Disclaimer: The characters and the universe of Harry Potter belong to J.K Rowling. No disrespect is intended. This story is written for sheer enjoyment. No profit is being made from it. The story itself is mine <g>. Please do not archive without my permission.

Rating: NC-17 for sex, subject matter and generally not being nice. The story contains consensual sex between adults. There is also some material involving Draco Malfoy which probably constitutes slash, but personally, I think that it’s on the outer edge of the definition. However, you have been warned J.

Author’s Notes: This came about following some shameless bullying from Clare009, and a long conversation with Anne in Starbucks. So if you like it, it’s all down to me, and if you don’t - it’s not my fault, they made me do it….. <vbg>

(Most) deliberate borrowings are done with permission. My biggest debts of inspiration are probably to Pawn to Queen, Marrach, and A Higher Price. I humbly grovel and apologise for any subconscious, and unintentional, borrowings from their or anyone else’s fic - I have no doubt there are loads anyway - please take it as sincere homage <g> Tell me about it, and I’ll credit you…. There is one almost direct lift from the Lord of the Rings. And a couple from the Wizard of Oz. And one from The Lion in Winter.

As for Sphinx - the name is not borrowed from the wonderful writer <g> but from the breed of cat that she most closely resembles. In fact she is based on a real cat of my close acquaintance, who, is, in fact, called Esmé. Confused yet? <g>

Thanks to Anne for kicking around the psychology of Snape with me, and thanks to Clare009 for alternately bullying, betaing and providing reassurance/validation at 2 o’clock in the morning when I am convinced that I can’t write a decent laundry list, let alone any form of fiction. <hugs> guys!

Hermione Granger checked the lab for one last time. Finally, she was satisfied that everything was cleaned up, tidied away or switched off. It was well known within the Ministry of Magic Research and Development Section that Miss Granger had something of a fetish about order and cleanliness, in the lab at least - even if her office did tend to resemble the aftermath of a nasty poltergeist attack. Most put it down to the fact that her parents were some kind of Muggle scientists - they were a little hazy on the specifics, out of general discomfort with the whole concept.

Despite being only 26 years old, and so one of the youngest witches to be given charge of a lab, her focussed determination made her a force to be reckoned with. Her lab was her private domain, her home from home, and had evolved into to a curious mixture of Muggle and magic - cauldrons stacked by microscopes, and jars of lizards eyes stored with bottles of hydrochloric acid. Hermione, herself, had never bothered about the odd juxtapositions. She concentrated on achieving effective and successful results, by whatever methods seemed most apt for the task, unconcerned that she frequently irritated the holders of more conventional viewpoints in the process.

She had even begun to adopt Muggle clothing at work - pointing out that however attractively “swishy” robes were, they had a tendency to knock over bottles, drape into lit fires and generally be a nuisance. She preferred things with sleeves, with a white coat over the top. Her eccentricities were grudgingly tolerated by her superiors, privately annoyed by the knowledge that she was too useful to risk alienating.

She closed the lab door behind her and walked along the corridor to wait for the lift that would take her to the surface of London. It was there when she arrived and the door opened immediately. Inside, one wall was completely taken up by a mirror - no doubt designed to create the illusion of space. Hermione always found the experience of being in a confined area with a full size reflection of herself mildly disturbing.

This time she took the opportunity to give herself a quick once over. She had matured into a trim young woman since leaving Hogwarts - no one would call her beautiful, she thought wryly, but she had developed attractive, regular features. She had allowed her hair - always the bane of her life - to grow a little longer, and the weight had helped to tame it a little. At present it was firmly pulled back and secured in a pony tail. She wore no make up - she refused to dress to impress a collection of assorted scientific and magical equipment, which description she extended to her colleagues only half-jokingly. She straightened her jacket, adjusted her skirt so the small slit was actually at the back, and reassured herself that there were no runs in her tights.

She smiled at herself momentarily. She might only have been meeting Ron and Harry for supper, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t want to look presentable. She was vain enough for that. She also had a slightly uncomfortable piece of personal news to break to them. Fussing over her appearance distracted her a little from the thought.

At that moment the lift came to a halt and the door opened into a small, old fashioned anteroom. A small woman was sitting behind a counter knitting. Behind her were an assortment of bags, cloaks, coats, and, Hermione noted, a rather bedraggled looking owl.

“Would you be wanting your coat, Miss Granger?” she enquired brightly.

“Yes please Mrs Gumbelside.”

“It’s quite bright at the moment, but it looks like it might turn nasty later.” The woman handed over the coat. “Here you are my dear.”

Hermione put it on and opened the door in front of her. She stepped out into the entrance hall of the British Library. The discreet door, simply marked “Private”, gave no indication that many floors beneath the surface - beneath even the secure rooms housing priceless Muggle artefacts and documents, the Ministry of Magic maintained an equally secure facility. Any lost Muggle who opened the door by mistake would simply be redirected by Mrs Gumbelside. Any Muggle or wizard who opened the door with evil intent would be met by one of the most powerful Aurors the Ministry had ever employed. The resulting confrontation was likely to be short, vicious, and extremely disadvantageous to the intruder. It was widely speculated that Mrs Gumbelside would not even need to put her knitting down.

She walked briskly through the entrance hall, avoiding the milling people, and casting a swift eye over the notice boards festooned with posters advertising talks, courses, and exhibitions. There were some new ones, she noticed. Exhibitions mostly - 19th Century landscape painters, art and culture of West Africa, a newly discovered hoard of Romano-British artefacts… this last caught her eye briefly. The poster displayed a glossy photograph of something metal - a sword hilt, she thought. It was delicately chased, in the way of Celtic decorative work. On the pommel, the craftsman had fashioned something like a monogram - a capital M surrounded by a circle. Hermione moved a little closer to see. It was certainly very lovely. The exhibition opened in about three weeks at the British Museum. She thought that it might be worth a visit if she had the time. Shoving the idea to the back of her mind, she left the building.

Out on the street it was dark, but the October evening was bright, as Mrs Gumbleside had said, with that familiar sharp, smoky, tang of autumn. Hermione turned left outside the Library, and walked briskly down the street. A few turns later she came to some steps leading downwards, and a sign reading “Wine Bar”. She descended. Inside the lighting was dim - or discreet, as she preferred to describe it - and it was crowded with Muggles wearing dark business clothes. She waited for her eyesight to adjust to the darker conditions, and then looked round. In one corner, a hand, waving frantically, poked out over the sea of heads. She returned the gesture, and threaded her way through the crowd.

“Hi Harry. Hi Ron.”

Harry stood up as soon as she got close. He had matured over the years into a tallish, lean young man, with a serious expression. His hair still resisted all attempts to keep it neatly cut, falling forward to hide the scar. He still wore his glasses, despite periodic attempts by Hermione, Ron, and occasionally Ginny Weasley, to persuade him to try contact lenses. He had also acquired an air of watchfulness, an underlying quiet dangerousness from his years of fieldwork as an Auror. Sometimes Hermione felt an odd twinge of envy for Harry, being out there, getting his hands dirty. At school she had fantasised about fighting the dark as an Auror. Objective reason and common sense told her that her skills lay more in the library than the armoury, but there was some part of her that still craved action. At the moment Harry appeared to be relaxed, wearing Muggle jeans and a sweater - not a Weasley sweater, Hermione noted.

Harry was clearing some coats off of a chair.

“We staked a claim on the chair before anyone else could take it. Honestly. Are Muggle places always this crowded?”

“If you’re talking about a Muggle central London wine bar on a Friday evening - yes, I’m afraid so.” Hermione sat down. Ron Weasley was grinning at her from the other side of the table, and pouring her a glass of wine.

“Hi ‘Mione. How’s life at the sophisticated end of the building?”

In some ways Ron had changed very little since leaving Hogwarts. Slightly shorter and stockier than Harry, with his trademark shock of red hair, he still made you instinctively want to check the seat before sitting down, just in case of unexpected surprises. What had surprised everyone was the fact that he, too, had got a job with the Ministry of Magic. He worked in the Development part of the Ministry, adapting items for magical uses. As he gleefully pointed out, it wasn’t that far from what he had always done anyway.

“Life’s fine,” responded Hermione. “How about you? Blown up anything good recently?”

“Not so’s you’d notice. Incidentally those books that your Dad gave me were great!”

Hermione’s father has lent Ron his complete collection of James Bond novels. Ron had been particularly taken with Q, Bond’s gadget maker, and had been trying to encourage everyone in his section to call him that. So far he had been singularly unsuccessful.

“I’ll let him know. How’s the family?”

“Fine thanks. Fred and George have been up for a visit”

“Have they got over the shock of you having a respectable job?”

“They regard it as a Percy-ian betrayal of everything that the name of Weasley stands for.”

Hermione chuckled. Ron continued:
“However, myself and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes have come to an arrangement about a suitable consultancy fee…..”

Both Harry and Hermione laughed out loud at this. Hermione did not ask after Harry’s family. Harry had ceased all contact with them at the earliest possible opportunity.

“How about you, Harry? Anything happening in your life?”

Harry just shrugged.

“Oh you know the sort of thing. Get up, find matching socks, battle forces of evil, return home to TV dinner for one. Much the same as usual. How about you ‘Mione.”

Hermione sighed. This was the moment that she had not been looking forward to. She tried to adopt a light tone.

“Nothing much. Since Peter.. um… left… things have been rather quiet.”

They reacted as predicted.

“Peter left? When? Why? How?”

She quietened them down.

“Look it’s no big drama. It wasn’t working, that’s all.”

“Do you want us to find him and turn him into a Flobberworm?” This from Ron.

“No, no….”

“Are you all right, Hermione?” This from Harry.

“Yes I’m fine. To be honest I didn’t actually notice at first.”

They were speechless at this.

“He moved his things out - not that there were that many of them there in the first place - and left me a note. I’d been working late at the Ministry for a few nights, and wasn’t really paying attention to the flat.” Which was a severe understatement. Hermione’s flat was somewhere that existed purely to stop her having to sleep in the lab, or out of doors. “I found the note after a couple of days, buried under some stuff on the dining table. End of story. If I cared that much, I’d have noticed sooner.”

“Ah well, I expect he wasn’t good enough for you,” said Ron cheerfully, pouring more wine. Harry looked hard at her but let the subject pass to other things.

Supper came and went, and they were enjoying coffee, when Harry said abruptly:
“Guys, can I pick your brains about something?”

Ron and Hermione both nodded.

“Although I don’t promise to be much help,” added Ron.

Harry looked at the table, twirling his empty wineglass.

“I’m not entirely certain where to start with this.” He paused. Ron and Hermione waited for him to continue. “A couple of weeks ago I went out on an ordinary field mission. A group of former, or at least wannabe, Death Eaters, holed up in a cottage in Yorkshire somewhere. Nothing particularly unusual about that.”

Both his companions nodded. Although Voldemort himself had fallen some years ago, the networks that he had established had proved much harder to root out. The Death Eaters were still operating, on a footing that seemed closer to organised crime than anything else. Someone had plainly filled the power vacuum left by the destruction of the Dark Lord. There was no hard information as to who, but the form favourite in the eyes of most of the Ministry was Lucius Malfoy.

And the Ministry was no nearer to identifying these “new” Death Eaters, than it had been during Voldemort’s time. With the overt threat from the Dark Lord removed, it was even more difficult to establish people’s true loyalties. There was almost more Ministry activity now than there had been during the war years.

Meanwhile, Harry was continuing the story.

“We got there and there was the usual fight to get in.” The others were listening closely. “There were four of them. The first three were nasty but no worse than usual. The last one had some kind of potion on him. He took a huge swallow of it, and then he came at us. He’d got off a few shots before if you know what I mean, but nothing that we couldn’t handle. But once he’d had this potion it was if his power had been increased somehow. And he was physically much stronger - breaking furniture - that sort of thing.”

Ron and Hermione were a little confused at this.

“Sounds like a fairly standard ability enhancing potion,” said Hermione. “There are a number. All pretty unethical of course. It’s not usual to enhance both physical and magical strength at once, but it’s theoretically possible, and not particularly difficult if you have even a moderate ability to make a potion.”

Harry was staring at the table again. Finally he said quietly:
“There was more.” He paused again. “He… the one who took the potion… touched…. Seamus.” Hermione suddenly went cold. Seamus Finnegan had been one of their cronies at school. Given his rather… unpredictable… magical results, they had all been thrilled when he had succeeded in becoming an Auror. Whilst Harry, Ron and Hermione were close, Harry and Seamus also had the forged bond of shared dangers. “Not hard. Held the side of his face. Stroked it. It was almost… affectionate. And Seamus screamed and fell. We went after him.. the Death Eater… to capture him, but he wasn’t going to surrender. And, as we couldn’t risk getting close enough for him to do to us whatever he did to Seamus, in the end we had to kill him.”

“Good,” said Ron with satisfaction.

Hermione was less convinced. Dead was satisfying, but made it difficult to get accurate information.

Harry was now scratching absently at the table top, not really attending to Ron.

“There’s something else isn’t there?” stated Hermione.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck.

“When the… man touched Seamus my scar began to burn.”

“But doesn’t that only happen in the presence of….”

Ron could always be relied upon to ask those sorts of questions thought Hermione wryly. Even now so long out of school. Harry shrugged, unwilling to go into the matter any further.

“How is Seamus?” she asked with no very great hope.

“He’s in St Mungo’s. He’s basically catatonic. It’s only the fact that he screams out every now and then that convinces people he’s still alive.”

Now Ron was silent.

“Do you know what the potion was?”

“No. We have no idea.”

“Did you manage to save any of it?”

“No. And the Ministry have been going nuts about it. Sending out dire warnings that anyone who finds any of it must hand it in immediately on pain of death.”

They were all chilled by the story.

Then Hermione remembered that Harry had begun the conversation by asking for help. Cautiously she said, “That last aspect of the potion doesn’t sound familiar to me. I don’t think that I can help any more without actually having a sample of the potion to work on.”

“Could you find out what it is if you did have a sample?”

“I though you said that you didn’t manage to save any of it.”

“Not officially.” There was a pause. “’Mione….” Harry’s voice was now a plea. “I have to know what did this to Seamus. I have to be able to stop it.”

“If and we’re only talking hypothetically here…. If I had a sample of the potion, I might be able to run some tests on it, and maybe I could find something out about it…..”

“’Mione, you’re a star.”

“This will have to be completely unofficial, you do realise this.”

“Absolutely. I’ll get the sample that we don’t have to you as soon as possible.”

**********

There was a package waiting for Hermione when she arrived for work the following day. It was occupying the only clear area of the desk, in the small cubby hole off the lab that passed for her office. She stuck her head out the door.

“Cyrus, did you see who left this?”

The young wizard graduate student briefly glanced up from his notebook, where was doing a fairly good impression of preparing a lab report.

“Nope. What is it?”

“Probably an early Christmas present.”

“If it says ‘Weasley’ anywhere on it, destroy it unopened.”

Hermione chuckled. The Weasleys were legendary. Or at least notorious.

She drew back into the office and shut the door, looking at the parcel. None of the lab’s standard wards had been activated, nor had any of her, more specialised, personal ones. It was about 6 inches high by 4 inches square, covered in plain brown paper. Just about the size of a small potion bottle. Written on the outside was H. Granger. Personal. Sitting at her desk she looked at it for a long time.

There was something of a pattern in all of this, she reflected. Harry and Ron coming up with a mystery to investigate, and roping her in whether she really wanted to be involved or not. Something that was bound to get her into trouble if discovered. Although it was no longer a question of losing house points for Gryffindor.

Taking a deep breath, and with what she considered to be a wholly irrational and unreasonable sense of foreboding, she began to open the package. Her initial hunch was quite correct - she carefully unwrapped a bottle made of dark green glass, about one third full of some liquid which, upon agitation, appeared to have the consistency of cough syrup. The container itself was perfectly plain apart from a symbol embossed on the front. It consisted of a capital M inside a circle. The proportions of the letter were odd, she thought. The upright strokes were further apart than usual, and the V in the middle was shallow. And there was a nagging familiarity that to it that she couldn’t quite place. Narrowing her eyes she took a pad of paper out of her desk and began to make a careful copy of the symbol. If this was Harry’s potion then it was hardly something she could carry about with her. Tearing the completed copy from the pad she folded it up and put it in her pocket. On an impulse she tore off the next four or five blank sheets. There was no trace on the pad that she had ever written anything on it. She didn’t quite know what she was getting herself into, but there was no point in being careless.

She replaced the potion into its wrapping, and wondered about where to hide it. The bottle itself was unremarkable enough except for the decoration on the front. She looked around her small office. One wall was taken up with bookshelves, with the contents stacked at least two rows deep. Around the other walls were potion and ingredient cabinets crammed with bottles, jars and other containers.

Hermione began to smile. What was the maxim about hiding something in plain sight?

A week later she was considerably less cheerful.

After seven straight late evenings, she had still got no further forward than devising a good hiding place.

She looked at the solution in the beaker which, despite the additions of catalyst and reagent together with the application of significant heat, steadfastly refused to react.

Despite her best efforts the potion had utterly failed to give up any of its secrets. Well, perhaps that wasn’t quite true. She had identified several stimulants affecting both adrenaline and cortisol production, and also traces of Runespoor eggs to increase mental agility. She had even tentatively isolated a significant fungal hallucinogen. All of these were to be expected in a potion which enhanced physical strength and magical ability, but she could find nothing which explained an apparent ability to provoke catatonia. She suppressed an urge to stamp her foot. All her life the one thing that she had always been able to do was solve problems. To find one that would not cooperate caused her great frustration.

She flexed her shoulders to ease the tension. Stamping and shouting, whilst they might be extremely therapeutic, were not going to get her any closer to an answer. In fact, she recalled Peter shouting at her, during one of their rows, that emotional reaction was beyond her unless it served a practical purpose. It was shortly after that that he had left without explanation. She shut her eyes. It was all so much simpler in her lab. Usually.

She was due to meet with Harry and Ron that evening to report back. She sighed. They weren’t going to want to hear that she had so far drawn a blank. She checked her watch. It was time to finish up if she didn’t want to be late. She carefully replaced the stopper into the plain potion bottle. It was now less than a quarter full. She was not being helped by only having a limited quantity of substance with which to work.

Meticulously she disposed of her results (or lack of them) and cleaned the equipment. It was critical that she left no traces, for both her own safety, and that of the other lab users. Once satisfied, she replaced the little bottle in one of the cupboards in her office, checked the wards, and left.

In the lift to the surface she resolutely stood with her back to the mirror. She knew she looked tired and frustrated, and didn’t need to be reminded of it. As the doors opened Mrs Gumbelside gave her an old-fashioned look.

“Working late again, Miss Granger?”

Hermione just nodded. She did not have the time, nor to be quite honest, the inclination, for a long conversation.

“You look as if you’re overdoing it, my dear. You need to be careful.”

Hermione mustered up a smile.

“Don’t worry, Mrs Gumbelside. It’s only just for a special project. It’ll soon be over, and then I promise I’ll sleep for a week.”

“Just see that you do,” the little woman chided her.

Grabbing her coat, Hermione left the building, breathing deeply of the fresh air. Or as close to fresh as it ever got in central London. Unsurprisingly it was dark. Just recently she had been arriving in the dark, and leaving after nightfall. Add that to working underground, and Hermione wondered if she would turn that semi-transparent white shade of some cave dwelling creature. She began walking briskly in the direction of the wine bar, in the hope that the air and exercise would clear her head a little.

By the time she arrived at the top of the steps leading to the entrance, she was feeling a little better, although no closer to any kind of solution.

Harry and Ron were already there. She sat herself down at the table. She noted that they had ordered a large bottle of sparkling mineral water. They were obviously working tonight. She poured herself a glass and sipped reflectively. Both of the men were looking hopeful. They obviously expected that she would have pulled a rabbit out of a hat for them. No such luck, she thought ruefully. This time it was were turn to fiddle with her glass whilst she sought for the proper words. May as well get it over and done with.

“Well…,” she began eventually. “I’ve been studying the… sample.. that you left me.”

The men sat up.

“I can tell you that I have identified the agents that give rise to the obvious effects, such as strength and enhanced magical ability. This mixture appears to act as some kind of carrier for the active ingredient which allows the … removal… transference… whatever it is… of mind to happen. That much I am reasonably certain of. The rest is supposition.”

“Go on,” said Harry. Hermione’s suppositions were usually dead on target.

“Um… OK. It seems reasonable to assume that the hallucinogenic properties of the potion enhance those areas of the brain linked with general psychic powers…”

“… shame Trelawney never got her hands on any…” muttered Ron, sotto voce.

Hermione glared. Ron subsided. She continued:
“This would increase the ability of the drinker to form a mental link with the subject, and thus exercise some degree of external control, certainly over the subject’s thoughts.”

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. When she was thinking something through, Hermione still had a tendency to sound like a lab report.

“That makes sense,” commented Harry.

“Unfortunately, if you’re asking me how we get from a form of enhanced telepathy to an induced coma, or what the active ingredient is, or how we cure it - I don’t have answers for you.”

It was Harry’s turn to examine the table.

“St Mungo’s told me that Seamus has now lapsed into complete catatonia”, he said quietly.

“Harry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to try. And I don’t have that much more of the original sample left.”

“Don’t worry about it ‘Mione. I know you gave it your best shot.”

There was silence at the table, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

“Bet you who would know about it,” said Ron gloomily.

The other two looked at him.

“Snape,” he clarified.

They were dumbstruck. Eventually Hermione found her voice.

“Ron, you aren’t seriously suggesting that I ask Snape for help are you?”

Harry was looking thoughtful though.

“Why not, ‘Mione?”

“Why not? Why not? How may reasons do you need? I hate him. He hates me. He hates all of us. We’d be more likely to get a favour out of Mrs Norris. I’d rather carry on myself.”

“Yes, I know all that. But he is about the best there is when it comes to potions.”

“Not to mention the fact that if Harry’s scar hurt it probably means that Death Eaters are involved. And if Death Eaters are involved, the chances are that Snape was the one who made it in the first place,” pointed out Ron.

“Why does that not inspire me to leave for Hogwarts immediately?” asked Hermione dryly.

“Come on, Hermione,” encouraged Harry. “What harm can it do to send him an owl. He can only say no.”

“And he might be so pleased to get a chance to gloat that he actually gives us useful information,” added Ron.

Hermione looked at the two of them and sighed. When all was said and done, they were her friends. And it would be worth an hour or so of blistering sarcasm if she got the information necessary to find a cure for Seamus.

“All right,” she said eventually. “But you two owe me for this. Now, help me decide exactly what we’re going to say in this message.”

**********

The screwed up parchment hit the back of the cold fireplace with considerable force. Severus Snape pulled out his wand, pointed it and snapped Incendio! The crumpled ball exploded in flame, burned brightly for a few moments, and then, finding nothing in the grate to ignite in turn, faded to ashes. He breathed deeply several times, trying to calm the uncharacteristic show of anger. He stood very still, his eyes unreadably dark with something that could have been anger or maybe alarm. Finally he moved, to throw himself down into one of the two armchairs and stare into space.

The room was sparsely furnished. The two armchairs were really only a courtesy for his rare visitors. They were positioned facing the fire by convention, as the fire itself was almost never lit. A large plain table served for both eating, and working on the few occasions that Snape did not mark papers in the Potions Room itself. Two large chests contained his scant personal belongings. On one side of the fireplace was a narrow bed covered with serviceable grey blankets. The only sign of life in the room was the books - racked up on shelves and spread across any available surface. That, and a suspicious lump under the bedclothes, which had begun to move shortly after Snape had sat down.

The lump moved closer to the top of the covers, and then a head with a stubby little nose and a pair of enormous ears poked itself out. It made a cautious meeping sound.

The man in the chair looked towards the bed.

“You can come out now, Sphinx. I’ve stopped throwing things.”

The nose and ears emerged a little more, to be followed by a rather plump body and a long whippy tail. Sphinx was a cat, for want of a better description. She had turned up on Hagrid’s doorstep one morning in a cardboard box, tiny and shivering with cold. Even Hagrid, with his flexible attitude to living creatures, had been hard pushed to call her attractive. She was wrinkled with a rat-like tail and completely bald. She looked like something rather threadbare and neglected. When he had seen her Snape had felt a momentary flash of empathy. The kitten seemed to respond to this, for the first movement she made was towards his lap. After that it seemed that he had little choice but to adopt the creature. She in return utterly adored him - a fact that he regarded with some irony. He was well aware that Nature had not seen fit to make him adorable in many eyes.

Since that time she had grown considerably, both in size and confidence, although still bald and wrinkled. She lived almost permanently under the blankets of his bed, and made a rather pleasant, if slightly sticky, hot water bottle on cold nights.

Now she had made her way up onto his lap, and was climbing the front of his robes, to butt enquiringly at his face. He pushed her down, stroking her absently. It was rather like stroking warm suede. She began to purr loudly.

Snape sighed. Eight years after he had left Hogwarts that Potter brat was still causing him trouble. He had just received, and indeed destroyed, a message regarding the boy’s most recent exploits. Not that smoking out a nest of would-be Death Eaters was much to get excited about these days. No, what had disturbed him was the account of the fate of the Auror - whatever his name was - who was currently in St Mungo’s. Fortunately it appeared from the Ministry reports that no one was any the wiser as to the cause. He would need to put aside some time to deal with the situation though, before it got out of hand.

A scrabbling at the window caught his attention. Sphinx jumped off his lap and scuttled back beneath the blankets. Going to investigate, Snape discovered a small barn owl waiting outside. It was not a bird he recognised, and he rarely got unsolicited correspondence. Letting the creature in, he released the message from its leg. It flew down, landed on the floor next to Sphinx’s food and water and began to help itself. From the bed Sphinx mewed in protest, but did not actually move to interfere.

Snape unrolled the parchment, looked at the signature and blinked. Shaking his head in disbelief he began to read.

Dear Professor Snape

Of course. He should have known.

Potter was present at the incident when the Auror was injured. The Ministry has no indication of the cause of the injuries. Shortly afterwards Granger acquires an unknown potion, which contains elements she can’t identify.

It was completely and totally inevitable that this would happen.

Severus Snape sank back into his armchair with the distinctly unpleasant sensation of his past catching up with him.

**********

Hermione Granger firmly closed the door of her wardrobe, and opened a drawer. Then she shut the drawer and opened the wardrobe again. Then she shut the wardrobe, then opened it, and then shut it. She went into the bathroom, and brushed her hair again, catching it back in a pony tail secured by a clasp. Then she released it, and braided it. Then she let the braid go and restored the pony tail.

She returned to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. She gave a sigh of exasperation.

The owl from Snape had arrived two days ago. The message had been curt.

Miss Granger,

It was now Sunday afternoon and she was fussing as if this was some kind of first date. The time made sense - the potions room would be deserted. Afternoon tea with Professor Snape attracted less live guests than Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party. The effort was not for his benefit, however. She doubted he would get any further than noticing that she was dressed.

No - this was one of her little rituals to boost her self-confidence. The more nervous she was about a meeting, the more trouble she took with her appearance. Snape had always had the ability to disconcert her. Not least because he was one of the few teachers she had ever met who didn’t seem to respond to her intelligence. Throughout her school life her brains had earned her the approval of her teachers - even at Hogwarts. But that had never been the case with Snape. He had treated her with the same disdain he showed for all his students. Her enthusiasm had almost seemed to increase his irritation.

Despite telling herself firmly that she had achieved some professional success and recognition, and could face him as an equal, Hermione still felt as if she had been summoned to do detention.

In the end she settled on trousers, with a sweater and matching cardigan. She briefly considered heels, and then opted for flat lace-up shoes and socks. Neat, professional, but not overwhelmingly so.

She was about to go back into the bathroom again, when she stopped.

I’m sorry I’m late Professor Snape. I was doing my hair.

No, that really wouldn’t work.

Picking up her handbag, she checked that she had the small plain bottle, and the drawing of the marking on the original flask. She grabbed her cloak from the back of the chair and apparated.

She reappeared by one of the outer walls of Hogwarts. In the distance was the Forbidden Forest. Drawing her wand out from her sleeve she tapped the wall briefly. The wall obligingly rearranged itself into an archway, and she slipped inside, giving thanks to generations of Hogwarts students who had devoted considerable time and energy to devising concealed entrances and exits.

This particular one was infrequently used, largely because part of the route lay past the Potions Room. However, this time it suited her purpose perfectly. Quietly she made her way to the classroom.

She felt a twinge of nostalgia, mixed with regret that she was unable to seek out Dumbledore or McGonagall - or one of her other old teachers. Why couldn’t Harry have met a Death Eater who posed him a tricky Arithmancy problem, she wondered glumly. A long chat with Professor Vector would have been a much more pleasant prospect.

The corridor leading to the Potions Room was as forbidding as she remembered it. It was dark and cold, and somehow gave the impression of being clammy, although she doubted that it actually was - most potions ingredients required a fairly dry environment. The ones that needed high humidity were usually kept elsewhere. At Hogwarts, they would be dealt with by Professor Sprout.

She shivered. How ridiculous. It was only Snape after all. Not Voldemort himself.

In front of her was a dark, ironbound door. A door familiar from seven years of study. It was closed. Hermione raised her hand and, steeling herself, knocked once, firmly.

“Come in,” responded a familiar voice.

Pushing the door open, Hermione entered the Potions Classroom for the first time since her graduation.

For a jolting moment she was back in her schooldays. Nothing seemed to have changed. She would have bet that the ingredients, equipment, books were all exactly where they used to be. The air still held that familiar smell - disinfectants, ingredients and counteragents. The window glass was still smeared, and struggling to let in the light.

“Good afternoon, Miss Granger.”

Snape.

The same tall, cadaverous figure shrouded in unrelieved black. The same lank, greasy hair and sallow skin. The same silky voice, heavy with tired cynicism, ready at any moment to snap with whiplash sarcasm, or sneering derision. The same unbearably still presence, which compelled attention no matter where he was in the room.

She had the bizarre impression that he hadn’t actually moved from behind his desk in the last eight years. The piles of papers in front of him looked untouched. Only the slight traces of grey at his temples suggested that he had even bothered to age.

The only incongruous note was the low, soft, single melody line of an unaccompanied instrument. It was a oddly serene sound in the stillness of the room. A cello, she thought.

The unexpectedness of it distracted her mind as she listened, analysed and, finally, identified.

“I didn’t realise that you liked Bach.”

His eyebrow quirked.

“I didn’t realise that you had come to discuss my musical tastes.”

She felt defensive already.

“I haven’t,” she said trying to regain some control. “I just wasn’t expecting to hear the Bach Cello Suites as well.”

“Consider it an unexpected bonus then, Miss Granger.” His voice was dismissive, and he gestured at his desk. “Now, as you can see, I have papers to mark. I suggest you state your business.”

Hermione was uncomfortably aware of her rising flush. She had been back in his classroom for less than five minutes and already she could feel herself regressing to her first year. Never mind the work she had done so far. He had the air of someone about to take five points from Gryffindor merely for her being there. She swallowed.

“As I explained in my message, Professor, I have acquired a sample of a potion, that I am trying to analyse.”

“Ah yes. And you have failed. Is that it?”

Hermione gritted her teeth. Broadly speaking that was correct, but she didn’t like to hear it stated that baldly.

“I’ve run into one particular problem, yes,” she replied, trying to keep her voice even.

“I didn’t think that the Ministry of Magic employed people who ran back to school whenever they encountered a problem.”

That nettled her.

“I didn’t realise that I had come to discuss my chosen career.”

He steepled his fingers and gazed at her coldly.

“I would have thought that your career was rather dependent on your ability to carry out precisely this kind of task. Unless of course you were appointed simply on the strength of your role as Potter’s acolyte.”

Hermione decided that the only way forward was to take the offensive. Possibly literally.

“Given how precious your time is, Professor Snape, I can hardly think that you invited me here just to criticise my life choices.”

“I didn’t invite you here at all, girl,” he said sourly. “You approached me, if I recall correctly.”

“And I assume you want to hear what I have to say otherwise you would have sent a flat no.”

He looked at the ceiling.

“Explain,” he said simply.

Hermione sketched in the background as she had been given it by Harry, and outlined her own attempt at analysing the potion. He did not offer her a seat, and she cursed herself for not having the presence of mind just to take one. She was damned if she was going to ask his permission, yet to sit belatedly would somehow be worse. Standing in front of him, she felt as if she were delivering a essay report, but he appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be listening to her intently.

When she had finished he questioned her closely about her techniques, the methods she had used and the approaches she had tried. She was half expecting a grade at the end.

In the end he ceased his interrogation and closed his eyes, almost as if in pain. Hermione stifled that fanciful thought. The desk was more likely to feel pain that Snape. Finally he stirred, and rose. The unexpected movement caused her to let out a breath she didn’t know that she had been holding. Ignoring her he went to one of the bookcases. He removed a number of books, in what appeared to be random order, piling them neatly. Then he reached into the back, and pulled out another small book.

Returning, he placed it on his desk. Hermione could see that it appeared to be bound in very soft leather, of a quality she had never seen before. He flicked through the pages until he found what he was looking for, and then spread the open book in front of her.

She studied the page. It was made of a thin, nearly transparent material and very very delicate. On it, in some kind of rusty brown ink was a familiar design. A capital M within a circle.

“Have you ever seen that before?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “It was stamped on the potion bottle.”

Curiosity got the better of her, and she reached out tentatively to touch it the page.

“Don’t!” Snape’s voice was like a whipcrack. She jumped and froze.

“What is it made of,” she asked nervously.

He regarded her assessingly.

“Skin,” he said briefly.

Hermione felt something spasm inside her and swallowed convulsively. She wasn’t going to ask from what creature.

Snape, however, seemed to twitch in… excitement… apprehension… Hermione couldn’t quite tell.

“Do you have the potion with you.”

She hesitated, and then an old Muggle expression came to mind…. In for a penny….

“Yes, but….”

He interrupted her.

“Give it to me. Now,” he commanded.

Well, he had asked for it. She retrieved it from her bag and gave it to him. He examined the bottle intently.

“There’s no mark on this bottle, girl.”

“No, there isn’t,” she agreed.

“You said there was a design on the bottle.”

“There is. That isn’t the original bottle.”

He was silent, and in a moment of small triumph she realised that she had scored a point.

“It seemed more sensible to put the potion in something less… distinctive,” she continued more calmly than she felt.

“Yes, well,” was all he managed. “Are you sure this is the design?”

“Yes.”

“No possibility of a mistake?”

“No.” She sighed, and reached into her pocket to pull out the folded sheet of notepaper. “I made a copy of it.”

He snatched the paper from her, long fingers hastily unfolding it. Studying it he murmured under his breath, “yes… yes… I thought so.”

Hermione was now beginning to get impatient.

“You thought what Professor? You obviously know what it is.”

He looked up as if he had forgotten that she was there.

“It’s something with which you no longer need concern yourself, Miss Granger. Good afternoon to you.”

“Wait a minute.” She wasn’t going to let him get away with that. “If you aren’t going to tell me what it is I need that potion sample back. I have to work on a counter agent.”

“I told you, this isn’t a matter for you any more.”

“Yes it damn well is!” Hermione was angry now. “There’s a friend of mine lying in St Mungo’s, and there’s something out there that took his mind away. I’m going to find a way of stopping it.”

He pulled a face.

“How very Gryffindor…” he made it an insult “… of you Miss Granger. However, I suggest you find another windmill at which to tilt.” He turned away, clearly dismissing her.

Without being consciously aware of it, Hermione had been staring at the design on the pages of the book. Suddenly her mind supplied the answer to at least one question that had been nagging at her.

“I’ve seen that design somewhere else,” she stated.

“Where?” he demanded, his attention back on her.

She met his gaze defiantly, and said nothing.

“I see. You wish to play games, Miss Granger. This, however, is not one of your schoolchild escapades. I need to know where else you have seen this design.”

“Tell me about the potion.”

They held each other’s gaze, neither of them giving way.

Eventually Snape said in a measured tone:
“I have an idea as to what this potion is, but to be certain, I need to know where else you have seen this mark.”

Hermione calculated.

“I’ll show you.”

“Tell me.”

“No. I’ll take you there, or I’ll tell you nothing.”

She could almost see Snape thinking. She hoped that he was mostly thinking that she had him backed into a corner. His mouth quirked, as if he had read her mind.

“Very well.”

“We’ll need to apparate.”

“Then I suggest we make use of the nearby exit.”

She headed for the door. He pulled his thick black cloak from a peg and wrapped it over his trademark black robes. In hostile silence they left Hogwarts.

Snape and Hermione appeared together into a long darkened gallery. The air was very still and dry, and there was an unmistakeable smell of old things overlaid by commercial strength polish. Here and there dull red security light glinted off glass fronted cabinets. Hermione looked around quickly, to check that the building security hadn’t detected their presence.

In front of them was a large pair of doors, with a small official-looking sign in front of it that said

Life in Early Britain - recent Romano-British discoveries. Exhibition under construction.

“In there,” she hissed and beckoned him to follow.

Tapping her wand on the door, and murmuring Alohomora, she slipped through the doors, Snape behind her.

The interior of this room was equally dark, but much less orderly. There were boxes strewn around the floor, some half open, some covered with cloths. Some cabinets were stacked against the walls, others were open, devoid of contents. Hermione looked around, wondering where to start.

“Well, Miss Granger?” came the voice behind her.

“It will be in here somewhere.”

“Where are we - just to satisfy my own curiosity?”

“The British Museum.”

“Ah yes. The place where Muggles display the petty trinkets they have purloined from each other throughout their tiresome history.”

Hermione went rigid at the insult, and managed to prevent herself from responding. She suspected that he was deliberately needling her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait.

“I’m going to try and find this thing. You can either help me, or stand there and make clever remarks. It’s up to you.”

He didn’t reply, and she made her way to the back of the gallery, where she began to check the display cabinets.

In the end the room was more methodically organised than it looked. She found what she was looking for in a cabinet, tucked into a corner and roughly marked Box 47 - weaponry.

On one of the shelves was the sword pommel from the advertising poster. It was about eight inches long all told and on the pommel was the design on the potion bottle. Underneath a neatly printed label read:
Exhibit 813
Rare monogrammed sword hilt.
Believed to be unique.
Provenance Unknown

Hermione tapped the cabinet once to open it. The doors swung noiselessly open. Extending her hand towards the metal object she softly said “Accio.” The hilt came to her hand. The metal had obviously been worn smooth by use, but it was otherwise unremarkable to her touch. She balanced it experimentally. It had been made for someone with larger hands than hers, she thought. She backed away from the cabinet and turned. And nearly collided with Snape who had glided up behind her silently. Reflexively she jumped back. His eyes were uncharacteristically bright and he was holding the potion bottle in one hand. For an awful moment she thought that he might have drunk some of it.

“Give it to me.”

Hermione backed off again, and held the metal hilt behind her.

“Give it to me, girl,” he hissed, advancing. His tone was menacing, but some cool part of
Hermione noted that his eyes held a note of pleading.

She shook her head, still trying to back away. Something sharp poked into the small of her back. The edge of another cabinet. He had her trapped between the cabinets and the wall of the room. She tried to edge sideways, but there were boxes in the way.

“Look, there’s security in this place. They’re going to notice us soon. I should have thought that you would have wanted to get out of here and discuss this somewhere else.”

“Nice try, Miss Granger.”

He reached for her, grasping her arm, trying to pull it round to the front. She twisted into the grip, jerking her left shoulder forward to pull him off balance, and swinging her handbag at him for good measure. The bag bounced off him and fell on the floor.

Snape was strong - surprisingly so - but Hermione was desperate, and the fact of being physically wedged in was at least giving her some leverage. She shoved hard again, and this time he fell backwards against a display cabinet. The hand holding the potion bottle smashed against the glass. The glass cracked with the force of the blow, and Snape dropped the potion.

The bottle hit the floor, and shattered, leaving a sticky puddle of liquid and broken glass.

Snape swore between his teeth and rounded on Hermione.

“Now look what you’ve done.”

Hermione was not stopping for a debate. She was pushing past him, when she remembered that her bag was on the floor. Pausing, she tried to retrieve it. Her hesitation gave Snape the opportunity to grab for her again.

He hauled her to her feet.

“Give me that object!” he shouted.

“Over my dead body!” she shouted back.

In response he shoved her hard against the wall.

Hermione felt her breath go, and she staggered. She reached out her hands to stop herself falling, and lost her grip on the sword hilt.

Almost in slow motion she watched it fall, hit the ground, and bounce into the glass and potion mixture.

Snape stared at it transfixed.

Then as one they dived for it.

Their hands closed on the artefact at the same time.

Hermione had the unpleasant sensation of having just touched raw flesh, and she was about to pull away when she felt a sharp tug, somewhere around her navel, and was only conscious of a rushing sound in her ears.

**********

Some while later a figure dressed in shabby Muggle clothes, and wearing a brown warehouseman’s coat entered the closed gallery. He tsked to himself as he saw the mess.

“Bloody ‘ell, what’s been goin’ on in ‘ere then,” came a flat Cockney voice behind him.

A portly, cheerful looking Muggle had come in behind him. He was also wearing a brown overall. Putting his hands on his hips, and shaking his head, he sucked air through his teeth.

“Well, all I can say is I’m glad I’m not the one as ‘as to tell the Professor that someone’s been spilling sticky drinks all over ‘is prize exhibits.”

The other man did not reply, nor turn his silver blonde head to make eye contact.

“’Spect you’d better get that cleared up before someone important finds it.” He clapped the silent man on the back, and chuckled. Then he peered closely as his colleague.

“’Ere, do I know you? Are you from the agency?”

“Yes. Yes I’m from the agency.” The voice was quiet, but polished and cultured.

“Well, I’m Stan, an’ if you want to know anything, just ask.”

“Thank you… Stan.” Again the incongruous voice, and avoidance of gaze.

Stan shook his head again and wandered off.

Dead posh for a glorified cleaner, he thought. Nicely spoken, good haircut - he could see that right off. Bloke who’s used to ‘aving money. Never mind. Expect it’s one of them city types what suffers from Stress, and needs a job what’s Less Stressful.

The other man watched him go. His first instinct had been to kill Stan where he stood, but there were more important things to do here.

He pulled a soft red cloth out of his pocket, and very carefully mopped up the remains of the potion, glass and all. Then, when he was certain that he had every last fragment and drop, he wrapped the red cloth in a black cloth and deposited the rest in a bag which looked as if it had been made out of some type of reptile hide.

Then he went to examine exhibit case 47.

He quickly found the label.

Exhibit 813
Rare monogrammed sword hilt.
Believed to be unique.
Provenance Unknown.

The space above the label was empty.

He cursed under his breath. That wretched… female …. had got there first. Now it was doubtless in the hands of Potter and his happy band of followers.

Well, they didn’t have the potion. Not any more.

And at least he could get out of these filthy clothes

The agency “cleaner” pulled a long piece of wood and pointed it at himself, muttering under his breath.

The workman’s attire changed to dark red robes, so red that they were almost black.

With a face set in fury, Draco Malfoy apparated.

**********

When the rushing sensation stopped, Hermione found herself unceremoniously dumped into a small, but very prickly bush. Disentangling herself, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The scene in front of her did not exactly inspire confidence. She was surrounded by what could best be described as bare moorland. Patches of rock were visible through the sparse ground cover. The area was ringed with low hills. There was no appreciable tree line, and indeed, she had the strong impression that any plant taller than a stunted gorse bush had long ago given up the unequal fight for survival. The place exuded an overwhelming sensation of damp desolation.

It reminded her of parts of Dartmoor, visited with her parents on childhood holidays. She had not exactly paid attention. For all her secret desire to be a field agent, Hermione had never been that keen on actual fields. She had preferred to spend her time curled up with a good book.

Now she was plunged into her worst possible scenario.

“When you've quite finished admiring the beauty of the scenery, you might like to consider the practicalities of our situation.”

Hermione reconsidered her definition of worst possible scenario. Turning she took in the black figure silhouetted against the grey backdrop. He was staring at her with a supercilious expression on his face.

“What are you doing here?” she stammered.

Oh very impressive. That sort of question will really convince him that you are an asset to the Ministry.

His response didn't disappoint.

“I see the trip deprived of the use of your brain Miss Granger. I should have thought that it was perfectly obvious what I am doing here. Your ... behaviour in the museum has resulted in both of us being transported to this place.”

Hermione’s brain had begun to function again. They had both grabbed for the hilt at the same time.

“The sword hilt is a Portkey?” she said, thinking out loud.

“Congratulations,” came the icy response. “I'm gratified to see that you haven't lost your grasp of the blindingly obvious.”

Hermione could feel her cheeks begin to burn again. He had always had the capacity to wrongfoot her, and she had never been able to stop herself showing it.

He continued.

“Now you've caught up, perhaps you would be good enough to indicate where it is so we can both get out of here. I have little or no desire for an impromptu camping trip. Delightful as your company would no doubt be.”

The open mockery in his tone nettled Hermione.

“Curiously enough,” she retorted, “I had other plans for this evening as well.”

He appeared unmoved - simply waiting for her to find the artefact. She raised both her hands. They were empty. She tried to remember what had happened when they had... landed, for want of a better phrase. It was all rather a blur she had to admit. She looked down at the ground hoping to see something there in front of her. Nothing. She could just feel Snape's eyes watching her. She had little hope that he hadn't worked out what she was doing. She didn't even need to turn round to know exactly what the expression on his face would be. She continued looking.

The silence of the place was unearthly. She did not remember the countryside being this quiet - birds sang, small animals rustled - even aeroplanes flew overhead. The normal, reassuring, noises of everyday life. But here there was nothing. Only a near tangible stillness. She began to wonder nervously if was ever going to be able to find the sword hilt.

Snape’s wordless scrutiny of her was unnerving as well. In some ways she would have preferred a sarcastic commentary. She gritted her teeth. In a minute, she thought, she would shout at him, just to make some sound. For a wild moment she even wondered if he were still there. He could have walked off without saying anything and left her alone. For all his overwhelming unpleasantness, he seemed to have some idea of how to get them back. She found the thought of being there without him suddenly frightening, and she straightened, turning abruptly.

He was standing, observing her intently. As she turned, he just raised an eyebrow.

Hermione bit her lip in annoyance at herself for giving in to irrational fear. The irritation actually steadied her somewhat, and her intellect began to function again. She pulled her wand from her sleeve.

“Manifesto”.

Her voice sounded dull, as if she was speaking in a room muffled by heavy curtains.

She also suddenly had the sensation of being watched. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware that Snape had tensed.

The thought came to her unbidden: Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

To her relief, she could also see a glow within the scrubby vegetation.

“It’s there.”

She bent down and picked it up. As her fingers closed round it something felt different. Just before they had been transported it had felt organic. Now it just felt like a lump of metal. She opened her mouth to comment on it, and then thought better of it. Hopefully, they would be out of here shortly, and there was no point in giving him more opportunities than necessary to needle her.

It then dawned on her that she had not felt the familiar wrenching tug as they had both touched it. In fact she was still very much in the same place. Snape pulled the artefact out of her grasp and turned it over in his hands, examining it closely.

“It is ineffective.”

Now who was stating the obvious, she thought, but did not say. She waited for him to elaborate on this remark. He appeared to be lost in thought though. From sheer habit of mind, Hermione began to review the sequence of the events in the museum. She had found the sword hilt. He had tried to take it from her. She had resisted. In the scuffle he had dropped the bottle, and she had dropped the artefact into the resulting mess. They had both reached for it at the same time….

The potion. Maybe….

“When we touched the artefact in the museum it had the potion on it. Could there have been something in the potion that triggered the Portkey?”

Snape jumped as if startled by her continued presence. He looked hard at her.

“Very probably,” was his only response though.

Well, the rest of the potion was on the floor of the Romano British exhibition. Not a lot of help.

“I suppose we need to start thinking of another way to get back then”, she said.

“We need to start looking for shelter,” responded Snape abruptly. “I don’t think that this is going to be a particularly welcoming place to spend the night.”

Spend the night. Oh dear gods. Alone. In the middle of who knows where. With Professor Snape. Well, this was no time to have hysterics. She couldn’t imagine a less sympathetic audience for a start.

He had already started walking away, his cloak wrapped round him. Hermione paused, slightly non-plussed. He stopped and looked at her.

“Well? Are you coming, or do you want to spend the night here?” He paused. “Oh, and Miss Granger, I would be grateful if you could restrain your urge to cast spells for a while.”

With no further elaboration he strode away. Unable to formulate a sensible or polite reply, Hermione pulled her own cloak around herself and followed him.

After about an hour stumbling across moorland they came to a small bluff. Set in the face of the bluff were a number of small caves. At least one of them looked big enough to accommodate two people comfortably. Hermione looked around. This appeared to be the only feature that would afford them any sort of shelter. Either Snape was plain lucky or he had some experience with this sort of terrain. Odd, she thought. He didn’t look the sort to spend the long vacations hiking the hills and mountains of Britain.

The object of her thoughts was already investigating the cave.

“It’ll do,” was his laconic summary. “It’s big enough, dry and there’s only one entrance.”
He surveyed her sourly. “I suggest you look for anything dry that will burn. I’m going to see if I can find something edible.” Hermione just looked at him. “Unless, of course, Miss Granger, you possess wilderness survival skills of which I am unaware.”

She shook her head mutely. He turned and disappeared round the corner.

Once he had had gone, she let out her breath. Between saying nothing, and making stupid remarks, it was no wonder that he thought she was an idiot. She resolved to get a grip, and take back some control in this situation. If only for the sake of her dignity.

She was now alone, and she involuntarily shivered. Although there was nothing she could actually put her finger on, the sense that she was being watched was increasing. And there was an unwholesomeness to the air that almost physically invaded her. Reflexively she wiped her hands on her cloak, as if they were coated with something dirty. In order to distract herself she decided to explore.

She had a quick look in the cave As Snape had said, it was dry, and big enough for the two of them to stretch out without being too close. A distinct bonus. Returning outside she began to collect all the dry and combustible material she could. Distant memories of the loathed camping trips came back to her, and she also collected stones to form a circle to contain the fire. Carefully she piled up the dry material - larger pieces on kindling, and made a separate pile to keep the fire going once started. A largish flat stone caught her attention. She had a sudden flash of her father heating up a similar stone and then frying eggs on it. She put it to one side just in case.

Moving a little further away from the cave entrance, she found a pool of water. Experimentally she dipped her fingers in. It was very cold. She wondered if it was drinkable. She felt the analytical part of her brain unfreeze for the first time since they had arrived. The stones that she had collected had all appeared to be some kind of igneous rock. There was very little vegetation or soil cover here. Therefore, if the pool was fed by a spring, rather than being standing water, it should contain little sediment, or other detritus. Therefore, it should be safe to drink. QED.

Or, of course, she could just cast a Purificus charm, and have done with it. Although he had told her not to use spells. Part of her rebelled at that arbitrary command. A more reflective side pointed out that he seemed more familiar with the area. It might be wise to watch and wait a while.

Nevertheless, the process of reasoning had helped to restore her sense of inner balance.

She scooped up a handful of the water, and then paused. Snape wouldn’t be very amused if she poisoned herself. On the other had, not amused appeared to be his natural state. And she was very thirsty. She sipped the water. It had a slightly mineralised taste, but otherwise appeared to be acceptable.

She was scouting round, looking for something to carry water in when Snape returned with a bundle of things.

He looked faintly surprised when he saw the fire. She wondered, apprehensively, if she had done it wrong, misremembered something. But he simply raised an eyebrow.

“It seems you do possess some wilderness skills after all, Miss Granger.”

She didn’t rise to the bait, but said mildly:
“The water in the pool over there seems to be safe to drink.”

He deposited the bundle on the larger flat stone. There was some sort of root, some kind of fungus, and some eggs. The sight of the eggs made her giggle suddenly.

“Something amusing you, Miss Granger?”

His tone caused her to swallow the sound immediately.

“No, sir.” Damn, where had that ‘Sir’ come from? She sought to explain to cover her embarrassment. “I… When I was a child my family used to go on camping trips. My father always used to fry eggs on a hot stone for me.”

The abrupt juxtaposition in her mind of her father cooking for her and being stranded here with Snape caused her amusement to genuinely die, and a lump to rise in her throat. And how long had it been since she had had that sort of connection with her family? She swallowed firmly and briskly swept up the roots and the… well, she was going to call them mushrooms, whatever they were.

“If we’re going to eat these I’d better go and wash them,” she stated, and strode away before he could say anything more to unsettle her.

**********

Snape watched her go with a distant look in his eyes.

The sudden glimpse of her childhood had raised a sharp pang of envy that had briefly silenced him. He tried to imagine his own father frying eggs on a large piece of rock in the middle of a field. He failed. In fact, he wondered if his father would even recognise him. Or, if he was still alive.

He ruthlessly shut down this train of thought. Dwelling on the past was a sterile and useless exercise. Better to concentrate on how they were going to get out of this situation. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. The oppressive atmosphere was fraying his already taut nerves. He wondered bleakly how exactly he was going to explain himself to the young woman stranded with him.

He was under no illusions that Hermione Granger was an outstandingly bright and perceptive young woman. She had been so as a pupil at Hogwarts. The Ministry would have been unlikely to allow her to manage her own laboratory if she had not fulfilled her early promise. At the moment she was still slightly disorientated, and struggling against seven years of conditioning to be afraid of him. This would inevitably wear off - sometime early tomorrow morning at the latest, he thought wryly. Then her formidable brain would engage, and she would demand an explanation.

And she wasn’t going to like it.

He wasn’t looking forward to the next few days at all.

**********

As it turned out Snape’s misgivings proved to be unfounded.

The first night that they had been stranded Hermione had lain awake, listening to his soft regular breathing, uncomfortably aware of his presence, despite the physical distance between them. At school Snape had always been an unknown quantity on a personal level. His acid tongue and sour demeanour had discouraged any but essential social interaction. Now she was dependent on him to get her out of here, and she frankly didn’t trust him not to abandon her if it was in his interest to do so.

To distract herself from this unpleasant thought, she had methodically reviewed the best course of action. There were definitely some unanswered questions here, she had concluded. For one thing, he was entirely too competent in dealing with the situation. And she didn’t think that he was a former member of the wizarding equivalent of the marines. Not that she hadn’t been very grateful for the food and shelter that he had found - that in itself was contributing to her ability to think clearly - but he was also clearly a man with a purpose. On the basis of past experience she didn’t think that marching up to him and saying “Professor Snape, there’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?” would elicit much information.

That only left her initial instinct to watch and wait - staying close to him and keeping quiet. Apart from anything else, at the moment sheer survival dictated it.

She also registered that he hadn’t simply Apparated himself back to Hogsmeade or wherever. She had used a charm to reveal the sword hilt, and he had ordered her not to use magic again. He was sticking to that injunction himself, she noted, doing things the despised Muggle way. Even to the extent of making a fire by sparking rocks together. Not that that hadn’t been an educational experience in itself, but it was odd behaviour for wizard. Not to mention giving rise to interesting speculations on why and how he would have acquired the skill in the first place.

It was now coming to the end of the third day spent in quiet observation, and she was forced to say that things between them had not been as bad as she feared. Snape had not been exactly chatty, but his remarks, although few and far between, had been largely devoid of the sneering sarcasm she had come to expect of him. Away from his students, and fixed on some unknown personal goal, he was merely brusque. And their conversations over supper had been almost civil.

He had remarked that teaching at Hogwarts was little different than it was when she had been there - only the names changed. He did observe that life had been somewhat less - stimulating - since she and Mr Weasley and Mr Potter had left. She had described her work at the Ministry, and on the previous evening he had rather curtly offered a suggestion to assist her work on improving the keeping qualities of certain types of healing potion.

Despite this rather fragile détente, he hadn’t unbent far enough to discuss his plans with her. He simply seemed to assume that she would acquiesce in his decisions. Despite that, however, she sometimes sensed him watching her intently - almost warily - as if she was a semi-feral creature that might unexpectedly turn on him.

Some secret part of her felt a perverse triumph that there was at least one element in the scenario that he did not feel he could control completely.

She had still not been able to relax much, nevertheless, and had certainly developed no love for their surroundings. She still had the distinct feeling that they were being shadowed by something, and was trying hard to convince herself that this was mere fancy. The general air of uncleanness seemed to oversensitive her skin, and cause her to be almost skittish. She was nervous and unhappy, just being there.

To make matters worse she had not been able to shake off her nagging dread that Snape would abruptly abandon her there. He always appeared to know where they were, although there were few distinguishing features that she could identify. He could find food and shelter - he had no need for her whatsoever, and she was certain that she was slowing him down. She was beginning to wonder whether his hostility towards her at school had sprung from a knowledge that she was just not up to the required standards. If that were the case, then this expedition would just prove him right. Professor Snape had never been one to tolerate dead weight gladly. Not in the classroom, and she had no reason to suppose that here would be any different.

At the moment they appeared to be following a small stream. It was flowing through a shallow ditch, snaking its way around boulders of varying sizes. She could see the first hints of darkness touching the hills - in the near distance now - they did at least appear to be getting closer to something. Assuming, of course, that that was their destination.

Snape himself had disappeared some while ago, looking for shelter he had told her. She tried to suppress the rising fear that he would just not return.

Hermione now felt a distinct drop in temperature - the nights had been cold, and she was grateful that she at least had a cloak - she had nearly put on a Muggle style coat before going to Hogwarts for her meeting with Snape.

Hogwarts. That meeting seemed a lifetime ago now. She felt a longing to be there - even in Snape’s cold, unwelcoming dungeon. She wondered if Harry and Ron had noticed she’d gone. Part of her wished that they were there with her. She missed Harry’s quiet intuition and Ron’s irreverent humour. Of course, they always told her that they valued her contributions as well. Now, she wondered if she had just been a way of getting information that was easier and more convenient than looking it up for themselves. A lump rose in her throat, and tears pricked her eyes. The feeling of being watched intensified.

Biting her lip and swallowing she tried to divert her thoughts onto a more professional course. She hoped that Cyrus was remembering to return everything to it’s proper place in the lab in her absence - she wouldn’t be very pleased if she got back and had to completely re-order the place. She was dimly aware that she was focussing on triviality to suppress another wave of homesickness.

Sunset in this place was not a thing of warm reds and golds. It was more a creeping shadow, curling itself around the landscape, carrying with it a damp, depressing chill. It perfectly matched the current tenor of her thoughts.

Although Snape was competent, and not being actively hostile, he was still unapproachable and forbidding. Of all the people to get lost with, she had to be with someone who despised her. She felt an overwhelming need for comfort and a friendly face.

A curt voice intruded into her thoughts:
“I have located a suitable place. I suggest we make camp.”

Snape could move as noiselessly as a snake when he chose to, and Hermione was deep in her own reflections. She started violently at the sound of his voice, and lost her footing.

Although she had chosen to wear flat shoes, she had not anticipated terrain any rougher than the Hogwarts’ corridors. She stumbled, and tried to regain her balance, but couldn’t get any purchase on the ground beneath her. Her right leg twisted painfully and gave way, pitching her into the stream. She felt a sharp pain at her temple as her head hit one of the larger stones scattered across the stream bed, and lost consciousness.

The first thing that Hermione was aware of was a stinging pain in her head. Other facts began to register slowly, one by one. There was an ache at the top of her right hip, and her ribs hurt for some reason. She was wet in places. And she was lying on the ground.

Memory kicked in and supplied the connecting information. She had fallen into a stream and hit her head. In front of Professor Snape. If she could have summoned up the will to groan she would have done. This was just what she needed.

She didn’t appear to be lying in the stream any more, so she could only assume that he had pulled her out. She bet that he had just loved doing that. She could imagine his face without even looking.

She lay still, trying to gather her disjointed thoughts. One thing was obvious. She was going to have to move and get up at some point. She could hardly lay here all night, and she did not intend to be the subject of any more of Snape’s ridicule than was strictly necessary.

Cautiously she opened her eyes. Snape was bending over her:
“Welcome back, Miss Granger,” he said laconically.

She swallowed - her mouth felt dry and metallic - took a deep breath and tried to push herself up on one elbow. To her surprise she felt the slight resistance of his hand on her shoulder.

“You knocked yourself out for a moment. I doubt that springing to your feet will assist matters.”

She shut her eyes and swallowed again. She might have been longing for comfort a few moments ago, but she had more pride than to turn to Snape for help or support. She also had absolutely no desire to voluntarily offer herself up as a target for his derision.

She pushed against his hand.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “It was just a bang on the head.”

He abruptly withdrew his hand, and sat back on his heels watching her. She struggled to her feet. Her right hip protested, but she ignored it. As she straightened she felt a wave of nausea pass over her.

Oh no - you are not going to be sick in front of Snape, Hermione, my girl, she told herself vehemently.

She breathed slowly through her mouth, willing the sickness to go away. When she thought that she had it under control she took an experimental step forward. The movement caused her head to whirl. Her diaphragm spasmed involuntarily, and she realised in a kind of detached misery that there was nothing she could do to prevent what was about to happen.

She sank onto her knees and threw up violently in front of her.

As the worst passed she became aware that an arm was circled across the back of her shoulders, supporting her, and that her hair was being held away from her face.

Snape, she thought in slightly bemused wonder.

She knew that she ought to pull away, but she desperately needed to feel some kind of human contact. At that moment she didn’t think that she could bear to lose the warmth of his body against her side. Unconsciously she leant into him, shifting her weight. He held her like that until it was clear that she was not going to vomit again.

Without removing his arm from her shoulders, he released her hair. Then she felt something cool and wet wiping her face and mouth. Her breathing relaxed a little, and then she felt the side of his hand against her lips.

“You have now managed to dehydrate yourself as well as give yourself concussion. I suggest you drink.” His voice was dry, but not unkind.

“Drink?” mumbled Hermione, feeling slow and stupid.

“Yes. I’m afraid I neglected to pack the china tea service so you will have to manage with my hand. I assure you it is quite clean.”

He tipped his cupped hand towards her mouth, and she awkwardly bent her head forward.

His skin was surprisingly soft against her lips, for a man who spent his time dealing with astringent substances. His touch was too practical to be a caress, but a stray imagining made her wonder what one from those hands would be like. She drank the water, half sipping, half lapping, her tongue catching against his skin. As she finished her lips met the palm of his hand in something that was almost, but not quite, a kiss.

It was only the swift tensing of his chest that betrayed his intake of breath, and he removed his hand from her face.

“I suggest we go to the camp now,” he said expressionlessly.

Hermione began to get to her feet. This time she was more firmly restrained.

“I think not,” he stated. “I have no desire for a repetition of your recent performance.”

Obviously any impulse of compassion had been exhausted.

Then he surprised her again by effortlessly swinging her up into his arms.

This time her head rested on his shoulder, and she was once again aware of the strength in his wiry arms. She shut her eyes, allowing his regular stride to soothe her. He carried her in silence, until they stopped. Then he simply said:
“We’re here.”

She was aware of him putting her carefully down on the ground, but she felt too dozy to open her eyes. She mumbled something as he let her go and his warmth disappeared. Then she felt a fumbling at the clasp of her cloak, and something within her fogged brain tried to object. Weakly, she reached up to push him away.

She heard him sigh in exasperation.

“Girl, your clothes are wet. If you don’t want to add hypothermia to the list of your problems, you need to be warm and dry.”

There was a pause and he added in a gentler tone:
“I don’t know what sort of a man you think I am, Miss Granger, but I can assure you that you are perfectly safe. Molesting injured young women has never been a pastime of mine.”

Her protest subsided in a faint flush of shame, and she lay still as he removed her cloak, outer garments, shoes and socks, leaving her in her underwear.

He lifted her again, and moved her to one side. Then she felt herself being wrapped in what felt like a thick, slightly coarse, wool blanket.

His own cloak, she thought distantly, as she drifted off to sleep, feeling oddly secure for the first time in days.

**********

Snape sat cross legged in the cave, head resting in his hands, watching Hermione as she slept.

It was necessary, he told himself, to keep a check on her after a head injury. It was in his own interest as much as hers. They were in enough danger in this place without adding physical injury to the list.

Still, he could still feel a very slight tingle in the palm of his left hand where her lips and tongue had briefly touched it. And a memory of the warmth of her body against his as she leant for support.

He closed his eyes, and repeated to himself the exact ingredients for a Deflating Draught. Anything to keep this unaccustomed ache at bay.

He knew what it was, of course.

It was the effect of the place.

Under ordinary circumstances the girl would not look at him twice.

Wouldn’t look at you twice, indeed. Let’s be honest here, Severus, she wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire.

They were alone… and the place played on weaknesses, vulnerabilities. Exploited them. In his case it was the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a warm, human, body against his own. It was her misfortune that she was here with him. That was all it was. Unfortunate circumstance.

Even more unfortunate that her instinct to use magic had alerted the presences of this place that they were here. And just when they most needed haste, she had injured herself. A nasty dilemma for him.

He uncrossed his legs, and went to check her.

She seemed to be sleeping naturally, although it was evidently troubled. He laid two fingers against her carotid artery, checking the pulse. It was slightly elevated, but nothing to worry about. With his other hand he gently smoothed her hair back from her forehead. There was enough light for him to see the swelling. Better an unsightly bruise on the forehead than swelling to the brain, he mused. She stirred at his touch, and muttered something in her sleep.

“Don’t worry,” he said in an uncharacteristically soft tone, “it’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

She quietened, and he let her sleep on.

Half the school would suffer fatal aneurisms, if they ever thought me capable of speaking like that, he thought sardonically. Maybe I should try it - it would significantly reduce my teaching workload.

Settling himself down, he continued his vigil.

**********

Hermione’s sleep was anything but peaceful. She was troubled by bizarre dreams - dreams where she was given a task to complete, something unidentifiable and unspecified, dreams of failing, dreams of family and friends turning away from her…. And somewhere in it there was a voice of calm, soothing and reassuring. A familiar voice, one that she couldn’t quite identify.

Eventually she woke properly, feeling sluggish and heavy. Her head was pounding, and when she tried to move, she found that most of her body ached.

Despite the pain her analytical faculties appeared to have returned. She fingered the cloth covering her - it was indeed Snape’s own cloak. It had a slightly odd smell - Hermione thought that she could detect traces of various substances, as if it had become impregnated over time with the tools of its owner’s trade. Underlying it was a musky, slightly spicy scent. Not quite sandalwood, not quite cedar, cypress maybe…. Something unique to the man himself perhaps.

Hermione clamped down on that line of thought immediately. Or it could be another potion ingredient that she couldn’t identify. One act of generosity and her imagination was running away with her. It must be the effect of being stranded with him. She had no choice but to get on with him.

She was uncomfortably aware that she was only dressed in her underwear.

She went to push herself up, but the pain in her head, and the protests of her bruised body, reminded her of what had happened the last time she got up too quickly.

Gingerly, she levered herself up to a sitting position, and sat very still to find out what would happen. She was relieved to find that she didn’t feel at all queasy. She looked around, careful not to move too sharply.

The cave was very similar to all the others in the area - small and dry. There was no sign of Snape. She felt a moment’s irrational panic. Then she told herself that he was hardly likely to disappear on her after all the trouble he had gone to the previous day. If nothing else he was unlikely to leave without his cloak.

Cautiously she got to her feet and wrapped the cloak round her. She slowly walked out of the cave, the cloak trailing on the floor.

Outside, there was still no sign of her companion, but it was clear from the position of the sun that she had slept away the better part of the day. Glancing around she saw her clothes, spread out over some boulders. Going over to them she found that they were dry. She gathered them up and returned to the cave to dress.

When she emerged for the second time, Snape had returned, and was busying himself with something on the fire. He glanced at her briefly.

“Good morning, Miss Granger.”

Hermione gave an involuntary glance in the direction of the sun.

Snape caught it, and his lips quirked slightly.

“It is a little later than usual, but I believe that it is still prior to the meridian.”

Was that a joke?

Hermione was not certain how to respond, and to cover her confusion she held out the cloak that she was carrying:
“Um - here’s your cloak, Professor.” She paused, unable to decide exactly how to refer to what had happened between them the preceding day. “Thank you. I … er… hope you weren’t too cold without it.”

He stood and took it from her, studying her carefully.

“I am accustomed to the cold, Miss Granger. However, I would be interested to know how you are feeling.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically.

He clicked his tongue in irritation.

“Miss Granger, as I believe I pointed out yesterday, you suffered concussion and dehydration. I doubt very much, therefore, that you are ‘fine’. Carrying on in an heroic manner, whilst a characteristically Gryffindor action, will only serve to put us at more risk. Please do me the courtesy of an honest answer.”

Hermione was stung by his tone.

“Well”, she replied acidly, “my head hurts, my leg and ribs ache and I’m tired. On the other hand, I don’t feel sick any more and I like to think that I have regained the use of most of my higher brain functions.”

“Good,” was his only response.

Then he startled her by moving close to her, and putting his fingers under her chin, tipping her face towards his.

“Hmm,” he said consideringly. “The bruise looks dramatic, but I think it will be all right.”
He tipped her chin a little more. “Look at me,” he commanded.

Hermione found her gaze locked with his, unable to look away.

She had never really looked at his eyes before. ‘Don’t make eye contact with Snape’ had been one of the unwritten rules of Hogwarts. She had just had an impression of malevolent darkness. Now she was seeing those eyes at close quarters.

They were dark, certainly, but not malevolent. Deep, shadowed, pools, almost unreadable. But there was something… an emptiness? No, not emptiness, but isolation. A guarded, defensive, distancing of himself from humanity. They were the eyes of a man who had long since ceased to expect gentleness from the world - and therefore no longer sought it. But that decision was the forced choice of one who saw no alternative, she realised with a choking flash of intuition.

What had driven him to such a position? How could he stand to be so alone?

Instinctively responding to the insight she half raised her hand toward him. He seemed to flinch away from the movement.

“Your pupils appear to be focussing properly,” he stated. “I think it will be safe to continue tomorrow.”

He turned on his heel and resumed his work at the fire.

In the end Hermione slept for most of the afternoon. Still shaken, both by her injuries and by her sudden insight into the dour potions master, she had sat staring blankly until Snape had brusquely sent her off to lie down - with the injunction to take his cloak for warmth.

Waking in the early evening, she felt much improved.

Emerging from the cave again, she found him preparing food. As usual, the raw ingredients looked a little odd. He was aware of her approach even though she said nothing.

“Are you feeling better.”

She remembered his instruction to her earlier.

“Yes,” she said truthfully.

He just looked at her.

“Yes,” she repeated. “My head still aches, and my leg is stiff, but I feel better than I did this morning.”

Snape returned his attention to the fire. Protecting his hand with the end of his sleeve, he removed a hollow stone, that had been half buried within the embers. He decanted the contents into what looked like a hollowed out animal horn of some description. He handed the horn to Hermione.

“Drink this,” he instructed.

Hermione sniffed at it. It smelt bad.

Snape sighed.

“It should relax your muscles and ease the pain in your head. I regret that I have not had the opportunity this afternoon to brew up a base of duck consommé to disguise the taste.”

It struck Hermione that Snape was using sarcasm to deflect attention from what otherwise might have been considered a thoughtful act. The infusion he had made had probably taken him a large part of the day, when you took into account that he had had to find all the raw materials including the containers. On impulse she decided to respond to the action rather than the words.

“Thank you,” she simply said mildly. “It was kind of you to take the trouble.”

Snape looked sharply at her, almost as if he thought she were mocking him, and opened his mouth to respond. Then he just looked away, and continued cleaning the food.

Hermione sipped the potion. Effective it might be, but it unquestionably tasted vile. She tried to avoid screwing up her face, but fortunately Snape had his back to her. A small devil took possession of Hermione at that point.

“Mind you,” she continued innocently. “If you could manage duck consommé next time, I think it would improve it.”

Snape made a choking sound, and glared at her. He seemed to be struggling for words.

“Miss Granger,” he said in the end. “I had almost convinced myself that being stranded with you was a bearable experience. I may need to reconsider.”

The words were harsh, but the tone lacked the whiplash bite. In fact, viewed from a certain angle, it could nearly be a compliment. She could swear that she caught a hint of amused appreciation in his eyes. To stop herself considering the implications of this, she moved towards him and picked up one of the roots.

“Shall I get on with chopping this then?”

He shook his head disbelievingly. They continued in something like companionable silence.

Supper was the odd but reasonably appetising affair that Hermione had come to expect. Disgusting though it had been, Snape’s brew had taken a lot of the edge off her various aches and pains, and the combination of that and the food was making her feel extremely relaxed. In fact, so relaxed that she was inclined to wonder about the exact ingredients he had used.

Now there was a good point, she noted. He had managed to find the right ingredients. How exactly had he done that? She looked over at her former teacher. He was sitting, shadowed as usual, wrapped in his own thoughts. Maybe this was a good time to get some information….

“Professor Snape?”

He looked over at her.

“Yes, Miss Granger.”

She wondered how she was going to phrase this aptly, but the potion seemed to have loosened her inhibitions.

“You know where we are don’t you?”

He sighed, and looked up at the sky.

“Don’t you?” she persisted.

“Yes,” he said eventually.

Somehow this annoyed Hermione more than the sarcastic asides had.

“Yes,” she repeated. “Yes. Is that it?”

“What more do you want?”

“Quite a lot actually. Firstly, this isn’t Dartmoor is it?”

“No.”

“Is it even England?”

He paused.

“Not as such.”

“How can it not be England as such?”

“It’s a type of England.”

Hermione was not prepared to go round in these sorts of circles.

“Professor Snape. Ever since we arrived it’s been quite clear that you are familiar with… wherever it is we are. You know where to find food and medicinal plants. You know the terrain. We haven’t Apparated back to Hogwarts, so I assume that isn’t possible or is too dangerous. In fact I don’t think you’ve used any magic since we arrived. And you appear to be looking for something.”

Snape was silent, studying the ground intently now. Hermione continued:
“Please, Professor, do me the courtesy of some honest answers.” She deliberately used his words back at him. “Where are we, what are we doing here, and how do we get … back?”

The silence between them drew out. Hermione was about to say something, when Snape spoke in a low voice.

“It is a long story.”

“My diary is clear.”

Snape sighed and poked the ground with his foot. It was a curiously vulnerable gesture thought Hermione.

“Have you heard of Hester Allworthy?”

Hermione searched her recollection.

“The name sounds familiar - oh yes, wasn’t she one of the victims of Matthew Hopkins? The one the Muggles called the Witchfinder General.”

“That’s right. As far as it goes. Hester Allworthy lived in the 17th century. She actually was a witch, and a very powerful one. She was known for her work delving into the human psyche. Except she sought to use the darker human lusts as a direct source of power.”

Hermione was transfixed. His voice had taken on the hypnotic compelling quality, that she remembered from school days, but without the biting edge. It sent a shiver down her spine.

“As you may or may not know, the deeper one goes into the study of Dark Magic, the closer one get to the edge of… what for want of a better term… most would call reality. Sometimes, when the right mind - or wrong mind depending on your point of view - is in the right - or wrong - place… things… can make contact.”

“And something made contact with Hester?” Hermione’s mouth was dry.

“Yes. The exact details are not clear. But what is known is that Hester Allworthy made some sort of contact with a form of shadow reality - or a mirror reality if you prefer. A reality in which the unrestrained darkest aspects of human nature take on more… tangible … substance.”

Hermione felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Snape’s voice became even quieter.

“Not only did she contact it, somehow she managed to enter it. Whilst there she came into possession of a very particular substance. One which she managed to take back with her and bind into our… reality… in potion form.”

Hermione thought she was beginning to understand, but was unwilling to interrupt Snape’s mesmeric storytelling.

“She also enchanted a talisman to act as a bridge between our world and the shadow world.”

“The sword hilt,” breathed Hermione, almost without realising it. Snape nodded.

“Precisely. However, in 1645 Hester Allworthy was arrested by Matthew Hopkins and tried as a witch. She was burnt at the stake and her house destroyed. It was believed that all her work, including the potion and the talisman were destroyed with it.”

Hermione wrinkled her brow.

“But if Hester was truly a witch, and a powerful one, how did a Muggle manage to capture her?”

“Matthew Hopkins was not a Muggle. He was one of the most powerful Aurors that the wizarding world has ever produced. He adopted the disguise of a Muggle to allow him freedom of movement in the times.”

“But I thought that most of his victims had proven to be harmless Muggles themselves.”

Snape sighed.

“Those were ignorant and suspicious times, Miss Granger - and not just within the Muggle world. Matthew Hopkins was not responsible for all of the acts attributed to him, but he was a trifle… over-zealous… none the less.”

Hermione digested this information, and then something that Snape had said came back to her. She swallowed as the implications began to dawn on her. She shied away from the enormity of them, and took refuge in a marginal issue

“Why the design? It looks like a monogram or a rune of some description.”

Snape was silent a moment. Then he said in a careful tone. “It is almost certainly a type of rune.”

Hermione has the sense that there was more to that than he was telling her, but there were other things troubling her at that moment.

“Hester’s work wasn’t destroyed was it?”

“No. The hilt survived. It found its way into the private collection of some Victorian gentleman. I forget the name now.”

Snape was quiet again. Hermione knew, again, there must be more, and this time she was prepared to push for it. Eventually she said:

“And…?”

She had to strain to hear Snape’s voice. If she hadn’t known better she could have sworn she heard an undercurrent of pain when he began to speak.

“When…the Dark Lord… rose, he became aware of Hester’s work. One of his goals was to reproduce it - so that he could use that source of power. He commanded his followers… the Death Eaters… to work on it. The hilt was eventually located and a group of them…” he tailed off, and then continued, the pain in his voice being replaced by an unyielding bitter hardness… “a group of us went to the house to retrieve it. The family did not survive the visit.”

The implication was clear, but Hermione could not have moved or spoken if the hillside had fallen on her.

“However, the talisman is useless without the potion. Hester designed the enchantment so that the portal could not be opened without both constituents, at least not by humans. I believe the creatures of this place carry certain powers within themselves.” He shrugged. “There was hardly the opportunity for extensive research. In any event, we…” again that mocking pause… “…I… worked to reconstruct the potion from what was known of Hester’s work. I got about as far as you did, Miss Granger - for which, by the way, I congratulate you, although you did have a sample of the potion to work from. I devised a potion which enhanced the strength and magical abilities of the drinker, but failed to open the portal.” Silence. “As you may imagine, the Dark Lord had ways to discourage repeated failures.”

Hermione felt a rising sense of appalled horror. And something else was beginning to bother her about this explanation.

Snape’s voice had become utterly clinical now, as if he was reading out a homework assignment.

“I visited the site of Hester’s house. A fresh building has been constructed on the ruins, but is apparently unable to keep long term occupants. The only part of the building to survive the destruction was the original cellar. There I found a small bottle containing some preservative liquid and two, shrivelled, berries. They proved to be the substance required for the potion to be effective.”

Hermione could feel herself growing very cold. She pulled her cloak around her defensively. Snape did not appear to notice. She found her voice:
“That’s where we are isn’t it? That shadow reality?”

“Yes.” Flatly.

“And you’ve been here before, gathering ingredients to make this potion for your…. Dark Lord…?

“Yes.”

Hermione struggled to respond to this. Then she knew what had been bothering her about the story.

“If the potion is the second part of some special Portkey, why did the Death Eaters at the house in Yorkshire drink it? They didn’t have the hilt. And I would have thought it was too valuable to use just to make yourself stronger. There are other potions that do that.”

“Impressive reasoning, once again, Miss Granger. The potion in fact has two properties. Not only does it form a bridge between realities, it allows the drinker to connect with another human mind and draw off the emotion, as kind of power source. It leaves the victim in a state of deep catatonia.”

Hermione had begun to shiver. She found her voice.

“You mean it turns you into a sort of human Dementor.”

“An emotive description, but broadly accurate.”

An awful certainty was beginning to creep over Hermione. Her shivering increased.

“And you’ve actually done this haven’t you? Drawn off the emotions of other people?”

“Yes.” A statement of cold fact. No excuses.

Hermione concentrated on her breathing in order to control her ragged feelings. How dare he do this to her. Just when she was beginning to trust him - to even like him….

“So what you’re saying,” she spat, her tone every bit as icy as his at its worst, “is that you created the potion that left Seamus Finnegan a vegetable in St Mungo’s and then stranded me here with you. And that you have only now seen fit to tell me this. Were you planning at any stage to share this useful titbit of information. Or were you planning to string me along indefinitely?”

She stood, her rising anger temporarily overcoming her shakes.

“You must have been having a really good laugh about this.” He moved slightly. She waved him down. “No, that’s quite all right - it’s a relief to know that one of us is getting some pleasure out of this little exercise.”

She took another deep breath.

“Right now, I’ll tell what I want. I want to find this berry - whatever it is - get back to my reality, and find a counteragent for this potion. With or without you, I don’t much care. And I’m telling you now that without would be my preference. You deserve to rot here. You’re an unscrupulous, immoral, callous and vindictive bastard. Just stay away from me”

She turned on her heel and strode towards the cave. She lay down feeling waves of fury coursing through her. As they subsided she began to shake again. This time they developed into uncontrollable shudders. Turning on her side she curled up into a ball. Sobs were building up inside her. She stuffed her edge of her cloak into her mouth. She was not going to give that bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he’d hurt her this deeply. Muffling the sounds with her cloak she let the tears come.

**********

Severus Snape didn’t move as the young woman stormed away from the camp fire. He sat, staring into the middle distance with unfocussed eyes, as night proper fell, and the temperature began to drop.

There would be no question of sharing the cave with her tonight. It had become increasingly uncomfortable for him as the days had passed. Only years of fairly rigorous mental discipline had allowed him to retain his self-control. It wasn’t that he was, in any objective sense of the word, attracted to her, he told himself. It was just this place. He knew that. It was homing in on the weak points - and one of his, he was honest enough to admit, was that he was lonely.

Now he was stranded here with an… all right… attractive young woman, who was blessed with intelligence, and who had clearly learnt over the years to temper that with discretion. No wonder they were attacking the chink in his armour. His other weak spots he was used to - they were old friends. But this - this was a new well for them to tap. He tried not to wonder what might have happened if he and Miss Granger had met under other circumstances.

He had been well aware that their fragile peace would be ruptured as soon as she knew the truth. He shouldn’t really have been surprised by the force of her reaction. She had always been passionate, especially when friends, or weaker souls - as she saw it - were threatened. He still remembered the business with the house-elves. Although he was prepared to forgive much for the consequential disruption to the Malfoy household. It was inevitable that she would have grown into a passionate woman.

Dangerous, in this place.

He sat.

The fire, left untended, burnt down. Now even that trace of warmth had gone. Discipline made him clear the camp as far as possible, but then he hesitated.

Cautiously he approached the cave entrance. He could hear jerky stifled sounds - the sounds of something in pain. Drawing closer, he could see her, curled up under her cloak shivering violently. Obeying some unfamiliar impulse of tact he remained where he was, simply observing her.

Motionless, he listened to the choking sounds diminish. Her body was still wracked with fits of shaking, however. Prompted by some feeling that he was not about to acknowledge, even to himself… especially not to himself…. he undid the clasp at the neck of his cloak. Moving as silently as he knew how, he draped the cloak over her distraught form. For a moment she stiffened and he half expected her to throw it off. But then she just seemed to hunch more into herself. He turned away, unable to bear the sight of her distress any longer.

The morning sky was leaden.

Seated on the rock outside the cave, Severus Snape watched the day dawn.

The rising sun only succeeded in imbuing the surroundings with an unhealthy pink tinge. Snape’s spirits were not lifted in the slightest. He was stiff and thoroughly chilled from a sleepless night.

Looking round, he took stock. Although, there did not appear to have been any discernable alteration in the scenery, subtle cues told him that they were approaching their goal. A change in he underlying geology here, the appearance of a different type of plant there. He hoped that his memory would prove reliable. He suspected that one mistake would cause Hermione to abandon him completely in favour of finding her own way home.

He was anxious to avoid that. Whilst she knew, roughly, what sort of a place they were in, she had little idea of the extent of their danger. The marginal presences that inhabited the place were gradually closing in. Attracted by magic, he knew that Hermione’s use of the disclosure charm upon their arrival had alerted them to their presence.

On top of that, he had been forced to use some very low level charms the preceding day in order to brew the tisane for Hermione. It had been a gamble. Knowing they were close the where he wanted to go, balancing the benefits of a speedy recovery for the girl against the risks of attracting further, unwanted, attention, he had judged that they had a better chance of survival with both of them healthy and moving quickly.

The sky lightened a little more. It seemed to be the best they could hope for by way of daylight. He was about to move when he was hit in the middle of the shoulder blades by a soft bundle, thrown with considerable force.

She was up.

“Your cloak,” she spat with unconcealed disdain.

It was clear that her fury had not abated.

“Thank you,” he said dryly, picking it up and pulling it around himself. It was still slightly warm from where she had slept in it. Some part of him savoured that warmth and he told himself firmly that that was because he was chilled to the bone, after a night sitting still.

She was determinedly packing up the camp.

“Are you going to do something to help, or are you just going to sit there?”

Silently, and a little painfully, he stood, and moved to help.

They broke camp, and began the day’s march in silence. She let him lead - just. She spoke once, just after they left.

“This… item… substance… that we’re looking for. What is it and how do we recognise it?”

Her tone of voice stung. He took refuge in sarcasm.

“The general idea, Miss Granger, is that I will recognise it. And I am fully conversant with the details.”

“Not good enough.”

The cat has claws he thought. Miss Granger, Hogwarts star pupil would never have addressed him like that. He realised that his nuit blanche had left him too tired to argue the toss.

“We are looking for a plant, Miss Granger,” he replied wearily. “A small bush to be precise. Fairly unremarkable in most ways. It grows about two feet tall, has small shiny dark green leaves, and red berries about the size of a ball bearing. It favours dark, damp shadowy places, often in the lee of rocky outcrops, and isolated erratics.”

“And which part of this unremarkable plant is the useful one?”

“The berries, but not the red ones. Exceptionally, this bush produces a white berry. It is that berry that has the desired properties. The red berries are merely poisonous.”

He was half expecting some sort of comeback from her, but she was simply silent.

The morning passed in festering hostility. The terrain was becoming increasingly broken, and often their concentration was wholly occupied in simply keeping their footing. The moorland was now interrupted with larger boulders, seemingly dumped at random. They were now close enough to the hills to see the rafts of bare rock, where landslides had scoured the cliff faces. The air was thick and greasy, Snape thought, as if a storm was about to break - except that storms didn’t break in this place.

He kept his gaze ruthlessly focussed on the way in front of him. He avoided even glancing at Hermione, merely remaining aware of her tense, angry presence near to him. He also tried to avoid the other things. The ones that hovered on the edge of his sight, but which were never directly visible. The familiar whispering mocking presences, phantoms of his subconscious given form by the malevolence of the place. Alien thoughts insinuating themselves into this mind. He pushed them away, concentrating on his breathing…. In…two, three, four… hold… two, three, four….. out… two, three, four….. rest…. two, three four. His life narrowed to that sixteen beat sequence, as he pressed on forward.

Eventually another voice intruded into his mantra. This one was familiar, and distinctly audible.

Hermione.

He risked a glance at her. She was close behind him, close enough to touch. Her eyes were focussed somewhere beyond him, and she was muttering something. He could only hear snatches.

No.. I know this… please… no…

So, she, too, battles demons, he thought.

Adrift in her own personal hell, Hermione had let her attention drift from the path. He foot caught on a stone and she stumbled. Without thinking Snape caught her arm to steady her.

The contact seemed to pull her back from wherever it was she had been.

She pulled away as if she he had burnt her.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed venomously.

He dropped his hand. She had returned completely to the present now. He could see a soft sheen of sweat on her face.

“How much further,” she asked, with difficulty.

Snape looked ahead.

“The last time I was here, there was a patch of bushes at the foot of the cliff.”

Hermione just nodded.

They continued on, locked in their separate struggles.

When they finally reached the cliffs it was almost a shock. One minute they seemed to be as far away as ever, the next they had all but walked into them.

I’d forgotten the joys of this place, thought Snape sourly.

The whispering insinuations were steadily increasing in intensity. Snape thought that he could almost physically hear them moving. This was not over-active imagination on his part, he knew. The creatures of this place fed on human passions. Whichever ones were most easily provoked.

A passionate woman.

She was angry - and hurt and frightened, the back of his mind suggested. Easy prey.

And whatever she thought of him, it had become very important to him to get her out of this in one piece.

He did not have enough time to analyse the reason for this, as his thoughts were interrupted by a cry from Hermione.

He spun round to see she had drawn her wand, and was facing back the way they had come. Behind them the air shimmered, much like a heat haze, only this haze was taking on a defined form. It was loosely human in shape, in that the sketched outlines of a torso, head and limbs could be seen. Hermione was shouting something at it. The shimmering air gained definition. There was a background murmur, reminding him stupidly of the sea.

He moved towards her:
“Try to keep calm, Miss Granger,” he advised, as evenly as he could.

She did seem to hear him. She pointed her wand and called “Expecto Patronum”. Her patronus sprang from the end of her wand, and the hazy being lost cohesion, but the underlying susurration remained.

Snape was torn between admiration for her presence of mind, and alarm for the danger that they were in, now that she had used a charm of that potency.

He was now close enough to grab her arm, and pull her away. She tried to wrench out of his grasp but this time he wouldn’t let her.

“Miss Granger, you have now written ‘We are here’ in letters big enough for the majority of the creatures of this place to read. I suggest we concentrate on finding the bushes, and getting out of here.”

With no attempt at gentleness he half dragged her along until she suddenly dug her heels in.

“Miss Granger,” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Over there. Is that them?”

He looked to where she was pointing. Sure enough, tucked under a the low ledge of a small outcrop, were two or three of the bushes. He could see the red berries from here. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see that the air around them was beginning to shimmer again. This time they appeared to be surrounded. Words were becoming discernible in the white noise.

“Let’s hope there are some white berries there as well,” he muttered.

This time he didn’t have to drag her after him. If there were no white berries on these bushes, they were trapped, he reflected. Backed up against the rock, with these… creatures… closing in. Haste was alien to him, and was making him clumsy - that and the need to be aware of where the girl was. Fortunately she was now keeping close to him, and she was making a reasonably thorough search of the bushes.

A crackling, slimy, feel to the air made him shift sideways reflexively, and he could now see that the shimmering had resolved into a number of forms. He tried to ignore the increasingly audible taunts.

Too late to worry much about this now, he thought resignedly, and drew his wand. He cast a Perceptual Parallax Charm, to try to disorientate their sense of where they were. Primarily a visual charm, of course, but anything that slowed them would be good at this point. There were now seven or eight of the things coming towards them.

He made a decision. One which relied on his estimation of Hermione’s intrinsic sense of decency.

He backed towards her, and drew the talisman out of his robes.

“Take this. Crush the white berries on to it, and visualise where you want to go. I will concentrate on holding them off.”

She looked hostile, but took the hilt.

Her words came back to him.

I want to find this berry - whatever it is - get back to my reality… With or without you, I don’t much care. And I’m telling you now that without would be my preference. You deserve to rot here.

Well she would have her chance to make that happen now.

The forms were pressing closer, almost merging into one another again. The sibilant voices now took on familiar tones… Pitiful, defiled, repulsive, treacherous, they hissed. Alone, they sniggered. Defeated.

Sweating now, he cast a Density Charm - Fred Weasley had nicknamed it the Treacle Charm, he recalled inconsequentially, due to its property of increasing the density of whatever substance you cast it on…..

The forms gained more definition and seemed to slow. Or was he imagining it? Battered by old fears and insecurities, fuelled by unwanted recollection, he struggled to think of the next strategy. His knees began to buckle

Then he felt someone grab his hand, and slam something cold and hard into it.

Moments later there was a sharp tug at his midriff, and the world began to whirl.

**********

Hermione staggered as she landed in the middle of her living room. Her sudden reappearance among familiar things was almost as disorientating as the first trip had been. But that was her rug on the floor, her books on the shelves… and her cat looking reproachfully at her from his cushion on the sofa.

However, her rug did not normally have a tall man in dirty black robes, crumpled on it.

Snape.

And in her hand was a sword hilt decorated with a capital M in a circle. Memory came flooding back.

Still shaken by the whole experience, she stood blankly for a few moments wondering what she should do. Then he stirred, and pushed himself to a sitting position. He looked around.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“My flat,” she answered.

“Did you find the berries?” he asked, rather stupidly she thought.

A combination of anger, fear and exhaustion made her sharp.

“No,” she snapped. “I clicked my heels together three times and chanted ‘There’s no place like home’. Are you going to sit there all day?”

Harsh, maybe, but she wasn’t in the mood to be charitable. He should think himself grateful that she hadn’t left him there.

Something within him seemed to close up tight at her words, and she felt a slight prick of remorse. She was about to add something softer, when he got slowly - painfully, her mind told her - to his feet.

“You are quite correct, Miss Granger. It is entirely inappropriate for me to be here. I will leave immediately.” He paused. “May I have the talisman.”

Of course. She still had the hilt.

The impulse of compassion died still-born.

“Absolutely not,” she spat. “Not after what’s just happened.”

He glared at her.

“It is too dangerous to leave lying about.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She drew her wand, and tossed the object in the air. Pointing her wand at it she said “Annihilate” . There was a cracking sound as the metal shattered into a number of pieces, which themselves exploded into fragments, which then disintegrated into still smaller parts. Eventually, a fine film of metallic dust settled over Hermione’s Chinese rug. Snape watched in silence.

Finally he said:
“I’m glad to see that you haven’t lost the Gryffindor penchant for the grand gesture.”

Hermione had had enough.

“Get out of my home,” she said flatly.

For a moment Snape looked like he was going to say something else. Then he just pulled his cloak around himself and Apparated.

**********

An hour later Hermione Granger was relaxing in the bath, revelling in the feeling of being really clean. She had scrubbed at herself to the point of pain, and she kept topping up the water to scalding point. The only legacy of her experience was the fading bruise on her forehead. When that had gone she could pretend that it had never happened. For the third time she ducked her head under the bathwater to rinse out shampoo.

Out in the living room, Crookshanks stirred suddenly, and then arched his back and spat viciously. Fluffed up to nearly twice his size, he yowled, and fled the room.

The air above the dusty rug began to shimmer, and then to coalesce. The shimmer hovered for a moment, and then began to solidify. First it was vaguely human, then the body plan became more apparent. The air became translucent. It resolved into a tall thin figure. Milky haze transformed into opaque black.

It sniffed the air like a dog.

Too soon…. it hissed almost subliminally.

The figure left the flat, passing through the front door as if it wasn’t there.

Hermione emerged from under the bath water and squeezed the water out of her hair. Wrapping a towel around her head, she got out of the bath and pulled on a fluffy bathrobe. Absently noting that Crookshanks had disappeared, she wandered into the kitchen in search of a snack. Preferably one that was not fungus based.

**********

END OF PART 1