A Tale of Two Wizards

Disclaimer: Not mine, yada, yada...

Binding Explanations

Snape was leaning on the table in the kitchen where he brewed one of several healing lotions. The Dark Lord said seduce her not fall head over heels in love with her! The Dark Lord wouldn't comprehend the meaning of the word love if it hit him in the face, and it literally has with Lily’s sacrifice, and even now after that experience he still underestimated its power. He felt hot.

He went to a barrel full of cold water, and took his shirt off, and dunked his head in the barrel, and then came out his hair and torso dripping, and his face soaked, it didn't work he still felt hot. Well, of course, he'd feel hot, he had a young, sexy, attractive woman up those stairs lying in bed wearing a lace and silk purple negligee reading a book that happened to be one of his favourites when he was a child.

He looked at the Mark on his arm. It stood out stark and black against his pristine white skin he began tracing it with his fingers remembering the day he received it.

Lucius Malfoy was there too. Standing there as he, Severus, was kneeling at the feet of the Dark Lord quivering with fear and respect.

"Do you promise absolute loyalty and devotion to me Severus Snape?" The Dark Lord asked in his dangerous cold hissing voice.

"Yes Master, for as long as I live I shall be loyal and faithful not only to you but to the pure blood ideal. I have a deep hatred for all things not pure including myself who is but a half-blood."

"A shame to the family of Prince, but Severus you are doing the right thing," The Dark Lord said. "You are restoring the humiliation that your mother bought on. You are effectively clearing the name, and bringing it back to its rightful place."

"Master," Lucius Malfoy said, as Severus got up.

"Yes Lucius?" Lord Voldemort hissed at the then young man standing there.

"I can vouch for Severus Snape, Master, he is most trustworthy," Severus was pleased for his friend, and somewhat an older brother, and looked at the Dark Lord with anticipation in his eyes and hope. A longing.

“Please accept me I will be by your side at all times,” Severus pleaded.

"A trustworthy Slytherin?" Lord Voldemort sneered. "I thought that was impossible Lucius. You care too much, and that caring can lead to disaster."

Lord Voldemort had circled the room, and then walked back to the young Snape, he had only just left Hogwarts Lucius Malfoy had taken him to Malfoy Manor, and acted like the big brother he always was, the friend.

"Severus, please, give me your hand, and I will help you up," Lord Voldemort said offering his skeletal white hand. Snape took it, and as soon as Lord Voldemort had his hand, he placed his wand on the arm, and muttered something in Parseltongue, as blue fire shot from the wand, and causing him to scream in agony from the burning, and as soon as Lord Voldemort had finished, Snape looked at his arm with the pain, and there the Mark burned. And it's been burning him ever since.

"Master?" Hiccup said shaking him out of his reverie. "Master, what shall Hiccup do for lunch?"

Snape was breathless from the daydreaming flashback. Or more like a daymare!

"Soup," Severus said. "Do a nice chicken broth for Miss Granger, and do me a heavier minestrone. Light cheese sandwiches to go with it."

"What was Master thinking?" Hiccup asked. "If it...!"

"Master was thinking of a mistake he made when a youth," Snape said.

He felt hot again, and again put his head in the barrel to cool down from the experience. He had to see Hermione again. Being down here was not good for his mental stimulation. Even if he didn't talk to her he just had to have her. For the first time in his life he wanted company. He didn't want to be alone.

As he took the first step he felt his Mark burn. His Master was calling him. His Master wanted to know what was going on. His Master was going to rebuke him for not giving him confirmation straight away.

"Hiccup," he said. She appeared by his side.

"Yes sir?"

"Don't bother with the soup for me," Snape said. "I have urgent business to attend to."

"Yes, Master."

"And if Miss Granger wants me tell her that I am busy," he said.

"Yes, sir."

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

Severus had apparated to where his Master was, in The Riddle House. The house where his muggle father had lived before Lord Voldemort killed him, as a sixteen-year-old boy. He drew his cloak about him, as he cautiously crept up to the front door. He made a slight turn to an old disused cottage the home of an elderly muggle that was murdered only a few years ago. Severus felt a small swell of pity for this muggle that he didn't know the name of. All he knew about the muggle was that he died alone, and unloved.

He turned back to Riddle House, and then walked up to the front door, and a small bit of fear crept into his veins, and it chilled him. Anyone who weren't afraid of the Dark Lord were either braver than most or else just silly! He was neither brave nor foolish. Especially in front of his Master. He was about to open the door when it was already being opened for him.

"Hello Wormtail," Snape said coldly, with a sneer spreading into the corners of his mouth.

"S - Severus our Master is expecting you," Wormtail said quivering and grovelling on the ground. Snape rolled his eyes. Whatever possessed Potter and Black to like this raggy human being in the first place? He wondered.

"Where is our benevolent Master?" He asked.

"In the Drawing Room Severus," Wormtail answered, his pale eyes looked a little bloodshot and weepy.

Snape walked up to the Drawing Room and knocked on the door.

"Come in," a cold voice said.

Snape entered the room. The Dark Lord was standing against the bright red fire he looked like a shadow. But he walked away. Apart from the blazing fireplace the room was dark. This was how Lord Voldemort liked it. His red eyes glowing fiercesomely under the black cowl he wore.

"Master," Snape said bowing with great difficulty.

"Last night I gave you an order which you said you'd report back to me as soon as it has been accomplished. I have given adequate time for such a report. Is the young lady playing hard to get?" The Dark Lord laughed a mirthless laugh from this statement.

"No, my Lord, she was easy to seduce."

"Then why the delay in the report?"

"Because she tried to escape after the deed was done, and the hexed stair plummeted her down, it didn't kill her, but it damaged her enough, I had to make a pain relieving lotion, and make her comfortable, Master."

"Hmm, I bet you enjoyed that didn't you Snape," Lord Voldemort inflected coldly in a sneering manner.

"It's the truth," Snape said.

"I wasn't doubting it, Severus, as Lucius once said you are trustworthy. So, you succeeded then in seducing her? Did she like you?"

"She responded well, Master," Snape said bowing so low that the tip of his nose was touching the Axminster.

"Good," Lord Voldemort said. "Very good, the best friend of Harry Potter would be a great asset to me. It is fortunate she has had this little accident isn't it. It means she is still in your care and likely to be for quite a while. The physical seduction was just the first step to a greater plan."

Snape looked up and saw his Masters eyes glowing with triumph. He gulped silently.

"What is that Master?" He asked.

"I want you to seduce her over to our side," Lord Voldemort said. "I want her to become one of us!"

"But, Master, she's a Mudblood!"

"Your Aryanism is touching Severus, but Pettigrew is a Mudblood, and I can no longer endure his obsequiousness. I want a stronger ally. One willing to learn and obey orders without cowarding out of the situation. I am going to replace him with a newer, younger, better looking model."

"She'll never betray Potter!"

"She already has!" Lord Voldemort snapped. "I am beginning to question you Snape, whose interests are you protecting with your protests? I should think it isn't Wormtails, as I know you hate the stinking rat because of what his friends did to you in school and his sometimes participating in them. I doubt you're protecting Potter, as I know you hate the boy. So, it must be her you’re protecting? A Slytherin protecting someone else's interests rather than his own?"

"But -!"

"ENOUGH!" Lord Voldemort yelled. "You will obey me, you will follow my commands to the letter and you WILL seduce her over to the Dark Side if you fail in this then no amount of spinning will get you out of it! This is your last chance, Severus, to prove that you are still one of us!" He hissed pointing his wand threateningly at Severus's heart.

"Yes, Master!"

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

Severus went back to Malfoy or Snape's Manor, and walked in the door, and laid his cloak aside. He didn't waste time. He strode up the steps two at a time and opened the door. He found Hermione was sleeping; the book lay on her chest open. He walked up to her and took the book gently from her grasp, as she stirred and awoke.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," he smiled. He pushed aside some of her hair and stroked her face with his long caressing fingers, she smiled. And moved her head to the side to kiss his palm.

"Is everything all right?" She asked.

She asked the only question he couldn't answer.

"Don't worry dearest heart," he said. "I'll make everything all right."

He would rather die than see her become a Death Eater!

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

An afternoon and evening passed pleasantly, and Severus seemed pleased with her progress. He had to talk to Potter, he'd also want a report on how things were going. He couldn't face talking to Potter though. He was sure he was going to kill him, as soon as he opened his mouth, and revealed he hadn't been teaching her the potion at all. Of course, he'd omit the fact that they had a rather passionate night together, and he rather enjoyed it. No, he mused, that would not get him anywhere with Potter. He had to talk to him, though, but where? Grimmauld Place was sure to be locked, and barred; he had heard that Potter had not wanted anything to do with the place, idiot boy! Black gave it to him for a reason. To get rid of all the Dark Arts stuff surrounding the place, swamping it.

He knew only one place where he could meet Potter without it seeming suspicious, the Shrieking Shack. He got up off the bed after he had spoon fed Hermione, and went to the wardrobe door, and picked out one of his thicker heavier robes. He put it on.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked.

"You are right, Potter will be worried, I am going to tell him that you are indisposed."

"That is not a good idea. He'll think you pushed me down the stairs."

"Let him think that," Snape said shrugging his shoulders. "I've given up on what people think about me a long time ago."

"Where are you meeting him?"

"The Shrieking Shack," he said. "I doubt I can just stroll into Grimmauld Place, and besides I don't know the location of the new Headquarters. I should imagine they've changed to stop me swooping in with my Dark Army behind me to kill everyone haven't they?"

Hermione blushed.

"Um, well, that was kind of my idea," she admitted plucking at the covers. "I thought it the best thing to do."

"Well done," he murmured, leaning down he whispered seductively in her ear. "69 points."

"Sixty -! Oh," she said blushing again. He smirked. He loved breaking her innocence. She was ready for that sort of innuendo; stroking her face he bent down, and captured her mouth in his for another of those deep drunken kisses. She loved that kiss, and he loved doing that to her. He got up, and she reluctantly let go off his hand.

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

The Shrieking Shack, he mused. Never thought I'd see the tumbled down place again. He had a history with this building, and not a pleasant one either, but he couldn't help but love it. It was bleak, full of despair, full of neglect and unloved, he was sure that if the right person came along it would make a snug home. He whipped out his wand, and walked up to the door. He thought of Expecto Patronum, and out came his Patronus, a shimmering blue fox. Lily, he smiled as he bent down and touched it. The Patronus looked up at him, and then he sighed.

"Seek out your son, Lily, I need to talk to him," he said. The fox disappeared. Severus walked into the shack and walked up to the room where those three had knocked him out! Pretty powerful combination they made actually. He saw it all in his head - what he had come in here to do. The whole scene was wrong though it involved Sirius Black being innocent - Snape snorted, innocence and Black did not match, much like Snape and pink would be incongruous! The two things did not go with each other well.

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

Harry was at the Burrow with his friends, and his surrogate mum and dad. He was sleepless he was worried about Hermione. He had managed to creep down to the living room, and he sat down there watching the knitting needles knit, and it only served to worry him more about Hermione. He was about to go back to bed when he bumped into Ginny his ex-girlfriend. Not because he didn't love or care about her anymore, it was because he cared and loved about her so much that he broke up with her. Something that she didn't seem to understand. She'd been trying to get back with him since the split.

"Harry," she whispered. "Are you alright?"

"I'm worried about Hermione, we all know Snape's crap attitude toward her, but even I was sure he'd have taught it to her by now!"

"Yeah," Ginny sighed looking disappointed. He weren't worried about HER, and for the first time she actually understood why Cho reacted the way she did, Harry spends his whole time worrying about other people in a very disturbing way. Harry looked at Ginny, she was standing there in a knee length nightdress, and he gulped. Merlin this SHOULD be his girlfriend. He SHOULD be able to just take her and make her his! "What else are you thinking?"

"I am thinking how pretty you are, and sexy, and damn attractive, and how I can't touch you, and how painful it is to even look at you."

Ginny walked up to Harry swaying her hips evocatively, which didn't help Harry very much. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and she tip toed up, and kissed him properly almost like their first kiss, he responded, running his hands through her fiery red hair, and then panting she removed his glasses. They fell on the sofa and Harry was just about to feel her breasts when a blue creature appeared in the living room.

"Who is that?" Ginny asked. "What does it want?"

"I know!" Harry answered darkly. He put this in his catalogue of Snape's faults, always interrupting him when he's about to have a good time. He got up and unpegged his coat. "Ginny whatever it was you were thinking before this turned up hold it. Okay. Just hold it!"

Ginny giggled, and unashamedly stroked her leg, and moaned his name, he blushed furiously, and then went out on his own in the cold night.

Poof, he apparated with the Patronus!

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

The Shrieking Shack, Harry thought thrusting his hands in his pockets and trying not to shiver. What does he bloody well want in here? He walked up to the door and opened it. He walked up the rickety wooden staircase, and smiled, as he saw a light coming from the room where he first met Sirius, what was this torture? He asked himself. Was this Snape's idea of a joke? Well it weren't funny!

He opened the door and stood shivering in his pyjamas and coat.

"I had a feeling you'd be cold which is why I lit a fire for your arrival," Snape said. No hello it was almost like he never killed Dumbledore. Harry wondered why he let this pathetic waste of space live.

Without answering Harry ran all over the room looking under furniture, he peeped behind curtains and wardrobes. Snape thought the boy was acting more like a Slytherin rather than a Gryffindor. Snape whisked his wand and out popped two glasses of fire whiskey. He walked forward to Potter, and tapped him on the shoulder, as the boy was preoccupied overturning the mattress.

"What?" He grunted.

"Two things, Potter, number one, there are no others here, it is just you and me, and two, a glass of whiskey will soon warm you up, come on sit down and stop behaving like an idiot. Believe me, if I meant to kill you I'd have done it by now!"

"It took you sixteen years to kill Dumbledore," he said.

"I have something to tell to you about Miss Granger," Snape said getting straight to the point. "She has suffered an accident and therefore is unable to make a potion for the time being. She tried to escape, and she hurt herself in the process, making her incapable of even walking. I am doing the best I can under the circumstances. She still has her brain intact, and her vocal capabilities are as wholesome as ever, but like I said she is hurt!"

Harry gulped down the fire whiskey in one gulp. He wanted something to help fuel the anger.

"I bet you pushed her down the stairs didn't you?" He accused savagely.

"No, I didn't actually, a hexed stair was involved. Hexed many decades ago; when Draco Malfoy's grandfather was a child a boy poked fun of him he hexed the stair, and Lucius loved it so much he kept it there and Draco would have done too had he inherited it. Believe me it is on my to-do list."

"To do what?” Harry asked spitefully, “to make it a whole staircase?"

"No, to make it better to counter the hex, and make it a proper staircase again," Snape replied sipping at his whiskey.

"Hermione should go to St Mungo's then," Harry said straightforwardly. He was clenching his teeth and avoided looking at Snape.

"That is not a good idea since The Dark Lord is infiltrating everywhere. I was offered two things I chose to have the Malfoy Manor. I have given up on spying."

"Don't need to now do you," Harry said with heavy sarcasm. "After all you felt overworked and tired I should imagine you would give it up and take the easy way out like any Slytherin. Like the coward that you are!"

"I TOLD YOU BEFORE I AM NO COWARD!" Snape yelled getting up quickly. "I'd like to see you try to spy on the two most powerful wizards on the earth, I'd like to see you try to prevent any harm happen to a person that you despise but you feel you ought to anyway because of a bloody unpaid life debt. I'd like to see you try to look in the face of a man you thought of as a wise and wonderful man, a grandfather, a man amongst men and then HAVE TO GO AND KILL HIM BECAUSE SOME BITCHES TALKED YOU INTO IT!

I didn't kill Dumbledore because I wanted to boy I killed him because there was no other way. I killed him because, unless you were paying careful attention, you'd have seen the signs anyway. The poor old man was dying anyway, he'd been slowly dying because of that ring for a whole year, and then he went to that cave where he drank that poison. Oh sure, he'd have recovered a little, but not much. His last encounter with The Dark Lord made him weaker and more defenceless, in short Potter, he was almost on his way out! He wasn't scared of death. I didn't want to kill him. I hated myself for it, and I hated him for putting me in that predicament. Yes boy, he MADE me fulfil that vow. It was, he said, better for me to die than someone else. Should the occasion demand that I leave him for dead I should do just that!"

Harry gulped, and looked at Snape, and then awkwardly in the fire, what was it about this place. It should be called the Confessional Shack because a lot of people seem to have the desire to spill the beans here. Harry had flipped his mind back, and with shame he knew Snape was right. He noticed that Dumbledore was not right, he realised that Dumbledore that very same night had asked exactly the same thing of him. Dumbledore had asked Harry to leave him for dead. Harry had gotten up and drew his coat about him and smashed the glass in the fire. The remnants of the whiskey caused sparks.

"This doesn't change my feelings towards you Snape," Harry said although in a rather subdued matter of fact manner. "Get Hermione better, get that potion inside her head, and then I'll think about what to do with you, but in the meantime, just do what I have said!"

Snape nodded. They both walked down the stairs together and opened the door, and Snape then whisked out his Patronus again.

"You know who this is don't you Potter?" Snape asked.

"No, who is it?"

"It's your mother!" Then Snape vanished. Harry looked across the bleak landscape; he had to get to Hogwarts. Ginny had to wait. Unfortunately.

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

The next morning Snape had gotten up early to brew another batch of the lotion. Hermione had awoken to a tray of coffee and toast, with a note from Severus explaining where he was, and what he was doing. She smiled as she saw his familiar spidery handwriting, and then crunched into her toast, when she had finished her breakfast Severus had come up the stairs with the lotion.

"Right, I have a bath run for you, and then we're going to see if we can get you walking," he said. She felt like she was in an exclusive very rich hospital. He flung the covers wide open, and then swung her legs gently, and she winced. She placed her hands tentatively on his broad shoulders. He undressed her, and then he came to the bandages. Taking the ends of one he unwrapped her slowly and methodically much the way he undressed her in the dungeon. She leant forward and brushed her lips gently across his cheek. She continued until she reached his lips and Severus found that she was now capturing his mouth and he loved being kidnapped by her warm, sweet mouth. She stopped when she realised what she was doing.

"I am absolutely sorry, sir," she breathed.

"Not at all," Snape murmured placing her hair behind her ear and leaned her back gently on the bed. "I've been longing to try to catch the golden snitch again!"

A/N Donavan: don't worry, it will be soon when the story will make sense.

Pinkwands: I love you!