A Question Answered

by mavidian

Disclaimer: All HP characters belong to JKR. Only borrowing for a little while.

Summary: Short and complete. Severus and Hermione through the years from an unusual viewpoint.


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You have seen them a hundred times, a thousand times and naught changes but their dress and speech. Students, teachers, ghosts are all alike to you. They linger or not. It makes little difference for you remain as you have always been and where you have always been. Scarce, indeed, are those that catch your slumbering attentions these days. But now and again someone does.

You first noticed her some years ago. Not her looks nor her intelligence nor her rapier wit. But within your presence her fire fairly bursts out of her, sometimes beyond her studied control. Her tempered fire was well matched to his insular chill. He? The other that you noticed before you noticed her. He, the one you like to call your human, Severus Snape. The other is Hermione Granger, a student of your human's.

The ice was unresponsive and stubborn at first but the flame was steady and relentless. Its purpose true and courage unquestioned. You felt their energies responding to the other before they themselves were conscious of it. The silent regard that both denied for so long was for your awareness alone. Only you knew of the knowing glances delivered or the declarations exchanged between them. Until yesterday.

His assignment to the class was a hard one. Over the years, you have seen more explosions meted out by this one lesson alone. Despite all his caution and exhortations of the dangers involved, one cauldron did explode. The students all in their last years scurried under their desks avoiding the corrosive fluids and flying debris as best they could. All save for her. She suffered the potion's wrath for standing too close to the explosion and its creator. Her clothes were drenched with the misbrewed potion. Each drop ate at the fabric of her clothes. Those that touched her skin burned and steamed. She cried out and fell.

In his haste to come to her aid, you sensed all his carefully maintained barriers dissolve in an instant. His anguish was clear as he said "Hermione!" He fell to his knees beside her. A hasty set of spells eased her pain and brought the light back into her eyes. All in the room heard his voice hoarse with rough emotion, "Hermione, are you all right?"

She touched his arm and smiled. "I'm tougher than I look, Severus."

The rest of the students emerged in a daze. They had heard too much and yet not enough. The questions of her two friends made their anger and shock plain. You heard him dismiss the class while helping her to rise. She lingered for a while.

"I need to talk to them. How do I make them understand, Severus?"

"Tell them the truth."

"The whole truth? Everything?" Her voice was now playful, teasing.

You heard him whisper to she who was now his wife before he swooped down to kiss her sweet lips. "If these walls could only talk, my love."

What would, you, the potions classroom's walls, say to that?


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Author's Note: The phrases "The walls have ears" and "If these walls could talk" sparked this quirky little story. Hate it? Love it? Think it's rather strange? Farfetched, admittedly.

mavidian