This chapter was a pain to write for many reasons – to say Snape was uncooperative would be the understatement of the decade. I listened to Dido's new album on loop while writing – and it shows. You'll know what I mean in a minute.
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Six - White Flag
In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
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Snape didn't attend dinner the evening Hermione arrived at the castle, and she didn't know whether to interpret this as a good sign -he was nervous about meeting in public- or a very bad one -he was nervous about meeting in public and her making a scene-.
Harry had once told her after their fourth year that the more he had dreaded the tasks in the Triwizard Tournament, the faster they seemed to draw closer, and she couldn't help but think that she felt the same way; the more her fear of facing Severus grew, the faster the hours seemed to go by.
After having spent the last half hour pushing food around her plate, she left the Great Hall with Ron and Harry but hastily excused herself when they reached the doors, muttering a few words about some imaginary Head Girl business she was supposed to discuss with McGonagall.
Her knees were shaking on her way to the dungeons and she scolded herself for her own weakness. She busied herself transfiguring her school robes into a black polo neck and jeans - no need to look like the scared little girl she felt like, after all.
Finally in front of his door, Hermione realised there were so many different emotions stirring inside of her that she didn't know what she was feeling anymore. One of those emotions, one she could recognise, was fear. Not of him, though, but of not being able to see the sharp humour behind the sarcasm and the pain behind the bitterness. Not being able to recognise the man she loved behind the persona of the evil Potions Master she was sure he would put up for their meeting. She knocked.
"Enter."
Hermione walked in with a determination she couldn't be further from feeling. She had been in his office only a handful of times over the years. The room was shadowy and unwelcoming, with small windows carved into the cliff on the side of the castle that she supposed overlooked the lake, but were too covered in dust to be sure.
Snape gestured vaguely at a chair opposite the one he was occupying and Hermione took a seat.
"I received your owl." She knew he would note the deliberate absence of 'Sir' or 'Professor'. A statement if Snape ever saw one.
"Obviously," he replied curtly.
'You are in control, remember, you are in control. You have the upper hand,' Hermione chanted inside her head, trying not to let his coolness affect her.
"So… what do you have to say for yourself?"
Snape watched her impassively and raised an eyebrow in what could be interpreted as surprise or disdain, she wasn't sure. Hermione held his glare in defiance. 'You're not going to get to me that easily'.
"I merely tried to choose what I believed would be best for you." No 'Miss Granger', but no 'Hermione' either.
"And that gave you the right to wipe away my memories?"
Snape snorted impatiently and looked away. "There's no need to be melodramatic. I didn't wipe anything, I simply…"
"Hid them inside my brain where I could never find them unless you allowed me to?" she interrupted him.
"That's not…" he started but was abruptly cut off again.
"Forget it," she said, raising one hand, "I'm not in the mood for empty excuses. Besides, I think I now understand why you did it."
Snape's head shot up at this before he had time to stop himself. "You do?" he asked, momentarily forgetting to feign indifference.
"Of course," she said, shrugging. "You obviously wanted to avoid an embarrassing situation at all costs, so you took the easy way out. I'm an adult, Severus." A strange feeling passed through him at her absent-minded use of his given name. "I wouldn't have expected you to - I'm aware things aren't the same."
'Oh, but they very much are,' a treacherous voice inside his head reminded him.
"I'm not trying to make your life harder or return to where we were, I'm not that foolish," she continued. "But you can't expect me to pretend nothing happened between us because it did and I'm not going to play along just to make you feel more comfortable."
"You're being unreasonable," he said and shook his head condescendingly.
"Oh, am I? Well, forgive me if I haven't had twenty bloody years to recover!" she spat, furious all of a sudden. "And you could at least look at me when I speak to you!"
The sides of his mouth twitched imperceptibly. He had won. She had lost control and placed herself in a weak position, despite theoretically being the one with the upper hand.
This was what he did, this was the way in which he related to others - in terms of power. It unnerved him greatly being the weak party so he had played his cards to turn the situation around. And had succeeded. He didn't stop to examine why this was bringing him no satisfaction whatsoever.
"I will not apologise to you for taking what I considered the best alternative at that moment, even though I am certain you would have made a much wiser choice had you been in my place."
"Don't mock me when you know perfectly well what you should've done, you should've talked to me about it instead of wriggling your way out with your Slytherin schemes!"
"You are aware of the irony in that statement, aren't you?" he retorted with surprising venom.
"Irony?" Hermione asked in puzzlement, having no idea what he was getting at.
"When a Slytherin conceals the truth, it's always his cunning devious nature to blame, is it not? But what happens when a Gryffindor does the same?"
"I never lied to you!" she protested.
"Really? I don't recall you mentioning some of the minor details regarding your provenance twenty years ago."
"And what exactly was I supposed to say?"
"I don't know," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "perhaps 'See you when you're forty' would've been appropriate."
Absurdly, the first answer that came to her mind was 'but you're not forty'. Hermione stared at the floor. She hated him for making things so difficult, but at the same time she still physically ached to go to him. How dared he treat her like that, when less than three weeks ago he was… She shook her head to compose herself before speaking again, this time with a different tactic.
"The necklace… you took it while I was unconscious." Not a question.
He surveyed her with interest and a drop of apprehension. Was she going to demand it back?
"It belonged to my mother. She…" he paused to consider briefly how much to say. "Not many of her personal effects survived the First War." It was a pretext, of course, but he hoped she would understand it as an apology. When she shifted uncomfortably and let out a meek "Oh", he knew that she had.
The conversation came to another one of those pauses one can't avoid when there's too much to say and not enough courage to say it. Hermione sighed inwardly. She had enough insight into Snape's mind to know that he was keeping an advantage by staying silent and thus forcing her to always speak first.
"Why not simply Obliviate me?"
"Well…"
"And spare me that rubbish about needing the Headmaster's permission, because I doubt the Memory Stealing Curse is exactly encouraged by Hogwarts regulations."
He sighed. "To be honest, I have no explanation for that."
"Try," she urged tersely.
He stayed silent for so long that Hermione started to think he wasn't going to answer, after all.
"Perhaps," he began finally, "perhaps I needed to preserve those memories even if it was… in this manner, because they were my only proof that those days had truly existed and were not just a figment of my imagination. It wasn't supposed to… I really don't understand…"
"What you don't understand," she interrupted him and got to her feet, moving to stand directly in front of his chair, "is that those memories weren't engraved here," she pointed at her temple, "but here," she finished, leaning forward and placing one open-palmed hand on his chest and the other over her own heart. "A spell might erase things stored in our mind, but things kept here," she pounded her chest, "live forever."
She withdrew her hand after a moment and Snape felt strangely bereft by the loss of contact.
"You were aware of what… what was bound to happen," he said after a while.
She examined his face, trying to tell where he was heading. "I was."
"Then… why?"
"Why what?"
"You knew that I would follow the Dark Lord and yet…"
Hermione smiled and shook her head disbelievingly.
"For all your Potions and your Dark Arts, Severus, you are nothing but a fool. And you've just proved you don't know me at all. Back then you did, or I thought you did, but obviously you've forgotten. You don't need one of your sinister spells to bury things inside your mind where not even you can find them, do you?"
He was dying to know exactly what she meant by that, but before he had time to find a way of asking her, she spoke again. "What happens now?"
Severus sighed. "I cannot change what was in the past, Hermione, but I must beg you to understand the precarious position I find myself in and how different it is from the one then."
She let out a weird sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "What are you trying to say?"
"I am merely drawing your attention to the fact that we are at war and any personal… liabilities would greatly complicate my duties. Not to mention the complete inappropriateness of any association outside the classroom. "
"So this is it? Back to business as usual?"
"What is it you want from me?" he said, his voice betraying for the first time a weariness and desperation that made her heart contract. "Don't you understand that I'm not the same man, that those promises…"
"If you want me to relieve you of them," she cut in, her voice suddenly calm, "I do. But I for my part promised - you probably don't remember, but I promised… him that if he was still there in the future, I'd find him." She searched his eyes for a reaction, any reaction, but found none. "Obviously, he isn't." The moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back.
"Obviously," he said, impassive. "Which means that you too are free of your promise, then."
Hermione nodded numbly, thinking how the word free had never sounded less appealing or void of significance.
She felt the impulse to go to him, to shout that she wasn't about to raise the white flag and surrender, to beg even, to do anything except leaving because that would mean giving up and conceding defeat… but she didn't.
She just spun on her heel and wordlessly left the room.
TBC…
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Oh, come on… you didn't honestly expect them to kiss and make up so easily, did you? ;)
Quote from Lord Byron's 'When We Two Parted'. The thing about needing the Headmaster's permission to Obliviate is a reference to my other SS/HG fic. Although completely independent, that story gets a whole new dimension when you read it with this one as back story. Creepy, in a way, because I didn't plan it at all.
