Breaking the Chains

Revelations

Sunday morning dawned bright and early, not a hint of cloud in the sky, unlike the heavy clouds of tension and negative feeling hanging over the halls of Hogwarts. England seemed to be enjoying an Indian Summer, which of course was no guarantee that the English were enjoying anything. In fact this glorious Sunday, none of our protagonists are very happy - neither Hermione Granger in her room, nor Harry Potter in the kitchens, and not surprisingly Severus Snape in his office.

All have been awake since before dawn, and the nameless dread that settles in the darkness of night, when the world is silent and empty, had yet to lift from any of the three. However a small stream of delight flowed through the castle with the early-morning sunbeams. Unfortunately it was not as pure as the rays of sun which sped it along, as it was malicious glee belonging to none other than Draco Malfoy. He had been awoken by an owl at the room of his window, delivering a private note. Private because it bore the dark mark on its seal. And after reading it he had begun to plan.

* * *

The cause of Hermione's unhappiness was fairly trivial this morning, when compared to the ordeals she had endured the past few days.

Preparing to skip breakfast and head down to Severus's rooms for an early start - she knew he would be awake - she had remembered to grab the promised copy of Wuthering Heights. Which was the cause of her current distress.

She knew Severus was a proud man, and suddenly began to wonder whether he would consider the Heathcliff parallels (although she had not mentioned them, he was undoubtedly intelligent enough to notice them) offensive. She didn't want to give him any cause to push her away, because she knew that he would certainly try to. A man with a death-wish doesn't like to make emotional attachments.

Which left her with a dilemma - back out and pretend she had forgotten or hand it over? The former option lacked merit because he would sense something was up, that she was lying, and it also galled her, as in seven years she had never forgotten a single item she needed for his lesson. The latter offered almost unrivalled potential for insult and ultimately rejection.

It was quite a dilemma.

And it was particularly upsetting because she had walked away from Potter on a power-induced high, and had returned to her room without feeling the need to dissolve into tears. True she had locked her door securely and slept with her wand under her pillow, but those were precautions she would now take for the rest of her life, and weren't such a bad idea anyway.

Even when she had come down of her trip, she was still left with that residual feeling of confidence and surety. For a person who had always been so fiercely independent and in control of her surroundings, the past few days of self-doubt and insecurity had been awful to endure.

She had so nearly got firmly on the road back to The Way Things Were, only to loose her footing over a book. It was crushing.

But she wasn't going to cry again.

* * *

Snape for his part was sitting in his office working himself into as near a frenzy as a man who has spent all his life suppressing emotion to the darkest recesses of his mind could. That was to say that he was fidgeting in his chair, rubbing his hands together, then interlacing his fingers together, then steepling them under his chin, and so on in a ceaseless display of fluid motion. He was suppressing the urge to pace, to lash out, to attack simply anything and everything.

He didn't pride himself on self-restraint without cause.

For his part the cause of his anxiety was also trivial, had he only known it, as it was the same as Hermione's. Since Saturday morning when she had responded to an invitation to be in his company rather than his command, he had maintained a continuous link to her emotions. He told himself it was necessary to monitor her welfare, however in truth he knew it was because he wanted to possess her mind, body and soul.

But pale reflections of her emotions, reduced and dimmed over distance, was all he could allow himself. It was barely enough.

However, at this moment he was torturing himself with what terrible events could be causing the feelings of indecision, fear, anger, sadness and humiliation currently welling up in Hermione. What was Potter doing or saying to her to make her feel this way?

More importantly, what could he do to help her? Had he pushed her too hard, too early into something she was not yet ready for? Was this his fault? Surely she hadn't been foolish enough to talk to Potter alone? But seclusion was necessary for what needed to be a very private talk.

And so his thoughts rolled on, until he felt Hermione's emotions suddenly lurch. It usually indicated she was moving, focused on not feeling but thinking, suppressing what emotional turmoil was going on inside her head to get on with her daily life.

And in a way the silence was worse.

When he had just convinced himself that her emotional blackout was the result of the situation she found herself in being just too terrible to register, and jumped to his feet to find and save her, Hermione walked through his classroom door.

Snape leapt up and hurried to his office door, managing to get out "are you alright, Hermione?" as he stepped out of the door.

Hermione simply felt confused as she said "Of course."

In what seemed like a heartbeat he had crossed the distance between them and was holding her with one hand on her shoulder and one hand tilting her chin up so she had to look at his face. Despite his proximity and what could have been a very restraining hold on her, she felt no fear, only the concern flowing of him, concern for her.

"Are you sure?" he asked softly. She simply nodded.

"I felt your fear just now, and I thought . . ." for the first time in a very long while, words simply failed him.

He released her chin, and she let her head drop. As she leaned forward into his embrace he put his other arm softly around her shoulder. It seemed an eternity since she had felt so safe, so protected.

"I'm so glad you're safe." He whispered into her hair, followed by a gentle kiss to the top of her head, so light it could have been imagined.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that he actually cared about her, perhaps even loved her, she grasped the front of his robes with both hands and began to weep. She let her legs collapse out from under her, trusting that he would hold her, and she cried, until they ended up as a tangled heap on his classroom floor.

As she wept Snape merely pulled her closer, sensing that to push her away from him now would be a grave mistake. It didn't matter that she was a student, virtually sitting in his lap, or that he, as a teacher, had his arms around her and his face resting in her hair, with the classroom door wide open. All that mattered right now was that she needed him.

She didn't need him as a commodity, or a convenience, or to be used or manipulated then discarded, she needed him as another person. As someone she could lean on, trust in, and not be judged by. It was a long time since he had been required, or rather felt compelled, to give comfort to another human being. And he had forgotten just how wonderful it felt to be needed.

Enveloped in this parody of a lover's embrace, brought about by an act as far from love as was possible to imagine, Snape began to drift away to dreams of the world that might have been, if only . . . Carried by the sweet smell of patchouli in her hair and the warmth of her body he let himself imagine what could possibly be, but never would or should come to pass.

Words of reassurance and love formed on his lips - he wanted to tell her that he would protect her, that he would never let any harm come to her again, that everything would be alright, that she'd never need shed another tear, that he would love her for all eternity, and she never need be afraid again. But he knew those absolute promises were not in his power to make and keep.

So he said nothing, and kept the sweet nothings inside of himself, and simply rocked her gently from side to side, like a little child until her sobs began to subside.

* * *

Down in the kitchens, Harry was eating an early breakfast as the house elves scurried round preparing the four tables for the Sunday morning breakfast that would begin in a little over two hours. He had been sitting in the common room when the House notices for the day had been delivered by a Hogwarts owl. This was common practice to save the teachers work running after students when they were all so busy. Prefects checked the notices and handed the individually addressed ones to their recipients before or at breakfast, and general notices were displayed and pointed out in the common room.

However when the common room was empty, there was nothing to stop Harry checking the notices out of curiosity, which was how he came to find that there was a notice addressed solely to him amongst the bundle.

Opening it curiously his heart missed a beat when he noted it was from Dumbledore. When he read it properly and realised Dumbledore wanted to see him in his office at 10am, he forgot to breathe. This looked bad, despite what Hermione had told him last night, for Harry knew full well that Dumbledore was aware of a great deal of what went on in his school, without needing to be told.

Harry had figured out due to an incident in the sixth year that Dumbledore wasn't infallible, and that when he didn't know he just gave a good mysterious twinkle and winged it. Yet mysterious-find-out-as-I-go-but-clueless and mysterious-didn't-think-I'd-know-that-and-don't-ask-how-i-do-omniscent were so similar in the twinkliness that he could never really be sure.

All he could do was run over his responses, alibis, and remind himself of Hermione's assurance that she had reported nothing to him, and that if he actually knew and intended him to punish him, he would have been dragged of by now.

He was only sure of two things right now.

The first was that there was nothing to do right now but stay out of the way, and show up on time. And brood until then.

The second was that he wasn't letting them throw him out without a fight. This was his home.

He took a casual sip of his morning tea, and sat back.

* * *

Back in the dungeon, Hermione's sobs had finally slowed and her breathing returned to normal. She had cried not for the pain she had felt, but for what she had lost, the innocence, the security, the certainty, the safe haven and the simple view of the world where good won over evil.

She was still holding the paperback that had caused the outburst initially in her hand, and Snape had to prise it from her fist. Looking at his prize, he chuckled softly, the vibrations running through her body, before muttering,

"I see you've brought my homework."

She just sniffed and buried her face in his robes a little further.

He lifted her slight frame easily and set her on her feet, brushing the hair out of her face, but leaving her to straighten her own robes. He extricated himself carefully from his grip, and led her by the hand into his office, and sat her down. He realised she was still shaking, so moved away to pour a glass of calming potion. He always kept a supply in his office, not that children had a habit of going into hysterics in his presence, but should it ever occur he wanted them to end as soon as possible.

Only adding a few drops to water, he handed her the glass and watched as she drank it without even asking what was in the glass.

Once the potion had taken its effect a little she leaned back in the chair and said with a half smile,

"Only calming potion has that distinctive yellow colour and smell of attar."

Snape smiled back, his lip curling in his habitual teaching sneer. "And veneno funus. Its smell is often listed as roses, but that is a misnomer for attar."

"Isn't a detail like that important? I mean, shouldn't they make sure it right?"

"One would think so, but perhaps we share a different worldview to the . . . rest of the world."

"Probably."

"Veneno funus is undetectable one hour after death, so it is a highly illegal poison. This means that very few accredited authors/researchers are allowed to do any research on it, so accurate details are hard to come by."

"Then how are you so well informed?"

"I have a vial, enough for one dose, locked in my rooms. For personal use, were I able."

"Oh, here we go again."

"We did have a deal. I intend to hold you to it."

"I agreed to alleviate your suffering if you helped me get my life back. Does collapsing into tears on your floor look like you help up your end of the deal?"

She was remarkably laid back through this bartering over his life, but then that just showed that he brewed a good calming potion. Just then her stomach growled.

"You should head up to breakfast. Get changed, if I'm not mistaken, those are yesterday's clothes, and come back in a bit. We'll carry on then."

"I refuse to kill you, and you send me away. Slytherins truly are perverse."

She had a wry smile on her face, her head cocked to one side, giving her a rather indolent look, relaxed but intent on him.

"And Gryffindors truly are arrogant. I'm sending you away because you smell."

She made a small noise half way between indignation and disbelief.

"Miss Granger," he continued in mock seriousness, "you should learn that no insult is below my level. Now go."

She went. Grinning. But she went.

In fact, between the calming potion and the knowledge of just how deeply Severus Snape cared for her, she was deliriously happy. Relaxed and satisfied, she walked lightly, which was how she came to collide head on with Draco Malfoy, his goons at his elbows.

"Well," he drawled, "if it isn't a mudblood where she doesn't belong. What's going on here, Granger?"

"Go to hell Malfoy," she spat, more intimidated than she cared to let on.

Malfoy moved a step closer. "On my way, mudblood, but not for a good while yet. What's wrong, am I spoiling your afterglow? Now you've tasted the pleasures of the flesh, you'll have whoever'd take you? Is Snape really that desperate? Desperate enough to fuck the mudblood Gryffindor whore that the worst enemy of his Master had first? Can't make for good sex, you know desperation."

Another step closer. Almost touching her now. Inside she was screaming with fear, pleading to any deity that could hear that this was too unfair, howling for Severus to come and save her.

"Y'know, I'm always available,"

"Not interested." The calming potion was imposing an artificial calm on her manner and features, not allowing any of her inner turmoil to come out. And her equilibrium really seemed to be irking Malfoy.

At a flick of his finger, Crabbe and Goyle moved to each side of her, and Malfoy had pushed her back against the wall of the corridor, when a harsh voice sounded;

"Let her go or die."

No-one who heard it doubted the seriousness of that voice. The three Slytherins moved away to reveal Snape standing there, wand drawn, a look of homicidal fury written in ever line of his face.

"Go." He commanded, and they went.

"Are you alright?" he asked much more softly, pocketing his wand. "What were they up to?"

"I think Malfoy's father must have put him up to testing me and my reactions. It's the support we need for out theory that's totally objective." Thinking was much better than thinking.

Snape nodded, looking at her like she was going to collapse, or cry, or run. So she smiled and told him, "I'm not making your mistake. I'm not going to give them my life in any way shape or form. But I would like it if you walked me back to the tower."

He gave his assent with a nod, and offered her his arm. As they walked, it became obvious that he had cast an invisibility charm around them, because no-one even looked at Hogwart's most hated professor walking arm in arm with Hogwart's brightest star, both smiling.

He stopped just before the portrait hole and murmured, "I'll wait by the corner there. Take as long as you like."

Hermione nodded her thanks, and walked into the tower.

* * *

Harry paused at the stone gargoyle to give the password ('aniseed balls') and stepped on the moving staircase that took him up to the waiting room outside Dumbledore's office. Immediately the door to the circular office opened, and the Headmaster's voice called him in.

"Ah, Harry," he said welcomingly, and pointed to a chair. "we haven't had a chat in ages. How are things?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He was perfectly aware that Dumbledore's demeanour could change at any moment, and that he wasn't safe until he made it out of the room. Not even then. But it was a good start to the conversation.

"As good as they can be when the resident megalomaniac has a hit list with you at the top of it."

"Yes well, but otherwise?"

"Fine, Quidditch and NEWTs are keeping me busy."

"I see. Well there might be one more item to add to that list in the future, if you were willing?"

"Don't see why not." Anything that kept him out of Hermione's way was good in his book.

"You are aware of Professor Snape's role as a double agent, yes, of course you are. Well he has been requested by Voldemort to give you an initiation to the Dark Arts, for purposes yet unknown. We think he is planning something major, something involving these lessons for you. To gain more information, we need to play along. Voldemort had no way of verifying what goes on in the lessons, but he can tell if you have them.

"So what I plan is to set up the lessons, and have Professor Snape instruct you in some more obscure methods of defence, to give Voldemort the impression that Professor Snape is following instructions. With your agreement of course."

"Sounds like it could be interesting."

"Good I'm glad you see it that way. I know the two of you have your differences, but we all have to make sacrifices to get along."

Harry just nodded.

"Well I expect you have Quidditch practice or some such thing."

"Yes, I do."

"Then don't let an old man hold you up."

"Good day, Headmaster." With which words Harry got up and left.

Dumbledore stared after him with a worried look on his face. The boy was relieved to be going, which meant he had something to hide, and his manner had been withdrawn, indicating he hid it out of guilt and fear of discovery.

He didn't know what it was, but he had an idea. Severus had not divulged the identity of Miss Granger's attacker, apparently she had refused to tell him a name, but Dumbledore was sure that Snape knew.

And now Dumbledore had a feeling he knew too, and he didn't like the conclusions that feeling led to.

He didn't like them at all.

* * *

Snape waited patiently for half an hour for Hermione to emerge once again from the Gryffindor tower. He escorted her back to his rooms where they began working on their theories and research again after a proper breakfast.

It was to be the start of a pattern of co-working that was to settle over them in the weeks to come, work that looked as if it was going to be highly fruitful.

And it was only that evening after Hermione had gone, if the feeling of her in the room had not, that Snape realised what had happened today.

Instead of pushing her away as he intended, dissuading her from loving him, he had pulled her closer to him, and lost the last vestiges of his reserve in the process. From here on in, they were inexorably linked.

He smiled as he felt her emotions free-fall into sleep. When men make plans, the gods just laugh.

* * *

Hermione slammed the book shut, letting out what could only be described as a heartfelt sigh, and sat back in her chair.

From her desk at the door, Madame Pince gave her a stern glare. Hermione returned it with equanimity. The library was virtually deserted on account of it not only being . . . well . . . the library, but this was also the last weekend before the Christmas holidays began, and all third years and above were in Hogsmeade, catching up on shopping. Hermione had chosen her moment carefully for privacy, tucked well away in the restricted section, and did not like the fact that Madame Pince had set up the system of library mirrors so that she could keep an eye on even this secluded spot.

After seven years of dedicated study and good behaviour, Hermione felt she was entitled to a little lassitude, including the slamming of at least one book when necessary, and resented the intrusion. To block it out from her end she lowered her head to the desk and flipped her hair over her head, letting it cascade down onto the polished wood surface.

How had this happened? How had this ever happened? She had been so sure that this could not happen, and yet here she was, in the library, slamming books because it had happened. The more important question was what on Earth was she going to do now, but at the moment she was still hung up on how?

Well, that was a stupid question, she knew how. What she didn't know was how it had gone so wrong.

After that Sunday where she had cried in Severus's arms things had calmed down somewhat, as her emotions had begun to settle into a more stable form. She had still been low on occasions, the disbelief at what happened making her feel cold and hollow inside sometimes late at night, but for the most part it was an upward journey, without too many downward slides to recover from.

The fact that she was working the majority of her walking hours had undoubtedly helped, as did Snape's virtually unquestioning acceptance of any idea she got into her head, even concerning him.

Which was how she had ended up unpacking the boxes kept in what she called the bedroom, and he called the storeroom. It had started when she had needed an antiquated piece of equipment, a whirring hygrometer, that had yet to be unpacked, and was lost in the sea of cardboard.

Due in no uncertain measure to a good dollop of curiosity borrowed from Crookshanks, she had soon stopped looking for the hygrometer and had just started sorting through the boxes. Several days later she was still sorting through the boxes, and because it seemed such a shame to pack Severus's life away once she had uncovered it, she began to transfigure pieces of furniture to fill the room, and place his things on.

It had all begun fairly innocently when she had discovered a collection of polished stones, which turned out to be an assortment of carvings in obsidian, fluorite, jade and nacre in Celtic designs, covered in runes. They had captured her interest and imagination, given that Arithmancy was one of her favourite subjects, and she had asked him about them.

It turned out that they were not magical artefacts, but works of art, created by Severus's sister. He had told her, fairly grudgingly, that his sister had been a Hufflepuff who held no higher ambition in life that to be an artist. The symbols themselves were accurate, but their combinations based more on aesthetics than on meaning, and the designs came from Thaliae Snape's mind and memories rather than a book. He explained that he had come into possession of them as once their parents had discovered this 'unsuitable' aspiration, Thaliae was banned from continuing her artistic pursuits and told to think about a sensible career, or getting married well.

The house elves had been instructed to search Thaliae's possessions when they tidied her room, and when following such direct orders, however much they liked the 'Young Mistress Snape' were obliged to ferret through all her hiding places. Very soon after her OWLs, which of course she passed with high grades, Thaliae began giving her finished works to Severus or destroying them. The house elves had duly ignored the art collection in Severus's room, as they had no orders concerning that, and thus proved that it does pay in life to have friends in low places.

So when Severus had left his home after what had presumably been one hell of an argument (he refused to say for certain), he had taken them with him. This was also how he had a portrait of himself and his sister sitting on a riverbank one summer's day, simply enjoying life, radiant with happiness. The beauty of the piece had taken Hermione's breath away, as it had been painted with such feeling. It had been a deliberate gift to Severus from Thaliae for Severus's eighteenth birthday, and the story behind the painting only made her love it all the more.

Thaliae had been two years older than Severus, and on leaving Hogwarts had taken a job in the Ministry to support her while she pursued her dreams of being an artist, and had refused the virtually arranged marriage into which her parents had tried to push her. From that point on, while Thaliae was not disowned, she was unwelcome at home, and the few occasions she visited were distinctly uncomfortable for all concerned.

However when Severus had reached the age of eighteen, he had received an allowance left to him by his grandfather in his last will and testament. As he had already been receiving an allowance from his parents since the age of seventeen, Severus had instructed Gringotts to transfer the entirety of his annual allowance from his grandfather to Thaliae. While he might have liked the money to keep up with his opulent friends, it meant Thaliae could leave the job she disliked and follow her heart.

The painting had been a record of the day when Severus told her what he had planned to do for her, and under the blazing summer sun, Thaliae had told him that whatever happened in the future, she would never forget his gift, and never turn him away. Looking back, he had said, it was almost like she had had a premonition of what was to come, but then, since his encounter with Lupin in werewolf form in the fifth year, the signs had been there to see. In fact it wasn't long after he left school that he became a fully fledged death eater.

But when Hermione had asked what had happened to Thaliae, Severus had just shaken his head sadly and said that the war had caused a lot of disruption and he had lost touch. He knew that she was alive, and that she had chosen to leave the British Wizarding community for pastures new some time after Voldemort's first downfall. The money was still transferred to her account by Gringotts and withdrawn regularly, which he took as an indication that she was carrying on with her life. Despite her promise of returning the unconditional love and acceptance he had shown her, Severus never felt that he should look up Thaliae. She had always been so peaceful, happy, and enamoured with the beauty she found all around her, that he did not want to bring his darkness into her life. She had been one of the things he forfeited voluntarily as a part of his penance. A penance which he had yet to succeed in completing.

The carvings were not the only echoes of his past Hermione had found - there had been a whole box filled with photographs of Severus and Thaliae growing up. Seemingly part of the disowning process had involved his parents removing every single written or photographic shred of evidence that Severus had ever existed from their house. Rather than leave them to be burned, he had boxed and reduced them and never looked at them again.

Hermione had other ideas however, and had procured several photo albums, beginning to sort the photographs into a time-line of Severus Snape's life. She had discovered a neat little spell in the library that caused a photo to declare the date and location of when it was taken, and by casting 'enarro' on the photos en masse, was able to sort them into a chronological order. She transferred one to each page, and neatly recorded the details of place and date in gold lettering by the side of the photograph.

It was by doing this that she discovered that Severus had visited nearly every European country, as well as Russia, India, and Egypt. He had, however, never visited America, as Hermione had. The summer before she began at Hogwarts her parents had surprised her with a trip to Florida. And although the perkiness and fabricated nature of the theme parks would not normally be her thing, she had loved every minute.

At ten she was just tall enough to get on the rides, and she threw herself whole-heartedly into enjoying the parades of Disney characters and discovering every single one of the tourist traps that were there. She loved everything about that holiday, from the grand displays of fireworks and laser shows (novelties back them) right down to the way the maintenance workers had doors marked 'Cast Only'. But in a strange way it had marked the end of an era, as she suspected her parents had expected it to.

The following September she had departed on the Hogwart's express to a new world, and although the physical journey only took her a few hundred miles north to Hogwarts, it marked the beginning of a journey that would eventually remove her entirely from the world her parents knew. Not that she knew it at the time, but she knew it now.

So it had been with some trepidation that Hermione had asked how Severus's parents had treated him during his childhood. The reason for the visits to all over the world, but not America, was that his parents were (and probably still are, he added wryly) incurable social climbers. In the holidays they toured the world on invites from moneyed friends and distant relatives, attending soirees and cocktail parties and formal balls. They also hosted a good few at the estates they owned in Britain and overseas.

Severus had been expected to behave impeccably at these events - to speak politely and clearly, to act with proper courtesy and decorum and restraint at all time, and to dance perfectly. But beside from the lessons growing up in manners and dancing and proper behaviour, he had basically been left to his own devices, and had had full run of the library. He had been bought a wand at the age of six, illegally of course, and had practised magic from that day on, avoiding the Ministry regulations by dint of the Underage magic regulations only applying to those aged 11-17 still at school. Of course had he been found with a wand, his family would have been in serious trouble. But he wasn't Slytherin for nothing and this simple deceit hardly fazed him at all.

So by the time he came to Hogwarts he was by far the most able first year, and knew enough curses to keep those who thought he was a geek away. Within the first term he was known as the quickest draw in the school, shooting with a double barrelled weapon of cutting sarcasm or highly unpleasant hexes. In the case of Gryffindors he tended to use both, just for good measure.

After hearing this Hermione had decided not to include the stiffly formal family portrait in the album, and tucked it in the back cover instead.

At first she had merely stacked the albums on the floor, but after discovering a tiffany lamp, she had transfigured a wall-dresser in art deco style and arranged the carvings around the lamp, and lined the leather bound albums up, so the years they included were displayed on the spines.

Another notable find among his possessions had been a crystal ball. With definite amusement he had told her that at the end of his second year he had chosen his elective classes without reference to his parents, and they had included Muggle Studies. However when his parents had looked at his book list the following summer they had told him that studying anything about the Muggle way of life was pointless, and forced him to change courses. But by the time he had got in contact with Hogwarts, there were only spaces on the Divination course left.

This had led to an eventful study of the arts of divining the future, which ended when the professor involved had refused to have Severus back for the fourth year on account of his extreme scepticism clouding his inner eye, and Severus had taken up Muggle Studies in his fourth year. Hermione and Severus had both spent quite a while comparing stories of divination horrors, and one particularly amusing story of Severus's about floating tealeaves, enchanted to talk and deliver dire predictions from their cup and saucer had Hermione in stitches.

My mutual consent the crystal ball had been repacked and shoved in a corner, on account of neither of them really wanting to remember their failures at divination. When Hermione confessed that she had given hers to Neville after he broke his by letting it roll down the stairs to the boys' dormitories, Severus took the chance to get it out of his life for good, and donated it to 'the worthy cause that is Longbottom, as recompense for seven years of insults. I hope he enjoys it as much as I enjoyed the insults.' Despite herself, Hermione had laughed.

She supposed that the determination to study the Muggle way of doing things accounted for the collection of vinyl records he owned, along with the record player, which did not work. He told her that at his former home all that had been needed was a simple enchantment on the plug to supply a perpetual source of current to it, and it did not matter that there was no electrical connection. However at Hogwarts, the atmosphere was so charged with magic that the power was drawn right out of the device and dissipated to the nearest spell caster, so the record player had never worked since he had moved here.

Hermione though it was just one more indication of the darkness, actual and metaphorical, that he had found himself in for all these years.

The record player itself had posed no real trouble when she considered the problem long enough, and inspired by memories of Captain Kirk aboard the starship Enterprise, she designed a magical 'force field' that protected the device from the surrounding magic and drew enough in to actually power it, thus killing two birds with one stone. Once it was fully functional the player was moved into the main room, and stood on another piece of Hermione's specially designed furniture along with the records, and needless to say, they derived a good bit of use from it.

Of course not all of the time had been spent sharing histories, or rooting through Severus's belongings, and these moments of sitting together amidst an ever decreasing pile of cardboard, close, but never touching, had formed the much needed breaks in the countless hours of research and calculations that took up most of their time together.

In a little over two months the work had progressed at quite a rate until they had reached a stage where practical testing was necessary. Eventually they had surmised that the curse which had rebounded on Voldemort had not been totally ineffectual against Harry.

What the ancient magic had done was not to render the curse ineffectual, but to establish a connection between man and boy where some spark of life that had been killed in Harry was replaced by a part of Voldemort's energy, a process which had transferred a good few of Voldemort's powers over to Harry. The measures Voldemort had taken to gain immortality had prevented this transfer from resulting in his death, and left some aspect of physical form attached to his spirit; while Harry had received a scar that would not heal because it was not truly a part of him, so would always stand out.

Between them and the texts provided by (unbeknown to either) Dumbledore they worked out the exact nature of the connection that still existed, and had finally succeeded in ascertaining the method Voldemort was using to exploit it. This had been done by endless reams of arithmantic charts and equations, exploring the probability of every scenario; as well as extrapolating the effect each scenario would have on the magical flows within Harry, and comparing this to what Hermione saw.

Now they had an answer to how Harry was being controlled, they were fairly sure they could turn it against Voldemort; all they were lacking was details of his ultimate plan for them all.

In short, they were on a roll.

Yet the past months had not been all self-congratulation either. Servers had been summoned to Voldemort on five occasions, the first just after Hermione's encounter with Malfoy, where due to the calming potion, she had appeared distinctly un-traumatised. Voldemort had not been happy - assuming Severus had done too good a job in helping her regain a balanced outlook on life - and more importantly restored her academic focus.

He had seemed mainly concerned that Harry would be able to check the information Voldemort was filtering into his brain, and Severus left him blissfully unaware of the real danger Hermione's intellect posed to him. Despite Severus's assurances that the truce between them was for show only, that it had been necessary to prevent suspicions being raised, he had been badly tortured. Barely able to walk, he had staggered back to his rooms, where Hermione had been waiting (this time with his permission), and would have collapsed except that he felt fainting into a female student's arms was somehow shameful.

Hermione had done her best to heal him, and soothe him, until he actually fell asleep this time, his head resting in her lap, pride and dignity forgotten in face of the simple comfort she offered.

Another such of these occasions had been after Harry's first 'dark arts' lesson. The lesson itself had followed an unexpected path, with Harry, most likely with a wish-list courtesy of Voldemort had asked Snape to teach him the 'Metus' series of hexes, that caused the victim to see and feel the things that they feared the most. Snape had been wary on account of these spells having little defensive value, and had deliberately mis-taught Harry the spells. Almost immediately after the unproductive evening had ended, Voldemort had summoned Severus to him and demonstrated the proper casting of every single Metus.

The things that Severus had murmured about in his sleep that night still made Hermione's blood run cold. But the reason he had been so distraught that night when he returned was that the some images he had seen had involved Hermione being harmed and killed while he stood helpless by, forced to watch, or even participate. No doubt he felt he had exposed her as even more of a target than she already was, put her in danger, but as she whispered to him once he was asleep, she was glad he cared; that that was the most important thing to her.

That first dark arts lesson was the only one she had observed, invisibly of course. Severus had invited her along to watch him have 'a little fun humiliating Potter', which he had, and then had paid for. She had gone to watch out of curiosity, and truth be told, a malicious desire to see Harry get his comeuppance.

Part of her recovery had centred on shifting the blame for everything that had happened, to her, to Severus, to Harry, to most people around her to Voldemort. Intellectually she knew that Harry didn't deserve her hate, but that changed very little for her. She had forced herself to act as if she had forgiven him, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Voldemort must be working on something that had already been there in Harry's mind, magnifying it out of all proportion. That in some small part the responsibility for his behaviour lay with Harry and Harry alone.

She supposed she would never know the truth.

But she knew that when she sat next to Harry in lessons, or was shut in the same room as him like that lesson, her breathing wanted to quicken. She was always fighting down a panic when she was near him, not that Harry would attack her, but that Harry would not be strong enough to resist Voldemort, and Voldemort would attack her. She took her security from the presence of others, and not from faith in Harry, or his regret.

Hence whilst she blamed Voldemort for raping her, she blamed Harry for being too weak to fight for her, and for covering his tracks so thoroughly. He was still everybody's golden boy - their hero and last hope of their saviour. She blamed him because he fought Voldemort for Dumbledore's stone, for Ginny's diary, for Cedric's proper burial, and won; but for her honour, her sanity, her virginity, he didn't fight hard enough.

And so she went to no more 'lessons', and began to sit Ron between herself and Harry during lessons.

But despite all that had passed, all the water under the bridge, she was back where she had started, alone, lost and scared with no-one to talk to or confide in. All the hours in Severus's company seemed to have become meaningless, now that it had all gone so wrong, once again.

She was saved from a descent into total depression by a hand gently lifting the curtain of hair with which she was shielding herself.

"Pulling another all-nighter? That can't be good for you?" questioned the soft voice she had come to love.

Reluctantly she looked up at him, briefly meeting his eyes, before looking down again at her hands folded on the desk before her. But that brief glimpse was all Severus needed to see something was terribly wrong. The imprints on her forehead said she had been sitting like that for quite a time, and the desperate sorrow and hurt in her eyes was all to clear.

Moving around her he took the seat next to her, so as not to tower over her, and asked in a voice full of concern,

"What's happened? What's wrong? Hermione?"

When no answer was forthcoming, he gently placed a hand under her chin, tilting it up so he was looking at her directly, before adding, "You can tell me anything, you know that don't you?"

A few more moments of forced eye contact, and she opened her mouth uncertainly, appearing to have difficulty finding the words she needed. After swallowing several times she whispered, barely audible,

"I'm pregnant."