Hermione's heart pounded in her chest as she watched his face and waited for an answer. She wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to get up the nerve to even ask the question.
Snape's eyes glinted in the moonlight. "This is a dangerous subject, Miss Granger," he said softly.
"I know," she said. "I have my reasons. You don't have to answer."
"No," he said. "I don't." He measured her with an evaluating gaze. She met it with her own. During her final year, he'd done an exceptional job of pretending to be on the side of Dark, and it was hard to reconcile his actions with those of someone who supposedly had feelings for her. If he'd been honest—if he'd truly wanted her before they'd arrived here—he'd have a believable answer. As well, she sensed that provoking his desire would ultimately help, not hinder, their escape.
But mostly she simply wanted to know. When he'd noticed her. When it had started.
The silence between them had stretched far beyond the limits of comfort, but she held her tongue, feeling that she was somehow being tested. His eyes were sharp and focused on her; Hermione wondered how many of her thoughts he could see written in the lines of her face.
At last he exhaled a long breath. "You may as well know," he said, "since I assume you'll get it out of me eventually some way or another."
He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "Your last year at Hogwarts," he said, his voice becoming thick and low. "Just before Christmas. I took over the Potions classroom for a day when someone dosed Slughorn with Bulbadox powder. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she said. It had been the only day that Snape had been in the Potions classroom that year; she could hardly forget it.
"The class was brewing Mandrake Restorative Draught. Malfoy was near to you, and obviously had no idea how to assemble the ingredients. He was watching you, mimicking what you did. Your technique was perfect, of course. Which is why he was watching you. And you knew he was doing it."
Hermione felt an odd prickling on her neck as she realized that this was the first time Snape had ever acknowledged her proficiency in the classroom.
He went on, "You reached the final step, thinly-sliced mandrake root. The slices were to be precisely one-quarter inch thick. You cut yours broadly, three-quarters inch. Draco didn't know better, and copied your cuts. Of course you knew what the result would be."
"Exploded mandrake stew all over his face," she said, lips twitching.
"Indeed. And while everyone was distracted by the explosion, you disposed of your original cuts and re-cut a new batch, this time to the correct specifications. Your hands were a blur, faster than even I could track. And just as you were finishing, you caught me watching you out of the corner of your eye. You looked up and...and smiled at me, just for an instant. As though I were a co-conspirator."
"You were," she said. "You could have turned me over to the Carrows when you saw me, but you didn't. When I caught you looking and you didn't say anything, I thought, oh...he's enjoyed this."
"Yes," he said, his eyes gleaming. "I did."
Hermione's heart raced. He'd nearly smiled just now, and she was startled at the depth of her desire to see it again.
"It was then," he said. "When you looked at me...when you shared that moment with me. I felt it like a blow. Like the world had shifted beneath my feet."
The air felt heavy and charged. She barely even dared to breathe.
"I saw you again two days later," he said, "passing in the hallway. I felt the same, and I knew for certain."
Hermione absorbed this. "You made my life hell for the rest of that year," she said softly.
"What else could I do?" he said. "Everyone I care for is destroyed." He said this matter-of-factly, without a trace of self-pity.
Hermione stared at him with wide eyes, wanting suddenly to go to his arms. Oh my god, she thought distantly, I am actually falling for him.
"We can finish this another time," she said. "If… if you want."
He cleared his throat. "I believe it is my turn," he said. "Your research at the library—"
"I won't tell you what it was," she interjected. "Not here."
He arched an acerbic eyebrow. "If I might finish, Miss Granger?" he said.
She pressed her lips together, looking abashed. "Go on," she said.
"Your research," he repeated. "It is still within your memory?"
She gave a tight nod.
"And that is why you are so intent on reaching your… friends?"
She let pass the sneering way he'd said friends. "Yes," she said. "Mostly, anyway. Of course I want to see them again, but more than that I need to get this information to them. Or really to anyone in the Order."
"Is it possible they will discover it on their own?" he asked.
Hermione's eyebrows shot up and she blinked. "Ron and Harry?" she said, failing to suppress a snort of laughter at the thought.
"That's a no, then," Snape said dryly.
"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "But can you imagine them in the Restricted Section, taking notes?"
"I take your point," he said, mouth twitching almost imperceptibly. "What about the rest of the Order?"
She shook her head, serious again. "No. I was acting on a hunch and I didn't bother telling Ron or Harry what my theory was, because I knew neither of them would understand it. I don't think anyone else would even think to look in the books I was reading."
"No, I doubt they would," he said, looking at her with an odd expression in his eyes. He absently rubbed his chin with his thumb, lost in thought for a moment.
"Miss Granger," he said at last, looking at her intently, "do you believe it can end the war?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "I do."
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Merlin's blood, Snape thought. The surety with which she'd answered made his spine run cold.
"Why then," he asked, leaning forward, "aren't you more afraid of being interrogated here?"
Her lips thinned. "Who says I'm not afraid?"
He arched an eyebrow . "I do," he said. "It's plain to observe. You don't fear interrogation half as much as you should. You seem to be inviting it. You're provoking me deliberately."
She gave him a wan smile. "You noticed that, did you?"
"I told you; there is little I do not notice." He fixed her with a piercing gaze, having the unpleasant—and rare— sensation that somehow he was losing the upper hand.
"You needn't bother with your Hogwarts intimidation tricks," she said, sounding suddenly tired. She sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, holding on to the sides and looking at the floor in front of her. "There is no escape from this room. I know that now. The only way out is through the door, and that will only happen when they come to take us for interrogation. So that's what we have to do."
He folded his arms over his chest. "I think you'll find I don't have to do anything," he said in a quiet, dangerous voice.
She rolled her eyes skyward. "It's what I want to do," she said. "And it's what you want as well. It's plain to observe." She gave him a tight, thin smile, as though daring him to retaliate.
He refused to take the bait, giving her only a level stare in return.
"There is no point in fighting it," she continued, "when it is the only way we're getting out of this Merlin-cursed room." Color crept up her neck, proving that she knew very well what she was suggesting. He pushed it out of his mind as best he could. He had to regain control of this conversation.
"This is madness," he said, his mouth twisting into a sneer. "The charm is making you irrational. If what you know is truly as important as you say it is…if it can do what you say it can, then you should be terrified of having it found out by the people who have trapped you here. You should not be actively trying to deliver it into their hands." He found himself raising his voice and looked away, breathing deeply to calm himself. Losing control of his emotions was an exceptionally bad idea under the current circumstances.
She glared at him. "I am afraid," she said. "I'm quite good at Occlumency, but these are Death Eaters, and... " Her eyes traveled momentarily to his forearm, then away again, sending a momentary chill through him.
"If they find out," she continued, "it will be… bad. But they want what's in your head, not mine. And they didn't manage to find it out when they brought me here, so—"
"You can't be sure of that," he interrupted..
Her face went blank with genuine surprise. "Can't be sure...what, that they didn't Legilimens the information from me?"
"Yes," he said. "You can't remember them doing it, so how can you be sure?"
She tilted her head to the side and cocked an eyebrow, looking at him as though he'd started speaking in a different language. "Because I still remember what I found," she said. "They'd have—"
"Obliviated it," he finished, feeling stupider than he'd felt since he was a schoolboy, and possibly not even then. Merlin, would there be no end to his humiliation?
But to his surprise, she let it pass, simply nodding in agreement. "Yeah," she said. "Anyway...I am scared that they might find it out, and I'm really scared of being tortured or...or worse." Her fingers curled tightly around the bedclothes. "But I'm even more scared of being trapped here for the entire war with this information stuck in my head not doing anyone any good."
She met his eyes. "I'm scared of losing."
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On hearing her speak these words, Snape felt as though some vast, dangerous machinery came to life inside him—as though gears that had been slipping past each other suddenly snapped into place. She was afraid of losing. She was more afraid of that than she was afraid of being tortured or even killed.
And why shouldn't she be? She was the brightest mind of her generation by far, and she was locked here in a room, separated from any capacity to aid in the war.
Separated from any capacity except for him, that is. And he was also the brightest mind of his generation.
He'd been so focused on his failure and humiliation that he'd lost sight of these basic facts.
"We," he murmured, "are the best weapon in this war."
She looked up at him, brow furrowed. "What?" she said.
"Miss Granger," he said, "I believe I am coming around to your way of thinking."
Guardedly she asked, "And what way is that?"
"That we must escape from this room or die trying," he said.