Of Days and Ends

A/N: I'm so sorry... Here is an update, and I will try to update much, much, much more often!

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Chapter 26—Hide and Seek



Hermione couldn’t believe it worked as she whirled into the sitting room of the Shrieking Shack. She glanced at the dusty wall clock and knew she had five minutes to make it into the Forbidden Forest before the Polyjuice Potion wore off. Before she could leave she had to find a way to permanently block the floo, but her tired mind could think of nothing better than destroying it. Backing into the far corner and ducking behind a tattered old couch, Hermione blasted the fireplace with a massive explosion. The entire far wall collapsed and the chimney imploded. Standing, she clapped a hand over her mouth in surprise.



The dust cleared and the view of the bustling village in the morning sun was evidence of her exaggerated spell. She quickly backed out of the room and turned to run down the stairs and through the small tunnel. Snape’s body was very large and it slowed her progress. When she reached the mouth of the tunnel and emerged into the bright sunlit grounds, she froze, horrified at the one thing she overlooked. She was suddenly very unsure of whether or not she would make it to the forest in time. She only had one minute left and the grounds were littered with students, and if there was one thing that Snape never did, it was run without provocation.



She made it about three quarters of the way when she began to trip over the long robes as she lost his height. She began to walk fast, and a small group of Gryffindor girls stopped talking to watch him. She could only imagine that it looked odd, and it wasn’t until she reached the line of the trees that their excited chatter reached her and she had to pause behind a large Pine trunk to adjust her clothes.



“Did you just see tha’?”



“Yeah! ‘OO was tha’?”



“Ya know ‘oo tha’ was don’ ya?”



“No! ‘Oo?”



“Looked like that Professor Snape, it did.”



“Bugger off, Professor Snape! ‘E wouldn’t be on the grounds, would he?”



“But ‘e was changin’, warn’t ‘e? ‘Is ‘air looked brown too, din’t it?”



She grabbed at her chest with relief, but knew that she had to get moving. The Forbidden Forest was always a dangerous place, but in her situation she was oddly safer there. Moving into the trees, she placed a disillusionment charm on herself and set multiple wards behind her. It wouldn’t be long until they came looking for her there.







Snape sat at the window in the headmaster’s office reading a file when a black spot moving determinedly across the lawn made his eyes focus beyond his file onto the rich, spring green grounds. What he saw made him put down the file he held and stand up to better see the vast front lawn. Moving quickly towards the Forbidden forest was… himself. Once he reached the shadows very near a group of chattering Gryffindor girls, he seemed to disappear from view and Snape curiously wondered if it was a polyjuiced form of himself or a timeturner incident.



As a precaution, he lifted his timeturner from the vast, oak, desk drawer before stepping up to the fire and tossing a fistful of floo powder inside. “Spinner’s End.” He waited until a very familiar face came in front of the fire, “Crabbe, is the Dark Lord available for consult?”



Crabbe looked over his shoulder fearfully. “N-no, there was a situation a—”



“Is that Severus?”



Crabbe jumped and addressed the sibilant voice outside of his frame of view. “Yes, M-m’lord.”



Voldemort’s face moved into view just after Crabbe left. “Severus… where have you been?”



“At my desk all morning.”



“Can any of your brothers verify this?”



“Only one, Master. Abraxas was with me for most of the last two hours.”



Voldemort considered him silently and without changing his expression as Nagini slithered into view. He stroked the large snake’s head as she moved into the cradle of his arms. Finally he asked, “What did you want to speak to me about?”



“I just saw myself crossing the grounds and needed to know if something went wrong today.”



Voldemort’s expression darkened and his odd eyes focused more firmly upon Snape’s. “There was a break-in at the Ministry of Magic.” Snape furrowed his brows and drew his wand.



“Who was it?”



“Potter, the blood-traitor, and the mudblood bitch.”



“They impersonated me, Master.”



“Indeed they did, and you will report to me concerning that matter upon your return from the forest.”



“Yes, Master.”



“Do not disappoint me, Severusssss.” The voice sounded eerily calm. “I will not tolerate another failure on your part with favour any longer. Bring me the imposter, or I will punish you just like your other brothers.”



“Yes, Master.”



Voldemort disappeared from the fire and Snape extinguished it. Without hesitation, he turned to the door and started down the stone, spiral steps. By the time he reached the landing of the first stairwell, he had developed a plan. On his way he managed to find Alecto and Amycus Carrow, and enlisted their help.



On the lawn, he made a direct path to where he had seen himself before, and the Gryffindor girls were still there. They fell silent as they passed, but as soon as the young girls thought they were out of hearing range, they began to chatter.



“I fought Professor Snape already went in there.”



“’E did! But ‘e never leaves ‘is office, does ‘e?”



“What do you fink’s goin’ on?



“Dunno. Maybe we di—”



They didn’t hear the rest of their conversation as they moved far enough away. Snape could immediately sense that it was Hermione who had set the wards and led his fellow Death Eaters after her, using a tracking spell to illuminate her steps. He soon found that the brilliant witch had thought to make that particular spell difficult to use. Instead of a simple pattern of steps to follow, she had sent tracks off in many different directions. With a wry smile, Snape used his skills as a tracker to decipher the real path and continued on.



The path that Hermione was following and creating was beginning to become slightly occluded with brush and brambles when Snape stopped and turned to the two Death Eaters follwing in his wake. “Amycus, go west from here. Alecto, go east. Be sure to check from time to time to see if you can apparate out. When you can apparate before you have found her, you know that we have lost her. Don’t lose her! Keep your wand out at the ready and…” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of blank parchment and a feather quill. “…Activate these portkeys if you run into any trouble.” His Dark Lord’s followers quickly disappeared into the dense forest and Snape turned back to follow the trail of wards Hermione had left behind her.



Hermione was tucked neatly in the underbrush only metres away from them, and sighed with relief as Snape followed her trail of wards back towards the castle. Looking up at the bit of sky she could see through the trees, it looked to be about 5pm now, and she was not very close to the apparition point. She knew, from reading Hogwarts, A History that the anti-apparation wards ended at the River Wren. All she had to do was get to the river and she would be able to get back to their camp. The problem was that the river was at least a kilometre away. She decided to wait a little longer in her current hiding place and move at sunset.



With her back to the tree trunk, she closed her eyes after about an hour and began to drift into a bored sleep. The dream that overtook her seconds later made her heart race as she imagined Snape’s hand going around her waist to pull her close to his body. The drape of his arm over her shoulder, gently stroking between her breasts, caused her to release a gentle breath of contentment. Her hand slid backwards and gripped him. His soft skin moved under her hand and over sinewy muscle tissue. She moaned again as his hand began to slide along her leg and touch her inner thigh with a…



Her eyes snapped open and the sensations continued, so she slowly and carefully turned her head to look down and felt her heart stop at the sight of the massive snake crossed over her chest and around her body. She remained absolutely still as her eyes darted to her wand in its holster. Her hand was at least half a metre away, but she began to slowly slide across the ground, struggling to keep her body absolutely still.



Suddenly, the snake’s head rose from beneath her robes, supported by a massive, black, and scaled body. Eye level with her, the obsidian black eyes looked directly into her terrified face, and the massive hood opened to reveal the very distinctive form of a gigantic cobra snake. The hypodermic fangs gleamed and Hermione whimpered with fear.



The snake uncoiled from her body and slithered backwards, and she gasped with surprise as Snape transfigured back to his normal form. The amused smile Snape gave Hermione brought her out of her surprise, angered her, and she jumped to her feet with trembling legs, struggling to find something to say. Eventually, the only thing that surfaced was, “Severus!”



“It’s much easier to move around the forest as a creature that all the other inhabitants fear and rarely see. It’s also much easier to find clever little witches that hide without wards in brambles.” He said the last part with a mocking look at her righteous curls, littered with twigs and leaves. She refused to speak, crossed her arms, and glared at him. He too crossed his arms, and his hands disappeared in his voluminous teaching robes, black, as always. In the scant sunlight that pervaded the forest canopy, his skin appeared remarkably sallow and his smile slowly fell. “Why impersonate me?”



“You were an easy target.” She said with a casual shrug.



His anger rose, but he kept it under control. “Why didn’t you say goodbye to your parents? They were very disappointed this morning.”



She raised her chin and refused to answer the question. Instead, she countered, “Does Voldemort know y—”



Snape moved faster than she had the chance to react, stepping behind her and clasping his hand tightly across her mouth and his arm tightly around her breasts. “Never, say the name, especially in the presence of a Death Eater! The name has begun to be used as a way of tracking spies, opposition, and disrespect.” He whispered. “The only reason why trackers have not come here yet is because of the anti-apparation wards around the school!” Her eyes widened and he continued as he released her slowly, “Now, you have caused a massive amount of trouble and you have to help me clean it up.”



“I don’t have to do anything.” She bit out slowly.



“The Dark Lord will beat me to within an inch of my life again.” He said this with a calm voice and carefully trained emotionless expressions, but his eyes demonstrated his fear to the woman who knew him best.



She broke his gaze and asked in the most off-hand way she could muster, “What would you have me do?”



Snape looked deeply into her eyes. “You must be seen in my possession, so I shall summon Amycus and Alecto. When one or both of them arrive, we will feign a standoff, and when one of them opens their mouths stupidly, we will disarm each other. Then we will fight for our wands.”



Hermione sighed, “You-know-who will not understand you losing your wand to a witch with a fraction of the experience you have, and then having trouble dominating said witch with physical force.”



“That’s why we place the majority of the blame somewhere else. This way, I get crucioed to unconsciousness, but they get beat to within an inch of their life.”



She was discomforted by his belief that being “crucioed to unconsciousness” was somehow satisfactory, but did not address it. Instead, she encouraged him to continue, “Then what do we do?”



“I will pin you down inches from your wand and ask for my wand, but when I catch it, you will grab my hand and send out a confundus charm.”



“What good will that do?”



“It is your signature spell in a fight, or so the Death Eaters believe.”



“But I haven’t cast that spell since… since school. I don’t use that one very often. I prefer to stupefy and blind, really.”



“They also believe that Ron prefers the stunning charm.”



“He does actually.”



“Harry tends to favour the expelliarmus spell. Everyone is very aware of that.” Hermione nodded in agreement and Snape continued. “I will actually be the one to issue the spell, but you will say the words aloud. This way, they can say it was you. Then I will turn my wand on you and you will grab the tip and say, ‘Altus’”



Hermione repeated the word, “Altus.”



“Correct. That will stop me from casting the next spell. You will then take advantage of my ‘surprise’ to turn the wand on me and stun me. After that, the rest is up to you.”



Hermione thought about the plan for a long moment and nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it if you tell me about your animagus form.”



“What about it?”



“When did you develop it?”



“Soon after I found out that Messrs. Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail had accomplished it. I managed it in half the time.”



“Are you venomous?”



“Very lethal.” Snape answered, impatiently pulling his wand from its sheath, and pressing it to his Dark Mark, “Amycus, Alecto. I found the girl.” Looking back up at her, he said, “Get in position.”



“It could take them fifteen minutes to get here.”



“We have to be ready to act. Just use third position stance instead of the traditional first.” He demonstrated the relaxed-ready pose and she mimicked him.



As predicted, it took the siblings fifteen minutes to arrive and they did so simultaneously, each shouting some stupid tripe and running noisily into view. As prepared, Hermione cast her disarming spell at the same time Severus did and their wands flew through the air, struck midway and landed opposite their masters in the middle. A sudden jet of green light soared just over Hermione’s ear and she dove at her wand in desperation, forgetting the plan in her anxiety to have it back, but Snape reacted at the same time she did and knocked her wand out of her way and tackled her to the ground. Frenzied with fear she gave him a hard kick between his legs and he recoiled with a howl of pain, unaccustomed to that muggle tactic in fighting. She scrambled to her hands and knees and began to crawl towards her wand again when Snape’s hand wrapped around her ankle and dragged her back. Her scream seemed to echo off of the tops of the trees as she fell to her face and rolled over to recommence her defence.



Snape straddled her and pinned her wrists to the ground, using the weight of his upper body to restrain her against the ground. The very familiar position stirred her arousal and the fear in her face slowly became anger as she remembered their last time together. Placing her feet firmly on the ground with her knees bent behind his back, Hermione gave a powerful thrust upwards with her hips that pitched him forward. He managed to hang on and lie along her, with his legs pinning hers together. She struggled futilely and groaned with her continuing effort to get him to release her. He too grunted as he fought against her.



“Brother… my wand.” Snape pushed out.



The Death Eater approached and Hermione turned her head to watch, “You know, Severus,” The man said with an insane gleam in his eyes as he bent to pick up the wand, “You should rape this mudblood and then take her to the Dark Lord.”



Snape looked down at Hermione and saw the horror on her face. “I wouldn’t deign to contaminate my blood with that.” He snarled, releasing his hold on her wrist to take his wand from Amycus. “If the Dark Lord should want me to use her that way, then I shall.” His hand closed around the shaft and Hermione reacted as planned and suddenly Amycus was staggering backwards.



“Amycus!” His sister screamed.



Hermione struggled with Snape a bit more, but he quickly got the wand pointed directly between her eyes. Looking at the point of the wand, she could feel her heart pounding as he growled, “Don’t move a muscle.”



As he had instructed her, she brought her hand up to grasp the tip of the wand, screaming, “Altus!”



“Stupefy!” Snape yelled immediately after, but her spell caused his to fizzle out of his wand in pathetic red sparks.



“Stupefy!” Amycus stupidly yelled and his confounded vision caused him to hit Snape instead of Hermione.



With a powerful exertion, she shoved Snape off of her and snatched at her wand, grabbing it tightly just as Alecto screamed, “Accio wand!” Blasting a few curses over her shoulder and summoning the dropped items, Hermione sprinted into the forest. Curses flew past her like brilliant fireworks as they collided with the trees on either side of her and she didn’t slow down until the sparks stopped flying. Even then, fear gave her enough of an adrenaline rush to continue running. Eventually, she saw the River Wren on her left and turned abruptly. At the bank, she stopped and turned, attempting to apparate and discovered two things. Firstly, her attackers were not far behind her with Snape and that she could not yet apparate.



Hermione plunged into the icy river without a second thought, her limbs seeming to go stiff in the freezing current that seemed to grab her and begin to drag her down. She fought to swim to the surface thinking that the Sword of Gryffindor was weighing her down when a sudden yank at her ankles made her realize that she was not being pulled under by a current or the weight of their inheritances, but by the slim, strong fingers of a Grindylow. She tried to reach down to break the fairly weak fingers of the creature when another grabbed her wrist and their concerted pull made her ears ache with the pressure of the depth. Screaming futilely, she desperately shot spell after spell at the terrible little beasts, clutching the inherited objects close to her with her other arm. Nothing seemed to work against them, and her lungs began to burn with the effort of not breathing during the struggle, and a sudden desperate thought saved her life as she screamed, “Ascendio!”



Her body rocketed out of the water and landed on the far bank with a loud crack as her wand arm broke at her radius and ulna. A green beam of light passed right next to her ear, causing her to roll over in surprise. Wracked with pain, she only dimly noticed the grindylows flopping on the ground next to her, their long fingers clamped around their throats and the Death Eaters on the opposite bank preparing to fire more curses as she concentrated hard and apparated to the safety of their tent hideaway.



Ron too had just arrived, though nearly ten minutes earlier and hadn’t been expecting her so soon. The bigger shock was her condition as she moaned and grabbed her arm, rolling and squirming in pain and increasing the mud on her clothes.



“Hermione!” He skid on his knees as he ran to her. “Bloody hell! What happened?”



“I broke my arm!” She writhed again, “Ron, help me! Please tell me you know how to fix this!” He cast the necessary diagnostic spell and then the healing spell to fix the injury and Hermione sighed with relief. “That was rather good, thanks.”



“What happened?” he repeated.



“I was found and had to run to the river. I didn’t know there were grindylows in there!” She pushed herself up from the ground with an exhausted groan and said, “If they track my apparition and find us, they will be here very soon. We need to pack up the tent and get to a safe place where we can watch for them. If they don’t come by the time Harry arrives, then we can go to the next place together.”



“Okay.” Ron said, worriedly looking at the time. He began to wave his wand at the tent and it shrunk until it fit in his cloak pocket. “And what if Harry doesn’t get here on time? Are we just going t—”



The sudden pop of apparition on the opposite side of the tiny clearing scared both Ron and Hermione and they whirled around to see Snape. His long black teaching robes swirled in a breeze and Hermione’s eyes met his for a split second before she felt Ron’s arm around her waist and the uncomfortable squeeze of apparation.



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A/N: Ooooooookay... I hope you all enjoyed this. I hope you will review, review, review! I am still very motivated by your opinions... good and bad. Thanks all!