Chapter 12

A/N: Most of these characters are not mine. Thank you, Ms Rowling, for allowing us to borrow them for these stories. Hugs and thanks to the incomparable beaweasley2 and clairvoyant for their help and support in the writing of this tale.

Right – the rating has gone up for good reason.... I hope you patient readers enjoy this chapter!

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Chapter 12

It was a few seconds after they had left Conviva before Hermione recognised that the ground had stopped shaking.

She knew that there would be more aftershocks during the next three days and that the quakes would become more severe as the magma chamber below the volcano prepared to erupt. This tremor had actually not been too severe, despite the panic and confusion she had felt, and it had only lasted a few short minutes. Nonetheless, she was frightened. It was the first physical evidence she had experienced of what was to come. For a blinding moment, she felt sick with fear in her chest, but then she looked to her right and saw Snape striding confidently onwards by her side, his body radiating authority and power. Chastened by his courage, she pushed her fear away from her and reached mentally for a calm resolve. She had known fear before and had survived.

She and Snape hurried home through streets that were strangely quiet. Those people that they did encounter were busy inspecting the damage to their shops and homes by lantern light or standing in the road among the debris of fallen tiles and shattered stonework, sharing their experiences with their neighbours, laughing with shaky relief that the quake had not been too severe, but still clearly reluctant to go back inside.

Hermione could hear the wailing of infants and the distant sounds of dogs barking. Gone was the carnival atmosphere of a night out in town.

Hermione was very tired – it had been a long day, and she was emotionally drained, but she matched Snape's long strides as he led her unerringly back to the district of the Faun.

***

When they reached his street, Snape could hear muted voices from within the fullers' shop, but there was no one outside on the road. All was quiet. He was pleased to see that his house appeared to be almost undamaged from the outside. A few tiles had worked loose and were smashed in the street outside the entrance, but the walls were sound, and he could not see any cracks in the plasterwork or the bricks. When he had repaired the house after he had taken possession of it, he had worked various spells into the bricks and mortar of the walls to strengthen them against further earthquake damage. Clearly, they had worked. He felt a momentary flash of smug pride in his magical abilities. Before he could make any sort of comment to Hermione beside him, he noticed that the house's front door was ajar, and Pertus was nowhere to be seen. He frowned; this was highly unusual. An open door at night was an invitation to thieves and looters. He listened – but could hear no sounds from within the house and none from the street.

Cautiously, Snape pushed the door fully open and drew Hermione inside the dark house after him.

"Lumos." Blinking furiously to adjust his eyes and holding his lit wand above him to illuminate the way, Snape moved into the entrance corridor that led through to his atrium and shut the door behind them.

"Pertus?" Hermione's voice was loud in the darkness and made him jump. He grabbed her hand and squeezed warningly. Something felt wrong in the house.... He scowled, distracted. Where is Pertus? It was not like his servant to abandon his responsibilities.

"What's wrong?" Hermione's voice wavered slightly, and Severus realised how tired she must be. It had been a long evening, and she had been badly frightened by Marcus. He squeezed her hand again and smiled encouragingly.

"Nothing, probably," he said with a confidence that he did not entirely feel. "Pertus must have made a run for it to open ground. He'll probably be back in a few minutes with his tail between his legs.... Let's get to the lab to check on the potions."

He led her through the atrium and the peristyle towards his laboratory to check his potions.

Snape's anxiety returned as they reached the edge of the peristyle garden. As was the customary arrangement, the oil lamps had been lit around the couch at the side of the garden, illuminating the garden and pathway. But... there was something wrong here. He could feel it....

"Oh, God!" Hermione cried out and dashed ahead of him – towards the little figure that Snape could now see half-emerged on the pavement at the top of the staircase to the lab.

***

The light was poor in the garden, but Hermione could see the sheen of sticky black blood pooled around the head of the little man. By the side of his head, there was a lump of heavy roof tile. Snape arrived a second later, and she snatched his illuminated wand out of his hand, holding it up so Snape could turn the man over and inspect his injuries.

There were scratch marks on his forearms, bruises and grazes, and his fingers were discoloured. His tunica was soiled, as if he had been dragged along the ground. The most shocking injury, however, was on Pertus' head. His face was devoid of colour, his black curly hair plastered against his forehead on the left where a horrible wound exposed bone and greyish white matter at his temple. It was seeping fluid. His eyes were half-closed, and although he seemed to be breathing, it was a thin and shallow noise that could barely be heard.

"Get him onto the couch,' Hermione suggested, moving backwards, and Severus carefully lifted the unconscious figure in his arms. With her other hand, she drew her own wand, casting a quick diagnostic spell over Pertus as she did so. The figures that hovered in the air above the slave's chest told their own story. She looked around in anguish.

"I'll get my things," Snape said, moving swiftly to the stairs.

"Wait!" Hermione called. "Be careful!" Snape rolled his eyes and made to descend the stairs.

"Not the stairs, you idiot!" she hissed, looking again at the little man's injuries. "How do you think he got injured?"

Snape stared at her blankly. "The roof tile fell..."

"Look up," Hermione urged, still speaking in the same urgent, low tone. "Where did the roof tile fall from? The roof is fine."

Snape shot a look at the roof above the staircase entrance. Sure enough, the roof tiles all appeared to be undamaged. He looked back at her again. She was staring at him now with wild and frightened eyes. "I think Fiducius came back for the rest of the potion," she breathed.

Snape looked at Pertus. The slaves' face was deathly white. A trickle of blood was beginning to stain the corner of his mouth.

"Give me my wand," he whispered.

**********************

"Ennervate, Hermione," Harry whispered, holding his best friend's hand. "Come on – Ennervate!"

Harry sat, clasping Hermione's cold fingers in his own, trying to massage life back into them. It was two thirty in the morning, and Harry was spending the night, keeping his best friend company while waiting for Hermione's parents to arrive. They were already on their way from Australia and were due to touch down in Rome in four hours' time. Gabrielle and Alberto had already left to meet them at the airport to transport them directly to the hospital by Side-Along Apparition. After that, Harry would do all he could to get them to agree for their daughter to be taken to St Mungo's for treatment.

For the time being, though (and thanks to a quick Obliviate and a Disillusionment Charm), Harry was keeping watch over his friend's body.

Hermione was barely breathing. Her cheek was bruised and scratched, her head was bandaged, and there were needles in her arm with a straw-coloured liquid dripping into her veins. Before he Obliviated them, her Muggle doctors had confirmed that she was in a near-vegetative state with hardly any brain function being registered on their machines. They were very sorry, but they could not explain her symptoms, as the blow that she had endured to her forehead had not been severe enough to cause such damage to her mind.

Harry had immediately dispatched his Patronus to let Filius and Ginny know that he had found her and in what condition. He had also asked that they arrange for a private Portkey to St Mungo's once Hermione's parents had arrived. Then he had sat by her side and prepared to wait.

Some minutes later, he had been surprised to see a group of silvery creatures emerge into the room beside him. As he watched, the silvery translucent shapes of Minerva's cat, Arthur's weasel, Ron's terrier, Luna's hare, Ginny's horse, Filius' hummingbird, Molly's lioness, Neville's turtle, and Septima's raccoon now sat in eerie silence, filling the hospital ward with their comforting silver glow. The horse had gently laid its chin on Harry's shoulder, and he was unspeakably grateful for the quiet support that this gave him as he waited. After a few moments, the silent Patronuses faded away, leaving Harry with the comfort and the memory of their magical presence.

*********************

Snape moved silently down the staircase. He needed to fetch some potions if he was to have a hope of restoring Pertus' health, but he did not want to blunder in to face a Fiducius who was out of his mind on the Metamorphmagus Potion.

As he reached the bottom steps, he became aware of a toxic smell emanating from the entrance to his lab. He took a breath and held it, advancing to the entrance to the room. The room was in darkness, and he could not see much at all – the magical sconces were not lit.

Homenum revelio, he thought furiously, waiting for any sign that Marcus was still in the rooms downstairs.

Nothing.

Stealthily, he walked across the floor into the bath suite and repeated his search. These rooms were similarly in darkness, but again, there was no sign of any human hiding there. Snape let out his breath in quick relief. If there had been an intruder, he had clearly fled.

Swiftly, he moved back to the lab, flicking his wand and activating the magical sconces. The poisonous smell brought him up short again at the entrance to the lab, and Snape stopped in horror at the devastation that met his eyes when he looked into the room.

It was wrecked. Ruined.

As far as he could tell at a glance, every single pot and container was broken or smashed. Potions ingredients were strewn over the benches and floor, some combining with each other and reacting together violently. Toxic fumes were boiling up from the stone floor.

Snape moved into the room, slashing his wand left and right, neutralising some reactions, Vanishing the most dangerous compounds. As he moved, his eyes were searching for preparations that he could use to help Pertus.

Holding his wand between his teeth, he swept up a cauldron, half-full of the Strengthening Solution he had brewed earlier that day – no, yesterday, he corrected himself. A further search yielded a broken vial of Blood-Replenshing Potion, which he held carefully in his hand to preserve as much of the dark red liquid as possible. That would do for a start.

As he hurried to the stairs, he cast his eyes about the room for the Metamorphmagus Potion's cauldron and was surprised to see it on the floor, tipped upside down, some of its silvery contents splayed out over the floor. Severus frowned – no time now; he'd have to look at it again when he returned. He had to get back upstairs quickly to heal Pertus.

***

Hermione cradled Pertus' head in her lap, pressing her hand gently against his shattered temple. The little man had not regained consciousness, and although she was no Healer, she could tell that his breaths were becoming shallow and thready. He was dying.

She thought she could try to heal his skull using the Episkey Charm, but she was frightened that it might cause more damage to his brain beneath. Desperately, she tried to remember the Muggle first aid training she had received at university before going on her first expedition, but she could remember little else aside from some resuscitation techniques. Certainly, she had no recollection of what to do for compound skull fractures. Frustrated tears streaked her face. Oh Lord, she was so tired!

She took a kind of comfort that she had heard nothing since Snape had disappeared out of sight down the stairs some minutes ago – unless he was fighting the most silent duel in history, it seemed that he had not encountered anyone down there. Hurry up! she thought to herself, feeling Pertus' pulse from his carotid become weaker with each passing second. What the hell is keeping you, Severus? Her attention turned once more to the little man in her arms. What can I do? Oh, Pertus! Her tears ran more freely down her cheeks.

She almost cried out when Snape emerged from the staircase. Without a word, he knelt at the side of the couch and poured a shot of potion from a cracked vial into Pertus' mouth. "Massage his throat," he said tersely. "You need to encourage the swallow reflex."

He frowned when he saw the dark potion dribble out of the side of the slave's mouth. Snape gave the vial to Hermione to hold and lifted up the cauldron of Strengthening Solution. Holding the man's jaw forward caused Pertus' tongue to come away from the back of his throat, and Snape carefully poured a measure of the Solution into Pertus' mouth. He put the cauldron down on the floor by his knee and rubbed his slave's throat himself, murmuring an incantation, concern etching his face.

***

Why isn't this working? How can I make him swallow? Severus coated his fingers with Strengthening Solution and pushed them into Pertus' mouth, wiping them on his slave's tongue and around his gums. He tried again, this time forcing his fingers to the back of the little man's mouth, trying to stimulate the gagging reflex. There was none.

With a furiously beating heart, Severus felt for the slave's pulse.

"Ennervate, Pertus!" he urged, searching in vain for a flutter under his fingertips. "Ennervate!"

Hermione moved her hand from cupping the slave's temple, and Severus saw again the sluggish flow of black, clotted blood and matter that she was trying to keep in place.

She placed her hand over his. It was slippery and warm.

"Severus," she said, and her voice was soft and low. "He's gone. I'm so sorry."

**********************

Harry woke with a start. He thought that he had felt something, a movement, or a change in the atmosphere. Had he been dreaming? His glasses had come askew on his face, and he straightened them, staring hard at Hermione's face.

There was no change.

He redoubled his grip on her fingers and settled down again to wait.

**********************

"It wasn't your fault," she said softly.

"I should have sent him away with the others." Snape's voice was flat, unemotional. "I freed my other servants. Sent them out of the city. Pertus would not go. Insisted that he stay to keep up appearances, to help me.... Shit." His closed his eyes, his head bowed.

"We should lay him out," she said. "Prepare him."

"Yes."

"It wasn't your fault," she repeated.

Snape stood up slowly on shaking legs. He wiped his filthy hands on his fine tunica and stared down at his servant's body. His face was masked again, inscrutable, cold. "I'll fetch some money and oil," he said and turned to leave.

Hermione watched him go, still cradling the little man's head in her arms.

*

When he returned, he found that she had cleaned the blood from Pertus' face and straightened his clothing. She had closed his eyes and mouth and levitated him off her knees and onto the couch, crossing his hands quietly on his chest.

Without speaking, he leaned over Pertus and gently opened the slave's mouth, carefully placing a gold aureus coin under his tongue.

"Vale, Pertus," Snape said softly. With slow fingers, he twisted the cork out from a small bottle and tipped a tiny bead of myrrh-infused oil onto his fingertip. Gently, he ran his finger across Pertus' forehead.

"Travel well, my good friend." Severus tried to keep his voice formal and calm as he said the tradition invocation for the dead. He had little time for religions of any nature, but he knew that his slave had frequently made offerings to the household gods and observed the usual feasts and holy days.

He took more myrrh and anointed Pertus' eyelids, calling upon him to see clearly.

He rubbed more oil on his feet, encouraging him to walk quickly to the ferryman.

When he had finished, he felt more tired than he had ever been in his life. Hermione stood quietly beside him, her head bowed.

"We'll move him into the atrium tomorrow morning," he said. "There is nothing more to be done tonight." With a last motion of his wand, he placed a combined stasis and shield charm over his servant's body and turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide and shining in her narrow face, her curls had mostly escaped from the confines of the hair band she had been wearing, and there was an ugly smudge of blood and dirt across her left cheek and nose. As he looked at her dully, he felt her small hand once again sliding down his arm past his Mark, past his wrist, to take his fingers in her own.

She said, "Come with me."

***

For a moment, they both stood in the doorway to the laboratory, taking in the scale of the wreckage and destruction of his carefully prepared and precious ingredients. Neither spoke, but it seemed to Hermione that Pertus' death had shaken Snape to his core. Watching him tend to the body of the slave, she had been reminded of the way Harry had cared for Dobby at Shell Cottage. Just as Harry had for Dobby, Severus clearly wished to honour his fallen servant. Both appeared to feel tremendous guilt at their servants' sacrifice. However, while Harry had been filled with resolution as he buried the little creature, Snape's courage and confidence had appeared to founder. She had to find a way to help him but was not sure what to do.

A sudden moment of inspiration struck her, and she led him next door to the bath suite.

Thankfully, the room was undamaged by the earthquake, and her eyes lingered once again on the mosaic tiled floor and the representation of grinning Death with his wand. She wondered if Snape had ordered this made when he had converted the room from its original purpose. It was a shrine before, wasn't it? she thought.

Without speaking, she pointed her wand at the huge square bath and ordered it to fill. Within moments, water was flooding the marble basin. Snape stood immobile beside her, and she turned to face him. He seemed to be almost swaying with exhaustion. She looked into his black eyes and found them flat and emotionless, but there was a blankness about them that did not seem... natural.

She realised that he was using Occlumency to subdue his emotional response to Pertus' death, and she knew that too much use of that technique could be damaging. "Take down your shields," she said. "It's not healthy for you to keep this bottled up."

He snorted. "I'm not a very healthy person." But shortly afterwards, she saw a change in his face as he allowed his shields to drop, and his hands began to tremble.

His face was so lined with guilt and defeat it was painful for her to look at him. She put her hand on his chest again and immediately felt that intense pulse of connection between them. "You cannot stop people from making their own decisions, Severus. You can't stop people from dying."

"I can bloody well try," he said flatly.

"Yes, we can try. But we can only do our best, nothing more."

"The potion is ruined," he said. "Whoever did... this," he waved his hand upwards and about him, indicating the murdered Pertus and the destruction in his home, "wrecked the lab and destroyed my ingredients."

"I saw as we passed the doorway," she replied steadily.

"Marcus is gone."

She was not sure whether he was glad or angry. "I hope so, yes."

"I will need to make more Metamorphmagus Potion to take to Sabazios as a gift. To prevent him from leaving."

"Yes," she said.

"I don't know what I'm doing." This last from him was a whisper, and his gaze slid away from hers. Gently, she moved her hand from his chest to his face, pushing a lock of his grimy hair over his ear.

"Then we'll just have to get on with it and do what we can. Get in," she said, giving him a slight push. "You need a good soak."

*

Shucking off his boots, but without taking off his tunica, Snape climbed into the bath and sank into the water. He sat still, facing away from her and towards the wall. She saw his hair straggling limply to his shoulders, the hunch of his body, and the tension in his frame.

She watched him for a heartbeat, then made a decision. Swiftly, so she couldn't change her mind, she removed her sandals and undid her belt, then pulled her bloodied stola up and over her head, allowing it to pool on the floor at her feet. She paused for a moment, and then she removed her pendant also, letting it fall carefully onto the stola. Clad now only in her underwear, she slipped into the bath and knelt behind him.

The water was so hot it made her gasp. Snape startled at the noise, twisting around to look at her, his eyebrows raised at her boldness. She looked at him with as much strength as she could and slowly plucked the ebony wand from his right hand. It felt strange in her hands – but not unfriendly. She wondered, Will it allow me to...? Experimentally, she flicked it and cast a silent charm to remove his tunica. Snape twitched as his clothes Vanished, and then he flushed and scowled as she waved his own wand at him gently in explanation.

"Turn around and lean forward," she ordered gently. "I'll wash your back."

Obediently, he slumped forward. Hermione poured some olive oil from one of the containers at the side of the bath onto her palm onto her hands and then began to rub slow circles on his back and shoulders, moving up to his neck and pinching the muscles there. She used her knuckles to dig into the stiff flesh, rolling the muscles, feeling the fibrous tissue begin to give under her fingertips. Snape let out a low groan, and she found herself responding to his sensual enjoyment of the massage. She moved closer, parting her legs so that she could wrap them around him. Her hands were now moving down his shoulders and upper arms, squeezing and kneading the muscles, always maintaining a certain pressure.

She tightened her knees on either side of his hips and was absurdly pleased to feel his hands clench on her thighs in response. His fingers began to rub little circles on her legs.

"Wait! I'm not finished yet," she said and was pleased when he chuckled quietly in response.

She picked up the shampoo she had used before and massaged an amount into his scalp. He practically purred in pleasure as she lathered his hair, and Hermione began to feel the steady and increasing thrum of her own arousal as she gradually sought to bring her professor back from his despair. Using tight, controlled circles, she massaged his scalp from his temples to the base of his skull, pulling his head back onto her chest as she made sure that she covered every inch with her fingers. Then she gently nudged his head forwards again and continued her actions, moving her soapy fingers down his neck and onto his shoulders.

"You could do with a shower in here," she joked, looking around for a jar or bowl that she might use to rinse his hair, then realised with an embarrassed jolt that she could use her wand. Summoning it and thinking, 'warm water' as clearly as she could, she cast a carefully controlled Aguamenti Charm and was pleased when a gentle stream of heated water gushed from its tip. It made short work of rinsing the soap from his hair.

"Your turn," he said, twisting around in the bath, causing water to slop onto the floor. "You're filthy."

"Charming." Her tone was deliberately arch, but had no heat behind it. She was pleased to hear the sarcasm return to his voice. It was evidence that he was regaining his equanimity. His eyebrows arched, and she saw for the first time the little golden pendant nestling in his sparse black chest hair. Before she could study it more closely, he had nudged and pushed her, turning her around, so their positions were reversed. She was now facing away from him, and he was behind her, his legs straddling her on either side of her hips. Giving herself up to the warmth of the bath water and the heat of the atmosphere, Hermione closed her eyes in anticipation.

Hesitantly at first, but with increasing surety, Snape began to touch her.

His fingers pulled and kneaded as he worked and pressed her muscles. Beginning at the base of her neck, he worked outwards to her shoulders and then inwards again, methodically massaging the tension in her upper body away. As he worked, she thought that she could hear him murmuring something, but frankly, she was becoming too far lost in the pleasurable sensations radiating through her now to care.

When he began to wash her hair, she was unable to prevent her body from arching into his. She was actually quite fond of her hair. Yes, it had been frizzy and uncontrollable when she was a child, but years of decent hair care products and a mature acceptance of the fact that she would never be able to say it was 'sleek' or 'glossy' had encouraged her to have a more positive attitude towards it. He worked carefully, avoiding tangles and taking care not to catch his fingers in her curls.

Soon, she was breathless with arousal. She shifted backwards slightly as he used the same trick to rinse her hair free of soap as she had and realised, as she did so, that he, too, had become as excited as she was. He let out a quiet sound, and his hands returned to her body again, this time curving around her waist, squeezing and moulding, rubbing circles with his fingers across her sides. She allowed her head to fall to one side and dug her nails into his thigh muscles as his hands moved slowly around to slowly unwrap her breasts from the strophium breast band she was wearing.

She heard his breath catch as her breasts fell from their bindings and into his hands. An intense sensation spiked through her as his hands cradled a breast each and his fingers rubbed across her nipples.

"Hermione," he said, his voice rasping quietly in her ear as he caressed her breasts, her stomach, then reaching lower, "I want..."

Unable to contain her response any longer and shaking with nerves as well as desire, Hermione twisted around in his arms, pressing herself against him, and kissed him.

Snape was trembling too, she realised. But just as he had done in the street hours ago, he quickly took advantage of the situation. Gods, he's such a good kisser! Hermione melted into a pool of desire as Snape cautiously explored her mouth with his tongue, running it along the inside of her lips before biting gently down on her lower lip and welcoming her tongue into his mouth in return. The crazy, desperate sensation in her belly roared into life again, and she was suffused with an explosion of desire so intense that she could barely think straight.

One strong hand cupped the back of her head as he continued to kiss her, while the other moved sensuously down her back and into her knickers to feel her arse. She felt his lips quirk at encountering her modern-style knickers and knew that he was amused by her decision to Transfigure the Roman underwear Pertus had sourced for her into modern panties. She squirmed against him, feeling the length of his hardened cock stab into her belly. He growled in response and twanged the knicker elastic underwater. This only prompted her to grind against him again, drive her hands into his hair, and pull him across and atop of her; this caused both of them to lose their balance and tip sideways under the water.

For a few moments, both were disorientated, unable to disentangle themselves from each other. In a panic, unable to sit up to breathe, Hermione lashed out with her feet and connected with something soft and yielding. Snape's weight abruptly moved off her.

Thrashing wildly, Hermione pushed herself off the bottom of the bath and emerged, half-spluttering and half-laughing, from the hot water.

Snape was, predictably, less amused. "Out. Now," he said, pushing her away from him and struggling to his feet. She stopped laughing immediately and stared at him, her face a combination of disappointment and confusion as he got out of the bath.

"We're stopping?" she asked in disbelief.

"Fuck no!" he growled, reaching over to her and half-yanking and half-lifting her into his arms. "I just don't fancy drowning before I can shag you senseless. Now... where were we?"

Abruptly, he turned and the world went black.