Severus ran as fast as he could, chasing something he could hardly see. Every so often he'd catch a glimpse of it and run faster, hoping to catch up before it took another tight turn and disappeared. All the while, he heard screaming, and with each step he took, each step he fell further behind the tip of her tail, it grew louder. He pushed, incapable of breathing past the blood in his throat, willing himself to make it there, to reach her before it was too late.

He stumbled, then, knees crushing against the remains of children, and he felt the blood, their blood, seeping across his fingers. He scrambled to his feet, but couldn't see her and couldn't keep running, there were too many of them now, piling thicker on top of each other as he stared straight ahead. They grew, a mountain beneath him, and he was the peak, the summit of death.

Severus choked for breath, iron tinting his mouth as he shot up from the desk, hands planted over damp papers as he held himself up. His arms trembled. He closed his eyes, but the image of the children's faces was singed to his eyelids and the sight of it sent him fumbling backwards. Trying to gather himself, Severus brought a hand through his hair, but the thought of blood stained fingers streaking crimson across his scalp made him drop it to stare in horror. His fingers curled, nothing but pale skin and thin blue veins, and Severus turned away, a shiver contracting the back of his neck.

"Hermione." His voice was foreign; his soul was seeping out through her name in his mouth. He couldn't find her, couldn't see her, and he scrambled like a drunk to his quarters. She was there, curled up at the foot of the bed, and Severus fell against the mattress, grabbing her with aggressive desperation.

Her mind was quiet and calm, full of the peacefulness that comes with sleep. He hadn't felt it in a long time, and it seemed to him like a deep gulp of fresh oxygen when all he'd ever had was a thin wheeze off a stale muggle tank.

She was in here, he believed Lovegood, and he believed in her.

"Hermione." He had to do something different. He'd tried his own memories of her, tried presenting familiarity - oh.

He had only been showing her his perspective... His perception of her, his memories of her, everything had been his and none of it had been hers.

What memories did he have? Oh, yes, he had been in her mind for Occlumency, had raided her library and seen innocent childhood memories. He would start with those.

He brought them forth, from his mind flowing into hers. The discrepancy between species was irrelevant, he was so disturbed and so focused that he was incapable of succumbing to distractions.

He became Hermione, feeling the weight of her father's hand against his back, the tickle of laughter in his throat as he swung higher and higher. The gentle, loving voice of her father behind him as he screeched when he could see the neighboring house over the tops of the trees, legs pumping beneath him.

He was Hermione as she got her Hogwarts letter, eyes scanning the official script and the emblem and the signature at the bottom, the words "Hermione" and "magic" and "witchcraft" stirring up a whirlpool of emotions; excitement, nervousness, uncertainty, surprise.

It jumped suddenly to him being brought into the arms of her mother and father as they wrapped themselves tight around him, his forehead burrowing against their chests. He was Hermione as she sobbed with joy, the feeling of complete acceptance filling his chest. Her father smelled of mint and latex gloves, and he found nothing but comfort in it. Her mother smelled of paper and pen ink and latex, too, and he knew they'd just gotten home from their practice. Soon they'd smell like whatever they'd cooked for dinner, and her father would drink a bit of red wine with a book and her mother would knit because she could never sit idle.

He felt the sharp edges of the lioness' vision blur.

"Hermione."

He was Hermione when she was young, and her parents had taken her to get a kitten. The memory was weak, almost like a dream, but there was a moment when she held the little grey tabby in her arms and it mewled, a squeaky little sound, and Hermione had gasped and snuggled the little fur ball closer to her chest, vision becoming slightly obstructed by the hairs sticking up in her front of her eyes as she buried her nose against it's ears.

The memory of Crookshanks had been right beside the one of the kitten in her library, and he brought that forth, feeling nothing but compassion for the surly feline as it stalked across the counter and glared in his direction. He listened as he spoke many octaves higher, the sweet twinkling voice of a young first year, asking how much the cat cost. He watched the surprise on the owner's face as he reached out and picked the cat up, the light rumble of a purr echoing against his chest. "You can have 'im. I'd warn yah he's a right bastard, but he seems to like you alright. Bit of a miracle I reckon."

Something else changed, but Severus couldn't place it. It felt like a bit of animal had quieted and something much more human had stirred in it's place.

"Hermione."

Severus continued, bringing up the small tidbits of memories Hermione had stored in her library, and as he exhausted the source, Hermione had still yet to be drawn entirely out from within the lioness. Every time he felt a shift and she was still not there Severus felt himself becoming more and more unstable. She was so fucking close!

No, he had to keep control. He would hurt her if he didn't. He would ruin any chance of ever seeing her again, ever talking to her again, ever holding her again... He stilled, bringing the cool waves to the forefront of his mind, weightlessness drifting through him.

Maybe... maybe that...

Severus waited, completely silent, letting his imagery lap gently against the edges of her mind, a gentle tease of an idea.

Something stirred, almost too quiet to sense, and he waited.

The sound of bubbling in the distance, impossible to distinguish had he not been so familiar with it. He kept still.

A bit of mist rose in his mind's eye, swirling ever so slightly as it rose from an effervescent cauldron.

It wasn't quite there.

Ah, yes. The smell.

As it grew in potency, Severus waited for it to give away the potion, but it wasn't the smell of the potion that he sensed. It was something familiar, but unplaceable, though as curious as he was he couldn't dwell on it. He embraced the scent, the swirling visual, and the faint sound of bubbling, and brought it forth as his own imagery faded beneath it. As it rose to the forefront of their minds, it grew stronger, more pronounced, and Severus let himself get lost in it.

The scene shifted out from the potion, revealing a hand, fluid with the movement of experience and passion. Then the body was revealed, clad in black, and the face, tilted forward just enough that the dark hair fell forward to mask it's features. Severus nearly withdrew himself at the sheer shock of seeing himself in Hermione's most serene, reassuring visualization, but the drive within him to see this through held him tight, captured in the moment.

He saw himself as she saw him. It took everything not to let his own disbelief cloud the purity. He wanted to reject it, like it was some form of mockery, but the fact that it wasn't ravaged him more than any curse ever had.

He held on. His own perceptions of himself did not matter. It was not his place... It was not his place.

It went on, and he let it, keeping it alive as he waited, making himself tend to the potion, watching himself as he did. He could not know how long it took, but finally he felt what he was waiting for.

Hermione.

Severus gently backed away and let her find herself.