Chapter 18

A/N: All praises to JKR for inventing the Potterverse. Huge thanks to beaweasley2 and Clairvoyant for their marvellous advice, support, and grammatical know-how. Thank you also to those of you who take the time to review (*bows low*).

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Chapter 18

She felt the earth tremble as she crossed the lane from Snape's house to the Via Stabiana, the main northern road to the Vesuvius Gate. It was only a shadow of the larger earthquake that had struck two days previously; nevertheless, the feeling of the ground shaking beneath her feet was enough to cause her to stumble slightly. She clutched the bottle of the Metamorphmagus Potion to her chest for safety and turned instinctively to look up at the mountain.

Vesuvius stood quiescent, the cylindrical cone tip of the volcano just visible above the buildings of the city.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Hermione pictured the magma chamber beneath the mountain, the rising lava, the increasing pressure within the rocks, and the inevitable explosion and raining death that was to come. Fighting her beating heart and the irrational desires to run home, cast the strongest Protego Charm she possibly could, and bury herself within the safety of the walls of Snape's house, she forced herself once more to think only of the task ahead of her in the short term.

She must find Sabazios and deliver the potion.

Only the prospect of more of this magical substance, to enhance his followers' and his own powers, would be sufficient to contain the god within the walls of the city for the time being.

She hoped.

The tremor was over very quickly – within a few seconds – and beyond a few cries of alarm, there was no panicked reaction like there had been two days previously. Hermione looked about her to gauge the reaction of people on the street, but it seemed very much like business as usual on the pavements around her.

Or perhaps that was not quite the case.

Hermione had been concentrating on remembering the route to the Castellum Aquae – the first place she was going to look for signs of Sabazios and his cult. She had been so lost, picturing the interior specifications of the Castellum and considering alternatives should that place prove empty, that she was barely taking in the details of civic life in the streets.

As she continued to make progress along the Via Stabiana, Hermione could not shake the impression that all was not quite as it should have been. The street was quite quiet compared to what she had come to know as Pompeian standards. While there was some evidence of preparations being made for the festival, she had the distinct impression that the local residents did not seem to be as excited by the prospect as they might have been. A number of shops were still closed, and while there were a few bars opening up for the lunchtime trade, the feeling in the street was subdued and restrained.

The Vulcanalia was a major event in the festival diary of this provincial city. Of course, it had taken on a greater significance to the modern archaeologist because of what came less than a day later in AD 79, but even so, she would have expected more excitement and more preparations than she was seeing in one of the major thoroughfares of the city.

She skirted past a house with a large ox cart that was stopped outside the front door. The cart was being loaded up with various goods from inside. Hermione watched two slaves carefully balance an elaborate, ornamented dining couch on top of a patterned rug on the cart. As soon as they had finished propping up the lectus safely in the cart, a further pair of slaves brought an ornamental iron brazier out and attempted to fit it in the front of the cart alongside the lectus.

"Moving out?" Hermione surprised herself by asking the question of another slave who had just emerged from the house and was now waiting to pass up an armful of cooking vessels to the cart. The young man looked her up and down, shrugged and bobbed his head before answering her.

"The Master has decided to take the family to his estate out of town for the rest of the summer." The boy's accent was quite thick, but she found that she could understand him due to Snape's translation spell, which still seemed to be holding despite Snape's incapacitation. He passed the cooking vessels up to another servant who was stacking the goods carefully on top of the cart.

Just in time, Hermione thought, darting another look at the tip of the silent volcano. She looked back at the heavily laden cart. I hope they make it. I hope where they are going is far enough.

She continued to walk north along the Via Stabiana towards the Vesuvius Gate and the Castellum Aquae. The temperature was almost intolerable at this time of day in the city. There was no breeze, and the heat seemed to radiate upwards from the pavement slabs, burning her skin and making her head throb. Hermione felt a dribble of sweat run past her shoulder blades under the coarse material of the tunica she was wearing.

She was looking for a large brick-built civic structure about forty feet high. She pictured the exterior of the giant cistern, remembering the arches on the front of the building, the detail of the architraves, the arrangement of the pilasters in the external decoration. She knew that it would be jutting slightly out into the street and flanked by a town house on either side. There was no modern idea of zoning in this city. She smiled and shook her head. The excavations here had changed how historians understood the development and function of Roman cities. The sense of class that so dominated later town planning seemed to be entirely absent in this ancient urban environment. Shops butted up against bakeries, taverns stood next door to fulleries, and the rich lived hand-in-jowl with the poor.

Her nerves jangled louder and louder the closer she walked towards her destination. Despite having eaten and drunk something before leaving Snape's house, she found herself fighting a hungry, empty feeling in her belly as she walked along the street. It was becoming harder to keep calm and focused on the task ahead.

Not that she really had much of a specific plan for the task, per se, beyond 'find Sabazios, give him the potion, try to get back home'.

And save Severus, her treacherous mind added quietly.

She shivered again despite the burning sun. Hermione was a planner. She had no idea how she was going to do these things, and all this lets-see-how-this-works-out, seat-of-the-pants business was utterly terrifying.

She had a sudden, profound sense of déjà vu and a mad urge to shout for help to Harry and Ron.

The potion weighed heavily in her arms, sloshing about in the bottle as she walked.

She kept walking, looking ahead with resolution towards her goal, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.

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

This stool is still damned uncomfortable! Aulus Vettius Conviva wriggled in his chair, wondering again for the umpteenth time why he had agreed to stay in this odd cavern, staring at an unconscious man and sitting on an insubstantial cushion.

Hermione had said that he wouldn't wake up. Or that if he did, he had to tell him that she didn't care what he'd done and she forgave him... or some other ridiculous, female nonsense. He looked again at his friend's face. He was an ugly sod. Hooked nose, greasy hair, sallow face despite his tan. Too thin by half, Conviva thought, looking at Snape's ribs, the jutting edge of his recently set collarbone. Marcella was forever trying to feed him up. What does the girl see in him? Two lines of doggerel he'd heard recently popped into his head unbidden:

"If, from the baths, you hear a round of applause/

Maron's giant prick is bound to be the cause."*

He sniggered at that thought, tempted to look beneath the line of the blanket that covered his friend's hips and lower body. Snorting again, but then feeling mildly guilty for his juvenile behaviour, Conviva returned his attention to Severus' face.

Conviva could not shake the impression of great tension exuding from the silent body beside him, even though Severus had not moved a muscle since they had settled him back down onto the bed. Sweat was running freely down the injured man's face. The bruises beneath the skin of his face and shoulder were still livid and unpleasant looking, although (Conviva frowned) there must have been something wrong with his eyesight because he could have sworn that the bruises seemed less extensive than when he had first sat down next to the man.

Despite the apparent calm of Severus' features, there was a profound tension in the atmosphere. Conviva remembered the odd feeling in the air when he had first arrived in the rooms to be faced by a wild-looking Hermione pointing a stick at him. The air felt the same again now. It was almost buzzing. Conviva's skin was tingling, as if goose flesh was breaking out all over him. It felt... otherworldly... ghostly... mysterious.... He shook his head to banish such thoughts. Rubbish! You're thinking like an uneducated slave, Conviva. Only the gods can do magic.

He shifted again in his uncomfortable seat.

Oh, Mercury fuck it, my arse is sore! He stood up, wincing and rubbing his left buttock.

Conviva cleared his throat and looked around him. "Do not touch anything," she had said to him. Mmmmmm. If he had only ever followed instruction, he and his brother would never have made enough money to buy their freedom from that pig Prometheus.

Severus had never allowed his friends into this area of his house before.

Conviva was intrigued by the contents of the little pots and containers that were sitting on the shelves and benches around the room... And where is the light coming from that is illuminating this place? We're underground, aren't we? Mmmmmmm... I'll just have a little look around....

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Hermione felt the uncomfortable tension of the city wards prickle on her skin before she saw the building that she was looking for.

The Castellum Aquae, a huge holding cistern for the waters of the Augustan Aqueduct, had fallen into disuse over the past seventeen years. Rather than risk the loss of water further down the line of the Aqueduct in larger and more important cities like Neapolis, the Roman state authorities had refused to reopen the Pompeian spur of the Aquae Augusta, after the destruction of the earthquake in 62.

Without pausing for self-doubt, Hermione muttered a quick Alohomora Charm and pushed open the heavy oak door and walked in.

With a gasp of intuition and a rush of adrenaline, she knew immediately that she was in the right place. Dancing torches, which illuminated the narrow passageway and high vaulted ceiling with flickering flames, lit the corridor that she had walked into. The atmosphere in the hallway was warm and dry, unlike the damp tunnels that led to the Manticore's cell. No one was in sight, but she could hear faint echoes of low singing voices, rhythmic drumbeats, and the high wailing sound of an aulos flute from out of sight. The corridor sloped away from her, and she could see steps cut into the earth leading downwards into the darkness.

Assuming the demeanour of a put-upon slave girl, keeping her mind as blank as possible, and trying to keep her pounding heart from giving her away, Hermione Granger moved with trembling determination onwards.

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Conviva moved slowly around the darkened room, exploring. He was an inquisitive man with a finely honed sense of mischief. He moved towards the shelves at the side of the room, fascinated by the broken pots and bottles on display. Why on earth are most of them cracked or broken? Severus' spiky handwriting could be seen on a number of the little containers, and Conviva found himself mouthing the unfamiliar words as he tried to make out the writing.

He could both read and write, something he was immensely proud of. He and his brother had been taught to read by the old slave bailiff of his master's estate. The vilicus had undertaken the task when Conviva and his brother had shown that they were intelligent enough to learn. As a result, Conviva now kept his own ledgers and tallies; it was, after all, the only way for him to ensure he wasn't being ripped off by his own household slaves as he and his brothers had ripped off his old master.

What in Hades is 'Murtlap'? he thought idly as he prodded the contents of one pot, sniffing suspiciously at the sweet scent that erupted from the powdered substance. Further investigations yielded few answers. Conviva recognised some of the plant leaves in the clay containers, but by no means all. He poked and prodded, moving slowly from one little broken container to the next. Mmmmmm. He sniffed one that made his eyes smart, another that seemed to make his eyes cross for a few seconds, and another that cause him to sneeze violently.

Chastened, he moved his attention to the bench and the metal cooking pot with its shimmering silver contents. He looked inside. Hermione had taken about half of the contents away, but something about the remains of the liquid inside it was off-putting – although he didn't really know why. Perhaps it was the way it seemed to be roiling and churning within the container that made him feel a little queasy.

He looked at the sheaf of parchment beside the pot, and as with the labels on the broken pots, he was concerned that he didn't recognise the words on the pages. It seemed to be in a different language, but Severus only spoke Latin, didn't he? Conviva shot a quick, nervous look at his insensible companion. Severus was still silent and unmoving on the trestle bed, but Conviva could not shake the feeling that something was about to happen. An air of expectation filled the space around and above the unconscious man. Telling himself that he was being ridiculous, Conviva moved away from the bench and turned his attention to trying to find the natural source of the lighting in the room.

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Hermione made her way slowly down the stairs towards the noise of drumming and revelry, her throat dry and adrenaline coursing through her like acid.

She was perspiring freely underneath the harsh material of her borrowed tunica, her palms so slick with sweat that she had to grip the square shape of the glass bottle tightly to prevent it from slipping through her hands. She kept remembering what Severus had said about his encounter with Sabazios. He had underestimated the entity. Severus was one of the most accomplished Legilimens in the wizarding world, but Sabazios had looked straight into his mind and seen through his mental defences.

How the bloody hell was she going to prevent it from happening to her?

She understood the theory behind Occulmency, but she suspected that the experience of doing it would be very different from the theory. Books and cleverness can get you only so far.

It would be impossible for her to defend her mind against a skilled and powerful Legilimens, so she had resolved to try her hardest not to be put in the position of having to do it.

She had disguised herself as a simple slave, hoping that the god would simply accept her story that Severus had sent her along with the potion as a temporary gift while he was brewing more. She was simply the means of delivery while Snape was busy producing more of the potion. It will work, it will work, she repeated to herself.

She needed to avoid eye contact – well, that would be easy; all the slaves she had encountered here, apart from Pertus, had avoided looking directly at their masters. She needed to be as passive as possible... deferential and submissive. Her mind needed to be calm and dull.

She paused on the stairs, leaning against the brick walls, forcing her breathing to slow... In through the mouth, out through the nose, she repeated to herself like a mantra.

She still missed her pendant.

His Horcrux.

...No.

Dull and blank, dull and blank.

She pushed herself away from the wall and resumed her slow progress down the stairs.

At the base of the steps was another short corridor, and at its end stood a doorway.

Clutching the potion to herself like a talisman, and more frightened than she could remember being for a long time, she stepped through the doorway and into the chamber.

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"How do we know this isn't going to make her worse?" Robert's chin was set aggressively as he confronted the Healer by his daughter's sick bed.

"Robert..." Helen's voice cracked with emotion. She gripped his forearm with a restraining hand.

Professor Spleen frowned. "We are Healers, Mr Granger," he said, and his voice carried a trace of reproof that was not missed by Hermione's parents.

"The Mandrakes will not be ready for a few hours. Once they have been shredded and added to the potion, it will be ready to administer to Hermione. We will then see if this can reawaken her from the coma she is in."

"And if it doesn't work?" Helen's voice was quiet.

Healer Spleen smiled as encouragingly as he could. "Then we will look for other options, Mrs Granger. We won't give up on her, I promise you."

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Hermione stood uncertainly at the entrance to the chamber, trying to take in what she could see in front of her.

She was standing about fifteen feet above the floor of the hall at the top of a short flight of stone steps. Braziers in each corner of the room were lit and burned brightly. Beneath her, she could see an open space, some sixty feet square, with a sand-covered floor and concrete-lined walls. At the base of the chamber were low walls, arranged to guide water through the system and towards the various channels and aqueducts that had been designed to flow outwards from it. It was a giant, empty water tank.

Wait... empty?

She could still hear the noises of revelry, the drumbeats and moaning voices echoing around her, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkened space, she could see nothing at all in front of her aside from the sources of light in the room. She moved down the stone stairs into the tank, watching her step on the slippery surface.

Her feet crunched on the surface of the floor. Before she could look around any further, however, she felt a twisting and pulling in her guts and a spinning in her mind like she was experiencing Apparition, and the world turned dark.

*

Suddenly, she found herself in a different place altogether. She stood, holding the bottle of Metamorphmagus Potion to her chest, in a huge chamber that was full of noise and people. She faltered backwards a few steps and winced as her head banged against the rock of the wall behind her.

Where... what... how...? Her mind was spinning crazily as she tried to take in her new surroundings while recovering from the disorientation of Apparition. She stumbled around, trying to make sense of what was happening. Oh Merlin, where am I? More to the point, how do I get out of here? Her courage escaped her for a moment, and she sagged, almost losing her grip on the glass potion bottle in her arms.

Her senses were overwhelmed.

Noise assailed her ears – thundering, pounding beats that she could also feel reverberating through her chest. Music filled the air, spinning and whirling about her. The melody was harsh, strident, and utterly compelling.

The heat in the chamber was stifling... the atmosphere thick and almost unbearably humid. Hermione took some deep breaths to steady herself.

Different aromas filled her nostrils. Beyond the underlying sulphurous odour in the chamber, she could distinguish the sickly smell of burning herbs. She thought she could recognise the distinctive tang of rosemary, lavender, and something even sweeter than that. She looked around her again, trying to work out where she could be so she might have a hope of escape. Would Apparition work here? she wondered. She had been able to Side-Along Apparate Snape home from the Manticore tunnels....

The cavern was bathed in firelight, most of which was coming from a huge central fireplace, a giant brazier half-buried in the sandy ground in the centre of the room.

The walls of the chamber were rough and looked like black, igneous stone. The space was very large, about one hundred and fifty feet square. Huge, narrow, rough-hewn rock pillars supported the ceiling of the chamber. Hermione briefly made out primitive cave-paintings on the walls nearest to her before her attention was drawn once more to the people writhing and dancing around the central brazier in the chamber.

The initiates surrounded the central fire, dancing and twirling in the heat and light of the flames. Hermione had read about ecstatic rites before now – indeed, she had written a number of academic papers on the subject herself – but this was the first time since witnessing an ecstatic celebration in Gujarat that she had seen such a dance first hand.

The fire leapt higher and higher as the dancers, about fifty in number, twirled and twisted, leapt and grovelled, in concentric circles around the central brazier. Hermione watched, fascinated, as the dancers contorted themselves into increasingly frantic movements. They threw their bodies into the dance, abandoning themselves to the driving forces of the music and rhythms. They were naked apart from scraps of material and animal skins, their bodies were stained and painted with different coloured dyes, and each initiate carried a slim thyrsus staff in one hand. A deep wailing moan seemed to fill the cavern.

The beat from the drums grew further in intensity and volume, and the dancers picked up the pace in time to the insistent, driving rhythm that was guiding their movements.

The dance was increasingly sensual and compulsive. The initiates began to twirl and whirl even more closely around each other. Hermione had researched and written about the ecstatic frenzy of these ancient rituals, but the reality of seeing it was like nothing she had ever experienced.

Hermione was fascinated and appalled. The idea of losing control like this both intrigued and repelled her in almost equal measure. As she watched the writhing figures moving together around the flames of the brazier, she was also reminded disturbingly about the last time she had lost control of her own body at Severus' hands.

Thoughts of Severus once more rose up in the forefront of her mind.

Ruthlessly, she suppressed them.

No one seemed to have noticed her standing awkwardly against the rough wall of the chamber. She shrank instinctively into a small, natural alcove in the rock of the wall and continued to observe her surroundings in an attempt to plan her future escape. When the dancers parted for a moment, Hermione caught a glimpse of a dais at the far end of the cavern. On the raised platform, she saw a fine dining couch and a small group of people surrounding a figure that was reclining on the fine cushions.

The dancers whirled past again and obscured her view, so she looked elsewhere, trying to get a sense of the layout of the cavern, trying to calm her breathing and ease her hammering heart as she adjusted to this frightening new environment. Beyond the flame of the central brazier and along the opposite sidewall of the chamber to the side of the dais, she thought she could see the outline of a number of large metal cages in the shadows. It was impossible to see inside the cages with any clarity, but she was sure that they were occupied. Dark shapes were moving within them. Animals? Humans? She wasn't sure.

A fierce shout from the assembled worshippers drew her attention again to the dais. Slowly, the figures on the platform were moving backwards from a central point, their arms raised and heads bowed. The music was peaking, the drums thunderous, the screeching tone of the auloi reaching higher and higher.

Hermione's heart failed her again as she saw the central figure on the couch stand up and reveal itself slowly to the assembled initiates. It was in the shape of a man, a beautiful golden figure with glorious curling locks of hair that fell beyond his shoulders in thick swathes. A fine gown was draped about him and around his hips, revealing a naked torso that glittered and shone in the firelight.

There was something very feminine about the sinuous way that the figure moved, and yet the set of its muscles and the deliberation of its actions were emphatically masculine also. It was terrifying and beautiful, compulsive and repulsive.

This, surely, was Sabazios.

She found herself staring at the being. She watched it move with grace and precision, raising its arms and slowly revolving in front of its worshippers. Hermione could not help being intimidated by the presence of this creature.

The response from the dancers was immediate and intense. They howled and screamed, pushing their bodies into an ever more extreme frenzy.

Sabazios looked on with what seemed to be a gentle and benign smile worn on its face.

Hermione looked more closely at the deity's features and found it hard to concentrate. Its face seemed to shimmer and glisten, and Hermione thought in a moment of clarity, That's some sort of Concealment Charm. Whatever Sabazios really looks like, I don't think it... he... really looks like this....

With a final frenzied flourish, the dancers appeared to spin in the air, and then with a crash of cymbals and a clash of drums, they collapsed on the floor, insensate.

Sabazios gradually sank backwards onto the cushions of his ornate couch. He was immediately attended by his close acolytes, who offered him food on golden platters. The god was still smiling with indulgent peace on his followers, clearly delighted that they had spent themselves so utterly in their worship of him.

Hermione realised that she had been holding her breath and slowly let it out. She felt strangely calm in the heady silence following the rite. She had no idea where she was, how she was going to get back from there, or what she was doing. The only move now that she could make was towards the shining god on the raised platform at the end of the cavern.

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Conviva was growing ever more uncomfortable in the underground chamber, having spent a confusing ten minutes testing the flames in the sconces against the walls – finding them bizarrely cool to the touch – before being drawn back to the body on the trestle bed.

He was shocked to see that the bruises on Severus' face were now faded to dull yellows and pale greens. The grazes and bruises on his shoulder were also much changed. They seemed far less angry and livid.

Conviva had lived through much hardship in his life, and he was not about to be intimidated by a man who was not even moving. Scowling a little at his own nervousness, Conviva picked up the dampened cloth and wiped the sweat from his friend's face, neck, and shoulders. Severus' skin contracted as the cold cloth stroked across it, and Conviva felt a corresponding shiver run through him. The feeling of intensity in the room seemed to increase yet further, although Severus' features remained as impassive as ever.

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Hermione stepped towards the dais, schooling herself to keep her head down and her eyes on the floor. She held the bottle containing the swirling potion in both hands and out in front of her. As she approached the podium, she could see that Sabazios' close attendants had noticed her. Startled voices were raised as the god's attention was drawn to her presence.

She risked a glance upwards and was immediately aware of the god's attention on her. She looked quickly away from the shining creature and towards the acolytes to see if Marcus Fiducius was one of them. If she was recognised, then her disguise would immediately be worthless. To her relief, she did not see the Aedile among Sabazios' attendants on the platform.

She took a further step forwards and cleared her throat. Her mouth was dry. She had tried to rehearse what she was going to say as she had walked through the city towards the Castellum, but everything she had thought of had seemed either pretentious or trite.

Nothing for it, she thought. "Mighty Sabazios," she began, striving for the stumbling words of a humble house slave. "God of all. Most powerful and glorious of gods. I bring a gift from my master, Severus the Healer. He has brewed more of the Metamorphmagus Potion for you... so that you may be pleased... and more... err... exalted, oh mighty ruler. He sends his greetings, but he has been injured in acquiring the ingredients for the potion, and... he... umm... needs only a day longer to recover before he will be able to make larger quantities of the potion for you. Mighty king."

With trembling hands, she proffered the glass bottle of the swirling silver-coloured liquid. She stood as still as she could for what seemed like ages, tension thrumming through her frame, hoping to all the heavens that Sabazios would take the offering and let her go.

For seconds, all she could hear was her own beating heart, thumping fast and strong in her chest, and then she heard a hiss of breath being taken and a sibilant whisper.

Fingers plucked the bottle from her hands, and she allowed her arms to fall back numbly to her sides. She held her breath. Had it worked? Would he stay?

The silence stretched on and on.

Hermione fought her instinct to look up again at the figure before her.

Thinking quickly, she dropped to her knees and stretched her hands out in front of her in the dust of the floor.

There was another sibilant whisper, the quiet pop of the cork being released, a pause, and then a low chuckle of laughter.

Hermione screwed her eyes closed. Please, oh please, oh please, oh please, she whispered to herself in her mind.

"Get up, little one," the god commanded, its voice seemingly modulated in different layers of sound.

Hermione struggled to her feet on numb limbs. She felt hands take hold of her upper arms and forced herself not to react, to stay in character –– the humble, subservient slave. She kept her eyes lowered.

"Look at me, girl," the god's voice instructed her once more. "I wish to speak with you."

Hazarding all, Hermione shook her head, keeping her head down. "I... I cannot, master," she said respectfully, "I cannot look into the face of a god."

There was a pause, laced with possibilities and hope.

Then... a chuckle. High-pitched and girlish. So out of place in this environment.

"Oh, Doctor Hermione Granger, if only that were the case," Sabazios said, and laughed once more.

She shot a shocked, naked look at him and realised that all was lost.

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*Second Author's Note: Conviva is remembering Marcus Valerius Martialis' epigram 9:3, a contemporary poet of the time....