She was looking at him again. He could feel her soft chocolate eyes boring longingly into the side of his head from across the sitting room. Watching. Calculating. Wondering. And he hated it.
Since the kiss in his office, he hadn't touched her. He never followed up with anything. He never even mentioned it and she never breathed a word again either, but he knew she wanted to. He could see it in her eyes. He could see her fighting an internal battle with herself but bit her tongue. He knew she wanted to corner him and let loose with a barrage of questions, but she held back and he didn't know if that was dangerous. A quiet woman was a thinking woman and that could be an issue.
He felt terrible about it, of course, he hated himself. But he knew if he let it go any further than he would hate himself even more. She deserved more, she truly did. She didn't deserve a vile Death Eater. She deserved more, so much more than he. She deserved the world and to be happy and he knew deep down he couldn't provide what she truly deserved. Instead, he had started to distance himself. He rarely talked to her, but they still shared a bed and that was merely out of the protection he afforded her and little more. He even found he was no longer waking up pressed against her. Instead, they were as far opposite one another as could be without falling from the bed.
Hermione watched him intently flicking through a book he had on his lap. Casually scanning the pages and turning the pages again and again. She wondered what he was thinking. She wondered why he was doing this. Ignoring her. Had she done something wrong? She still felt him on her lips and tasted him on her tongue. She thought about it every night since the kiss and she yearned to feel his touch. She was desperate to feel his lips pressed to hers again and it made her want to scream. She liked him for what it was worth, and he was probably the only person she really trusted right now in her life and he just wanted to push her away over and over again.
She sighed sadly to herself. She didn't want him to know how much it was affecting her. She didn't want to seem weak and vulnerable in front of him, but at the end of the day, she really, really did like Severus Snape.
o-o-o-o-o
"Granger, you're with Parkinson," Severus's voice rang out from the front of the potions classroom as soon as she walked in, both taking her by surprise and annoying her simultaneously.
Never had she ever been made to team up with Pansy. Pansy was a bitch. Hermione wasn't. Their dynamics were totally off. Not to mention Pansy and co really hated her with a vengeance. This wasn't going to sit right with her. First, he ignored her, now he was teaming her up with Pansy. Did he truly hate her that much?
"E…Excuse me?" She almost snapped out at him out of turn but managed to school herself and managed to ask him casually.
"You are with Parkinson today. Do you not listen?" He shot her a dark glare as she shuffled slowly across the room and flopped down next to Pansy who screwed her face up at Hermione as if she were a piece of dirt.
"Excuse me," Pansy began, hands laid primly on the table before her. "First off, why do I have to sit with Granger? And secondly, why are you teaching us today and not professor Slughorn?" She spat violently and with disgust. How could he just put her with… with that?
"Because I said so and he had a prior engagement for today. Now stop asking questions and get to work on the potion on the board." He flicked his hand lazily in the direction of the instructions he had written down on the large board at the front of the room.
"Excuse me. I am not comfortable sitting next to her." Pansy looked pointedly at Hermione and pretended to gag.
"Well if you two can't get along now, I am sure you will both get along tonight in detention when you clean out the storeroom," he spoke darkly. Lips twisting into a wicked smile. He missed teaching, Mostly he missed seeing the students squirm when he put them in less than desirable situations.
"That's bullshit!" Pansy interjected, slamming open palms on the wooden table.
"I agree, actually," Hermione added her ten sickles worth into the equation. She stared at him holding his gaze steadfast. He held hers back with just as much contempt only raising an eyebrow slightly daring her to try him. He needed to push her away further and what better way than forcing her to serve detention with one of the people she hated most in this school.
"I can't believe this," Hermione bit sharply. "I didn't do anything, and I am getting dragged into this with her. Where is the fairness?"
"Life isn't fair, Miss Granger." It felt like acid on his tongue to address her as such. She was Hermione to him now. She was no longer Miss Granger. Their friendship had stepped up to another level and the formalities were all but gone by the wayside.
He watched as she conceded defeat and started unpacking her bag shooting daggers at him periodically through the lesson but she never breathed another word to him during the class.
o-o-o-o-o
Hermione and Pansy had been cleaning the storeroom for the good part of an hour. Both muttering under their breath and shooting dirty looks at the other, each wanting to say what they really thought but neither bothering. The tension in the room was palpable yet harmless. Hermione realised perhaps Pansy wasn't as tough when she was by herself and not flanked by ten other Slytherins and she found that amusing.
Eventually, Pansy was the first to speak, breaking the silence of the room. "I can't believe your boyfriend forced us into detention. I thought his little pet would be beyond that." Eyes rolled back in her head with disgust and loathing. She shoved a lock of black hair firmly behind her ear and scrutinised a jar of fairy wings that she currently held between her fingers before dumping them in a small bin she had at her feet.
"My boyfriend?" Hermione asked innocently. Perplexed.
"Snape. It's clear, isn't it? You follow him around like a lost dog clinging onto the first person to show it an ounce of kindness." She picked up another jar and began to quickly scan the label for its before date.
Hermione snorted loudly. "You must be mistaken. He isn't my boyfriend," she said stiffly. Jaw clenching tight.
"Really!?" Pansy exclaimed genuinely. "I was certain he was." She dumped that jar in the bin at her feet also.
Hermione put down the large jar she had in her hand back on the shelf and turned to Pansy. "Really."
"Well. Rumour has it, you are his prisoner. Now I am no expert but you are way too keen trotting around behind him for someone who is being held under duress. I see the way you look at him. I see the way he looks at you. If he isn't fucking you and getting something out of you, I would be wary because Snape doesn't keep people around for no reason. There has to be some reason he is keeping you close." She turned to Hermione.
"And what makes you think that?" Hermione asked her voice strained as anger flashed behind her eyes.
"Snape is a Slytherin. I am a Slytherin. I know how Slytherins work and we hardly ever do anything out of the kindness of our blackened hearts. We do things only when we can gain something. I know Snape and I know he doesn't do things unless he can benefit from it." She shrugged her shoulders high, turning away to grab another jar.
"Well I am not sleeping with him, and I doubt he expects anything off of me." It was her turn to shrug and turn back to the shelf.
"I mean believe what you want, Granger. I know Snape. I've seen how he works outside of this place and if he cannot benefit himself, he wouldn't be keeping you around. Let's look at it this way. Your friends abducted him and held him against his will. You best mate Potter tried to kill him. Then he just puts all of that aside, doesn't tar you with the same brush and takes you with him when he escapes to bring you back to the one place you actually want to be and then does everything he can to protect you from the Carrow's, who may I add, loathe Snape with a burning desire and would do anything to get their grubby little paws on you because they know if they hurt you, it will bring Snape down. And don't think just because he told them not to touch you that they will listen. Those two don't operate like that." She wiped her hands on her school skirt and turned back to Hermione whose face was totally blank.
"Well. That's a lot to unpack honestly," she whispered. She didn't know how to feel. Did Pansy really know what he was like? It made sense. She was a Slytherin, he was their head of house and it was a known fact her parents fraternised within the deep inner-circle of Voldemort. Was he really keeping her around for her own benefit or was there genuinely a reason he kept her around other than needing to benefit himself.
"If you ask me, I personally think he is using you as ways and means to get back at Potter. If he has you, Potter will want to be the ever brave and gallant Gryffindor and swoop in and save the damsel in distress and that is when he will pounce. I suppose you must be the cheese in the trap of injustices."
Hermione snorted. "I am not in distress and I don't need Harry to come in and save me. We aren't exactly on talking terms. He's a prat honestly and Dumbledore only inflated his ego by constantly reminding him he was the chosen one."
"What is you take on Dumbledore, Granger?" The two slowly starting to relax into conversation.
"For what it is worth I think he was a morally corrupt human who used people for his own gain. He was neither here nor there and never cared for Harry as he led Harry to believe. The man pretended to care but never truly did. A master of deceit if you will."
Only the sound of jars scraping wood and being binned filled the room for a few minutes and Hermione wondered if she had said something offensive to Pansy.
"You know what, Granger? I think in different circumstances you and I could have been good friends." She smiled sadly.
"You're not too bad yourself, Parkinson."
o-o-o-o-o
"What was that about?" Hermione snarled as she threw her bag back down beside his desk.
He merely looked sideways at her before gently placing his quill down on the desk and placed his hands folded on the desk also.
"What was what about?" He asked with an air of innocence.
"That. Detention." She exhaled sharply glaring down her nose at him with disdain and a little bit of disappointment mixed in.
"You are a student at this school. You will be treated as such when the need arises. I can't be playing favourites with you." Arms folded tightly across his chest as he countered her glare of disgust.
"I can't believe this!" She stomped a foot for added dramatic effect. "I sleep in the same bloody bed as you and you want to treat me as if I were any other student? That doesn't sit right with me Severus."
"So you think that gives you the right to do as you wish because you share a bed with me?" His head cocked to the side in question, wondering what her answer would be.
"You know what Severus. Forget it. I'm not going to argue. I will not enter into the argument you are clearly baiting me in to. I was wrong. So very wrong. I thought you were different and it seems I was wrong. I thought you were special. You know I thought maybe, just maybe our relationship was heading out of the realm of friendship and into something more and then turn into captain arsehole and squash any chance of that happening and deep down I think that is what you intended. You kiss me and then you push me away. Do you know how that makes ME feel?"
"With all due respect, I really do not care how you feel. I kissed you. It was a mistake and I regret it immensely. I'm not the person for you and you don't want to be with me. I am abrasive and abrupt. I will and have hurt your feelings. I think it is best we draw the line here and now. I am not wanting to be romantically involved with you in any way, shape or form and the sooner you realise that fact, the better." He stood, pulling himself up to his full height he turned to her, almost trying to intimidate her.
He could see the tears welling in her eyes. The hurt he was responsible for. The pain he had caused we evident on her face. And he felt a small, tight pang of guilt somewhere in his blackened charcoal heart. He didn't want to push her away but he had to. It was bad enough he had dragged her into this mess but he wasn't going to drag her further down that path into the realm of the unknown. Who knew what Voldemort would do to her if he found out their relationship had gone further than platonic. He could dangle her over Severus's head like a proverbial carrot.
No. It wouldn't do. He had to protect her. The ultimate sacrifice as the cost of his happiness.
"You know what. I never want to see you again, Severus." She tried to remain stoic but her lip was quivering and the tears began to fall carelessly down her cheeks. She darted around him, snatched her bag up off the floor and stormed from his office without even a backward glance.
Well. Mission accomplished, he guessed.
A/N: I honestly thought when we went into lockdown, I would be banging out chapters daily for everyone one of my stories. That didn't happen. And then, just like that, restrictions lifted, children went back to school and I had to slowly head back to work. Forgive me for the slackness of updating but I promise this story will be finished eventually.
-Aliasmel1