Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hogwarts universe, I earn nothing. I am just playing - with a loving heart and neverending joy.
Chapter 29
After Minerva McGonagall had fully regained her human form she looked at Severus Snape, not willing to back away.
"I finally want to know what's going on, Severus. Don't think I am not aware of the increasing spitefulness in the behaviour of that scum you surround yourself with." Snape visibly stiffened and Hermione could see his jawbones grinding.
"Minerva ..."
"No, Severus. No. You will now tell me now which side you are on and what I have to protect the students from." she insisted in a determined tone.
Severus took a deep breath when he realized that this might indeed be the right time.
"I'm not on either side, Minerva, not even on mine."
He cleared his throat and continued speaking with obvious defiance. It cost him a great deal of effort to share his thoughts after so many years with anyone other than Albus.
"I assume that there soon will be an attack on Hogwarts and that preparations have already begun. It is not much time left.
Get the younger years to leave Hogwarts, only the last two years should stay here if they want to. I assume that Albus has informed you about the Hogwarts lockdown protocol."
Minerva nodded, speechless at this surprising fulfillment of her request.
"Good." He frowned.
"The Dark Lord wants Potter. Potter is in Hogwarts."
He interrupted Minerva's surprised reaction with an impatient gesture of his hand.
"I'm sure he will inevitably get himself into trouble shortly and be exposed, so please let me finish."
Hermione was startled by the strange tone in his voice, while McGonagall didn't seem to notice anything yet.
"As soon as Potter's presence becomes known, you will have to take over Hogwarts.
It is essential that Potter's ... aversion ... towards my person remains as long as I still have an influence on what is happening." He snorted. "Shouldn't be too hard, though.
But it is also essential that afterwards he has to receive some essential information."
Snape reached for the vial with the memories in his pocket, without taking his eyes from her.
"Not any sooner, Minerva."
The elder witch in front of him turned pale.
"Afterwards? For Merlin's sake, what does 'afterwards' mean? What are you going to do, Severus? "
He didn't answer and before Minerva could continue or he could hand her the vial, they heard quick footsteps in the hallway and Alecto Carrow stepped into the room with a triumphant expression on her face, while Hermione squeezed herself tight to the pillar. She wondered, how many more people were on their way into the dungeon. Maybe somebody could bring some butterbeer and pizza, that would be a hell of an interesting party.
Immediately, Snape changed into the aggressive headmasters' tone he'd been using around the Carrows for several months now.
"This is not of any interest for you, Professor McGonagall. Leave this room immediately and take care of the activities that were assigned to you. If Madame Pomfrey is overwhelmed with ordering the potions on time, she will have to wait.
What?"
He snapped at Alecto, turning away from McGonagall, who masked her shock at the meaning of Severus' previous words with an expression of being absoultely offended.
"Potter," said the ugly ferret, her voice almost drooling with satisfaction. Hermione felt sick instantly. "He's in the castle." Waiting for applause she looked at the headmaster, who stared back in consternation.
"Have you finally noticed that, too? Could you at least get hold of him?"
Hermione was relieved to see the triumph changing into pouting on the Death Eater's face. "That brat won't be able to hide for long," she grumbled.
"What are you waiting for then?"
Snape turned back to McGonagall.
"Call the students into the Great Hall, Minerva. I want to talk to them. To them all. Now."
Minerva left, looking as insulted as she could, and with a cold gaze Snape ordered Alecto Carrow to follow her.
Snape unlocked the door of his office and went in without looking back. After Hermione had checked the map to make sure that there seemed to be no more surprising visitors at the moment, she hurried after him. The door shut behind her and the familiar pressure made her ears crack. That was the moment, Hermione could not restrain herself anymore. Furious, she stormed towards her professor with raised fists, but he quickly caught hold of her wrists and was able to fend off the blows aimed at his upper body.
"Afterwards?" She shouted, "That's your brilliant plan? Let this bastard kill you? You can't be serious." His hands held her arms firmly and he waited silently until she calmed down and looked at him, gasping for breath, while the tears of anger ran down her face.
"There has to be another way. It has to!" She whispered and the tension in her arms eased, so he carefully loosened his grip.
"Miss Granger, Miss Granger," he said, "What has happened to your good intention not to interfere in things that are absolutely none of your business?"
"That doesn't work with you, Sir," Hermione stated in such an unexpectedly dry tone that despite the tense situation he couldn't avoid a little smile.
"Then I allow myself to remind you to focus on your own goals. The theoretical scenario that you had figured out at the beginning of our agreement is about to take place. It was your concern that as many of your hopeless classmates as possible withstand this for as long as possible. You have been preparing for this for years and now you are pulling it off. And for the outrageous way in which you have repeatedly been interfering in my affairs, you owe me something."
Hermione blinked at him in surprise. Her open gaze, her closeness, even the way she no longer resisted to his grip on her wrists at all, were a blessing that he decided to mindfully enjoy one last time before he finally would sacrifice the rest of his life to the malignancy of the Dark Lord.
He deliberately pulled her closer slowly, put his hands with hers on his chest and when she stood so close in front of him and looked at him from below with wide eyes, he briefly thought of just kissing her again. But he didn't want to go too far and the risk of ruining the moment with her understandable rejection was just too high.
So he just leaned down a little bit and looked at her intently.
"I demand you to get through this." He swallowed barely noticeably.
"Live, Miss Granger. Do you understand me?"
Her eyes filled with tears. Damn it.
"Pull yourself together, silly girl," he said and for the very first time Hermione could not only see the Severus in him, but also hear him.
He liked her.
This arrogant prick liked her and had never found it necessary to tell her about this change of mind in the past few years.
"You bloody bastard," she whispered without taking her eyes off him. He accepted the offense from her with a smile and straightened up again. He still had her wrists in his hands and in a spontaneous inspiration he pulled them up to his mouth.
She felt his lips on her hands, a short touch, and then it was over. He let go of her, took a step back and unlocked the door. Then he reached behind him on the table and held out a big package full of dark vials, which were labeled in his tiny, meticulous handwriting. "You need an explanation for coming here, Miss Granger. My anger at your audacity to steal several potions from the headmaster's storage rooms is extraordinary.
In this context you should have noticed by the way that there are further amounts of various healing potions and painkillers that will be of interest to Madame Pomfrey. I will leave the room unsealed."
Hermione took the package and realized with a wry smile that this had been the exact same idea she had used to break away from Harry and Ron. How similar they had become in their thinking.
And he was right. As always.
She had to go back urgently.
With a heavy heart she turned and left. She left him without a word, because the chaos that was raging inside her could not be put into human language anyway. The short moment in which she had thought he would kiss her again had sent her mind on a sidetrack in a runaway train, where it was still running in circles and could hardly be persuaded to return to the real world. She shook her head in disbelief at herself and concentrated on more understandable things.
She couldn't locate Harry or Ron on the map; that meant they were back in the Room of Requirement. Taking various shortcuts that the map told her, she ran back unseen and found them in a lively discussion with the last members of Dumbledore's army about a diadem in which they suspected the last Horcrux.
At the same time, all the other students gathered in the Great Hall and Harry was dying to surprise Snape with a coup. As if she was stuck in a thick cloud of fog, Hermione listened to all the information, reacted and discussed, and finally followed Harry to the Great Hall where he wanted to confront Snape and get him to leave Hogwarts.
The same Severus Snape, whose lips she could still feel on her hands and who, above all, still had some kind of information for Harry that would obviously have a decisive influence on the course of events.
Afterwards.
Afterwards.
The 'afterwards' rang in her head like a broken bell and continued to make it difficult for her to concentrate. So many questions were running through her head. How could he? Why did he do that? Why didn't he stand by their side and fight with them, now when he had nothing more to lose anyway? What was it that made him having to face Voldemort directly when he would be exposed?
And why the hell was she thinking more about Snape than about Harry, who at this very moment stepped out of the ranks of the students in the Great Hall and publicly accused Snape; an indictment so injust that it made Hermione's blood boil. Harry didn't know any better, and Snape himself demanded that he didn't know any better, but still - to watch and hear how Severus Snape was portrayed as a murderer in front of all the people he was about to give his life for was more than Hermione could take.
Everything was in turmoil inside of her, she wanted to shout out loud what this man had taken upon himself so that they could continue with their miserable search for the last Horcruxes. It took all her strength to avoid interfering with what was happening.
Bloody hell, what was the matter with her?
As if the action around her wasn't challenging enough, this was exactly the moment when her inner Hermion came strolling past her confused mind, rolled her eyes and explained in a slightly bored voice the meaning of all that chaos inside of her.
'Oh, Hermione.
You still don't get it, don't you?
You love him. You will love him for all your life, this brilliant, grumpy, wonderful, gloomy man who is a nightmare to practically everybody else.
And if something happened to him, that would be the end of your world.'
With a friendly nod, inner Hermione disappeared.
And suddenly it all made sense.