VI

VI

Cedric and Ron stood each time someone came through the portrait hole, dropping back into their chairs with a heavy sign each time it wasn't Harry. They felt their anxiety over Hermione increase with each passing moment. They tried to distract themselves, reliving Quidditch glories and playing a few games of Exploding Snap or wizard's chess, but it was no good. Thoughts of Hermione suffering some unimaginable terror filled their minds, making them wish they could take her place.

"I wish someone would come tell us something," Ron groaned as Colin Creevey clambered into the common room. He glanced sideways at Cedric, watching the nervous shift of his eyes and the tick of the muscle in his jaw. The portrait hole opened once more while they sat in silence, a tousled head of black hair appearing through the opening.

"They've found her!" Harry called, stumbling out of the opening with a wide smile on his handsome face. "Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore found her down in the dungeons. She'd been attacked by a vampyr mosp!"

Cedric leapt up and made for the portrait hole. "Have they got her up to the hospital wing yet?" he called over his shoulder.

"No," Harry retorted, grabbing the back of the older boy's shirt. "They can't move her, so she's down in Professor Snape's rooms. He's looking after her until she can be moved."

"What!" Cedric and Ron cried together. "The headmaster's letting Snape stay with her?"

Guiding both of them back to their chairs, Harry bit back a bitter laugh. "During the day, I suppose so, though I think Madam Pomfrey will be staying with her at night. Snape's sleeping in his office."

"I want to see her," Cedric muttered, a pout spreading across his face. There was a bitter taste in his mouth as he thought of Hermione so near the Potions master while she was so vulnerable. He wanted to rush to her side, to stay by her and do whatever he could to ease her suffering.

Harry gave Ron a questioning look, wondering what had come over the Hufflepuff seeker. "He's in love with her, mate," Ron muttered quietly.

Severus traced faint, ticklish circles over the frozen, soft flesh of Hermione's breasts. She threw her head back against the pillows, letting the sensations flow over her, sending her already heightened senses into overdrive. "My goddess," he murmured, placing cold, open-mouthed kisses around her taut nipple. "My most beloved saint. How beautiful you are, so pale and perfect! You skin is so soft and cold, your flesh so sweet and divine!"

Hermione sighed in happiness as his voice hummed over her body, raising gooseflesh in their wake. She turned her scorching eyes upon him, taking in the way his lips caressed her, the way his hands deftly stroked her into oblivion, the way his midnight hair looked against their pale forms.

"My poor, lonely demon," she whispered, stroking his hair affectionately. He gazed up at her, his heated eyes raking over her face. She smiled at him, feeling the uncertainty that seemed to flow off him in waves. "I will give you piece if you let me."

He seemed to crumble at her words, sinking against her and burying his tearless face against the swell of her stomach. He clutched at her, inhaling the faint remnants of her human scent that he wished for her to never lose. She held him close as she stroked his hair and shoulders in an attempt to transfer her love and tranquility to him.

"My darling Severus," she cooed, raising his face to meet her gaze. She smiled and stroked the worried lines that marred his marble-like forehead. "Don't think that you are unworthy or that you deserve anything that's happened to you. Severus, you are my beautiful, dark angel. I will stay with you always, to remind you that you are very much loved."

His brows knit together once more as he lay his cheek against her stomach, nearly purring with delight as her fingers stroked through his hair. He breathed lightly against her skin as his fingers traced lazy patterns over her abdomen, driving steadily toward the springy curls at the juncture of her thighs. She let out a soft string of praises to the deftness of his slender digits.

"Such treasure you keep for me," he moaned as his fingers slipped through the cool, slickness of her nether lips. He thrummed his fingertips against that bundle of nerves that sent her spiraling upwards toward a shattering release. Two digits slipped deftly into her spasming opening, thrusting her over the edge of pleasure with an ear-splitting cry of feeling. "Hermione, your cunt is so tight!"

She splayed her thighs open even more, feeling his fingers hit a spot so deeply within her that it was painfully delicious. Severus felt the tremors pulsing through her body, making him desperate to feel the strong, rolling contractions squeezing around his cock. He pulled his fingers from her, letting them slide through the slickness on either side of her clitoris. A devilish grin crossed his face as he brought himself to her opening.

He groaned aloud as he slid into her tightness, feeling those wonderful waves of release begin to tingle through him the moment they came into contact so intimately. "Oh, my love!" he exclaimed. He pushed her hair back, away from her face, watching the way her eyes glittered violet as her pleasure coursed through her body. He smiled and feathered kisses over her face as he began racing toward that painfully wonderful release of which the waves currently pulsing through him were only an echo.

Harry, Cedric, and Ron sat on the stairs directly beneath the Gryffindor portrait hole. "So," Harry sighed, trying to process the story he'd just heard. He looked down at his hands, which were hanging between his knees. "I never would have guessed... I mean, you and Hermione?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Cedric replied, flashing a crooked, half-smile that made his pale blue eyes sparkle. "You have no idea how cool it is when she walks into the room. The way her hair blows in the wind at the Quidditch pitch or the way her eyes light up when she answers a question. She's just so beautiful, in a kind of unique way, you know. She has this way of carrying herself, like she doesn't care what anyone says or thinks. It just knocks the wind out of me whenever I see her."

Harry grinned, nodding slightly. He looked sideways at Cedric and began to wonder about his sudden attachment to Hermione. Perhaps there was something more to the Hufflepuff seeker than the looks that made half the girls at Hogwarts swoon. Maybe he wanted more than groupies hanging around until all of the Quidditch glory was gone. Maybe he wanted something more substantial. Harry couldn't blame him for wanting Hermione. If she wasn't just like a sister to him, he would have went after her himself.

"You plan on telling her?" Ron asked, shoving Cedric gently against the banister with his shoulder. "I mean, it's kind of weird, you gawking at 'Mione and her not knowing or anything."

"Like you don't drool over Luna Lovegood every time you see her," Harry retorted, grinning.

Cedric bit back a laugh. "Looney Lovegood?" His eyes grew wide as he had a brief vision of her radish earrings. "I guess you could get much worse."

Ron's ears went bright red as Harry and Cedric began laughing. "She's not so bad once you get used to her," he mumbled, hiding his face.

"I bet," Harry choked out. "Talks about goblin assassins and Crumple Horned Snorcacks all day, does she?"

"No," the redhead returned, burning an even deeper shade of maroon. "She's really smart and nice. It's kind of fun to hang out with her."

Cedric groaned, picturing Luna deep in conversation about the Wronski Feint or the correct way to evade a bludger. It was a strange picture, true, but stranger things had happened. Like the hotshot hunk of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team falling for the walking encyclopedia of Gryffindor tower.

"Maybe we'll double date in Hogsmeade," he said, flashing a taunting grin at Ron. "If Hermione will have me."

"Stupid if she doesn't," Harry replied with a chuckle. "I think it'd do her some good. Get her out of the library every once in a while."

"I'd go with her, you know. Hermione Granger could ask me to eat powdered doxy droppings, and I would. And I'd probably like it, too."

Ron held back a grimace and clapped his hand on Cedric's shoulder. "You've got it bad, mate."

"Don't I know it!" Cedric grumble, trying to hide the desperation in his voice. "Don't I know it!"

Headmaster Dumbledore stood by the fireplace in his study, staring at him spindle-legged table and its swirling silver contraptions without really seeing them. His mind was many floors below with Hermione. There was nothing he could do for her now, nothing that wouldn't endanger the life of every person in the school anyway. He wasn't sure of his next move, of what needed to be done. He had known Severus Snape for many years, known his secret from the moment he reached his thirtieth birthday. Never had he imagined that Severus would take another human life, not after having a second chance to be human again. But the unimaginable had happened, and now one of his students was dead.

Dumbledore started as the flames burned emerald and the form of Professor McGonagall spun into view. "Mr. Diggory is in my common room, Albus. Something that has never occurred, not once in the history of Hogwarts. Now, please tell me what has happened. Why was Cedric so upset? Why did you send him to Gryffindor tower? Where is Miss Granger? How is she?"

The headmaster pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at the carpet. "Do you want the truth or the lie that must be told?"

McGonagall looked incredulous for a long moment before sinking onto a low footstool, her brow furrowed. "The truth, Albus. Please tell me the truth first, then tell me what I must tell the others."

There was pain in the old blue eyes that glittered behind the headmaster's half-moon glasses. "Severus has succumbed," he muttered, a wail hidden in his somber voice. "He has bitten a student and made her his mate."

Professor McGonagall gasped, her hand grasping her throat. "No, Albus!" she exclaimed. "Not Miss Granger!"

"Yes, Minerva. She is lost to us now. She will return to her classes on Monday, when Severus has been able to calm her thirst. Then he will take her away at the end of the term." He groaned and sank into his armchair, holding his head in his hands. "I have failed them, Minerva. I thought I could protect everyone, but it has all gone terribly wrong. What have I done?"