Chapter Three: Midnight at Grimmauld

Once again Hermione had fallen asleep at her desk, she cursed herself. She needed to be more careful when she had all her letters laid out in the open. It had been a close call, last week when she'd fallen asleep at her desk and Hannah had found while they were all there. At least Hannah could keep her mouth shut about what Hermione was doing with everyone's mail.

Everyone in the house had turned in hours ago, and this was the only time she was certain she could do her work without disturbance. She picked up the letter she had been about to read when she fell asleep. But before she could get very far into the letter, a thump echoed through the floor.

She tensed, unannounced visitors were uncommon at Grimmauld Place. A scraping sound, this time much closer, was eerie in the sleeping house. She leapt to her feet with her wand at the ready.

A rattling breath reverberated through the empty house. She threw a shawl around her shoulders and ran down the stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs, she saw him. He wore all black and was draped over the hat stand. There was a wand gripped in his hand, and she could see some dark liquid gleaming against the wooden floorboards.

"Who goes there!" she said in a shrill whisper as she rushed to the man's side, unsure whether to help or harm him.

"I couldn't…" his words were punctuated with heaving gasps, "return… in time." Severus Snape raised his head from the hat stand, and Hermione rushed forward to help him. He managed to lift himself in time for Hermione to catch him under the arm.

"What happened?" she asked as she dragged him down the corridor. She didn't think of the danger of bringing him into the house. He was injured. She would mend him.

When he didn't make a reply she sighed, he was in no condition to endure her interrogation. But even as they reached the kitchen Hermione kept having to bite her wayward tongue.

He shuddered with the aftereffects of the Cruciatus, and blood glistened on his vest. She dropped him into the nearest chair and hurried to the potions cabinet to retrieve Dittany and a Draught of Peace.

"Is that your blood?" she said, voice aquiver. Far past embarrassment in seeing bare skin, she didn't wait for an answer to pull back the red cotton over the spot where it had soaked through. A deep gash ran from shoulder to clavicle, and from it, blood flowed. Dittany was the only ointment she knew would heal the wound. She scooped out some into her hands, but before she could apply it Snape grabbed the jar and pushed her hand away.

"I will do it," Snape snapped, before hissing at the sting of the dittany on the wound. Hermione stood back and watched as he applied it to the injury. It looked week's old within seconds, but it was clear the scar was not going to fade.

"Are you alright?" she asked. He was buttoning his vest back over the bloody shirt. She watched him through weighed eyelids.

"It was little more than a scratch."

"Ha. Tell me what happened. Did he torture you?" she asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

"No. It was… a muggleborn," he answered. Hermione dropped into the nearest kitchen chair and put her heavy head in her hands, her wild hair falling in front of her face.

"What now? Who were they?" she said to her lap. Her mind raced with possibilities. Had there been an attack?

"We have known for some time that I'm not secure in my position, but he made that clear tonight, all too clear. We were at a warehouse in Manchester. It housed muggleborns for-"

"Merlin," she swore. He didn't have to finish the sentence for her to know what he was going to say.

"For auction," he said. "The Dark Lord has seen fit to take the women and young ones to this warehouse where the deatheaters auction them off," he explained.

"Slaves," she said dully, "I'm surprised it hasn't happened before." He didn't say anything, but when she looked at him from under her curtain of hair his look confirmed it. "You didn't have to… bid, did you?"

"No. One of the women tried to escape. She got ahold of a wand and aimed a curse at me before she could be detained. The Dark Lord wanted me to see-" Snape stopped short.

"Did you hear something?" she glanced askance about the dim kitchen. He held a finger to his lips, and a moment later they heard a small footstep, a yawn.

"The mudblood and the spy! Kreacher must not see! O' do Kreacher's eyes betray him!"

"Kreacher!" whispered Hermione, "show yourself at once."

The decrepit elf slunk around the corner of the kitchen door and looked on the two with disgust. His pillowcase was pristine and his ear hair was as fluffy as it had ever been since the order had returned to Grimmauld Place. None of that changed the way he looked at her.

"O' when Master Potter hears of this he will be much displeased, methinks," Kreacher grumbled, turning to go. Before he got more than a step down the corridor, Snape lunged out of his chair and caught him the back of his pillowcase.

"Listen here you filthy beast," he hissed, "not a word of this meeting, do you hear me, elf? Not a word, that's an order."

"You traitor- you mubblood hussy," Kreacher snarled at Hermione as he struggled to escape Snape's grasp.

"She isn't that," Snape said, his lip curled. "You won't tell anyone of this meeting, I order it." Kreacher nodded, and Snape let him scurry into his pantry nest.

Hermione frowned, "don't speak to him so. He doesn't know any better, and he's so loyal to Harry."

"Didn't you hear how it speaks to you?" said Snape, heatedly.

"He doesn't know any better!" she said, "and anyway, he's right, I am a mudblood, and a hussy, and a c-"

"That's enough language from you," Severus said, interrupting her spiel. "It's a small mercy that you haven't freed him by now, what with you crusading for their cause," Snape snapped.

"If you could only see how it's exactly like the warehouse, and just as cruel. And none of us are free until those enslaved by the forces of-" she began, but she knew it was no use. She would never persuade him of this, and he wasn't the one whom she needed to convince.

"There are more pressing things to discuss," he echoed her own thoughts.

"Right, I expect you bear grave news," Hermione said. She didn't know many things grimmer than the slave trade, but from the looks of it, it was only for lack of imagination.

"Quite," he replied as he mended the tear she'd made in his shirt.

"What's he done?"

He shook his head, "he told me to bring Theodosia to him. He said he had some purpose for her, though I cannot divine what that might be."

Hermione sat silent for several seconds, trying to make sense of their strategy in light of this news. "What did you do?" She needed Severus on the inside. It Voldemort found he out, then they would have no chance of retaking Hogwarts of The Ministry. But she couldn't allow an innocent to be hurt in the process, not if she could prevent it.

"I wouldn't allow it. I told him so, which resulted in this warehouse farce." He gestured to his chest as if there was a clear line of logic between his wound and the dark lord's request.

"Bring her here," said Hermione quietly. Snape shook his head. "But Professor, we cannot allow her-or anyone- to be taken like that. It's not right!"

"Keep your voice down. I will find another way."

"I won't let it happen! We can bring her here, get her out of the country. We can-" she babbled. The altruist who she thought had died in battle was raring to the challenge. She felt an odd solidarity with this woman whom she had never laid eyes on.

"I am aware that it's dangerous, but it's necessary if only to keep up the facade of my support long enough to overthrow him."

"So you will simply let him take her, for god knows what purpose?"

"All I can do is delay the inevitable," he said. She understood what he meant. But she didn't want to accept it.

"But she's only a squib, we can't just let her go to him like a lamb to the slaughter!"

"He will not kill her, and if it means staying in his good graces for another year than it is worth the risk. I was foolish to deny him," he said with a grim finality. She stared at him, he watched the burning embers in the hearth with not a shred of emotion on his face. To anyone else, he might have looked cruel, but she knew his secret. Dumbledore had passed that information to her before his death.

Something was coming together in her mind. The clock struck two in the morning, and before Severus could turn to leave, she took his hand.

"Hold out for as long as possible," she told him, "There is a way, but I will need time."

Snape nodded and saw himself out without a word.

000

When Severus returned to Hogwarts, he had almost resolved to tell Theodosia everything. After all, if it went poorly, he could obliviate her. And he should have told her. But he hadn't gotten the chance that night.

In the fifth floor corridor, Amycus Carrow wheeled around the corner. He dragged a sixth-year girl by her Hufflepuff-yellow sleeve. Severus had stopped short.

"Found this one with another girl in that there alcove," said Amycus with callous glee. There was no sign of any young man, but Amycus clarified; 'ran off before I could catch 'er.'

The girl held one hand over her black hair in a vain attempt to keep it from coming loose. She was weepy as well, with big splotches of colour in both cheeks.

He had been tired, and his shoulder was stilling aching from the cutting curse. And so he had felt no interest in Amycus's petty school discipline. 'Return her to her dormitory,' he said as he strode past, eager to get to bed before the sunrise.

As he slipped into bed, he remembered Miss Granger's courage. She looked at him with all the trust and respect he had never received from Dumbledore. If she said she needed time, he would give it to her.

Thanks for the reviews from last chapter! Here is the new chapter, and I'm sorry it took me so long to post, because it has been finished for a full week, Opps! I hope you enjoyed!