Beautiful Trash
You better batten down your hatches
Now I lost my magic.
4AM, I think I might just stay up all night
If you got a light.
Part 2/3
6.
He feels the guilt, acknowledges it, even calls himself a bastard in the safety of his own head.
He tries to tell himself that he hadn't meant to hurt her, that it was his roundabout way of finding out why she hadn't gone home for the holidays, but he can't. He doesn't know why she reacted the way she did, but he doesn't investigate either. He's suddenly positive that he doesn't want to know.
She doesn't come back, and he doesn't seek her out. He leaves her experiments exactly as they were, right down to the cauldron in the sink.
The holidays dwindle away and soon the castle is full of cheerful children again. It makes him angrier than usual because all the while her words spin about in his head. Rise above their expectations?
Hadn't he done that already?
They'd all expected him to be a turncoat. They had looked at each other, shouted the requisite 'I knew it!' and 'I told you so'. While it was exactly what Dumbledore had wanted it hadn't made it any easier for him to swallow. And when it had finally been revealed that they'd been wrong about him all along, what had happened?
Nothing.
Nothing had happened, and nothing had changed.
And grow up? She who was twenty years younger than him, telling him to grow up?
How dare she?
7.
Her anger fades quickly, and her hurt follows shortly thereafter.
There's a little bit of guilt that settles in the pit of her stomach by the time the new semester starts. It's irrational guilt, of course, because there's no way anyone in their right mind could say that she's in the wrong. It's there because she knows that he doesn't know, or at least he didn't at the time.
Her parents would never be coming back, a fact that she rarely advertised to others. Shame held her tongue. Memory charms of that depth were irreversible but she hadn't known that at the time. The Know-It-All had rushed into a solution for their safety and hadn't looked at all the facts. She'd only tried to reverse it once. When her father's nose had started to bleed she'd put her wand away and left, taking all traces of her presence.
Pushing away her self-pitying thoughts, she busies herself by watching him. It's a testament to his state of mind that he doesn't notice. He only shows up for the evening meal, the one he's required to attend by contract, and even then he barely eats. He's as thin as he ever was and she wonders if this is simply how he is, if he's always been like this.
Sadness filters in, quickly followed by pity.
He'd just love that if he knew.
Good thing she has no intention of telling him.
Weeks drift by, classes are taught, and assignments are marked. She notices that he doesn't really interact with anyone outside of the classroom and wonders how many words he speaks to his colleagues on any given day. Or how many they spare for him.
He's existing, she realises, not living.
She finds herself wanting to reach out to him, even though she knows she's likely to have her hand bitten off. Despite that, she makes her way down to his lab one evening in early March. He'd probably sneer about her Gryffindor-ish tendencies and turn her out on her arse if he knew what she was about, but she has the excuse of her experiments to fall back on.
He's there when she enters and his shock is plain to see for a brief moment before he files it away.
"What do you want?"
She doesn't say anything, merely walks over to the bench that she had been using. When she finds that her experiments are still there, some parts of them under a stasis charm that she hadn't cast, she smiles. Her eyes are drawn to the sink, where she had thrown the hot cauldron that day. She finds it sitting there. The only thing different about it being that he'd Vanished the ruined potion. Without a word, she picks it up and places it on the metal frame, poking her wand underneath it to light a blue flame.
They work in silence for a while, nothing but the sounds of her chopping, and the scratch of his quill to fill the room. She knows he won't break it, just as she knows that she has to.
"They don't remember me," she says quietly. He hears her. All sounds of his movement cease to be. "I sent them away the summer before that...that year. They wouldn't have gone willingly, so I took the option away from them. They're Monica and Wendell Wilkins now. They live in Austrailia, just outside of Sydney. Monica runs a daycare, and Wendell is a florist. They have no children."
She reminds herself to breathe. In. Out. Shred the daisy root finely with the tip of the blade. In. Out.
His voice, when it comes, is soft and unsurprising. His words, however, cause her to nearly cut into her finger.
"You did what had to be done. You protected them. There is no shame in it."
She turns and looks at him, finds him bent over the other bench, quill in hand, eyes on her. She smiles softly, blinking furiously.
His gaze falls down to her mouth, before he looks away.
8.
It takes him way too long to figure out what she's up to. By the time he realises, it's too far gone to stop.
At some point, she took it upon herself to become his friend.
Or something.
The dreary weather of early spring bleeds into the warmth of the approaching summer and with it comes Hermione Granger, great badgering, nagging woman of extraordinary proportions.
She tells him to eat more, and brings him food when he doesn't show up for meals.
She teases him, and laughs at her own jokes.
She poked him in the ribs once and discovered that it makes him jump. It quickly becomes her main defence against his sarcastic commentary.
Her hand is constantly touching him; his arm, his shoulder, his back, his hair. It sets him on edge even as he comes to expect it, to want it.
One evening she drags him outside, insistent upon showing him something growing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. When they reach the forest in question he realises that he's been duped. She takes his arm and forces him to walk her around the grounds in the dying light.
She asks for his opinion on her experiments and tricks him into doing things for her by throwing out lines like 'Well, if you're so bloody good, why don't you show me how?'
She tells him her thoughts about everything from her students and classes to the doings of her moronic friends and their torrid affairs.
She comes to see him every day, even if it's only for long enough to tell him that she has to supervise a detention that night and can't make it.
She invades his life, every aspect of it.
And he lets her.
9.
"Severus, we're out of Baneberry and I think these Shrivelfigs have gone bad."
"I know," he tells her distractedly, his eyes on his cauldron. "I shall go this weekend and replenish the stock."
"Are you going to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley?"
He casts her a look straight out of her childhood. It's the one that says he thinks she's stupid.
"Diagon Alley, of course."
"Good, I was hoping you'd say that. Do you mind if I come with you? I have a couple of things I need to get myself."
"I am not following you about while you go on a shopping spree," he tells her.
"No? Shame. I had planned on having you carry all my bags for me."
She earns herself another look. It makes her grin.
"I need some new quills and ink, I'm almost out of red," she says with a wry twist of her lips. He snorts.
"I can pick up some extra food for Crooks, stop at Flourish and Blotts for a quick peek, and then Madam Malkins."
"Madam Malkins?" he echoes warily.
She smiles. "I need a few sets of robes. I burnt a hole through my blue ones with that bubotuber pus, remember? May as well get more than one while I'm there, don't you think?"
"No," he tells her, his tone invoking no room for debate. "I am not going clothes shopping with you."
10.
"What do you think about this colour?" she asks him, holding up a set of pewter gray robes against her body.
They're cut in an older style, the kind that Muggles consider medieval. It would fit her like a glove, hugging her body tightly until it flared out at the hip. The delicate silver chain that serves as a decorative kind of belt would accentuate her waist. He cannot help picturing her in it.
"Do you want to be dressed like a cauldron?" he asks her, pushing away his thoughts of her body.
She purses her lips and glares at him. "Cauldrons are round, you git. You don't tell a woman things like that."
He shrugs nonchalantly and she tosses it defiantly in the 'keep' pile, scowling at him while she does it.
"What about this one?"
This set is more modern with many layers and long sleeves that would get in the way of brewing. The colour is a deep, beautiful navy blue that seems to shimmer slightly as the she moves. Once more, he finds himself picturing her in it.
She'd look beautiful in them. She'd look more than beautiful in the gray ones. Hell, he thinks she looks beautiful in what she is already wearing.
How the fuck had he let this happen?
Clearing his throat, he stands up from the chair she'd pushed him into when they entered. "I am the wrong person to ask. It may have escaped your notice but I am not fond of colour in my wardrobe. If you will excuse me, I will await you outside."
He flees then, hearing the sales girl's commiserating tisk sound as he leaves Hermione huffing irritably. Stepping outside, he walks the short distance to the edge of the building and presses his back against the cool brick. People pass by, not many but enough, and cast dubious looks his way. He is infamous, of course, and everyone knows who he is the moment they see him. Thankfully, no one approaches or says anything to him. He would be poorly prepared to handle a conflict at the moment.
He is too busy trying not to panic.
*** Thanks for all the positive feedback! It's great to hear that most people are happy with the plot and writing style.
*** I admit to being inspired by another fic from the Suits fandom. If you haven't watched Suits yet I have to question what exactly it is that you're doing with your life.
*** Just a reminder that this is a 3 part story and will be complete with the next chapter.