Silent Prison
by Verity
She tugs at the strap of her dress – it is slipping down her shoulder again, Mother would poke her in the back if she saw her and say Straighten up! in that tone of voice expressly reserved for a disobedient child. But it's chilly out, so she's hunched over a little and wishing she'd had the sense to bring a shawl. Of course, Mother could never know about this, never would, unless... Stop fooling yourself. Secrets are the prices we pay for freedom, she thinks. But this wasn't liberty, not really – a silent prison she was locking herself in. He could never…
She'd always been such a good little girl, she reflects, looking out of one of the Astronomy Tower's wide windows. Then came Harry and Ron and Voldemort… Voldemort who was dead now, never going to come back. Dead by her hand. She had such pretty hands – they were slender porcelain with neatly trimmed, unadorned nails.
A memory of that night comes back to her then, the last time she'd ever seen Ron or Harry. Both had kissed her on the cheek and vanished down their separate paths. It was always her turn to wait at the fork in the road – and she'd broken that promise.
She can still see them, if she wants to; Madam Pomfrey has assured her they'll be waking up any day now. But she doesn't want to have to look into their eyes and tell them what she's done.
It's so cold up here. She wraps her arms around herself. Memory of Voldemort, crying out in agony – she'd been surprised he could feel the pain, she'd thought he was a monster –
Forgotten, for a moment, that he had once been human, like her. Forgotten until his red, human blood spilled out of him, over the knife and her alabaster hands…
No! A MONSTER! she screams at her inner self. Firmly. She will deny him that humanity; will deny herself the spiraling abyss to follow.
Dead by my hands. And such pretty hands to die by. Would he have known that? Would he have ever looked at her hands? Ever even contemplated them touching him? No, not her, she's not callous enough, not brave enough, not daring enough, not bright enough…
"But I was," she whispers, and as she does, a warm cloak drops over shoulders. "Professor Snape," she says, and closes her eyes.
"Severus," he corrects her, gently, which surprises her – there was only the one look between them, a look that could have meant any number of things, as she came out of Voldemort's lair, her white dress soaked with ruby-red blood. He had been there to catch her when she crumpled, dropped the crystal knife to the floor and watched it shatter.
She had been the one to send the note. "I…" she begins, falters. Where does one go from a chance glance one night in the middle of a war?
"I'm not your Professor anymore," Severus says swiftly – which is right, because it was the night of the Leaving Feast that the Order was called together… She wonders vaguely why she's still at Hogwarts. Then remembers, with a flash of pain, Harry and Ron in the infirmary, and her parents' graves still fresh in the ground… the Death Eaters had no limits, and they had carried out their Master's revenge, even in death. Fitting, really.
"I know." She opens her eyes, turns to him. And he hugs her. No, hugs isn't right – embraces her, and after a minute or so she realizes he is leaning on her as much as she is leaning on him. They all need to support each other. Now.
Startling, isn't it, she thinks, that this is the first anyone's touched you since Harry and Ron? Except for Pomfrey, though Pomfrey hadn't really counted. It wasn't those memories that had stayed with her.
Severus must sense something of what she's thinking. "You were within your rights," he whispers in her ear, "To kill him the moment you walked in his door."
"But it was wrong," she whispers back, and after a second he draws back and looks in her face. Then nods. Nodding isn't enough for her. "It was wrong!" she cries. "I broke a promise. I broke it… and I killed him." Her voice breaks on the last word.
He flinches, even though she knows he knows this, heard her voice saying He's dead, with heartbreaking serenity as she walked out of the dingy cavern where Voldemort met his end. "And you will have to live with that," Severus tells her, " But death was more than the Dark Lord deserved."
She nods, and then, solemnly, kisses him, because her parents are dead, Voldemort is dead, and she really doesn't know who she is anymore. But does it matter? she asks herself.
She remembers that look, across that room, in the twilight hour; remembers the gleeful look in a monster's eyes as he reached out to profane her with the touch of his long, thin fingers; remembers, finally, the gentleness with which her former Professor settled his cloak on her thin, cold white shoulders. Yes, it does, she answers, finding the key to that prison.
"Would you like to go in, Miss Granger?"
"Yes," she says, "And it's Hermione."