Fifteen: For the Want of a Nail

Anti-Litigation Charm: None of the characters belong to me. They belong to JK Rowling, who let my entire reason for reading the Harry Potter series bleed to death on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. I'm building a better world.

Everything seems to fail, and it was all for the want of a nail...

Hermione rushed down to Severus' chambers, her heart in her throat. She had tried to contact him, but he was fully occluded, and something about the feeling of his leaking emotions terrified her beyond anything she'd ever heretofore experienced with him. Her palm had stopped burning, but it was replaced with a sensation that Hermione could only associate with hopelessness.

As she entered his chambers, she was struck by two things; the smell of alcohol, and the lack of light. She found Severus slumped in his chair, a glass of whisky in his hand. He did not look up when she walked in.

"Back from the infirmary already, pet? Clean bill of health? All ready for fun and games?" he said, his voice slurry, and so unlike his usual tone Hermione felt fear crawl up her spine. It was the same whisky-roughened tone that Sirius Black had the night he'd –

Hermione shook her head. This was NOT Sirius Black. "Severus, what's wrong?" Hermione came into his view, and he drunkenly waved her closer.

"Step into my parlour, said the serpent to the lioness," he said, drunkenly, giving her a conspiratorial smile. He rose unsteadily to his feet and lurched at her, beckoning her closer, his voice unfamiliar and unpleasant. "C'mon, c'mon, Lass, I won't bite. I'm not that desperate, at any rate." He laughed harshly. "Yet."

Instinctively, Hermione took a step back, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Severus, you're scaring me." This is your lover, Hermione told herself, and something is terribly, terribly wrong. Tentatively, she dared to walk closer. She wasn't as much afraid of him, as she was afraid for him. "Severus, please talk to me. You're drunk, and I want to know why."

He looked up at her with eyes that were bloodshot and red-rimmed from crying. "You want? You want a lot, witch, do you know that?" His voice turned ugly. "I wanted a lot, too, but I keep wishing in one hand and shitting in the other, and I can't fail to notice which hand fills first!"

Recoiling at the vehemence in his voice, Hermione turned away to leave the room. A Sober-Up Potion was called for-

Before she could take the first step, he was behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist. "Don't leave me! Please, Hermione!" A sob escaped him. "I'm sorry! Please don't." In a small voice, he whimpered, "I couldn't bear to know I pushed you away again."

Hermione turned, and Severus sank to his knees, burying his face against her robes. "I'm frightening you. I'm sorry, Hermione. I'm just so..." He looked up at her beseechingly, tears filling his bloodshot eyes. "Please don't go," he whispered. "Please don't leave me." He lowered his head and sobbed. "Oh gods, I can't bear this alone!"

"I'm not. I won't! You won't be alone! I'm just going into the loo." She tried to give him a reassuring smile. "I'm not leaving you. I promise."

Shakily, Hermione waited until he released her from his tight grip, and walked to his bathroom. She opened the cabinet that held his potions and reached for three neatly-labelled bottles. Walking back into the room, Hermione realised with alarm he was sobbing pitifully, his face buried in his hands.

Running to his side, Hermione knelt, put her arms around him and rocked him. "Please, Severus, please!" she cried, tears springing to her own eyes. His face was a mask of despair and hopelessness; it was the most heartbreaking thing she'd ever seen. "Please tell me what's wrong – let me try to make it right!"

"You can't, you can't!" he cried, holding onto her. "Please go away and forget me, Hermione! I'm a dead man! I'm a dead man!"

"What?" Hermione froze. She tried to open one of the vials of potion, but he wouldn't let her. He was holding on to her arms painfully.

"Please, Hermione, if you want a chance for any happiness in your life, it will not be with me! Just go now, go and forget the name Severus Snape!" Perversely, he still held her in an agonizing grip.

Hermione had never felt so afraid, not even when Severus had carried her into the infirmary, and she thought she was going to die. Using her teeth, she pulled the cork from the vial, and, pinching his nose closed, ruthlessly forced the potion down his throat. Without waiting to see if one vial was enough, she repeated the process with the second.

The Sober-Up worked quickly, and Severus blinked as his head cleared of the copious amount of whisky he'd ingested in the short few minutes before Hermione had arrived. He looked at his witch, and his tears began anew.

Almost helplessly, he jumped to his feet, pacing like a caged animal. "He's done it. The old bastard has done it." He sounded angry and hurt, and underneath it all, frightened out of his wits.

Hermione was terrified for her lover. He was irrational, his black eyes gleaming with rage and grief and something Hermione couldn't define. His face was covered in tears and mucous, but he didn't bother trying to clean it. Trying to quell her own fear, Hermione grasped his arms and forced him to stop.

Speaking in a low voice, as if to calm a wild beast, Hermione said, "Severus, I realise something unspeakable has happened, but I cannot help you unless you talk to me." When he looked at her with a complete lack of comprehension in his eyes, Hermione almost panicked. "Severus, for Merlin's sake, if you love me, tell me what has happened!"

The word love seemed to be the only thing strong enough to reach into the depths of his despair. It snagged deep down, and pulled him back to the surface. He sagged, and Hermione caught him and led him back to the sofa, where he slid down until he was lying against her breast. It was several moments before he could speak.

He shuddered and groaned, his body twisting as if in pain. Hermione held him, tears streaming from her own eyes at his agony. "It will be well, Severus. It will be well. I will make it so."

Severus calmed. For several moments the room was quiet, save his occasional sniffle. He relaxed a little in her arms, and when she shifted, and pressed him to her, he leaned in and sighed. It was the harsh, inconsolable sigh of a heartbroken, motherless child, and Hermione could hear herself in it as well.

Finally, in a voice devoid of any emotion, he said quietly, "You would, wouldn't you? Move heaven and earth to save me? Merlin knows why. I'm not worth it!"

Hermione shook him impatiently. "Stop it, Severus! This is old ground, and we've no time to cover it! Tell me now, and we can make this right!"

Severus drew himself up to full height as if she'd physically slapped him. For a moment, he looked like the imposing, dour Potions master of her younger days - the wizard who could, and did, reduce her to tears with a carefully worded, beautifully uttered cruel remark. His voice was quiet, and expressionless.

"What if you can't? What if I tell you that Dumbledore has destroyed me, and you will be destroyed as a result of it?"

Hermione pondered his words, and realised that what he was about to reveal would change things so irrevocably that she would wake tomorrow and look and behave like a different person entirely. "Then I will tell you that nothing is impossible! We're two powerfully magical folk. We can be well, Severus." She shook him gently, like a parent trying to wake an overly tired child. "But you must tell me what happened, and we will resolve it together."

Severus sat up, and buried his face in his hands. "I do not know that we can. He has signed my death warrant today, along with his own." He looked up at her and took her face in his hands. "I am to be the sacrificial lamb, Hermione. I am to place my head in the noose for the Greater Good." He looked at her, his eyes bleak with misery, and the absence of the hope that had so recently bloomed there caused Hermione's heart to cramp.

Hermione took his hand, shaking her head. "Not bloody likely." She leaned forward and kissed him fervently, and he returned the kiss with desperate longing.

Gently breaking away, Hermione covered his face in tiny kisses, and he turned his face to her gratefully, like a man feeling the sun after a long darkness.

She reached for the last vial, and silently handed the Calming Draught to him. "You're not thinking clearly. We WILL resolve this. We WILL defeat this." She stroked his head tenderly, as he drank down the faint blue liquid. As the potion took effect, he took a deep breath, and looked at his witch. Though tears stood in his eyes, he allowed the potion to do its job, and Hermione could almost see him physically pulling himself together.

His eyes softened, and the chaos and terror that had made him flee to his room to polish off almost a complete bottle of Firewhisky lessened its hold around his chest. "Whatever happens, Hermione, I have made promises to you. I won't break them." He took her hand and kissed it, reverently. "I love you." He sighed, and it turned into a sob. "Gods, this is a fucked up life! All I want is for us to have a little chance at happiness. It is too much to fucking ask?"

Hermione felt her own eyes filling again. "I love you, Severus. We will be well." Yes, Hermione, say it until you both believe it. "Tell me, Severus. Start from the beginning."

Thirty minutes later, Hermione was walking toward the Headmaster's office, seething with resentment, her face suffused with fury. Back in his chambers, Severus was sleeping under the strongest dosages of Calming Draught and Dreamless Sleep that could be prescribed for a wizard of his age and weight.

Hermione hissed the password and ran up the stone steps. She walked straight in to the Headmaster's study. When he looked up, he smiled. If he was surprised to see her, he did not show it. Nor did he bother to hide his cursed hand.

"Hello, Miss Granger. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Hermione smiled. It was a smile that made the Headmaster visibly tense. It was Severus' smile - ruthless, self-centred, smug and utterly confident.

"The pleasure of this visit? Very simple, Headmaster. Insurance."

Hermione sat back, almost breathless from pouring her heart out into what was most surely the gutter. Dumbledore had listened without speaking, his eyes occasionally straying from hers, but snapping back when she made a salient point, or mentioned Harry's name. It had not been a pleasant conversation in any way, and Hermione felt the slight sickness that comes with knowing you've set yourself upon a course that can neither be deviated from nor returned to afterward.

Once she'd finished, Professor Dumbledore merely looked at her for several minutes. His gaze was calm and as confident as she tried to feel. Finally, he replied, "Do you not realise I could Obliviate you, Miss Granger? You would walk out of my study having no knowledge of any of this."

"If you could, you wouldn't have threatened me with it, Professor; you would already have done it. You don't have the strength, and ultimately, you need me." Hermione hated to berate an old, sick wizard, but she had to protect Severus; she had to protect them. She fully intended to save Harry, but she would first have to save her wizard in order to do it.

Professor Dumbledore looked at her with a mixture of awe and disdain. "Why are you doing this?'

Hermione hissed, "Because someone has to look out for that man's life, and it isn't you! You have used him enough, Professor!"

"And what are you doing, Miss Granger?"

Hermione was furious. Severus had told her that the curse Professor Dumbledore had brought upon himself made him irrational at times. Angrily, she retorted, "I'm saving him! Something you are disinclined to do!" She gave the old wizard a beseeching look. "He's worth saving, even though you don't think so. I want him to have a life after this war."

Albus said, diffidently, "He will have a better one as a martyr. He will die a hero's death, and his life will be honoured. If he lives through this, everyone will remember him as a spy and a traitor to both sides – he'll be a pariah!"

"That's a chance we'll have to take – a chance he won't have if he follows your plan. You can't leave him like this! You have to give him a reason to live! Please, Professor, you know and I know he's worth ten of any wizard in Britain! You cannot send him like a lamb to the slaughter for anyone – even Harry!"

He sighed. "We all must all do our part for the great – "

Hermione shouted, "I refuse to listen to that shite! If you had your way, you'd do it yourself, but you need Severus and Harry to die for your precious cause!"

"You forget your place, Miss Granger." The Headmaster's eyes were cold and thunderous, but Hermione stared him down, until he finally broke her gaze.

Quietly, Hermione continued. "Grant me what I ask. Firstly, you will put your best teacher on DADA – Severus. We need the best wizard for the job to teach us how to win this war. That is not open for discussion." As if he needed further convincing, she added, "It will convince the Dark Lord even more of your determination to defeat him, and make your death all the sweeter to him."

Dumbledore shrugged, and then sighed. "Agreed. I had thought as much myself."

"Secondly, you will treat me as if nothing has happened. I will deal with Harry myself. You will NOT interfere with Severus and me, or we will go."

Dumbledore said, rather petulantly, "He vowed to obey me. To do anything to save Lily –"

"No, Professor. He vowed to do anything in exchange for you keeping Lily safe, and you didn't. Don't rewrite the story," Hermione retorted, shaking her head.

" - To make sure everything was in place so that Harry could fulfil his destiny," Dumbledore continued, as if Hermione had not interrupted him. The headmaster's voice was truculent and threatening, but Hermione could hear the fear behind his words. He needed Severus; therefore, he would need her.

Hermione sneered. "Oh, and we all know how well that went." She fronted out the old man. "I have admired you from the moment I stepped foot in this school, Professor Dumbledore, but you're no saint. You don't give a damn about the individuals you use, Professor, as long as they do your bidding for the bloody Greater Good. You're no better than Tom Riddle!" Hermione stared him down, her amber eyes snapping. 'You will do this, Professor, or I swear, we will forsake you, just as you've forsaken him! The only thing keeping him here is his honour, and I'm not prepared to sacrifice him for that!"

"He brought that on himself, Miss Granger. He made his deal with the devil, and was cast out of paradise."

She gave his withered hand a pointed look. "You could say the same for yourself, and you're a grown wizard. Severus was just a boy, a vulnerable boy whose feelings had been hurt, whose heart had been broken, and you shamelessly used all of that to make him your weapon, and you even had the nerve to make him believe you were doing him a favour. You have used him for the last time. This last deed cancels all debts to you."

Professor Dumbledore looked at the young lioness and attempted to Legilimize into her mind. To his surprise, her occlusions were very tensile and subtle, almost elegant. Severus had taught her this, he realised, and his admiration for both of them reluctantly rose.

Sensing his probing thoughts, Hermione allowed the professor access to that which she deigned appropriate for the old wizard to see. Looking into her mind, Dumbledore saw that she was as loyal and strong as any wizard or witch he'd ever known. Not for the first time, he wished that destiny had chosen her as his champion, instead of the boy. Harry, good-hearted and earnest as he was, was no match in out and out ferocity and cunning to this little witch.

"I have often wondered why you were sorted into Gryffindor, Miss Granger. Now I know why."

"Don't flatter yourself, Professor. House traits mean very little at this stage of the game." She held out her hand. "Give me the documents I need. I'm taking him in the morning."

The Headmaster rose slowly, and Hermione felt a pang in her heart that she'd been so cold with him. She reminded herself that he'd brought the curse upon himself when he placed the ring on his finger, hoping that it would bring him power. He had known all the while that it was death and destruction, but the lure of it was too great even for the Great Dumbledore. Now the curse was poisoning his system, and he had perhaps a year left.

How dare he tell Severus, "You must kill me." How dare he tell Severus that Draco's soul was worth more than Severus'?

"We'll make sure your little scheme is carried out, Professor, but you will not make Severus your martyr. If I hear wind of it, I'll make sure we'll go so far underground neither you nor Voldemort ever find us."

Dumbledore looked at the little witch, with her steely, determined frown. He sighed. "I should have made him take an Unbreakable Vow."

Hermione shook her head in contempt. "Incredible. You would have, wouldn't you? But you couldn't risk another's involvement to invoke the vow, could you? You had to keep your schemes to yourself."

"So that Tom couldn't discover them!"

"More like so that you could keep you minions in order!" Hermione retorted.

Dumbledore blinked. "Your lover said almost the exact same thing to me not a year ago. You are a formidable duo. A dangerous one."

"Only when you threaten us, Professor. But we can be dangerous for you. We are sworn to do the right thing, and we're doing it for the right reasons."

"The two of you, then, must help Harry in his quest."

Hermione's eyes narrowed angrily. Proudly, she drew herself up to full height. "One or the other of us has been doing that since he was born, Professor. We're not about to stop now." Exasperated, she continued, "What you've never seemed to grasp, Professor Dumbledore, is that there are ways to accomplish that without adding more deaths."

"Other than my own." Now a self-pitying, crabbed tone crept into his voice, laced delicately with bitterness.

"That cannot be visited on Tom Riddle, Professor, as much as you'd like it to be."

Dumbledore gave Hermione a look that could almost have been considered devious. "You know that Severus is in love with Lily Evans, Harry's mother?"

Hermione knew he said it to derail her, to fill her with doubt and jealousy. Fortunately, she had access to something even Dumbledore did not: Severus' Legilimized memories. "Lily Evans is dead. Harry Potter is not, and we're going to keep it that way. If it means that you die, and Draco is redeemed, so be it. But I'm only doing this on one condition: Severus will not be set up for death."

Hermione sighed, feeling her stomach drawing in knots. "Now tell me what we need to know to start preventing that –" she pointed at his blackened dying hand, "from taking you over, and more importantly," she said, knowing it sounded as cruel and heartless as Dumbledore's directive to Severus, "to keep the same thing from happening to anyone else."

The Headmaster regarded her for so long Hermione thought he would not answer. Finally, he said, quietly, "Have you heard of a Horcrux, Miss Granger?"

Hermione thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "No. What is it?"

Professor Dumbledore sighed, and reached into a large box. He withdrew a fine leather pouch and gave it to the young witch. Hermione opened it; it looked to be roughly several hundred galleons.

He waved his hand toward the leather bag. "We can discuss Horcruxes when you return. That should be enough for you to do what you have to do." When she gave the Headmaster a puzzled look, he smiled for the first time since she entered the office. "I promise you, Miss Granger, I will still be here when you return. We will discuss Horcruxes then. In the meantime," he indicated the pouch, "Think of it as a gift."

Hermione nodded, and then turned to go. "I have to go and wake Severus. We have a lot to discuss." She turned back to the Headmaster. "Sir, I'm truly sorry to be so harsh. But harsh times call for harsh actions." She sniffed, and cursed herself for showing weakness to this of all wizards. "I cannot let him go. Not now."

The Headmaster nodded. "The time for apologies and remorse is behind us, I fear. Insurance, Miss Granger. This is our bargain, and I expect you to hold up your end of it."

Hermione stiffened her spine, and she was unsurprised to feel her heart stutter in her chest. She was committed now. There was no turning back, and Hermione found, to her unbounded relief, she did not want to turn back. Now that she had committed herself, there was no more conflict, or indecision. "Insurance, then. Agreed, Headmaster."

Severus slowly drifted to the surface of sleep, stretching fully, trying to shake off the residue of the Dreamless Sleep still in his system. Hermione had given him no choice but to take it, and he hated the feeling of coming out of it. He stood up slowly, swung his long legs over the bed, and leaned forward, his head in his hands.

So the Dark Lord's revenge was Draco. Killing Dumbledore. Gods, what a mess. Severus rubbed his face, feeling the day's growth of stubble rasping against his hands. He had known the moment he started trying to heal the curse that it was no use. The sheer magic that had drained from him into the wound told Severus it was impossible to curb the effects of the curse.

It had physically sickened him to see it crawling up Dumbledore's arm, blackening the veins on the old man's thin arms. He had managed to contain it and lessen the advancement of the curse, even so much as to draw it all back down into the headmaster's hand. And of course, Dumbledore would not see Poppy, who might have been able to aid Severus in slowing the curse down. Oh no; the secrets could not be allowed to permeate beyond him - and Hermione.

Severus scourged himself with loathing. When Dumbledore calmly informed him that Severus had the happy task of publicly killing the old man and thus securing his place with the Dark Lord forever, Severus had walked back to his chambers in a daze of despair and hopelessness. He thought of those silent, pitiless gods he'd prayed to, asking for one bright thing in his life. He should have known better. When they granted his wish, they had taken it all away from him at the first opportunity. Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad...

He thought of Hermione. She would be his deity now.

The one light in his life. The only light that had sought him out, and deigned to saturate him, to purge the darkness from his soul. And what had he done? He'd played true to form once again. He'd only gone and swallowed most of a bottle of Ogden's Firewhisky and lecherously hit on her the moment she walked in the door. He was damned lucky she hadn't hexed him six ways to Sunday and run screaming from the room, never to return. He had acted no better than Sirius Black at his drunken worse.

And being the Gryffindor do-gooder she was, Hermione had forgiven him. His self-hatred settled in like iron, stiffening his aching limbs and weighing him down so that climbing out of bed became impossible. The very fact that he was mentally deriding her capacity for love, after all she'd done, said some pretty sick things about his state of mind.

His mind whirled at the implications of what must be done, and he could see no light at the end of the tunnel. He'd tried to send Hermione away, to tell her to make some sort of life outside of the short one he was destined to live. Yes, Severus, but you were holding onto her so tightly at the same time, she could barely breathe for the stench of your alcohol-laden breath.

She had listened to the entire sordid tale: Dumbledore, putting the ring on his finger, in hopes of gaining power for his own agenda; the resulting curse; the Headmaster's impending death; Draco's instructions to kill Dumbledore, and Severus' ultimate murder of the headmaster in order to secure the complete trust of the Dark Lord and thus save Draco. It was all so simple, tied up in that neat, little blood-stained package.

Dumbledore had as good as told Severus that he would be the final true casualty of the war, if the chess board played itself out like he'd envisioned it. Severus listened with a heart bleeding hope. I am to be Harry Potter's martyr. The irony of it should have made Severus laugh. Instead, he barely made it out of Dumbledore's office before he was vomiting on the stone floor. The thought of one's impending death often did that.

He looked at the clock and realised that several hours had passed since Hermione had held his nose and tipped the Calming Draught and Dreamless Sleep draught down his throat, and led him to bed. She had looked as heartsick as he felt, and the last thing she'd done before the potion kicked in was to kiss him gently and say, "Enough of this nonsense about sending me away, Severus. That was never and will never be an option. We are going to find a way around this, and I promise you when it is over, we will leave this place and never return. I swear it."

He wanted to believe his little witch with all his heart, but he could see no way out. He had all but made an Unbreakable Vow with Albus all those years ago, to protect Potter. As much as he despised the boy for being his father made over, he could still see the ghost of Lily in the boy's eyes, and for that, Severus had thrown himself under the wheels of every bus Potter had gleefully jumped on throughout the years, without any thought for safety of himself or his friends. Severus had the distinct feeling this last bus might just be the one that finally mashed him into a pulp.

Severus sighed harshly. They had been so close! Close enough to taste hope, and it had been so sweet he should have known it would be snatched from his crooked teeth before he could take a really big, juicy bite of it. He wanted to believe Hermione. More than that, he wanted to believe in them. And still he could not make himself stand.

That was how Hermione found him; sitting on the side of his bed, holding his head in his hands, looking hung over and defeated. His five o'clock shadow, dark in the waning light, made him look harsh and world-weary. When Hermione walked into his bedroom, he looked up at her with eyes that were bleak and devoid of hope.

She reached out and gently brushed his tangled, oily hair from his eyes, and smiled down at him with such tenderness his heart ached. What had he really ever done to make this witch love him so?

"How do you feel?" she said, somewhat emptily. He sighed, and held out his hand, and as she took it, he drew her toward him. She sat down on the bed beside him, and they put their arms around each other.

"I feel as if I'm getting ready to walk a rather steep, very short road."

She sniffed, and he looked at her carefully. She'd been crying; that was evident. But there was also something else in her eyes. It was a cautious, chary sort of resolve. It made him feel faintly curious and the fact that he still could make himself care was a miracle, in and of itself.

Quietly, he said, "Where have you been? You look like you're... up to something." He was rewarded with a ghost of a smile.

She stood, and looked down at him. "Severus, I've been speaking to the headmaster."

Puzzled, Severus replied, "About what? Surely, everything that was needed to be said has already been said." Bitterly, he added, "There's nothing left to do but to let this little tragedy play itself out."

Hermione's eyes flashed. "Severus, what you cannot do is wallow! I need you to be strong for a little while longer, and then I'll take over."

Severus looked at his witch with an expression of such confusion Hermione almost laughed. "Witch, what in Merlin's name are you babbling about? Take over what?"

Stiffening her spine, Hermione said, "Professor Dumbledore and I had a very long talk. I forced him to tell me the entire story, and I told him you would NOT be facing a firing squad or Azkaban." She smiled, and knelt down beside him. "But you're going to have to dust off your Muggle suit one more time."

Looking down at the little witch, Severus reached out and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. With something like his old smirk, he drawled, "And why, pray tell, do I need to do that, my little problem solver?"

For the first time since she'd entered the room, Hermione's unshakable confidence diminished. Unsmiling, she reached into her robe and, taking his left hand, she placed a ring on his finger. He looked down at her, nonplussed.

Hermione smiled, and took a deep, courage-giving breath. "Severus Snape, will you marry me?"

Title and opening words from "For the Want of a Nail" by Todd Rundgren