Fic: Heart with No Companion - Chapters 10 - 11
It's nice to finally have a place to put all my stories and such, but such a pain in the butt rounding them up and making them presentable. *le sigh*
Anyways, there will be no 'Little Things' today - sorry, but I just got back from speech therapy and I'm wiped and I have pages of rewriting to do. There might by a drabbleish fic later for Joss100 but even that is iffy.
Instead, something I already wrote and started archiving a few days ago. Don't know if anyone else cares to read it - if you do, let me know what you think. Of everything I've ever written, this is the one I think I'm most proud of.
Chapter Ten: SNAPE
Snape would have been amused at the look of shock on Poppy Pomfrey's face when he stepped through the floo into the infirmary if it hadn't been directed at him. Actually, it wasn't the shock that bothered him so much as the latent suspicion behind it. It wasn't as if he had never arrived at the infirmary before (though granted, not usually by green flames) cradling a student in his arms - Dennis Creevey immediately came to mind.
'Severus...is that - is that Hermione Granger?' she finally managed to stutter out.
'I see your powers of observation are as astute as ever,' Snape replied sarcastically. 'And before you ask, no, I did not kidnap her.'
Poppy had the grace to flush, and smoothed the smock of her uniform nervously with the palms of her hands. 'What is she doing here?'
Snape ignored her for a moment, gently placing Hermione on an empty bed before turning back to face the older woman. 'She's coming back to Hogwarts. Albus and your sister are just finalizing the details now.' His hand reached behind him of his own accord, touching Hermione's arm almost as if to reassure himself she was still there, 'She's trapped in her mind, Poppy.'
The medi-witch started at this, stepping closer to the bed to look down at the overly-thin girl lying so silently on it. 'That's impossible. Albus tried....'
'I know what Albus tried,' Snape interrupted. 'But she is there. I've spoken with her.'
'And she's been...aware...this entire time?' Poppy inquired shakily. 'What a nightmare.'
'Indeed,' the potions master turned his back on her to look at the girl, 'I need to go and arrange for a suite of rooms to be set up for her and your sister. Can you stay with her, Poppy, please? I don't want her to think she's been abandoned again.'
His voice was soft as he said this, a tone of remorse to it that Poppy had never heard before.
'Abandoned... again?'
Snape crossed his arms, his posture straight and stuff under the white shirt he was wearing. 'She thought I had forgotten about her when I stopped visiting after the Creevey accident,' he replied, the gentle tones of before replaced with his normal coolness. His pale jaw clenched as if to elaborate on that fact, but the moment passed in silence, and he turned back to the medi-witch with a familiar glare. 'She can see you if you stay within her line of vision, and she can hear everything you say to her. If you need to leave before I get back, please let her know.'
'Of course, Severus,' Poppy stuttered, allowing a little of the surprise she felt to show on her face.
Snape didn't smile at her, but he did nod his head in a far more courteous manner than Poppy had ever seen from him. 'Thank you.'
Turning once again to face the young woman on the bed, he leaned over until he was looking directly into her eyes and allowed himself to fall through into her mind.
He found himself back in the potion's lab. Miraculously, the scenery was much changed from he last remembered seeing. All traces of dust and crumbling mortar were gone. The stone floor was clean, and tall windows with crimson curtains were thrown back to let in the generous sunlight. He noted the addition of the windows with a smirk and turned his attention to the woman hunched over a very familiar, large oak desk.
She had managed to replicate the desk in his office almost perfectly, down to the detailed molding and tarnished knobs on the drawers. He felt himself at once touched that she would choose to create something of his in her mind, and at the same time stunned by her ability to do such a thing. Her quill made a final pass across the piece of parchment in front of her before her eyed lifted to his, a warm smile on her face that made him suck in his breath.
'Hermione.'
'Yes, Severus?'
'I have to leave you here for a bit. I promise I'll be back.'
Hermione's smile widened at that, 'I have ears, you know. I heard what you said to Poppy.'
'Still, I didn't want to just leave you again without letting you know.' He stepped closer to her side to look down at the strewn arrangement of parchment. 'What are you doing?'
Hermione motioned him forward until he was bent over her shoulder, and showed him the page she had been writing on when he arrived, 'I thought I'd start making an account of everything I remember about the curse. I'd done it before, but... I can't find the scroll. I think I might have destroyed it when you said you weren't coming back.'
Snape flinched, 'Hermione, I'm - '
The young witch cut him off, 'You didn't know. How could you? The important thing is... you're here now.'
Severus found he couldn't respond to that. Instead, he breathed in her scent, allowing it to wash over his senses, watching with interest as she leaned back slightly and tipped her face up towards his, before he pulled away quickly. He could feel the heat of her permeating through him and marveled that this girl - this woman - seemed to revel in his presence. No one had ever done so before.
'I'll be back soon,' he murmured, disengaging from her mind with regret. He hated leaving her.
~~~~~~~
It was a simple matter to see to organizing the suite of rooms Albus had indicated could be used for Hermione and Nettie. He did nothing, really, other than relay the instructions to the house elves and supervise their normally efficient work as they bustled about making the rooms habitable. Hermione would only be two doors down from his own suite, which pleased Severus rather more than he thought it should.
He still had a hard time believing Hermione was actually alive inside her mind. He had expected, when he had rushed to St. Mungo's in a panic, he would find nothing except her empty body. It had been a shock when he had actually found her.
He could still remember the feel of her, collapsing in his arms and crying when he had found her amidst the destruction of her mind, sitting in a reasonable - if rotted - facsimile of his potions classroom.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman. The depth of feelings which had rushed to the fore in that encounter had taken him aback. He had known, of course, after much drunken rumination and many nights spent dreaming of her, that he had come to care for the girl. How it had happened, he could not explain - it was not as if he knew her, not really. She had always been just a student to him prior to the curse - a bushy-haired, know-it-all girl who irritated him with her persistence and insatiable curiosity and her unexplainable friendship with Weasley and the Boy-Who-Lived-to-Drive-Him-Insane.
After she had been hit by Malfoy's curse, things had changed. Why they had, or even how they could, considering she was in a coma, was beyond his understanding. By all rights, the memories he had of her should have remained those of the irritating little girl. Instead, the images most prominent in his mind had been the brave girl battling to his side to protect him even as he helped her friend; the brilliant girl who had thrown herself into his arms and taken a curse meant for him; the frail beauty who's hair had grown under his fingers, clinging to them like a thousand silken kisses on his first visit to St. Mungo's. It was as if he had only begun to see her for the first time during that fateful final battle.
In turn, those memories had been surpassed by his dreams of her smiling at him with that impudent mouth of hers, sitting on the arm of his chair and leaning over him as he tried to read, running her fingers through his hair and massaging his scalp after a hard day of classes. It was those dreams - the visions of the little things that could make a relationship - that had made him fall in love with her.
They were visions and images of a life he had never thought would ever be his and had long denied he even desired.
Seeing Hermione so close to death had finally forced him to admit that he did, indeed, love her. He had known at that precise moment that all his denials were for nothing; without her he could never be whole. She might have been hit by a curse meant for him, but his life - stretching empty and lonely without her in it - was a curse in and of itself. And even if it meant staying by her motionless side until the day he died, then so be it - they would be alone, together, for all eternity. A fitting fate for a man like him.
He remembered her voice after he found her, 'gods...I feel your hand on my hair...', and the way his hands had gripped her shoulders, caressing the soft skin of her neck before traveling up to cup her face.
She told him that she needed him - him - Severus Snape. In her delirious state she'd stated simply and explicitly that she wanted his touch, wanted his kisses, and he had been hard pressed not to comply, even though she hadn't believed at the time he was really there. He wondered, now that she knew his forays into her mind were real, if those feelings would change out of shame.
When Potter had yanked him away from her and punched him in the face, Severus had wanted to kill the younger man. He had been so engrossed in Hermione that the sudden feeling of his consciousness spinning out of her mind had been disorienting. She had finally started to believe him and Potter was determined to destroy what few fragile truths he had managed to build. He had been afraid that his scant progress would be undone by his sudden disappearance - she would never trust him again.
But, she had. Somehow, when he had been allowed to reenter her mind he had felt her reach out and grab him, yanking him to her. She had been waiting for him just behind those eyes of hers, in the foyer he had found himself in the first time he had been there. However, the cobwebs and dust had been removed and the darkness had been replaced by a radiant light which seemed to be eminating from Hermione herself. The only other item in the foyer was a black board, covered in her tiny round writing and a large, overstuffed armchair in a hideous red velour which she immediately pushed him into.
Before he could recover himself, she conjured a bucket of icy water and a clean linen cloth and began to gently clean his face. He didn't realize until then that his nose was bleeding.
'Harry is a great bloody prat,' she'd muttered, as she held the cool cloth under his nose. 'If he ever does that to you again, you have my permission to hex his balls off!'
'I didn't realize I needed your permission,' Snape had responded, but his voice had taken on a teasing tone to it. He almost didn't recognize it as his own.
'I can't believe he punched you, the idiot.'
'He was just trying to protect you,' Snape replied, 'I would have done the same thing, had our situation been reversed.'
Hermione had gaped at him. 'Are you defending him?' her voice was incredulous. 'Any one with eyes could see you weren't hurting me. Tell him if he can't control his temper to get the hell out of my room.'
Snape grunted. She continued to fuss over him a few moments more, and he was oddly content to let her do so. Every so often, he could feel her hair slide over his hand or his shoulder as she mended his nose, or the gentle brush of her arms against his chest. He had never felt so content.
When she was done she'd gently run her index and forefinger down either side of the bridge, 'At least he didn't break it.'
'How could you tell?' Snape had drolled, and had a hard time not smiling at her when she started to laugh.
When she finally stopped, she had thrown her arms around his neck. 'I'm so glad you're here.'
He'd allowed himself to lean into her, savoring the feel of her arms around him and her body pressed against his. But as propriety began to rear its ugly head once again, he'd pulled away from her. 'I can't stay here much longer - Albus and Potter are waiting for me to prove you exist.'
'Yes Horton,' she'd grinned at his confusion. 'Well, Albus offered me several lemon drops. I would love to have taken one, as much as I detest them, just to be able to see the look on his face, but I couldn't make him hear me.'
‘How original of him,’ Snape had muttered, burying his disappointment.
‘I’ve also been wondering,’ Hermione continued, ‘why it is you can enter my mind and Professor Dumbledore can’t. I’d written down a lot of my memories and did a fair amount of research with my limited resources before, well - before. I remember that Malfoy’s curse hit me in the back, but I could see some of it slid around me to touch you as well. I didn’t think anything of it when I recalled that because you obviously weren’t affected, but maybe that’s why you can come here now. Something about the curse touched you too.’
Severus had felt a swell of admiration for her intuitive thinking, even though she’d spent probably the last two weeks on the edge of insanity. Her turnaround and ability to think objectively regardless of emotional stress had been enough to make him want to smile. However, that likely would have lead to either more hysterics or more hugging, neither of which he’d felt very comfortable with at the time, so instead he’d merely lifted an eyebrow.
'Anything else?'
She nodded, and assessed him quietly, 'He said he hoped I was really here, for your sake. He seems to think you may... care, about me, and he didn't think you would handle it very well at all if it was determined you were just making me up, or if I died.'
Snape hadn't said anything to that, just looked at her intently as she colored slightly and bit her lip.
'Well, do you?' she'd finally asked.
'Do I what?' he prevaricated.
'Do you care for me?'
He had sighed, 'That depends on whether you want me to or not, Hermione.'
She'd frowned at that, 'If you have feelings for me, they'd be there no matter what I said.'
'I would not burden you with my - feelings - if I felt you didn't share them.' He had winced as he said this, realizing how distant he sounded, but she had just smiled at him.
'Did you know that I always thought your best visits were the ones where you told me things about your day and stroked my hair?' Her eyes softened as she spoke and she leaned into him. 'I remember, one time you actually traced my cheek with your fingers. It made me feel so alive and so - I don't know - but for hours after you left, I could still feel the heat of your hand.'
As she spoke, her own hand had lifted up to lightly cupped the side of his face. She allowed her thumb to run softly from the edge of his nose and trace across his eye socket. He could hear the slight rasp of his stubble against the smooth skin of her palm even as he tipped his head into it, yearning for more. Snape felt the sizzle to his toes.
Her eyes had been glowing. 'Do you feel it, Severus? Do you feel the magic when I touch you? That's what you do to me. No one else has ever touched me like this. No one else ever will.'
Snape had shuddered and lifted his own hand to grip her wrist. The skin around it was soft and he had felt her blood coursing through the pulse point, a poignant reminder that she was alive despite everything. He'd held her hand steady, open against his cheek and turned his face into it, kissing the skin of her palm before opening his mouth slightly and biting the fleshy mound.
He was acting purely on instinct, with a gentleness he had never known he could feel. Each sweet exhalation from Hermione's mouth, each succulent hitch of her breath as he nuzzled her palm, made his blood heat, running through him like molten lava.
'You're magic, Hermione.' His voice had been heavy, rasping with emotion and a thick, rich chocolate desire. 'I will never leave you.'
'I will never let you,' she'd replied, but her words had burned like a vow, seeming to glow in the air around them. 'Now that I know....you've saved me, Severus.'
'Not yet I haven't, but I will,' he'd let go of her hand and pulled regretfully away from her.
'I have to go. Albus and Harry... I promise I'll be back soon.'
He'd looked at her for a moment more, burning the image of her standing before him, face slightly flushed and hand hanging in mid-air as if still caressing his face, before allowing himself the slightest of smiles and vanishing.
~~~~~~~
'Professor Snapes, we'se done sir,' the high-pitched voice of one of the house elves broke through his reverie. Shaking the mental fog that had encompassed him, Snape looked around the large suite, inspecting the bedrooms and the main sitting area.
'This will do,' he agreed.
The elf smiled at him timidly, twisting its ear - Snape could never tell their gender at first glance - before it asked in a frightened whisper, 'It true Missuz Hermione is backs, sir? She won't try to makes us wear clothes, will she?'
'Not right away, at least,' Snape muttered, watching as the little elf disappeared with a frightened pop, crying, 'Noddy doesn't likes socks, no he doesn't.'
Smirking, he grabbed a pinch of floo powder and threw it into the fireplace, muttering 'infirmary' as he followed it. He wasn't surprised to see Dumbledore and Nettie had finally arrived, Potter in tow.
'Severus - is Hermione and Nettie's suite ready?' Albus greeted, eyes twinkling as the younger man fastidiously flicked at the ash on his shoulders.
'Just finished, Albus,' Severus replied, barely noticing any of the people in the room as he looked at Hermione. She was almost restored to her full physical health, and the change was breathtaking. He reluctantly tore his gaze away when he heard Potter's petulant tone.
'I still don't see why she needs to be in the dungeons.'
'Because it will keep her from becoming a curiosity,' Albus replied. 'She won't be bothered down there by students wanting a look at the famous Hermione Granger. And it is more convenient for Severus. He'll be with her a lot, trying to find a way to cure her.'
Potter scowled at this, his green eyes blazing as he looked at Snape, 'Don't think I won't be watching you.'
Severus sneered, 'I don't plan on hurting her, Potter. I only want to set her free. Now, if you don't mind, I think we should get Hermione and Madame Pomfrey settled. It's been a trying day, and I promised Hermione I would return as soon as possible.'
He swept forward, and for the second time that day picked Hermione up, cradling her gently in his arms. 'I'm taking you to your rooms, now, Hermione. Madame Pomfrey,' he nodded at Nettie, 'If you would be so kind to follow me.'
The last thing he heard as he disappeared in the floo was Potter calling after him, 'I don't trust you, Snape.'
'But Hermione does,' Severus muttered under his breath, stepping into the new rooms. And she's the only one that matters.
____________________________________________
Diamond Rio - I Believe
Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin
I feel you come back again
And it's like you haven't been gone a moment from my side
Like the tears were never cried
Like the hands of time are holding you and me
And with all my heart I'm sure we're closer than we ever were
I don't have to hear or see, I've got all the proof I need
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, oh I believe
Now when you die your life goes on
It doesn't end here when you're gone
Every soul is filled with light
It never ends and if I'm right
Our love can even reach across eternity
I believe, oh I believe
Forever, you're a part of me
Forever, in the heart of me
I would hold you even longer if I can
Oh, the people who don't see the most
Say that I believe in ghosts
If that makes me crazy, then I am
'Cause I believe
Oh I believe . . . yes I do
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, oh I believe
Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin
I feel you come back again
. . . and I believe
Chapter Eleven: HERMIONE
Hermione was still going crazy, but it didn’t bother her so much anymore. She was back at Hogwarts, Severus was spending countless hours with her discussing her situation and potential cures, and she was exceedingly happy. It didn’t make her any less crazy, though.
Not that going crazy was a bad thing - not at all. As a matter of fact, this kind of crazy she could live with, because she knew eventually it would end and she’d get what she wanted. What she wanted was Severus.
And he was driving her mad.
She didn’t understand why he couldn’t just take her at her word and believe her when she told him she wanted him, that she ached for the slightest of his touches. For every step forward she took, he seemed to take two steps backwards.
She had thought it would be easy - that first day, when he had found her, he had all but admitted to her that he cared for her. Dumbledore himself had entered her mind and told her as much; even though the older man hadn’t been entirely convinced she was there.
Even Nettie, as she puttered around their suite at Hogwarts, would twitter to her ‘It’s so romantic, like beauty and the beast come to life!’ and ‘He loves you dear. The magic in the air when he looks at you is enough to give an old witch like me heart palpitations!’
Hermione had smiled at that, ‘Imagine what it does to me!’ Of course, Nettie couldn’t hear her, but it didn’t really matter. Hermione still had conversations with her.
The problem wasn’t that Severus didn’t return her feelings - she was pretty sure he did, even if he remained frustratingly closed-mouth about the matter. It was the fact that he didn’t seem to be inclined to act upon them that was making her mental. Despite the hours they had spent together since her return to Hogwarts, he had done nothing more since her first day back, when he had kissed the palm of her hand.
It wasn’t that he seemed averse to touching her - far from it - but he never instigated anything. She was always the first to reach out and grab his hand, or lean into him for hug. She knew that eventually she would just give in to her physical yearnings and kiss him herself, but she was hoping it wouldn’t boil down to that. She wanted him to woo her - was that so much to ask?
She had caught him staring at her once, while they were discussing her memories of the curse, and his gaze had been so hungry and intense it had made her breath hitch in her throat and her heart do an odd little jig within her chest. She had stopped talking, completely ensnared by his gaze, watching in fascination as the tip of his tongue had moistened his bottom lip. She had moistened her own in response and leaned towards him slowly, as though an invisible cord was reeling her in. And just when she had thought that finally - finally - he was going to kiss her, he had broken her gaze and stepped back, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.
‘You’re sure the curse was cold when it hit you, not hot?’ he had inquired politely, and she had wanted to scream her frustration. Severus Snape was a tease and he didn’t even realize it.
If she had thought his visits were important to her before, she realized quickly that her world now revolved around them. Each minute that he was away from her - that she was alone in her mind - seemed to last hours. She would try to keep herself busy, making notes or revising ideas they had come up with, but eventually everything came around to remind her of Severus. Times like that her quill would come to rest and her eyes would turn even further inward, reliving the moments they had spent together with uncanny clarity. She often found herself wondering what she had to do to get him to kiss her, and bent more time than she should have plotting on how to get him to do just that.
One evening, on her second day at Hogwarts, she made sure that when Snape came to visit her he arrived while she was on the tail-end of completing exercises similar to the ones she had engaged in during her time before being hit by the curse. Her fifth year summer had introduced her to yoga at the community center, and it had quickly become her favorite mode for relieving stress and keeping nightmares about the Department of Mysteries at bay. When Severus found her she was in her favorite burgundy yoga leotard, stretching.
‘Just cooling down,’ she had explained to him, smiling to herself as she noticed him twitching uncomfortably and trying not to look at her. ‘I lost track of the time.’ She had surrounded the room they were in with mirrors and he was turning from wall to wall, trying to escape the sight of her in her form fitting suit. He eventually resorted to looking at his feet, a stiffness to his hunched shoulders that briefly brought a twinge of guilt for her ruse.
‘There now, all done.’ Realizing she had teased him enough for one visit, she finally approached him, a towel around her neck and her hair piled high in a loose ponytail atop her head. ‘I think it’s important to stay limber, even if it is only in my mind, don’t you?’
She sighed and rolled her head on her neck, pulling the top of her sticky leotard away from her chest and flapping it ineffectually. ‘Now all I need is a quick shower. Can you wait a moment?’
She could tell Severus noted the movement with interest because his breathing quickened slightly and his eyes shot to her face, burning her with their intensity. The stubborn man refused to comment though, other than to ask her if he could go over some of their notes in the lab.
‘Good idea,’ she’d agreed, banishing the mirrors and quickly conjuring a changing screen, which she flung her discarded leotard over the top of. ‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll be out.’
His quickly retreating footsteps from the room made her want to laugh and snort at the same time. She was going to make him crack, she was determined.
The next day, he came by for an unexpected visit during the lunch hour. ‘Hermione,’ she had heard him calling her from the stone corridor, ‘where are you?’
‘In the library,’ she hollered back, ‘20th row, section B - I’m looking for something.’
He found her up a ladder, perched precariously on her toes as she pulled random titles from a dusty shelf. ‘Be careful, Hermione! You could fall,’ he’d muttered darkly.
She just laughed at him, ‘But you’d catch me, wouldn’t you? Ah, here it is!’ she had found the book she was looking for, pulling it triumphantly from the stacks and quickly descending the ladder until she was at his side. ‘I wasn’t sure if this was still here.’
Severus smiled slightly at her excitement, ‘What is it, a book on counter-curses and spell-breaking?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’ Hermione replied. ‘It’s a book of fairy tales.’
He cocked an eyebrow at her, ‘Fairy tales? Whatever do you need that for?’
‘Nettie mentioned something earlier about Beauty and the Beast,’ Hermione smiled shyly, ‘and it got me to thinking. People are always getting cursed in fairy tales, right? Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were both cursed with sleeping death...’
‘And how does this apply to your situation?’ Severus interrupted, ‘You know as well as I do that the sleeping death is a potion. Snow White ingested it with the apple and Aurora absorbed it when she pricked her finger on the potion coated spindle. What you’ve suffered is completely different - the living sleep. There were no potions involved.’
‘That’s true, but what’s the common factor in all these stories? Even the ones that don’t involve enchanted sleep?’
Snape stiffened, ‘It wouldn’t work.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ she retorted, ‘In all these stories, the curse is always lifted with ‘love’s true kiss’. Even in Beauty and the Beast, the beauty restored the beast to life and his human form when she kissed him, using every ounce of love in her heart.’
She was facing him now, watching the myriad of expressions filter across his face as she spoke, noticing the way a small hope passed through his normally unreadable dark eyes when she mentioned love.
‘Sometimes, the beauty doesn’t need to kiss the beast to transform his life,’ he murmured softly, reaching out and pushing a tendril of her hair behind her ear, skimming the tip of his finger around its shell.
Her heart was pounding, his words making her strangely lightheaded, ‘And sometimes the beast isn’t a beast at all,’ she added shakily, ‘just a man who can’t seem to trust his heart.’
A wistful smile danced across his features, before he withdrew from her, ‘Indeed.’
They stood silently for a few moments, each contemplating the other, before he spoke again, ‘I came to see if you’d like to go for a walk in the gardens. It’s a beautiful day outside.’
‘I’d love to,’ she smiled, ‘but I won’t give up on this, you know.’
He nodded his head in acknowledgment of her determination. ‘We shall see.’
The walk through the gardens, like most of her time spent with Severus, had been lovely. She couldn’t see him, of course, but he kept up a running dialogue as he pushed her along the slate gray path in a wooden wheel chair he had procured from somewhere. When the stone path had ended, he had lifted her from the chair and continued their walk on foot, taking her to the edge of the lake.
From her position in his arms, head on his shoulder, she could hear the strong beating of his heart against her ear and see his Adam’s apple bob with each breath. The line of his chin was sharp and strong, the stubble under the skin thick and dark looking. Every once in a while he would turn his head slightly and look at her, his eyes skimming her face tenderly. She could see herself reflected in his dark gaze and realized, with a start, that she was beautiful.
‘You remind me of a dandelion, Hermione,’ he murmured once as they walked. ‘Your spirit is tenacious, always searching for new ways to grow despite the obvious setbacks. And I must admit, your hair has a tendency to be just as annoying as dandelion seeds.’ He said this with a smirk while removing a wayward curl from the edge of his mouth, the strand glinting in the sunlight. ‘And, like dandelion wine, you can be quite intoxicating.’
She smiled at that and decided she didn’t mind so much him thinking she was a weed.
One of the things that made it more bearable while Severus was away was when Nettie read to her. She had almost finished ‘Wuthering Heights’ and had admitted to Hermione one afternoon before the reading commenced that she had chosen that particular novel because she was a sucker for tragic romances with brooding leading men - such as the one who took every opportunity to visit her.
Hermione liked the soft drone of Nettie’s voice and often found herself imagining Severus, striding over the moors and cursing her ghost with words of love and despair. She said as much to him one day and he had almost smiled at her.
‘I trust we will have a more fitting end then either Catherine or Heathcliffe did,’ he retorted dryly. ‘As I recall, Heathcliffe went mad.’
“‘Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!’” Hermione quoted softly, before reaching out and grabbing his hand. ‘But you’re not Heathcliffe and I have no need to haunt you.’
‘You do, though,’ his reply sent thrills of delight up her spine, ‘you do, Hermione.’
A few days later, she brought up her fairy tale theory again. ‘I still think you should try it,’ she argued when he snorted, ‘if only to rule it out as a potential cure.’
‘It won’t work,’ he stated flatly. ‘We don’t need to rule it out, because we both know it’s futile.’
‘We don’t know it,’ she retorted, ‘we just think it. But we could be missing something. What if it is the way to break this curse and we never try it? I’ll be trapped here forever because you were too scared to kiss me.’
Severus had grabbed her shoulders at this, shaking her slightly. ‘You silly girl!’ he growled, ‘think for a moment. You are in a coma, your body is not responsive to anything and Potter already thinks the worst. You have a chaperone, for Merlin’s sake, whose main responsibility outside looking after you is to make sure I don’t take advantage of you when you are like this. What do you think would happen if she saw me - kissing you? What would Albus and Potter say?’
‘How can you take advantage when it is something I offer freely?’ Hermione asked, suddenly angry. ‘And Nettie is not here to keep an eye on you. She knows you wouldn’t hurt me. And Harry,’ she threw her hands up at this, ‘can sod off. He’s just upset that it’s you who found me, and not him. He’s too used to being the hero.’
Snape raised an eyebrow at this, ‘Potter still doesn’t believe you’re here. He thinks I’m imagining all this and that I brought you to Hogwarts for my own selfish reasons. And Nettie is here to keep an eye on things - how can you say she’s not.’
‘Severus, listen to me,’ Hermione was suddenly gentle again, reaching out grab his hands, which were cool to the touch, ‘she talks to me. She knows you wouldn’t take advantage, as you put it. She likes you, quite a bit. She’s told me so herself. Just the other day, she said to me, ‘Miss Granger, dear, I’ve never met a man like your Professor. He’s all sharp edges on the outside, but I can see his loneliness. I’m so glad he has you.’ She would be your friend, if you let her.’
Snape snorted, ‘Hermione...’
‘No, I’m telling you the truth. Why must you always think the worst?’ Her eyes watched him shrewdly, studying his face with an intense tenderness. ‘Or, is it that you aren’t thinking the worst of other people but thinking the worst of yourself?’
He stiffened and tried to pull his hands away, but she wouldn’t let him. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t believe that anyone would want to be friends with you, that no one could care about you. How can you have such a low opinion of yourself?’
‘Hermione, I don’t...’ he sighed wearily, ‘I’m not a nice man.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed, ‘you’re an intense man. You’re sarcastic, bitter, sometimes cruel... but you’re also intelligent, loyal, and capable of more tenderness than anyone I have ever met. Why can’t you see all the wonderful things you are, instead of focusing on all the negatives? I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you!’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Snape replied darkly, a snarl taking root on his lips.
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it! You give me hope, Severus, where before I had none. You give me courage, to keep on fighting. You give me your strength and make me believe in the future... and when I try to give you things in return, you turn me away and try to deny my feelings. I... I love you, Severus. As much as this damn curse has been terrifying, I can’t totally regret it. If I wasn’t like this - I would never have gotten to know you, would I? You’re the best part of this whole mess - you’re my silver lining.’
Severus didn’t say anything for the longest time, just stood there and looked at her hands clasping his. ‘You’re a foolish girl,’ he finally murmured, ‘I’m not anyone’s ‘silver lining’. More like the black cloud that wrecks an otherwise lovely day.’
Hermione felt her heart clench and tried for a soft tone, ‘Maybe if you didn’t swoop around in black so much...’
He smirked at her gentle teasing, bringing her hands to his mouth and gently kissing her knuckles, a tender action that nearly made her knees buckle. ‘I have never done anything in my life deserving of you.’
‘You’re a hero. And that’s not where I want you to kiss me,’ she whispered breathily, leaning into him.
‘I...Hermione....’ his face was tight with uncertainty and desire, and Hermione sighed. She could feel the very air crackling around them; little electrical impulses that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up in anticipation. There was a delicious coiling tightness in her belly, spreading languorous heat like liquid honey through her veins. Her heartbeat became slow and heavy, and she licked her bottom lip when she saw him staring at it.
He was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her and she was going to spontaneously combust right here in his arms. He was going to kiss her and she would finally get to taste him, to learn the feel and flavor of his mouth...oh yes yesyes...
‘I apologize for the interruption Professor Snape, Miss Granger,’ Nettie’s disembodied voice intruded, ‘but it’s past midnight, and I know you have class tomorrow, sir.’
Hermione clutched her hands reflexively in his, ‘No, don’t...’
But Severus was already pulling away, a mixture of regret and relief mingling on his face, ‘I have to go, Hermione. I have to...’
‘Promise me,’ she whispered after him, as he faded from her mind, until he was outside of her again looking into her eyes, ‘promise me you’ll love me too.’
She didn’t know if he heard her.
When he returned to her the next day, it was as if the conversation of the night before had never taken place.
‘I’ve been thinking we’re going about this curse the wrong way,’ he stated in greeting as he strode into the potions room. ‘It occurred to me last night that animula somnus is taken from the Latin masculine. I no longer think Malfoy found this curse in some ancient text - I think he created it specifically for me.’
Hermione frowned at him, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think we’ll find an answer in books,’ he stated reasonably, ‘and I don’t know why it took me so long to figure that out. The curse was directed at me - it was never supposed to hit you at all. If it had been meant for a woman, he would have said ‘animulae somnusi’.’
‘But we’ve known all along it was directed at you!’ Hermione protested, ‘How is this news?’
‘We’ve been assuming there was a cure for it, when there may not be now, not if Malfoy designed it. It would appeal to his ludicrous sense of justice to think he had trapped me in a heretofore undocumented, cureless curse of his own design. He always was a right brilliant bastard.’
They had worked the rest of the evening on theories and postulations, writing scrolls of ideas with the new information and scratching them out.
‘If it was meant for you, how come it worked on me?’ she finally asked in exasperation, after another hypothesis hit a brick wall.
‘Maybe because you were touching me when it took full effect,’ Snape offered quietly. ‘Maybe that’s why you feel so - connected - to me. Malfoy’s curse recognized its true target and bound you to me...’
Hermione felt a twitch settle on her left cheek, ‘I hope that’s not what you’ve been telling yourself all day long. I have not been cursed into caring for you.’
Suddenly, the conversation from yesterday evening loomed before them, causing all the tension from the prior evening to return ten-fold. ‘That’s why you won’t kiss me, isn’t it?’ she accused, ‘You’ve been telling yourself all along that it’s not real, that I can’t really love you... That’s it, isn’t it?’
Severus frowned and looked at her, ‘It makes sense, if you think about it. At the very least, you yourself have spoken of your loneliness.’
Hermione snorted, ‘Bullocks. I know my own mind.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Snape replied, ‘I don’t question that. However, you must realize Hermione, you are only 20 years old and you have been trapped here - in your mind - for over a year and a half. You have told me yourself that you crave simple human touch, of which I have been one of the few people to provide. However I feel... anything further than that would be taking advantage of this situation you are in. You might think you want me to kiss you...’ his voice shook slightly at this, ‘but I’m sure, given the opportunity to choose someone else, you would change your mind.’
Hermione shook her head, feeling desperation loosen her tongue, ‘I wouldn’t. I’ve told you this before - who else would I want but you? And I know you want me too... I know you care for me. You kissed the palm of my hand. You... you dreamed about me.’
Snape looked uncomfortable at this, ‘Yes. Well,’ he cleared his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘I cannot deny that I’ve come to care for you. You saved my life and I feel responsible for this situation you’ve find yourself in. But I shouldn’t have kissed your palm. My only excuse is that I was overwhelmed with the events of the day; of finding you alive and somewhat sane in this - delightful - mind of yours.’ He smirked gently at the last of his little speech, a look Hermione found herself quite taken with.
‘But you want me.’ Hermione hated the pleading sound that had crept into her voice, ‘You can’t deny it.’
‘You are making this very difficult,’ Snape replied irritably. ‘I am only a man Hermione, and a principled one, despite what others might think. Perhaps, after we’ve released you from this spell, if you still want me...’
He wasn’t looking at her as he said this. Instead, he was smoothing the material of his frock coat, his fingers almost luminescent against the dark fabric. Hermione had noticed he did this often when he wanted to appear as if he wasn’t interested in what they were discussing - as if the minutiae of picking lint from his sleeve or erasing imaginary wrinkles was more important than what she might say. It gave her the courage to want to settle this matter completely before he left again.
‘I’ll still want you,’ she stated firmly, but quietly, ‘and I’ll prove it to you as soon as I’m free. The first thing we need to do is rule out all possible potential cures. Like a kiss.’
‘Hermione...’
‘No. I will not listen to this again. I know you don’t think it will work, and I happen to agree, but wouldn’t it be just like Lucius Malfoy to do something like that, thinking no one would ever kiss you? You have to admit I have a point.’
Severus nodded at this and Hermione let a small smile touch her face. ‘Talk to Nettie, Severus. Tell her what you’re going to do. I think she’ll be more understanding than you might think. She won’t run off and tell Albus or Harry that you kissed me.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Snape gritted back, ‘keep in mind she’s related to the biggest gossip at Hogwarts.’
Hermione laughed, her heart swelling, because he hadn’t said no. ‘Leave Madame Pomfrey out of this. Please, talk to Nettie. I think you’ll be surprised.’
_____________________________________
On My Own - from the Les Miserables soundtrack.
And now I'm all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to
Without a home, without a friend,
Without a face to say hello to.
And now the night is near
Now I can make believe he's here.
Sometimes I walk alone at night
When everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and then I'm happy
With the company I'm keeping
The city goes to bed
And I can live inside my head.
On my own
Pretending he's beside me
All alone, I walk with him till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way I close my eyes
And he has found me
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me for ever and forever
And I know it's only in my mind
That I'm talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say, there's a way for us
I love him
But when the night is over
He is gone, the river's just a river
Without him the world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere
The streets are full of strangers
I love him
But every day I'm learning
All my life I've only been pretending
Without me his world will go on turning
A world that's full of happiness
That I have never known!
I love him
I love him
I love him
But only on my own.
Anyways, there will be no 'Little Things' today - sorry, but I just got back from speech therapy and I'm wiped and I have pages of rewriting to do. There might by a drabbleish fic later for Joss100 but even that is iffy.
Instead, something I already wrote and started archiving a few days ago. Don't know if anyone else cares to read it - if you do, let me know what you think. Of everything I've ever written, this is the one I think I'm most proud of.
Chapter Ten: SNAPE
Snape would have been amused at the look of shock on Poppy Pomfrey's face when he stepped through the floo into the infirmary if it hadn't been directed at him. Actually, it wasn't the shock that bothered him so much as the latent suspicion behind it. It wasn't as if he had never arrived at the infirmary before (though granted, not usually by green flames) cradling a student in his arms - Dennis Creevey immediately came to mind.
'Severus...is that - is that Hermione Granger?' she finally managed to stutter out.
'I see your powers of observation are as astute as ever,' Snape replied sarcastically. 'And before you ask, no, I did not kidnap her.'
Poppy had the grace to flush, and smoothed the smock of her uniform nervously with the palms of her hands. 'What is she doing here?'
Snape ignored her for a moment, gently placing Hermione on an empty bed before turning back to face the older woman. 'She's coming back to Hogwarts. Albus and your sister are just finalizing the details now.' His hand reached behind him of his own accord, touching Hermione's arm almost as if to reassure himself she was still there, 'She's trapped in her mind, Poppy.'
The medi-witch started at this, stepping closer to the bed to look down at the overly-thin girl lying so silently on it. 'That's impossible. Albus tried....'
'I know what Albus tried,' Snape interrupted. 'But she is there. I've spoken with her.'
'And she's been...aware...this entire time?' Poppy inquired shakily. 'What a nightmare.'
'Indeed,' the potions master turned his back on her to look at the girl, 'I need to go and arrange for a suite of rooms to be set up for her and your sister. Can you stay with her, Poppy, please? I don't want her to think she's been abandoned again.'
His voice was soft as he said this, a tone of remorse to it that Poppy had never heard before.
'Abandoned... again?'
Snape crossed his arms, his posture straight and stuff under the white shirt he was wearing. 'She thought I had forgotten about her when I stopped visiting after the Creevey accident,' he replied, the gentle tones of before replaced with his normal coolness. His pale jaw clenched as if to elaborate on that fact, but the moment passed in silence, and he turned back to the medi-witch with a familiar glare. 'She can see you if you stay within her line of vision, and she can hear everything you say to her. If you need to leave before I get back, please let her know.'
'Of course, Severus,' Poppy stuttered, allowing a little of the surprise she felt to show on her face.
Snape didn't smile at her, but he did nod his head in a far more courteous manner than Poppy had ever seen from him. 'Thank you.'
Turning once again to face the young woman on the bed, he leaned over until he was looking directly into her eyes and allowed himself to fall through into her mind.
He found himself back in the potion's lab. Miraculously, the scenery was much changed from he last remembered seeing. All traces of dust and crumbling mortar were gone. The stone floor was clean, and tall windows with crimson curtains were thrown back to let in the generous sunlight. He noted the addition of the windows with a smirk and turned his attention to the woman hunched over a very familiar, large oak desk.
She had managed to replicate the desk in his office almost perfectly, down to the detailed molding and tarnished knobs on the drawers. He felt himself at once touched that she would choose to create something of his in her mind, and at the same time stunned by her ability to do such a thing. Her quill made a final pass across the piece of parchment in front of her before her eyed lifted to his, a warm smile on her face that made him suck in his breath.
'Hermione.'
'Yes, Severus?'
'I have to leave you here for a bit. I promise I'll be back.'
Hermione's smile widened at that, 'I have ears, you know. I heard what you said to Poppy.'
'Still, I didn't want to just leave you again without letting you know.' He stepped closer to her side to look down at the strewn arrangement of parchment. 'What are you doing?'
Hermione motioned him forward until he was bent over her shoulder, and showed him the page she had been writing on when he arrived, 'I thought I'd start making an account of everything I remember about the curse. I'd done it before, but... I can't find the scroll. I think I might have destroyed it when you said you weren't coming back.'
Snape flinched, 'Hermione, I'm - '
The young witch cut him off, 'You didn't know. How could you? The important thing is... you're here now.'
Severus found he couldn't respond to that. Instead, he breathed in her scent, allowing it to wash over his senses, watching with interest as she leaned back slightly and tipped her face up towards his, before he pulled away quickly. He could feel the heat of her permeating through him and marveled that this girl - this woman - seemed to revel in his presence. No one had ever done so before.
'I'll be back soon,' he murmured, disengaging from her mind with regret. He hated leaving her.
~~~~~~~
It was a simple matter to see to organizing the suite of rooms Albus had indicated could be used for Hermione and Nettie. He did nothing, really, other than relay the instructions to the house elves and supervise their normally efficient work as they bustled about making the rooms habitable. Hermione would only be two doors down from his own suite, which pleased Severus rather more than he thought it should.
He still had a hard time believing Hermione was actually alive inside her mind. He had expected, when he had rushed to St. Mungo's in a panic, he would find nothing except her empty body. It had been a shock when he had actually found her.
He could still remember the feel of her, collapsing in his arms and crying when he had found her amidst the destruction of her mind, sitting in a reasonable - if rotted - facsimile of his potions classroom.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman. The depth of feelings which had rushed to the fore in that encounter had taken him aback. He had known, of course, after much drunken rumination and many nights spent dreaming of her, that he had come to care for the girl. How it had happened, he could not explain - it was not as if he knew her, not really. She had always been just a student to him prior to the curse - a bushy-haired, know-it-all girl who irritated him with her persistence and insatiable curiosity and her unexplainable friendship with Weasley and the Boy-Who-Lived-to-Drive-Him-Insane.
After she had been hit by Malfoy's curse, things had changed. Why they had, or even how they could, considering she was in a coma, was beyond his understanding. By all rights, the memories he had of her should have remained those of the irritating little girl. Instead, the images most prominent in his mind had been the brave girl battling to his side to protect him even as he helped her friend; the brilliant girl who had thrown herself into his arms and taken a curse meant for him; the frail beauty who's hair had grown under his fingers, clinging to them like a thousand silken kisses on his first visit to St. Mungo's. It was as if he had only begun to see her for the first time during that fateful final battle.
In turn, those memories had been surpassed by his dreams of her smiling at him with that impudent mouth of hers, sitting on the arm of his chair and leaning over him as he tried to read, running her fingers through his hair and massaging his scalp after a hard day of classes. It was those dreams - the visions of the little things that could make a relationship - that had made him fall in love with her.
They were visions and images of a life he had never thought would ever be his and had long denied he even desired.
Seeing Hermione so close to death had finally forced him to admit that he did, indeed, love her. He had known at that precise moment that all his denials were for nothing; without her he could never be whole. She might have been hit by a curse meant for him, but his life - stretching empty and lonely without her in it - was a curse in and of itself. And even if it meant staying by her motionless side until the day he died, then so be it - they would be alone, together, for all eternity. A fitting fate for a man like him.
He remembered her voice after he found her, 'gods...I feel your hand on my hair...', and the way his hands had gripped her shoulders, caressing the soft skin of her neck before traveling up to cup her face.
She told him that she needed him - him - Severus Snape. In her delirious state she'd stated simply and explicitly that she wanted his touch, wanted his kisses, and he had been hard pressed not to comply, even though she hadn't believed at the time he was really there. He wondered, now that she knew his forays into her mind were real, if those feelings would change out of shame.
When Potter had yanked him away from her and punched him in the face, Severus had wanted to kill the younger man. He had been so engrossed in Hermione that the sudden feeling of his consciousness spinning out of her mind had been disorienting. She had finally started to believe him and Potter was determined to destroy what few fragile truths he had managed to build. He had been afraid that his scant progress would be undone by his sudden disappearance - she would never trust him again.
But, she had. Somehow, when he had been allowed to reenter her mind he had felt her reach out and grab him, yanking him to her. She had been waiting for him just behind those eyes of hers, in the foyer he had found himself in the first time he had been there. However, the cobwebs and dust had been removed and the darkness had been replaced by a radiant light which seemed to be eminating from Hermione herself. The only other item in the foyer was a black board, covered in her tiny round writing and a large, overstuffed armchair in a hideous red velour which she immediately pushed him into.
Before he could recover himself, she conjured a bucket of icy water and a clean linen cloth and began to gently clean his face. He didn't realize until then that his nose was bleeding.
'Harry is a great bloody prat,' she'd muttered, as she held the cool cloth under his nose. 'If he ever does that to you again, you have my permission to hex his balls off!'
'I didn't realize I needed your permission,' Snape had responded, but his voice had taken on a teasing tone to it. He almost didn't recognize it as his own.
'I can't believe he punched you, the idiot.'
'He was just trying to protect you,' Snape replied, 'I would have done the same thing, had our situation been reversed.'
Hermione had gaped at him. 'Are you defending him?' her voice was incredulous. 'Any one with eyes could see you weren't hurting me. Tell him if he can't control his temper to get the hell out of my room.'
Snape grunted. She continued to fuss over him a few moments more, and he was oddly content to let her do so. Every so often, he could feel her hair slide over his hand or his shoulder as she mended his nose, or the gentle brush of her arms against his chest. He had never felt so content.
When she was done she'd gently run her index and forefinger down either side of the bridge, 'At least he didn't break it.'
'How could you tell?' Snape had drolled, and had a hard time not smiling at her when she started to laugh.
When she finally stopped, she had thrown her arms around his neck. 'I'm so glad you're here.'
He'd allowed himself to lean into her, savoring the feel of her arms around him and her body pressed against his. But as propriety began to rear its ugly head once again, he'd pulled away from her. 'I can't stay here much longer - Albus and Potter are waiting for me to prove you exist.'
'Yes Horton,' she'd grinned at his confusion. 'Well, Albus offered me several lemon drops. I would love to have taken one, as much as I detest them, just to be able to see the look on his face, but I couldn't make him hear me.'
‘How original of him,’ Snape had muttered, burying his disappointment.
‘I’ve also been wondering,’ Hermione continued, ‘why it is you can enter my mind and Professor Dumbledore can’t. I’d written down a lot of my memories and did a fair amount of research with my limited resources before, well - before. I remember that Malfoy’s curse hit me in the back, but I could see some of it slid around me to touch you as well. I didn’t think anything of it when I recalled that because you obviously weren’t affected, but maybe that’s why you can come here now. Something about the curse touched you too.’
Severus had felt a swell of admiration for her intuitive thinking, even though she’d spent probably the last two weeks on the edge of insanity. Her turnaround and ability to think objectively regardless of emotional stress had been enough to make him want to smile. However, that likely would have lead to either more hysterics or more hugging, neither of which he’d felt very comfortable with at the time, so instead he’d merely lifted an eyebrow.
'Anything else?'
She nodded, and assessed him quietly, 'He said he hoped I was really here, for your sake. He seems to think you may... care, about me, and he didn't think you would handle it very well at all if it was determined you were just making me up, or if I died.'
Snape hadn't said anything to that, just looked at her intently as she colored slightly and bit her lip.
'Well, do you?' she'd finally asked.
'Do I what?' he prevaricated.
'Do you care for me?'
He had sighed, 'That depends on whether you want me to or not, Hermione.'
She'd frowned at that, 'If you have feelings for me, they'd be there no matter what I said.'
'I would not burden you with my - feelings - if I felt you didn't share them.' He had winced as he said this, realizing how distant he sounded, but she had just smiled at him.
'Did you know that I always thought your best visits were the ones where you told me things about your day and stroked my hair?' Her eyes softened as she spoke and she leaned into him. 'I remember, one time you actually traced my cheek with your fingers. It made me feel so alive and so - I don't know - but for hours after you left, I could still feel the heat of your hand.'
As she spoke, her own hand had lifted up to lightly cupped the side of his face. She allowed her thumb to run softly from the edge of his nose and trace across his eye socket. He could hear the slight rasp of his stubble against the smooth skin of her palm even as he tipped his head into it, yearning for more. Snape felt the sizzle to his toes.
Her eyes had been glowing. 'Do you feel it, Severus? Do you feel the magic when I touch you? That's what you do to me. No one else has ever touched me like this. No one else ever will.'
Snape had shuddered and lifted his own hand to grip her wrist. The skin around it was soft and he had felt her blood coursing through the pulse point, a poignant reminder that she was alive despite everything. He'd held her hand steady, open against his cheek and turned his face into it, kissing the skin of her palm before opening his mouth slightly and biting the fleshy mound.
He was acting purely on instinct, with a gentleness he had never known he could feel. Each sweet exhalation from Hermione's mouth, each succulent hitch of her breath as he nuzzled her palm, made his blood heat, running through him like molten lava.
'You're magic, Hermione.' His voice had been heavy, rasping with emotion and a thick, rich chocolate desire. 'I will never leave you.'
'I will never let you,' she'd replied, but her words had burned like a vow, seeming to glow in the air around them. 'Now that I know....you've saved me, Severus.'
'Not yet I haven't, but I will,' he'd let go of her hand and pulled regretfully away from her.
'I have to go. Albus and Harry... I promise I'll be back soon.'
He'd looked at her for a moment more, burning the image of her standing before him, face slightly flushed and hand hanging in mid-air as if still caressing his face, before allowing himself the slightest of smiles and vanishing.
~~~~~~~
'Professor Snapes, we'se done sir,' the high-pitched voice of one of the house elves broke through his reverie. Shaking the mental fog that had encompassed him, Snape looked around the large suite, inspecting the bedrooms and the main sitting area.
'This will do,' he agreed.
The elf smiled at him timidly, twisting its ear - Snape could never tell their gender at first glance - before it asked in a frightened whisper, 'It true Missuz Hermione is backs, sir? She won't try to makes us wear clothes, will she?'
'Not right away, at least,' Snape muttered, watching as the little elf disappeared with a frightened pop, crying, 'Noddy doesn't likes socks, no he doesn't.'
Smirking, he grabbed a pinch of floo powder and threw it into the fireplace, muttering 'infirmary' as he followed it. He wasn't surprised to see Dumbledore and Nettie had finally arrived, Potter in tow.
'Severus - is Hermione and Nettie's suite ready?' Albus greeted, eyes twinkling as the younger man fastidiously flicked at the ash on his shoulders.
'Just finished, Albus,' Severus replied, barely noticing any of the people in the room as he looked at Hermione. She was almost restored to her full physical health, and the change was breathtaking. He reluctantly tore his gaze away when he heard Potter's petulant tone.
'I still don't see why she needs to be in the dungeons.'
'Because it will keep her from becoming a curiosity,' Albus replied. 'She won't be bothered down there by students wanting a look at the famous Hermione Granger. And it is more convenient for Severus. He'll be with her a lot, trying to find a way to cure her.'
Potter scowled at this, his green eyes blazing as he looked at Snape, 'Don't think I won't be watching you.'
Severus sneered, 'I don't plan on hurting her, Potter. I only want to set her free. Now, if you don't mind, I think we should get Hermione and Madame Pomfrey settled. It's been a trying day, and I promised Hermione I would return as soon as possible.'
He swept forward, and for the second time that day picked Hermione up, cradling her gently in his arms. 'I'm taking you to your rooms, now, Hermione. Madame Pomfrey,' he nodded at Nettie, 'If you would be so kind to follow me.'
The last thing he heard as he disappeared in the floo was Potter calling after him, 'I don't trust you, Snape.'
'But Hermione does,' Severus muttered under his breath, stepping into the new rooms. And she's the only one that matters.
____________________________________________
Diamond Rio - I Believe
Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin
I feel you come back again
And it's like you haven't been gone a moment from my side
Like the tears were never cried
Like the hands of time are holding you and me
And with all my heart I'm sure we're closer than we ever were
I don't have to hear or see, I've got all the proof I need
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, oh I believe
Now when you die your life goes on
It doesn't end here when you're gone
Every soul is filled with light
It never ends and if I'm right
Our love can even reach across eternity
I believe, oh I believe
Forever, you're a part of me
Forever, in the heart of me
I would hold you even longer if I can
Oh, the people who don't see the most
Say that I believe in ghosts
If that makes me crazy, then I am
'Cause I believe
Oh I believe . . . yes I do
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, oh I believe
Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin
I feel you come back again
. . . and I believe
Chapter Eleven: HERMIONE
Hermione was still going crazy, but it didn’t bother her so much anymore. She was back at Hogwarts, Severus was spending countless hours with her discussing her situation and potential cures, and she was exceedingly happy. It didn’t make her any less crazy, though.
Not that going crazy was a bad thing - not at all. As a matter of fact, this kind of crazy she could live with, because she knew eventually it would end and she’d get what she wanted. What she wanted was Severus.
And he was driving her mad.
She didn’t understand why he couldn’t just take her at her word and believe her when she told him she wanted him, that she ached for the slightest of his touches. For every step forward she took, he seemed to take two steps backwards.
She had thought it would be easy - that first day, when he had found her, he had all but admitted to her that he cared for her. Dumbledore himself had entered her mind and told her as much; even though the older man hadn’t been entirely convinced she was there.
Even Nettie, as she puttered around their suite at Hogwarts, would twitter to her ‘It’s so romantic, like beauty and the beast come to life!’ and ‘He loves you dear. The magic in the air when he looks at you is enough to give an old witch like me heart palpitations!’
Hermione had smiled at that, ‘Imagine what it does to me!’ Of course, Nettie couldn’t hear her, but it didn’t really matter. Hermione still had conversations with her.
The problem wasn’t that Severus didn’t return her feelings - she was pretty sure he did, even if he remained frustratingly closed-mouth about the matter. It was the fact that he didn’t seem to be inclined to act upon them that was making her mental. Despite the hours they had spent together since her return to Hogwarts, he had done nothing more since her first day back, when he had kissed the palm of her hand.
It wasn’t that he seemed averse to touching her - far from it - but he never instigated anything. She was always the first to reach out and grab his hand, or lean into him for hug. She knew that eventually she would just give in to her physical yearnings and kiss him herself, but she was hoping it wouldn’t boil down to that. She wanted him to woo her - was that so much to ask?
She had caught him staring at her once, while they were discussing her memories of the curse, and his gaze had been so hungry and intense it had made her breath hitch in her throat and her heart do an odd little jig within her chest. She had stopped talking, completely ensnared by his gaze, watching in fascination as the tip of his tongue had moistened his bottom lip. She had moistened her own in response and leaned towards him slowly, as though an invisible cord was reeling her in. And just when she had thought that finally - finally - he was going to kiss her, he had broken her gaze and stepped back, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.
‘You’re sure the curse was cold when it hit you, not hot?’ he had inquired politely, and she had wanted to scream her frustration. Severus Snape was a tease and he didn’t even realize it.
If she had thought his visits were important to her before, she realized quickly that her world now revolved around them. Each minute that he was away from her - that she was alone in her mind - seemed to last hours. She would try to keep herself busy, making notes or revising ideas they had come up with, but eventually everything came around to remind her of Severus. Times like that her quill would come to rest and her eyes would turn even further inward, reliving the moments they had spent together with uncanny clarity. She often found herself wondering what she had to do to get him to kiss her, and bent more time than she should have plotting on how to get him to do just that.
One evening, on her second day at Hogwarts, she made sure that when Snape came to visit her he arrived while she was on the tail-end of completing exercises similar to the ones she had engaged in during her time before being hit by the curse. Her fifth year summer had introduced her to yoga at the community center, and it had quickly become her favorite mode for relieving stress and keeping nightmares about the Department of Mysteries at bay. When Severus found her she was in her favorite burgundy yoga leotard, stretching.
‘Just cooling down,’ she had explained to him, smiling to herself as she noticed him twitching uncomfortably and trying not to look at her. ‘I lost track of the time.’ She had surrounded the room they were in with mirrors and he was turning from wall to wall, trying to escape the sight of her in her form fitting suit. He eventually resorted to looking at his feet, a stiffness to his hunched shoulders that briefly brought a twinge of guilt for her ruse.
‘There now, all done.’ Realizing she had teased him enough for one visit, she finally approached him, a towel around her neck and her hair piled high in a loose ponytail atop her head. ‘I think it’s important to stay limber, even if it is only in my mind, don’t you?’
She sighed and rolled her head on her neck, pulling the top of her sticky leotard away from her chest and flapping it ineffectually. ‘Now all I need is a quick shower. Can you wait a moment?’
She could tell Severus noted the movement with interest because his breathing quickened slightly and his eyes shot to her face, burning her with their intensity. The stubborn man refused to comment though, other than to ask her if he could go over some of their notes in the lab.
‘Good idea,’ she’d agreed, banishing the mirrors and quickly conjuring a changing screen, which she flung her discarded leotard over the top of. ‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll be out.’
His quickly retreating footsteps from the room made her want to laugh and snort at the same time. She was going to make him crack, she was determined.
The next day, he came by for an unexpected visit during the lunch hour. ‘Hermione,’ she had heard him calling her from the stone corridor, ‘where are you?’
‘In the library,’ she hollered back, ‘20th row, section B - I’m looking for something.’
He found her up a ladder, perched precariously on her toes as she pulled random titles from a dusty shelf. ‘Be careful, Hermione! You could fall,’ he’d muttered darkly.
She just laughed at him, ‘But you’d catch me, wouldn’t you? Ah, here it is!’ she had found the book she was looking for, pulling it triumphantly from the stacks and quickly descending the ladder until she was at his side. ‘I wasn’t sure if this was still here.’
Severus smiled slightly at her excitement, ‘What is it, a book on counter-curses and spell-breaking?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’ Hermione replied. ‘It’s a book of fairy tales.’
He cocked an eyebrow at her, ‘Fairy tales? Whatever do you need that for?’
‘Nettie mentioned something earlier about Beauty and the Beast,’ Hermione smiled shyly, ‘and it got me to thinking. People are always getting cursed in fairy tales, right? Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were both cursed with sleeping death...’
‘And how does this apply to your situation?’ Severus interrupted, ‘You know as well as I do that the sleeping death is a potion. Snow White ingested it with the apple and Aurora absorbed it when she pricked her finger on the potion coated spindle. What you’ve suffered is completely different - the living sleep. There were no potions involved.’
‘That’s true, but what’s the common factor in all these stories? Even the ones that don’t involve enchanted sleep?’
Snape stiffened, ‘It wouldn’t work.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ she retorted, ‘In all these stories, the curse is always lifted with ‘love’s true kiss’. Even in Beauty and the Beast, the beauty restored the beast to life and his human form when she kissed him, using every ounce of love in her heart.’
She was facing him now, watching the myriad of expressions filter across his face as she spoke, noticing the way a small hope passed through his normally unreadable dark eyes when she mentioned love.
‘Sometimes, the beauty doesn’t need to kiss the beast to transform his life,’ he murmured softly, reaching out and pushing a tendril of her hair behind her ear, skimming the tip of his finger around its shell.
Her heart was pounding, his words making her strangely lightheaded, ‘And sometimes the beast isn’t a beast at all,’ she added shakily, ‘just a man who can’t seem to trust his heart.’
A wistful smile danced across his features, before he withdrew from her, ‘Indeed.’
They stood silently for a few moments, each contemplating the other, before he spoke again, ‘I came to see if you’d like to go for a walk in the gardens. It’s a beautiful day outside.’
‘I’d love to,’ she smiled, ‘but I won’t give up on this, you know.’
He nodded his head in acknowledgment of her determination. ‘We shall see.’
The walk through the gardens, like most of her time spent with Severus, had been lovely. She couldn’t see him, of course, but he kept up a running dialogue as he pushed her along the slate gray path in a wooden wheel chair he had procured from somewhere. When the stone path had ended, he had lifted her from the chair and continued their walk on foot, taking her to the edge of the lake.
From her position in his arms, head on his shoulder, she could hear the strong beating of his heart against her ear and see his Adam’s apple bob with each breath. The line of his chin was sharp and strong, the stubble under the skin thick and dark looking. Every once in a while he would turn his head slightly and look at her, his eyes skimming her face tenderly. She could see herself reflected in his dark gaze and realized, with a start, that she was beautiful.
‘You remind me of a dandelion, Hermione,’ he murmured once as they walked. ‘Your spirit is tenacious, always searching for new ways to grow despite the obvious setbacks. And I must admit, your hair has a tendency to be just as annoying as dandelion seeds.’ He said this with a smirk while removing a wayward curl from the edge of his mouth, the strand glinting in the sunlight. ‘And, like dandelion wine, you can be quite intoxicating.’
She smiled at that and decided she didn’t mind so much him thinking she was a weed.
One of the things that made it more bearable while Severus was away was when Nettie read to her. She had almost finished ‘Wuthering Heights’ and had admitted to Hermione one afternoon before the reading commenced that she had chosen that particular novel because she was a sucker for tragic romances with brooding leading men - such as the one who took every opportunity to visit her.
Hermione liked the soft drone of Nettie’s voice and often found herself imagining Severus, striding over the moors and cursing her ghost with words of love and despair. She said as much to him one day and he had almost smiled at her.
‘I trust we will have a more fitting end then either Catherine or Heathcliffe did,’ he retorted dryly. ‘As I recall, Heathcliffe went mad.’
“‘Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!’” Hermione quoted softly, before reaching out and grabbing his hand. ‘But you’re not Heathcliffe and I have no need to haunt you.’
‘You do, though,’ his reply sent thrills of delight up her spine, ‘you do, Hermione.’
A few days later, she brought up her fairy tale theory again. ‘I still think you should try it,’ she argued when he snorted, ‘if only to rule it out as a potential cure.’
‘It won’t work,’ he stated flatly. ‘We don’t need to rule it out, because we both know it’s futile.’
‘We don’t know it,’ she retorted, ‘we just think it. But we could be missing something. What if it is the way to break this curse and we never try it? I’ll be trapped here forever because you were too scared to kiss me.’
Severus had grabbed her shoulders at this, shaking her slightly. ‘You silly girl!’ he growled, ‘think for a moment. You are in a coma, your body is not responsive to anything and Potter already thinks the worst. You have a chaperone, for Merlin’s sake, whose main responsibility outside looking after you is to make sure I don’t take advantage of you when you are like this. What do you think would happen if she saw me - kissing you? What would Albus and Potter say?’
‘How can you take advantage when it is something I offer freely?’ Hermione asked, suddenly angry. ‘And Nettie is not here to keep an eye on you. She knows you wouldn’t hurt me. And Harry,’ she threw her hands up at this, ‘can sod off. He’s just upset that it’s you who found me, and not him. He’s too used to being the hero.’
Snape raised an eyebrow at this, ‘Potter still doesn’t believe you’re here. He thinks I’m imagining all this and that I brought you to Hogwarts for my own selfish reasons. And Nettie is here to keep an eye on things - how can you say she’s not.’
‘Severus, listen to me,’ Hermione was suddenly gentle again, reaching out grab his hands, which were cool to the touch, ‘she talks to me. She knows you wouldn’t take advantage, as you put it. She likes you, quite a bit. She’s told me so herself. Just the other day, she said to me, ‘Miss Granger, dear, I’ve never met a man like your Professor. He’s all sharp edges on the outside, but I can see his loneliness. I’m so glad he has you.’ She would be your friend, if you let her.’
Snape snorted, ‘Hermione...’
‘No, I’m telling you the truth. Why must you always think the worst?’ Her eyes watched him shrewdly, studying his face with an intense tenderness. ‘Or, is it that you aren’t thinking the worst of other people but thinking the worst of yourself?’
He stiffened and tried to pull his hands away, but she wouldn’t let him. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t believe that anyone would want to be friends with you, that no one could care about you. How can you have such a low opinion of yourself?’
‘Hermione, I don’t...’ he sighed wearily, ‘I’m not a nice man.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed, ‘you’re an intense man. You’re sarcastic, bitter, sometimes cruel... but you’re also intelligent, loyal, and capable of more tenderness than anyone I have ever met. Why can’t you see all the wonderful things you are, instead of focusing on all the negatives? I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you!’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Snape replied darkly, a snarl taking root on his lips.
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it! You give me hope, Severus, where before I had none. You give me courage, to keep on fighting. You give me your strength and make me believe in the future... and when I try to give you things in return, you turn me away and try to deny my feelings. I... I love you, Severus. As much as this damn curse has been terrifying, I can’t totally regret it. If I wasn’t like this - I would never have gotten to know you, would I? You’re the best part of this whole mess - you’re my silver lining.’
Severus didn’t say anything for the longest time, just stood there and looked at her hands clasping his. ‘You’re a foolish girl,’ he finally murmured, ‘I’m not anyone’s ‘silver lining’. More like the black cloud that wrecks an otherwise lovely day.’
Hermione felt her heart clench and tried for a soft tone, ‘Maybe if you didn’t swoop around in black so much...’
He smirked at her gentle teasing, bringing her hands to his mouth and gently kissing her knuckles, a tender action that nearly made her knees buckle. ‘I have never done anything in my life deserving of you.’
‘You’re a hero. And that’s not where I want you to kiss me,’ she whispered breathily, leaning into him.
‘I...Hermione....’ his face was tight with uncertainty and desire, and Hermione sighed. She could feel the very air crackling around them; little electrical impulses that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up in anticipation. There was a delicious coiling tightness in her belly, spreading languorous heat like liquid honey through her veins. Her heartbeat became slow and heavy, and she licked her bottom lip when she saw him staring at it.
He was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her and she was going to spontaneously combust right here in his arms. He was going to kiss her and she would finally get to taste him, to learn the feel and flavor of his mouth...oh yes yesyes...
‘I apologize for the interruption Professor Snape, Miss Granger,’ Nettie’s disembodied voice intruded, ‘but it’s past midnight, and I know you have class tomorrow, sir.’
Hermione clutched her hands reflexively in his, ‘No, don’t...’
But Severus was already pulling away, a mixture of regret and relief mingling on his face, ‘I have to go, Hermione. I have to...’
‘Promise me,’ she whispered after him, as he faded from her mind, until he was outside of her again looking into her eyes, ‘promise me you’ll love me too.’
She didn’t know if he heard her.
When he returned to her the next day, it was as if the conversation of the night before had never taken place.
‘I’ve been thinking we’re going about this curse the wrong way,’ he stated in greeting as he strode into the potions room. ‘It occurred to me last night that animula somnus is taken from the Latin masculine. I no longer think Malfoy found this curse in some ancient text - I think he created it specifically for me.’
Hermione frowned at him, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think we’ll find an answer in books,’ he stated reasonably, ‘and I don’t know why it took me so long to figure that out. The curse was directed at me - it was never supposed to hit you at all. If it had been meant for a woman, he would have said ‘animulae somnusi’.’
‘But we’ve known all along it was directed at you!’ Hermione protested, ‘How is this news?’
‘We’ve been assuming there was a cure for it, when there may not be now, not if Malfoy designed it. It would appeal to his ludicrous sense of justice to think he had trapped me in a heretofore undocumented, cureless curse of his own design. He always was a right brilliant bastard.’
They had worked the rest of the evening on theories and postulations, writing scrolls of ideas with the new information and scratching them out.
‘If it was meant for you, how come it worked on me?’ she finally asked in exasperation, after another hypothesis hit a brick wall.
‘Maybe because you were touching me when it took full effect,’ Snape offered quietly. ‘Maybe that’s why you feel so - connected - to me. Malfoy’s curse recognized its true target and bound you to me...’
Hermione felt a twitch settle on her left cheek, ‘I hope that’s not what you’ve been telling yourself all day long. I have not been cursed into caring for you.’
Suddenly, the conversation from yesterday evening loomed before them, causing all the tension from the prior evening to return ten-fold. ‘That’s why you won’t kiss me, isn’t it?’ she accused, ‘You’ve been telling yourself all along that it’s not real, that I can’t really love you... That’s it, isn’t it?’
Severus frowned and looked at her, ‘It makes sense, if you think about it. At the very least, you yourself have spoken of your loneliness.’
Hermione snorted, ‘Bullocks. I know my own mind.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Snape replied, ‘I don’t question that. However, you must realize Hermione, you are only 20 years old and you have been trapped here - in your mind - for over a year and a half. You have told me yourself that you crave simple human touch, of which I have been one of the few people to provide. However I feel... anything further than that would be taking advantage of this situation you are in. You might think you want me to kiss you...’ his voice shook slightly at this, ‘but I’m sure, given the opportunity to choose someone else, you would change your mind.’
Hermione shook her head, feeling desperation loosen her tongue, ‘I wouldn’t. I’ve told you this before - who else would I want but you? And I know you want me too... I know you care for me. You kissed the palm of my hand. You... you dreamed about me.’
Snape looked uncomfortable at this, ‘Yes. Well,’ he cleared his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘I cannot deny that I’ve come to care for you. You saved my life and I feel responsible for this situation you’ve find yourself in. But I shouldn’t have kissed your palm. My only excuse is that I was overwhelmed with the events of the day; of finding you alive and somewhat sane in this - delightful - mind of yours.’ He smirked gently at the last of his little speech, a look Hermione found herself quite taken with.
‘But you want me.’ Hermione hated the pleading sound that had crept into her voice, ‘You can’t deny it.’
‘You are making this very difficult,’ Snape replied irritably. ‘I am only a man Hermione, and a principled one, despite what others might think. Perhaps, after we’ve released you from this spell, if you still want me...’
He wasn’t looking at her as he said this. Instead, he was smoothing the material of his frock coat, his fingers almost luminescent against the dark fabric. Hermione had noticed he did this often when he wanted to appear as if he wasn’t interested in what they were discussing - as if the minutiae of picking lint from his sleeve or erasing imaginary wrinkles was more important than what she might say. It gave her the courage to want to settle this matter completely before he left again.
‘I’ll still want you,’ she stated firmly, but quietly, ‘and I’ll prove it to you as soon as I’m free. The first thing we need to do is rule out all possible potential cures. Like a kiss.’
‘Hermione...’
‘No. I will not listen to this again. I know you don’t think it will work, and I happen to agree, but wouldn’t it be just like Lucius Malfoy to do something like that, thinking no one would ever kiss you? You have to admit I have a point.’
Severus nodded at this and Hermione let a small smile touch her face. ‘Talk to Nettie, Severus. Tell her what you’re going to do. I think she’ll be more understanding than you might think. She won’t run off and tell Albus or Harry that you kissed me.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Snape gritted back, ‘keep in mind she’s related to the biggest gossip at Hogwarts.’
Hermione laughed, her heart swelling, because he hadn’t said no. ‘Leave Madame Pomfrey out of this. Please, talk to Nettie. I think you’ll be surprised.’
_____________________________________
On My Own - from the Les Miserables soundtrack.
And now I'm all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to
Without a home, without a friend,
Without a face to say hello to.
And now the night is near
Now I can make believe he's here.
Sometimes I walk alone at night
When everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and then I'm happy
With the company I'm keeping
The city goes to bed
And I can live inside my head.
On my own
Pretending he's beside me
All alone, I walk with him till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way I close my eyes
And he has found me
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me for ever and forever
And I know it's only in my mind
That I'm talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say, there's a way for us
I love him
But when the night is over
He is gone, the river's just a river
Without him the world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere
The streets are full of strangers
I love him
But every day I'm learning
All my life I've only been pretending
Without me his world will go on turning
A world that's full of happiness
That I have never known!
I love him
I love him
I love him
But only on my own.