Compatibility

Chapter 11: Didn't Have A Chance

Author's Note: Just wanted to address a few different points that reviewers have brought up or has occurred to me while writing. First off, I know that the time between a few of these chapters has caused a few to wonder if I'll finish the story. As to that, I guarantee it will be finished. I know sometimes I take awhile, but I'm trying to balance a lot of things going on in my life and when I write a chapter I want to write a good chapter… not cheat on the story just to get a couple chapters knocked out. So I hope everyone understands and I am very mindful (and sorry!) of the wait everyone has put up with. So thank you for putting up with me! : )

The other thing would be that, while I'm not a psychology major or anything of that sort, I am trying to be truthful to how we as humans really think and how Hermione and Severus were created by J.K. Rowling. I won't ever be 100% book accurate (with this pairing I can hardly be most of the time), but I hope when I write stories that my readers will see how the character's opinions gradually alter and they realize new things throughout the story, just as we do in real life. In this chapter it may seem as though Hermione and Snape have "taken a step back" so to speak. That's because in the last chapter they were not only acting out of the alcohol affect (which, let's face it, makes a good many people horny) but also Snape was trying to fix a problem with sex that sex can't fix. Eventually you have to talk it out and that's what he is trying to avoid. Soooo… hopefully this is all coming across in my writing the way it is worked out in my mind (though admittedly, my mind works quite oddly). ; )

All that being said, I am currently considering getting a beta reader for this story. I've never used one before and like to think my spelling and grammar is decent (lol) but I'd love to have someone who is interested in the more psychological side of the story to give me their opinion and help me work out the kinks. If you are interested then send me a message on here or you can email me at oneamidala(at)yahoo(dot)com

Thanks for reading!

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Hermione Snape née Granger was nothing if not practical. She approached everything by researching first and then searching for the most logical answer. Or at least, she did so with everything but her husband. For awhile she had tried to convince herself that her choice of husbands had been an entirely logical one, a cold and calculating decision for an inevitable problem. But now, just weeks into her marriage, Hermione was having to face the truth. When it came to Severus Snape, she wasn't logical in the slightest.

She wasn't sure where the emotions had begun. Had there been some subconscious childhood crush that she hadn't really been aware of until the marriage law? Was it emotional attachment born out of recent necessity? Was it nothing to do with Severus himself and everything to do with wanting her husband, regardless of who he was, to love her? Those were questions she didn't have an answer to, and she wasn't sure that she ever would. For now, though, there was one question she did need to answer. What did she need to do so that both would be happy in their marriage?

Since her night drinking with friends and the resulting encounter with her husband, Hermione had noticed a little more effort on her husband's part to make their marriage happy. Or at least he wasn't actively avoiding her. A couple times in the past few days he had taken his meal in their rooms so they could sit and talk together, and he no longer stayed in his labs quite so late but would read by the fire in their rooms instead. Still, he was no warmer towards her and seemed entirely unsure of what to say to her.

True, the logical Hermione knew that sex wasn't a cure all for everything. A few moments of orgasmic bliss couldn't erase a marriage of uncertainty and, dare she admit it, bitterness. Her husband was scarred, mentally and physically, by the trials he'd endured. She'd known he'd had a difficult life, but Hermione was beginning to wonder if she had underestimated the magnitude of his emotional problems. Muggle soldiers needed spend only a few months in war zones to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so it stood to reason that years of working as a double agent and fighting Voldemort, that following a childhood of neglect, would cause even more emotional scarring. Would he even be capable of happiness?

The possibility that he might not be mentally stable enough to be happy was not a pleasant thought for her, but she knew that whatever she reaped from the marriage would be well deserved for having sown it. He hadn't lied to her. He hadn't said he wanted the marriage or wanted her. He'd warned her away, content to take whatever old hag the ministry assigned him rather than shackle he and Hermione to one another. She knew he felt a lifetime of guilt, even if she didn't know why.

Problem was, she hadn't asked why. It didn't matter that he probably wouldn't answer her fully, and maybe not truthfully. What mattered was that she hadn't tried to find out, yet she expected everything in their marriage to fall into place. Marriage didn't work that way, and she' d known it from the start. Bloody hell, she was a Gryffindor and she was afraid of talking to her own husband! Apparently trapping him into a marriage wasn't nearly as difficult as a simple (or not so simple) little conversation.

Hermione closed her book with a sigh, no longer attempting to hide that she'd been staring holes into her husband while she was lost in thought. He sat by the fireplace, wholly engrossed in the potions journal before him.

"Severus?" she said softly. "Can we talk?"

He didn't look up, but mumbled consent while still appearing to read. Would he even be listening to her?

"We need to talk about our marriage," she said, still softly. "I know you didn't want this, and I'm sorry for trapping you in it, but I want to find a way for us to be happy."

He grunted. So either he was listening to her or he had mastered that male technique of inserting grunts and "mhms" and "yes dears" so that their wife would think she was being listened to.

"I know there are a lot of things in your past that you don't like to talk about, and I will try to leave it alone for the most part, but I do need to understand my husband. I want to know what it is that makes you who you are, and what I can do to make you happier. Is it asking too much?"

For a minute she didn't think she'd get a response. He didn't grunt or nod or even seem to blink. His face was a mask, as she'd seen it so many times before. Finally he closed the journal and looked up at her. His eyes were dark as always, but to Hermione they didn't seem as blank as usual. Maybe that was just her fancy.

"What would you like to know?" he asked calmly.

Hermione considered for a moment where to start. "What was your childhood like? What about your parents?"

He looked at her suspiciously. "What has Potter told you?"

"Not enough," she said immediately, "if in fact there is really that much he knows. You are very much a mystery to all of us, I think. I know your mother was a Pure-blood witch."

"My father a muggle and an abusive alcoholic," he said finally. "My mother was a witch but unwilling to stand up to my father. I look like him."

"That doesn't make you like him," Hermione said without thinking.

He shook his head. "No, Hermione, I'm worse. I helped the Dark Lord rise to power to begin with. I am the reason Potter's parents are dead. I am responsible for countless deaths and tortures. What I touch turns evil, and all I'm good for is teaching potion making to dunderheads who can scarcely manage a proper Forgetfulness Potion without blowing up their cauldron."

"That's not how others see you, Severus."

"True. They see me as a greasy git and dungeon bat who is a Death Eater that belongs in Azkaban. And they would be correct."

Hermione wanted to hit him over the head with the book she'd been reading but it seemed rather unfair for the book to be used on someone so very hard headed. "No, that's not what all of us see. Tom Riddle took advantage of a young boy who'd had a sad childhood and just wanted control over his own life. No one can truthfully blame you for wanting the power he offered. But you saw through him, you didn't let the promise of power continue to blind you. And you spent the next, what, over twenty years working to defeat him. You've paid your debt, Severus Snape, you need to let it go."

"Twist the truth however you like," he said. "You can't change what happened, or what I've done."

She glared at him. "I'm not twisting the truth. No, there is nothing you can do that will bring Lily Potter back. You think she hates you for it? She died to protect her son, which is what any mother would do, and would likely have died by Voldemort's hand eventually regardless of your involvement."

"Well," Severus drawled, "for someone who hasn't been told much about me, you seem to know everything there is to know. I don't need a psychologist, Hermione."

"You could probably talk guilt driven circles around any psychologist I ever heard of," Hermione muttered. "What do you want me to say? I'm not Lily and can never be, I know that. I didn't see all the evil that you have seen, I know that too. I will probably never understand the full weight of what you had to do to convince Voldemort of your loyalty to him. You think I don't understand these things? But that doesn't mean I don't want to try. I don't want you to feel like you are alone because whether you like it or not you aren't. And if we have any chance at all of being happy, I want to try for it."

"Don't care about me, Hermione," he said so low she could scarcely understand him. "It will only hurt you."

"Too late for that."

Hermione reopened her book and went back to reading, or at least to staring at the page. She was done with talking to him if that was how he'd take it. True, he could have just refused to talk and that would have been worse, but he didn't need to be so damned stubborn either. She felt her eyes start to water and she blinked the tears away furiously, but didn't bother wiping them away. Maybe if she ignored their presence then they would go away. That was certainly how her dear husband liked to handle his problems.

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That night Severus lay in bed curled up against his wife. He had waited until she slept to move closer to her, unsure whether she would welcome his touch after their earlier conversation. But he liked touching her, even if he didn't like admitting it, and he didn't feel he was good enough to be touching her. She had been right in thinking him full of guilt, but he couldn't accept that he had made up for his sins. There was nothing he would ever be able to do that would atone for those.

When he closed his eyes at night he was haunted by all those he had ever caused to suffer. There were so many, some people he had known and some nameless faces whose identities he would never know. There was once a time when Crucio had been his bread and Avada kedavra his butter. How could one atone for that even in a dozen lifetimes?

In the relaxation of sleep Hermione looked so peaceful and serene, so at odds with his own dark thoughts. She was too innocent to be marred by him, and yet now there was no escaping it. Even if she realized how dark a wizard she had truly married, she was still stuck with him. She would have to bear his child or they would both suffer Azkaban. How could she bear it?

Severus was at a loss as to how to spare her. It was true that he had spent his adult life trying to protect others from evils he had caused, and her own desire to help him made him want all the more to protect her from himself. Their marriage seemed so much simpler, so much easier to deal with, when they were touching and he was deep inside her willing body. Yet in the aftermath of their satisfaction Severus' guilt would take hold with an iron grip, adding his continuing corruption of Hermione to his list of sins. That list was engrained in his mind, and he could recite it at will. Some nights he really did recite it. It was too easy to list the names he knew of those he'd hurt, and the dates of those he hadn't known. Each was a black mark on his soul that there was no washing away, and one way or another he fully expected to pay for it.