Another World

Hermione looked up into Severus's dark eyes as they stood before the mirror. He would be the first one leaving the prison realm. Dumbledore had already sent for Madam Pomfrey so that his injuries could be examined immediately upon his return. Hermione glanced at Remus and Ginny who were standing by anxiously awaiting the departure. They both wanted to be certain that the spell would work for one thing, and for another they were also concerned about Hermione and themselves. It would not be quite so simple for them for get out.

"Can we have a moment?" Hermione asked them.

Remus and Ginny nodded, understanding completely. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed the looking glass returning to its normal reflective state.

"Take all the time you need," Remus urged her as they stepped into the parlor and closed the door.

"Hermione, I hope that you will not become weepy or overly sentimental about my impending departure. I would be quite disappointed as we shall be reunited within the hour," Severus told her, cupping her face in his hands.

"That wasn't it at all. I just wanted to tell you that I think I love you. In fact, I am almost positive that I do."

Severus inhaled sharply, caught completely by surprise by her frank admission. Of course, Hermione was always one to speak her mind, but he had not expected anyone ever to say those words to him. No one ever had. Severus leaned down to kiss her.

Then he stopped short and his eyes widened as he realized what she had actually been telling him, what she was saying behind those words:

"If I don't make it, I want you to know ..." those words were left unsaid, but he could still hear them as he looked into her soft brown eyes.

"No!" he breathed, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a good, hard shake. "No! You mustn't say things like that!"

"Severus?" she asked, frowning in confusion. "You didn't want me to tell you that I love you?"

"That isn't it at all. I just don't want you to say such things now when you are only saying them because ... because of what is to come. It isn't right!"

"But the circumstances do not make those words any less true, Severus."

He looked into her eyes for a long time, searching and desperate, before he could believe her.

Hermione smiled and laughed softly, pulling him into her arms. She was anxious about the sprint between the trophy room hearth and the mirror in the secret passageway. She had fought off a demon before with Ginny's help. This time she would be alone, walking into the unknown. And she would try to walk into it unafraid.

She savored those few minutes of holding Severus close, drawing comfort from the fierce resolve that he had demonstrated, from the passion in his voice, and knew that whether she managed the feat or not, she would give anything that stood in her way a run for its money.

"Are you ready to go then?" Hermione questioned as he gently combed his fingers through her hair.

"I suppose," he answered indifferently.

Hermione called Ginny and Remus back into the room and tried to smile as much for the benefit of the youngest Gryffindor as for Severus, who was standing before the mirror on his own two feet and looking a bit pale. As much as he might have wanted Hermione to believe that he was nearly recovered, Severus had to concede, privately at least, that he had been through something of an ordeal. He read over the incantation silently and returned the parchment to Remus with a curt nod.

The werewolf accepted the slip of paper back from his colleague and smiled in encouragement as he placed his hands on Ginny's shoulders.

"Good luck, Severus," he told him.

"Thanks," said the potions' master with a slight sneer as he drew his wand. "See that you keep the students safe in my absence," he added.

"Of course."

Severus pointed his wand at the looking glass and spoke the magic words. He wasn't certain what the exact effect of the spell would be, and he had only a split second to wonder after its casting. It was rather like using a port key, only instead of being dragged forward stomach first at a gut-wrenching speed, he was pulled wand-first toward the mirror, which seemed to widen to accommodate him. Time seemed to pause around him. The whole world stilled and silenced as the silvery surface approached. Severus closed his eyes as something cold washed over him.

~

The next thing Severus was aware of was hitting the floor with a loud thump and the breath being knocked out of him. He felt dizzy as he opened his eyes and found himself looking at several pairs of feet. The stone floor was hard and cold beneath his cheek, but welcome nonetheless. It meant that he was out of the mirror. He groaned as his breath returned. Someone's hands were suddenly beneath his shoulders, hauling him into a seated position and propping him up. Severus found himself staring into the twinkling blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. His head was still spinning as he noticed Poppy Pomfrey kneeling next to him as well.

Relief, stronger than the dizziness that was just beginning to fade, washed over him like a warm breeze. He was home again and among friends. The incantation had worked. He was safe, and the others would be soon too.

Only the headmaster saw the expression in the eyes of his colleague and the accompanying tears, which were swiftly blinked away. The aging professor smiled at him at patted his hand comfortingly. He could see how much the younger man had been through during the previous days by simply looking into his coal black eyes. Dumbledore, though he had once imprisoned a terrible Dark Wizard in the realm Severus had just escaped, could not truly say that he knew its horrors. He could now see some small portion of them in the eyes of Severus Snape.

"That was quite an entrance, Severus," commented Dumbledore, wanting to say more, but knowing better than to do so in front of Minerva and her Gryffindors, or Poppy for that matter. Severus would not have appreciated the gesture.

"Thank you," Snape replied.

"We should get you to the hospital wing, if you can manage it," said Madam Pomfrey crisply as she began examining him, wasting no time.

"No, I don't need to go. I wish to wait for the others. I must know whether they make back safely or not," objected Severus as she unbuttoned the front of his robes.

The headmaster raised his eyebrows at the claw marks the stretched across his chest. They appeared to have been quite deep when they were first delivered, though they were healing nicely.

"Severus ..." Albus began to say. "Poppy? What do you think?"

"He can go, headmaster, just so long as he takes it easy and reports to the hospital wing immediately afterward. His injuries are not life threatening. Whoever tended these wounds did an admirable job," commented Pomfrey.

"It was Hermione," Severus told her, accepting a helping hand from Dumbledore as he stood. He swayed for a moment and grimaced as Minerva McGonagall helped Albus to steady him. "I can manage," he muttered.

"Of course you can, Severus," she said with an amused look. "But perhaps you can manage a bit better with a little help."

"Professor Dumbledore, shouldn't we go up to the North Tower now? Ginny is sure to be along soon ..." Ron Weasley remarked, trying to contain his impatience.

Harry and Ron had been waiting as patiently as either of them knew how, but both were eager to see Ginny, Hermione, and Remus again. Neither of the young men would have admitted to feeling any relief at seeing their potions' professor, but even Ron was a little glad to see him come flying out of the mirror. If nothing else, it proved that it could be done.

"Quite right," Dumbledore agreed. "To the tower then."



The trio, having witnessed Snape's departure from the demon realm through the mirror, had walked into the parlor. Hermione was both relieved and nervous. Severus had escaped. But the road ahead of her seemed long and perilous. She reminded herself constantly that Ginny, Remus, and she had wandered through the castle unaware and unprotected at the beginning of their adventure and nothing terrible had befallen them. Perhaps their luck would hold just a little longer.

"But the demons know where we are and they just might know the exits too," she thought grimly as they stood before the hearth in the parlor.

"I'll go first and make sure that the classroom is safe," said Remus mostly to Ginny, with whom he shared a destination.

"Be careful," Ginny cautioned him.

"I will be," Remus assured her. Turning to Hermione, he said, "I don't know what to tell you. Trust your instincts and don't let Severus down. See you on the other side of the mirror."

"Of course," Hermione nodded as he left the parlor by floo, leaving the pot of powder with Ginny, who seemed to be holding on to it for dear life.

"He'll be all right," said Ginny.

"That's the spirit," said Hermione with a reassuring smile.

A few minutes later a head appeared in the fireplace.

"Come on, Ginny, the coast is clear," Remus told her.

Only an instant later Ginny had disappeared through the floo as well, leaving Hermione to steel her nerves and make her way to her own destination.

"I can do this," she told herself, taking a handful of powder.

The Divinations classroom was dark and lit only by the light of Remus's wand. It was rather cold too. Remus had found the proper mirror for her and was standing by it when Ginny came out of the fireplace. Ginny shivered as she looked out the open window and into the impenetrable, inky blackness that surrounded the castle. It was as frightening as anything she had seen, including the monster that had mauled Professor Snape.

"Don't fret, Ginny. You'll be back home with your brother before long, just come and say the spell," Remus told her, trying to sound cheerful.

"What about you?" she whispered.

Remus brushed her red hair away from her face and kissed her lightly on the bridge of her nose. He knew that it would be a close thing if he managed it at all. The prefects' bath was a good distance away, but it was his only chance. He wasn't afraid. He said seen too much in his life to fear for himself in that situation. And his heart was scarlet and gold through and through. It was enough for him if he managed to save Severus and the girls, especially this young and beautiful red-headed girl who seemed for some inexplicable reason to love him. If he feared anything as he stood in that cold tower and looked up the void outside, then Remus feared for Hermione and what would become of Ginny if he did not make it. But he knew that Ginny was strong.

"Ginny, I've trained my entire life for something like this. Just be waiting for me on the other side and don't worry," Remus told her.

She looked into his eyes and felt comforted by the strength and confidence that she saw in their depths, and she smiled at him. Of all the things that she loved about Remus, his gentle and ever-present inner strength was the one that mattered most to her at that moment.

"I'll do my best," she said.

"Go on then," he said, stepping away from the mirror.

Just as Ginny raised her wand, something previously unnoticed in the dark room swooped from the high ceiling, where it had lain in wait among the rafters, with its teeth and claws bared. It bowled Ginny over before she could ever scream, its talons sinking into the back of her robes, rending the fabric as though it were mere silk. Her wand tumbled from her hand, clattering upon the floor in the darkness. Had she been alone, that would have been it for her. But luckily she had Remus Lupin there to come to her aid.

Ginny could not hear the spell words that he used over her own screams as she felt the cruel claws of the demon rake down her back, but a moment later it was shrieking in pain and anguish and scuttling away from her. There was a flash of color in the dark room, and the screams of the demon ended very suddenly. Ginny remained frozen on the floor, quivering with fear and gasping for breath as her wounds throbbed with pain.

Remus knelt next to her on the floor, trembling with a mixture of both fear and rage. Her clothes had been torn from the collar to the waist, exposing her back to the sharp claws of the beast that had attacked her, but the marks it had left were thankfully shallow. Remus pulled her robes closed over the cuts and hushed her softly.

The room had seemed empty. He had stood in it, checking the corners and listening for any sound of a demonic presence. Remus had been so certain that it was vacant of anything harmful that he had pocketed his wand for a few minutes during his search for the mirror. This was the last thing he had expected. He should have known better, or so he was thinking as he clumsily used his wand to mend Ginny's robe.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her ear.

Ginny managed to nod mutely as he caressed her hair. The pain was still very intense, but the fear and panic had begun to fade.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny, but you must get up now," Remus whispered, tugging her to her feet and picking up her wand from the floor.

Her face was as pale as he had ever seen it. He kissed her softly on the forehead and held her close as he pressed her wand into her hand again, closing her fingers around it.

"Can you still say the spell?" he questioned as she buried her face in his robes. He tried not to touch her back. If he had been more skilled in healing magic, he would have done something for her.

"I think so, Remus," she sniffed.

"Then you should do it now. Someone needs to ... take a look at your back."

"I know," she said unflinchingly, pulling away and wiping her eyes. "And ... it wasn't your fault."

"Thank you, Ginny."

"I'm ready."

The pain was excruciating as she stepped in front of the looking glass and raised her wand. Her wand arm trembled, and her lips felt thick as she cast the spell. She thought she was going to faint as she was wrenched forward and into the mirror. She cried out in agony and surprise as the coldness of the looking glass hit her like an icy breeze that stung when it rushed over her wounds.

~

Harry and Ron had just finished moving two chairs and a table out of the immediate vicinity of the mirror at Dumbledore's request when Miss Weasley came tumbling through the looking glass and landed none too gently upon the floor on the Divinations classroom.

"Ginny!" Ron yelled as she remained on the floor, not moving nor making a sound.

"Oh, dear!" said Madam Pomfrey, who had been standing with Minerva and Albus beside a comfortable chair in which Severus had collapsed, exhausted by the quick march from the dungeons to the tower. The mediwitch dashed to Ginny's side as Ron knelt and shook his sister by the shoulder.

"What's wrong with her? Is she all right?" questioned Ron as Poppy swished her wand over the prone girl.

"She seems to have passed out," said Pomfrey.

She touched Ginny's robes to find them damp. Her fingertips were red with blood. Her eyes widened and she gasped aloud, but she wasted no time conjuring a magic stretcher and levitating Ginny on to it.

"What happened to her?" asked Ron to no one in particular.

"They must have been attacked," said Severus who was leaning forward in his seat with an uncharacteristically concerned look upon his face.

"Then Remus ...?" questioned Minerva, putting her hand to her mouth.

"Surely they defeated whatever attacked them or Miss Weasley would not have come through the mirror," said Dumbledore logically.

"I'm taking her to the hospital wing. If the others need medical attention ..." Poppy began to say.

"They will be brought to you straight away," nodded the headmaster. "Minerva, perhaps you should accompany your student and contact her parents."

"What about Miss Granger?" McGonagall questioned, obviously torn. She had a responsibility to both girls.

"I will take care of her, if necessary," said Severus. "As she did for me."

Minerva hesitated, looking her much younger colleague in the eye as he made the offer.

How rare it was to hear a Slytherin, the head of that house especially, offer to help a Gryffindor in any way! The animosity ... It had always been that way. It was uncanny for it to be otherwise. Before Severus held the position and before she held hers, Professor Krohn had been just the same. Minerva wondered how Albus had secured Reynard's help before becoming headmaster, what argument or promises he had made to gain the former potions' master's assistance in banishing Grindelwald. She made a mental note to ask him at some later date.

"Believe me, Minerva, I can conjure a stretcher as well as any wizard," said Severus, noticing her reluctance.

"Of course. Thank you, Severus," she finally agreed, turning and following Madam Pomfrey, Ron Weasley, and the stretcher bearing Ginny Weasley out of the tower.

"Come, Severus, you have a date with Miss Granger. And I believe that someone should be waiting for Remus as well," said Professor Dumbledore.

"What about me, sir?" asked Harry, who suddenly had this sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Go with Professor Snape, Harry. He may need some assistance."

~

Remus stepped out of the North Tower slowly, his eyes adjusting to the pale light of the magical torches that burned along the walls, and looked around warily. The tower staircase had been empty and eerily quiet. But not here. Even as he stepped into the corridor, he could hear them, hear their wings moving restlessly. They lined the corridor from one end to the other, like soldiers forming ranks, one long line of them upon his left and one upon his right. They were all looking his direction with their yellow eyes shining in the dim light. Dozens of them ... just standing there ... as though they were waiting for something ... or someone.



Remus felt his mouth go dry as he counted them, keeping his wand raised defensively. He knew that if they attacked, he would be dead in mere moments. The numbers were phenomenally against him. But they weren't moving. The demons weren't making a sound either. They were simply watching him. And he could not begin to fathom why. It was in the nature of these creatures to attack, to kill, and to devour.

He stepped forward and waited for them to react. They remained still. Remus shivered slightly as he continued to walk forward. He wasn't sure how many he could take out before they began attacking, even if he had the first shot. Not enough, he felt. They could move very swiftly. The monsters had proved that more than once, thinking of Ginny and feeling a sudden flash of anger.

Remus wanted to pit himself against them for a moment, but remembering Ginny, he knew that he had to make it past them no matter what it took. He couldn't let his anger overwhelm the more important things, like his feelings for her. And she was depending on him. She was waiting for him.

At the end of the corridor a larger demon, more impressive than those who lined the corridor, appeared, blocking the route to the prefects' bath. Remus froze in his tracks. The demon spread its black, leathery wings and eyed him with a cool, but unnerving gaze, snarling rather menacingly.

"You are a Dark Creature. You are the werewolf," it stated in a guttural voice that made Remus's knees weaken at the very sound.

For a moment he wondered where it had learned English. Then he remembered Grindelwald, who probably spoke that language and many others. Perhaps he had conversed with the hoard. Remus almost shuddered at the thought.

"I am," answered Remus, holding his wand before him.

"They have imprisoned you with us?"

Remus realized his danger. This was obviously a more powerful demon. The others would probably heed his commands. And attack if he instructed them to do so.

"In a manner of speaking," he replied.

The demon bared its teeth as it said, "But you are human too. You have a way out of this place."

"Perhaps."

"We are trapped here forever and can wreak no more havoc in the world of men, but your hands are not so tied. You will go for us."

"Go for you?"

"You are a werewolf, and you have the ability to return and kill and destroy where we have been denied."

Remus knew what the demon was saying. They were not attacking him because they saw him as a kindred being, another creature of darkness. To them he was just another capable killer, evil, dangerous, and no different from them. The thought made him incredibly sad, for when he was younger, he had wondered if such things were true, if a person who was a werewolf was not really a human being, but a Dark Creature who took human form twenty-five days a month, showing its true nature only when the moon was full. Often he had been filled with shame at the thought.

But as he stood there in the demon filled corridor, he remembered Ginny's eyes and her fearlessness.

"Then may I pass? The moon wanes again after this next night. I have not long to spare," Remus told the demon who barred his path.

"Yes! You may go, werewolf, and when you kill and devour tonight, do so and remember us, your kindred in chains."

"I will remember you," said Remus as the demon stepped aside for him.

He struggled to keep his steps even and unhurried as he walked past the monster. As he left the corridor, Remus glanced over his shoulder to see that the demons had gone, vanished down one of the side corridors, he presumed. Remus quickened his paces up the stairs leading to the prefects' bath. It would be many years before he forgot what had transpired in the hallway at the bottom of the North Tower. And it would trouble him.

Several floors below the corridor where Remus had conversed with a captain of demons, Hermione Granger peered out of the trophy room fireplace and listened. It was quiet that she could hear her own heart beating. Stepping from the hearth, she drew her wand and made her way from the room and into the corridor. It was lined with suits of armor and torches flicker upon the wall. Perhaps it was darker that the hall in the world she knew, but it was familiar enough. The location of the secret passageway had been described for her, and, of course, she had noticed it before on Harry's Marauder's Map.

She stole through the hall carefully, counting her way to the appropriate location before slipping between the proper displays of armor.

"Lumos!" she whispered, risking a light to see by.

No one had mentioned how to open the entrance to the hidden passage. She ran one hand over the wall. There was nothing strange nor out of the ordinary about it. It was a wall like so many others in Hogwarts. But she knew that it held a secret. Again she ran her hand along the stones, wondering how she should go about opening it. If Mister Filch used it, she reasoned, then it could be opened without magic or a wand.

Above the sound of her heart drumming loudly in her ears, Hermione heard another sound, the sinister resonance of many flapping wings coming from the stairs at the end of the corridor.

"Nox!" she whispered, dousing the light.

Hermione held her breath as she began lightly tapping the stones, hoping that she could trigger the door before the monsters reached her. She was certain that they were aware of her presence and were coming for her. The sound grew closer and closer. There were so many of them. Hermione could practically feel their heavy feet as they tramped upon the stone. Any moment and they would be upon her. They would find her between the suits of armor and ...

Then the wall opened soundlessly before her and she slipped inside, closing the aperture behind her. She gasped for breath, not realizing that she had been holding her breath in her panic. The sound of wings and feet and hissing breath slowly grew quiet. They had passed. And she remained unnoticed.

Hermione lit her wand again and started down the tunnel. It was cold enough inside that she thought she could see her breath. The passage had been sealed for some time. She waved her wand slowly to the left and right, looking for the room where the mirror was hanging. She almost stepped past it in the near darkness.

She held up her light and braced for possibly attack, but none came as she stepped cautiously into the room. Something white upon the floor of the secluded reading room caught her eye. Her stomach tightened, and she gasped a loud. Bones. A human skeleton lay upon the floor near the table and benches. She stepped around it.

"Grindelwald?" she wondered silently.

Upon the table there were dusty books, a piece of faded parchment, and a quill. Curiosity got the better of her, and Hermione bent over it to examine it. The words scrawled upon the parchment were difficult to make out, written in a large, indelicate hand.

"Another will finish what I have started. There will always be another! Always! Evil does not die! It wanes only to wax stronger. Evil was not imprisoned here. Merely monsters. Merely a man. Always stronger. Until the end of time."

The last words penned by the Dark Wizard Grindelwald before he starved and died in that little room, unable to leave it because of the demons outside and unable to use the mirror without his wand.

Hermione shivered and approached the mirror on the far wall. She took a deep breath and spoke the incantation. Then she was drawn home through its silvery surface.