5/7: The Pendulum of Memory

A/N: These characters are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I make no money from this story and claim no rights. Nothing you recognise belongs to me.

Great thanks to Voxangelus, who graciously stepped in as a fresh pair of eyes, and took a lot of pressure off, just because she liked the story.

That night, Snape did not give her a potion of any kind. Instead, he watched her cook dinner, her small hands nimble and strong as she prepared their meal. He felt a measure of calm steal over his restless mind as she added eggs and oil to a mound of flour in the middle of the counter, and swirled the wet ingredients into the dry.

She worked with a dignified satisfaction, knowing she'd measured precisely and the dough was perfect. Perhaps it was merely the placid serenity of simple, creative labour, enabling her to forget for awhile the less pleasant aspects of her present reality.

He watched her intense concentration, the way she used her hands like the sides of a bowl, to keep the flour mixture together. He enjoyed her capability and the ease in which she did so many things well. He recalled Headmaster Black's observations of her during their time on the run, baking bread for 'the boys', as she had called them.

As Black regaled him with the story, Snape remembered closing his eyes and imagining the aroma of the warm bread as she turned it out onto the table for the three of them to eat. He remembered the pitiful, embarrassing longing to join them, to be a part of something that ... even so perilous ... was full of genuine love and hope. She was such a lovely creature, so giving and compassionate...

He felt a sudden, sure validation that he had done the right thing, claiming her and keeping her from the others...

He shook his head and frowned. He had been following a train of thought and then it just went... Damn! It was gone. The confusion was quickly replaced by a greasy sort of arousal. It grew as dark as his heart, and a dirty, irresistible tang of lust slid into his veins like the poison of a spider.

Even as her hands slid smoothly over the dough as she worked and kneaded it, he imagined her hands on him, sliding along his chest, around his cock... He was powerless to stop his thoughts from pooling into the crotch of his trousers.

She glanced up and met his eyes; her hands faltered in their task for a moment. He thought she might suspect him of performing Legilimency on her. In the last week, it had actually never occurred to him to attempt it. He thought for a moment that the odds were pretty good he would not like what he found. Hermione only saw desire, heated and feral, smoldering in his eyes, and it both excited and shamed her. She lowered her eyes and resumed her baking.

It was very good pizza, made with fresh ingredients. She was a decent enough cook. They had finished eating and she had just dried the last plate, when he rose and took her hand.

Silently, he led her into his room, and instructed her to lie down on the bed. He regarded her for a moment, then sat on the bed beside her, and looked down at her, pensively. "Don't be afraid," he said, his voice softly seductive. "I won't hurt you."

He raised his hand and Hermione flinched automatically. He pursed his lips disapprovingly, then ran his long, slender fingers over her cheek, his touch languid, sensuous. His hand trailed down her throat, merely ghosting over her skin, his eyes following the path of his fingers. He stroked her face again, his hands slow and gentle, and Hermione's eyelids fluttered closed, unable to resist the soft, soothing touch of his fingertips and his intense, all-encompassing concentration on her. She slowly exhaled the breath she had not realized she'd been holding.

His hands slid down, over her collarbones and down the sides of her torso. Hermione held herself very still, trembling. He was so maddeningly gentle, so unlike his usual cold indifference. His hands felt warm, familiar, smooth. Gentle fingers circled each taut, aching nipple, and she jumped and made a small "Oh!" sound that drew a dark chuckle from his lips.

"It's alright, girl. Relax." His voice was the very definition of suave menace. Down his hands traveled, before slowly returning to her face. Hermione tensed again. Hadn't he teased her before, only to punish her for giving in, for trusting him? Hadn't that been the object of this game since the first day they'd played it? Why couldn't she stop him? After the previous day, why didn't she stop him? She hated him for being so ruthlessly seductive; she hated herself for wanting to enjoy it so much.

His fingers skimmed lightly over her belly, making her skin jump and quiver, and then he was teasing her legs open, pushing gently, questing like the tenderest of lovers, and Hermione's thighs parted like water against his soft insistence.

He made love to her with his fingers, fluttering them over her skin, and when she reached for him, he magically removed his clothing, and allowed her fingers to brush against his white torso, his slender flanks.

He teased her soft folds, his finger easing up, but never quite touching where she needed so badly to be touched. "You like that, don't you, Hermione?" At her feverish nod, he smiled, and his voice was sweet and slightly breathless. "Oh, yes, your skin is lovely. Like silk to the touch."

His voice was nothing more than aspirated consonants, whispered sibilants, slow and measured, like drops of wax. She made a soft sound of entreaty, and he answered, "Shh. It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you."

He hummed softly. "Oh, yes, you're enjoying this, aren't you?" His voice, like his fingers, gentled and coaxed. He caressed her clit, and she mewled helplessly. He smiled knowingly. "That feels good, doesn't it?" he purred, sounding slightly out of control, and Hermione looked up into black eyes that were enormous and luminously intense with arousal.

Almost outside herself, Hermione nodded, her body taut, half-expecting him to turn on her, but as he touched her, he held her spellbound with his knowing, pleasuring fingers. As he gently pushed her thighs further apart, she moaned softly. He shifted down the bed, and lowered his dark head to the apex of her thighs. He parted her slick labia with his thumbs, with the joy and wonder of opening an enchanted door to a room of unspeakable delights. He hissed with satisfaction as she keened softly, helpless to his irresistible touch.

Smiling down at her, he licked his lips, intoxicated by her clean scent. With a soft sound of yearning, he teased and fondled her expertly, and Hermione cried out into the room as his skillful, talented mouth warmed and nibbled her humid flesh.

He raised his head, and regarded her thoughtfully. "Has no one ever done this to you before, Hermione?"

Tears pooled in her eyes. Damn him. "No, sir," she whispered, trembling, aching for his mouth to return to his task, yet afraid that he would do just that. "I wasn't – I had never – before – " She looked up at the ceiling, embarrassed at her own weakness.

He stroked her thighs reassuringly, and moaned appreciatively. "Mine for the taking, then. You taste divine, girl." A long, slow finger slid into her, and she arched her hips to assist him.

"Oh, gods, you feel divine," she mouthed, hoping he hadn't heard her. He laughed, a soft puff of breath against her painfully sensitive clitoris, and as he set himself to his task, laving her almost roughly, she cried out, writhing against him.

She looked down at him, and his dark, fiery eyes met hers. He replaced his lips and tongue with his knowing fingers, and she whimpered a sound that was both a plea and a command. He smiled.

His voice slid over her with sinister, silken menace. "You like that, don't you, Hermione? It makes you ache, doesn't it? It makes you want things you can't even name."

Afraid to speak, she nodded, and his hands moved inside her, then played over her folds, brushing against her swollen clit, causing her to buck and clutch the bedclothes. "Do you want more?"

"Yessss," she hissed, her hips moving of their own accord, pushing against his hands. He chuckled again.

"Ahhh, you're so wet, aren't you, girl? That's all you, isn't it? We have no need for potions, you and I, do we, witch?" he purred, his deep, silken voice mockingly chastising. Wickedly, he removed his fingers, slick with her moisture, and licked his fingers provocatively. "Like nectar. Do you want me to continue? I will."

When she nodded, he rubbed against her distended little bud until she was moaning helplessly. "Answer me, Hermione."

"Yes!" she cried, giving in to him, moving her hips unashamedly against his talented fingers. "Please don't stop!"

"I won't," he soothed. "I want you to come this time. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes!" She moaned with unrestrained lust, so caught up in his dark desire she no longer cared. Tomorrow, she would have to live with herself for what she allowed him to do. Tonight, she wasn't sure if she would survive if he stopped.

Hermione felt herself trembling, on the edge, so close she could feel it, afraid to let go. So afraid. "Oh, gods, I'm so close! Please let me – "

"Come for me now, Hermione!" His voice was ragged, and sounded nothing like the seducer that had led her up the stairs a few moments before. He was just a man, on fire for his witch, wanting, needing her to want him, to crave his touch and his passion.

Hermione felt herself ride high, higher, up on a wave of pleasure that would surely break her, and when she came, her scream of pleasure was answered by his cries of "Yes! Yes, girl, that's it... that's it... oh yes..." Hermione's entire body pulsed and pounded; her heart was beating wildly, and her cries were glorious and she shuddered and moaned as each pulse drove through her like electricity, and she collapsed on the bed, spent and dazed.

His fingers ceased their enticing ministrations, and he rose above her, looking down at her, and in that wild, uninhibited moment, she leaned up and kissed his throat in pure gratitude. He inhaled sharply, and the sound excited Hermione unbearably.

"Please!" she whispered, shivering with the anticipation of his cock in her body, praying he wouldn't betray her, praying he would keep his word.

"Do you want this, Hermione? Tell me." He stared down at her, his eyes burning with something she couldn't define.

Rising to press against his pale, slender hips, she sobbed, "I want you, sir. Please, please do it!" Her eyes blazed into his. "I want you to fuck me so much!"

"I want you as well, witch," he purred, and together they cried out as he slid into her molten cunt. His eyes rolled back and he growled, "Oh, yess, I want you." He hissed as she clenched around him, his face open and abandoned in pleasure. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to her neck. His warm tongue darted out, sliding along the line of her jaw.

His lips tickled her ear as he whimpered feverishly, "Since last night, I've thought of nothing else but you. When I finally slept, I dreamt of you. My senses are filled with your scent, your taste. I can think of nothing but wanting you, wanting to make you come for me. I want to hear you scream my name, I want... " He howled as he wrapped his arms around her waist and withdrew his cock from her, only to slam back into her again. They cried out together.

"Oh gods," he moaned, and shook his head. His voice was plaintive with longing. "It's so good, Hermione! Do you want this?" He began to move in her, his body shuddering as he pulled away from her. His expression became pained.

"Yes!" she cried, pulling him close, covering herself with him. "Please don't stop, sir; don't stop!" He delved deeply into her, shivering at the sensation of her body; the tight heat of her made his head spin.

"Shall I make you come again?" His voice was like chocolate; dark and so sweet Hermione felt herself grow wetter with each word. His breath felt ragged and frantic against her skin. He was moving against her now, deep, quickening strokes that painted her cunt with crippling, addictive pleasure. He sounded so needy and helpless. "Tell me, Hermione. Do you want me to make you come?"

"Yes, please!" She was completely on fire; she would wither and die if he stopped. "I'll do anything you ask, just don't stop, please!"

He froze, and the hot, helpless yearning bled from his face. He looked down on her as if he had just noticed who she was. His lips pressed together.

Finally, after a small eternity, he whispered, "Anything?"

Hermione saw the light drain from him eyes and knew the pleasure was over. She began to cry. "Please," she sobbed, knowing it was the wrong answer, but helpless to say or do otherwise.

Instead of pushing himself away, he began to move in her again. He quickly found his rhythm, slower and harder. Together they moved against one another, but the sensation had changed. Gone was the lover, urging her to her pleasure. This was a different Snape, using his body as a different sort of instrument entirely.

As he plunged in an out of her methodically, desperately, he began to moan in time with his movements. His thrusts grew more insistent, harder. Something like a sob tore from his throat, and Hermione felt moisture on her cheek.

She looked up at Snape; he was crying, his eyes closed, his expression stricken.

He sobbed, "Merlin, forgive me, but I want this, witch! I don't want to want you this much. You have bewitched me!"

"Sir, I – "

He babbled as he plowed into her. "You've stolen everything from me, and now you have my soul! I can't think, I can't eat, I can't do anything but desire you!" He shook his head, and cried harder. "Why won't you leave me be?"

Hermione felt her desire die as he hovered over her, and he opened his streaming eyes and sobbed, "You were our brightest and our best and bravest! You are so fine and beautiful, and the only one we trusted to keep Potter safe – " He stopped crying and growled, "and you turned coward and ransomed him!"

Hermione froze, then tried to stop, but he was plunging into her with increasingly harder thrusts. "No!" she whispered, in a quaking, helpless voice. "I never - "

He lowered his chin against her shoulder, pinning her down, and drove into her madly, panting. "Why did you leave them? Why did you trade your life for theirs?" His angry voice rose in volume, increasing with his thrusts. He was hurting her now, hurting her more than any Death Eater. He was driving into her; she felt his hips breaking her in half with each punishing, relentless plunge.

She began to struggle against him, her desire for him replaced with fear. He held her tighter, holding her down as he fucked her. The more his passion became charged with anger, the more terrified Hermione became.

And still he cried, "You were so close – so close!" He turned his head, gritting his teeth. "Ah, gods, I'm so close!" He mastered his passion, and Hermione could literally feel him growing limp within her. He shook his head, helplessly. "I was so close."

He stopped moving, and looked down on her, his pale face sweaty and mottled with rage. His teeth were clenched in anger as he snarled, "Why didn't you just stay out of sight? Why did you betray him? Why didn't you protect him until he could kill that monster and set me free?"

"Professor, I didn't! It was – "

He closed his large hands around her throat and roared, "Malfoy told me what you did! You bartered their lives for your own precious hide!"

Stunned, Hermione shook her head, "No..." She was struggling with him, but he was too upset, too far gone. True panic set in as his grip tightened on her throat. "No, please! Listen to me- "

His spit flew on her face as he ground out, "All Malfoy had to do was promise you a hot meal and you were ready to serve up Potter's head on a platter!"

"No! It was you!" She managed to cry, her voice choked and wheezing. With fear slicking her strangled windpipe, she grabbed his thumbs and forced them backward, against his wrists. He released her with a shout of pain.

She took a deep breath, and spluttered, "You told me I was safe!" She was clawing the bed, trying to crawl away out from under him, coughing and screaming, "You revealed my hiding place! You delivered me to Malfoy! You ransomed me for Harry and Ron!"

He froze, suspended over her. The killing, burning anger that overwhelmed him every time he'd fucked her burst within his chest like a furnace, and she visibly cowed beneath him.

"LIAR!" He bellowed, and slapped her hard. As her head snapped to the side, she watched with sick fascination as blood from her nose sprayed across the duvet.

He looked down at her with an accusatory mixture of pain and anger, his body bathed in sweat, his chest heaving, his cock already sliding from her. "I would NEVER have betrayed you!" he hissed, wiping a fleck of foam from his mouth.

She sobbed, "You did, Professor! It was you who grabbed me!"

His voice was as deadly quiet. "I was trying to buy time, to keep you alive! I was always there to protect you! You separated from Potter and Weasley. They would have escaped the Death Eaters if they hadn't tried to rescue you! YOU caused their deaths!"

Already his voice was weakening, and tinged with uncertainty and confusion. His hand touched her bleeding nose almost tenderly. "Gods, I want to hate you! And every time I think I understand how I feel, I end up wanting to fuck you into the mattress!" He sobbed, "And then I end up hurting you – " He broke down and cried openly. "And it almost k-kills me!"

He collapsed against her, crushing her with his weight. His voice was muffled against her shoulder, but Hermione could hear his anguish in every word. "I'd cut off my own c-cock if I thought I could stop wanting you – but it wouldn't help! It wouldn't change anything! Ah, you fucking siren - you succubus!"

Hermione stared at him in shock, her own rage boiling in her heart. Fury gave her strength, and she pushed him off, crying, "You fucking bastard!" She slapped him with as much force as her tired arm would allow, and he looked at her uncomprehendingly, dazedly, as if coming out of a trance. He stared down at her in shock and confusion.

With a voice as cold as the grave, Hermione said, "If you're so sure, then look into my mind, and find the truth where it lies."

He swallowed, and straddled her, taking most of his weight off her hips. When she met his gaze, he looked deeply into her eyes and whispered, "Legilimens."

As if a curtain parted between the real world and the one inside her head, Hermione helplessly felt Snape enter her mind and walk with her to their fate.

They were in Canterbury, in the old part of the town, looking for supplies. It was a Saturday, and there had been a street market, heaving with people, and they had felt relatively anonymous.

As she watched the two wizards, Snape looked directly into her eyes, and she felt the secret, slippery feel of him. He entered her mind with the delicate touch of a lover unbuttoning a silken blouse. Seeing and feeling this inside Hermione's memory filled Snape with eerie, disoriented shame, as if he had actually attempted to undress her in the alleyway.

The Snape in her memory looked directly at Hermione for the briefest second, and his presence disappeared from her consciousness. His eyes then slid away from her indifferently; no one would have ever detected from Snape's reaction that he'd seen or done anything.

Malfoy stepped back, a smirk playing about his lips. He murmured complacently, "You can thank me later, Brother. I may well have just saved your life." Snape didn't appear to have heard him.

Snape watched himself turn and face Hermione again.

He muttered, "Finite Incantatum," and Hermione cried out as her Dissillusionment failed. In his silvery, seductive tone, Snape said, "It's alright, Miss Granger. We're here to take you to a safe house." He gestured to her with one hand. "It's time to come in from the cold."

Malfoy smirked. "Well, as much fun as this has been, I think, Mr. Potter, if you wish to find us, I'm afraid you'll have to catch us!" There was a loud "POP!" and he, Snape and Hermione Disapparated...

And then Snape was scrabbling out of her mind, physically pushing away from her, leaping from the bed as if branded by her touch. Hermione sprawled gracelessly across the bed, then scrambled over to the opposite side, onto her feet. She turned to face him, wiping her bloody nose.

Hermione dared to look up at her Professor, and the sickened anguish on his face caused her insides to cramp so badly she thought she might soil herself. Her voice shook as she whispered, "Professor, I trusted you. You were the one to Disillusion me, and you were the one who took my wand. You betrayed us. You betrayed me."

His face went blank, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the killing blow, the snap of her neck.

He was shaking his head, his eyes wide. Doubt was already quelling the rage. "I – I didn't." He fell on his knees. "Why would I do such a thing?" He looked up at her with bleak, startled eyes. "Why would I betray you? How could I betray you?"

Hermione knelt and put her elbows on the bed, clasping her hands together like a child saying her nightime prayers. "Malfoy." She shuddered, and tears sprang to her eyes again. "Malfoy must have Imperused you."

She wept, her tears mingling with the drying blood on her face. "I was just so tired and scared and hungry, and I wanted to believe you so badly! I wanted to believe we weren't out there alone anymore! I wanted you to save us again." She lowered her head and sobbed, reliving that awful day, the day of the Night of Screams.

She looked into his eyes beseechingly, and the dawning horror and self-loathing on his face made her stomach churn again. "I have to go to the loo," she said, fretfully, afraid her bowels would let go onto the floor.

He was shaking like a man with palsy. "I remember nothing," he said, and pulled himself from the floor into a nearby chair. He was deathly white. "I remember none of this."

He looked at her with abject misery. "I thought – Malfoy told me – he caught you in the alley and you promised to give up Potter and Weasley in exchange for letting you live."

Snape's eyes blazed with anger, and for a moment Hermione thought it was aimed at her again. Instead he railed. "Why did I believe fucking Malfoy, of all people?" He looked at her intently. "I've known you since you were eleven! I've been following your progress daily since last fall! Why would I believe you would allow your friends to be killed just to save yourself?"

He buried his face in his hands. "I should have known you would have died rather than betray them. I was measuring your Gryffindor courage against my Slytherin self-preservation."

He raised his head; he looked like a dying man. "Oh gods, I killed him. All along, it was my weakness that killed Potter." He, too, looked as he was about to be sick.

"No!" she said, trying to rise. Her stomach gurgled threateningly. "Malfoy tricked you somehow!" Snape shook his head over and over, his face blank and stunned. Hermione cried, "He cursed you!"

Snape rose from his chair. "How could he? I can throw off an Imperius Curse easily. I don't know any spell that would have made me do this!" He looked to the ceiling, as if entreating the heavens for answers, then, with a sigh, he scrubbed his face with his hands. "I don't remember. I don't remember."

Hermione now felt something new, something she never thought she would feel. Pity. Understanding. Sympathy. And something close to forgiveness, but she wasn't ready for that, just yet.

"You must have been tricked, sir. You didn't know what you were doing. He must have Imperused you. He must have! And... and then he must have Obliviated you as well." Looking into his eyes, suffused with suffering and sorrow, Hermione realised he was devastated. Shame and remorse radiated from him in palpable waves.

She repeated slowly, "You didn't know what you were doing."

For several minutes, Snape looked at her, blinking. Finally, he said quietly, "I believe that's what Christ said, Miss Granger. 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

"As I recollect the story, he was killed, anyway." He swallowed the bile that threatened to rise from his gullet. "And I knew what I was doing here. I remember every foul thing I've done to you in this house." He gagged suddenly, as if he were about to be sick. He mastered his nausea, but his face was a horrible, greenish colour.

He looked at her. "I wanted you to pay." His voice was sick with realisation of what had transpired. "I wanted you to suffer for being a coward and a traitor. But I admired you so much. I still do." He turned away from her, gasping. "Oh Merlin, what have I done to you?" His eyes were wild with fear and shame. "What have I done? Miss Granger – I – " He wailed, a sound of torment and grief. He lowered his head and began to sob uncontrollably, and Hermione knew she would be ill if she didn't go to the loo soon.

She rose unsteadily and walked around the bed to him, placing a shaking arm around his shoulder. "Please, sir – "

"Don't call me that!" He raised his hands as if to ward off a physical blow. His old anger returned and he shrugged her hand off his arm. "Don't give me permission to debase you further!" He stared up at her, his eyes like wet coal. "Don't look at me with those sweet eyes, as if you deserve any of this! Don't comfort me with your precious, tender -" he gasped, in awful comprehension of what he'd done, "body - oh, gods, what have I done to you?"

Snape leapt from the chair so quickly it tipped backward and fell with a crash, making her jump. He fled the room, leaving the door ajar.

Helplessly, Hermione ran to the door and called after him, "I believed! I believed in you, Professor! I never really stopped believing you were on our side! You have to believe me!"

Watching his retreating back moving down the stairs, Hermione felt the last vestiges of her old life walking away, never to return. She watched his naked form descend, the darkness engulfing his retreating back... his retreating back...

Hermione barely made it to the loo before her bowels let go, and she sat on the toilet, holding her painfully cramping abdomen, as her body emptied for what seemed like hours. Every potion, every loss, every hurt, every remark, every humiliation she had suffered since the Night of Screams seemed to purge itself from her body, and she was as weak as a kitten when she stumbled back to the bedroom and fell into bed.

As she lay in the darkness, she pulled the duvet over her head, and waited for him to return. Perhaps tonight was the last straw, and the last remnants of his sanity and light crushed. And since she was the last loose end...

Perhaps Malfoy would soon realise what had happened, and he would try to kill them. They would be seen as a liability now. If that was the case, she would fight him. Shamed of placing her trust in the wrong man, Hermione had gone meekly with him on that first dark night. She vowed to herself she and Snape would not go gently into this one.

The moments ticked by, and as her thoughts drifted, she first dozed, then gradually sank into the first true, deep sleep she had experienced since the Night of Screams. As she slept, she dreamt of Harry and Ron, and Snape's retreating back...