Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Snape/Hermione

FOR: Nef :)

Prompt: Haunted

Haunted: Part 1

Hermione wrapped her scarf more tightly around her. It was October but it was freezing, the chill wind nipping at the exposed tip of her nose, and her rosy cheeks. Strands of her thick and unruly hair lifted with the wind, which seemed to howl. That lonesome, eerie, howl was just fitting for Halloween night.

Hermione gave a sigh which came out from between her strawberry lips in a small puff of vapor. It was that cold as she walked across Hogwarts grounds.

In the distance was the leaning building that was now her destination. Many memories—some of them very hard ones—were kept within the walls of The Shrieking Shack. She knew now that The Shack was not really haunted as Hogsmeade folks and Hogwarts students had been lead to believe. The screams they had once attributed to ghouls and lost souls had been the terrible yowls of pain of a werewolf transformation.

Even still it held a very real haunting quality to Hermione.

Behind the shack the black night sky hung like a sheet of velvet. There was not a cloud in the sky and stars winked like cold eyes that could see through her layers of clothes, through her being, and into darker, warring, places within her.

Hermione was older now and feelings that had been stirred as a teenager, and driven by the chaotic, perilous times the Wizarding World had faced during the Second War, had changed. Since then things that had seemed perfect back then had twisted and broken. That once right and passionate love and longing had dwindled like the flame of a candle nearing the end of its wick. Living with Ron was hardly tolerable these days, but Hermione felt too guilty to walk away. She had made promises to Ron and they had been bonded with deep magic in a traditional magical wedding. Beneath her hand knitted gloves was the ring Ron had given her. It was laced with deep magic, and bound to his.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut tightly, warding off her tears. She would battle through this as she had through everything else her life had thrown at her. Perhaps…perhaps it would get better. Ron wanted children and Hermione had yet to produce them. She joked that she was not blessed with the Weasley fertility, but that in time, there would be a little Ron or Hermione running around their home. Hermione was torn on the idea of children. She wanted them yes, but she wasn't sure if she wanted them with Ron. When she laid down to sleep at night it sometimes blew her mind how oblivious he was to the way she felt. To Ron the two of them were still very much in love.

Hermione took a deep breath, and plodded on towards The Shrieking Shack. She had just been so desperate for advice, and who else could she have turned to? She couldn't very well have asked her own parents, Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, or Harry. So at last Hermione had sent a much debated upon owl to her former Head of House and the current Headmistress of Hogwarts: Minerva McGonagall. Hermione needed a visit, and advice from someone she trusted. Headmistress McGonagall had sent Hermione an owl in return, inviting her to the Halloween Feast, and after they would retire to Minerva's office for a chat.

Hermione was thankful for the lengthy conversations she had held with Minerva after the dinner. Tissues had been needed, and many pearls of wisdom were imparted, but Hermione felt that something was still missing. She knew more strongly than before that she needed to let go of Ron, and move on with her life, but she did not have it in her yet to do so.

Not wanting to go home yet, Hermione had left the castle and taken a stroll around the grounds. It had just been so long since she had been here, and something in Hermione wanted to connect back to the throbbing intensity of those times when life, and future, had hung equally in the balance. Hermione had felt so alive then. Now she just felt as if she were slowly hollowing out; she was gradually becoming a shell.

Hermione approached the Whomping Willow. She watched the branches sway. If she got closer, it would begin to swat at her as if she were a fly buzzing pestily around it, and sometimes Hermione felt as small as a fly.

Hermione set her brow in determination. She could have used Immobulus, but she wanted the thrill and challenge of just fighting the trees swinging braches to reach the knot that would grant her access to The Shrieking Shack.

Hermione sped quickly, ducking, dodging, and diving. Violent swinging branches crashed down all around her, and one even whipped across her back, while another caught her face with a stinging, invigorating blow. Hermione hurried. She jabbed the knot at the base of the tree.

Moments later she was in The Shrieking Shack. Hermione stood up, panting a little. Her jeans were dirty, her hat lost, and her thick hair was full of leaves and bits of grass. Her back stung, and knew there would be a welt across it at the very least. She tugged one of her gloves off and touched her cheek. Her fingers came back smeared with blood from where the Willow had slashed her across the face. She didn't care. Hermione felt more alive than she had for years.

She crept around The Shack, each old and abandoned thing bringing back vivid memories to her. She ran her hands along the walls, and swallowed hard. The peeling wallpaper was splattered with black and she knew that these were dried drops of blood—and there was plenty more than just drops. The spatters led inwards to thick ropes of powerfully spurted blood. The floorboards were darkened in one large area. It was here that Severus Snape had perished in The Battle of Hogwarts.

Hermione dropped to her knees near the edge of the black stain. For a moment the outline of his body was there. Hermione quickly turned her face away from the gruesome scene, tears stinging at her closed eyes. She could hear his labored breathing as if he really was there once more in his dying moments. She could hear the gurgling as he choked on his blood.

"Stop it!" Hermione yelled, balling her fists. Her hair whipped around as she spun back, her eyes still closed. If she opened them she would be looking at that spot again…and she wasn't sure she could. But the Gryffindor in her spoke up, and pried her eyes open.

Snape was still laying there. His head had turned to the side, and he was gazing at her with such intensity it made a shiver trace through her. She had always noticed the burning way of his gaze. She had always known there was something behind those black eyes—more than darkness, and more than the simple outward appearance of a an ill-tempered Potion's Master.

"You…you have…" Snape struggled, his weakening voice a mere whisper. "Your mother's…"

Tears fell, trickling down Hermione's cheeks.

"Oh, Professor Snape-" Hermione cried. "I'm so sorry!"

Snape blinked at her, the intensity of his gaze beginning to waver, beginning to grow dull, and then…he sat up.

Hermione shrieked, and her shrill cry of horror echoed through the shack that was in this moment living up to its name.

"Miss. Granger," Snape said.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, tripped, and just crawled clumsily away as quickly as she could. Her Gryffindor bravery was currently called into question as she huddled herself into a corner, her hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide.

"Don't carry on so," Snape sneered acidly. It took Hermione a moment to realize that he was no longer choking on his blood, nor was he bleeding at all, though his neck and the side of his pallid face was still smeared with it. The wound on his neck from Nagini's terrible bite was gaping. "You behave as though you've never seen a ghost, Miss Granger, and I know this to be incorrect."

Of course Hermione had seen the various Hogwart's ghosts, but this was quite a shock.

"Y-yes," Hermione answered, her voice smaller than she would like for it to be. "It's…actually, it's Mrs. Weasley now."

Snape's lip curled at this as though he had tasted soured milk.

"How…unfortunate for you," He said, his voice soft, and his disdain apparent. "I see I was misled in the impression that you were a fairly bright young witch."

He shook his head slightly, his long, lank, hair partially matted with blood and swaying gently against his face with his movement.

Hermione dropped her gaze from his. His words hit home with her and she knew that he was right.

"Do I sense regret?"

Hermione remained silent, holding back her tears.

"I believe so, and it is an emotion I am quite adept at recognizing," Snape continued in that smooth, quiet, voice that Hermione had not heard for years. In secret she had always enjoyed the way his voice sounded—so deliberate, so calculated and controlled.

"It isn't any of your concern, Professor," Hermione said, standing, and regaining a bit of her boldness.

"Correct," Snape said curtly. "Nor is my home any of your business—I believe you are intruding."

Hermione looked around the dilapidated shack. Her stomach squirmed at the thought of having to live here with the state of the place—and with the black stain of one's own blood splattering and coating the wall and floor. Her heart sank deeply. Snape was gazing down at the dried black patch covering a good portion of the floor. Not only did Snape have to live with that, but with all of the memories connected to this place.

"Sir," Hermione began. "Are you…are you bound to this place?"

The thought was simply ridiculous to her. How could he be bound here after everything? Surely he was not.

"I am not bound to it, but where else would I go?" He was looking at her again with that gaze that kept its intensity even within the pale face of a ghost.

"You could pass on, couldn't you? Go to…the…er…afterlife or whatever lies beyond?" Hermione suggested, but Snape gave a small, bitter sounding laugh.

"I was told to come back," Snape said quietly, slowly advancing on Hermione. His black robes slipped across the floor but they made no sound. "That I had unfinished business, so I could not pass on as others may."

"It has been years!" Hermione exclaimed. "Have you not been able to take care of it in all this time?"

Snape was closer to her now, his eyes boring so intensely into her that she felt the urge to back away. Hermione did not. She remained rooted to her spot refusing to be moved.

"I was advised that I must come back and live my life—that I had not lived it—only as a man indentured to a Dark Lord, trapped by oaths, and bound by love. But what did I have to come back to? So Miss Granger, I remain."

Hermione was astounded. She motioned broadly with her arm, indicating the gloom and decay around them.

"So you chose this instead?" Her voice was raised an octave in disbelief. "Professor, we know what you've done for us, what you've given—we all know. Those memories you gave to Harry—Harry told everyone the truth. Sir, you're a hero! Harry even considered naming his son after you!"

"Oh," Snape sneered. "How…quaint. I suppose I should be grateful to the Chosen One that he had the mere thought to name his messy-haired offspring after me. What an honor it would have been."

"Harry respects you," Hermione protested.

Snape crossed his arms over his chest, snorting.

"I daresay—to use a Muggle expression that shall not be lost on either of us—Hell would freeze over before Potter showed one molecule of respect for me."

Hermione shook her head.

"Alright, let's not argue about Harry," She sighed. "You are a very stubborn man, aren't you? I should think so to choose being stuck as a ghost rather than living!"

"I don't mind. It is usually quite quiet and rather peaceful…until someone such as yourself comes blundering into my privacy." Snape glared down his hooked nose at her.

"You can't possibly want to stay here," Hermione insisted, her voice quiet, but unyielding. "You…you deserve better after everything that's happened…" Her voice trailed off, her eyes regarding him with a deep respect for the man he had been revealed to be.

Snape turned from her. He walked towards the wall sprayed with his death and Hermione saw that he meant to walk straight through it and disappear.

"Wait!" Hermione shrieked, hurrying after him.

Severus stopped, his hooked nose close enough to the wall that it was almost touching.

"Come back with me," Hermione whispered into the darkness. "Please, Sir…come back with me."

-x-