Trouble in The Staff Room
Chapter Eight: Alone in the World
Albus Dumbledore sat in his office. It was well past midnight and his plan was not yet complete in his mind, well it was, it just needed a bit of fine tweaking here and there and ah, yes his plan should be ready.
* * *
Hermione lay awake, staring at the red velvet canopy above here bed. She couldn't sleep something that she couldn't quite lay her finger on, was bothering her. It was preventing her from sleeping.
She gave one last long sigh and decided to go for a walk in the grounds, of course she knew that she could be caught, but she couldn't sleep and when it was like that at home, when her parents had argued. She drove the thought from her mind, pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and crept silently from the dormitory
She slipped out of the portrait hole and began to creep away.
"Miss Granger." A Welsh voice said behind, her heart leapt and stopped beating. Slowly she turned round.
"I was" what was she going to do? "I was on my way to the bathroom."
"It's okay. You couldn't sleep either?" Hermione found herself staring at Snape. Snape had asked her a question and had not used any sarcasm or spoken in his usual cold, nasty voice.
"No," she replied. "Are you all right sir?"
"Yes thank you Miss Granger. Why shouldn't I be?"
"No, it's just that, you're acting different."
"I'm just preoccupied, I haven't really thought about what I say or act recently." He shrugged. "Maybe it's a change for the better?"
"Sure"
"You want to walk with me?"
"Why not?" Hermione and Snape set off out of the school and around the grounds.
* * *
The Forbidden Forest was dark and the trees loomed threateningly out of it. Hagrids hut was silhouetted against the low moon, which was partly covered by cloud.
There wasn't a sound in the grounds, save for the occasionally scurrying of a mouse or the rustle of the tress in the gentle breeze. The world was at peace.
Hermione turned to Snape.
"Sir, what is wrong?" she asked him.
"Hermione," he stopped and turned to her. She saw the lines on his young face and traces of grey hair on his head. She realised how hard life was for him. "There are things about me that people will never understand. Or accept."
"I know what you mean."
"No one understands."
"Or knows what to say."
"No one can help you."
"When they do, they're no help."
They both stopped and turned to face each other.
"I'm sorry." Snape said, he turned and began to walk slowly back together, hands deep in his robe pockets. Hermione ran after him.
"Don't be sorry. Please, tell me what's wrong, talking to someone can normally help."
"Not when the other person is a pupil. You wouldn't understand, and I believe you should get back to your dormitory."
"Let me help you." Snape turned, his eyes lit dangerously.
"I DON'T WANT ANY HELP! I'M FINE GOT THAT? I WISH PEOPLE WOULD STOP TRYING TO MEDDLE!" he shouted angrily at her, Hermione was shocked by his sudden personality shift.
"Ok." She replied after a few moments of silence.
"Please." He pleaded with her. "Just go, please." He sank to his knees his head in his hands.
"Okay." Hermione turned her back on him, she was going to go straight to Professor McGonagall, and she couldn't leave Snape in this condition.
* * *
Professor McGonagall was having a nightmare. She was being chased, through the Forbidden Forest. No matter how fast or where she ran whatever was chasing her was never far behind.
A soft tap, tap, tap woke her up. Over the years she had been woken from many a sleep and this was the first time she had been grateful. She pulled herself out of her bed. She shuddered as her bare feet touched the cold stone floor.
"This school really needs to come in the twentieth century." She muttered, struggling over to the door.
She pulled it open.
"Ms Granger!" she was shocked that Hermione was out of bed at this time of night.
"Miss, please, its professor Snape." Hermione didn't need to say any more for McGonagall to understand.
"Where is he?"
"Outside."
"Okay, I'll see to this, please go back to bed Ms Granger."
She watched as Hermione disappeared up the marble staircase. Minerva turned to put on her slippers and dressing gown, before walking swiftly out of the school.
* * *
Severus looked up from his hands. The moon shone as bright as day in the deep velvet sky. The moon looked cold and sorrowful, it reflected how he felt, his only solitude was in the moon.
"How can I go?" he asked the moon. "I can't. No one understands. No one can help me. No one. I'm alone."
"Not entirely, Sev." He turned and saw Professor McGonagall standing a little bit to his left.
"Minerva, please." He stood up, his knees caked in brown mud.
"Severus, you can't keep shutting it all out. It's going to make you ill, you have to talk to someone."
"Minerva, I've got no one to talk to."
"Me, Albus, Hagrid. Sev, there are a lot of people on the staff that don't give a monkeys."
"And what about the bastards that do?" he choked down a lump in his throat. "If they see that they have got to me their tortures will get worse."
"Severus, the decisions really up to you, but please talk to someone. Come on, back inside."
* * *
Draco Malfoy lay awake, staring at the green canopy above his bed. He knew what he was to do, his father had drilled it into him, but was it right to discriminate against his house master just because he was different? All the moral issues that swam through his head he had to ignore, but he couldn't! They were too strong.
I must do it. I can't let the family name down.
Crabbe gave a grunt, rolled over and began to snore softly. Draco looked at his sleeping friend. He desperately wanted to wake him and tell him his troubles, but that wasn't what a Slytherin did. A Slytherin sorted his (or her) problems out, alone.
* * *
Voldemort stood laughing over two bodies. A young baby was sitting innocently on the floor beside its parents fallen bodies.
Voldemort stopped laughing. He looked at the child, he saw his own hurt in the child's eyes, but he dismissed it. He was going to kill the child.
He raised his wand, and the child looked hard at him. Its innocence burned him, and Voldemort could not do it. He raised his wand again, and muttered a different spell, than the one he had used to kill the baby's parents with.
"Obliviate!" a bright green light shot from his wand, hit the child. The child would forget this day, but perhaps remember it in his dreams.
"Avada Kedavra!" a second voice cried out. Green light filled the room and Voldemort saw his life flash before his eyes, the pain and misery he had caused. He felt his body crumple beneath him and he was no longer human. The second man crabbed both the child and Voldemort, he rushed them out of the house, before the building gave way and fell to the floor, like a house of cards.
"Tra." He began to say, but he was too weak to speak, slowly he pulled his body away from the ruin of the house.
"Go, Tom." The second man spoke softly. "Get out of this place and never return, you'd be wise to do so."
* * *
Harry woke up with a start; he had seen something he had never seen before in his all to frequent dream. Voldemort hadn't been going to kill him, he had made him forget, someone else had put the Avada Kedavra curse on Voldemort and crippled him.
Harry had not saved the world from Voldemort's wrath, someone else had done. He was about to wake Ron and tell him, but then he stopped. If the person who had caused Voldemort's downfall had not come forward when it was revealed that Harry had done, maybe that person (A/N Harry knows who it is, but I'm not telling you) didn't want to be acknowledged as the saviour of Wizard-kind.
Harry turned over; he wanted to forget what he had just seen in his dream.
