Chapter 4: A Pawn's Gambit
"It's a good thing fewer students than usual stayed for the holidays this year," Snape commented dryly as they walked through the deserted corridors of Hogwarts. "I rather doubt either of us would welcome the rumors that would start if anyone saw this---" He tightened his grip on her hand.
Hermione blushed; she hadn't realized she was still clinging to his fingers. "I'm sorry."
"No need." They had reached the door to the Potions lab; he started to unlock it, stopped. "Child, if you'd rather go elsewhere---"
Memories of being in that room, even a day ago, before this night had happened, swept over her, bringing with them a painful sense of longing. She opened her mouth to say yes---
And stopped. Where else could they go, for what promised to be a very private conversation? "No," she said. "This will be... fine."
"Good." He unlocked the door with a murmured spell, pushed it open--- but instead of sweeping in ahead of her (as he would have done only yesterday) he gestured for her to precede him into the room.
She hesitated, confused--- then realized with a shock, He's treating me like an adult. An adult woman, entitled to that courtesy.
The thought was a heady one, and she preceded him into the chill room feeling better than she had since she'd shown up in Lucius Malfoy's dungeon.
The contrast between that terrifying room and the familiar Potions "dungeon" made the latter seem almost homey, comforting in its familiarity. But it was a bittersweet comfort: she had, in the last weeks, begun to feel almost... comfortable... with Snape. She felt a pang as she realized that she would never again take for granted the simple exchanges of information and ideas--- narrowly focused, confined to their, to his, research as they had been--- that had characterized her so-called detentions.
Not when she couldn't hear his voice without feeling her blood turn to a liquid fire that burned away thought and shamed her with its madness. Shamed her not least because this was Snape, and he had no tolerance for weakness, because she didn't dare say what she wanted.
It was cold here, as usual, and she snugged down into the folds of his cloak for warmth. Behind her, he moved toward the door of his office. "Would you like to---?" he stopped, making a question of it.
She'd only been in his office once before, to filch the ingredients for a Polyjuice Potion--- and never when he was there. It seemed a much safer place than the classroom, where the contrast of the memories would chase her out of her mind. "Yes."
He opened the door, and again gestured for her to precede him. This time she did so with rather more confidence.
Snape's office was spacious enough, certainly more so than, say, Professor Vector's. Maybe that was why he took the dungeon; no one else would want it, so he had more space to himself.
Not that he seemed to need it; the last time she'd been in here, she hadn't wasted any time looking around, but now she saw that he had nothing in the way of personal effects--- unless you counted the slimy things in jars on the shelves. Which she didn't. There were a couple of chairs beside the cold fireplace, and his desk, and the cupboards with his private stores along the walls. Nothing else; no sign that this was someone's personal space.
She wasn't sure whether that was sad, or scary.
Snape waved her into a chair, waited until she was seated--- that odd, adult courtesy again--- before settling behind his desk.
For a moment, there was an awkward silence; then Snape glanced from her to the cold fireplace, and his lips twitched into something like a smile. "My apologies," he said, drawing out his wand and gesturing a fire into life. "I'm rather used to the cold, myself."
Which reminded her of something she'd learned a while back about him, and had filed away for future use. "Yes, it is rather colder in Switzerland, isn't it?"
He started, looking at her with something like that familiar piercing gaze. "How did you---" Abruptly, he sank back into his chair with a little snort. "Of course, your--- friend--- Viktor Krum attended Durmstrang." He raised an eyebrow. "I'd ask what became of that, but such curiosity seems rather tasteless under the circumstances."
Now they were back on dangerous ground, skirting the edge of... tonight. She took a deep breath. "Nothing, actually--- his parents didn't approve of him seeing a Mudblood." She spoke the last word dryly.
For a moment, Snape's eyes on her were warm, like the touch of gentle fingers. "The more fool he, to let anything come between him and---" He broke off abruptly, and she couldn't bring herself to ask him what he'd been going to say. "That's par for the course for Durmstrang, though, child--- the entire school is Slytherin House at its worst."
She blinked at that bald statement, coming from the Head of Slytherin, not to mention someone who had the ties to Durmstrang that he did. "Why... why didn't you go there--- Viktor told me your mother is Potions Mistress at Durmstrang."
Snape's lips twitched. "Actually, I nearly did--- but my father, for the first time in my then-nine-year-old memory, put his foot down and insisted on Hogwarts. He was a Ravenclaw himself, and I always think he'd rather hoped I would be---" He broke off. "Not that I imagine you're interested in my nostalgic maunderings," he finished, the trademark sarcasm now directed at himself.
"No--- it's---" What it was, was humanizing, making him less the powerful dark shape in that dungeon who controlled her every breath with the slightest whisper and the touch of his long fingers, or even the teacher she had begun to respect, and more like a person. Hearing him talk about his own school days, just talking, brought them level with one another, made him a person she could safely want....
Because she did want him. Never mind that it was shameful and impossible and that he'd have every reason to rebuff any advance she made, and that the whole situation was madness. That if she had any dignity she'd hate the thought of that touch--- though it would be beneath that same dignity to hate him: he'd only been trying to save her life, after all!
None of that stopped her, though, from reacting to his every breath and the slightest twitch of those fingers with an abject and terrifying... want.
"It's fine," she managed--- then added, strike of sardonic inspiration--- "I've been rather exposed to you tonight, it's only fair that I get to see something of you in return, isn't it?"
For a second, his eyes were nothing but startled; then he smiled--- a real smile, warm with approval and even respect. "I suppose it is, at that," he admitted wryly, "though why you'd want to is beyond me---"
He broke off, and in the silence, she wondered, staring at the dark shadowed eyes, how anyone could hate himself so very much.
She opened her mouth to ask--- on this strange and twisted night, it seemed nothing was out of bounds--- but he spoke before she could. "Child," he said gently, "I cannot help but say it again--- I am so very sorry for the harm I have done you, so sorry that your first experience of--- a man--- had to be this---"
She wasn't sure if he meant the horror of tonight... or the simple fact of his own ugliness. Stricken by the disgust in his voice, she said the first words that came to mind. "Better you than Lucius Malfoy any day."
Again he looked startled... then chuckled softly. "There is that, I suppose." He sobered. "Child, you needn't be brave here; you've more than earned the right to ask anything you want of me."
Touch me again. The words formed themselves in her mind before she could think.
But did she really want that? Could she, when hard on the heels of any thought of his wonderful hands came the image of Lucius Malfoy's leering face? Could she ever let herself feel... anything... again?
She began to shake, uncontrollably, and fought--- again--- the urge to curl into a ball and huddle. Yet it was too much to sit there staring at him; she leapt to her feet and went to stand by the fireplace, shivering, trying to pretend that it was it was only the cold.
And it was, in a sense, but it wasn't a cold the fire could warm.
Only his hands could do that.
She leaned against the side of the fireplace--- it was huge, the mantle well above her head--- and tried to collect herself.
For a moment, there was silence behind her--- then she heard a rustle, and started, but forced herself not to move, not to glance fearfully over her shoulder like a terrified child.
Soft but audible footsteps--- she was grateful for the sound; she knew from experience that he could move silently as a cat when he chose--- sounded behind her, stopped a few feet away. After a carefully controlled moment, she looked up, to see him regarding her from the other side of the hearth.
"Child--- Hermione---" His voice was very gentle, infinitely remorseful. He took a slow gliding step forward--- how had she never noticed the sheer sensuality in the smoothness of his stride?--- and, standing at arm's length, reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand.
For a moment, he stroked her face, with a firm, kind touch that was the other side, the safe side, of what had happened in that other dungeon. "Is this too terrible?" he asked softly, his eyes full of concern.
It wasn't terrible at all, and that was what was terrible, but she didn't know how to say that, couldn't say rationally the words that had come out of her mouth under the spell of his caress, and so she only shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. "That's something, then," he sighed, and kept petting her, just that gentle smooth pressure of his hand against her face, from jawline to hair, drawing her tangled mop of curls back from her face.
She leaned into the touch, which was a different thing altogether from the excruciatingly pleasurable caresses she'd just had of him. Different... yet it sparked the same warm tingle inside her.
"Yes," he said softly, as if reading her thoughts. "It's not always horrible, child." And then in a whisper, "I'm not such a monster I can only abuse with these hands---"
And she wasn't sure if it was the pain and remorse and the terrible, terrible self-loathing in his tone that made her do it--- or the ache in her body, the helpless craving that drew her to him like iron to a magnet--- but the next thing she knew, she had crossed the distance between them and buried herself in his arms.
He started violently, stiffened and jerked like he'd been struck as her arms went round his waist--- then, before she could respond to what felt like a rejection, he'd put his arms gently about her, folding her into a warm, sheltering embrace.
For a moment, she thought of that other dungeon, and his arms felt like a trap, imprisoning her. She brought her hands around to his chest, to push away---
Immediately, the arms holding her loosened, and he drew back, his reflexes far faster than hers had been. "Child," he said gently, "you have my word: I shall take no liberties with you--- do nothing, nothing at all, to you without your permission." A soft sound, something that perhaps wanted to be a chuckle if it hadn't been so sad. "Do with me as you will."
The macabre humor of it was enough to force a laugh out of her, and she relaxed then against his chest, resting her hands against his heartbeat and her cheek against her hands. His arms slid gently around her, cradling rather than prisoning; she remembered that his hands, too, had made her feel safe....
But here there was only safety, and shelter, and kindness; the residual half-terrified and half-delighted thrill of being so close to him was melting down, warm embers in the wake of lightning. She could lean her head on his chest and revel in the warmth and safety and there was no shame in it, no loss of control over herself, just this safe kindness.
She relaxed a little against him, breathing in the scent of his skin. Not a scent you'd expect from a man with greasy hair and yellowed teeth: the predominant component was strong soap, the same kind they used to clean their Potions equipment. But there were traces of the herbs and other components they used in Potions, and under it something musky and strong that left itself in the back of her throat and reminded her of the silky throb in his voice when he'd caressed her with words in the darkness---
She began to shiver again, and her lips pulled back into a sob--- ultimate humiliation, to cry like a child along with everything else, and she tried to pull away from him, to hide---
His arms were very gentle about her, and he bent and whispered softly, "There's nothing to be ashamed of, child--- nothing at all. It's good for you to cry, as much as you need---"
And as if those words were a trigger, she found that she could no longer hold back the wracking sobs, and soon she was keening hysterically, rocking back and forth against him with her hands kneading the folds of his robes convulsively.
She found that her knees wouldn't hold her, and she expected that he'd lead her to a chair--- but instead, he drew her close against him and moved them to the hearth. He drew her down with him so that he sat on the hearthstones and she cuddled in his lap, curled up in a ball like she'd wanted to do for what seemed like forever. He gathered her up and wrapped his arms around her and rocked her against him, his chin resting on her head, his voice--- not that silky whisper, but equally soft--- murmuring to her. "It's all right, child, let it go... let it go...."
And she did, just let herself cry with her face buried in his shoulder. After a little while, he fell silent, just holding her and rocking her, one hand combing her hair in a soothing rhythm.
Gradually, the sobs stopped trying to tear their way out of her, and after a time, she was able to relax in his embrace and listen to his heartbeat and the quite crackle of the fire.
Slowly the realization swept over her, so obvious and yet so automatic that it startled her.
She was no longer afraid. Not that his touch didn't send strange thrills through her body, but it was controllable now, not that helpless longing. And the memories of Lucius Malfoy leering down at her still made her shake... but she could be this close to Snape and not tremble.
It was something. More than she'd expected to have for a very long time after this. And she wormed her way deeper into his embrace, cuddled up to him--- just because she could.
She felt him sigh deep in his chest; then his chin came to rest on her head. And for a long time, they simply curled by the fire in peace.
Finally, though, he drew a deep breath. "There's something I'd like to show you, if you're interested," he said, his voice muffled slightly against her hair. "Something that might put tonight's events in a little more perspective for you?"
His voice sounded almost plaintive--- and she was curious; she was always curious. She'd have wondered about her sanity if she weren't. "Yes," she said, leaning back a little to look up at him.
"All right, then," he said, and unwound himself from about her. "Up you get." There was something so--- light--- about his tone and the words that she felt a little lighter inside, herself. She disentangled herself from his arms and let him lift her to her feet as he stood himself.
He kept one arm loosely about her shoulders--- not a lover's gesture; more the way a professor might touch a student he was fond of. Professor Vector sometimes put her arm on Hermione's shoulders that way; the comparison was rather reassuring. "Over here," he said, and guided her to a darkened corner of the room.
She couldn't see for the shadows, but he drew his wand out of some hidden pocket. "Lumos."
She'd expected the wand itself to light--- that was what that spell usually did--- but instead, several small globes hanging from the ceiling flickered into life, revealing two chairs on either side of a small table, on which stood--- a chess set.
"It was my mother's," Snape said into her puzzled silence. "She gave it to me when I graduated from Hogwarts." He stepped past her to the table, turned to face her, the warm dim light throwing an odd play of shadows across his face. "Do you play?"
"N-not well," she managed, surprised, thinking that if Ron always beat her, then Snape would wipe the board with her. But she sat down gamely.
Snape perhaps sensed something of her thoughts, for he smiled dryly across the table at her. "I'm not asking for a game," he said, "unless you'd like to play--- though I misdoubt either of us is up to the challenge tonight." He dropped into the seat across from her. "No--- I only asked because I wanted to know if you understood the game."
She had the feeling there was more to it than that. "You mean the one on the board, or the one you're playing?"
He regarded her with some surprise--- then a smile flickered over those saturnine features, taking ten years off his age in the dim light. "Very good," he said gently, "very good indeed." He sat forward, leaning over the board. "Actually, they have a great deal in common."
He gestured to the pieces in front of them; some of the pieces looked back. "Offhand, child, which piece on a chessboard would you say is the most powerful?"
"The queen," she replied without hesitation. "It---" Both the black and the white queens turned to look at her with identical expressions of disgust on their perfectly chiseled little faces, and she hastily amended, "I mean, she has free range of motion."
Snape nodded. "And which would you say had the least?"
"The pawns." Again, an easy answer.
"Very good,' he said softly. "Now, child, look at this chessboard--- at the pieces--- and tell me what you see."
She did as he bade her, dropping her head down to the table and resting her chin on her hands to be at eye level with the board. It was on a turntable, and, after a glance at Snape for permission, she turned it ninety degrees to get a look at both sides.
You didn't often see a whole wizard chess set--- most people had a set of pieces that they played as either color, since the chess pieces responded best if they knew and trusted you. This was an old set, and no mistake; the pieces, as sometimes happened with wizard chess sets, had acquired a distinct life and personality of their own. Several of them left their places and came over to the edge of the board to return her gaze impudently.
One of the pawns sat on the edge of the board, cross-legged, returning her gaze with frank interest. Hermione stared back blankly at the pawn--- then looked closer---
She sat up abruptly. "They're girls!" She picked up one of the pawns, ignoring its--- her--- startled squeak. "They're all girls!"
Snape smiled. "Precisely." He touched one of the girl-pawns on the head, and she turned to look at him. "This set was given to my mother as a wedding gift, by one of our cousins---" his lip twisted wryly--- "it requires a degree in genealogy to sort out the tangled familial relationships among purebloods, child; most Slytherins make a hobby of it, at least while they're on the marriage market---" his eyes darkened, and she winced away from the thought of what he would have gone through as a young man expected to make a good marriage. "At any rate, it represents one of the traditions on both sides of my family that I think will meet with your approval---" the glitter in his eyes bordered on a twinkle--- "a certain high regard for strong women."
There were any number of ways to take that statement--- she shied away from the more personal, and settled for the most literal. "But why pawns, if it's a feminist chess set?" she asked.
He clucked his tongue at her; only the glitter of humor in his eyes kept it from being a scold. "That's why I asked if you played chess, child," he chided. "Think--- what can the pawn do that no other piece can?"
She stared at the board for a minute, thinking hard--- looking at the little girl pawns, and the other pieces, the stolid rooks, the knights on their prancing horses, the careworn and rather nervous-looking kings, and the proud queens---
And understood. "It can become a queen."
His dry, approving smile reminded her of the more pleasant moments they'd spent in the lab during her detentions. "Precisely." With a little wave of his hand, he urged a black rook and its attendant pawn out of the way, then directed a white pawn, step by single-square step, across the board.
At the eighth square, it paused and shimmered, growing taller and filling out, until there were three queens on the board.
Snape looked across at her. "Of course, the pawn's journey isn't that simple---" another wave of his hand and the pieces resumed their starting positions, the new queen dwindling back down to her pawn-self as she returned to her starting square. "It's usually more like--- let me think--- ah--- like this---" another gesture, and the pieces began to move.
She'd seen piece-games played out like this before; chess sets remembered every game they'd ever played, and you could get them to replicate a game as long as you had two sets that had played the same one. Since the black and white came together in this set, they knew all the same games.
Hermione could tell at a glance that it was a much more sophisticated game than the ones that usually happened in the Gryffindor common room. The pieces moved in complicated patterns, a stately, savage dance.
She watched in fascination as one by one, the pieces fell. And it took no great observational skill to note that the pawns were the hardest hit. The little ones zigzagged across the board, occasionally taking pieces, more often getting taken as they made their slow painful way across the board to the eighth row.
Finally, it was down to only a few pieces: the kings, black's queen, one white bishop, and a scattering of others, mostly black.
And, in the back row, one little white pawn, on the seventh square.
The pawn stepped forward, and became a queen.
Hermione looked up at Snape, who was watching her with shadowed eyes. "A pawn," he repeated, "can become a queen--- if she can survive."
For a moment, she didn't understand... then it hit her, and she sat up straight, staring unseeing at the board because she couldn't meet his eyes.
The perfect pawn. His silky voice, coaxing and taunting Lucius Malfoy, came back to her in a memory she didn't realize she had. She looked up at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"It's a dangerous trip across the board," he said, and she knew that they had left the literal and entered the realm of metaphor, "and we're a dreadfully long way from the eighth square." His dark eyes captured hers, and there was nothing of humor or gentleness about them, only a deadly earnestness. "There's no shame in stepping out of play before you're taken."
She closed her eyes for a moment. He was offering her a choice: to be safe, to avoid another nightmare like what had happened tonight---
For a minute, the thought of safety was wildly tempting. To put Lucius Malfoy's dungeon behind her as just an isolated, terrifying memory and try to get on with her life---
But could she? Rational thought intruded. The game that they were playing was for no lesser stakes than the life and freedom of everyone they cared about--- and the black king was no one less than the most powerful Dark wizard in a hundred years.
If one little pawn could creep its way across the board and turn the tables with a queen's power, it had to be risked.
A queen's power. She gasped as the implications came to her. If she could reach the eighth square, she'd never have a pawn's fears again. She could take her life back--- recover from those moments of helpless fear and even more powerless surrender she'd known in Malfoy's dungeon. She could control her own destiny.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I'm a Gryffindor, aren't I?" she asked. "And we're supposed to be brave."
She reached out and tapped the new white queen (the pieces had paused once they took their attention off the board). The queen looked up at her, nodded--- and made straight for a black knight threatening her king. She dragged him off his horse and sent him flying, then glared imperiously around the board.
Snape smiled dryly--- but there were shadows in his dark eyes. "It's not an easy path, child, nor will it likely be a pleasant one." His lip twisted. "You may sometimes wish you were back in that dungeon."
A flash of memory washed over her--- his hands, caressing her intimately, melting her bones with pleasure--- and it was only with an effort that she suppressed a hungry tremor. "What's involved?" she asked, proud of the steadiness of her voice.
Snape took a deep breath, steepling his fingers and leaning back, out of the light, so that only his glittering eyes were visible in the shadows. "If you think that I've been a stern taskmaster before this," he said, "you'll consider me an absolute monster before we're done."
The possible meanings of that comment made her shiver, and he muttered something under his breath, sitting forward sharply. "No, child, I did not mean that!" He reached out a hand to her, and she let his warm fingers rest over her arm for a moment, feeling the wash of pleasure that was far less guilty than it had been a few hours ago.
He sat back and regarded her somberly. "Though I will not lie to you--- it may be necessary for me to--- evoke certain responses in you from time to time, as part of our deception. After all, you must seem to be in truth my pawn---" his lip curled, and he flexed his fingers, looking at them in disgust--- "a slave to what my hands can do to you---"
The memory hit her again, and she shivered. That wasn't so far from the truth; she was awfully glad that they were on the same side....
He looked up at her, seriously. "Though I swear to you, child, that if I have any power at all, I will never--- place you on display before the likes of Lucius Malfoy again."
She stared at him: he wore an expression of loathing that she'd only seem him direct at Harry and Professor Lupin. Somehow, it warmed her heart to think that he could despise someone that she also hated.
"Yes, child," he said softly into her surprised and gratified silence. "I despise Malfoy--- and his maggot of a son--- as much as you. Perhaps more--- I've seen more of what that slime is capable of---" He broke off, biting his lip, looking away, his expression bleak and haunted.
She decided that she really didn't want to know what Malfoy could do--- not if tonight was only a small example. "But---" she ventured timidly, "if you hate him so much then why--- in class you always---"
He looked back at her, the smile on his face unpleasantly familiar to a Gryffindor who'd sat through six years of Potions classes with him as her professor. "All part of the charade, child--- wouldn't a loyal Death Eater naturally favor the spawn of his old cohorts?" His eyes glittered darkly. "Besides, what better way to handicap the next generation of Voldemort's troops than by spoiling them rotten? Accustoming them to getting everything they want--- with none of the discipline and effort that being an effective servant of either side requires?"
She stared at him in astonishment--- and the other side of that equation came to her. "And you teach the rest of us--- you're so hard on us, because we need to be prepared---"
"Precisely." His lip twisted. "If you lot can't survive me, you've no chance against Voldemort."
She almost smiled at that--- then a thought occurred to her. "But--- are all the Slytherins just... what you said, 'the next generation of Voldemort's troops'? I mean, the whole House can't be--- or can it?" Her head was spinning. This was one too many revelations for a night of horror.
Snape smiled. "Very good--- you haven't let Gryffindor prejudice get in the way of sense." For just a second, that smile twisted into something dark and despairing, and he looked away from her, into the darkness--- then he turned back, and his expression was wry, cynical, but no longer haunted. "There are a few decent students in Slytherin--- just as the other Houses have a few of the other sort in their midst." He raised an eyebrow at her, steepled his fingers on the table between them. "And how do you think I should treat them?"
She blinked at the unexpected question--- then looked down at the chessboard: maybe this was the beginning of the pawn's journey. "Well, you can't very well treat them any differently from the rest of the House, can you? That would only set them apart more--- and you don't want the best of the lot getting put on, it'd only drive them to be like the nasty ones...?" She looked hesitantly across the table at him; the glitter in his eyes was guardedly approving, and she went on. "I suppose you'd have to be a little rough on them, though, wouldn't you--- don't want to spoil them like the others, and it probably keeps their housemates off them a little, if you're not favoring them."
His thin lips stretched into a wholly approving smile, and she felt a warm glow flow over her. "Very good, child--- right in one." He paused for a second, looking about to say something more, then fell silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was in a completely different tone, his usual dry one. "As you've probably surmised---" he waved at the chessboard--- "that little test of your analytical skills was a part of our... pawn's gambit, shall we call it." He picked up one of the white pawns, his long fingers playing over its shape in a way that Hermione could not help but find... seductive. "A part," he said, looking at her across the board, "but only a small one."
She swallowed hard, having trouble keeping her eyes on his; they kept wanting to wander back to that pawn turning over and over in his long deft hands.... "What's the rest of it?"
He smiled darkly, sat forward and settled the pawn on the table between them. "To be honest with you, I don't know--- at least not all of it---" he made a gesture at the board, and the pieces resumed their original places, black facing white across the board. "You see, the game is barely begun--- we could move in so many directions...." He trailed off, staring moodily at the board, lost in thought, apparently; she kept silent, respecting his musing.
"One thing I can tell you---" His voice broke the silence suddenly, startling her--- "is that it will involve another set of lessons---"
She started slightly, her mind going back to that little dungeon room and the thought of the kind of things he could teach her---
He didn't appear to notice, for he gave a dry laugh. "You should be pleased, child--- you'll be getting instruction in the Dark Arts from a former Death Eater--- the best teacher possible for such an apt pupil."
She blinked, the terrifying and exciting fantasies shredding like gossamer cloth under strong hands. "The--- the Dark Arts?" she repeated, confused.
"Yes---" his voice had something of the old impatience in it--- "unlike the pawn, child, you won't magically transfigure into a powerful queen at the moment of truth--- you'll need some advance preparation." Chill look in his dark and glittering eyes, mesmerizing her. "And sometimes, the best way to fight fire is with fire."
"You mean... I'll be... I'll have to fight... Death Eaters?"
That impatient expression was back. "Yes, of course--- what did you expect?" His voice was the old familiar whipcrack--- but it was unexpected after the kindness he'd shown her tonight, and she felt her eyes fill with tears. She closed them, trying to hide the pain from him, feeling a fresh surge of shame at her own weakness.
"Child---" he muttered something she couldn't hear; his chair scraped on the floor, and a second later, she felt his warmth next to her. "Hermione--- look at me."
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, to find him kneeling beside her chair. As in the anteroom to the Headmaster's office, he'd managed to arrange himself so that his head was a little below hers, and the sight of him looking up at her was strangely calming.
He took her face in his hands, gently, his fingers splayed along her skull, the thumbs just brushing her temples. "Hermione," he said earnestly, looking into her eyes, "this is part of the gambit."
She stared into his dark eyes, glittering intensely--- and it was the same look he'd given her in Malfoy's dungeon, that apologized and pleaded at once. She nodded slightly, and he released her.
"Do you understand?" he asked softly, one hand coming up to stroke her hair, tangling gently in the curls. "Do you see why I have to do this? Why you need it?"
She looked away for a moment, wanting to allow herself the hurt, the weakness of it... but her own words mocked her. "You're so hard on us, because we need to be prepared...."
And the worst he would do was--- again--- better than what Malfoy and his cohorts could dream up.
She swallowed hard, looking back up at him. "Yes," she said at last.
"Good." He drew back a little. "I did warn you, after all, that you'd find me a cruel taskmaster---" his lip twisted--- "Even more so than usual, that is."
She nodded slightly. "I--- know. But--- this is the best option, isn't it?" Flash of insight--- she must be feeling more brilliant than usual, maybe it was something to do with her brain making up for her earlier helplessness--- "Like what you did in M-mr. Malfoy's dungeon?"
For a moment he stared at her, his eyes widening slightly, his lips parting in surprise. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, drew a long breath, as if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders. When he opened his eyes again, they were warm and almost painfully grateful on hers.
"I wasn't certain if you would realize that, child," he murmured. "If you could understand the calculation involved--- it's not a question of intellect," he added hastily, seeing the flicker of hurt that must have crossed her face as it did her heart--- "but of experience, of being able to look past your own emotions and analyze a situation despite its personal horror---"
His eyes flickered away from her face, and he looked, for a second, very hurt and sad and somehow young and vulnerable. Then he looked back at her, and the warmth was back. "Once again, you manage to impress me."
Again his hand cupped her head, this time with a gentle pressure on the back of her skull that invited her to lean close... if she wanted. "Come here?" Again, invitation rather than command.
It seemed like a very natural thing to do, and there was nothing of either threat or promise in his voice or manner, and so she leaned forward as he rose up on his knees and drew her head to his shoulder.
She felt his cheek rub against the side of her head, the warmth of his breath stirring her hair as his fingers combed through the tight curls. "It won't be all harshness, child," he said softly against her hair. Then, with a faint echo of bitterness, "it can't be, can it?"
She remembered what he'd said about "evoking certain responses," and her body gave a little shiver of pleasurable panic, but she was just too tired, too worn out after the nightmare night she'd had and the emotional roller coaster she'd ridden, to care. It was simply too pleasant to lean against him, with his arm gently around her and her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin and feeling, for the moment at least, very safe and cared for.
After a moment, though, he let her go, pushing her back just a little. She sat up, reluctantly, and caught her breath, wondering what would happen next.
For a moment, he simply stroked her hair, cradling her face against his palm, his expression inscrutable. Then, with a slight sigh, he met her eyes again. "It would be an understatement approaching absurdity, not to mention a cruelty beyond even my capacity, to say that you've had a long night." She had to smother a giggle at that remark. He rose gracefully to his feet, his hand falling to his side amid the folds of his robes. "So child, I'd advise that you get yourself back to your dormitory--- by way of the kitchens; the house elves will be happy to fetch you a small feast---"
Hermione flinched at the mention of house-elves; she'd never gotten over the sense that the poor things were badly maltreated... and tonight of all nights she couldn't help but a feel a certain kinship with them.
Snape, of course, noticed. "What is it?" he asked, frowning slightly in concern--- then his expression cleared. "More of that 'house-elf rights' nonsense you perpetrated last year?" he asked dryly. "I heard about that---"
Now she was on more familiar ground, defending an opinion--- one she'd had to defend with all sorts of research for the last year. "It isn't nonsense!" she exclaimed, getting her feet under her and rising to face him. "They're nothing but slaves---"
Snape seemed quite taken aback by her reaction--- then he smiled slightly, and she braced herself for a condescending remark---
Which never came. "A queen in the making," he murmured, more to himself than to her. The slight smile acquired a wry twitch at the corners. "Oh, I'll grant they're rather a sorry lot these days," he said, shrugging slightly, "but did you, Miss Granger, with your vaunted research skills, ever discover exactly where house elves came from--- and more to the point, what they came from?"
Hermione blinked, startled by the turn the debate had taken. "Well--- no," she admitted. "I found some books about it, but they were in the restricted section---"
"As well they should be," he said firmly. "Child, to give you an idea of what the ancestors of today's house-elves were like---" His lip twisted. "Well, they weren't nearly as nice as goblins, nor as magically weak as a phoenix." He raised an eyebrow. "Does that give you an idea?"
Hermione stared at him; somehow, the idea that the poor downtrodden house-elves had once been something that was very likely a terrible menace was almost the worst shock of the night. "I--- er--- oh, dear," she said faintly.
Snape, perhaps out of kindness, did not press his advantage. "Well, you're a prefect now," he said, "so you can look it up for yourself--- and if you fancy," he added, "I've a few books on the subject that Madam Pince most emphatically does not." He smiled at the surprise on her face. "Family heirlooms, child--- some of my father's ancestors were involved--- along with---" his lip twisted--- "a few of the Potter family, if I remember correctly."
She blinked; the notion of Harry's family working with... Snape's... was just a little much for her.
But then, as Ron would probably point out, just the notion of Snape having a family ought to be enough to boggle anyone's mind.
The thought brought a surprising well of defensive anger in her chest... and she realized: Snape was now one of the people she'd take up for.
This ought to make for an interesting holiday, she thought wearily. She wasn't sure what she'd do if Harry and Ron started griping about their Potions homework---
Which reminded her--- "I'm supposed to be at home this holiday," she said, then in a rush, "What should I tell... Harry and Ron?"
Snape blinked at the abrupt change of subject--- or perhaps not so abrupt, given that they had been discussing family. He opened his mouth--- then snapped it closed, moved back from her and leaned on the table. "What should you tell them?" he asked quietly, folding his arms over his chest and raising one eyebrow.
Of course--- another part of the pawn's gambit. She thought for a minute. "I think I'd better tell them the truth... just not all of it," she decided. "I'll tell them that... Mr. Malfoy... kidnaped me, and that you talked him out of hurting me and convinced him I could be made to spy on Harry." She looked up at him anxiously. "Is that... right?"
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment--- then, abruptly, nodded. "A rather bald narrative--- but I trust you'll provide it with suitable dressing before you take it out in public?" She nodded, and he continued. "As little as I like the notion of telling Potter anything, I fear he needs to know... if only so that he'll play along; he's got that much sense, I trust---" He bit his lip. "More than his father, I hope for your sake."
The look on his face was sufficiently bleak as to make her startle, but before she could react, his expression cleared. "In any event," he said, "you'll need your wits about you for that discussion--- so I suggest you take yourself off to your dormitory--- by way of the kitchen, if---" his lip twisted--- "you can manage to eat anything."
An hour ago, she would have considered the thought a nauseating one, but suddenly she was ravenous--- her body overcoming the shock she'd had, she decided, and thought that drugging herself with caloric overload--- just this once--- was a Very Good Idea. "All right."
But she didn't move.
For a moment, they stared at each other. It had just occurred to her that leaving and being out of his presence were the same thing, and she realized suddenly that she very much didn't want that. "P-professor Snape?" It was hard to say his name somehow.
He flinched, and she realized with a shock that felt very like lightning that it was the very words she'd used in the dungeon--- but what else could she call him?
After a moment, he seemed to recover, and he smiled slightly, wryly. "You might call me Severus, child, when we're alone---"
Now it was her turn to twitch, at the unexpected intimacy and what it might portend.
He noticed. "Or---" he said dryly, "not, if you prefer---"
There was something under the sarcasm, something that spoke of pain... and rejection. "Severus," she blurted, inspired more by that hurt than by anything rational.
He twitched, but it wasn't the same sort of thing as the flinch, she thought--- and knew it when he smiled. "Yes, child?" The smile acquired its usual sardonic glint. "You were about to ask me something, I believe?"
"I---" Now that she thought about it, what she wanted to ask was at least as intimate-sounding as calling him by his given name. "Do--- when should I come back here?"
He looked startled for a moment, then recovered himself. "When would you like to?" Soft voice--- tense, as if it wanted to be that silky caress and wasn't allowed.
Tomorrow, was her first thought. She shivered. "I--- how soon would be safe?"
His lips twitched wryly. "I rather think that depends on your friends---" his voice made the word a slight insult--- "and what they're likely to think of your visiting me---" he got a faraway, calculating sort of expression on his face, that left as soon as it arrived. "That's up to you, child," he said, his tone brisk without losing its gentleness--- then, dryly, "I'll certainly be here, if you wish to find me."
Again that hint of hurt in his voice, and she thought with a pang, He hasn't anywhere else to go. "I--- I'll do that."
He nodded slightly. For an awkward moment, they stood together, neither one moving, then he said, "You'd best be gone, then, child."
She swallowed hard against a tight knot in her throat--- a knot that had something to do with being alone in cold, dark hallways and her little room. After a moment, she got herself under control--- a queen shouldn't be scared, she chided herself, and nodded, trying to make it firm. "All right."
"I'll see you out--- I want to lock up." He ushered her out through the lab to the corridor, his hand not quite resting on her back. At the door, she turned back to him before he could open it.
"Th-thank you," she said, not sure how grateful she actually felt, but knowing that she ought to be.
His lip twisted, but the sardonic expression seemed to be more for himself than for her. "Don't," he told her gently.
She lingered there for a moment, looking into his eyes, torn between a desire to leave with any haste dignity would allow, and to cling to him with all her strength.
He solved the dilemma for her. "Good night, child." There was just the barest hint of command about it, and she obeyed without thinking--- much.
"Good night--- Severus." She turned the knob and went out in the hall.
Behind her, she thought she heard his voice, very soft, whisper her name. "Hermione."
But when she turned around, the door was closed.
