Doubts

******

Hermione cursed Severus for drinking all of her wine, as she desperately wanted a glass. Not wanting to Apparate to the local pub, she opened the cupboards, gathering the items needed to make a cup of hot cocoa. Waiting for the water to boil, she unlaced her boots, tossed them near the front door, and headed towards the bedroom.

She tore off her robes, quickly pulling on her favourite jumper and sweatpants, and then she trotted back to the kitchen. She poured the steaming water into a bright, yellow mug, stirring in the rich cocoa. She walked back to the sitting room, inhaling the chocolaty scent, settling into her large chair in front of the fireplace, and pulling her wool blanket over her legs. Sipping her cocoa, she sighed.

What a long few days.

She looked around room. It felt empty with Severus gone.

"I miss you," she said into the silent room, and the words seemed to echo mockingly around her.

She took another sip of her drink and stared at the crackling fire. Her house seemed cold now. The warmth from Severus' presence was now replaced by a bitter loneliness.

"Not much better than Henry's," she muttered, glancing around her flat. There were very few personal effects here. Her books, of course. Her research. A desk overflowing with case files.

Not even the vase of daisies on her mantel was able to brighten the room.

Sitting next to the vase was a silver picture frame...the only one in the room. "Accio photograph."

She touched the frame. It was of Harry, Ron, and her, and they were laughing and waving at the camera. Her third year, she believed. Over ten years ago. How different life was back then. She had the world ahead of her. Again and again, she watched as Harry looped his arm about her waist and laughed into the wind. His scar flared whitely against his skin. She felt a pang.

"Harry," she whispered as she touched the photograph. "I wonder how things would be different if you were still alive. I wonder what you would think of me."

"Would you hate me?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Would you hate the person I have become?"

As if in response, Harry smiled and waved, pulling her thirteen-year-old self into a hug. Somehow, that helped.

Hermione placed the picture gently on her coffee table, wiping away the tears that had rolled down her cheek, before standing up to stretch. Restless, she started pacing. She just didn't feel right anymore.

She needed... resolution. Closure.

She needed some bloody fucking wine.

She threw the blanket onto the sofa and headed towards her room, irritated that she would have to change out of her comfy clothes to go get a drink.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed, tripping over her discarded boots. "Fucking shoes!"

She bent to pick them up and froze. A thick, gooey grime coated the tread of her boots.

Hermione swiped a trail of the muck, bringing it to the level of her eyes.

She had seen this substance before. Thoughtfully, she rolled it between the pads of her thumb and finger. "It's the same! The same stuff that was on the bodies!" She sniffed it delicately. Musky. Damp. She sniffed again, trying to place the scent...where was this from?

It hit her quickly, clues connecting in her mind like a puzzle.

Azkaban.

Fingering the grime triumphantly, Hermione felt a surge of pride. She held in her hand the same gooey dirt found on all four victims...she was sure of it.

"He kills them in Azkaban!" she exclaimed. "Lures them. Perhaps a guard? Someone they would trust, which would explain the lack of struggle."

Rejuvenated and instantly forgetting her dire need for a drink, Hermione grabbed a boot and ran for the fireplace. She pinched some Floo powder from her old jar and excitedly Flooed to the Ministry.

******

"Solomon!" she shrieked, not even pausing to consider the sight she presented, dressed as she was and holding out a dirty boot.

Her boss held up a hand. "Not now, Granger."

"But sir! The Angel was at Azkaban. The grime we found on the victims...it's from Azkaban! I..."

"Granger!" Solomon interrupted. "We know. We know who he is."

Hermione blinked and lowered the proffered shoe. "And?"

Solomon read briefly from a long sheet of parchment. "Name is Isaac Asrail. The guard from this morning. He disappeared after we left, the bastard. There are Aurors at his house right now, though, to apprehend him. I'm about to join them."

"Can I come?"

"No," said Solomon as he pushed past her, heading for the Ministry fireplaces.

"How did you find him, sir?" Hermione asked, desperate for answers as she hurried along beside her boss.

"Snape was right. There are not many potions experts with continual access to Dementors. This Isaac fellow was an apprentice in Ireland for a while. We found him via the victims. All four women were visiting prisoners in Azkaban, you see. Isaac was their guard."

Hermione touched his shoulder. "Please. Let me go with you."

Solomon shook his head. "Hermione, no."

"But I..."

"Look," said Solomon, interrupting her. "I know more than anyone how much you put into this case. I won't forget, Hermione. Go home. You'll be safe there."

She frowned. "I don't like this, Solomon."

He patted her on the back. "Neither do I... I'll contact you once we have the bastard behind bars."

He was gone in a flash of green flames, and Hermione, frustrated, let the dangling boot fall to the marbled floor.

"Dammit," she growled, glaring at the emptiness of the Ministry. "This is so bloody ridiculous."

Aggravated and feeling unfamiliarly powerless, she walked determinedly into Solomon's office, eager to find a scrap of news, any possible hint of information. A large, locked cabinet, heavily warded, became the object of her ire. Angrily, she shook it, loose objects rattling mysteriously inside.

"I fucking hate this. Hate it!"

With a wave of her wand, she scattered the loose-leaf papers and various official documents on Solomon's desk, feeling a vicious stab of pleasure at the mess.

Resignedly, she sighed heavily and Flooed home.

******

As soon as she stepped from her fireplace, she knew instinctively that something was wrong. She had felt like this in her fifth year, when Harry had insisted they travel to the Department of Mysteries to save Sirius.

And that hadn't turned out so well, she thought as the hair on the back of her neck raised.

"Hello?" she said uncertainly, slipping her wand from her pocket, ready for anything. "Who's there?" she asked, this time more confident.

Her flat was silent.

She stopped breathing and focused on listening. She heard... nothing. Silence. Craning her neck, she heard the ominous ticking of her kitchen clock. Although her shoulders relaxed, she was still tense. She wished that at least Crookshanks were still alive to purr and flick his tail, assuring her she was safe.

Perhaps she was uneasy with the emptiness of her flat, truly unwilling to come back here alone. She stepped from the fireplace, stuffing her wand back into her concealed pocked, and gathered her discarded mug of cocoa. With a simple, wandless charm, she heated the chocolate and headed towards her bedroom.

Reaching out to pull a book off her shelf, Hermione was shocked when she was shoved forward, her head connecting with the wall with a resounding crack. Her mug clattered noisily to the floor, echoing throughout the small room. Dizzy and confused, she attempted to shout, but hot, sticky breath on her neck and the tip of a wand digging painfully into her ribs stopped her. She blinked rapidly, trying to gain control of the situation.

"Gotcha," came a voice from nowhere...her opponent was Disillusioned.

She closed her eyes, concentrating with all her might, hoping her wandless magic was strong enough for the spell. "Finite Incantatem."

She pushed against him hard as he appeared, but his grip around her only tightened, crushing her. His baby-fine hair gleamed, and his chin trembled as he shoved his wand into her stomach, twisting it maniacally.

"Hello, Hermione," he said, a smile on his face. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

Hermione forced herself to breathe deeply. One. Two. Three. She thought of Severus, and she imagined him sneering at Isaac and laughing as he cut him with words and wand. The thought calmed her.

"Isaac," she said calmly as she attempted to surreptitiously reach her wand.

He smiled. "You have something I need, Hermione. Your wand is useless against this," he said, revealing a syringe, pulsating with the menacing, black liquid.

Forgetting all reason, Hermione screamed, fighting to get away from him.

"Let me go, you sick fuck!"

He chuckled. "This won't even hurt, Hermione. Hold still now. It'll pass more quickly if you hold still."

As he brought the needle scarily close to the inside of her arm, Hermione's survival instincts took over. She brought her leg up sharply, kneeing him hard in the groin. The resulting squishing sound and his growl of pain were music to her ears.

"Fucking bitch," he moaned, doubling over as the syringe slipped from his fingers, rolling to a stop just a few feet away from her. Flicking the wand from her pocket, she pointed it at the syringe levelly.

"Confringo!" The glass exploded, releasing the potion into the air. It swirled for a moment and then evaporated.

Isaac let out a shriek and knocked her bodily onto the floor, sending her skidding into the bookshelves. Still clutching his crotch, he pointed his wand at her.

"Petrificus Totalis," he muttered.

Hermione, effectively frozen by Isaac's spell, was helpless to stop him. She tried to move, and she knew the overwhelming panic of powerlessness.

Isaac stood unsteadily before her, a grimace upon his face. He kicked her hard in the stomach, and Hermione heard rather than felt something crack. He kicked her again. Unwillingly, she felt tears well in her eyes.

"Fucking bitch," he spat. "Do you have any idea how much I worked on that fucking potion?! I should fucking kill you now." He glared at her.

"Mobilicorpus," he said resignedly. "I'm taking you home."

Hermione could do nothing as he put his arms around her and prepared to Apparate them.

A thought occurred to her then.

He doesn't know Solomon's there. He doesn't know.

******

Severus had completely forgotten the worst part of Azkaban.

Sheer, mind-numbing boredom.

And it was worse this time. After Hermione, it was far worse.

"I hate my life," he said morosely into the emptiness of his cell. The words echoed around him.

He shook his head. Severus Snape was many things, but pathetic, self-pitying fool was not one of them.

"Self-righteous arsehole, maybe. Bastard, definitely." He shook his head again. How was he going to make it until tomorrow? Tomorrow would bring him Hermione, if the girl stuck to her word and visited him. His heart clenched. What if she didn't come?

What if he never saw her again?

"Then I will hardly be worse off than before," he assured himself, though he didn't quite believe his words.

Severus sat down on the ground, drawing mindless patterns in the dirt that covered his cell floor. Sometimes, he had difficulty believing that this was his life and that he was the one responsible for it all. His life amounted to no more than monumental mistake after monumental mistake.

Lily. The Dark Mark. Potter. Dumbledore. Hermione. He tainted everything he touched.

When he was twelve, Potter and Black had magicked a sign to follow him around. It had flashed over his head for an entire day. Snivellus Snape the Greasy, it had said. He hadn't been able to get it to go away, and his classmates jeered and laughed at him. When Lily had seen it, she'd laughed and told him he needed to calm down...that it had just been a joke.

It had been then that Severus Snape, at the young age of twelve, had first begun to realise that his one true friend was beginning to see him as everyone else saw him...that Lily thought of him as they did. That knowledge had hurt him.

It had only been a only a matter of time before Severus began to see himself as everyone else did. Ugly, alone, unlovable.

He had joined the Death Eaters simply because he wanted people to stop laughing. He had soon realised that crying and cowering were not preferable reactions.

Severus sighed. How different things could be right now! He could be married. He imagined making love to Hermione, pregnant with his child, and he felt tears stinging his eyes. He blinked rapidly. It was useless and weak to hang on so desperately to that dream.

"You're so weak, Snape," he muttered to himself. "You don't deserve that."

Perhaps the most difficult thing about spending seven years in Azkaban had been reconciling his childish, naïve longings for happiness with the darkness that was his life. And perhaps Hermione's refusal to visit him had pushed him over his metaphorical edge, effectively killing the voice deep inside him that simply longed for something good.

He burrowed his face in his hands. Fuck.

Severus heard the sounds of wards coming undone, and he looked up at the door expectantly. It had only been a few hours since Hermione had left. Did she miss him already? Though Severus scowled at the thought, he felt that damned feeling so akin to hope flutter in his chest.

He stood up and walked to the front of his cell, impatient as the door slowly opened. It was not Hermione

It was Henry Grayson.

Severus regarded him suspiciously as the younger man nodded at him coolly.

"Snape," he said, his eyes narrowed.

"Mr. Grayson," Severus said. "And to what do I owe this... pleasure?"

Henry scowled. "Cut the bullshit, Snape. I came about Hermione."

Severus smiled. He would gladly engage the arrogant Mr. Grayson in a conversation about Hermione. "What about her?"

Henry came close to the bars, and Severus was slightly surprised to see panic in his eyes. "What did you do with her?" he asked finally, his voice a thin, reedy wail.

Severus blinked. "Why, Mr. Grayson. I'm not sure what you mean."

Henry's face scrunched with anger, and Severus felt waves of magic pouring from the man in angry bursts.

"Now is not the time for games, Snape. She's gone. She's not in her flat. I need to find her!"

Horrified, Severus felt his face drain of colour. "What happened?" he asked.

The Auror hit the bars to the cell angrily. "I just came from her apartment. She should be there! I found... signs of a struggle. And her wand," he added, holding out the fifteen inches of smooth vine wood.

Severus' mind went blank with panic. "Henry! Henry, you have to let me out of here. I have to find her."

Henry regarded him. "So you don't know where she is?"

"No, you bloody fool! Why would I harm her?"

Grayson sighed in response. "Why should I trust you, Snape?"

Severus felt cold. This man was wasting his time. "Because I love her."

Henry nodded his head. "And so do I."

"Then let's find her," Severus pleaded, his hands tightly clenching the bars of his cell.

Henry looked at him thoughtfully. "She loves you, Snape. I don't know what she sees in you, but there must be something good if she loves you. So I'm going to trust you this once."

"Thank you," he said quietly. "Now hurry."

Henry quickly said a few enchantments, and soon Severus was out of his cell once again. He wished he had his wand, but no matter. He would kill anyone who touched his Hermione with his bare hands, if necessary.

"Do you think the Angel took her?" Snape asked as he followed Henry and the prison guard outside.

Henry shook his head. "Maybe. But I don't know where he would have taken her. Half of the Aurors are at his house right now, and there is no sign that anyone has been living there recently."

"Do you know who he is, then?" Severus asked, annoyed at his own ignorance.

"Thanks to your work, yes. It's Isaac, actually. Your old prison guard."

Severus frowned. He should have known the moment he saw Isaac looking at Hermione so oddly. He should have warned Hermione.

"Do you have his file, Henry? He must have a relative, or another house, or something." Severus struggled with himself. He was beginning to panic.

Henry offered him a lengthy sheaf of parchment. "I've been over it already, Snape. Maybe you'll catch something I didn't."

Severus took the paper from Grayson's trembling hands. There had to be something there.

He must save Hermione.

******

A/N: Immense thanks to my beta, shellsnapeluver! Thanks also to reets67 and the admins at TPP!