Far Too Late For Visitors

A/N: Hello, hello. I’m sorry I think I may have been longer than usual getting this bit to you, but I guess I don’t really have any set uploading schedules so there you go :D Anyway here is the fourth chapter of this five part tale and I must give you fair warning that this is long. I think it’s probably the longest chapter I have ever published which may strike horror and also excitement I hope in the dear readers familiar with my already long ramblings. Well my philosophy is if you’re going to be serving up the fanfic meat you might out well dish out a good chunk of it. I’m glad to say I’m pleased with this and hope the contents makes up in some way for the length.

I am going to write my review replies here because I am thrilled by your theories and want to touch on them before all (or some) is revealed. And it shouldn’t take long!

Ultrazipped: Your predictions may prove more fruitful this time than previously, I hope my writing is not becoming horribly transparent! :O But I love hearing what you think may come even though my partner thinks they are ‘spoilers’ haha! I really don’t want Severus to die. I too think Ernie should pay for what he’s done, but sadly this probably won’t happen. :(

neelix: I’m glad that you’re liking this story, very glad indeed, and thank you for the review. I hope this fic remains a bit different and interesting forthwith, and I will say to you as well: I really don’t want Severus to die. Enjoy the chapter!

TenderQuaintWitch: It is an honour as always to hear from you and I appreciate your honesty. In return I shall be truthful also and say that if you say you snorted with laughter at some of the things in this chapter I shall be very upset! Although I’ll understand because I’ve never written anything like this before. I hope you enjoy it. :)

Pamela: *I* certainly would not blame Hermione for leaping at the professor, personally I don’t know how she can control herself, but then there are many parts of her character than I admire! :) Thank you for the reviews.

Heidi191976: So glad you enjoyed it, thank you so much for reviewing.

ApollinaV: You said you would no longer read my waffle which I hope is not true because I’d very much like you to :) To congratulate you on your correct assumptions, but I must say that two were wrong. Firstly the blackbird really was just a descriptive thing, but feel happy to thin of it as a sinister omen if you wish, in fact I hope you will because it’s very poetic and literary! Secondly, I can absolutely promise now that even though it is a drawn out and convoluted tale it will still be only five chapters long. Five incredibly long chapters, but five all the same. I hope you thoroughly enjoy them, and for your lovely reviews and the thing you did on LJ I really am so grateful. A line inspired somewhat by you is nestled in the last chapter.

And a big thank you to anyone who read and rated also, but now on to the penultimate part, and as usual I am slapping this up without a beta so please excuse my silly mistakes. I do hope you enjoy it. ~ Love, Marie.

Chapter Four – And maybe you’ll see how good it can be


She made her way across the quiet room and he followed her only a step or two behind. When she opened the door she paused for just a moment in the hallway, listening. The happy sound of laughter bubbled up from downstairs and she turned to smile at the professor before opening the door to her bathroom and stepping inside. It was a small room with a toilet and sink, a long bath set against the wall beneath the frosted window and a shower in a cubicle in the corner. She pulled the door to the shower open and stepped inside the small glass box, squashing up against the wall so that there was enough room for him to follow her. She waved her hand in a gesture of welcome and said with a smile in her best hostess voice,

“Do come in.”

He hesitated a moment or longer and then stepped in beside her, managing somehow to keep his body from touching hers even in the tiny space. He raised his eyebrow at her once again and said,

“I hope you realise how long it has been since I last accompanied a lady in a shower. I am afraid I won’t know the proper way to act.”

She smiled up at him, letting out a small chuckle which echoed round the glassy walls, enjoying the faint curl of a smile on his lips again. ‘Was that flirting?’ she thought, and grinned.

“I am sure you would always act as a gentleman should,” she said to him, her voice hushing to a whisper then. “I assure you we won’t be here for long,” she said as leant towards him and stood up on her toes so she was nearer to his height. “The entrance to my laboratory is in my shower,” she said into his ear, slowly and clearly and with almost no sound, her cheek brushing up against his soft hair.

The shower shifted slightly and a small doorway appeared in the tiled wall, showing a dimly lit set of wooden stairs leading up to the left. She ducked through the doorway first, and he followed her once more, having to fold his body up before he could fit through the narrow gap. The staircase was narrow too, and creaked beneath their feet. Then Hermione emerged into her secret potions laboratory, and her old teacher followed behind her.

The room was impressively large, more space even than the rest of her cottage combined, five huge Victorian factory windows set high into each wall so that the light filled the room. There were twelve benches arranged in the centre of the space, elaborate apparatus filling most of the surfaces, and more were lined around the walls with shelves of jars and books between them and the window-ledges. Another door was set into the far wall and there was a large clock above it. The day was beginning to end, and the light was beginning to fade, but the windows on the west side of the room let in the glorious rays of the setting sun and the golden beams poured amongst the benches and glass like liquid.

Hermione stood for a moment, enjoying the sight of her own pride and joy as she always did, though it was better this time for the company, and the light. She had been able to fashion this space however she had wanted but she had kept it as simple as she could, except for the windows. She had never enchanted them so that they showed a different view, she always found the sight of hills around her beautiful, whatever she or the weather was doing. She glanced up, where the whisky coloured wooden beams of the building supported the arched roof, high above them. Then she turned to look at her old professor.

“You are the first person I have even shown this to,” she said quietly.

He was standing with his arms hanging at his sides, his shoulders maybe ever so slightly slumped, his mouth a little ajar in his surprise. His body was still but his head swung round in slow, careful sweeps as he tried to take in the room before him, the sheer space reaching out and above. He started to walk forward, his black boots tapping slightly on the bare polished floorboards, slowly weaving between the first few benches. He stopped and looked directly at her, his eyes staring across the room into her own, his face lit from the light pouring in from the side but also glancing up from the glass objects in front of him. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“How did you do this? This is all protected by you as a Secret Keeper?”

“No,” she said, almost laughing inside. “Only the stairway is protected by the Secret Keeping, which is effective since there is no other way in, but this whole laboratory is encased in a space-altered room.”

“You have situated a space-altered addition to the roof of your house, and hidden it?” he asked, and she thought he would ask something similar. Of course, as far as he knew, space-alteration could only be built from scratch.

“No, Professor,” she said, liking the look on his face as she hesitated very slightly. “This whole laboratory is situated in the small space between my bedroom and my roof. The ‘attic’ if you will, though in reality it is little more than a crawl-space. The space-alteration had been focused on the room,” she added just to make sure she was clear.

“On the room?” he still repeated her, his voice rising slightly, his hands resting onto the bench in front of him as he leant forward. “Focusing space-alteration into a room is impossible. Build it into an object, yes, but you can’t permanently expand a small space with magic.”

Hermione knew what he was thinking and he was right. Yes, you could make a car or a tent or a bag with extra space inside, but you could not make a room or similar space larger and keep it safely stable at the same time. Until now.

“I can.” Hermione said simply.

His mouth did fall open with surprise then, and even though she would have given anything for a photograph, she knew she would remember the look on his face for the rest of her life. His eyes continued to stare into her own and although her looked like he wanted to speak no sound came from him. Finally, eventually, he managed to stutter out,

“Second-elemental links – ” He paused with a sound of disbelief. “In room dimensions?”

“Sustainable brews were only the very tip of the iceberg of understanding I have uncovered through the research of second-elemental links,” she said, nodding, unable to keep the happy pride from her voice. “Room dimensions were really one of the simplest areas I have looked into. The ministry has some issues as to their faith in my certainty of it’s stability, and so have prevented me from publishing my findings before now, but I have managed to put it to some good here and there. Arthur Weasley was grateful for a bit of help from me at The Burrow recently,” she added, smiling all the while.

“But how certain are you?” he asked almost frantically, still leaning across the bench towards her, his hands gripping it until his knuckles were white. “Are you really absolutely certain it won’t collapse?”

“Profressor, how certain would you think I’d need to be in order to use it on my own laboratory? Where I spend most of my hours working, and where I keep everything that is important to me and my work?” She was emphatic but not sarcastic, her voice was rushed but gentle. “How certain would I need to be to use it on the home of a beloved family? Please believe me, I am certain. It is stable and safe.”

He took his hands from the table then and nestled them in the nook of his elbows as he crossed his arms across his chest. He smiled his thin, wry smile again, and he said one word.

“Explain.”

==============================

It took quite a while for her to explain to him the route of research which had lead her to discovering the use of second-elementals for expanding rooms, and she surprised him further with other significant discoveries she had made during her solitary years in the lab. She showed him the leads she had unearthed during her studies of Muggle correspondence courses on chemistry and other sciences. The subjects became more and more complex, and he kept her on her toes all the while with regular and specific questioning. The time slipped away as they walked slowly from bench to bench, discussing all levels of the experimentations Hermione had set up, some of them years before. The hands of the large clock on the wall were pointing to twenty-five to eight before she had finished.

“Oh dear, the time!” She exclaimed, when she finally glanced at the clock. They should have been spending these hours in the laboratory finding some way of stopping the man who was coming to kill the wizard in front of her. The waste of precious minutes seemed foolish to her suddenly, absolutely stupid, but the conversation had been so good and so involving – his questions and knowledge and humour.

“You are right, it is getting late.” His hand slipped his timepiece from his pocket once more. “There should still be time though. He may be adept at killing but I am certain your remarkable protection will keep us safe for even some hours more. We will hear the alarms if the perimeters are breached, there’ll be plenty of warning.” They were standing near each other at a bench along the wall, and he stepped forward now so that he was next to her, she could feel the heat of his body with her own. “I am honoured that you trusted me enough to show me this place – and your work. Thank you.”

“Professor Snape, it was a pleasure,” she said, not even really thinking about it. But at her use of his full name he seemed to stiffen up a little, and withdraw just the slightest bit, and she mentally berated herself for being so formal suddenly.

“Would I be entitled to use some of your equipment, please Miss Granger?” he said in quite a severe tone, and she replied quietly.

“Yes, of course.”

He immediately stalked away from her, collecting things here and there, he had obviously noted their position during the extensive tour. She stood for a moment of two, shifting her weight slightly from foot to foot, unsure of what to do now that he had so easily commanded charge of the laboratory.

“What can I do?” she called across to him, but he shook his head a moment as he quickly worked.

“Nothing for now, although I would be grateful if you would remain near by should I need your assistance later.”

“Of course,” she replied. “I’ll just be in the office.”

She opened the door in the wall beneath the clock and stepped into the small room which contained all of her paperwork. At first glance it could appear to be an impressive array of chaos, with parchment and books piled everywhere and stuffed into the shelves on every wall. But actually the entire room was filed in her own personal system – it looked unorganised but she knew where she could find anything she wanted. It did not take her long to find what she hunted for now, which was the book containing the information on the security she had around her house. Eight years ago she would have been able to place any protective spell she wished on her own home without any interference from the ministry, but now they questioned her on her motives, and tied her up in the proverbial red tape. If she wanted to make any changes, she had to consult the small print first.

It took her a while to find the information in the thick book, she wondered for a while if her query would not be covered, but then she found it. She discovered her rights on anti-apparation jinxes on her grounds extended to the use of anti-pointfinder ones also – which would have been her assumption anyway – and followed the instructions provided in order to disallow the use of a pointfinder charm to the cottage as well as regular apparations.

When she looked up from the pages she noticed how dark it was around her. The summer day was finally drawing to a close, and the room was almost devoid of light. She cast the charm to light her office, and then as a second thought she leant through the doorway and lit the lights in the laboratory also, smiling at the way the professor blinked in the sudden glow and then caught her eye to smile his thanks. She hovered in the doorway a moment more after he had looked away, enjoying the look of his long body, and the alien and warming view of somebody sharing her lab.

In the warm light of her office she stood straight and cast the remembering spell on herself. A red glowing ring burned on the ground around her as the spell remembered her location, and then she took a couple of steps to her right and cast the pointfinder charm. Instead of the wave of magical power she associated with travelling, she felt the dull disappointing feeling of a stunted spell. The anti-jinx was working.

She felt a bit calmer knowing that she had contributed something at least to the defence effort, other than just the provision of a safe-house, and she knew of another thing she had in her power which just might help. She walked back into the large room, flooded with light, and approached the bench at which he was working. He was deep in concentration, focusing on the cauldron on the table in front of him, but he turned to her when she came near and spoke.

“Do you have any pins at all?” he asked without preamble.

“Yes, downstairs in the bedroom. Shall I fetch them now?”

“I don’t need them immediately,” he said as an answer.

She stood for a while then, leaning back against a workbench not far away from him, her arms folded as his had been, watching him work. It had been a long while since she had seen him brew, and she watched with intense fascination, as she had done as a child. The swift movement of his preparations, his precise and caring touch, showing a more gentle concern for delicate roots than he did for other humans. She had always prided herself on her own impeccable brewing skills but watching the professor again was enlightening. He had an absolute talent that could not be denied – an instinctual feeling for his work. ‘The half-blood prince’, she thought suddenly, and swallowed as memories of his dark past flashed in her mind.

After a minute or two she decided to ask about something that had been making her wonder.

“Professor – when exactly did you lose your wand?”

“Just after I was stabbed,” he replied, while keeping his focus on the ingredients he was mashing together in the mortar in front of him.

“But you would have needed it to cast the pointfinder,” she said.

“That’s right.” Still he focused on his task.

“But that would mean you didn’t lose your wand at Spinner’s End?” She pushed him.

He sighed deeply then and put down the pestle in his hand and then laid his hands flat on the table, his arms locked straight but his necked dipped and his head drooping forward. Then he lifted his eyes to look her and spoke in a slightly exasperated tone.

“Yes, Miss Granger. I did not lose my wand at Spinner’s End. You must be able to understand that I was in a state of surprise and also in considerable pain. I don’t mind admitting I may have been a little panicked. In any case I was able to cast the pointfinder charm, but by the time I arrive at your home it was missing. I must have dropped it.” His gaze slid down to the surface of the table then, once more his head drooped. “Unfortunately I had been holding it in the hand of the arm that was injured. There may be a chance that Murasaki has it, but I think in reality it is lost completely.”

“Was it an important?” She asked him.

“What wand is not important?” He snapped back, standing straight and glaring at her. Then his whole body seemed to sag slightly as he once more began to work his ingredients together, his eyes still staring down at the table. “But yes, it was important to me. It was my wand since my Hogwarts days. Thirteen inches, silver birch. Heartstring.” He paused for just a moment. “It belonged to my mother.”

“There is still a chance you might find it,” she tried to reassure him. “You might still find it.”

“You seem to have a rather strange view on ‘chance’, Miss Granger,” he said scathingly. “I hope you don’t go into putting money on the horses. Perhaps I dropped it at the very moment I apparated, in which case it may well have been left at Spinner’s End, but if that is indeed what happened then Murasaki will have it in his possession and will probably be able to use it to assist in his finding my location.”

He had dropped the pestle again with a clatter, his voice was quiet but only just contained, his hands were clenched in fists at his side and his body shook with suppressed anger.

“The likelihood is, however, that it was while the spell was working that I dropped the damn thing. You should know it could have fallen anywhere between Newcastle and here! It must be at least eighty miles. I might have beaten this man if only I had kept hold of it, but instead he will kill me, and I am afraid! You can try to press your insufferably predictable Gryiffindor optimism onto the situation but in actuality it will do neither you nor me any good. You must accept there is no chance – it is impossible!”

His voice had risen to an almost-shout by the end of his oration and there passed a few awkward seconds when he didn’t say anything, but just stood there frozen in his tense position like a statue, his body moving up and down as he tried to catch his breath. Then he once again seemed to shake the anger from his body, his shoulders went slack, and he continued pounding at the ingredients which had by now been reduced to a fine powder.

Hermione stood for several seconds more, nibbling on her bottom lip again, her feet shuffling as she pondered at the strange feeling in her stomach and the things he had said. She felt belittled like she had done when he had shouted at her at school, and she was angry at his berating which she felt was unfair, but she also felt a sorrow inside in knowing why he was at the end of his rapidly fraying rope. He had admitted during his fast lecture that he was afraid, and she could only imagine just how scared he really was. There was still a part of her that was upset by the things he had said, about her House and her optimism – ‘There is no chance – it’s impossible!’ – but she did not let her own anger rise even though it wanted to. Instead she held her head high and stalked across the room, her shoes clacking on the floor as she stamped down the stairs and out of the lab.

She quickly walked into her own room and did not even bother to put on the light before she collapsed onto the bed and shoved her face into it, screaming a little, but quietly. She had forgotten how much power his comments had, how they much affected her, even though she knew he probably did not really mean them. But she would not let him scare her. She was older now and knew that he was not always right. She would stand up against the things he claimed which she did not necessarily feel to be true, but gently and quietly, and by helping him.

She opened the drawer by her bed and fumbled around in the light which was shining from the bathroom, across the dim landing and through the open door into her room. Her hand clasped around the small box of sewing pins, which rattled when she picked it up, and she gently slid the drawer closed again. She hurried to make her way back to the laboratory, but while she was crossing the landing she paused a moment, and her heart began to thud. She had been trying to listen out for any sign that Harry might have come, and not yet come to find her, although this was unlikely. As she hovered in the dark hallway, however, a chill of fear crept up her spine. The dark stairs led down into the complete blackness of her kitchen and for a moment she could neither see nor hear any light or sign of life. Then the glorious sound of a burst of laughter stretched through the night once more and she relaxed a little as she climbed back up the stairs to the laboratory.

He was hunched over his cauldron, deep in concentration, and he did not turn as she approached. She did not say anything either at first but gently put the box of pins on the bench next to his elbow with a very slight clatter.

“You said today that space-alteration in rooms was impossible,” she quietly after a moment. “Please don’t try to assume you know the limits of my ‘predictable optimism’.”

Then she walked away from him, walking once more into the gentle light of her office, and she opened a draw and took out a long box. While she was gone from the room, his right hand rose slowly and then gently rested on the box of pins which she had left for him, but of course she did not see. She came back into the room with the long package in her hands, and walked directly to the other side of the bench on which he was working, so that they were barely two feet apart with only the wooden table and a steaming cauldron between them.

“I’m sorry for failing to control my temper,” he said quietly, looking down and not at her.

“Do you think that this might be any good to you?” she asked as a sort of reply.

He took the box from her and slid the narrow lid off, his obsidian eyes looking down on the long thin piece of wood which was nestled in the box amongst velvet.

“Bellatrix’s wand?” He asked in surprise, raising both his eyebrows at her and looking at her directly.

“I acquired it as a replacement for my own during the war, but my own wand was restored to me when it was recovered following the victory. I have kept this wand here with me as a memento of what we all went through, and as a reminder to myself – to not allow my power to go to my head.” A small smile played at her lips and she noticed a similar one on his. “I didn’t know you favoured heartstring, but now I do I thought perhaps this might be compatible, and perhaps of some use.”

“I did not know that you favoured heartstring either,” he told her. “And I must say I find the knowledge quite a revelation.”

“Why so?”

“Because unlike unicorn hairs and phoenix feathers, a dragon actually must die in order for a wand to have a heartstring core. It usually represents a sort of ruthlessness in the owner, which may explain your intense tenacity for study. I would have thought you more likely to be the owner of a unicorn hair wand, but now that I give the matter consideration, it does seem to make some sense.”

She did not say anything as he gingerly held the wand and sent a few experimental sparks flying.

“Thank you,” he said. “This changes everything. With this – there might be hope.”

Her heart swelled on hearing those words come from his lips, knowing that she had been able to really make a difference somehow, and he once again became relaxed and conversational with her. He explained about the potion he was brewing, a deadly poison, capable of killing a man in under a minute.

“Unlike a sustained wizarding duel,” he explained, “the outcome of this conflict is likely to be swift and deadly. I will need a weapon a weapon of stealth to match his.”

More of the precious time ticked away as the poison brewed and bubbled on the table. He answered all her questions on the ingredients and affects and allowed her to help with some of the preparation. Without either of them noticing, they both gradually move nearer to each other subconsciously as they worked, until they were once again standing shoulder to shoulder – so close and yet not touching. She continued to watch the graceful movements of his hands, he still at times could not help but instruct her as to improved techniques. The ingredients simmered away, slowly reducing down into a deadly concoction.

Hermione glanced up at the professor beside her and her attention was drawn to his large nose, poking out from behind the long curtain of hair as he leant forward, the long line of it ending in a slight hook which was obvious from the side. He glanced down at her then, his face turning slightly, and she looked away and focused once more on stirring the potion. After a moment the professor went back to writing out the note of this particular brew, as was the requirement with every brew, and she took the opportunity to once more properly look at his nose. She didn’t know why she was so fascinated with it but she assumed it was probably because she had never really had the opportunity to really look at his face before and his nose was currently the only part she could see.

It really was quite big, she had to concede, and most definitely hooked. But it was also graceful, long and quite narrow. She titled her head and leant forward slightly so that she could see more of his face, and she decided that his nose was actually quite elegant when it wasn’t in full profile. Her gaze flicked over the rest of his face then and she caught his own eyes, looking directly at her. She smiled and stirred the potion a few more times, gazing down into the steamy belly of the cauldron, her hand flicking her wand over the swirling liquid in perfect circles. After a few more stirs she looked back at the professor and found that he was still looking at her, his position unchanged and his eyebrow raised, and she gave a slight laugh which rang round the large room.

“What were you looking at?” He asked frankly, but his tone was amused and almost friendly, and his shadow of a smile was there again.

She laughed again and decided to be honest, and replied just as frankly.

“Your nose.”

“Oh,” was his reply, and his shoulders hunched slightly as he went back to writing, tilting his head further forward so that his hair obscured his entire face. Another swell of laughter came from her as she reached towards him.

“No don’t,” she said, as her slim hand reached up and brushed his long hair back. “Don’t hide it – I like it!” She reassured him when he almost flinched away, his hand rising as if to grab hers but halting before it did. She let her left hand thread through the hair she was touching and rest against his head and cheek, so that the whole half of his face was revealed to her, and she could feel his rough stubble and warm ear beneath her palm. Seeing in this moment that he did not immediately pull away from her, she brought her right hand up too, pushing the hair away from the other side of his face as well. She could see his nose head on now, long and strangely enticing, she had an incredibly strong urge to kiss it. Instead she stared into his deep dark eyes, his look intense and unreadable, burning at her beneath the furrowed ridges of his brow.

Her hands felt like they were scorching where they touched the hot skin of his face, and her whole body seemed suddenly to be both frozen rigid and spinning wildly, her mouth was instantly dry. She lowered her hands slowly to her sides, but the fierce gaze burned between them for more long seconds, before she looked away and broke it as she spoke.

“It suits your face,” she said vaguely, and then tried not to roll her eyes at herself. For all she seemed to always be talking, she didn’t think she actually really said very much. She could have been more eloquent, she should have tried to describe the beauty she saw in the lines of his face, she should have just kissed him. ‘Damn it,’ she scorned herself as she thought of the heat of him under her hands, the slight parting of his lips, his dark and penetrating gaze. ‘I really should have just kissed him then.’

She was musing partly over whether she should just cut her losses and leap at him right now instead, and partly over the fact that she was aware that she shouldn’t be thinking and instead just doing, when he spoke and denied her of her chance to act at all.

“I think this is pretty much complete,” he said with a final flourish of his quill. “The potion requires at least fifteen minutes resting time in the cauldron before I can distil it. Perhaps we should join the others downstairs?”

“Yes, I could do with something to eat,” she replied. “And I wonder if Harry is back?” she called as she headed towards the stairs.

==============================

Once she and the professor had stepped from the shower she paused for a moment to make sure that the entrance was once more properly sealed. He had stepped onto the landing and she followed him. He hovered in the doorway of her bedroom.

“I’ll not be a moment,” he said quickly, before disappearing inside the dark room. She did not know why he had gone in there, nor did she ask him, but she simply shrugged and proceeded to make her way downstairs.

The stairway was completely dark now since she had not bothered to light the landing, but she felt an irrational fear of the dark suddenly grow in her as she stepped down into the black empty space which was her kitchen. There was no light coming from the hallway through to the sitting room and she could hear no voices or sounds at all apart from her own, fast, slightly panicked breathing. She waved her wand and a dim glow immediately spread throughout the kitchen, bright enough for her to clearly see, but not so bright as to dazzle her. Her wand was clutched in her trembling fingers as her gaze swept the room.

Seeing no-one, she walked towards the door to the hallway, it was closed which explained her not seeing the light beyond yet this still surprised her since she rarely closed the door herself, if ever. Another chill of fear ran down her spine, or was it some warning from her intuition? She wasn’t really sure. Her free hand trembled as she clutched at the door handle, then she twisted it slowly, and opened the door.

The hallway was dark as well, but a beam of yellow glow cut across the passageway from the sitting-room door, which stood wide open. She could only see this beam of light, like a blade swiping in the darkness, and she could not see inside the small, silent room. But the darkness of the hallway clawed at her, and the silence all around was like a blanket, and the hairs stood up on her arms. She walked, as she had always known how to walk, but the seconds seemed to stretch on into hours. She felt as if she were moving in treacle, knowing she had to get to the beam of light, while at the same time feeling with every inch of her being that she did not want to go into the room. Yet she could not deny the impossible, her heart beat wildly as she moved forward with painstakingly slow denial, and she was holding her breath.

The light was bright, it flashed as pure white in her mind, and then she saw the deep and sickly red. Vividly bright, shimmering on her floor like a lake at sunset, the blood was a flood of colour. She could not see, could not think, of anything but the red. And then her mind was working once again, her body struggling to survive in its panic, her chest heaving in shallow, irregular breaths. Her eyes were wide in shock, as was her mouth, her eyes taking in the smashed furniture and slashed flesh.

“He’s here,” she tried to call. “He’s here!” but there was no sound, her mouth hardly moved but shook like he rest of her as she finally saw the bodies in front of her, the signs of the cast-burns on the wall and the smell of the spells in the air. Time seemed to snap back to speed around her suddenly and through her fear and horror she managed to call out,

“Severus! He’s here!” And she turned to leave the room, to fly up the stairs and face the man who had left the mutilated bodies of four glorious people in her living room, but one tiny thing made her stall.

A noise? A breath.

Her eyes filled with tears which she could not even think to contain as she carefully scanned the details of the painful scene before her, desperately trying to see through the death that was all around, to find the source of the breath she was sure she had heard. She tried yet could not focus on else but the masterpiece of human destruction painted in crimson blood before her. Her eyes were somewhat glazed as they travelled over Stuart McKinney’s grinning face, now spattered with red and caught in a look of surprise, while slick red clots of blood slid down his body from the gash at his throat. His eyes were glassy and she knew he was dead.

Her hand came up to her face and wiped with vigour at the tears which were flowing like rain down her cheeks, but despite the hard wipe, her eyes were still blurry. No time had passed at all yet she felt like she had aged in seconds, and still her mind protected her, even though she looked she did not fully see. She did not need to fully see the way Dan Harding’s body had crumpled to the floor with his wand crushed beneath him, or the seeping scarlet lines on his back where his clothes and his skin had been torn, or the glassy stare of his eyes to know that the breath was not his either. Nor had it belonged to Benjamin Harris, whose body lay sprawled across the smashed coffee table with his wand just by his slack hand, but which she tried not to look at at all. She could see, even among the crimson red and scattering of chess pieces and blur of her tears, that he had no head.

Her realisations and observations had all happened in the very same moment, her fear and dread shocking her young body into taking them in as quickly as she had always done with learning, and it was in this same moment still that she was running across the slick floor to the old healer. Her trainers were slipping in the vivid red, and she felt it soak stickily into the knees of her jeans as she knelt by the old man, but it was not until much later that she even noticed. Her eyes were still weeping and her breaths were still ragged as she spoke to him brokenly.

“Mister Crampiddle – what shall I do?” She asked him frantically. “Tell me what to do!” She sobbed.

His eyes flicked open and he focused on her face, his own breaking into a smile as he saw her. He saw her eyes weeping and staring at the gashes on his chest but he shook his head from side to side in a gesture which was so small and yet so significant.

“Nothing for me,” he said simply, his hand slowly lifting at his side, and she held it in her own hands. He gripped at her. “You must warn Harry!” he said with urgency, then after another deep breath he added, “he mustn’t come alone – without warning,” and she nodded at him emphatically through her tears. The old man was wheezing, there was blood all over and around him, her hands were already sticky with it. Bitter bile rose in her throat. Through his obvious pain, he heavy breathing, he still spoke.

“You must also tell Potter – ” the old man had to pause but smiled as well. “Harding did beat me – at chess. Just before – ” The old man did not seem able to finish but again she nodded at him, and she looked across the room to where she could still see the soft brown of the hair on Dan’s head. Then she felt the hand go slack in her own and her stomach twisted almost painfully as she turned back to the kind old man. His eyes closed gently, but his smiled was still there, just.

“Please tell my wife – I love her.” His forehead was suddenly smooth and his face was clear and – she thought – happy, and with his last breath he whispered with a jovial tone of absolute certainty: “I always have.”

Hermione’s body shook with the sobs she tried to keep inside to prevent herself from wailing out, but she pressed her face into her bloodied hands while she allowed herself just a few precious seconds, her sadness whirling in her mind. Then she breathed in deeply and held her breath as she counted down, getting ready to spur her body into action as she had done when she battled in the war.

Three. Two. One.

She sprang to her feet, leaping towards the writing desk in the corner and tearing a piece of parchment from the stack on top. She grabbed desperately at the scatter of self-inking quills which strewn on top of paper, her arm swiping across her face now and then to drag away the tears which continued to fall. She tried to scribble on the paper as she ran to the door but it was impossible for her to write clearly while she moved, and while her hands were shaking so, so she forced herself to stand still as she wrote, in the centre of a glossy red sea.

~Murasaki here!~ She scribbled frantically, the echo of her breath still sharp and broken with her sporadic gasps, the quill scratching on the rough parchment the only other sound.

~ Crampiddle, Harding, McKinney, Harris - ~ Still she contained her wracking cries of grief somehow as she carefully wrote each name out, her body and her hands jerking with every shake of her suppressed sobs, but the quill in her hand seemed to write slowly and surely of its own accord while she watched with her wide brown eyes. More than ever before she was aware of time, of slow, gradual time sifting away from her with every moment even though she felt as if she had no time at all. It could not be more than a minute since she stepped into the room but still it was too long, and not long enough, and she could not stop thinking of the man upstairs. The men upstairs. But the ink continued to flow as each word formed on the paper, and as many times before in her life when her head was going faster than her hand, she just took the time it needed simply to write. ~Dead. Don’t come alone Harry!~

And then it was done. It had taken a moment and had felt like a day. She swung round, almost throwing herself into the hallway as she rushed for the kitchen, making for the stairway. She heard a house-shaking thud from the room above as she once more called out the universal distress call as she ran, slipping because of the blood on her shoes, one hand holding the frantic note high above her head. The golden bird appeared once more and snatched the paper from her grasp before disappearing, leaving a wisp of golden trail which she ran through as she began to climb the stairs with a stumble. Her wand was still in her sweaty hand, her head tilted back and her heart pounding, and her eyes were strained as she rushed up into the darkness of the landing.

The landing and the bedroom were both pitch black but she could hear the frantic scuffling and tumbling of men fighting in the room as she approached, and she could once more smell the magic and feel it crackling in her hair, barely realising it as she ran into the room. Running, running, but feeling as if she was not moving at all. The only thing she even knew at all about ninjas on any level was their supposed use of the darkness and it was this that was running through her head when she eventually - finally - dashed into the room, froze while she dragged a cold deep breath into her body, and gasped out the charm for lighting the space.

Again she tried to keep the light dim but even so it blazed through the room like a fire, burning through the darkness and her eyes.

“No!” Snape cried from the corner to her left as the charm left her lips, and she instantly trailed her wand on the other figure in black who was crouched by the professor, the ex-Death Eater’s thin hand clutching at the black of the assassin’s clothing. Her reactions were still cat-like despite the passing years, the shot was fast and good, but her stun still missed – the crouched man sprung up into the air as if unleashing all his coiled tension, moving at a lightning speed which caused her fastest curse to be too slow. Painfully too slow.

Her own body was rigid with – she couldn’t even know. Shock? Fear? Just the pure wonderment of watching the thin body twist through the air as he moved in almost slow-motion in her eyes. She was broken from her open mouthed study of the black fabric of his loose robes fluttering, from the black of his strange shoes and the bright glint of the short blade in his gloved hand, by the professor casting a hex at the spinning man and she shot two more out herself.

It was no good - even the combined efforts of the two war veterans was not nearly good enough. The spry shadow in a sinister hood and mask barely landed before he was leaping again, his feet and one hand pushing from the floor while his other slipped the thin, slick blade back into a sheath he wore on his back. Hermione had somehow managed to command the use of her limbs once more, and her legs strode and jerked her erratically across the room as she ran with her eyes fixed only on the masked man, keeping him in her sights as he leapt towards the cover of her large bed.

“Supefy!” She desperately tried to catch him, to stop him in his swift flight of merely seconds as Snape was doing also, but even though she compensated her aim and continuously cast the slick black figure was always incomprehensibly ahead of her spells. “Stupefy! Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus!”

The magic continued to course through the room, the scattered sparks of the streaking spells bursting on the walls and floor, still they tried to stun the shadow of man. Snape was dodging across the room too, vivid sparks of red and green shooting from his wand as he aimed, his face a scowl beneath the lines of hair falling across it. Still their efforts could not stop the assassin, who landed on his feet on the other side of the bed, and then scrambled up the wall and onto the canopy of the four poster like a giant black crab or spider.

Silence rang for a second or maybe two as Hermione stood panting, eyes strained on the spot above where he had slipped from her sight, chilled to the core by an intense fear which had washed over her while observing the fluidity and unnaturalness of the Japanese wizard. She stood with her feet apart, bent at the knee, gaze flicking frantically to the shadows above and silently willing one to move. Then a streak of black burst from its hiding place and he flew across the room like a dart, his hands and feet stretched out before and after, and even though both the older wizard and younger witch tried to stun him from below he flew through the air unheeded. Then his stealthy, gloved hands reached up behind him and whipped out not just a single short sword but two, and still all in the same leap-powered movement he crossed them and then slashed them through the cluster of light on the ceiling, shattering it into a shower of sparks which – along with the light from the last of their barrage of spells – dimly lit the ninja for a second as he curled into a ball and spun away down into the darkness that descended.

Hermione was aware of the change but was also aware of a glimmering light around her which was unexpected, but her sharp intelligent mind instantly understood in no time at all what it was, and what it meant. She was standing in the silvery rays of the moon, pouring in from the large window unheeded by clouds or by curtains, tracing around her a box of beautiful and deadly light. Everything beyond the sliver line was black and blind to her yet she was absolutely visible. In the very same moment she at once tried to move, and be aware of any sound around her, and she heard the swish of movement to her side at the same time as she fell left towards the cover of darkness, and she cried out her spell, hearing the deep voice she recognised calling from the dark.

“Petrificus Totalus! – ”

“ – To your right!”

The wild half second of movement stretched out as the confusion of the hectic scrabble unfurled into effect in the room. Hermione fell heavily on her side, and must have landed on some broken furniture, since she felt a sharp pain below her ribs and she fought to catch her breath like she had been winded. She scrambled around but she was now under a heavy blanket of pitch black and unable to see what was beneath her. At the same time the red writhing snake of her spell crawled through the air into the black darkness and somehow – miraculously – caught the very edge of the man’s body in the black night. The glowing light lengthened as it wound out and around the torso of the ninja, twisting around him instantly in a long rope of red sparks, trying to bind him into a stiff statue and emitting a dim enough glow to vaguely see the form of him as he somehow managed to struggle against her magic.

He fell forward onto the uttermost ends of fingers and the tips of his weird tabi boots, the strange slit in the sole allowing him to bend his big toe as he perched on limbs stretched out to the sides like a starfish, his thin body suspended, hovering horizontally just inches from the ground. His body shook and the silk which covered him fluttered as the spell wove around him but the assassin was still not rendered motionless, she could see him straining still and fighting the spell, and at times he seemed to be winning.

“Depulata,” the word was just a breath in the dark but it fell on her ears as if it had been whispered at the back of her neck, and she saw the faint glimmer of an auburn light fade into existence around the figure of the tall man across the room. Her bruised side throbbed fantastically but she knew the spell he was casting and knew too that she could help him.

“Unus,” his deep voice whispered the second word of the incantation as she drew in a painful short breath and muttered the words herself.

Depulata, Unus – ” A glowing yellow shimmer sprung from her own wand and got brighter as it drew more magic from her. She did not aim it at the writhing body of the ninja pinned to the floor, but instead aimed at the professor, and the light from her spell illuminated the sharp lines of his face, joining with his casting to strengthen it as they muttered the last word together into the empty night.

“Expulsum.”

The beam of light glimmering at the ninja burst into a blinding explosion around him, and he was caught twitching in a glowing sphere of shattering brightness before he seemed to implode from view, vanishing away due to the power of their combined banishing spell.

The room was dark and silent.

Hermione heard Snape moving and saw the blue magic of his protection spells reaching out to the corners as she once more muttered the illuminating spell, blinking in the light of another cluster of glowing orbs swelling on the ceiling. Her breath was still shallow and painful and the ache in her side was really throbbing intensely. She craned her neck forward so that she could see down her own body, now lying flat, since she did not think she should bend from her middle due to the pain. Her mouth gaped into a small ‘o’ surprise as her gaze raked across her own body in the light.

There was a tear in the fabric of the hooded jumper she was wearing and the area around it was no longer the burnt orange that it should be, but rather the dark and seeping almost black of sopping, dripping blood. She gasped and dropped her wand as her fumbling hands reached up to her neck and caught at the zip, one hand clasping the jumper while the other dragged the tag open and pulled the sides apart. Her t-shirt was now a crimson scarlet instead of white, the fabric gaping apart and stuck to the skin on her stomach and side, giving a clear view of the slippery deep gash which parted the soft flesh of her belly all the way from above her tummy button to where it disappeared round to her side.

It was as if seeing it for the first time made her feel it for the first time, the stinging cut of a steel seemed to slice across her flesh, and a searing wave of awesome pain sang through her entire body. She collapsed back and the wound was parted, spluttering out a sickly splash of curdling blood, her hand clasping at her wand but she knew she could not possibly heal the wound herself from this position.

“Severus – ?” She called out into the open space above her but her voice emerged as a whisper, her hand reaching out in her painful delirium as Crampiddle’s had done, and like the healer’s it was red and slick with blood.

She just made out the blurred shadow of his figure hovering, high, high up above her, before her eyes fluttered shut and she saw the rolling tides of fiery pain dance behind her eyelids. He cast the general numbing and clotting charms on her as she had done to him, and scooped her up in his arms, pausing for just a second to clear the bed of nothing but the stretched crisp white sheet covering the mattress. She lay nestled with her head against his warm chest, lulled for a moment by his soothing spells – or was it the closeness and warmth of him? – while the numbed pained danced with the trails of his scent in her mind.

Though he lay her on the bed with infinite care the wound was still jarred open by the movement, and she let out a cry of pain that was feral and almost inhuman, her eyes tightly screwed shut at the burning pain which was easily the worst she had felt in her life. She noticed with horror the taste of blood in her mouth, and her body reacted to the revelation by trying to expel it with a violent cough, the sudden seizure cutting through her and her body writhed in agony. He was instantly leaning over her, had her eyes not been closed she could have seen beyond the falling trails of his hair into his sweaty furrowed face, as he shoved her sodden shirt up with a swift and agonising movement and trailed the gaze of his dark eyes over the spurting gaping gash in her flesh.

At the same moment she felt a strange warmth on her face, she opened her eyes and saw his hand gently cupping her cheek and jaw as if she were made of priceless crystal, the long wand still in his strangely inert and spindly fingers as he hovered it above the torn flesh and the rest of his body trembled. She met his gaze with her own, and once more even through her utter agony she felt a burning link between them, and she saw in his deep dark eyes concern and dismay and cold icy fear. She saw and knew and understood every emotion in his strained face because she herself had felt them for him in the very same situation less than a day ago. She did not know what she could possibly say, she did not even know if she could speak, but she knew she must reassure him somehow so she brought up her hand to his own on with a short gasp of breath. Keeping the intense gaze of his eyes with her own she moved his hand slowly just inches across her face, she cloud feel the slight roughness and smoothness of his skin on her cheek, and the black eyes drilled into hers as she pressed a warm and sure kiss in the centre of his large smooth palm.

She saw in that infinitesimal slice of time, one of those that is less than an instant and immeasurable with standard time, the shift of his slightly raised eyebrows and widened eyes as a flood of emotions poured out from his beautifully expressive eyes but her whole mind was occupied with one single thought.

‘No, not black.’ She think of nothing else. ‘The deepest, darkest brown.’

Then his gaze flicked back to the savage cut and the wand was stinging inside it and slipping around in the flesh, her screech was ragged as her eyes scrunched up once more, her hands clenching into white fists as the pain sang along every nerve.

“Redintegro!" The soft, sure wave of his beautiful voice washed over her.

Starlight in her mind, a burning silver dancing and the sickening searing of healing, and blackness.

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A/N: All spells are sort-of Latin. Please leave me a review and tell me how you feel. Please ~ Marie.