A Little Like Death

by Nom de Plume1

She isn't used to this kind of magic. It is dark magic, magic that threatens her very existence. Yet it's the only way to capture a boy, who despite his silvery blond hair, is as dark as the magic himself, and doomed to become the Dark Lord's creature.

15. A Place of Forgetting

Chapter 15: A Place of Forgetting

"… put me away," Hermione said.

Her request startled them: Dumbledore, looking aged beyond even his estimable years, his silvery-white beard steeped in gore; and Draco, hollow-eyed in his bloodstained shirt. Dumbledore looked heavenward, steely blue eyes probing, searching for permission from a higher authority if one did in fact exist. He sighed and closed his eyes.

At last, Dumbledore nodded.

OOO

It was wrong, all of it, somehow. Draco couldn't find her. He couldn't find Snape. And then the sounds, faint, gruesome, coming from rooms which he knew existed—must exist in this ratty little house, Spinner's End—but couldn't find.

The stairs. The fucking stairs. It was useless. He'd climbed them again and again only to wind up back at the bottom, at the start. They led nowhere, endless.

He was trapped in this dingy room, walls lined with books, worn armchairs, filthy antimacassars; the butt-ends of life as told by neglected furniture and threadbare carpet.

The mark on his arm roared. It throbbed to life, shuddering on his skin. Draco staggered in shock, uncertain as to what it meant. Was he being summoned or was the serpent on his flesh simply howling in indignation with the same fettered fury that Draco felt?

He would not let it claim him. He would not. So he knelt by the hearth and did the unthinkable.

OOO

The headmaster's back was to the flames when they changed color. The brilliant green fire cast an eerie shadow over the head's office, bathing the silvery instruments which huffed and puffed on their spindly-legged tables in a phosphorescent glow.

Albus Dumbledore straightened and turned toward the hearth. Draco thought that he had done so rather guiltily, as if he'd been caught out in the middle of something potentially embarrassing. It wasn't until Draco spotted the surreptitious motion of the headmaster's jaw that he realized he'd interrupted Dumbledore in the midst of eating candy.

Dumbledore nodded in greeting, eyes surprisingly calm, as if it were not at all unusual to see Draco Malfoy's head in his fireplace in the dead of night.

"Mr. Malfoy," he said, rolling the offending candy into his cheek. Draco was momentarily taken aback. The greatest wizard of his generation, the one he'd been tasked to kill, had been caught eating candy in his office in the middle of the night.

"Headmaster," Draco began, "forgive the interruption, but something is wrong here."

"Where is here, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Spinner's End. Have you been—you don't—it's Snape's house, sir. If you know where it is."

"I'm quite familiar with it, actually, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco squinted through the flames at the headmaster. He got the distinct impression that Dumbledore was toying with him; that his blue eyes were twinkling in the dark confines of his office.

"What is it that's wrong, Draco?"

"I don't know, sir. It's… it's Snape and Hermio—Miss Granger. I don't know, but I think you should… I can't find them in the house, but I can hear things."

Dumbledore leaned forward toward the flames, regarding Draco intently. There was something about the unswerving strength of his stare, which left the young Death Eater feeling curiously exposed and surprisingly frightened. Draco had stood in the presence of the Dark Lord, felt Voldemort insinuate himself into his very flesh, and still that terror paled in comparison to this. Dumbledore's eyes burned him with the intent to strip away all else except the truth.

Could he know? Draco thought suddenly. Was it possible that Dumbledore knew he'd been singled out by the Dark Lord to kill him? Draco hung his head, no longer able to meet the headmaster's gaze. If Dumbledore knew, there was no way he would come, no way that he would ever agree to help him. Draco's breath caught as he realized what it was that he wanted. He wanted—he needed help.

"It's not what you think," Draco said clumsily. "It's not a… trap."

"A trap?" Dumbledore asked, his face impassive. "A trap for whom?"

"For you," Draco answered, still unable to look at the elder wizard.

"Are you certain it isn't a trap for you, Draco?"

"I… no, I'm not certain of anything."

There was a sudden rush of air. The green flames whisked upwards and Draco stumbled back from the fireplace in Spinner's End. Albus Dumbledore stepped out of the hearth in front of him, brushing soot from his robes.

"You say you can't find them?" the headmaster asked, continuing the conversation as if he hadn't just magicked his way into Snape's home in less than an instant.

"Yes, but I can hear something and the stairs won't let me—"

"—Ah, yes," Dumbledore crossed to the enchanted staircase. "Tessla stairs, after Thaddeus Tessla, 14th century. They are merely doing what Snape has asked of them, rendering certain rooms unplottable, in a sense, to those who haven't permission to enter them."

"How do we—?"

"—You'll recall from fourth year Charms that such security measures are often protected by a password of sorts." Dumbledore thought a moment and then stepped onto the first stair. "Lily," he said simply. The stairs seemed to groan before they split off in several different directions at once. There were now several flights branching from the central staircase, some ascending, others descending, each leading to a door or hallway; all possible paths plotted at once.

Dumbledore cocked his head, listening intently. There was quiet sobbing coming from behind a door at the top of a flight of stairs that arced to his left. The headmaster drew his wand and took the stairs two at a time, surprisingly agile for a man of his age. Draco followed hard at his heels.

With the slightest twist of Dumbledore's wand, the door flew open before they reached the threshold. Even as Draco came to the top of the stairs the smell was upon him, thick, cottony, metallic. It caught in the back of his throat, staggering his breath; the warm, wet smell of blood. Dumbledore came to a hard stop in the doorway, so quickly that Draco ran into him. He stumbled back, then craned his neck to peer over the headmaster's shoulder. That's when he saw her on her knees, head bowed, sobbing in the corner of the room.

"Hermione!" Draco said. He pushed past Dumbledore and would have run to her, if it hadn't been for the invisible barrier quickly cast by the headmaster. Again, he felt himself repelled and he staggered back in time to see Hermione raise her head, dry-eyed, and sling a jet of brilliant green light directly at Dumbledore.

"Avada Kadavra!"

The spell ricocheted off of Dumbledore's shield and slammed into the opposite wall, burning a whole through plaster and wood. Dumbledore dropped the barrier and cast a Stunning Spell, which hit Hermione square in the chest. She collapsed, dropping noisily to the floor.

Draco stood panting, his wand drawn, looking from Hermione to the headmaster and back again. In the midst of his confusion, he saw Dumbledore's lips move. The sound seemed to reach him moments later, or perhaps it was then that the older wizard's meaning became clear.

"See to Snape!" Dumbledore said, his wand trained on Hermione, who lay unmoving on the floor.

Draco noticed Snape for the first time, the obvious source of the blood he'd smelled earlier. The young Death Eater stumbled toward the bed, feet half reluctant as he began to piece together what must have occurred. He knelt on the bed beside the former Potions Master, who lay flat on his back covered in blood. Snape's nightshirt was soaked through, so it was hard to tell where the blood was coming from, or if, in fact, blood still flowed. Draco grasped the wet fabric and ripped it down the front, searching for a wound. As he moved the shirt aside, his fingers snagged in mangled flesh, slipped lower than should have been possible had Snape's chest cavity maintained its integrity. The professor's eyes stood open, apparently lifeless in their sockets, so Draco could not understand how the tissue beneath his fingers seemed to flutter all of a sudden. He sprang back from the bed, felt his gorge rise. It took everything in him not to empty the contents of his stomach all over the floor.

"He's dead! He has to be, but he moved, it moved, his chest!" Draco said in a panic. Cold sweat ran down his face and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, hoping to ward off nausea as his breath came heavy and uneasy.

"Guard her," Dumbledore said. He cast another shield charm and crossed to the bed. Draco couldn't see the barrier but he felt it as it whisked past him, stirring his hair before it fell into place. Hermione remained immobile, lying on her stomach, her face turned into the floor.

Dumbledore leaned over Snape, seeing at first an all too sad and familiar sight; it looked like death, a lot like death. Yet there was something else; a twitch, a hum, an energy where there should have been none.

"It's the vow," Dumbledore said, astonished.

"What vow?" Draco asked, at the limits of his very understanding. What possible bloody fucking vow? he wanted to scream.

"She is pushing—" Dumbledore said, before he broke off. "Quickly, Draco, I will hold the shield charm, you must be my hands."

OOO

The stone cell was round, its walls damp, bare, covered in mold, moss, and other unsightly fungus. It was a small space, no more than two meters in diameter, though hundreds of meters below ground, it being the terminus of a long vertical shaft. Narcissa hadn't known of its existence until Lucius had pushed her down the shaft.

The fall alone could have killed her, but at the last moment something had drawn her up short, as if an invisible elastic thread had reached the limit of its extension and snapped back to prevent her collision with the rough stone floor. Whether it had been a spell cast by Lucius, or a function of the cell itself she had no way of knowing. She did know, however, that it was apparently the only magic permitted in this space. Her attempts to Apparate out had been squelched by the almost palpable presence of incarceration wards.

The cell had no doors or windows, confirming her suspicion that she'd stumbled onto—or rather—she'd been pushed into an oubliette. Apparently the manor had one after all; a place of forgetting, a place where one's enemies were dumped, left to rot and ultimately forgotten.

A curious draft licked across the cell sending a chill through her. The current of air told her that there must be access to this place somehow, a hidden door or tunnel; how else would they collect the bones?

A quick glance in the dim light provided the answer. They had never collected the bones. They littered the floor around her, crunched beneath her feet. Of course, Lucius would never collect the bones, never with his own hands touch the decaying matter of his enemies. It would be the province of the house elves and, as chatelaine of Malfoy Manor, her duty to instruct them. If she didn't instruct them, it wouldn't be done and since she hadn't known of the oubliette, it hadn't been done. Henceforth, she would instruct them to collect the bones, provided she lived and they weren't her bones which needed collecting.

Narcissa took a deep breath, trying to quell the panic rising in her throat. No one knew she was here. No one except Lucius. She was alone, truly alone, though she could sense the dungeons around her; she, forgotten, but still connected somehow to the house, the manor. She could feel its age, each venerable room; its corridors crawling with servants; its skin of plaster, marble and stone breathing; its many hearths sighing; Lucius pacing in his study; the Dark Lord's presence throbbing, radiating from the ballroom. It could drive her to madness, feeling the manor and its inhabitants as she did and knowing that she was forgotten.

It was a fitting punishment for betrayal, and perhaps she had betrayed Lucius. Perhaps making the Unbreakable Vow with another man, not one's husband, while not illegal and not necessarily immoral, was suspect. Perhaps, though the vow itself did not constitute infidelity, using that vow, pushing magic through it to sustain the life of the vow holder because she loved him—that was indeed a betrayal. That was what made her faithless. Lucius didn't even know that she'd made the vow with Severus. He'd only heard her speak his name in a way that she should not have. But Lucius knew her. He was her husband. He could read her and, though she didn't credit him with it, he could feel. He could feel the nature of something wrong. He could feel their marriage coming apart at the seams.

OOO

It was all he could do to keep from vomiting; his hands stacked above the wound, holding the torn shreds of flesh together while Dumbledore hummed softly under his breath, whispering words, all the while stirring his wand in tight circles as it glowed from red to white to deepest black. Draco turned his eyes to the headmaster, hoping to quiet his stomach. He wondered, not for the first time, if the old wizard were crazy.

Then he felt it, a peculiar pinching at his ears. He realized that Dumbledore's wand was emitting a high pitched whine, which grated against his eardrums.

"Slide your hands apart, Draco, but leave your thumbs and forefingers touching so that they form a triangle around the wound. Now, this next is very important. He may move, but I'll need you to hold him down."

"Hold him down? Isn't he dead?"

"Mostly, but not quite."

Draco meant to groan, but the sound devolved into a guttural cry of delirium. This was madness. He couldn't possibly grasp the distinction between mostly dead and dead. Whatever could that mean? That Snape was not dead? That he was undead, an Inferi or, worse yet, a vampire? Tears of frustration and confusion began to well in his eyes. He blinked them back and ducked his head to his sleeve, scrubbing his closed lids against it.

"Steady, Draco," Dumbledore said softly. The sound of the headmaster's voice pulled Draco's head up. He pressed his hands firmly against Snape's chest and nodded. Dumbledore inclined his head in return, a gesture of respect. Then he winked.

Draco barely had time for the cheeky move to register before Dumbledore swiftly drove his wand into the wound. The wand's humming kicked down a notch, cycling at a lower frequency as miraculously the flesh around it began to knit. It bubbled and congealed; thin bloody filaments streaking across the punctured tissue, binding it together with the wand in its midst.

"Tricky business," Dumbledore uttered, as flesh filled the cavity and bone joined anew, shoring up the structure of Snape's chest. The wound was nearly filled and Dumbledore began to withdraw the wand, but the new flesh clung to it, impeding his progress. The headmaster wrapped both hands around the hilt and heaved, but the tissue resisted, even sucked the wand forward several centimeters into Snape's body.

Then a number of things happened at once. Dumbledore pulled his wand again and Snape's body sprang forward with it, screaming. Focus returned to Snape's once lifeless black eyes and his cold hands flew to the wand which protruded from his chest. He would not stop screaming.

"Hold him!" Dumbledore said. Draco pushed against Snape's chest, driving him down onto his back. Snape's hands closed around Dumbledore's and together the two of them tore the wand from his flesh. Blood trickled from the void left by the wand, but it soon disappeared as the remaining layers of dermis and epidermis coagulated, sealing the barrier of skin once more.

Snape's screams dissolved into a wet, coughing sound. There was blood on his lips and it spattered Draco's shirt as he began to choke.

"Turn him," Dumbledore ordered.

They rolled Snape onto his side and watched as he turned his face into the soiled, twisted, sheets and coughed blood into the rucked up fabric.

It was several minutes before the coughing subsided and several more before they realized that the sounds coming from Snape's throat were actual words.

Draco sat shaking on the edge of the bed, while Dumbledore lowered his head to Snape's mouth.

"Curse you… curse you," he was saying, pushing vitriol through his raw throat.

"I am sure I do not deserve your curses, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly.

"Curse you," Snape said again, "for bringing me back."

"I assure you that I would have been content to see you at peace at last, old friend. It was she who insisted. You have only her to blame for keeping you twined to this life."

Snape's lips stopped working. They seemed to harden into a grim rictus of pain before he forced them into motion once again.

"Curse you," he said for the second to last time. "Curse you, Narcissa."

OOO

It had been several hours since Draco and Dumbledore had managed to resurrect Snape, and although the former Potions Master was now mostly alive, he was also partly feverish and he was raving. The fever was not unusual for a body as shabbily treated as Snape's, having recently undergone trauma the likes of which most had never known. The raving was another story. It could not be blamed on the fever, nor explained as a physical symptom of recent trauma. It was the intersection of one man's madness and anger and it issued stridently from Snape's hoarse throat.

"What does she want from me? What does Narcissa want? That woman called me back from death to honor a vow; a vow that, if broken, will kill me just the same! She asks too much! All of you ask too much!" Snape howled.

"You're talking about my mum," Draco said. The statement was more for himself than for anyone else in the room. He stated it as fact, hoping that it would help him to understand how his mother had gone and made the Unbreakable Vow with Snape and had somehow, through that vow, managed to keep the spark of life in him and draw him back from the unknowable.

Dumbledore nodded, confirming Draco's words, though they hadn't been posed as a question. He turned his eyes to Draco and bowed his head briefly, apologetically it seemed, before he turned back to Snape.

"Has it occurred to you that perhaps Narcissa loves you?" Dumbledore asked. "It is a powerful magic, love."

"So powerful it strips a dying man of his dying wish?" Snape scrabbled amidst the bloodstained sheets of his bed and pulled himself up to sitting. "You will not grant me death as a reward for my service in this life? For my sacrifice? Shall I tell you what I saw beyond the veil? Shall I tell you who I saw? Who welcomed me at last?"

"Severus," Dumbledore cautioned.

"I cannot. I cannot keep caring for these women… their sons, their precious sons. I am not a father. I am childless. I have no progeny. It was not to be. I have no sons."

"But you have a daughter." The voice that spoke had been silent a long while. It was soft, weary and distinctly feminine. It was Hermione's voice. "You have a daughter," she said again. "You made her, Imogene." She was still on the floor, on her back where she'd fallen after she'd been hit by Dumbledore's spell. Slowly, gingerly, she rolled onto her side and pushed herself up to sitting.

Dumbledore raised his wand, his instinct telling him to put a barrier between them, but one look at Hermione and he lowered his wand to his side. "I believe Miss Granger is speaking figuratively, though she does indeed have a point, Severus," Dumbledore said. The headmaster studied her intently. "You are Miss Granger, are you not?"

"Yes," Hermione said slowly, "but I'm not sure for how long. There's a pattern, when she comes, a way that she interferes, but I can't quite figure it. I need time. With her. I need time, but I haven't any—only this request: put me away."

Her request startled them: Dumbledore, looking aged beyond even his estimable years, his silvery-white beard steeped in gore; and Draco, hollow-eyed in his bloodstained shirt. Dumbledore looked heavenward, steely blue eyes probing, searching for permission from a higher authority if one did in fact exist. He sighed and closed his eyes.

At last, Dumbledore nodded.

Snape couldn't even look at her. He drew the tattered remains of his bloody nightshirt around him and kept his eyes trained on the far wall.

"Very well, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said. "We shall admit you to St. Mungo's."

"No!" Draco said. "They're not shutting you away."

"Draco," Hermione began, but already she was fading, her eyes slipping out of focus. "Yes, Draco, they have to…. You have to… And I, I have…love for you."

Draco stared at her, stunned. Her words he took and held until the burden became too great and the weight of them forced him to sit down on the rough plank floor. He knew that he couldn't keep them, that one day he'd be forced to give them back to her, but he would hold on to them as long as he could. Until then he would keep her words close and hope that they didn't destroy him.

OOO

Narcissa didn't trust her eyes in the dim light of the cell. It wasn't until she heard his voice that she realized the two men standing in front of her were real and not a hallucination caused by thirst, solitude or abject misery.

"She has betrayed me," Lucius was saying. The tip of his wand glowed, casting light into the darkened space. The pale blue light illuminated the figure standing next to him, who turned out to be none other than Lord Voldemort himself.

Narcissa started. She pushed herself up along the cold stone wall of the cell, rising to her feet in the presence of the Dark Lord.

Voldemort rubbed his long, spidery fingers together and sighed.

"I'm sure I don't have time to attend to your petty martial squabbles, Lucius. I am rather busy planning a war the likes of which the wizarding world has never seen."

"I assure you this is relevant, my lord. After all, if she has betrayed me, who else might she betray?"

"What do you mean, Lucius?" Voldemort asked, his patience growing thin.

"It is not as Lucius thinks," Narcissa said quickly. Her voice was barely recognizable in her dry, parched throat.

"Then what is it, Madam Malfoy, which has caused your husband to cast you into a dungeon?"

"I have made the Unbreakable Vow with Severus Snape. Lucius imagines that we are linked romantically and it is simply untrue. The bond is a magical one, made to protect my son," Narcissa explained.

"Protect him from what?" the Dark Lord asked.

"Death," Narcissa replied, her words beginning to clog in her throat. "The task you've given him is a dangerous one. He could die in the attempt. I wanted to keep him safe."

"And so you chose, Severus, the child-hater?" Voldemort said.

Lucius swore softly. "As if I wouldn't protect my own son, Narcissa."

"You have failed to protect him!"

"Well, isn't this intriguing," Voldemort interrupted. "The Unbreakable Vow with Severus of all people." The Dark Lord grew still and silent, allowing his thoughts free rein. Lucius, on the other hand, couldn't keep still. His fingers twitched nervously and fatigue blossomed beneath his eyes. "Perhaps you have overreacted, Lucius. You simply cannot leave your lovely wife here in this oubliette, not when she can be of service to me."

OOO

"It is toast," Poppy Pomfrey said, "and you will eat it."

"Madam, I hate toast," Snape snarled. The former Potions Master was propped up in his bed amidst a mound of fluffy, white pillows and crisp bed linens, swaddling him vehemently to the mattress. He wondered where the pillows had come from. Certainly there was nothing fluffy in his house. Madam Pomfrey must have brought them with her when she'd been charged with nursing him at Spinner's End.

In addition to the pillows, she'd brought drapes, napkins, handkerchiefs and a well-meaning, though misguided, sense of purpose which led her to scrub windows and floors, dust cobwebs from the rafters and apparently expand his garden of medicinal herbs to include useless, though eye-catching, flowering plants—all with an industrious twitch of her wand.

As a result, Spinner's End was terribly clean, so clean, in fact, that Snape found it thoroughly disconcerting. The amount of light that streamed in through his bedroom windows was blinding. He'd forgotten the house even had windows, covered as they'd been in moldy drapes and years upon years of accumulated grime.

It was now a fit environment in which one might convalesce—or so Poppy had proclaimed, but it seemed to Snape that it was no longer a fit environment for him, feeling moldy himself and weighed down by years upon years of accumulated grime.

"It is no concern of mine that you hate toast, Severus," Madam Pomfrey replied as she bustled efficiently about the room. You will eat it and only then will I leave."

She was a clever one, knowing somehow that her company irritated him even more than toast. Snape shoved the bread into his mouth and chewed laboriously. After several minutes the offending toast was gone and he washed it down with the dregs of a cup of tea.

Madam Pomfrey smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well done, Severus. Top marks." She magicked the dishes away before he could throw them at her. The Mediwitch turned to leave, but before she did, she crossed back to Snape's bedside and took hold of the downy duvet that lay covering his legs. "Let me adjust the comforter for you," she said.

"DO NOT TOUCH THE COMFORTER, MADAM! I ASSURE YOU I AM COMFORTED WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE!"

"Very well, Severus. Good day," she said, grinning as she left the room.

Moments later the door opened again and Dumbledore entered, followed at a distance by Draco.

"I rather like having her here," Dumbledore said. "She made the most astonishing breakfast this morning. Eggs, kippers, freshly-squeezed pumpkin juice and some sort of extraordinary pastry—what was it Draco?"

"Beignet," Draco replied.

"Yes, beignet, just extraordinary."

"I'm sure that breakfast was, as the children say, to die for, but since I have already died and not for the sake of any pastry, I was hoping to discuss that which needs discussing, you insufferable gourmand," Snape hissed.

"I am fully willing to discuss whatever you like, Severus, only I do not see why one cannot pause to appreciate a thoroughly satisfying breakfast," Dumbledore said.

There was a mildly uncomfortable silence during which Draco moved restlessly, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He got the impression that Snape and Dumbledore were squabbling almost as two old friends might, though the patience of the former was worn decidedly thin. Were they friends? They were clearly colleagues, clearly linked somehow in this convoluted tale of Hermione and Imogene, but how far did their relationship extend?

"Miss Granger has been placed in St. Mungo's. Only the three of us are aware of her presence there," Dumbledore explained. Snape nodded. "What did she cast, Severus?"

"The Impenetra Carne."

Dumbledore blinked. If he'd been about a quarter century younger and prone to whistling in amazement, he would have. It was a particularly gruesome spell, the choice of Inquisitors during the Goblin Wars. How Hermione—or rather—Imogene would have known to cast that curse was a mystery.

"Why not the Killing Curse?" Draco asked. "She didn't seem to think twice about hurling it at you."

"I have been asking myself the same question," Dumbledore said. "I can only think that she wanted Severus to suffer."

"Why? Did he kill her?" Draco asked.

"No. In a way I suppose I resurrected her," Snape said, black eyes narrowed and leveled at Dumbledore, "which I have come to learn is worse than murder."

"How did she die?" asked Draco.

Here Dumbledore drew a deep breath. "It is a long story, Draco, so I shall do my best to shorten it to the relevant facts. Ultimately, I thought to influence you through Miss LeCoeur. She was a student at Beaux-Batons from a pureblood family of Death Eaters. It was a risky proposition turning her to my plan, but at last she agreed. We'd asked that she not speak of it to her parents—they were known to be strict and very much under the influence of Voldemort—but she did tell them, perhaps out of naiveté or the hope that they, too, might be willing to work with us, and it saddens me to say that they killed her. So we are, in a sense, responsible for her death."

Draco simply stared.

"Once Imogene was lost to us, we decided to have Miss Granger impersonate her. She would of course be in no danger from her own family and due to her friendship with Mr. Potter, willing to assist."

"The Polyjuice," Draco said.

"Yes, the Polyjuice, the Time-Turner and the golem," Dumbledore confirmed.

"Golem?"

"You saw me cast it off the tower once," Snape said.

"It's a projection of sorts?" Draco asked.

"It is a double, linked to a wizard's consciousness but in no way a sentient being," Snape explained.

"And all of this to influence me?" Draco said. "Influence me to what? Not to… kill you?"

Dumbledore was silent, parsing his thoughts, wondering precisely how much to reveal. "In a sense, Draco. I know what the Dark Lord has asked of you, but it is not my chief concern. This plan has larger implications. Suffice it to say that I would rather have you as a friend than an enemy and all that that entails."

An offer of friendship from Dumbledore. The old wizard was wily, manipulative, Draco thought. He knew that friendship was perhaps the one thing that Draco had never been offered. Even his privileged life as a Malfoy hadn't been able to provide him with everything. It had never provided him with a friend. Draco shook his head. Was this just another attempt to manipulate him again—this time without the use of a dead girl?

It was too much. He couldn't possibly unpack it all now for fear of falling apart. He turned back to the more pressing matter. "But now Imogene is… inside Hermione?"

"It seems that the Polyjuice has transformed one into the other," Dumbledore said.

"It is not the Polyjuice," Snape spoke. "It is true that I altered the potion so that Miss Granger would become dependent on it. It is also true that this potion had the ability to ultimately transform one girl into the other—or so my studies led me to believe."

"Her hair," Draco said.

"Yes, Miss Granger's hair. It is the color of Imogene's. Yet, I do not believe the potion is responsible. You'll recall, Albus, that I discontinued use of the potion after Miss Granger fled—"

"—She fled?"

"Yes, Draco. She ran off into the Forbidden Forrest. It was most inconvenient. But as I was saying, I stopped the dosage after we recovered her. She was experiencing withdrawal when you arrived, Albus. I had made the choice to prevent such a permanent transformation."

"But nonetheless, Miss Granger, is altered," Dumbledore said.

"Will you stop calling her Miss Granger?" Draco hadn't known what possessed him to say it, but they were talking about her like she was an inanimate object, a mere pawn instead of a person.

"What else do you suggest we call her?" Snape asked through clenched teeth. The boy was wearing on his already frayed nerves.

"Call her by her name. Call her Hermione."

Dumbledore looked at Draco and couldn't help but feel that his plan, however misguided, however cruel, however ultimately corrupt, was somehow redeemed by the look in the boy's eyes when he spoke her name.

"You'll forgive us, Draco. It is the force of habit which dictates that we refer to students in a manner that is friendly though somewhat impersonal," Dumbledore explained. "You'll also grant that perhaps we do not know Hermione as well as you've come to."

The boy colored then, a flush which rose from the base of his neck through his cheeks and touched the rims of his ears.

Dumbledore turned back to Snape. "Is it a matter of possession then, Severus?"

"Of sorts, but I am reluctant to call it that. It is not that Imogene is a restless, angry, spirit who wants to claim Miss Gra—Hermione. I'm afraid we have played a more active role in what has come to pass."

"Meaning?"

"We neglected the remainder, Albus, overlooked it."

"You are speaking of Miss LeCoeur's essence?"

"Yes, that which remains, that which fuels photographs and portraits long after a witch or wizard has left this existence. It is not life or spirit, it is not living as we know it, but it is what remains."

"Ah, that which magical beings leave behind," Dumbledore mused. "It is an energy, a limited existence."

"If you can call it an existence at all. I do not believe it is such," Snape said. "I do believe, however, that it may have been unwise to, in the presence of this essence, recreate the girl through false means. Using Polyjuice to mimic a living being is one matter, using it to bring about the image of one who is dead is another matter entirely."

"We taunted her," Dumbledore said. "We dishonored that which remains."

"Perhaps. Certainly, we restored the girl, her eyes, hair, voice, her likeness to a plane of existence in which it was no longer meant to be. I hadn't thought there would be consequences. I hadn't thought what it might mean to restore matter through the Polyjuice, and then the golem, within proximity of Miss LeCoeur's vestigial energy," Snape explained.

Dumbledore lowered himself slowly into a chair by Snape's bed. "We angered her, Severus. We must have. We paraded her own features in front of her, showed her the stuff of her former existence in new flesh. It is only natural that this energy was disturbed, that the Imogene of portraits and photographs desired this life again, and that we, through our machinations, led her to believe that a return to her former existence was possible. But how could she come to claim Hermione? Such energy cannot leap a photograph to live anew."

"I can only think that we gave her a path, Albus. The golem is a link to Miss Granger's consciousness, a bridge if you will. Miss LeCoeur found the path, perhaps subverted the golem to her will, and used it as a doorway to the other girl's mind."

"But what does it mean?" Draco asked. He heard their words and none of them were comforting; admissions of guilt, placement of blame, magic mishandled but what did it mean for her? What did it mean for Hermione?

"It means," Dumbledore began carefully, "that Imogene LeCoeur is a formidable opponent, one which we have in fact created ourselves."

Snape shook his head, not denying Dumbledore's words, but indicating with marked brusqueness that they were insufficient. "It means," he said, "that Imogene will not merely possess Miss Granger, she will consume her."

OOO

Purge and Dowse Ltd. had the kind of neglected air that encouraged passersby to continue on their way without a second glance. It may have been the hideously clothed dummies, themselves chipped and chapped, wigs askew and, in some instances, limbs asunder. Or it could have been the sign permanently affixed to the plate-glass window: CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT. Whatever the reason, most Muggles saw fit to simply keep right on walking past the homely red brick department store.

So when Draco Malfoy paused to chat with one of the dummies, and then seemed to melt into the plate-glass window, he did so with the utmost caution, hoping to draw as little attention as possible from any Muggle bystanders. As it was, at this late hour there was barely anyone about, and when he passed through the window into the busy lobby of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, he let out a sigh of relief that his entrance had caused little or no disturbance.

Draco kept his head down and walked quickly past the blond woman at the information desk, headed for the Spell Damage Ward on the fourth floor. He'd been instructed not to visit her, for her own protection and his, but somehow the idea of protection for either of them seemed foolish. He was a Death Eater who'd blatantly defied an order from the Dark Lord by calling for help from the very man he was meant to murder, and she was being coerced out of her own existence by a dead girl. They were both of them completely unprotected, utterly vulnerable in the truest sense of the word. It was only a matter of time before one or the other of them was called to account, by death or by delusion.

Hermione was in a private room at the end of the ward. When Draco reached her door, he didn't bother to knock. It wasn't locked, so he simply slipped inside, closing the door behind him.

She was lying on the narrow hospital bed wrapped in a pale dressing gown. She looked up when he entered, expecting a healer or some other member of the hospital staff. When she realized who he was, she sat bolt upright in bed, edging back against the metal headboard as if she could escape him through the wall behind her.

"They let you in!" she said, shocked.

It wasn't at all the reception he'd anticipated, though truly he hadn't known what to expect, or more precisely, who to expect. It appeared that he was dealing with Hermione; he had a feeling that Imogene wouldn't shy away from him so. Regardless, he found himself wounded by her words.

"You wanted them to keep me out?" he asked, suddenly hollow.

"No—yes, I mean, the wards. I put up wards but she must've… altered them. I never know what she does until…," her voice broke. In a matter of mere seconds she sprang from the bed and launched herself into his arms.

Draco held her tightly, though he was somewhat confused. Hadn't she just implied that she'd wanted to keep him out? It didn't make sense, but he couldn't seem to work up the nerve to be angry. She was in his arms; he felt the warmth of her through the dressing gown and turned his face into her hair. She balled her fists into the front of his cloak and dragged him closer, pressing her face into his neck.

They stood that way for a moment until he slowly guided her to the bed, and they both sat down, his arms still around her. "Hermione," he said, gently, as she leaned heavily into him and he felt the dampness of her tears against his neck.

"It's so strange," she said, and then lapsed into silence again, leaving him to wonder what she meant. There was plenty of strange going around. She could have been referring to any number of things: the recent resurrection of Severus Snape, the reemergence of Imogene in her quest for a corporal existence, or lastly Draco himself, who felt quite strange, unsure even of who he was—a Death Eater or a dupe. Finally, she spoke again. "It's so strange, you calling me Hermione."

"It's your name," he said.

"But you never used it. You always called me Granger."

"Well, I suppose it's because you always called me Malfoy, which doesn't translate well, you know. It's like calling me 'bad faith' or something—not at all becoming."

She pulled back from him and quickly dashed the tears from her eyes.

"Actually, even though the name is Old French the Latinate root mal doesn't necessarily mean bad. It's a negation, but that doesn't mean it's pejoratively negative. It could mean ill or un, as in unfaithful… maybe faithless."

Draco stared at her, wondering how she could be so damned scholarly at a time like this, and then it occurred to him that, if there had been any question, this was indeed Hermione Granger, the same girl who nursed him back to health in a room piled high with books. You're lucky I'm so bloody smart, she'd said to him. And there she was, the know-it-all, surfacing again. Something familiar stirred in him, akin to the feeling he used to have when they were in class and her hand shot into the air the instant a question was asked. He'd always had a desire to shut her up, only now he wanted to do it by kissing her, her smart mouth, to silence her precociously busy mind. He held himself in check, however.

"So now you're calling me faithless," he said in a low drawl. "I'm sure I ought to be offended. Generations of proud Malfoys reduced to faithless bastards. "

"I didn't say anything about bastards," Hermione clarified. "I just said faithless and that's not so bad, really. I guess it just depends on who you're unfaithful to. Unfaithful to the Dark Lord—maybe that isn't bad at all." She looked at him head-on then, holding his eyes in her gaze. It was a surprisingly strong stare, challenging, demanding even.

"And unfaithful to you?" he asked, with something of a teasing edge in his voice. Draco hadn't anticipated the pain that crept into her eyes. She dropped her gaze and he realized that he'd been careless with his words; how easy it was to hurt her. "I didn't mean it," he said, pulling her close again. He kissed her softly, shifting his hands to either side of her throat, thumbs stroking the delicate skin along her jaw.

Hermione exhaled against his lips, meeting the warm certainty of his mouth with her own until at last she pulled back from him. He was leaning toward her, ready to follow where she led, if only he could touch her skin again with his lips and fingers.

"It's only… it's only that I don't want to share you," she said. She reached out and ran her fingers lightly over one of his pale blond brows. "Not with her." Her fingers slipped from his brow, traced his cheek, followed the line of his jaw. "I don't want her to know this." His skin was warm beneath her fingers, nearly feverish. Heat bled into her fingertips as he tilted his head, leaning into her touch. He closed his eyes and she was met with the pale blond fringe of his lashes. She kissed his eyelids, felt his lashes against her lips. He broke, then; the measured balance that allowed him to hold her gently in his arms, the delicate restraint that enabled him to sit idle under her fingers, lapsed when her lips met his eyelids.

There was something about her kiss, so delicate and yet possessive of him, that he didn't dare leave unanswered. Draco gathered her close, fingers snagging in the thin material of her dressing gown, drawing her down on the narrow bed beneath him. Hermione wanted him with a selfishness that nearly brought tears to her eyes. He was hers, the strength in him; the grey eyes which searched hers, hidden now beneath closed lids; his lips at her throat, his hands beneath the dressing gown. And yet she couldn't. A broken sob escaped her.

Draco stopped, the sob hanging between them, his heart in his throat and blood pounding in his ears. He looked at her. Hermione was shaking her head.

"That she could know this—feel this—is unbearable," she said softly.

"She won't," Draco said.

If only it were so simple, Hermione thought. If only it were true. "She's jealous, Draco. She's jealous and powerful and she wants you."

"Well, she can't have me," he said. "I've already been had." He kissed her mouth, warm lips clinging to hers a moment before she turned her face from him.

"I can't be sure," Hermione said. "I can't be sure how much is her and how much is me. She asks me to forget… and I obey. I know I've done horrible things, but I don't remember them."

"She's done those things. You haven't. You're here with me now." Draco shifted his weight to lie on his side beside her. He brushed several strands of hair from her face. "Stay with me. That's the only way this works."

She wanted to. She wanted nothing more, but his seemingly simple request was beyond her ability to grant. Already the panic rose in her throat, mounting with each stilted breath. "I can't" she said. "I can't let her have you, hurt you." Hermione rolled away from him, rising up from the narrow bed. "That's why I cast the wards," she explained, choking back a sob. "I can't love you. I can't. She takes everything that's mine."

Draco rolled over onto his back, numb, thinking about those words of hers; the words he'd been carrying close, that he knew he would some day have to give back to her. He'd been unprepared for her to take them back, to withdraw them as if she'd never spoken them, before he'd had the chance to know them, make them his own and return them to her as his own precious gift. He stared at the ceiling, unable to look at her, yet knowing that he had to leave. He couldn't fathom, however, how he would gather what was left of himself having been wronged by words, fouled by language, maimed by metaphor.

OOO

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! They really keep me going. Finally broke the 100 review mark for this story—a personal goal of mine.

Darkness Approaches, Bitty Blue Eyes, Noree-Chan, .SeDuCtIvE – thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying this fic.

lacking a better name – I hear you, more D/H. They are the core of the story even though what I intended to be a Snape/Narcissa subplot has come to the fore. Plus, I feel like we need more of Hermione's perspective, which I'm hoping to work into the next chapter.

amethystfirechik and AlaeaMori – Snape isn't deaders! I like him too much. And as to Harry's paternity… my studies of the Polyjuice tell me that while genetically he is James's son, Snape was totally flying the plane.

SusanMarieS – You hit the nail on the head. I don't like it when Hermione's not Hermione either. So the trick is to maintain her core personality even when it's being challenged by another presence. Easier said than done.

As for my lag time in between updates, I know, I know. Ideally, I'd update every two weeks, though knowing me it will be every three/once a month. I'm trying my best though, and I can promise that there won't be another eight month hiatus.

-NDP