Lost

Lost

Chapter Thirteen

Severus was sitting in his dormitory reading a book. Most of the other Slytherins were frantically searching for their things, after leaving their packing for the last minute. In his typical fashion, he had finished days ago, although he had to admit that most of his eagerness had to do with his extreme excitement about leaving. Ever since Hermione had agreed to move in with him, staying at Hogwarts seemed like torture. He still spent the nights with her, but the knowledge that soon they wouldn´t have to sneak around, or deal with gossiping students made their treasured nights together seem like a cheap compromise. So he had packed his things early, hoping that it would some how make the time pass quickly. It hadn´t; it just left him with a surplus of free time.

So, he was sitting, again, on his empty bed, reading. Not that he had been able to get very far in the book. It seemed that every time he got into a good groove, someone would burst in, looking for sweaters or shoes or some such nonsense. It had gotten to the point where he, in extreme annoyance of being disrupted, almost reduced a first year into tears, which was a considerable feat considering the famed stoicism of Slytherins. Of course, that had only led to more distractions. Mere moments after the boy had left his sister, a fifth year with a very short temper, had stormed in demanding to know what he had done to her brother. The row they proceeded to have was actually a somewhat entertaining diversion. At least she had been a fairly competent sparing partner. Still, she had gone a quarter of an hour ago, and left him, once again, to sit edgily in the silence of his room.

With a grunt he got to his feet and headed towards the dormitory door, deciding that he would go mad if he sat there any longer. With the briefest of nods to his housemates he climbed out of the portrait hole and into the dim dungeon corridor. Not quite sure of where he was going, Severus contented himself to simply wander towards the rest of the school. It was a welcome change of scenery, and he felt as if time had sped up from its previous crawl. Without even realizing it, he found himself outside, about to enter the rose garden. After a moment´s thought, he turned to his right, deciding that he would rather walk by the lake then the garden. Just as he was about to set off, a frantic voice made him spin around.

"Severus!" Narcissia Gruber, Lucius´ Ravenclaw girlfriend, was running towards him with a horrified look on her face. He watched as she drew near, gasping for air, as if she had been running for some time. He was slightly confused as to why she was calling after him, they had always been civil to each other, but seldom spoke when not in the presence of Lucius.

"Narcissia, are you alright?" He was growing concerned as she finally ran up beside him; the look on her face was enough to make his stomach drop.

"No..." she was panting, making it hard for him to understand, "Potter... Mya... tree... you´ve got to get there!"

Severus narrowed his eyes, and grabbed Narcissia by the shoulders looking straight into her eyes. "Tell me again, slowly."

She took a long, shuddering breath. "I was looking for Lucius over by the Care of Magical Creatures paddocks, and I came across Potter and his friends. Mya was with them... I don´t know what happened, but a minute later they had her tied to a tree."

He could tell by expressions that she was telling him the truth, unconsciously tightening his grip on her shoulders he asked, "Which tree?"

"The big one... next to paddock five." As soon as the words were out of her mouth he took off running as fast as she had been moments before.

He hoped that he was simply rushing to make a fool of himself, that she had misread the situation and that the boys were simply joking around. The way which Narcissia had run up to him told him that wish would go un-granted. As much as Hermione trusted the Gryffindor boys, Severus could never allow himself to drop his long running suspicions about them. The way in which Black had almost killed him made his distrust grow even more. No matter what Hermione said, those boys were dangerous.

A few minutes later he found himself at the paddocks. He slowed his pace and tried to be stealthy as he made his way over to the big tree by paddock five. If something was really going on, he didn´t want to announce his arrival. Coming around the gate behind the paddock, he saw ropes circling the large oak. He narrowed his eyes and creptcloser, wand out, straining to hear any sort of conversation.

In his effort to hear voices, he tuned out two pairs of softly approaching footsteps, and before he could do anything about it, Lupin and Pettigrew had him tightly by the arms. He tried to wrench out of their grasp, but combined they were stronger than he was, and forced him to walk forward, in front of the tree. Severus growled as they rounded the corner. Potter and Black were standing there, wearing identical smirks, as they watched a helpless Hermione struggle against the ropes binding her.

"Let her go." Severus said dangerously, as if he was in control of the situation.

At the sound of his voice, Hermione started and turned in his direction. There was obviously a silencing spell over her, as it appeared that she was trying to speak, but no sound was coming out. He tried to give her a reassuring look, but she just kept screaming something inaudibly.

"I don´t think so, Snape," Black´s voice called out. With great effort Severus tore his eyes away from Hermione and looked in the boy´s direction. He was sneering, but there unmistakable amusement in his eyes. "Besides, this is your fault."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He tried to lunge at the other boy, but the werewolf and Pettigrew held him strong.

"You took her away from us, Snape. Now, we´re returning the favor." It was Potter who spoke this time, closing the space between them. "We know all about her little secret. Not that she would ever tell us... you´ve got her so brainwashed that she´s even starting to act like a Slytherin."

"Excuse me, but I´m not the one who´s tied her to a fucking tree," Severus growled, sending Potter a deadly look.

"We´re doing her a favor!" Black said, pointing at her. "It isn´t safe for her to be around you, Snape. You´ll probably get her killed, and we´re not going to let that happen." He walked up and placed a hand on Hermione, who looked at him in absolute terror. "It´s okay, love, we´re just sending you home."

Severus cringed as Black used one of his favored pet names, and took satisfaction in the fact that she did as well. Black turned around looking ready to continue the dramatics, when Potter stepped in front of him. "Come on, man, we don´t have much time." Black looked slightly put out, but nodded in agreement.

They turned to look at Hermione, pulling out their wands. Severus started yelling in protest, but they didn´t listen to him. They both took deep breaths, and started a long incantation Severus had never heard before.

"Chronos! Er utuf ehtot kcabreh ekat, ot nevesy teninneet eninht neet ruofreb metpes!"

The stench of dark magic was heavy in the air, as red sparks shot from their wands. They enveloped Hermione completely, thickening to a sort of red mist. Her eyes went wide and she started screaming again, pulling frantically at the binds that held her to the tree. Severus broke finally broke free from the Gryffindors, who seemed to be at a bit of a loss, as if they hadn´t truly expected the spell to work. He tried to get through the mist, but it pushed him back and to the ground. On his knees, he stared up at the writing figure of his lover, feeling more helpless than he had ever felt. She caught his eye, and they stared at each other as the fog thickened and coagulated to the point where it was a syrupy wall. A moment later, the wall cracked and fell away, but Hermione was no longer inside.

Severus sat in shock for a moment, not ready to believe that she was really gone. Then, with great effort, he turned around to face the bastards that had done this to him. He wasn´t surprised to see that they had fled the scene, but Severus knew that no amount of running would protect them from him. He glanced back longingly at the place where she had just been before tearing towards the castle, bent on bringing her so called friends to justice.

Bent on brining her back.

~*~

Harry walked next to Ron down to Care of Magical Creatures without talking. It had only been a week since Hermione´s disappearance, but they already felt as if she had been gone forever. Sirius and Remus had explained the situation to them many times, but it was still hard to believe that Hermione had gone back in time. It seemed so surreal... but the men had pictures to prove it. It had been one of the strangest moments of Harry´s life, looking at a picture of his parents and Hermione, laughing and waving from the past. Sirius and Remus told them a lot about their time with Hermione, but Harry was sure that they were skipping over something. It was a fairly awkward something if the looks the men gave each other were any indication. Despite their funny stories about their school days, there was an ominous feeling overshadowing the whole thing. According to Sirius she had disappeared from their time the day before graduation, someone had cast a spell on her, and to this day they were not exactly sure what the outcome of that spell would be. Dumbledore seemed to be fairly certain that she would simply turn up in the proper time after a few months, but it was the fairly that worried Harry and Ron.

They reached the paddocks and looked around at their fellow Gryffindors, who were all unusually subdued. The nature of Hermione´s disappearance was strictly confidential, which meant that the whole school knew about it, and it had hit their house pretty hard. While they all had secretly wished for Hermione to leave them alone at one time or another, her continuing absence was unsettling to all of them. They never would have admitted it, but Hermione was the one that kept things running smoothly in the tower, and they were all somewhat lost without her guidance.

Ron was the worst. It was no secret that he fancied Hermione, although after three years he still refused to admit it to her, and he had been positively broken at the thought of going for ten months without her. In the past week he had spent a lot of time moping around the common room, petting Crookshanks and muttering things about her under his breath. The fact that Sirius and Remus absolutely blanched when Harry had innocently asked if Hermione had dated anyone in the past, and refused to say anything other than she had didn´t help Ron´s temperament.

Hagrid started on the lesson, but he seemed as distracted as the class was. He´d had a soft spot for Hermione ever since she had worked to help Buckbeak back in their third year. Even the fact that they were studying a very rare crossbred flobberworm/blast ended skrewetcouldn´t lift the large man´s spirits. After saying hello to the class he started in on his lecture, which was much less colorful than the class was used to.

Half an hour later they broke off into small groups to discuss possible food sources for the beast Hagrid had dubbed a Besflobb. Dean and Neville joined Harry and Ron near the large oak tree, and they worked quietly in the shade. Their peaceful studies were brought to a halt when a large red thing appeared out of nowhere. They jumped quickly away from it, as the obvious sounds of screaming came from within. The rest of the class rushed over, and they watched as the strange cocoon type thing started to shake and crack. The screaming stopped after a minute, as the thing really started to disintegrate. The class looked on in absolute shock as the red thing crumpled completely, leaving the body of a woman lying prone in the grass.

With her hair in short, glossy ringlets and her being clad tight fitting seventies clothing, it took Harry a moment to recognize her. "Hermione?" He whispered, drawing close to her, with an air of disbelief. Kneeling down, he pulled her up by the shoulders to lay across his knee, stunned at what he was seeing. A moment later Ron was by his side, picking up the unconscious girl. "Pomfrey," he grunted to Harry, the concern evident in his eyes. Harry nodded and they scrambled to their feet, completely forgetting the rest of the class.

The boys walked as fast as they could without breaking into a straight run. Their only concern was getting Hermione to the hospital wing as soon as possible. Dumbledore had admitted to knowing very little about the dark spell that had been used on her, those twenty years ago. They had assumed, from some eye witness account, that it was designed to send her forward in time, and obviously they were correct, although they were not expecting her until the ending of the school year. This unexpected turn led them to be even more concerned, wondering what else would be unanticipated from this curse. Ten minutes later they were standing in front of the hospital wing, waiting for Madam Pomfrey to open the door.

"Yes? What is it?" She asked as she opened the door. "Oh, my!" She spotted Hermione and pulled Ron into the room, directing him to place her on one of the empty beds. "One of you, go get the Headmaster," she said, not looking up from her patient. The boys looked at each other for a second before Harry took off back into the halls; it was obvious that Ron didn´t want to leave her.

It seemed, however, that it wasn´t really necessary; nearly as soon as he left the Hospital Wing he ran into Dumbledore, who was followed closely by Professor Lupin and the large black dog that was Sirius Black. The Headmaster smiled kindly at Harry, directing him to turn back the way he had come. With a somewhat strained voice Harry told them about the red cocoon and how he and Ron had rushed her to Pomfrey immediately. The old man nodded his head cheerfully. "Wonderful, Harry, tell me, has she woken up yet?" Harry was about to answer her when Madam Pomfrey stuck her head out of the door.

"Good, you´re here, Headmaster," she beckoned for them to come in and continued. "She´s slipping in and out of consciousness, but she´s been rather frantically asking to talk to you, something about Polyjuice potion."

The four men walked to the bed where Hermione lay sleeping again. Ron was sitting in a chair across from her, looking bemused. Harry went and sat beside him, letting the older men handle the situation. Remus and Sirius were talking in hushed tones next to the bed, and Dumbledore was patting Hermione´s hand, trying to get her to wake up again. As it seemed that Hermione had no intentions of becoming conscious, he chose to watch Remus and Sirius instead. They seemed to be arguing about something, and from what Harry could make out, it was about who should go tell someone about Hermione. Harry was about to just jump into the conversation and offer to go tell whoever it was, when a choking sound from the bed drew his attention.

"It´s alright, dear... you´re okay now," Dumbledore was still holding Hermione´s hand, as she struggled to wake up.

"Professor," her voice was thick, and it was obvious that the mediwitch had given her some sort of sedation. "It wasn´t them; someone was using a Polyjuicepotion... James didn´t have his ring..."

The Headmaster made comforting sounds with his tongue and looked at her with a trace of regret. "It´s alright; we know they didn´t do it."

She seemed to accept that, and relaxed a little against the bed. "Oh, good," she tried to lift her head off of the pillow, "What happened? Where´s Severus?"

There was a very awkward silence in the room. Sirius and Remus looked guiltily at one another, and paled a little, in a way that reminded Harry of when he´d asked about her past. Dumbledore smiled sadly, and seemed to be at a loss for what to say. Harry seemed to feel the way Ron looked, completely confused and not a little unsettled. There was only one person they´d ever heard of with the name Severus, and neither really wanted to think about why she would be asking for him.

Finally, Dumbledore spoke again, in a conciliatory tone. "Hermione... the spell that was cast on you, it´s brought you home."

She narrowed her eyes a little, staring at Dumbledore and asked in a small sort of voice, "Where´s home?"

"It´s 1997, Hermione. You´re back in your own time," he gave her hand a little squeeze.

"What? How? I... oh my god," her face fell, "that means that Lily and James..." Dumbledore gave a small, sad nod and Hermione´s face crumpled.

As soon as she started to cry, Sirius and Remus rushed over to her. She looked up at them and started crying harder, but then sat herself up and wrapped her arms around Sirius, who was starting to look a little teary eyed as well. Harry and Ron shifted uncomfortably, feeling very out of place. Dumbledore seemed to notice this, and walked over to the two of them. "Give her a little time to readjust. I´m sure she´ll be asking for you soon enough," he gave them a big twinkleysmile and sent them on to their common room.

It wasn´t until they were safely inside of Gryffindor tower that Ron finally voiced the question that had been dangling around Harry´s mind ever since she woke up.

"Why did she ask for Professor Snape?"

~*~

Severus extracted the last wisp of silver from his forehead and placed it inside the waiting pensieve before sitting back heavily in his seat. It had been Dumbledore´s idea to catalogue some of his memories for when Hermione returned to the present time. If she returns at all the thought lingered for a minute before he pushed it out of his mind. He had researched the spell used on her exhaustively, and he had discovered that it was almost fool-proof, which meant that it was certain that she would be back. That was part of the reason he agreed to use the pensieve. Knowing Hermione, she would ask a million questions upon her return, and he´d be dammed if he let himself be forced into a little fireside chat. With the pensieve she would be able to get her answers and stay far away from him at the same time.

He closed his eyes, and let out a long harsh sigh. It would all be over soon, this twenty year melodrama. She would come back and he would be able to put her out of his mind for good. He had wasted twenty years thinking about her, wondering what would happen when he saw her again, dreaming of a world where they never would have parted, and in a few months, he would never wonder again. This horrible chapter in his life would finally be closed.

He harbored no illusions about what would happen when she returned. The most likely scenario would be that she would be so embarrassed that she never spoke to him again; which wouldn´t be a problem, considering the fact that she would be leaving Hogwarts almost immediately. The other option didn´t appeal to him, but it was entirely possible that she would hate him. The boy she loved was nothing like the man he had become, and she would hate him for sharing a face with her long dead beloved. Either way would result in her running from him.

Scowling he rose from his desk to stand in front of the cold fireplace. Nothing in this world made him feel weaker than pining over a love lost decades ago. In his time he had witnessed the rise of Voldemort twice, both times in the precarious position of a spy, and through all of that it was her face that haunted him at night. Not those he had killed, not those he had saved... only her. It was maddening, a man known for his stoicism and sarcasm reduced to nursing a broken heart.

Unconsciously his hand went into his pocket to finger the shiny silver disk she had given him all those years ago. In all that had happened, he never let go of it, it was the only real proof he had that she had actually existed; they had never taken a picture together and Minerva McGonagall had taken all her things after she disappeared. The magic on it was still strong, and after a few seconds the music he knew so well trickled into his mind, her voice washing over him as it had done a thousand times, never losing its sweetness. It was all he had left of her, the only thing he would ever have of her.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn´t hear the knocking on his door. He grimaced and dropped the stone back into his pocket. "Enter!" He barked looking at the door with an annoyed grimace. He didn´t have another class for an hour, and no student sought him out between classes... which meant that it was another teacher, and he was never in the mood to talk to one of them.

His suspicions turned out to be correct as an ashen faced Remus Lupin slid uncomfortably into the room. Although the two had come to an uneasy truce four years ago they were miles from being friends, and Lupin had never simply dropped by before. Severus glowered at him, and smirked inwardly when the man´s step faltered slightly. "What do you want?" He asked menacingly.

Lupin regained himself quickly and stepped farther into the room. "It´s happened, Severus, she´s back."

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn´t that. He narrowed his eyes at the werewolf, "What do you mean, `she´s back?´ It´s only been a week." There was no need to ask who `she´ was.

"I know, we didn´t expect her, but she appeared outside during Hagrid´s class." Severus didn´t respond, but he must have looked somewhat concerned because Lupin added quickly, "She´s alright... Poppy has her a bit sedated to deal with the shock, but otherwise she is fine." He thought for a minute before saying quietly, "She´s asking for you, Severus."

At this Severus tensed and turned away from the door. "I don´t see how this is any of my concern."

"Severus... I..." Lupin started, obviously unsure of how to address the situation.

"It is not any of my concern, and if there is nothing else I suggest you leave," he turned around to face the werewolf, with a completely stoic face. The other man hesitated for a minute before shaking his head and turning back the way he came. Severus stood there unmoving until the door closed again.

With a tired sigh he wandered back to the fireplace. He wouldn´t have to wait ten months after all. The thought was relieving and upsetting at the same time. No matter how much he told himself differently, he wasn´t ready to let go of her, not yet. He didn´t even want to think about how awkward classes would be with her in them. The best he could hope for would be for her to avoid him at all costs, but he knew her temper, and it was more likely that she would be very vocal with whatever conclusion she came to.

He felt the beginnings of a headache prick at his temples, and decided that he had spent much too long in thought for one afternoon. Pushing all thoughts of Hermione Granger out of his mind he summoned a caldron from the shelf and proceeded to brew the strongest headache potion he could think of.