A/N: This is another standalone of Hermione and Snape. The end didn't turn out how I wanted, but I'm going to leave it because it works fine. The story seems to be missing something. Experience? Substance? Beauty? I'm not sure. It seems rush, though it was not. I'm posting it anyways because I would like to start something new. Maybe I'll go back at a later date and improve where it needs.
Please review, I love reading them.
A monster, or a man?
It's too early to be awake, or to late depending on how you look at it. Severus had spent his night crucifying himself to the spare room of the Weasly household. What seemed like a hundred stories of cramped in bedrooms and moldy wood. The bed dipped low in the middle, and the bedspreads smelt of dust. He's yet to sleep in 48 hours, and sleep is the furthest thing from his mind.
There isn't much on it at all, except confusion and sadness and bleak, bleak shadows. Snippets of conversations, discussions, arguments. Only snippets. Severus could never remember them in their entirety anymore. He wonders if your mind automatically files thoughts away once you've had your fair share of them. Perhaps there's only a certain number of times you're allowed to think of a particular memory, then they say "okay, no more" and it's the time to push that button. Delete. Off they go. Archived forever in your brain; stored on some mystery shelf, put away, forgotten. What if you don't want to forget? What happens then? How do you keep the memories alive? How do you know where to look? Why can you only remember the terrible parts? Why are they always in grey scale?
Although Severus feels many feelings, most of them are emotions he wouldn't wish on anybody, every one of them is muted. Just like the colours that shine above him to announce daybreak for a second day running. A mild reminder of what he used to feel, of when he felt he had a life.
For all the cascading patterns that streak the sky; the midnight blues bleeding helplessly into scorching pinks and oranges and purples that make the scenery below him glimmer like fireflies - none of this is beautiful anymore.
He had taken a seat by the larged round window on the top floor of a creaky run-down building. He sometimes wonders how it holds the (what seems like) 60 Weasly children and thier two eccentric parents. The room had what looked like vintage wallpaper glued to it, and ugly furniture with colours that didn't match in the least.
Severus feels warm in this house. Though it's probably because of the masive array of body heat that comes from everyone gathering here.
But Severus didn't ask to be here. He didn't ask to be seated in this out-dated brown chair. The lack of scent in the air sickened him. He could, for the last 2 days, faintly hear the rest of the people downstairs, crying over the tragedies. Only he's not crying, of course. He was brought here after the war ended, they had figured out all he had done and after several apologies from them he stalked off upstairs and hadn't moved since.
He just wished to go back to Hogwarts, sleep in his chambers and teach until he dies. It is a lonely, but unharmful life. He came to terms with that years ago. And now that the war was actually over he was finally ready to start this part of his life.
He neared forty, and he would accept it when it came. Just like he would accept death when that came for him aswell. He had a feeling death would come to him quietly in his sleep, not in a raging battle. No, that would be how he would like to go. Down with a fight, but he knew it would not happen this way.
His thoughts are cracked in half when a soft knock came at the door. It was an unusual knock, not the basic knock knock. No, it had a pattern to it, like a song. He did not answer. He supposed it was Molly coming to ask him if he wanted any dinner, or to talk about what happened.
He heard his door squeek open, and soft footsteps.
"Molly, I am not hungry. Please leave me be."
A small voice had cleared her throat. He turned around and saw Miss Granger standing with her hands folded behind her. Her hair was not bushy anymore, like the first 5 years he'd seen it. She had probably found some anti-frizz spell and now it was in nice ringlets alot of the time, or pulled back into a pony-tail. She wore muggle clothes. Blue jeans and a tight red tshirt that clung to her everywhere. This shirt made Severus very uncomfortable. He found his eyes wandering her upper body for a short moment before snapping back to her face.
"Sorry, Professor Snape, I just wished to see if you wanted any company," her voice was low and gentle like the breeze outside. He's sure she smells of an exotic flower. But he's not invested or courageous enough to find that out.
"I do not," he said simply, not looking at her.
"Well, to be honest I came her for the company as well. Ron and Harry won't leave me alone. Especially Ron," he could hear the anger in her voice. They must have been pestering her about talking to them.
"I'm sure they mean the best," his voice was a bit more sarcastic then he intended.
"I would like it if you spoke to me without your words dripping in distain, Proffessor."
He looked at her now. Her head was inclined in a sort of manner he could tell was what some call 'standing tall' for yourself. He sneered at this, and turned back to the window. He did not enjoy her company.
"We have no begun your 7th year, Miss Granger, just yet. So refrain from directing me in such a way."
"Then you will do the same. You do know my first name, don't you?" she asked, still not moving from her position.
Severus did not answer, just moved his shoulders foreward a tad bit.
"When did he first ask you?" she spoke after an uncomfortable silence. He knew what she meant, but could not bring himself to answer the question.
"Did you deny it at first?" she continued. "Or did you understand right away that this was the thing to do?"
"That is non of your buisness, Miss Granger," his voice was cold and deep like an ocean in a place so far away and foreign that Severus thought it would be a right place to get away. He could feel his skin itching with a possibility to start anew.
"I want to know what he said to you, what his plan was," she could feel his patience growing thin as he cracked his knuckles.
"Exactly what you saw."
"But what had he told you to do? How did he approach the subject. And-" she continued ignoring his angered face "did he ask you to use Avada? Did he mention anyhting about when he'd be dead? What we should do? What did he feel abou-"
"Miss Granger!" Severus' voice snapped through her. His fists were balled and there was a look of utter hatred running across his face. "These questions are not approriate."
"But I need to know!"
"You think you need to know," he scolded "but it will do you no good to listen to what I could say."
"You git! Can't you see we're in pain about this? He is gone and it's as if you don't even care!" she screamed out of rage and held back tears. There was a silence washing over them, and Hermione's rage did not dimminsh as it went on. It grew. She felt like hitting him, and she was about to but then she saw him emerge from the chair by the window and straighten himself up. He looked her directly in the eyes, and persed his lips.
"Do not mistake yourself for the only beating heart in this room, Miss Granger," his voice was so low she barely heard it. She saw his eyes glaze over and his hands tremble. He had such lovely hands, she noticed.
Her face dropped of any emotion it had held after she saw Severus bring a pale hand up to his face, covering his eyes. Something in her twisted and she regretted becoming so angry. Asking him such questions. Being so stupid.
"Do you honestly think that after half of my life I would not feel something for that man?"
Her eyes wavered from his to her hands. She took a step closer but his hand came up instantly, motioning her to stop.
Severus' eyes were looking away, his head bowed slightly and shaking almost unnoticably. When he started talking again Hermione could tell he was deepening it to stop any quivering that could poke through the steel cages he kept up.
"You don't know, Miss Granger. I hear you and you're friends, calling me weak. But you don't know.." he looked back to her, standing up a bit taller, his voice had softened slightly, "You don't know the strength it took." he stepped foreward and stared down at her trying to avoid her eyes, "You sit in your circle down there and talk about a man lost, a mentor murdered. About how you'll never be the same again without him. But you havn't been where I've been, seen what I've seen," his voice grew angrier by the second now "Felt what I've been forced to feel!"
His fist came in contact with the wall behind her. His facial expression had changed from anger to regret in a matter of moments.
"I had to do it." he mumbled after a long silence.
His face was holding nothing back, anger and saddness spilled across it like a canvas. Paint in reds and whites, black and grey. "So, you can tear me to peices with words all you want, Miss Granger, because it's no worse than what I'm doing to myself. I have to go through everyday knowing what I've done. I can still see him calling my name seconds before I called out that curse!" he snarled at her, his eyes drifting closed "Everyday I feel more like a monster than a man. It's numbing. I can feel nothing without it being attatched to a memory." his voice had become cold, and he turned away from her stepping back towards the chair.
"Do you know what the last things he said to me was? Before he left with Potter that night," Severus asked, sitting back down in the chair and looking out the window. He could tell she was shaking her head. "He said: You deserve a good life, and I'm going make sure you have it." He looked at her now, her expression sympathetic "And that's where his decision came from. That bloody sentence. I tried everything to prevent this, and now I have to wake up every morning wondering why I couldn't have done more."
Her eyes filled with tears that she was embaressed to spill infront of him. But with every word he said it became harder to do so.
"So, do not tell me I do not care. I care a great deal more than you can imagine, Miss Granger." He turned away from her, resting his head back against the brown material, his chin in the air. His eyes had closed and his mouth hung open, taking deep breaths as if trying to calm himself. "I wonder what you could possibly know about breaking down that I don't."
At his last sentence, Hermione was kneeling infront of him. Her cheeks were glistening with tears and he felt the need to reach out and wipe them away. But he didn't. This was Severus holding back, and holding it all in.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. An ache inside of him was tearing down those cages. His own face twisted and searched for something in her eyes that could possibly tell him what he needed to hear just then. "You don't have to be alone."
Her words were a door, and he was more than tempted to step through. He could tell her he needed to do alone, or he could wrap arms around her petit frame and spend the morning there. Smelling her hair and getting used to the feel of her skin.
Severus let a shakey hand come in contact with her cheek. Rubbing away some of the tears that were in his path. "Miss Granger," he looked out the window again "you don't know who I am."
"But I know who you can be."
-----------------------------------------------
Edited, because I can.
sigh