Red

I'm thrilled and honoured that Care of Magical Creatures has been nominated for four The New Library Awards:

Amortentia: Best SS/HG Romance

Gripping Charm: Best SS/HG Drama

Diffindo: Best SS/HG Angst

Engorgio: Best SS/HG WIP

I have also been nominated Best New Author.

More info and a fabulous list of nominated fics in all sorts of ships and genres here:

http://community.livejournal.com/tnl_awards/4104.html

Nothing you recognise belongs to me, and without the genius and generosity of JK Rowling it would not bless our lives with so much happiness.

I can't offer enough gratitude to GinnyW who not only (as recognised by Quill to Parchment) is the Best Beta, but is also patient beyond measure. And finally, much thanks to lifeasanamazon for being that additional set of eyes that makes the difference.

53. RED

Red poker-hot pain seared into him.

Deep.

She was there, eyes huge and dark and bloody...

He tried to blink, tried to clear his own vision, but the red...

Everywhere the red....

And then.

She was gone.

Dreamless Sleep.

He tasted it, smelled it.

She'd given it to him.

In his tea.

Deep within him his soul ached and screamed and raged...

But...

It was difficult to remember why.

And she'd given it to him.

In his tea, his sweet, sweet tea...

And he didn't remember how to be angry, not at her....

The waves beckoned...

The deep...

The black solace.

He felt himself being sucked under, under the waves, into the dark, deep nothing....

Dreamless Sleep.

No thoughts, no memories, no images.

No pain.

Nothing.

XX

And then.

Deep within.

A voice.

Fuelled by fury.

And terror.

Nooooooooooooo!

And...

A different voice.

A gentle voice.

In his ears, so close to his ears.

He could almost feel the hot, moist breath...wanted, needed to feel it curl into his ear and shudder down his spine....

Professor...

So easy to slip back into the depths, to just slip in....

Again, the rage.

Again, the voice.

Nooo!

Breathing was hard; his chest was heavy, his arms like stone, and his legs beyond feeling at all.

That voice, that deep voice, that hot, angry voice.

It seized him, demanded and commanded.

And he found himself moaning, forcing...

Forcing a hand to rise.

Forcing his head to roll sideways.

Forcing his eyes to open.

To open.

And see.

The broken wand.

XX

Somehow...

He was standing.

Staggering.

Instinct rather than thought drove him forward...

To his cabinet.

His potions cabinet.

His unlabeled potions.

Instinct rather than thought led his hand to the red vials of Pepper Up.

And then he was on the floor, slumped against the wall, staring at the empty bed.

The flavour of pepper burning his tongue, his sinuses, his eyes.

Two empty red vials in one hand.

A broken wand in the other.

XX

Memory flooded back through him.

Hazy and razor-edged.

He lunged to his feet...

Saw blood on the floor, on his own shirt, felt it...

He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Dried blood flaked on his cheeks.

He remembered.

Her face.

Her eyes.

Her eyes....

Thick, red tears dripping down her face.

Tears.

Of blood.

Like the blood staining his own skin.

Confused, aching, he rubbed his face, scrubbed it raw, washing all traces away.

Bloody tears.

Tears of blood.

Fucking hell.

He wanted to roar, but no sound formed, no sound, no sound...

Just the question, the whimpering, raging question....

What had she done?

XX

He ploughed into a group of third years standing outside his classroom door, blew through them without speaking, felt them staring, and heard their murmuring voices as he took the stairs two at a time.

Through the Entrance Hall, down the sloping lawn, his mind racing.

Portkey.

She'd activated a Portkey.

It was the only way she could have disappeared before his eyes...

But how?

And to where?

How was simple. If she could use Protean Charms, she could create Portkeys.

But why and where?

For an emergency.

Where would she go in an emergency?

A sick rage took hold of him.

XX

He resisted the need to storm in and tear the shop apart.

Instead, he stayed in the shadows across from No. 93 Diagon Alley.

Watching.

Steady traffic in and out.

All he needed was to see even one of them, to see a twin...

He'd know.

XX

He had to wait longer at The Burrow.

It had only taken twenty minutes before Fred Weasley appeared in the front window of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to retrieve a Pygmy Puff from its cage.

He was too jaunty, too relaxed, too normal, as he laughed over his shoulder and spoke to someone deeper within the shop.

She wasn't there.

But here, at the Burrow, it was over an hour before Molly emerged with a basket and her charmed shears to clip herbs from her garden.

Unlike her son, she was tired, worried. The thoughts of approaching war didn't thrill her; she'd seen it before. And no chick had returned to the nest or Molly would bustle with agitation and energy.

She wasn't here.

He lurched into a turn and Disapparated...

And landed on his knees at Spinner's End.

Dust rose from the rug and choked him.

He refused to stop, refused to think about why she was doing this...this thing she was doing. It made no difference why, not now, not when he only needed to find her and stop her before it was too late.

To protect her.

Because even as the old pain growled and stirred within him, he felt a desperate need to protect her.

As he'd vowed to do.

Only how? Where?

He stared blindly at the gloom, the hated Muggle-ness of it all. The air was stale and dank. Not like when she'd been here with him, when the air had pulsed with the sounds and smells of red sheets washing.

Sheets as red as blood.

At some point, the rage drained and was replaced with fear.

She was alone without a fucking wand.

She hadn't retreated to the Weasleys. She had no family to turn to, nobody to protect her...

From him.

Of course she'd heard, she'd fucking heard, and she was running...running from him...

He wanted to vomit.

No family to protect her....

No.

Hell, no.

She wouldn't be so stupid.

But, who else knew about The Grange? He wondered if even Albus knew. Her address on file at Hogwarts was in London, not Hampshire....

With a surge of emotion he tried once more...

The Apparation was fast and silent.

This time he didn't stand in the shadows and watch. This time it was evident; the structure was locked and empty, windows shuttered and chimneys cold.

It evidently wasn't the posh season for staying in the Country.

But...to be certain...

He landed in that other Muggle room. That other room of stale air and dust.

He lifted his nose to the air. Not a tinge of magical signature was present, not even his own from his last quick visit.

The books on the shelf from which he'd retrieved her prayer book still tumbled sideways.

She hadn't even asked him how he'd known the words to say...the Muggle rites...when he'd given her the cloaking potion.

He wondered what she'd think when she found her prayer book missing.

If she found it missing.

If she ever returned to this, her childhood home.

Because she wasn't here. Her energy, her vitality, her magic...

He had to find her.

He grabbed books from the shelf, flipping wildly from inside cover to inside cover until he found it: a carefully handwritten name and address in Mayfair.

Their other home.

If he didn't find her in London, he was lost.

XX

She couldn't breathe...didn't dare breathe...didn't dare...didn't dare...didn't dare...

Until she heard the soft pop and knew he was gone.

Even then, she couldn't move. She lay pinned to the floor of her dressing room by a heavy weight of exhaustion.

She'd arrived in a frenzy, dizzy and worse from the Portkey.

Stumbled through the door into the small chamber adjoining her bedroom and collapsed.

Even now, sobs still threatened to tear through her.

Sobs of pain.

She'd barely managed a wandless spell...it hurt, why had it hurt...to scour her bedroom of magical residue...

And closed the door...

And collapsed in the darkness.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

And he'd been there, on the other side of the door, and all she would have had to do was to simply breathe his name....

But she couldn't.

She couldn't.

It was up to her, always up to her, first with Harry and now with her professor.

She would save him.

She would save them all.

If only... if only she could rest first.

Maybe she just needed to rest....

She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed through the pain, the deep, deep pain.

The pain that had started when she broke her wand.

And pulsed through her still.

XX

He practically fell through the wards, through the melting wall, and barely kept his feet as he stepped into their quarters, their empty dungeon quarters...

Only to find Albus, damn his black soul to the lowest level of hell.

Sitting in her chair.

Waiting.

If the bastard twinkled, if he dared twinkle...

Something slow and hissing burned within him.

The bastard was sitting in her chair.

Severus fought for an illusion of composure. He slumped against the now-solid wall and folded his arms, glared through his hair.

And resisted the urge to blast the old wizard out of her chair, out of the air she'd breathed...

It hit him hard, the knowledge.

Severus wanted to kill him.

His fingers itched, itched to grab his wand...or to point, simply point, and think the words, and watch the bolt of green...

He wanted it like he'd never wanted anything in his life. The Dark within him rose with a roar, and it was all he could do to restrain it.

The old wizard held two envelopes in his gnarled fingers. "The Ministry has been trying to contact you."

"Leave them. Leave them on the table." He curled his trembling fingers into fists. "Leave."

"Ah, I wish I could, but we must talk about these."

"You read them?" he snarled.

"No, of course not, that would be overstepping my boundaries, would it not?" The barest twinkle threatened to emerge. "However, it is perfectly within my rights to read anything that comes into these walls addressed to a student, in certain circumstances. I read Miss Granger's."

"She's no longer a student!"

"We," Albus said with a sharp look, "must talk."

He flipped the two missives in the air and they sailed to Severus and fluttered around his face until he slapped them aside. "Enlighten me," he sneered.

"The first was a notice from the Minister of Magic himself. It seems that he has found it within his powers to waive the marital monitoring clause on your marriage contract. Miss Granger's somewhat unseemly but totally understandable reaction to such monitoring found a receptive ear when Madam Scrimgeour witnessed the Howler her husband received." He smiled like a fond grandfather.

Severus stared into the fire. She'd done it. She'd fucking done it.

"The second was the automatic notification that, having registered the snapping of her wand, the Ministry allows that the marriage has ended with Miss Granger's forfeiture of her place in the Wizarding world." His gaze was penetrating and unwelcome. Severus averted his eyes. "It spells out the penalties should she dare try to return. Azkaban, of course. Not that we'd let that happen." Albus cleared his throat. "When this is all over, she'll have her place here, which I'm sure she realises or she'd never have made such a gesture."

That was it? She'd broken her wand and had flown, and this was the extent of concern? They'd straighten it all out later? He didn't even seem surprised by the news.

"Your letter, on the other hand," Albus continued, gesturing at those on the floor, "most likely informs you that you have six weeks to find a new bride."

He thought he was going to vomit.

"I don't think it's necessary to concern yourself," Albus continued blandly.

Of course not. Because he wouldn't live that long. He wouldn't survive Hallowe'en.

"Leave," he repeated.

"Ah, but there's one more thing." Albus reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a length of parchment covered with frantic and familiar script.

A letter. She'd left him a letter. And that bastard had it, had read it...

He lunged forward, his hands still fisted, and if the headmaster's shields hadn't been strong he would have used his fists...

Instead he bounced back and fell to the floor.

Her letter drifted into his hands.

His eyes squeezed shut. He couldn't read it, not now, not like this.

"I take it you didn't find her."

"So you'll send someone else to kill her? Or are you reserving that black blot for my soul alone?"

"She's a loose cannon, and I admit I'm worried about what she might do out there with nobody to temper her. All this time, I thought she was the temperate one, but after the past few weeks.... Still, whatever is guiding her...instinct? Something deeper? I can no longer dispute that the marriage she instigated was necessary. And now, seeing that it has served its purpose, she has ended it. Remarkable. She is, indeed, remarkable."

He tried to stand, to eject the wizard physically if necessary, but his head swam and he fell back against the wall, the cold, dry parchment in his fingers.

"I always knew Harry would need her intellect, her dedication to research and study," Albus continued. "I seem to have overlooked what, perhaps, should have been obvious." He flickered his fingers toward the parchment. "She is, after all, a teenaged witch in love with the idea of love."

He snapped his eyes up at the old man despite his resentment.

"She writes a lot about... love."

Something inside him jerked.

"I was concerned, Severus. I feared you would wound her, would leave her unable to form a connection when this is all over. I vastly underestimated the impact your...."

He snapped his head up at that, stared into the sharp blue eyes.

"Your need would have on her."

"What the fuck..." he started, his voice a low growl.

"Why, Severus, isn't it obvious? She ended up with the most wounded of all of us..."

His breath came in sharp gasps. "Wounded? Don't you mean unworthy?"

"All are worthy of love, Severus. Some are more difficult to embrace, however. Miss Granger found it within her..."

"Like a fucking charity, Albus?"

"...to embrace the most unlikely partner. And even to believe she'd found love."

To believe she'd found love. Of course she hadn't really found it. He knew she hadn't found it, simply didn't know better, had even said so to the Dark Lord.

I'm the first cock she ever knew, and she thinks it's love....

But to hear it articulated...

"And I'm grateful for this, truly I am, Severus. I'm grateful that you found it within you to be patient. An older wizard, experienced in the ways of sex...of course you had the knowledge to please her. Of course, she equated that with romantic love. I can hardly imagine that the boys she knew before you..."

She knew no one before me.

"...were experienced enough to..."

"Enough!" He staggered to his feet. "Enough. Just... leave."

"You deserved this escape, my boy. This preparation, if you will, for what lies ahead. You've gathered your strength, your power. You're ready for the end."

Strength? He felt weak, drained, empty. The only strength he felt was the low-boiling rage that wanted to stop off the words flowing from the old man's throat, and even then there wasn't enough power to carry out the desire.

"Her life won't end at the final battle. She will live on. She will love still." And after a long moment, Albus added, "She will love."

Of course she would. And she would love someone worthy, a shining hero, and would live a charmed life, not a life hidden in the dungeon like...

He couldn't even find words to describe what they'd had.

She was gone; her essence was gone; nothing of her remained. A glance around the quarters showed red sheets and a tea set and an odd, faded floral chair that were already consumed by the gloom.

To her, they'd had an interlude.

What would she think when she looked back on this time, looked past a life with someone else? What would she remember?

For her, it would eventually be nothing but a strange interlude.

For him, it was everything.

Everything.

She was everything.

And she was gone.

"Severus? Do you hear me...?"

He jerked away from Albus's touch, from his concern. How long had the old man been speaking to him?

He was losing it. Losing control.

Fucking hell, if he was summoned now he'd be unable to... "But you told me to kill her, anyway."

"She's made that rather difficult."

"The Dark Lord..."

"Whatever he does, it's now on her shoulders. She's the one who..."

"Protected me."

"She thinks so, but you and I know the truth. She thinks she's saving you, but in fact, she left you to Tom Riddle's mercy."

She thought she was saving him. He knew that, but she had no idea, no fucking idea, what dangers surrounded her now.

"And, we must hope that once again, Miss Granger is right."

"Snape!" he spat. "Her name is Snape!"

Albus smiled sadly and glanced at Severus's bare ring finger. "Not any more, Severus. Not since this morning."

Albus studied him, ignoring his shock, his pain, as if they were of no import, no import at all. "It was a gamble, but it could work. Because, quite simply, if it were within Tom's shredded soul to love anyone, he would love you, Severus. He holds you in some sort of twisted affection, and you know it. He will punish you, but there is plenty of time for healing. He won't kill you."

"The curse of my life, that neither of you will kill me."

"Tom needs you, and he wants you by his side."

"And you, Albus?"

"You know what you mean to us."

"I won't survive."

"We've always known that."

Words rang hollow in his head. This was someone else's conversation, someone else standing here calmly discussing the end of everything, and it meant nothing, nothing to him, because somehow despite his desperate words to the contrary, the only thing that meant anything had ended already.

Albus flung a fistful of powder into the Floo, stepped in and was gone.

Leaving Severus with a piece of parchment, a piece of parchment filled with her hastily scrawled words.

Her words.

He forced himself to forget that Albus had read them first, forced himself to open his eyes and...

Her voice filled his heart as he read.

My dearly beloved professor....

There's no time to think, to say the right things, and now I see you sneering at me for even my salutation but I must say the words...must say them. I don't know what to call you any more, professor or Se...I don't even want to write it, I just want to write the only words that echo with truth, that are real.

You are my dearly beloved.

And...now that I'm writing, I'm really writing them down, they seem more important than anything else, more important even though I know you're asking WHY? And I'm sorry, but I must say this first...I must say this before I answer your question...

I love you.

I can see your face, I can hear your sneer, I can see and hear you and I have to say it anyway. And I don't mind if you sneer because that's your way, but if you don't feel it, too...

I never felt it before, never once, never even a moment's attraction, and yet now I know that before I was conceived, before I was even a pair of cells in my mother's womb, I loved you.

It's as if it existed deep within me, patient and waiting, until the day I had to choose a husband from a list without your name, and every cell in my body cried out, every part of me screamed, and I flung a prayer up to heaven because...

I knew. I knew it was wrong. Not just wrong in the way that forcing young girls to marry against their will is wrong, but wrong on a more horrifying level.

Wrong, because I hadn't had time yet, hadn't had time for us to discover it on our own, for life to unfold for us in its own time and suddenly my heart was being wrenched out of my body and even when I didn't understand it, couldn't comprehend...

I knew. I knew that you could save me, you were the only one who could save me, and without you, I would be lost.

And with you, I was found.

I became somebody different, somebody new, somebody Ron and Harry wouldn't have recognised had they ever seen me the way you saw me, and I loved being that person for you and with you and...

I love you.

And now, I must save you.

That is the WHY, the WHY I know you're asking, and I would give anything not to hurt you but...

Professor Dumbledore was right. You would sacrifice yourself to save me, and while I appreciate the gesture, and while I think you must have a plan...

I know no other way to say this, and so I say the truth.

I am afraid. I am afraid of your plan. I'm afraid of anything that relies on you going before the Dark Lord so you can lie to protect me.

And so I must leave in the only way I know how, the only way that will allow me to truly disappear, and leave you with the truth to tell the Dark Lord. A truth that he will believe.

I'm leaving because I no longer trust you to protect me.

He will believe it's because I'm a stupid Muggle.

He won't understand that it's because I need you more than the air I breathe, and can't let you die for me.

I love you so much...oh, stupid, stupid words, if I could show you, if I could only show you...and thank you, for saving me, for letting me be yours if only for a short time, for giving me joys of which I never dreamed.

I don't know how to thank you. And instead, I do this.

Oh dear God, what am I doing?

You'll think I'm so foolish but please, please promise that you will keep my little jade Slytherin snake, and our pictures, and your mother's hair comb...that you'll keep all my things safe for me. I wanted them so badly but fear I won't be able to keep them whole....

I'm rambling. I'm running out of time.

I'll never forgive myself for betraying your trust.

I could not live knowing you sacrificed your life to save me.

Please forgive me.

Always your...

Hermione

The last page was splattered with tears but the ink didn't run, not Miss Granger's ink, for of course she would have spelled it to shed water, even the salt of her tears.

He raised it to his lips and tasted... and had he found even a trace of salt he would have devoured it...devoured her, anything he had of her...

He needed her.

His mind raced, again, and again, through the list of places she might be...

She didn't trust him to protect her.

Clever girl.

Those who trusted him lived to regret it.

Or... didn't.

She fucking thanked him.

Thanked him!

She...who had flung trust and faith and even, Merlin help her, love at him by the armful...thanked him.

What had he given her? Harsh words, a place on the floor, and then in his bed, but oh no, just a place in his bed...

He'd used that bed to bed her, to seduce her and take his pleasure and his comfort from her, even as he shoved her away.

He couldn't love her.

Those he loved...

He couldn't love her.

Or so he thought.

So he fucking thought.

She was out there somewhere alone and without a wand, and he feared her control of wandless magic...

Word was already out that she was gone.

She was a target.

She didn't have the Dark Lord's protection any more, not now that she'd removed herself from his dungeon.

She bloody fucking thanked him and took it upon herself to save him.

He bent double as the pain in his left forearm seared through him, blood red and poker-hot.

XX

It came on him slowly, a slow creeping thing, the need.

The need for relief, for at long last, a final relief.

And yet when he became aware of it, it was as if it had been gnawing at him for years, for decades.

And perhaps, after all, it had.

It was more than a need; it was a desire.

A desire that he dared not acknowledge.

Until now.

And now when he was weakest, he suddenly felt a surge of strength.

The answer had always been there, terrifying and dangerous, and he'd lived his life avoiding it.

The curse of my life, that neither of you will kill me.

He'd voiced it.

In voicing it, he had made it possible.

By summoning him, the Dark Lord could make it real.

XX

If he'd ever planned this moment, dreamed of it, he would have been standing erect, relaxed, every button buttoned and his robes immaculate. He would have proceeded with elegance, with grace.

He would have demanded.

With a sneer.

Proving to one and all, that in this act, this very last act, he was in control.

Instead, robes gaping open over his half-buttoned shirt and dirty trousers, he barely managed to walk through the crowded drawing room in Malfoy Manor before he collapsed at the Dark Lord's feet.

"You lossst her? You let her get away?"

He barely heard the voice hissing, barely felt the bony fingers seize his chin and yank up.

Was barely cognisant...but no less in control...oh, no, even thus, he was in control...when he opened his eyes.

Opened his memories, his damning memories.

Opened his soul.

And knew what was coming.

She doubted his ability to lie. Well done, Miss Granger. She'd taken his will to lie.

He looked into those glowing eyes.

And offered the truth.

He braced himself for the shift to rage when awareness hit.

But, to his shock, the Dark Lord released him and drew back, his eyes glowing slits of ruby red. "Who did thisss to you?" he hissed, his words crackling with anger.

Severus almost fell sideways, barely kept on his knees. Did what?

The Dark Lord bent over him, yanked his chin up again, and this time...

Dived in.

Not a rapid viewing of memories, but an icy penetration, a cold slither that somehow went deeper than memory, coiled and glided in an invasion unlike any he'd known before.

And the hiss, the Dark Lord's hiss, this time seemed to come from within him, from deep within him when he drew in a sharp gasp.

This time, when he released him, Severus fell to the floor at his feet, unable to rise.

"And the old fool saw you like this?"

Severus fought to focus, finally managed to say, "I just... left him."

The Dark Lord's reaction was electric. "Did he not see? Did he not even notice?"

Severus couldn't respond.

"How could he not?" the Dark Lord mused, pacing restlessly and then stopped, alert. "This means..." He broke off, and jutted a pointed finger in Severus's direction. "Rise!"

Severus felt himself jerk to his feet through no effort, no strength of his own.

"You come to me broken, and the old man didn't see. You come to me broken, and I want to know why." And with those words, the Dark Lord entered again, this time straight into his mind, his memories...

They flew by in reverse.

Albus, waiting for him, in her chair, in her fucking chair.

The frantic search for her, the hours outside the townhouse in Mayfair, her bedroom at The Grange, The Burrow, Diagon Alley...

Her face. Streaked with red.

The snapping of the wand.

The tea, and his slow awareness of betrayal as he fell....

He was falling again, his knees like water...

But somehow, they still supported him as hands steadied his face, hands as cold as bone caressed his cheeks and...somehow...he was still upright by force of magic that felt almost... tender.

"He didn't see. He didn't see what I see." The low laughter ghosted over him.

The invasion continued.

If he'd first fallen at the Dark Lord's feet with a will to bare all, he now was stripped of the ability to even care. His head fell back and his mouth sagged open in pain as the images kept coming.

A frantic Miss Granger in his arms, falling apart over a nightmare...

No, not a nightmare, because she'd heard. She'd heard it all, but she hadn't wanted him to know.

The pain twisted deeper.

The night before, and his Miss Granger, his fierce, angelic Miss Granger asleep as he curled around her seeking warmth, seeking comfort....

Seeking absolution.

Only she hadn't been asleep, had she?

Albus in his quarters, Albus giving him the impossible task, finally pushing him farther than he could go....

And then, in rapid succession, the Dark Lord isolated them, the words, the words that had set forth a course of events that felled Severus Snape and brought him to his knees, and now damned him, blessedly damned him...

"You think I don't have potions at my disposal that will mimic death? Don't insult me by underestimating me!"

"And don't underestimate Tom! You think he doesn't expect just such trickery, if trickery there is to be had?"

"I can do it. I can manage..."

"How much simpler, if you had allowed me to arrange things for her. How much easier your conscience would be. You've already ruined my plans beyond repair, Severus. You have no choice.... If you don't, you will die. If you die, our cause is lost. Harry is lost."

He waited for it now, the blow, the curse, the pain that would end his pain, his guilt...

But no, there was one more thing the Dark Lord wanted to linger over....

Albus's voice. Albus Dumbledore's fucking voice, delivering the death knell.

"Because, quite simply, if it were within his shredded soul to love anyone, he would love you, Severus. He holds you in some sort of twisted affection, and you know it. He will punish you, but there is plenty of time for healing. He won't kill you."

"Fool..." The Dark Lord's voice was chilling.

Severus forced his tongue, his voice to work. Forced the words that he wanted to be a demand, but were a mere, breathless plea.

"Kill me. Prove him wrong. Kill me now."

And the world went red again.

XX

The world was black.

Silent.

Freezing.

Her arms trembled as she braced her hands against the floor to push up, to sit up, to fight the weakness....

Something was wrong.

Breaking her wand...she winced at the thought for even the thought, the memory of that horrible moment sent a shaft of pain deep into her even as she shivered alone on the floor of her dark dressing chamber...breaking her wand had been a tactical surrender, a sacrifice to buy time, to buy him time, to buy them all time....

Something had gone horribly wrong.

She collapsed again.

What had she done?

Oh, dear God in heaven, what had she done?

And where was her professor, her beloved, dearly beloved professor?

Deep inside, deep in her heart, she only knew one thing.

What she'd done had been very wrong, as wrong and evil as sin, and she'd done it, she'd done it to her beloved professor and she'd done it to herself, and as she lay there shivering in the black, black darkness, she knew that she'd needed no curse.

That this was the meaning of unforgivable.

XX

He awoke to the cloying scents of red musk and patchouli, to find himself on the floor, supported in the arms of Narcissa and Bellatrix.

He was equally torn between the urge to gasp at the injustice that he was still alive, and the need to wrench himself free and vomit from the stench.

Bellatrix's mouth twisted in disgust and then smoothed into obsequious submission as she raised her improbably thick lashes to the Dark Lord, who sat in his high-backed chair... watching.

Narcissa's concern was evident as she fluttered and dabbed at his face with an icy cold cloth. Icy cold and pink where it blotted blood from his face.

He let out a slow, shuddering sigh.

"You're back with us." The Dark Lord leaned forward, his demeanour intense. "Tell me, my boy, how you felt when you turned to Albus Dumbledore for comfort and found betrayal?" His voice rose. "Because surely, he...he, the leader of the Light...could be counted on to release you from your burden, couldn't he?"

He tossed his head back and laughed, and those present laughed with him, despite the fact that they hadn't seen what he'd seen and didn't know what he knew. Seeming to realise that fact, he lifted one hand to the group at large and announced, "Last night, my friends, Albus Dumbledore ordered Severus to kill the Mudblood. This is the leader of the free wizarding world! This is the leader of the Order of the Phoenix!"

Severus fought for air as he strained against the arms of the Black sisters, an embrace that had fuelled many of his schoolboy fantasies.

"Oh, the irony of that is beyond comprehension, that his self-righteous power would be aimed at killing Potter's friend, because it never crossed his mind, never, that I would have other plans for her than her death."

What was he saying? Of course those were his plans. He'd reminded Severus of them repeatedly.

"You all know, though it isn't spoken aloud in polite society," the Dark Lord said, rising elegantly to his feet, "that I spent my formative years in a Muggle orphanage. Years of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer and Sunday liturgies until I wanted to rip my ears out from the hypocrisy of it all. But I learned. I learned...."

He leaned over Severus then and touched his cheek with a bony finger. "Did you learn, my boy? Did you learn the story of Abraham and Isaac?" At the shake of Severus's head, he flung his hands wide. "What? Your Muggle father didn't insist?"

Severus shook his head again.

The Dark Lord smirked. The lipless mouth actually managed to twist in a smirk. "But you were baptised?"

How had he known that? Severus remembered the odd photo on the wall of his mother, sullen and angry standing with a smug Tobias Snape, their ugly bundle of joy enveloped in a voluminous christening gown of white and lace. "It seems," he rasped, "baptism was the extent of my religious training."

The Dark Lord cocked his head sideways. "It seems, my dear Severus, that the ironies never end. You went to the old fool expecting a reprieve, and he ordered you to kill your Mudblood wife. And I, the evil one..." He paused, milking the moment. "I never intended you to kill her at all."

Something sharp and cold shifted within him. Lying, the Dark Lord had to be lying.

"The Great Jehovah demanded Abraham sacrifice his son simply to see if he would. It was a test, Severus, a test. And once Abraham proved himself willing, once he had the knife at the boy's throat..." Again, he paused dramatically. "Reprieve." The Dark Lord shook his head. "I am surrounded by fools! Even you, Severus! Especially you! What did you tell me when you first married the girl? That to kill her would be a mistake, a grave mistake, that the murder of a Muggle Pureblood would create too much of a stir!"

At the uneasy muttering of the Death Eaters in the room, the Dark Lord added, "Yes, I said Pureblood. The girl is a Pureblood amongst Muggles and while we're on that subject, Lucius, Severus, did it ever occur to either of you, even once, that when my power is complete I might find a Muggle Pureblood married to my second in command to be conveniently useful?"

"But, she's filth!" Lucius interrupted. "And she despises you!" Only after the words had escaped did he seem to realise their potential for disaster. He quickly lowered his head in submission.

"Of course she despises us," the Dark Lord corrected smoothly. "But she loves Severus. I would be remiss if I didn't give him, my most loyal and valued servant..."

This drew a soft hiss from around the room.

"...his heart's desire and at least the opportunity to bring her to our way of thinking, once her cause is lost and her friends are no more. These are the things I had planned before poor Severus lost his way and turned to his other master for relief." The expression he turned on Severus was almost sympathetic. "And now, where is he? Grovelling on the floor, begging for death, and not even knowing why."

"Let me kill him," Bellatrix said, her wand ready. "Let me prove my love for you, my Lord!"

"Silence!" The Dark Lord sank to his knees and leaned forward, bringing his face close. "Severus, have you not worked out what is happening to you? Your bloody tears, your pain, your loss of will?"

Severus stared into his glowing red eyes as if there were an answer there, because he needed an answer, he needed a way to make it stop, to take away the ache and the fear and the agony.

"It's your soul, my boy. Your soul is riven." This time the cold fingers stroked his hair away from his forehead and there was no doubt, there was tenderness in the touch. "Albus had soul magic in his castle and didn't even recognise it, he was so blinded by the Potter spawn. And because he had no use for you, his pet Death Eater, other than for his own selfish means, he sent you to kill it."

With a smooth movement that belied his age and his infirmity, the Dark Lord rose to his feet, gestured at a chair and levitated it to join his. Another gesture, and Bellatrix and Narcissa fell back and Severus found himself standing, and then, unbelievably, the Dark Lord's tight grip on his elbow as he commanded him to join him on the low dais.

When they were seated the Dark Lord waited until the room grew silent. "How is it that I have set forth tasks for my followers, tests of their worthiness, tests that they all fail? How is it that at each of these tests, it is the Mudblood who excels? Whose grace and poise put the lovely Narcissa to shame? Who evaded Lucius as easily as if he'd been a house-elf rather than a Death Eater? Who avoided her own death and came close to scoring a great coup for the Light...had not her actions torn your soul, Severus, and might I add that whatever it is that you suffer, she suffers more severely, wherever she is?"

Severus jolted upright.

"Yes, indeed. In fact, I quite fear for her in the state she must be in, especially since she has no one to help her, no one who understands the intricacies of healing a damaged soul...."

She was suffering worse than he? He fought the roar, fought the surge of desperation, and fought for his wits.

He had to find her.

He had to save her.

"My dear boy," the Dark Lord said, his voice as low and as normal as Severus had ever heard it. "Let me heal you. Then we will find her."

"Yes." The word was out before the Dark Lord had finished speaking. He fell to his knees and raised the hem of his robes and pressed his lips to it. "Yes, my Lord. Please, my Lord." And then, because he was weak and unable to stop it from following, "Please...."

"Lucius, I need a strong red wine." As Lucius sprang to action, the Dark Lord's cold claw stroked the back of Severus's hand where it gripped the arm of the chair. "Narcissa, my personal crystal, if you will?"

She sprang forward, not even sending a house-elf on the errand. Her eagerness...her desperation...to regain her place in the Dark Lord's service was clear.

Minutes later she returned with a large wooden case in her arms. She knelt before the Dark Lord and, at his bidding, opened it. Nestled in black velvet, eight crystal goblets caught candlelight and exploded it in rainbow rays. When one was lifted to the light in that white claw, Severus caught his breath.

Elfin crystal.

He watched the dark garnet-hued liquid fill the eerily familiar goblet, and now with the addition of colour, the microscopic facets burst into their brilliance and glowed, reflecting red back onto the Dark Lord's pale hand...a hand that spilled a black, glistening potion into its depths and then dipped one long finger in to stir.

"Take," the Dark Lord said, as Severus knelt before him. "Drink."

Severus raised the cobweb-like glass to his lips and gulped it down, as if gulping his own salvation, even though he knew what this had to mean, that he was accepting Dark magic, the Darkest of Dark magic.

He didn't ask what had been added. He didn't ask what it meant to his life, his death, his soul.

His gut twisted with the knowledge.

She'd thought him worthy, but he had never been worthy, never been worthy of what she had bestowed upon him, and his acceptance of evil if it gave him his heart's desire proved it.

His defection proved it.

Because he knew as the wine burned its way down his throat that he'd chosen, once and for all which side he was on.

He'd always turned to the Dark, to evil, when his heart was on the line, after all.

What good was a soul if his heart was missing?

He had to find Miss Granger.

He had to save her.