Twisting the Knife.

by Tycho

Disclaimer: All the characters belong to J.K Rowling. I gain nothing from this except the joy of others.

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"You have to save them! Please, Professor! Promise me you will. Promise me!" Hermione's entire being pleaded with him to spare her family. A plea his blackened soul ached to grant.

"I promise." Severus pushed the portkey into her hands and watched her eyes widen in horror and betrayal, "Their deaths will be quick."

The portkey did its job and took her to safety.

Severus looked around the room, taking in details. It was, he surmised, a typical teenage girl's bedroom. Frilly covers over the rumpled bed. Peculiar knick-knacks were artfully arranged on the dresser. Posters, of both muggle and wizarding celebrities, were somehow stuck to the wall. About the only oddity was the few hundred books crammed into the floor to ceiling bookshelves that lined one wall. That was one feature that clearly claimed this room as belonging to the know-it-all of Hogwarts.

But without its owner's presence, Hermione Granger's bedroom seemed as empty and desolate as the pit in which Severus' soul had been cast into. As empty as her life must now seem to her.

Severus spun in a whirl of black cloak and shadow and left, making his way to the stairs that led down to the main part of the house. As he walked down them, he schooled his features and cleared his mind of emotions. Lucius was not a Leglimens, but he was very skilled at deception, in both performance and recognition.

As Severus reached the bottom of the stairs, his oldest friend greeted him. "Severus! What took you so long? We were beginning to worry."

Severus was always amazed at how Lucius seemed to maintain an air of calm and composure, regardless of his surroundings or the situation. Whether at the Ministry deflecting charges of treason or torturing muggles in his manor dungeons, the man always seemed bored and disaffected.

"The mudblood delayed me long enough to apparate." Severus lied.

Lucius frowned. "She shouldn't be able to apparate yet. Lessons don't start until next month."

"Apparently she taught herself." Severus sneered in mock disgust. "She always was a precocious little chit." 'And,' he thought in the deepest recesses of his mind, 'Far brighter than that brat of yours, old friend.'

The head of the family Malfory considered this and dismissed it. "More likely that someone was giving her advance tutoring. No matter. Perhaps the death of her family will drive her mad." He turned, but paused, frowning in concern. "She didn't recognise you, did she old friend? Our victory here means naught if we lose the intelligence you bring us."

"No, I don't think so. I kept my face covered and my casting to a whisper. It was only after she left that I removed my mask. I don't believe she realised who she was running from." Severus let his lips curl in a feral grin. "But could you imagine the look on her face if she had? Having spent all these years defending me to her friends, only to find out that they were right all along? That really would have driven her mad!"

Lucius laughed heartily and clapped him on the shoulder in appreciation of his jest. "Quite so, my friend, quite so. Come, let us to business." And with that Lucius returned his attentions to the remainder of the Granger family, cowering in the centre of the lounge room.

There were three of them in total, all dressed in their sleeping garments, which was suitable given the late hour, and all shivering in fear. In the middle of this trembling mass of limbs curled a small girl-child of perhaps five years. She whimpered occasionally as her tears mingled with blood from a small wound in her cheek. Blood that also glistened darkly from the signet ring worn by Dolohov. The child tried to burrow deeper into her mother's embrace under Severus' scrutiny.

Out of all the loss of life this night, Severus would regret her death the most. According to what he'd overheard, she was quieter than her sister, but just as clever. She would have been a true joy to teach.

Severus moved his study to her mother, a woman almost ordinary in appearance, except for the obvious intelligence in eyes. Severus could easily see that it was this that had first attracted, and then captured her husband.

Mr Granger was obviously the source of Hermione's Gryffindor nature. He stood in front of his family, maintaining physical contact with them while shielding them as best he could from a danger he could not truly comprehend.

"How brave," Lucius drawled, "How pointless. Avada Kedavra."

Mr Granger dropped without a sound, his lifeless body cushioned by the thick carpeting. Mrs Granger, however, was not so silent. She screamed in terror and grief with volume enough to rival a banshee.

"Damn." Severus cursed.

"What is it, Severus?"

"The neighbours would have heard that." he explained. "The aurors may be slow to respond to the mudblood's alarm, but I guarantee that the muggle police will respond a damn sight quicker. They could be here in a few minutes and the aurors will follow soon after. We need to finish this quickly and be gone before they do."

"Always the voice of reason, eh Severus. Pity." Lucius sighed, "The woman might have proved entertaining. Oh, well."

It was at this point that fate took a hand in the affairs of mortal man and revealed something rather startling to Severus. He watched as Lucius cast the Killing Curse once more, deliberately aiming for the child. Later, Severus would remember thinking that it was just like Lucius to get satisfaction from killing a child in its mothers arms. To watch the mother's face as her beloved creation turned limp and lifeless in her embrace was just the sort of thing that Lucius would enjoy.

It was as this thought was passing through his mind that Severus saw the recognition of the curse in Mrs Granger's eyes. He saw the determined set of her jaw as she decided that the horror that took her husband would not take her child as well. Severus saw her tighten her grip on her child and deliberately turn her back to her attacker in the most remarkable act of self-sacrifice that he had ever witnessed.

Lucius swore as her lifeless body fell backwards to land alongside her husband's in a gruesome parody of their marriage bed. Lucius swore and, before Severus' brain could catch up on current events and communicate to his mouth the need to shout a warning, Lucius cast again.

Severus watched, partly in horror, partly in awe, certain he was about to see a re-enactment of the event that caused the First Fall of the Dark Lord. Another part of his mind, the academic side of his nature, was curious as to how it would work. Would the curse simply bounce off the child? Would it envelop her, perhaps even be darwn into her before returning to the one that cast it?

In truth, none of these things happened. The girl simply died.

Severus was the last to leave, his confederates leaving him to ponder this impossible event. As he disapparated away, one thought dominated his mind. A single line of reasoning with only two possible outcomes; each less palatable than the last.

Considering what he had just witnessed, and taking into account what he had been told about the events of 1981, only one of two things were possible. Either Dumbledore was wrong, or Dumbledore had lied.

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Author's query – should I continue this?