Chapter 7.  Rote Learning

Have I died?  Is there anything left of me?  Snape lay supine, as still as a corpse.  He felt strangely numb and tingling at the same time, as if all of his nerve endings had fired and were now sputtering, unable to recharge.  He tried to will awareness back into his hands and his head and could not.  He opened his eyes.  Sensation returned slowly, and he could still feel Brigit's warmth against his side, her arm across his chest and her leg over his.

He must have slept; there was faint daylight filtering through his one small window.  His brain was muzzy and seemed far apart from the rest of him, which was now aware that the warmth had dissipated and he was alone.  Did I dream this, he wondered.

He felt an utter fool, trying to come to terms with what he feared was only his dream, in which he actually felt what a woman feels when making love.  He was rattled to his very core; he had had no idea that a woman's climax, in its mounting, protracted enormity, was so different than a man's.  Yes, one could compare a series of earthquakes ending in a cataclysm to a single spurt from a geyser.  No, one could not compare the overwhelming scream of every nerve ending right down to the fingertips, to a strictly localized pulse and release.  If I felt even a tiny portion of what she feels in her –in her earlobes, I would have a heart attack and die. But he had not died; he had felt what she felt, given the difference in anatomy. 

And I could do that!  I could cause that phenomenon, bring her to the edge of the universe and fall off its edge together with her!  But, he thought sourly, although he had done it, he had no idea how he had done it; he had been so busy experiencing what she felt.  His encounters with women had, in his past as a Death Eater, been brief and brutal; he cringed when he remembered the torments he had visited on his victims.  All, all for his momentary pleasure. 

He was alone.  Brigit was gone: had she ever been there?  Now what?  Was he to be harried by these Celtic harridans, bedevilled by these she-Druids, until he learned whatever it was that the Mother wanted him to learn?  "To please her daughters."  Well, hadn't he done just that?

No, he thought, he hadn't.  He'd been taken on a brief tour of the terra incognita of a woman's experience.  He remembered that he had wanted to provide her with what she needed, to feed her hunger, to hold her and give her release from her aching longing- but that was not all of it.

Well, it was another workday.  He rose, bathed and shaved, dressed himself and went to work.

He was giving out homework assignments for his first class when he realised that he had not eaten breakfast.  He would never have thought of it if he hadn't glimpsed the jelly babies being handed round amongst a gaggle of Ravenclaw students.  He was thankful for a morning not made hideous by a ravening appetite, and considered that coffee would be welcome if not mandatory.  A moment later, he had a large mug of steaming black coffee in his hand, and sipped at it as he lay out his lesson plan for the Gryffindors who were beginning to take their seats.

The Professor was in his usual form for the rest of the morning, terrorising several snivelling Gryffindor chaps and reducing two young ladies to tears.  He levied Detention with a lavish hand; shut his books with a snap and exited the laboratory.  He had with him a new monograph of Vishnivsky's on the effects of atmospheric pressure on absorption of toxins in the bloodstream, and he was eager to delve into it.  He closeted himself in his office for the next hour, undisturbed, to read the monograph and compose a letter to Vishnivsky.  By the time he was done, the afternoon break was almost over and he had an hour until Slytherin class.

The dining hall was deserted.  That was just how he liked it, and he sat down at the end of one of the long tables.  A little house-elf sidled over to him: "Master, Olaf bring you soup and some sangwich you like."  Snape nodded, and in a trice the elf returned with his luncheon.  Snape drank the soup off in a couple of swallows, and nibbled at the sandwich as he perused a textbook.  Back to normal, he thought.  Thank Hermes Trismegistus and all his minions, back to normal.

The rest of the day was uneventful.  He was not distracted; he was not plagued by strange smells or visions, and his path was, thankfully, uncrossed by lady druids intent on driving him insane.  He was on his way to his laboratory after classes were done, when he felt a brush of air against his ear, and a fluffy brown and white owl alighted on his shoulder.  He took the note from its beak, and read it.  How odd:  Headmaster Dumbledore invited him for a drink.  That was not odd – the formal invitation was.  Snape dematerialised the note, and made his way to Dumbledore's suite.

Snape accepted a third glass of wine from the Headmaster.  "I've never felt so stupid," he grated, "and I can't think why in the name of the nine Hells I should be the subject of these females' evangelistic fervour."

"They've told you the truth, Severus," Dumbledore stated.  "Well, it's their truth, and it should be respected as such.  They believe in the dual nature of the Almighty, male and female together, and they represent the female side.  Their beliefs are naturalistic, simple, and in many ways naïve.  They believe that the closer one is to Nature, the happier one can be.  Myself, I've always held that to follow one's heart is the shortest path to contentment."

Snape started.  "Are you a druid?"

Dumbledore chuckled.  "Among other things. It's very simple, Severus.  We are made to be children of Nature, and rather than fighting against it, I've found that it's beneficial to go along with it.  Go with the flow, as it is."

"Their flow seems to be preoccupied with sex," grumbled Snape.  "It seems that the chief way they worship their Goddess is by having sex, and they have surely found me wanting, in need of intensive tutoring.  Again I ask:  why me? Why not Lockhart, or Black?"

Dumbledore laughed loudly.  "Come, now, Severus.  It isn't that simple.  They've discovered that you have problems not only with sex, but with women, your past and yourself."

Snape winced.  Although he could not voice it even to himself, it was true:  there was a small, hard, frozen chunk in his spirit, and it manifested itself not only as the ivy Dame Angharad said was twined invisibly about his loins, keeping him from expressing his sexuality, but also as a black hole into which the warmth of human connection fell endlessly, leaving him cold, abandoned and bereft no matter how intense the encounter.

Snape looked down into the depths of the wine.  There were feelings banging at the inside of his head, thoughts he could not put into words, emotions that had no names and could not be expressed.  He looked up.

Albus Dumbledore put his hand on the younger man's shoulder and looked into his bottomless black eyes.  Never had he met anyone so sad, so empty.  And that, he realised, is where the change had to be made.  "Severus," he said gently, "It has to begin with the spirit.  This may make no sense to you now, but you will be healed when you can ask to be filled, when you can allow your soul to embrace another soul with compassion, with tenderness and with generosity."

Snape's greasy black hair hid his face.  In an almost inaudible voice he said, "I wish I could understand what you've just said, Albus."

"You won't be able to analyse it as if it were a potion," Dumbledore answered.  "One day your spirit will be moved, and the best you can hope for is that you follow where it takes you without question.  When you can do that, all will be revealed."

Severus Snape stood up, and Dumbledore stood with him.  For the first time in their acquaintance, Snape held out his arms, and the Headmaster embraced him, patted him on the back and then let him go.  "It's a start," the old man said to himself.

The Potions Master left the Headmaster's suite.  He walked out onto the colonnaded balcony to watch the sun sink slowly over Hogsmeade.  Purple, taupe and rose-gold clouds drifted across a sky that shaded from azure to light blue to lemon at the horizon, and the poignant song of a mourning dove saluted the coming night. 

Snape leaned his arms on the balcony railing and perceived the yawning emptiness inside himself.  I have been looking at things the wrong way round, he thought.  Shall I spend the rest of my life alone?  To never have a woman in my bed because she wants to be there, not because she has no other place to sleep or because I pay her to be there?  No-one to walk along the riverbank with, to sit with by the fire and read each other poetry, to cook supper together; no-one to go riding with, broom or horse…no-one to share the day's minutiae with.  And, he thought, when I grow old, and I feel it approaching rapidly, no-one to walk hand in hand with, slowly, enjoying the sunlight, so familiar that words are few.

Who will see into my soul?  Who could have the patience and perseverance to look beyond the ugly git, the bilious-tempered ogre? Who could find something to love in me, when I can find nothing of the sort in myself? Somewhere someone was playing Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman on the harpsichord, the Barcarole, slow, sensual, and beguiling.  A small voice inside his head said, and when will you, Severus Snape, learn to look beyond the face and body of a woman, to see into her spirit and heart, to find something to love in her?

Slowly he left the balcony and walked towards the moving staircases. I know, he thought, what heartache feels like .It is the realisation of how alone I truly am.

Hermione closed the harpsichord.  The languorous notes of the Barcarole had seemed the perfect tribute to the gorgeous sunset.  She had looked up, in the middle of playing, and had seen a figure on the balcony a floor above her, visible through the high open colonnade that circled the Great Hall.  The figure stood motionless, then a breeze lifted the long full cloak to whip it backwards, and she recognised Snape.  As she played she wondered why he was there so still.

The man was a conundrum.  She acknowledged his brilliant mind, his skill, his thoroughness and attention to detail, his bravery and utter trustworthiness.  Someday, she said to herself, someone will bash down Snape's portcullis, storm his redoubt, swim his moat and throw open his prison door.  She smiled.  And he, instead of fighting back, will hold out his arms to his conqueror.  She shook her head, her curls bouncing across her face, and turned towards the moving staircases, banging full on into the subject of her musings.  Instinctively, he reached out to steady her, and she put her hands in his.  She looked up at him, seeing the tracks of tears on his lean cheeks.  Holding on to his hand, she towed him over to the common room, over to the fireplace, and pushed him into a chair.

He was unable to speak.  Is this one a Druid as well?

"Professor, there's nothing like a cup of tea to put the world into perspective," Hermione stated.  A wave of her wand brought a teapot with an elaborate tea cosy over it, two cups, saucers, spoons, sugar and milk and a plate of biscuits to the small table in front of the hearth.

She poured a cup of tea, added a bit of milk to it, and handed it to him.  Wordlessly, he took it from her hand.  Hermione sat down in the armchair facing his, her feet stretched out towards the fire.  She helped herself to tea.  Finally he allowed himself to look at her, at her plain little face, peaceful and composed in front of her incredible brain, relaxed and self-possessed in his company.  He lifted his teacup by the handle and saluted her with it, then took a sip.  Hermione watched him over the rim of her cup; his eyes closed briefly as he drank.  The corners of her mouth turned up in that small, secret smile that has driven Irishmen to war and to drink for millennia.

(A/N: Fear not!  This is not your usual SS/HG story, but I promise it will be worth your while.  Chapter 8 is almost ready.)

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