LIES
"None of us could have guessed that Snape would, you know…" said Ron.
Harry flushed and glanced away darkly. Hermione could tell from the distant looks on their faces that they were thinking of Dumbledore's funeral this morning, the body laid to its final rest.
They didn't know that she was thinking of something else altogether.
They didn't know that she felt like such a fool, a humiliated, gullible fool right now. They had no comprehension that her mind was running overa year's worth of nights with Severus, that her heart was screaming-- why why WHY?
She hadn't seen it coming. She'd been tricked.
She'd been a fool.
And she was still a fool, because even now, a part of her could not accept that Severus Snape was a loyal minion of Voldemort's. That her Severus had truly murdered Dumbledore.
She couldn't accept it.
Yet she had no choice.
Hermione wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to inflict upon the distraught faces around her all the horrible anguish clawing at her insides.
They mourned, they were hurt, but none knew the anguish of this terrible betrayal-- none knew the depths to which Severus had truly hurt her, had betrayed her.
And no one ever could.
They'd been so careful to hide their love, so careful never to be seen, to be found out. She'd considered it a testament to the strength of their love-- the risks he was willing to assume for her, the undeniable power of his desire, that even despite his initial reluctance, he'd dared to risk his career and his very life out of love for her.
All those sweet nights-- the slow kisses, heated glances over flickering potions, the forbidden, stolen brushes of his flesh against hers when they passed each other in the halls-- it came rushing back to her like a freight train and stole her very breath from her body.
The memory of those forbidden trysts tasted like acid on her tongue now, like bile, because she knew full well what a mockery of her they had been.
She could only think now that his 'love'-- his entire show of affection-- had been born merely of some sadistic desire to inflict maximum damage once his true loyalties surfaced.
He played along with their farce so skillfully not because he'd loved her well enough to do so, but because he simply enjoyed living his life immersed in such layers of deception. He'd been doing it all along, after all, hadn't he?
Severus-- her Severus-- was a Death Eater, a traitor. A murderer. And she was the fool who had believed in him.
Not the only fool who had believed him, but still the greatest fool of all.
She was the only one who had loved him.
Her heart hardened in her chest.
Yes, she'd been a fool. But she would never be one again.
He believed he'd broken her. But he had not. She would make him sorry for this. She would hunt him down for the traitor he was.
And when Harry announced brashly that he was never coming back to Hogwarts, somehow, she'd known he would say it. Somehow, she already knew the choice she would make.
"You said to us once before that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?"
"We're with you whatever happens," Ron said.
She was going with Harry. They were going to find Snape, destroy Voldemort. She was not afraid.
And she knew her heart would never be broken again.
To Be Continued…So I'm thinking this story is going to flashback to the time when Hermione and Severus first get involved, and work its way up to the present, then maybe go to the future. Would anyone be interested in reading it? Cause this could also work as a stand-alone, if not.