Snape fought hard against the bile that burned his throat. Her answer didn't surprise him—hell, he'd expected it—but it still wasn't pleasant to hear.

He watched pathetically as she scrounged up the strength it took to properly sit up. Her battered body shook with the effort. She was panting lightly by the time she'd managed it and he loathed not being able to move. Her light toffee hair was strewn across her face, but her eyes burned with a determination he found very comforting. Her legs seemed uncooperative, but she managed to slowly and surely pull herself up beside him.

When she reached the wall, she very nearly collapsed against it; she leaned heavily against his arm and seemed not at all concerned by that fact. On second thought, neither did he. He used what little slack the shackles allowed him and tucked the stray locks of her behind her ears before wrapping an arm ever-so-gently around her rapidly bruising body.

"What'd you tell him?" he muttered against her hair.

She spat out a cackle that sounded quite painful on a throat that was raw from screaming. "I told him quite eloquently to sod off."

Snape actually laughed in spite of himself. "I quite admire your courage, however inadvisable it is," he murmured. His tone darkened, though, with his next statement. "You know, certainly, how grave our situation is."

He peered beside him and watched Hermione set her jaw. "I know," she whispered. "He wasted no time in enlightening me." She shuddered with the remnant tremors of the Cruciatus curse. But then she turned her eyes up at him and they flashed with a courage he hadn't encountered in years. "But he needs me. And he needs you. He knows that, and it scares him. He'll…play with us," she whispered, and her breath caught, but she did her best to hide it. "He'll bring us to the brink of death, even. But he won't kill us. Not yet."

Snape studied her carefully. She leaned against him for support, but otherwise sat strong and sure beside him. Her body had just been sent to hell and back, and yet her mind was now abuzz with making plans. He shook his head in admiration, and averted his eyes to the stone floor beside them.

"So what do you propose we do?"

She stiffened and shook her head. "We've got 24—err, 23—hours to decide how to proceed. And then, well…we hold on for as long as we can." It took every ounce of strength she possessed to keep her body from trembling. "He, err…he quite clearly spelled out what they'd do to me should I refuse. I'm not sure what sort of torture they have in store for you."

He understood the implication only too well. "I'm sure, Hermione, my torture lies within witnessing yours." His voice was thick and it surprised him. "I daresay that is a worse fate than anything they could do to me physically."

She considered him for a long time. "Worse than death?"

He snorted. "Compared to what they could—and would—do to me, death would be a sweet release. No, there are things far worse than death."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I tend to agree," she murmured, and her voice was immensely haunted. "But still, I'd rather we both walk out of this with our lives."

He nodded. "Hermione…I know that you know perfectly the method they will use to torture you, and I urge you to use these next few hours to prepare yourself mentally. But…well quite simply, can you handle it?"

She peered at him, and his eyes locked with hers so intensely she found it nearly impossible to look away. So she stopped trying, and instead leaned on the defiance that had backed her play well over the years. Her eyes burned into his right back. "I haven't got a choice, now do I?" He pulled away from her, hurt seeping into his gaze before he could smother it and she instantly softened. "Look—it's clearly not something I'm looking forward to, nor is it something I'd imagined I'd face again. But here it is, staring at me, and yes, I think I can handle it because I have to handle it. I won't be weaker than them. I think that would feel worse."

Hermione reached a hand out tentatively and touched the skin around his wounds, which were now caked with dried blood. "It's actually you I'm quite worried about. You know he's angry, but he's always angry and from what I understand, he can usually control his temper for as long as he needs to. In this case, I think his anger might surpass his use for you."

Snape smirked mirthlessly and captured her roving fingers with his hand, resting them on his stomach. "I've been in this game far too long to be worried about my own well-being." It was all he could manage because if truth be told, he bloody well agreed with her and he neither wanted to admit that nor lie to her.

And it was in that position they rested for the better part of an hour before the door to their damp, dank cell creaked open and Draco Malfoy slinked in carrying a tray.

Instantly, Snape stiffened and drew Hermione closer to him protectively.

Draco paused and sneered at them. "Why, aren't you two rather cozy? Gee, Professor, I never thought you would've lowered your standards enough to consider a student."

Snape furrowed his brow and growled, but didn't loosen his grip on Hermione even a fraction. She, in turn, only nestled closer.

Draco shook his head, locks of white-blonde hair falling into his eyes, before placing the silver tray down before them. It was laden with two crusts of bread and mere Dixie cups of water.

"It's not much," Draco whispered, but his tone was more sincere than either had ever heard before. "I'm sorry. They're, err…they're not pleased with you, Granger."

Hermione cocked an eyebrow, but that hurt, so she straightened again. "They oughtn't be, really. I wasn't exactly kind."

The corner of Draco's mouth turned up to let her know he got the joke before the sullen face they all knew only too well reappeared. "I've never seen the Dark Lord so angry," he marveled, and the fear in his voice sent a shiver down his own spine. He glanced at Hermione incredulously. "What'd you say to him?"

Hermione glanced at Snape and straightened. "He wanted me to betray Harry."

Draco shrugged. "A blind man could've seen that coming."

She bowed her head in agreement. "Anyone with half a mind should've expected my refusal."

Draco furrowed his brow. "The Dark Lord didn't?"

Hermione cocked her head to the side. "At first, he did. He wasn't surprised when I said no initially, but I'm sure he believed once he'd—liberally—practiced the Cruciatus curse on me that I'd come 'round."

Draco nodded. "But you didn't."

She braved her face to him and held firm. "No." She shook her head. "Voldemort—" both men flinched, "—has the remarkable inability to never quite understand loyalty. He thinks that everyone is out to do what he himself does so well, and that is to save one's own arse." She shrugged. "I simply tried to give him a lesson in devotion."

Draco and Severus exchanged a look that Hermione only caught the tail-end of, but which felt peculiarly like a "good-luck-with-that-one" look, to which Snape rolled his eyes heavenward and shook his head.

"Draco!"

He jumped when he heard his name being bellowed from the hall and straightened immediately. "Good luck," he murmured pathetically over his shoulder as he exited the same way he'd entered.

Snape downed his water, but thrust both crusts towards the end of the tray closest to Hermione. "Eat," he muttered forcefully. "You will need your strength—who knows how much blood you've lost."

He knew it was a loosing battle the moment he entered it, but he had to try. Meeting expectations, she sputtered disbelievingly, rounding on him as best one could from such an odd angle on the ground. "And you haven't?" she nearly screeched, picking at his blood-red shirt for emphasis. "Eat, or else I'll call Malfoy back here and tell him he can just feed you to the sharks now."

Snape held his hands up in defeat and bit back the retort that wouldn't have been heart-felt anyways. Instead, he murmured, "Yes, Mum," before picking at his crust, striving to make it last. She mimicked his actions, interspersing her bites with sips of water.

"Odd, isn't it," she said after several long moments, "how all the Death Eaters keep referring to us as…well, as lovers?" She laughed, more enthusiastically than would've been natural, and perhaps it was his imagination, but he heard a rather nervous ring in it. "Wonder where that notion came from?"

Snape studied her profile, for she was working very hard at not meeting his gaze—she could tell the darkest wizard to ever live to bugger off, but talking about her feelings was painful?

Snape put down the remnants of his crust and made a promise to himself that if these truly were his last few hours, he would make them count. Titles would be shed, roles ignored, and they would just be. Two people, two captives, who despite themselves had grown quite fond of each other during their months of incessant companionship.

"Despite their faults, these men are very good at reading people. It has become a vital part of their roles in this war."

Hermione nodded like she was taking mental notes before she deciphered the true meaning behind his words and it took her by surprise so much that she turned to him with wide eyes before she could help herself.

"You—you mean—what are you…what?" she stuttered, growing increasingly frustrated by her uncooperative tongue.

Snape smiled and took her hand very gently. "Hermione, I know that for the past seven years, I have been nothing but your Professor, and a sordid one at that. Only recently have I transgressed those confines to be labeled as your rapist." He spoke over her quickly, and loudly, before she could interrupt. "I also know, as sure as I am standing—well, sitting—here that I may never be more than those two things to you. And I promise you I will never ask you for more or less. All I can do is be honest with you, and in all honesty, you stopped being just me student the moment my foot caught yours in detention."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat and momentarily, she thought she was hallucinating. Perhaps she really had gone and lost it.

"From that day, I this overwhelming need to protect you. By doing so, it ensured that you and I spent quite a lot of time enjoying one another's company. I use that word because while I don't know your attitude towards the time we spent together, I know that I did thoroughly enjoy it." He shrugged, and at that moment he wasn't the dark and greasy Bat of the Dungeons. He was a schoolboy, awkward and unsure of himself, talking to a girl he fancied for the first time. "I don't know how any of this works, and I'm sure I've already butchered it. What I do know is that I have feelings for you that surpass any I've felt for another human being. I care for you more intensely than I knew possible, and I fear very much the end of these 24 hours because I know you will meet a great deal of pain. I…well, bugger, Hermione, I like you. And be assured that I do feel like a ridiculous, hormonal teenage boy uttering those words."

She considered him for a very long time and he merely met her with an unwavering stare. She toured her own mind, her own heart, with a torrent of confusion and tried to sever rationale from feeling. Yes, she knew he was her Professor. Yes, she knew that starting any sort of relationship other than an academic one was almost certainly against school rules.

But how did she feel? What was her heart saying? Well, at this moment, it was screaming—it might as well have used a bullhorn—and it was telling her to set aside every inane thought that passed through her mind and just listen.

She didn't know she was speaking until she was through. "When I separate you from the very grim man who taught me potions for seven years, when I think solely about the man who revealed himself in Paris the other night…there is no doubt in my mind, or truly my heart, that I like you too." She laughed at the shock, and the relief, that washed his face and colored his cheeks. "And yes, we really ought to think of a more mature way to say that."

Snape's heart leapt—he didn't know it was capable of leaping. He nodded. "We, of course, will not enter into anything inappropriate assuming we both make it back to school. But, after you finish your NEWTS next month, Hermione…" He glanced at the floor, and then back up at her, his eyes dancing. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

She laughed. It was a hearty, very real laugh and it shook her because she wasn't sure she'd felt that in months. And for a moment, she wasn't sitting on the grimy floor of a captive dungeon. She was beside a man who'd unashamedly professed his fancy for her, and it was in that mindset alone that she murmured, "I would love to, Severus."

Author's Note: Making this part believable was a lot of hard work, and I hope I succeeded, so I expect a lot of lovely reviews :)