Hypnos

Chapter 2


DISCLAIMER:

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various
publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast
Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark
infringement is intended.


Reviews are welcome.
~


\"Wouldn\'t it be better for us to stay?\" frowned Lupin, looking in concern at Hermione, who
sat, all hunched up and deathly pale, under a blanket in one of Snape\'s huge, hideous
armchairs. Two days had passed since Hermione\'s return, and finally Madame Pomfrey had
judged her health to have recovered enough to allow her to go down to the dungeons.

Snape shrugged his indifference, but Dumbledore nabbed Lupin by the elbow and gently
manoeuvred him towards the door. \"No, Remus. All we\'d do here would be distracting Miss
Granger and getting in the way. I\'m sure Severus will handle everything perfectly well.\"

Lupin looked highly doubtful as he was led out of the room. He followed an unhappy
McGonagall into the corridor, but not without first shooting a final warning glance at
Snape. \"He\'d better.\"


~~~~~~~~


Snape softly closed the door behind the leaving staff and turned to face Hermione. She
was staring at him from under the rim of her blanket like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
Gods, she\'s terrified.

And no wonder. Waking up a victim, bruised and batternd snd soiled, with no memory of
how she had reached that state, was bad enough. Having Hogwarts\'s most hated and
feared teacher render her passive and helpless again, and pry into the deepmost recesses
of her mind, was too awful for any sane woman to stomach. He would be taking her
violation and humiliation even further, and they both knew it.

He wouldn\'t have been surprised if she had refused to submit to the procedure, point
blank. Yet here she was, ever the stalwart Gryffindor. Even his Slytherin arrogance had to
admire that.

And indeed, it was her who first spoke. \"Shall we begin?\"

\"Here, Miss Granger. Drink this before we start.\" Snape handed her a small phial
containing a thin, odourless fluid.

She hesitated. \"Veritaserum? But I thought…\"

\"An altered formulation, containing a mild sedative. I need you to relax your defences as
much as possible.\" Gods know you need it, girl. The knots in her hunched
shoulders were painfully visible beneath her blouse. If you were any tenser, uld uld
strum on you.

She drank it down in one gulp, then gave him back the empty phial, her eyes still wide
with ill-concealed fright. She stared down into her lap, bracing herself, and after a moment
looked up again with a smile which was determined to be brave, even if it didn\'t quite
succeed. \"Right. Ready when you are.\"

He sat down on a stool by her siand and dimmed down the lamps in the room with a flick of
the hand, so that the main source of light was the fire burning in the chimney.

\"Very well, Miss Granger. This is really a very simple procedure. I want you to turn around
a bit, like this, facing the chimney… that\'s right, like that… Now please look into the fire
and start by takinme vme very deep, slow breaths… In… and out… Slow, deep breaths…
Very good, Miss Granger… That\'s it… Look into the fire, and breathe in… and out… very
slowly, and very deeply, and try to relax while you look into the flames…\"

Hermione sat back in her armchair, willing herself to relax, and felt surprised at how easily
her breathing fell into the slow rhythm of Snape\'s words, how quickly the pain which had
beset her muscles gradually gave way to a welcome wave of warmth and tiredness as she
gazed into the flames. Her mind, however, busy as always, couldn\'t help wondering at the
skill it must have taken to introduce a extraneous sedative into Veritaserum, which was a
notoriously unstable solution.

Snape frowned to himself as he watched her think. Getting this one to let her mind go
blank is going to be tough. \"Miss Granger, as you stare into the fire you will notice
that your eyelids are getting heavier… and heavier… But please do not shut them now. Try
to keep your eyes open… Don\'t allow them to close, not now, even though you are so
tired… Just keep breathing in… and out… Don\'t close your eyes. You musn\'t. Just keep
looking at the flames…\"

He smiled slightly as her eyelids began to tremble and she struggled to keep her eyes
open. Nothing like reverse psychology to manipulate contrary Gryffindors, as any Slytherin
worth his salt knew. \"No, Miss Granger… Don\'t close your eyes… Your eyelids are becoming
so heavy now, but you must keep awake… keep looking into the fire, Hermione… Don\'t
drop your eyelids… Even though it\'s so hard, you musn\'t… You can\'t… Even though they
are going to close any moment now… So heavy, Hermione… They are going to close…
Now.\"

His last word was no longer a suggestion but a command, and he watched as her eyelids
complied and dropped, while her whole body seemed to sink into tranquillity. He let out a
breath which he hadn\'t known he was holding, and gazed at her hair for a moment, her
auburn locks glinting where they caught the firelight. At her face, so peaceful at last.

He\'d never thought of her as beautiful, probably because he had still seen her, for years
after her graduation, as nothing but an appendix to bloody Potter. When she reached
pubescence he\'d even assumed that she was hopelessly and pathetically in love with him,
and had been quite surprised that she seemed to take it so well when Potter married Ginny
Weasley after a whirlwind courtship.

But now he looked at her as she was in herself for the first time – indeed, beautiful – , and
wondered how he could have not noticed before. And felt, again, that terrible pang of guilt.

For Granger had been his substitute among the Death Eaters after he had been unable to
cope anymore and fled. He had not spoken to her since her graduation, but he was told
that she had volunteered to be his replacement on hearing the news of his last
confrontation with Voldemort and his narrow escape. He had expected her to come to him
for advice before going over to the Death Eaters, but she had never turned up, and he had
never bothered to write to her or arrange a meeting himself.

He could have stopped her, and he hadn\'t. It should have been him at that Dark Revel
where they had almost killed her.

And now she sat in a trance, utterly helpless before him, and it was his appointed task to
despoil her of her last remnants of privacy and dignity. Bloody Albus. Bloody me. Such
bastards, all of us.

He sighed, then quietly stood up and moved around her chair, positioning himself right
behind the wooden backrest. He leant forward, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her
ear, and began.