A/N: Thank you so much to my fabulous beta, anogete, for all of her help and support. I want to send some extra special hugs and thanks to my readers and reviewers; I am so flattered by the positive response I have received!
Obligatory: None of these things belong to me; they all belong to JKR. I just like to have a bit of fun with them, and no profit is desired.
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"What did you forget about the magic of the Animus Redimio?" Hermione's words cut through the silence of Severus' thoughts like a knife.
"What?" he asked as he tensed at her words, realizing that she had heard his thoughts.
When she only responded with a soft murmur, he relaxed. "Are you awake, Hermione?"
Nothing.
He sighed, shifted away from her so as not to disturb her, grabbed his trousers and white shirt from the floor, and made to the lab to prepare the ingredients to make a new batch of the Animus Redimio potion. This would be the strongest possible brew for the potion: Hermione had willingly given her blood to another innocent, and they had reached completion together.
And, most importantly, she had done it with the man with whom she shared a bond, the magical bond of the Animus Redimio enchantment.
He had tried to deny it for quite some time, but considering the outburst of magic during the culmination of their lovemaking, he knew that it must be true. Worse, however, was that somehow the Dark Lord knew about it as well and was trying to use it to his advantage. If the Dark Lord knew about the bond, if he returned to him, he would certainly be killed immediately for having already spilled the most powerful blood known to wizard kind.
He had no choice now. Regardless of his indecision, he could not let the blood go to waste. He would have to give Hermione the Animus Redimio and send her back where she belonged: Hogwarts.
But what would he do? Where would he go? Would he go with her? Would he risk it? He didn't want to be taken prisoner, but he also knew that there were consequences to sending her off alone.
"Consequences be damned," he mumbled to himself as he chopped up the valerian root. "I don't really believe in any of this Animus Redimio rubbish, do I?"
He continued preparing the ingredients for another hour. He knew that Hermione needed her rest, but there would be time enough for rest later. He needed her help to make the potion, and time was not on their side if the Dark Lord really was readying the Death Eaters for their ultimate offensive.
He almost couldn't believe that, in the span of a day, he had gone from a faithful servant to the Dark Lord to a man on the run from him, aiding and abetting saving Harry Potter from certain death. What was going on with him? Was his resolve really so weak that the coaxing and caressing of a teenager was able to convince him that he should return his loyalties to the Order? Or had he just been fooling himself all of this time that he was really on the side of the Dark Lord?
Standing in the bedroom, looking at Hermione's naked body twisted in his sheets, he tried to shake himself out of what he thought must be a dream. She was so peaceful, her face glowing with pleasure. Had he done that to her? Had he really put that look of unimaginable bliss on her features? Him, Severus Snape, crooked-nose bat of the dungeons? It was almost too ridiculous to believe. And yet, the honesty emanating from her could hardly be ignored. The purpose for her entrance into his life at this point could hardly be ignored.
Not daring to dwell on those thoughts any longer, he glided over to the bed and placed a firm hand on Hermione's arm, giving her a gentle shake.
She stirred and looked up at him with a small smile. "Have I slept long?" she asked, suddenly becoming alarmed.
"No, but there isn't a minute to waste. Get dressed quickly so that we can make the potion and send you off." Not wishing to see more of her bared skin, he abruptly exited the room and made for the lab.
Moments later, she appeared before him, not basking in the afterglow of lovemaking or saddened by his command, but coolly confident. He had expected a hundred different reactions to this awkward encounter, but he got none of them. She knew what needed to be done, and she was going to do it.
Without speaking another word to each other, they faced the several long hours of brewing that the Animus Redimio required. Severus was amazed that he no longer needed to tell her what to do next. She was always a step ahead of him, handing him vials and tools as though she were one with his mind.
He chuckled to himself. As though she were one with his mind? She practically was his mind now. There was no changing what they had done, and the magic they had awakened.
After the final step of the brewing, they stared at each other from across the table as the potion simmered its way to completion.
"What happens now?" Hermione asked, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.
"Once we have bottled this, you must return to Hogwarts. I cannot say for sure when the Dark Lord will strike, but I know that he will be after Potter. You must find him and come up with a strategy." He motioned for her to return to the sitting room where they sat on opposite ends of the sofa.
Hermione relaxed into the cushions and sighed. "I hope that he's still there. I hope that Ron and Remus were able to keep him under control and safe in the castle. I have been gone for so long, and so much could have happened." She paused before looking into his eyes. "What will you do?"
"That does not matter. You cannot worry about me now. You have a very important part to play in this mess, and it has only just begun." Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to calm the torrent of thoughts in his mind.
"But you're in great danger. Won't you come with me where you'll be safe?" Her eyes pleaded with him.
"I will not be safe at Hogwarts. I know you believe that you can convince them that I am innocent, but to them, you are only a girl. They didn't believe you when you said that Black was innocent, and they will certainly not believe you if you say that I am. I have committed too many sins to think that it will be that easy."
"But we need you. Whatever you may think, you are still a very powerful wizard who can help us when the final confrontation comes." Hermione looked into her lap and fidgeted uncomfortably.
"I need some time right now. Rest assured that I will be quite safe here." He stood and paced in front of the sofa.
Hermione watched him for a few moments before speaking again. "You're still not sure if you've made the right decision, are you?"
Her sad words stilled his progress about the room, and he turned and looked at her for several pregnant moments. "You have to go. We need to bottle the potion."
He could hear her take a deep breath before he felt her presence in the lab with him, waiting obediently to take vials from him. He didn't dare turn around to look at her as he put on the gloves and measured out ten vials of the potion, placed them in a secure box, and then put the box in a black tote bag.
Finally, he turned to her and handed her the bag. "This will keep Potter's soul bound to him if he is cursed by the Dark Lord. We can only hope that this mess is resolved soon so that we may all be done with the indecision and uncertainty."
He allowed Hermione to consider his words for a moment before placing a delicate hand on her shoulder and leading her out of the room.
"Apparate right outside of the school gates and run to the castle as quickly as you can. There is no way to know who may attempt to pick up your path." His words came out as more of a command than he had intended.
Standing at the front door of the shabby safe house, Hermione stood and looked at him with tears in her shimmering brown eyes. "Are you sure that you'll be safe here?"
"Do not worry about me, Hermione, please. Go back to where you belong." He looked away from her insistent gaze.
"I'm not sure where I belong now, Severus. I do know one thing: when this is all over, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I will find you. You can hide from everyone else, but you cannot hide from me."
As she Disapparated away, the relief he had found in his chest for a few short hours faded away, and the dull ache with which he had been plagued for months returned.
--
Despite her internal conflict about leaving Severus alone, Hermione found that she had never been so happy to see the gates of Hogwarts. She was finally free and back to the place she had called home for nearly seven years, and she was relieved to see that it still stood.
She did as Severus instructed at first, running from the Apparation point to the gates, but as soon as she put her hand on the entrance, she stilled. What had changed since she had been kidnapped? Had her disappearance caused Harry to do something brash? Had his progress towards evil become irreversible? Would they have realized that she had been kidnapped, or would they find the idea that anyone could be taken from Hogwarts so preposterous that they would assume she had just abandoned them?
Finally, she unlatched the gate and stepped onto the school grounds. She took long strides towards the front door, but a shift in the winds made her stop her journey. She could almost feel a magical force thrumming through her veins as the winds whipped around her.
"What sort of magic is this?" she muttered to the air.
"Yours, my dear. I knew you could do it," came a familiar voice from next to her.
Had her nerves not been keeping her mind running at a mile a minute since she had left Severus, she might have passed out from shock right on the grass.
"P-P-Professor Dumbledore?"
"In the flesh, Miss Granger." His eyes twinkled at her, and she saw that he looked at healthy as she had ever seen him, his hand restored and the care-worn lines erased from his brow.
"What did I do?" she asked, still bewildered.
"I would think that was quite obvious. You brought me back to life." He chuckled at her shocked expression. "Come. I think there are some things we need to discuss in private before we shock the castle with our returns."
Hermione slowly followed Dumbledore towards the greenhouses. They stepped inside greenhouse four, and Dumbledore locked and warded the door. "I don't want us to be disturbed."
"How is this possible?" Hermione burst out, her wits returning to her.
"Ahh, how indeed," he replied, conjuring two armchairs and motioning for Hermione to sit down. "That is a very long story. First you should know that you have made it possible, and I thank you for that."
"How on earth did I do it? I haven't done anything!"
Dumbledore chuckled with great glee. "Oh, but you have. I assume that by now, you are quite familiar with the Animus Redimio potion?"
Hermione motioned towards the tote bag in her lap. "Indeed. Quite familiar."
"What you may not be as familiar with is the Animus Redimio enchantment, am I right?"
She returned to her bewildered expression. "Are they related? Does the enchantment do the same thing as the potion? Was all of this necessary?" she asked, holding up the bag.
"They are related, but they refer to different things. The potion binds a person's soul to his body. The enchantment binds two souls together. It is an incredibly rare occurrence, and yet two examples of it are sitting right here in this greenhouse." He looked around with awe at the magical plants surrounding them.
Hermione followed his gaze. "Where?"
"Right here, of course! You and me."
She furrowed her brow. "We are bound together?"
He chuckled again. "No, no, nothing like that. I am bound to the castle, and you are bound to Severus."
It was as though the entire weight of the world suddenly fell onto Hermione's shoulders. "Did you just say that I am bound to Severus?"
"Perhaps I should back up a bit. You see, magic is a living, breathing organism. It is not simply some energy field that gives witches and wizards their powers; it is a conscious force, a force of nature that can give and take away, bless and curse, create and destroy. It does what it feels is necessary to keep itself going."
Hermione considered his words. "Is that why children born of Muggles sometimes have the ability to do magic?"
"Precisely." He appeared pleased with himself. "Magic finds children with the strength to withstand the forces of its powers and bestows a gift upon them. The opposite holds true for Squibs: magic does not wish to see itself wielded through a particular person, so it prevents that person from absorbing the power from his parents.
"However, magic gives other gifts. It can give certain people certain abilities or give them soul mates. Do you follow?"
"I think so," Hermione replied. "So I am Severus' soul mate?"
"After a fashion, yes. Severus was born into a difficult life, but with great powers. Magic gave him great powers that he may use them to forward the cause of magic in our world. However, he has neglected the most important magic, one that could bring him to his full magical potential. I do not think you need me to tell you what that is?" He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Hermione.
"Love," she answered evenly.
"Precisely, my dear. Without the use of his heart, he will never have the mastery over his powers that he was intended to have. To that end, someone was brought into our world to see that his heart was kept alive, if you will, for him. Someone who could make him use his heart that he might be able to do the good that he was meant to do."
Hermione's eyes grew wide and somewhat angry. "So I was given magic for the sole purpose of awakening Severus' heart? I'm just some tool of magic?"
"We are all just tools of magic, Hermione." He used his serene gaze to bring Hermione back to a state of calm. "Does that upset you?"
"I'm not sure, really. Don't I have any say in this?"
"The magic would not be activated if the two of you didn't want what the other could provide. In a sense, you did have a say, because you came to realize that Severus embodied the only kind of man who could ever make you happy. I hope that I am not wrong in assuming that you have developed feelings for him?" He looked at her over his spectacles with intense curiosity.
"I… I have, but hearing you say that makes me wonder if I'm really feeling them, or if magic is making me." She frowned and looked into her lap.
"Do not look at it that way, Hermione. You may have been matched by magic, but it is what your heart desires that makes the enchantment come to life. Now that you have awakened it, however, it cannot be denied. You have sealed the bond between you, if I am correct in assuming that the blood of your innocence is an ingredient in those vials?"
Hermione blushed with discomfort and offered no other reply.
"Do not be ashamed, Hermione. Others may not understand it, but I do. You pursued your bond not only to save Severus, but also to save your friend. It is nothing to feel sorry about." He reached out and patted her hand.
"But will it save Severus, sir?" She looked back at him with tears in her eyes.
"Only he could answer that for certain, but I believe his heart will not allow him to walk away from you easily. He will return to you because he must. He may not know it yet, but he loves you."
"He will not like that," Hermione stated evenly.
"He will not have a choice."
Hermione chuckled. "I know. That's the point. Severus is an angry man, as I am sure you know, and he needs desperately to be able to make his own decisions about where he stands now. If he knows that even magic is conspiring to rule his life, he will run as far away from me as he can."
"I know all of this, my dear, and that will be his choice to make. From here, even I cannot say for certain what he will do. If he knows what is good for him, however, he will see that allowing the bond into his heart will be the only thing that gives him the strength to choose what he wants to do with his life."
Hermione sighed. "I would of course like to discuss this with you further later, but for now, perhaps we could discuss your bond and what it has to do with me?"
"Of course, my dear. You see, I am bound to the soul of Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts has a soul?" Hermione wrinkled her nose in disbelief.
"Naturally. The four founders made this place as much of a living thing as they were. Their very essences reside inside the walls of the castle, and I am bound to them much as you are to Severus. That bond rests on one principle, and one principle alone: I can never leave here so long as there are still those here loyal to me who need me." He smoothed out the wrinkles in his lavender robes.
Hermione began putting all of the pieces together. "That's why you let Severus kill you. You knew that we still needed you, so there was no way that you could die."
"Precisely. However, things didn't exactly go as I had planned. Apparently, loyalty was a bit too much to ask for." His eyes suddenly fell.
Hermione's eyes lit up. "Loyalty to you would mean believing that you were right in trusting Severus. As soon as everyone started believing that Severus was evil, they were no longer loyal to you."
"Yes." His expression became more distressed. "When I ordered Severus to kill me, I assured him that someone, Minerva at least, would understand that it was the right thing to do to save him and me. However, her inability to understand the subtleties of the situation has ensured that, these many months, I have been trapped in the walls of the castle as nothing more than a wraith."
"So your spirit really was talking to me in my dreams? I wasn't just making all of it up?"
"No, my dear, you weren't making it up. I knew that if anyone was able to come to the realization that Severus really had been on our side, it had to be the one who was bound to him. My plan began to fall apart, however, when you were kidnapped." His eyes dimmed with a touch of pity. "It was not my intention for you to be put in danger."
"How did the Death Eaters get me from right inside Hogwarts?" Hermione waited impatiently for the answer to the question that had been plaguing her for months.
"The Death Eaters have been in Hogwarts, Hermione, or rather one has been. Your dear Professor Caveo is not at all who he appears to be." He shook his head. "Minerva should know better than to call on the assistance of a stranger in these difficult times."
"Caveo?" Hermione burst out with disbelief. "Professor Caveo is a Death Eater?"
"Well, strictly speaking, Eli Caveo is not a Death Eater. The real Eli Caveo is a rather unremarkable home schooled wizard from Leeds. The man you know to be Eli Caveo is really Andreas Prince."
Hermione's expression turned to one of horror. "Prince? As in Eileen Prince?"
"The same. He is Severus' second cousin, so I can only assume that it is the blood he shares with Severus that allowed him to detect your bond. He was a clever enough Potions master to realize that the blood he could obtain from your first encounter with Severus would be enough to make a potion to make Tom Riddle immortal even without the Horcruxes. I do not even think he came to Hogwarts with the intention of kidnapping you. Rather, I believe he was placed here as a spy and a leader for the children of Death Eaters still living in the castle. When he realized what he could do with his new assistant, I believe that he saw a way to further his position in the Death Eater circle."
"All those dark potions he and I made together were for Voldemort, weren't they? Severus wasn't the one making potions for the Death Eaters at all. They were using him all this time to get the recipe for the Animus Redimio, and discovering that he and I shared the bond was just a happy accident." Hermione frowned deeply.
"That would seem to be the most likely explanation. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, Andreas has been gone since last week. He must have been recalled to keep an eye on what Severus would be doing to prepare to make the Animus Discindium." Albus made to stand up. "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen soon. We still have much to discuss later, my dear, but for now, we need to go give Minerva a stroke."
Hermione followed Dumbledore out of the greenhouse and back towards the castle.
The familiar ache in her stomach returned.