Chapter 4 Terrifying, yet Intriguing Realizations

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.

Ron froze instantly, not expecting this sudden change in conversation. His face paled and his once happy demeanor changed to a fearful complexion, his eyes filled with dread.

How could she do this to him?

Hermione watched as Ron's face changed in degrees, from his characteristic lopsided grin, to a frown that creased his forehead and ears that slowly turned a deep shade of red. His mouth was open slightly, as though he was willing himself to talk, but no sound would come forth.

Hermione swallowed thickly and met his shocked and betrayed eyes with fearful, yet determined eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ron, I just..." Hermione began, but found that she could give no incentive for her feelings. She gestured weakly, her hands trying to display a possible reason, with no apparent success.

She looked at him, expecting.... well, anything but the stony silence that had developed between them. His face still held a bit of the surprise it had obtained at her words, but his eyes had grown somewhat more calm. Calm, expect for the hidden, hectic turmoil that was probably going on inside of his mind, possibly the same turmoil she was still enduring about someone entirely different.

She stiffened and tried to concentrate on Ron's face, on his eyes that were trying to hold back tears, on anything. Anything but the black depths of her previous professor's cold eyes, as he stared at her with increasing agitation.

His voice brought her gratefully back to the present. "Why..." his voice faltered, "What..." again, his voice slipped from the question, and he suddenly turned away from her. "What do I say, 'Mione? I... Why did Ginny have to find out before me?" He turned back toward her, his eyes wild and filled with unshed tears.

"I... I don't know," Hermione offered, shaken by his abruptness.

"You don't know what? Why you weren't brave enough to tell me? Why..." Ron spoke fiercely, but Hermione cut him off, shocked into speaking.

"Stop it! I know that you're angry. I'm sorry, it's just... I didn't know that I felt this way... I didn't know..." she trailed off, tears suddenly very close, and it was all she could do to not run away from him... from humanity.

What had happened to her? Was is stress? Nerves? Or was she going crazy?

This had never happened to her before. This strange disbelief in every fact thrown her way, every fact that would usually make sense to her. And every time it was contradicted, she wanted to give up, to run away? How was that right?

Ron words threw her out of her reverie. "What does that mean?" His voice changed suddenly, as the meaning of her words became clear to him. "So... you did like me?" His voice was filled with hope, and her heart sank as she listened to him.

"Ron.... yes, at one point. But... not anymore. I don't know why. I just don't see you as anything more than a friend."

Not anymore.

***

Hermione sat back in her seat on the Hogwarts Express, too exhausted to think of the journey ahead... or really anything for that matter.

Except, of course, the one thing that she wished she would never think about.

Severus.

She closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep, faintly grateful that they were in a compartment by themselves. It was hard enough with just the four of them, without Neville and Luna picking up on the tense silence, and the glares thrown around by the two red-heads.

The conversation with Ron had not gone as she had expected. She had known he would be angry, but she assumed he would at least understand that she wasn't interested. How could he expect her to be in love with him as he was her?

She assumed that he had been talking to Harry and Ginny about her, that both of them had believed her to be in love with him.

Of course, she couldn't really blame him, if she had seen the signs, she would have said yes. Yet, that was before the loss of someone she hadn't known she cared about. Wasn't that another cliche: You don't know what you have, until it's gone?

Well, technically, she didn't have him.

Her brain grasped onto this new knowledge. Could she have had him? Would he have opened up to her?

She mentally slapped herself. She needed to stop thinking about a man who had not only betrayed the Order, but had killed its leader. He didn't deserve her love.

Is that what she had for him? Love? Did she love him?

Damn it, Hermione! Stop thinking about him!

***

Hermione walked through the train station, trailing Harry, Ron, and Ginny, as Ron and Ginny hurried ahead, and Harry had to nearly run to catch up. She didn't mind, though, she wasn't really concentrating on them anyway.

Halfway along she looked up, suddenly self-conscious, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling uneasily. Her eyes met another's, and her step faltered as she saw in them something she recognized, an essence of someone else's eyes...

She stopped walking, her eyes captured by the stranger's... Were those his eyes? There it was, the same tightening of the lids as he kept his true feelings hidden, the same endlessness that circled through the depths of his eyes.

Suddenly, she realized where she was, and who she was staring at: someone who was obviously not Snape, for his complexion suggested he was in his early 20's, and curious for why she was looking at him.

Hermione turned forward stiffly, her expression set in a grimace as her fixation on Snape was made obvious. As her eyes focused on the scene before her, however, she realized that she had unconsciously walked in front of a pillar while intruding on a stranger's privacy.

Her breath caught in her throat, her face paling almost to the point where she was as white as sheet, staring at the poster before her.

It was a wanted poster, and the picture shown was none other than the man she had confessed her love of not too long ago. Tears streamed, unhindered, down her face, and the feelings she had held back for so long came flooding back.

She stared into his unmoving black eyes, the same ones that had haunted her dreams since the funeral of his victim. She felt her knees weaken, turning to jelly under his gaze. She tried vainly to pull herself back together, but only succeeded in clutching her cart to prevent herself from falling.

Her embarrassment got the better of her, however, and she walked away from it without a second glance, hoping no one had seen what had just taken place.

And no one had, unless you count two black, and very inquisitive, eyes.

***

Severus Snape watched as Hermione came into view slightly behind the two Weasleys and Potter, looking slightly preoccupied. She was walking slowly, allowing her friends to get ahead of her, which they seemed set on doing, whether or not Hermione tried to join them.

He frowned, wondering why they were on bad terms, before realizing what he was doing, and what the repercussions of that move could be. He set his face into its customary blankness, before looking back at Hermione with more curious, than uncaring eyes.

At that moment, she turned toward him, perhaps realizing that she was being watched, and met his eyes. He was surprised at the mixture of emotions that characterized the depths of her eyes. He felt as though he was staring into a mirror, watching his own eyes as they searched for some recognition within.

All at once, she turned away from him, the realization that she was looking at, in her view, a complete stranger probably dawning on her. He watched her with increasing curiosity, his eyes calculating every movement as she turned towards the poster that contained his unmoving image.

He watched as he saw her freeze, whether in fear or anger, he didn't know. But he soon found out that it was neither emotion, for tears were slowly cascading down her cheeks, uninterrupted and unstoppable. He sat back, stunned at this strange show of emotion. Had it not been only a moment ago when her eyes had held the same undisplayed emotions that his had always concealed?

His eyes followed her, noting the way she gripped the cart in front of her, the way she tried to pull herself together, as though she would fall if she just let go. (A/N: pun intended)

When she finally, to all appearances, pulled herself together, his eyes fell to her hands, where they showed white and tense as they gripped her cart. She walked away, and he was left with more questions than he could find answers to, and more reason to get away, before his thoughts chased each other down paths that he did not want them to travel down, not now.

Not anymore.

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A/N: Sorry about the wait. I uploaded the chapter this morning, but apparently, it didn't want to upload, so it hasn't been available on the site. Sorry about that. ~Fay-Fortchyn