Running Away
by Rin
Every night, she came to him; every morning, just before dawn, she left.
There was, of course, a logical explanation. She was nothing, if not logical. Were she to be discovered, in his chambers, in the state that she would undeniably be in... it would be catastrophic, at the least. Both had their reputations to maintain; she as the brilliant Gryffindor Head Girl trailing behind Potter and Weasley; he as the slimy, unattractive Potions Master with a heart of steel. Every ounce of reason within him stated that Yes, This Was The Best Move On Their Part, And In Fact A Quite Clever One... even though his long-buried instincts told him that there was... something else behind it.
Clever and logical. The same words could describe both of them quite aptly. Dumbledore had made use of his penchant for logic during her first year, with the creation of a logic problem to protect the Stone; and she had solved it, in about fifteen minutes. Had James Potter not been in his year (and had he been a bit better at Charms), he could very well have been Head Boy, on the merit of his marks alone; and she was Head Girl, her quick mind blowing all of the competition out of the water. It still amazed him sometimes, how he could mention a snippet of potions theory... and she would know what he was talking about, and add an anecdote of her own, more often than not.
In fact, he recalled with a grim smile, it was her sheer brilliance that had brought them together. He had recommended her for the Advanced Potions class, along with a handful of other Gryffindors; but the chit had 'respectfully declined', choosing to remain behind in regular Potions with Longbottom. Which was a good thing for the dunderhead, as he would have most likely gone up in a puff of smoke without her assistance... but her loyalty had cost her personally, and he knew it. He could see it, the frustration and resignment in her eyes as she whisked through the regular assignments, looking longingly at the cauldrons of the Advanced students before turning to stop Longbottom from melting yet another cauldron.
The knowledge, and the look in her eyes that she could never conceal, drove him to do the unthinkable; call her to his office. Rarely did any students go in there; and those that did were always his Slytherins. But there she stood, the Gryffindor Head Girl, nervous and pale but standing proudly in front of him, meeting his gaze levelly though her lips trembled.
"Is there a... problem, Professor Snape?" she'd asked quietly, clutching her books to her chest.
"A problem, Miss Granger?" he had replied in his coolest tone, rising to stand behind his desk, leaning against it, knuckles bracing his thin form. "A problem would be a student spilling Shrinking Solution on their books. A problem would be a student filling the classroom with enough pink smoke to fill the dungeons, which, I believe, your inept lab partner managed to do just this morning." Hermione flinched, and looked down at the floor. "But you deliberately cutting yourself short, purposely blocking yourself from becoming a Potions adept, for the sake of one puling, gutless idiot of a boy... that is an abomination."
She had studied the stone floor, two bright pink spots blazing on her cheeks... then she had looked up at him, eyes set. "I wasn't aware that my educational choices had become a personal priority for you, Professor," she had said in a calm, maddening voice.
"I am your Potions Professor, and responsible for part of that very education that you seem so intent on throwing away, Miss Granger," he had replied, in a silken tone that even made the Slytherins tremble. "A situation such as this one makes your education my priority, whether you appreciate the interference or not."
"Well, I don't," she snapped, her calm breaking, as he'd known it would. She was too passionate, too... impetuous to master the art and tool of a dark, deadly croon that could send shivers down the spine. "Neville is my friend, and I wasn't about to abandon him to..." She broke off, but it was too late; he knew what she was going to say.
"To me. Your sense of loyalty would be touching, Miss Granger, were it not so revolting and misplaced."
She muttered something under her breath; he caught enough of the tone to catch that it was definitely not complimentary. "Excuse me?" he said dangerously, glaring at her.
She looked at him impudently. "Nothing."
He bared his teeth at her. "Ten points for lying to a teacher, Miss Granger, and it'll be twenty more unless you tell me what you said."
Her next words came through her teeth. "Since you insist on knowing, Professor, I said that, as a Gryffindor, and as a friend of Harry Potter, I probably revolt you enough anyway. So I do not particularly care that you see my 'sense of loyalty' as a vice instead of a virtue."
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for disrespect to a teacher," he said smoothly, knowing it was not fair, and revelling in the fury in her eyes. "Now, are you prepared to answer my questions respectfully, or did you want to be solely responsible for costing Gryffindor the House Cup? I imagine that, as Head Girl, that would look positively abominable." He smiled unpleasantly.
She looked down at the floor again. "I am prepared to answer your questions respectfully," she said quietly, managing to remove all but a trace of her anger at him from her voice.
"Very well, then. Back to abandoning your friend," he made the word sound like a curse, "Longbottom. You say that you will not."
"No. And what's more, you can't make me."
"Oh, but I could. Tell me, how many House points would I have to take away to make you change your mind?" She looked at him, stricken; he laughed, an ugly sound. "Fortunately for you, I have an even number of students in my Advanced class, and have no wish to disrupt the equilibrium, particularly with an insufferable know-it-all such as yourself."
A corner of her mouth twitched. "What is so amusing, Miss Granger? Pray tell."
"You already used that, during my third year."
"Indeed. And as I recall, I took away five points. Do I need to do that again, Miss Granger?"
"No."
"Pity. Now, as you do not want to be in the Advanced class... and I do not particularly want you in there... you will work on an independent project for me."
"But I'm already doing one in Transfigurations!"
"And if you have the time to gaze longingly at the potions of the Advanced class, it can't be occupying you enough, can it?" She shut her mouth; he smirked. "As it happens, I am working on a particularly complicated experiment that requires a great deal of assistance, in the forms of research and preparation of ingredients. I will be handling the actual brewing, and some of the... darker aspects of the research, myself."
Her curiosity got the better of her. "What kind of experiment is it?"
He glared at her. "If your grasping mind must know, it is a cure for lycanthropy, Miss Granger."
"For Professor Lupin?"
Snape's lip started to curl at the name, then relaxed. "Yes. The Headmaster has asked me to do this in secret; doesn't want to get Lupin's hopes up if it doesn't work." He fixed her with a steadier glare. "This means that you will remain silent, not only to Lupin, but to everyone, including those two dunderheads you call friends. You will arrive here by Floo powder every night at seven o'clock sharp, from your rooms. You will work quietly, and efficiently. If anyone notices that you are missing, you are to say that you are working on your N.E.W.T.'s in the library, or some other such nonsense. I don't particularly care what you say, as long as you do not involve myself, the laboratory, or the cure. Is that clear?"
"I haven't even said that I'll do it." But the fire in her eyes, lit by the proverbial lamp of learning, was there, and they both knew it.
"You will. This is too good an opportunity for you to show off to pass up," he had said, then frowned. Had his tone been... teasing?
If it had been, she took no visible notice of it as she nodded. "May I be excused, then, sir? I have homework."
"Yes, yes, leave," he snapped, waving his hand at her.
She'd gone to the door, then stopped and turned back. "Thank you," she'd said quietly, then turned back, the Head Girl badge flashing on the lapel of her robes, and with a swirl of black she was gone.
And so it had begun; the experiment, his surrender of trust to her, and her foray into the twisted personality of a broken man. He had grown to... enjoy her quiet brilliance, her warm presence... and, yes, had started to notice, against his own will, the bright smile she would beam when a step went correctly, the furrow between her brows as she considered a passage, how she would toss her hair over her shoulder as she jotted down notes in a fine, legible hand, her pale fingers steepled on the quill's stem...
And one night, when the laboratory had gotten particularly warm, she had doffed her robes, revealing the clothing beneath. It had been nothing spectacular—a powder-blue shirt and a long black skirt, with practical black flats beneath... but despite his best efforts at control, he couldn't help but notice the creamy skin of her arms and neck, and the barest hint of a bra outline at her back... he had considered himself lucky for not being able to see her front, when she had turned to him to ask a question, and he had barely been able to reply at the sight of the shirt hugging her fully-developed breasts. He'd had to dose himself with a Dreamless Sleep potion that night... and every night afterwards.
Then, one night in December, when the snow had been softly falling and the lake was fully frozen, he had returned from a Death Eater meeting, the Cruciatus Curse pulsing through his veins and turning his blood into fire. He had thought that he had cancelled their meeting, in anticipation of the other... but he hadn't, and she had been there waiting when he had Flooed himself into the room, collapsing on the hearth and curling up in pain.
She could have left and gotten Pomfrey, or even Dumbledore. But she hadn't. She had, with his delirious assistance, gotten through the wards in his room, and deposited him onto the bed. Then—to his dismay and delight—she had curled up next to him, holding him closely, helping him ride out the pain. After all of his unkind remarks that had cut into her as deeply as any imaginary knife that the Cruciatus could provide... she had stayed up all night and offered him all that she could.
She remained with him all of that day (it was a Hogsmeade Saturday, thankfully—her presence was not required to discipline wayward students between classes) as he slept, the lack of Dreamless Sleep leading him to dreams of her, and him, together, entwined in the sheets, bodies hot, craving, wanting... and he had awoken to see her gazing at him, almost wonderingly, her fingers lightly trailing over his cheek...
She flushed, and dropped her hand. "You looked... so content," she murmured. "Is the pain gone?"
He flexed his fingers. "Sore, but that's to be expected." His eyes met hers. "Thank you, Hermione. For staying with me..."
And slowly, with a caution that bordered on timidity, she had inched forward and placed her lips on his. And that had opened the floodgates. Burying a hand in her hair, he returned the kiss with every bit of suppressed lust and desire that he had stored, working so close to her in the laboratory, smelling her intoxicating scent even above the potions that were brewing all around them.
"Oh!" she had gasped when they broke apart. "I... I didn't imagine... that..."
"That what?" he had asked suspiciously.
She flushed again. "That I would enjoy it so much. You make me feel..." She gesticulated helplessly, trying to find the right words, and failing miserably from the looks of it.
"Like what we're doing isn't wrong, despite the fact that I'm your professor, and Minerva would have my head if she knew?"
She looked up at him again. "Yes," she whispered. "Among... other things..." She looked away and flushed again.
Knowing it was madness, but for once not caring, he reached out, turned her face towards him. "If you don't want this, if you want us to carry on as before, then I would suggest that you leave, now. Is that what you want, Hermione?"
She shook her head. "No."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to call me Hermione again," was her reply.
"Hermione." The name was half-purr, half-groan, and, composure slipping, he kissed her again, holding her close to him as he ravaged her mouth. Her little moan, as she'd held him, only encouraged him to go even further... and further... until he was about to enter her, all soreness forgotten at the look of ecstasy on her face.
"Hermione. Are you..."
She had nodded fearlessly, bracing herself against the inevitable pain. "Do it," she whispered harshly. "Now."
Even now, he could remember the feeling of sliding into her for the first time; her slight whimper of pain as he'd broken her barrier, and how she had clung to him; and her cries of pleasure as he'd moved inside of her, making her forget the previous pain as they had spiralled down into ecstasy, collapsing into the warm, enveloping darkness.
Since that night, whenever they had finished with the potion for the night, mentally exhausted, they had fallen into his bed together. Sometimes it was fast, hard, demanding, a release of emotions; other times it was slow and languorous, a mutual worshipping. Sometimes they didn't even make it to the bed. But no matter how tired they were, or what time he woke up, it was inevitable that when he did wake up the next morning, she would be gone, leaving only her scent clinging to his sheets.
When he had asked her why she left, she had given him an odd look, as if the fact that he was even asking about something so obvious was ridiculous. "I'm sure the Slytherins would take it well if I sauntered out of your private rooms at six in the morning... not to mention Harry and Ron might have something to say if I tumbled out of my fireplace at that same time with no explanation of my whereabouts," she had said dryly.
"You could tell them to bugger off," he suggested, only half-joking.
"That would make them even more suspicious... and as you know, Harry and Ron have a decided talent for getting into things, and places, that they shouldn't. They've got enough intelligence, perseverance, and luck to find us out... and were they to do so, it could make things far too complicated for us to continue." She gestured to their naked forms, legs twined together, her head on his shoulder as they laid on their sides. "Especially if they were to find us like this."
He grinned wickedly. "Oh, then I imagine that us looking like this"—he rolled over, pinning her down effectively with his own body—"would bring down the heavens' wrath."
"Do you now?" she had tartly replied; then his mouth had closed around her nipple, and she'd been promptly rendered inarticulate. And that had been that... or so he had thought.
From what he had heard, most women enjoyed a man surrendering himself to them. It made them feel in control, worthy, like a goddess... but the more he grew to rely on Hermione, the more she seemed to pull away. The sex wasn't the problem, he knew that much from the sounds she would make, or the way her body would respond... so the problem, he knew, had to be him.
Damn her. She had known who, and what, he was... he had given her enough tastes of his caustic personality to make the average person refuse his company, had told her of his Death Eater past. She had seen his temper, whenever Longbottom or some other prat got too close to her for his comfort. And she was too smart to be blinded by a fantasy image of him... unless her blinding had been intentional. Had she deliberately closed her eyes to the nastier aspects, expecting them to just... fade away? If so, she was far more foolish than he had thought... and he was well and truly buggered, for by this point, he needed her.
Enough. She'd be by tonight. And after they'd sated themselves on each other, when she was nestled in his arms, prepared to sleep by him, but not to wake up by him... then he would find out the truth.
*****
So far, the night had gone exactly as Severus had planned. Hermione and he had completed the thirty-first refinement of the Wolfsbane Potion into a lycanthropy cure; the test results were optimistic, but not concrete. This would take longer than the rest of this year. Vaguely, Severus wondered if she'd be there, after he spoke; but she had looked at him with that mischievous glint in her eye, and he, weak fool, had succumbed, as he had known he would.
So now they lay beneath the sheets, his arm around her, her hand on his chest. She was ready to sleep; and for a flash of a moment, he considered saving the discussion for later. But he knew that he couldn't do that.
"Hermione."
"Hmm?"
"Tell me again why you never stay."
She sighed. "We've gone through this, love. I'm too tired for a recital."
The old cruelty had always carried him through everything else in his life; and he fell back on it now. "I meant the real reason," he said coldly.
She sat up, looked at him, confusion replacing tired amusement. "That is the real reason."
"Kindly do not lie to me. Tell me, when you go back to your own bed, and snuggle into your blankets, are you able to convince yourself that what we have just done was nothing more than an erotic daydream? An imagination? Is that why you leave—because waking up next to me would be too close to reality? Because I have news for you, Hermione—it's very real."
"Severus, you're scaring me," she whispered, clutching the sheets to her chest. "Please, stop."
His eyes burned at her, pain fueling his rage. "Tell me, when I'm fucking you, when your fingernails are digging into my back, and your eyes are closed... who are you imagining that I am? Potter, perhaps? Weasley? Hell, Longbottom?" he spat.
Her eyes hardened. "If my memory serves me correctly, your name is the one that I'm calling," she said tersely. "Stop this, Severus, before you say something we'll regret."
"You know, I wish I could stop this. This... game of yours."
"What game? Severus, I'm not playing any games with you that you're not playing with me."
"I'm not the one running away, like a scared little girl," he hissed.
"Aren't you?" she demanded, springing up from the bed, her eyes bright with frustrated tears. "You may not be running, but you're doing a damned good job of pushing me away. Accusing me of deliberately blinding myself... of wanting other men... when you are the only one I want!" And the tears fell down her cheeks in angry torrents.
He threw them back in her face. "Typical feminine ploy—table-turning and tears," he sneered. "Anything to keep from telling the truth, love?"
"Don't do this, Severus."
"The truth. Now."
She angrily dashed away her tears. "The truth, Severus? I love you. I helped you, when my brain was screaming at me to let you choke on your pain. I have given myself to you, in every way I can... and I did so, because I thought that you had done the same.
"But you haven't. You acted like you gave me a chance... then, just when I was convinced I was truly happy, you started to shut me out." She angrily pulled on her robes, as he watched with cold eyes. "You think I'm scared? Well, I am. I have never felt the way I feel around you. But I face my fears. I don't run."
"Neither do I."
"No. You're a Slytherin. You make people run." And with a handful of powder, she was gone, leaving him to absorb the truth he had so foolishly asked for.
*fin*
Hoobastank
Running Away
I don't want you
To give it all up
And leave your own life
Collecting dust
And I don't want you
To feel sorry for me
You never gave us
A chance to be
And I don't need you
To be by my side
To tell me that
Everything's all right
I just wanted you to
Tell me the truth
You know I'd do that for you
So why are you running away?
Why are you running away?
'Cause I did enough
To show you that I
Was willing to give and sacrifice
And I was the one
Who was lifting you up
When you thought
Your life had had enough
And when I get close
You turn away
There's nothing that
I can do or say
So now I need you
To tell me the truth
You know I'd do that for you
So why are you running away?
Why are you running away?
Is it me, is it you
Nothing that I can do
To make you
Change your mind
Is it me, is it you
Nothing that I can do
Is it a
Waste of time?
Is it me, is it you
Nothing that I can do
To make you
Change your mind
So why are you running away?
Why are you running away?
What is it I've got to say
So why are you running away?
To make you admit you're afraid
Why are you running away?