Severus had released Draco after an hour passed. The boy having had taken his job seriously during that time. He had hesitated at first pausing often. Severus had watched him carefully in between his indexing making sure that he wasn't inadvertently causing more harm than good.

He would be lying if he didn't find some satisfaction in the boy's awkwardness. As it was, he was just glad the job was done. As Draco excused himself claiming the need to get home to his wife and child Severus said nothing. He simply waved a dismissive hand to him and turned a page in his book.

Thus far he had managed to find four likely candidates. Having had dismissed any creature that didn't fit his current profile. Strong, able to take the sight, trap the mind and above all, dark. Soul eaters were at the top of his list. The simple fact that Hermione wasn't seeing the image he was projecting laid evidence that outside influence was some how distorted and thus warping her current perceptions. He had hoped that with the dark magic he'd pulled out there would have been a change, a bigger change. Though as he thought back on it. The energy he had pulled out felt very familiar. Too, familiar.

He had realized rather late, that all he'd done that night was remove the dark magic Bellatrix had placed to keep her wounds fresh and raw. That woman, was more than twisted at the best of times but he knew what she was like when she went into one of her raves. A darkness had built inside of that crazy witch her entire life. He seriously doubted if she even had a soul left by the time of her demise. Just thinking back on her now made even he shudder with the idea of being remotely close to her. Even if it was just residual magic of someone long dead.

Dead. Death. Severus sat up, Hermione had been cursed into being in a perpetual state of death. Of all the memories that she had, whatever it was that had cursed her had chosen the memory that held the most death. The most pain. He turned to his list frowning deeply. He crumpled it up and tossed it into the dead fireplace to burn later. He pulled a fresh piece of paper out and turned to the back index again. His mind on a new track with renewed vigor.

oOo

Night was coming into full force now and his eyes were rather tired. Hermione was laying comfortably on her stomach, the stones a dim murky white. The rise and fall of her back hypnotic if not cathartic in its own rights. Though something was niggling at the back of his mind. Something he knew to be dreadfully important. He sat the book aside, open at his current find and leaned forward just a bit as he tried to find the missing information. He watched her face closely.

He noted that her eyes no longer looked sunken in and her cheeks didn't look so gaunt. She was, in his opinion, starting to resemble more as she saw herself in her own mind. She was still thin by all standards; but now she at least looked as if she'd have the strength to open a book it not read it. Though his eyes had warily approved of her current health, he also knew her face held the answers. He turned his attention back towards her eyes. The memory of those white, sightless eyes washing down his spine. His lips pursed as the clock in the kitchen ticked by the seconds.

Moving. They weren't moving. He turned quickly in his chair pulling an old pocket watch from the side table clicking it open. He calculated quickly since the last time she had had an attack. 12 hours. it had been over 12 hours. He calculated the time they had slept as well. He'd woken late, far later than his usual time. His guests had stayed no more than 2 hours in total that day. Maybe 30 minutes in the late morning and no more than an hour and half in early evening. He had had the entire afternoon to himself. She had not once interrupted his brewing with so much as a whimper.

He turned from his chair, quickly moving to the kitchen where Minerva had left her medical file. He hastily flipped to the last few observations. His eyes scanning expeditiously, 4 hours, 5 hours, the most she'd ever been dormant was 6 hours. The healer noted that the attack that had followed left her more severely injured than any other. He compared it to the first time she had been admitted. His blood ran cold.

He tossed the file haphazardly onto the counter as he rushed into the sitting room. Without so much as a pause he went to the mantle pulling his wand from it's confines, the roaring rush of magic that surged through him was paid little attention as he fell to his knees beside her running a diagnostic charm.

He watched with pale face and narrowed eyes as the numbers and sigils floated into place. His brows furrowed as they started to settle. Her heart rate was very low, her temperature nominal, breathing slow and shallow, he swished his wand over her head to get a reading on her brain waves. The charm blinked in and out for a few breath taking moments before finally settling. It showed a life sign, it was weak, weaker than he would have thought possible and still be able to breathe. It pulsed slowly indicating that it was steady if not low. He felt his heart thump loudly in his ears. Was this it? Was this how she was to die? Right here on the lounge in his sitting room?

He swallowed thickly and banished the charms, missing the small crackle in the air overhead before slowly setting down his wand. Gently, he cupped her face into his hands. He thumbed her brow softly before touching the stones. His walls crashed down like a tsunami had crashed into them and surged into her mind as if the devil himself were chasing him.

The void was quiet and pulsing; thrumming with something unseen. It felt like a ticking clock whose coil was slowly winding down. He turned and turned inside, searching desperately. He felt cold. His entire being felt cold.

A new fear washed through him, a cold terror, a terror he'd felt only one other time in his life. As that feeling slowly reached his toes he suddenly felt a tiny spark. It was like a blazing inferno inside of a blizzard. He wasted no time reaching out for it. Unlike before the flicker didn't move, didn't dart about or tease him. He wrapped himself tightly around it closing his inner eye tightly as the void around him shift into place. Silence greeted him and he slowly opened his mind once more.

He stood where he always appeared, at the back of the chair a few paces away. The room around him was dark, the shadows on the shelves obscuring all but the bottom shelf on the first rows. The space he stood in was circular in shape, claustrophobic in its design. The darkness that pressed in on all sides felt suffocating. He hesitantly moved toward the chair. When he took that final step that landed him just at the back, trepidation filled his being as he rounded it's arm. He felt himself freeze in place as he stared down at it's empty confines.

She wasn't there. His inner eye turned away, his heart aching in his chest. Where could she be if not there? He had always found her there. It was the only place available to be. The candle on the side table was dreadfully low. How had he not paid it any mind before? He couldn't even recall it's previous height only that it had provided enough illumination to light the rows and rows of shelves. He turned trying to see the fireplace, he knew should have been just meters from the chair. It too was shadowed heavily. He was just able to make out the faint outline of the hearth. It appeared to have been extinguished for quite some time. Not so much as an ash lay inside it's stone cavern.

He felt a panic inside his chest, welling to the surface. This wasn't his space, what control did he have over it? Where could he even go if not to tread dangerously in the shadows. Would his feet even fall onto a surface? He felt himself rooted to the spot just before the chair. Unable to bring himself to brave the darkness that was creeping in. The candle gave a dangerous flicker as he shift his gaze back around.

Then, ever so faintly far off in the enveloping darkness, he felt it. He felt her. He turned sharply, faced only with the darkness and the unknown. Would they both be lost if he dared? Would he even be able to return to himself? He weighed his fears with his courage and in that moment he decided. If he were to die. He would die with the knowledge that he had truly done all he could. That he had, for the first time in his life truly and selflessly acted for someone else. With that knowledge in mind; he stepped towards the darkness half expecting it to swallow him whole.

The first step was the hardest. His inner eye trained where he envisioned his feet to be. He could see his own body as he projected his image clearly. His boot made no sound but curiously the darkness had not swallowed it. No, there was a soft illumination around its edges. A small haze around it, rippling and rolling as if the darkness was trying but failing to obscure the intrusion. He lifted his eyes back up.

He could see just In front of him. Nothing stood in his way. He took another slow step. The light seemed to be coming from under him someway. He couldn't have explained it to another if he tried. A third step, then another, each slow and calculated. He could feel the presence of something next to him and slowly reached out a hand. He jolted ever just so as he felt the cool lacquered wood of a shelf. He must have instinctually found a pathway between the voluminous rows. A few more steps, his hand slid from the shelf. He could feel her stronger with each step. It drove him forward.

Another step, and another. His focused waned for a moment as the strength of his concentration was wearing him thin. His focus turned slightly and his foot fell through nothingness. It was like a bucket of ice water had fallen on his head and he reared back, snapping himself back into prime condition. He carefully placed his foot down, relieved to find a solid floor once more.

He turned slowly and carefully as the path started to arch. He could feel her pulse now, thumping softly in the darkness. He was about to call out when something flew past just in front of him. It was white skinned and hunched, skeletal but corporal. It was too fast for him to see clearly. It had jumped from what he supposed was the top of a shelf and disappeared off to the left swallowed up by the void. A feeling washed over him with delay. Like a rising tide, he felt swept under its power.

It felt of pure evil. A darkness that was beyond measure. Something even Voldemort would appear a saint next to. His mind tried to hold onto the image even as he trembled with fear. Something he hadn't done since he was a child. His mind started to turn away again filled with a kaleidoscope of emotions. It was hard, every instinct and feeling of self-preservation was calling to him, begging him to return to himself.

He wavered, it would have been so easy. He knew, he knew, it would be easy just to retreat. The darkness around him seemed to agree, it's swirling mist like structure molding around him more tightly. Coward. It whispered to him.

The voice that spoke to him, did not belong to Hermione. In fact it couldn't have belonged to any one she knew. No, that voice was all his own. A deep seated memory pressing through in the absence. Severus pressed his nails tightly into his palms. Coward. The voice was stronger now and it felt straight behind him. He didn't need to turn to recognize it's owner. He only wondered how it had gotten in. He pulled all the hurt the word produced, all the anger, all the shame and pushed himself forward again. The darkness appeared to melt away in waves with his newly found purpose. Severus took the sign and pressed on more quickly. Taking the path to where he knew she must be and left his own demons behind.

As the last of the black mist pulled away Severus saw a large, ancient looking door, to him it brought to mind the large illustrious doors of the great hall, his eyes having turned up to measure its greatness before sweeping back down. There! Severus' heart lurched. Hermione laid crumpled on her side, her hands splayed out in front of her, legs bent and fallen over the other. Her hair was spread out, no longer tied back. Severus moved closer, his mind turning to look for an attacker. Instantly thinking back to that, thing he had seen before. The void prevented him from truly seeing anything and so despite the trap like feeling, he moved closer.

"Miss Granger...?" His inner voice was soft and gentle, timid to the point one may have thought it to be trembling.

She did not stir. Severus took another step out of the protection of the shelves. Everything in his mind screamed at the danger but he pressed on. "Miss Granger...?" Stronger now as he came closer. His eyes properly taking in her form. She was dressed as she had been. No visible injuries. Could one even be injured so visibly inside their mind? He pushed the thought aside. After all, this was entirely new territory even for an experienced legilimens like himself. He knelt down beside her-mindful not to touch her, something she seemed very adamant about during there last encounter, and called out again.

"Miss Granger...?" He paused trying to think of something jolting to say. What could he remember? All he could recall was that hand waving so eagerly in his class for so many years. "Miss Granger, this potion is unacceptable, you'll have detention tonight.'' He wondered if that part of her, the part so eager to excel, even existed anymore, she did appear to keep her swotty personality when they first spoke. Perhaps what shapes us lies deeper than memories that surround us.

Nothing.

Severus tried again, "Miss Granger, you and your little friends have done quite enough damage this year, I should think a year's worth of detention should sort out your attitudes."

Still nothing. Severus pulled back just a bit, sadness swirling through him. Had she really left him? Was he really all alone inside an empty mind? He didn't want to believe it, not because he couldn't-no he understood very well but because he wanted to believe she was so much stronger than this. Though he would have to admit to himself, that it had been five years. Five years of being trapped inside a darkness you couldn't escape. He knew the pain, he had lived with it for more than 25 years. He suspected that perhaps, she was just as broken as he was.

"No..." Her face ticked slightly as she spoke, though her lips didn't move, her eyes did. They started to flutter open.

Severus felt a jolt of fear as she startled the space in and around him. Hermione slowly lifted her hand to push some hair from her face before letting out a soft groan and attempted to push herself up onto her elbow. It was slow work as she managed to lift herself up just enough to slowly turn those soft deep honey brown eyes towards him.

"Cracked, never broken..." She stared right into the heart of his soul as she spoke. Without a doubt he knew she wasn't referring to herself. No, she was referring to him. Incredulous.

He stared down at her, oh how he wanted to laugh at her, dismiss her, to call upon her lies. How had this whisp of a girl, broken through all his years of protective layers, of pain and torment with a single muttered sentence?

"I see you..." She whispered staying on her side to tired to move closer, "I see you now..." Her brow furrowed with concentration, "Professor...Snape..." She stilled, watching as the cracked soul, started to shift and meld before her. She saw his dark hair, and equally dark clothing start to fold into place. The red fissures from before, fragmented his image. However, she could see the visage he was projecting clearly now. Like a small thread of fate being wound between them. He looked so defeated, yet filled with strength she knew him to possess. A strength she had suspected exist well before that night.

They sat in each others presence just watching the other. Hermione's soft eyes moving over his features, so different from the last image in her mind. The sight of blood pouring down his neck, Harry's hand coated with the substance as he spoke his very last words to them. Words, so vexing and complex in their own right. She had wanted to see what he had given Harry so desperately. But she knew, she knew it wasn't the time. Now, she could see the pain so clearly on his soul.

What had created those cracks and left him so disjointed? The burning desire coupled itself with respect for the man before her. She could easily feel all the conflicting emotions running through him and she couldn't help but give him a gentle, nonjudgmental smile. She instantly felt him pull away from her, his walls of protection wrapping themselves tightly around him, her smile faltered.

He felt her thoughts washing over him, waiting for her to finally push him from her mind. He waited, for the disgust, the hatred, the years of pent up rage against his mistreatment of her and her friends. It never came.

"Miss Granger, why have you come here?" It felt stupid to say and even more stupid to hear out loud in their shared connection. He leaned back on the heals of his boots watching as she pushed herself into a seated position, a hand absently pushing her hair over her shoulders. She simply looked as if she had woken from a deep sleep, but the slump in her shoulders betrayed her wariness. She smiled ever just so, a small tick a the corner of her lips. Her focus moved behind him, to the large formidable door.

"I wanted to see you." She admitted. "I thought...perhaps you had come from there..." She motioned slightly to the door.

Severus looked behind him, furrowing his brow just bit. It felt like an occlumency wall to him. A large strong force to keep someone from passing through into the information that laid beyond. He turned his head back towards her, "What would make you assume that?" His tone, was gentle if not a little edged.

She shrugged one shoulder half committedly, "I just...I can feel it..." Her tone was deep in concentration, "Can't you feel it?" She put her hand over her heart.

He turned back to the door giving it an second examination. He could in fact feel something. Of what he wasn't so sure, he glanced back at her when he pushed himself back to his feet. He greatly wondered what would happen if he touched it. Then quickly reeled back remembering the state he'd found Hermione in upon his arrival. He had to be sure. He had come too far to fail now.

"Did you attempt to open this door?" He asked standing before it, his hand hovering over its ornate design, trying to pull any information he could from its construction. He'd seen numerous attempts at doors like this. Doors designed to keep the mind locked away, to keep secret information hidden. He had always so easily passed through them, his mind holding a master key of sorts.

"I did." She admitted, shakily getting to her feet. She was tired, more than she usually was and it showed as she swayed. "It wouldn't budge..." She came to stand next to him, "I don't understand though, this is my mind...right? " She watched his nodded confirmation, "It should all bend to my will..." She placed her hand on the door feeling its pulse beneath her finger tips.

Severus half expected the door to do something violent and unexpected, as most occlumancy walls had some sort of defense mechanism. Though he'd have to concede her point; after all, this door-this wall, was her own creation. By rights, she should have held the key for entrance.

"You did not create this door?" He hummed watching her hand move over the woodwork, secretly relieved that it wasn't what incapacitated her in the first place.

"Not knowingly." She said with a dismissive voice turning her hand down to the knob.

A feeling started to wash towards him, a feeling akin to that one would feel if they were walking along a deserted dimly lit street in the dead of night. That feeling you get when you know there something there behind you and even though you look you see nothing. That creeping feeling that grows with every more hurried step. That stiffness in your neck that prevents you from turning to look just one more time. Knowing, feeling it behind you. The pressure it puts on your chest, the coldness that sweeps through your body as you will yourself to look, just look. You know it's there. You feel its presence. Its eyes watching you, its steps mirroring yours and masking its own.

"It's here..." Hermione's voice sounded far away, breathless and afraid. She didn't move a single muscle, her hand still lightly resting on the handle. She looked sideways up into his face and knew, he felt it too. Her bottom lip quivered as she swallowed down her fear. Run. They needed to run. The thought was there but the voice to push out the command had failed her.

Severus needed to choose and quickly. Did he risk running back into the darkness and losing Hermione again to it's folds. Or risk opening the door that lay in front of them. The feeling was starting to swell against them both. There was no time to weigh the pros and cons of both.

A bright light, formed behind them shadowing them against the door. The same curse, he'd saw strike her in her memory. The same powerful darkness that had nearly torn her in two. How could this magic exist inside one's mind?

He looked at her, a tear running slowly down her cheek dripping onto the floor. The magic behind them swelled and he made his choice. It was only seconds, but it felt like hours. He moved his body around her own as the magic surged forth. His chest pressed her back forcing her into the frame of the door as he took the hit. A deep scream of pure agony coming form his lips as his hand found the handle over hers. With one last push he released the door.

It swung open to a brilliantly filled light brighter than anything he had ever seen. He felt himself being pulled from her mind like a recoiling rubber band. The scream still passing his lips as he returned to himself.