Severus paced his room. His mind caught inside her whirlwind. He felt such distress inside his soul. He bared his teeth and growled low spinning on his heel. He took hold of the lone book on his bedside table and hurled it at the wall. It hit with such force that the binding completely tore away leaving its pages to flutter down slowly. He could feel his magic crackling at his finger tips, threatening to tear him asunder.

oOo

The sound of glass exploding from a frame raised both heads from downstairs and Minerva pursed her lips. Hermione let out a more choked sob as she felt him. Felt his anger, his hatred for himself. For everything that he was. It was so deeply ingrained that Hermione felt the pressure in her own chest. She could feel how trapped he felt, how caged in his own life he was. The desperate thirst for freedom. For redemption. It wound itself around her soul as she struggled to breathe.

His power was suffocating. The thread between them glowed brightly in her inner eye as it grew taunt threatening to tear. She felt her body shake with another deep sob, unable to keep herself up right, she leaned over her legs, her arms curling tightly around her stomach. Her heart hurt, it hurt so much. She felt Minerva move next to her.

She could sense her hesitation as the elder woman's hands gingerly wrapped around her shoulders. She said nothing as she very carefully pulled her sideways into her lap. She didn't resist the offer of comfort, letting out another heart-wrenching noise and hid her face into the woman's lap; her tears falling like rain against the aged linen. She could feel her soul weakening, crackling like ice under the sun as it bent to the pressure in her chest.

Minerva's own heart ached as she watched the girl unravel in her lap. She gently ran her fingers through her disheveled hair letting her cry herself out. She could hear the man upstairs having had gone still as well. She sighed softly. What was she to do with either of them?

oOo

Severus felt marginally better as he stared at his destroyed window. He let out a cleansing, shuddering breath slowly turning his eyes away. The voices that condemned him grew loud in his mind and he narrowed his eyes as he tried to force them back. He felt so exhausted, not just physically but emotionally as well. What was the girl doing to him? Why did he feel like a teenager again? Suddenly unable to control even an ounce of his emotions. Was it her he was feeling in those moments? Was it she who pushed him near the edge?

oOo

Minerva had moved her soft fingers to gently brush Hermione's eyes closed. She was still trembling against her as the energy left her. The elder witch took her own calming breath keeping her close to her, her other hand having moved to gently cradle her head while her fingers worked their magic.

"I'm going to tell you something that too few in this world have come to know..." Minerva's voice was gentle and soft as she continued, gently encouraging the girl to relax into her embrace. "That man...upstairs...Has lost every person who had come to care for him...the way you are trying to care for him..." Hermione's brows furrowed with sorrow as another tear rolled down over her cheek.

"He doesn't know...that those people chose to die for him...because they loved him so much..." Minerva felt a tear coming to her own eyes, "Everyone whom he has ever let in...has fallen before his eyes...or at his own hand..." She took a slow breath, "He has been forced to watch over and over, trapped in responsibility that never should have fallen to him...as one after the other having had left him behind..." The tear rolled down her cheek as she closed her eyes, "He has been left to suffer, to carry on...all on his own, too many times..." She licked her lips slowly leaving a small cleansing silence for her words to take hold of the girl in her lap.

"He needs you..." She whispered even softer now. She knew it deep in her soul that the two of them, so enduring, so independent in their own rights, were the cure for the other's ailment. "You must promise..." She said pulling her fingers back from the girl's face, watching as Hermione's eyes lazily opened, turning to look into the elder's face with such reverence for every word. "Promise, you will never leave him behind..." Minerva knew it was so much to ask of her. The girl was barely into her own and she was asking her to accept something that should never have been asked of her.

"I promise..." Hermione's voice was strong, unhesitating, as she took in a breath; her face set with a determination. Not with a sense of duty-no, it was something deeper. She had come to care for him, just as Minerva had expected. Though she knew nothing of the man's past, she had come to understand the man more deeply than any other who had come before her.

"I promise..." She sniffled just a bit as she took a shuddering breath. Her heart felt lighter somehow. Like her words had reached something beyond herself. That they were calling out to the universe in some way. That somewhere far off beyond her understanding someone or something had heard her and was smiling down at her proclamation.

Minerva resumed her gentle touch, watching the girl's eyes slowly flutter closed once more, while she dipped into her own thoughts. The elder knew she had tried to go to him many times through out the years, she had seen more than most, the pain inside him. Even now, she felt him resist her; that he couldn't possibly understand her motherly instincts or the way she tried to care for him.

Their trust had long since been broken on that night. She had failed him so many times, there was no true place for her in his heart. There could never have been. Still so, she had tried, it was her wont to do so, just as she laid her hands gently upon Hermione now, she had wished to bring comfort to the man who was so lost inside himself. Though she knew, she knew-she could never come to him. Not the way he could come to Hermione.

Still, even now, she couldn't get past the resentment she had held for him in those dark times. Even though her respect for him had never wavered, she had still fallen prey to her own insecurities and pushed against something that would always stand between them. She trusted him unquestionably, more than she ever had, but the damage of the past couldn't be so easily erased.

Hermione let the hypnotic touch take her away. Her mind languidly winding down like water draining down a mountain side after a warm summer rain. She wanted to go to him, even now. She tried to see him, as she had in her mind that very first time, standing so strong, so impassable. She could feel his armor under her fingers then. The way he'd kept himself postured, his quick but precise movements. She wanted to unravel him, make him bend. For him to lean upon her for comfort. It was her last conscious wish as she felt herself fall into the darkness of sleep.

oOo

Severus had found his way to his bed, laying on top of the covers, the cool evening air blowing in on his heated skin, rustling his dark hair lightly over his face. It was soothing, the cold, as it danced over the lines of his ascetic face. He laid on his back, arms tightly down to his sides. His eyes felt heavy as he glared into the ceiling.

The voices inside him had quieted to a dull rumble as he meticulously moved about securing the binds on the doors. She hadn't been wrong when she had said they were locked, but even he was only so strong for so long. His last thoughts as he allowed his eyes to close, were not of the brutal slap to his pride, but rather the gentle touch over his heart when she rose against him.

oOo

Minerva gently adjusted Hermione onto the lounge, lowering the back just a bit to give her a more natural slumber. She had noticed an old teddy bear that had fallen from the bag and gently wrapped the girl's arms around it. She knew it would be a suitable, if underwhelming, substitute for what the girl truly wanted, though it was only for the time being. She sighed heavily waving her wand over the mess summoning it to return neatly inside the bag. It had certainly been a most eventful evening.

Hermione curled in tighter around the bear, it's scent not her own as it entered her subconscious filling her mind with dream-scape images.

Rows of shelves lined the path before her. Trembling, threatening to fall. She had nowhere but ahead of her to go. She could feel the pressure of darkness behind her. Smiling as it waited. Waited for her soul to finally succumb. She could see a thin thread reaching out across the void in front of her. She felt herself standing directly center of it. The line reached forward into the unknown ahead of her, pulsing with her heart beat.

"Hermione this way!"

Her head whipped around. The voice was much younger than she had expected though heavily familiar.

"'Mione! Hurry up! It's coming!"

That voice was new and old as well, a faded memory it was distorted like an over played cassette tape. Hermione turned slowly looking just behind. It was there like it always was, but it was waiting for something, she could tell. But what?

She turned away from the voices, searching for something, anything to tell her who she was.

"No wonder she hasn't got any friends...She's a nightmare honestly..."

"It feels like this..."

She turned again, her face pinched as she felt years old hurt well to the surface. Still, she needed more. She looked between the shuddering walls of shelves to the darkness on either end. She didn't know which way lead to her salvation.

"Miss Granger, are you incapable of restraining yourself, or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?"

Her heart skipped, she definitely recognized that voice, though it was odd like it was simply pulled out from another place, not really speaking directly to her. She actually chortled at the statement.

The shelves started to sway around her. The ominous feeling returning as she backed herself up. She had heard the voices ahead of her before she had turned and knew that was where she needed to go. She felt that familiar pressure of fear rising from her toes. Swelling as it rolled up her legs and to her back. A cold familiar terror sweeping through her entire form.

She ran.

The shelves she left behind crashed violently to the ground behind her assaulting her senses. The snarl and growl of the force pushing them to the ground followed quickly behind, closing the gap between them. She followed the pulsing light of thread, her own heart pounding through her frame. A searing heat to her front a frigid cold at her back.

She consciously felt herself leaving her own space, it was an odd sort of underwater like feeling as she pushed herself to the border. She chanced a glance behind, finding that her rows and rows of shelves had collapsed behind her, blocking her return. She panted heavily as she looked forward. She could feel him...just there, just beyond the boundary. She took heavy breaths as she reached out. She could see the thread, but nothing else, just darkness. Her fingers wrapped around the thin pulsing line and she could feel him suddenly, through her entire frame as their connection flared.

An all encompassing darkness fell around her. Her frame shuddered as she made her choice. Taking a breath, she pushed off again closing her eyes, she felt a sensation wash over her as she stepped through. Her body trembled with the effort bringing her to her knees just to the other side. She held her hand to her aching heart, the silence that had accompanied her suddenly burst.

Extremely disorienting sound bombarded her from all sides and she couldn't help but cry out holding her hands to her head as she arched back. She chanced her eyes, opening them slowly as she used her hands to muffle the sounds. The doors, his doors, all around her shuddered violently in their frames, voices of the memories held within crying out. Suddenly, she realized, she wasn't dreaming anymore.

Too many voices, too many sounds, they had felt deafening upon her arrival but as she oriented herself she could feel them lower to a dull murmur. Hermione panted heavily as she carefully pushed herself up to her feet. Her hands unclasping from around her ears. She could feel his agony, pressing against her fractured heart and took a wary step looking through the circled layers.

They felt like they had moved in too close. Too tightly. She gasped slightly as they started to spin, the sudden movement startled her, knocking her from her footing, her shoulder landed heavily against an old wooden frame. She had just enough time to register the door falling open from her collision before she felt herself being sucked inside.

The memory flooded around her, falling in like a massive wave. She found herself standing in an old kitchen that appeared to be Muggle. There were dirty dishes in the sink and food wrappers from what appeared to be from a fast food place littering the table.

She swallowed thickly as she looked behind her, there was a sort of faded blackness behind her like the memory wasn't complete. She chewed her lip as she looked around. Snape must have been in the memory for it to exist but she didn't seem to be able to locate him. The loud slam of a door caused her to jump and turn. A large scraggly man appeared through a side door muttering heavily to himself.

"Where are you, you useless bag of shite!?" His voice was coarse and heavy carrying a similar tone to the one that her Professor currently possessed. Though this man's was filled with a darker edge. The man turned around in the small kitchen looking into what she presumed to be a pantry before a small whimper graced them both.

"Ha!" The man spun on his heel ripping open the cabinet beneath the sink. "Gotcha!"

Hermione couldn't exactly see from her position but the man instilled a fear in her that prompted her feet to remain where they were. The sounds of a small child whimpering,
caught her heart as the man pulled a small boy, no more than 6 years old by his forearm from the cabinet.

"Where is it, boy!?" He growled holding the child by his forearm, his feet helplessly dangling for purchase. His dark hair was long, running past his shoulders as he shook his head.

"I don't know!" Cried the boy, "I swear I don't know!" His presumed father gave him a rather sharp shake and Hermione flinched as she heard distinct the snapping of a dislocated shoulder. The boy in his grasp cried out trying to claw the man's hand.

"Stop it..." Her voice was small against the memory, like a faint whisper drown out in strong winds. Tears were starting to fall from her eyes as the man dropped the child down, giving him a kick hard enough to send the boy sliding across the floor into the opposite wall.

"Stop it!" She cried out harder moving forward. "Leave him alone!" She cried, trying to grab onto the man as he leaned over the child. Her hands, however, fell straight through turning the man to smoke in her grasp. She'd disrupted the memory and it started to swirl, taking her back out.

As the memory finished she found herself landing heavily on her hands and knees, back inside his central space. Her entire being tremored as she tried to process just exactly what had happened.

Her heart raced furiously in her chest and she could feel the warmth of tears on her cheeks. Had she...just seen his past? Her head slowly rose as she half expected to find the man himself staring down at her. Her eyes widened just a bit as she found herself simply fallen exactly where she had been, before the doors started to move once more.

Trepidation filled her soul as she carefully pushed herself up, her eyes searching for him between the turning frames. The space between the doors was barely enough for her to squeeze through and even harder to see through as they moved.

She tried to be more cautious keeping her body from touching the frames, her eyes searching all the while. The row to her left started to spin and she felt herself stop before quickly thinking to remove herself from between the two doors at her right.

She stepped out just in time for the doors she had been between started moving. Its path was slower, she could easily make out the doors as they passed her. They were all different colors, shapes, and in different stages of decay. Too fearful to move when they moved she swallowed thickly unconsciously leaning back.

Suddenly, she felt something hard pressing into her. She had just enough time to register that it was another door, a door that had moved from its circle to deliberately block her path, as she felt herself fall inside the memory it held within.

When the feeling settled she opened her eyes. She could hear shouting followed by the sound of something hitting the floor. She turned slowly to find Severus sitting, his legs curled to his chest. He looked to be about 10 years old. He was rocking just barely back and forth as he listened to the screams downstairs. His face pinched as if he was holding himself back from crying. He looked so alone, so small, against the cold world around him.

She wanted to reach out to him, hold him but she knew if she tried the memory would end as the other had. She couldn't interfere lest she disrupt the memory and as much as she wanted to see him, in her time, she also felt a desire to know more about how the man who had taken her into his care had come into being.

Her head turned as the sound of a door slamming shook the house. She turned as the boy in the corner sniffled, wiping his eyes vigorously taking on a deep hallowed appearance as all emotion left them before he pushed himself up. He carefully moved to the door of what she presumed to be his room. It was barely furnished, an old mattress on the floor surrounded by mountains of textbooks, not a toy to be seen. Just notebooks and old half used pencils. He didn't even seem to have a desk, though it was hard to tell as part of the room faded out as the boy had moved through the door.

She moved after him, following him down the stairs. He paused at the landing puffing up his chest and trying to stand tall as he looked around cautiously.

"Mother?" His voice sounded so small to her ears. "Is he gone?"

"Yes." The voice sounded hard, just like his present self but there was something laced inside it. Something oddly comforting. "Come here."

The boy left the landing and she hurried to follow as the memory faded out from behind her. When she turned she couldn't help but smile. His mother wasn't beautiful by any standards, but she had an air around her that vibrated strength. She guided him by the back of his head as she led him to sit on an old threadbare sofa. The boy climbed up as she sat down. She didn't cuddle or coddle him but simply ran her hand through the back of his long black hair.

"I didn't mean to do it..." The boy said apologetically as he played with a loose thread on his shorts, "It just happened, I know you said to be careful with my magic, but sometimes it just comes out and I can't help it."

"I have no use for your apologies." Her voice was terse but the hand on his hair never paused in its gentle path. "You will know what to do next time." It wasn't a boost of confidence but rather a statement of fact laced with a heavy warning.

"Yes..." The boy didn't seek out his mother's comfort, nor did she offer it to him. They simply sat on the couch in silence as the memory started to swirl back into the door.

Hermione panted softly as she came back to the central room, on her feet this time. So many things were filtering through her own mind, she could feel them, wafting just under the surface. Her own mother and father, their presence inside her mind was fleeting and gone just as quick. She felt an odd sort of discomfort in her chest as they simply vanished from her inner mind.

She blinked slowly and turned her head to look toward where she believed the center of his space to be, taking into account the angle of the doors as a sign and started forward again.

Hermione rounded another row of slowly moving doors before she spotted him. Her heart jumped into her throat. He was on his knees, his head bowed down into his hands with his back to her. She tried to call out to him, though her voice made no sound in his space; his broken posture pushed something deep inside her to the surface.

The space around her started to warp, the more she'd push forward the farther he appeared to be. She tried to call out but her voice still left no sound. She pushed herself through a particularly tight space just as the doors started to move again.

She felt dizzy, watching them increase in speed. She felt trapped as they moved dangerously quick, their exteriors blurring into a solid form around her. She felt scared in that moment. Turning desperately to find a way out.

"Don't leave me..."

It was the voice of a child, Hermione inhaled sharply. The doors that circled her started to speak outside of their frames; though one voice, a child's voice, was the clearest of them all.

" Please, I promise to be good..."

Hermione trembled from the pure desperation of emotion. A child so innocent, so desperately alone. It pulled at the very core of her being.

"I won't..." She whispered, her own emotions growing still as a purposefulness ebbed and flowed into her. As the words finally passed her lips into the world around her the doors that were spinning shuddered to a halt.

She turned conscientiously just before a bolt of lightning struck through her entire being, a deep overwhelming sadness bringing her to her knees. A gasp left her holding her heart.

"Please..." The child's voice cried out as it wafted slowly away from her, hiding itself back into the recesses of the many doors around her. Though she had lifted her head to the voice she couldn't locate its source.

Solicitously, she pulled her hand from her heart looking down at it as it tingled from the residual power held within. Her eyes looked forward through the layers. He was gone. Her heart quickened. No! She pushed herself up in haste seeking out his form.

As she pushed through closer to the center, she felt him again. Though this time he was much closer. The reality of his location stilled her instantly.

"What are you doing here?" His aged voice was rough but it didn't hold anger in its tone, in fact, he sounded perplexed.

Hermione turned carefully, her shoulder nearly brushing his chest. "I..." She swallowed thickly watching his face turn from confusion to embarrassment then finally anger.

" Get. Out." His face didn't match his tone. Hermione lingered on the difference. She could tell, he didn't truly want her to leave. That he was scared and ashamed.

Her face softened in understanding and she didn't pull away. She felt him push against her but she pushed back. She wasn't leaving. Not until he knew.

"I won't." Her voice was strong as she stood her ground. "I won't leave you..."

His brow furrowed slipping between anger and confusion his hands coming up to hold her biceps.

"I'm not afraid of you..." Her voice was soft laced with something the man didn't understand. It made him frustrated. His hands tightened, he felt her hands come up to hold his own. He didn't resist as much as he thought he should as she forced her fingers off her arms lacing their fingers together instead. He felt extremely uncomfortable in that moment and pushed against her stronger this time.

Hermione tightened her hold making a soft noise from the effort as she tried to keep herself with him. It was hard, he was strong, but she could tell, his mind was weakened. He was tired.

"Let me stay... please..." She leaned her head back searching his face. The exhaustion she had expected showed so clearly on him now. He couldn't hold up his shields, he couldn't keep her out. The hands kept in hers lost their strength as he finally and unwillingly succumbed to his fatigue. She jolted slightly as he started to lower down. She moved with him, her hands leaving his to slow his fall before they wrapped around his head cradling him protectively. She stayed on her knees, his head taking up her tiny frame as she pressed it over her heart. She felt him finally just let go, the doors around them slowly faded away leaving them in an empty dark blue space.