A Sacrifice for Love

Neville showed up on time for detention. He was extremely nervous and did not understand why Snape had made such a big deal about silence in the classroom, unless he had been the only person to want to ask the embarrassing questions. He knocked on Snape’s door at exactly eight o’clock.

Snape had been waiting impatiently. He wasn’t really too angry at Neville now, though he had been earlier. He would just have to find another way to reach Hermione, instead of using the potion. He let Neville in and led him to his private office, the one few students had ever seen. Neville gaped at him, wondering if he was going to come out of this alive.

“You will be researching for me. I want you to find every potion in these books that contains unicorn tears and phoenix blood. You will write the name of the potion down so that I can find it later.” Snape had piled books on a makeshift desk with a quill and some parchment. Neville sat down and began looking through the books.


Hermione had planned to stay up and wait for Neville to return from detention but it was almost midnight and he still hadn’t returned. She finally decided to go to sleep. Snape wouldn’t do any lasting harm to Neville. She went up to her bed and changed into silk pajamas. She wrote in her journal and then got into bed. She usually didn’t fall straight to sleep but tonight was different. She was asleep before she could pull the blanket up over her.


The moment Snape was waiting for happened just after midnight. Neville had been flipping through a book, yawned and then passed out cold. Snape transfigured a chair into a bed and moved Neville over to it. He glared down at him for a moment, and then placed a sensing spell on him. It would alert him to when Neville was about to wake. Snape sighed and went to his bedroom to sleep, if he could.


It seemed to Hermione that the moment she closed her eyes she opened them again and she was in another place. She lay very still for a while, thinking that she may have been kidnapped but when she didn’t hear anyone she got up to look around.

She was in a very luxurious room. It had plush carpets and several sofas that surrounded a roaring fire. The room was done in overtones of green and silver which made her immediately suspicious. Slytherin colors, she thought but for some reason she felt comfortable. There were three doors leading out of the room. She examined them from afar for a moment.

“Hermione? Where are we?”

She turned to find Neville sitting on one of the couches, rubbing his eyes. She moved over to him and sat down next to him.

“I don’t know. What is the last thing you remember?” she asked urgently. He gave her a blank look, trying to remember.

“Uh, detention with Snape. I was looking through books. I was fine and then all of a sudden I became really sleepy. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I was here.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I think we are dreaming, then. I have had realistic dreams like this before” she said remembering the last one with Amy. “But I don’t understand why you are here.”

Neville gave her a sharp look, remembering the events of the day. He shook his head slightly. It couldn’t be what he thought it was. That would mean what he had seen was real.

“Let’s look around and try to figure out what is going on.” He said walking towards the door on the left. Hermione followed him. She shook her head slightly. So many people had changed during the war.

The room opened up onto a cozy dining room. There were two places set and the table was covered in food. Mashed potatoes and gravy, meat pies, vegetables and even Sugar Quills. Candles flickered giving it a romantic touch. Neville turned to Hermione with narrowed eyes.

“Your favorites?” he asked. She nodded, staring at the table with wide eyes. She was suddenly very hungry.

Neville grabbed her hand and led her out of the room closing the door behind them. He hesitated for a moment before opening the middle door. It was a bedroom. The bed was large and looked very soft. On the bed was a beautiful green velvet dress with matching slippers. Hermione suddenly itched to try it on and see if it would look good on her.

Neville noticed another door on the opposite side of the room. He opened it and found a luxurious bathroom. The bath in the middle was a giant sunken tub that rivaled the size of the Prefect’s bath at Hogwart’s. Steamy water filled it and some little, pretty white flowers floated in it, spreading the scent across the room.

“Jasmine” Hermione said in answer to Neville’s questioning gaze. She didn’t have to tell him it was her favorite. He nodded solemnly and led her out of the bedroom and to the third door. This time Hermione flung the door open and her jaw dropped. It was a ballroom. Candles floated in the air and classical music was playing in the background from some unseen source. Hermione was dismayed to hear it was her favorite composer.

They returned to the sitting room and Neville took a deep breath.

“Have you taken any unknown potions or eaten anything strange in the last day?” he asked rhetorically. He already knew the answer. She sat down and he sat next to her.

“Nothing strange and just the potions from Snape’s class today. Why? What do you know, Neville, that you are not telling me?” she asked.

He looked up at her with a dreadful feeling. He didn’t know how to tell her.

“My Mum and Dad were friends with Harry’s parents, you know.” He started. She nodded doubtfully.

“Well, when Gran found out I had met Harry, she told me all kinds of stories about his parents. I probably could have told him, but... parents are a sensitive subject with me, ya know?” he gave Hermione a rueful smile.

Hermione wondered where this was going and what it had to do with James and Lily Potter.

“Well, Gran told me about the way James convinced Lily to finally date him. She thought it awful romantic and I did, too, cause I’m so shy with girls and all. I thought about doing it here recently which is why I know what’s going on but decided not to because it is really diffic-“

“Just tell me already, Neville!” Hermione exclaimed, interrupting his babble. He flushed.

“James used the Dreamflower Potion on Lily. After the potion is taken, the first person whose voice she heard would be carried into the dream with her. The dream is set up though when the person makes the potion. That makes it extremely difficult to control. The basic Potion is like this room. The person who brewed your potion was a Master to be able to add the other rooms and your favorite things. It is also used because if it doesn’t turn out the way you like there is deniability. It was just a dream, after all. The other person can deny they dreamed the same dream...”

He paused in is explanation and then with a burst of courage finished. “I think it was Snape. That is why he wanted it to be silent, so he could talk to you first.”

Neville watched Hermione’s face, thinking he should have told her what he had seen in Snape’s face that day. If so, she could have done something and they could have avoided the whole mess.

Hermione just gaped at him. Of course it was Snape. He was the only person she knew who would try to win her with a potion. And if he was trying to court her, she had a lot to think about.

“He switched the potions when we looked at the painting. It was also why he demanded silence and why he gave you detention. He knew you would pass out and couldn’t be taken to Madame Pomfrey. He would be caught.” She mused aloud. “But that doesn’t explain how he knew what I liked. I mean the only person to know I like Vivaldi is...”

Her eyes narrowed. “Harry! Scrubbing cauldrons indeed! Him and Ron, probably Draco and Pansy were all in on it.” She muttered to herself.

Neville stared at her wide eyed. This was not the reaction he had expected. Harry and Ron were helping Snape? Hermione smiled at him and for the first time since she had woken from her coma, he could see it was a genuine happy smile.

“I love him. I have for a while. It was why I saved his life” she admitted to an astonished Neville Longbottom. She quickly enlightened him to everything that had happened. Neville felt like he was going to faint several times during the explanation but at the end he was angry.

“That was just wrong!” he exclaimed and Hermione wondered if he was talking about Snape’s actions or those of her friends. Deciding it didn’t matter, she gave Neville a smile that reminded him of a Slytherin at its most devious.

“I need your help, Neville to get them back. Do this and I will help you with your own girl problems.”

He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. He usually wasn’t the one people came to for help with revenge. Hell, people rarely came to him for anything and he felt he owed Hermione. She had done a lot for him over the last six and a half years.

“I’ll show them they can’t mess around in my life and get away with it.” She said smugly before leaning close to Neville. “This is what we are going to do”


******************************************************

Hermione fell into darkness and understood she was about to wake up. She could hear voices in the distance. One of them sounded like Amy and the other was a man’s voice that sounded so familiar.

“That isn’t fair. You have three Gryffindors now.”

The man laughed. “Weren’t you the one who said one Slytherin was worth all of the Gryffindors? You are even using two so it must not be true”

"It is true! One Slytherin is worth a hundred Gryffindors."

"Well then you shouldn't complain then. I think you have been listening to Salazar and Godric's debates too much."

“Oh, that’s just not fair. I will be the one to win this, see if I don’t” Amy said petulantly.

“We made a bet. Either your way will work or mine will. Either way, we both get what we want.”

“Yes, but I want it my way! It's just not fair!”

"Who ever told you it would be fair?" the man asked, laughing.


Hermione smiled sleepily, thinking Amy sounded a lot like Draco when he wasn’t getting his way. She opened her eyes to find sunlight streaming in her windows. It was going to be such a beautiful day.