Chapter 19

A/N: Remember how you wondered what happened after the honeymoon and before they were cooped up with all those people at Forest Haven? This chapter, and the next, tell that story. So pay careful attention to the date headings, because they cover several months of happenings.

Once again, I will ask you to leave feedback for me. It means more than you know.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Chapter 19

I'm in, in too deep

I'm tired of hiding this secret I keep

Show Me – by Default

11 January, 1998

Severus woke with a numb arm and a pounding headache, as if he'd drunk half a litre of Old Ogden's in one sitting. He quickly saw that the reason for the tingling in his arm was Hermione, who was sleeping like the dead on top of it. How had he permitted himself to fall asleep in her bed? What if she'd woken to find him there? Even now, there was no guarantee he could creep away without waking her, and then he'd have a bloody difficult time explaining his presence, wouldn't he

With extreme care, he extricated himself from her bed. Standing over her in his creased clothing, he saw that she slept on, precisely like someone who'd already been exhausted, then had taken a dose of sleeping draught. He was safe from being discovered in her bedchamber.

When he paused at her dressing table to deposit the folded slip of parchment, he caught his own reflection and understood why his head ached: he bore the unmistakeable appearance of a man who had cried in his sleep.

He sat unmoving in his favourite chair, an untouched book on the table at his elbow. When the pounding began on his door, the clock on the mantel informed him that it was nine o'clock in the morning. He had no doubt who his visitors were.

He threw open the door and moved forward with arms crossed, completely filling the doorway in his black teaching robes. Potter and Weasley fell back a step, stumbling over one another to put distance between themselves and their most hated professor.

'Where is she, Snape?' Potter demanded, the first of the pair to regain the power of speech. 'She wasn't at breakfast, and she missed Transfiguration...she never misses class, particularly not the first day of term!'

'I suggest that you both begin to accustom yourselves to your friend's new ... status,' he replied coolly.

The Weasley boy's ears had turned an alarming shade of red. 'If you've hurt one hair on her head,' he began in a blustering manner, but Severus cut across him.

'Mrs Snape is having a lie in this morning,' he said. 'If you don't see her at lunch, you will undoubtedly see her at dinner.'

Weasley drew breath as if to expostulate, but Severus ignored him, turning his gaze to Potter's face. 'Consider for one moment how she would feel to have you making a fuss about her whereabouts today, calling attention to her ... change of circumstances.'

Severus saw the logic of his statement register with the boy, who readjusted his book bag on his shoulder, as if preparing to go

'She's all right?' Potter asked.

Severus gave a curt nod of his head in answer. 'And don't make a habit of swarming about my door!' he added menacingly, feeling he had shown quite enough consideration for the brats' tender feelings for one bloody year.

It was half ten before Hermione's door opened, and Severus made a swift effort to clear his face of any emotion.

She erupted into the sitting room wearing her fluffy pink dressing gown...the one he'd pushed from her naked body more than once in the last two days...belted over her flannel pyjamas, her face bearing a long red mark where she had slept on a creased pillowcase.

'I took my shower gear from my bag, and my homework planner fell out!' she babbled, her tone somewhere between anger and panic. 'It's not Sunday...it's Monday! The planner said so! And I'm late for classes!' She took a step towards him, her fists clenched as if with impotent anger.

Severus set aside the book he had been pretending to read and gave her a level stare. 'Good morning, Miss Granger,' he said pointedly.

Hermione recoiled a step, her expression horrified. Her parents had brought her up carefully, he knew, and the hint that she had behaved rudely would put her swiftly in the wrong.

But she recovered quickly. 'I don't mean to be rude, Professor,' she said tightly, 'but I don't understand how I lost a day!'

He swept past her into her room and plucked the folded parchment from her dressing table. 'You put this here to remind yourself,' he drawled, 'but I suppose it would have been more helpful to put it in your homework planner.' He allowed his lip to curl, expressing disdain for her obsessive study habits.

She snatched the parchment from his hand and read the words in her own neat handwriting...the words he had approved and had stood by whilst she copied them out, vigilant to make sure that she left no hints for herself of what had occurred since she swallowed the Lethe Elixir.

I decided to stay an extra day in the Secret Kept cottage to rest and revise for my NEWTs.

She turned confused eyes to his face. 'Did you stay the extra day?' she asked.

'Yes,' he replied. He saw the further questions dart across her mind and waited to have her ask where he had slept and what he had done, but she surprised him. Setting the parchment aside, she retrieved her toiletries.

'And you missed class this morning too?' she asked warily.

'Monday is my half-day,' he said, and spinning on his heel, he left her alone in her room, which undoubtedly pleased her immensely.

At dinnertime, Hermione approached the High Table, feeling like a primary school student invading the staff room. All of her professors served their plates and chatted with one another, oblivious to her presence. The teacher she did not see at the table was her new husband, whose requirement that she eat dinner with him every night at the High Table had seemed high-handed at best and hopeless at worst. Nervously, she glanced to the Gryffindor table, where she saw Harry and Ron sitting together and watching her tensely, their lips moving as they exchanged comments. The very last thing Hermione needed to put the seal on this god-awful day was for Harry and Ron to make a fuss. Swallowing her anxiety, she strode along the staff table and found two empty seats together. With her head held high, she sat down in one of them.

News of her marriage to the Potions master had spread through the castle like wildfire, as the most lurid gossip always did. She had been accosted, sniggered at, rudely questioned, and outright scorned by such a numerous succession of people that she couldn't properly remember who had done what. She was the only Muggle-born left at Hogwarts, and people whose good mates had been forced out of school due to new Ministry policies seemed to focus all their resentment on her.

She dished rich lamb stew onto her plate and finally spied Professor Snape standing near the doorway behind the High Table. He was conversing with Professor Vector, and neither of them had seen Hermione or acknowledged her presence a few feet away from them. The conversation ended with Vector patting Snape on the arm and walking past Hermione to a seat beside Professor Sinistra, her cheery, 'Welcome to the High Table, Hermione!' doing nothing to quell Hermione's annoyance.

The Potions master sat down in the seat beside Hermione and poured red wine into his goblet before he spoke to her.

'May I serve your cup?' he inquired, holding the wine ewer aloft.

Students were not permitted wine with their dinners, so Hermione was a bit taken aback, but she forced herself to answer with calm assurance. 'Yes, thank you.'

He poured, then dished food onto his plate and began to eat. Hermione crumbled some bread into her stew and sipped the wine, finding that she like it more than the food.

'Did you encounter any difficulties today?' he asked her after a time.

She darted a glance to the empty throne-like chair in the middle of the long table, but the headmistress was not present. 'Not from her,' she said, 'I didn't see her. But I'm summoned to her office in the morning.'

Snape seemed to bristle. 'How did you provoke her if you didn't see her?'

Hermione let her fork clatter to her plate, drawing startled glances from several of the teachers, but she didn't look at them. She stared with loathing at Snape's thin, angry lips, his huge, ugly nose, and the dirty hair hanging on either side of his long, narrow face. 'How can you just assume it's my fault?' she said in an angry under-voice.

Snape glared daggers at her, but Hermione refused to back down. If she permitted him to bully her, life would become unbearable very quickly. Instead of making a show of penitence, she took up her wine and drank deeply.

She heard him draw a long breath beside her, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost its accusatory edge. 'You said you'd no problems from her...had you issues with others?'

Hermione took up her fork and viciously stabbed a carrot out of her stew. 'Nothing I can't handle,' she said before inserting the carrot between her lips.

She felt the force of his frustrated stare before she heard him say, 'You will inform me immediately of any problems that arise, Miss Granger. That is as much a part of our agreement as ... dinner at the High Table.'

Hermione did not answer him; instead, she filled her mouth with a large chunk of meat that required a lot of chewing.

12 January, 1998

The meeting next morning with Umbridge was just a taste of the tireless persecution yet to come. Hermione had thought the worst of this last term at Hogwarts would be marriage to Snape, but she was wrong. Being on Dolores' black list was worse by far.

Hermione arrived at the breakfast table heavy-eyed and irritable. Harry looked her over closely, but Ron continued shovelling eggs into his mouth, his powers of observation where Hermione was concerned obviously unchanged by her new position as Snape's wife.

'What's wrong?' Harry murmured, sending a darkling look toward the High Table, where Snape sat, enduring a monologue from McGonagall. 'Has he been ... beastly to you?'

Hermione poured coffee and splashed milk into her cup. 'Who, Snape?' she said. 'No, I hardly see him. My plan is to stay in the library or the Gryffindor common room until it's time to sleep...we can hardly run afoul of one another if we're never together, can we?'

Harry frowned. 'I hate that you had to do this,' he said angrily. 'The bloody Ministry...'

Hermione cut across him. 'Let's not rehash it, Harry. Snape has done me a favour, and I thank him for it. I am still at Hogwarts, where I can be of use to you, and the Ministry cannot send me away. That's all that matters.'

Ron spoke up thickly from Harry's other side. 'It's bloody well not all that matters. You have to slee...'

Hermione bolted to her feet, drawing the eyes of her closest tablemates...and those of her husband, from the High Table.

'Don't leave, Hermione,' Harry said, with an angry glare at his best mate. 'Ron won't talk about it anymore...will you, Ron?'

Ron mutely shook his head, his face a mixture of contrition and wretchedness. But Hermione didn't have time for all the emotional storms of her classmates; she had a meeting to attend, and she might as well get it over with.

'Never mind,' she said, shouldering her schoolbag again. 'I have a meeting with the headmistress.'

She spoke the word with loathing and mockery. Then she straightened her shoulders and checked to make sure her wand was in place.

'What does she want?' Harry asked, his brilliant green eyes wide behind his round glasses. 'Let me come with you, Hermione. You don't know the things she can...'

The look Hermione turned on Harry made him shut his mouth, if not change his mind.

'No, Harry. I know precisely the sorts of things she can get up to,' Hermione said, turning to leave. 'And if she believes she can put one over on me, she's wrong.'

Hermione left the Great Hall and began the climb up to the Seventh Floor, not sure if she was unwilling or unable to force herself to hurry. As she made her slow way upward, she considered what she'd heard thus far about Umbridge's new regime.

Not surprisingly, the headmaster's office had sealed itself against Umbridge, just as it had done the first time she had assumed Dumbledore's role. Rumour said that not even the Curse-Breakers loaned from Gringotts had been able to provide Umbridge with access to its hallowed spaces. So the old toad had set up her office around the corner from the gargoyle guarding the stairs up to Dumbledore's office.

As Hermione was passing the gargoyle, the wall parted upon the revolving stair, and Severus Snape stepped into the corridor. Hermione gaped at him.

'You can get into the headmaster's office?' she demanded.

Snape's nostrils flared, and he spoke to her in a hissed whisper through clamped lips.

'Lower your voice!'

He seemed determined to put her constantly in the wrong, as if by those means he could prevent her from ever attempting conversation with him. Hermione resisted the urge to answer him with a rude gesture, choosing instead to turn away

'Miss Granger!'

She sighed, inhaled, and glanced over her shoulder.

'Sir?'

He took two swift strides toward her, irritation pouring from him in nearly visible waves...which made his next words seem incongruous

'Shall I ... go in with you?'

Hermione felt her brows contract in puzzlement. Was he offering to help her? Thinking he could shield her from Umbridge by playing the protective husband? The impulse was clearly one of either kindness or control, and Hermione had no difficulty assigning his offer to the proper motive.

'I think not, Professor. She wants to threaten me, and she can't do so properly with a witness. Besides, it's best to begin the way we mean to go on, isn't it? Living separate lives, as we agreed?'

She was surprised by the way he bridled, an expression...almost of hurt, she thought nonsensically...darting across his face, then gone. He straightened to his full height, staring down his nose at her, his thin cruel lips twisting derisively. 'As you wish.'

He stalked away from her, his voluminous black robes billowing impressively, and Hermione remembered him in the Hogsmeade cottage, as he had been when he offered her the Lethe Elixir...wearing only his starched white shirt and black trousers. His body had been surprisingly slender and ... well-formed.

She gave her head a shake. What the hell was she thinking?

Stay on task, Granger! she admonished herself and approached Umbridge's door.

'Come in,' the syrupy sweet voice invited at her knock.

Hermione marched to stand before the desk, her gaze directed just above Umbridge's head at the appalling collection of commemorative plates, each with its own simpering kitten. The office was much as Hermione remembered from before, two heavy sideboards flanking the desk, draped in flowered cloths and supporting decorative vases filled with dried flowers, each reposing on its own crocheted doily. The usual window coverings had been replaced with lurid pink draperies, and Hermione was quick to see that the fluffy pink cardigan Umbridge wore over her tawdry robes matched the draperies exactly.

'You asked me to come after breakfast, ma'am,' Hermione said woodenly.

'Sit down, Miss Granger,' the headmistress said, her greedy, protruding eyes fixed on Hermione's face

Hermione perched on the edge of the straight wooden chair, which sat beside a comfortable squashy armchair. She felt sure that if she had chosen the armchair, Umbridge would have sent her to the less comfortable seat. It was important for her to head off as many of Umbridge's power plays as possible, this time around.

'Mrs Snape,' Hermione corrected. 'I'm Mrs Snape, now.'

The headmistress's slack-jowled face flushed, but she continued to speak in a breathy, girlish voice. 'Yes, I heard you entrapped a professor over the Christmas holidays...did you find yourself suddenly falling for Snape when the Ministry decided to expel the Muggle-borns? I suppose he was the better choice, even if he is a half-blood...particularly when you consider that Flitwick was your only other alternative, and Merlin only knows what foul, half-human blood he has.'

Hermione chose not to answer the offensive question. She had prepared herself for a period of unending insults, so she sat erectly on the edge of her chair, staring at the repulsive pink bow nestled in Umbridge's greying, mousy curls, her expression as blank as she could make it.

'Of course, I would expect no better from a designing, jumped up little Muggle like you,' Umbridge continued. 'Convincing one of your classmates to marry you wouldn't have prevented your expulsion, would it? You had to marry someone who'd already left school as a fully-qualified wizard. I know you would have preferred to ensnare that Weasley boy...his family calls itself pure-blood, though a bigger lot of blood traitors it would be hard to find in all the wizarding world.'

Umbridge paused, waiting for Hermione to jump in with angry, defensive words. Hermione focussed more completely on the pink velvet bow and began to recite Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration in her mind.

Umbridge tittered her irritating, girlish laugh. 'Of course, now that Ronald Weasley is in love with Luna Lovegood, you hadn't a chance of catching him anyway...not even after you left school.'

Hermione segued neatly into a mental recitation of the Five Exceptions to Gamp's Law. The overly ornate ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, surrounded by china figurines of improbably frolicking cats, chimed the half-hour. Students would be hurrying from the Great Hall to make their first morning classes. Hermione waited for Umbridge to dismiss her, but the headmistress simply sat at her desk, thick fingers folded together on the blotter, waiting for Hermione to speak.

Hermione moved on from revising her Transfiguration notes, randomly choosing next to do a mental recitation of the Twelve Uses of Dragon Blood.

'The most important thing I want you to know, Granger...oh, don't try to convince me that you want to be called Snape! If you've done more than the bare minimum to make the marriage binding I'll be very surprised! Does Snape think I actually believed his comment about lurve?'

Hermione stiffened, her curiosity engaged for the first time since she had entered the room.

Umbridge seemed unaware of Hermione's quickened interest; she continued on as if she liked hearing herself talk.

'At the staff meeting yesterday I teased him about you. "Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering." I expected him to be embarrassed...I remember him from before, of course, and if ever there was a man who disliked having personal attention called to him, it was Severus Snape! But he didn't blink an eye...just completed the quote, as cool as you please.' She deepened her voice now, obviously attempting to mimic Professor Snape's silky timbre. '"The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable."'

Hermione felt her body prickle into a mass of tingling gooseflesh. Her ordered consideration of the Twelve Uses of Dragon Blood petered away as if it had never begun. Never mind that Snape as a spouter of romantic words went against everything she knew about the man. Why had he said such a thing?

To protect you, her inner voice informed her. No other reason is needed.

Suddenly the ugly flowered robes covered by a garish pink cardigan were directly in front of Hermione's eyes...she'd been distracted, and Umbridge had crept up on her!...and the headmistress's breath, reminiscent of medicinal lozenges, was wafting across her face.

'I don't care a bit about your machinations to stay at Hogwarts, Granger. You don't belong here, and you never have done. At the first opportunity, I will have you out. Don't imagine for a second that I won't! I have the full authority of the Minister for Magic at my back!'

Ah, this was more familiar ground...precisely the sort of blathering Hermione had expected to hear. She pushed lingering thoughts of 'older, disciplined hearts' from her mind and concentrated instead on the ticking of the clock. She had counted to two hundred before Umbridge moved away from her. Hermione tracked the headmistress from the corner of her eye, and when the squat witch had paced to the windows and back, she stood beside her desk, bristling with wrath.

'Have you nothing to say for yourself, girl?' she demanded, her breathy voice rising to an angry squeak.

Hermione pulled a parchment from her bag and put it on the desk within Umbridge's reach, taking the headmistress's quill from its stand and offering it to her.

'I'm late for my lesson,' Hermione stated flatly. 'Would you write a note for my Potions professor so he'll let me into class late? He's terribly strict.'

31 January, 1998

'All right, Hermione?'

She turned from the heavy text open on the library table and saw Remus Lupin approaching, a happy smile on his face.

'Remus!' She stood and took his hands, arching on tiptoe to kiss his scarred cheek. 'What are you doing here?'

He sat in an empty chair near hers, and she resumed her seat, marvelling at the lightness of heart she felt just seeing her old friend. Headmaster Dumbledore had mentioned Remus to her as a possible marital partner when the Ministry decree had been announced, but Remus was on assignment for the Order amongst the werewolves; she would have had to leave school to be with him, and that would have taken her away from Harry. She liked Remus...had done ever since he'd been her teacher, years ago...but not enough to marry him and leave school in the middle of her seventh year. Not when You-Know-Who was out there, scheming to kill her best friend.

'Oh, I had to be in Hogsmeade on an errand, so I thought I'd drop by to see you and Harry,' Remus said. He gazed intently into her face and covered her hand with his large, calloused one. 'How are you, Hermione? How are ... things, with Severus?'

Hermione flushed and pulled her hand away from his. Remus was sweet, but his question was intrusive. She was a married woman now, and she owed a show of loyalty to her prickly husband, if nothing more. She knew very well that he loathed Remus Lupin and had done since they were boys together at school. It would be bad form for her to speak of private things to someone Snape didn't like...which would include almost everyone.

'I'm fine!' she assured him with her best public smile. 'How are you getting on? Are you able to get...' she glanced furtively over her shoulder and finished in a whisper... 'Wolfsbane Potion?'

Remus cocked his head to one side. 'You don't know?' he said in surprise. 'I would have thought...but never mind. Yes, Severus brews it for me every month and leaves it with the Apothecary in the village. That's why I'm here.' He patted his pocket, and Hermione heard the distinct sound of tinkling potions phials.

She was stunned. Snape brewed the time-consuming, fiddly Wolfsbane Potion every month for someone he hated? Why on earth would he do it? It didn't correlate with anything she knew about the man she had married.

Remus gave her a rueful smile. 'I think, perhaps, Dumbledore made him promise to brew it,' he confessed. 'But the reason why doesn't matter. I can only be deeply grateful to him.'

Hermione's wristwatch vibrated on her arm, and she immediately began to gather her things. 'Dumbledore's Army has a meeting at three,' she explained, neatly stowing things in her book bag. 'Would you like to come along to the meeting and say hello?'

Remus looked frankly alarmed. 'You're meeting with Umbridge in charge of the school?' he whispered, glancing right and left for spies. 'Do you think that's wise?'

Hermione hefted the bag and turned to go. 'We can't be bothered with what's wise, Remus,' she replied as she moved away. 'We have to be ready for war.'

Hermione never saw her husband as she hurried out of the library, but Severus materialised in front of Lupin the moment he set foot in the corridor.

'Herding werewolves doesn't keep you busy enough, Lupin?' he demanded in his silkiest tones

He had seen the werewolf pawing Hermione. His right fist was clenched at his side. The boy within him...the one who'd grown up in the roughest part of town, amongst a lot of bullies and brutes...wanted to punch Lupin in the face. His left fist was in his robes, clutching the handle of his wand. The Death Eater in him thought he ought to put the slavering beast on the floor, writhing beneath the Cruciatus Curse. But he couldn't take either action. He was not a free agent, able to order his moves as he liked. No, he had to achieve his desired ends by intimidation and manipulation, and the werewolf had never been a good subject for either method.

Lupin nodded civilly. 'Good afternoon, Severus,' he said. 'I was in Hogsmeade to pick up my potion and thought I'd stop by to say hello.'

'Perhaps the next time you say "hello" to my wife you'll keep your filthy paws off her,' Severus snarled

Lupin frowned as if he were confused. 'Hermione is my friend. I know you don't like me, but it would be cruel for me to abandon her.'

Severus sneered mightily. 'It sounds to me as if you're confusing your pathetic needs with hers, werewolf. Stay away from her for six months, and I daresay she'd never notice your absence. Miss Granger has plenty of friends.'

Lupin withdrew a bit, his eyes wary now, as if preparing for an attack. Severus followed him, stepping offensively close, and murmured, 'You know, Lupin, I'd be sadly unable to brew Wolfsbane if the supply cupboard were robbed of Aconite.'

Lupin straightened to his full height and looked coolly down at Severus. 'I understand you perfectly, Severus...subtlety never was one of your strengths...but I won't stop being Hermione's friend, and if she knew you'd asked me to, she wouldn't be happy.'

Severus bared his ugly yellow teeth. 'Then I suggest you do not tell her,' he advised.

Lupin considered for a moment, then clapped him on the shoulder with a slight smile. 'Take care, Severus.'

And Lupin strode away down the corridor, whilst Severus cast a strong Cleansing Charm on his robes.

Septima Vector found him fuming in the library corridor

'I just passed Lupin on his way out of the castle,' she informed him. 'I assume that's why you look as if you swallowed a phial of Bubotuber pus.'

Severus glared past her, the way the werewolf had gone. 'He had his hands on Hermione.'

Septima looked doubtful. 'If he did more than kiss her cheek or pat her hand, I'd be shocked to hear it.'

When Severus didn't answer her, she nodded briskly. 'Right, then. I'd say you could use a strong cup of tea, my friend.' She took his elbow, and after a moment, he allowed her to pull him along with her. 'We'll have some warm scones, and you can defeat me again at chess, and you'll feel much better...you'll see!'

Hermione only heard the last of the exchange between her two professors...one the teacher of her favourite subject, the other her husband...and she was surprised by the punch of emotion, like a clout to the gut. It was nothing that Snape did...not really, for he seemed as grumpy and ill-tempered as ever...but Vector hooked her arm through his with an ease of familiarity that spoke volumes of their intimacy with one another.

Hermione watched until the two disappeared into a stairwell, and then she continued up to the Gryffindor common room to retrieve the book of spells she'd meant to take to the DA meeting.

15 February, 1998

In her bedroom, Hermione sat against her pillows, doing unnecessary revision for her Ancient Runes test the next day. She'd tried twice to go to sleep with no success. She couldn't stop thinking about the stupid Valentine's Day ball, and the awful, awkward dance...her only dance of the evening...with Snape. Others would have been happy to take a turn with her about the floor, but she hadn't thought Snape would like it...had been fairly certain he would hate it...so she'd abstained, out of respect for him. For their so-called marriage.

And his reward for her had been to demonstrate to the world at large that he found her so distasteful he could not even bear to touch her. How else might one interpret his rigid posture...the distance he had maintained between their bodies...the look of antipathy upon his ugly face as they had danced?

A thump from the sitting room reached her ears, and she opened her door to find Snape right outside, wearing a hooded black cloak and holding a horrible, familiar-looking object. She had first seen it years ago, masking the faces of the Death Eaters dangling helpless Muggles in the air at the World Cup; now she saw it in her husband's hand, and the sight sickened her.

'Go to bed,' he said quietly, an odd expression on his face, as if he, too, were sickened somehow.

'What are you doing?' Hermione replied, knowing the answer already, but unable to prevent herself from asking.

'Stumbling over reference books on the floor,' he answered testily, almost as if he were trying to force anger. He nudged a large library book with the toe of his boot. 'Is this the way you treat school property?'

'I left it right outside my room so I wouldn't forget to return it to the library in the morning! What were you doing lurking about my door?'

She crossed her arms over herself protectively, staring at him with loathing and defiance. There's a Death Eater, her mind screamed, the dreaded fear triggered by the robes and mask. Defend yourself!

He did not answer her question, merely tucking the hateful mask away in a capacious pocket and repeating, 'Go. To. Bed.'

Then he turned from her and walked toward the door with heavy steps. His head was slightly bowed, his shoulders slumped, an attitude she didn't remember seeing him in before.

'Sir...be careful,' she whispered before she could prevent the words from slipping out.

'Bed, Miss Granger,' he said again, and then he was gone.

Hastening along the path from the castle to the gates, Severus tried desperately to purge his mind of the look on Hermione's face when she had seen him dressed in his Death Eater robes. At least he had not been wearing the mask...that was good, wasn't it? Now he had to find a way to integrate Hermione's obvious revulsion into the array of images he would offer up to the Dark Lord.

Severus Apparated to the gates of Malfoy Manor and hurried to the door, the pain in his Mark throbbing. The door opened when his foot touched the step, and a frightened looking house-elf bowed him inside. He did not pass another human soul as the creature led him through the darkened, deserted corridors to Lucius' library

The Dark Lord sat alone before the hearth, his monstrous red eyes fixed upon the flames. He did not look around as Severus came in. Advancing quickly, eyes averted, Severus knelt to the floor and lifted the hem of the dark green robes to his lips.

'My Lord,' he murmured, remaining with eyes downcast.

'Good evening, Severus,' the high, thin voice greeted him. 'Pour yourself a brandy, if you like, and have a seat.'

Severus did as he was bid, though he had no interest in brandy. Experience had taught him it was dangerous to eschew any of his master's 'gifts'.

'Thank you, My Lord,' Severus murmured, taking the chair across from him.

Severus had no time to pretend to drink the brandy before the Dark Lord was in his mind, riffling through his memories and probing for relevant emotions. Severus surrendered with a show of obeisance, confident in his Occlumency, thankful that he'd been preparing for this encounter for weeks. His carefully selected, cunningly edited remembrances played before his eyes in dizzying succession, and then the Dark Lord released him, settling back with a barking sound...a chuckle.

'How many times did you rape her on your wedding night, Severus?'

Severus now touched the brandy to his lips before answering with a self-satisfied smirk. 'A fair few, My Lord...I may have lost count.'

'That was an artful use of the...what did you call it, Severus?'

'The "Death Eater date rape drug",' Severus supplied smoothly.

'Yes, yes...a clever nickname. Your brothers use that Muggle term for it now exclusively...it amuses them.' The tone of the great wizard's voice changed, jangling along Severus' nerves like the death screech of a Jobberknoll. 'Tell me, Severus. Why did you bother with the Lethe Elixir?'

Severus had prepared for this question.

'I wished to ... have full use of her,' he said with a small wink, as if he were chatting with another man, rather than a self-castrated freak. 'Without the elixir, she would have run with her story to Magical Law Enforcement.' He shrugged and put the brandy to his mouth, this time allowing the fortifying spirit to pass his lips. These interviews with the Dark Lord were very, very trying.

'And what if she falls in love with you?' the Dark Lord asked, stroking his chin as if he retained the human ability to grow a beard. 'If she falls in love with you after taking the elixir, she will remember everything.'

Severus blinked, unable to contain his disdain for the notion. 'My Lord, I have never subscribed to old witches' tales about such things, and if you have ever done so, I am unaware of it.'

The Dark Lord regarded him haughtily. 'Wizards with that attitude also said it was impossible for one to overcome death...and they were quite wrong, weren't they, Severus?'

Severus allowed his gaze to fall, feigning abashment. Tread carefully, idiot! he chastised himself.

'Of course, My Lord,' he murmured

The Dark Lord stood, quite suddenly, and Severus immediately rose to his feet. One did not remain sitting if the Dark Lord was standing.

'Of course, what chance is there of the girl falling in love with you if you continue to mistreat her?'

'None at all, My Lord,' Severus answered.

'And has your marriage been productive of the sort of information you promised when you asked for my permission to marry Harry Potter's best friend?' The Dark Lord, not waiting for an answer, flowed into Severus' mind again, and Severus was rocked back on his heels by the force of the spell.

This time his master was less gentle with his explorations, delving deep and scooping great piles of memory, as if he wished to examine every interaction of every day since Severus and Hermione had wed. An impressive array of images flowed by: Hermione angry, sad, annoyed, irritated, and hurt. These true memories were interspersed with created scenes of confrontations, slaps, curses, confessions, pleadings, and tearful misery

This time when the Dark Lord released him, an eerie smile graced the snake-like face. 'The boy thinks he can lure me into a trap?' he said gleefully. 'Thinks I can be captured by that old fool? Defeated by duelling Aurors?'

The high-pitched, wheezing sound was the Dark Lord's rendition of a laugh.

'Come along, Severus!' he gasped merrily. 'We must wake your brothers and share this news with them. We'll begin our counter plan!'

Three hours later

Dumbledore cast another Warming Charm in the cave, a rocky, comfortless grotto lit only by their wand-tips, and rubbed his wrinkled hands together with real pleasure.

'You see, Severus?' he enthused, sounding more like the Dark Lord than Severus would ever admit to him. 'It's appears to be working...he seems to believe the altered memories you disclosed to him! And the association with Hermione gives your offerings the ring of authenticity we lacked in the past.'

He rose to his feet with an agility belying his age, the long silvery hair glinting in the wand-light

'Let us begin our planning for what we hope may be the end of our friend, Tom.'

Severus swallowed a weary sigh and prepared for his second strategy session of the long, cold night.

10 April, 1998

Hermione took a bite of her homemade Weasley Easter egg and let the confection melt in her mouth, willing it to act medicinally. Surely spending time with Umbridge ranked with being haunted by a Dementor! And by the same logic, eating chocolate should dispel the horrible, inching feeling the toad-like headmistress elicited: inadequacy as a witch, a student, and a woman. Hermione knew better...knew she was being intimidated and manipulated...but the knowledge did not diminish the emotional toll taken by a tête-à-tête with Dolores.

The ceiling of the Great Hall was a crystalline blue, awash with marshmallow clouds, in imitation of the pristine spring day outdoors. It was the first day of Easter hols, and that morning at breakfast, owls had delivered mail...including the elaborately decorated eggs...to a hall remarkably full of students. All of the Fifth and Seventh Years had stayed on to study for their OWLs and NEWTs, respectively...and all of Dumbledore's Army had stayed on, because the holiday would be a perfect time for twice-a-day duelling practice. The Ministry still did not acknowledge the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters continued underground, doing their evil deeds in secret, and Harry remained convinced that the Dark's ultimate assault on the Light and all they stood for was imminent.

Hermione drank the last of her coffee and stowed her Easter egg safely in her book bag before leaving the nearly empty Great Hall. She tended to dawdle over her breakfast and lunch on weekends and holidays...anything to keep her out of the dungeon apartments she shared with Snape. Three months into her marriage and still she and he circled one another like wary strangers. She could not forget seeing him dressed as a Death Eater...realising that she had bound her life to that of a man with a Dark Mark burned into his flesh...and although he had not been particularly rude to or dismissive of her lately, she could not be comfortable in his presence.

Strange, that though she was thinking of him, she failed to see her husband until she nearly collided with him. In the doorway of the Great Hall, with no one else in sight, Hermione gaped up into the face of Severus Snape.

'Sir!' she gasped. 'Good morning.'

He was looking somewhat haggard, though rather cleaner than usual. His great, fathomless black eyes were darkly shadowed; his face was gaunt, the bones jutting against the skin. The slight tilt of his head sent his apparently clean curtain of hair swaying as he inspected her.

'You had a meeting this morning with the headmistress?' he asked quietly.

'Y-yes,' Hermione agreed.

He waited a moment, and when she did not speak, he continued, 'Was there a specific purpose to it?'

Hermione's gaze skittered from his too-discerning eyes to the strap of her book bag, which she adjusted on her shoulder. 'She has found a way to exclude me from the R. I. Page Prize for Excellence in Ancient Runes,' Hermione said, appalled by the way her voice trailed off into a scratchy...not to say tearful...croak by the end of the sentence.

His long-fingered hand came into view as he took her book bag and slung it over his shoulder. 'What was her reason?' he asked, his tone still quiet, but also urgent.

Without her book bag, Hermione was out of excuses not to look at him as she answered. In spite of her effort to control her voice, she could barely manage a whisper past the lump in her throat. 'Some ancient amendment to the Hogwarts bylaws about spouses of teachers being ineligible to compete for school prizes.'

To her amazement...and surging uneasiness...he laid a hand upon shoulder. 'Let me help you,' he said, his voice almost soothing in its calm, steady timbre.

Help her? What on earth could he mean? And why was he pretending to be kind, when she knew very well that he abhorred her?

Backing away, she watched his hand fall back to his side, and avoiding his eyes, she said, 'Would you mind leaving my bag in my room? I think I'll walk by the lake!'

She bolted from the castle, fleeing her unnervingly solicitous husband as much as her bitter disappointment regarding the academic prize she had striven...and deserved!...to win. The sunlight was almost warm, and the spring flowers were poking their heads from the wakening earth. But Hermione failed to notice or appreciate these things as she hurtled precipitously along the path, avoiding her second near-collision of the day only because Remus Lupin's hands grasped her upper arms and spun her in a momentum-breaking half circle.

'Hermione!' he cried, his hazel eyes warm with concern. 'What's wrong? Why are you running?'

At the sound of Remus's kind, caring words, Hermione burst into tears and threw her arms around him. And even though he murmured soft questions to her as he rubbed a comforting circle betwixt her shoulder blades, Hermione gave him no answers as she dampened the front of his shabby robes.

She had fled from him as a wild thing flies from a civilising touch

Severus stood in the castle doorway with her school bag hanging from his shoulder, feeling like a husband whose wife makes him hold her handbag whilst she shops for pretty clothes...clothes she will not wear for him. When Hermione threw herself into Lupin's arms, allowing the werewolf to paw at her...when she had been unwilling to allow Severus so much as a response to his question ... he turned away and stalked down the dungeon stairs, his rage roiling like acid in his veins.

It did not help that moments later, his Dark Mark flared with excruciating pain.

He was being summoned.

A/N: From the HP Lexicon: A Jobberknoll is a tiny blue speckled bird that makes no sound until the moment of its death, when it lets out a long scream consisting of all the sounds it has ever heard; their feathers are important ingredients in making potions that affect memory.

The quote used by Umbridge...and completed by Snape...is from Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887). "Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable." It is highly unlikely...and that's putting it kindly...that either Dolores Umbridge or Severus Snape would have been familiar with the works of a nineteenth century American abolitionist and preacher. Nevertheless, the quote was so perfect, I had to have it. Chalk it up to that artistic license of mine.

~checks~

Yep, it's still hanging on the wall of my writer's nook!