This Subdued Fire

Posting this second bit has been a bitch, I don\'t know what the hell AFF is up to, but I don\'t like it!
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\"Draco,

Don\'t go to the dungeons tonight. Go directly to

your room. Give me a call and I\'ll floo there.

Love, Hermione.\"

Draco frowned a bit, thinking of what he had to tell her. He stuck the note in his pocket and continued across the open space between the gates and the castle. The see-through man managed to slip into the castle completely unnoticed. He only became visible once he reached the entrance to
Slytherin House. Giving the password, Draco went in quickly, avoiding the glares
of his housemates who knew that he\'d stopped attending the Death Eater meetings,
although they had no idea why.

Draco stirred the embers of the fire to life and tossed in a pinch of floo powder. \"Oi, Granger!\"

\"It\'s about time. Boolean\'s near frozen.\" Hermione looked at Malfoy with narrow eyes.

\"Bah, come on then if you\'re coming.\" His head disappeared from the flames.

Hermione stepped into her own blaze and soon tumbled out of Draco\'s fireplace. He offered her a hand and she took it, looking around. It was the first time she\'d been in Slytherin House, let alone Draco\'s room. It was just like her faintly remembered dream of Pansy and the little green garden
snake. The remembrance made her look at Draco askance and turn inward a bit. He\'d never tried such a nasty piece of business with her but the fact that he was capable of it sent a chill up her spine. Despite the softness he\'d shown towards her, she knew that underneath it there was still a perverted little bastard.

A part of Hermione dreaded the day that Draco showed her that side.

She pushed the feeling down and took a spin around the room. It was done up in black, green and white. The dungeon chamber had been an echo of this room when she\'d first set foot in i"Gee"Gee Malfoy, could you have been anymore cliche?\" Hermione swept her hand to indicate the decor.

\"Could you be anymore gauche? It\'s classic Slytherin. Something *you* wouldn\'t understand.\"

\"Thank God for that.\" She stuck her tongue out at Draco.

He grinned. \"I love you, too.\"

\"Did you get the clippings?\" For the first time Hermione noticed Draco\'s attire. \"Did you forget to do something?\"

\"What?\"

\"Look in the mirror.\" Hermione clamped hers shs shut, trying to contain her hilarity.

Draco crossed the room to see what she was laughing at. His cheeks reddened. He\'d forgotten to transfigure his clothing back to normal. He was still wearing girl\'s robes. A snap of the fingers had it all sorted.

\"Bah. Bloody Gryffindor infantile humour.\"

\"Psh. At least we don\'t roam the halls all tricked out like Dr. Frankenfurter.\"

Draco looked as if he\'d landed at the intersection of lost and confused. \"What?\"

\"Sorry. It\'s a Muggle film. About this transvestite evil scientist...and that\'s neither here nor there! Did you get them?\"

He flashed her a sunny smile and produced the ball of hair. \"From the very pate of Tom Riddle himself.\"

\"Splendid.\" Draco dropped the hairs into her outstretched hand. Hermione dropped the knot as if it burned her skin. She hissed lightly, shaking her palm to remove the
sting. \"I can\'t touch them.\"

\"Why in the hell not?\" Draco scowled, picking them up from the floor.

\"I don\'t know. I just...felt a shock when you handed them to me. Felt like every piece of skin on me started crawling back.\" Hermione absently rubbed the rose mark on her arm.

\"Hermione. Stop. Look what you\'re doing.\"

\"Eh?\" She looked down, noticing her hand soothing the vaguely aching skin on the inside of her forearm.

Draco went over to her and pulled up the shirtsleeve covering her flesh. The rose had turned from a benign peachy-pink to a livid scorch of red. \"Woah. That\'s on the far sof oof odd...\"

Hermione shook her head. \"It\'s never done this before. I don\'t know what the damn thing\'s doing half the time.\"

\"Have you been able to find out anything about it?\"

\"Not a word. And believe me, I\'ve looked.\"

Draco smirked. \"With your penchant for extensive research, I don\'t doubt it.\"

She ignored his snarkiness. \"Now, why didn\'t yours react?\"

\"Haven\'t a clue. Maybe because the Dark Mark is still there, underneath it.\" Draco\'s face took on a faintly worried cast.

\"I don\'t think so. I mean, you haven\'t been summoned since then, have you?\"

\"Not so much as an itch.\"

\"That\'s what I thought.\" Hermione rolled her sleeve down again. \"Put the hairs into a parchment and I\'ll add them to the potion later on.\"

Draco did as he was bid, not even bothering to give her a smarmy remark. He gave her the folded paper and Hermione slipped them into her jeans pocket. \"Did you find out anything interesting?\" she asked.

Draco settled on his bed, back against the headboard. Hermione sat in his desk chair, spinning around idly. \"Yeah. The location of the ritual is to take place in Dover, right on those famous white
cliffs. And my father\'s been playing gracious host to Voldemort in my very own house.\"

Hermione stopped spinning to look at Draco. \"You mean...when I burned down the manor - \"

\"Which was quickly repaired so as not to alert the media or the neighbors,\" Draco interrupted with a sneer.

\"You mean to tell me that Voldemort was there?\"

\"Ayup.\" Draco fiddled with the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

Hermione\'s eyes rolled back. \"Holy hell. Then I\'m glad I got out of there before he did. I wasn\'t at all ready for a showdown with Voldemort - even though I can\'t wait to get my hands on the bastard.\"

\"The ritual is to take place at two in the morning, during the moon\'s zenith. They\'ve found Merlin\'s blade. That\'s what they\'re going to perform the ritual with.\"

Hermione sat silent, taking in that information. The knife that Draco referred to was the knife that the great sorceror Merlin used to perform his spells and rituals with. Whenever a tool is used by a witch or wizard of that magnitude, it imbues the tool with a bit of the magical person\'s power. Merlin\'s blade was something that people assumed has passed into myth, not supposing that it was an actual object.

\"How did they find it? Next you\'ll be telling me they\'ve found the Holy Grail.\"

Draco shot Hermione a narrow eyed glare. \"No one\'s found *that*, Hermione.\"

\"Heh. Just checking. Go on.\"

\"They intend to cut your heart out with it.\"

\"Oh, how original.\" Hermione smirked.

\"And make you eat it.\"

\"Gross. But...I\'ll be dead. So what does it signify?\"

\"Forgetting that you\'re a mage, Granger?\" Draco looked at her quizzically.

\"No, but I assumed that that didn\'t extend to regrowing vital organs.\"

\"It doesn\'t, but it means you\'ll be alive and functioning long enough for them to finish the ritual. Actually, you\'d have to be completely exsanguinated for an instant death to occur. That or beheaded. Or just die a natural death.\"

\"Gee. I think of those three choices, I\'ll choose the natural death.\"

\"Good thinking, Hermione.\" They exchanged salty grins.

\"I\'m curious about something,\" Hermione mused.

\"What?\" Draco asked.

\"If I tell you then I won\'t know for sure. Stay here.\" She got up and flooed to her room.

What Hermione didn\'t tell Draco was that after she left her quarters, she went up to the bell tower. Her curiousity was about the rose mark that she and Draco shared. She wondered if it functioned in the same way that the Dark Mark did. Walking around the top of the tower, listening to the clicks and ticks and whirls of the clockworks, Hermione focused her mind on Draco. She pictured him sitting in his room quietly, trying to figure out what she was doing.

(Come on, Draco. Come up here,) Hermione thought furiously.

Draco began rubbing his arm absently, feeling a slow ache begin. It wasn\'t unpleasant but it was insistent. Hermione began thinking more imperiously.

(To me! Draco! To me!)

Draco gripped his arm, and then a dazed look came over his face. He felt intoxicated. Every nerve ending in his body was teg hig him to go find the source of this immeasurable sensation.

Hermione\'s thoughts softened; became more indulgent and coaxing. (Come on, love. I\'m here, waiting.)

Draco seemed to be like a fish on a hook and Hermione was reeling him in. There was none of the pain he experienced when Voldemort called him. This was far more subtle and (he thought somewhere in a resistant part of his brain) far more insidious. For some reason, Draco halted.

Hermione could feel his resistance like a trout resisting the pull of the fisherman\'s line. Her tone of thought immediately became hard and demanding.

(To me! NOW!)

A picture of Hermione standing amidst the clockworks of the bell tower crystallised in Draco\'s brain. He grabbed a bit of floo powder from the bag which sat on the mantelpiece. Stepping into the small blaze, he tossed the powder down, and yelling out his destination, went whirling to the stone cold fireplace at the base of the tower.

Getting up from his rather hard landing on the floor, Draco brushed the soot off and began the climb up the spiraled stairs. He looked at the shimmering brass chimes that rang the hour on school days. They hung like golden-red ripples from the top of the tower nearly to the bottom.
When he\'d reached the top he saw Hermione waiting for him, arms crossed, looking at him speculatively.

\"Well. Now I know.\"

Draco was a tad confused. \"Know what?\"

\"That I can summon you using this g.\"g.\" She thrust her rose-branded arm out to him. \"I know you felt it. I could see you rubbing your arm.\"

\"You saw...wait a minute. You\'re saying that this thing functions like a Dark Mark?\"

\"In this aspect, apparently.\"

Draco scowled. \"Merlin\'s robes, Hermione. I didn\'t want to trade one form of bondage for another. This thing is just another leash on my neck.\"

She turned her back to stare out of the window. \"Sorry if I\'m tying you down.\" He could hear the bitterness in her voice.

Dracghedghed, looking for the right words. \"You\'re not tying me down. It\'s just that...I\'ve always been marked as someone else\'s from the day I was born. Just when I think I\'ve tossed off someone\'s shackles, it seems like another set is clapped on me.\"

Hermione turned back to Draco, eyes sun-bright and just as golden. \"Do you really think that I want this on me? I assure you, I don\'t. It\'s just one more thing making me different from everyone else.\"

\"Yes, but you\'ve always been a part of *them*. Part of Potter\'s little merry band of heroes.\"

\"Did you think I chose to be part of the so-called inner circle? I didn\'t. It just happened. Trust me, there were times that I wanted to say no, to back out, and I didn\'t. I had to stay there, not only for
Harry\'s sake, but for Ron\'s and Ginny\'s and it seemed like everyone else\'s as well.\"

Draco suddenly grinned a bit and shook his head.

\"What?\" Hermione snapped at him.

\"You\'ve got a bit of a Messiah complex, Granger.\"

\"Perhaps,\" she replied seriously.

\"Definitely.\" Draco\'s grinned opened a bit more. \"But it\'s one of the things I like most about you. This insane need you have to save the world is rather charming. Annoying, yet charming.\"

\"Bastard.\"

\"But you love me anyway.\"

\"Very true.\"
*************
The week fled by. Hermione and Draco kept practising with the rose mark until they had it pat. Now all Hermione had to do if she needed him was to concentrate on him until he appeared at her side. Draco was charged with the task of slipping Voldemort the potion. He still had a bit of the polyjuice that contained one of Blaise\'s hairs. From Draco\'s brief stint as a Death Eater, he\'d noted that the Dark Lord had a taste for sweet white wines. It would be easy enough to slip the now completed Desmanteler Potion into his drink. But the timing was so tight, a minute or two either way would bring the plan crashing down. The four worked out their plan.

Draco would disguise himself as Blaise, hang around Riddle for a bit, slip him the potion in a cool cup of wine during the ceremony and then change back. The tricky part would be how to summon Harry and Ginny to the proper place at the proper time. Luckily, that problem was solved inadvertently.

On the night of the twenty-ninth of May, Hermione was ladling the potion into a pen-slender vial. She handed it to Draco who slipped it into the wand pocket of his trousers. Ginny and Harry were busy hexing each other, sharpening their reflexes. Hermione leaned against the stone wall of the sub-basement room and surveyed the scene with a wave of nostalgia. Feeling the surfeit of bittersweetness, Hermione walked over to where Gin and Harry were sparring and pulled them into an awkward hug, a hand on each shoulder blade. The three felt an electric jolt go through them and the heat pass from Hermione\'s hands through their clothing and into their skin. Ginny was openly crying and Harry fought to hold back his feelings. Their backs tingled and pulsed as if their hearts were in new locations. Hermione, feeling a hunch, asked them to turn \'round.

She lifted the back of Harry\'s singlet first.

\"Draco, look.\"

The blond came over to her from where he stood in his place, observing the three long-standing friends. He smiled faintly but genuinely. \"You\'ve marked Potter as your own, then, love.\"

Harry\'s left shoulder, right above the protrusion of his shoulder blade, bore a perfectly delineated rose brand in full bloom. In the center of the petals was another lightning bolt shaped scar. Ginny\'s right shoulder sported a rose and in the center of it there was a heart with a tiny
lightning bolt spearing it.

Ginny looked at the hastily conjured mirror. \"What do these mean, Hermione?\"

\"I don\'t know, but Draco and I have them as well.\" Hermione rolle her her shirt sleeve and showed Ginny and Harry her mark.

Ginny ooh\'ed over the delicacy of it. Draco pushed up the sleeve of his navy blue jumper and let Ginny pore over his mark. Draco took the opportunity to re-examine it. What he thought once was the blank center of his mark now contained a scar that looked like a sword in minature.


\"Look at this, Hermione,\" Draco called over to her.

Hermione left off her examination of Harry\'s new scar to go look at Draco\'s. \"That\'s new. When did that little sword get there?\" she asked.

\"I don\'t know. I haven\'t been looking at it in earnest.\"

Hermione sighed. \"Curiouser and curiouser.\"

\" \'Through the Looking Glass.\' What an apt quote to use,\" the Slytherin commented.

\"Thought you didn\'t read Muggle books, Malfoy,\" Harry piped up, a snarky inflection in his tone.

\"And pray tell, Pothead, what makes you think that Lewis Carroll was a Muggle?\" Draco gave Harry a superior smirk.

\"I...well, I just thought...\"

\"Cub, you need to do your research. There are a great many witches and wizards who passed themselves off as Muggles.\"

Harry bristled slightly at Malfoy\'s disparaging remark. It managed to wound Harry and strike out at the house to which Harry belonged. \"How was I supposed to know that?\"

\"Get your head out of Quality Quidditch Supplies and maybe you\'d have a complete thought in that head of yours.\"

Ginny got upset then. \"Draco, you\'re way out of line. Harry wasn\'t raised as we were.\"

\"What do you care? You don\'t like me anyway.\"

\"You\'d be quite alright if didn\'t feel the need to climb up on your holier-than-thou pureblood highhorse every ten minutes.\"

Hermione stepped in. \"Alright, children, that\'s enough. Find another time to squabble over this nonsense. We\'ve got work to do.\"

The three antagonists set aside their animosity and went over and over the plan until their heads were full of strategems. Finally becoming exhausted with the effort, the four went their separate ways to rest up for the long day and night to come.
***********
Thursday morning dawned inexplicably fair and bright. Spring was in the air and sunlit warmth was on the breeze. The four were jumpier than long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. None of them could concentrate in their classes and it showed. Professor McGonagall called on
Draco for an answer and when she got a mumbled \"no...not the roses!\" from his
sleep-filled mouth, she gave him an odd look and deducted ten points for sleeping in her class.

The other three fared little better. Hermione was walking back to her room, her mind on what was to come when she bumped into a figure moving swiftly down the hall. They both went down with a vivid *THUMP*.

The taller person recovered faster than Hermione did and he reached a hand down to pull her up from the flagstones.

\"Watch where you\'re going, Miss Granger,\" came Snape\'s irritated drawl.

\"Oh, er, sorry Professor. I wasn\'t paying any attention...\"

\"That is obvious,\" he sneered down at her. \"Well? Are you going to take my hand or are you not?\"

Hermione took his hand and used her other to push up from the floor. Snape overcompensated and they went reeling back the other way. Hermione grasped his forearm to steady herself. She felt the now familiar tingle of electricity pulse through her fingers and burn into Snape\'s skin. In that split second of time, Hermione saw all of Snape\'s memories, dreams and nightmares come tumbling through her consciousness. She could see by the shocked and dazed look on Severus\' face that her life was unspooling in his mind, too. Just as suddenly as it began, the connection was severed. The two gave each other a small speculative glance and then went about their business.
**

Later that night, Severus stirred in Professor Vector\'s bed, sated and sleepy. The lovely dark haired witch was sprawled across him, rather possessively. She idly stroked his arm, right where his Dark Mark was. Jennifer Vr har had mapped that particular piece of skin extensively; it was a thing that held an acute fascination for her.

As she traced the shape, she realised that something was off and she sat up abruptly. Jennifer grabbed Severus\' pale arm and stared in amazement at what she saw.

\"Severus. Look at your arm.\"

\"I don\'t bloody want to look at that thing, Jennifer. I\'ve had to look at it too many times already.\" Snape tried to snatch his arm back, annoyed by the fact that the woman had managed to ruin the
afterglow, a place he very much enjoyed.

\"No...your mark\'s not there anymore. There\'s...\" She trailed off, trying to find the right words. \"Something entirely different there.\"

\"What nonsense is this that you babble? Of course my mark\'s there. It will always be - Merlin\'s nightshirt.\" Snape cut himself off and looked at the perfectly drawn rose on his arm where the Dark Mark used to be. On the inside of the rose\'s bloom there was a half-formed shape he could
barely make out. \"Damn. I\'ve got to get to Dumbledore.\"

Jennifer looked quizzically at the man she called her lover. \"What\'s going on, Severus?\"

\"Can\'t explain now.\" He\'d leapt from the bed and began tossing on his robes. \"You know your way out.\" Severus left the bemused woman lying in his rumpled bed.

Meanwhile, Hermione sat in her room, anxiously awaiting the event that would set the ritual in motion. It came with not a bang but the faintest of whimpers. She felt a tug right behind her bellybutton, as if she were holding a portkey. In the blink of an eye, she was gone. When she arrived at the clearing, she found herself borne, screaming, in the air. It felt like a hundred hands were lifting her up and sitisiting her on a red marble slab which had gold veins running through it.

A tony voice split the silence. \"How fitting. A Gryffindor giving her life upon her colours. Little lion, have you never noticed that your colours are the colours of destruction? That they are the colours of
blood and fire?\"

Voldemort leaned over Hermione\'s ensorcelled body.

\"Of course you hadn\'t. All you Gryffindors are alike: heedless children who go rushing into things that they\'t \'t handle.\"

\"Better than being a sneaking, lying snake in the grass,\" Hermione sneered.

This had the effect of goading Tom past his limit.

\"Lucius. Begin the ritual.\"

\"At once, Master.\" Lucius bowed to Tom and brought the ingredients.

Tom glided to his throned chair. He looked at Blaise fondly. \"Pour me a cup of wine, won\'t you darling?\"

Blaise said nothing, merely smiled and poured him a measure. She gave Bella a goodly dose as well.

Hermione looked in fascinated horror as Lucius drew runes around the altar and laid red and white roses around her body. Malfoy,sr. brought out an old silver blade, slightly darkened with time and chased with more runes. It seemed that the knife was a tuning fork and every nerve and sinew in Hermione\'s body was becoming attuned to the magical pitch that it radiated. She grinned faintly. Whatever happened tonight, she knew that Merlin\'s blade could never harm her. She and ad aad an affinity for one another, as if the knife was the Familiar and she the Mistress.

Still, one doesn\'t like to take chances. Hermione concentrated and called the others to her side.

Draco as Blaise had convinced Voldemort to take a sip of his wine. Tom was still a bit unnerved by Hermione\'s words and the sheer power she radiated. It was not unlike what he felt in the presence of Dumbledore, the old fool. The bumbler had not seen inside himself what depths of power lurked within. As much as Dumbledore\'s greatness was touted, Albus barely scratched the surface.

This girl, this Mudblooded slip of a girl, gave off a magic so strong that she could shake the foundations of the earth and calm them with a whispered word. She was not engineered like Malfoy or that pea-brained Potter. Oh no, she was a natural mage, and great and terrible things
swirled around in that soul of hers and Tom wanted it. Lucius put the knife into Tom\'s hand. He fingered it lightly, feeling the slight sense of wrongness it exuded.

Voldemort quaffed the rest of his wine, Bella did the same. They moved through the circle of Death Eaters. Tom raised his hand to begin cutting the girl\'s life source out. As Tom began to cut, he noticed aangeange thing. The blade wouldn\'t slice the girl\'s skin. It was if she were made of the very marble she rested on. Tom was sure that this was the right blade, he could feel the magic humming along the hilt. As Tom examined the edge of the knife, a very odd sensation ran along the edges of his nerves.

In the wink of an eye, the man was gone.

Only lumps of coal, the traces of oxygen and hydrogen and sulfur and a myriad of other elements lingered where he stood. The circle was in a uproar. At Hermione\'s side appeared Draco and Ginny. Together they broke the enchantment that bound Hermione to the crimson marble. Hermione got up, a bit shaken but ok. She saw Harry Vanishing the remains of Bellatrix Lestrange with a single-minded concentration.

\"Harry! Worry about her later! We\'ve got to start on the Dark Lord!\" Draco called over to the furious-eyed boy.

\"Just one more second!\" Harry yelled over the din.

Lucius came to stand in between his son and the quivering lumps of Voldemort. \"You traitorous bastard. How dare you disobey me! You could\'ve climbed to heights unknown of!\"

\"You\'re a liar and thief, Lucius. You\'d have sacrificed me to that aberration and then wept at my funeral.\"

\"Of course I would have,\" Lucius replied sanguinely. \"At least your death wouldn\'t have been in vain. Now you\'re going to die for a disgusting little sewer-blooded rat.\"

\"Don\'t you call her that! *Avada Kedavra!*\"

Lucius managed to duck the thick green beam of light and it hit Crabbe senior square in the head.

The father of Draco\'s friend toppled over in an ignominious lump. Crabbe junior leapt forward with a rage, intent on killing Draco. A slender figure came out of nowhere to knock the hulking boy to the ground with well placed fist.

Draco took the opportunity to jump on top of his sire and begin pummelling the older blond with vicious hits that were made all the more powerful with the force of Draco\'s rage. The fight was on. Death Eaters were trying to kill Harry and Ginny rushed over to try to stop them and get to
Voldemort, who at that moment was starting to reform.

Blaise and Pansy appeared as if from thin air to engage Hermione in a wizard\'s duel. The magic flew fast and thick. Hermione had enough on her hands, trying to deflect the girls\' hexes and spells and trying to *Evanesco* the few parts of Voldemort that she could see. Then came Commodus
Lestrange, howling and mad from the death of his mother. His glinting eyes lit on Hermione and he grabbed her from behind, determined to teach her a lesson
she\'d never forget.

*\"Stupefy!\"* Came a deep roaring voice. Commodus went utterly still and landed on top of Hermione like a ton of bricks. The mysterious figure shoved the boy off of her. In the howling wind, the figure\'s hood was blown off. Voldemort had become corporeal once more and there was blood
in his gleaming vermilion eyes.

\"Come on, girl, we\'ve got to get out of here.\" Snape pulled Hermione up and dragged Draco off of an unconscious Lucius. \"Potter! Weasley! We\'ve got to go!\" Snape yelled. He, Hermione and Draco Apparated out of there.

Ginny and Harry soon followed.The five of them landed at the gates of Hogwarts and immediately scrambled inside. Snape recovered quickly.

\"What in the bloody blue blazes did you all think that you were doing?!\"

The Potions Master was in a high rage. Hermione was the one to speak. \"Sir, we-\"

Snape cut her off with a slash of his hand. \"I don\'t bloody want to hear it. Tell it to theHeadmaster.\" He pivoted on his heel and led the weary group back to the Headmaster\'s office.