Snape In Love

Chapter 17

Magic All Around You

I tumbled out of the void on to a plateau of bare rock. Behind me was a sheer cliff face, in front of me a desolate area the size of two Quidditch pitches, then presumably a sheer drop beyond.

Looking to my left, I saw Hermione, groggily coming to and retching painfully. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen. I crawled over to her, trying to ignore the pain in my back, which shot hot fingers of agony along my shoulder blades.

"Hermione!" I urged. "Hermione, are you okay?"

"Mmph," she groaned, slowly opening her eyes and pushing herself up on her elbows. "My head hurts...sick..."

"I know. Concussion, probably. You hit a tree."

"Where are we?"

"I don´t know," I said grimly, "But we have Malfoy to thank."

"That´s Mr Malfoy to you, Halfblood" an icy voice drawled, and I turned to find him standing over us. "Get up, I need to prepare you to meet my master."

I simply glared at him and made no move. He sighed theatrically, taking out his wand and saying,

"Corpus Manaculum!" and I flew backwards to the rock face behind me, hitting the rock wall with a crack that sent more screaming agony across my back. Metal shackles attached themselves to my wrists and ankles. I was powerless, and watched as he did the same to Hermione, her head lolling on her chest as she passed out once more.

"Ah, that´s better!" he said smugly, and, taking an exaggerated bow, said "Excuse me, ladies!" and disapparated.

I struggled to get my breathing under control as the pain in my back slowly subsided to a dull, throbbing ache. After several painful minutes I felt sufficiently recovered to fully take stock of my surroundings. The place was deadly silent and completely barren. The air was still and there was no wind, although there were clouds roiling in the sky, as if a storm was at hand.

I looked for a sign of the sun behind the clouds, in order to help me get my bearings, but there was no sun. And there were no shadows. The light was flat, dead somehow, and I began to suspect that far from being high on a mountainside somewhere, as had been my initial impression, we were in fact outside of the real world, and outside of time, too, perhaps. In limbo. In a world of Voldemort´s creation, and with no way out that I could see.

I screwed up my eyes and wanted to cry out in my despair, but dared not. I had to be strong, for Hermione´s sake. It was all my fault that she had been brought here with me. I looked across at her again, and saw she was still unconscious, slumped forwards, held up only by the manacles, which appeared to be cutting into her wrists. I hoped she wasn´t dead, and stifled a sob of horror as I saw a single drop of blood fall from her nose on to the bare rock at her feet.

I was about to call to her when the roiling clouds turned from grey to green and brown, and a shrill laugh pierced my soul. Terrified, I watched as the form of Voldemort appeared, rising from below the precipice in front of me and gliding towards me, several inches from the ground. He was robed all in black, his hands leathery claws the colour of ancient parchment long unread, with long, hooked, yellow nails, and his face- oh, his face- a nightmare of parched, cracking, weeping skin from which his eyes blazed red, two black slits for a nose, and a lipless mouth twisted into a cruel laugh.

I shrank back against the wall in horror as he approached me, reaching out with one clawed hand to trace my jaw line with his nail, sending fiery agony shooting along my cheek.

"Well, well, well," he said, musingly, in a high voice that dripped pure evil. "So here is Snape´s plaything...how amusing..." He turned his gaze to Hermione, gliding across to her. "And a mudblood, too. I know her..."

"Leave her alone!" I said tremulously.

He didn´t even turn round. With a casual flick of his wrist he muttered "Crucio!" and I was screaming, feeling the white heat of a hundred needles burning into my flesh. I hung forward, unable to recover for many minutes.

When I did finally look up, Voldemort was some distance away, petting an enormous snake which coiled around him like a lover, raising its huge head up to his, yellow and black eyes looking into red as they both hissed in a language I could not understand. Hermione was conscious now, and was looking around her in horror. Voldemort came back to us then, and said in a mocking tone,

"Ah, you´re both back with us, although not exactly in the land of the living!" laughing shrilly at his own joke. "I have a special treat for you now. A- picture show, if you will!"

With a wave of his hand a fissure opened up several feet in front of us from which immediately issued a long wall of water, spurting upwards. Images appeared on the water, as if projected there, and as they formed themselves into recognisable portraits Voldemort giggled chillingly.

"You know, Muggles have a little saying, `Love is blind´," he said derisively. "Well, I´m going to open your eyes!"

Remus and Severus stood before us, in the water, and my heart ached to see my friend and my lover again. Hermione sobbed as the image of softly spoken, gentle Remus transformed by degrees. First his soft blue eyes began to glow, then hair spread across his face while his bones cracked and he transformed fully into a hideous werewolf, red-eyed, yellow teeth bared, growling fiercely as it leapt and snapped viciously. Hermione´s eyes widened in terror, but she did not look away and I felt fiercely proud of her strength of character.

"This is what you profess to love?" Voldemort asked her, running a talon through her hair and down her arm, making her shudder and shrink from him. "Answer me!"

"Yes! Yes, I do love him!" she sobbed, as in front of her the image of the werewolf attacked and eviscerated a sheep. "You can´t make me stop!"

"Crucio!" Voldemort said casually, and her head snapped back as she screamed.

"And you, Halfblood. Let me show you what the object of your lust has done for me. Sweet Severus. Such an attentive lover, wasn´t he? So concerned for your pleasure?"

His breath on my face was rank, and I retched uncontrollably. Smiling, his lips splitting and weeping yellow pus, he waved his hand at the water behind him and the image of Severus projected there took on a bitter, twisted look of triumph as he held up a smoking vial full of a black liquid. Images of people and children suffering the most painful lingering deaths were interspersed with images of my beloved Severus toiling over steaming cauldrons, pale of face, with grim determination etched on his features.

"No!" I sobbed. "You´re lying, he wouldn´t do that!"

"But he did, halfblood, he did! For me! He will never serve you as faithfully as he served me! Shall I enumerate the deaths he was responsible for? Shall I show you your parents?"

I looked at him, aghast.

"What?"

"And your sister...see how she coughed and coughed, and where were you? You didn´t even know, did you, until she´d gasped her last, painful breath...Look, here she is!"

I looked at the water and saw my baby sister, unable to breathe, coughing spasmodically and choking to death while my parents held her helplessly, barely alive themselves. Tears flooded down my cheeks as I watched, and then Voldemort added,

"It is against his nature to create life; he was made to destroy it! Why, he made the potion that killed your family!"

"No!" I screamed, struggling against my shackles, as overwhelmed by grief and rage as I had been sixteen years before. "It´s not true!"

"It is true, I assure you...he may not have administered it personally, but the end result was the same, now wasn´t it? He even made the potion that should have killed him! Would have killed him if not for the mudblood over there...Crucio!" he yelled once more, and Hermione twitched in agony again like a broken marionette.

At that moment Lucius Malfoy reappeared, with a small trembling figure at his side whose silver hand held his cloak around him tightly as if he held something precious to him in its folds.

"Master, the trap is laid. They´re coming. That fool Hagrid had seen me take these two, so by the time I got back there, they were all on their way."

"Potter too?"

Malfoy nodded.

"Good. At last. And you left the Portkey for them to find?"

"Of course, Master."

Turning back to me, Voldemort grinned expansively.

"You shall soon see your lover once more, halfblood! You can watch each other die! While you´re waiting, perhaps you´d like to see how I tortured him?"

I watched, unable to do otherwise, with a sickness in my stomach as Voldemort shared with me the fullest extent of his cruelty, and my heart went out to Severus as I witnessed the stoicism with which he had withstood it. His eyes were so different from the way they had appeared years before, making potions for Voldemort. I knew how he had repented, and how he still hated himself for what he had done. I could not blame him for his part in my family´s death. He had changed, I was certain, free of all doubt, and I knew that Voldemort could not kill the love I had for Severus, no matter how hard he tried.

Hermione at last lifted her head and we looked at one another, an unspoken understanding passing between us. We would withstand this. We would be strong. We would make our loved ones proud. We little knew how soon or how harshly our resolve would be tested.

With a sudden build-up of pressure which made my ears pop, five figures tumbled out of nothing on to the plateau. As they scrambled to their feet, wands at the ready, the wall of water disappeared and the fissure closed. All was silent. Severus´ eyes widened in horror as he took in the scene before him, and Sirius had to grab his arm to hold him in check for an instant in order that he didn´t run to me, and further endanger us both.

Voldemort threw back his head and laughed with glee,

"Oh, how precious! Snape, alongside Lupin, Black, Dumbledore and even Potter!" although, uttering this last name, I noticed him reach into his cloak for his wand. "Stay there!" he commanded, holding out his hand and creating a shimmering silver wall around them. "Nagini dislikes unexpected visitors...and I was just about to feed her..." he said, turning to look at me.

"Nagini here is a product of your lover´s genius. She was an ordinary snake- bigger than the viper that bit you last year- yes, I know all about that- but of normal size nevertheless. Your lover brewed me a potion that increased her size, her loyalty and her...potency. A bite from her can have very, shall we say, noticeable effects." He giggled at me, and I felt ill.

Severus was gazing at me in desperation through the silver ward, and I held my head high for his sake, masking my terror as Nagini slid closer.

Voldemort had his back to our would-be rescuers and so did not see as their desperate attempts at counter-charms to lift the ward succeeded at last. As they broke free of it, Severus ran towards me pointing his wand at Nagini, whose head was level with mine and drawn back ready to strike.

I had never seen Severus use his wand in extremis before, and was breathtaken, in spite of my perilous state. His hair flew about him, his arms were outstretched, rage flashing in his eyes as he roared

"Serpens mortua!" Bright green flame arced from the tip of his wand and struck the snake, incinerating it instantly.

Voldemort, who had been yelling for Pettigrew and Malfoy to come to his aid, screeched out in anger, and before the others could stop him, shouted "Crucio!"

Severus arched his back in agony, screaming out "Argh!" in pain and falling to the floor.

"Be still!" Voldemort warned, and Dumbledore gestured for the rest of the rescue party to comply. I hoped they had a plan, but before I could try to evaluate what that might be, Voldemort had turned to me once more.

"An eye for an eye," he laughed shrilly. "Tell me, does your lover know what you carry in your belly, Halfblood? Answer me!"

"I- I- I don´t know what you mean!" I stuttered.

"Then let me show you..." he said viciously, approaching me slowly, his hand outstretched. A sharp yellow talon touched my chin, drawing blood, and as it travelled down my body it tore through my robes like a scalpel through flesh, leaving searing agony in its wake where it touched my skin. I tried not to scream as I saw Severus look up at me, pain and fear etched on his face. Voldemort´s hand stopped at my groin, almost caressing me, and I felt pain spread around my most intimate place.

"Well, this is well-used, isn´t it?" he hissed, and then inhaled deeply, the slits of his nostrils quivering hideously. "I can still smell your lust for him...and yes, his scent on you, and his seeds within you."

Bunching his hand into a fist, he drew it back until I screamed in agony.

"And look at what we have here!" he said as he threw his arm up and opened his fist, sending an image high in to the empty air where it hung like an apparition. The image was of a foetus.

"Six weeks, I do believe," he remarked, laughing as he saw the stunned expression on my face. I looked at Severus desperately. He gaped at the apparition, and then looked across at me questioningly.

"Severus, I didn´t know!" I shouted.

Voldemort reached up and grabbed the apparition, screwing it up in his hands before hurling it as if it were a ball towards the precipice and into the abyss. I felt more pain then, more agony than I had ever felt in my life. I felt as though Voldemort had cut into me with knives and was stabbing me repeatedly. I felt a hot stickiness between my legs, and rivulets of blood seeped from me. My baby, whom I hadn´t even known existed, had been torn from my womb, and I watched the rock beneath me turn red with my blood as I screamed.

Severus yelled "Nooo!" in a voice filled with a lifetime of anguish and loneliness, and hurled a curse at Voldemort-"Avada Kedavra!"

Voldemort had obviously been expecting such a reaction, however, and the curse rebounded back off him, hitting Severus squarely in the chest. Killing him instantly before my eyes.

I could not breathe. The pain in my womb was as nothing compared to the pain in my heart, in every nerve of my body, in every fibre of my being.

Severus was dead.