Hermione's finger lingered over the page unable to speak the creatures name. She hissed sharply and rubbed at her eyes. The sharp burning sensation tingled across them even stronger now. Was it the magic the creature used to keep its identity a secret? Hermione suspected as much as she turned away from the text unable to even face it.

"Hermione?"

"Miss Granger?"

Snape and Harry spoke simultaneously both briefly glancing toward the other. Severus' voice was very soft sounding keeping his usual edge from having its effect.

Hermione shook her head to both of them palming her eyes more furiously. "I'm fine " She urged forcing her hands away.

She blinked a few times trying to clear the fog in her vision. Everything was getting darker and her throat felt even tighter. She could feel the creature inside, weakened-but still there, pushing against her mind, trying to draw her back inside. She felt someone take her wrists when she raised them back to her eyes but she resisted with a sharp hiss. It felt like glass was scratching her eyes, but she found she couldn't stop herself from pressing on them.

"Stop." Severus' command was like footsteps on a gravel road and he gritted his teeth noticing the girl was threatening to physically blind herself if she didn't stop. He pulled even more, his strength vastly over hers. After he managed to pull her wrists back, he took them in one hand the other going to her face to inspect for damage.

She tried to turn her head from his hand but found her neck extremely stiff with the pressure that threatened her breath. She let out a soft strangled noise as he forced open one of her eyes. She watched his face fade away back under the heavy cloud and couldn't help the soft desperate noise that passed her lips when he disappeared from her again. She pulled against the hand that held her wrists, her face tight with fear.

Severus held fast as he watched her eye cloud back over, a pain shooting into his chest at the noise of desperation she released. He was about to release her eyelid when he saw it; just there, in the center of her eye, the creature's deformed face smiling at him. It was there for only an instant taunting him before her body abruptly went slack in his hold. Her face instantly relaxing, her head falling backward out of his grip. The arms he held grew taunt as they bared her collapsed weight. He went still, his brain playing catch up on what he'd just witnessed.

"Hermione?" Harry's voice was a soft whine filled with worry and he leaned forward in his chair but was only able to see that her head had fallen back.

Severus lowered his eyes, his internal thoughts going into over drive, he gingerly lifted her head in his hand. His palm resting against her pulse point and he took notice that it had become almost life threateningly slow. He swallowed thickly laying her with care against the backrest of the lounge placing her arms into her lap before pulling away. He paused for a moment before addressing the other two in the room.

"She's gone." He turned his head sharply away from her, a deep anger pushing him to his feet. His thoughts led him so many places at once, though his emotions clouded his logical thinking. He felt peeved that the monster inside of her had taken control again. He wondered just how much control the creature truly possessed.

She had spent considerable amounts of time seemingly unheeded by its presence but now, now it seemed like everything was kicking into overdrive. His eyes flicked with his hypotheses trying to recall everything relevant to the forefront of his mind.

Harry rose his eyes wide with terror, "What do you mean?" He half yelled standing in the man's path.

When he didn't immediately answer Harry raised his hands pushing on Snape's chest halting his distracted steps, "What do you mean!?" He shouted louder his chest heaving. "She was right there! Talking to us and now she's gone!?" He didn't even let Snape get in a word as he allowed himself to be over run with desolation.

Severus snarled and pushed the hands from his chest, his own heavy rumination swirling through him, "It has her." He forced out, he could taste the blood in the back of his throat, " Inside, in its domain" He turned away from him as he shut his jaw his mind continuing to churn. The young man's distress was hardly of any consequence to him at the moment.

Minerva's face held a sense of foreboding. She had moved to Hermione's side checking her vitals, her lips pursed with worry at the result; deciding it was best she busied her hands, she adjusted her body to rest more comfortably. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest dulling the men's shouting match. She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts, feeling the situation spiraling out of control as the air started to crackle with unbridled magic.

"Severus!" Minerva's voice cut through them both, like scolding a misbehaving child, she knew it would get his attention instantly. "Go take a potion before you end up permanently mute and you, Potter, sit down before you lose a limb." Both men stood stalling in her request. She narrowed her eyes and stood straighter her own power radiating towards them.

Harry moved first like a dog with its tail between its legs. Severus however, challenged her right to speak to him in such a manner.

"Go, you're of no use if you can not speak." She knew logic would work and watched his stiff back retreat to the kitchen a sneer plastered over his face sharp enough to cut steel.

Minerva huffed indignantly before leaning down to pick up the discarded notes. She sorted what was relevant setting them into his chair followed by the book. She was going to make him share his plan whether he liked it or not.

Hermione was falling. She had felt the world around her grow dark as the air was forcibly kept from her lungs. She could sense the void warping around her trying to pull her towards a place she had become all too familiar with.

She fruitlessly resisted turning in the space, she didn't want to return. She sought out the thread that connected her and Professor Snape but it was nowhere to be found. She tried not to let her mind be clouded with fear but it was simply too strong. She felt the creature calling to her and knew she wouldn't be able to resist.

Her spinning came to an abrupt halt when she landed heavily face down in the center of her mind space. She groaned deeply as she tried to lift her head. The swelling pressure of terror pressed in on all sides keeping her prone on the floor. She could see the red light growing dimly from under her, pulsing with her rapidly beating heart.

She had never felt so alone, so small in the world as she did in that moment. Her entire being ached, weighing down her limbs. She heard the creature stalking towards her and felt an unwavering sense of defeat keep her in place.

She closed her eyes, briefly wondering if this was it. If this was how she was to die. Trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle of pain and torment. She closed her eyes tighter as the tears started to fall. The pressure of her seemingly hopeless reality pressing hard against the cracks in her soul.

The creature moved over her prone form almost with care, its long claws resting just to the sides of her shoulders as it leaned its head down towards her face. Its dreaded tongue came out slowly licking away her tears drinking in her sorrow and pain with great pleasure.

It was hungry, it had waited years for this very moment. Her fear and suffering only leading to its growth in strength. It let out a deep roar at its victory, the terror inducing sound echoing through the empty shelves.

Hermione went rigid as the creature moved over her, filling her body with frigid cold. She felt so lost inside herself, it was like the very first time she had woken in the space that had become her prison. She shivered as she thought about all the torment and suffering her life had turned into and how no one could possibly resist falling victim to its hopelessness.

She couldn't imagine anyone living like this day after day, with only pain as their company. She was so tired of it all. The past few days faintly registered in her mind but the hope they had brought turned exceedingly bitter inside her.

Her mind searched and searched for any possibility that a human being could survive such endless torture. She didn't even flinch as the tongue licked up her tears, her eyes staring listlessly ahead into the dark rows.

Who could-? Then she felt it, a spark inside a rainstorm. She knew of someone, someone who had lived their life much longer than she had entrapped by tribulation inside their own personal prison. A man. A man who had lived without love, without hope for so many years, carrying on in his duty to protect and serve the cruelest of masters. Two masters, who had caused his soul to tear, and release no doubt unimaginable agony unto his person.

A man who still, even after his death was stolen from him, stood strong to serve and protect despite the lament it caused him in turn. She felt a spark light inside her.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to play with your food?" Hermione's voice was strong, the fire in her soul flared burning inconceivably bright. She turned her head just a fraction to glare into the face of her tormentor. The fear that had kept her prone was washing away like an autumn rain, filling her with a strength she never knew she possessed.

She rolled onto her back a new purpose to her eyes, the light that shone from the cracks in her soul were blinding. She heard the creature roar and pitch backward by the force of her will against it. She took that moment and pushed herself back and onto her feet.

"I know what you are!" She shouted at it as she thrust out her hand, her soul's light and her magical core twined together to force a ball of light towards it. It hit squarely, knocking the monster onto its side sending it skidding a few meters down a row of shelves.

"Tamashiheki!" She roared its name like a mighty lion claiming its territory.

"Soul tearer!" She seethed with her new power releasing another powerful blast. The creature scrambled to its feet its leg caught in the light, tearing it from the shelf it had attempted to flee on. Hermione stalked towards it, her eyes alight with the raging inferno in her soul.

"You like to eat paragons of good!" She wiped out her arm again, a sharp slashing motion. Sending out a crescent this time, it cut through her shelves effortlessly, narrowly missing the creature's head as it dove down.

"Warping their minds to feed on their pain!" Her voice rose in pitch as she let loose another crescent. She watched with extreme satisfaction when the light sliced over the monsters back leaving it to bleed a black smoke as it continued to flee.

"Tearing their souls so you can devour them!" The creature turned, its jowls opening, a black smoke shot towards her, crackling with blue lighting.

Hermione barely dodged the retaliatory strike before pushing herself up again. A part of her reminding herself not to forget was a creature of God-like status. Not some creature she'd find on a dark night in the forbidden forest. No, this was a creature of immense power, and the very idea that she was sending in on the retreat left her drunk with her own power.

"You took everything thing from me!" She raised her hands, the light growing bright, a sphere formed between her palms, growing with intensity and size.The monster was still running, its form illuminated by her power towards something that was just out of view.

"I'm not afraid of you anymore!" Hermione hurled her magic with all her strength watching as it decimated everything in its path.The creature roared and turned injured but still very powerful. It released its own sphere of black lighting filled smoke. The collision of the two energies rocked the entire space.

Hermione shielded her eyes as she felt the wave of power come towards her. There was nowhere to run, though the thought barely had time to grace her thoughts. She strengthened her stance no longer afraid.

The wave hit with unyielding force sending Hermione careening backward. The monster had turned, running from the wave escaping the powerful blast behind a door. The door itself looked like a steel vault, though it too, trembled from the wave of power. The locks on the outside weakened from the blast.

Hermione landed heavily on her head and shoulder, her body crumbling awkwardly to the side as it continued to be pushed back. Her form slid lifelessly against the stones before coming to rest against a shelf.

Severus turned slowly. He was sat on the edge of the lounge, Minerva, and Potter to his front as they poured over the information in the text. They had read it multiple times each time growing more demoralized. No one had ever out lived the creatures hold and the one wizard who had woken from the coma like state had gone mad before the creature finally killed him.

There was little usable information just stories and legends. It was considered The God of the Battlefield taking its victims from the dead and dying. It traveled in packs leaving entire battlefields of thousands soulless in mere hours. Turning only the most wretched of souls into its own kind. But it was the Tamashiheki that was the most feared.

The leader of the lessor Jinshikin, it sought out the strongest of the survivors seeking out the purest of heart to stake its claim. Taking pleasure and power in the person's rise to madness and shattering of their soul. There were no accounts of any witch or wizard expelling the creature from inside them. The average life span of the accounts mentioned in the text did not extend past four years, one if the afflicted were a muggle.

Severus had dismissed the creature in his initial findings as the symptoms listed for the afflicted was incomplete. Stating only, that the afflicted could be identified by the long slash mark usually found on the back. There had been mention of memory loss and blindness, that he only pieced together now, as it had been unclear in the translation.

Severus looked at the young woman beside him when her head rolled heavily to the side, her chin falling against her chest. It took him a moment before he saw the blood starting to ooze from her ear. He instantly shifted pressing his knee to the lounge bringing himself to lean over her.

"Miss Granger?" His voice was stronger now after his potion, though he couldn't hide the small spark of fear in his tone. Minerva and Harry's heads snapped up too, leaning in just a bit to see what had jostled the pensive man in black.

Severus' hands hovered for a just a second before he cupped his hand around her cheek, lifting her face towards him. Blood was starting to seep from her nose and one eye as well, a large bruise from the crown of her head down to the bottom of her jaw forming slowly over one side of her face. It was odd, like watching someone put a glamour over their features. Her normally pale skin turning a deep purple. His hand thumbed over her opposite ear, growing sticky with the warm substance that continued to flow. He inhaled sharply, lowering his hand to her neck moving his fingers to feel for a pulse while the other held her head up against the lounge.

Everyone waited with baited breath watching his searching fingers move. His eyes were sharp as he glanced between her face and her chest unable to discern if it was moving or not. He pulled his hands back with a sneer lowering himself down. He closed his eyes and he pressed his ear to her chest over her heart. His own beating so loudly in his ears making it difficult to differentiate if it was his own or hers he was hearing.