Turning Away

Attempted suicide in the following chapter.

Professors Snape and McGonagall arrived back at the winged boars that marked the entranceway to Hogwarts. The illumination cast by the crescent moon that hung overhead, as well as the thousands of infinitesimal stars that littered the night sky, allowed them adequate vision without the use of their wands.

As the ex-Death Eater strode through the gates, he was held back by a hand being planted firmly on his arm. Turning around abruptly, he scowled in annoyance and looked into the face of an equally infuriated Minerva McGonagall.

"What was the meaning of dragging me away before I could question them? I..." Minerva started. Her livid face told Severus that she was mere seconds away from losing her illustrious temper.

"Not here," he hissed out, cutting her off abruptly. "Not where anyone can hear you," he whispered as he motioned around with his free arm to show her that they were not on Hogwarts grounds yet and that this was a conversation better suited for the Headmaster's office.

Minerva's face went blank before she nodded her head in understanding and swept past the dark-haired wizard. Crookshanks shifted in her arms as she passed through the gateway, giving a yowl and jumping from his captor's hands. The Deputy Headmistress watched curiously as the furry beast made a bee-line for the castle.

Minerva's stride didn't alter when she dropped the half Kneazle, and the anger in her form told Severus he had better steer clear of her. Unfortunately, he had no other option but to follow the simmering witch. Shaking his head in defeat, he briskly followed the Head of Gryffindor up the steps to the large oak doors that stood open wide, as if expecting them.

They reached the Headmaster's office to find that the stone gargoyles had also moved aside in preparation for their arrival. The seasoned pair made their way up the spiral staircase to the open door at its peak, Minerva in the lead. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, she spun around impatiently to face her colleague.

"Explain," she said, her tone brusque, permitting no room for argument.

Severus was still standing there, mouth open, when he heard the familiar sound of the Headmaster's aged voice speaking from behind his desk.

"Oh, do let the boy come in, Minerva, my dear," he spoke light-heartedly, but stopped when she whirled around and fixed him with a glare that could solidify frost.

"Albus, don't you my dear me," she said sharply in her brisk Scottish brogue. She was rounding on the older wizard, who stood up, his palms flat on the desk, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

Severus took this opportunity to slip into the room and stand by the empty fireplace. He let out a sigh of relief that the mother hen's focus was no longer on him.

"I believe they were Obliviated," Severus said adamantly. Two heads turned abruptly to face the fireplace, giving him their utmost attention. "At least, Mr Granger was, and I presume his wife, as well. He had no recollection of ever having had a daughter, and the only reason for that, I fear, is that Potter was indeed correct in assuming that Miss Granger is now in the clutches of the Dark Lord," he finished, trying to keep his voice as impartial as possible. Inconveniently, it wavered slightly on its conclusion as he ran a trembling hand through his oily locks.

Minerva gave a gasp, and all the anger she had felt previously left her as she melted into the plush chair before the Headmaster's desk.

"What shall we do, Albus?" she asked, her own voice unsteady as she cradled her head in her hands.

"We will do what we must," the elderly wizard replied cryptically.

"And what is that supposed to mean, Albus?" Minerva shot back at him. Her hands fell to her sides, and her head shot up to look at the elderly wizard, his appearance hardly intimidating, what with his bright purple robes and pointed hat.

"Minerva," the old wizard sighed as he took his seat across the desk from her, his hands steepled in front of him as he took another hefty breath, but battling on regardless.

Severus knew he would not like what the Headmaster was about to say to them, but he straightened himself up to his full height, even as Minerva sat forward in her seat, her hands resting on her knees.

"I know of your fondness for the girl," Dumbledore commented, and Minerva made an inarticulate noise. Ignoring her, he continued on. "And regardless of that fact, we have to look at the greater picture. Harry needs me, all of us, in fact, as I fear the time for battle approaches. He cannot afford to be sidetracked from his ultimate purpose. Besides, if Severus has heard nothing, I believe she may already be dead."

Severus was appalled at Albus' dismissal of Miss Granger's importance in light of the Potters' brat's mission. Did he truly not know the significance of her level-headedness? She was, after all, the brain of the trio. Without her the other two fools would fall apart. It would be like leading lambs to the slaughter, and he would have no part in this hair-brained scheme.

"But Albus, surely you cannot brush aside the fact that the Grangers were Obliviated, not killed, and therefore there has to be more to this than you say." Minerva's voice was entirely too soft, and there was no heart behind her statement. Severus wondered if she even believed her own words.

Severus could not believe his ears. Miss Granger's own Head of House was dismissing her entirely as well. Oh, she put on a good show to those that didn't know her. However, he knew she had given up all hope as well, simply by the very way she had spoken the last part of her speech.

Had the world gone totally mad? When did their entire survival depend on one reckless child? Severus was dumbfounded, but hid his expression well...apparently he was not privy to the inner workings of the Headmaster's mind. Not to the extent that Minerva was, at any rate.

"I agree, my dear, but we have to focus on the destruction of Tom Riddle. Harry must be prepared to face Tom, and the time is close at hand, I fear."

Minerva's lips thinned into a tiny, ashen line, and whilst Severus knew she was not at all pleased with the Headmaster's decision, he also recognised that she would stand by him, as she always had.

"And the girl?" Severus sniped. "You propose we do nothing for her?"

Dumbledore regarded the Potions Master over his half-moon spectacles, his head held low. "My boy," the elder man answered, his tone regretful, "there are always casualties where war is involved. Those who pass while fighting for what is right die the most noble death that any of us could hope for."

"You can not be certain that she is in fact dead," Severus countered.

"And it is possible that we shall, unfortunately, never know what has truly happened to Miss Granger. However, if Harry were to be convinced of her passing, and at the hands of Voldemort..."

"You wish us to lie to the boy?" Minerva cut in, and Dumbledore forestalled her with a gentle wave of his hand. He turned back to Snape, his eyes no longer twinkling.

"We must do what is best for the greater good, Severus. If Miss Granger's life..."

"You have never been there!" Severus roared, leaping forward and slamming his hands down on the Headmaster's desk. His eyes were level with the older wizard's, and he lowered his voice to a more serious tone.

"You have never had to watch as he defiled and tortured innocents. He does not do these things for pleasure or personal gain...he does them simply because it is in his nature to do so. There is no good and evil as far as the Dark Lord is concerned. There is only power and weakness. If she is alive and in his custody, she is suffering a fate worse than death." Severus took in an unsteady breath.

Dumbledore contemplated the younger man for several moments before responding to him. "We cannot place a higher value on one life than on the lives of so many others, Severus. You have made that mistake before."

Severus sneered, ripping his hands off the desk and turning to McGonagall. The aged witch hung her head warily, unable to bring herself to look into the younger wizard's indistinguishable gaze.

"He's right, Severus. If we could be sure that she is alive ..." The older woman trailed off, sighing. "But we can't, and we have to use every advantage we have to help Harry defeat You-Know-Who."

"I shall make an announcement tomorrow morning at breakfast," Albus added reluctantly. "Tell Misters Potter and Weasley to go to bed, Minerva, and we shall talk tomorrow. However, for now, I think we are all tired. And as classes start again tomorrow, I believe we need all the respite we can get."

Dumbledore's flippant words echoed hollowly within the confines of Severus' mind. It didn't take a Seer to know when he was being dismissed. He bowed his head slightly to both Albus and Minerva and quickly fled to the sanctuary of his dungeons.

Once inside he poured himself a tumbler of Firewhisky from the sideboard in his sitting rooms, quickly downing its contents. Slamming the glass down hard on cabinet's top, a sudden anger seemed to rise up from within him. He was so tired of this preposterous war and was sorely tempted to run off this night and never return. He knew as soon as this thought entered his mind he could not...would not...do such a thing. The Dark Lord would easily hunt him down as he had Karkaroff and would be sure to see to his instantaneous torture and demise.

It was all such a waste, he thought, as he began the monotonous pacing that usually calmed him. Not that he held any partiality for the Granger girl, but she was bright enough, he supposed, and had even curbed that incessant hand waving of hers as of late. She worked diligently in his classroom, and her Head Girl duties were performed meticulously and without a fuss. She was always respectful towards him, even managing to keep Potter and Weasley in check...for the most part, at least.

He supposed there was nothing to be done for the girl now as the Headmaster had made it painfully clear that there would be no rescue mission mounted to save her. Even if she were still alive, he wouldn't know where to begin his search.

All he knew for certain was that the war had just stepped up a notch and that he would receive no sleep on this night. He lay awake for hours, thinking about the decision he and his colleagues had come to and the subject of what may be happening to the girl if she was in fact alive. He shuddered unwillingly. Gods, please let her be dead, he thought.

***

Hermione groggily opened her eyes to the pitch-black ambience to which she had become accustomed. She had to rely only on her secondary senses...touch, smell, and sound...but not taste, as she had yet to take in any nourishment. Her lips were chapped and cracked, and her throat felt parched and hurt tremendously when she swallowed.

A small bubble of laughter threatened to make its way up and out of her throat however; she curbed it by biting on her tongue brusquely as she shook her head. She would not lose whatever sanity she had left now and succumb to the hysteria that was terrifyingly close at hand.

Before she could reflect on her impending psychosis more closely, she sat up and felt a rather pressing urgency for relief. Her bladder was full, and she knew that she could not just knock on the cell door and ask if she could use the bathroom. She sensed, rather than saw, the stirring of magic and a faint glow that appeared to her left. Closing her eyes for a brief second, the light invading her vision rather viciously, she reopened them and peered at the spot where the light had come from. Groaning, she saw that the familiar hole had appeared where previously there had been a solid stone floor.

How did this prison know that she needed to pee? she shook her head. It was a wizard's home after all.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust, however the pressing matter of her bladder told her that she had two options, either use the modified bathroom or her bed was going to be drenched and reek even worse than it did at present.

Unfurling herself, she gave great care not to jar her broken wrists, which were still throbbing from their previous assault. Her entire body stiffened as she stood on shaky legs from the small cot, and with some urgency, she made her way over to the hole, she hunched unsteadily over it and relieved herself.

In her dazed state of mind, it took her a brief moment to reacquaint herself with her surroundings. She sniffed at the air whilst still in the squatted position, catching a strange and unfamiliar odour. Her cell smelled of food...or at least something that vaguely resembled it. Her stomach ached and growled in protest.

Standing up straight, she felt the sticky and tepid after effects of her urine trickling down her legs. She paid it no mind as she watched in half amazement as the hole closed in on itself, once more becoming solid stone and the light dissipated leaving her once more in total darkness.

Moving at a snail's pace, she made her way across the room gradually, eventually knocking her hips against the table's rough, wooden surface. She winced at the contact, the overpowering aroma of the food taking precedence over the aches and pains of her body, and she moved her trembling hands little by little over the surface of the table.

Feeling a bowl, which was warm to the touch, she scrambled around for a moment to find the accompanying spoon. There was none. Her stomach rumbled in protest yet again, and she took a moment to consider the last time she had eaten. It was quite possible that she had not consumed anything of substance in two or three days. She winced as her stomach turned over once more, the sepulchral vibrations becoming almost painful.

Kneeling cautiously before the table, she shuffled the bowl closer to the edge of the table until it was resting precariously over the brim. Bringing her lips to the rim of the bowl, she tipped the wooden container forward, using her forearm and being oh-so-careful not to spill the contents of the basin. Darting out her tongue to taste the provisions, she was surprised to find that the dish contained warm broth. She gulped it down greedily, not caring if it would make her sick, and she finished the bowl in no time, licking at the remains like a scavenger creature would pick at the bones of a carcass.

Letting the bowl drop to the floor with an almighty clang, she felt once more around the tabletop, her fingers bumping into a glass. She forced the resulting pain down to a place deep within her, using her teeth to pick up the glass and place it closer to the edge of the table. She cast aside all her twinging muscles, along with the dull, hammering pain that her wrists now emitted.

Bringing her lips to the rim of the glass, she used her forearm for leverage while she tilted her head backwards and took a hearty swig of the liquid. The water was cool and welcome on her lips and tongue, and the feeling as it coated her parched throat could only be described as something akin to blissful relief. She drank hastily from the container, stopping only when she felt her stomach give a sudden, painful lurch. A stabbing pain shot through her insides, and she dropped to her hands on the unyielding dungeon floor. She gave out a piercing scream as her wrists made contact with the floor, dropping onto her shoulder and rolling onto her side. The glass toppled to the ground and shattered on the harsh stone somewhere near her head as she retched, churning out the entire contents of her stomach. She remained thusly for several minutes, crying out between her laboured breathing as she tried to control the rising pain flaring up throughout her entire body.

She pulled her knees into her chest ignoring the pain in her wrists, until she lay in the foetal position. Nearly passing out from the pain as she cradled her arms to her chest. She took in large gulps of air, her face screwed up in a perfect picture of agony.

The sickly scent of her own vomit was in the air surrounding her. It was in her hair, mouth and trickling down her chin. She swiped at her face angrily, no longer caring about the pain that was her very existence.

Perhaps I can end this now and save myself the pain of another night's torture... She allowed the idea to fester in her mind as her hands reached out subconsciously for the broken bits of glass.

Her fingers wrapping around one of the larger bits of the shattered tumbler, she stood on quivering legs and made her way over to the cot at a hurried pace. She failed to cry out when her shins met the metal frame, instead quickly sitting down, her prize clutched in her tiny, battered hand. She scooted her way to the head of the bed, crouching against the corner in the darkness, her head abutting the cold, stone wall.

She turned the bit of glass over in her palms, feeling its rough edges against her soft skin as she pictured the end of her short life in the depths of her mind. She pressed the shard against her left wrist, her fingers felt suddenly slippery and wet, and she realised she was shaking.

You can do this, she told herself resolutely.

Bracing herself for the impending pain, she slashed at the soft skin in one, vicious stroke.

Something was wrong...she felt nothing.

Repeatedly she brought the makeshift weapon down upon her wrist, tears pouring down her face as a stiff ball formed in her throat. She was not even able to kill herself correctly. Why would Harry and Ron want to save someone that couldn't even do that right?

She flung the piece of glass across the cell, disgusted with herself. She deserved the pain her body was going through, and...God help her...she even welcomed it. To feel anything at all was a grateful distraction in this world that had gone mad.

She curled her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth, back and forth. The silent tears forming clean tracks upon her filthy cheeks were the only sign of her internal turmoil.

***

The air surrounding the Gryffindor table was thick with tension the following morning. Harry ran a hand through his ruffled hair as he sat next to Ron in the Great Hall. He kept shooting glances at the Headmaster, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement from the wizard, but it never came.

Professor McGonagall had looked in on both boys last night, telling them that the Headmaster wished to speak to them after breakfast and sending them up to their dormitory to sleep without further explanation.

Both boys hadn't slept a wink. They had just lain in their respective beds, lost in their own thoughts.

Ron was staring at his breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast as if it held the answer to Hermione's sudden disappearance, and Harry felt, not for the first time, that Ron was taking Hermione's vanishing personally.

"You 'right there, mate?" Harry asked as he placed his hand in a comforting gesture on his best friends shoulder.

Ron jumped visibly at Harry's touch, and he quickly withdrew his hand. It flopped down uselessly to his side.

"Sorry about that," Ron dejectedly replied, "just thinking about, well, you know," he said as his miserable looking eyes met Harry's bespeckled face.

In that instant, it was as if a light had gone on inside of Harry's head, and he now knew why Ron was taking this so very hard. Ron loved Hermione, more than a friend, and it was written all over his face.

"Yeah, me too," Harry whispered as his eyes fell once more to the tabletop and his uneaten breakfast. His stomach grumbled in protest, but he paid it no mind as he continued to stare at the full plate, not really seeing it.

Harry glanced back to the Head table and saw that Professor Dumbledore was smiling at something Professor McGonagall was saying, and he scowled. Ron, noticing this, turned his head to look at what Harry was frowning at, and what he saw made his blood boil. He clenched both his fists by his side as his face went beet red. He looked for the entire world as though he was only five seconds away from blowing his top, and if it weren't for Neville's intervention, he might have marched up there to demand some answers.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Neville asked as he took the empty seat next to Ron, placing some eggs and toast on his awaiting plate.

Looking up when he got no response, he turned his head slowly to meet Harry's solemn face.

"What's up with him?" he asked Harry, who was sitting on the other side of Ron. Harry wasn't paying Neville any mind; instead he was staring up at the Head Table.

Neville spun around on the bench and gazed intently up at the Professors, searching for the sight at which the two boys were so adamantly gaping at. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and turned around once more.

"Does this have anything to do with Hermione?" he asked quietly, and two sets of eyes came to rest on his face. Neville raised his brow as if urging them on.

"We've got a meeting with the Headmaster after breakfast," Harry mumbled, suddenly embarrassed that he was staring openly at the Head Table.

The exchange was brought to an abrupt halt as silence fell on the Great Hall. The Headmaster scraped his chair back noisily and stood. Every head in the room swivelled around to face that of the Professor's.

"You are probably all wondering what has happened to our Head Girl, Miss Hermione Granger, as she was neither here last night at our welcome back feast, nor is she here now." Dumbledore paused as if building the anticipation for his next words. "I received a letter by owl post late last night explaining her situation to me and expressing her dismay at not being able to return to Hogwarts at this time."

An outraged murmur broke out at the Gryffindor table, and the Headmaster held up both his hands as if to quell the protests.

"Her Aunt is gravely ill, and she has taken it upon herself to act as a nursemaid. Miss Granger did not specify the length of time that this convalescence will cause her to be detained, but she did express her sorrow and disappointment at not being able to finish her seventh and final year." His face fell then, and Harry had to speculate as to his genuineness. The old man was convincing, at any rate.

"So in saying that, I have the pleasure of choosing a new Head Girl. Susan Bones, would you please make your way to the dais to accept your new status as Head Girl for the remainder of the year?" A smile crossed the Headmaster's face, and Harry had to bite back the rising anger that was threatening to encompass not only himself, but also the rest of the Gryffindor table.

A loud cheer rang out from the Hufflepuffs as Susan stood up and made her way down to the front of the hall.

Professor Dumbledore walked down the two stairs to the side of the raised platform and met Miss Bones in the middle. Pinning on her badge, he whispered a few words of encouragement to Susan, who smiled up at the elderly wizard in acceptance.

Susan walked back to her place at the table, back straight, head held high. Her eyes were gleaming with pride as she was congratulated along the way in the form of handshakes and back pats.

Harry watched the exchange with narrowed eyes. It sounded a little too convenient for Hermione's aunt to be suddenly ill. Perhaps that wasn't the full story, and he'd make sure to get all the facts from the old wizard once securely ensconced inside his office.

As Dumbledore took his seat once more, his gaze fell upon the Gryffindor table and ultimately on Harry. Harry interpreted the stony glance he was given to mean there was more the old wizard wanted to declare, just not in the hall where anyone could overhear.

***

By now you should know the drill. Constructive criticism is always welcome, and if you have nothing more to say than, 'great job,' it will be more than appreciated.

Thanking my betas acciobook7 and deathofme, you ladies rock my world.