A/N: Hello all! To all the reviewers who said it was an evil, horrible thing to end the last chapter where I did... I'm sorry. I really am, but it had to be done.
Also, I'm trying something new where I outright say when a new scene is coming up. This is because, reading over previous chapters, I've realised it can jump from morning to afternoon very suddenly, and I know that might be confusing. Of course, the scene breaks appear on my Word document, but not here. So you guys will now get an obvious warning before I decide to haphazardly jump 12 hours ahead, or whatnot.
With that in mind, enjoy!
CHAPTER EIGHT
When he arrived back in his chambers, Severus knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep that night.
Not only was he wide-awake, with the image of his teenage student burned into his mind, and the sounds of her pleading whispers echoing in his ears, but he was afraid what would happen should he dream of her again. Too many strange things had happened in such a short time, and all of it to do with Granger and her delicious body. The hard evidence of his erection shamed him beyond anything he felt for the girl, sexual or otherwise. It couldn't happen, this fantasy he dreamed of. It had to stay in his thoughts, and his thoughts alone, where it could hurt no one but himself.
With a frustrated grunt, he swept an arm across the desk in his study, pushing books, quills and ink to the floor in a messy heap. It did nothing to calm the raging emotions inside him, but it did please him to do something destructive. These feelings were new to him; it had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to feel anything at all. And yet here were two emotions he hadn't felt since he himself was a teenager – lust and passion. Ink dribbled down the cover of a book on the floor, and he watched its path with a blank expression. He barely even registered what he was looking at. All he could think of was the girl.
Granger. That mudblood bitch. Who was she to torment him like that? And what was she playing at, begging him to touch her? Away from the temptation of her sweet-smelling cunt and eyes full of desire, he could think straight again. The very idea of touching her, of putting his hands on a Muggle-born brat, it filled him with revulsion far stronger than anything he had felt in the last few weeks. He was above it, and he was the master of himself. He wouldn't allow her to take control of him so easily again. Like a hungry basilisk, he wouldn't look her in the eye. Like a cauldron of poisoned Amortentia, he wouldn't breathe her in. And in a final attempt to regain some sense of normalcy, he himself would drink some of the dreamless potion he had given her. No more dreams of the girl, no more looking at her, no more seeking the smell of her honeyed mudblood skin. He would put an end to this ridiculous spell she had over him, and he would ensure that he would never again feel the slightest thing for the girl, unless it were disgust.
Because he should be disgusted by her. By all reason, she was the very embodiment of his every hate and peeve; a mudblood, a Gryffindor, a know-it-all, arrogant and deceitful, and, as she had proven tonight, manipulative and dangerous. Yes, it would be wise of him to avoid her. Strong though he was, he couldn't run the risk of letting her inside his head again. She had been there too long, and wrought enough damage on his already-tarnished soul.
The staff would say he owed her a friendship, or his trust at the least. They would say the girl deserved something for her efforts that night in the Shrieking Shack, and that he was bound to pay. Even Granger had mentioned he should be grateful. But for what? The chance to live out the remained of his natural life in acute misery, which no matter how he tried to suppress, always came back to him? Memories of the dead haunted his every step. The ghosts of those he had killed, by his hand or not, sang dreadful melodies in his head. For every day that went past, there was another memory to dodge, and a feeling to quash. No one should have to live like this. He certainly didn't deserve to. And this mockery of an existence, the 'gift of life' she had given him, was nothing more than another dead soul walking the earth. He wasn't grateful. He never would be.
Severus went into his private workroom and found a cauldron of bubbling liquid, black as tar and just as thick. He carefully filled a vial to the right dosage before downing it in two gulps, grimacing at the sour taste it left behind. Then he sat down in the only chair in the room, and breathed deeply, closing his eyes, driving a torrent of thoughts to the back of his mind. One of the things he had perfected over his years of service to Lord Voldemort was the ability to clear his mind, and to become perfectly empty of all thought and feeling. He could not maintain it indefinitely, as the emotions and doubts always came rushing back to him at the slightest weakening of his mind, but it gave him peace for hours at a time. It was in this way that much of his teaching career had passed, and only when he slept did he surrender the calm to a flood of thought.
He sat there for an hour, until he was sure the potion had taken effect, thinking of nothing at all. When he finally rose to go to bed, it was without a single though to the Granger girl, or what had happened only hours before. It was already forgotten, dormant in the back of his mind. Eventually it would come back to haunt him, as did everything else - but not tonight. Tonight, he needed the blissful sanctuary of a dreamless sleep. Just one night free from the paralysing grip of her eyes. One night to himself.
- One week later -
Severus' plan lasted a full week before the inevitable cracks began to show.
True to his word, he didn't look the girl in the eye, didn't speak to her or acknowledge her existence at all, sometimes even deigning to skip over her name during roll call. He didn't think of her, linger on his hatred of her, or his strange desire to take her over the desk in his classroom, or give her a second thought. It was the most peaceful week he'd had since returning to the castle, helped largely by his constant ritual of clearing his mind. And when it came time to sleep, he succumbed to the unconscious world with an empty vial of dreamless potion on his nightstand. It had all been going so well. He felt stronger and more confident in his indifference every day.
Of course, he hadn't counted on the girl's own determination.
It happened one week later, almost to the hour of the inital compromising dream, which hadn't haunted him at all until she appeared for the second time in his dungeons. He knew she was coming, of course. The spells warding his classroom did their job perfectly, but knowing who was coming could not prepare him in any way for how to deal with her once she arrived. The students assumed he lived within the dungeons, he knew, but they were entirely wrong. His chambers were on the other side of the castle, close to the staffroom, as were all the teachers'. This meant he couldn't scarper off to his bedroom to hide. Should he try to leave the dungeons, he would run right into her anyway. He could lock the classroom door, but she knew how to counter any spell he could cast. He could turn himself invisible, but again, she would find a way to discover him. The advantages to being an insufferable know-it-all were such that she literally did know it all.
After a few moments of trying to decide what to do, Severus snorted to himself. Why should he hide? He was a far better man than to hide from a teenage girl, or else he would no more mature than she. In the few seconds before she walked into the dungeon, unannounced and without so much as asking to come in, he scolded himself on behaving like such an infant, and stood tall behind his desk, cleaing his mind of all thought. He was determined to face her as though he hadn't been trying his hardest all week to ignore her existence.
The girl entered the room hair-first. It still amazed him that one person, without so much as the lycanthropy curse, could have so much wild, curly hair. The rest of her soon followed, dressed simply in jeans and a cardigan, as though she were making a social call to a friend and not barging in to a professor's office. Her eyes found him immediately, but he wasn't captured in her sure gaze as he had been once. Now, with a clear head and his emotions under control, he was ready for whatever she had to say.
She slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and looked at him silently for a moment.
"Hello, professor," she said.
"Miss Granger," he said silkily, "You have five seconds to leave this room before I drag you from it myself. My colleagues might find your charade endearing and tragic, but I can assure you that I find it nothing but pathetic and unwarranted. If you are looking for sympathy, take your false troubles elsewhere so that they might be appreciated by morons more to your level."
"As always, it's lovely to see you, too, sir," she replied steadily, unfazed by his rudeness. It was slightly disturbing, how unafraid of him she was. He must be losing his edge. There was once a time when he could have her nearly wetting herself with fear, simply from a look.
His eyes bore into hers, hard and unyielding, and black as night. "Leave."
"I have something to say, first."
"And I am not interested in any of it. Get out of my classroom."
"I want to explain myself for what happened last week."
Halfway to turning his back on her, Severus froze. It never occurred to him that she would bring the incident up, as she must have been embarrassed beyond reckoning, and rightly so. Was it possible she hadn't come here to beg his understanding and sympathy, as she had last time?
"What is done is done, Granger," he said, refusing to look at her. With a deep breath, he sought to keep control of the calm he had worked for. It was threatening to break at the memory of her on that table, knees apart, hand hidden in her… "I do not want to hear another word about it. Go back to your dormitory."
"I need to explain myself, sir. Please, I won't bother you with it again, I swear. I just need you to hear me out this once."
Severus looked at her, frowning. "Will you swear never to come back to these rooms again? Will you swear to leave me be? Only if you promise me this will I listen to the highly inappropriate speech you have no doubt been rehearsing all week."
"You think very highly of yourself, to assume I've spent so much time worrying about what you think," she said, eyes glittering dangerously. "I wouldn't mention it at all if I didn't know it was affecting my grades." She held up a hand when he began to interupt. "No, don't argue. In class you look at me even less than before, if it's possible, and I know that sooner or later my grades will suffer because of it. That's the only reason I'm here."
Shocked into silence, he continued to stand behind his desk, frowning softly at the stranger before him. The Granger he taught before the war would never have spoken to a professor like that. Was it a newfound strength that drove her, or complete reckless regard for her wellbeing? Either way, it wasn't something he would let go unpunished. But not tonight. Tonight, he was curious about just what she might say, regardless of what he told her.
"By all means," he said in a lazy drawl, holding a hand out by silent invitation. "Tell me your story."
Hermione came forward slowly, seeming less sure of herself now that they weren't arguing. Her eyes cast about the room for something to focus on, and he sat down in the seat at his desk, watching her approach him throught the rows of tables.
"I have nightmares, sir," she began, almost hesitantly, she though she weren't sure if she should open up to him. "And sometimes I have panic attacks during the day."
"Incredible," he sneered. "It amazes me that you think any of this is news to me, considering it was I who brewed the dreamless potion for you, and I who witnessed a panic attack in this very room. Please, continue to enlighten me with your statements of the obvious."
Now only a few feet from his desk, she shot him a dark glare but held back from the insult he knew was on her lips. He saw it, sitting in the corner of her mouth like an ugly wart, waiting to be unleashed upon him. Seeing her so disgruntled made him smile. Any sign of destruction was a thing of beauty to him. He loved seeing her composure slip from under her.
"The nightmares and panic attacks are caused by bad memories I have of the war," she continued through clenched teeth, obviously trying hard not to say something untoward. "Sometimes, thinking of the things I have lost makes me feel like a shadow is creeping up on me, waiting every second to take control of my thoughts and drive me to madness. These thoughts are always in the back of my head, and I recently realised that I had to find a way to let them go. To … release them from my head."
Severus did nothing, and said nothing in response to this. He kept his face blank except for the customary curled lip, which by now was more habit than anything. But the things she said… so much of it rang true with things he himself had thought. That a shadow was following him, taking over him slowly, paining him at every turn, at every chance he had for happiness. It was because of this darkness, this 'shadow', that he had long since decided to stop feeling at all. How strange it was that the girl had similar issues. Not that he cared.
"I came back to Hogwarts intending to drive the memories from me by filling my head with other things. Like schoolwork, and learning and books. It always worked before, if I needed to stop thinking about something. But, as I discovered, I'm not the same person I was before the war. The things that worked then don't work for me now. It took me a little while to figure out that I've become a person of action, and that sitting idle in the library won't do anything for me now. I need to be active. I need physical release."
All at once, it became clear where this was going. Severus broke his gaze from her, noticing only then that he had been staring at her lips the entire time. He started to rise from his chair.
"Miss Granger, I have heard enough. To think that I care about your troubles-"
"I didn't ask you to care," she snapped. "I asked you to listen. So sit down and listen to me."
His head whipped around to look at her with furious eyes. "Do not speak to me like I am your equal, girl. Your misguided illusions of any amity between us is something you must come to terms with this instant, because I will not tolerate this a moment longer."
"When you found me in the library, I had just discovered that sexual release may be an option," Hermione went on furiously, holding her hands in fists by her sides. "I'm sorry that you had to see it, and I'm sorry if I offended you with what I said. I wasn't in control of myself then. I was at the mercy of my feelings, and that hasn't happened to me in a long time, so I didn't want to stop it. To be honest, you could have been Filch or Professor Binns and I wouldn't have acted any differently."
Severus heard all this with his attention turned elsewhere, or so he let her think. The topic was highly inappropriate, even if she was now of age. She was still a student, and for him to allow this kind of talk was sheer stupidity on his part. Curiosity be damned, it wasn't right for him to hear this. To hear that she was so absorbed in her ministrations that she didn't care that he caught her, that she was so lost in the feeling of touching herself that she was 'at the mercy of her feelings'. And to hear that she would have said the same time Filch… to Filch! A sudden flare of red-hot jealously spiked in his gut before he could control it. But on the exterior, he kept as indifferent as he could, hoping not to let her know of his inner turmoil. The calm he had tried to hard to achieve minutes before was gone, replaced by too many questions, thoughts and images that had no place in his head.
"Are you quite done?" He asked.
Hermione stared at him, disbelieving. "Really? That's all you have to say? Does this happen to you so often that you've now become bored of hearing it? You know, for all that you say you don't care about me, I'm not entirely sure you're being honest. If you didn't care about me then you wouldn't treat me like a social pariah in potions. You'd treat me like any other student. You'd insult me, take points from me, call me a stupid girl. But this? This is bullshit, sir. I know you're not that indifferent to me."
"It seems you have been giving me a lot of thought," he mused, intending to aggravate her further. The slow destruction of her sanity was incredibly amusing to him. "My apologies if I haven't lived to your expectations."
"You wouldn't be living to anyone's expectations if it weren't for me."
And there it was again. She'd crossed the line.
He shot to his feet, lay his palms flat on the desk and turned his fate-filled eyes to hers, though this time, she held her ground and stared defiantly back.
"Oh, how you congratulate yourself for that, don't you, Granger?" He snarled. "The little mudblood heroine of the tale, gallantly rescuing the tortured potions master from a grim death. It might not have occurred to you, angel, that your actions were entirely selfish and unwanted, not unlike your presence here tonight. I care very little about anything you do, say or dream about, because I care very little about you. In no way am I indebted to you, nor do I give a shit about your life. The next time you feel like trying to win my sympathy or my gratitude, first you should ask yourself if I need a stone lodged in my brain. The effect would be the same."
"Well, I can see that you're just as much of a cold-hearted bastard as you have always been," she said, voice soft and deadly. "And here I thought it was just your soul that was bleak and grey. You had a chance, sir, to save what's left of your pathetic life, but I guess you're not interested in salvation. I had thought that, out of everyone in this world, you and I might understand each other better than anyone else. Thank you for showing me how wrong I was to assume you 'gave a shit' about anything but your own self-loathing."
Before he could say anything, she had turned on her heel and stormed across the classroom, hair bouncing angrily as she went. Hermione slammed the dungeon door shut - no mean feat as it was made of heavy wood - and let the silence of her departure envelope him. He stared at the door for a long time, thinking about nothing, and thinking about everything. Her words swirled around his head, meaningless and not worthy of attention, but yet at the same time striking such a note within him that he couldn't give his attention to anything else. Salvation, she had said. As though simply talking away the worries of the war would give him any semblance of peace.
He sat down with a derisive snort. Stupid mudblood. What was she thinking, coming here? Did she honestly expect him to extend the hand of friendship, after all these years? Didn't she know him at all?
And talking openly to him about her newfound technique to relieve stress, for he was confident that was all it was… what was she thinking? Aside from the absolute inappropriateness of the whole conversation, what was she expecting to happen by telling him? That he would rip off her clothes and help her to live through the darkness? It was absurd in the highest, and downright revolting to say the least.
Something was most certainly wrong with the Granger girl, but it wasn't something any potion or spell could fix. The girl was mad, pure and simple. He wouldn't have another thing to do with her, starting now. If the fancy took him, he may even request she be removed from his class, and explain to Minerva that the girl wasn't mentally stable.
Lost in his thoughts on his way back to his chambers, Severus forgot to drink from the newst batch of dreamless potion. He went to bed with a head full of thoughts that were - unbeknownst to him, and as usual - of Hermione.
