Round Midnight

[Usual disclaimers apply - the characters aren't mine, the story is]

"Man and woman, who in natural fashion incarnate the two poles of the alchemical work - sulphur and quicksilver - can by their mutual love, when this is spiritually heightened and interiorized, develop that cosmic power, or power of the soul, which operates the alchemical dissolution and coagulation." Buckhardt

Chapter 3

Tin

Tin - or Jupiter - represents the process of sublimation, purifying the base metal to separate it from the mixture in which it exists. In spiritual terms, the soul's receptivity is developed. The soul is purified and the body freed from all darkness so that the soul may return to it to begin the 'greater work'.

The snow had melted, even in the grounds of Hogwarts, when the billowing smoke cleared within the Eggs to reveal a dark misshapen mass of densest black. Owls made their way from both London and Hogwarts - the calcination was complete.

Hermione made her way to Hogwarts again when she received Snape's letter with its surprisingly elegant scrawl, apparating to the gates that closed the school off from Hogsmeade. The village below appeared to be steaming gently, smoke rising from almost all the chimneys in the still day. The path up to school was muddy now, but the day was clear and bright with the crisp clarity of early spring. She hadn't seen Snape since January. There had been no need - there was little that needed to be done in the process at that point, other than keep an eye on progress. There wasn't a great deal of need now, either, but Dumbledore had asked for a progress report from them both.

Hermione had spent her free time in the Bodleian library, half hidden in one of the leather armchairs in Duke Humphries' Library high above the cobbles and tarmac of the Broad, with a succession of ancient leather bound tomes - and tomes they were. To call them books would have been to insult them. The librarians eyed her with dismay now, when she handed in yet another request for something to be retrieved from the stacks. Soon she would have to start requesting them over the Internet, to avoid the increasingly antagonistic looks. There were infinite treasures hidden in the stacks of the Bod, tucked away in countless miles of shelving below the serene grass quadrangles around the Radcliffe Camera and tunnelling under the traffic of the Broad. Hermione occasionally wondered whether the entire area would one day fold up and sink in on itself, caving into the excavated stores of the Bod and Blackwells bookshop on the opposite side of the Broad.

The library catalogues were a work of art - a work of art by Kandinsky. Or possibly Jackson Pollock. Inspired guesswork had proved the most effective system of retrieving the sort of books Hermione needed; most had not been looked at for hundreds of years, and the catalogues were unsurprisingly inadequate, although better than anyone could have expected. Hermione generally worked on the basis that, when she found something that looked interesting, she ordered up that book and the two on either side of it. She had found some truly astonishing material in that rather random method - some of it completely unmentioned in the catalogues, as far as she could tell.

Snape had finished examining her thesis in February; Hermione's doctoral supervisor had told her that the thesis was with the Board now, with Snape's comments and recommendation. Hermione told herself that she wasn't nervous, that all this research was just to fine-tune her knowledge of the process of making the Stone. So she lost herself in the words and allegorical images of centuries-dead alchemists all day, and headed back to London by apparation every night to fall asleep exhausted and wake the next day with a headache.

Each day, before dashing over the flagstone paths to the Bod, past the pepperpot of the Radcliffe Camera with its windows revealing tables of students, studying or snoozing, Hermione would check the progress of the Egg in her lab; from the short notes she found near the fireplace in the lab when she arrived, Snape did the same at Hogwarts. She had recorded meticulously everything variable that she could think of - temperature (ambient and of the vessel), the colour of the smoke, the rate of swirl within the smoke, even the direction of the swirl. Perhaps, later, when everything had settled, she would write a paper on the subject.

Hermione was still rather uncomfortable about having the lab fireplace attached to the Floo network; the incident with the three goons who had attacked her had made her rather uneasy about the system. It was, though, undeniably easier to have access to that method of communication - either by letter or directly. At the end of each week, she and Severus - she was trying to get used to calling him that; for all her bravado when they had met at her flat, she was still not quite able to do so without half-expecting to be reprimanded for impertinence - would discuss progress, his face floating in the fire before her. It was an odd experience; a Muggle upbringing meant that Hermione was still unable to take for granted the wizarding equivalent of video phones.

The conversations themselves were ... interesting. The process of creating the Stone was happening with no real interference needed, and very little variation, so they would quickly exhaust that topic. Hermione had assumed that Severus would disconnect at that point, the first time they had talked. Instead, to her surprise, he asked whether she was getting any research done. From that opening, what was supposed to be an update on progress became a wide-ranging discussion each week - largely academic, but over the weeks more personal topics of conversation had crept in. She had a rather clear idea of the capabilities of the current crop of Potions students - not very flattering - and the chances of Slytherin winning the Quidditch cup this year, together with a growing awareness of Snape's astonishingly wide-ranging curiosity about the world. Wizard and Muggle, science or art, he didn't appear to make a distinction; he wanted to know it all.

Hermione found herself anticipating each Friday evening's update session, making a ritual of the interlude as she settled herself in an armchair with a cup of coffee and waited for the connection to be made.

****

Snape put down the book he had been holding, letting it drop to the sidetable next to his chair. A murmured spell brought the fire back to life from the embers it had sunk to whilst he read. It was a cold morning; Hermione would undoubtedly be chilled when she arrived.

He was, he thought, looking forward to this meeting; an odd sensation, particularly given who it was he was meeting. Then again, Hermione Granger was so far from the person she had been at school that a comparison could barely be made. The child who sat his classes and waved her hand for seven years was not the woman with whom he had conversations that quietly revealed an astonishing breadth of knowledge. Her peers at Oxford may have taken away the unchecked sharing of that knowledge, but clearly nothing could - thankfully - eliminate the curiosity and desire to learn. Each week had drawn more from her and, he supposed, from him; she challenged and stimulated his way of thinking - something his colleagues here rarely did, except perhaps Dumbledore. But the Headmaster usually challenged his morals, or his scruples, and rarely his intellect.

Snape could not quite imagine the Headmaster discussing the concept of Hamlet as the archetypal Hero; one of the discussions he had had with Hermione last week. He found himself noting ideas and concepts during the week, trying to remember them for Friday evenings when he would settle with a glass of whisky in a chair in front of the fire before making the connection through to Hermione's lab in Oxford. The conversations always started the same way, with an update on progress, but quickly moved beyond that in ever-increasing ripples.

Snape shook the recollections from his mind and looked out through the windows, his attention caught by the brilliant blue sky. The colour was startling, a dense wash in the middle of the near-monochrome of his rooms. White walls and chestnut furniture; only the multitude of colours on the spines of the books on his shelves added highlights - and even then, those were largely muted and faded with age.

A knock on the door drew him back from the blank near-meditation he had slipped into as he stared at a length of ivy hanging in front of the window, stirred and swayed by the breeze.

"Come in."

His tone was brusque; he was expecting Hermione but, as she had set no particular time to arrive and he was in a school of several hundred students and a not insignificant number of staff, he had no intention of encouraging conversation from any other visitor.

The door cracked open, the darkness of the corridor beyond swallowing any light that tried to creep through from his room.

"Severus?"

It was Hermione after all; Snape bit back the impatient sting that had formed on the tip of his tongue, instinctively ready to repel any student who dared to disturb his free time. He stood as she entered the room and watched, mildly amused, as she kicked off a pair of extremely muddy boots. Hermione looked up; his amusement must have been visible.

"I know, I know, cleaning is a lot easier here, I don't need to be so careful. Old habits aren't all that easy to break, though. My mother trained me well," she said, laughing.

Snape found himself asking a question he had wondered about but had not asked before; if it was the wrong thing to say it was liable to produce tears, and he frankly would rather face Voldemort again than deal with women's tears. Students' tears he was indifferent to, but courtesy demanded that women be dealt at least marginally more respect - it was harder to simply sneer.

"Where are your parents now?"

His sigh of relief when Hermione spoke without tears was palpable - if Hermione noticed, though, she gave no sign. She discarded layers as she spoke, hanging her coat and scarf on the hook behind the door; peeling her gloves off, she stuffed them in the pockets of her coat.

"They retired to the Algarve a few years ago - it's why I have the flat. They sold their house and the practice, and had enough to buy a house in a village out there and live comfortably. They offered me what was left over to buy myself something to live in. I think they assumed I'd buy something in Oxford, but I couldn't really face the idea of living there permanently. I see them occasionally - apparating saves a fortune on air fares."

She padded over to the fire, silent in the thick woollen socks she wore. She glanced up at Snape, who stood watching her, and grimaced.

"I'm babbling. Sorry. Did you manage to separate out the material into two pieces?"

Snape nodded, grateful that she had pulled the conversation back to the point - whilst he looked forward to the discussions they had, it was a clearly defined ritual in his life now and he wasn't particularly certain he needed it to spill out beyond the Friday evenings.

Hermione was warming her hand in front of the stove. "Any problems?" she asked. "I had to crank up the extractor rather heavily - the smoke was still lifting very slightly before I split the piece."

"Nothing difficult; the sublimation process appears already to have started. Do you want some tea?"

Hermione shook her head. "No - thank you. Did the Headmaster say what time he wanted to see us?"

A third voice spoke, quietly amused. "I believe now would be an opportune moment, Miss Granger. And, Severus, I would like some tea. Thank you."

The Headmaster had appeared in the room; Hermione looked startled but Snape just resisted the urge to shake his head at Dumbledore's tricks as he looked over to the old man.

"I am pleased to see you again, Muss Granger," said the Headmaster.

"Please, call me Hermione," she offered.

"Very well, Hermione - it has been a long time, has it not?"

Snape broke in before the reminiscing got underway. "As the Headmaster seems to be forsaking his usual hot chocolate for tea, Miss Granger, are you certain you won't join us?" he asked. He was going to have to make tea anyway, making an additional cup would not precisely tax him. It would also give him something to do whilst the Headmaster gossiped.

And gossip he did - Snape had made tea and distributed the mugs, with no particular haste, before Dumbledore had even begun to ask Hermione about her college days. Settling grimly into a chair by the fire, Snape checked the time and wondered whether they would make it to Oxford to continue the process today. He sipped his tea slowly, waiting for the Headmaster to clear his mind of curiosity over Hermione's university career; the ivy branch caught his attention again and he let his mind go blank as he once more watched it sway in the breeze.

"Severus?"

From the sound of the Headmaster's voice, it wasn't the first time Dumbledore had tried to get his attention. Snape looked round sharply.

"Yes?"

"My apologies, Severus. I have taken up entirely too much of Miss Granger - Hermione, I beg your pardon - Hermione's time and yours this afternoon with idle conversation. We have more pressing matters to discuss, I am aware. Please forgive my distraction."

Snape nodded; Dumbledore's foibles were always forgiven - apart from the respect in which the man was held, even his most absent-minded habits eventually turned out to have some purpose. Whilst Snape couldn't say quite what purpose a review of Hermione's life might have, undoubtedly Dumbledore would have something in mind.

Dumbledore smiled. "It really is quite astonishing what can come of the most random conversation, don't you find?"

Snape scowled; no-one was entirely certain whether the Headmaster could read minds or whether he could simply read people, but there were times when Snape wished he were not quite so transparent to the Headmaster. Aiming for distraction, he pulled the conversation back to the point of their meeting, well aware of the faint amusement on Hermione's face. She, of course, had been spared the display of Dumbledore's omniscience.

"What do the Ministry have to say for themselves over Voldemort now - did you get the reports?" asked Snape, the latter question asked urgently. The reports were supposed to be published weekly, to reassure whatever part of the wizarding population needed reassurance, with details of Voldemorts condition. A not insignificant number of people were obviously hoping he would simply waste away. Last week's reports had not been published, leading to minor articles in the Daily Prophet speculating upon possible reasons. Dumbledore had eventually found that the reason was rather prosaic - the official responsible for publication had been ill, and no-one had thought to publish the reports in his absence.

This time, though, Dumbledore nodded. "They were delivered a short while again, Severus. I did not bring them with me because they had little useful information and I wasn't entirely certain that I would find you here. Nothing appears to have changed over the past two weeks - the intervals of meditation seem to be constant, although of course the Ministry seem to prefer to describe his behaviour as periods of catatonia."

Snape snorted, and he noticed that Hermione seemed equally irritated by the Ministry's perpetual dressing-up of the situation. He could accept that few would understand what Voldemort might be doing, but his behaviour was hardly catatonic.

"Well," she said, "at least they are still recording his behaviour, and taking physical measurements."

"So far," muttered Snape, darkly.

Hermione apparently chose to ignore his pessimism and turned to Dumbledore, chewing her lower lip in concentration.

"The problem we have is that we can't tell whether he's succeeding with the meditation - are there any other measurements that the Ministry can take?"

"They can take all the measurements they chose to, and none of the numbers will tell us any more than we already know," grimaced Snape. "If he succeeds, if we are lucky we may know about it. It is undoubtedly more likely that we will simply not know - anything, ever again."

The tension in the room was wound tight; Dumbledore was quiet, and Snape thought he was observing the interaction between himself and Hermione. She had looked momentarily upset, clearly aware - as he well knew - of the implications if Voldemort's plans succeeded. It was the uncertainty that was painful; not knowing when, and where, he would strike. If Snape was honest with himself, part of the difficulty was also the uncertainty of whether they were over-reacting, whether he was ascribing to Voldemort thoughts and ideas beyond anything the dark wizard was capable of contemplating, let alone achieving.

History, though, had taught that it was best not to underestimate.

****

The conversation with Dumbledore had taken two cups of tea and a certain amount of patience, thought Hermione grimly as she pushed open the door to her laboratory. Snape followed her into the room - they had already set up the sublimation process at Hogwarts, now they would repeat the process here in Oxford. It was the weekend, so Snape was free from lessons and, as they had found in his laboratory at Hogwarts, the process was much easier when carried out by two people; the material simply seemed to flow better, so that the reaction began more smoothly and allowed enough time for the vessels to be sealed.

After a rather thorough grilling from Dumbledore on her movements since leaving school - even though she was certain he knew exactly what she had been doing, from her infrequent correspondence with Professor McGonagall if nothing else - they had reviewed the reports on Voldemort; why no-one else thought his behaviour strange was probably the real mystery that needed to be solved - saving the wizarding world from its own na•vetŽ might make things much easier. The Ministry seemed to be reverting to type; even though the Minister seemed to believe that Snape may have some grounds for suspicion the lower echelons were still being awkward about releasing reports on Voldemort's state. It had, apparently, taken Dumbledore some time to receive the latest reports, and then only after some negotiation with some over-promoted incompetent.

Hermione was aware that she was being unduly harsh, perhaps, but sometimes she simply wanted to shake them from complacency and inertia - even Dumbledore, although she suspected that the Headmaster's measured pace was probably a more appropriate response than her own. He had a knack for ensuring things were done and not simply discussed - an undoubtedly carefully cultivated knack.

Dumbledore actually reminded her of one of her college tutors - an Amergin tutor, not one from Oriel - who had almost driven her insane with his repetition of points until she realised that, if she slowed down in her explanations and addressed issues more carefully, he would repeat nothing. As a teaching technique it was both maddening and effective - she was a far better researcher for it.

On the other side of the laboratory, Snape had lit the fireplace. Hermione smiled to herself, remembering her teenage conviction that Snape lived in perpetual cold - the dungeons were damp and the classroom had always been cold, so it had not been an unreasonable conclusion. By the time she had graduated, she understood that the potions classroom would have been intolerable at the end of a practical lesson - with a dozen or more fires lit under cauldrons - if it had been anything other than arctic. It would not, though, have been completely out of the question to heat the room for those lessons where they simply sat and listened - and shivered.

Before she could ask him why the classrooms had never been heated, Snape spoke. He had come up behind her and was looking over her shoulder at the blackened, burnt material that had resulted from the calcination.

"How many laboratories are there in this college?"

Hermione frowned before she realised that Snape was simply making small talk as they started to prepare a new vessel to take the material for sublimation. It was an odd notion, but she replied readily enough.

"Just this one - and it's not, strictly speaking, a laboratory. I imagine Oriel would be less than impressed by the knowledge that I am using it this way. The science labs are all north of here - most of the science departments are based up by the Parks. I got rather fit running or cycling between here and there in time for lectures and tutorials."

Snape nodded and they worked now in silence for a few minutes before Hermione noticed Snape shift, apparently uncomfortably, beside her. She spoke without turning round. "The men's room is back down the corridor - I can handle the rest of this on my own." She held her breath, waiting for a stinging rebuke for daring suggest that Snape might possibly be subject to normal bodily functions. She had no illusions that their academic camaraderie would extend beyond Friday evenings - whilst she found Snape's company surprisingly pleasant, he was too private for her to be able to simply treat him as human.

However, he surprised her by simply nodding and leaving the room. She looked round, watching him stride away, her brows lifted slightly in amazement before she turned back to the black material that she was carefully handling. The material had become like pitch during the calcination, burning first into powder and an aqueous solution and then coagulating to this oozing black mass. The sublimation required her to split the material into two, and then use one half to 'wash' the other in the heat of the fire in which the work would be carried out.

A little later, Hermione had sealed the glass closed again after adding the first of the imbibitions, when she heard the door open again, letting a small breeze blow through the room. She kept her eyes on the vessel in front of her, continuing with the remarks and notes she was taking on the colour and appearance of the smoke that swirled within it - the material had turned a brilliant violet, and the vapour curling into the glass was a diffuse series of similar shades.

"You're back quickly," she remarked, checking the temperature of the dampened fire below the experiment and recording it. She closed the book and looked round, wondering why Snape hadn't replied.

It wasn't Snape. Just inside the door stood the three figures in black whose interest in her she had tried to forget over the past few weeks; she had hoped that their threats were merely idle but the silver masks glittering in the low light of the laboratory made it very clear that such hopes had been futile. She tucked the notebook slowly away in her bag, never taking her eyes from them.

"You don't appear to have been expecting us, Hermione," said the central figure - the same one who had spoken when they had appeared in her flat. "Such a pity. I underestimated you; or perhaps you've grown complacent now that your former teacher is showing such an interest in your work. Still, I don't see him around here anywhere. Your complacency may be a little misplaced, shall we say?"

Hermione shivered; the voice was low and hoarse, as though using some charm to filter through it. Her mind, seizing any distraction as a means of denial started to recall which charm might fit the purpose. Probably some reverse of a soothing charm; she seemed to recall that Madam Pomfrey had a number of all-purpose charms that would make a sore throat only a memory. With an effort, Hermione cut off the train of thought and forced herself to deal with the present reality. She couldn't help the clichŽ that was the first thing she could think of to say, though.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, my dear, you know exactly what I want. Let's not play games, hmm? That drop of red that you have so ... selfishly ... failed to share with the rest of the world. All the riches of Araby, and that Elixir ... I'm sure you have more than enough. If you'd just share with the rest of us, your life would be so much easier."

The three figures had advanced into the room as he spoke and, as his voice dipped in warning at the end, Hermione was surrounded; the bench at her back, the chief persecutor in front of her and the other two at her sides.

"I don't have the Stone," she insisted.

"You can do better than that," he purred. "Little Miss Gryffindor, don't try to lie to me. You really wouldn't like the consequences."

Hermione's gaze flickered between the masks, casting about for something to say. He seemed fixated on the idea that she had the Stone now, not that she was creating it. Perhaps he did think that she had Flamel's Stone; she tested the theory.

"But I don't have it - Flamel destroyed it!" she protested. The figure shook his head slowly, confirming the theory as he spoke.

"Oh no, please don't think me stupid enough to believe that, Hermione. No-one would destroy such a thing; I've heard the fairy-tales that Dumbledore thinks we'll swallow, the fool. Your excuses are a waste of time. Where is it?" The last words were hissed into Hermione's face, the mask only a few inches from her.

"Why do you think I have it?" she asked, desperately.

"Who else, Hermione? Dumbledore wouldn't hold on to it - he'd be too obvious a suspect. The boy Potter was far too likely to be killed by the Dark Lord for it to be safe with him. And please don't suggest Weasley might have it; that family is as poor as it has ever been. He would surely have at least done something about the lamentably shabby robes they all wear. It's really rather obvious, Hermione; you are the only one who could possibly have it. Now, be a good girl and stop asking stupid questions. You really are far too intelligent to think I'm at all fooled by it - if you think I will allow you to delay me until help arrives then you are deluding yourself."

"I rather suspect," came a cold voice from the doorway, "that the delusion is all on your part, Pinale."

Snape stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the brighter lights of the corridor. The three figures turned quickly to face him; their first mistake. As the leader - Hermione thought Snape had called him Pinale - looked away, Hermione slid her wand from her sleeve, holding it close to her to minimise the chances of it being seen.

"Snape; so glad you could join us." The voice was as low as ever, but Hermione thought it sounded less certain than before; or perhaps she simply felt stronger, now that she was not alone in facing them.

"Dumbledore's little lapdog; what are you doing with Hermione here now, hmm? I will confess that I have been curious about your interest in this little Mudblood." Snape seemed to grow taller at the insult, then Hermione realised he had simply taken a step further into the room. Pinale laughed. "Of course, I overlooked that. You want the Stone for yourself, don't you Snape? Clever - but I rather think that direct action gives so much more immediate results. Still, you never were one for direct action; you did always refer to creep around in the shadows. You're too late on this one, Snape. I got here first; and this time, the hare will win the race."

"Pinale," drawled Snape, his voice bored, "what do you think I would want the Stone for? I already have more money than I can spend in several lifetimes - but, of course, you know that. You always seemed to take it rather personally. Perhaps because your father gambled your inheritance into nothing?" Pinale lunged forwards, but found himself facing Snape's wand and stopped abruptly. "As for eternal life; well, Pinale, I really can't say that I find this life more than barely tolerable. Why would I want to extent it?"

"Don't play the innocent, Severus," came the low voice again. "It won't work. I don't much care what your motives are; you can have the girl, but the Stone is mine!" The voice had risen steadily as he spoke, and the last word was almost a scream. Hermione became more certain than ever that this Pinale was unbalanced; he had seemed irrational enough in his reasoning as to why she would have the Stone but this ... this was obsession. Complete and, she suspected, unbreakably detailed obsession. He was unable to comprehend that others might have a different perspective, and saw only deceit and treachery in their words. She almost giggled as the irreverent thought came to mind that, perhaps, that was why his companions never spoke. Without words, they could not be considered to contradict him. The giggle caught her by surprise, and the part of her that had somehow remained detached from these events recognised incipient hysteria.

Hermione swallowed and forced herself into a further detachment, analysing the courses of action open to her; she tried to catch Snape's eye, to see what he had planned - if anything; but Snape's narrow stare never wavered from Pinale. Careful not to move too much or too abruptly, Hermione looked to left and right, gauging the positions of Pinale and his henchmen. If Pinale stepped forward just a fraction ...

Either fate was with her, or Snape had been paying her more attention than she realised. He stepped backwards, just enough to invite Pinale forwards and, as Pinale took the bait and moved, Hermione brought her wand up and yelled "Expelliarmus!" Two wands were snatched out of their owners' grasps; the henchmen turned, startled by the move, but Pinale had countered the spell faster than Hermione thought possible, and stood his ground, still facing Snape.

"You stupid little girl. Crucio."

Hermione had always heard that curse yelled, as though the emphasis enhanced the power that sabotaged the nervous system of the attacked. Spoken quietly and almost lazily, it seemed even more malevolent; the sight of Snape crumpling silently to the ground was equally shocking.

She ducked reflexively as Pinale turned on his heel and smoothly, without pausing, fired a hex at her. The bolt of light hurtled past her, brushing her arm, and hit a series of bottles behind her, glass shards exploding across the floor. Hermione realised with horror that the hex had almost grazed the vessel in which the sublimation was taking place. If it had not caught her arm, it almost certainly would have slammed into the smoke-filled glass.

"No!" she screamed, "If you hit that then we'll all be dead, it's poison!"

"Then you'll just have to make sure you give me no reason to try to incapacitate you, Hermione," laughed Pinale. "No matter how carefully I aim, I could always ... miss," he added. "And I'm shocked at you, little Gryffindor, brewing poisons? Tut tut. What would Minerva say?"

Hermione wasn't sure what unnerved her more - the sound of his voice or the detail in which he seemed to know her circumstances; but then, her schooldays were mostly a matter of public record, thanks to Harry. The most unnerving thing was still the sight of Snape, lying on the ground convulsing with the effects of Crucio.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked dully; the most important thing was to get them out of the laboratory before something happened. She could not afford a fight in here.

"At last; I thought you would never see sense. Just tell me where the Stone is; I'll be generous, Hermione. You can have all the gold you want from it once I have it. Of course, I don't think it appropriate to let you have the Elixir too. You're rather annoying, and I see no benefit in eternal life if I know you're sharing it."

"I ... I can't tell you, I'll have to show you," said Hermione nervously; would he fall for that? Once outside the laboratory she would have another chance - a less potentially fatal chance - to excape him.

Pinale considered her statement, apparently looking carefully at her. His mask almost seemed to show expressions.

"Very well, Hermione. Give back the wands you so rudely misappropriated first, then we can be on our way. Unfortunate that we can't apparate from here but that can't be helped. The corridor will have to do. Give me your wand."

Hermione handed over her wand, resisting the temptation to use it on him as she recognised how outnumbered she was; he took the other two wands as well and returned them to his acolytes. Pinale turned to lead from the room, stepped over Snape as he did so.

Another mistake; Snape apparently convulsed just as Pinale stepped over him, then snapped upright out of the convulsion. Hermione wasn't sure, given her vantage point, but she thought Snape had driven his shoulder straight into Pinale's groin. Pinale gave a hideous squeal, and a moment later the laboratory was empty save for Snape and Hermione. The two henchmen had grabbed their incapacitated leader and fled through the door, apparating as soon as they were clear of the laboratory. Staring at the door, she thought that Pinale would not be particularly happy about that.

She shook her head and looked down; Snape had subsided back onto the floor, curled up, a characteristic after-effect of Crucio, she remembered. His obvious pain finally unfroze her from the stool at the bench and she crossed the laboratory to crouch by his side. Without her wand, she would be able to do little for him but she felt compelled to try to do something; casting about for something that would be of help, she put a hand to his shoulder. He was trembling, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His eyes were shut tightly, and his face was white with tension.

"Snape - Severus - is there anything I can do? I haven't got my wand now," she whispered, recalling from long-ago classes that Crucio heightened all senses and not wanting to hurt him further by talking too loudly. She was startled when, with an obvious effort, Snape pulled a hand out from where it was curled around his chest and held out her wand, shaking with the strain.

****

Snape suppressed a groan as his arm involuntarily curled back across his chest once Hermione had taken her wand; he had barely managed to whisper 'Expelliarmus' as he aimed all the weight he could muster into Pinale's sensitivity. Unsubtle, unmagical, but profoundly effective. Unfortunately, he hadn't retrieved Pinale's own wand, but he had managed to get Hermione's.

With her wand in hand, Hermione apparently needed no further instruction from him and for the first time in his life he was grateful that she had been a Gryffindor know-it-all who had paid more attention that was strictly necessary in class. A series of murmured spells each numbed the searing jarring of his nerves, calmed the muscles twitching with mis-firing electrical impulses. The overwhelming awareness of touch, sound and sight lessened until he came back to himself, aching but no longer controlled by the pain, and found himself lying on the stone floor of the laboratory. He struggled to sit up and was stopped by Hermione's hand on his shoulder. He shook his head to clear it.

"Thank you," he said formally. "I would prefer to sit up now, if you don't mind." Hermione's hand dropped from his shoulder and he struggled upright until he sat, propped against the leg of one of the tables.

"Thank you." Hermione's voice was quiet. Snape was tired; too tired to be interesting in trying to decipher her meaning.

"What for?" he asked. "Saving your skin or saving your wand?"

He saw Hermione flinch, and remembered that - whilst she had escaped a curse - she had still been through an uncomfortable experience. All the same, he wasn't in the mood to be delicate.

Apparently, neither was Hermione as she asked him bluntly: "Who is Pinale?"

"Other than a psychopath?" commented Snape. Hermione gestured impatiently, obviously not in the mood to indulge him. He recalled Death Eater meetings with some effort, his body still wanting to sleep off the effects of the curse. "He was one of Voldemort's lesser followers - the ones who came along for the ride and any pickings they could glean. Not in Malfoy's class, say, and unlikely to want to get their hands dirty."

"He seems to have changed his mind on that particular issue," muttered Hermione bitterly. Snape looked at her quickly, his neck protesting the sudden movement. She looked unhurt, but he asked anyway.

"Did he hit you with anything?"

Hermione shook her head. "Only fear - I was startled by his appearance; I thought you had returned so I didn't pay any attention to who was at the door. Then he fired off a hex - no, I don't know which one," she added as Snape opened his mouth to ask for details. "It nearly hit the work."

Snape felt himself go white as he looked over at the egg-shaped vessel. At this stage, with smoke churning through the sealed chamber in a swirling mass of black and blue that looked like a particularly unpleasant bruise, the smoke and liquid there were among the most powerful venoms an alchemist could brew. The smoke along would probably have killed everyone with a hundred feet or so. He understood Hermione's reaction now, as she shook still with the aftermath.

They would need to triple the wards, he thought. Whatever protection they had put in place was ... he stopped, cold. He hadn't renewed the wards when he left earlier. Guilt and anger crashed on him, almost physical in their intensity. He groaned; Hermione looked sharply round, and he waved her attention away, berating himself the slip. She needed his apology.

"It was my fault," he admitted. Hermione looked startled. "I failed to renew the wards when I left," he said. Her eyes narrowed and he waited for the stream of anger and abuse that he deserved for such a failure. No such words came; instead, he saw Hermione shake her head.

"They renew automatically, Severus. It's nothing to do with you. He must have watched me, or found some other way through. You can stop blaming yourself, this one isn't your fault. You can't be responsible for everything," she added, astringently, before returning to her original question. "So, if Pinale was a waste of time as a Death Eater, why is he chasing me now?"

"Greed, I presume," said Snape tiredly. "It was the usual motivator for the lower ranks - Voldemort would promise them all the treasures of the world. What did he say to you? Pinale - what did he say?" he asked.

"He thinks I still have the Stone that Flamel created," answered Hermione.

"Why you?"

"That part didn't make a lot of sense - something about not believing that the Stone was really destroyed, and Ron not being rich enough to have it, Harry being too famous and the Headmaster being too obvious. So it had to be me, apparently."

"Psychosis has its own internal logic system," commented Snape. "It doesn't have to make sense to us to make sense to him. At least he hasn't worked out what it is that we're working on. Did he say what he wanted the Stone for?" Snape wondered for a moment whether Voldemort had somehow got word to Pinale, to command him to try to recapture the Stone. Perhaps that meant that the mental process of alchemy wasn't going very well.

"Endless riches and eternal life. He offered me as much of the riches as I wanted, but didn't feel inclined to share eternal life. Why wasn't he captured?" Hermione's mind was working around the subject, and Snape was obscurely reassured to see her return to normal, the fear abated for now.

"He disappeared; he wasn't particularly important, so he was mostly overlooked - by both sides. I had heard rumours that he had been killed in the final battles. Apparently not, but he certainly wasn't worth sending the remaining Aurors off to find out whether it was true."

Snape leant his head back against the table, his eyes closing in tiredness; he was jolted awake again as Hermione shook him.

"You can't go to sleep here, you'll never be able to move in the morning. Come on, let's get out of here." She pulled him upright; Snape kept grimly silent, aware that if he opened his mouth he would scream with the pain that shot through him.

****

Hermione pulled Snape to his feet; he was ridiculously tense. They stumbled together across the laboratory, Snape leaning heavily on her. Fortunately, there was no-one in the corridor outside the laboratory so she took the opportunity to apparate from there, rather than from the dark alleyway nearby that she usually used.

They appeared again in the shadows near her front door; she fumbled for her key, then propped Snape against the door as she opened the door. She half-led, half-hauled him to one of the sofas and returned to close, lock and ward the door. She leaned back against the door once it was locked, looking unseeingly across the room and forcing herself to begin to relax.

Beyond the windows, London was dark again. Hermione realised with a start that she had completely lost track of time; this early in March, nightfall only meant that it was at least late afternoon. She turned her wrist over, looking at her watch; it had stopped - either she had fallen on it, or one of Pinale's hexes had come closer than she realised.

Hermione forced herself to move from the door, to check both the time and Snape. A clock on the bookcase told her it was evening, still early but very much evening. Snape was asleep; she watched him for a moment with curiosity. He slept neatly, his breathing quiet but just harsh enough to betray the curse he had taken. Hermione yawned, suddenly extremely tired. She half-stumbled down the stairs, catching herself on the railing at least once - she would have a bruise on her hip in the morning, and probably be unable to account for it. She pulled a couple of blankets from a cupboard, soft and warm dark red wool, and headed back upstairs.

Once upstairs she draped one of the blankets over Snape; he moved slightly but didn't wake. Hermione debated removing his shoes but decided that it was probably better not to disturb him. Yawning again, she closed the shutters over the windows and dowsed most of the lights so that only one light was left, dimly lighting a corner of the room. She returned to the sofas and lay on the one facing Snape, vaguely thinking that he ought not be left alone. For a moment, Hermione wondered whether she should have let him go to sleep, but then her sleep-addled mind remembered that sleep was a problem with concussion; this was something rather different.

She kicked off her boots again, remembering her babbling comments about manners and her parents that morning. It seemed weeks ago, not hours. With a snort of amusement that stretched into yet another yawn, Hermione dragged the remaining blanket over herself, she fell asleep within moments.

Next morning, Hermione woke to the smell of coffee and warm bread. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and stretched, wondering where the smell was coming from. She sat up abruptly when she remembered the events of the day before, and looked at the sofa in front of her. Snape had clearly woken first; there was only the blanket on the cushions now, neatly folded and left in a corner. The shutters had been thrown open, and pale early morning light flooded the room.

A noise from the kitchen area made her raise her head again, her mind still slightly foggy with sleep.

"Coffee?"

Snape was standing behind the counter, looking at her. Hermione almost scowled at the look of superior amusement on his face; she was tired and never particularly enthusiastic about waking up. That he could stand there, clearly awake and - relatively - cheerful when he had spent the night sleeping off a curse on a sofa that was took short for him to stretch out on, was more than she was prepared to deal with just then. She nodded curtly and growled "in a minute" as she headed back downstairs to change and wash in an effort to wake up properly.

Hermione looked at her reflection in the mirror as she splashed cold water on her face. It was no particular surprise that Snape had been suppressing a smile, she thought; her face was lined with creases from lying on the sofa cushions, and her hair ... well, at least it was easier to deal with the rats' nest it had snarled into overnight than it had been to deal with the frizz that she had endured as a child. Maturity had a lot of advantages.

It also had a lot of disadvantages, she thought wryly as she changed into a clean pair of jeans and pulled an old rugby shirt over her head, remembering just why it was that Snape was making coffee in her kitchen at an obscenely early hour. Death Eaters - insane Death Eaters. All that brand of lunacy was supposed to have gone from her life in the few horrific hours of battle that had marked the end of her schooldays; instead, seven years later, she was again dodging hexes and curses from a man hiding behind a silver mask and spending her free time working on a way to kill Voldemort whilst the Ministry persisted with the official view that there was no problem.

Plus �a change, plus �'est la m�me chose.

Back upstairs, Hermione paused at the top step of the spiral staircase. Life, she thought, was infinitely more complicated than anything the imagination could construct; certainly more complicated than anything her imagination could construct. She rather thought it would take something along the lines of an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters before she could have imagined the scene in front of her, just a few weeks ago.

Snape was leaning against her kitchen counter, drinking coffee from one of the stoneware mugs that her mother had bought her as a housewarming present, reading a copy of Ars Alchemica that he had no doubt unearthed from the collection on her bookshelves. A plate of toast was cooling on the counter next to him.

Just then he looked up.

"Hmm," he snorted. "Definitely coffee, Miss Granger. It would be most helpful if you were actually awake, we have a number of things that we need to discuss. When you have managed to wake up, of course." His voice was tinged with the usual dry sarcasm that Hermione remembered all too well from school.

She rubbed her temples, taking a deep breath before replying. He no longer inspired fear, but it was probably not a good thing to flare in anger.

"Severus," she said, finally, looking straight at him, "I'm not at school now, you are not my teacher, and you do still need my assistance," she continued, pointedly. "Could you please just dispense with the oh-so-helpful comments? It's not necessary and I'm too tired to put up with them - and I might add that a little gratitude for not leaving you to deal with Crucio on your own would not go amiss. And yes," she added, "coffee would be nice, thank you."

Hermione dropped on the nearest sofa and let her head rest against the cushions behind her. She could just see the clock on the bookcase and, even upside down, it confirmed that it really was an obscene hour of the morning. Suddenly, a mug appeared in her line of sight, steaming gently.

"One coffee, and one apology." The words were silky soft, and Hermione could find nothing but sincerity in the tone. It was almost enough to undo her; when Snape spoke again, it was all she could do not to shiver. "I am sorry, Hermione. You are, of course, right - the comments were unnecessary. I would be in your debt if you could blame them on yesterday's excitement."

Hermione snorted as she sat up again, and took the mug from him. She looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow. "Yesterday's excitement?" Then she smiled. "Alright," she said, "if you insist." Anything to stop him using that particular tone of voice. It was one thing to look forward to conversations with Snape for their intellectual content; it was far too early in the morning to contemplate looking forward to them merely for the pleasure of listening to his voice.

****

Snape sat on the sofa opposite Hermione and watched her drink her coffee with single-minded concentration. The difference between practical and theoretical alchemists, he thought - he had woken with the first light of dawn, even with the shutters closed, whilst she clearly needed at least more time if not also caffeine to become functional. He was about to mention the idea to her, as he would have done in one of their Friday evening discussions, when he abruptly realised that she would not perhaps interpret his theory entirely dispassionately right now. It could, he supposed, be construed as criticism, although he didn't intend it that way.

For the sake of peace, Snape stored the concept for discussion at a later date and time. He concentrated instead on taking inventory of himself; it seemed that he had come through yesterday's 'excitement' - as he had described it to Hermione - with a minimum of the aches and bruises that usually accompanied Crucio. That was probably as much to do with Hermione's prompt action as Pinale's inadequacies as a wizard - although all the inadequacy in the world would not have saved them if he had actually hit the glass vessel in which the Stone was being created.

The thought of Pinale reminded him that he had more to do than simply sit in Hermione's flat, comfortable though it was. He stood; Hermione looked up, apparently startled from her thoughts by his movement.

"I should go," he said. "I think it best if you accompany me; we should have gone to Hogwarts last night."

From the puzzled look on Hermione's face, Snape realised that most of his thought processes had been so internalised that his intent was not particularly clear. He expanded on his comments.

"Pinale will try again; this flat - for all your prowess with wards - is not secure enough. He cannot, however, get through to Hogwarts - if you return with me, you will be safe from his attacks until we can track him down. I would suggest that you pack anything you need."

He could see Hermione gathering strength for a rebellion; when she spoke it took a moment before he realised she was agreeing with him, not disputing his statement. That agreement was all he needed to realise just how badly she had been affected by the events in the laboratory. The bravado when she had faced him over his perpetual sarcasm this morning was missing now; whilst he was sure that much of it had stemmed from her sheer exasperation with him this morning, at least some of it was innate. She was Gryffindor; bravado was part of the house entry requirements.

Packing did not take long; she was neat and methodical, closing up the flat before they left. Those things which she deemed necessary - mercifully little - had been charmed to fit into a small bag which she now carried with her.

They apparated first to Oxford; Hermione insisted on re-checking the laboratory and renewing the wards. Snape added some variations of his own, to strengthen the protection. Hermione collected a file of notes.

"Research notes?" asked Snape. They had been almost entirely silent since leaving the flat; the only words exchanged had been to deal with the wards. The file looked thick, though, and Snape hadn't thought that she would have found that much new material in just a few weeks.

Hermione shook her head. "Notes for my viva," she replied. "I ought to review them, it can't be long before I'm summoned for it." Snape nodded; no other reply seemed appropriate. He had recommended that the thesis be accepted for her doctorate, but the decision was not his alone and it would go against everything he believed for him to tell her what he had told the Board. She would find out soon enough.

They apparated again, this time to Hogwarts. The path up to the school was as muddy as it had been yesterday; everything had changed but the world still looked the same.

For now.