Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any characters contained within
this story, J. K. Rowling does, and she kicks ass, so I wouldn't steal her
stuff from her.
Chapter 7: Goodbye To You
"Severus, I don't know why you wanted to meet with me, we really shouldn't be together at all right now; it's too dangerous!" Ginny whispered hurriedly as she was pulled into the empty classroom by her clandestine lover. "I am planning on telling the professors absolutely nothing, so if they see you and me together that will look awfully suspicious."
He looked deeply into her eyes, their usual carefree glow hardened by determination and resolution to keep their secret hidden. His hands clasped on her shoulders, he pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, he felt her body surrender to him completely.
"Ginny," he said softly as he pulled back from her. "Ginny, I want you to know that I love you. I may act like a git and scream at your brother and his friends, but that's not really who I am, and you're one of the few people that actually know this."
She smiled warmly at him and reached up to stroke his cheek. "I love you too, Severus. And I promise that no one will know after the meeting today. If I go down, I go down alone. I don't want to hurt you in any way."
Snape took her hand and brought her over to a desk and sat her down. He sat opposite her and held her hands tightly, looking into her eyes, searching for the words to express himself.
"I don't really know how to say this, Ginny, so I'm just going to do it," he said, clearing his throat.
Ginny was beside herself. After the entire Hermione and Draco episode, was Snape really ready to pledge his love forever to her? Her eyes lit up like the trees at the Christmas feast as Snape squirmed on his desk.
"We.I.you have to understand me, Ginny," he fumbled. The usually eloquent professor seemed to be completely devoid of vocabulary. "I do love you.but."
Her lips pursed at the "but." She hated when he said that.
"But," he continued to stutter. "I can't be with you anymore."
The world fell away and Ginny felt as if she was in an empty dark room, completely alone and cold as ice. It reminded her of the feelings the dementors brought to Hogwarts in her second year. Her mouth hung open, but no sounds would come, her mind a complete blank and yet racing with a thousand questions and outrages.
"You really have to understand, Ginny," he said, trying to get through her betrayed expression. "This is all for your own good, I've brought you nothing but trouble, and humiliation. If the professors find out about us this afternoon."
"You would be disgraced," she spat, suddenly finding a voice through the din and darkness of her mind. "So this is how you treat someone you love. I would always wonder as I sat in class in my first few years. I would think, 'Does love ever penetrate that cold and hard exterior? Is there something better in him?'"
Snape's eyes grew wide. "That's not what this is about!" he said quickly, squeezing her hands.
Realizing he was still touching her, she pulled her hands away bitterly and slid her desk back from him. Tears formed in her eyes and she could feel the sobs beginning to take over her entire body. "It was all a lie," she whispered hoarsely through her tears. "All you ever wanted was a good fuck, and now that it's inconvenient for you, it's time to drop the stupid naive girl, isn't it?"
He didn't speak or move.
"ISN'T IT?" she shouted.
"No!" he retaliated. "That's not what we were about Ginny. I just think that since I can't be with you and support you in the way you deserve that you should be free to meet and love someone who can give you what you need."
Her eyes flashed flames at him; she had never been more enraged and empty in her life. "How dare you try to tell me what I need and what I want!" she said. Tears began to fall down her cheeks freely as she abandoned hopes of him not seeing her cry. "Last time I checked I made my own decisions."
"And those decisions are about to get you kicked out of school if you're tied back to me this afternoon, Ginny!" Snape said, trying to get her to calm down and talk rationally. "I'm just trying to help you."
"BULL SHIT!" she cried. "All you want is to help yourself. If your image or your job is threatened you abandon me when, if you really did love me, you would be clinging to me and supporting me unconditionally. You make me sick, and I make myself sick for ever thinking that you loved me.
"But I do love you!" he said. He got up off of his desk and walked over to her, kissing her.
She writhed away from his touch and spat on the floor as she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her robes. "Don't you ever touch me again, you lying arse. If you do, I will curse you and every unlucky bitch you fuck after me."
His heart fell; this wasn't how it was supposed to have gone. She was supposed to understand, to return his love, and to insist that they stay together, no matter what, as she had always done. But there she was, his perfect Ginny, the light in his life and the love he had never known and never cared to find in anyone but her, glaring menacingly at him. He was sure she was thinking of the worst charm or curse she had learned to use against him.
"Ginny," he began feebly. It was all he could muster as she turned and walked out of the door, not looking back.
Ginny ran as fast as her wobbling legs could carry her towards the Gryffindor tower, ignoring Filch and McGonagall's requests for her to walk and mind other individuals in the corridors. She had never felt so betrayed, hurt, empty, and angry in all of her life, and the man she thought she loved, the man she was going to an inquisition in a matter of hours for, was responsible for all of it.
As she crawled through the portrait hole, she spotted Hermione sitting in an overstuffed chair catching up on some of her reading. She looked up at the girl who was frantically trying to get in. "Gin, what's wrong?" Hermione said, shutting her book and furrowing her brow in concern.
When she was standing inside the common room, Ginny burst into tears and fell to her knees. Hermione jumped up from her chair and ran to her, stroking her hair and handing her tissues as fast as she could grab them from the box.
"What on Earth happened?" Hermione asked, helping Ginny up and leading her to her private bedroom. When they were inside, Hermione placed Ginny on the bed and began to rub her back soothingly.
"It's over," Ginny said through her sobs. Hermione looked at her unsurely. "He said that he couldn't give me what I deserved and that this whole fiasco with my sneaking out was going to link us together and get us both in trouble."
Hermione's jaw dropped in shock. "That's impossible! He loves you Ginny!"
Ginny sniffled. "Yeah, that's what he kept saying. 'Ginny I love you' blah blah blah! It was all lies, Hermione, all of it. I feel so used and violated. I really thought I loved him."
Hermione wiped away a stray tear from Ginny's nose. "It sounds like you still do."
"He abandoned me when I needed him the most," Ginny said. She had stopped crying, but her fiery rage was beginning to show. "He only wanted to save his own skin, so he couldn't be tied to a minor and couldn't get himself fired. I should have seen it coming; he's a lying bastard, just like everyone thinks."
Hermione kept her mouth shut, she knew better than to voice her opinions when Ginny was angry, especially when those opinions were in Snape's favor. She glanced at her alarm clock and turned to Ginny. "Don't you have to meet with the professors in a half an hour?" she asked quietly.
Ginny looked at the clock and groaned loudly. "Yes," she huffed, standing up. "I really wish I didn't have to go and see him right now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep myself in check." She curled her hands into fists which, Hermione noticed, turned her knuckles very white.
"Just remain calm and stick to your resolutions," Hermione said taking Ginny's hand and giving it a good luck squeeze. "I know everything will work out for the best, it always does."
Ginny threw her arms around Hermione's neck and gave her a huge hug. "Thanks," she said and walked out of the room to get herself cleaned up.
Her mind in frustration and worry, Hermione sat down on her bed, rubbing her temples. She didn't feel that there was any way that no one would get hurt in this situation, no matter what happened. She was so deep in thought that she almost didn't hear the faint knock on her door. "Come in," she called.
Harry walked in with a puzzled expression on his face. "Um, Mione, Draco's outside the portrait hole waiting for you," Harry said as he leaned into the door. "It looks like he's got something pretty major going on, he's really fidgety."
Hermione stood up and walked out of the door. "Thanks Harry," she said and he closed the door behind her. She climbed out of the portrait hole and met Draco, pacing along the corridor. He looked up as he heard the portrait swing shut. "What's up?" Hermione asked.
Draco hugged her tightly and kissed her. "I just received an owl from my mother," he said slowly.
"Have you been put back in the will?" Hermione chuckled.
He looked at her gravely. "My father's dead," he said flatly. Hermione stepped back, her mouth agape and her eyes wide. "He was yelling at someone who had gotten in his way down in Knockturn Alley and apparently it was a very strong dark wizard who was in league with You-Know-Who and was not at all pleased with my father for having abandoned him after his fall. He performed a fatal curse on him right in the middle of the street."
His eyes were hollow and his tone was flat. Hermione couldn't do or say anything from shock. They stood there, looking at each other but past each other, both stunned and baffled by the news. Hermione was the first to move, taking a step towards Draco and throwing her arms around him. "I'm so sorry," she managed to say.
She felt something cold and wet on her shoulder and she realized that Draco was crying into her shoulder. His body was racked with heavy sobs and he clutched Hermione tightly, afraid that if he let go she would disappear into oblivion forever. "He wasn't a very nice person, or father," Draco's muffled voice came from her shoulder. "But I never wanted him to die. He was still my father, whether or not I got an inheritance or if I was allowed to keep his last name."
Hermione winced at his sentiment of love for his father. To be truthful, Lucius Malfoy had been icy and malicious to the Weasleys, Harry, and herself from the first time they met. He wasn't exactly the greatest loss to the wizarding world, but he was Draco's father, and for that reason alone she had to be upset.
Draco pulled himself from her shoulder and wiped his eyes quickly, not wanting anyone other than Hermione to know that he had been crying. "My mother wrote that she wants me to come out to the manor and see her; you know, get things in order."
Hermione nodded and reached out to stroke her thumb against his cheek.
"She wants you to come out too," he said quickly.
At this Hermione was taken aback. Was she, Hermione Granger the mudblood, being invited to Malfoy Manor to meet Draco's mother? She was sure that Draco had read the letter wrong. "Are you serious?" she asked him.
"Yup," he said regaining his composure. "Mum wants to meet you." He noticed the puzzled expression on Hermione's face. "Don't worry; she's much different than Father."
From what Hermione had seen and heard, that was not the case. Narcissa Malfoy was reputed as equally icy and evil as her late husband, turning a cold shoulder to her son and anyone else. She always struck Hermione as the perfect match for Lucius; same hair, eyes and even turned up nose, a good way, in Hermione's opinion, to keep those traits in the Malfoy family.
"You will come, won't you?" Draco asked. "It would mean a lot to me and Mum." He took Hermione's hands and looked pleadingly into her eyes.
She sighed and kissed Draco. "Fine," she conceded. "But if I have to miss class there'll be hell to pay!"
Chapter 7: Goodbye To You
"Severus, I don't know why you wanted to meet with me, we really shouldn't be together at all right now; it's too dangerous!" Ginny whispered hurriedly as she was pulled into the empty classroom by her clandestine lover. "I am planning on telling the professors absolutely nothing, so if they see you and me together that will look awfully suspicious."
He looked deeply into her eyes, their usual carefree glow hardened by determination and resolution to keep their secret hidden. His hands clasped on her shoulders, he pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, he felt her body surrender to him completely.
"Ginny," he said softly as he pulled back from her. "Ginny, I want you to know that I love you. I may act like a git and scream at your brother and his friends, but that's not really who I am, and you're one of the few people that actually know this."
She smiled warmly at him and reached up to stroke his cheek. "I love you too, Severus. And I promise that no one will know after the meeting today. If I go down, I go down alone. I don't want to hurt you in any way."
Snape took her hand and brought her over to a desk and sat her down. He sat opposite her and held her hands tightly, looking into her eyes, searching for the words to express himself.
"I don't really know how to say this, Ginny, so I'm just going to do it," he said, clearing his throat.
Ginny was beside herself. After the entire Hermione and Draco episode, was Snape really ready to pledge his love forever to her? Her eyes lit up like the trees at the Christmas feast as Snape squirmed on his desk.
"We.I.you have to understand me, Ginny," he fumbled. The usually eloquent professor seemed to be completely devoid of vocabulary. "I do love you.but."
Her lips pursed at the "but." She hated when he said that.
"But," he continued to stutter. "I can't be with you anymore."
The world fell away and Ginny felt as if she was in an empty dark room, completely alone and cold as ice. It reminded her of the feelings the dementors brought to Hogwarts in her second year. Her mouth hung open, but no sounds would come, her mind a complete blank and yet racing with a thousand questions and outrages.
"You really have to understand, Ginny," he said, trying to get through her betrayed expression. "This is all for your own good, I've brought you nothing but trouble, and humiliation. If the professors find out about us this afternoon."
"You would be disgraced," she spat, suddenly finding a voice through the din and darkness of her mind. "So this is how you treat someone you love. I would always wonder as I sat in class in my first few years. I would think, 'Does love ever penetrate that cold and hard exterior? Is there something better in him?'"
Snape's eyes grew wide. "That's not what this is about!" he said quickly, squeezing her hands.
Realizing he was still touching her, she pulled her hands away bitterly and slid her desk back from him. Tears formed in her eyes and she could feel the sobs beginning to take over her entire body. "It was all a lie," she whispered hoarsely through her tears. "All you ever wanted was a good fuck, and now that it's inconvenient for you, it's time to drop the stupid naive girl, isn't it?"
He didn't speak or move.
"ISN'T IT?" she shouted.
"No!" he retaliated. "That's not what we were about Ginny. I just think that since I can't be with you and support you in the way you deserve that you should be free to meet and love someone who can give you what you need."
Her eyes flashed flames at him; she had never been more enraged and empty in her life. "How dare you try to tell me what I need and what I want!" she said. Tears began to fall down her cheeks freely as she abandoned hopes of him not seeing her cry. "Last time I checked I made my own decisions."
"And those decisions are about to get you kicked out of school if you're tied back to me this afternoon, Ginny!" Snape said, trying to get her to calm down and talk rationally. "I'm just trying to help you."
"BULL SHIT!" she cried. "All you want is to help yourself. If your image or your job is threatened you abandon me when, if you really did love me, you would be clinging to me and supporting me unconditionally. You make me sick, and I make myself sick for ever thinking that you loved me.
"But I do love you!" he said. He got up off of his desk and walked over to her, kissing her.
She writhed away from his touch and spat on the floor as she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her robes. "Don't you ever touch me again, you lying arse. If you do, I will curse you and every unlucky bitch you fuck after me."
His heart fell; this wasn't how it was supposed to have gone. She was supposed to understand, to return his love, and to insist that they stay together, no matter what, as she had always done. But there she was, his perfect Ginny, the light in his life and the love he had never known and never cared to find in anyone but her, glaring menacingly at him. He was sure she was thinking of the worst charm or curse she had learned to use against him.
"Ginny," he began feebly. It was all he could muster as she turned and walked out of the door, not looking back.
Ginny ran as fast as her wobbling legs could carry her towards the Gryffindor tower, ignoring Filch and McGonagall's requests for her to walk and mind other individuals in the corridors. She had never felt so betrayed, hurt, empty, and angry in all of her life, and the man she thought she loved, the man she was going to an inquisition in a matter of hours for, was responsible for all of it.
As she crawled through the portrait hole, she spotted Hermione sitting in an overstuffed chair catching up on some of her reading. She looked up at the girl who was frantically trying to get in. "Gin, what's wrong?" Hermione said, shutting her book and furrowing her brow in concern.
When she was standing inside the common room, Ginny burst into tears and fell to her knees. Hermione jumped up from her chair and ran to her, stroking her hair and handing her tissues as fast as she could grab them from the box.
"What on Earth happened?" Hermione asked, helping Ginny up and leading her to her private bedroom. When they were inside, Hermione placed Ginny on the bed and began to rub her back soothingly.
"It's over," Ginny said through her sobs. Hermione looked at her unsurely. "He said that he couldn't give me what I deserved and that this whole fiasco with my sneaking out was going to link us together and get us both in trouble."
Hermione's jaw dropped in shock. "That's impossible! He loves you Ginny!"
Ginny sniffled. "Yeah, that's what he kept saying. 'Ginny I love you' blah blah blah! It was all lies, Hermione, all of it. I feel so used and violated. I really thought I loved him."
Hermione wiped away a stray tear from Ginny's nose. "It sounds like you still do."
"He abandoned me when I needed him the most," Ginny said. She had stopped crying, but her fiery rage was beginning to show. "He only wanted to save his own skin, so he couldn't be tied to a minor and couldn't get himself fired. I should have seen it coming; he's a lying bastard, just like everyone thinks."
Hermione kept her mouth shut, she knew better than to voice her opinions when Ginny was angry, especially when those opinions were in Snape's favor. She glanced at her alarm clock and turned to Ginny. "Don't you have to meet with the professors in a half an hour?" she asked quietly.
Ginny looked at the clock and groaned loudly. "Yes," she huffed, standing up. "I really wish I didn't have to go and see him right now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep myself in check." She curled her hands into fists which, Hermione noticed, turned her knuckles very white.
"Just remain calm and stick to your resolutions," Hermione said taking Ginny's hand and giving it a good luck squeeze. "I know everything will work out for the best, it always does."
Ginny threw her arms around Hermione's neck and gave her a huge hug. "Thanks," she said and walked out of the room to get herself cleaned up.
Her mind in frustration and worry, Hermione sat down on her bed, rubbing her temples. She didn't feel that there was any way that no one would get hurt in this situation, no matter what happened. She was so deep in thought that she almost didn't hear the faint knock on her door. "Come in," she called.
Harry walked in with a puzzled expression on his face. "Um, Mione, Draco's outside the portrait hole waiting for you," Harry said as he leaned into the door. "It looks like he's got something pretty major going on, he's really fidgety."
Hermione stood up and walked out of the door. "Thanks Harry," she said and he closed the door behind her. She climbed out of the portrait hole and met Draco, pacing along the corridor. He looked up as he heard the portrait swing shut. "What's up?" Hermione asked.
Draco hugged her tightly and kissed her. "I just received an owl from my mother," he said slowly.
"Have you been put back in the will?" Hermione chuckled.
He looked at her gravely. "My father's dead," he said flatly. Hermione stepped back, her mouth agape and her eyes wide. "He was yelling at someone who had gotten in his way down in Knockturn Alley and apparently it was a very strong dark wizard who was in league with You-Know-Who and was not at all pleased with my father for having abandoned him after his fall. He performed a fatal curse on him right in the middle of the street."
His eyes were hollow and his tone was flat. Hermione couldn't do or say anything from shock. They stood there, looking at each other but past each other, both stunned and baffled by the news. Hermione was the first to move, taking a step towards Draco and throwing her arms around him. "I'm so sorry," she managed to say.
She felt something cold and wet on her shoulder and she realized that Draco was crying into her shoulder. His body was racked with heavy sobs and he clutched Hermione tightly, afraid that if he let go she would disappear into oblivion forever. "He wasn't a very nice person, or father," Draco's muffled voice came from her shoulder. "But I never wanted him to die. He was still my father, whether or not I got an inheritance or if I was allowed to keep his last name."
Hermione winced at his sentiment of love for his father. To be truthful, Lucius Malfoy had been icy and malicious to the Weasleys, Harry, and herself from the first time they met. He wasn't exactly the greatest loss to the wizarding world, but he was Draco's father, and for that reason alone she had to be upset.
Draco pulled himself from her shoulder and wiped his eyes quickly, not wanting anyone other than Hermione to know that he had been crying. "My mother wrote that she wants me to come out to the manor and see her; you know, get things in order."
Hermione nodded and reached out to stroke her thumb against his cheek.
"She wants you to come out too," he said quickly.
At this Hermione was taken aback. Was she, Hermione Granger the mudblood, being invited to Malfoy Manor to meet Draco's mother? She was sure that Draco had read the letter wrong. "Are you serious?" she asked him.
"Yup," he said regaining his composure. "Mum wants to meet you." He noticed the puzzled expression on Hermione's face. "Don't worry; she's much different than Father."
From what Hermione had seen and heard, that was not the case. Narcissa Malfoy was reputed as equally icy and evil as her late husband, turning a cold shoulder to her son and anyone else. She always struck Hermione as the perfect match for Lucius; same hair, eyes and even turned up nose, a good way, in Hermione's opinion, to keep those traits in the Malfoy family.
"You will come, won't you?" Draco asked. "It would mean a lot to me and Mum." He took Hermione's hands and looked pleadingly into her eyes.
She sighed and kissed Draco. "Fine," she conceded. "But if I have to miss class there'll be hell to pay!"