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Mission Impossible	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 11774 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from writing these stories.

Chapter List
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A/N: This chapter gets a little darker...

“She’s been gone far too long,” Minerva spat. She placed her cup of tea on the table before her. “I don’t like it.”

            “Only a week,” the headmaster sighed.

            “Ten days is far longer than a week, Albus!” her tone was raised, her glasses slipping down her nose. “So help me, if you’ve sent her off to that— that monster to die—”

            “Hermione Granger is a clever girl, Minerva…”

            “Yes, I suppose you thought the same about Mister Potter, and how was it phrased, you kept him alive so that he could die at the proper moment?” she crossed her arms over her chest. The long emerald sleeves of her teaching robes caught the glint of the firelight in his office.

            “Words of the monster you think I’ve sent her off to die at the hands off,” his bright blue eyes twinkled behind half-moon frames.

            Minerva pursed her lips and then clucked her tongue a bit like a disapproving chicken. “I don’t understand you at the best of times,” she said and once more drew her teacup to her lips.

            “She will find him. And she will help him. Or Merlin help us all,” he said and then frowned into his own cup of tea. “I fear, Minerva,” his eyes grew wistful as he took a slow sip, “that we are on the verge of another great war…”

            She was silent when he spoke. Though she longed to deny it, Albus Dumbledore the all-knowing was seldom wrong in situations of great importance. The frown on her lips caused her brow to furrow, and she tried her best not to sigh. Years of worry played in the wrinkles on her forehead as she stirred her tea slowly. Minerva paused a moment and pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose. “Do you really think he can be helped?” she asked.

            Albus tilted his head down, allowing his own spectacles to slip down the edge of his nose slightly. “Minerva, we must hope that he is not too far gone. If the curse has not completely turned him then there is hope. There is no finer a skilled healer than Miss Granger. And goodness knows her curiosity and thirst for knowledge will be well spent in discovering a method to cure him.”

            Minerva swallowed, her hand trembling as she sat her teacup down once more. “And if not? What if he is too far gone?”

            His eyes turned away from the witch before him. He gazed into his teacup and remained silent for a long moment. “Let us not dwell upon such dismal thoughts,” he muttered.

~*~

            Hermione sighed in frustration. She’d been pouring through books while he slept. After she’d pulled herself from the tub and managed to dress she had returned to the kitchen and tried her hand at the grains once more. It had been a terribly bland meal, but try as she might she simply couldn’t turn rubbish into gourmet cooking. The tea after the meal, however, had been pleasing. She had helped him back up the stairs though he had resisted, insisting at first that he was able to manage on his own. She’d granted his request until he pitched forward four steps up.

            He was resting, in the large bed that she had set up in the room he had allotted for her. And although she didn’t wish to wake him, as it was evident he needed the sleep, without the knowledge of the dark curse afflicting him, her research was rather aimless and wandering. She’d poured through tome after tome for what seemed like hours; looking up everything she could think of regarding dark magic, a need for blood, and blindness. But her notes had come across very little useful information.

            Her limbs ached as she stood from the chair. Stretching her arms high above her head she felt her shoulder sockets pop slightly and she yawned, a long guttural sound. Hermione shook her body, allowing sensation to return to her legs and fingers as she did. She needed more tea, and perhaps a nap. As she moved through the study she was careful not to disturb the various teetering stacks of books she had pulled from the shelves. She had spent the better part of the evening and night hours arranging them by category. A system she had created. Ones that dealt with dark magic were in one pile leaning near the archway that led into the kitchen. Those that dealt with ingredients and properties of magical implements were in another stack, and yet another stack contained the books that dealt with curative and restorative techniques. The tiny cottage possessed hundreds of books, and she’d only just begun to scratch the iceberg in sifting through them.

            Hermione slapped her hand over her mouth to prevent from squeaking her surprise as she entered the kitchen. He was seated at the small table, black voids gazing in her general direction. “You have been up all night?”

            She shook her head and allowed her nerves to settle. It wasn’t that his mere presence frightened her, though she admitted to herself that something about him scared her; but rather that he seemed to appear out of nowhere and often silently. Though she supposed if she thought about it, his primary role in the Order had been as a double-agent spy, and as a spy she supposed he was rather skilled in appearing and disappearing without a sound. Hermione cleared her throat. “How can you tell that it is morning?” she asked.

            Severus shrugged his shoulders slightly. “I feel rested, and you sound weary.”

            “I just needed some more tea,” she said.

            He watched with unseeing eyes, his head tilting slightly as she walked past him and filled the copper kettle with water. She placed it on the stove and struck a match. If he found it odd that she lit the stove by hand, or let the water boil the muggle way, he didn’t make light of it. She moved around the other side of the table and took a seat across from him as the water began to heat. “I wish you would tell me what it is that they used to…what it is that is afflicting you…it would make researching a bit easier.”

            He placed his palms flat on the table. “Do you think that I have not done the research and that you are somehow more skilled?”

            Hermione quirked her lips to the side for a moment trying to think of a placating response. “Surely the headmaster sent me here for a reason? He must have thought I was worth a shot.”

            She watched as his lips pulled into a tight frown. “You said he was dead.”

            Hermione blushed. She had forgotten about the initial fibs she had formulated to convince him to allow her to stay. “Turns out, I lied,” she said simply.

            Severus scoffed. “Then this really is a pity mission,” he pushed against the table and stood, with a slight tremble in his legs, but moved swiftly around the table and toward the archway.

            “No!” she said and hastily clambered from her chair. “There is a threat. He does believe that You-Know-Who has the very real potential to rise again. The information you possess is important. And so are you, I wasn’t sent here just to retrieve you, though I don’t intend to leave with just the information.” Her words flowed quickly, if a bit jumbled.

            He stilled in the archway that lead to the study. His thin frame looked weak as he leaned against the wall. “Simple blood-replenishing potions will not suffice, and even if they would I no longer possess the supplies to make them,” he said, his words were flat. “I have grown far too weak as of late to find a fresh supply. The winter storms grow much too strong here this time of year and no creature dares go out in the current weather.”

            Hermione closed her eyes. “But you need…without—”

            “Let’s all go blubbering the obvious, shall we?” he sneered. “There is a tome, Dark Rituals, 1312 a Century in Shadow,” he said and pulled himself straight before turning his back to her. “Two cases mentioned in there refer to a similar condition,” he said and then disappeared from the kitchen.

            It hadn’t been the most helpful but it least it was a start. She didn’t wait for the kettle to finish boiling. With a wave of her wand she zapped the water and dropped a pouch of Ceylon leaves into the steaming mug. The study was a labyrinth of teetering book stacks, dust and cobwebs and hundreds of loose sheets of paper; some from books, some notes, some blank; that she had unearthed while clearing the shelves of their contents. The title he had mentioned was buried at the bottom of a towering stack near the far corner. In her haste to retrieve it she knocked over three stacks of books, including the one it was nestled in, but resolved to right them later.

            Hermione flopped into the chair and laid the heavy tome in her lap. It was green, a deep shade of sage, long neglected with yellowing page edges and a coating of dust so thick she could write her name in it with her finger if she so chose. Using the sleeve of her shirt she smeared her arm over the cover, freeing the dust mites into the air. She regretted her decision as she fell into a ferocious sneezing fit. With a banishing blast of her wand the cloud of dust that had risen from the book vanished and her nose settled. It was thick, nearly 3,000 pages, and longer than a standard book. Not quite so large as to be cumbersome, but enough to fill her lap once she’d opened it. The pages were terribly thin, soft and pliable looking to be thousands of years old, and she was certain that it wasn’t actually parchment but papyrus bound between the leather covers.

            The ink of the pages was faded but still legible in so much as she could discern characters and images. She frowned. It was not in English nor Latin or any other translation she recognized. But it only took a moment for her to come up with a few simple translatory spells, waving her wand over the pages as she carefully leafed through them. About halfway into the tome there was a picture of a man; a mighty king from his depiction. He was dressed all in gold, with long flowing hair and beard to rival Dumbledore’s only it was pure red rather than snow white. His story appeared to be told in pictures rather than words. It was fascinating.

            From what she could discern he had been an ancient Egyptian Sorcerer. Ruling with cruelty and misery over his subject; well practiced in the dark arts. But he had been foretold his death, an attack by a vicious snake belonging to a far darker wizard than he. So the great sorcerer sought out a sage, the apothecarist as it were; to create a cure. But there was no such cure to be found. The best the wise sage could do was create a potion that would sustain the sorcerer through death. Hermione shuddered at the images as they moved slowly across the pages. The Sorcerer clad in his gold, taking the vial from the crumpled old sage, who looked to be a hunchbacked wizard of nearly 200 years. The vial was black with a skull and crossbones upon its label. The pictures shifted to the Sorcerer drinking the vial, his body covered in a bright glow.

            She slowly turned the page. The Sorcerer was once more in his mighty throne, only this time the picture of the dark wizard with the snake stood before him. And the image showed the snake lashing forward, attacking. The Sorcerer bled; the pages stained with splotches of red ink. Hermione closed her eyes, it was too similar to what she had witnessed in the shrieking shack. And she took a moment to allow her racing heart to settle.

            Again she turned the page and watched in horror as the Sorcerer’s picture changed. As each day passed on the pages, indicated by a new sun and moon symbol he grew worse. First he was weakened, depicted by the golden garments falling from his thinning frame, and then the next page bore his image eyeless, and the next his body crumbling to a pile of dust. There were notes scrawled in the margin of the page with the last picture. They were in Latin. It prevents blood from replenishing so that the asp’s poison does not replenish and kill the victim. Vision loss is eminent, cause yet unknown.

            Hermione frowned. There were several other stories that followed the one of the Egyptian Sorcerer but none that appeared to pertain to whatever it was that ailed Severus Snape. But she was certain he had said the tome contained two cases. She continued to flip through the pages until she spotted the old Sage from the story. He appeared toward the back of the tome, handing the poisoned vial once more to a man clad in gold. A different man; perhaps an African War Lord of some sort; he was donned in various animal hides and clay beads. But this picture was different. As the vial touched the African man, a spark blew across the page and the sage crumpled to the ground, bleeding. She watched as the picture shifted to show the African man kneeling and collecting the blood of the sage in the vial of the poisoned potion.

            She studied the next image carefully. As the African man consumed the vial he did not shrivel and return to dust as the Egyptian Sorcerer had done. With the blood of the sage mixed into the potion; he appeared to live normal; except for the disturbing images of the man ripping into the living flesh of lions, and giraffes, and a human. Hermione’s face paled and she felt her stomach turning in knots. The image was graphic; the man on his knees pleading before the African man; but he struck, his teeth tearing at the trembling man’s throat, again the blood spatter spilling on the page. She slammed the tome shut and shuddered.

            She found him in her room, leaning casually against the bedpost. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” she snapped.

            “What would be the fun in that?”

            “This is not fun, this is—” she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She would not let him get the better of her. “I wasted time reading and interpreting what you could have told me,” she sighed. “But nevermind that, you need the blood of the sage that created the cursed potion for you…”

            His chuckle was weak and raspy; a far cry from the rich baritone laugh he had graced her with at the hero’s ball, the first night they had tumbled between the sheets together. “Do you really think me so foolish as to not have done so already?” he sneered and turned his head away from her. “You needed to see it with your own eyes. Needed to see what this will do…the need for blood…” his voice trailed off.

            “Then we need to get you blood,” she said.

            “It is not so simple,” his voice was louder than before. He lunged forward, she couldn’t tell if he had stumbled or purposely moved toward her but in a moment he had her pinned against the wall. Had he been his former self he would have crushed her; and swooped at her with elegance and grace; but she found herself frightened nonetheless as his thinning pale frame rested against her chest. “It is dangerous for you…”

            Hermione did her best not to tremble. “You won’t hurt me,” she whimpered.

            “I may have no choice in the matter; the need to survive— the need for blood will consume…it will reduce me to nothing more than the barbarian you saw in the tome, Hermione.”

            “No,” she said her hands shaking as she raised them and placed them against his chest. “No, you’re— that’s animalistic— it’s what makes us— you are—” she shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. She could feel the blood rushing through her veins, pulsing hard against her temples, her heart racing. Her chest was tight; her fingers tingled; adrenaline coursed through her body. She drew in a shaky breath. “That is an animal’s response. To kill, to seek only its baser needs. You are not an animal. You can think, you can choose, that is what differentiates us from animals.”

            His words were an icy hiss. “This cure is a curse…it makes it hard to think when I need blood. It is a pain; a constant yearning and aching, crying out from within. It makes my steps unsteady, my breath agonizing to draw every moment I go without it…”

            She was trembling; her whole body shaking. And she whimpered, unable to help herself as she felt his tongue press against the side of her neck. “Please…” she muttered.

            “It takes every ounce of strength not to tear into you like a ravenous beast,” he hissed. His lips lingered against her skin, licking her neck once more before he pulled his head back from her. Severus grabbed her hand and pulled it from his chest, drawing her wrist against his mouth. “I can feel your blood racing…pulsing…”his lips moved against her skin and again he licked his tongue across her flesh, trailing it slowly over the pronounced veins of her wrist. “I need to feel it rushing…” he rasped. His teeth scraped against her flesh and she twisted her arm.

            “Stop it!” she cried and struggled but only for a moment before she freed her hand from his grasp. Her chest was heaving; tears springing forth from her eyes. “This is madness!” she cried and pushed hard against his chest. Severus stumbled back toward the bed.

            “Do not tempt me…” he hissed.

            “Severus, stop it!” she cried again. His figure was shaking; tremors shooting through his body as he reached forward as if to grab her hand again. But he stilled his motions and collapsed back against the mattress.

            “Go,” he muttered, his whole body trembling as he let his head fall slowly to the bed.

            She could feel tiny droplets of sweat running down her forehead. Hermione drew a great breath and then exhales, tears still streaking down her cheeks. “Don’t ever do that again,” she whimpered.

            “I can promise you nothing,” he closed his eyelids. “This is why you must leave. Take the information and leave.”

            “I cannot leave you here like—”

            “If you stay—” he shook his head slowly. “You must go.”

            “You— you need rest,” she said and stepped back from the bed. “Just rest,” she said and waved her hand in his direction before stalking from the room and closing the door behind her.

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Mission Impossible