The Man With No Shadow

Chapter Ten: Ashes

***

Consciousness returned slowly to Harry. As he strove to sharpen his senses, he fought the instinctive urge to open his eyes. If his enemy were watching, it were best he thought Harry still unconscious.

As his mind and body awakened, the first sensation that impressed itself upon him was pain. A dull ache pulsed in the back of his head, a distant echo of the unexpected blow whose impact had plunged him into darkness -- how long ago?

Other pains began to resolve themselves moment by moment. A sharp pain cut his wrists, and this was accompanied by a deep burning sensation in his shoulders. This equation added up to but one conclusion: He was shackled at the wrists and suspended from a height not far above his head (this last made certain because his feet were in full contact with the ground or floor beneath which he hung). Pushing the pain back, Harry opened his eyes cautiously and brought them into focus.

He was in the attic room of Sirius' house. From where he hung on the outer wall, he could see the entire room. The bed whereon Snape had lain was empty. An uncanny silence hovered over all. Where was Snape? He could not have left on his own, of that Harry was sure. The bloodstains on the floor bore grimly eloquent testimony to the destruction of his foe. But Harry knew that a vampire was not truly destroyed until his body had been reduced to ashes. So long as Snape remained whole, the stake could be removed from his heart and his unnatural vigor restored by means of dark rituals steeped in the fetors of hell. Had Snape some personal Renfield who had appeared to strike him, Harry, down and bear his master away? What other explanation for the state in which he now found himself?

But Harry had a more pressing concern. Hermione. Was she still in the room where he had found her? If his attacker were indeed a vassal in Snape's thrall, he would not dare mollest one whom his master had claimed for his own. No, his whole purpose would be centered on the safety of the one he served. Having disposed of Harry, he would have turned his attention to his striken lord. Harry had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. Snape's servant could even now be reanimating his undead master in one of the dungeons hidden beneath the manor. Harry's Muggle-whetted imagination conjured an image of a stooped figure scrabbling about in the darkness far below, lighting black candles while he muttered ancient incantations in the midst of demonic runes painted on the dark stones in his own blood. Harry felt the cold breath of fear on the back of his neck. For his own safety he cared nothing. But he must get Hermione away at all costs. There was not a moment to waste.

Escape was his first priority. Confident that he was unobserved, he set his feet and stood with his back against the wall. The pain in his wrists and shoulders eased as his weight was removed from the metal bands. He craned his neck to examine his manacles. They were of a crude and ancient design, leftovers, perhaps, from darker days when a wretch could be summarily shackled to a wall in a fetid dungeon for something as trival as owing a debt of a few shillings to the wrong person. The manacles were joined by an iron chain, and this had been threaded through a ring of like material ere the bands were made fast to his wrists.

The presence of the ring from which he hung did not surprise Harry. Many dark ceremonies were commonly held in upper chambers, their only witnesses the stars looking down through the open skylight -- and the shackled victims whose blood served as the crucial ingredient in those black masses. Setting his hand to the ring, he tested it without real hope, showing no surprise when it resisted his tentative efforts at dislodgement. Ancient though it was, it was still too strong to be disuaded from its setting by mere human flesh.

Harry's first instinct was to reach for his wand. Even with his hands shackled, this was not an impossible task. Part of his Auror training had been centered on small wandless spells that would not drain his strength overmuch, yet the results of which would outweigh the energy expended a thousandfold. By a simple force of will he could levitate his wand from his pocket and into his hand.

Except that his wand was not in his pocket. A simple shifting of his body told the tale. The stiff shaft of wood that should even now be poking against his ribs was nowhere in evidence. Whoever had knocked him out and chained him thus had undoubtedly confiscated his wand (along with his pouch, which was likewise conspicuous by its absence). That implied that his attacker was a wizard, for a Muggle would not suspect the presence of a wand on an unknown victim. Harry puzzled on this even as he examined his bonds with a practiced eye. Could his attacker have been Geoffrey Suggins? Unlikely though it seemed, he could not rule it out. So far as he knew, all of Snape's other victims had been Muggles. That did not preclude his having attacked others before coming to London in search of fresh prey. But there had been no reports of wizards going missing of late; Arthur was determined that the Bertha Jorkins debacle of seven years ago should not be repeated on his watch. That left Geoffrey as the only confirmed wizard victim. Could Snape have somehow liberated the MLE wizard from his watery coffin in exchange for his servitude?

But those were questions to be answered after he was free. He pondered for a moment, studying his shackles carefully. Rust and corrosion marked them as purely natural in manufacture. Had they been conjured by magic, they would be new and unmarked, like the manacles with which Sirius had bound Wormtail in that fateful encounter in the Shrieking Shack. Harry suspected that they had been procured from the same dungeons where he supposed Snape now lay, in which setting he could easily imagine Sirius' ancestors employing them to sinister purpose on victims both wizard and Muggle. Did he still possess his wand, Harry could have opened them easily with a simple Alohomora Charm. No doubt his attacker thought him helpless for that lack. If so, the fellow would learn his folly in short order.

Arching his neck painfully, Harry concentrated on his right forearm, ignoring the bloody crease made by the edge of his shackles, the pain from which had now subsided to a dull throb. He noted absently that the hammer-charm was missing, having no doubt been removed at the same time as his wand. More proof, if any were needed, that his attacker knew about such magical tools. But it had not been Harry's intention to employ that weapon here. His brow wrinkled with concentration, and a moment later a small pouch leaped up from his sleeve and into his hand. Employing his fingers dexterously, Harry sorted through an assortment of pick-locks, selected one, and began to probe the locking mechanism of his left manacle.

The going was slow and tedious. The manacles, long unused, were stubborn with age and long disuse. But Harry's patience was rewarded when a heavy click echoed through the silence. Giving silent thanks to Fred and George Weasley, Harry pried open the rusty metal cuff until his hand slipped free. He immediately slid the chain through the iron ring, cursing under his breath at the dull clang of metal on metal as the open manacle squeezed through. Chafing his wrist for a moment, Harry quickly opened the other manacle and tossed them noiselessly onto the bed.

But now that he was free, what came next? Without a wand, was he equal to whatever threat lay beyond the attic door?

Harry shrugged defiantly. If an Auror had no more worth than the price of a wand, why not give any witch or wizard the title? Wandless he might be, but he was far from helpless. Nor was he even weaponless, if it came to that. He knew a few wandless spells which, if they depleted his resources to a dangerous level, were yet better than surrendering to defeat or death without resistance.

Harry stepped boldly to the door and turned the knob. Whatever lay before him, it stood between him and Hermione, and no obstacle, magic or Muggle, would keep him from her. Now that Snape was destroyed, Hermione should be out of immediate danger. Wherever Snape was, he was presently in no state to threaten either of them. But that situation would not endure indefinitely. Howbeit, even if his nameless servant were reviving his master at that very moment, the process would require time. Harry must use that respite to take Hermione away as quickly as possible. He would Apparate the pair of them to St. Mungo's, where the Healers would administer a blood-replenishing potion straightaway. With proper care, he told himself, Hermione should make a full recovery. And if she did not -- Harry glanced reflexively at the filament still tied about his left wrist. If she dies, Harry thought fiercely, all bets are off, Snape. God have mercy on you, you bloody bastard, because I'll have none.

Harry crept down the stairs and halted just within sight of Hermione's door. Hearing nothing, sensing no movement, he glided to the door and pressed his ear to the peeling wood panels. No sound met his ears. He turned the knob and entered, his senses wary as a cat's.

To his incalculable relief, he found Hermione precisely where he had left her. Sparing only a cursory glance around the room, he hurried to her side and all but fell onto the bed next to her.

"Hermione!" he hissed. He threaded his fingers through her hair, its texture like liquid silk as it spilled through his grasp. "Hermione, wake up! It's done! Snape is dead! But someone's carried him off, so we're still not out of danger! They could be waking him up any moment! Get up, Hermione! We can't Disapparate inside this house! We have to get outside!"

Hermione's eyelids fluttered. A smile pale as moonlight spread across her face.

"Harry!" she said breathlessly. "Oh, Harry!"

Her arms snaked up to enfold his neck, and Harry pressed his cheek to hers. It was chill to his touch, like an amalgam of silk and marble. He must get her away quickly. He slid his arms under her legs and back, and Hermione tightened her grip on his neck. Her face pressed into the hollow of his neck --

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

Harry jumped back, clapping a hand to his neck. His eyes wide with horror, Harry looked down on Hermione. She sat up slowly, her dark eyes dancing with a feral light as her smile broadened. Her russet-colored lips parted, revealing the tips of two long, sharp fangs.

"NO!" Harry cried, staggering back as he pressed his hand hard against the blood trickling warmly down his neck.

"Yes," Hermione said smoothly, rising to a sitting position.

"But -- " Harry choked, " -- Snape is dead! I drove the stake through his heart with my own hands!"

"And I pulled it out," Hermione said calmly.

"You -- " Harry rasped, his throat dry as desert sand. "How? Why?"

"Why?" she repeated mockingly. "I couldn't stand by and let you destroy my master, could I?"

"Your -- master -- " Harry sobbed. "No -- no -- "

Hermione stood up, though in standing she still must incline her head to look into Harry's astonished eyes. Harry regarded her closely now, and the inhumanness of her aspect was driven home like a stake through his own heart. Her skin was white as milk, made all the paler by contrast with her hair, which was no a longer bushy, untamed chestnut, but sleek, straight, and the color of burnished mahogany. Her formerly deep brown eyes were now midnight black, and the mirth they reflected was steeped in the sulphur pits of Hell.

"I heard you ascend the stairs," she said, her measured tones so like her old self that they mocked Harry's ears. "Heard you enter my master's chamber. I was still alive...just barely...but I was his. His mark was upon me," she touched her neck lightly for emphasis, "and my purpose was clear. I knew I must warn my master. But I was too weak to move, too weak even to call out to him, to warn him of your coming. I could not prevent you from doing that for which you came. I heard his cries, but I could do nothing to help him.

"But I was foolish to think that my master was helpless," she said with self deprication. "And when my thoughts cleared, I realized you had not the power to destroy him. You wounded him sorely, yes -- but you did not -- could not -- destroy him.

"I knew you would return to me," she said, her smile a chastisement of Harry's humanity and compassion, which traits were now alien to her. "When you left my master, he arose and followed you. I saw him come up behind you. You heard nothing, of course," she mocked gently. "You concern was solely with me.

"Part of me wanted to warn you." Her voice was reproachful, bearing a contriteness which Harry knew was not directed at him. "Part of me was still human, and seeing you fanned that flame. But when I saw his face over your shoulder -- when his eyes touched mine -- my will became his will. He knew I was stubbornly clinging to a last feeble spark of life. After he struck you down, he commanded me to surrender to him...to my fate. I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again...I was his. Completely."

Harry let out a mournful sob. Hermione laughed, the sound a mixture of honey and hemlock.

"The weakness of my mortal body left me when I joined my master in death. I rose from my bed and pulled the stake from his heart. He had not the strength to do so himself. He had but recently feasted," she said with a wicked smile as Harry's eyes fell on the tiny punctures on her neck, "and his strength was not yet fully restored following his fast. You drove the stake so deeply that he could not remove it by his own power. But there was no need -- not with his loyal servant at hand." She laughed again, the sound like unto a midnight wind caressing a tombstone.

"That's rubbish," Harry said weakly. "He couldn't have got up and followed me. He was dead. I drove the stake straight through his heart. He was dead! And when he died, you should have returned to normal."

"Yes," Hermione said patiently. "If he had died. You disappoint me, Harry. You refuse the truth, even when it jumps up and bites you." She smirked at her joke. "But you will learn quickly enough. My master will open your eyes...as he did mine."

"Where is he?" Harry gasped, unable, even now, to abandon his Auror instincts.

With an evil smile, Hermione said, "Look behind you."

Harry spun about, his free hand reaching instinctively for the wand he no longer possessed. A black shape stood at the window, its robes dancing in the chill night wind. A ragged tear upon the figure's bosom marked the place where Harry' stake had done -- or, more precisely, failed to do -- its grisly work. Dark eyes peered from beneath the shadow of a black cowl, and Harry reached unhesitatingly for the amulet around his neck whereby to stay his foe's mind control. His hand clutched at empty skin. From the corner of his eye, he could see Hermione laughing silently as she twirled the amulet on her finger tauntingly.

Harry backed toward the door, but he turned his eyes away a second too late; the black figure gestured imperiously with a skeletal hand, and Harry's legs froze as if turned to stone. The figure approached slowly, his features hidden by the cowl surmounting his billowing cloak. The hand that had by its arcane gesture arrested Harry's flight rose slowly, lifted and pushed the cowl back.

In death -- or semi-death -- Severus Snape was hardly altered from Harry's memory of him as a living man. His face was thin and vulture-like, made moreso by his long, predatory nose. Eyes black and lifeless as chips of flint caught and held Harry's.

"Potter," Snape hissed with savage glee. "How kind of you to visit me in my affliction." He essayed a mocking bow. "I am your loyal servant."

Harry's tongue was frozen to the roof of his mouth. He did not fear death. He had faced it many times ere now, and it held no terrors for him. But the prospect of becoming undead, like Snape -- and Hermione -- wrapped his heart in the grip of fingers cold as the those which now tugged the cloak from Snape's spare shoulders and draped it across the back of a chair.

"When I found my own chamber empty," Snape said with a slow turn of his greasy head, "I knew where I would find you. You are predictable to the last, Potter."

The cold amusement in Snape's black eyes reminded Harry forcibly of Barty Crouch's assessment, following the terrible aftermath of the Triwizard Tournament, of the predictability of decent people by which they, and their actions, could be anticipated and thereby manipulated. Playing for time in which he might yet divine a way out, Harry said, "I drove that stake through your heart! I know I did! Hermione admitted it! Why aren't you dead?"

Snape arched a serpentine eyebrow at Harry, as if to say, "Oh, but I am dead, Potter." When he spoke, it was in a voice like the fetid slime coating the mountains of Hell so that the damned could not climb to freedom.

"I'll let the little know-it-all answer," Snape purred, eyeing Hermione in the same depricating manner in which Harry had once seen Lucius Malfoy regard Dobby the house-elf. "In death as in life, I don't doubt that she still revels in demonstrating her knowledge and superiority over her intellectual inferiors."

Approaching Harry now, Hermione said, "I told you you shouldn't come here alone, Harry. If you'd confided your knowledge to one of your superiors, you'd have learned why your mission could not succeed as you'd planned."

"Potter has no 'superiors,'" Snape bit, his acrimony undiminished either by death or his advantage. "Did he not make that abundantly clear all through school?"

"Now, Severus," Hermione said placatingly. "Harry is our guest, after all." When Snape responded with a mocking smile, Hermione turned once more to Harry. "The stake you drove into my master's heart weakened him. But it did not have the power to destroy him."

Taking up the challenge of Hermione's statement as his mind sifted for ways to extricate him from his predicament, Harry said, "That was the stake from the kit Remus gave me. It was pure ash, hewn with a silver edge."

"Ah, yes," Snape said. "The werewolf. I smelled his foul blood on the wind. When I attacked those Ministry fools, I commanded them to discard their signal coins so that they could not summon him. But not before I commanded one of them to summon you in his place."

Harry gaped in spite of himself.

"You -- you wanted me to come after you?"

"I knew that you had recently been added to the ranks of the Aurors," Snape said with a derisive curl of his lip. "It followed that you would be among those assigned to hunt me down. I confirmed this when I questioned that insufferable fool of a wizard in the alley three nights ago. I commanded him to summon you and leave the coin where you would find it before I...availed myself of him, shall we say."

This made no sense to Harry. "That was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it? How did you know I wouldn't tell Kingsley? He knows about this house, and he would have reasoned it as the best place for you to be hiding, just as I did."

The look of utter contempt in Snape's cold eyes intensified. "I knew you would tell no one, Potter. That is your nature, isn't it? To ignore rules and procedure, to place yourself and your selfish desires above the greater good? I knew you would want to reserve the pleasure of disposing of me for yourself alone. I was depending on your arrogance to lead you to me."

"But why?" Harry said uncomprehendingly. "As long as no one knew who you were, you could have hid out here forever. No one suspected that you were the one they sought. You would have remained just another nameless, faceless monster. Why risk everything just to lure me into a trap?"

"Why?" Snape echoed with cruel amusement. "To settle our debt, of course." Harry responded with a confused expression, and Snape's cold laugh hissed again. "Did you not know, Potter? You are the reason that I am as you see me now!"

Harry felt as if a centaur's hoof had just kicked him in the stomach. He wanted to deny that he had any part in Snape's cursed existence, but he was too stunned by the accusation to utter a denial. His silence allowed Hermione to resume her own soliloquy.

"The stake in your kit would have destroyed an ordinary vampire," she said. "But my master is far from ordinary. He is a wizard.

"You'll remember that Moody's report addressed numerous ways to destroy a common vampire. But even he didn't consider that the one we sought might be a wizard. Wizard vampires are rare. None has been seen since before Dumbledore was born. So when I left you in the Situation Room last night, I went straight to the Ministry library to look up ways to kill a wizard vampire."

Rousing himself from his whirlpool of thoughts in regard to Snape's amazing accusation, Harry blinked stupidly, and Hermione flashed a superior smile.

"I promised you I wouldn't tell anyone about our conversation in the Situation Room. That meant that the only way I could save you from yourself was to precede you here and do the job myself. But, unlike you, I came prepared. As I said, the stake Remus gave you was well equipped to destroy a common vampire. But it takes a very special wood to destroy a magical vampire. Even Neville Longbottom could have told you that," she sniped cruelly.

"The most potent wood for the task is that of the rowan tree. After I left the library, I popped into the apothecary in Diagon Alley and bought a small block, which I carved into a stake and placed in my own kit. I couldn't use the same blade as Remus, of course. I would have had to sign it out, and that would have tipped my hand. So when I went home to the Burrow, I transmuted one of Molly's carving knives into silver. Not strictly legal, since an Obliviator doesn't enjoy the same dispensation as an Auror. But sometimes you have to break a rule here and there for the greater good. You taught me that." She smirked, and over her shoulder Harry saw a look of cruel amusement flash in Snape's dark eyes. "I did an excellent job of it, if I do say so myself. My stake would have done what yours could not.

"Fortunately," she said, her dark eyes caressing Snape in a manner that made Harry shiver, "my master sensed my coming and surprised me before I could surprise him. After we 'bonded' -- " and here Hermione tilted her head to display the two dark punctures on her otherwise pristine neck, " -- I used my wand to burn the stake to ashes. There is nothing in this house by which you can do my master harm."

A dull echo sounded in Harry's brain, like a temple bell muted by distance and time. "Where's my wand?" he demanded. "And why aren't you using your wand on me?"

"You really should read more, Harry," Hermione said with a poisonous lilt in her voice. "When I used my wand to destroy my rowanwood stake, I was in my master's power, but I was still alive." She flashed a scornful look at Harry's uncomprehending expression. "Surely you must remember from our Basic Principles of Magic textbook that a wand has no power in and of itself. It's merely a conduit for the magic in the user's blood. Since Severus and I are no longer alive, the magic in our blood is dead. A wand is of no more value to us now than a stick of common wood."

So saying, Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out Harry's familiar holly-and-phoenix-feather wand. She twirled it for a moment before tossing it onto the bed dismissively, enjoying the helpless longing in Harry's eyes at seeing his wand lying so near, yet for all that being as inaccessable to him as if it lay upon the surface of the moon.

Forcing his eyes not to look anywhere near his wand, Harry said, "I suppose you're going to turn me into a monster, like yourselves."

"Monster is such a harsh word, Harry," Hermione said. "The Children of the Night are no more monsters than centaurs or merpeople. Of all the creatures on Earth, who is more free than we? Our lives are endless! We will never die, never become ill...we will never grow old and infirm. We," she said, stressing the word as she pierced Harry's eyes with her sparkling black pools, "will be together forever. Isn't that what you want, Harry?"

Harry did not answer. He was drawing on all his strength, all his force of will, for the one last, desperate act that might preserve his life (and, Heaven willing, Hermione's). Hermione turned to Snape now, her manner suddenly deferential.

"He is yours, master."

As Harry steeled himself for what he must do, Snape's words pierced him like a needle of ice.

"No," he said. "I have feasted tonight -- twice." Casting an accusing glance at Harry, he said, "Most of what I drew from the insufferable little bookworm's body earlier was spilled by your pathetic attempt to destroy me. I was forced to go out and find other nourishment ere weakness overcame me. I could just as easily have remained and sated myself on your lifeblood," he conceded. "But though that would have appeased my physical yearning, my deeper hunger would have gone unfulfilled. That I could not satisfy except you were fully awake to look into the eyes of him who was drawing the life from you, drop by slow, satisfying drop. Alas, the blow I struck you was such that you could not be awakened to enjoy that most satisfying moment.

"And now," he said expansively, speaking as if to none but himself, "it is just as well. I think I shall enjoy even more the look on your face as your precious little Mudblood witch draws your life into her body, until the two of you are evermore one. Thus will you both be my servants for all eternity. And that, I think, will go far to settling our accounts, Potter."

Snape fell silent, his dark eyes regarding his guests with diabolic amusement and anticipation. With a slow nod at her dark master, Hermione approached Harry. As only his legs were rooted by Snape's mesmer, he could have resisted with his hands, could have writhed his upper body snake-like to delay his defilement. But to what end? Hermione's supernatural strength would far exceed his mortal variety, and she was no doubt possessed of her own powers of mental control. Deprived as he was of his amulet, he did not doubt that she could command him to stand passive as a lamb, and fight though he might, her supernatural will would win out. Instead, he regarded her with placid resignation as she approached him, his eyes never leaving hers. She smiled as she leaned in, feeling Harry relax as her hands fell upon his shoulders.

"That's right, Harry," she said as she tilted his head to one side and tugged the neck of his robes away so that the full expanse of his neck was revealed. "Don't fight me. You can't win. And when it's over...we'll be together...forever."

Harry felt Hermione's cool, undead breath on his skin. He felt the prick of the needle-sharp points of her fangs as they pierced his skin for the second time that night. Looking over Hermione's shoulder, he saw Snape smile with demonic triumph as tiny threads of crimson trickled down Harry's neck. Hermione's tongue darted out to taste Harry's sweet fluids --

Faster than an eye could blink, Harry thrust his hand out in the direction of the bed and cried, "ACCIO WAND!" What followed next was a blur. Harry thrust Hermione from him with all the force of his left arm. She reeled back and slammed against the wall as Harry's wand slapped into his palm. He waved his wand over his legs, which came to life on the instant. He leaped aside just in time to avoid being smothered by Snape, whose billowing robes lent him the aspect of a gigantic bat. Harry ducked and rolled, sprang up and raced toward Hermione.

Hermione recovered almost immediately from her impact with the wall. She exploded at Harry like a wild animal, fangs bared, their points tinged with Harry's blood.

"PROTEGO!" Harry shouted. A spell that would have blown out the side of the house instead struck Hermione in the stomach. As with Snape in the alleyway, her inhuman vitality spared her serious injury. Hermione was driven back as by an invisible battering ram. She fell over the bed in a tangle of robes, and Harry leaped after her. But even as he moved, he saw the black shadow rearing up behind him. Snape fell upon Harry in the same moment that Harry smothered Hermione. Twisting his lean body, Harry writhed out of Snape's grasp. Snape and Hermione sprang up as one, their bodies tensed to explode into action.

Harry's left hand was clutching the amulet he had ripped from Hermione's pocket. By its power he was now able to resist the mind control which his opponents even now sought to impose on him. But the tiny bit of silver was not proof against fang and claw.

Acting without thought, Harry feinted toward Hermione, then spun about and hurled the amulet straight at Snape. It smote him on the forehead, and his undead flesh burned where the silver touched it, as if the talisman were a glowing coal of fire. Snape's scream reverberated through the room as he reeled back, distracting Hermione for a moment. But a moment was all Harry needed. With a swiftness his inhuman opponents could scarcely have eclipsed, Harry tugged Hermione's hair from his left wrist and incinerated it. The tip of his wand sucked up the tiny cloud of powdery ash like a vacuum cleaner as its owner's voice rang out in alarm.

"Master!" Hermione cried, feeling Snape's pain empathetically on her own flesh. She jerked her head savagely back at Harry, vengeance burning in her eyes. She leaped.

Even as Harry dropped to his knees to catch up the fallen amulet, he pointed his wand at Hermione. With a sharp jerk of his wrist, he lifted her off her feet and spun her around like a cartwheel as she squealed in helpless frustration. With Harry's wand now 'harmonized' to her personal aura, she was unable to resist the spell. Nevertheless, she continued to struggle like a hornet snared in a spider web.

Harry saw that Snape was shaking off the stunning effect of his would-be victim's unexpected attack. He could not hope to prevail with his focus divided between two opponents. Clutching the amulet in his fist, Harry jerked his wand at Hermione, who was now sobbing as she continued to spin in mid-air with the kinetic force of a Catherine wheel. Her motion halted with a jolt as Harry precipitated her onto the bed with an impact that shook the cobwebs from its ragged canopy. Harry's wand flashed again, and instantly the blankets erupted like a tidal wave and smothered Hermione, wrapping her from head to toe like a mummy. She struggled weakly, her sobs of frustration muffled by her enchanted cocoon. He hoped that, with any luck, she would be too dizzy and confused to summon the focus of will to escape by transformation, as Snape had in the alleyway. How long that condition would last, Harry could not predict. But time was his greatest enemy. Did he not prevail quickly, his foe's unnatural stamina would overwhelm him in the end. He reinforced the spell so that the blankets continued to attack Hermione like a living thing. It tore at his heart to see Hermione in such state, and to know that he was the cause. Even with his own life in the balance, he could not tear his eyes from the bed and the figure writhing helplessly thereon.

And as had been the case earlier, as testified by Hermione's mocking words, Harry's compassion was again nearly his undoing. Tearing his eyes from the bed, he whirled just in time to see Snape flying through the air toward him, fangs bared and eyes burning with fury and hatred. There was no time to turn away, no time to draw breath to speak the Shield Charm incantation, or even to describe a protective symbol in the air between him and his foe. Harry kicked back in a desperate effort to escape the twin rapiers lunging for his throat. He struck the floor as Snape fell upon him. Without magic from his body to transmit a spell through its narrow length, his wand was even as Hermione had described, naught but a useless stick of wood. As well try to hold back a charging Skrewt with a Sugar Quill. Nevertheless, instinct and reflex impelled his hand without conscious thought. Harry's wand came up between him and and his undead foe even as Snape fell full upon him, fangs bared to rip his flesh asunder --

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Harry looked up from the floor, his eyes blurred. His glasses had been knocked askew, the Sticking Charm fixing them to his head faltering in concert with his will. The sight that resolved itself before his watering eyes sucked the breath from his body. Snape was gasping and screaming feebly, his hands clutching at his chest as he shuddered horrifically. Harry's wand stood out from the folds of Snape's robes, its handle barely visible amidst the billowing cloth. Its greater length was lost to sight, buried as it was between Snape's ribs, its point transfixing his black heart.

Snape shuddered violently as blood not his own cascaded from the corners of his mouth and ran down either side of his neck. With a strangled gurgling sound, he collapsed to the floor like a black-robed scarecrow and lay unmoving.

The otherworldly silence that permeated the room thundered against Harry's ears. He lay as if paralyzed, his mind unable to function. After a minute that might have been hours to Harry's numbed senses, a tiny sound broke the stillness. His heart leaped in his bosom.

It was the sound of crying!

"Hermione," he mumbled, dragging himself up in an attempt to stand. His tormented body was having none of it, so he crawled desperately toward the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He fell onto the knot of blankets, which had been loosened somewhat, no doubt by Hermione's struggles in concert with Harry's faltering will as he and Snape engaged in their deadly dance. He peeled the layers away with restrained desperation until Hermione's face was revealed. Stark terror blazed in her glassy, unseeing eyes.

"No," she whimpered, "no, don't bury me...I'm alive...I'm alive..."

Harry pulled Hermione up into a sitting position and wrapped her in a hug the enchanted blankets had been hard pressed to match even at the apex of his spell. She sobbed onto his shoulder, her bushy brown hair spilling out in every direction.

When Harry's comforting embrace had transformed her anguished sobs into quiet tremblings, he asked, "Do you remember anything, Hermione?"

Harry's hands swung Hermione's face up so that he could look directly into her deep brown eyes. As his features resolved before her, she cried softly, without her previous hysteria.

"Snape," she whispered. "He...he...I felt..." Her fingers touched her wounded neck, and she sobbed again. "I couldn't stop him. I couldn't -- "

"What happened after that?" Harry demanded, more forcefully than he might have. "Do you remember, Hermione? Tell me!"

Her face was blank for a long span of seconds. Her dry lips moving soundlessly, she shook her head.

"Thank God," Harry breathed. To Hermione, he said, "It's over. Snape is dead. It never happened. It was just a dream. It...never happened."

Wrapped snugly in each other's arms as they leaned back against the wall, the two young lovers felt exhaustion overwhelm them like a velvet shroud. When next Harry opened his eyes, sunlight was streaming through the open window, painting the room with a sort of dusty hope it had likely not known in generations. He felt the warmth of Hermione's body against his, and he squeezed her hard to assure himself that it was not, as he himself had pledged to her, only a dream. Leaning back, he saw Hermione's face glowing in the sunlight, peaceful and serene in sleep. With a silent prayer of thanks, Harry swung his eyes about the soundless room. He jumped, prompting a drowsy groan from Hermione. He whispered some soothing words into her ear, and she relaxed once more as her breathing became soft and regular again.

Harry's own breathing was the antithesis of Hermione's. He controlled it with an effort as he looked across the room at the disheveled pile of black robes lying not ten feet away. The end of Harry's wand was just visible, protruding from one of the folds. And scattered all about, gleaming dully in the morning light, was an abundance of fine gray ash that was all that remained of the earthly body of Severus Snape.