CHAPTER 53
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 53 ~ In the Dementor’s Domain
Suddenly a shout went up, and Severus hesitated. Several Order members were charging the Dementors along with their Patronuses. This was their backup which was sidetracked by last minute planning. The wizards had been horrified to learn Severus and Hermione entered the temple alone and quickly followed. When they saw the pair surrounded by Dementors, they charged.
“No!” Hermione cried as the Dementors hissed and flew away from them toward the Order members and the Patronuses. They were badly outnumbered though. Only twelve wizards to the thirty-odd creatures. The Patronuses drove back several, but the majority of the creatures closed over the Order members.
“Severus, help them!” Hermione cried.
Severus began playing and the golden notes streaked toward the mass of Dementors attacking the Order members, wrapping around them and binding the creatures, pulling them away from the wizards.
“Stay back! We have them!” Hermione cried running forward, Severus following, still playing.
The Dementors were struggling and hissing as the notes bound them and held them low to the ground. Try as they might, the creatures couldn’t break free.
“Destroy them now!” one rather crazed Order member cried, pulling out his wand to send a destructive blast developed for the Final Battle.
“No!” Hermione screamed, pulling her own wand and quickly stunning the Order member. The others all stared at her…not knowing what to do.
“Get out!” Hermione screamed at them. The wizards were too frightened and volatile. “We have it under control. You’re not needed.”
”Albus said to protect you,” one wizard cried out stubbornly, his eyes on the writhing Dementors.
“But who’s going to protect you? Now get out. I’ll take responsibility for what happens,” the witch cried, stopping a few feet from the closest Dementor, who hissed at her.
The wizards milled about a bit, then reluctantly withdrew. Hermione sighed with relief then studied the Dementors. The notes were surrounding them completely. How was she to kiss them?
“Severus, I can’t access their mouths,” the witch said, looking back at the wizard, who changed the melody he was playing slightly. Suddenly the notes parted around the Dementors’ hoods, leaving an opening. Hermione swallowed.
All right. She was going to kiss a Dementor.
As she approached the first one, a stench like that of a rotting corpse washed over her. She nearly brought up the elixir.
“Gods, they stink,” she said to herself, her eyes watering. She walked up to the Dementor, who was resting on the floor, its hood directly before her. Another pulse of stench washed over her…presumably the creature’s breath.
Severus watched, his face twisted in disgust as the witch closed in on the Dementor. Hermione leaned forward, and the Dementor did also, intending to kiss the witch. Hermione’s face disappeared into the hood. The Dementor and witch seemed to freeze for a moment. Then the Dementor keened long and loud before dropping to the floor. Hermione stood there with a look of disgust on her glistening face. Apparently kissing a Dementor was slimy business.
“Oh my gods,” Hermione grimaced, “That was disgusting.”
”Keep kissing!” Severus shouted at her.
In the aid camp, a medi-witch was gently washing a stricken Untouchable, when the woman suddenly opened her eyes, looked up at the witch and said, “Who are you?” in her native language. The medi-witch didn’t understand what the woman said, but understood one thing.
She had her soul back.
“It’s started!” the excited witch called out to the other members of the camp, pointing at the woman who was attempting to sit up, wondering what this place was. A cheer went up. They were doing it. Hermione Granger and Severus Snape were releasing souls.
All the Dementors started keening with fear as they looked at their fallen comrade and realized it had been stricken by the human. They struggled more fiercely, but the notes held them tightly.
Inside her Dementor, Minerva felt a cold wash of fear from her captor.
“What’s going on?” she wondered, then looked to the right when a trapped Indian woman suddenly began to glow brightly, holding out her arms and looking at herself then at Minerva with wide eyes before disappearing completely.
That wasn’t death. Minerva had seen many deaths and replacements over eight years. The soul would grow dark, then crumple in on itself, screaming. This was something else.
“She’s been freed, hasn’t she?” Minerva called to her captor, who was keening in fear. “They’re setting us free, aren’t they?”
The witch did a little dance of joy.
“I told you! I told you!” she taunted the creature, “Now you’ll see. You’ll go back to the darkness that spawned you!”
The Dementor continued to keen…too afraid to respond to Minerva.
“Albus…oh Albus. Will I really see you again?” the witch breathed as another soul glowed and disappeared.
Hermione was on her third kiss. She’d almost vomited kissing the last Dementor. She knew it was going to be horrible…but damn.
The Dementors were all screaming and keening in horror as Hermione moved through them, sipping more elixir then stoically pressing her face into their hoods. She had to scourgify their putrid saliva from her face several times. The hooded bodies were piling up…but Severus kept the notes on the fallen…just in case. She was through almost half of them.
Suddenly Severus caught a cramp in his shoulder and his playing stopped for a moment, the notes dissipating. The Dementors began to scatter.
“Severus!” Hermione screamed at him. “They’re getting away!”
The wizard grimaced and began playing again, the golden notes racing toward the Dementors and binding the keening creatures again, dragging them back towards Hermione.
The Dementors firmly in place, Hermione continued kissing them.
”She is going to have to be purified, scourgified and scrubbed until she’s raw,” Severus thought as a long string of saliva stuck to the witch’s face issued from inside the hood of a fallen Dementor. Completely squicked, Hermione slapped it off and wiped her hands on her jeans, her face twisted with disgust before she scourgified herself yet again.
In St. Mungos, medi-witches were flocking to a room in answer to a weak call from a wizard who had been there over eight years, stricken by a Dementor’s kiss.
“Water,” the wizard said weakly, holding up his hand as they stared at him in disbelief. Not one moved. The wizard scowled.
“What’s a man have to do to get some water around here? Die?” he groused, his voice cracking.
In Minerva’s room, Albus heard the commotion.
“He’s awake! Tom Cummings is awake!” the shouts went up. The old wizard could hear rushing footsteps and exclamations of disbelief. He looked down at Minerva intently, holding her thin hand in his.
“Come back, Minerva,” he said, caressing the back of the witch’s hand with his thumb. “Come back to me. I’ve missed you terribly.”
Minerva heard Albus and watched as another soul disappeared in a burst of white light.
“I’m coming Albus. I will be there, my love,” she called back, then shouted at the Dementor.
“You hear that you cursed thing? I am going to be free! Free! And you will be no more!” the witch gloated, “Eight long years I’ve been with you but finally I can leave this horrible prison and get on with my life. Go back to the ones I love. Love, you hideous creature…the strongest power on earth. It is love that has defeated you!”
Suddenly Minerva felt her prison quake horribly, and this was followed by a deep, hollow sigh. She pressed her hands forward but there was no resistance…no invisible barrier. Suddenly she felt extremely light and white light began to glow around her.
“I’m free!” she cried as suddenly she transformed into a ball of light and shot away at an amazing speed, colors flashing past her, a great roaring wind around her. The witch felt she had left her stomach behind as she traveled at the speed of light…back…back…back to where she belonged.
Suddenly she was in a white room, hovering above Albus and a thin, drawn, white-haired body lying on a cot.
“Is that…me?” she said, frowning as she looked down. “I look one-hundred and fifty years old! I’m going to definitely have to get some work done.”
Suddenly Minerva screamed as she dropped down into the frail body.
Albus was sitting with the back of her hand pressed against his lips, his eyes closed, waiting. Suddenly, the hand flexed. Albus opened his eyes. Minerva’s body often spasmed. He looked down at her, then his eyes widened.
The witch’s body might spasm, but she hadn’t opened her eyes in over eight years.
Yet they were open now, and looking right at him, the green irises shining brightly from within the wizened form.
“Minerva?” Albus whispered, afraid this was some kind of waking dream…he’d had them before.
The witch nodded slightly.
Her mouth moved several times before she managed to croak out, “I’ve come back, Albus.”
Albus kissed the witch’s hand passionately, then leaned down and kissed her dry lips gently.
“Ah, my Minerva…I’ve waited so long for you to return to me. Some said I should let you go, but I couldn’t. I was too selfish,” he said softly, staring at the witch with love.
“Thank the stars for selfishness then,’ the witch replied hoarsely, then, “Water please, Albus. Though I could use a good belt of firewhiskey after eight years.”
Minerva loved her firewhiskey. Albus smiled at her.
”Let’s just get you up to par first, my dear. Then I will pour the first shot for you myself,” he said fondly, kissing her hand again, his heart swelling.
He had her back. His Minerva.
The world was right again.
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Hermione kissed the final Dementor, grimacing as it keened and fell, then spitting, shaking her head.
“Dear gods. Nothing, and I mean nothing can be as disgusting as this,” she complained, turning to Severus.
The wizard looked at her, then at the fallen Dementors. His black eyes glittered. These were the things that kept him from getting any for the past few months.
Payback time.
“Move away from them, Hermione,” he said darkly.
Hermione walked over to the wizard and stood behind him as the music he played changed, becoming dark and violent. The notes began to spin around the stricken creatures, their bodies beginning to shudder, then bulge.
“Oh no, Severus,” Hermione breathed.
The wizard continued to play passionately, his face contorted murderously. The notes tightened vise-like around the bodies, crushing them. Hermione turned her face away as they burst, black goo and stench everywhere, the robes covered in gore. Severus stopped playing and the notes faded away.
Severus looked at his handiwork.
“That’s that,” he said with finality.
“Damn Severus, that was disgusting,” Hermione said, scowling at the wizard as they began to walk toward the temple entrance.
“No more disgusting than watching you French kiss them,” the wizard retorted. “You are going to have to undergo a series of cleansing treatments before coming anywhere near me, witch.”
“Oh really?” Hermione said, making a grab for the wizard, who leapt aside and began running for the entrance, Hermione laughing and right on his heels.
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Hermione and Severus returned to Hogwarts a few hours later after visiting the camp and seeing all the recovered Untouchables. The medi-witches were already breaking it down when they arrived, all of their charges now awakened. They crowded around Severus and Hermione shaking their hands…or trying to. Severus didn’t want anyone touching him. There were all kinds of diseases in India.
Albus immediately moved Minerva from St. Mungos to the Hogwarts infirmary, and Severus and Hermione found him seated by Minerva’s bedside, feeding her some chicken broth. It smelled delicious.
Severus scowled at a beaming Poppy.
“Why does Minerva get chicken broth when all you ever gave me was gray gruel?” he demanded.
“Because Minerva has a better disposition than you did,” the medi-witch replied with a wicked grin.
“That slop didn’t help it any,” the wizard groused as Hermione hugged her former Head of House and kissed her on the cheek. Severus grimaced.
“Really Hermione, I’d think you’d had enough kissing after today,” he commented, “Besides…you might give Minerva something. You haven’t been properly scoured yet.”
“Shut up, Severus,” Hermione hissed.
Albus’ eyes twinkled as Severus didn’t take the witch to task for her comment. Something definitely was going on here. Something decidedly good.
Minerva looked at Severus.
“You look a lot more composed than you did last time I saw you,” Minerva said with a grin. “Your robes were billowing around your head. Very undignified.”
Severus stalked up to Minerva bedside, then kissed her hand, surprising Hermione with the gesture.
“Everyone has a bad day, Minerva” he replied, “Just be glad I wasn’t ‘swinging free.’”
Minerva chortled as Hermione looked scandalized. Was he flirting with Professor McGonagall? Severus?
He was, but just to make the old bird laugh. She needed a good laugh after eight years of powering a Dementor.
Albus rose.
“Hermione, Severus…I just want to thank you again for restoring Minerva to me,” the old wizard said, tears in his eyes.
“It was our pleasure,” Hermione said, looking at the former Transfiguration teacher fondly, “We missed her too.”
They stood about chatting for several minutes before Poppy shooed them all out, saying Minerva had to get her rest. Hermione and Severus returned to the wizard’s rooms, the wizard putting away his beloved violin and bow. Hermione stood looking at him.
“You were wonderful, Severus,” she said softly.
“As were you,” he said gruffly. “But it is time for you to head back to the house. I have paperwork to catch up on.”
Hermione blinked at him. He wasn’t coming?
”I will be there this weekend as usual,” the wizard said, taking her arm.
They disapparated, appearing in the living room of the house. Severus released her, bowed and returned to Hogwarts with a crack of thunder.
Hermione had hoped he would spend the night. But then again, he appeared to still be disturbed about her kissing the Dementors. It had been rather disgusting. Well, in four more days it would be Friday.
She’d be all cleaned up by then and Severus should be sufficiently recovered.
They had some catching up to do.
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A/N: Yay! Minerva’s back. There were a couple of hairy moments, but they came out all right. Lol on Severus saying Hermione was French kissing Dementors. Please review.