Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid to the rightful owners of these characters and this world.

A/N: Thanks again to my beta, Aestril, for poring over this chapter for me and to those of you who have been so faithful about reviewing. Enjoy!

One is Two

June, 1998

‘Sir!’ The ringing voices that greeted the sound of his striking boot heels brought Snape to a halt, surveying the three younger Assassins who had stood instantly upon his arrival, feet apart and hands behind their backs in the time-honored stance of soldiers responding to a superior.

‘Redson. Rolfe. Pickering.’ He nodded to each of them in turn and gestured for them to sit. They did so immediately, and he noted with the detached pride of a teacher who has done his job well that their movements were utterly silent.

He steepled his fingers in a conscious imitation of Dumbledore as he considered the young woman and two barely-older men seated in front of him. They were all of this second generation, in their early twenties and recruited after the Dark Lord’s resurrection.

He had taken careful steps with the newest members of the elite brotherhood of killers under his command. They numbered a mere nine in total, and the six older members recalled the glory days of their master’s first reign, making them all-but-impossible turn.

These younger ones, however...

They had never tasted true victory. The last year had been marked with some tremendous achievements for the self-proclaimed Lord of Britain, but major setbacks as well, and – due to his absence of employment – Snape had been on hand to discreetly fan the discontented whispers circulating on the tongues of the new blood in their ranks. He knew some of the murmurs had rolled from Redson’s sharp wit.

It was time to see if his tenure as their teacher had ensured their loyalty to him or his supposed master.

‘The battle draws nearer,’ he announced suddenly. ‘At Solstice, we strike Hogwarts.’ Nervousness rippled through them, stringing the air between them thickly. Their saturnine leader suppressed his smile. All of them had attended the famous institution; the eldest amongst them had graduated only eight years ago. There was something...taboo...about attacking a school, albeit an almost entirely empty one, a feeling of wrongness that accompanied such an idea. And Hogwarts, with or without Dumbledore, was a formidable target – protected by more magic and illusions than anyone knew.

Magic that would prove fatal for his remaining master, if Hermione’s carefully conducted research was correct.

He took a moment to consider the faces turned up to his and continued in a slow drawl. ‘Your brothers and sisters all lived and suffered through the first rise and fall, and thus know their duty. I wonder, my youngest Assassins, whether you have considered all that we are truly fighting for?’

It was not a rhetorical question, and Rolfe answered first, though cautiously. Their training at the former professor’s hands had introduced all of them to a rougher side of his tongue than they had received in his Potions classroom years prior. Among his students, Snape despised fools. Amongst his Assassins, it was tantamount to a death warrant. ‘Power.’

‘Indeed? A vague word, for all that it is bandied about with an air of mystique. Power...How would you define “power”, Pickering?’

‘Control. Knowing that others will obey your wishes because it is you who wish it.’

‘Good, a more solid answer. Do you agree, Redson?’

The lithe, blonde ex-Ravenclaw had been one of his most intelligent students before Hermione’s star had risen and obliterated the competition. For all that she had been outshone by a Gryffindor three years her junior, Julia Redson’s competence and quick mind could not be doubted.

And she, he knew, was beginning to observe the total destruction around her and to have second thoughts.

‘Power is personal,’ she countered Pickering’s reply slowly. ‘To have true power is to have control over self – both over one’s actions and reactions, which you have taught us, sir, but also over one’s destiny and choices.’

‘Indeed.’ Snape settled into a chair facing his disciples, watching the boys exchange puzzled looks. ‘I have, therefore, a critical question: When we win, who will have such power?’

888

‘-such division will prove disastrous. I admit it was…unexpected.’ Harry stopped, his feet braking so fast they seemed to take root in the wood without his permission, sensing the importance of the conversation going on behind the mostly-closed kitchen door just inches from his ear.

‘I couldn’t agree more. When Hermione wrote to me in January, requesting assistance, I was…gratified….to think that my work might help the Order. It never occurred to me to refuse.’ Charlie’s roughened baritone, so warm and full of laughter in Harry’s memories, was now thoughtful and troubled – the sound of a man who bore responsibility and was unpleasantly unsure of a decision he had made. The younger wizard felt his gut twist as he leaned into the aging wood slowly, breathing lightly, knowing that every word would likely wound him, but desperate to know anyway.

‘Hermione Granger did not write of the internal strife that the Order is currently experiencing, nor did your brother inform me of such.’ There was a note of question in the gravelly voice – and Harry recognized the hoarse tones of Griphook, who had arrived with two aides forty-eight hours ago to add his voice to their planning.

‘Bill hasn’t been here for ages,’ Charlie said slowly. ‘As for Hermione…Harry has proven himself an intelligent and innovative leader in almost every other field of Endeavour, but in regards to her…’ The doubt that filled the silence pressed on Harry’s chest like a boulder, his breath eking from him in hard-fought gasps and leaving him unable to draw air. ‘Her every movement, each decision she has made, all the bridges she has crossed – and those she has burned – have been for him. For the Order. She has surrendered everything she loves in her life for the war because she believes it to be right, and because she made a personal choice that repulses him, he and Moody have blocked her out, refused her advice.’ The sound of silverware clinking in fiddling fingers filled the next lapse of voices. ‘Ron used to say he envied them their friendship – he told Mum that it was one of the only things in the world he thought truly unbreakable. Clearly, all it took was the right pressure point.’

‘Her admiration for young Potter and dedication to our crusade was very apparent in the letter she sent to me only three months ago. Imagine our surprise at discovering his coldness towards her.’ A beat, ‘The right pressure point. It’s true, then, that she’s in love with the spy?’ The curiosity carried no hint of accusation, and a wave of guilt, riding the tide that had already drowned him, scalded the eavesdropper with Charlie’s matter-of-fact reply:

‘It is.’ A long sigh. ‘I wouldn’t want to be them for all the Galleons in Gringotts – they’ve been shoved between a rock and a hard place, with some of the Order nearly as unforgiving as I imagine the Death Eaters must be. I took Potions with Severus Snape for seven years and he was a right bastard in the classroom – but I took an ‘E’ on my Potions NEWT and I’d stake my life on his devotion to us and to Hermione. There’s more to him than some of our number are able and willing to see.’

‘Those who fulfill the most crucial functions in an impossible situation are often crucified for their efforts,’ came the Goblin’s quiet observation. ‘You humans are a peculiar species in this regard.’

Harry knew that if he listened to anymore, he would be brought to his knees, paralyzed with grief. He backed away from the door, his face twisted with private pain, almost stumbling up the stairs, shame pouring through him with such ferocity it seemed to have replaced his blood. These men, essentially strangers to the situation, had named a flurry of emotions and contradictions that he had been wrestling with for six months.

Uncertainty was an expensive feeling that Harry could no longer afford. The year since Albus Dumbledore’s plunge from the top of the Astronomy Tower had possessed a peculiar clarity – his choices made in rolling chains that he had not doubted when they had come before him, flying through the days of questing for the four remaining Horcruxes and keeping the Order intact without looking back.

Hermione was the broken link in this chain. She always had been. In a year of learning new magic, battle strategies and leadership over more than an informal group of students, his former best friend had become the stumbling block that had nearly destroyed them and might yet. The nagging at the back of his mind grew louder, re-enforced by Charlie’s gentle confusion and Griphook’s quiet judgment until it seemed to be pounding in him.

‘Ron used to say he envied them their friendship…he thought truly unbreakable.’

‘…crucified…You humans are a peculiar species in this regard.’

Was it time to un-make the decision he had defended so staunchly? He had been positive all those months ago, through layers of the penetrating agony that accompanies betrayal, that it had been the right choice, that he had made it in a desperate bid to protect the Order and the rest of those he loved. But the seasons since had proven his primary fears groundless and woven a second nightmare that grew ever more tangled. He could not afford to lose the confidence of these two factions – nor could he forget that it was Hermione and McGonagall who had taken the first steps towards bringing them into the Order to begin with.

As he reached the second floor, he automatically turned to the right, moving towards Moody’s room, and stopped himself. The old Auror was an undeniably valuable ally – there was still no one in the Ministry to equal his instincts or reflexes when dueling – but his world was governed by the cold realities of a life lived during and between wartimes. The raven-haired boy who had once considered it the highest honor to be included in Alastor Moody’s list of protégés knew what his self-appointed mentor would tell him – and his heart contracted with a different pain as he realized that this was not the advice he needed to hear.

For an instant on the darkened landing, his fists clenched in an unreleased confession of lonely desperation. He needed his father.

A fierce desire for a parent, a shoulder to lean against and cling to, seared through him, knotting his stomach. Before going to Hogwarts, and since Sirius’ death, he had savagely suppressed this need, shoving it away from himself as a symptom of a disease that he could not indulge. But he had pushed himself too hard, too far, too quickly. He felt that he was at the end of a long road. Tonight, he felt just the seventeen years that he had lived, and wanted a father who could tell him whether he should stay his course or offer his apologies. Harry felt he almost didn’t care which, as long as someone else could tell him the path he should be taking.

He swung left, his footsteps leading him to the violently magenta door that Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin had painted in defiance of every one of her ancestors, knowing that the last living Marauder would be behind it.

888

March, 1997

A gentle touch on her back prodded the still-invisible young woman into her bondmate’s living space for the first time. She had halted in the door, blocking his entrance in her surprise and sudden desire to catalog every detail of the room in front of her eyes, greedily raking over the private world that had remained utterly locked away to everyone except the headmaster and possibly her Transfiguration professor. Hermione had no doubts that she was the first student ever to lay eyes on these few square feet of stone and she reveled in the privilege that two months ago she never would have dreamed of receiving.

The thick rug starting at the tips of her toes and expanding to fill the whole space squished deliciously under her feet, and she immediately toed off her shoes to wriggle her feet in the soft, predictably forest green material. To her right was a long, black couch across from a darkened black-marble fireplace, and as a fire gently flickered to life, she could see the finely polished stone was shot through with streaks of silver. The dark wood end-table, partially obscured by the professional covers of academic journals looked to be of the same rich, midnight color as the door, and she repressed a snort. Black, green and silver. She supposed stereotypes had to originate somewhere.

A splash of irregularly-shaped white interrupted the perfect blend of Slytherin colors in the form of a sprawling, luxurious, sheepskin rug laid between hearth and couch. Hermione wasted no time in crossing to it and kneeling slowly to lie flat out on the soft material, driven by the need to feel something so achingly familiar, curling her fingers into the hair, bathing in the assault of smells. Her parents owned just such a rug in their bedroom-

‘I was going to suggest you use the couch,’ came an amused voice above her, and then came the cold-and-slimy feeling of becoming visible again as Snape’s wand tapped her head. She started to get up, pushing herself from the floor, only to have his hand descend on her shoulder, stopping her. ‘But you look so decadently comfortable there.’

She twisted her head to lock eyes with him, uncertainty shining in the amber. ‘And you...you won’t mind the floor?’ Her imagination could not supply a Severus Snape who willingly knelt on the floor for a long period of time – her professor was too proud to bend his knees to anyone but the Dark Lord whom he was betraying.

He gave her an unused half-smile, her doubt reflected on his face. ‘There are some sacrifices I am prepared to make for your well-being.’ With that, he was stripping off his over-cloak and then teaching robe, leaving him clad in the white shirtsleeves and black woolen trousers she had become so accustomed to seeing during their private lessons.

‘You should wear colors sometimes,’ she observed semi-tiredly, exhaustion rolling through her relaxed limbs. The comforting, gentle scratchiness of the mat beneath her was having an instant effect.

‘I will take that under advisement the next time I visit Gladrag’s.’

‘Red would look good on you,’ she added in a voice that was too innocent to be genuine. He narrowed his eyes at her, still standing, and she had to look all the way up the long lines of his frame to meet his gaze.

‘I may have to rescind my offer,’ he muttered, but was already rolling up his sleeves, ‘if these kindnesses open a road for such impertinence.’

‘I asked for a potion,’ she murmured, dropping her head back so that her words were mumbled half into the rug. ‘You opted for a backrub.’ The joyful surprise of the unexpected rang in her voice. ‘And if you insist, who am I to complain?’

‘You won’t, if you know what’s good for you. But I hardly insisted. I merely think that if I allow you to overdose yourself with potions, Potter and Dumbledore will coming bolting after my hide,’ he groused from above her and Hermione felt herself grinning. When had they last indulged in such pointless flirtation? No undercurrents of barely-checked magic, no worries about the political agenda of Albus Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort or Blaise Zabini. No fear of the power balance that defined the worlds separating them. Just words, bandied back and forth with the speed of a tennis ball sailing over a net, both of them engaged fully for the enjoyment of the game and nothing more.

Never, she realized abruptly, knowing that she was seeing yet another part of the man she was bound to. Why keep this part of himself private? she wondered, and was surprised to feel a fierce sorrow take residence in her heart. Most spent their lives covering over the darker part of themselves – he flaunted it, hiding the light.

Who was this man she was bound to? Less than a year ago, he had been one of her many professors. Her protector, a member of the Order and the famously biased Head of Slytherin House who, in spite of his loyalties to the Light, took enormous relish in cutting, her, her best friends and apparently her entire House down to size every chance providence handed him. A simple role, a one-dimensional character. There had been nothing behind the curtain of permanently oily hair except cold black eyes and an unforgiving smirk.

‘When you were a child, you saw the face I present to children,’ came his soft, rolling voice over her, matching the gentle heel of his hand rubbing her spine. ‘Uncomplicated, as fits their world view. An archetypal villain molded to a school environment – giver of detentions, docker of House points. Unkind. Unfair.’

Like a master magician spinning his craft, fireworks and fancy flashes from his right hand had occupied all of their attention while his left silently ensured that they slept safely in their beds – both at Hogwarts and at home – while he taught them valuable lessons that were unrelated to the Potions classroom, while he was ever in attendance, the first to react to any trouble involving the boy savior and his loyal comrades.

As his informal apprentice in the Burrow for a scant two months, she had been introduced to his fierce intelligence, acute and largely understated bravery, and his dry sense of humor. The professor, already a curiosity via her awareness of him through their bond, had become a man in a very real sense as her own maturity had become dominant. The smirk gave way to genuine smiles, occasional laughter and challenging questions. There were times he had been almost...playful, and a few moments that she had sensed his absolute loneliness through their connection, a feeling of total isolation from the world around him that tore at her heart.

And yet...he was also the Death Eater who could so coldly call her Mudblood and dismiss her from his office without a flicker of remorse. The total unity of their love-making, the complete devastation when he had told her that she meant nothing to him...even understanding his motive could not help her comprehend his method.

Here she lay on the floor of his rooms, one of less than a half-dozen to ever see them, and she could only ask – who was Severus Snape? Did anyone know? Was there such a person? The only likely person to truly know was the headmaster – but for his employer, Snape donned a mask, and facades become reality when worn for too long...

Teacher. Master. Lover. Death Eater. Partner. Enigma. Deliberately shielded by shadows he had created.

Life in darkness is still life. I am who I am needed to be – by Dumbledore, by Hogwarts, by the Order. Now by you. Echoing between them was the unspoken knowledge that he had not lived for himself for many years, and never expected to again.

‘What have I told you about listening to my thoughts?’ she whispered hoarsely, horrified at the lump in her throat.

Do not grieve my choices, Hermione. I have remorse enough for us both. His voice vibrated lightly as he teased, ‘I recall with perfect clarity replying that if you did not want my commentary, you would have to stop thinking so loudly.’

In a fit of pique, focusing on what he had said out loud in order to ignore the seriousness of what had remained in the privacy of their shared mind, Hermione reached for the mental gates she had purposefully opened earlier and swung them shut, dimming their connection once again.

‘Interesting, but I think you’ll find-’ his hands were warm on her back again, applying just the faintest pressure, and she felt their link blow wide open at the back of her mind, emotions tumbling though in a jumbled mass, ‘-that when I am touching you, our new-found control has very little effect.’ So saying, he ran both index fingers down either side of her spine, making her shiver as all of her nerve endings snapped to life, sucking fatigue from her like a vacuum as fire and earth nipped playfully along her vertebra.

‘Mmmmmm.’

‘You said your lower back?’ he asked gently, ceasing his teasing and concentrating on the tight muscles that curved to meet her bottom. The subtle pressure increased, and Hermione’s hands fisted as the ink-stained fingers of her professor buried themselves in her flesh through her thin shirt, kneading and smoothing and kneading again, working out the pains that came with hunching over desks to write essays, carrying too many books for all the years she had been attending schools both Muggle and magical, and, of course, Rice.

Poking, prodding, pressing, the massage moved her to a state of half-conscious pleasure, questions forsaken for the enjoyment of the moment. She was blissfully unaware of the picture she made, unruly brown hair shot through with strands that danced lighter blond and darker red in the firelight, radiating from her head like the rays of the setting sun on the pure white throw. For a moment, Snape sat back on his heels just to look at her, reveling and marveling at the woman splayed before him.

Glorious hair. A faint smile, dimmed by drowsiness, curved her mouth.

The Gryffindor witch let herself drift back towards sleep again, thought spooling in lazy, oft-interrupted and derailed trains across her consciousness.

Gentle pushes, rubbing her shirt against her skin. Fire leaped hopefully. The full weight of his hand next to her spine, the base of his palm shoving stiffness away from the middle in a slow wave. Earth rippled under her newly-sensitized flesh, avidly following her bondmate’s hand.

Touch. Hermione reflected ruefully that sometimes, it seemed as if their elements were, indeed, a magic wand waved high-handedly over the myriad difficulties of their binding and clashing personalities. When called, fire, water, earth and air were only too eager to take over, to transform their vessels into beings of unsullied sensualism, thought submerged to magic-suffused instinct.

Completion. Unity. Oneness. The whisper of the memory was enough to tighten her nipples as she lay face-down on the rug. Eyes closed, she could not see the momentary flicker of surprise that crossed her bondmate’s thin features as he felt her surge of arousal, or the cautious warmth that replaced it as he calmed his strokes, his hands lingering as they began a different kind of work, sensual and almost seductive.

But the problems remained when their minds re-asserted control and they reverted to their snail’s pace of carefully re-building trust, stumbling through the missteps of mutual stubbornness, secrecy and differing convictions while learning about one another.

It seemed that even the most powerful of ancient magics could not solve the age-old impasses of men and women with a simple spell.

And though under the influence of their new gifts, Snape’s talented fingers had eagerly sought out every crevice of her body – mapping the expanses of her small back, of her once-flat stomach, the insides of her thighs, the undersides of her breasts – without their help, he hesitated to reach out to her in any way. She had felt both his fear that his advances would be rejected, that the gap had opened too wide, and the worry of what Voldemort would do if he discovered their relationship was still very much alive instead of coldly abandoned as he had ordered--

--she gasped as he planted his fingertips directly on her skin, having freed her thin cotton blouse from her skirt and slid under it to run callused pads lightly over her back, making all her tiny hairs instantly stand up, begging for more contact. Her musing mood vanished as Flamma whipped at him eagerly, kissing his fingers, bringing hyper-awareness of the ten separate points of joining between their bodies and angrily hissing that it was not enough.

‘Severus...’ she whispered, her eyes snapping open as she turned her head to meet his closed-mouthed smile, eyes glittering brightly with an emotion somewhere between the smirk he gave his erring students and the sincere laughter she had heard a bare handful of times.

‘I believe I heard a wish for me to take more initiative,’ he murmured, and there was no denying the mischievous spark there now, undercut with a lust she hadn’t seen for months. Her eyes locked on the mobile mouth as she twisted herself upward, drawing in her legs and half sitting, body suddenly thrumming with desire. A wanting that belonged neither to her fire’s heat or his air’s impetuousness, but to her and her alone. Not the mind-blowing hunger that had weakened her last term, or the unslakable thirst that overtook them in Founders’ Hall. The magic approved – the singing in her blood assured her of that – but it did not control.

Catching her eyes and holding them, Snape deliberately laid his palms flat against the flesh that had long occupied his dreams, relishing each part of his slender hands as they made contact at an agonizing pace, enjoying the jolts of pleasure coming from the young woman he was holding as his arms encircled her fully under her clothes, pulling her to a full sitting position, no more than a few inches from him, tension peaking in the thickening space between their bodies.

Slowly, allowing her to escape him if she so chose, he lowered his head, midnight gaze dropping from her amber-brown to appreciate the fullness of her mouth, lower lip wetted by a ready tongue.

He hesitated.

This kiss would be different, the mark of an expedition setting off into deeper territory. Other than a few isolated moments dotting the past year, almost all physical contact of any kind had been regulated by Raw Magic. Certainly all of their sexual encounters. But earth and water were not impelling him now-

-If my master sees-

‘-for the same reason you did not want to tell Minerva-’

-Your safety is my solitary concern-

-petal soft and blinding white, surety bloomed in their link. Your partner, your helpmeet, your lover. Fear not, Severus.

The lips that had fascinated him so just moments before were on his, gentle and inviting, drawing him into her before the paralysis that had swamped him for many months could gain its treacherous hold and force him back into the role of her professor and mentor.

His hands slid up her back, fingers dragging over the skinny strap of her bra and pulling her shirt with them, exposing a very small roundness out of place on her spare frame and still unnoticeable, especially under school robes, that would eventually be a human being. One hand slid round, palm briefly cupping a satin-clad breast before trailing down to rest on her stomach in mimicry of her own habit, wondering if he could feel Rice – as they had already brushed minds.

Laughter burbled in periwinkle bubbles at the back of his mind, Hermione amused by the hopeful drumming of his fingers. Not yet, she told him.

And curiosity of all kinds was subsumed as she closed the remaining gap between their bodies, tangling her legs with his, straddling his lap on the floor, his back against the long couch she had forsaken earlier. Adrenaline hummed through both of them, their shared heartbeat doubling as capable hands grew bolder, pressing, seeking, re-learning with quick movements that were equal parts passion and a quiet sense of desperation, fueled by the very real knowledge that, even as they rediscovered it, their time for this was running out.

Moving from their rather chaste placement on her shoulder blade and stomach, his fingers were everywhere – tracing up her thighs and skimming her sides so lightly that she moaned in frustration against his mouth, arching as they barely brushed over eager nipples before emerging from her shirt to thrust into the unmanageable hair he adored, holding her to him in a fierce gesture of possession.

Hermione felt him smile at her vocalization of want, blushing even as she retained his quirked lips with her own, small tongue slowly emerging to lick at his upper lip, feeling the rasp of his five-o’clock shadow prickling her taste buds. He obediently parted them for her and she rocked her hips against him as their kisses became more frantic, embarrassment forgone as he left her mouth to rake his teeth gently along her exposed shoulder, nerves already screaming for release inflamed by the warm puffs of air trickling across her flesh.

Her small fingers were rapidly slipping buttons from their holes in his shirt, magic forgotten as she took pleasure in undressing him manually, barely aware of his matching, hurried attempts to free her of her blouse. As the last mother-of-pearl button slid from its confines, she lay her hands fully against his slender, scar-laced chest, reveling in the slight peppering of coarse black hair beneath her hands as she leaned back in, tongue finding his ear and looping it slowly, delighting as his hips twitching beneath her, a guttural sound accompanied the swift removal of her shirt, leaving her upper body clad only in her bra.

But when she deftly put one hand behind her back to undo the clasp, she found his longer fingers stilling hers, a note of trepidation entering their lust-fogged thoughts.

Severus? She was enormously grateful that she didn’t have to speak aloud, uncertain whether her throat could accommodate anything more than whimpers or growls.

‘Not yet,’ he whispered, hoarse with the effort of denial as he echoed her thoughts of earlier. A quick probe assured her that this was not a rejection, but as she sat up, one hand still grasping her bra, ready to tear it off, she bit her lip, frowning at him.

‘Why?’ she forced out.

‘We’re both too new to this,’ he answered gently. ‘We’ve never done this before without the help of the elements, and I don’t want...’ His words failed him, but the myriad emotions underlying his thoughts streamed into her, allowing her to construct the picture on her own.

Raw Magic demanded it. We sated its compulsions whenever, wherever, we had to. I don’t want...I want the first time we come to this on our own to be deliberate and safe, not a hormonal cyclone that leaves plenty of time for regrets or doubts in its wake. I do not doubt that I want you, or that we want this…Caution tinted the love in his dark eyes and Hermione nodded once, slowly, hearing the rest of what he could not form into coherent words. Severus Snape never threw himself into a potentially dangerous situation. He was a planner by nature, and after twenty years of warfare or preparing for warfare, it was ingrained. This situation carried danger of a different variety than that offered by both Dumbledore and Voldemort, but it was no less real. Her body, aching with unreleased desire and bowstring-tight with impatience for him to finish what they had started, was unimpressed by this argument, but with the discipline that had allowed her to ignore her stomach’s cries for food and eyes’ need for sleep over the past years, she tamped it down. Willing herself to fit against his chest, tucking her head beneath his pointed chin and forcing expectant muscles to relax, she batted away the impulse to shed her underwear and use her hands and tongue to coerce him to her point of view.

‘Will there be such a time?’ she asked as he slowly lifted one hand to start unsnarling the hair he had mussed with a few twists of his fingers. ‘When danger will not outweigh desire?’ Or love?

‘Not in our current situation. But there are exceptions that can be made with relative safety. Would you be in my rooms if I didn’t intend to take you to the bed one day?’ he parried. ‘I’m hardly the type who throws lavish parties here every weekend. Very few people have seen this place.’ The remark was delivered with his customary sarcasm, Hermione nodded contentedly, pleased by his confirmation of what she had suspected. That this intensely, obsessively, private man had brought her here, his only sanctuary in the entirety of the castle, marked a shift he had made. Never, once, during their fall term, no matter how out of control their magic raged, had he even mentioned its location, much less allowed her in.

His quiet, effortless gift of such knowledge, unprompted by external pressures, was the strongest declaration of respect and trust that he could possibly give.

‘You can be surprisingly gentle, you know,’ she said in the tone of someone learning something truly astonishing.

‘As long as Potter and Weasley never hear you say that, I’ll forgive you for thinking it.’

Hermione snorted, but Snape felt her flash of regret combined with guilt for their secret, and silently remonstrated himself for mentioning it. He had lived on the razor’s edge, carefully guarding information from all comers for so long that keeping this confidence – critical though it was – had become one among many.

But his seventeen-year-old Gryffindor bondmate had much better friends than he and no such life training. It warred with all of her instincts to keep so enormous a burden-and-blessing from those she loved best.

‘I’m going to see Madam Pomfrey tomorrow,’ she offered, deliberately choosing to change the subject.

‘Indeed.’ She visited the medi-witch weekly to ensure that her pregnancy was progressing as planned and to acquire her daily doses of nutrient potion. Recently, Snape had experienced a discomforting surge of wanting to go with her and hear the matron’s analyses for himself, an urge he had ruthlessly squashed. From what Dumbledore said, the Hogwarts nurse had her suspicions as to the paternity of the child, but to show up at Hermione’s side would be almost as good as a written confession.

‘I’m eighteen weeks along. She can do the spell to determine gender now.’ A beat, and then, ‘Would you like to be there?’

Yes. ‘You know I cannot.’

‘Of course. When would it be convenient for me to talk to you afterwards?’

‘You truly are a Gryffindor, Hermione,’ he said with a faint smile. Daydreams of sitting together and bickering pleasantly over names – another slice of normality he had never thought he’d know – flashed across his mind and he crushed them quickly, trying not feel regret as they died without protest.

No sense of subtlety. ‘We already scheduled a meeting today that deviates from our routine due to Mr. Zabini. I can’t be seen with you tomorrow as well. “Special tutorials” for Defense make a decent excuse, but one that will readily run thin if used too often. It is a well known fact that I hate everything revolving around Harry Potter, and you are one of the brightest stars in that constellation.’

And we have our bond, he continued voicelessly. Which we are bringing under control.

So…we can use this as a test? followed her unvoiced theory.

We can.

With this, her hand returned to its habitual place on her stomach, only to meet Snape’s long fingers. He threaded his fingers with her shorter ones and settled them together over Rice, smiling unseen at her contented sigh, basking in a luxury that could not last.

As he watched the fire glint on the auburn of her curls, a violent feeling of possessiveness – identical to his sudden acknowledgement of Rice in the Hall – rode through him, and he pulled her tighter against him, needing to feel the warmth of her limbs tangled with his, the firmness of her back meeting his chest.

Too short, part of him seemed to cry as his free hand wrapped itself in her hair again. There is no time. No time to learn, to treasure, to keep. He had never before experienced the constant pressure associated with personal loss. It was part of what made him impervious to the schemes of other Death Eaters, his life an unbroken sheet of service, without any of the vulnerabilities that plagued the rest of his fellows.

Fate had given him two people to lose at the worst possible moment. And he had found himself unable to divorce from them, no matter that all three lives swung precariously in an uncharted territory. Now, in the evenings, sitting at his desk, in the staff room, he would become unnaturally aware of the swinging pendulums, every soft tick of the brass. The clock was counting down, each hour more precious as they grew rarer by the day. Each memory carefully catalogued, a guard against a future where there would be no new memories being created.

Not enough!

We will make it enough, came her silent, but vehement, reply as she craned her neck to look at him. The girl who always had a solution, who never took ‘no’ for an answer. We must.

She settled back, her forehead coming to rest on the side on his neck, her fingers squeezing his tightly over Rice. This is enough.

They sat in front of the fire, dark wizard and bright witch willing the clock to slow infinitely, until coals crackling like molten gold dulled to embers and the last spark faded.

888

‘Don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me as to where you’ve been?’

Ginny Weasley’s coldly hurt voice intruded on Hermione’s satisfied thoughts and the older witch froze just inside the portrait hole, a sense of déjà vu washing over her and utterly destroying the peaceful cocoon she had wrapped around herself coming from Snape’s quarters. The red-head had cornered her like this before-

‘No bath this time?’ The sharpness in the younger girl’s tone twisted Hermione’s heart with remorse, especially as the porcelain-pale skin and deep shadows making pockets under Ginny’s eyes told the story of another nightmare that had brought her to sit in their common room at well past three in the morning after finding her confidant not in residence.

‘No,’ Hermione said quietly, trying to keep her guilt from lighting up her face. ‘No bath.’

‘Restricted Section of the library?’ The warning bite told the older Gryffindor that Ginny wouldn’t believe her if she said it. Rather than try to convince her, Hermione simply shook her head.

‘Are you going to be honest or are we going to stand here playing twenty questions?’

‘Gin...’

The bedraggled young woman stepped closer, anger dissolving into exhausted worry. ‘Ron and I have both been distracted by worrying about Harry, but you never answered the question last term, Hermione. Who is it?’ Hermione closed her eyes and sighed as Ginny pressed her point home. ‘It’s not exactly a vote of confidence for the boy if you won’t even tell your best friends. Ron’s wrapped up in Lavender now – you can’t hurt his feelings. Harry’s never felt that way about you, and you know I’d help you with anything.’

The concern darkening the brown eyes almost choked Hermione where she stood, and only discipline kept her hand from moving to her stomach, the movement a sure betrayal. Too many secrets...

‘I can’t,’ she whispered hoarsely, and felt water rise to standing position in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry; Ginny...I really wish I could, but...’

Small, freckled hands were on her face, the calluses left by a broomstick matching both Harry’s and Ron’s as Ginny lifted the older girl’s chin, turning her jaw. Hermione allowed the other witch to push up her sleeves and inspect her arms and neck, knowing that Molly’s mothering instinct, though often suppressed, had passed faithfully to her daughter.

No signs of physical abuse met the keen dark eyes, but Ginny Weasley was not satisfied. After all, there were potions and spells to cover or repair brutality.

‘What claim does he have on you?’ she pressed. ‘Hermione, this isn’t healthy. Even without knowing this person, I can see that he overtaxes you, that you’re carrying a burden too heavy to bear. I swear, even Harry is more open-mouthed about his project with the headmaster.’

Project with the headmaster. She desperately needed the too-observant daughter of Molly and Arthur off her back. She nodded abruptly, arranging her face as if making a decision. ‘It’s not a boy,’ she said quietly, pulling Ginny back to the couches. The other witch tossed her tousled locks impatiently.

‘I also have a project with the headmaster. Having to do with Harry and protecting him,’ she expanded quietly. Small measures of truth...

Ginny’s eyes widened, distrust instantly balanced by interest. ‘So you’re working-’

‘-with a new kind of magic. A...an elemental kind that is incredibly different than what we’re taught and quite difficult. That’s why I’m so tired.’

‘Is it why you dropped Potions?’

Any excuse will do, Hermione thought, grateful that the younger witch was crafting her lies for her. ‘Yes. Working with natural ingredients interferes, for some reason.’ She injected a pleading note into her voice. ‘But I can’t...he’s forbidden me to talk about it. Ron and Harry can’t know, or they’ll get involved and they could ruin it. I’m absolutely not supposed to be telling anyone…but I hate seeing you so worried all the time.’

Ginny appraised her quietly. There was a definite ring of truth to the words, and Hermione’s magic had been noticeably...different this term. Ron and Harry had already remarked on it – her wandless and wordless technique had outstripped all of her peers rapidly in recent weeks – which was not noteworthy, in and of itself, but her method seemed entirely separate from the one being practiced by all of her classmates.

But the sorrow mixing with hidden delight, deep feelings surging beneath the calm face she had always presented to the world...these were not the marks of an independent study. Even Hermione’s passion for knowledge had never been so expressive before.

‘Is anyone else studying this with you?’

‘No,’ Hermione lied flatly. The red-head peered at her, meeting her unflinching gaze, and nodded slowly.

‘Why are you still awake?’ the wild-haired witch switched subjects quietly, taking the other witch’s hand.

‘Another nightmare,’ Ginny replied with a self-deprecating shrug. She spun out the details as Hermione requested, her focus elsewhere.

She remained persistently certain that her friend was covering some part of the truth, and she was growing ever more concerned at Hermione’s entrenched reluctance.

What could a mere boy possibly do to purchase such stalwart silence from the smartest witch of their generation?

888

‘Ah! Hello, dear. Take a seat in here.’ Madam Pomfrey smiled at the young woman as Hermione lowered herself into a chair across from the matron. The young woman glanced about curiously. They were in the medi-witch’s private office for this appointment, and Hermione had to admit that she didn’t think she’d ever seen so Muggle-looking a place within Hogwarts. Neat files were stacked on white-painted shelves, and the walls were lined with cabinets full of supplies that included bandages and basic cleaning agents common to both worlds.

If Madam Pomfrey’s desk had sported a computer instead of quills, parchment and three colors of ink, Hermione could have mistaken it for the nurse’s office in her primary school.

‘Given that your condition has been kept quiet from the staff as well as your peers, I would rather not run the risk of anyone walking in during this procedure,’ Madam Pomfrey told her briskly. ‘Therefore, we will be casting the spell in here. As you know from your reading, I will need your help for this one, Miss Granger.’

Hermione sat up straighter and withdrew her wand at the nurse’s request. ‘Place your wand tip-to-tip with mine.’ The Gryffindor complied, feeling a faint shiver as the woods connected, greeting one of its own. ‘Excellent. This spell works by traveling through your wand and into your womb. It’s a deeply personal connection to magic, and to prove effective, the link from me to you must remain unbroken.’ She hesitated, favoring Hermione with a perusing look.

‘You are quite sure you wish to know, Miss Granger? Some mothers prefer to wait…not to spoil the surprise.’

Surprise was not a luxury they had. It would be best to give the family some warning as to what gender they would be adopting. Though she did not hold with traditional gender-roles, she knew that many wizarding families, with one foot still firmly planted in the nineteenth-century, did, and would want to be properly prepared.

‘I will not…you know that I can’t have the fortune of raising my child,’ she answered steadily, ignoring the wrenching in her chest at this statement. Rice grew more real to her with every passing day. She recalled the joyous reaction her baby had had to Flamma, a riotous happiness transmitted directly to her, and felt her throat close. Could she? Hand this child whose mind she had already kissed to a stranger? Know that she would never see Rice again?

‘Our position is one that suspends many lives in its balance, not just mine or yours or the baby’s – but all of Britain.’ They had made their choice – and it was the right one.

Her voice was steady as she replied: ‘The adopting parents have the right to know.’

‘If you’re sure, then hold your wand steady and remember to take deep breaths. Each woman has a slightly different reaction – I am told it can be uncomfortable, but not unbearable, so try not to break the connection.’ Hermione tightened her grip on her wand as the matron closed her eyes and a string of impressive Latin rolled out.

‘Matria Vita, Domina Gero, annuo nobis vestra conspicio visum insum.’

The length of holly bucked abruptly, but Hermione schooled the suddenly rebellious wood, and felt a faint tingle shoot up her arm, almost tickling her as it skittered up her bones and slid down her spine like a firefighter on a pole, seeping into her uterus towards the end of her vertebrae. For a moment, nothing happened, older and younger witches simply holding their wands, waiting.

Then, rising from within her, tip-toeing up her back now and floating in reverse down the bones of her arm, Hermione felt the surge of her reply. The magic rebounded back into the wand, and the point where their tips connected glowed a soft, baby pink.

The nurse’s face split into a wide grin, the flush of joy babies never fail to cause overriding her sense of concern for just a moment as the pulsing color lit both faces. ‘Congratulations, Miss Granger, you’re going-’ She halted, eyes widening as a second strobe of light flashed from their wands, pale blue merging with its sister in a swirling pattern of magic.

‘A girl and a boy?’

Absurdly, the first thought to bolt across Hermione’s brain was that at least ‘Rice’ was both singular and plural.

‘This is highly unusual in a witch your age,’ the matron said, now frowning. ‘Twins are often born of a second or third successful pregnancy...there will certainly be some unforeseen complications…’

Hermione’s second thought was much more sobering. Two? And she had feared the ripping of her heart when surrendering one? And what family would risk taking both of them – two children who embodied all that Voldemort wanted?

‘Twins?’ the young woman repeated faintly, ruthlessly shoving away the impulse to scream, reaching for the numbness of shock, for if she began now, she wasn’t sure when she would stop…

And even from a castle away, she could feel the shock searing back through their bond, her emotions transmitted, doubled and returned, transcending floors to rattle her already-shaken nerves.

What?!

888

Snape clutched his bondmate to him desperately, ignoring the searing kisses of white-hot flame as it slithered, uncontrolled, from her fingertips to meet his skin, hissing angrily as it met the dampness seething from him to form a layer of protection. Another strand sparked from the end of her hair, scorching the armchair before sizzling against its sibling-turned-rival, water the discipline for fire’s unprecedented temper tantrum.

The grief and shock fueling the raging element almost overwhelmed the taciturn man who had spent a lifetime rigidly suppressing all emotion, skirting feelings as one would a dangerous animal. He was barely aware of the soft surface underneath them, of the hair snaking up his nose, of the office around them. Only Hermione was real – she and the internal storm threatening to unleash its formidable power on the hapless room around them.

He had never before truly tried to use his elements to counteract hers, and sweat was beading on the pale forehead as she repeatedly battered at his magic, her explosion of unhappiness making her unconscious that she was siphoning his energy as he frantically tried to pull enough water from the air around them to make everything within Flamma’s reach slick with moisture and inflammable.

Despite his words of warning just the night before, he could not deny the double sense of pain and injustice that had drawn her down to his dungeon. He had barely managed to ward the room against all other comers before she had been through the door and in his arms, sobbing.

Their shared, crippling agony came from the absolute sense of unfairness, at having pushed oneself to one’s limit, only to find that there is more demanded, a heftier fee yet to be paid.

He could not say what it was that caused such cold anger now, a chill that made him wonder if, perhaps, they should both simply give it up and disappear – the other side of the world would be far enough from the bloody conflict that called for their seemingly-undending sacrifices. Snape did not know why two children should feel so much more wrenching than one, why he had felt so prepared to let one go but now thought that he might surrender a decade of his life to keep them both…

I knew, when I made my decision some time ago, that I would have no part of my child’s existence. It brought me no pain. Other things worried me, but not this unseen life. It was an…abstraction. What was an unborn child, compared to a woman I loved and a world I owed? I am the kind of man no one should grow up looking to me as a role model to be admired – better for someone else to perform the difficult task of raising such progeny. And now… I always knew that in losing her, I knew I would lose the better half of myself…but I never allowed that to extend to this – these – beings. Part of her. Part of me.

A whisper of a sigh, a twining strand of blue escaping his mouth and bathing the young Gryffindor in a gentle light. But I felt them move, some part of him protested. I know they’re there. That consciousness already exists, that they recognize the magic that is their birthright. The obsidian eyes were dark with a naked pain that only Albus Dumbledore had seen, and that only one time – on the night the professor had returned to the Light many years ago.

They are alive, my twins. They will walk, learn to speak, discover the beauties and pains of magic…and I will never know. I never left myself learn that losing one child would have been difficult. So now I must see it when it will be two…

‘But we must give them up.’ The hard, flat voice of his student indicated a return to the control that she held over herself almost as tightly as he maintained his. The emotion that had blazed in the amber-brown gaze when she had hurtled into the room had dimmed, the finality of her tone dismissing her breakdown and the thoughts he knew she had heard in one breath.

He nodded, swallowed the lump that wished to be tears and matched her impersonal quality. ‘There are no choices. To give them the world they deserve, we have to let them go.’

Tears had left jagged rivers of red down her face, and her jaw worked with repressed anger. For a moment, he wondered if her misery would rip out of her as her face contorted by the effort not to cry out, but she merely buried her face back in his chest, drawing shuddering breaths as his mouth dropped in an uncensored gesture of affection to kiss the crown of her head.

I cannot…Severus…

They will be safe. We will make it enough. We must, he repeated her mental words of the night before.

We must.

888

Snape was well aware of the boy’s approach long before the knock – just the right pitch and possessing an almost perfect cadence of trepidation, interrupted him. He hesitated for a moment, wanting to be sure of the self-control that had been so iron-fisted before he had awakened the bond he shared with a wild-haired Gryffindor witch and now seemed so easily tattered. The overwhelming outburst had vanished almost as quickly as it had come the day before – an empty dam after the breaking of floodwaters. When she had risen and stepped away from him, Vanishing the evidence of her pain, he felt her growing harder, committed to the end she had set for herself and experienced a moment of soul-piercing loss. She possessed too much vitality to wall it off, to re-cast herself in his image.

He shoved the unwelcome thought away and opened his mouth to deliver his order. ‘Come.’ He pushed his remaining papers aside as Blaise Zabini strolled into his office.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ His student’s voice was molded into a tone of perfect respect, though his slightly widened black eyes betrayed anxiety. Impressed against his will, Snape nevertheless thought that his Slytherin had every right to be concerned. In six years, the dark boy had never been invited to his Head of House’s office for any reason.

‘Seat yourself, Mr. Zabini,’ Snape offered, waving to an armchair. ‘This may take a little time.’

He let the boy stew as he purposefully stacked the rest of his papers, setting them aside and then steepling his fingers as he watched his student. Zabini sat straight-backed in his chair, but other than rigid posture, nothing indicated unease.

‘I have heard it said that you offered to tutor Hermione Granger in the Potions class that she has dropped.’

Surprise flashed, furrowing the high, smooth forehead briefly before it unwrinkled itself and Zabini engaged in the dance his professor expected.

‘I did.’ Two beats and a hesitant, ‘Is there anything wrong with that, Professor?’

Snape tilted an eyebrow. ‘You have lived in a dormitory with Draco Malfoy for six years. You tell me whether there’s “anything wrong” with volunteering to teach the best friend of Harry Potter in a one-on-one situation.’

The whole body tensed now, expectations of the blows to come manifesting in the suddenly-stiff forearms and locked spine.

Zabini made sure his eyes were carefully averted from his teacher’s – there were rumors of Snape’s powers of Legilimency floated about, and he was in a position where he adamantly desired not to test them. He knew from Draco’s mild slips that his classmate perceived Snape to be on “their side”, and the blond’s over-protectiveness of his left arm made Zabini quite sure about which side that was. Everything he hoped to accomplish, as well as his family, and himself, could turn to ash in the next twenty-four hours if his Defense professor read his mind.

‘I don’t see what Draco has to do with it,’ he said, pulling out his best “confused child” voice.

Snape was shaking his head. ‘Do not pretend ignorance. Your family is neutral in our current conflict, Mr. Zabini,’ and the half-Egyptian’s gaze sharpened at the genuine bleakness tainting the clipped words. ‘This leaves them, while powerful, utterly devoid of protection. Should either faction choose to go after you, the other will not interfere. Choose carefully who you are seen with and what you are seen to be doing. We live in a time where your actions, though you are barely of age, can have a rippling effect on all those you care about. You are living on a battlefield and no longer have the luxury of a child’s spontaneity.’

Zabini’s eyes involuntarily reached for his teacher’s, seeking the truth behind a man he’d never met. This was not the Head of House that Pansy had simpered over and Draco had strutted to impress. The advice was…sound. Trustworthy. And completely shocking, considering its source.

The instant the warm black eyes collided with his, Snape send a wordless apology and a spell winging into his student’s mind. His speech had produced the desired effect. He had to know. Hermione, like many of her House, was simply too trusting…

Fear layered the outside of the motive, and Snape felt his heart rate increase. What practical steps would he take with his knowledge? Expulsion? An attempt to put this just-barely-a-man into Azkaban? Intent to commit crimes was not punishable in and of itself…yet.

Penetrating the last of the emotion, he struck reason. And stopped cold.

The boy was sincere. Snape could see crystalline chains of logic leading into the decision, the wan cast to Draco’s face, the peculiar conversations punctuated by evasions, the gnawing worry over what his family would say. The Defense professor witnessed his Slytherin’s early, and buried, interest in Hermione revive, his choice in making her his passage into the Order.

Blaise Zabini had not been setting a trap but playing a Gryffindor game by their own rules, fully conscious of his choices and the impact they would have on him.

Withdrawing, Snape saw Zabini paling, saw his student’s hand fly to his wand pocket as he rose, clearly ready to duel for his life and also fully expecting to lose.

‘Draw that on me and you have a detention,’ the teacher snapped reflexively, his brain stretching to accommodate a truth he had not believed he would find.

‘If I don’t draw, I’ll probably be dead,’ Zabini bit back, wood leaping from his pocket to cast a curse. Snape’s wand flicked up from the desk, and a wordless Incarcerous later, his student was lying on the floor, struggling furiously with the black ropes binding him. Snape stood, and knelt next to him, touching the crown of the young man’s head gently.

‘I do not fight with my students, Mr. Zabini. It is unprofessional.’

‘Do I wait for a house call from the Dark Lord, then?’ the young man asked, almost spitting contempt.

‘With that kind of foolhardy mouth, it’s a wonder you don’t belong to Minerva,’ Snape replied sharply.

‘I’ve played my hand. You already know everything you need to condemn me.’

‘Ah…but you are operating from a mistaken condemnation yourself. Are you so certain that I am one of his?’

‘I’ve heard things,’ Zabini replied evenly, but the hope that scissored through the black orbs could not be ignored.

‘So you have. So have I. Do you believe everything the Hogwarts rumor mill has to spit out?’ Irritation. The teacher had struck a nerve. ‘According to the inquiring mind of Hannah Abbott, for instance, I could simply be about to suck your blood and drain you of your life force.’

The ludicrousness of the unexpected statement forced a bark of laughter from Zabini’s lips. Snape sighed and lifted the ropes as he regained his feet. His student gave him a hard look, but his wand went slowly back into his pocket, a semi-truce settled between them as Zabini dusted off his robes and rubbed the elbow that had slammed into the stone floor.

‘You aren’t one of his?’

‘No, Zabini, I am not,’ Snape answered soberly, and the fatigue wrangling the sallow face was suddenly quite stark. ‘And because you do not wish to be, I will take you to the man whom you will have to convince if you wish to join the Order of the Phoenix.’