Understanding

Chapter 8 – The storm clouds set in

A/N – Sorry about the delay, it's slightly bizarre that it takes me a whole week to come up with an idea for this chapter, but only an hour to write it. Anyway, on with the chapter.

When I awoke the next morning, a house elf was dusting around the room with a pink feather duster.

'Dobby?' I asked, rubbing my eyes to check I was seeing properly.

'Hermione Granger! You isn't meant to be seeing house elves going about their business!' He squeaked in his familiar high-pitched voice, his huge eyes blinking at me.

'Er, sorry, Dobby. How's Winky?' I changed the subject.

'Winky is starting to behave like a proper house elf now, Hermione Granger. Winky is protecting Professor Dumbledore's secrets now, she is not still tied to Mr. Crouch. But Winky is not yet getting paid.' Dobby was still staring at me wide eyed.

'How are things at Hogwarts?' I asked.

'These is bad times, Hermione Granger. Bad times indeed. Dobby is hearing from Professor Dumbledore, He Who Must Not Be Named is gaining power. Professor Dumbledore is telling me his secrets, but Professor Dumbledore is also telling Dobby that Hermione Granger can be trusted with his secrets. That Dobby can tell her the secrets, if she asks.' Dobby went back to his dusting, still talking. 'Hogwarts is one of the only safe places to be. Harry Potter has come back to Hogwarts. He is not safe outside, until He Who Must Not Be Named is defeated. Harry Potter is awaking with pains in his scar most mornings, Hermione Granger. Professor Dumbledore, he is saying Harry Potter is having dreams. And now, Harry Potter is worrying, because Sirius Black is not sending him messages any longer. Not for two weeks. Harry Potter is thinking Voldemort has caught Sirius Black, but Professor Dumbledore is saying it is not safe to look for him, and that Sirius Black has ways of disguising himself, which no-one knows about. Professor Dumbledore is telling Dobby he can tell you these things, Hermione Granger, but I is not saying to much. Goodbye, Hermione Granger.' He promptly disappeared, with a loud crack.

It was eleven am, and I had slept in, so I went on a search for Severus, to see if he knew about what Dobby had told me, but on close inspection, he appeared to have gone out, so I decided to do what I could to the potion. It was time to add the Draconite, over moderate heat, and then leave it for a further 11 hours, so I prepared to add the stone. When I dropped it in, I was shocked to hear that the dense stone did not seem to hit the bottom of the platinum cauldron, as I had expected, but it seemed to be suspended just below the thick purple liquid's surface. Within seconds, the whole concoction turned a vivid green, kind of glittering in the light, although there was no light, the cauldron was in shadow. I sat back on the sofa for a while, thinking over what Dobby had told me. Harry thought Sirius was missing. If Harry had thought Voldemort had got him, then it was pretty likely true, especially if Harry was having dreams again. We had to get a move on with this potion, that was for sure. I thought it was unlikely that Sirius was dead, as Voldemort would probably use him as a bargaining tool, rather than just a random killing. He wasn't worth anything, as an escaped convict, except to Harry and Dumbledore, so Voldemort must be saving him for something. If only I knew what.

While I was thinking, I heard a window creak shut downstairs, and shortly afterwards Severus came into the room and sat down heavily next to me.

'The whole place is deserted.' He said, scraping his hair back from his face. 'I don't know what's going on.' He was talking about the Riddle House.

'Deserted? I just spoke to Dobby. Sirius is missing, and Harry's back at Hogwarts.'

'Things are changing. I don't like it. How far have we got with the potion?'

'I've added the Draconite. But, considering we've only been doing it for a week, we've come far.'

'Yes, we have. Well, if the Draconite has been added, I'd say we can finish it, day and night, within two to three weeks.'

'We need to do it as quickly as we possibly can. But we've probably got a third of it done. It's just time we need, and time we haven't got.'

'Exactly. Well, there may be a few places we can cut corners, but not many.'

'Is there anything we can do in the mean time?'

'No. All we can do is wait. And hope I find out more soon.'

We sat on the sofa in silence for a while, the potion casting glimmers of light around the room. I swirled the potion around with a glass rod every now and then. Out of the window, the sky was starting to turn a nasty shade of yellow, and the room was getting quite muggy. Severus got up after a time, and slid one of the windows open, letting the air in, although air from outside, where a storm was obviously brewing, wasn't much better than that inside. I leant forward and slowly began to stir the potion, being careful not to disturb the Draconite.

'So, why do you enjoy potions so much then?' Severus asked, sitting back down next to me.

'Er, what?' I asked distractedly.

'You obviously enjoy making potions. Why is that? I know I don't exactly make the world's most encouraging Professor, do I?' He asked again, arching his left eyebrow slightly.

'That's the understatement of the century!' I laughed. 'No, really, maybe it was better that you weren't. I think I wanted you, more than any other Professor, to give me praise and tell me I was good at your subject. But you never did, so I just kept working harder and harder. As a muggle born though, Potions is really a lot easier for me to understand, than Divination, for example.'

'Really? How's that?'

'Well, when you've learnt muggle science for seven years of school, it's difficult to just totally disregard it all suddenly. Potions is more to do with plants and animals and their properties, so I can see how it works, and understand what I'm doing. The only way I can understand the things I've learnt at Hogwarts is through reading books, and they almost never relate magic to muggle scientific theory. I've really no idea how apparition, for example, works, apart from magical theory.'

'I don't think many people can understand the link between magic and science. I studied that for a while when I first  became an Unspeakable, with Albus. We had to research possible methods of defeating Voldemort then, when I was twenty. But then, before we got a concrete plan, Mr. Potter came along, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now we're here again, 17 years later, with the same problem. Anyway, most magic works by way of a different spectrum to that understood in muggle science. Instead of from the light of the sun, this spectrum comes from deep inside the Earth, and the thing that is in this spectrum, not radiation like the muggle spectrum, but something else, but no one knows what it is. That's where the magic is. People with magical blood can absorb and conduct this kind of magical energy, to channel it back out constructively. Do you understand?'

'Sort of. So, how does magical blood pass this gift on, and how do muggle borns, like me, come about?'

'Magical tendency is passed on through the mother during pregnancy. The baby is surrounded by this magic spectrum for nine months, so the ability is passed on. I don't know why squibs exist, but it is thought that muggle borns are exposed to magic before birth in some way, giving them the gift. But only some wizards are interested enough to want to research this sort of thing. There's not much call for it, because most wizards don't understand anything about muggles.' I thought about Mr. Weasley and his collection of plugs, and smiled.

'I think we're going to have a storm.' I said, looking at the ominous sky outside.

'I believe you may be right.' Severus said.

*****

Some time later, and it was time for us to prepare the next ingredient for the potion, which was four ounces of shredded knotgrass. We each began to carefully cut up bundles of the coarse yellow grass into small shreds. As the sky grew darker, the wind picked up and droplets of rain began to spatter on the glass of the windows, and in through the open window.

'You do have a real talent for Potions, you know, even if it is too late for me to tell you that.' Severus said quietly.

'Thank you. I never really knew. I could have been totally useless at it, for all I knew. You did give me my worst mark of all, every year.'

'I did? But you always scored over 90% in my exams.' He looked at me, quite shocked. I looked back at him, pointedly.

'You mean you got well over 90% in every other subject? That figures, I suppose. Maybe I should have been a little bit easier on you.'

'Well, I never thought I'd hear Severus Snape say that!' I could use that as evidence against you.' I joked.

'No, I mean it seriously. I should have given you more credit. But I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to. What would the Slytherins' tell their parents over the holidays if I gave you the highest score? Most of them wouldn't even be able to believe that a muggle born witch could possibly achieve anything, let alone the highest mark in Potions, which they know is taught by me, a Death Eater. They'd think something was going on between us. That's all they think muggles are good for. Sex, and murder. Nothing much else.' His black, black eyes were looking right into my brown ones, but otherwise his face was expressionless.

'That's disgusting.'

'I know, but you can't blame them. It's how they were brought up. It's a never ending circle. I know it's awful, but it's true.'

'What about you? Were you brought up that way?' I knew I was treading on dangerous ground now, asking about this man's childhood was probably off-limits. But he continued to stare into my eyes, a sad, faraway look haunting his face.

'Yes, my parents brought me up to believe that muggle borns were inferior to pure blood wizards. I was always inquisitive, and when I asked why, they couldn't answer, so I just didn't believe them. I never realised how important it was until I was at Hogwarts and Voldemort was gaining power. I wanted to be in Slytherin because my parents would probably have disowned me if I hadn't been. But I never believed what they believed, although I never dared show it. Everyone I know, except people from the Department of Mysteries, thinks I'm a muggle-hating Death Eater. A lot of people at the Department of Mysteries think that too. The only people I suppose I've told otherwise are you, and Albus, so I suppose it's my own fault.'

'Don't say that. All the sacrifices you've had to make only prove just how decent you are.'

'Decent?' He asked, a sort of dangerous smile playing on his lips. 'I don't want to be decent.'

'Well, what do you want then?' He dropped his head and stared at the floor. The room flashed with brilliant white light suddenly, and silence stretched out for a few moments, before a low rumble of thunder sounded. The rain was hammering through the open window now, soaking up into the threadbare carpet.

'I don't know. I just want to be myself.' He lifted his head so I could look into his beautiful, beautiful bottomless-pit eyes, the sadness in them making my heart melt. I just sat there, saying nothing, as more lightning lit up the black sky, and the strike of thunder grew closer. For a moment I thought I saw a tear in the corner of his eye, but then it was too late as our lips met, I couldn't tell if it was his tears or mine mingling together as he kissed me and I kissed him. My heart was in my throat, beating a thousand beats per minute. All thoughts that this was my ex-Professor were gone, all of my thoughts centred around the fact that I never wanted this to end. I had never felt as good as I did when this man was softly nipping my lower lip as I moaned faintly in response. Then, suddenly I felt a lot colder and space was put between us again. We continued to stare into each others eyes, now my only thoughts were, why has he stopped?

'I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have done that.'

'Why not?' I asked, have I got two heads or something, I thought privately. 'Is there something wrong? With me?'

'No. No there is nothing wrong with you. Don't ever think that, Hermione.' His eyes were raking my face, in between staring at the floor.

'Severus, what are you………..' I couldn't finish my sentence, as he half walked, half ran across the room. When near the window, he transformed into an eagle, and made for the open window. I watched as he was illuminated by a streak of forked lightning. He dropped six feet, before the powerful beat of his wings carried him out of sight.

A/N

A bag of acid pops and a cockroach cluster (yuck, how disgusting) to Luna Writer, snapesophelia, hpz26, ChishionoTenshi and Enfleurage for reviewing my story.

Snapesophelia and Enfleurage: I know Severus didn't seem to be affected too much by his injury. Just keep reading and you'll find out why. An extra acid pop to each of you, because it proves you were reading properly!!

ChishionoTenshi: I couldn't find anything that said it would kill the dragon, but I think it probably would. However, this is complete fiction, and I kind of like dragons, so I felt a bit mean to kill it. It never did anything to hurt me! Besides, it fit with the story that the dragon should survive! So the answer is, I don't know, but it was more exciting this way than just killing the dragon in its sleep, especially because it was a nesting mother. Thanks for asking!

Theoretically, I am now on Easter holidays, so I should be able to update more often. We'll see how things go. I do know what's going to happen next chapter though, so that's a great start.

Thank you for reading, and please take the time to leave a review. You never know, you might even get a canary cream, or a fake wand!