A/N: Many thanks to my wonderful Beta Reader, MWolfe13!
She walked away from him and into his bedroom with as much dignity she could muster – which was not much. She could feel her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she opened the door to his bedroom, fully aware of his penetrating gaze on her figure.
Whatever she had expected to find, she was quite disappointed once she was inside. It was, all in all, a simple bedroom. As soon as she entered, the first thing that captured her mind was the simple king-size bed by the wall with – naturally – a green comforter. She snorted slightly at the choice of color, but her attention was once again diverted by the warm and comfortable alcove by the window, where she could see the Great Lake. Fascinated by that view, she neared the window with a seat. After some minutes, she heard the distinct noise of her Professor's throat clearing: she had forgotten that he could see her from the sofa. She turned around quickly and was faced with a not too big- not too small wooden wardrobe.
Taking a deep breath and thanking the fact that he could not see her at that moment, she tried to will her blush to disappear, but at that command, her face seemed to redden more. She took the first thing that she could grab with her hand, thanking Merlin that it was a simple white shirt like the one he had been wearing. She closed the double-doors of the wardrobe and rushed back to her Professor.
He seemed to avoid her eyes as much as she was trying to avoid his.
"Sir?" She quietly asked, hoping he would understand the meaning of that simple request. He caught on quickly for he tried to get rid of his cut shirt on his own but it only brought on another attack of tremors. He grunted, frustrated at his inadequacy.
"I can put it on later, Granger, you may go now." He drawled with fake indifference as he went and sat on the couch once again.
"I don't think it would be wise, Sir." She replied tentatively as she could feel her cheeks redden entirely at that statement.
His eyebrow shot up in a light bewilderment. "I don't care what you think, Granger." He hissed with anger.
"You are not fine, Sir, you just suffered from blood loss. I'm not leaving." The determination with which those words came out surprised him as much as her. She vaguely wondered why she wouldn't just back away.
He seemed enraged for one moment but soon after it was replaced with an expression that Hermione had never seen on her Professor's face, it was something akin to... tenderness. The unusualness of it made her almost hope that the dim light of the room had deceived her eyes.
"Granger, we should break off our collaboration." He blurted out-out of the blue as she thought she had heard a shade of melancholy in his voice.
"Why?" She asked half surprised-half offended.
He took a deep calming breath before answering, and she didn't miss the rarity of the gesture. "Because it is not safe." He merely replied as his eyes stayed fixed on hers. She didn't divert her gaze; she didn't shy away from the obscurity Hermione saw in his eyes, she didn't back away from the scary sureness of his voice.
"I knew that already, Sir, I may be naive but I'm not stupid." She said with a harshness in her voice she didn't recognize.
"Believe me, Granger, you don't know anything of what is happening." She was surprised at the lack of mockery or annoyance in his voice.
"Then explain it to me." She requested with a hushed passion.
"I can't. It wouldn't be safe, and it wouldn't be right." Had she just heard a shade of regret in his words?
"With due respect, Sir, we are at war. We have been for years now. None of us are safe, not until this war is over. How can you expect me to simply stand aside when I know that the Headmaster is going to die if we don't do something soon, that you have to bear You-Know Who's craziness almost every night, that Harry is more in danger than we have ever thought, that innocent people are dying every day? How can you expect that of me, Sir?" She pleaded with no trace of embarrassment as she knelt in front of him once again.
"It is not your responsibility, Granger" He affirmed with a certain tenderness.
"Nor it is yours, Sir" The implication of her words were crystal clear, but all she got was a bitter laugh she had never heard coming from her Professor. Surprisingly, it was a sound she enjoyed hearing.
"You don't know how wrong you are about that." His eyes showed a bitter-sweet amusement as they locked on hers.
"What do you mean?" She asked surprised.
"Did you forget that I was a true and loyal Death Eater twenty years ago? Believe me, Granger, when I tell you that there are so many things you don't know. Things you are not supposed to know and maybe never will." She realized that she had forgotten. Her gaze landed on his left arm automatically, and for the first time, she saw the Dark Mark. It was black, scary, horrible; there was no mistaking its fiendish nature. He noticed quickly where her attention had landed, and he rushed to hide his arm on his side.
"Why did you become a Death Eater?" She asked before she could think. She had asked that same question of Dumbledore, but he had refused to answer, making excuses about how it was not his place to reveal that story.
"It is none of your business, Granger!" He scowled with anger.
"You are not a bad person." Had she really said those words aloud? She raised her gaze tentatively, and she was surprised to see that he looked confused for a minute.
"You are a Gryffindor, Granger; you wouldn't be able to recognize a bad person even in the Dark Lord ." He snorted with fake disregard.
"No, I don't think that, Sir. I don't know why you want to hide behind your black robes, your harsh demeanor, and your pointy remarks, but you are a good person." She damned her Gryffindor nature as she felt her cheeks redden at her own bold words.
"I have been a Death Eater for twenty years now, Granger, you should be able to guess what that implies." He replied tiredly as if he had had that conversation with her a thousand times already.
"I know you didn't participate in the Muggle-Borns massacre that happened two days ago, Sir." She exclaimed with a tiny knowing smile.
"It doesn't mean I didn't participate in other circumstances." She wanted to hope that those words were spoken out of the desire to scare her, but his voice sounded too much sincere for a lie.
"Did you, Sir?" She challenged.
"Why are you so interested in my activities as a Death-Eater, Granger?" He turned the tables on her as his eyes gleamed with anger and suspicion.
She had to admit that she was taken aback by his question. "Because I don't understand, Sir." She replied sincerely as her voice became a mere whisper.
"You don't understand what?" He spat with rising anger.
"You, Sir, I don't understand you. I don't understand who you are anymore." She raised her gaze to lock her eyes with his, and she was fascinated with the sudden strange and unknown emotion she saw pooling in his eyes.
"As if you ever did." He mocked her with his usual dry wit.
"No, Sir, indeed I never did. Everybody suspects your good will, nobody trusts you but Dumbledore and McGonagall..."
He sneered with derision. "I wouldn't be so sure about the latter." He interrupted her, but she didn't let him stop her flow of words.
"But you are the one who is fighting this battle on the front lines, facing the Dark Lord day in and day out, bearing his craziness and delusions of grandeur... I never knew Sir, and a part of me feels guilty for I should have known, I should have been more observant, I should have... done something, and I did not. We all hated you, most still do. You work for the Order, but nobody really knows what you have been doing, and everybody thinks your loyalties still lie with the wrong side, that you are spying for the Dark Lord and not the other way around. And it is not fair, Sir. I want to help you, I want..." But once again she was interrupted by his deep voice.
"To redeem me, Granger? Is that what you want? Like one of your stupid elves, you want to save out of the goodness of your heart because you are such a good Gryffindor? Let me be clear to you, Granger, I do not want your pity or your compassion or your help, for that matter. I survived two decades without you. I don't need your commiseration or your comprehension. I know what my job is and there is nothing you can do to change it. Stop trying to see the good in me, Granger, it is annoying and unwarranted." He spat all in one breath, his drawled but harsh voice that instead of scaring her, enticed her even more.
"You don't fool me, Sir." She shook her head sitting once again by his side.
She thought that she had won that round, but her answer had just unnerved him more. "Does a good person kill, Granger? Does he torture innocent people? Does he rape young girls? Does he have fun in seeing them suffer? Because I did all this and I keep doing it on a daily basis. I guess that now your curiosity is finally tamed and you can draw your own conclusions." That outburst had left him exhausted as his limbs started to tremble once again. He avoided her gaze as her eyes tried to find his to understand whether those words had been truthful, or merely some lies spat with acidic venom out of anger. Under the blankness of his perpetual mask, though, she could see a real and tangible shame. She retreated a few steps, disgusted and scared.
"I don't believe you." Her face was red, the incredulity not hidden.
"What do you think a Death-Eater is supposed to do? Go out shopping? Have some nice conversation about the weather? What misguided and false idea do you have of the Death-Eaters, Granger?" His eyes locked with hers once again and all she saw was a considerable amount of pain hidden behind a pitiful and weak mask of indifference.
"Then why are you helping us now, why didn't you stay with them?" She just then realized how much hurt and betrayed her voice sounded. She didn't care, though. She didn't care that she cared and that in that right moment he would know it.
"Because I was under the illusion that by switching sides I could change. But once you are a Death-Eater, you are always a Death-Eater. I will always bear the Dark Mark on my arm. I will always be part of the Dark Lord's ranks. I will always be obliged to act like one of them." His voice was labored as he could not control his strong shakes anymore: his arms and his legs were trembling forcefully under the impulse of that sudden anger.
"You are not one of them." She shook her head in denial.
"Wake up, Granger, and face the harsh reality: I'm a Death-Eater." He pronounced solemnly.
"How many?" She asked in a whisper.
"How many what?" He replied tiredly.
"How many people did you torture, rape, kill?" She asked enraged, and for once he seemed to welcome her violent reaction.
"Suffice to say that I lost count a long time ago." He turned on the other side trying to subside his symptoms, but it was a lost battle.
"How can you do it? How can you inflict pain on innocent people? How can you bear it?" She barely stifled the sudden desire to shake him of that fake indifference.
"Because I have no choice." He simply replied, his voice muffled by the cushion of the sofa.
"When was the last time you had to... you had to..." But she just could not finish her sentence. Right now, she was processing this information and truth-be-told, she didn't know how she should react. Was she supposed to leave him be? To let him face his cruel fate with no mercy?
"Not a long time ago." She could barely hear those words, his voice had become more feeble.
Hermione clutched her face in desperation. She knew there was no solution, she knew she could not change that impossible situation, she knew that he was a good person who – for some mistakes she still didn't know – was forced into doing horrible actions. She could walk away from that situation and proverbially wash her hands, or she could stay and help him in the best way she could.
She didn't know how much time she had been there pondering her choices, but when Hermione finally made her decision, she thought he had finally fallen asleep. In the dim light of the room, she could see his steady breaths as the after-shocks of the Cruciatus had wholly left him.
Sitting by his side, she watched the sun rise through the giant windows of the room. She didn't know how she would fare going to lessons that day without even an hour of sleep, but she eventually concluded that she couldn't care less about lessons today.
Severus woke up alarmed. For one minute, he couldn't quite recall what had happened and why he found himself splayed ungracefully on the couch. His neck was stiff and his legs sore. He was so cold! His coat and his shirt were tucked up to his chin, and he realized he was bare-chested under all those layers. Scratching his eyes from the remains of sleep, as he got up from the couch he noticed Granger asleep on his carpet right by his side.
The Dark Lord's meeting, the Cruciatus curse, Granger and her insufferable curiosity, her touch, and caring attention... sighing deeply, he put on his shirt while pondering on what to do next. Should he awake the girl? Should he let her sleep?
Recalling the events of the previous night, he remembered dozing out at one point. Her incessant questions and his harsh replies had worn him out, and sincerely he had not cared if she stayed or if she went away. He actually would never have thought that Granger would be stupid enough to stay after everything he had told her. That was why he hated Gryffindors so much: they always mistook naivety and stupidity for nobleness.
As he stiffly got up, he decided to check for his wand in his pocket and to transfigure something into a blanket for the girl. Sighing defeated, he let the blanket fall on her asleep form.
He decided to take a short trip to the bathroom: even if Granger had Tergeo-ed him, he could still smell the blood on his skin. Refreshed and with new clothes, he looked at the young girl for a while. He couldn't help but wonder why she had stayed. The previous night he had been exhausted and his better judgment had failed him. If he really wanted to be sincere, though, it was something that was happening quite often lately when he was around the girl.
She had the incredible capacity to make him lose his temper. Not even the Dark Lord had been able to irritate him so much in twenty years, but she was able to push him over the bridge with her unusual behavior. Why ever in hell would she want to help him? It was not like he had not tried to push the girl away on more than one occasion, but not only would she stick around, she would always come back. It didn't matter how many times he tried to scare her away.
He had known Granger for six years, he had seen her grow up and become the most important piece of the Golden Trio. He knew she was intelligent, curious, capable, willful, insufferable, mature, unbearable with her incessant questions and desire to make everything perfect but he had not known she was also that... persistent.
He had been so tired that he had blurted everything out, almost everything. The Dark Lord wanted to kill Dumbledore in a matter of weeks, which meant he did not have enough time to brew her potion. He had tried to convince the Dark Lord to wait a little bit longer but all he had gained with that approach was a Cruciatus and a Sectumsempra. He had to help Draco kill Dumbledore soon, or they would both die.
He could not tell that to the girl, and he even wondered – surprised – why he felt the sudden urge to confess everything to her. Was he looking for solace? Would she grant it to him?
Shaking his head, he realized he would never put Granger in that position. She was too young, a little bit older than a child. He had made a mistake by telling her everything he was obliged to do as the most loyal Death-Eater of the Dark Lord. She didn't deserve to know what he would be forced to do in a few weeks.
She had shown to be stronger than he had ever imagined, but still, there would be a breaking point sooner or later.
He summoned some breakfast. He was famished! He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, but before he could devour the goodness he had taken from the kitchen, he wondered if he should wake the girl to join him.
It was utterly ridiculous! Wasn't it enough that the girl had actually spent the night with him? Now he would offer breakfast, too? Their relationship was becoming too intimate. She was allowed to touch him. She was allowed to sleep in his quarters, and she was allowed to eat with him in his personal spaces. He didn't want to imagine what would come next.
Still, he couldn't let her starve after the generosity she had shown him the previous night. Reluctantly, he called out her name until she woke up.
Ashamed at seeing what he thought he was not supposed to see – a student of his who had just woken up from his carpet – he tried to figure out how to better phrase his proposal.
It was her, though, that broke the silence first. "Good Morning, Sir." He nodded stiffly as he took in her hesitant expression.
"Would you like something to eat?" he briefly wondered if he had ever asked something like that to anyone in his life before.
"That would be wonderful!" She replied with a beaming smile he thought was completely inappropriate.
"Suit yourself." He drawled with fake indifference as he tried to adjust himself on the chair in a way that ensured he would be as far away from her as possible. She seemed to lose all her shyness around him as she enthusiastically dived in for the food on the platter. He questioningly raised an eyebrow which gained him a delicious blush.
"Sorry, Sir, I was starving." She took back her composure as she silently sat by his side on the stool.
He was so not going to make small talk. It didn't matter how much he felt surprisingly embarrassed by that sudden silence.
"So, how are you feeling today?" He tried not to think about the domesticity of the situation.
"Quite well." He did actually feel better if not for a small stiffness in his legs and arms.
"Why is Vold... You-Know-Who torturing you so much lately, Sir?" He turned his head to face her with a discouraging scowl, but she ignored it.
"It is none of your concern, Granger." He hissed with silent anger. Letting her stay for breakfast had been a bad idea. Sooner or later he was going to make the mistake of telling her everything. He found that lately he had to remind himself quite often that Granger was not to be involved in the Headmaster's plan. At the beginning, he had been opposed to tell Granger anything, until a few days earlier he had been enraged at the notion that Granger knew about his true and real role in that war. She was a mere student, one of the Golden Trio in addition: if the Dark Lord had the mere intuition that the girl was far closer to him than any of them knew, it wouldn't be easy for the Dark Lord to desist from using her for his own advantage.
"I think I have a right to know what is happening, Sir, because I'm more than sure that its consequences will fall on us all." Her tone was gentle but unwavering.
"For how much you might be right, it is not up to me tell you what is really happening. I believe you should talk to the Headmaster." Was it right? Would it be for the better if the Headmaster told her all the truth? Would it change something? He had known for quite a while now that Granger could be discreet and secretive when she needed to be, but could she bear the responsibility of knowing what he had to do to the Headmaster and accept that she would not be able to stop it?
He had to admit that it would make his job easier in the future if she knew. All the Wizarding world would hate him once he killed the Headmaster, he would be alienated from the Order and it would be impossible to inform Potter when the right time came. Having Granger by his side, though, would be quite useful in that sense.
"I would like to know the truth from you, Sir." That simple reply, spoken with the greatest sincerity and trust, distracted him from his deep thoughts.
"I... even though I would like to do that, it is not my place to tell you something that does not regard me." Why did she still trust him after everything he had told her the previous night? How could she even look him in the eyes with that... sweet determination? Miss Granger was a mystery he could not quite grasp. Not yet, at least.
"Alright, then I will talk to the Headmaster as soon as possible. I also would like to ask him the permission to inform Harry and Ron about our project. Would it displease you, Sir?" He shook his head dumbfounded in front of that sudden self-confidence. It wasn't a bad idea: he was exhausted from hiding everything and the more things he was responsible for, more there was the chance that sooner or later he would make some mistakes. He had to hide where his true loyalties laid from the Dark Lord and his worshippers. He had to hide what he had to go through every time he met the Dark Lord from the Headmaster and the Order. He had to hide his actual role from Miss Granger (at which he had failed miserably), and he had to protect their project from those dunderheads she called her friends (which was the least stressful task but it would still be one thing off his plate).
"No, it would not." He looked at the girl with something akin to admiration. He had met thousands of students, of young people in general, and he had come to understand one thing: They were stupid – like he had been or like Mr. Malfoy – or they were naive and reckless – like a Potter or a Weasley – or they were indifferent – like most of them. He had always thought that Granger would fall under the category of the naive and reckless ones but now he realized he thought better of it.
She was courageous and reckless, there was no doubting that. She could also be quite naive, but she wouldn't act on instinct because she couldn't think twice – as most of her house did – but because she believed firmly in her cause and she would let nothing stand in the way. For some strange and unknown reason, he could detect that he had become her cause. What remained to assess, though, was if he minded it or not. However, the simple fact that he had to wonder about it gave him the answer already.
"Sir, are you sure you are alright?" She asked as those caramel eyes of hers fixed him with a worried expression. He had no doubt she would be an excellent healer some day.
"Yes, I am" He replied dumbfounded and with a slight embarrassment that was so untypical of him.
"Will you go to him again tonight?" He couldn't quite decipher if her tone was one of accusation or of compassion.
"If I'm called..." He let the clear meaning sink in her mind as he tried to concentrate on his breakfast once again.
"Do you think you will be called?" She asked with a sweetness he couldn't quite comprehend but he found himself incapable of not answering her delicate question.
"No, I think I won't." He had to talk to Draco as soon as possible: if they didn't find a way to delay what was inevitable, he would have to succumb to his promises.
She sighed with relief as she got up from her stool next to his. He didn't look at her, his gaze lost somewhere in the past hours of extreme confusion and emotional turmoil, so he didn't realize she had just opened the door until he heard her voice again. "You are not a bad person, Sir." How could she be so sure about something that he thought was utterly impossible? He didn't know, but he found that point of view most endearing and enticing.