Vow

She felt pressure upon her right upper arm and looked down to find a hand gripping her flesh almost painfully. Her other hand was free, and she touched the bracelet upon her wrist lightly.

The last memory that she recalled: she had had a pleasant lunch with Snape where she had discovered his ardently denied passion for chocolate.

It was Snape now holding her in the death-grip, which didn't explain why she was so afraid, as he was clearly not about to harm...

"Well, well, well. This is certainly a most interesting situation."

The speaker was out of sight beyond her fortress of black wool, but the smooth, arrogant voice sent a rush of fear and dizzying hatred through her body. If possible, Snape's hand, the one not holding his wand upon the speaker, gripped her arm even more tightly.

"Granger..." the disembodied voice hissed. "You may as well come out from behind your black-robed savior. He'll hardly be able to convince me that it was not you that I saw." When neither of them moved, Hermione heard the sound of shifting feet and felt Snape slowly turn in response, always keeping her behind him.

She felt a different emotion rush through her as she felt him shield her with his body.

There was a sigh of haughty exasperation. "Honestly." A sudden burst of magic rippled through Snape's body, and Hermione cried out as a tongue of fire leapt from his form and sizzled through her chest. Snape's black form was jerked to the side and impacted a set of bookcases.

He was back on his feet before Hermione had time to blink, every muscle in his body tensed like a panther about to spring. Snape grit his teeth against the residual pain from the curse and hesitated when he saw that Malfoy now had his wand trained on Hermione.

"A wise decision, Severus," the blond wizard said. Then he turned to face Hermione. She took in the familiar haughty profile, high cheekbones, and sharp, cruel eyes. Her legs threatened to buckle underneath her. She pressed a trembling hand against the bookcase behind her, the rough edge of the wooden shelf digging into her palm.

Hermione felt light-headed as Malfoy's words and the insinuation behind them registered in her mind.

Malfoy's icy gaze slid over to where Snape hunched against the adjacent wall. The dark man's gaze remained riveted to the wand pointed at Hermione, and Malfoy sighed at his failure to provoke a reaction.

Taking a step towards her, Malfoy continued, "Now I can think of only two reasons why you would be in Severus' home. It is possible that he has kept you alive to have his wicked way with you, but I can't imagine that you've held his interest for this long. Which leads me to the second reason, which is that you are no friend, Severus."

"Let me explain, Lucius."

"Spare me your excuses. Will you honestly try to convince me that you have not betrayed the Dark Lord?" Malfoy took another step towards Hermione; the tip of his wand was inches from her face. Hermione pressed her other hand against the wall to hold herself upright.

"Not at all. I have every intention of killing the Dark Lord," Snape replied smoothly.

Malfoy stopped in his tracks. "I beg your pardon?" he hissed after a pause of nearly two seconds.

"I will explain, but forgive me for giving you the abbreviated version. I can see that you have no intention of lowering your wand, and your arm must be getting tired."

Malfoy snarled in an unrefined manner.

"I betrayed the Dark Lord over 17 years ago when I began to spy for Albus Dumbledore. After his death, I have continued to pass information to his army, taking advantage of my increased rank among the Death Eaters to obtain information that the Dark Lord holds most inviolate."

"Such honesty from a backstabber! A swell of mercy rises through my breast."

Hermione saw a smile appear on Snape's face, and through her shock, she realized that he was preparing to enjoy himself. "How many opportunities have I had to give you up, Lucius? How many times could I have let the fact that the Dark Lord has taken up residence in your Manor accidentally... slip? Masks are meaningless to a member of my status. I could have betrayed every single Death Eater a hundred times over."

Malfoy's expression of controlled fury did not change, but his wand arm lowered slightly. "Continue," he snapped.

"I want the Dark Lord gone for good, Lucius. The death of my colleagues has never been my desire."

"So we are still your colleagues?"

The corner of Snape's lip curled. "I never said 'friends,' Lucius."

A glimmer of pain, so quick that Hermione nearly missed it, flickered in the blond wizard's gaze. "Fair enough, Severus. But you still haven't told me why. From what I understand, the Dark Lord treated you in the same slavishly obliging way that Dumbledore did that brat Potter."

Hermione's mind finally caught up to her nerves, and she wondered first, why Malfoy seemed so unconcerned by Snape's vendetta against Voldemort and second, why Malfoy had not yet harmed or even insulted her.

Snape scoffed. "You have already proven how quick you are to draw your wand first and ask questions later. I could hardly let you incapacitate her before our work is done."

"You honestly think that you could defeat the Dark Lord with the aide of this... this..." Malfoy's eyes evidenced an inexplicable struggle for the right word.

"Lucius..." Snape said. "Have you ever known me to fail in anything I set out to accomplish?"

The blond wizard's cold blue eyes narrowed. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision. "Your wands. Give them to me now. I don't think you are in any position to negotiate," he snapped as Snape hesitated.

After a beat, Snape uncurled his hand from around his wand and then glanced over and gave her a little nod. Heart pounding, Hermione pulled her wand from her sleeve. Malfoy rapidly Accio-ed both wands and made as if to pocket them. A muscle twitched in Snape's jaw, and Malfoy laughed. He set the wands down on the table between the armchair and sofa instead and stowed his own within his sleeve.

"I know how skilled you are at wandless magic, Severus. Needless to say, if you even so much as wink in my direction, your little bitch will die quite unpleasantly, do I make myself clear?"

"Get on with it, Lucius," Snape growled.

Malfoy's lip curled unpleasantly. "I will not deny that removing the Dark Lord will make my own life... considerably less stressful. He has not looked upon me favorably since the debacle at the Ministry, not to mention the actions of... of my son." A look of misery crossed his face. It was gone nearly as quickly, but for that brief second, Malfoy had looked weary and human.

"However," Malfoy continued, "you know as well as I do that once the Aurors begin rounding up Death Eaters, it is very unlikely that I will be able to talk myself out of Azkaban a second time."

"Lucius, once the war is over, I..."

"Although my sentimentality is touched by the fact that you might even consider pleading my case, I doubt very much that Potter will be forgiving enough to lend you any influence. No, I desire no place in the brave new world that Potter and his disciples will create."

"What is it you want then?"

"Has over 20 years of living by my side taught you nothing of Malfoy ambition? I want Tom Riddle's throne. I will take what remains of the Death Eaters and seek out a greater kingdom. I have sacrificed too much fighting for this miserable island. And in order for me to have the unquestioned loyalty of the Death Eaters, you must be eliminated. I will give you the victory you seek, Severus. And in return, you will give up your life."

Hermione looked frantically at Snape. His face betrayed no emotion.

"That seems unnecessarily harsh, old friend," Snape said.

"I wasn't aware that you had any choice at all," said Malfoy lightly. "I am now aware that you are the reason that Draco fled, and therefore, you are the reason that he is dead. It would please me equally as much to go to the Dark Lord now with my rather interesting discovery and watch you beg for death. At least on my terms, you have the chance to perish honorably in battle."

The silence stretched on. Hermione was no longer pressing herself against the wall for support. Her fear, she noticed, had fled in the face of a frantic, furious urgency to yell at Snape, to ask him why, why was he even considering such a thing? Perhaps she could shout loudly enough to distract Malfoy for enough time in order to...

"And if I do not fall in the battle?" asked Snape.

Malfoy chuckled lightly. "Make no mistake, friend. Your agreement will be binding."

At last, Hermione could speak. "No."

Snape stiffened. Malfoy's head snapped around to her like a striking cobra. His voice was equally deadly. "I beg your pardon?"

Hermione took a deep breath as she felt herself begin to shake. "I won't do it. You will need a Bonder, and I will not do it."

Malfoy's entire body seemed to thrum with energy, and for a moment, she was terrified that he would fly at her. Instead, he took a step backwards and leaned calmly against the threadbare arm of the sofa.

Snape went slightly paler. Hermione felt like throwing up.

It was an unpleasant but compelling sensation, like fingernails scraping lightly over her skin.

Her throat was still vibrating when she realized that she had screamed out loud and that Malfoy was looking at her with an expression caught between amusement and triumph.

She opened her mouth to protest, to stop this horrific charade. Malfoy didn't know that she knew wandless magic. She could... Malfoy had withdrawn his wand from his sleeve with a magnificent flourish. He beckoned to Snape while walking up to her side, scooping up her wand from the rickety table as he did so.

"Join me in our little ceremony, Severus."

Snape moved across the sitting room like a shadow towards Malfoy. Both men were standing uncomfortably close to her.

Malfoy extended his right hand and let it hang in the air like a pale spider. Snape looked at it for a moment with flat, dead eyes. Then, without glancing at Hermione's stricken face, he clasped Malfoy's hand with his own. The knuckles on the hands of both men turned white.

Hermione flinched as she felt the tip of Malfoy's black wand dig into the hollow of her neck between her larynx and her jugular. Malfoy had not even looked at her, his eyes remaining riveted on Snape.

"I'm well aware, Severus, of the restrictions against holding your fellow Vow-maker at wandpoint," Lucius said in a calm, sibilant hiss. "Some rot or another about the unfairness of coercion. However, there are no such rules regarding the Bonder. So if you don't behave..."

Hermione expected Malfoy to dig his wand into her neck to emphasize his point and managed to muffle her whimper when he did so. Malfoy handed back her wand, handle-first. "If you would be so kind? No tricks, mind you. I will never believe that vast mind of yours would be unfamiliar with the ceremony," he said with a sneer.

As her brain was reeling from Malfoy's impossible backhanded compliment, she grasped her wand with her right hand and laid the tip on their linked hands.

Both men gazed at each other across their joined hands. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at Snape's frown. "Cheer up, Severus. This is the last promise to another you will ever have to make."

Hermione's hand jerked, and Snape lifted his left hand and placed it atop hers. His fingers were smooth and warm, like a serpent's skin, and they withdrew before Hermione even had time to be properly stunned. Were it not for the fact that Malfoy were currently looking at Snape as if he had thrust his hand into a particularly nasty bog, she would have thought that she had imagined his comforting touch.

"Severus Snape," intoned Lucius Malfoy. His voice had lost all trace of a sneer and was impeccably formal. "Will you do everything in your power to kill the Dark Lord, otherwise known as Tom Riddle?"

"I will," said Snape.

Hermione watched, fascinated, as a thin, red tongue of flame issued from her wand and wrapped around their hands. She felt as though a bit of warmth had seeped from her body.

"And will you refrain from directly harming me or any of our Death Eater brethren in the process?"

"I will," said Snape.

A second tongue of flame intertwined with the first.

"And should you fail to meet your end on the battlefield, will you, Severus Snape, die before midnight of that day has passed?"

Snape's tight jaw cracked open with visible force. "I will," he said.

A third tendril of flame snaked its way among the others to form a thick chain.

Triumph gleamed within Malfoy's eyes; he opened his mouth to finish the spell.

"Lucius Malfoy," said Snape suddenly. "Will you provide your aide whenever required so that we may complete our task?"

Malfoy looked as if he would like nothing more than to spit in Snape's face. "I will," he ground out after a beat of silence.

A tongue of brilliant golden flame shot out from Hermione's wand to entwine with its scarlet brethren. Scarlet and gold. Hermione had to bite back her insane urge to giggle at the sight of Malfoy and Snape decked out in Gryffindor colors.

The red and gold rope of light glowed brightly and began to hum faintly. Malfoy was glaring daggers at Snape, and Snape was staring back with a look that Hermione recognized too well. It was the same look that Harry or Ron got when they were about to do something that would utterly infuriate her.

The silence dragged on. Hermione thought she saw a drop of sweat form on Malfoy's high forehead.

"I accept your Vow," Snape drawled at last, managing to sound imperial and begrudging at the same time.

Hermione mentally edged away from the hurricane brewing on Malfoy's face.

"And I, yours," Lucius fairly spat.

A heavy silence fell again, and this time Hermione realized that she was the cause. She struggled to remember, praying that she recalled the words correctly.

"B-by this Unbreakable Vow, you are bound. Your promise holds you until duty fulfills it or death negates it."

The intertwined flames glowed brightly, a searing Cepheid of sharp, white light before suddenly dissolving away. Her body warmth that had seeped away with the tongues of flame rushed back into her all at once, and Hermione felt as if she had a stifling fever.

Snape sniffed. "'Until death negates it.' Rather unnecessary, wouldn't you agree?"

Malfoy had dropped his wand from Hermione's throat, and his hand was clenching and unclenching around the length of wood. "Enjoyed your little show, didn't you, you conniving snake?"

Snape's eyes hardened. "You have my Vow, Lucius. Don't fool yourself into thinking you possess anything more."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes before apparently realizing that there wasn't much he could say. He made a show instead of brushing out his robes.

"Lucius, it would be of great assistance to us if you were to bring us half a dozen Chinese Fireball eggs and a liter of runespoor venom before the end of the month. I have an inkling that your channels shall be more... expedient than any that either of us know."

"I suppose it would be an exercise in futility to ask what possible use they could be? Very well, Severus. But keep in mind, I am not a patient man."

"You could join us, Lucius." Snape's voice was so soft that she might have imagined it.

Malfoy paused in the action of slipping his wand back in his sleeve. His prominent cheekbones twitched as his jaw worked under his skin. "I chose my side long ago, Severus," he said at last. "As did you. Nothing will change the fact that we are marked for life. We will never have a place in their world, and you're a fool if you believe otherwise. Just like Draco."

His cultured voice seemed to catch in his throat at the mention of his son. Before Snape could respond, Malfoy turned his sharp gaze to Hermione. "I do hope the... girl serves you well." Then he swept his robes about him and Disapparated.

"Well, that was certainly unexpected," said Hermione as her knees finally gave out from under her.

The expected painful connection with the floor did not occur. Instead, she found herself enfolded in the scent of moss and mint once again, with rough black wool scratchy upon the back of her neck.

"Why?" Hermione mumbled, her shock at the fact that he had bothered to catch her overwhelmed by a great surge of fury. "Why did you do it? Why did you agree, how could you, HOW?" She vaguely realized that she was screaming and her cheeks were moist.

"Why the bloody hell are you crying?" Snape snapped, although the way he continued to cradle her against his chest belied his harsh tone. "Do you honestly think that Malfoy could ever get me to agree to something I did not want?"

She gaped at him, staring at his sallow, rigid face hovering over hers through her wet lashes. "Your life, sir... it's your life."

"And it is a small price to pay. The likelihood of me surviving this war is slim to none. And barring my demise, an Unbreakable Vow is voided by the death of either of the Vow-makers. Lucius' chances are even more unlikely than mine. He's not half the duelist he purports to be. And now he is bound to assist us at our leisure, and with his help, we shall be sure to succeed."

He made sense. Of course he made sense. Then again, Snape was speaking in the same tone he used in the classroom when he was issuing instructions on the brewing of a particularly deadly potion, so he would have made sense no matter what he had said.

She shook her head, refusing to look at him.

"Hermione," he murmured, speaking her name like a caress. "You have given me more than I could have ever hoped for. You have shown me that there is at least one person in the world who does not find me despicable. At least until now. Merlin knows what you must think after Lucius' insinuations about me. And that has been enough for me. That is all I could want."

"Bullshit," she hissed through the tears running down her cheeks. "Tell me where Malfoy is. I'll kill him myself."

"Not only would that break my Vow not to harm him, but believe me when I say that your chance of success would be none," Snape said. "But I am honored that you are so ardent on my behalf."

"He did this to me. They did this to me!" she screamed. There was a sensation in her chest as if someone had just wrenched her open like a rusted gate. "They took my mind, Severus... They might as well have taken my life! And now he has taken you." Somehow her hands had found their way to his chest, her fingers digging into the wool of his robes.

Snape seemed not to mind. "And getting back at them, that would make you happy? That is what you want?"

Hermione nodded through her tears. "Isn't that what we have been working towards for all these weeks? To kill them? To destroy them once and for all? That's all I can remember to do. This project and... and you. You're all I have left," she whispered. She felt her cheeks burning the moment the words were out of her mouth, but she also knew that she could not honestly take them back. The silence fell upon them like a blanket.

"I would that you had something better," Snape said. It was barely a whisper, and his arms underneath her back were still. But for the fiery sincerity in his words, she would have thought him made of stone.

"I would that you had your justice," Snape said. His arms moved then, pulling her infinitesimally closer to his chest. "That you had your revenge, your resolution. I would like nothing more than to give that to you. What if you could know what had been done to you? Know who was responsible?"

Hermione turned her head into his chest, inhaling the blessedly familiar scent of moss and mint and willed her heart to stop its pounding.

"You should know, it was not Lucius."

"But just now he..." She paused, realizing with a bit of shock, "he didn't call me Mudblood. Not once."

"Do you want to see, Hermione? Do you want to see what happened that night and those three weeks afterwards before you were found at Hogwarts? The very first of many times that have since been lost from your memory?" Snape asked softly. At her brief silence, he immediately began speaking again. "Only if you truly desire to, I have done enough today to distress you."

"Yes," Hermione said. "I will. I must."

She felt him nod against the top of her head. Then he braced himself against the floor and pulled her up to a standing position. Once they were both standing, he took a step back and for the next few seconds, Hermione was treated to the rare image of Severus Snape fidgeting uncomfortably.

"I have no Pensieve," he said at last. "You are aware that casting the Killing Curse splits the caster's soul. This is also true of the other Unforgivables. Imperio, Crucio, as well as others that you do not have the misfortune to know... they rend the wizard's soul into pieces and, much like memories, they can be transferred from caster to victim. This memory was... gifted to me, if you will. I will allow you to view it through Legilimency, but I will warn you that it will be quite... unpleasant. Unlike a Pensieve memory, you will not be an impartial observer. You will view the memory through... the person's eyes and be subject to all of his emotions."

Hermione closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The subtle scent of Snape's robes floated into her lungs. She opened her eyes and looked directly into his. "I'm ready."

He reached out and rested the tips of his fingers against her temples. His fingertips felt cool and slightly calloused against her skin. As she stared into his dark orbs, she saw, for a second, an expression of immense sadness that made him look every one of his forty years.

"Hermione, you will never know how sorry I am," he murmured.

There was a great jerk from behind her navel as Hermione felt herself lifted bodily and thrown towards the dark pupils in Snape's eyes which expanded and expanded until they filled her vision.