Empty Eyes
Hermione walked out by the lake, oblivious to me, her silent observer from the castle tower. A tear slid down her face as she glanced back at Hogwarts.
It was the end of an era. Tomorrow Hermione would be graduating. The Golden Trio would take their diploma and smile for the cameras. Harry would take me in his arms and we would dance the night away at the ball with love shining in our eyes. Hermione would go to the ball on Ron's arm. After the ball, Ron would propose. At the end of the war, Ron had come to fancy himself in love with Hermione. The papers had paired them off and his simple mind had agreed it was the thing to do. He would put the ring on Hermione's finger with his sweaty nervous hands. She would smile and agree because that was what the Wizarding world expected. But when he stared into her empty eyes and said he loved her, he would mistake her tears of sorrow for tear of joy. So they would kiss and tell the papers how happy they were, but if anyone cared to look into her eyes in the pictures instead of at the giant heirloom ring on her finger, they would see her smile did not match the void behind her eyes.
In her dreams it wasn't Ron on his knee. It was someone else. But that could never happen now. She stared down at his grave. He had died saving her life. During the final battle she had turned her back on a Deatheater that she thought was dead and Snape jumped in front of the curse to save her. She had held him and their eyes had met as the light in his went out. Then he was gone. She had sat there in the middle of the battle as the fighting raged on around her and she screamed. She screamed and screamed until she couldn't make another sound. As she screamed she turned to each Deatheater and they burst into flame. She took out a third of the Dark Lord's army before it seemed she simply ran out of energy. When she stopped she looked around at us. She seemed lost. She gazed at us through empty, unseeing eyes as she begged us to tell her it wasn't true, that he wasn't dead. Then she swayed and crumpled to the ground.
Hermione would later hear accounts of how after Snape had gone down, she had seemingly lost control and went on a killing rampage that had single handedly changed the tide of the battle in the Order's favor before she finally drained herself of magical energy. But she remembered none of it but the look in Snape's eyes as he left her.
Hermione's boys and I sat vigil over her hospital bed where she lay for two weeks after the battle in a deep comatose state. When Hermione finally woke the first and only word out of her mouth was "Severus". So began her two months of silence. For the first two weeks Madame Pompfrey tried everything she could, but no spell or potion could reawaken Hermione's voice or restore the light to her eyes. It seemed her body had literally refused to see the point of communicating with a world that didn't include Severus.
No one, especially Ron, who now believed they were dating, could understand her pain. So in her blank eyes they chose to see what they wanted to see. The teachers saw survivor's guilt for the man who saved her life. Harry saw shock and disbelief that her life could finally begin after living under so much oppression for so long. But I knew it was so much more.
Two months into Hermione's silence, I found her in the dungeons next to a closed doorway. A portrait of an old man in scholarly robes across the hall called out to me, "Will you get this girl out of here, and tell her the dragon portrait isn't going to let her into the Blood-traitor's rooms now that he is dead," and to himself "…truly a disgrace, a teacher sleeping with a student, and a mudblood no less. This would never have been tolerated when I was teaching here…"
Something in Hermione snapped, and she bolted upright and drew her wand on the painting. "Take it back you foul painting before I burn you," she rasped out.
The scholar ran and Hermione turned her vacant eyes on me, "What am I going to do, Ginny?" So we sat and Hermione cried and filled in the blanks to the puzzle I had been slowly putting together all year.
They had started seeing each other soon after the beginning of Hermione's 7th year. She had been assigned, during her 6th year, to help lighten Severus's work load for the Order. Every evening, they would work side-by-side in the Potions room brewing silently, until, one day, it wasn't silent anymore. Hermione couldn't pinpoint when things changed, but they started discussing class material and soon he realized Hermione had a larger breath of knowledge than straight textbook memorization. Snape started loaning her books he was reading and asking her opinion on some of his experiments. It wasn't long before she was sneaking back into the tower in the early hours of the morning after they lost track of the time talking over tea.
Harry never wondered where she was since he was so focused on his own issues. Ron, thinking Horcrux hunting was more exciting than potions with Snape, was glued to Harry's side, and therefore also oblivious. So only I had noticed her late returns and quantity of time spent with the dreaded Potion's Master. But, I could see the radiant look in Hermione's eyes when she came back to the tower and the bounce in Hermione's step when she left for an evening of potions. So I said little on the subject and silently watched as my best friend fell in love with her teacher, an ex-Deatheater, a double agent, and most importantly, a marked man with numbered days.
And so began and ended the love-affair of Hermione and Severus. They had a few short stolen months together, too little for two who had given so much. The final battle came, they kissed goodbye and went out into the fray. How could they die after all they had given for the cause? Severus had given an entire lifetime and survived unbeatable odds in the face of a madman. But in the end, love, not Voldemort, killed him. Love asked of him his life and he gave it without question, without flinching, so Hermione could go on because he couldn't imagine a life worth living without her in the world. His act, seemingly selfless, selfishly left Hermione to go on alone into a happy, war-free world where she desired no role.
But Hermione did not have a say in that matter. The Wizarding World had already found her one. They believed Hermione and Ron were madly in love and destined to marry. She was destined to pop out six or seven red-headed babies. She was destined to become an auror along with the rest of the Golden Trio. She was destined to make her mark in the Academic Wizarding world.
And that is exactly what I know she will do. She would take her marching orders and forge ahead like the good little solider she was. She would smile, mother, research, and speak at anniversary after anniversary of the battle. Hermione would simply go through the motions; day-by-day, until she could be with Severus again. She was destined to live her life surrounded by friends and family, but to be totally and completely alone. To the casual observer, her life will be a fantasy, but inside I know she will always be numb, though you will never know it unless you happen to look into her eyes.