtub.

Ronald walked in the open door, pulling open the cupboard and looking under the bed, then tugged at the window to make sure it wouldn't open. He turned back and saw Hermione watching him.

"Sorry, I guess you could have done that yourself," he said, sounding guilty. "I know you hate me to do things like this."

"No, I'm glad you did," she crossed to him and laid her hand on his arm. "Stay?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," he sighed deeply.

"I don't want to be alone," she admitted, then shook her head and smiled thinly. "You're right. You should go. I am sure we are quite safe here."

He lifted her chin and studied her face. "Let me grab a pillow and blanket from my room. That chair doesn't look too bad."

"I can take the chair if you want me too. I've been laying down for over a week, I could use the sit up time. I just…I don't want to be alone...I would like you to stay."

"Are you sure?"

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "If I wasn't I wouldn't have asked. Ron? Did you hear it? He put up a silencing spell when we first came in. Your room is on the same side, did you hear it?"

"We are okay in here. Bloody hell, he's been in here for over ten years I think he knows how to keep those things are out. Quite a system he has set up here."

"Ron? Come look. Whatever are the torches for?" She stood standing at a thick-glassed window, looking out to the grounds below.

He stood behind her seeing more lights wink out and pointed to the dark figure of Snape as he adjusted each flame lower.

"He is turning them back for the daylight…if you can call it that. He says it conserves fuel. He said we had twenty minutes," Ron sighed. "Let me grab my stuff. He must sleep during the day and stay up when it is darkest."

"What did you two talk about?"

"We compared the gates…he's been to most of them. When he saw what we had found, and what Sirius told us, he said there is a way that may work."

"Hurry and get your stuff," she smiled thinly. "We only have a few minutes left and I want to hear everything he said."

Once he had collected what little he needed he let himself back in her room insisting that she take the bed. When she objected, he pushed her to the mirror in the bath, forcing her to look at herself. Her eyes met his in the mirror as he studied her face. Letting her go he pushed a chair close to the bed, sat down, propped his legs up on the mattress and leaned back his head.

"That's it," he said, eyes closed, pointing to the bed. "You rest or I'll tie you to the headboard."

He heard her giggle and opened one eye, feeling his own grin cover his face. "I mean it. You still look like shite."

"I'm tired. It's as if I can't take a full breath," she admitted, flopping on the bed. "I've been up an hour and I feel like I've run a race. One I lost."

"He told me this was Voldemort's place. That he built it as a refuge," Ron said, seeing Hermione's face register her shocked disbelief. "He didn't even know it existed. It seems only a handful of the older Death Eaters did. Yaxley, people like that. Constance overheard something at the Malfoy Manor and used it to save Snape. Guess she heard something about coming here could remove magic, but didn't hear enough to understand what it really was. It worked. It removed the magic of Nagini's venom and then the wound could heal. "

"So, do you think this is where he hid? Between the wars?"

"It's older than that. Snape thinks he used it before the first war. That Voldemort came here to plan and study the Dark Arts before he was ready to start building his army. Sort of...his head quarters. You know, the same as he used the Malfoy place during the second. His library is here and it makes sense. We were always told he was in Albania but no one ever saw him…that is before Quirrell brought him back."

I don't get it. Why? Why the supplies, the fuel, the ….everything."

"I asked him that. Seems that after how the first war ended he stocked this place in case he needed to hide again. It makes sense, if Snape is right. He said it was no secret that above all else Riddle was afraid to die. That's why he made so many Horcruxes, not for power…but out of fear. Seems Snape found something that proves Voldemort believed in a myth that one of the worlds in this place makes you immortal. If he knew that…he could have been looking for it."

"That's nonsense."

"No…no it's not. Well…maybe that it really exists is, but there is such a legend. He is going to find the book and let you see it."

"That's like what Sirius said…about Mara," she said frowning.

"Yeah, well…I think this Mara has been in here so long she went nutters."

"That sounds almost logical and something Voldemort would want to be true," Hermione said, then laughed and lay down. "Logical. If anything in here was logical, we could find our way out. Voldemort had a way."

"Voldemort ruled the mark and never wrote down how it worked. Even if we could recreate the…the tattoo…we wouldn't know how to activate it," he said yawning. "We'll finish this in the morning. I'm going to trap him and make him talk." "

Ron watched her sleep, occasionally leaning forward to touch her shoulder when her dreams made her moan aloud and call out into the dark. He thought of what Snape had shown him and wondered if it would truly work. Constance would be strong enough, but now that he sat here, he was concerned that Hermione, who was tired after climbing a flight of stairs, could not keep up the pace.

Snape said the shortest route would take him three days. Three days if she could keep up. They would have to carry water, food, weapons and Hermione's potions. He thought of the weight of threes days worth of supplies, knowing if Hermione were stronger they could leave the food behind, but in her condition she would need it for strength. He thought of how many times she had needed to stop and rest on the last day of their trek and the fact that Snape had never made the trip without magic.

He could see her collar bone through translucent skin, the way her skin stretched tautly over her cheek bones and remembered their good natured jostling over a bag of sweets before the had left. He had never seen her so thin and frail looking and wondered how she had become like this so quickly. Laying his head back, he stared at the ceiling and began to make a list, a very short list of what she would need, not able to suppress a grin when he realized Hermione would be doing the same thing if she knew what he planned.

In the morning, or rather at the end of their sleeping time, the dropping of the wards woke them. Hermione rushed to the window to look down at the grounds, seeing Severus making his rounds to turn on the torches. Ronald headed for the loo, calling out to her to look in the cupboard. Puzzled she threw open the door and found clothing where none had been the night before. Calling back to Ronald, she heard his laughter.

"I guess I am being told to bathe and shave. Everything I need is here and you have a choice of shampoos and some of that stuff you smear on your face."

"So they know you spent the night."

"Does that bother you?"

"No," Hermione sighed, "I just feel like we are living in a fish bowl here."

"Come jump in the shower while I shave and try to hack some of this hair off." Ronald eyed a pair of scissors and razor suspiciously. "I look like a wild man."

"You look good, in a rough sort of way," she said, leaning against the loo's doorframe. "I think I like it."

"You do?" He grinned, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "I've never done this without magic. You may want to give me a kiss goodbye before I slit my own throat."

"I may just do that," she said softly, lowering her gaze to the floor.

He felt his pulse pick up, recognizing something in her voice he had not heard for a long time. "Care to share a shower?"

"Ron…" she whispered looking up as he crossed over to her.

"Don't. It's okay if you don't want to." He tipped up her chin and tried to grin. "Can't blame me for trying."

She studied his face and saw the obvious pain in his eyes. Reaching up she cupped his face in her hands. "I'd like that."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"I love you."

"I know. Shave later" she said as he gathered her into his arms holding her so tightly she was at first alarmed at his passion, then melted into him, returning his kiss with as much fervour as his own, feeling a familiarity in his arms that she craved.

He kept his arms around her as he stepped away from the door, gently turned and walked her backwards toward the shower. Once there he reached around her and turned on the water, waiting until he had adjusted the temperature before dropping his boxers and tugging her already soaking nightgown over her head. Hermione pushed her knickers down, stepping out of them as they fell to the floor and Ronald fisted her hair, pulling her head back and kissing down her neck.

She knew he tried to go slow, tried to place kisses along her throat, as he knew she liked, tried to gently caress her back before he pushed her against the cold tiles and lifted one of her legs to his waist. She gasped at the suddenness that was so unlike him, so unlike him not to go slow and wait for her to signal that she was ready. Hearing him gasp out her name as she took him in, she closed her eyes and pushed her head back into the tiles as he muttered her name. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled up, lifting her hips and changing his angle, urging him to go faster, deeper, harder. She plead with him to hurry and knew he was already slipping over the edge as her finger nails dug into his back, pulling him closer, not wanting to let go. With no warning, she felt a wash of release flood over her, and called out his name in a rasp of tears and longing, feeling the stress of the last weeks leave her and realized the only thing of importance was in her arms.

"Gods," he sighed, holding her up, fighting to steady his own breath and keep his knees from buckling. "You were bloody brilliant."

"I've missed this," she whispered, turning her head just enough to kiss his neck, still breathless from her excretions. "You've always…"

"Don't say it," he said with a grin. "I know I'll live to regret saying this but quite frankly I couldn't stop. I couldn't. I needed you, Hermione. You have no idea how much I needed you."

"What I was going to say is that you always make it good." Her eyes welled with tears as he lowered her to the floor holding her until she indicated that she could stand on her own but kept his arms around her.

"It's because I love you. Always have and always will," he said simply, cupping her face and kissing her tenderly. "Now, turn around. Your hair…rather what is left of it is a mess. I plan on washing you and doing this again, only slower and not in here."

"Ron?" She reached up and laid her palm on his cheek. "Can we…try again? Try to…you know…be together? Or have we ruined everything?"

"Why do you think I told Harry I would come? Do you really think it was because I wanted you to humiliate me? Or cause me more pain than I already felt? Hermione, I am here because I thought it would give me a chance to see you again…to get you back. Of course, I want to try again. Bloody hell, it's why I am here."

A/N: Karl Grobmann (aka: Grossmann) and Peter Kurten were real serial killers of the worse kind. I have used them here, as they seemed to fit. Koschei is from old Slavic Mythology and mentioned by JKR as the basis of her idea for the Inferi.