DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

Chapter 3

"She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole."

-Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

They extinguished the light again, just as Snape had predicted. Hermione wished that she'd been wise enough to take his advice and sleep through it.

In spite of the fact that she'd requested it, she found Snape's use of her first name somewhat disturbing at first. She hadn't really expected him to accede to her request that he use it, especially not without a fight. It was strange to hear 'Hermione' in his low, quiet voice.

Not only had he begun using her name, he'd started to talk, too. They never had conversations of much depth, but they discussed Potions and Defense--and other, stranger things too, like their preferences for the weather, or favorite foods served at Hogwarts. Snape (she didn't call him Severus) had evidently taken her seriously that it didn't matter to her if conversation was entirely trivial or not.

They never spoke of their own personal histories. They never spoke about other people. Hermione thought about Ron frequently, and about Harry almost as much. Talking about them with Snape, though, simply wasn't an option she was willing to consider. It was easier to simply work on convincing herself that nobody else existed but Snape, herself, and their tormentors.

As time went by, she gradually succeeded in thinking of Ron and Harry less. It was easier that way. The more she thought about them, the more that she hoped for rescue, and the more she was disappointed when it didn't come. She even began, slowly, to separate Snape from the rest of the world in her mind. There was Professor Snape of Hogwarts, and there was Snape, the man who shared her imprisonment, and they were not the same.

0 0 0

Severus awoke fully and completely. It was still dark, but something was different. Something was wrong.

He listened carefully for any hint of Lestrange or the other Death Eaters, but didn't hear them. He did, however, hear Hermione breathing. He listened carefully, but didn't hear anything amiss there, either.

Still, the sense of something wrong was persistent and inescapable. He closed his eyes--not that it made any real difference--and sniffed the air. There was something there. What was it?

And then he identified the scent. Blood. Hermione must be bleeding.

His heartbeat quickened anxiously, and he went towards the spot that she favored when she rested. "Hermione?" he said, anxiety making his voice sharp.

"Are they here?" she whispered. Her voice was sleepy, and he could hear the soft scraping of her hand on the floor as she felt for him.

"Be still," he said, following her voice to where she lay. "Are you injured?" He reached out just far enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body with his fingertips and know exactly where she was. They must have come and taken her. How had he slept through it? True, he was frequently exhausted by the strain and the darkness, but to sleep through Lestrange and whoever else might have come, to sleep through Hermione being beaten to the point of injury--

"Injured?"

He heard her sit up and felt her fingers seeking him. They had grown strangely accustomed to these touches as time had gone by. It was impossible not to touch, really, if they intended to interact. He didn't suffer the contact with any particular gladness, but it was tolerable, if only to have an alternative to the Death Eaters.

"I smell blood," he said, wondering if he dared reach out and ascertain where she might be injured.

"Blood?" she said confusedly. Then, suddenly, she pulled away from him. He could feel the sudden cold left by her removal. "It's--no, I'm not injured." She sounded embarrassed.

It took Severus a moment to realize what she must mean, and he felt his face grow rather hot. He'd made an intense effort to forget that his students were women with fully functioning parts. "I assume you mean that you--are you experiencing any discomfort? I regret that I am unable to brew you a pain potion if that is the case, but current circumstances being as they are..." he trailed off. There was no point in saying anything. It was an awkward situation, and would simply have to be endured. Babbling wouldn't help.

"Thank you," she said, sounding more embarrassed than ever. "I'm feeling well, actually, all things considered."

She subsided into a blessed silence then, and Severus stood up and shuffled away, feeling his way across the room with his feet. He ate his crust of bread meditatively until a sudden thought struck him.

"May I ask," he said into the darkness, "if you are fairly ... predictable?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"It occurs to me that such a thing provides a useful marker of time, if it is regular enough."

"Yes, I thought of that."

Of course she had. He rolled his eyes and stretched his legs out across the floor, crossing his arms. "I was mistaken, then. It has been less than a month since your ... arrival."

"Just under three weeks, I would say," she said.

"Time, as I already made clear, is difficult to judge here."

"Yes."

Suddenly there didn't seem to be anything appropriate to say. "It is useful information, while it lasts."

"While it lasts?"

"Eventually, malnourishment--"

"Would be useful, in fact," she said testily. "I haven't exactly got anything on me for--for keeping things tidy."

Had he been able to see her, he would have stared blankly while he tried to come up with an adequate response to a problem he had never even come close to encountering before.

"There is--I have an undershirt. Torn into rags, would it do, for the moment?"

"Yes, thank you."

He took his shirt off and then removed the undershirt, biting into the fabric to start a hole and then tearing it into strips. He would have preferred to preserve his clothing for the cold weather that he knew was swiftly approaching, but he was not about to spend an indefinite number of days with a menstruating female who had no means of dealing with the requisite mess.

He passed her the rags, and tried not to listen to the sound of rustling fabric as she attended to herself. Instead, he thought about potions. Certain blood potions used only menstrual blood, and he felt an unexpected moment of regret that there was no way to collect and save it.

After that, he took to giving her a larger portion of bread, although he didn't tell her so. It wasn't much, but as long as she kept enough weight on to continue menstruating, they could at least have some gauge of how long they had languished there. That was worth a little added privation, in his mind.

0 0 0

Another month passed.

At some point, they began sleeping side by side. The constant sameness of everything made it easy to forget exactly when or how it began. She simply knew that it had at some point, and that it had continued on since then. It was partly a matter of convenience. The year was moving on, and it was beginning to get cold. Hermione guessed that it was nearly October by now.

The house wasn't well-heated, if it was heated at all, and lying on the wood floor, although they were well-enough accustomed to it to sleep with relative ease, left them both chilled.

There was also the fact that she felt safer when he was close by. When she slept, she was most vulnerable, and she drew a sense of security from his presence at her back, warm and steady.

Had she retained the thought of him as her teacher, as her onetime nemesis, she would never have been able to do it, but that was someone else. This Snape was just a man. Sometimes, she let herself imagine that he was Ron--a Ron with a different voice, and a different scent, and a totally different mode of expression, but Ron nonetheless. Sometimes he was simply nobody, a disembodied voice with a conveniently familiar name to call him by.

It was better to return from torture, whether physical or psychological, and have a companion there, waiting for her.

She was the one waiting for him on the day when things changed.

"They gave us food," he said, as soon as they were alone. "Meat." The word sounded almost alien on his lips, the scent that rose from his hand at once familiar and strange.

"Meat?"

"Not much, but it smells edible."

"What happened?"

"Someone slipped it into my pocket. I did not recognize his mask, and he was hooded--nor did he speak."

She crawled to where he was. "Are we going to eat it?" She could hear the hunger evident in her voice, and her stomach growled.

They ate, and neither of them were ill. After that, they had it every third or fourth visit. It was always delivered by the same Death Eater, always masked and hooded in the same manner. He was rarely there at the same time as Lestrange, and, though he never spoke, Snape indicated that their anonymous benefactor--if benefactor he was--held a position of power. Given his former position as Voldemort's right hand, Hermione had little trouble believing that he knew what he was talking about.

The Death Eater never spoke, it was true, but he did participate in their torture. He did this with nonverbal magic, aiming small, uncomfortable hexes and curses in their direction at random intervals. Once or twice, he went so far as to kick one of them while they lay on the floor and panted for their breath between blows.

Neither of them dared risk speaking to the Death Eater in front of the others, and he was never there alone, so they simply accepted the gifts. Occasionally, there was a piece of fruit, and once a small half-bar of chocolate. Sometimes there was cheese. Either the food was poisoned and would kill them, or it wouldn't. There didn't seem to be much reason not to eat them, in either case. It was simply another thing to bear, wavering constantly between near-starvation and the fear of poisoning, whether deadly or merely painful.

0 0 0

Severus, though he didn't know and didn't ask about Hermione's thoughts, had mirrored them almost completely. It was easy to call her by her name, because Hermione and Miss Granger were separate entities. It was easy to sleep beside her for the same reason, and easy to both offer comfort and to seek comfort in her arms.

It had been she who had first approached him one night (if by night, one simply meant the time when they were sleeping), her teeth chattering. She hadn't said a word, but merely curled up at his side, her back pressed against his chest, her body trembling with cold. Had he not been freezing as well, he would have repulsed her, but the warmth was a blessing in what he had privately begun to consider the long, dark night of his soul. This was hell, this emptiness. Regardless of what his students thought, even Severus Snape desired to be around other human beings periodically.

They sought each other out to sleep, now. Sometimes she came to sleep beside him even though he remained wakeful, and at those times he would hold her in his arms too, listening to the even sounds of her breathing and letting his mind wander. In the blackness, she might be anyone. She might be Lily, or perhaps some other woman he had not yet known. She might not even be a woman at all, but some asexual creature come to keep him from dying of the cold and loneliness.

In the times when they took her away, he learned to appreciate the difference that she made. Her voice formed the shape of the days and nights, divided now only by the times when she was awake or asleep, and by the occasional light under the door when their captors arrived to look in on them.

He would never have considered that he cared for her as something other than a fellow sufferer. In some part of his mind, he still suspected sometimes that she was imaginary and that he had gone somewhat mad. Even if she didn't exist, however, it was good to have her there.

Another month went by. Judging by how much weight Hermione had lost, Severus guessed that it would be the last they would be able to mark for sure. She had stopped crying by then, and his memory of her tears was fading, as did the memory of everything else. Living in the dark made it easy to forget things.

One day, they kept her for a very, very long time.

When she returned, it was in silence. He waited a long time for her to speak. Time had made him accustomed to talking, even if their conversation was nearly always inane. They had begun to take stock of their injuries after each torture session, and he found himself anxious to know that she was all right.

When he heard the Death Eaters leaving and felt the faint signature of the last wards being raised again, he said, "Hermione?"

"I'm here."

"Obviously," he said, somewhat annoyed, "or I would not have spoken to you."

"What do you want?"

He paused, surprised. It was rare that she was unwilling to talk. "I merely wished to ascertain that you have not been ... too badly damaged."

"I'm fine."

He scratched his chin, where a thick beard had grown, and frowned. "Fine?"

"It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, I mean. And I--I just am tired of talking about things. It doesn't matter if we talk or not. None of it matters, does it? We're never going to get out."

"What has happened?"

She didn't speak. Instead, he heard her breathing hitch. She made almost no noise, but he knew that she was crying, and he went to her immediately. He had long since ceased considering what might or might not be appropriate. In spite of the fact that the blinding shroud they lived under kept them from seeing, there was no privacy between them. It was impossible to be much reserved with anybody who was there every time you snored or blew your nose or vomited or relieved yourself. He sat beside her and felt for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. He had never done such a thing before, though their hands had touched often enough. It seemed to him now that it might help, and if he let her grow too maudlin, his own despair would only increase.

"Harry's dead," she whispered, when her crying had finally ceased.

"I don't believe it," he said sharply, without thinking. His relationship with Harry Potter was nothing if not complicated, but an odd sort of respect and even distant affection had grown up between them before Severus was taken away.

She began to cry again, loudly this time. He could feel her body shaking with the force of her sobs. Again, he waited in silence until it subsided. What was there to say? Either it was true, or it was not true. It didn't much matter. She was right. They wouldn't escape, and they would surely not be found--not in a warded, unplottable house.

"They showed me." She sniffled, pulling her hand away from his. He heard her sniffle again, presumably wiping her nose.

"What do you mean?"

"A copy of The Daily Prophet. The Killing Curse. Three days ago, they said. It had a p-picture." Her voice caught, and he reached for her again, as much to comfort himself as her.

"It is--I am sorry. It is a great loss."

"Point out the bloody obvious, why don't you?"

He pressed his lips together, annoyed.

"There's more," she said softly.

"Tell me."

"There have been other deaths. The--they're winning. Kingsley Shacklebolt is dead and Lucius Malfoy's taken over as Minister of Magic."

His stomach clenched tightly. "Lucius? Minister?"

"Must you call him that?"

He shrugged, leaning his head back against the wall. "Malfoy, then. It doesn't matter. I ought to have worked harder to have him imprisoned."

"It wouldn't have worked." She sounded angry now, and he welcomed the change. Anger was better than sadness in every case. "After the Malfoys deserted Voldemort at Hogwarts, nobody was about to put them in Azkaban. Narcissa Malfoy, Harry's savior." Her voice took on a bitter note.

"I take it you disagree."

"I don't trust them. They stayed out of prison the first time, too, and it meant nothing about their goodness or innocence."

"What makes you so certain that this is all true?"

"I told you, they showed me the newspaper. It's--I have it here."

"They left it with you? I didn't see--"

"It was in my pocket." There was a rustle, and she drew it out and passed it to him. He could feel the very slight unevenness of the paper where the words were printed, and caught the faint scent of ink.

"I cannot read it in the dark."

"They gave me a candle and a match, too. They wanted you to see it. They said I ought to be the one to tell you. I don't know why."

"You did not ask?"

"They didn't answer."

He held his breath for a moment, and then let it out very slowly. "But they gave us a candle?"

"And food. But only one match. We won't be able to use it more than once. I--I wasn't sure if we ought to use it just so you can read the paper. We might need it later." He felt her move, and felt the pressure of her side against him as she crept closer. "I thought that--it seemed impossible that we could lose, once Voldemort was dead," she whispered.

"I confess, I did not anticipate this ... if it is true."

"They never meant to use me to bargain with Harry, did they?"

"I very much doubt it." He carefully lifted his arm and placed it on her shoulders, more for his own physical comfort than anything else. It was awkward to have his arm pinned to his side by her head.

"Are they going to kill us?"

"Eventually."

She went very still. "I don't want to die."

"You may find it very different than you fear."

"I don't care. I don't want to die. I want to go home." She sniffed loudly and began to cry once more.

"Hermione," he said, feeling helpless. At a loss, he put his other arm around her again and drew her into his lap, where she so often slept during his wakeful hours. She twisted around and pressed her face into his chest, crying all the while. This was something new, and wholly unexpected. Unsure of what to do, he held her, one hand creeping up to uncertainly stroke her tangled, matted hair. She cried for a long time, so long that it surprised him to find that she was still capable of doing it. His neck began to ache, and he turned his head back and forth to stretch it.

Eventually, she quieted, but she made no move to remove herself from his arms. He wondered if she was asleep. That, at least, he understood how to deal with. Always before when she'd cried, she'd taken herself as far away from him as she could go. They kept their mourning separate from each other. It was safer that way. It was easier.

He let his head sink forward until his nose and lips came to rest in her hair. It smelled of dust and oil, but the scent was less unpleasant to him than he might have found it in other circumstances. He had long since grown used to the smell of an unwashed human body.

"Thank you," she whispered hoarsely. She was awake, then.

He didn't answer. What answer was there to make? Instead, he tightened his grip on her for a fraction of a second, hoping it was in some way reassuring. She didn't respond, except to rub her face against his shoulder, drying her tears on his shirt. He kept his face in her hair, feeling oddly comfortable. If the Order was failing, if everything was lost, at least he would not suffer the end alone. She shifted a little and placed her hand on his chest, just beside her own head. He covered it with his own hand, thinking again how strange it was to be like this with her, this invisible, faceless woman. And she was a woman. It hadn't really occurred to him before that she was, and he wasn't sure now exactly why that was. On a sudden, wild impulse, he kissed the top of her head.

She stopped breathing, and he felt her tense up. He closed his eyes and removed his head from hers, cursing himself for a fool.

"What did you do that for?"

He shrugged. "It was ... an impulse. I did not think. I apologize."

"I just--I wasn't expecting it," she said, almost regretfully.

He laughed hollowly. "It shan't happen again."

"Oh." She sounded ... disappointed? His heartbeat quickened just slightly.

"I--we are in a difficult situation."

"Well spotted." She snorted, shifting again. Still, though, she remained where she was, and made no attempt to push his arms away or remove her hand from beneath his.

"I do not wish to make it more so."

"I understand. Only ... your head was warm, that's all."

"If you are cold..." he said, tightening his arms around her again and letting his head rest atop hers once more.

"I wonder," she said, her voice very soft, "could I call you by your actual name? It seems silly not to use it, if we're going to be here forever."

"My actual name?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Severus, I mean."

"I ... assumed you didn't wish to use it."

"You never said I could."

"You have never asked before."

"Severus," she said again, as if to accustom herself to saying it. It sounded strange in her voice, and strangely appealing. "It's ... I've never known anybody with that name before."

"You have known me."

Her fingers twitched slightly beneath his hand. "No, I haven't. Not before this."

By 'this', he assumed that she meant their imprisonment. He didn't answer. He had not known a woman called Hermione before, either. All the better for him to be Severus, then. The more that she could divorce her mind from the past, the easier things would be for her, and so the better they would be for him. If they could forget what they left behind, perhaps it would be a little less difficult to face what lay ahead.

She turned her hand around and intertwined her fingers with his, squeezing softly. "I'm glad I'm not alone."

"As am I." His voice was muffled strangely by her hair. He kissed her head again, more in thanks than from impulse this time.

In response, she drew his hand to her lips and left it there. He felt her breath moving back and forth across his knuckles, and he shivered. "Hermione," he said, but there was nothing with which he could follow it. Suddenly, he released her hand and tilted her chin upwards towards him. Bending forward, he brushed his nose over her face, feeling for her lips. When he found them, he kissed them hard. Ah, God, she was a woman, and, though her lips were dry and cracked, they were yielding and womanly. He could taste her, smell her. Her breath was sour, but no more so than his own, and he welcomed the unique flavor of a mouth that was not his.

She kissed him back, a little uncertainly. He fumbled in the darkness, cradling the back of her head with his hand, and her body with his arms. Slowly, his own desperation dawned on him. He doubted he could have lived much longer without it, this affirmation that something real and passionate could still exist in the world, no matter how loveless it might be.

He stopped himself just before the point at which he knew he would be unable to let go of her. "Hermione?"

"It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right. It is. It's all right."

He wasn't sure which one of them she was really attempting to reassure, but he took her at her word. He laid her on the floor gently, did his best to force himself to be gentle in everything he did, although he doubted that he succeeded entirely. He longed for her most unexpectedly, needed her in a way that shocked him to discover. And, knowing that they had a day of solitude before their next interrogation, he didn't hesitate again.

Nor was she unresponsive. She guided his hands when they went astray, and made occasional whispers of encouragement or nearly inaudible sounds of pleasure. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

They left most of their clothes on. Even if they hadn't been freezing, it was too dangerous to disrobe completely. He had no wish to be discovered like this, with his body fusing itself to hers. He retained the presence of mind to be thankful that she'd been wearing robes when they took her. Robes were easy enough to push out of the way. He was not foolish enough to expect the Death Eaters to always remain away for so long after a visit. Complacency was a deadly thing.

She was largely inexperienced, and he was out of practice, but it was satisfying enough nevertheless. He felt different when it was over, as he lay on the floor, sweat chilling on his skin, his head cushioned on her chest. They didn't speak of it, then or later. It was as if it had never happened.

A few days afterwards (by his best estimation) it was her turn to be tortured again. He went to the door and took advantage of the light that came in underneath it to read the newspaper. Sure enough, it read as she'd reported. He felt suddenly sick, and went to the corner where they slept, lying down in silence, refusing even to think. He had resisted believing it until he had a chance to actually see the paper. Now, in spite of himself, he found it hard to come up with a way to argue that it wasn't true.

She came back quickly this time. As soon as the door closed, he heard her footsteps on the floor, and felt her arms as she knelt down and made her way towards him. When she found him, she didn't speak. Instead, she stretched herself out beside him in silence, and he felt one of her tiny hands moving over his robes. When it crept downward, he took it in his own and stopped her. She snatched her hand away immediately.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He searched for her hand and took it back into his. "Wait until they leave."

0 0 0

Hopelessness made it easy. It was a comfort, a way to release some fraction of the despair that always threatened to overwhelm her. It was easy to justify, and an easy habit to fall into. She woke up frequently to find his lips on her, and she never refused him, nor did he ever refuse her. Occasionally, she felt a stab of guilt when he was moving over her, a persistent belief that she was being unforgivably unfaithful to Ron.

But she loved Ron, and she didn't love Severus--nor did Severus love her. This was nothing, merely a coping mechanism, a way to survive. It kept them warm. She began to believe that it kept her alive. It was a last shield against the temptation to give up and die. She'd grown so skinny that neither of them felt much need for caution, and they gave themselves up to each other completely.

They were interrupted only once by the arrival of Death Eaters. Hermione thanked whatever gods there might be that Severus had such good hearing, and that they both had retained quick reflexes. They took Severus, and left Hermione on the floor, pretending to sleep and trying to fight her frustration and sudden loneliness.

"Hermione," he said, as soon as they'd heard the Death Eaters leave, "bring me the candle."

She sat up immediately. "What's happened?"

"I shall show you."

She produced the candle and match from the tiny pile of rags on which they slept and brought them to him. He lit the candle and, in its small, sputtering light, produced a small piece of paper and showed it to her.

"What's this?" she whispered, staring at the paper and doing her best to avoid looking at his face. She'd found that she didn't wish to see him. It was easier for her to simply forget what he looked like and avoid the occasional reminders that he was, in fact, someone she had known before her descent into hell.

"I do not know yet," he murmured, turning it over. His hand trembled slightly, something she'd never noticed when touching it.

There was writing on the paper, and she squinted at it, trying to read in the faint light.

"Next time, I will come alone. Be prepared to Disapparate to this location. Five-minute window," he read. There was a small but detailed map sketched below the text, and they both studied it.

She took the note from him and looked at it. "Can you Apparate based on a map?"

"It is possible, yes."

"I know it's possible. I meant, can you do it?"

"I can."

"And of course, with Apparating, not having wands won't make a difference."

He snorted. "You have an unfortunate habit of presenting common sense as if it represented unusual knowledge."

She didn't answer. They sat just outside the wavering circle of light cast by the candle, watching in silence as it burned.

"Who is it, helping us?"

"I do not know." He sighed. "Hermione, it is possible that we are being set up--encouraged to escape, only to be killed in the process."

She watched the flickering flame. "So?"

"I merely wished to be sure that you understood."

"We're still going to try, aren't we?"

"I will."

"So, we are."

"Yes."

She hugged her knees to her chest. "Do you think you're strong enough to do it?"

"Are you?"

"I don't know."

The candle began to sputter, and she watched it regretfully as it began to go out. "Is there a way to practice?"

"No. I attempted it when I first arrived. The wards do not permit it."

The candle went out, leaving them in the dark. He reached out and drew her into his arms, kissing her. Without a word, she acquiesced to his unspoken desire, allowing him to coax her body back to where it had been before they were separated. They went slowly, carefully, and Hermione felt a poignant sense that she was saying farewell. She fell asleep in his arms, knowing that it was the last time they would do such a thing. When they returned to the daylight world, if they returned, she would belong to Ron again, wholly and devotedly. As she slipped out of consciousness, she let herself indulge and luxuriate in thoughts of Ron for the first time in weeks. Her last thought before she slept was of Ron, her last sensation that of Severus's chest rising and falling beneath her cheek.

Author's Notes: Ok, I know, of course, that this is being posted on a Monday. It was done on Sunday and I was all set to go, but my beta (who rocks in every imaginable way) hit some really bad weather and had to take her computer offline for a number of hours. There just wasn't time to get it all done before Sunday was over. However, it's still early on Monday morning here, so at least it's close.