Trouble in the Staff Room
Chapter 11: Try and catch the wind
Hermione looked up at the moon. She had said her first word, and didn't know how to proceed.
"I've got major problems." She began slowly. "It's with my parents. They argue all the time. I hate them. They act like the perfect couple in public, but then when they get home they start arguing. I get ignored."
* * *
Snape lay in the San. His stomach hurt from Filch's kicks. Tears ran out of the corner of his eyes. He was alone. No one could help him. He lay there, tears trickling silently onto his pillow.
He remembered something, his mother had told him this when he was little, before she had died.
On her deathbed, she had taken his tiny hand and croaked to him.
"When ever you feel alone, hurt or depressed, talk to the stars. I'll be there watching you." She had given a deep breath and let go of his hand.
"Noo!" He had screamed he tried to shake his mother, but she didn't respond. The doctors took him away, kicking and screaming.
He had remembered those last minutes all his life, and this time was the time to speak to his mum.
He clambered painfully out of the bed and put his sweater over the top of his blue and white pinstriped pyjamas. With a glance into Madam Pomfrey's office, satisfied that she was not going to wake, he crept out of the Hospital Wing.
* * *
Professor McGonagall had fallen asleep in Snape's room. Her head lolled peacefully to one side and she snored gently.
* * *
Sleep had finally overcome Draco Malfoy and he was now sleeping peacefully. His dreams were undisturbed by the thoughts of the terrible deed he was going to perform. He was at peace.
* * *
Professor Dumbledore had fallen asleep in his office chair. His head upon a very thick book on "Advanced Transfiguration"
* * *
Snape crept up to the astronomy tower and heard a voice.
"I wish they would stop, just for an hour." The voice sounded strained, as though whoever was speaking was trying to hold back tears.
Apprehensively he continues his assent.
* * *
The door creaked open and Hermione jumped. She hid behind the teachers' desk, hoping that whoever or whatever had just come in would soon go away.
"Hello?" a voice asked. Hermione recognised it as Snape's and still she kept low. "Anyone up here?"
Hermione for some unknown reason stood up.
"Yes." She said. Snape jumped and turned around.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"I couldn't sleep, and I needed to talk to someone, and well I always talk to the moon. You?" she noticed the cuts on his head, his nose (which was bent sideways due to it breaking) and his black eye.
"The same really." He replied. "I'll go."
"No don't." Hermione couldn't believe that she wanted Snape to stay. "We both need someone to talk to and well"
"I believe that I should not tell you, as it would"
"Well we may as well." Snape looked at her. What harm could it do?
"Very well." He sat down on the floor next to her. "On my way up here I heard you saying about your parents" he stopped and looked at her.
"They never stop arguing. Always, every day they argue. It hurts." Hermione sniffed and Snape handed her his handkerchief. "Thanks." She said.
"Parents do argue."
"Yes, but not as bad as mine." She replied miserably. "I had an old sister once."
"Had?"
"Yes. She killed herself, because of all the arguing. Took an overdose of painkillers. I found her lying in her bed, asleep. I tried to wake her, but she wouldn't. She was all cold. On the floor was a note, it said 'I can't live with this arguing good bye, I love you all' I thought my parents would stop arguing. Even at the wake they argued in the kitchen."
"How old were you?"
"Six." Snape swallowed a lump in his throat. "Now they are getting a divorce."
"That's not too bad. My parents divorced when I was very young." Snape pattered her cold hand.
"They did?"
"Yes. My father was a Dutchman, and my mother was the daughter of a rich Welsh bureaucrat. Both families disapproved of the marriage but couldn't intervene. Soon after I was born they started to argue. Then all I knew was that one day my father walked out with a bag. I thought he would come back, and I used to sit and watch from the window. One day I asked my mother 'When's daddy coming back?' she told me that he never was, and that he had found someone else. When I was six, my parents were killed in a car accident, both of them - they'd been on the way to the courts to battle out who got me. My uncle and his sister took me in. My unlce abused me, badly. He was sent to Azakaban when I was sixteen." Snape was shocked with himself for volunteering this sort of information, but for once he did not feel ashamed of his past.
"Was your mum a witch?" Hermione enquired fascinated by the information Snape was providing about his personal life.
"No."
"That sounds awful."
"Not as bad as what happened to you."
"But your whole world fell apart when you were six, mine is still falling apart." Snape looked at her.
"Hermione." He spoke softly. "I lost the people close to me, before I was old enough to understand. I can't even remember my father, or my mother that well. You lost someone that you were close to."
"What's"
"I'm a homosexual." Hermione stared dumbstruck at him.
"Well they say it's the person you least expect."
Snape smiled. "Yes they do indeed."
"And they others won't accept you?"
"Can you read minds?"
"No"
"Well" They sat in silence for a while.
"Your problem is" they both began to say.
"You first." Snape motioned with his hand.
"No you."
"Hermione"
"Oh ok. I was going to say your problem can be resolved."
"As was I. But I may as well try and catch the wind."
