DISCLAIMER: Not mine, except for the plot. You know the drill.
Chapter 36: Alone Together
The Brisbane airport was very large, very brightly lit, and very full of people. Severus, feeling intensely uncomfortable in his Muggle clothes, walked as close to Miss Granger as was decently possible. She seemed to know what she was doing, and he was adept enough at reading social cues to behave convincingly as though he did as well. He was, after all, the professor in this situation, and ought to be on top of things. It irked him that people like Minerva constantly assumed he was acquainted with all the intricacies of Muggle life, but he had no problem with allowing Miss Granger to continue in that misconception for the time being.
There were Muggles everywhere, of course, and he did his best not to look discomfited by the fact. His father had devoted many years to convincing him that he did not belong in non-magical society. Oh, he could dress like a Muggle, and live like a Muggle, but when it came to actually being comfortable with them, he shied away. He was not part of their world, and if they knew what he was, they would not wish him to be. It was one of the earliest life lessons he'd been given.
It didn't help that he was wearing pink.
The Aurors had indeed managed to find an acceptable enough outfit. It was wholly nondescript: jeans, a belt, and a polo shirt. A polo shirt that was a pale, faded shade of pink. He'd tried to argue, but there simply hadn't been time to press his point as far as he normally would have.
"It's insufferable, Minerva," he'd growled, balling up the shirt in his hands. She, for her part, professed to see nothing wrong with it.
"Technically," she'd pointed out, "the only thing you refused to wear was a dress."
"Only because it never entered my wildest dreams that anybody would suggest that I wear something like this."
Her mouth had twitched so violently that it looked like she was hiding a chocolate frog in it. "I'm told it's very fashionable these days, Severus."
"As if I ever cared about such things."
"Ah, but apparently the Australian Aurors do. You'll simply have to bear it, Severus, there's no time to change things now. You and Hermione need to leave for the airport immediately or you're going to be late."
"Where will I keep my wand? There's no place to conceal a wand in these clothes!"
"Hide it under your shirt," suggested the Auror who had brought the clothes to him, piping up for the first time. He'd fled to a corner when Severus' temper had exploded. It was vaguely satisfying to know that living under the constant influence of Hermione Granger hadn't sapped his ability to terrify at will.
"There, Severus, you see? Tuck it under the shirt. I'm sure you'll be able to keep track of it. Now, go put it on, and be quick about it."
"We're going to Apparate, and the flight is not due to leave for nearly three hours."
"I'm told that they expect passengers to be there very early so that their security people can give you a once-over. Now, help Hermione with her things and go."
And so here he was, standing in an endless line of Muggles, with Hermione Granger at his side. It certainly ranked high up on his personal list of deeply uncomfortable situations.
Miss Granger, for her part, seemed completely unconcerned, although she was also preternaturally quiet. He could count on one hand the number of things she'd said to him since their discussion of Wilkes and Lily the previous day. He deeply regretted telling her anything about it. He should have left himself the right to refuse to answer any of her questions when he gave her permission to ask, but somehow it hadn't occurred to him at the time. That, he supposed, was proof that he was growing unconscionably lax since his spying days were over.
It didn't surprise him in the slightest that once her initial pity and shock had faded, they were replaced by disgust. Nobody who knew secrets like those he kept hidden in the deep recesses of his heart could be comfortable with him, he was sure. He knew that she would no longer be able to look at him without remembering the story. He avoided speaking to her as much as she avoided speaking to him. He did not wish to be reminded of that particular incident every time he tried to have a conversation.
The queue moved forward, and he gave her a sidelong glance. She was drawn and silent, and stubbornly looked straight ahead. She'd taken some of her mother's clothes from a closet and was dressed in them now—casual jeans and a rather oversized green hooded jumper. The color looked surprisingly good on her, he found, which surprised him. It had never occurred to him to think that she might look suitable in green.
After a nearly interminable wait, it was time to present themselves to the Muggle security people. He hefted her bag onto a conveyor belt that took it through some sort of machine (he would not for the life of him ask her what it was). A Muggle in a uniform instructed him to remove all metal from his person and deposit it in a flimsy-looking plastic basket. He followed Miss Granger's lead and emptied his pockets of the Muggle money that Minerva had provided him with and then passed his ticket to another uniformed man.
As he moved forward, someone jostled him from behind and his wand slipped out from beneath his shirt and clattered onto the floor. Only years of espionage training kept him from swearing aloud, lest he draw even more attention to it.
"What's this?" asked one the man, bending over and picking it up before Severus could grab it. Miss Granger froze. A few people turned to look curiously at them, and Severus forced a nonchalant look onto his face.
"Looks like a knitting needle, doesn't it?" said another airport worker curiously.
"Nah," said the first one. "Too thick. What is this, mister—" he glanced at the ticket in his hands "—Snape?"
He hadn't bothered to inspect the ticket before they arrived at the airport. He made a mental note to have a word with Minerva about using his real name on a Muggle plane ticket while he was in the company of a female student. A healthy refusal to assume that nobody would recognize you had kept him alive many times in the past.
"Oh!" said Miss Granger with patently false brightness, her voice breaking into his irritation with Minerva and scattering it. "It's—er—it's just a toy, actually. For my nephew, you know. We're going to visit him in London, you see, and he's awfully fond of magic tricks."
The second security man blinked. "Oh, that kind of toy," he said, looking slightly embarrassed. "I thought at first you meant it was… something else." He cleared his throat. Miss Granger turned an unpleasant shade of crimson, and Severus was perturbed to know that he'd probably done the same.
The first man narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "If it's a toy for your nephew, what was he hiding it in his shirt for?"
Severus thought quickly. "I intended to surprise him with it in the airport," he said, doing his best to downplay the habitual sneer in his voice. "Sleight of hand, you know."
"Well, we'll need to run it through the X-ray just to be sure there's nothing concealed in it."
"Send it on through then, Harris, and let's have a look."
The security man, whose name was apparently Harris, passed it to the second man, who placed it on the conveyor belt. Severus watched it disappear with an unpleasant sense of dread. It was one thing to surrender his wand for inspection at a Portkey Station. It was another thing entirely to give it to Muggles and let them look at it.
After a few moments, the man running the machine frowned. "That's odd," he muttered. Miss Granger's face went white and he saw her fingers twitch toward her sleeve, where her own wand was hidden. He caught her eye and shook his head almost imperceptibly, then gave a significant glance around at the crowds of Muggles that surrounded them. Her hand fell back to her side.
"What's odd?" snapped Harris, who seemed to be in charge, and who Severus decided was entirely too suspicious a person by nature.
"It's not registering whatever's inside of it. I can see that it's something, but I can't tell what."
Severus blinked. Of course they wouldn't be able to see the core of his wand. It had never occurred to him to wonder what would happen if a Muggle X-rayed a wand.
Harris elbowed his way past the other security man. "Let me see!"
They all gathered in front of a small screen, staring at it and discussing it in undertones that Severus could not catch.
"Right," said Harris finally, "can't see anything exactly dangerous, but there's something off about it and I don't like it. You can put it in your checked luggage, or you can leave it behind, but you can't carry it inside the airport."
Miss Granger gasped loudly, then glanced at him and turned bright red again, realizing a moment too late that it would do nothing to diminish the suspicion they were under if she protested.
"Certainly," Severus said quickly, giving Harris a nod and doing the best he could to smother his sense of panic at the thought of enduring the plane flight without his wand. She would still have hers, after all, barring another disaster, and he could at least use that if it came to an emergency in which she was unable to defend them. He felt sick.
"We weren't checking any luggage, though," she said hesitantly.
"That's quite all right, Hermione," he said, as warmly as he could. They were meant to be traveling companions, after all, and it would raise Harris' suspicions even more if Severus acted cold and distant with her.
"We can check that." He pointed to the smallish bag that she carried. She tightened her grip on it momentarily, and he raised his eyebrows. He had no bloody idea how he was going to survive the approaching ordeal without his wand, but if he could attempt it for the sake of preserving their relative anonymity, she could certainly do without a bag.
"Oh," she said, giving a little sigh and placing the bag on the metal counter with a forlorn expression. "Of course."
He put the wand in the bag and they handed it over to the airport people, who looked at his ticket again, slapped some sort of sticker on the bag, and sent it away with yet another uniformed person—a woman, this time. As it disappeared from his view, his panic grew nearly uncontrollable, and he had a sudden wild desire to run and fetch it back, suspicious or not.
Miss Granger gave him a sympathetic look and laid her hand on his bare arm. He jumped and pulled back from her. She yanked her hand away immediately, with a self-conscious look in the direction of the security people. Merlin, the girl had no subtlety at all. He was surprised she didn't find a bit of cardboard and write 'I'm hiding something' on it. It would have been simpler for all involved.
"Sorry," she muttered. "Didn't mean to startle you."
He very carefully did not glance at them, but shrugged apologetically. "My fault," he said. "I get… jumpy… before I fly. You know that." He leaned over her and pretended to pull a bit of fluff from her hair. Under his voice he hissed, "Stop continually looking at them like that, girl. It makes you look guilty when you're checking over and over again to see if they've noticed your mistakes."
He drew away and she smiled fondly at him, although the look in her eyes more closely approximated that of a trapped and terrified animal.
"All right," said Harris, still looking at them suspiciously. "Go ahead and go on through. You'll get your toy back when you get to London. Have a good flight."
"Thank you," said Severus politely, stepping through the metal detector. He collected his money on the other side and slipped it into his pocket. It jingled pleasantly.
They made it through to the other side without further incident, and Miss Granger looked down at their tickets and then back up, studying the dizzying array of signs that littered the walls and ceilings.
"This way," she said at length, setting off down a corridor. He followed, feeling horribly naked and jumpy without his wand. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been without it for more than a minute or two, and that had always been in the privacy and security of his own chambers. What had they been thinking, giving him clothes with no good place in which to hide his wand? Damn Minerva, damn the Aurors, and damn Hermione Granger.
0 0 0
After making it through security, there was nothing left for them but a long, silent wait to board the plane. Hermione occupied herself with trying to look at him without letting him know that she was looking. He'd stood up and walked to a large observation window, staring out at the planes as they landed and took off. Every few seconds, he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes roaming the airport and seeming to absorb, in a matter of mere seconds, everything that could be seen.
Utterly unwilling to think about the fact that Aurors were, at that very moment, taking her parents to be buried, Hermione occupied herself instead with wondering what might be going through Professor Snape's mind.
He looked so different in his Muggle clothes that he was almost unrecognizable. Several times she'd glanced away and looked back, only to be terrified that he'd disappeared when in fact she simply hadn't realized it was him. It was not a change that she particularly liked.
It was very clear that he didn't like it either.
It was very clear that he didn't like any of it. The vast amounts of guilt that lurked in the back of her mind began once again to creep up on her. If not for her, he would not be here. If not for her, her parents would be alive. No wonder he was pacing around, avoiding her. She'd stolen his privacy, forced him to come halfway across the world, and now he'd ended up trapped in an airport without a wand, with only her for company.
She didn't know what possessed her to do it, but she thought of Harry and Voldemort, and the way that Voldemort had reached into Harry's mind, reading his thoughts from afar. She knew nothing of Legilimency, but she wasn't sure she needed to. She didn't have to force her way into his thoughts--she had an opening ready-made for her. Perhaps it was some desire to torture herself that made her do it, or simply dull curiosity, a tangential question to ask that would keep her from asking the questions that broke her heart to think of.
Whatever it was, she stared at him with all of her concentration and attempted to brush up against his soul.
At first, nothing happened. She had no idea what to look for, had no idea what things in the last six months had been her own emotions and which had been his. She tried again, with no success. Initially, she'd done it out of a sort of despairing need for distraction. Having failed twice, though, stubborn frustration kept her trying.
He turned around for another inspection of the terminal, and his eyes met hers.
Instantly, she was in his mind. She could not say how she knew it, but she knew it. It was hazy and unclear, and she could interpret none of what she saw, but she'd touched him.
His face went utterly white with rage, and his eyes made her recall the unpleasant moment when he'd learned that Sirius Black had escaped. It took him only seconds to cross the distance between them and he stared down at her, practically quivering with anger. She drew back into her seat, her Gryffindor bravery and boldness fleeing before the terrifying look on that face.
He leaned over her, his eyes narrow and black. She had never had occasion to notice before how black they really were, as though their color had been sucked away to leave only a void.
Only it wasn't a void. It was a raging maelstrom of anger.
"If you have a question," he hissed softly, "ask me."
0 0 0
He felt it immediately when their eyes met. Her presence was oddly familiar and she fumbled horribly, only just grazing against the surface of his thoughts. He forced her out immediately, pulling a barrier up so quickly that it startled even him.
He felt like a fool. He'd been so discomfited by the loss of his wand that he'd forgotten to keep his Occlumentic shields up, and of course that would be the moment that she decided to start experimenting.
But he could not let her do that. It was too dangerous, and far, far too intimate. Once those pathways were built, it would be nearly impossible to break them down, and it would become easier for her to slip past his barriers every time that she tried it. The thought terrified him and he stalked over to her, his hands trembling.
"If you have a question, ask me," he said desperately. Anything other than forcing her way into his mind and reading his thoughts. She cringed, looking away from him with a terrified expression. So much the better, if she misinterpreted his distress as anger. He didn't know if she'd done it on purpose or not, but it was dangerous. Bad enough to share those things inadvertently. A hundred times worse to do it on purpose. What was she thinking?
0 0 0
As abruptly as his fury had appeared, it dissipated and he sat down beside her. She carefully didn't look at him, wishing that she could slide over to another seat without irritating him further. He'd gone back to looking around, studying each face in turn again and again.
"I'm sorry," she said, feeling like a fool.
"There are better ways to find answers, Miss Granger," he said brusquely.
"I can't do this," said Hermione, her voice quavering.
Professor Snape ceased his anxious surveillance of the airport for just a moment—long enough to narrow his eyes at her and no more. Only when she was once more looking at the back of his head did he speak:
"It is too late for that, Miss Granger. You have no choice but to do it."
He didn't bother asking her which 'this' she was referring to. She supposed it didn't matter. The statement applied to everything that was happening in her life. She sniffed loudly. He didn't look at her again.
"I want to go home."
He pursed his lips, looking irritated. "You are."
"No," she said faintly. "I don't mean Britain. I mean home."
"You may insist on being obscure, Miss Granger, but do not expect me to attempt to make an analysis of your banal puzzles."
That stung. She began to fidget with her arm, rubbing at a spot with her thumb as though to clean it. "I don't know how else to say it. I don't mean I want to go to Hogwarts, or Grimmauld Place, or anywhere in Britain. I just want to go home."
"A feeling, not a place," he murmured, so softly that she wasn't quite sure it was intended for her ears.
Before she could decide whether or not to ask about it, a hollow-sounding voice boomed through the terminal, announcing that it was time to begin boarding. They stood and waited in yet another queue, and did not even look at one another again until they were seated and the plane had begun to taxi down the runway.
He'd given her the window seat. Hermione loved to fly, and as the plane began to gather speed, she watched out the window as the scenery passed by. An arm bumped hers and she looked to see that he'd gripped both armrests, his knuckles gone completely white.
The plane lurched slightly as it began to rise off the ground, leaving Hermione's stomach behind. Professor Snape let go of the armrests and carefully folded his hands in his lap, avoiding the windows as they began to rise steadily into the air. She looked back out, watching the ground fall away from them, and swearing to herself never to tell anyone else that Professor Snape was afraid of flying.
It was, after all, the least she could do.
0 0 0
After the initial jolt of takeoff, Severus found that flying was not as bad as he'd feared. In fact, his only real complaint was the utter boredom and his continued anxiety about being wandless. He had no sense of being in motion, and it occurred to him that flying was rather like being sentenced to Azkaban, now that the Dementors were gone--a very well lit, warm Azkaban. There was nothing but tedium and a vague sense of loneliness, in spite of being surrounded by other people.
The cabin was quiet, except for the distant, dull roar of the engines and a few muffled voices somewhere far from them. The air was stale-smelling and horribly dry, except for the faint trace of perfume from beside him. He recognized it as her mother's scent, which he'd found in the master bedroom and anointed her body with. Miss Granger hadn't moved in some time, and Severus glanced over at her casually, hoping to assure himself that she was peacefully asleep.
But she wasn't. Her eyes were open, and her forehead was resting up against the double-paned window. She seemed to be gazing down at the endless expanse of water beneath them. Her hair was down, and he was glad of it, although he hadn't told her so. She looked more natural that way. Something about the severe knot that she'd forced her hair into for so many months did not fit her at all. This was far less jarring and would garner less notice as a result. It fell around her like a cloud and he had an odd, momentary longing to touch it and see if it would dissolve beneath his fingers like a real cloud would.
He scowled and re-crossed his legs for the umpteenth time, struggling to find a comfortable position. Ennui and anxiety were clearly twisting his mind. He thumbed through a magazine that some previous passenger had left behind, but there was nothing interesting in it. He wished that he had his wand. If he had his wand, he could relax and sit bloody still, instead of fidgeting like a child. He was not a man to fidget, in normal circumstances.
Of all the times for her to stop talking, it had to be now.
He stole another look at her. She hadn't moved, but as he watched, she snuggled down into her seat and raised her arm to her face, burying her nose in her sleeve. For a moment he thought of offering her his handkerchief, as she seemed to need something to wipe her nose on, but then she inhaled deeply and he realized with a start that she was smelling it.
That would, of course, be where the scent of her mother's perfume was coming from. The moment he realized it, he turned his head away, mortified at having witnessed such a thing. It was so obviously private that he believed he'd have felt more comfortable at walking in on her without clothes on than he was seeing such an intimate display of loss and loneliness.
Without a word, he immediately stood up and made his way through the narrow aisle toward the back of the plane. He had no need or desire to avail himself of the facilities, but he locked himself in anyway and waited long enough to make his absence convincing. Then he washed his face and hands, patted them dry, and returned to the seat.
She seemed to be holding herself artificially in place as he sat down, and he sighed in spite of himself. Her profound unease left him feeling guilty and self-conscious, and he crossed his arms, leaning as far back in his seat as he could and closing his eyes. If she thought he was asleep, it would at least give her a bit of respite from his company.
It was the shaking that made him open his eyes again. They weren't touching, but he could sense her movement beside him, and he gave in to the impulse to look.
She was curled in on herself, tears streaming down her face, although she made no noise. He wondered if she was hiding it or simply attempting to be considerate of those around her. He didn't know how long he watched. Something about the plane seemed to deprive him of all sense of time. It was simply an endless stasis, and she became part of it, until her shudders began to still and she drifted once more into sleep.
She'd done hardly anything but sleep and cry since he'd reached Australia. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised by it. It was better than many of her alternatives. He'd expected her to be much more vocal about her grief, but she hadn't, except for a few moments in which she degenerated into incomprehensible, nervous babbling. He was beginning to prefer even that to her miserable silence.
He was restless, but he couldn't get up, couldn't pace or patrol. He'd resigned himself to the fact that he simply wasn't going to sleep until he was safely off the plane and reunited with his wand, and he needed something to think about.
So, as she slept, he began to study her. She was a mystery to him, this small, grief-worn woman. It was a bizarre miracle that such a young, relatively innocent thing could have reached out into the void and grabbed hold of his soul so tightly that now she could not let go. What emotion could she possibly have felt about him that was strong enough to allow her to do that?
He'd spent so long being afraid of her intrusiveness when she discovered the odd window she'd gained into his heart, but his fears seemed now to be unjustified. Instead of seeking him out, she did her best to avoid him. The questions he'd dreaded answering had, by and large, not come. It was almost disappointing, in a way, to have prepared himself for them and have it come to naught. It struck him now how strange it was that he'd never considered what she had been feeling when it happened.
Her eyelashes were so long that it surprised him. He'd never examined such things about her before, but now as they rested on her cheeks, he could not tear his eyes away. She was entirely unthreatening and entirely frightening at the same time, a complete contradiction in terms.
"What are you?" he whispered as he stared at her. She stirred in her sleep and turned her head away from him so that her hair fell across her face and obscured his view of her.
Before he knew what he was doing, he'd reached out to move it aside. His hand froze only a millimeter or two from that tangle of curls. What the hell was he doing? If he touched her, she would awaken and demand an explanation, and he had none. His only defense was his sudden fascination with the enigma of her soul, and he doubted that she would take that very well, even if he could get over his own mortification sufficiently to allow him to explain it at all.
He flexed his fingers slightly, touching one curl with the very edge of one of them. She didn't move, and he gained a little courage, moving his hand by degrees until he'd caught the mass of hair in his fingers and could draw it aside.
He pulled it back just enough to see the outline of her face at first, and then studied it carefully. If she had been feigning sleep, he would be able to see it. But the tension was gone from her face, the muscles were slack, and her eyelids did not so much as flicker when her hair moved. Long minutes (or was it hours?) passed as he looked at her face, reassuring himself that she was still asleep.
Then he carefully, carefully moved the hair behind her ear.
His fingertip brushed the bottom of her earlobe as he moved his hand away, and he felt a swift flash of emotion, a fleeting image of painful dreams and almost unbearable sorrow and guilt. It nearly overwhelmed him with its intensity, but it passed away so quickly when his hand left her skin that he almost didn't believe he'd felt it at all. She drew a deep, shaking breath and her mouth fell open slightly.
She was not beautiful, but there was a sort of poignant loveliness in her grief that reminded him of his mother and of his last encounter with Lily. The comparisons disturbed him and tugged queerly at his heart. The war should never have touched someone like her. He remembered the girl she had been, seemingly too vibrant to be crushed, and wondered what had become of her.
Losing himself in those thoughts, Severus watched over her protectively, his gaze never moving as the hours passed away.
0 0 0
Hermione awoke suddenly and completely. She had no idea what time it was, or how long she'd been sleeping. How many hours were left before they arrived in London and she had to return to the real world?
Her neck ached and she sat up carefully, twisting her head to stretch. Professor Snape sat beside her, stiff and unmoving, his arms crossed, just as she'd seen him sitting countless times in the past. His hair fell forward and hid his face from her, but his fingers drummed slowly across his arm and she was quite sure he was awake.
She'd just begun to resign herself to his silence and curse herself for not stopping to buy a paperback in the airport when he spoke:
"I trust you slept well," he said.
"I don't know," she answered confusedly. Had she? She examined herself uncertainly, wondering if she felt more rested than she had before. Certainly she felt relieved and rather pleasantly drained, much as she had after visiting her parents' bodies.
He turned to look at her, quirking one eyebrow. "I see," was all he said.
"I don't know where to go when we get to London," she said in a sudden rush. She desperately needed to talk about it, and there was nobody else but him.
He gave her a long, considering glance. "I am given to understand that you frequently spend Christmas with the Weasleys."
She wondered who had given him to understand that, and shrugged, looking out the window. "I used to."
"Ah," he said. It was less than she'd hoped for. She felt oddly compelled to keep talking, dreading the awkward silence that they would surely lapse into if she stopped.
"I can't, this year."
He shifted in his seat, moving his legs in an effort to stretch them out as much as possible. "I see," he said, sounding as though he didn't see at all and like he'd probably rather she shut up.
She bit her lip. "I don't want to spend Christmas around Ron."
She needed to talk about it. She needed to tell someone. Who better to tell than him, who had revealed his most painful secret to her? She desperately hoped that he would take the hint and ask her why not, but he simply looked down, his hair hiding even his nose from her now. She wanted to reach out and move it so she could see his face.
"As Deputy Headmaster of the school, it is my duty to assure you that Hogwarts is always open to you, Miss Granger."
Of all the things he could have said, that was not what she was expecting somehow. In spite of the usual sarcastic tone of his voice, which seemed to be so habitual that he could not remove it, the words were obviously meant to be kind. She was struck by the insight. Once she would have heard only the tone of voice, only the sneer behind the words. Now she listened to the words themselves and was comforted by them.
"I... wish I hadn't spent so many Christmases with the Weasleys. I could have seen my mum and dad, and I didn't," she whispered, confessing one of the thoughts that had haunted her for a year and a half.
He sniffed, with a gesture that managed to encompass the entire plane. "You are not part of this world, Miss Granger. It is to be expected that you would not feel entirely comfortable here."
Was he... trying to comfort her? The idea was so strange that she couldn't formulate an answer for several moments.
"They were my parents, though," she said, furrowing her brow.
"They are your parents yet. Have Potter's misadventures taught you nothing of death, girl? Or did you think that only Wizards passed into the next life?" he sneered.
"I... hadn't thought of that."
"Clearly."
Silence threatened them again, and she pushed on. "I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. I try to distract myself, and if it's not my parents, it's W-Wilkes, and I keep seeing..." she trailed off, shuddering.
"Give me your wand, Miss Granger."
She blinked. "What?"
"Your wand. Give it to me."
She glanced around hesitantly and then slipped it out of her sleeve, handing it over to him without a question. He gave her a strange look, as though he'd expected her to resist, but then he made a swift motion and muttered, "Muffliato."
He handed the wand back to her. "I wish to ask you a question, Miss Granger."
She waited anxiously. It didn't make her any more comfortable to know he was about to ask her something that he clearly believed could not be discussed in the hearing of their fellow passengers.
"I... need to know," he said slowly, "what curse you cast on Damien Wilkes, and where you learned it."
0 0 0
She looked frightened. Still, quid pro quo was only fair. He'd revealed a secret the day before, which clearly made it her turn. He waited.
"I didn't learn it," she said softly. He frowned.
"Explain yourself, Miss Granger."
"It's a... variation on Sectumsempra," she admitted, twisting the hem of her jumper in both hands.
He closed his eyes. That answered that question, then. "Where did you... discover it, if you didn't learn it?"
"I don't know." She was chewing on her lip so hard that it was a marvel she hadn't made it bleed yet. "It just... came to me."
His eyebrows shot up of their own accord and he turned to look full at her, forgetting for the moment his unwillingness to meet her eyes. "It came to you?"
The muscles in her jaw worked as she swallowed. "I didn't know what I was going to say until I opened my mouth. I think I must have made it up."
"Apparently," he murmured. That certainly cast a new light on her, although ironically it was a light that did nothing to illuminate things.
"Professor?" she said, beginning to rub at her arms again. He had a creeping worry that she was developing some sort of bizarre neurosis about the blood that had spattered all over her.
"You have a question?"
"Sort of. I--I don't want to take Potions anymore," she said in a rush, looking more frightened than ever.
It was odd, he thought, that after he'd spent so much energy lobbying for that very thing with Minerva, he was not happy to hear it from Miss Granger.
Author's Notes: As usual, thanks to RenitaLeandra, Harmony, and JunoMagic. Sorry for whining so much about this chapter.
Reviewers, je t'aime. You are all wonderful.
Poor Snape. Pink, really.. I ask you.