Determination

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Many thanks go to my lovely beta Sequana!

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Chapter 15: Determination

The house was eerily silent, save for the scuttle of various rodents and bugs across the floor and the low rumble of a grown man's snore. Evan Rosier glanced at his watch and closed his eyes when he saw that it was nearing two in the morning. He would need some sleep before the sun rose, and they would have to shift location. The few belongings that the troupe had were packed into a trunk that was shrunken down and resided in the pocket of his robes.

He propped his feet on the coffee table in front of him and let his mind drift. He was on the very edge of sleep when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Figuring it was probably the woman, he lifted his feet off the table and stood, preparing to go and greet her in the hall instead of having her waking up the boys. He groaned as his brain alerted him to the sharp pain in his back. He wasn't young enough to be spending endless nights sleeping in an armchair.

'Ma'am, is that you?' he asked in a hoarse whisper.

He shook his head at the lack of response and blinked, staring up the stairs and beginning to climb. He swore that he had heard someone on the stairs. He reached the top and knocked on the door to her room. He received no answer, so he shrugged and turned the handle, barely peeking inside and catching a glimpse of her naked back. She slept nude. He was surprised. For a woman like her in a houseful of men, he would have thought she would be wearing a lot more to bed. Retreating from her room, he closed the door quietly and turned to head back down the stairs, but he didn't manage so much as a single step before he saw the pale face of one Severus Snape. His world went black.

Severus cast a binding spell on Rosier and took him to the room down the hall, depositing his body roughly onto the floor. The wards on the house had been shabby to say the very least. On arriving at the small estate in the village, the feeble wards had activated only long enough to stop his group from following him directly inside the dwelling. From the outside, he and Hermione had quickly disabled them, and his team, consisting of Moody, Kingsley, Harry, Tonks, and the Weasley twins, had gone inside the house through both the front and back entrances.

He stared at a second door in front of him contemplating whether or not he wanted to go into the room at that moment. Shaking his head, he locked and warded the door instead and went back down the stairs silently to check on how the others were handling the two idiots in the sitting room. He arrived there, only to find that Kingsley and Tonks were out cold on the floor, Moody and Harry were being held in one corner by bindings that were unfamiliar to him, and both the Weasley twins were kneeling on the ground before the two Death Eaters, who had wands pointed at the twin's throats.

'Don't come any closer, Snape,' Carrow said, glaring at the older wizard defiantly. 'You have sunk low, traitor, cavorting with filthy Mudbloods and their disgusting sympathizers.'

'We don't intend on letting any of you live this night,' McNair drawled, his voice thick with his accent. 'But Snape – you shall watch them die first.'

Severus opened his mouth to speak but snapped it shut again when he saw the faint glimmer of a Disillusionment Charm near the corner where Harry and Moody were bound. He knew that it was Hermione and Remus the moment a second glimmer caught his eye over at Tonks and Kingsley. The two Death Eaters may have thought that they had gotten the better of them, but Severus had known that Hermione would not have stayed outside as she had promised, stubborn witch.

'Oh, I wouldn't count on that,' Severus sneered, allowing a slow smirk to creep onto his face as he saw Kingsley and Tonks stir to life quietly. 'Actually, I would bet that the two of you are going to be bound and gagged in less than five minutes time.'

'Why, you insolent..!' began Carrow, raising his wand from one of the twins to point it at Severus.

But before he could even so much as utter a curse, his wand silently flew out of his hand, and Severus caught it deftly while McNair's wand also left his hand and flew to the back of the room, only to be caught by the Disillusioned Hermione. With a casual flick of his wand, Severus had both the Death Eaters bound and gagged and propped against the nearest wall with the Weasley boys standing guard over them. Now all that was left was the bitch upstairs, who apparently hadn't heard any of the commotion. Severus thought she would have to be one hell of a deep sleeper.

'Right, I will go upstairs with Kingsley and Potter and retrieve the two up there,' he instructed in a low voice. 'Evan Rosier is bound in the far room down the hall and may still be knocked out. I will grab the woman, and then we can all be on our way.'

By this point, Albus and Minerva were walking through the front door with worried expressions just as Severus and the other two men began the climb up the stairs. Albus followed on the end of the line, eager to be involved in the capture of the final person and simply smiled benignly when Severus raised an eyebrow at him. Shaking his head in faint disgust, Severus removed the wards from the door and turned the handle, fully expecting the woman to still be asleep but not letting down his guard for a second.

'Bastard!' shrieked Rita Skeeter, flying at him from out of nowhere, her wand in her hand and her hair a mess, wearing a skimpy-looking silk dressing gown.

Severus tried to sidestep her attack but moved just a little too slowly because her shoulder and arm made full contact and knocked him off balance, sending him flying backwards, his head hitting the wall. The last thing he saw before everything went black was Albus' worried face, and the last thing he heard was the shrill screaming of Skeeter as people rushed past to grab a hold of her before she could get away.

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Pain was all he could feel. The light in the room had become too bright for him to sleep any longer regardless of the fact that his eyes were still shut. The thought of how much pain he would be in when he finally did open his eyes made him cringe inwardly. The last thing he could remember was Rita Skeeter flying at him like a crazed banshee, her shrill voice ringing in his ears. He moaned softly as he tried to move, his muscles aching with the effort. He felt as though he had been trampled by a herd of hippogriffs.

Finally, he came to the conclusion that he might as well open his eyes and find out exactly what had happened. It had all seemed so anticlimactic before he had gone back up the stairs to get the woman and Rosier. He wondered if everyone had managed to round the four of them up without trouble. Sighing, he opened one eye cautiously, the light leaving a slight burning sensation from lack of using his sight, before he bravely opened the other eye and stared at the familiar ceiling of the Hogwarts hospital wing.

Turning his head to his right, he was surprised to find Hermione curled up in an armchair beside his bed, her eyes closed and curls falling across her face, which was turned towards him. She was so pretty, and the morning sun shining on her made her look angelic and sweet. He smiled even though the effort to do so hurt him. He flexed the fingers of the hand nearest her and then reached out his arm, brushing the hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear.

She stirred, and her eyes flickered open, fixing on his before a smile lit her face, and she jumped out of the chair and was on him with hugs and gentle kisses all over his face. The tender soreness made him wince, but he embraced her in return and accepted her enthusiastic affection easily.

'Oh, Severus!' she exclaimed with a small sob. 'I was so worried about you! You flew all the way down the stairs... And it all happened so quickly!'

He chuckled, his voice husky from lack of use. 'So that's why I feel as though I was trampled by a herd of hippogriffs,' he said with a smirk. 'I suppose I broke a few bones and such?'

'You broke about eight ribs, broke your left arm in three places, dislocated a shoulder, and got a big bump on the back of your head,' she told him, her forehead wrinkling with worry. 'It was as if we were all stuck in slow motion and you were the only one moving at a regular speed.'

'Please tell me that you got all of them,' he said, rubbing his eyes with his left hand, as his other was currently being held tight by both Hermione's hands. 'If I went through all of that, you lot should have at least made sure that you got them all.'

Hermione nodded. 'Skeeter attempted to make another escape through the upstairs window, but Minerva was at her side and yanked her back inside by her hair,' she recounted with a laugh. 'The other three were already bound and gagged, all thanks to you.'

'I would have paid to see Minerva yank that vile woman's hair,' Severus replied with a chuckle, laying his head back and looking up into Hermione's eyes.

She beamed back at him, her eyes shining with her love for him. 'So we did an interrogation while you've were out cold and found out some very interesting things about Rita Skeeter that would curl even your hair,' she told him casually.

He looked at her curiously, using his arms to slowly push himself into a sitting position propped against the pillows. Hermione helped him with this, and Severus accepted her touch, grateful for the assistance. She leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, brushing her knuckles down the side of his face. Severus smiled and captured her hand in one of his, bringing it to his mouth to kiss her palm.

'Now, tell me all about it,' he said, changing topic, causing Hermione to choke back a laugh.

'Very well,' she answered with a sigh. 'It seems that Skeeter couldn't get over her grudge with me for alerting the Ministry to her status as an unlicensed Animagus and her subsequent dismissal from the Daily Prophet. In addition to this, before the final battle, she became a Death Eater and was using the other blockheads as hired muscle. She also has a scarab tattoo on her bum.'

Severus snorted. 'Well, that is something,' he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. 'And you are sure she was not just upset that you trapped her in a jar in her Animagus form?'

Hermione slapped his non-injured shoulder playfully and grinned. 'I'm quite certain that was one of the reasons for it but certainly not the sole one,' she answered with a delicate sniff. 'In any case, they've all been shipped off to Azkaban by Kingsley and are now to look forward to a life behind bars.'

'And what about your reputation, Hermione?' he asked. 'What about the papers?'

'Albus spoke at a press conference at the Ministry this morning,' she answered. 'People no longer fear for their lives or sanity, and I am free of all suspicion.'

'That's wonderful news,' he said softly.

'I will have to resume my post at St. Mungo's at the start of next week, though,' she said, looking a little down at the prospect. 'I love my job, really I do, but I don't like the idea of being so far away from you when you are still going to be healing.'

Severus smiled at her then. He had been worried that she was going to say that it was over and it had just been their close proximity that had made her delusional. 'I will miss you being around all of the time as well,' he told her, making her smile. 'And there is also the issue of your ex-husband lying comatose...'

Hermione smiled. 'While we were all busy storming the house and you were getting beaten up,' she began teasingly, 'Molly and the others were able to find a very interesting spell that does exactly what we needed and will bind the base potion, the revival potion, and the dark-matter lifting potion all at once.'

'I only imagine it could have been the exact cure to the toxin he ingested,' Severus said with a sigh.

Hermione nodded. 'Exactly,' she replied. 'Pity we didn't look there earlier.'

'How long have I been here?' he asked suddenly.

Hermione smiled. 'Three days.'

His eyes widened. 'What?"

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A/N – Nearly done! Please review!