For disclaimers, rating, notes etc: see Part 1

Returning to Hogwarts only partially brought Hermione the hoped for solace. Leaving Snape Hall had been a brief and bitter experience. They had returned to the Hall, to her room, intending to leave as soon as reasonably possible. Snape had dismissed any idea of waiting to say goodbye to Amarina, but the woman herself had had other ideas.

They had been standing in the entrance hall, waiting for one of the house elves - she had never been able to put names to them all - to retrieve Snape's cloak, when Amarina had appeared at the top of the stairs, wrapped in diaphanous white, fragile and imposing for all that she had drunk the night before.

"So, you're really going to turn your back on your duty and go back to that school." Her voice had echoed off the bare tiles, giving the words extra edge.

"Yes," was his only reply.

"And you understand the consequences of that?"

She had watched Snape stiffen, but his voice stayed neutral.

"Yes," he had simply said again, taking his cloak from the house elf that was nervously holding it out. Once relieved of its burden it had skittered away into the shadows. Snape had pulled the garment round himself, fastened it at the neck, and then turned to the figure dominating the scene.

"You were right you know," she had said suddenly, overt malice apparent in her tone. "You were never good enough. Never. Marcus would never have done this to me."

Stung on Snape's behalf, Hermione had moved and half opened her mouth to respond before she could remind herself that this was not her fight.

If she says one thing directly to me, though, I swear....

A gentle hand on her arm had stopped her though, squeezing gently as though recognising and appreciating both the impulse and its suppression.

"Goodbye, mother." His face was impassive, his voice colourless.

"Goodbye, Severus Antonius," she had replied, her tone arctic, almost as if she had been pronouncing the final words of an incantation. "You will always be master of this Hall, but from this day you will never be acknowledged as my son."

At that he had paused, and Hermione had seen just a fleeting glimpse of deep pain. Then he had nodded.

"As has been true since I was eight. My congratulations, Madam Snape. It has only taken you thirty eight years to openly acknowledge the truth of the situation."

He had swept past her towards the door, and she had struggled to follow. As the door of the Hall shut behind her, she could have sworn she heard the word Mudblood whispered after her.

Snape had come to a standstill at the bottom of the steps, waiting for her. She had joined him, and caught hold of his arm.

"Severus?" Concerned query.

"It's all right." A twisted half smile; reassurance which didn't reach his eyes.

She hadn't thought that it was all right at all.

Back at Hogwarts, she was now convinced that it was not all right. They had stood in his rooms holding each other closely and he had repeated the words into her hair, brushing his lips across her forehead. But he had released her and turned away, withdrawing into himself, and she hadn't known how to begin to touch him, so she had left, feeling that maybe he needed the space to come to terms with everything that had happened. In many ways he was still a deeply private man and always would be.

Yet now, two restless days and sleepless nights later, sitting in her own rooms, watching the fire and running her fingers through Crookshanks' fur - now she was beginning to feel that she had made a serious misjudgement. That she should never have left him alone for this long.

Deeply troubled, she shifted in her chair, ignoring the sleepy protest from her familiar. The conversation in the hallway - the disowning - bothered her more than the open prejudice. After all, prejudice was prejudice; birth, race, creed - it existed in the Muggle world as much as the wizarding. It was ignorant and offensive and baseless, but it was something that Hermione could comprehend and deal with.

But to be disowned by your family....

Much as her parents annoyed her, and infrequent as her visits to them were, she couldn't quite envisage the circumstances where they would refuse to acknowledge her as their daughter. And even if they did.... She flinched a little at the thought. It would be devastatingly hurtful, of course, but there would be no real practical consequences. Casting errant daughters into the street to starve had rather gone out of fashion in the Muggle world in the last hundred years or so.

It seemed that the wizarding world was different. Amarina had repeatedly underlined the importance of family and obligation and blood. And Snape had clearly rejected them. She tried to objectively assess the ramifications of this. Amarina's last words had held more than parental rejection, she was sure of that. She had likened it at the time in her mind to a complex incantation, but now another image came to her; one from her Muggle background.

Anathema. She had pronounced anathema on him.

She had cut him off from his background, as surely as any excommunication.

She closed her eyes as random thoughts assailed her. Had he done it because of her or would it have happened anyway? And if it was because of her, would he forgive her the decision? Or was she now trying to take responsibility for the acts of another; behaving in precisely the manner she hated in both him and Harry? She chased in futile circles, getting more and more frustrated and finding fewer and fewer answers. After an indeterminate amount of time all she had to show for it was a sour taste in her mouth and the beginnings of a headache.

She sighed. There was also Lucius Malfoy to deal with. Harry had not been at Hogwarts when they had returned. Hermione tried again to stifle the feeling of relief; she was not up to dealing with Harry's temperament. Not at the moment. At some point, she realised, she would have to find out exactly what the position was, but there were currently more important issues to resolve.

Tipping Crookshanks off her lap, she made her way quietly and unobtrusively to the dungeons. She tapped lightly on Snape's door and then opened it, half wondering whether he would have changed the wards. He hadn't; the door opened easily.

The room was half lit - not unusual for him, preferring as he did a muted atmosphere. Snape was sitting in a chair by the fire, apparently reading something. There was a pile of papers on the large table; some project of his, she assumed. He looked up as she entered.

"Hello, love," she said softly.

He wordlessly gestured to the fire. He looked tired, and, although the smile was genuine enough, there was something shadowed in his eyes. She took a seat across from him, wanting to embrace him but not wanting to cloud this with physical contact.

"How are you?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"Much the same as usual, I suppose."

She was wondering how to begin this particular conversation, when he unexpectedly helped her out.

"I presume that you wish to discuss our current problem with Malfoy senior." There was a twist of irony in his voice, and she realised that he was trying to lighten the mood.

She nodded absently.

"That... and some other things."

At that he looked at the ceiling briefly and then carefully bundled up the parchments on his lap. He placed them on the floor by his chair, the movement accompanied by a muffled series of chirrups which told her that Sphinx was deep in his robes somewhere.

"Proceed," he said quietly.

She sorted the words in her mind, considering how best to phrase them, and then decided to simply ask.

"What exactly happened as we were leaving?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand her.

"My mother spoke the words of formal Disaffiliation."

"Which means?"

He closed his eyes as if in pain.

"I'm sure that you noticed that certain parts of the wizarding world set a very high store by status and rank. I believe the Muggle world is similar in that respect." She nodded, not wanting to interrupt him. "Status and rank are determined by bloodlines and family connections rather than the simple possession of wealth. Snape is an old family," ... there was that phrase again, she thought... "which means that the Snapes are of high rank, despite their rather obvious lack of finances." He paused. "The Disaffiliation severs the family connection. I can no longer claim the status that goes with the name."

Hermione was beginning to understand, slowly.

"But, she said that you were the master of the Hall...," she began carefully.

"Under the terms of the succession I own, for want of a better word, the Hall and I will continue to control what money there is. Which makes me the master in name. But my status will be reduced to little more than a legal custodian," he snorted softly, "a caretaker if you will. A very upper class version of Argus Filch." He tried to make it into a joke, but Hermione could hear the edge of suppressed pain.

He must have noticed something in her face, for he added: "I assure you it is no very great wrench to me to lose a privilege that I neither desired nor used."

Yes, she thought, but it was one thing to have the privilege and choose not to exercise it, and another entirely to be forcibly excluded from your entire world. Even if it wasn't one that you found particularly congenial.

She still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something underlying this that he wasn't telling her. She steeled herself to ask the next question, knowing how arrogant it would sound, and ashamed of herself that she needed an answer to it.

"Did this Disaffiliation have anything to do with me... with us.?"

She waited for him to snap at her, sneering that he was capable of making his own choices, absolving her of a part in this. He was silent for a while.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Severus...," she began helplessly, not really knowing how she was going to continue. How could she say that she didn't want this, didn't want to come between him and his family; when the plain truth was that she did want it, and that if it had to come to a choice between them and her - she wanted him to choose her.

"Please," he said, cutting her off with a slight sneer, "I really don't think that I am suited for the role of romantic hero casting off his family for the sake of true love. You may be assured that I would not, in fact, have returned to Snape Hall, whatever the circumstances. Your presence was a simply a catalyst of sorts."

Although in some ways it was what she wanted to hear, the remark stung. She looked away from him, biting her lip, telling herself that it was his way of dealing with his feelings, that he had just miscued, that this was nothing more than wounded vanity. But miscue or not, it hit a raw nerve.

"Naturally not," she returned with an edge. "I'm relieved to hear that I played so little part in your considerations."

He stiffened.

"I would hardly say it was little part," he said, his voice taking on a more cutting tone.

That jangled her nerves even more. Badly off balance, she stood and began to pace restlessly.

"Really," she said after a moment. "because it sounded to me like I was simply the straw that broke the camel's back."

Even as the words came out of her mouth she knew that they were unfair.

Amarina must have rattled me more than I thought.

She drew breath to apologise, to retract what she had said, but it was too late. Snape was rigid in his chair, not looking at her.

"Do you really believe I see you like that? Do you have the slightest understanding of what you mean to me?"

His voice was tight, controlled, harsh and she was too wrapped up in her own fears to really grasp the implications of the words. She simply seized on the one that resonated most closely with her own doubts.

"No. Sometimes I don't understand." She could hear her voice rising. "You tell me you love me, and I believe that, but I don't understand how that means that you don't tell me about Malfoy and that you just dismiss me when it comes to your family." All the stresses of the past week began to boil within her, the words of Amarina, the exclusion, the undermining, and the nagging unacknowledged fear that he might see her in the same way as his mother did. She whirled round to face him.

"You know," she fired back, nearly at a shout. "Maybe your mother was right. I don't understand how you do things in your world. Why would I? I'm just a little Mudblood."

His response to that was immediate. He was out of his seat and across the room to where she was standing so fast that she was barely aware of him moving, only the startled yelp of Sphinx as she was dumped onto the floor. He caught hold of her, hard enough to hurt her, and pulled her round to face him.

"Do not ever, ever, use that word to describe yourself again, do you hear me."

He spat the words out with an intensity that frightened her. For a moment she thought he was actually going to hit her, but then he released her. She moved back, breathing heavily, and rubbing at her arm. His eyes were glittering with a fury, a loss of control that she hadn't seen since she had been at school.

Not since Sirius Black escaped the Dementors.

"Damn it, Hermione, what do you want me to say? Yes, I love you. Why didn't I tell you about Lucius Malfoy? Why did I try and recreate the potion behind your back? Because I was scared that he would hurt you. Because I was terrified that you'd just walk away from me once you saw what was in the Pensieve. Because I still am. Is that what you want to hear?" His own voice was raised, laced with heavy, bitter, uncontrolled sarcasm but she couldn't tell where it was directed.

Yes, but not like this. Not this naked, exposed pain.

He was still shouting.

"And yes, the reason that I was finally able to walk away from my bloody mother was that you were there. If you hadn't been, I probably wouldn't have gone back, but I might have done, I don't know. All I know is that for the first time in I don't know how long I'm not alone. And I can't lose that." A deep breath. "I can't lose you. And despite that fact that I've known for forty years that I failed my family, to hear it said out loud, in plain terms, hurts. There. You've heard me say it. Does that content you?" A savage challenge, drawn out of raw need.

There was a bitter taste in her mouth as he threw the words at her. She tried to find her voice; anything to stop the awful tirade.

"There are arrangements - I heard your mother talking about them." It was the wrong thing to say.

"Do you think for one moment I would suggest that sort of thing to you. That I would insult you by keeping you like something I was ashamed of?" His disgust for the idea was plain. "The only way I would ever bring you to that place again would be openly. As my wife."

"And that isn't ever likely to happen is it? I heard what Amarina said to you. You didn't contradict her. " She wanted to put some edge into it, but could only summon up a kind of angry, sullen flatness.

"Did it ever occur to you that the only reason that I have not asked you to be my wife is that I simply could not conceive of any circumstances in which you might agree?" He suddenly sounded utterly tired and drained.

She looked at him, unwilling to believe what she had just heard.

"And did it ever occur to you to just ask, rather than assuming you know what I'm going to do?" Her irritation began to flare again, at his stubbornness.

"Well, would you agree?" Mocking doubt infusing every syllable.

"Of course I would." Making no attempt to control her exasperated fury.

He just looked at her. There was a slightly stunned silence. Then suddenly she laughed softly, her anger completely dispelled.

"Severus, did you just propose to me?"

He looked disconcerted, and rather vulnerable, making her heart contract.

"I rather think that I did."

"And I think that I accepted."

The stunned feeling was giving way to a sort of tentative joy; something that she hadn't felt since the beginning of the school year. He hadn't said anything. She closed the gap between them, placing her hand on his chest.

"Love?" she said softly. He covered her hand with his, and drew it up to his mouth, kissing her palm, brushing across the skin in the way that always made her shiver.

"Never call yourself a Mudblood," he repeated, much more softly, "never. There is nothing that the old families have that you need."

She moved closer to him, putting her arms round him and resting her head on his chest.

"Apart from you, maybe," she suggested.

His arms came round her in response.

"Not any more," he pointed out, in a slightly self-mocking tone.

She moved back to look at him.

"I know I don't understand these things, but I really can't see how you could think that you failed your family." He started to speak but she carried on over him. "All I can see is that they shut you out after Marcus died and that was that. I'm really not sure how them being totally self absorbed was your fault. And as for your mother," she bit her lip slightly, not entirely certain how he would take this, but needing to say it to him, "I thought that she was spiteful and manipulative, and that Playroom was just morbid...." Her voice trailed off into his silence. She gathered herself again. "I'm sorry, I know she's your mother, and I'd probably get really annoyed if someone said that about my mother, but... well... I just thought that you deserved better than that, that's all."

She finished, uncomfortably aware that she sounded like an over emotional teenager, but feeling obscurely better for having spoken the words aloud.

He was looking at her, his face unreadable. For a moment she wondered if she had finally gone too far, but then he pulled her back against him.

"Hermione," she heard him whisper. "My dearest love."

Then he moved away from her, just enough to bring his mouth down on to hers. It was the softest of touches, the barest whisper of a caress, enough to ignite her senses, already heightened by her earlier rush of fear and fury. She leaned into to him, the tip of her tongue reaching to taste his lips, one hand snaking up into his hair to pull his head closer to her. Over their months together he had grown into a confident and sensitive lover, but there was something of his first uncertainty and shyness in this kiss.

And, for perhaps the first time, she herself felt the same thing - knowing that the relationship between them had irrevocably changed, knowing that she was entering into something that she couldn't predict, something that scared her almost as much as she wanted it.

Please, let me not disappoint him.

Slowly, she moved her hands up to the neck of his robes, unbuttoning them and then pushing them back over his shoulders. He released his hold on her just long enough to let them to fall to the floor. His jacket followed, and then she was down to his white linen shirt, unfastening each button, fingertips making featherlight patterns on the bare skin underneath, feeling the tiny shivers run through him at each brief contact.

There were, of course, charms that would remove their clothes much more quickly. But she loved the ritual of the slow undressing. The way the layers of cloth came off one by one, each one warm from his body heat and smelling of him. The way he was revealed inch by inch, in teasing glimpses and random touches, until he stood before her, smooth pale skin and dark wiry hair, lean and taut with desire. And then the freeing of her own body, piece by piece. The tiny shocks as he grazed her with his nails. The sensual feel of cool air across her heated skin as the last garments fell to the floor. And the dark, intense, hungry gaze as he took in the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hip, the darkness of her nipples and her pubic hair.

She had never met anyone who could arouse her so much simply by looking at her.

They had moved across the room to the bed now, and he was seated on the edge of it, just watching. She loved this too; the tension between them at moments like this - drawing it out so slowly until neither of them could stand it any longer. She took a step towards him, and lightly dragged her fingers down the line of his jaw and neck and along his collarbone. His tongue flickered out to moisten his lips. Then he reached for her, and, catching her hip in his larger grip, pulled her into his embrace. His mouth found hers again as they fell backwards onto the bed.

One of his hands cupped her breast and began to rub his thumb over her already erect nipple drawing a small cry from her. He trailed his mouth down to the base of her throat, tongue playing at the hollow, and then continued on to her other breast, suckling and nipping, making her arch and push herself into him, murmuring incoherently. His free hand caressed down her stomach, tangling in her curls for a moment, and then he was stroking between her legs, dipping his fingers into her wetness, circling the hard sensitive nub of flesh, causing her moans to increase.

"Oh yes," she whispered harshly, "gods, yes."

Then his mouth left her breast to make a hot damp trail down her abdomen. She felt him kiss her curls, and heard his inhalation of breath as he paused for a moment. And then his tongue was on her, gentle and wet and insistent, sending pure sensation into her belly, and his fingers slid into her, hard where his mouth was soft, and she bucked her hips, thrusting into him, urging him on and his movements became faster and harder and the world broke apart around her with a guttural cry.

When she her breathing returned to normal, he was still stroking one of her nipples lightly, sending soft tingles through her. She caught his hand and raised it to her mouth, kissing it, tasting herself on him, licking him clean. Then, she leant forward to lay her mouth at the base of his throat, feeling him arch his neck and roll so that he was on his back. Gently, she shifted so that she could run her hand over his chest. This time it was she who found his nipple, circling it with her finger. Her mouth found the other one and she sucked at it, withdrawing a little so that she could blow on the wet skin, and was rewarded by a whimper from deep in the back of his throat.

Smiling a little, she blew once more on his nipple and then kissed her way down the fine trail of dark hair that led to his balls. As her lips brushed over his scrotum his whole body convulsed and his hands buried themselves in her hair. Drawing her head back a fraction, she touched the tip of his penis with her tongue, lapping up the drop of salty fluid, sweeping over the head. He made another incoherent noise, pushing at her. She was tempted to tease him a little longer, but she could see that he was already close to the edge. In one move, she took him into her mouth, cupping his balls with one hand and caressing as she slid her mouth along his shaft, stroking him with her tongue.

The noises he was making were enough to set the pressure within her building again and as his hips began to buck against her she could feel the pulse throbbing between her legs.

"Gods," she heard him choke, distantly.

She pulled back from him, shoving herself up the bed, throwing one knee over him so that she was straddling him, rubbing herself against the tip of him. He reached up to hold her hips, pulling her down onto him. Needing him too much to be able to hold back now, even if she had wanted to, she reached a hand down between them to circle his erection again, caressing as she guided him into her. A sound somewhere between a sob and a cry made its way out of her throat as he sheathed himself deep inside her acutely sensitised flesh. She was sliding over him now, and he was thrusting up into her, hips lifting off the bed. She cried out again as his hand found her nub and began to rub it in time to her movements. She could think of nothing else now, but the man beneath her, the way he was making her feel and how much she wanted him. She arched her back and one hand came up to touch her own nipple.

He gave a harsh cry and she felt him thrust deeply into her. She lowered her head to look at his face. His eyes were open, dark, burning with heat, so far removed from his classroom coldness. She stroked herself again watching his reaction. In response he rubbed hard on her clitoris, almost pinching, sending a wave of pleasure arcing through her. The passion on his face was so intense that it took her breath away, sending her over the edge just by looking at him. The pressure inside her came spiralling to a head and her muscles begin to clench around him.

"Severus," she managed, not knowing whether it was a plea or an affirmation, just needing to say his name.

His face twisted as his body went rigid under her and she heard him cry out.

And, eyes open, transfixed by the sight of her lover's face in orgasm, with her name upon his lips, the world broke apart around her for the second time.

They lay together afterwards, Hermione cradling Snape's head against her. From the sound of his breathing she rather thought that he had fallen asleep, but then he spoke softly, into her skin.

"I'm sorry."

She dropped a kiss on his head.

"What for?"

"Involving you in... my family."

She raised a hand to stroke his hair gently.

"I thought we'd already settled that one."

There was something that she wanted to know though.

"Severus? Can I ask you a question?"

A small chuckle vibrated against her skin.

"When have I ever been able to stop you?"

She smiled at the old familiar complaint.

"Seriously," she admonished.

He shifted slightly against her.

"Then ask."

She chose her words carefully.

"This... Disaffiliation." She felt him tense against her, but he didn't say anything. "Can it be revoked or reversed or whatever?" For a long time all she could feel was the warmth of his breath on her skin.

"It can," he said finally. "If I returned to my mother and... begged...," the distaste was clear in his voice, "she could, if she chose, recant the words. No doubt after exacting some... suitable... penance."

"I see."

So there was a way back, if he chose to take it.

"I think that unlikely to happen though," he added.

She closed her eyes, knowing that she needed to say the next words.

"I'm sorry... about earlier. I was still... unsettled from your mother."

His arms tightened around her.

"She has that effect on people. It doesn't matter." His voice was a low murmur.

"It does matter. I love you... I never wanted...."

I wanted to know you, to understand you. I never wanted you to rip yourself open in front of me.

"My dearest heart," he whispered, " I love you. Let it go."

"This from the man who bore a grudge against Sirius Black since before I was born," she muttered, trying not to sound too choked.

"I thought you'd appreciate the irony," he agreed softly, "but I mean it. Let it go." Then he added, almost offhandedly, "after all, you now have to concentrate your energies into not regretting that you have agreed to marry me."

She nearly missed it, wrapped as it was in such shy gentleness. But her mind decoded the question. She shut her eyes briefly, and then lightly traced the line of his jaw with one finger.

"I can't promise you that this is going to work," she said honestly, "but I can promise you that I want to be with you. And that I am absolutely certain that I want to try... more than anything."

**********

Snape supposed that eventually he would come to appreciate the irony of the situation. Having spent the better part of the autumn term profoundly desiring the absence of Harry Potter from his life, he now found himself wishing for his return.

Cornelius Fudge, having managed to extricate his slightly tarnished star Auror from the precincts of Hogwarts, was clearly in no particular hurry to send him back. The Minister had performed an interesting feat of logic, which assumed that, as Lucius Malfoy had taken no overt action during the Parting, there was therefore no further risk and the case could safely be declared closed.

Not that the presence of Potter would be entirely unproblematic, of course. Some part of him was still utterly unwilling to believe that he had somehow managed to propose to Hermione. Not only that but that she had apparently accepted. He was certainly not interested in confronting even more wounded outrage from the Potter/Weasley dyad.

And if he was honest, he also wanted time. Time to adjust to the concept that someone would want to voluntarily commit to spending their life with him. Time for her to reconsider; to back out, come to him sheepishly explaining that her words had been a mistake, an aberration, a moment of insanity.

Potter would make no helpful contribution to any of that.

However, the outstanding issue of Lucius Malfoy was far from resolved. In fact it had just become several orders of magnitude more dangerous.

After some discussion it had been decided that he should simply cease any further work on Hester's potion, and destroy the carrier liquid. Discussion was maybe putting it too highly; in the end Hermione had simply insisted.

"Let Malfoy send his Pensieve. I don't care. I'd rather see it than have anything more to do with... that."

He couldn't really blame her. The memory of that brief touch of Dark Magic was still vivid to her, undimmed by either time or familiarity. The scar would always be there, he knew that, but he hoped that in her case it would fade until it was virtually undetectable.

So he acquiesced. The clear liquid settling out in the Potions Room was disposed of; her notes were returned. And they continued with their lives, burying themselves in the minutiae of their daily routines and holding each other at night; waiting for Lucius Malfoy to make his move, never discussing it, the only acknowledgement found in soft reassuring touches in the middle of the night.

Sometimes, he envied Hermione her occasional evenings with Rose Brunarde. He knew that she was developing a considerable friendship with the Frenchwoman. The Charms teacher was civil, but distant, with him and he had no reason to doubt her competence. But he also knew that he would be considerably more comfortable knowing that Hermione was being shadowed by Harry Potter. However irksome they would both find it.

He had toyed briefly with the idea of sending Malfoy a letter simply declining any further involvement with the process. He even thought of visiting Chateau Montnégre de Malfoi to deal with it directly.

But instead he waited. In the end, it was not even very long.

The timing was typically Lucius, he thought. Just long enough that you might begin to relax; to think that he had forgotten. Unless you knew the man that is. The approach was depressingly familiar; the Crabbe and the Goyle were clearly only capable of the one strategy, if you wanted to dignify it with that name. It was a Saturday and he was on his way to Hogsmeade to buy some personal things. They attacked him at the same point in the path. It was even, he thought inconsequentially, raining.

They didn't take him by surprise though. Not this time. Snape knew enough not to relax until the matter was resolved to Lucius' satisfaction. Or until he had the pleasure of kicking Malfoy's lifeless corpse. Lifeless, burnt and beheaded corpse. At the sound of the first rustle in the trees, he simply came to a standstill and folded his arms.

"Show yourselves," he said irritably. "I know you're there, and it will dispense with the need to exhaust yourselves by casting simple hexes."

There was a pause and then Crabbe and Goyle emerged looking wary but still threatening. They looked at him carefully.

"Yes," he said with a sneer, "I am alone. I presume that's what you're checking."

They didn't move. He sighed impatiently.

"I assume that you're here to invite me for a quiet chat with your owner? Shall we get on with it? I don't have all afternoon to waste." It wasn't really even bravado, more a desire to get the thing over with.

Crabbe smiled.

At least he thought it was Crabbe. And he assumed it was a smile.

"I think we'd prefer to do it the traditional way it you don't mind, Professor Snape." There was a pause and then, "Stupefy.

Of course, he thought wearily as the world went black, A confused and stupid animal is still dangerous.

The abrupt return of the world in shards of jagged brightness indicated that this time someone had used Enervate even if he hadn't actually heard it. There was no warm pine smell, no polish, no leather, no brandy, just a cold, earthy, rather clammy feel to the air.

He still knew where he was.

He was sitting on something hard and uncomfortable. His posture felt artificial, and he could visualise how he had been positioned; back rigidly upright, forearms face down on the arms of the chair, legs slightly apart and bent into an exact right angle at the knees, feet flat on the floor and set parallel. The Royal Egyptian position, Lucius liked to call it.

He blinked painfully and tried to shift in the chair. As he expected his arms and legs were immobilised. He flexed his spine, with what little movement he had and tried to look round.

He was in a dungeon. One belonging to Lucius Malfoy. Rough cut stone, about fifteen feet square, no windows. It contained the chair that he was held in and a long smooth wooden table roughly the size of an adult male. The floor was equally smooth, and sloped slightly downwards towards a small hole. A drain, Snape's mind supplied helpfully.

There was a sound of shifting fabric and heels on stone flags, and the dungeon's owner came into his view, an impeccable figure in forest green and silver, swirling pale golden liquid around in a cut crystal glass.

"Ah, cousin, you're awake. I'm so glad. Of course, technically I suppose, you don't count as my cousin any more." He shrugged. "But I've always thought that we shared a bond that went deeper than blood and family."

He sipped delicately. Snape caught a faint aroma as Malfoy passed close to him and identified the liquid as whisky. He moistened his lips and said nothing. Malfoy smiled, sipped again and then slightly raised his glass in Snape's direction.

"Caol Ila. Twenty one years old. Only 348 bottles ever put down. I find that it's just a little bit too cold down here to do real justice to brandy, don't you agree?"

"Get on with it, Lucius."

Malfoy was oblivious to the tone of Snape's voice.

"Did I mention," he continued, "how impressive I thought your father's Parting was? And I must congratulate your mother on a delightful Ball afterwards. I thought the whole thing was just perfect. The way these things should be done." He paused and took another sip, walking back to lounge gracefully against the long table.

"Of course, I thought your little Mudblood looked a bit out of her depth, but then that's only to be expected. And it's not as if it's going to be a problem for her in the future. Not after the Disaffiliation."

Snape remained silent and tried to keep his face impassive. Lucius would eventually run out of cocktail party conversation and get to business.

"I have to say, I do admire your loyalty to her." Malfoy's tone suddenly hardened. "If you'd shown a fraction of that loyalty to your family, or even to other causes, you could really have been a force to be reckoned with."

He took a sudden step forward and his wrist twitched. The remains of the whisky in the glass hit Snape in the face, stinging his eyes and trickling over his lips. He tasted the alcohol on his tongue, peaty and sour. He blinked the liquid away, trying to ignore the discomfort.

"Instead," his voice was arctic, "you are content to rot in that school, drumming basic knowledge into useless brats, fucking your Mudblood whore and sitting at the feet of that pathetic Muggle-loving idiot. And," he concluded softly, his momentary lapse in control over, "you've made me waste the last of a very fine whisky."

He looked at the empty glass in his hand, and with a careless move, simply dropped it. Snape watched as the crystal turned in the air and hit the floor, shattering. The sound hit the stone walls and echoed away. His throat was dry and there was a hard knot forming in his gut. His mother's actions had stripped away what fragile protection the family name had ever given him against the insanity of Lucius. What was more that insanity also appeared to be increasing, if that were possible. He had never before heard Lucius descend to using such vulgarity.

It was not a good sign at all.

Malfoy was looking at the crystal shards scattered on the floor with an unfocussed look in his eye, as if he could read the future in the pattern. Then, he stopped and selected one of the larger fragments. With detached clarity Snape noted that one side of the piece was bevelled; clearly part of what had once been the rim. Malfoy turned it over and over carefully in his hand.

"Such a waste," he said quietly, almost dreamily.

He walked over to Snape, all precision and control. Snape could smell him, the combination of starch, lavender and fresh air from his robes, soap and lemon from his skin, and sharp, earthy alcohol from the piece of glass that he held. Malfoy put his head to one side and lifted the glass, laying it against Snape's cheekbone, pressing very, very lightly. Snape fought not to flinch away from the touch.

Malfoy looked as he were trying to decide what to do, pale grey eyes considering. Then he increased the pressure, and Snape felt the skin break. Slowly, carefully, Lucius Malfoy drew the broken edge of the glass along Snape's face, leaving a thin line of fire as it passed. Then, he stood back and surveyed his handiwork, like an artist evaluating the first brush stroke on a blank canvas. Snape felt blood running down his face, tickling against the side of his mouth, He suppressed the instinctive urge to lick his lips.

Malfoy reached forward and placed one of his fingers on the cut, tracing the line of it down towards Snape's mouth, smearing blood across his skin, and finally around his mouth, finger outlining his lips with a touch that was almost that of a lover. He rested his finger there for a moment and then lifted it away, sniffing it and touching it briefly to his own lips.

"There's nothing quite like it, is there, Severus? The smell of it. The taste of it. Oh, Crucio is fun, but it doesn't really take the place of real, hot blood."

He had to moisten his lips, he couldn't help it, and the taste of blood was harsh and metallic on his tongue. He swallowed, trying not to think of the idea of drinking his own blood, trying not to think of Hermione's fingers stroking his cheeks, caressing his mouth.

"What do you want, Lucius?" he managed, harsh and dry. "I presume there is a point to this game." Although, there might not be. Who could tell?

The other man smiled. It was not comforting.

"I want to try an experiment, I think."

Snape closed his eyes. The game wasn't over yet, obviously.

"Libera Sinistram."

Snape realised that he could move his left arm, and opened his eyes again. Malfoy, however, simply grasped his wrist before he could do anything about it, and turned the arm over so that his forearm, and the Dark Mark, were facing uppermost. Another muttered spell and his arm was immobile again. Malfoy took the piece of glass and, in one smooth move, sliced deep across the site of the Dark Mark. Deep enough to sever some of the superficial veins, the detached part of Snape's mind told him absently; probably not deep enough to cause tendon damage. He would have to get Madam Pomfrey to check that back at Hogwarts.

Yes, think of being back at Hogwarts; don't think of bleeding out onto the floor of a dungeon, blood running across the smooth flags into the drain, sluiced away with buckets of hot water; don't think of irreparable damage, a crippled arm.

Don't think of her.

Malfoy had put down the glass fragment now, and was running three fingers across the wound, coating his fingers in blood. Raising his hand he placed them across Snape's mouth again.

"Taste," he commanded.

Snape fought the urge to bite; bile rising at the thought of those fingers in his mouth, his tongue touching them.

Do it, Severus. He's still playing. Lucius' games are survivable. So survive.

He opened his mouth a fraction and let his tongue meet the sticky alien skin.

"Does it taste different?" A purr, soft seductive.

Snape badly wanted to vomit.

"Does it?" More insistent, harsher.

"Not that I can tell," he finally got out, once he was as certain as he could be that he had his stomach under control. He avoided looking at his left arm; at the steady stream of blood running across the skin, falling onto his thigh, soaking his robes, flowing faster thanks to his elevated heartbeat.

Lucius dipped his fingers again and then raised them to his own lips, tasting for himself. He looked vaguely disappointed.

"I believe you're right. There is no difference. Obviously the Mark doesn't taint the blood." He smiled. "Or then again, maybe it taints all of it."

He didn't seem to require a response, Snape was glad of it. The desire to throw up had returned full force. Lucius shook his head sadly.

"Oh Severus, we were such a wonderful team. Why did you have to throw it all away? Why couldn't you just have given me this one little thing? The glass flicked once more across his face. "Where is it, Severus? Where is my cure?"

Snape took a couple of shallow breaths, ordering his digestive system to co-operate.

"There isn't one," he said finally. "And there isn't going to be one."

Lucius arched an elegant eyebrow.

"I thought we'd discussed this."

"We have." Ignore the blood. Concentrate on surviving. "I told you then that it wasn't possible and I'm telling you now." And even if it were I wouldn't make it for you. "You can kill me if you like. You still won't have a cure."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you. Not whilst there's still your little Mudblood to play with."

Distract him, thought Snape, fear battling again with nausea and pain. Reason with him, so far as that was possible. Get some hook into that utterly insane, but wholly internally consistent schema, that made up Lucius' reality. He struggled to think, to relegate his own reality to an interesting spectacle that was happening to someone else.

"Kill me, kill her," he said, trying to sound unconcerned. "It won't get you any closer to a cure."

"Heavens, Severus, you do think in such melodramatic terms." Malfoy actually sounded amused. "Kill her? And make a martyr out of her. Certainly not. And even though maiming you would be fun, I know she would stick by you as the phrase goes. What Gryffindor could possibly do otherwise?"

He paused consideringly, watching Snape's face bleed.

"Mind you, now you bring the subject up, I think we should at least strive for some balance here." Swift as a snake he picked up the glass and drew it sharply down the other side of Snape's face. He winced as another warm trickle began to make its way towards his mouth.

"That's better," he said, with satisfaction. "No, Severus, I'm not going to lay another finger on either of you. I'm simply going to take her away from you." Snape went cold at the calm statement. "You gave up your family for her. And now you're going to lose her. But she isn't going to die. She isn't even going to be injured. She's going to walk away from you because she can't bear to be near you."

Don't react. Don't say a word. Don't say it'll never happen. Because you know that it will....

Lucius was smiling benignly again.

"Severus, my dear disaffiliated cousin, I know how to break you. So I think that I will."

After that was another Stupefy, and then waking up near the boundary of Hogwarts, weak and shaking, with blood clotted on his face and arm. As he tried to push himself to a sitting position his stomach finally won, and he half rolled over, retching painfully, uncaring whether he missed his robes or not.

Somehow, he managed to get up, and through sheer will power, force his body to move in the direction of Hogwarts and the dungeons and safety. His face was aching and his left arm felt limp. He wondered how much blood he had lost. Wadding up the cloth of his robe he held it against his left arm, in a half remembered attempt to staunch the bleeding. Reaching his rooms, he disarmed the wards and almost fell inside.

"Good trip to Hogsmeade?" came the question from the depths of the armchair by the fire.

Hermione.

He had forgotten that she would be waiting for him. Or maybe he'd never known; he couldn't remember right now. All that mattered was that she was here. He didn't want her to see him like this. He wanted her to be there.

"Love?" She sounded worried.

He wondered if he could move any further into the room. Then a strong arm came around his waist and pulled him towards the fire.

"I assume that this has something to do with Lucius Malfoy." Her voice sounded hard, angry, closed.

A few more steps and then he could collapse gratefully into a chair. He was still clutching at his left arm. Moments later warm water hit his face, cleaning off the mess but reawakening the pain. Then the touch of a wand tip, and the pain receded.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Calm, practical question.

Not for the first time he gave thanks for Hermione's tendency not to panic at times of crisis.

"My arm," he managed. He felt her fingers prise his right hand away, and push his sleeve up. There was a slight resistance as the cloth came away from the drying blood, provoking fresh bleeding. "Is there much damage?" he asked, feeling worried at her silence.

"No, no, I don't think so," was the almost absent response. "The cut is deep and clean, but I don't think any of the tendons are damaged. You should probably get Poppy to look at it though." Then the cool touch of the wand, and the fire was damped, leaving a dull ache in its place.

Although the immediate pain was less, the world was still fuzzy at the edges. Despite the fire, he felt cold and he was beginning to tremble.

"Shock." Was that his voice or hers? "You need to get into bed. Come on, I need you to make one more effort." Hers, then.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up. Somehow, he half-walked, was half-carried to the bed. On the way, he managed to lose his robes, and most of his other clothing. Then he was lying on the bed, being covered with something warm. And then, something else warm slid in beside him and wrapped its arms around him, holding him closely.

"Do you want me to get Poppy?"

"No. Just you."

"Are we just talking blood loss here?" she asked seriously.

He nodded against her.

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Then sleep now, and if you aren't feeling much better later, I'll get Poppy."

He nodded again.

"And when you wake up you'll tell me what happened."

It was not a question.

**********

She didn't have nearly as much trouble getting the story out of him as she thought she would. To be sure he wasn't very enthusiastic about telling her, and hedged several times, but eventually she got the details; bits and pieces related in an expressionless voice that told her more about that effect of the experience on him that anything else.

"Let him send the bloody thing," she had said again. "I don't care what's in it. I'm not going to leave you."

She didn't know if he believed her. She had a suspicion that he would never quite believe her, no matter what she said. Maybe only time would work that particular miracle. And in truth, although she meant what she said unreservedly, she wasn't looking forward to the day that the inevitable parcel arrived in her rooms. She really had no desire to experience that aspect of Snape's past.

Perhaps she could just annihilate the damned thing.

She suspected that it wouldn't be that easy. These things never were.

She was right. It wasn't.

It arrived one Friday morning. She wasn't even aware of how it got there. All she knew was that when she and Snape got up it wasn't there. When she returned to her rooms, alone, after breakfast, to collect her teaching materials for the day, it was sitting on her table. Crookshanks was sitting on the back of one of her chairs glaring at it balefully. The back of her neck prickled and goosebumps came up on her skin.

It was a plain grey bowl, undecorated and unwrapped, and emanating an air of distinct menace. Even the familiar swirling silver liquid inside looked somehow dull, tarnished. For good measure, Crookshanks growled deep in his throat and hissed at it.

"Don't worry, Crookshanks," she murmured uneasily. "It's not staying."

Ah well, I might as well try.

She pulled out her wand and cast Annihilate. For a moment nothing happened, and then the bowl pulsed with livid red colour and a jet of flame shot upwards from the surface of the Pensieve, hitting the ceiling. Crookshanks gave a howl and shot out of the room. Hermione leapt back with a startled cry, and cast Finite Incantatem in the hope that that would have some effect.

The pillar of flame disappeared, leaving a faint smell of burning behind. Shakily, she ran her hand over her hair, breathing heavily, heart still racing. She looked up at the scorch marks on the ceiling. Clearly, she wasn't going to get off that easily.

So be it. She just wouldn't look in the damned thing. Malfoy might be able to send it. He might be able to stop her destroying it. But he couldn't make her use it.

The rest of the day was a strained affair. The knowledge that the Pensieve was sitting on the table in her rooms preyed on her mind. Which meant that she put so much effort into not making things worse by being so preoccupied that her students made dangerous mistakes, that she actually achieved a extremely intense degree of focus. Consequently, she was shorter than usual with her classes and much less tolerant of errors - stupid or otherwise. She skipped lunch, telling herself that she needed to catch up on her stores inventory, but all the time knowing that she was avoiding Snape; putting off the moment when she would have to tell him what had happened.

She was toying with the idea of missing dinner as well, and getting something from the kitchens later, when the door to her office opened to admit a familiar figure.

"As you weren't at lunch I thought that I would check that you intended to at least be present at dinner."

She tried to summon a smile and a natural tone of voice.

"I have to check the potions stocks, for the order at the end of the month." Never mind that that was nearly three weeks away. "And I'm not really very hungry for some reason." She randomly shuffled some of the parchments and papers on her desk in the hope of conveying an air of non-specific busyness.

He wasn't fooled. Softly, he moved over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"It's here isn't it?"

She shut her eyes.

"Yes," she said flatly.

The pressure of his hand increased briefly.

"I tried to destroy it," she added, "but that didn't work. I just won't look into it. Malfoy can't force me to do that."

His voice was calm.

"Even so, maybe you should."

I thought we'd had this discussion already.

"I told you, it makes no difference to me. I don't need to see what's in there."

He was silent at that. Then when he spoke his voice was very quiet; very quiet and very even.

"I know. But maybe I need for you to see what's in there." She drew breath to protest once again, but he laid his finger across her lips. "Shh," he said gently, "please let me finish."

She nodded mutely, unease stealing over her at the resolution in his tone. She looked at him. His face was serious.

"I would never have chosen for this to happen. But now that it has..." he paused briefly and then went on. "I believe you when you say that you will never look into it. But even if you don't, even if you throw it in the lake, I will always wonder what would have happened if you had. Or what might happen if one day you change your mind. I will always be waiting for that to happen."

Hermione couldn't speak, could barely breathe.

"As long as that is the case," he continued in the same tone of voice, "Lucius Malfoy will always have power over us. That isn't his only one you know - he has a whole library of them. I - we - will always be waiting for the next one to arrive. Do you understand?"

She nodded again. He grasped one of her hands and lifted it to his mouth.

"I would give anything that I possessed not to have to ask this of you. But please, my dearest love, I need you to look into the Pensieve and see what is there. And if...." He paused again, swallowing. She was transfixed by the look in his eyes, determined, resigned, scared. "If, after you have looked, you need to end this, then I will not try to prevent you." He moistened his lips; his first outward sign of nervousness. "This needs to be resolved between us before either of us does anything irrevocable."

Hermione had to remind herself to breathe. She struggled to form thoughts in her mind through the conflicting emotions. Damn the man, she thought incoherently. Just when she had it nicely organised, he threw it all out of order again. She wanted to run; to refuse to participate in this any more.

"Do you know what's in there?" she managed.

"No. Although I have an idea."

He was still holding her hand. She suddenly needed to grip on tightly. He returned the pressure.

If she was honest with herself, she didn't want to look, was more than content for the details of his past to stay there in a sort of fuzzy acknowledgement of having done bad things. True, she had thought about this situation, told herself it was bound to happen eventually, that it wouldn't make a difference, that she would face it when it did.

But now eventually had happened; fate had called her on the play. And what if it did make a difference? What if she couldn't bear to face him afterwards. What if she really did lose him?

He was right.

If she didn't look it would always be between them; the just supposes and the what ifs.

He was willing to face Azkaban for you. He walked away from his world and his family for you. It's time to see if you were worth it.

She nodded slowly.

"All right. I'll do it."

"Thank you." Quiet recognition.

Suddenly, she needed to be close to him. She moved to him, wrapping her arms round him, burying her face against his chest, holding him as if it would be her last chance to do so.

Eventually, even Hermione ran out of displacement activity.

She made sure that Crookshanks was safely out of the way in the dungeons - Snape had refused to be present and she understood why. Then she tidied away the things that were scattered around the table. And then she carefully made sure that her lesson plans and her marking were up to date. It was only when she was considering whether or not this would be a good time to go through her wardrobe and clear out all the robes and other things that she really didn't wear any more that she faced what she was doing. It didn't matter how tidy the rooms were. It didn't matter how much tea she drunk. It didn't matter if she went into Hogsmeade for the day, or to Australia for a month.

At the end of it all the Pensieve would still be there. Waiting.

Get on with it, woman. I thought you were a Gryffindor.

Drawing a chair up to the table, she positioned herself in front of the plain grey bowl and held on to the edge of the table with sweaty palms, steeling herself for what was to come.

Her last thought before she leant forward to look was, maybe it won't be as bad as I fear.

She watched as a room took shape through the swirling liquid. It seemed to be bare stone. A dungeon then. Hardly unexpected under the circumstances. As the outlines clarified she could see figures in the room. She leant forward a little further to try and make them out and felt the familiar sensation of being pitched forward into icy blackness.

As her senses reasserted themselves, she began to fully take in the scene.

It was indeed a dungeon. It was empty save for a high backed square cut wooden chair with arms and a large table, also wooden. It reminded her bizarrely of a very Spartan dining table with a single place setting. There were four men in the room - at least, she assumed they were all men. Two she didn't recognise; two she did.

Lucius Malfoy was one.

She had seen Lucius before, of course, but she was still struck with the impeccable grooming of the man. Even in a dungeon, even plainly contemplating torture, his appearance and bearing could not be faulted. He could have been hosting a formal reception. His movements were elegant, controlled and graceful; a man completely in his element.

He moved smoothly round the table towards where she was standing. Even though she knew that he couldn't see her, she stepped hastily back out of his way and focussed on the other man.

Snape.

Also controlled, but dark and contained. In contrast to the relaxed poise of Malfoy, he was tense, keyed up; not restless, but an almost unnaturally still counterpoint to the flowing movement of the other.

A noise immediately behind her made her whirl round, startled.

There was a fifth person in the room. Another man. Naked. Chained to the wall by his wrists and ankles.

Lucius Malfoy also noticed the sound.

"Ah, you're back with us. How splendid. Now you're awake you can help us clear up a few questions that have been bothering us."

"I'm not going to tell you bastards anything."

She realised that she was breathing heavily. A rattle brought her attention back to the centre of the room. Snape had moved a trolley from behind the table, where it had been hidden from her view. It had a number of bottles on it of different shapes and sizes. He carefully stationed it to one side of the table and then returned for another one. She couldn't see clearly what was on this one.

Not wanting to know, but needing to, she moved to get a better view, flinching as she directly crossed Malfoy's line of sight.

She saw knives. Gleaming, razor sharp, arranged by size and gauge upon a pristine white linen cloth, like instruments awaiting the surgeon. And there were other things she recognised as well; things that her parents occasionally used. Retractor, clamp, her brain identified automatically.

And then Malfoy, smiling, urbane.

"I don't actually think we're planning to ask you anything are we, Severus?"

A shrug from the other man.

"No, I didn't think so." A charming smile. "You see, my friend here is absolutely fascinated with the effect of certain potions on the human body, but finds it terribly difficult to get reliable data." He looked back to the surgical trolley. "Oh, that does look nice. Thank you gentlemen," - this to the other two men in the room - "a splendid job, as usual." He returned his attention to the man hanging on the wall. "Of course, I don't really understand all the technical aspects of this. I'm just happy to be able to lend a hand with my more modest talents." He looked quizzically at the man. "Tell me, are you a gardener?"

There was a snort behind her, making her jump and turn.

"Lucius, we don't have all day. You can discuss your roses later." Cold, impatient. Hermione noticed that he now had parchment and a quill laid out on the trolley with the potions.

The other man shrugged.

"You really should take more interest in horticulture you know, Severus. I find it extremely relaxing. However, as you wish."

He gestured, and the other two men came forward to release the prisoner. They pulled him over and up on to the table, securing his torso and legs. As Hermione watched, Lucius carefully selected a knife from the trolley. Snape gestured briefly at the man on the table.

"Chest first. Upper left side. About two inches by four inches, please."

And Lucius began to cut.

She wanted to look away but couldn't. Couldn't move at all. Couldn't even retch.

She watched as Lucius Malfoy carefully sliced pieces of skin away, and as Snape equally carefully dropped precisely measured amounts of substance onto the raw flesh underneath. Then the pause as he observed, and recorded, and then repeated the action on some other part, turning the body to make the fullest possible use of it. Torso, limbs, face, genitals; no part of the man escaped.

It was precise, calculated, unimpeachably scientific. It might even have held some interest, were it not for the fact of the conscious, screaming man on the table, twitching and spasming against the restraints, and the air filled with the acrid smells of a body being pressed beyond its natural endurance. Even breathing shallowly, she could taste the stench at the back of her throat.

There were very few words exchanged between them other than Snape giving instructions on where to cut next. Malfoy's face held a sort of serene contentment that Hermione found deeply disturbing. Snape's face barely changed expression, apart from the occasional grunt of dissatisfaction when his subject contaminated a test area with vomit or urine.

She felt a curious sense of dissociation, as if the whole thing was not really happening at all. She felt virtually nothing. No horror, no revulsion, no desire to scream or cry out or protest. There was only the scene unfolding before her. Nothing else existed. Not even her. She briefly wondered if she were in fact still alive or if she was watching this as a ghost.

She supposed that she would have to think about this later, but not now.

Please Gods, not now.

Eventually, both the body and table were masked in blood and the twitchings of the man became noticeably weaker.

"I think that we're beginning to run out of useful sites, cousin." Malfoy sounded regretful.

Snape simply grunted again.

"Then we'll turn him back over and do as much internally as we can."

Something within her flinched at the word internally, but the feeling only barely registered on her consciousness.

A movement from the two onlookers, a wave of the wand, and the body on the table - it had ceased being a man some while ago - was turned over so that the ruined face was uppermost.

"Eyes." The one curt word from Snape had Lucius holding first one, and then the other open as Snape added something green to one and something black to the other. More inarticulate sounds of pain, more notes.

Hermione's feelings were now sufficiently detached for her to register a measurable difference in the reaction to each substance. She even spared a second to wonder what they were. Snape, meanwhile, had finished his scribbling and surveyed the results of Lucius' handiwork with distaste.

"Liver," he said eventually.

Lucius picked up another knife.

"Left or right lobe?" he asked.

Hermione moved forward, her body carrying her without any active input from her brain. The white linen cloth was stained with blood now, where Lucius had replaced and exchanged his implements of choice.

"Right, I think," replied Snape after a moment.

Lucius nodded.

She watched as he laid the fine blade of the knife on the flesh - she couldn't use the word skin, there was so little of that substance left - on the right hand side of the body, just below the diaphragm, and then almost teasingly drew it along and down. The body on the table spasmed at the touch.

Snape drew in his breath in clear exasperation.

"Lucius, we don't have time for you to play."

"I wish you took more pleasure in life, cousin. You'll die young, you know."

In response, Snape simply folded his arms and waited. His hands were as clean as when he had started, she noticed. Lucius's hands were stained, but Snape had managed to avoid the blood, the vomit, the other bodily fluids. Even the potions had been administered from a distance.

Lucius gave Snape a mournful look and then sliced deeply, confidently, into the upper abdomen.

There was less blood than she might have expected; due, presumably, to the fact that a great deal of it had already been spilled. Lucius put the knife down and inserted another metal device, which he adjusted until it was holding the wound wide open. A incoherent gurgle came from the table.

"Enough?" he asked, slightly petulantly.

"A little wider."

Lucius complied. Hermione moved again, drawn to the sight. At the base of the cut she could see something red and slippery, pulsing. It was pale, much paler than it should be, the movements weak and a little irregular. She recalled a random fact from her parents' anatomy textbooks; thirty per cent of the body's blood supply passes through the liver per minute. Not if seventy percent of it was already missing.

Snape leaned forward holding a glass dropper. He squeezed gently and four drops of vivid green hit the surface of the exposed organ. The body began to thrash again, making sobbing noises of helpless protest, eyeless head tossing from side to side. White patches began to appear across the liver, blotching into roseate patterns with livid red centres. The sobs became choking. Lucius poked experimentally at one of the marks.

"The white parts are hard." He poked again. "But the unaffected areas are still soft."

Wordlessly, Snape noted it down.

The thrashings were getting weaker now. Lucius found an uncut area on the throat and checked the pulse.

"He's fading. Shall we leave it at that or do you want to try for the heart as well?"

She watched as Snape's face closed even more.

"I doubt he'll live long enough to make any useful observations." He selected a small bottle from the trolley and pulled out the stopper. With infinite care, he bent over the table and allowed two drops to fall onto the lips of what was left of the man they had been working on.

His spine arched, he gave a strangled cough and then the body went rigid. Lucius' face darkened unpleasantly.

He might have been useless for your purposes, cousin, but I could still have had some fun with him."

Snape looked unimpressed.

"I told you we didn't have time for games. Find another toy."

"One day you will no longer be the favoured one of Our Master," warned Lucius. "Be careful of the enemies you make."

Snape simply shrugged and collected up his notes.

"Clear up this mess," he ordered in the direction of the two onlookers.

Then he swept out of the room.

Hermione felt the room receding and had the disconcerting sensation that she was fading out of existence. Maybe I am really dead, she thought distantly. Then other sights began to register in her mind. Another table, another chair, other walls. But this time there was colour. And a fire. And familiar objects.

She was in her rooms. Her own rooms. Her. Rooms.

Like blood returning to a numbed limb, all the emotions that she had been rigidly suppressing came flowing back into her.

She barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up.

She lay on the bathroom floor for a long time, shaking weakly, and resting her head against the cool porcelain of the toilet. The taste and smell of her own vomit mingled in her senses with the memory of the smells from the dungeon, and she hauled herself up to bring up more bile.

Eventually, there was nothing more to bring up, and she pulled herself to her feet, to try to cleanse her mouth with toothpaste and water. It only brought short term relief though, as her bruised stomach muscles rebelled at the first touch of the cold water, and she lurched to the toilet again to bring up watery stomach acid. She tried again to clean her teeth, this time without swallowing anything. Then she forced herself through the sitting room, past the Pensieve with its obscene contents, and into her bedroom.

Without bothering to undress, she crawled under the covers and hugged a pillow to her, burying her face in it in a childlike desire for comfort.

And then she cried.

She lay sobbing for what felt like forever, locked in wordless misery, trying not to see the images, hear the noises, smell the stench. Again and again the pain flowed over and around her, until eventually her mind refused to have anything more to do with it, and she drifted into blackness.

END OF PART 7