A/N: Thanks guys for all the support :) You are all beautiful people.
"Enter."
She steels herself and walks through the doorway.
"Good evening, Professor."
He is standing behind his desk, his hands sheathed in black dragonhide gloves and clasped together forbiddingly in front of him. This, along with the puritanical narrowing to his lips and the buttons trimming his throat, gives him the air of a disgruntled clergyman. He seems to have accrued some fifty more jars of specimens over the summer, despite being transferred to the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. She tries not to watch them spin and bob hypnotically in that revolting green liquid, as if buffeted by unseen waves.
The fireplace is sitting bare and forlorn. The only light in the room is the grotesque glow exuded by the specimen jars. There is a touch of the numinous, of the fractured and the sinister in the frigid dungeon air. She sucks in a loud breath and makes sure that she isn't standing pigeon-toed.
He waits for her to look at him before speaking.
"Come with me."
He stalks over to a scant bit of stone not covered in jars and pulls out his wand, performing some intricate motion with it. Ten points from Slytherin for foolish wand-waving. A quiet laugh escapes the confines of her lips. He looks at her sharply. She draws her bottom lip into her mouth.
"Something amusing, Miss Granger?" he sneers.
"No, sir."
He fixes her with a level stare.
"See to it that it remains so. I have no wish to be subjected to your infernal tittering for the next hour."
The room he enters is almost identical to his old Potions classroom, the one that is currently used by Professor Slughorn. Except this room is far neater; there are no spare textbooks lying about, no quills strewn across the floor, no scorch marks or stains on the tables. There is the same dank chill that pervades the entirety of the dungeons, the same greying light that gives everything it touches a look of disheartened weariness.
A vat of squirming... something lies in wait for her on one of the tables, the wet sounds emanating from it making her shudder.
He motions toward it.
"You may begin."
She sighs and heads toward the vat, pulling her protective gloves out of her pocket. A hand closes about her elbow.
"I believe I told you that there would be no need for gloves."
"Oh, erm, I thought (Hoped—fervently—Oh please) you might have been joki—"
"I do not joke, Miss Granger," he says, spitting out the offending word as if it were a crass oath.
"But I—"
"No. Gloves. If you think this beneath your dignity, I am certain that Mr. Filch would be glad for some extra help cleaning the fourth floor lavatory. I understand there's been a recent accident involving a rather powerful sticking charm and some first year unwittingly imbibing some Muggle laxative."
He looks almost gluttonous with scorn. Jesus, he can slice through boomslang skin with that upper lip.
"Or better yet, I'm sure Professor McGonagall would love to hear about her prized prefect duelling while carrying out patrol duties."
She cringes.
Flobberworm juice? She can be a Gryffindor about the little things, too.
Professor Snape's derision? She took it for the past five years.
But Professor McGonagall's quiet disappointment?
"No, sir. No gloves."
She makes to put them back in her pocket. He raises an eyebrow at her and lifts one gloved hand, beckoning with his fingers. She looks at him, faintly perplexed. Does he want her to come to him, or—
"Give me the gloves," he intones slowly. He talks like he is wrapping each word in its own special sneer as they move past his lips.
"Oh, er, right." She flushes. When she does as he asks, her fingers brush against supple dragonhide, the warmth from his hand captured in the leather. She tries not to mentally dissect its texture.
He stows her gloves in his pocket, and she wonders if she will ever get them back.
"This room is for my private use. I shall be brewing a potion that requires immense concentration for the next two hours. You will conquer your pathological need to speak, raise your hand, ask questions, or otherwise make a nuisance of yourself. You will complete your task in precisely one hour and leave my table pristine as you found it. You will not use magic. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
"Brewing, sir? What poti—"
"Ten points from Gryffindor. Have you already managed to forget what I just said? I told you to keep your ever-flapping mouth shut, Granger," he says abrasively.
She bristles.
She was just curious.
"Yes, sir," she says, just barely keeping her left eyebrow from arching in defiance.
"Ten points from Gryffindor, for your... ah, cheek."
He points at the container of flobberworms.
"Get to work. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can get out of my sight."
He gives her one last spiteful sneer and moves to a table in the center of the room, keeping his back to her. She didn't notice the cauldron sitting on it when she entered. She wonders how she could have missed it; it is of a coruscating silver so lustrous that it seems to contain the entire room, the entire castle, within its boreal depths. It couldn't have been used before, as there isn't the tiniest scratch on its surface. Its contents cast a golden glow that creeps around his edges, backlighting his form in an auroral halo.
She is surprised that he trusts her enough to sort through a bucket of flobberworms without constant supervision. Or perhaps the potion really does require every ounce of his concentration.
She watches him as he inspects each ingredient lying ready around the cauldron. He picks up a knife and holds it up to the light, then starts chopping something, his elbows rising and falling with a nostalgic, fluid rhythm. His head is gently inclined forward, the nape of his neck barely visible between a gap in his hair and his stiff collar. The skin there is almost as white as the centimeter of linen peeking out at the neckline of his robes. Everything about him is uncannily apt, she thinks; even his appearance is a study in contrasts.
She knows that he is assiduously watching the movements of his own hands. She realises that he's always done that. There is no doubt that he can brew most potions with both eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back, but he is always so meticulous, so critical of his own actions despite his expertise.
She wonders if he has a permanent crease on his glove where the stirring rod rests against his finger. He's always held it poised just so. He doesn't use gloves all the time, though. Maybe he has a callous in that spot, right by the top joint of the middle finger on his right hand.
She's missed this.
For all his skill as an instructor in Defense, she's missed watching him brew.
His refusal to answer her question about the potion only fuels her curiosity to a slow and steady burn. It's tolerable, for now, but she knows herself enough to recognise that, if left unattended, her questions have a tendency to take over her brain.
"I thought I told you to get started, Miss Granger," he says without turning to look at her.
Merlin, how the hell does he do that?
She looks forlornly at the syrupy flobberworm mass waiting to be sorted. They are wriggling manically over each other, some of them trying to ooze up the walls. All of the plumper ones are pulsating and seeping a gloppy green substance that smells of dirty bandages and halitosis, with a biting tinge of ammonia. The wet, slopping sound almost proves to be her undoing. But she collects herself, knowing that gagging will probably cost her another ten points.
"Sorry, sir. Right away."
She gets her gloves back at the end of the hour.
When she is alone she sometimes finds herself mentally cataloguing the people she knows. She would think of their faces (straight nose, scar, smudgy spectacles on Harry—freckles and fair lashes on Ron—the prettiest pair of lips she's ever seen on Ginny), their names, and all the things she likes about them. She also tries to think of the things that rile her about them and make her tug on her hair and put her hands on her hips. It's an odd thing to do, she admits. But she does it anyway.
They will never forget each other, she likes to think. She knows they think this too. They don't really talk about sentimental things like that. Being best friends with two boys, she is used to taking for granted that certain things will remain unsaid between them. They can go through hell and back for each other and end up old and resentful and bitter in their orthopedic shoes, liver-spotted and incontinent and senile. But they will still remember.
Memory is a tricky thing, though. She used to have this doll when she was around three. She thinks she named it Michelle. Or Diane. Something. Anyway, she loved it tremendously, but now she can't even remember what it looked like. Or what she named it. Come to think of it, she can't remember where Michelle/Diane is; it might have been handed down to a distant cousin, or donated at a toy drive. More likely, it is sitting in that cupboard full of various unwanted objects under the stairs at her house.
Humans are rational creatures. Hermione more so than most. She likes to weigh the odds, pack an umbrella. On average, she expects things to turn out better than they wind up being. She is sixteen going on seventeen , and the solid lump between her lungs that tells her that they will be alright is still going strong.
People leave a bit more of a mark than dolls do, but one never knows, so it's better to weigh the odds. Pack an umbrella. Because growing up is killing time. Growing up is watching the people you love change. Growing up is a vanishing, and what was once overwhelming won't get lost, but it will lose its meaning. Growing up is understanding what is inevitable, and hating the inevitability, and the passivity of inevitability, and the knowing that what was once your finest rage and your most rapturous joy will be deflated and stowed away into the file boxes of history.
Where will you be when you go under? Because right now, things are getting closer to the sun. Too close for comfort.
In the end, you are nothing more than a summation of memories in someone's head. A vaguely sweet and harmless recollection of things you once did, words you once said. A term of endearment. An echo of personality. Then that person dies too, and you are nothing but a name hanging thinly in the air, the syllables all wrong and mispronounced.
Then your name, after some few years, is condemned to putrefaction as well. And it's like none of it ever happened, an entire generation sloughed off the face of the earth.
"It's bloody weird, is what it is. You-Know-Who's got parents?"
"Don't be a berk, Ron," she sniffs disdainfully. "Whatever did you expect, that he was spawned from the bowels of evil?"
He mutters something nasty under his breath.
The idea of Lord Voldemort being born in an entirely human manner unsettles her as much as it does Ron. But he's been getting on her nerves lately, strutting around and affecting a deeper voice whenever there are girls nearby, pretending not to notice them. The prat had never before said a nice thing about Lavender, but now he keeps doing this thing with his hair, trying to maintain it in a state of artful dishevelment every time she is in his immediate vicinity.
She, on the other hand, has taken to wearing ridiculously colorful bras under the standard prescribed white shirts. Now, these shirts are made of a material that can be quite translucent when the light hits them just so, especially when it gets too warm for robes. This shouldn't be a problem for girls like Hermione, who's bought several of the same exact type of bra in shades of nude, cream, and white. Lavender, however, seems to prefer the frothy, lacey, itchy types with the flowers and the bows and the little synthetic pearls. Or rather, Ron seems to prefer them, and Lavender has taken full advantage of this fact.
It's just so...
So...
She huffs and turns to Harry, stuffing her frustration in the back of her mind.
"You said Professor Dumbledore had Marvolo Gaunt's ring?"
"Yeah, he was wearing it when we went to visit Slughorn. I reckon that's what happened to his hand; it's probably got some dark power or something... I asked him about it, but he always changes the subject." He says this a little resentfully. Oh, he's trying not to show it, but she can tell.
"Harry, I'm sure Professor Dumbledore means well. We have to trust him, you know that."
He nods jerkily, drawing boxes with his finger in the nap of the carpet he is sitting on.
"Anyway, I agree with you about the ring. It's definitely got something sinister in it, if it belonged to Voldemort's family. Whatever curse was inflicted on Professor Dumbledore's hand, it isn't ordinary magi—"
"So what's his mum look like?"
"Oh, would you drop it, Ron!" she snaps. Ron ignores her and gives Harry a pointed look. Harry complies.
"She was... I dunno, ordinary? She didn't look like someone who would give birth to the most evil wizard of his generation, if that's what you're really asking." Harry shrugs and pushes his glasses up his nose. Hermione finds herself listening raptly despite herself. "She was rather plain, actually. And timid. She flinched a lot, from what I saw." He attempts to pull off an insouciant quirk to his lip, like he couldn't care less about what Voldemort's parents were like. It's yet another thing they have in common; both of them orphans, both raised by people they never regarded as family. It's almost poetic.
Each of them are folded into their own silence, heads hanging loose from necks, hands hanging loose from wrists, fingers barely holding onto parchment and quill.
Merope Gaunt had been beaten into a state of sub-humanity by her father and brother. Hermione pictures in her head a wisp of a girl, dark-featured, bony knees and elbows, her rags impregnated with dust and human filth. She had been terrorised and abused, so much so that magic became a source of torment for her, instead of the wonder that it was supposed to be. All her short life, she had received nothing but contempt from those who would call her family.
She frowns.
Maybe if things were different...
Maybe if Merope Gaunt were a stronger person, and if Tom Riddle were a better man...
She pinches at the growing thread of her thought.
She doesn't want to feel anything for Voldemort's mother.
She reminds herself that he is nothing other than evil incarnate, nothing other than a murdering psychopath who would regard her carcass with glee and set the dogs at her flesh, given the opportunity.
Thinking otherwise will ruin the circle she erected to keep things together. Because she likes to think that all things come full circle, even war. Thinking otherwise will mangle the circle beyond repair. It will seep into the carefully placed lines. It will cannibalise the cut-crystal-clear walls that are there to tell them they are making the right choice, and everything would start bleeding out and mixing together and making a mess.
Circles are good.
Circles make sense.
It won't do to start thinking that the little boy Tom Riddle was born seven and a half pounds of innocence just like the rest of them were.
So she swallows the lump in her throat and changes the subject.
"But... but why was Dumbledore showing you all this? What did he say the purpose of those memories are?"
"He said it's important to know about Voldemort's past. Something to do with the prophecy," Harry says slowly, shaking himself out of his reverie. "I dunno, I was hoping he was going to teach me spells or something. But I guess if he thought I should know this, then he has his reasons."
She doesn't like calling it 'The Prophecy,' as though it is some consecrated, antediluvian script binding their fates and sealing it in a flipping dictum. The Prophecy. Like a cheap plot device in a dodgy Muggle film.
It's belittling, she thinks, in some vague, undefined way. They have nothing else to call it, though, and she can rise above such petty concerns.
"That's all he said? Well... I suppose it makes sense, if you have to fight him. Maybe he thought it would give you insight to his weaknesses. I wonder why he would have the ring, though. Are you sure he didn't say anything else about the ring?"
"No, nothing else."
Ron has long since lost interest in the conversation, and is busy mooning at Lavender with his bloody calf-eyes sparkling like a fecking—
She shan't look. She absolutely will not look at Ron. She concentrates her eyes on the patterns Harry is etching into the carpet.
"Oh. Alright. I'm sure you're right; he probably does have his reasons for that. I mean, we aren't even official members of the Order yet. Or maybe the ring doesn't even mean anything at all. You said Merope Gaunt was wearing a locket?"
"Yeah, but Dumbledore didn't say anything about that. And it wasn't in his office like the ring was. What are you thinking?"
"No, nothing. I just thought, since they were the only things the Gaunts owned that had any value... but no, it probably doesn't mean anything."
Harry scratches at a spot on his nose. She brings a hand up to rub at her scar, but she puts it back down again when she notices Harry looking at her.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."
"Oh, bugger," she whispers as a particularly fat flobberworm shoots out from between her thumb and forefinger, hitting the side of the container with a moist slap. It leaves a trail of stringy mucous as it slides down to join the lunatic writhing of its brothers and sisters.
"Five points from Gryffindor. You will keep a civil tongue in your head while I am suffering your presence, Miss Granger."
Isn't he supposed to be concentrating on that potion? She was going to ask him about it when she arrived for detention, but the set of his mouth changed her mind. Maybe tomorrow.
"Sorry."
She could try to figure it out, of course. Not very many potions take on a golden hue. And he has his ingredients right in front of him. Of course, it could be an entirely novel potion altogether. She's clever, but even Hermione can admit that she is no 'Half-Blood Prince,' whatever the bloody hell that's supposed to mean. Her top lip curls with contempt.
"Sorry, what, Miss Granger?"
She briefly contemplates not answering just to spite him, but seven nights of plunging her hands into this stinking, wriggling mess in front of her is quite enough for a lifetime. For several lifetimes, thank you.
"Sorry, sir."
He doesn't speak to her for the rest of the hour.
Hannah Abbott's mother was found dead the other day.
That makes fourteen.
Hannah was pulled out of Herbology. Her usually pink face was a sickening, chalky yellow-white that blended with her blonde hair.
Hermione didn't hear until two days later that the other girl's mother was found lying stiff and contorted in their front yard. They lived in a Muggle area, so it was quite a challenge for the Department of Muggle Relations. There must have been a hefty amount of paperwork.
She wonders if the ministry officials complained about it, shuffled their feet and ground their teeth.
Oh, bloody hell, isn't that just delightful. Another one? But I was going to meet the lads at the pub tonight.
Rifle through the two-inch stack of parchment. Go spare looking for a quill.
Will it be Quick-Quotes tonight, or Spell-Check? Nah, I think I'll go with Self-Inking; I'm almost out of ink. Remind me to put in an order tomorrow.
Grumble.
A sigh of resignation. Sink into the chair, the fucking chair that fucking creaks because the higher-ups keep putting off the request for a better one. Like they will most likely ignore the order for ink.
I'd like to get my hands on the fucking wanker responsible for this.
Yeah, sorry, mate. Paperwork is a bitch.
She used to wonder how many lives will be so effortlessly snuffed out before it ends. How many existences will be reduced to a trifling memory—perhaps a favorite song someone once sung constantly, a pretty bauble someone once wore, a glint of light on a faintly familiar smile, or maybe even a battered pair of glasses that once perched in front of green eyes.
In this case, paperwork. Hannah Abbott's mother is another pile of paperwork for an administrative assistant somewhere in the twisting interior of the Ministry of Magic.
When does childhood end?
When does war begin?
Hannah Abbott's mother was found dead the other day.
Professor Flitwick gestures when he talks. Humongous gestures that are utterly unsuitable to his tiny frame. She thinks he does it unconsciously to make himself feel like he's taking up more space in the room than he actually does. Or maybe it's just the nature of his profession; there is quite a bit of elaborate wand-waving required to master Charms, after all. Whatever the case, it's taken them five years of being in his class to get over their habit of snorting into their hands whenever the momentum from his arms threatens to topple him over.
"—at happened to your hands?"
She is staring so blankly at Professor Flitwick that he starts to flicker and double in front of her eyes, and she has to blink twice to get things to go back to normal.
This happens often in Charms. She always masters the assignment ahead of everyone else, usually ten to fifteen minutes into the beginning of class, sometimes even before class started. So she would have nothing to do but sit in her seat and try to exude an aura of modest approachability. In truth, her classmates know her too well to approach her for help; they all know that she won't give it a rest. There was one time she followed Gladys Matthews to the Ravenclaw common room to offer her assistance in the proper execution of the Cheering Charm.
"I'm sorry Neville, what was that?" she whispers.
"I said, what happened to your hands? Sorry... it's just, you've been scratching them for the past half hour and it looks quite bad."
"Oh." She looks down at her hands lying in her lap. They have acquired a ghastly pink and scarlet blotchiness, tiny pustules blooming in the spaces between her fingers. She didn't notice that she was scratching, but now that Neville mentioned it, they itch like hell.
"Sodding flobberworms," she mutters heatedly, dragging her fingernails across the tingling flesh on the back of her hand. She sighs with relief.
"Flobberworms, you say?"
"Oh, yeah. I've managed to land myself a weeks' worth of detentions with Professor Snape. He caught me duelling with Malfoy, you see."
"Ah. I take it that's why Crabbe and Goyle have been cracking their knuckles in your direction when you aren't looking. You should watch your back," he says playfully. Neville's a shy boy, but he got over that with her a long time ago. They've been through a lot together in all those Potions classes. Or maybe it's because they're both a little awkward with people, and they sense this shared trait in one another.
"Ha, yeah, I doubt Malfoy told them about it though. I gave him a nasty one to the gut," she smiles wistfully.
"You socked him?" he asks a little incredulously. She grins.
"Excellent, Mr. Longbottom! I assume you've successfully performed a nonverbal Aguamenti Charm?"
"Er... no, sir, not really..."
"Is that so? Then please refrain from chatting with Miss Granger until you have." Professor Flitwick's sternness is of the gently chiding kind. One has to learn the hard way to take him seriously.
"Sorry, Professor," they both mutter.
"Oh, don't worry, my dear, you are quite safe," he says, turning to her. "I understand you've mastered the charm since last week? Admirable, as I expected. Yes, quite safe, quite safe."
She flushes and smiles under his broad, approving grin. He heads to the other side of the room to assist Seamus, who for some inexplicable reason is emitting puffs of thick smog from his ears. She can smell it from her seat, and it smells like vomit. Professor Flitwick gags at the stench, then waves his wand to clear the air.
"Quite safe, quite safe, Hermione dear." Neville nods at her, adopting an avuncular expression that is extraordinarily suited to his round, jovial features. She snorts.
"Shh! Neville, didn't you hear the professor?"
"Yeah, but..." He makes a show of looking around furtively, his wide eyes swivelling from side to side. Professor Snape might just swallow his tongue if he saw how Neville doesn't tremble at the slightest outside of his class. "I've got something for that rash."
"What is it?" she asks, amused.
"Bearberry extract. I don't actually have it, but I'm sure I could get you some from Professor Sprout. She loves me," he smirks. An Outstanding O.W.L. in Herbology has done wonders for his confidence.
"Bearberry? But I thought that was used as a diuretic."
"I'm afraid you're going to have to live with the fact that I might just know more than you in this area. It won't kill you, you know. Living with it, I mean. Not the bearberry."
"I don't know... it might."
"Look, d'you want the bearberry or not?"
"Alright, alright," she grouses, rolling her eyes. "You are the veritable master of all things vegetal. I defer to your superior knowledge."
"You know, you move your eyebrows a lot when you're annoyed, have you noticed? They look like happy little caterpillars."
"And you are terrible at Potions, but we learn to live with our flaws, don't we?"
"Shut up."
There is a line through this world.
She hasn't quite figured it out yet.
There is a line (lines?) dividing certain types of people. There are those who make decisions, and those who let the circumstances do it for them. There are those who run to the front lines screaming and flailing bloody murder, and those who cower in the space under the staircase, waiting for someone to draw them out and hold them while they weep. There are those who would die for an ideal, and those who would kill for a Knut.
It's not a new concept, not to anyone. There is strength and weakness, black and white, martyrs and curs, good and evil. She isn't one to believe in things like cosmic balance, nothing melodramatic like that. But she cannot deny that there is an inevitable bifurcation somewhere down the road. She doesn't know exactly what the line separates, but she knows it's there. It's always been there. A living entity breathing in the background, feeding on their choices.
Choices, choices, choices.
It all comes down to that. At least, that's what she's figured out so far.
It doesn't matter who you are, all that matters is what side of the line your shadow touches.
Somehow, she's always known what side to stand on. Maybe it's because she is a Mudblood, and her choice was taken away when the first begrimed vein was torn by someone purer and the first dirty drop hit the earth. Maybe she would have chosen differently if she were one of them. But it's no use speculating about something that can never be, and she likes to think that she would remain the same person, the same bushy-haired know-it-all, no matter what shade of red flows through her veins.
More than once during their detentions, her eyes stray to his arm and she would start to wonder why he joined them. She can't see him as evil, no matter how hard she tries. Evil is shattering your trust in the world. Evil is a desecration of the human. Evil is absolute. He is petty and bitter and hateful and unfair, but not evil.
He saved her life, after all, and if she closes her eyes and breathes slowly, she can almost feel the pads of his fingertips against...
She shakes her head.
She tries very hard not to think about why he joined because it strikes her as being too personal; she feels like an intruder even thinking about it. She reassures herself with the fact that Dumbledore has affirmed and reaffirmed his trust in Professor Snape. Dumbledore has his reasons. Dumbledore knows what he's doing. Dumbledore is their leader.
So she tells herself to stop asking questions. She knows what she is. She is aware of the eagerness with which she seeks answers. Sometimes, though, in matters like this, she would rather have her query fester and die under her tongue than voice it aloud. She knows that if she asks him, if he deigns to answer her at all, he will say that he is just as fetid and loathsome on the inside as he seems to them. And he can be so very convincing.
There is strength and weakness, black and white, martyrs and curs, good and evil. There are lots of shades of grey, but underneath it all there can be only one driving force.
Never let it be said that Hermione Granger doesn't like things to be labelled.
Neatly.
And with nice, even letters, if you please.
Later, when she is starving in a tent during the longest night of the year, when she is covering her own tracks in the snow, when dawn and day are melted and fused into a perpetual uncouth twilight, when she looks up at the stars from her place lying in the dirt and finds that they've been blown out, when she starts to believe that she is changing, bit by painful bit, into quarry, into a tracked animal with the snuffling hounds at her heels, when she wakes up in a pool of blackening blood that isn't her own, when she reaches a point where everything looks the same to her, like reflections underwater, when she longs for the peace of the deep to break over her head so there will be no more need to breathe, when she is searching desperately, wretchedly for something to dilute the horror crystallising in her heart, she will think back to the days when the world was simpler and the air didn't taste like delirium.
The next night he tells her not to return until he notifies her. He has other things to do, he said, than babysit fractious Gryffindors all night. She misses another opportunity to ask him about the potion.
Stan Shunpike was arrested and detained by the Aurors for being a Death Eater. For hours later, lying in her bed, she is plagued by the image of a rattling breath and a gaping mouth bending over a pimply boy wearing a lurid purple uniform. The Dementors are gone from Azkaban, she reminds herself. But that doesn't mean that it isn't still an atrocious place. Stan Shunpike is only a little older than they are, but he's played his cards and now he has to pay his debts.
There is something fierce and alive in her stomach and she cannot sleep. Lavender is awake, rustling around in her sheets, but she's adopted a wintry demeanor whenever Hermione's around. Earlier today, Hermione asked her to hand her a book she had dropped, but Lavender told her to "Get up off your dumpy arse and get it yourself, why don't you." Parvati had given her a conciliatory smile and passed her the book instead.
Hermione won't pretend that she doesn't know the reason for this, but she will never acknowledge it first. Let Lavender stew in her own spite.
When she was five years old, the age of ten was incomprehensible to her. Ten-year-olds were alien creatures with a foreign tongue, standing an entire foot above her head. Ten-year-olds were allowed to take home more than three books from the school library, and they didn't even have to bring them back after only one week. Ten-year-olds could have sleepovers.
Ten years old was her brave new world. She counted down the years, then the months, the days, and finally the hours until she turned ten. She stayed up at midnight and counted down the seconds. It was the first two-digit age. An entire decade. A place up in the decimal system.
Then, three... two... one.
The first second of ten years old came and went. The first fifteen minutes. The first hour. There was a lovely dinner with her family and a few school friends (acquaintances, really... she thinks they were just there for the cake). She stayed quiet all throughout the event, because in her newly one-decade-old mind, ten felt just like nine did.
Thirteen became the next impending milestone.
Tacking the -teen to the end of her age felt to her like something worth celebrating. She remembers thinking that the thirteen-year-old girls had a special sort of grace to their movements, a sort of secret way of doing things that gave them the allure of mystery. They blinked a certain way, laughed a certain way, charmed a certain way. Boys lookedat thirteen-year-old girls. She was never preoccupied with the things that girls her age were usually spending their time on, but still Hermione couldn't help the frisson of longing that thirteen would make a difference.
It didn't.
Fifteen seemed like a nice, solid age at the time. Halfway through the second decade of your life, halfway through the stage between little girl and young lady. But at fifteen she still didn't know what to do with her limbs. At fifteen she still picked on her nails, and sometimes, a very few sometimes, she still forgot to brush her teeth.
At sixteen she found herself in the second cycle of a war that began before her birth. The second cycle of a hundred thousand more that will never really end but always culminate in blood. More than ever she prayed that the milestone would hit her, grab her, shake her, yank her, pull her, wake her. That she would be gifted with that awareness that she wasn't going to make a right muck-up of things. She neededto know that she could be counted on, that she could do her part well and not let everybody down because she was, after all, only sixteen.
She thought that, perhaps, if she could just reach that point where one decides that one is no longer a child, she could pull herself together and pull them all together and take that step into the chasm and somehow make it out alive.
Seventeen is on its way.
Just a few days more, and she is a legal adult in the Wizarding world.
When does childhood end?
Hermione Granger is a sharp girl, they always say. Brightest witch of her age. Mature. Self-possessed. Capable. But sixteen, like ten, felt just like nine did. And she is terrified that seventeen will be no different.
"You're late. Ten points from Gryffindor."
"Sorry, sir. It won't happen again. It... It's my birthday, you see." He gives her an inscrutable look. She grimaces, wondering why she even told him.
"Congratulations, Miss Granger. On this date sixteen years ago, through no effort of your own, you were born."
She can't help it; she laughs.
Nothing overt, nothing strident, just an amused little huff. It is the loudest thing in the room, nonetheless. She licks her lips self-consciously. He raises an eyebrow.
"Er... that was a little funny," she offers apologetically. "Oh, and it was seventeen years ago, actually."
"Indeed," he says, eyeing her suspiciously. She squirms under his gaze. Once he is satisfied that nothing seems amiss, he points toward the container of flobberworms. "You may begin."
She moves to stand by her table. He makes no motion to tend to his potion, but instead seems to freeze in place, angling his face toward her. Is he... sniffing? She dismisses this observation and after washing her hands at the sink, she reaches for the first flobberworm—
"Wait. Stop."
"Sir?"
"What is that smell?"
"Er... the flobberworms, sir?" She surreptitiously brings her face to the side to sniff her hair.
"I know what flobberworms smell like, Miss Granger. What is that scent clinging to your hands?"
For some unfathomable reason, the blood rushes to her cheeks.
"Oh, it must be the bearberry extract. Neville gave me some for my rash."
"You didn't inform me of this."
"I didn't really think it was important. The flobberworm ooze just makes my hands itch, that's a—"
"The state of your skin is of no concern to me, girl. Have you no idea of the consequences of exposing live flobberworms to bearberry extract? Where are your protective gloves?"
"Erm... I didn't bring them."
He pinches his lips together in irritation. Well, he told her she won't be needing them. She watches as he flicks his wrist and his wand falls into his hand from his sleeve. He waves it in the direction of his office, and a pair of gloves identical to the ones he is wearing soar in through the door and into his waiting hand.
"Come here."
Her footsteps sound ungainly in the silence. She catches her hip against the corner of the table.
"Do try not to upend the furniture, Miss Granger."
He hands her his gloves as she nears him. "Put these on."
They are warm and buttery and entirely too large for her hands. They smell very familiar, and her heart starts climbing up her throat. He waves his wand again and the leather starts constricting, whispering over her skin until the gloves are snug around her fingers. The gloves themselves must be charmed to render the leather impervious to potion ingredients. His magic leaves her fingers tingling with pins and needles.
"Get to those flobberworms, Granger."
"Yes, sir. Thank you." He gives her a terse nod in acknowledgement.
She is fifteen minutes into sorting, a third of the way through the flobberworm bucket, before the question she's been thinking about for two weeks now flies out of her mouth.
"Sir, what is that potion you are brewing?"
"What did I tell you before you started your first detention?"
"Er... you said you have no wish to be subjected to my infernal tittering, and you told me to conquer my pathological need to speak, raise my hand, ask questions, or otherwise make a nuisance of myself." She takes a deep breath, having said all that in one swift exhalation. He looks over his shoulder at her, his top lip twitching infinitesimally.
"That is what I said. Word for word, as always." From him, this is no compliment.
There are several beats of silence, punctuated by the occasional pop of a viscous bubble from the silver cauldron.
"Suffice it to say that I am brewing this potion at the behest of the Headmaster."
"Oh. Alright." She furrows her brows, perplexed and a little amazed that he even thought to answer her, vague as his response was. She wants to ask him what the potion does, but she doesn't want to push her luck.
Whoever this 'Half-Blood Prince' is, he (or she) is nothing more than a rogue and a cheat with a penchant for disregarding instruction. She eyes Harry's copy of Advanced Potion-Making with ill-disguised malice.
"Stop looking at it if it bothers you so much," Harry laughs.
"I'm surprised it doesn't bother you, Harry Potter," she says stiffly. "I never took you for the type that cheats."
"Oh, come off it. He's just better than you at P—"
"What he is better at is going off by himself and putting everyone in danger by experimenting with potentially volatile combinations! How could he possibly know the effects of altering the instructions without testing it first? He is arrogant and misguided, and I don't care at all for his superior results if that'sthe way he goes about doing things." She tops her rant off with a toss of her head. Harry laughs at her.
"So that makes two of them, now. Three things, actually, if you count Quidditch."
"Two what?"
"Two subjects I'm better than you in; Defense and Potio—"
"I dare you to finish that sentence, Potter. Go ahead and finish it and I'll finish you."
He was brewing his potion and she was focused on the flobberworms. But then she hears this strange sound, a guttural, raspy moan like a sheet of silk tearing in half. She looks around in surprise.
"You may leave early tonight, Miss Granger." His voice sounds odd and strained.
"Oh. But I was almost—"
He groans again, deep and ragged. The sound reverberates in the room and her treacherous brain plays it in a loop over an image of his hand against her chest.
What the hell is wrong with you?
She clamps her teeth around the flesh of her cheek to keep her attention away from the heat in her neck threatening to drive her to distraction. Her tongue feels thick and dry. When she speaks, her voice seems to catch on her teeth on its way out.
"S-sir, are you alright?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, he drops the knife he is holding and wraps his gloved hands around the edge of the table. It trembles under his grip, and she imagines his knuckles whitening under the leather. His breath is hard and fast.
She moves quickly, washing her hands in the sink behind her. God, he's obviously in pain and all she can think about is how his hand felt between her breasts. And she thought she was different from the other girls.
"Sir?" she asks more confidently, her guilt bringing her back to herself. She edges around her table to stand by him. "Where does it hurt?" She tries not to sound too condescending, but he doesn't seem to hear her. Propriety wars with concern in her brain. As in countless times before, concern wins out.
She brings her head around his side to look up at his face. Through the curtain of his hair, she can see that his forehead and the bridge of his nose have acquired a moist sheen, a drop of sweat tracing the curve of his cheekbone. Two high spots of color have appeared on his cheeks. They look strange against his waxy pallor. His nostrils are flaring, his lips slack and revealing the bottom row of his crooked teeth. He is panting like a dog.
"Professor, are you ill? Would you like me to take you to the Hospital Wing?" she asks insistently, placing a hand on his shoulder.
His eyes snap to hers and he jerks his entire left side away from her so violently that he stumbles backward for two steps. His grip on the table is strong enough that the cauldron tips precariously to the side, sloshing molten gold over its rim. The fire beneath it sputters and hisses.
"Don't touch me!" he snarls vehemently, his features twisted with fury. He looks at her with heaving shoulders and clenched fists.
This is when she notices the bulge straining against his trousers, and her throat closes in on itself.
Oh.
Oh, God.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
He seems to sense her discomfort, because he yanks his robes shut around his front and gives her a sneer of such potent disgust that she has to look down at herself to check that she isn't covered in flobberworms.
"Don't flatter yourself, stupid girl. Did you think that pain is the Dark Lord's only method of calling us to him?"
His words are as severe as ever, but there is a look in his eyes that she cannot place, a nervous tension in his jaw that is utterly uncharacteristic of this indomitable man. Her breath leaves her lungs in one big huff. She is certain that all the blood in her body has accumulated in her face, as her cheeks are burning, but her fingers and toes have gone icy in her borrowed gloves and slouchy socks.
Okay.
Okay.
We're fine, Granger.
Okay.
His eyes are black marbles burning into her own, but his gaze leaves her strangely cold. It's almost like... like he is daring her to call him words like lecherous and vile, to run away in affront back to her tower, to protect her own virtue from the lascivious Death Eater. And... and maybe that was her first impulse, but now the thought is inconceivableto her. At least, it became so when she saw the look on his face. She can never be so unfeeling as that.
Suddenly a wave of indignation takes hold of her and erases her own embarrassment, because this must be absolutely humiliating for him. She is worked up into a snit before she knows it.
"But that—that's so—it's perverse! And barbaric, hideous manipulation! How could you let him make you wantsomething like that, it's—"
"Wrong? Evil?" he says with a demeaning sneer. "Let's not forget who we are talking about. It is effective, it amuses him, and that alone is reason enough."
Effective makes sense. Surely, there is nothing more binding than pain, but pleasure. She wants him to understand that she isn't afraid of him, but she cannot find the words.
"But you don't... you can't possibly like—"
"Do not speak of matters you don't comprehend!" he growls. She didn't mean to imply that he actually enjoyed... that, but she—
She doesn't know what she meant to say.
The tendons in his neck are straining, and his eyes roll to the back of his head as another wanton hiss escapes from between his teeth.
The sound slithers pruriently against her skin and raises the hairs on the back of her neck.
"Go," he whispers.
"But you—"
"Get. Out. Now!"
He jerks his hand in the direction of the classroom door, one that leads directly to the hallway. She jumps as it hits the wall with enough force to topple a shelf full of glass instruments next to it.
"I—"
He starts toward her with a savage look on his face and she doesn't need him to tell her again. But he needs to know that she isn't afraid of him.
"Be safe, Professor."
She turns on her heel before he can say anything and walks out the room as briskly as she can, bits of glass crunching underfoot.
He isn't at the staff table the next morning. But when she walks into the Defense classroom he is as impassive as ever, his eyes as stringent as ever, his hands as firm as ever, and she is certain that the gasping, trembling man in the Potions classroom last night was an impostor.
"It's Granger, isn't it?"
She looks up in surprise.
"Yes. Can I help you?"
"Cormac McLaggen," he says, offering his hand to her with an air of a regent bestowing his favor upon a vassal. "I'm trying out for Keeper. Though I wouldn't really say 'trying out.' Not much competition out today, yeah?"
"Is that so?" she says, a little coolly. "Ron Weasley happens to be my friend."
"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about it. I'm not gonna hurt him," he smirks. She tries not to grind her teeth and gives him a tight smile.
"That Ginny Weasley though... is she his sister? Lovely bit of trim, but nothing that belongs on a Quidditch pitch," he leers. She shifts herself so that she doesn't have to see him.
"So what's your first name? I asked Potter, but it was something odd so I can't remember."
She doesn't answer, scanning the pitch for signs of Ron.
He taps her on the knee. She jerks her leg away.
"What?"
"Don't be like that, love. I only wanted your name."
"It's nothing you should concern yourself with, McLaggen."
"Oh, someone's feisty. I never would have expected it. I heard you're a clever one. But don't worry, I don't mind a girl that likes to read, as long as she has a bit of spark."
He gives her a grin that makes her feel utterly violated. He bends over to tighten his shoelaces and she sees her chance.
"Confundo," she coughs into her hand.
She stifles her laughter as McLaggen struggles with his laces. He gives up after two minutes, looking up at her with a befuddled smile and a glaze in his eye.
"It's Granger, isn't it?"
She smiles like a shark.
"Yes. Can I help you?"
A golden atrium. A large room with blue flames. Clocks. Brains in a tank.
An amphitheatre. An archway. Let's go, let's go, okay?
Nobody's talking, Harry.
Shelves of orbs.
Then... the Death Eaters. Glass raining down on their faces.
Running—running—running—casting over their shoulders—masked faces getting closer—
Antonin Dolohov—his features more detailed than she could remember in the daylight—rough-hewn face, pointy teeth like he spends every night filing them down, skin hanging below his neck with ruddy patches like a wattle—
A silent slash, a purple flame—
And Harry, his shirt suddenly redredred, his spine arching gracefully, his mouth open in surprise—
Then she is back in her dorm room, clutching at the sheets, sweat-drenched and sobbing. She waits for the darkness to swallow the sour stench of fear in her bloodstream, waits for the adrenaline to seep away into nothing.
Other times it is Neville she sees, his plump chin quivering as he hits the ground with a thump. Or Luna, her eyes frozen in bewilderment, her blonde corkscrew curls suspended in the air as she falls. Some nights, Dolohov breaks free from the Silencing Charm and the curse bursts from his lips—an ancient imprecation, terrible and arcane and a noxious shade of violet like sin.
She stuffs her hand up her shirt, curling it in that space between her breasts. The scar tissue is no longer rough, but the jagged line is still cooler and paler than the rest of her skin. It's presence is strangely comforting. She cannot explain it, but she knows that she will take that curse, Silencing Charm or not, over and over and over until her chest is torn asunder.
Just as long as they are safe.
Please—just please someone keep them safe.
The tears cool on her face. Her eyelids slowly slide shut, and she succumbs to the comforting pull of slumber.
"What. The fuck. Are you still doing here." His voice is no louder than a whisper, but his tone contains all the fatality of the shriek of a guillotine. She is jolted awake, and she has to grip the sides of the chair she positioned in front of the fireplace to keep herself from sliding off. Behind him, the coals are smoldering green with Floo Powder residue. The look in his unfocused eyes almost kills her.
Outside, dawn is just beginning to bleach the sky.
"Please don't be angry, Professor, I was just worried—"
"I specificallyinstructed you to be gone by the time I return."
"No! I mean, yes, but please! You can't expect to me to just—to just leave after you left in that state! Are you—please—are you hurt?"
He is panting and sweating, blood trickling down the corner of his cracked lips. His hair hangs in greasy strings around his face. He reeks once again of alcohol and blood, of something sickly sweet that barely covers up the tang of vomit, of something musky and pungent that makes her think of improper things. The sight of him frightens her, because he looks so different from her buttoned-up, clamped-shut professor, so ugly and debauched and unhinged.
From his fingers hang a white mask. She doesn't look at it.
Suddenly she has this wild impulse to do something that would infuriate him, that would challenge him and make him call her awful things, something—anything—to take away the slouch in his spine, the unfamiliar clumsiness in his movements, the tawdry haze polluting his eyes.
She doesn't know what she is thinking when she gets up and touches her fingertips to his cheek.
It is clammy to her touch. His eyes widen, childlike and unrecognisable in the cloying half-darkness. His lips open a fraction of an inch, before his expression shutters and the look is gone. It twinges at something in her stomach. And she knows how awful it is to be pitied by others but she can't help but pity him. She has to be careful not to let him see it.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor!" he snarls belatedly, and she snatches her hand away and backs off. "Don't take such liberties with me, girl! I am your professor." His eyes scan her face wildly, as if searching for any evidence that she is mocking him in his reduced and confounded state.
"N-no, sir. I apologise. Do you... Do you need anything?"
One second.
Five.
Ten.
Ten seconds where the only sound is his labored breathing and her rioting heartbeat.
"What is it you are trying to do, Granger?" he says in a broken-low-aching voice.
What isshe trying to do?
Why the hellis she even here?
In her head he is looking down at her, her blood dripping from his face and his lips moving rapidly around an enchantment that saved her life. She wonders if this is just one of the parts he plays, or if this really is what drew him to Voldemort in the first place. But surely, surely even if he wanted it when he was younger, even if he wept for it and pledged his lifeblood to it, surelyhe must regret it now, this dirty, disgusting, clinging hold that the darkness has over him.
"I just want to help you, sir," she replies, her voice small.
There it is again, that look of confusion. She decided that's what it is in his eyes, all those times he glanced at her just so. She didn't recognise it at first because she is too accustomed to his acrimony. Confusion doesn't meld well to his trenchant black.
As always, it is brief and barely noticeable.
"I—"
A pained look crosses his face and he staggers forward. This is wrong, so very, very wrong because this is Professor Snape, and why does he look so weak?
She catches him by the shoulders as his knee bumps painfully against her thigh and his forehead glances off her cheekbone. The smell on him almost makes her retch, and there is a dampness in his robes that she doesn't care to examine too closely. His hands come up behind her and she feels them grip the back of her shirt. His entire body is trembling. She feels a prickling behind her eyeballs, and she tries very hard to ignore it. Her hands tighten around his thin shoulders.
"Professor, I'll just—I'll help you, okay? Okay? I won't do anything you won't like, and I'll leave after, I promise."
She knows she is babbling, but she has this insane need to cover up the silence and her own nervousness and his harsh clawing breaths with a sound—any sound.
She gasps as he tries to twist away, his sharp hip banging against hers. She tries to contain her revulsion as he softly thrusts against her and groans, his erection brushing against her stomach. Everything in her is shouting at her to get out and separate herself from... from whatever this is. But she knows that he is helpless against it, that it is a remnant of Voldemort's special brand of manipulation, and the thought injects her with an anger so fierce that she can almost feel the vein throbbing in her temple.
"Damn you," he whispers.
"It's okay, it's okay," she whispers, over and over, rubbing circles into his back as she maneuvers herself so that his arm is around her shoulders. She stumbles under his weight, and struggles to lower him into the chair she just vacated. He folds in on himself, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his face in his hands.
She runs back to the classroom, where his golden potion is bubbling merrily under a stasis charm. She grabs a bowl off the supply shelf and transfigures it into a glass. She curses as she drops it through slippery fingers, the tinkling of breaking glass too sharp in her own ears. She grabs another bowl.
"Aguamenti," she whispers. She doesn't know why, but she doesn't want to hear the sound of her own voice at the moment. She rushes back to him, kneeling by his feet.
"Here, Professor, drink this." He looks at her then, but his eyes go straight through her. "Please, sir."
He grabs the glass from her, spilling water over them both, and tilts it to his mouth. Rivulets of water run down his chin, down his neck, and disappear into his collar. She stands, wringing her hands, no idea what to do next.
"Okay, okay, okay," she whispers, over and over. They stay like this for several minutes; he holding the empty glass, his chin glistening wet, his eyes staring at some horror incomprehensible to her, and she fluttering nervously in front of him. This is how Severus Snape is imprisoned, she thinks.
We are all bound, aren't we? We of the wicked calling.
Bound to duty, to honor, to loyalty, bound with an iron band of self-loathing around his throat. And her chest aches for him, because no one, no one, deserves this.
And there she is, Hermione Granger with nothing to offer but a transfigured glass half-filled with water.
"You may leave now," he says. His voice almost sounds normal, just a little more gravelly, a little less incisive. His lips are still trembling, but his eyes are burning with cold resentment. He is staring at something over her shoulder.
"Are you—will you be alright?" She wants to help him, but she can hardly bear it. She hopes that he doesn't think she wants to get out of here as quickly as she can. It's just... she doesn't know where to look, and she no longer knows what to think.
"I am not a child, Miss Granger. It would do you well to remember that I am a Death Eater, and I am accustomed to pain," he sneers.
Her breath hitches.
"Yes, sir," she says briskly before her eyes start to prickle again. "I—you... try to get some rest, sir."
She passes him in the hall two days later on her way to lunch. He looks well, and he is walking with his usual, evenly-measured stride. But before she can worry about what to say to him, he is past her. He didn't look, didn't glance, didn't breathe in her direction, and she tells herself that she isn't upset, not even a little bit, because this is exactly what she expected would happen. She swallows the clot in her throat and makes her way to the Great Hall.
Later in class he takes twenty points from Gryffindor "For loitering in the hallway like a feckless idiot."
He joined them in a moment of weakness, she thinks.
Though weak isn't really a word that she would normally use to describe him. He is far too barbed for banal things like that, far too weather-worn. Like all his life has been one long, slow burn, the vagaries of experience charring the softness of youth, tapering the furnishings that so perturb and beguile lesser men, chipping away until all that is left is an impenetrable, stone-cold core.
There is no room for weakness there. Weakness slides off his angles.
But at some point in his past, the weakness found a crag to hang on to, a crevice to creep into. It wormed its way in, defining his future in a way he could have never imagined. It makes her wonder... is that really how it works? That those who are born feeble and hesitant can make more than their fair share of mistakes, but those who would dare to yearn for the air make one misstep and break their bodies on the rocks below?
She trusts him, though. The thought comes into her mind, unbidden.
She trusts him, she trusts him, she trusts him.
And the certitude of this pronouncement almost knocks the wind out of her.
"Hermione Granger?"
She turns around. Harry and Ron give her inquiring looks, but she just shrugs.
"Yes?"
The girl looks no older than a first year. Her hair is a lovely shade of brown that puts Hermione's to shame. Though, if she cared about such things, she would admit that most kinds of hair put her own to shame. The girl gives her a radiant smile, and Hermione can't help but like her immediately.
"Professor Snape asked me to give this to you," she says brightly, handing her a rolled up piece of parchment. The girl does this with an air of someone accomplishing some great and noble task. Hermione smiles at her.
"Thank you. What's your name?"
"I'm Amelia Brodeck," she says with a pleased grin.
"Well, thanks Amelia."
"What's that?" Ron asks from behind her.
"Oh, nothing, just some assignments I missed."
"You missed some assignments?" he says, holding his hand up to his heart.
"Oh, shut up. They're for extra credit."
"Oh. I should have known."
She opens the seal later in her bed. She doesn't know why she lied about it to Harry and Ron.
You will meet me in my office at 7 pm every Friday night. I require assistance with the headmaster's potion. Tell no one.
As soon as she reads it, the ink disappears into the parchment. It's just like him to not even think about asking her if she is free on Friday nights. She is, but that's beside the point. She tells herself that the swoop she feels in her gut is one of terror, and not anticipation.
What is this word, 'truth'?
Most of the time, she knows. She is a Gryffindor, after all, and at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, she will drop her books in a heartbeat and leave the careful analysis to the Ravenclaws. Most of the time, she knows who she is and what she is fighting for.
When she is older, when she hits that milestone that she is waiting for, when she is awake, she will find out that the truth hurts. It doesn't set you free; all of that is bollocks that was said by someone who's never really found it. The truth leaves you with gaping wounds and it hurts like three-inch nails in your feet, like water flooding your nostrils, like cigarette burns to your insides, melted asphalt running through your unyielding veins
The truth can gash you so deeply that you can't live with the wounds any longer, and after the war, most of them, even though they will never admit it, want only to live.
As painlessly as possible.
It's only human.
A/N:
Just to be clear, Snape got to keep his old office, as per canon, despite being reassigned to Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.