Chapter 29

A/N: Thanks and praise go to the wonderful Jo Rowling, who created her world and who graciously allows us to use her characters for our own ends. This chapter took simply ages to come together (as some of you who are following the story have pointed out to me!). I am sorry for the delay. In recompense please find below the longest chapter in the story so far. It would not be here at all but for the sage advice and calm support of beaweasely2, nagandsev and Clairvoyant. Bless you ladies!

Oh, and by the way, Slytherin House is the victor in the 'guess-what's-going-on' poll, and though no-one actually guessed it completely, three of you came perilously close...! Thank you for all your support - it means a huge amount to me.

Sooo... Severus is alive but trapped in his tomb, Hermione is stuck in Pompeii as the eruption gets worse, the Aurors are getting closer, Ron has had a brilliant idea, and Harry is about to raise the dead....

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Chapter 29

Harry Potter grimaced as he fought for control. The lid of the black granite tomb rose steadily from its seat and hovered in mid-air. He could feel the slick sweat of adrenaline pulsing through his body as Ron and he slowly directed the heavy lid to the side and gently lowered it to the ground. He looked up at Ron, whose face was now in shadow as the sun was beginning to set behind them, so it was hard to read his expression, but Harry saw him nod abruptly and gesture towards the granite coffin with his free hand.

Taking a deep breath, which was shaky with trepidation, Harry stepped onto the plinth that the main body of the sarcophagus rested on – he wasn't tall enough to simply look over the open casket. Pulling himself up with one hand on the sidewall, he looked into the darkness of the tomb.

The smell was the first thing that struck him. Harry realised with some relief that it wasn't the sweet and sickly smell of decomposition, but there was an air of neglect and mustiness that caused his nose to wrinkle in mild revulsion. The night was falling rapidly, and the interior of the tomb was in complete shadow. Harry brought his wand hand closer to the lip of the tomb in order to cast a non-verbal Lumos.

"Is he... gooey or something?" Ron asked from behind his shoulder.

Any reply that Harry could have made was cut short as he felt claw-like fingers grab at his face and neck. The fingers slipped down his chest as Harry recoiled instinctively away, but they quickly wound themselves into the front of his robes, and Harry's body was half-wrenched into the coffin.

He cried out in fright, recoiling violently backwards and away from what had caught him, his wand tip illuminating the frightful image below.

Severus Snape rose out of the darkness like a spectral harbinger of death.

The man's face was skeletal – Snape had always looked underfed and unhealthy before, but now the man's skin was stretched thinly over the bones on his face, lips pulled away from his bared and yellowing teeth as his eyes, impossibly huge in his shrunken features, stared up at him with a mixture of desperation and shock, blinking in the light of Harry's wand.

Snape opened his mouth to speak.

"Aaargh!" Harry exclaimed, pulling backwards, fighting to get away for the terrifying spectre. He felt Ron's hands on his back yanking him upwards. To his horror, Snape rose up with him, his hands still wound tightly into the fabric of his clothing.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron's voice was little better than a high-pitched shriek.

"Get him off me! Get him off me!" Harry shouted, frantically pulling at Snape's hands, trying to peel the clutching fingers away. Snape was still trying to speak without success, his features contorted into a furious expression.

"Look – he's alive!" Ron shouted, shaking his friend's shoulders to try to stop him from pulling at Snape's hands. "Bloody hell, Harry! That's what we wanted! HARRY! Oh, for goodness sakes – Mobilicorpus!"

The tingle of magic broke through Harry's panic, and he froze as the pressure on his robes eased. The fingers that had been clutching his clothing abruptly relaxed and let Harry go as Snape's body floated upwards and out of the sarcophagus. Harry stumbled off the plinth and back onto the springy ground of the island, just catching himself before he fell.

He turned and smiled sheepishly at Ron. "Sorry. Panicked."

Ron rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Prat."

Snape's body was still hovering silently beside them. Harry turned his attention to the impossible vision before him. How was he alive? He had died in front of him, for Merlin's sake! He remembered the Shrieking Shack, watching the bleak acceptance in the man's black eyes as the light died in their depths before looking down and wondering at the silvery memories that he had collected in the little bottle Hermione had pressed into his hands.

Snape was staring at him with a haunted and desperate look. He was trying to speak once more and the arm closest to Harry reached out towards him, the cloth from the burial robes falling away from his wrist as he did so. Harry stared at the extended fingers as they advanced towards him. He could see every bone in the hand and exposed arm, and the veins were also clearly visible underneath his pale, translucent skin. Harry looked back at Snape's face and was almost relieved when he saw the older man's eyes roll backwards into his head as he lost consciousness. Snape's throat was revealed as his head fell backwards. The skin that had closed over the ragged wounds there was livid with bruises and looked raw and fresh; the flesh around them was sickly looking and pale. Harry shivered, his heart still beating heavily as he recovered from the shock.

Harry studied Snape as he took deep breaths to try to calm himself down. He could see that Snape's breathing was painfully erratic. Harry grabbed Ron's arm. "We have to get him into the castle, Ron. He looks properly poorly."

Ron snorted. "He looks pretty good for someone who's been dead for eleven years.... Hang on; I'll send my Patronus for Poppy – she'll know what to do."

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

Dimly, she became aware again. She was lying on the gritty floor, her back to the great stone bath, her cheek pressed into the ground. For a few moments, she was disorientated. Something was wrong... different.... It was another second or so before she realised what it was.

The shaking and juddering in the room had ceased, and it was inexplicably quiet. Why can't I hear Vesuvius? she thought suddenly. What the hell is happening?

Hermione's eyes fluttered open as she heard a faint, but unmistakeable, chuckle.

"Ah, my dear girl. Very well done. Very well done indeed. I trust that you are well?"

On the floor before her she could see a pair of high-heeled, purple, buckled boots.

She blinked once... twice.... The vision remained the same. The boots appeared to be of a brushed suede, soft and very fine.

She looked on uncomprehendingly as one foot turned to the side and displayed a beautiful pattern of diamante rhinestones on the instep and heel, arranged in a swirling pattern. The buckles were in the form of salamanders, or tiny fire-lizards, their mouths wide and gaping.

Hermione blinked slowly, trying to clear her head. She could not understand what was going on. Her mind felt sluggish. What...? Who...? She could hear the volcano's impotent roar in the distance, but the noise sounded dampened and strangely far away.

She blinked again. The boots were still there in front of her. Purple boots against the pale and washed out colours of the mosaic floor and the dusty sepia tones of the room around them. The atmosphere felt... expectant somehow – like the way the air seemed to crackle before a summer rainstorm.

Abruptly, she saw the owner of the boots cross his feet and slowly begin to sink to the floor. Hermione remained where she was and saw the man's torso sink into view, then his flowing beard, face, and eventually his hat, perched jauntily on his silver-grey hair. Her breath caught as she recognised whom the man was.

Hermione's vision swam, and she fought a wave of nausea, which threatened to overwhelm her. Cautiously, she pushed herself upright and twisted around so that she was sitting on the floor with her back to the stone bath.

Before her, sitting peacefully cross-legged in the centre of the reformed mosaic, sat Albus Dumbledore.

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It was like rising through deep water to a dark surface. He felt as if he were drowning and thrashed for air, clawing at the cloths that bound him. His throat closed in panic. Where is she? I have to get to her!

"Severus? Severus? Can you hear me?" The voice was female, but it was not the voice he wanted to hear.

He became aware of strong hands holding his arms down, a soft cloth rubbing over his face and chest. He panicked, rolling his face way from those soft hands, lashing out with limbs that did not feel entirely under his control.

"Professor Snape? Sir...? You're safe! You're home. Lie still and let Poppy help you." The voice was patient and kind, but it wasn't the right voice.

He struggled to fight clear of the constricting arms and hands that bound him. Drawing deeply into himself, he focused his will on forcing the heavy weight away from him. His throat felt unbearable – as if it had been burned and flayed raw.

"He's fitting again!"

"No – he's trying a non-verbal charm. Supprimere Incantatio!"

"What...?"

"I'm stopping him hexing us into pieces, Potter! That charm suppresses magic temporarily. Now stop asking idiotic questions, and hold his arm like I showed you so that I can get this potion properly absorbed! Severus... hold still! I'm giving you a broad-range restorative draught and nerve tonic, but your throat is too damaged for you to swallow it properly, so I'm using Absorbere Incutis for your face, neck, and arm – damn it, Harry, Ron! Keep him still!"

He coughed and tried to swallow, but his tongue felt as if it were twice the size that it should have been and it would not move properly. He tried to open his eyes, but the damp cloth over his face was still blocking his vision. He grunted with the effort of trying to twist away from it.

"I'm trying, Poppy – but he's going to do himself a mischief if he doesn't stop flailing about like this!"

Severus heard an exasperated snort beside his ear, and then he felt the cloth over his face grow colder as more liquid was soaked into the material. He tried to understand, but his body was automatically rejecting rational thought in preference for irrational action. He struck out blindly with his right hand.

"Ow! Grab his hand and hold it down! Poppy – he's getting more and more agitated! I thought you said the potion would calm him down!"

Another grunt, and the cloth on his chest felt colder and wetter this time. His panic and disorientation returned – why did his throat hurt so much? Who were these people? How did they know his name? What was happening to him? Where was Hermione? He bucked upwards again against his bounds in fear and panic. He felt hands on his shoulders pushing him back down against the mattress beneath him, and he fought again to rise up and grab at the cloth over his face.

"I said that it would help him to recover... 'Recovering' means getting stronger...!"

Snape thrashed again, this time feeling a satisfying slap as his hand caught something warm and soft.

"Ow!"

"Oh, Severus, you silly man! Stay still!" The female made an exasperated sound. "This works better if the patient is conscious and mobile, but at this rate, he'll run out of magical energy before I can get this potion absorbed – Somniare, Severus!"

Darkness claimed him.

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

Hermione sat still and regarded the wizard before her with a level and calm stare.

"I suppose that you would like to know what is going on, my dear," Dumbledore said with a maddening twinkle.

"I expect that you have a few questions," he added benevolently, indicating the silent sepia-toned room about them with an airy wave of his hand.

Silence. Hermione regarded him steadily, striving for control.

Dumbledore coughed.

"Perhaps, my dear, you would like to know where you are exactly...?" he asked again, and this time, there was the tiniest trace of irritation in his voice.

Hermione remained still and quiet, fighting the rising surge of anger in her chest that was filling her throat with acid and her stomach with gall.

He was here.

Before her.

The reason why she had left Britain and deliberately made a life for herself outside her native country.

The man who had set teenagers against a madman.

The man who had set Harry on his path with just too little information for him to make an informed choice until it was too late.

The man who had made Severus kill him – no, put him out of his misery... even though he knew that Severus would be hated for it.

Albus Dumbledore.

Slowly, she rolled her eyes away from his expectant regard and looked about the room.

Everything was as it had been before she had been knocked out by the blast. The mosaic floor with its portrait, the stone bench... even the goblet that she had tried to cut herself with to activate the portal.

But the colours were wrong.

It wasn't just the frozen motes of dust, hanging still in the atmosphere. It was as if the room had been bleached of normal colour and replaced by something different; a pale palette of sepia parchment tones like a film set or a dreamscape. Shadows played across the floor from above. Slowly, she raised her eyes to look at the ceiling of the room.

In place of the brick barrel-vaulted ceiling, she could see something very like the enchanted ceiling from the Great Hall. Grey and white clouds roiled and shifted above her, churning and re-forming, illuminated by occasional flashes of lightning. The sconces in the walls of the bathroom had failed, but many magically suspended candles, flickering brightly among the clouds, lit the room in their place.

She knew where she was. Harry had described it to her and so she knew. The details might be different, but the atmosphere was the same.

Dumbledore coughed again, and Hermione returned her level stare to him once more.

He seemed rather discomforted by her reaction but then rallied. "Dr. Granger," he began, "Hermione. Dear girl..."

Hermione held up her hand. "Don't," she said. "Just... don't."

She replaced her hand in her lap. The silence stretched out between them. She drew a deep breath, and then raised her head to face him.

So this is what it is. Death. The Afterlife.

And Albus fucking Dumbledore is in it.

"I hate you," she said quietly.

Dumbledore looked flustered and surprised. Clearly, her reaction was not what he had expected. She saw his eyes harden behind his half-moon spectacles, the blue of the irises glinting in the magical candlelight.

Nevertheless, the old wizard seemed to force a smile and leaned forward towards her. "I thought that you might, my dear, because you stayed away for so long, but..."

"No," Hermione cut him off sharply. "You don't get to lecture me about maturity and wisdom and the perils of leadership and how war makes us all do things, terrible things that we would rather not have done. I saw you in Harry's memories and in Sev-Severus' too. You sent us out to face Voldemort with nothing but a children's book to guide us. And all you had, when Harry had died for you, was a clap on the back and a few asinine comments about the greater good."

"I think you'll find that..."

"Oh, shut up," she said flatly, interrupting him again. She didn't know how long she had, and she didn't want to miss this opportunity. "Clearly, I'm dead – but unlike Harry, I wasn't killed by magic, so there is little I can do about that. Necromancy is almost as foolish a discipline as Divination. I don't need you to tell me what's going on. I can work it out for myself."

Dumbledore rocked backwards a little and he raised his eyebrows. A small smile began to play on his lips, but he said nothing.

Hermione frowned, trying to cudgel her reluctant reasoning faculties into action. Tiredness infused her body, making every action sluggish and unresponsive, but she was determined to find the answers to her questions without relying on Dumbledore.

"I know I'm dead," she repeated again, glowering at the flamboyantly dressed wizard sitting calmly opposite her while she tried to fight the sick feeling of regret and anger that she felt at that knowledge. "But I don't understand why I came here in the first place. And I need to know, I need to know. I need to know, God damn it! And how did Severus get here? Why here? Why in Ancient Roman times?" Dumbledore made to answer her, but she held her hand up once more to forestall his reply, then pushed her filthy hair back away from her face in a determined effort to keep calm.

"So. There must be something in the portrait that activates the portal," she continued. "And there must be something that directs the portal to a certain point."

For a moment she was silent, but then the answer came to her.

Simple really, she thought.

"The runes," she said, and fought not to show her instinctive, childish pleasure when Dumbledore silently inclined his head in agreement.

"There were runes on the portrait in Italy," she continued. "The same runes were on my portrait here in Severus' house.... But I've seen them somewhere else...." She paused, closing her eyes to try to recapture the memory. The scale was different. Something smaller... something small...

Her eyes snapped open. "The Time-Turner! Severus' Time-Turner – the one that Ron and I found in his office. I'm sure I remember him grabbing it from around my neck when he was... when I was.... But... but I saw it again here – he was wearing it here in Pompeii. And Fiducius had it with him when he disappeared with Conviva and his family. I knew it was different from the one I'd used in my third year."

She could feel her heart beating faster as she pursued the thought. "So the runes might work like the numbers on the rings in normal Time-Turners. But why are the runes on the Time-Turner the same as those on the portraits here? What keys the one thing to the other...?" She furrowed her brows in concentration.

Five feet away from her, the ancient wizard steepled his hands together in front of his lips and raised his eyebrows.

Hermione scrubbed her face with her hands in frustration, then pulled her hands away as the recently made cut on her palm opened up once more. Fresh blood welled in her palm, and she stared at it for a moment. Could it be that easy...?

She fumbled with the front of her tunica, pulling the Daum perfume bottle out from under the rough cloth. Holding it in her cut palm, the bright blood smearing a little on its cloudy surface, she stared at it as if seeing it for the first time. The blood... the blood in the bottle. But is it only Severus' blood in there? she thought. Could some of mine be in there, too...?

"Blood activated the portal," she blurted, staring at her old headmaster.

Encouraged by the old man's stillness and silence, she continued. "Blood has tied us together. That's how I was pulled through the portal to him.... But... why did it take so long? It's been years since the end of the war... Is this the portrait I was excavating? If it is, then this is a time loop...."

But then she remembered the gentle, questing, magical mist that had washed over both of them as the floor had transfigured. She frowned suddenly, a cold wave of realisation washing through her. She lifted her head once more to meet Dumbledore's eyes again and saw that he was still watching her carefully in a thoughtful and measured way.

"But I didn't transfigure the original mosaic into the portrait, did I?" she went on softly. "So that explanation won't do, now... will it? And I can't see how Severus could have got here in the first place – Pompeii is my area of expertise, and unless there is something that ties him to this place, I can't see how...." She felt the sharp, acid burn of tears and closed her eyes to ease the sensation.

Then they snapped open. "Could that old Time-Turner have been linked to something the original owner of this place did?"

She looked again around the room, remembering Severus' explanation of its previous resident's obsession with strange rituals and Dark magic. Her head swam with the possibilities, a familiar sensation, one she normally welcomed – but an unbalancing sensation, nonetheless.

She remembered the beautiful workmanship of Snape's Time-Turner, the soft glow of the dark gold against his skin, the precision of the hand-carved numerals and runes... the slight, hand-made imperfection of the sand chronometer at its heart. She pictured the device, held carefully in her fingers as she had examined it when he had been knocked out following the battle with Sabazios and then as she had last seen it lying against his warm skin, nestled in his sparse chest hair.

Then she remembered where she had first noticed the Time-Turner hanging delicate and vulnerable on its golden chain after she had gently lifted it from the secret compartment of the Punishment Ledger in the Headmaster's office.

Could it have been Roman made? Or Egyptian? The quality of workmanship was certainly equivalent to Persian and Intermediate Dynasty gold work.... Her thoughts tailed off as she settled backwards, resting her back on the stone lip of the marble bath.

She became aware that she was feeling increasingly tired, a lassitude which was growing throughout her body. She sat still for a moment, analysing the sensation. It was like the pull of magic through her, leeching her energy away.

"You are not quite there yet, dear girl." Dumbledore's voice roused her from her languor. She had almost forgotten that he was there sitting neatly cross-legged on the bleached colour of the mosaic floor like a spectral leprechaun. She roused herself to scowl at him.

And then the final question placed itself before her... the crucial memory, which demanded an answer that she couldn't possibly find.

Fresh tears fell unchecked on her cheeks in the silent enchanted room as she ground her teeth in frustration.

"You're right, old man," she said, her voice now roughened and sour. "Nothing I've said so far can explain the fact that Severus Snape is dead and buried in a granite tomb on Hogwarts grounds."

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A strange noise was the first thing he heard when he came back to consciousness. For a moment, he was so disorientated that he didn't understand what it was until he recognised the noise to be quiet voices, pitched low so as not to disturb him. His thoughts were sluggish and unresponsive. Drugged?

"... You cannot possibly blame yourself for his condition, Poppy. There was no sign of life at all. For hours, days, even!"

"... Yeah, Madam Pomfrey... Don't beat yourself up. I helped to bring his body back into the Great Hall after the battle. He was dead. No pulse – even Hermione said he had gone – and you know how desperate she had been to save him."

"... Professor, what does all of this mean? Can he help us to get her back? Did he do anything to her...?"

Severus lay still, trying to force his mind into clearer thoughts. The names he was hearing were familiar... Who was this person he had supposedly done something to...? He prodded his memory cautiously like trying out a rotten tooth with his tongue. Slowly, he opened his eyes to slits and tried to look around the room without giving away the fact that he was awake.

He was in some sort of a hospital. The walls were dressed stone, there were only a few beds visible, and they were all empty, their blankets neatly folded at the end of each mattress. Privacy screens jutted out between the beds. Shelves of glass and ceramic containers lined two of the walls in a series of cabinets.

Severus shifted his head slightly to the right so that he could see more. The ceiling was spectacular, an extraordinarily effusive example of decorated fan vaulting, the fine stone carvings of mythical and magical creatures intertwining with the more traditional stylised forms of design and decoration on the arches of the roof.

His attention focused in particular on the stone carving immediately above his head. A fearsome Manticore was fighting a dragon, its claws raking the animal's body while the other creature in turn sank its fangs into the Manticore's neck.

Snape looked away quickly, feeling slightly ill. He tried to move his head a little to the right and felt an intense sharp pain in his damaged neck. He was able to catch a glimpse of a bed beside his own, the blankets folded neatly into a roll at the foot of the mattress.

There was something very familiar about the room. He prodded his memory again.

Light was streaming into the ward from a series of windows set high in the walls on either side of the room. One of them was lit by stained glass. Severus squinted though his eyelashes.

He saw a badger on its hind legs pawing at a lion.

His eyes opened wider. What...?

Above them, a great green and golden snake writhed and twisted, its fangs bared at the image of a proud bronze eagle.

He felt a rush of memories and emotions, as if a great blockage in his mind had been breached.

He knew where he was and when he was.

He remembered.

Not a hospital.

An infirmary.

At Hogwarts.

He tried to sit up, but in doing so, he dislodged a metal bowl that had been placed at his side on the bed. It fell to the floor with a harsh metallic clang. The movement caused almost every muscle in his upper body to scream in protest. He dropped back against the pillows behind him, and his eyes shut as he fought for control. Merlin that had hurt!

Severus heard swiftly approaching footsteps and felt a solicitous hand on his brow and one at his wrist feeling for his pulse.

"Severus?"

Poppy Pomfrey's face swam into view, tear stained and flushed. He screwed his face up in a sneer against the pain in his muscles and the humiliation of his weakness.

He opened his eyes a fraction again.

"How do you feel now, young man?" he heard her ask.

He looked up at her as the light from the Founders' window played in multi-coloured fractals across her face. Poppy looked far more care-worn than he remembered her; her hair was silver white, her face was lined and puckered, but the intensity of her gaze was just the same, as was the faintly disapproving set of her mouth.

He coughed. His throat still felt raw and abused, but nothing like the burning sensation that he had experienced when he...

He grabbed Poppy's arm in alarm, pulling her further towards him. "Hermione?" he rasped, his voice a throaty ruin. His stomach writhed with guilt. How could he have forgotten? "Did she make it back with me? Is she all right? Where is she?"

Poppy was not looking at him anymore – her face was turned to the left. Tears sparkled in the sunlight.

"We hoped that you might be able to tell us that, Professor," said another voice, and Harry Potter's concerned face came into view behind Poppy's shoulder. Standing next to him was the younger Weasley, his round, freckled face serious and concerned.

Severus blinked. Both young men looked so much older than he remembered. Potter's face was thinner and Weasley looked positively worn.

"Where is she?" he insisted desperately. How could he get back? He reached for the old Time-Turner that hung about his neck with a trembling hand, patting his chest for it. It isn't there. It isn't there! Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Severus started to panic, pulling at the bedclothes to get his legs free.

"Shhh! She's here, Severus." Poppy's hands lay flat on his chest, halting his ineffective struggles.

He looked wildly about him, ignoring the stabbing pain from his injured neck and the complaints from his muscles. His gaze swung about, taking in more of the infirmary ... the soaring, fan-vaulted ceiling, the dark portraits on the wall, the other beds, all empty as before...No!

To his immediate left, the partition was pulled back, and rather than the more usual roll of sheets and blankets on the end of the mattress, Severus could see that the bed beside him was occupied.

"I moved her down here when the boys brought you in," Poppy continued softly. "I needed to keep an eye on both of you while you...," her voice faded away.

His breath caught, his throat spasmed.

Hermione.

Alive! Thank God!

He felt like crying. Greedily, his eyes took in her still form. Her skin was alabaster, smooth and pale. He could not see any blemishes on her skin... There were no wounds... no imperfections. Her chest rose and fell regularly.

She was alive!

Above him, he heard Poppy sniff and darted a quick look again at the Healer. Tears were still coursing down her lined face. As he looked up at Poppy in some confusion, she frowned and dashed some of them away with a quick movement of her hand.

A cold fist seized his heart and twisted it.

He snapped his head around and looked at Hermione again.

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

"We buried him," she said flatly. "But you know that."

"I wasn't there at the time," he pointed out delicately. "Portraits are not easily moved."

She snorted. "I wouldn't let them take you outside to see it." She remembered the fight that she had had with Harry over that, and her mouth twisted into a little grimace at the memory.

"Ahhh. I see." Dumbledore twinkled infuriatingly.

She glowered in response. "He was dead. We did everything to try to revive him. But he was gone." She sighed. God she was so exhausted.... She felt... drained.

"Perhaps, my dear," Dumbledore prompted mildly, "rather than assuming that Severus did actually die, you should think about what he might have done to prevent his passing entirely...."

Hermione stared at him, defensive and yet... intrigued by his suggestion. Severus was a clever man. He knew more about potions and the Dark Arts than anyone she had ever known.

She looked down at the little perfume bottle, nestling innocently in her hand.

"What is he doing to me...?" she breathed.

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

"Dying?" He stretched out a hand towards her and heard the Weasley boy make an angry, snorting noise. He ignored it. "Why, Poppy?" he rasped angrily.

Potter and Weasley both moved around his bed to stand awkwardly by Hermione's feet, staring at him. Weasley folded his arms across his broad chest.

Snape remembered something he had overheard. "What did you mean, before?" he asked Potter, the slick dread of fear still causing his heart to clench. "When you said, 'Did he do anything to her?', you were talking about me, weren't you, Potter? What did you mean?"

Potter flinched, but Ron leaned down, his lower jaw jutting out aggressively. "Well, did you?" he asked.

Snape glowered at him, hearing the implied accusation in the younger man's tone. He opened his mouth to make a blistering reply...

"We think that you are linked with her in some way, Severus," Poppy said gently but firmly, distracting Snape's attention from the impertinent red-headed shit.

"What?" he hissed.

Pomfrey's face was a mixture of concern and embarrassed irritation. "Septima thinks that you have some sort of personal connection with Hermione, Severus," she said. "Could it have anything to do with your coma? How... How did you do it? How did you... survive?"

Snape recoiled, confused and alarmed. His memories were so confusing. Had he harmed her? He had fallen through the mosaic portrait as he saw Hermione flung across the room by the pyroclastic surge. He hadn't touched her.

He hadn't touched her!

But as he looked up again into the face of the school matron, Snape closed his eyes.

Those weren't the memories he needed.

He cast aside thoughts of his life in ancient Pompeii and thought instead of those frantic moments in the Shack, the fear and the panic, scrabbling in blood-soaked clothing for his mother's perfume bottle while choking on the various potions and philtres that Hermione was tipping into his mouth. Saying the words of the curse, feeling the hideous agony as his soul fractured, staring into those beautiful, terrified eyes.

Oh, fuck.

He opened his eyes and looked at the unconscious woman on the bed beside him.

Oh, fuck.

He reached out again towards her, but there was too much of a space between the beds for him to touch her. He bared his teeth in frustration and flicked his fingers.

Hermione's bed lurched quickly towards him, sweeping the legs out from under Potter and Weasley and sending both of them crying out in surprise and sprawling onto Hermione's bed and each other. Their protests were drowned out by the exquisite sensation of skin-to-skin contact with Hermione's arm.

Flesh leapt to flesh. As his fingers curled about her thin forearm, he felt that same sensation of thrilling excitement and soothing balm that he had felt as they had nestled together in each other's arms.

He felt Hermione move beneath his hand and watched in wonder as she arched her body off the bed. He felt a surge of well-being and strength flow into him. He easily pushed himself up on his elbow and leaned towards her. She was still asleep, but he thought that he saw her skin tighten on her features, even as her power throbbed into him. She was fading, even as her power was pushing into him...

"Hermione!" Weasley shouted, knocking Snape's hand away from Hermione's arm and grabbing the front of Snape's hospital gown. "What are you doing to her, you filthy bastard?"

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

"I'm very tired," she added.

"Yes, Severus is draining your energy through the Horcrux."

Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. "It's not an evil thing," she said defensively.

Dumbledore shrugged. "It is a work of magic. Why do people insist on drawing black and white distinctions between good and evil? Things are never just as they appear to be to us as children." She didn't miss the subtle correction in his tone.

She looked again at the little bottle. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm dead already," she said in quiet voice, feeling something empty settle in her heart.

Dumbledore snorted delicately. "Why are you are persisting in these assertions, Miss Granger?"

"Doctor Granger," she corrected him stubbornly, then disbelievingly. "What? What do you mean? What assumptions?"

Dumbledore stretched luxuriantly, enjoying her irritation and exuding an insufferable sense of superiority. She bit her tongue to stop herself from saying anything and waited for him to speak. He was going to make her suffer.

He opened his mouth to reply and then paused to waggle his eyebrows at her again.

"Why," he said, holding up the fingers of one hand and counted off the two points with his other hand, "the assumption, firstly, that you are dead, my dear. And secondly, the assumption that the perfume phial is his Horcrux."

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

Snape stared at Weasley in dumb horror as the young man's face contorted in rage. He was not afraid of the young ginger-haired wizard, but rather at the implications of the rush of magic that he had felt from Hermione... the knowledge that her magic was sustaining him.

Poppy was right; they did have a link, and that link was his Horcrux.

The knowledge of that made him sick to his stomach. What had he done? He turned his head to look at Hermione's still form once again, this time seeing her deathly pallor, the translucence of her skin, and the sharpness of her bones. Potter hauled Weasley off him, but Snape barely noticed as he lay rigid with horror at the thing that he had created.

"Severus, drink this; it will help your throat." Poppy Pomfrey was still hovering over him, this time with a small glass in her hand filled with a viscous liquid. He batted her hand away. He was certain that he would throw up anything he drank.

Weasley made to move towards him again, but Potter restrained him.

"Severus? Do you know what we can do to help her?" Poppy asked quietly, the glass of elixir still in her hand.

Snape stared at her blankly. His throat was raw and dry. He licked his lips with a tongue like sandpaper.

"No," he croaked. "I don't know."

What the fuck do I do now? he thought blankly.

The answer came to him very quickly. Yes, of course.

He heard Weasley emit a snort of disbelief and Potter shush him.

"But Harry..."

"The Aurors will be here soon, Ron. Maybe Septima can work something out...." Potter's voice faded into silence. It was obvious that none of them had any idea what to do next. He darted another quick look at Hermione's still and silent body. It was enough to calm the flutter of anxiety in his stomach and stiffen his resolve.

Severus looked at Poppy who was still looking down at him anxiously, as if he would break. "I... I need to use the loo," he said, hoping that she would take the boys away and give him the privacy he needed to do what he had to do.

To his immense relief, Poppy nodded and reached beneath the bed, pulling out a shallow bedpan. She placed it upon the bedcovers near his leg. "Once you have used it, Severus, please call me, and I will dispose of it."

She frowned at him with a trace of her usual asperity. "Don't even think of using magic yet, young man. You are not completely out of the woods, you know."

Then she stood and began to fuss over him, pulling out the privacy screens around Severus's bed, gesturing to the young men to back out of the way.

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

"Not dead," repeated Hermione blankly. She felt an absurd flare of hope at the notion.

"Quite so," replied Dumbledore with maddening calm.

"So," she said. "So... this is King's Cross, isn't it? Or my version of it, anyway. Harry told me all about what happened after he had confronted Voldemort in the Forest."

Dumbledore shrugged but remained silent.

Hermione looked at him, then down at the perfume phial in her palm. "Am I dying?" she asked baldly, knowing the answer as soon as she asked the question.

The old man had the grace to look rather embarrassed. "That, my dear, is rather up to Severus."

"But the phial is not the Horcrux."

"No, my dear. The Horcrux is not in the perfume glass – it is far closer than that." The old man cocked an eyebrow interrogatively and looked at her.

Hermione grimaced in frustration. Always playing games. She tapped her fingers against the glass in frustration and waited. She was almost too tired to think straight.

"The Horcrux is inside you, Hermione," Dumbledore added kindly.

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

Severus waited until he heard Poppy, Weasley, and Potter withdraw to the far end of the room again before beginning to move.

Slowly and gently, he peeled back the sheet and blanket covering him and swung his legs out of bed, placing his feet uncertainly on the floor. He looked towards the voices. One of the screens that Poppy had pulled out was set across the end of his bed and Hermione's, thus obscuring the view from the end of the room to both beds. Perfect.

He paused. He could hear Weasley arguing with Potter about fetching the Aurors and Hermione's mother, Poppy interjecting that he wasn't strong enough for an interrogation and reminding the young men that it was a medical miracle that he was alive in the first place, that however Snape had managed to save himself, by some sort of healing deep coma, needed to be studied and catalogued.

Snape's mouth twisted in dislike. The prospect of being poked and prodded, studied like a lab rat for medical research was repugnant to him. He steeled himself to lean over quietly so that he could touch Hermione again.

The only way to break the link between them was to destroy the Horcrux. Not making a sound, Severus ran his hand lightly over Hermione's breastbone to find the perfume bottle. He patted her chest gently through her thin hospital gown, trying to find the silver chain. Nothing. His hand moved with increasing desperation as he searched for the Horcrux.

Nothing.

Nothing!

Fuck!

It was not there. But she said that she always wore it! She was wearing it in the bathroom when he fell through the mosaic....

Where is it?

He turned frantic, searching around her body in case it had fallen to her side.

Nothing.

He was braced over her body, looking down at her beautiful, drawn face. He could almost see the life draining out of her. He remembered the page from De Magia Veterum, the Dark Magic text that he had studied before creating his Horcrux, picturing the Latin text in his mind's eye.

"The Horcrux is inviolate to all spells and curses and is vulnerable only to the destructive forces of Dark powers. Should the creator of a Horcrux wish to reverse the spell and destroy his creation, this may only be done when the castor feels true remorse, although the pain of such action may destroy him."

Snape's nostrils flared, and he felt hot tears pricking his eyes as he lowered his forehead to rest gently on her collarbone.

Oh Merlin, he was sorry.

At his touch on her skin, he felt her magic leap towards him again. Images cascaded through his mind, and he felt a sudden burning sensation begin in his chest and spread rapidly through his body. Rather than pull away from her though, he welcomed the pain instinctively, embraced it with a selfish pleasure. He deserved it. Her Horcrux was gone, and he could not destroy it. She would die as his selfish body drew on her magical energy and sapped her own.

He was suffused with self-loathing, remembering the recent times when she had saved him from the Manticore, from Sabazios, even from Fiducius. Then he remembered the young girl who had splayed across him, pouring potions into his body, wiling him to recover even as he created the thing that would anchor him to life at her expense.

That image morphed into another – this time of her face contorted in pleasure as she writhed beneath him, her eyes heavy lidded with desire. She had wanted him. She had loved him.

Thick bile rose in his throat, and he let out a whimper as the pain of his remorse grew and blossomed.

He was burning with it. It consumed him and he welcomed it. He deserved to die. Selfish bastard.

He felt her magic batter against him, and he rejected it – shoving it back towards her roughly, pushing more of himself into her, willing her to survive, to be restored, to live.

He became conscious of a deep blue glow emanating from Hermione's body, wrapping itself around him like a net, pulling him closer, and crushing the air from his chest. She began to move beneath him. He gripped her shoulders with both hands and pushed her back into the mattress, feeling the pain of his regret and humiliation scorching through him but refusing to let her go. He had no idea what was happening but he was determined to see it through to the end.

He shook with the effort of remaining in contact with her body and poured his love and fear and grief and sorrow into her.

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

Hermione felt the change as a slow burn in her chest... like indigestion.

"What do you mean, 'up to Severus'?" she asked. "Why must you always speak in riddles, damn it?"

Dumbledore tilted his head on one side. "I think you know. You did study Horcrux-lore," he said.

Hermione frowned. Her head was feeling clearer, her energy levels seemed to be rising.

"Severus would need to...," she began, trying to remember what she had studied with Harry and Ron all those years ago. "He... he would need to destroy it with remorse."

Dumbledore nodded.

"But that could kill him!" she blurted out in shock.

Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders a little. "Quite so, dear girl," he said with equanimity. "Quite so. Or, of course, he could save you both."

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

"... And I say that we should fetch the Aurors right now," said Ron mulishly, his face set in a scowl that Harry recognised all too well. "He's clearly got some sort of hold over her – just look at what happened when he touched her! It's sick."

"He's not strong enough to be moved, Ron!" argued Harry. "You heard what Poppy said – he's just about hanging on, as it is. The Aurors won't be able to do anything – and what's the point of arresting him?"

"But Harry, she's going to die if we don't do something, sever the link in some way. Look, her mum's going to be down here any second! What are we going to say to her?"

Poppy Pomfrey slowly folded her arms and adopted a stance that Harry would later describe as her 'protective lioness' pose. "What exactly are you suggesting, Mister Weasley...?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

"Well, we can't just... We just can't...." Ron raised his hands in frustrated supplication. Harry quirked his lips slightly at the look on Ron's face and Poppy's trenchant body language.

Despite the desperate situation they were facing, he was pleased to see that some things remained the same.

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

Hermione clutched at her chest, breathless with distress, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. No, she corrected herself, not her heartbeat; she could hear the volcano again, the roar of Vesuvius clearer and more evident than it had been for the past few minutes.

Another wave of burning pain washed through her, and her body spasmed forwards. She braced herself on the floor with her other hand as she tried to ride out the agony.

"W-what's going on?" she managed to ask between the agonising convulsions.

Dumbledore made no reply, and Hermione looked up at him through tear-soaked lashes, her face contorted in anguish. The burning rolled through her again, doubling in intensity. It felt as if her chest were being scorched and flayed open. She cried out again.

Dumbledore sat, cross-legged as before. She could not quite make out his expression through the bouts of sickly pain rushing through her body.

A sharp and demanding wave of nausea struck her as the pain gripped her chest once more. Oh gods, it hurt! "Fuck you, Dumbledore! What is happening?" she hissed.

"I think you know what is happening, Hermione," Dumbledore answered kindly. "Severus is doing what he needs to do. He's coming."

Her hand dug into her chest, as if by pressing down on the pain there she could lessen it somehow. Curiously, the action did seem to help a little. She panted out a few breaths and tried to lift her head again.

"I didn't ask him to," she gasped out, staring at Dumbledore. "I wouldn't."

The old wizard nodded and smiled. "Quite so," he agreed.

Hermione blinked. The pain in her chest was certainly abating. As it lessened, she thought that Dumbledore's body seemed to be becoming less... opaque. The deep purple of his cloak and robes was fading and becoming translucent. The roar from the eruption was now reaching a deafening level, and the walls and floor of the bathroom were shaking.

"What...?" she began, confused and frightened. The room was now as it had been, the deep colours of the portrait clearly visible.

Dumbledore smiled at her again as his form continued to shift and change. Hermione blinked again; her vision was clouding.... What was going on? She wiped her eyes roughly on the back of her hand so that she could see more clearly.

The sight that met her eyes when she opened them again made her gasp.

Dumbledore was gone. In his place, rising through the mosaic portrait before her, like an avenging spirit in the maelstrom that roiled about them, his face drawn and pale but resolute, his arms extended to catch her, was Severus.

Sobbing with relief, she fell into his arms.

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

He did not know how long he had been asleep, but he awakened to the pressure of circling fingers on his sweat-soaked back and a splitting headache.

He was lying on a sweaty pillow, his arms bent at the elbows to each side, his hands tangled in soft curls.

Cautiously, he moved his head. The movement caused the pillow to shift slightly of its own accord.

"Ooof. Could you...? You are quite heavy...."

Severus stilled immediately and then pushed himself slowly up away from the pillow, his arms shaking with the effort this simple action cost him. He was exhausted beyond measure.

His hair hung lank and greasy in front of his face, and his eyes felt like they had been bathed in acid. He blinked carefully, trying to clear the stinging, sticky substance away from his vision.

Gentle fingers brushed the limp blades of hair away from his eyes and tucked them carefully behind his ears. He looked down in numb disbelief at the smiling face of the woman in his arms.

"Hello, Severus." Hermione whispered and she smiled. "It looks like I'm back."