At Home

He read in some trashy tabloid the other day that they called him the 'Angel of Death.' Interesting, that. Perhaps not what he would have chosen for himself, but it would do. It would do.

He focused his attention on the potion bubbling in the black cauldron. Delicately, he sniffed it.

"Oh, yesss..."

Perfect.

"Just a bit longer, my sweet." He glanced affectionately at a pile of clothes and decomposing body parts lovingly arranged on his couch.

"My love," he whispered as he closed his eyes. "My life."

The fifth girl would have to be special. He knew this. She would be the final one.

He could think of no other witch who would complete his Dark Magic better than her.

Hermione Granger.

And it was rather poetic that she was the Auror heading up his investigation.

Closing his eyes, he pictured her in his mind. Small, heart-shaped face framed rather dramatically by that fuzz of hair. She tightly wrapped her righteous beliefs of justice and evil around her as if they were armour. Shuddering slightly, he wondered what it would take to break that armour.

He shook his head. He had no times for games. He had important work to do.

******

Hermione couldn't help it. She started tugging at her lip with her teeth. If he saw it as a sign of weakness...which it was not...then that was his problem. She needed to do something to relieve the overwhelming feelings of tension building up in her chest.

She glanced surreptitiously at her timepiece. It was almost ten o'clock at night. She wondered briefly if he would ever finish reading the proposal.

After leaving Snape's cell earlier that day, she had immediately contacted Solomon and told him Snape's request. She had waited agonizing hours for her superiors to write up an appropriate proposal, and now she was again sitting surreally close to Severus Snape, waiting for his response.

Wordlessly, he handed the papers back to her through the slim opening of the bars.

"This was the best you could do, Miss Granger? Tut, tut. A bit... under par, wouldn't you say?" His bitingly sarcastic tone reminded her strongly of the dungeons of Hogwarts.

"Sir, you are a convicted murderer of nine. It was the best I could do, given the circumstances."

He lightly stood up in his cell. His ill-fitting prison garb shifted restlessly on his skin.

"What would you like me to do, Hermione? Would you like me to accept this? Does some part of you wish for me to ... how did they put it? 'Remain under your supervision?'"

Hermione was suddenly very tired of this unending game he played with her. "Just tell me your answer, Severus."

He stilled in his cell, and Hermione realized her mistake.

"I'll do it." His voice was very quiet.

"Fine."

Rising, she walked outside the door to find Solomon pacing restlessly in the darkened hallway. Her boss had insisted that he be the one to perform the Constrictus spell. When she had questioned him further, his eyes had flashed, and he had told her she needed protection.

"Granger. Don't toy with me. Is he going to do it?"

She nodded her head. "Yes. Do you want to come in?"

"Hermione. I'll need to perform the Constrictus ceremony immediately. Will you... will you be alright?"

"Yes. As long as he helps us, I'll be fine."

With a quick touch to her cheek, Solomon entered the cell, gesturing for Hermione to follow him.

Severus was still standing in his cell, his arms crossed and a look of sheer boredom upon his face.

"And you are?" he drawled, sparing Solomon but a glance.

Hermione wondered if this was all an act for her sake. Or maybe his sake.

"Solomon. I'll be performing the ceremony, Snape, just as soon as you are ready." Solomon's voice was positively burning with hatred, and Hermione suddenly felt a flash of strong emotion for her boss. This couldn't be easy for him.

Snape snorted. "Get on with it, then."

The Constrictus binding was ancient magic, and many considered it Dark as well. It was, however, the only thing the department could think of in a situation such as this. Snape's help was imperative, and they were quite simply running out of time. Basically, the purpose of the Constrictus was to effectively bind one person to another. As the history of this particular spell was one of abuse, all Constrictus bindings were monitored and overseen by the Ministry.

After the ceremony was complete, Severus would not be able to even move without Hermione's permission. And if he tried to fight it, as Hermione feared he might, he would die slowly and painfully.

******

Severus felt... odd. His skin tingled painfully, and his eyes burned. He wanted to sit but knew instinctively that he might die if he attempted it. He had only ever read about the effects of the Constrictus binding, and he saw now that mere words in books could never capture this feeling of painful helplessness. He tried to raise his right hand to rub away the sharp stinging in his eyes, but at the movement his hand became so hot he thought it would burst into flame.

"Severus." He heard Hermione's voice but couldn't register the words she was saying.

"Severus. You can open your eyes."

And suddenly, the pain subsided, and he opened his eyes to find that the bars that had surrounded him for the last seven years were gone. Vanished. Hermione stood but a few feet away from him. He could reach out and touch her, if she would but permit it.

"I give you my permission to move, Severus. And talk."

"Took you long enough, you foolish witch!"

At that, Solomon glared sharply at him. "That's enough, Snape. We're leaving now."

"Come along, Severus. You can walk." Hermione's voice was surprisingly gentle.

"Of course I can walk! I'm no child, you bloody twit!"

He overheard Solomon whispering in his protégé's ear, and Hermione mumbled back.

"It's alright, sir. He's obviously upset. He doesn't like the feeling of losing his self-control." After a moment, she added, "I wouldn't like that either."

Once the guard arrived, Severus found himself being shuffled out of the room as if he were a firstie at Hogwarts. Strong flashes of anger coursed through him, and he was sorely tempted to test the limits of the Constrictus. Bloody fucking hell! Even during the long, dark years in Azkaban, years which ran together in a blur of cold and hunger, he had considered himself a powerful wizard in charge of his own physical and mental capabilities. He clung to that knowledge as if his life depended on it.

This was almost worse than Azkaban. This feeling of utter helplessness...he couldn't do anything without her permission. Would she lord that over him? But before he even fully formed that question in his mind, Severus knew the answer. She wouldn't. In all of her blasted Gryffindorian ideas of right and wrong, Hermione Granger would manage to treat him with dignity throughout this godforsaken ordeal. She was why he had agreed to this foolhardy plan in the first place.

They reached the outside of the prison with a suddenness that Severus found alarming. The moonlight seemed piercingly bright to his eyes, and the light breeze that whispered through the trees was utterly intoxicating. Somehow, he had forgotten what wind felt like.

He closed his eyes and focused on breathing in the fresh air. It smelled salty, crisp, and absolutely wonderful. Severus had never been one for poetry, but he felt that if someone were to hand him a quill and a bit of parchment, he could compose an entire sonnet dedicated to the wind and the waves. He snorted.

Apparently, he was getting rather soft in his old age. How dreadful.

Scowling deeply, he turned to find Hermione, his simultaneous rescuer and captor. She was in conversation with the silver-haired man. The man looked maddeningly familiar for some reason.

Severus felt a stab of jealousy at the sight of their easy camaraderie. But surely he was too old for her.

Then again, she did have an odd penchant for older men, he reminded himself.

Solomon nodded his head and, with a final hateful glare at Severus, Disapparated with a pop. Hermione turned to look at him. Her expression was wary.

"I'm taking you to my home. Hold onto me." At his obvious reluctance to touch her, she sighed and put an arm around his waist.

"Hold onto me. It's okay. I give you permission."

He tentatively put his arms around her shoulders. She was tiny, lithe...just as he remembered. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face in her hair.

"Here goes," she whispered, and Severus thought her voice trembled.

He felt his insides twist and his body compress unpleasantly as she Disapparated them both. He focused on the feel of Hermione's robes beneath his hands.

They arrived unceremoniously in a small flat. Hermione let go of him immediately, and Severus stepped rather reluctantly from her embrace. It had been awhile since he had held a woman.

"Okay," she said. He noted with amusement that she was avoiding his gaze. She wouldn't look him in the eyes.

"So this is my flat. This is the sitting room. Through there is my bedroom. That, as you can see, is the kitchen, where I set up our temporary lab. If you'll come with me, I'll show you to your room."

"Are you going to give me permission, Hermione?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes. Severus, you are from now on allowed everywhere in this flat excepting my bedroom. I don't want to waste any more time on this nonsense, so I give you permission to do anything you like here, providing it isn't harmful. Does that suit you?"

He nodded his head.

"Right. So I'll show you your quarters then. I sent for some of your things earlier today. They should be in your room."

He followed her obediently into a small room containing a single twin bed and one desk with an ancient lamp. Unsurprisingly, he saw a large bundle on the bed. With a pang, he recognized his teaching robes from Hogwarts and several of his books. His old life, bundled neatly before him as if just waiting for his return.

Her voice, quiet and sullen, interrupted his nostalgia. "If you want to take a shower or fix something to eat, go ahead. I imagine you'll want to get out of your... prison clothes. I'm going to bed."

He stared at her as he left his bedroom. "Goodnight, Hermione."

She didn't turn around. "Goodnight."

******

She needed a cuppa, and badly. She could hear the water running, and she had to do something other than lay in bed imagining Severus in the shower. It was too much for her to take.

Sighing resignedly, Hermione grabbed her robe and padded towards the kitchen. After putting the teakettle on, she slumped on a table chair and sighed again. When Solomon had first suggested that Severus live with her, she had balked. There was no way. It was one thing to see him occasionally in Azkaban, safe and untouchable behind the thick steel bars. It was another thing entirely to have him staying in her guest room, mere steps away from her own bedroom. But she had acknowledged that he would have refused to be bound to any other witch or wizard.

The teakettle began to whistle, and she took it off the fire and poured herself a large mug of hot water. Adding the tea bag, she noticed that the shower had stopped running. Good. He was out of the shower. Now she could stop thinking about Severus naked, running his hands over his lean torso as he soaped his body clean....

She shook her head. Not only were those thoughts inappropriate, they were morally wrong. And she would do well to remember that.

She looked around her kitchen and finally nodded her head in approval at the makeshift potions laboratory she and several other Ministry employees had constructed earlier. It was no Hogwarts lab, and Hermione rather suspected that Severus would disapprove of the haphazard collection of cauldrons and burners, but he would just have to deal with it. And hopefully in the process he could solve the mystery of the potion, and they could catch the Angel before he killed again.

"I thought you were asleep, Miss Granger."

She jumped in her seat, spilling her hot tea on her hand.

"Ouch! Bloody hell, Severus, don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Let me see it." He grasped her hand with his before she could give her consent. Hermione gaped at him in surprise, and it was then that she noticed his appearance. What he was wearing. And what he wasn't.

His hair was still wet from the shower and hung in damp clumps around his head. He was freshly shaven and smelled of her bar soap. Hermione, however, was focused on one thing.

Oh, bloody hell! He's not wearing a shirt.

And she couldn't keep her eyes off of his pale chest.

True, he was almost painfully thin, but his flat stomach and his wiry biceps hinted at untold strength. Several long, white scars crisscrossed his chest, and Hermione wanted to touch him so badly that her hand trembled in his. She caught but a peek of the alluring Dark Mark on his left forearm. Apparently, despite rumours to the contrary, they had not vanished at the moment of Voldemort's demise.

Hermione realized with a flush of embarrassment that she was staring, and staring rather obviously. Mortified, she felt her cheeks turning pink.

Beside her, Severus chuckled deeply and briefly squeezed her hand.

"You'll live, I think," he said with a smirk. "Now. Would you like me to perhaps put on a shirt? Or would you rather continue staring at me like some wanton harlot?"

"I...I was not staring at you! I...just...never mind!" Hermione realized that perhaps that particular defence was not her most brilliant, but it was the best she could do given the very distracting circumstances.

"Hermione. You didn't answer me. Should I change into more proper attire?"

Part of her, the rational part of her that was currently reminding her that she should most definitely not be lusting after a convicted criminal, wanted him to put on clothes. But there was another part of her that very much wanted to rip off the rest of his clothes and force him into her bedroom. She could show him exactly what he had been missing these last seven years.

And it was the latter that scared Hermione. She needed to control herself. The next two days required that she control herself and her emotions, both physical and mental.

"Do what ever you want, Severus. I certainly don't care." There. Her voice hadn't even shook.

"Very well. I'll join you for tea then. I do hope you made enough."

He poured himself a cup and sat down in the chair next to her. Taking a sip of his tea, he studied her intently over the rim of the mug. Leery of his scrutiny, Hermione shifted restlessly in her seat.

"What is it, Severus?"

His lips curled upward. "I was just contemplating the Fates. What else but Fate could bring me out of Azkaban and into your kitchen?"

She stiffened. "There certainly is nothing fateful about you being here tonight. We are on official business here. Nothing else."

"Nothing else?" he said sharply. "Then tell me, Hermione. Why is it you can't look me in the eye? Why is it that your hand trembled in mine just now?"

Hermione, for the second time that day, forced herself to think of the two children he had murdered seven years ago. A little boy named Thomas, age six, and his older sister Isabella. She was ten. She closed her eyes and thought of them until she felt nothing for the man sitting next to her but a slowly burning hatred.

Suddenly, she looked at him straight in his eyes. "I'm going to bed now, Severus. Put the tea things away when you're done."

Determinedly, she left the kitchen and went to her bedroom. She felt the stinging of tears behind her eyes, and all she knew was that she was so tired of crying over him...over the past that just wouldn't leave her alone. She had finally made a life for herself. She had finally stopped thinking of him for at least thirty seconds of every day. And now here he was, impossibly living in her house. She had once dreamed of them living together. Never had she imagined this.

Hermione sat on the side of her bed, her hands grasping the metal frame for support. A light tapping on her door startled her from her internal reverie.

"Hermione. Hermione, say I can come in." His voice was quiet.

"Just let me be, Severus."

"Hermione. Please. Just this once." He sounded as if he were pleading, and Hermione was strongly reminded of that night so long ago, when he had pleaded with her to leave his rooms.

"Fine. You can come in, but just this once."

She avidly studied the carpet as he opened the door and stepped into her room. It wasn't until she felt his weight settle into the bed beside her that she looked at him. She blinked. He had put on a shirt, and somehow that act was significant to her.

Severus was scrutinizing the wall in front of him and didn't look at her when he began talking.

"Hermione, I don't have much... experience with matters such as these. So I simply wanted to say that I... I'm sorry."

She sighed. "We do need to work together somewhat amicably, you know. I just never thought it would be this difficult."

He nodded in agreement. "Perhaps we should make a bargain?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "What sort of bargain?"

"As you said, we must work together for these next two Ministry-allotted days. If you can, just for now, attempt to forget any grievances you may have against me, then I will attempt to forget the fact that you never visited me after my unfortunate incarceration."

She stared at him incredulously. "You do realize that you are asking me to forget that you are a murderer and a Death Eater while you forget that I didn't pop in for a chat after you were convicted?" She rubbed her forehead. She could feel the beginning twinges of a headache.

"Just give me an answer, Hermione." His voice was sharp and unremorseful.

"Fine. I'll do it. We'll start with a blank slate tomorrow, alright?"

He nodded his head and left her room without another word.

******

Hours later, Hermione lay restlessly in her bed. She needed to get to sleep, but all she could focus on was Severus' words.

I will attempt to forget the fact that you never visited me after my unfortunate incarceration.

She turned on her side and scrunched up one of her pillows. Why hadn't she visited him? Why had she relied solely on the Pensieve? Why hadn't she needed an explanation from his own lips?

"Because I saw it in his eyes," she whispered into the dark. "I saw the guilt. And I hated myself for loving him even then."

Hermione finally slipped into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of the cells in Azkaban and Severus' lips upon her skin.

******

A/N: As always, thanks to my beta, mgm86, and the admins at TPP. Thanks also to reviewers; I love hearing your theories!