Hermione had succeeded in staying out long enough to avoid Harry, but her luck could only last so long. The next night she sat studying in the common room with Harry and Ron when Ron finally yawned and announced he was going up to bed. She expected Harry to follow like he usually did, but Harry seemed to have other plans.
"I think I'm going to study for a little while longer," he told Ron, who shrugged and headed up the stairs. Harry waited until the footsteps had faded into silence.
He was watching her. Hermione could feel his penetrating green gaze on her but she refused to look up. Unable to read under the pressure, she concentrated intently on the word Acromantula printed in black letters on the page before her. If she ignored him long enough maybe he would just forget about it and go to bed. Finally, Harry spoke.
"Hermione, we need to talk." His tone was both nervous and concerned.
She couldn't avoid this forever.
She sighed, closing her book and looking up at him, trying not to flinch as she met that green gaze.
"Fine. Talk."
"Hermione, those notes…" he faltered for a moment and then found the words. "Are you studying the Dark Arts?"
"I'm just doing some research," she snapped, unsure of how much to tell him.
"Where? Where are you getting that information? And don't tell me the library. I know that they don't have any books with information this detailed…with specific spellwork."
She hated herself, hated herself for what she was about to do, but he would never understand. He would never trust Severus Snape the way that she did. She had never lied to Harry before.
"I'm working on an independent study project for DADA and Snape leaves me alone in his office while I work. He has some books in there that I've been sneaking peeks into and copying down what I can."
It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't quite the truth either.
She couldn't handle those piercing green eyes on her anymore.
"Harry, I know what you're thinking, but…"
"I want to join you."
"What?"
"This is my war. I can't let you do this on your own. How can we fight them if they have weapons that we don't have? I want to do this with you."
"Harry, this is dangerous, illegal." She said, suddenly second-guessing her original plan to share the information with him, to bring the golden child, Dumbledore's favorite, into this illicit scheme.
She stood to leave, but he caught her wrist.
"I know."
"Harry, you live in the spotlight. If anyone gets a hint of anything, it will be all over the front page of the Daily Prophet. The Ministry will use it as an excuse to condemn you. There are factions within the Ministry that have been waiting for years for an excuse to send you to Azkaban."
"Hermione, I know."
"If we get caught…"
"Hermione. We'll be alright. We always are." She hated that logic. It was what made him so reckless, but she couldn't argue with its verity thus far.
"Fine," she sighed, "I'll teach you what I know."
She paused to pick up her books.
"We can't let Ron know. He wouldn't understand."
"No," Harry replied, looking at her, "he wouldn't."
"And Ginny..." who was wary of anything resembling the Dark Arts since her second year.
"She wouldn't understand either," he finished for her.
x
x
Severus threw the scroll into the pile of the already-graded ones and unrolled the next one. He could feel by the weight of it that the author had exceeded the required minimum length. Picking up his red quill, he started to read. Granger, of course. The essay was perfect, better than perfect. She made connections that few defense experts would make, let alone students.
Did he really think he could manipulate her? The success of his plan depended on it, depended on his ability to manipulate and corrupt her mind.
She was intelligent; his best strategy was to build logical arguments to convince her of the merits of this path of study. It wasn't that she hadn't been told of the dangers. She had been told the other side as well, by the Ministry, by her friends, by the newspapers. But in a world where the newspapers lied, the Ministry did whatever it could to cover its own ass and she had friends like Luna Lovegood with her ridiculous beliefs, surely it would not be impossible to convince the girl to make a distinction between fact and fiction according to the lines he drew for her.
His eyes drifted down to her essay again.
She could have been so much, if she had been born in a different time, if she had chosen different friends. She had so much potential and he was out to destroy it all.
But it wasn't about her. She was merely a pawn. It was about Lily. He closed his eyes and let himself remember her smile, the way her red hair moved in the wind. Lily had had potential too and it had been obliterated in a split second. Only by keeping her son alive could he make her death mean anything. When he had sworn to her that he would protect the life of her son, he had never imagined that it would come to this. But then again, he had believed that Dumbledore's ultimate goal was the keep the boy alive too. It had been a bitter shock when he found out that he had been wrong.
His only loyalty was to the memory of Lily and if those goals coincided with the Dark Lord's, that did nothing but make his life easier. If Hermione Granger was to be a casualty to this mission then so be it. She was a tool, he reminded himself, nothing more. She was merely a necessary pathway to his ultimate goal.
The next part would be easy. She would pass on her knowledge to Potter. The boy was waiting for it. It was like setting a match to dry grass.
x
x
Hermione paced back and forth as Harry sat on a desk watching her. The classroom they occupied was an unused one they had stumbled upon, heavily warded against eavesdroppers and intruders.
"We're just going to start off with the theory before you cast any spells," Hermione told him. Harry looked somewhat disappointed but nodded.
She shuffled through her notes until she found the right ones.
"There are five main categories of dark potions..."
Usually when she started lecturing, Harry's eyes glazed over, but this time they held hers in rapt attention.
An hour later, Severus watched from the shadows as his two students exited the vacant classroom. Everything was going according to plan. He had meant what he had told the Dark Lord about the curious woman as responsible for the fall of man. Potter was no different. He would trust her in anything. But this time, she was unknowingly leading him into a trap.
He felt a burning sensation in his left arm and headed to his quarters to gather his things, pleased that he would have progress to report. It was easier this way, really. Working against the Dark Lord had been a dangerous business and he felt less trepidation leaving for these meetings now that he had once again found himself on the Dark Lord's side. It was the meetings with Dumbledore that he had started to dread, having to carefully conceal the information that would get him killed.
x
x
Ten. It was ten o'clock.
Hermione glanced nervously around the room. Snape wasn't always in his office when she arrived, but he usually showed up within the half hour. She had been here for three hours and still she had seen not a glimpse of him. She cracked the door and peered into the empty lab again...just to make sure.
It wasn't like him not to show up and she couldn't help the sinking feeling that something was wrong...that something had happened.
When she heard movement in the other room, she had to restrain herself from bursting through the door and asking if he was alright. She forced herself to keep reading, or at the very least to keep staring at the page. Then suddenly there was a loud clattering in the adjoining room and she could restrain herself no longer. She pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of the man sprawled against the tabletop surrounded by broken vials.
"Sir?" she asked cautiously, moving towards him.
He didn't move.
"Professor?" she tried again, nearing him.
His hand spasmed and she saw something silver fall to the floor with a soft thud. Rounding the table, she saw that it was a Death Eater mask and her heart seemed to sink into her chest. But still he had made no indication that he had heard her.
She took a deep breath.
"Severus?"
His head whipped up suddenly, his eyes glazed and panicked. He tried to stand up but his body merely slid off the slick table surface as he crumpled to the floor. She rushed towards him, getting down on her hands and knees to crawl under the table where the upper half of his body now lay.
She should do something. She should go for help. But who would she go to? It was well past ten and she was alone with the professor in his quarters. He headmaster had already made insinuations and to top it off she still had dark arts books spread across the table in his office. She glanced down at the form of the man before her. His forehead was damp and his breathing was quick and shallow. He could lose his job, they could both be sent to Azkaban, but it was better than letting him die...wasn't it?
His eyes suddenly shot open and he looked at her with what could only be labeled confusion. It wasn't a look she was used to seeing on his face.
"What do I do?" She whispered, on her hands and knees like a scared child.
His eyes slid shut again.
"Top shelf, dark green potion. Third shelf, second from left, yellow." The last word dissolved into a groan of pain.
She crawled out from under the table and grabbed the potions from the shelves, ducking back under the table with the specified vials in hand.
"Sir?" she asked hesitantly. "Do you think...could you open your mouth?"
He didn't move and for a moment she thought he might have passed out, but then his lips parted slightly and she emptied the vials down his throat.
She sat back on her heels again and waited, watching his face intently for any little sign of life. She had not noticed before that he was bleeding, but blood had started to pool on the dusty stone floor underneath his shoulder. She wanted to search for the wound, but was hesitant to touch him, was hesitant even to breathe. If she knew one thing about the Professor, it was that he would not appreciate her molesting his person while he lay unconscious on the floor.
--
Severus opened his eyes and for a split-second panicked at the unfamiliar surroundings before he realized that the wood surface he was staring at was the underside of one of the tables in his lab.
"Fuck," he groaned, twisting his head to the side and looking up into the startled eyes of Hermione Granger.
What was she doing here? It had to be well past curfew. Hadn't she given up when he hadn't shown up for her lesson? Shouldn't she be in bed? Why was she here?
He closed his eyes again.
Great. Just great. He had tried to keep the Dark Arts abstract for her, tried to get her to see them simply as an intellectual exercise. He had kept her splitting open pillows and mutilating vegetables, had tried to keep these visions of blood and torn flesh from her mind.
And now he had to go and ruin it all. He had to stumble in here soaked in blood and barely able to walk, had to show her just what lay at the end of the road he had her headed down. She would not follow him now. She would have to be crazy to keep going after this.
He rolled over onto his stomach, letting out a low groan as his shoulder made contact with the floor. It served him right for ever re-sheathing his wand before Bella had left the room. Crazy witch. Pulling himself out from under the table, he shakily rose to his feet.
He dragged himself across the room, leaving bloody footprints in the wake of his limp. What was she still doing here? Why did she have to be here to see this? Why couldn't he have been allowed to pass out of the cold floor of his laboratory alone. He could have dragged himself off of the floor the next morning with a sore back but no permanent damage done just like he always did. What did she want from him?
Severus paused in the doorway of his office to lean against the frame, trying to pull himself together enough to cross the room. Taking a deep breath, he continued on, each step more painful than the last. Passing through his office, he pushed open the door on the opposite wall, stumbling through into his bedroom. As he crossed through the darkened room, he was vaguely aware that the girl was still following him. What did she think she was doing? She had always shown respect for him, always called him 'Sir' and now she was invading his privacy in the most offensive way. She was following him into his private quarters. Didn't she know this was against the rules?
Making his way through the dark room on memory, he pushed open yet another door and finally let himself collapse onto the edge of the tub. The exertion had strained him in his weakened state and he struggled to catch his breath. All the wanted to do was sleep, to lose himself to the sweet oblivion. But his shoulder...he had to deal with his shoulder first he was reminded be the moisture trickling down his side.
He shrugged off his outer robe and let it fall into the tub. It would need to be washed and repaired anyway. The blood had soaked through his white collared shirt from his collarbone to halfway down his side. His fingers shook and he took one button at a time, slowly slipping it out of its slot. Once his shirt was loosened, he let the fabric fall away from his injury.
The wound fell across a series of old scars. It was deeper than he had suspected. 'Great,' he thought, 'this one will leave a mark too.'
He raised his head and was startled to find that he was not alone. Sometime during the examination of his injuries he had forgotten that she was still here. Why was she still here?
She had lit the torches and was standing in the middle of the room with a bowl of water she had no doubt conjured and a wash rag. She took a step toward him with the dampened rag in her outstretched hand.
"No."
She looked up, startled as he pulled the bowl from her grasp and started to clean the wound himself. She opened the cabinet and returned a moment later with a handful of dittany. She knelt in front of him and offered him the dittany in her outstretched hand. He finished cleaning the wound took it from her silently. He applied it as she watched. Why was she still here? Why was she watching him? Why couldn't she just leave him to heal himself in peace, alone as he always did.
But she knelt there, studying him. He felt like an animal in a zoo. He just wanted her to leave.
He finished with the dittany and though the wound had finally stopped bleeding, it was still red and angry-looking. Her eyes were fixed on the dark gash on his pale shoulder. With his good arm, he pinched the bridge of his nose as he let his eyes slip closed. He just wanted to be alone.
"Get out," he said without looking up.
"What?"
He raised his head.
"Leave."
"Is there something I can do? Is there a spell that..."
"Miss Granger," he snapped, "despite your childish beliefs, Magic cannot fix everything."
Her eyes dropped to the floor and she was silent for a long moment.
Great. Just great. He had yelled at her. Now she would leave, leave and never come back. He had frightened her away and she would run away and cry like the scared little girl that she was and all of his planning, all of his preparation would be for nothing.
Finally she looked back up at him and he was surprised at the raw pain he saw in her eyes.
"Do you think I don't know that?" She said slowly. "Dolohov taught me that lesson at the Department of Mysteries." Her fingers slipped open the top few buttons of her blouse to reveal a thin, pale scar that dipped out of view. He had forgotten that she had been injured at the Department of Mysteries, had never known the exact curse or the extent of the damage. His eyes drifted from her scar back up to her face.
"Why do you think I'm so determined to do this? Why do you think I want to learn these thing you have to teach me so badly? I've gone up against wizards way out of my league and I won't….I won't do it again. I have never…never felt pain like that. They won't be scared of us if we only ever play defense." She paused to take a breath, "We can't win anything with shielding spells."
He stared at her speechless, feeling as if he had underestimated her yet again. She was not a scared little girl, his eyes drifted to the scar of her breast. She was a woman who had already seen too much. He looked back up into her eyes as she continued to kneel on the floor before him, finding only a quiet resolve there. He had tried to lure her into the Dark Arts as an intellectual pursuit, but she was not interested in theory. For all the time she spent with her nose buried in a book, she was a practical girl, interested in knowledge she could use.
She raised herself slowly from the floor and left without a word. He leaned his head against the cool tile wall, letting it support the weight that he had neither the strength nor the energy to bear.
xx
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A/N: I know it's been a while. It would make me very happy is you would please review this chapter.