Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The ground shook underneath her, a juddering, wrenching sensation that seemed to echo in her chest. Her cheek was bruised and scratched by the broken mosaic tiles, ash, and sand from the floor that she was collapsed upon. She felt someone grab her shoulders roughly, and she shoved herself upwards off the floor violently, shrugging off the contact and spinning about on her knees, clutching the cushion-Portkey to herself.

"Hey, Hermione!" It was Restitutus, his head bandaged and bleeding, his eyes wide with fear and distress, standing between her and the open door to the bath suite.

Severus! He'll be trapped in the laboratory!

She stumbled to her feet, jaw set and anger lending her fresh energy. "Get out of my way, Restitutus," she warned, feeling her magic begin to pool in the pit of her belly.

He held his hands up imploringly in front of her and was just about to say something when Conviva and Marcella appeared in the doorway, and he backed into the room. Marcella was crying, holding on to her husband's right arm, and Conviva was walking strangely on the balls of his feet, his head and neck extended unnaturally. The reason for this became clear very quickly when Fiducius came into view over Conviva's shoulder, his face contorted in rage and desperation. He was jabbing Snape's wand cruelly into Conviva's throat, into the soft skin under the jaw line, while pushing him backwards into the room.

"Did you think you could hurt me, you pathetic sack of shit?" Fiducius spat at Conviva. His lips were pulled back from his yellowing teeth, the flickering light in the room illuminating the Aedile's madness. "You can't fucking kill me, slave!" He jabbed the wand again, and Conviva cried out.

"What have you done?" shouted Hermione, taking a step forwards towards the Aedile.

Marcella spun around. "Conviva tried to bring Severus," she began, her voice high and shrill in her distress. "The roof was falling in, Conviva grabbed him, but..."

The crashing sound of falling masonry behind them and the increased noise from the volcano drowned out her words.

Hermione cast a frantic look at the doorway at the choking billow of ash and dust that was flowing into the room and knew, with a horrifying clarity, that he must be dead.

Severus, she thought.

Severus.

Gone.

She stood stock still in the shaking room, the salt of her tears stinging the cuts on her cheek, her hands fisting impotently into the soft material of the Portkey in her arms. She could hear nothing – see nothing. It was as if time were frozen into a tableau of hurt so all encompassing that she could not comprehend it.

Suddenly, she could smell the dank decay of the Shrieking Shack all those years ago, and she could see his dying form thrashing beneath her as she had fought to save him, her hands slick with his blood, yet roughened by the stiff wool of his robes... his skin clammy and cold as the life had left him before her despairing eyes.

Then she remembered the feel of his body beneath her fingers as she had washed him in the bath, the salt-sour taste of his lips and his tongue, the catch of his voice, and his tenderness even at the height of their passion... the feeling of completion that she had experienced in his arms.

Invenient me, anima mea, the words on that thrice-damned mosaic portrait all those days ago, on that hot day in modern Italy... words that had called to her, directed her.

Find me, my soul.

And she had found him; she had saved him... for nothing.

She felt rough hands shake her shoulders, but she could not respond. She was numb. And cold.

Dead.

Gone.

Someone was shouting in her face.

Dead.

Gone.

A stinging sensation on her cheek roused her. She felt her head snap back. Another slap.

"For Hades' sake! Hermione!" Restitutus was shouting at her, his face contorted with panic. Her vision swam into focus, and as her senses returned to her, she found herself back in the bathroom suite in ancient Pompeii.

"Is she with us again?" Another voice... lighter in tone, but sardonic and cruel.

She blinked. Fiducius.

"I– I think so, my lord." Restitutus' voice wavered, and he stepped backwards.

"Good." Fiducius still had his wand trained on Conviva and Marcella, but he gestured with his other hand towards her. "Time to leave, witch. Come here."

The walls were shaking badly, as Snape's containment spells had failed, and Hermione wondered suddenly in a strange, calm part of her mind if the extra violence was due to a pyroclastic surge from the volcano. The surges killed by their heat and force but also because the worst ones created a firestorm so vicious that it sucked all the oxygen out of the air. They would all suffocate and die unless they used the Portkey that she had just created. Dully, she looked at Fiducius. She didn't care if he died, of course.... Her head turned towards the Pompeiians, all now huddled on the floor, their arms around each other.

Severus had wanted her to save them.

He had sent her away to save them.

She must save them.

Fiducius made an exasperated sound in his throat and pushed Conviva backwards again with the wand at his throat so the man stumbled to the ground at his feet. With a cry, Marcella sank to her knees also.

He reached over and caught hold of Hermione's arm, pulling her to him.

"The magic, witch," he urged sharply, his fingers digging into her upper arm with a painful grip.

Hermione recoiled away from his touch. "We need them too," she said.

Fiducius laughed, flicking his wand at the group and drawing breath. With sudden insight, Hermione knocked his hand away so that the curse missed the cowering humans and hit the wall harmlessly instead.

"No!" she shouted quickly. "We need them!" She thought quickly and added, "W-without their memories, we cannot make the journey!"

Fiducius frowned at her, clearly not knowing whether to trust her or not. Hermione forced her face into an earnest expression, willing him to believe the lie she was spinning.

He scowled and then pointed at Conviva. "Him, then," he said shortly.

She shook her head, warming to her story. "The magic will not work properly without it – we could end up lost forever in nothingness... or in Hades," she invented wildly. "We need all of them together to strengthen the – erm – bond."

Fiducius' face was set in a spiteful moue of disappointment, but he nodded his assent curtly.

A feeling of relief washed through her, and she relaxed her grip on the Portkey-cushion. "Right," she said. "We all have to touch the cushion, and then I say the incantation, and it will take us all away from here."

Fiducius nodded and reached out his free hand to take a hold, keeping the wand in his other hand trained carefully on her as he did so. Slowly, the Pompeiians rose to their feet and placed their hands on the shabby little pillow.

Hermione took a deep breath. "I'm going to need my wand, Marcus," she said in a deliberately quiet voice. "I must use it to make the magic work."

The Aedile snorted and giggled mirthlessly. Then he sobered. "You must think I am a fool, little witch," he hissed back at her as the others looked on with shocked expressions. "Give you your wand? That would be signing my own death sentence!"

As he spoke, the walls seemed to shake more violently, causing them all to stumble. A crashing, rumbling noise filled the room. More choking ash and fume exploded into the room in rush of scorching heat. A surge! she thought in horror, Fuck! Fuck!

Marcella screamed again, and Fiducius cried out as the floor heaved underneath them. He caught hold of Hermione's hair with his wand hand and pulled her face closer to him.

"Do it NOW!" he shrieked at her, spittle flying from his lips.

Another roar sounded out from above them, accompanied by the sound of crashing masonry.

"Alright!" Hermione snapped. "No time! Touch the wand to the cushion, and I'll place my hand on the wand over yours. We'll do it that way." And when we arrive in Salernum, she thought savagely, you'll be so disorientated that I'll be able to hit you with a curse so fucking strong, Aedile, you'll be fucking vaporised, you bastard.

"Ready?" she asked.

Fiducius touched the wand to the Portkey, and she put her fingers lightly on Snape's wand, feeling a slight familiar tingle though her hand, as the wand seemed to recognise her. She closed her eyes in brief mourning before swallowing her grief and prepared to say...

The Aedile suddenly lurched forward, over the cushion, emitting a strange, dry coughing noise. In surprise, Hermione let go of the cushion even as her fingers continued to touch the wand as she said, "...Portus."

The last thing she saw, before the light from the Portkey obscured her vision, was the end of the broken shaft of the metal wand of Mercury, now firmly embedded between the Aedile's shoulder blades, and the shocked faces of Marcella, Restitutus, and Conviva as the Pompeiians and Fiducius blurred out of existence before her.

The roaring of the volcanic surge abated. The room became strangely still. The surge had passed.

She blinked rapidly to clear her vision, still facing the now open doorway to the bathroom.

And saw.

And saw...

Severus Snape leaning heavily on the doorframe, a scowl twisting his thin, pale features.

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

Justin Finch-Fletchley was having an exceptionally irritating day. "I said," he repeated loudly and slowly, "We need to see the Headmaster immediately. Please take us to him."

The thin young man in front of the Aurors, wearing old tweed and a slow expression, rubbed his bristled jaw with the back of one hand.

"The Headmaster?" he repeated carefully as he took his cap off to scratch his scalp, rolling the words around in his mouth as if trying them on for size. He looked around them at the otherwise deserted and darkened corridor. "What 'choo doin' down 'ere, then, if you're wantin' to see the Headmaster?" The man pronounced 'Headmaster' with an exaggerated "huh" sound at the start of the word that spoke of long hours' practice.

"Listen," Justin said with more than a hint of asperity, "Mr...?"

"Crib," the man replied. "Waldein Crib. Caretaker to the school since two years ago after uncle Argus passed on."

"Argus Filch was your uncle?" Abercrombie asked, much to Justin's annoyance.

Crib smiled, revealing a row of perfectly preserved white teeth, incongruous in his grimy whiskered face. "Oh no, sir," he corrected Abercrombie carefully. "Not my uncle. Not at all. Not my actual uncle."

"Really?" Abercrombie asked. "Why..."

"Abercrombie!" Finch-Fletchley interrupted loudly, placing his hand firmly on the younger man's chest and pushing him slightly backwards and beside him.

"Take. Me. To. The. Headmaster," said Justin in a tone that brooked no argument. "Or I will arrest you for perverting the course of justice."

His words did not have the effect he was hoping for.

The scrawny young man pulled himself up in outrage, crossing his arms defensively and jutting out his chin. "Now, look 'ere, sir," he said hotly, "I ain't no pervert. In fact, my aunt – well, she's not 'zactly my aunt – says that I'm perfectly normal. I've been seeing this lovely girl in the village, and we've a sort of understanding, see, so there's nothing..."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" exploded Justin, waving his wand in the air so that involuntary sparks flew from its tip.

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

Hermione had no memory of how she crossed the room. She crashed into his body, wrapping her arms around his emaciated frame, weeping, crying, and laughing at the same time, overcome by his presence.

Slowly, she felt Snape's arms close about her. He was trembling, and she could hear his breath wheeze in his chest under her cheek.

"You're alive, you're alive...," she found herself repeating into his filthy tunica, burrowing herself into his arms.

"Stupid woman, why did you let go of the Portkey?" his voice was gravelly with emotion, rumbling against her face.

She laughed and hugged him tighter, revelling in the absurdly powerful sense of happiness that she was experiencing. Her chest thrummed with pleasure, and she was lightheaded with exhilaration. Her blood was singing through her veins, and she was... she felt... whole.

He held her tightly. She could feel his sharp chin jutting into her shoulder as his hands clutched at her. "Don't be angry with me," she said.

He seemed to clutch her tighter.

"Don't be angry," she repeated in a whisper.

"No," he whispered back. "I'm not. But I should be." His breath tickled her ear. "You have lost your only opportunity to escape. Our wands are gone, we're exhausted, and the eruption will only get worse."

She frowned and shook her head against his chest. "The portrait..."

His arms tightened even further around her. "The portrait is gone, Hermione," he told her. "You felt the surge come through. I believe that it has destroyed most of the upper floors of the house."

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

An oppressive atmosphere had settled on the Headmaster's office.

Hermione remained still and cold beneath the light sheets on her impromptu bed. Helen, Filius, and Ginny were talking quietly at her side, their voices muted. Poppy hovered over her patient, casting charms and monitoring the results, her lips pursed and brow furrowed. Vector was sitting hunched over her papers on the Headmaster's desk, her lips moving slowly as she tried to decode the implications of the shifting runes.

Harry sighed and ran his fingers impotently through his hair again. He was at a loss. He had felt so sure that his idea about using Hermione's blood to prompt her return to consciousness would work since her blood had seemed to activate the portrait in some way.

Why hadn't it worked? He ground his teeth in frustration. He had clung onto Vector's explanation of the asymptote-lifeline-stuff and felt a flash of understanding and insight when he had thought of using her blood to make the portrait move. His fingers clutched into fists.

Beside him, on a long conjured settee near the entrance to the room, Ron fiddled inside his robes and pulled out the sheaf of papers that he had been studying in the hospital before they had taken Hermione. Harry watched him open the folded sheets up and begin to read them, his eyebrows drawn together over his freckled nose as he traced the complex, moving graphs and diagrams on the spelled parchment.

Harry rubbed his hand through his hair again. "What are you doing?" he asked, regretting the irritable tone of his voice as soon as he spoke. "Sorry, mate," he added quickly. "I'm just worried, you know."

"It's all right," Ron said with a shrug. "Me too. Thing is, I can't seem to help here, but I don't want to leave." He darted another look at Helen and her daughter, regret clearly etched on his features. Harry's chest twisted again as he saw Ron's worry. Gone completely now was the playboy Quidditch star of recent years.

He nudged his friend, seeking to distract him. "What are those diagrams for?"

Ron pursed his lips and shrugged again. "Got to learn 'em," he responded shortly. At Harry's confused expression, he drew in a breath and exhaled. "These lines show the opposition's attacking options with the Beaters and me positioned like this on our side..." He was pointing at the sheet before him, indicating where the attacking Chasers would be flying. "Or if we deliberately move our players here, or here," he indicated an alternative formation with his forefinger, "we can force them out of position and make them change their game. It's called "oppositional play" apparently...."

Harry could not think of anything to say in reply, and Ron returned his attention to the sheet.

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

Slowly, they stumbled back into the bathroom and slid down the wall together, landing on the floor at the side of the room in an awkward tangle of limbs. Hermione found herself tucked under Severus' chin, her arm reaching around his chest and her legs over his.

The room had stopped shaking, and the noise from the volcano had reduced again to a dull rumble above their heads.

Hermione had never felt so worn out in her life. She could not remember when she had last eaten anything, and the adrenaline drain of the last few hours had taken a terrible toll. Even breathing in the dust-filled atmosphere of their subterranean shelter was difficult.

But she could feel his chest rise and fall, the thrum of his pulse, and the warmth of his embrace.

He felt so alive in her arms.

So alive....

She redoubled her hold on his torso, burrowing closer into his chest. "How did you survive it?" she asked shakily, her voice muffled by his tunica. "The roof was collapsing... the pyroclastic flow...?"

She felt him sigh, which quickly turned into a dry, exhausted cough. His head fell gently backwards onto the rough stucco of the wall behind them. "The strongest Protego Maxima I could manage and a Bubble-Head Charm," he said and coughed again. After a pause, he added wryly, "I also dived under the bed as soon as Fiducius drove Conviva and Marcella out of the laboratory."

Hermione smiled and nuzzled his chest once more. "Thank god," she whispered. "I was terrified that I had lost you – again."

Snape seemed to stop breathing for a moment, and then she felt his left hand gently reach out and slide beneath the chain around her neck. Slowly, the tiny silver rings of the necklace ran through his fingers until the Daum perfume bottle emerged from the ripped neck of the torn and filthy tunica that she wore.

Hermione lifted her head from his chest and lost herself in his searching gaze.

"While you hold this, I don't think that I can be lost," he murmured before lowering his mouth tenderly to hers.

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

Harry's eyes moved once more around the room, coming to rest on the portrait fixed to the wall of the study. It was hard to make out the detail in the image, he knew, because it was so dark, but...

He stared at it.

"Hey, look!" he shouted, his voice sounding loud in the small room.

Everyone apart from Ron looked up. Harry jumped to his feet and walked over to the portrait. Filius, who had been looking over Septima's notes with her, quickly joined him.

The scene had shifted again. Instead of a dark Pompeii, overshadowed by the volcano, Harry could see a small room, the walls whitewashed and plain. There were no windows, but the room was well lit by magical sconces on the walls. There was a huge marble bath at the rear of the space, but dominating the image before him was a mosaic floor – its subject a great grinning skeleton. The skeleton held a wand in one claw-like hand; the other was clasped about a jug of some sort. It absorbed Harry's attention completely. He could see the detail of the design quite clearly and willed himself to try to understand the symbolism of the scene. Was the wand pointing towards something? What was the jug for? Was the skeleton symbolic of death or something else...? As he looked, he realised that the border surrounding the mosaic floor showed the same runes as those around the edge of the mosaic portrait itself, and he was just about to comment on it when Ginny jarred his arm beside him and uttered a low snort of amusement.

"It looks like they've found something to do while the volcano erupts," commented Helen Granger dryly.

With a start, Harry saw that Hermione and Snape, sitting against the wall at the far side of the room, were wrapped around one another and kissing passionately.

"Is she hugging him again?" asked Ron sourly from the couch, not lifting his head from the sheaf of Quidditch training notes in his hands.

Harry flushed hotly. "Erm...," he began. "Sort of...."

"They are not moving." Helen Granger's voice was thoughtful.

"Thank goodness," muttered Harry, fighting the blush that was causing his neck to itch.

"But I thought that was the point of wizarding portraits," Helen Granger insisted. "Hermione told me about the portrait of that horrible old man she carried around for a year in her bag when you were hunting Voldemort's Horcruxes. He moaned at her all the time, she said."

"Oh, that's charming," said a waspish voice from one of the smaller frames to the left of the mosaic picture. "Is it too much to expect to receive a little common courtesy, nowadays? That's what you get for allowing Muggles into the Headmaster's office. Change is never a good thing. Not in my day."

"Phineas...," admonished Filius softly. "She did not realise..."

"Change," interrupted Harry suddenly, spinning around and staring at Hermione's still form. "I wonder if... But she didn't... Oh, bloody hell, that's it. Ron!"

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

It was impossible to tell how long they had been sitting, propped up against the wall in the underground bath chamber. He was sure that he had passed out for a while. When he had become aware of himself again, he noted with some relief that his head had finally stopped spinning and the dreadful faintness of his exhaustion had receded a little, despite the fact that he had become very stiff and uncomfortable with her weight resting against him. Carefully, he twisted his back slightly to ease the cramp in his lower back without taking his arms from around her.

As he shifted his position, she nuzzled his chest again and made a sound that was part-growl and part-whimper in her sleep. He tightened his arms around her gently and kissed the top of her head, and she made a small contented noise and seemed to grow heavy against him again.

Idiot woman, he thought as a powerful rush of affection for her swept through him. She had stayed with him... despite everything... Despite the hopelessness of the situation, she had chosen to face death with him.

He looked at the little perfume bottle nestled between her breasts. He could see a glimpse of her delicate skin beside the phial through the rip in her tunica. The sight of her chest rising and falling stirred him. Cautiously, gently, he stroked the little bottle with the fingers of his left hand, smiling a little in embarrassment when he did so as a fresh wash of protectiveness swept over him. He tried to analyse the feeling. The little bottle had felt wrong in his hands after she had discarded it; now a calming sense of contentment and satisfaction eased his mind and relaxed his body. He stroked it again, allowing his fingers to caress the soft skin beside it as well.

Horcruxes were supposed to represent the worst of Dark Magic – magic born from selfishness, greed and acquisitive desire.... He shook his head slightly, his lips pursed. What if something else had happened? He wracked his memory, searching for an answer.

Albus had always insisted that blood magic, if augmented by the most powerful of emotions, could not be bettered. That belief was what had given the old man his confidence in Lily's son. Severus closed his eyes, allowing his head to rest backwards again against the wall of the bathroom. Power that the Dark Lord knows not.... He remembered the words of that damned prophecy with a bitterness that still wounded him even now... How Dumbledore had grabbed at it and used it to arrange his bloody battleground. What did the prophecy say again?

Severus frowned, trying to recall more details from his earlier life. Many of his memories were opaque, pale phantasms of a remembered reality. He supposed that was because he had given so many of them to Lily's son. He fought to bring the memories forward, but they danced at the edge of his perception. A young girl with bright eyes and flame-red hair... an unhappy childhood and schooling... pleasure in knowing more than others, an acquisitive and selfish nature, his contempt for stupidity and his jealousy of fame. The prophecy that he had overheard and zealously retold to Voldemort... the horror that he felt at his unwitting betrayal of the girl he loved... a self-loathing so corrosive that it had washed him deeply in bitterness and cynicism, penetrating his very soul. Even his actions on Harry's behalf had not brought him peace.

His mind turned to his more recent past. Waking up improbably alive... healed and protected by another woman with glossy hair and green eyes who cared for him with loyalty and affection. The cheerful friendship of her husband and his quieter, more watchful brother... a friendship that didn't hurt him this time but, rather, brought him status and a sense of security and achievement. The support and regard of his servants and his care for them in turn... the simplicity of life in a warm and earthy society... a modest living in an unremarkable town... a chance to start afresh in a place where his poor decisions as a young man had not damned him. And, as he faced a new Dark Lord and his supporters, an opportunity to do the right thing and fight like a hero rather than a grubby role as a turncoat spy that ended in an ignominious death on a shitty floor in a broken-down, derelict cottage. He grunted, sourly amused by the irony of the situation. So much of what they had recently gone through reminded him of that earlier time. So much....

He shifted his torso slightly awkwardly and renewed his firm grip on the body in his arms, breathing in the scent of her, while the stupid fucking irony of their imminent deaths washed through him.

Hermione stirred again, and he shushed her, wondering at the tenderness in his heart for this extraordinary woman.

He thought of Dumbledore again. What now, old man? he asked wryly. Will love save me this time?

Severus tried to focus on something else, other than the spasms of muscle pain in his back, as he held her closely to him while she slept.

He had no intention of letting her go.

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

"There was no need to be so rude, Mister La-De-Daa Auror," Waldein Crib muttered, moving maddeningly slowly along the corridor while levitating a bucket and mop before him as he walked. "If you'd said that this was urgent Ministry business before, then we'd all have knowed where we was, wouldn't we? Rather than asking a person about 'is personal life, what is personal to 'im and none of anyone else's business."

"But..." Abercrombie made to protest, but Justin shot him a venomous glance, and the younger man clearly thought better of it.

Crib paused at the bottom of one of the upper staircases, allowing the mop and bucket to gently settle on the floor beside him, and cocked an eyebrow at the frustrated Aurors.

"Up here?" Justin asked, regarding the young man with suspicion. "The Headmaster's office is at the top of the stairs?"

Crib nodded. "Oh, yes, sir," he said. "Just up these stairs... then left, right, along the corridor – mind the Frolicking Fwooper statue, by the way, 'cos 'ee 'as an 'abit of gettin' in the way of visitors sometimes – left again, along the next corridor, right at the Weasely Memorial Swamp, down that corridor, up the next one on your left... left, left, right, then left again... And then give the password to the gargoyle at the entrance to Headmaster Flitwick's office."

Crib looked expectantly at the silent Aurors. When they continued to say nothing, he shifted his weight from foot to foot uncertainly. "Would you like me to repeat that for you, or are you 'appy to carry on? Only, I've got four more corridors to sweep up before tea-time."

Slowly, Crib's eyes focused on the end of Justin Finch-Fletchley's wand tip. "Oh," he continued. "I'll – I'll just carry on showin' you the way, then, shall I?"

"Yes, please," said Auror Finch-Fletchley calmly and deliberately.

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

Hermione swam back to consciousness through a jumble of unsettling dreams. Her face was hot and damp with sweat against the rough cloth of his tunica. As she stirred, she felt his arms initially stiffen more securely about her, but then relax as he seemed to realise that she was waking up. For a few moments, she luxuriated in the pleasure of his proximity, that sense of calm security that had been so lacking in recent hours.

Recent hours....

Oh, shit!

Her memories of the previous few hours rushed back to her, and she pushed herself upright in sudden panic, away from his body, breaking the clasp of his hands about her. "Severus! We've got to get out of here!" she urged, her heart beginning to hammer in her chest again. "Why did you let me sleep?"

"I was kissing you, and you passed out," he grumbled. "That can hurt a wizard's pride, you know...."

She blushed, but then recovered herself, casting a long look around the claustrophobic bathroom. He'd summed up the situation earlier. No wands – so no Apparition or Portkey-creation possible – no portrait, Snape's Time-Turner vanished along with Fiducius and their Pompeiian friends, no hope of out-running, out-flying, or out-lasting the final surges from the volcano, as they were going to increase in intensity over time.

Was there anything they could use?

Her gaze passed over the stone bench on the other side of the room and the empty goblet lying on its side beside the bench on the floor.

The floor itself was broken and torn, the mosaic tiles split apart in the centre, bisecting the grinning skeleton design. Hermione's attention was drawn to the scrap of papyrus that she had seen before with Marcella, jutting out of the sandy base layer beneath the tiles.

"There must be a way out," she said stubbornly. They had survived so much; she refused to accept that they should just lie down and wait for the next surge to destroy them.

He shrugged, easing his back muscles, drawing his knees up, and resting his elbows upon them. "There's nothing we can do." His voice was gentle but flat, as if he were trying to repress his emotions. "There's no chance, Hermione. I thought that you had understood that by now. It's what I told you when you first saw the threat that Sabazios posed to the world. You should have taken your chance to get out when you had it."

Hermione shook her head and rubbed her face with one hand. The papyrus in the floor caught her attention again, and she lurched on awkward limbs over to it, plucking it from the floor and carefully unrolling the stiff material.

"What is that?" asked Snape, doubling over sharply as a fit of coughing seized him.

She looked at him in alarm as his paroxysm ended, then slowly dragged herself back until they were sitting side by side once more. She showed him the parchment.

"Hieroglyphics," he said.

"Hieratic script, I think, actually," she corrected him absently. "Pity your translation spell work doesn't work on Egyptian." She continued to scan the papyrus, trying to make sense of the images, the abstract signs and sigils that filled the paper.

He grunted and extended his hand, touching the paper with his fingers.

She stared at the writing; it seemed to shiver, fade and then resolve back into recognisable words.

"Non-verbal and wandless?" she asked, amused.

He flashed her a smug look, which was ruined by another coughing seizure. He slumped back against the wall of the bathroom, and she turned her attention back to the sheet.

She read down a few phrases. "Severus...," she began. "This is bizarre...." She dug him in the ribs to get his attention, and he opened one eye to look down at the papyrus.

Hermione pointed at the newly translated script before them. "It's from the Book of Thoth, one of the Egyptian Books of the Dead," she told him. "This part of the book is describing the judgement that a man is facing in the Hall of the Two Truths.... The man is talking to the god Thoth, trying to persuade him that he deserved to live, while his heart is being weighed against an image of the goddess Maat – the embodiment of order, right, and truth. If the heart was found to be wanting, then the man could not survive. He would be eaten by the monstrous Devourer, and his existence ended."

She dropped the sheet of rolled papyrus to her lap and looked back at the broken mosaic floor in front of her. The fractured skeleton grinned back at her, it's shattered form still and mocking, the wand in its grip pointing straight at them. "A journey to the underworld, to face your fears and have your worth judged by the gods," she mused. "If you are found wanting, you will be devoured... a dancing skeleton, the symbol of life, not death.... Oh, this is so weird.... Why would anyone bury something like this underneath their floor? What the hell does it mean?"

Beside her, Severus closed his eyes as he leaned his head against the wall. "I have no idea," he said sounding exhausted.

Hermione only half-heard him; something was hovering at the back of her mind, tickling her consciousness. There was a pattern to it – a rationale. She tried to force her thoughts into order, but she could not make sense of the clues before her.

The atmosphere in the room was becoming warmer, and the air was still thick with dust and ash. She swiped her hand across her face, dashing tears of frustration from her cheeks. Beside her, Severus coughed weakly again.

Slowly, she pushed her hand into his and squeezed gently.

Whatever happened next, at least they were together.

**********

A/N: Okay... one hundred points to the House of your choice if you've worked out what is going on. Just so you know, the current score is 100 points for Gryffindor and 100 points for Slytherin....