"I'm leaving," Hermione said, dropping the bags that she was carrying to the ground beside her. The room was dark and a figure sat shadowed in the corner. This was his room and this was only the third time that she had ever been in here. The third floor was where she was not allowed. At first that had been cute, he wanted his privacy. Now she was angry, ready to make her stand.
"I know," he said, his dark head hanging down.
"Well?" she demanded, walking into the room with purpose. She walked to the floor to ceiling windows and threw open the heavy silk draperies.
"Hermione, please!" he said, jumping from his chair. His arms flew around her head, almost knocking her to the carpet. She shrieked, thrashing her arms violently. Her forearm contacted solidly with Severus' jaw and he crumpled back.
She took this moment to look around the room. She gasped, realizing why she was not supposed to be in here. A large painting of her was propped in front of the fireplace that had never been burnt. Blown up photographs in frames, hung by tacks, in stacks and taped to the mantle of her were everywhere. On an easel sat a half finished painting, the colors still wet.
"Get up," she demanded with as much force as she could muster, "Face me."
"I'm sorry," he stated plainly, like it would help.
"You're not," she spat, "Or else you wouldn't have this!"
"I can't help it, Hermione, I just can't help it," he said, putting his head in his hands.
"You can help it. You can help it for love of me. You could have not been unfaithful. You could have been more careful," she whispered.
"It was nothing," he lamely lied.
"If it was nothing then what are all these," she indicated with a broad sweep of her arms.
"First time I was in here, we were buying this house. Did you know that? I've been in this room three times in ten years. Ten years, Severus, ten years! The second time I came in here was yesterday. What was I supposed to do? I heard moans and shrieks from this room, your private room. I was worried that there was something wrong at first. But then I opened the door. Then I saw you, my husband. The man that I gave thirteen years of my life to. With her. Not even a human! A figment! You're so sallow and dour that you can't even remember what it's like to be alive. You just want to live with the dead! I looked at you and realized that I hated you,"
"Please, Hermione, please don't hate me. Dear God, believe me when I tell you that I am bewitched," he begged, getting up from the floor and coming to her side.
"I won't. I can't. There is no second chance. You conjured a vision of the woman that you were enamored with when you were a child! Sweet Merlin, you gave her extra where I lacked! I recognized the shape of her hips, they were once mine, but I'm forty now and I don't have them! You gave them to that stupid, silly little vixen!" Hermione said, taking up the mixing knife from his palette. She brandished it, ready to strike.
"Hermione, I'm sorry! Don't!" Severus tried to catch her arm as it tore into the half-done painting, but he failed. With vigor and anger she stabbed into the canvas and ripped her arm down, tearing a wide rip through one pretty emerald green eye.
"Lily Evans! Fucking up my life even in death!" She screamed, stumbling backwards, reds, browns and golds smearing her hands.
"I'm sorry," he said dejectedly.
"You're sorry, eternally sorry. I'm leaving. I don't care what you do, I don't care what you do. I just never, ever want to see you again. And I'm not being childish and I'm not being petty, but I never want to see you again," She said, smoothing her robes before she picked up her bags.
Severus sat in the blinding morning sunlight, watching Hermione run from the house. Their house. He glared at the Lily in front of the fireplace, realizing that he'd spent forty one years living in the past. His wife was gone, the one woman who had ever truly loved him.
And he cried, realizing as he looked at Lily that she sharply reminded him in that moment of an old love, a lost love, a sublime love. And in that moment he was seized with such a longing…
This fic is an unabashed re-working of the book, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and the play on which the book was based. I'm doing that show right now and it's been so stuck in my head I was just trying to get it out.