Chapter 5

The room was silent when he stopped speaking; only the sound of her harsh breathing fractured the air.

He had spared her nothing. Spared himself nothing. No detail in the telling, no sympathetic twist in the interpretation.

"So, you see," he said, "I am responsible for the death of my best friend...my first friend. And I am the killer of the former headmaster, a revered wizard, and the only one the Dark Lord is said to have ever feared."

Hermione muttered something he couldn't hear under her breath, but she shook her head when he raised his eyebrows in question.

"The war is unfolding just as Dumbledore predicted. I am at Hogwarts, as I promised him I would be. The Dark Lord wants me here, which is just as well." His lips twisted in a grimace, and he didn't notice her eyes widen. "It is ever so convenient when my two masters' wishes coincide."

"It would be, wouldn't it?" she murmured.

He threw her a look, but she was still staring at her hands.

"I have two last jobs to do," he continued. "Two... items... I need to transfer into Potter's possession before this war ends, and in the meantime, I mean to leave the students as intact as possible, given the rabid idiots I've been saddled with."

"All the while making the Dark Lord believe that you are one of his men. One of those rabid idiots yourself," she said carefully.

He smirked.

"Yes."

For a long moment, she sat, eyes downcast, preternaturally still, her only movement the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

His heart began to pound, louder and louder until all he could hear was the whooshing in his ears.

He should have expected this. He had, in point of fact, anticipated it. Her disgust.

Rejection.

She had asked for his story, but never mind. Severus Snape was nothing if not patient, and he could wait for her to throw his words back at him, for her to demand he return her to her world without delay.

For her to leave, too.

It didn't take long, but though he was expecting it, the look of disgust on her face made him cringe.

"Let me get this straight," she said too slowly. "The Dark Lord and the former Headmaster have been vying over this boy wizard, staking their lives and those of countless others in this war based on a prophecy you overheard from some batty old witch seventeen years ago?"

"Eighteen," Severus corrected.

Her face flushed, the muscles of her face tensed, and Severus thought he heard her grinding her teeth.

"Are you all insane?" Hermione shouted. "Resting everything on the shoulders of a seventeen year old boy who, you say, is a mediocre wizard, at best?"

Severus pursed his lips and blinked.

"If Dumbledore was the only wizard the Dark Lord ever feared, why didn't he stop him when he had the chance?"

Severus opened his mouth to answer, but she wasn't finished.

"For that matter, why don't you kill him yourself? From what you've said, you have the best opportunity of any of his henchmen."

Severus flinched. Henchmen. He supposed he could be called that, yes. Though he did prefer 'Death Eater' if given the choice.

"Severus? Are you listening?"

Did it really sound so absurd to an outsider? That Harry Potter should be protected until the right moment, that only he could vanquish the Dark Lord? Had he sacrificed a lifetime in the service of an old man's delusions of grandeur and another man's crippling fear of death and megalomaniacal lust for power and immortality?

"I'm listening," he said at last. "A bit hard not to, with all the shouting you're doing."

"Sorry," she murmured. "But honestly, Severus. You're sitting here, paralysed. Waiting. Practically helpless. And completely alone."

He swallowed thickly and tried to explain.

"I set this in motion, Hermione. It's only right that I do what is necessary to make amends and to rid the world of ... him." He lifted his hand to forestall her argument. "And on the details, you must trust me. Trust Dumbledore. If he says it is so, I believe him. Harry Potter must be the one to vanquish the Dark Lord, and my role is to aid him without his knowledge."

Hermione crossed her arms and frowned as if her disapproval might change his reality.

"This is on Dumbledore's word, then?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then he can tell me himself," she said, and before he could stop her, she was through the inner door and in his outer office.

"Hermione!"

But it was too late. The portrait wasn't hard to find, centred as it was above the headmaster's desk. All around the room, former headmasters and headmistresses peered out of their frames, the ones further from the desk crowding into the portraits of their colleagues. Every one of them awake. Except for the white-bearded wizard himself.

Severus stood at the threshold, torn between dragging her back into the inner office and letting her do whatever it was she planned to do. In all honesty, he was fascinated. By her stance, he wouldn't be surprised if there was to be more shouting.

He might even enjoy this.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, I presume."

The portrait was silent. Softly, it began to snore.

"Are you always this rude to guests?" she asked. "Pretending they're not right there in front of you?"

Severus raised his eyebrows, but the portrait coughed and stretched as if waking up from a long sleep.

"Pardon me. Just finishing a little nap. Miss Granger, is it?" the portrait asked.

"Obviously," she said, "but, it would seem, not the one you've known for the past six years. If I were the Hermione Granger of your world, I expect you would be rather unhappy to see her here in the headteacher's office. Am I right?"

"Well, yes," the portrait admitted, squirming a bit. "Which begs the question of who you are, my dear."

"Yes, I suppose it does at that." She took a step closer to the desk. "Let's just say I'm an interested party. A friend. Severus's friend."

"A friend?" The portrait chuckled. "You've hardly been here long enough to consider Headmaster Snape a friend."

"Is that so?" Hermione's voice was low and menacing. "Does it take terribly long to make a friend, Headmaster?" she asked. "How much time did it take you to throw your lot in with your friend Gellart Grindelwald?"

The portrait blinked and a sharp edge glinted in his painted eye.

"Hermione?"

She shook her head and glanced at Severus.

Wait.

"My association with Grindelwald is of no relevance here," said Dumbledore, softly, "and even if it were, it ended more than a century ago."

Hermione turned to Severus, who nodded his agreement.

"Where I come from, Albus Dumbledore and Gellart Grindelwald were cast out for crimes against humanity."

"Against... humanity?"

"Their attempts to subjugate non-magicals led to their trial and conviction by the Tribunal Humanitatis and their casting out of the company of all living creatures...separately, never to see one another again...by the British Consortium of Magical and Non-Magical beings. Neither ever attempted to make amends."

Dumbledore looked to Severus and then to Hermione, growing first pale and then flushed as he scrambled to make sense of what the witch in front of him had revealed.

"That was not me," he said at last. "I separated from Gellart when we were both still boys. I spent the rest of my life..." He shook his head and leaned forward. "The wizard who was cast out was not me, Miss Granger, though I suppose it might have been, under other circumstances."

"It was you under other circumstances," Hermione said crisply. "Just as I am both Hermione Granger, and not."

The portrait closed its eyes for a moment and then nodded.

"Yes. I see."

"Good. Because just as you are horrified by the actions of the Albus Dumbledore from my world, I am frankly horrified by his actions – your actions – here in this one. It makes me wonder how different the two wizards are, really."

She could hear Severus's sharp intake of breath clear across the otherwise silent room.

"What do you want?" the portrait asked at last.

"The truth." Hermione said. "All of it."

The elves had brought tea and biscuits, and the fire in the inner office threw splintered shadows across the room. The door was shut against Dumbledore's portrait and its truths.

She looked as shocked as he, himself, had felt that day when Dumbledore finally told him everything. The whole truth.

"Harry doesn't know?" she asked, her voice still shaky.

"He doesn't, I don't think," Severus replied. "Though I've often wondered if he suspects it."

Hermione nodded and gazed into the fire, the angry popping of the flames reflected in her eyes.

"It's insane," she said to the fire. "That you should be expected to find him. Twice. When nobody else...even supposedly the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen...can."

"Well," Severus said. "To be fair, I do have a spy."

"A spy?"

"Of a sort. You see, Phineas Nigellus Black, one of our former headmasters, had a portrait at the old headquarters. Granger apparently took it with her when they fled. I haven't received much useful information from him yet, but it's possible he'll overhear something helpful at some point."

"She's lugging around a portrait? On the run?"

Severus snorted. "Hermione Granger...the one I knew...is extremely resourceful. And she takes pride in performing magic beyond her training." He smirked. "Headmaster Black thinks there's an undetectable extension charm on her handbag. He said that books and food and all manner of rubbish keep banging up against him when they're in transit."

Hermione blushed as if it were she who had packed the bag and performed the charm.

"I imagine it comes in handy. A bottomless bag."

"I imagine so." He gifted her with the shadow of a smile.

It was so odd, he thought, sitting across from this Hermione Granger. He'd always seen her as an irritant. Disruptive in her need for more than he could give. Worst of all, the ally of a boy whose very existence was a reminder of his worst sins...painful, but necessary.

He'd never admit it, but he held a grudging respect for the Hermione Granger he had taught. In her, he recognised his own dogged determination to understand, and his relentless pursuit of what he thought was right, however misguided.

Despite their differences, he also recognised all of that in this other Hermione Granger. Less impetuous. Not as driven to prove herself, but lit with the same familiar fire when faced with a challenge. How strange and wonderful that, this time, the challenge was the weight of his own burden, and that she would insist on sharing it with him.

As if she could read his thoughts, she interrupted the silence of his quiet contemplation.

"Why must your penance include being totally cut off from support?"

He shrugged.

"I'm hardly a gregarious man," he said. "And who would you have me tell? I cannot discuss this with the staff; the Carrows may be idiots, but they would be immediately suspicious if the staff were any less than hostile towards me. Potter can't keep the Dark Lord out of his mind, and if Weasley or... Granger knew, it would only be a matter of time before Potter did as well."

She nodded.

"Still," she said softly.

"There is nobody."

"Dumbledore," she insisted. "Who could do more than sleep."

"Oh, he wakes up periodically to boss me around a bit before wandering off for a game of gobstones or to gossip with the other portraits."

Hermione glanced towards the outer office and Severus imagined her eyes boring into Dumbledore's portrait just before her anger set it aflame. She might understand, but she was apparently not quite ready to forgive.

"What are the portraits like in your world?" he interrupted, his lips twitching just a bit.

"A lot like the ones here, as far as I can tell," she answered, distracted from her nonverbal quest. "It's just..." She hesitated, lost for words. "We just don't leave people alone the way you do here."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, everyone is responsible for one another, in a way. Decisions are made with the collective in mind. So nobody would ever be cut off like you've been. Not unless they'd been cast out."

"Ah, yes. I wondered what you meant when you said that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had been cast out." He shivered.

"I suppose it serves the same purpose as your prison. A way to remove someone from society and also to punish them."

"Do you have no prisons in your world?"

"The non-magicals have some, but they're often empty. Removing someone from society usually has the desired effect. They must find a way to repair the damage they did and request re-entry. Usually, they do."

"And when they don't?"

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "I only know rumours," she said. "Lone wanderers. Cut off from the flow... living only in silence."

Flow. Silence. Severus leaned forward in his chair.

"Is that what I'm feeling? That hum... that pulsing feeling?"

She looked up, surprised. "Yes, of course. We all feel it. It's what reminds us we aren't alone."

"Oh, but we are, Hermione," he said before he could stop himself from speaking the truth. His truth. "We are nothing if not alone."

"Severus," she said, but he'd risen and stood facing the hearth.

"Severus," she insisted. He shook his head.

Without a word, she rose and came to stand behind him. His body was bowed, bent over the mantelpiece, head buried in the cushion of his folded arms.

Standing so close to him, she could feel it. She always felt it. Humming beneath her skin, beneath his, too. He'd said he hadn't ever known it, but that was impossible. All living things did, unless they had been cast out. So long as one other was willing to link them, they would never be alone.

All at once, she felt a wave of determination fed by the residue of his loneliness and the depth of his sacrifice. She didn't understand this world, where mistakes went unforgiven and people could be discarded like rubbish. But she was not of this world, and she would act accordingly.

Hermione didn't give him the opportunity to refuse, just wrapped her arms around his torso and laid her head against the broad expanse of his back. His heartbeat accelerated beneath her hands, and she could feel the thrum of the link pass between them.

"You're not alone now," she said.

"There's nothing you can do for me," he said softly.

"Isn't there?"

He shook his head, but beneath her hands, she could feel his heartbeat slow and his breathing grow more steady. They stood just so until finally, he straightened. He brought his hands to hers and held them for a moment, finally unclasping them from around him. Only then did he turn around.

"You see?" she said.

"I see, but I don't understand," he said. "What sort of magic is this? And how am I going to keep the Dark Lord from seeing it when he looks at me?"

In a flash she understood Dumbledore's strategy but loathed him no less for it. If what Severus said was true, Dumbledore had left Harry Potter with love and attachments as shields against his enemy. But for Severus, he had left only an aching emptiness as his protection.

Allowing Severus to be (or at least seem) similar to his Dark Master might keep him safe temporarily, Hermione thought, but at what cost?

"Are you meant to survive this war?" she asked without stopping to think of the impact of her words.

But he just curled his lip and shook his head.

"I don't expect to," he said as if he were informing her of his plans for dinner. "But I must survive long enough to finish my tasks."

"That's it?" she said. "Your value? Contained in two last tasks?"

"Two crucial ones. At least I'll have that."

"You'll have that for what, Severus? For your tombstone?" she shouted.

"What difference does it make to you?" he asked. "Twenty-four hours ago, you'd never heard of me. And once we find the portal, you'll be headed back to your world. Your apprenticeship." He swallowed and looked away. "Your life."

Did he really think she could just turn and walk away, even knowing what she knew now...about the war, his isolation, and the danger he was in, and about the light that burned so brightly inside of him. There was nothing like this in her world, nothing for her to attack head-on. No real opportunity to make a difference, for her choices to matter. Did he really think she would just leave him here when she might be able to help? Had he always been this alone?

Oh, Severus. Not anymore. Not if I can help it.

"I'm not leaving until the two tasks are complete."

He barked a laugh. "Is that so?" He smirked. "We don't even know if we can get you back to your world, and if so, how."

She pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

"True, which only supports my argument," she said. "So unless you already have a plan for getting the sword to Potter, let me tell you mine." She smiled. "I have an idea."

He raised his eyebrows. "How novel," he murmured.

"Sarcastic bugger," she said, lightly smacking his arm and laughing out loud at his shocked expression. "No, really, I do. I have an idea for how you can lead Potter to the sword. Once we find out where he is, obviously."

Severus sat back in his chair and took a sip of his tea.

"Since I can't stop you, go right ahead. He gestured dismissively at her. But his eyes said something else. A tiny spark flickered there behind the bleakness.

Might it be hope?

Keeping her with him was every bit as difficult as he had feared.

He hardly had a choice, really. What could he do? Throw her out of the castle? Send another Hermione Granger out into the wilds of the wizarding world to be Snatched... or worse?

Having her in the castle, on some days, felt even riskier, even though she hadn't left his chambers at all...had scarcely ventured past his inner rooms.

Room.

Inner room. He had drawn an invisible line across the threshold to his bedchamber, though the castle had (thankfully) accommodated and provided a new entry to his bathroom.

The worst part about this thrice damned situation was that he almost enjoyed it.

Sitting with her on the sofa in the evenings, talking about the day, having her listen to aspects of his life he was unwilling to analyse.

"How do you do it?" she asked him once, four days after he had pulled her through the window. It was late, and the fire was dying, sending its last gasps into the air, sparks of light and noise piercing the silence.

The question rolled around his mind, into dark and hidden places, illuminating parts of himself that hardly bore looking at.

"It never occurred to me to not do this," he said softly. "Though I admit I couldn't have imagined..." He took a deep breath. "I never considered how I get through it, day to day. I just do."

He paused and looked at her face, soft in the firelight. Her eyes were hooded with a mixture of fatigue and calm, and it occurred to him that she, too, seemed to find respite in their time together, relaxing into his presence with each passing hour.

"I'm sorry you've had to do it alone for so long," she said. Before he could respond, she took a step closer, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her cheek to his chest where, surely, she could hear the pounding of his heart. The one he had forgotten he had.

The long days she spent alone in the large, hexagonal room with its sofas and fireplace and enormous desk piled with books were deceptively quiet.. Normally, this would be heaven. Endless hours to read and think, to write and imagine. Only a lab and supplies could improved it. That, and the ability to walk out of the firmly shut door.

With each passing day, the company of other people was sounding more appealing, too. Five days had passed by so far, and when she'd had enough of books and parchment (something she'd never before imagined possible), she paced the circumference of the room, fretting about the people she'd left behind and how they must be worrying about her.

Only when Severus returned at night or when he stole an hour at midday to spend with her, did she feel at ease. She hadn't yet worked out why she felt so comfortable with this man she'd known for a handful of days, when no wizard before had held her attention for long. Maybe it was a symptom of her confinement, though she could as easily imagine wanting nothing more than to get away, had his company been less engaging.

They had settled into a sort of routine together after that first, tumultuous day. A quiet breakfast (neither one of them favoured mornings, it would seem) before Severus would don his mask of indifference and sweep out into the outer office from where his stern voice carried into the chamber in which she sat.

"Professor Carrow," he growled the fifth afternoon of her occupancy. "Do refrain from threatening me."

Hermione stiffened, listening at the thick wooden door.

"The Dark Lord may have installed you here, but do not ever forget that he appointed me as Headmaster of this fine institution. You will obey my commands or I will have you removed," he hissed, the threat in his words, unmistakable.

Hermione shuddered and sat back on the sofa.

She had learned more about this universe, about his life and about the people surrounding him. There had been a good many whose names she knew, but whose histories were altogether different from the ones in her world. It was hard to decide which was stranger...the ways in which they differed or the many ways in which they were the same.

Mostly, she'd been fascinated to hear about the Hermione Granger of this universe. Severus appeared amused every time he discerned a similarity between them, as if he were discovering something familiar within something new.

"Merlin, woman," he said one night, mid-debate about the relative merits of Ashwinder eggs over powdered bicorn horn, "you are as persistent as your counterpart."

She raised her eyebrows, unconsciously mimicking a typical expression of his own.

"And this is a bad thing?"

He laughed, and the shiver of pleasure at the sound nearly blindsided her. It was the first time, she realised. The first time she'd heard him laugh out loud. She'd coaxed smiles from him, though those were hard won. But a laugh? She shivered again and he reached out to her.

"Are you cold?" He pulled her closer and wrapped the soft, cashmere blanket from the back of the sofa around her shoulders.

She snuggled closer, so he couldn't remove his arm.

"A bit," she lied, her breath short.

"Hmm," he hummed, but kept her close, his heartbeat beneath her cheek and his arms around her like an anchor to them both.

"Do you spend all day lounging around, reading, in your universe?" he snarled at her as he came through the inner door six nights after he'd pulled her through the glass.

It had been a particularly miserable day, and that was really saying something. Bellatrix had spent every available moment provoking conflict among the ranks of the Death Eaters, in the absence of anything useful to do. Draco's plea for help had been impossible to ignore, though had it been anyone else, he would have done. By the end of the night, he was done in. Exhausted, irascible, and spoiling for a fight.

She was all too willing. Cooped up for days now, with only him for company, who could blame her?

"Oh, yes, Severus," she bit out. "I have nothing at all of consequence to do at home. Mostly, I lie about and demand the elves bring me treats." She threw her book on the table and got to her feet. "Do you think I like being trapped in here while you're out there, risking I don't even know what every day?" she shouted.

She was nearly nose to nose with him, all fire and fury, blazing eyes and crackling hair. Glorious.

He didn't stop to think. If he had, he would never have done it. But she was so close, and all that furious energy was directed towards him, on behalf of him, and he couldn't help it. Not after six days of iron self-discipline and desperately resisting the pull he felt every time he was near her.

In an instant they collided, a tangle of limbs and the crush of skin against skin.

Seeking, needing, wanting.

Hands and lips and hot breath.

He kissed her and kissed her, his hands burning a path along her back, circling her waist, cradling her face as he drank in her sighs. Her lips were hot, and the sensation of her hands at the nape of his neck and the small of his back, pressing him closer, was perfect... too much... never enough.

Oh, Merlin. Can't. Can't.

He pulled himself away, forcing himself to ignore her cry of protest, and dashed out into the main office, breathing heavily.

"Headmaster!"

Never had Phineas Nigellus Black's voice been more welcome.

"They are camping in the Forest of Dean! The Mudblood..."*

Severus flinched and looked at the portrait furiously.

"Do not use that word!"*

"...the Granger girl, then, mentioned the place as she opened her bag and I

heard her!"*

He hardly heard Dumbledore's chatter as he instructed Severus on the details he already knew by heart. The sword. Conditions of valour. Hermione's idea for how to get Potter the sword.

"Don't worry, Dumbledore," he said coolly. "I have a plan. . . "*

He turned to the inner door, hoping that Hermione would come along, aborted kiss notwithstanding. It was her plan, and without her, he wasn't sure he could execute it.

She was standing in the doorway.

"I heard," she said.

"Will you come?"

Slowly, she approached him and placed one hand on his chest.

"When do we leave?"

*From Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, "The Prince's Tale"