A/N: SPOV

A/N#2: It was this chapter that made me realize I had something really amazing here, and was grateful for having such an amazing partner in this. I have 'planted seeds' once again and I've loved expanding on Severus' character.

Severus had swept through his area quickly and efficiently, and gathered near the center of the city along with the other Aurors.

The rest of the professors were taking up security back at Hogwarts, save for himself and Hagrid. The aurors all checked in, reporting that their areas seemed clear. MacKenzie and Severus both realized that Tonks hadn't checked in.

"I was stationed at Zonko's, where was she at?" Severus asked the others.

"I had Madame Puddifoot's."

"Owl Post Office." Dawlish replied, shrugging.

"Honeyduke's."

MacKenzie's robes had butterbeer spilled on it. "I had the Three Broomsticks and Hagrid was in the Hog's Head. I think Tonks was stationed at The Shrieking Shack."

Auror Dawlish just guffawed. "It's not haunted; she's probably just stumbled or tripped or something and on her way over here with a skinned knee."

"She could have sent word in another way." Severus replied. It was an open secret among the Aurors about who was a member of the Order of the Phoenix and how they could communicate.

MacKenzie nodded, agreeing. "We'll need to keep up the defensive perimeter just in case."

Severus reached for his potion vials on his belt, pulling out the last one and downing it without a second thought. "Keep the students safe, I'll send up an 'all-clear' when I know for sure." The potion was bitter and sulfurous, and had the color and consistency of blood. As it took a hold on him, the other Aurors look at him in shock. Severus grimaced, flashing his wand out and summoning a broom to him with a stilted gesture.

"Was that... that's a restricted potion! You know the price of using Brimstone." Dawlish stammered as the Potions' Master sneered his reply.

MacKenzie summoned a broom for himself as well, but Severus had already bolted towards the Shrieking Shack with a neck-breaking speed. Severus' body was tense and vibrating under the influence of the Devil's Bane.

As he flew faster than he ever had before, Snape's magical core was compressing and forcing itself to become more potent as the toxic side effects made the blood vessels hemorrhage in his eyes, making his eyes turn blood red.

Severus' senses were heightened, and his detecting charm told him that there were two living people ahead of him, one behind him, and a something not dead ahead as well.

He realized that the potion he took would make him reckless, but he didn't care. Nymphadora was in trouble and he wasn't about to park his broom and run up the loud, rickety stairs while he had no visual confirmation of what was going on. He vanished the glass where a nearby window was and jerked himself off of his broom, landing as a crumpled heap, rolling to a stop.

Great job on landing; you'll feel that in the morning. He told himself as he got up, brandishing his wand as he staggered down the hallway and saw into the room where a girl laying on the ground, passed out from bloodloss. A sharp jab of his wand put a stasis charm on the girl, effectively keeping her from doing anything from bleeding out or seeing what was about to happen.

As Severus' entered the room and his eyes scanned the rest of the room, the undead was a vampire, clutching Nymphadora and holding her hostage, his claws digging into her neck, causing pinpricks of blood to well up and slowly trail down her neck. He was using her as a physical shield, and his face was contorted by the smell of blood.

Vampire in the middle of a feeding bloodrage. There may be no rationalizing with him.

"Back off or I kill her!" The vampire looked shaken, almost fearful. The vampire had seen Severus' speed and understood that they were much more evenly matched than should have been possible.

Severus' eyes met with Nymphadora's, and he quickly ran through the thoughts forefront in her mind. She was in a moment of panic, knowing that he was thirsty still and not in full control of himself. The girl lying on the floor could be slowly dying and she wasn't able to do anything. She hadn't expected anyone to show up, but was relieved that Severus was here. She also knew that something was very wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was.

Severus saw the vampire's right arm wrapped around the Auror in a crushing hold, and his fingers were digging into her neck. He would kill the vampire without a moment's regret, and his resolve was evident in his voice.

"You have two outcomes here. Either I will let you go or I will kill you in a slow and painful death." Severus' wand was pointed in a two-handed grip as the standoff endured.

The vampire sniffed the air, and his piercing gaze went over the man before him. "Your heart rate is racing, mortal. Does it unnerve you that I can smell your fear?"

"My pulse isn't racing from fear, vampire." Loud footsteps were approaching him from behind, and Severus knew that it would be MacKenzie.

As the truth dawned on him, Auror MacKenzie entered the room behind Severus and pulled his wand upon the entwined pair.

"Ministry Auror!" He declared himself, side-stepping away from Severus to find a better shot. "Release the hostage or I will be authorized to use force!"

The vampire couldn't keep his focus on both wands pointed at him and upped the ante. His grip tightened on her neck, a trail of blood beginning to seep down the left side of her neck. "Wands down or I'll kill her. NOW! You've got a little girl here that will die if you don't get her help soon."

Severus knew how the Ministry dealt with hostage situations. They didn't. The vampire started to shuffle backwards, dragging Tonks with him. MacKenzie stepped towards the fallen girl, his eyes locked on the hostage before him.

"I WANT YOUR WANDS ON THE GROUND, NOW!" He bellowed, backing himself through the doorway. Severus' eyes locked onto Nymphadora's and entered her mind, and he left two words as a message to her.

Trust me.

MacKenzie took a knee next to the girl, using his left hand to check for a pulse. "Do you have a shot, Snape?"

Severus dropped his wand, holding his hands up, palms outward, to signal that he was disarmed.

"I did not have a clear shot, MacKenzie. I strongly suggest that you follow his demands for now."

The vampire felt confident as the sight of the wand clattered to the floor. "You too, Auror!"

MacKenzie looked at Snape in horror. "Why did you disarm yourself?!" His voice was threaded with panic.

"He has the upper hand. We need to ensure the girl's health, and I don't want him to harm Nymphadora." MacKenzie wavered, and dropped his wand as well.

The vampire tugged the hostage through the door frame and backed them through the darkened hallway. Once they were out of sight, Severus' hand dove into his robes and he silently apparated into the hallway that the vampire evaded into. Snape knew the Shrieking Shack and had his beretta trained, point-blank, onto the vampire's skull.

There was no flinching or hesitation as he pulled the trigger and the exploding brain matter and mist of blood let him know that the vampire was at least stunned. Pulling his arm off of Nymphadora, he shoved the two of them apart and stepped between them, training his firearm directly over the heart and put three rounds through the chest.

The vampire shrieked as the poison-coated bullets tore through his flesh, flashing fang and swiping wildly at the Death Eater. With a fierce conviction, Severus put two more rounds though the vampire's face. This poison doesn't affect the undead, it seems. He hadn't planned on dealing with having to shoot vampires or inferi.

Severus heard MacKenzie tending to his fellow Auror, mentioning something about the superhuman speed that he was witnessing. He shook it off, rather focusing his attention on the wounded yet lethal creature before him.

Arms shot toward him, and Severus fired away as the bones broke and the vampire screeched in agony and rage. The bullets were only slowing him down as the vampire was working to heal himself from each injury.

After what was less than a minute from when he first fired his pistol, his weapon was empty. He dropped it as his veins burned with the inhuman strength imbued by the Infernal-class potion, and the look left in his eyes made the vampire before him flinch in fear.

"What are you?" The vampire shuddered, finding himself backed into a windowed alcove.

Severus had a firm grip on the dark creature before him, and defenestrated it partway as it began to burst into flame. Severus could no longer make out what was being said by the immolating vampire. His red eyes shone with an intensity as he watched and smelled undead flesh burn and melt under sunlight, though his face was oddly stoic as he released the vampire out the window as a collection of charred bone, cloth, and ash.

Threat gone, Severus turned back towards MacKenzie who was tending to Nymphadora's wounds. He re-holstered his muggle weapon as he handed the Auror a vial of pain-releaving potion.

His concerned eyes met her shocked eyes, and he nodded once and made towards the other room. "I'm taking the girl off of the stasis charm and will give her a blood-replenishing potion." As he collected his wand and reanimated the girl, she looked at him in fear as she remembered where she had been, and was nearly catatonic in fear.

Severus forgot what he must have looked like, his eyes red from the potion and covered in blood from the vampire he had killed. His hands were beginning to tremble and he didn't trust himself to cast even the simplest cleaning charm on himself. Handing the girl a blood replenishing vial, he asked if she were injured.

"No, Professor. He just bit me is all. I think I fainted, though." She took the potion and read that it was for blood replenishing. "I was attacked by a vampire, wasn't I?"

Severus nodded, the backlash of the potion beginning to take affect. He knew that he had sacrificed a piece of his own longevity for this temporary boost to his own vitality and magic, but he considered it a worthy trade.