Fool if you think it's over

by Katta (KET on ff.net)

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. They all belong to J.K. Rowling, of course, of course. I'm sorry if I've borrowed them for a bit, but I am making no money from it.

Chapter 4: Show-down

Hermione was surprised but not overly worried when Snape didn't show up at the quidditch match. When he wasn't at dinner she began to fear that he had been called by Voldemort again. He had tried to seem unconcerned when they talked about it, but she had sensed that he dreaded the Death Eater calls, and the look of hatred whenever he set eyes on the Dark Mark spoke volumes.

But if he had gone to a Death Eater meeting, there was nothing she could do. Dumbledore would know about it and he would no doubt take whatever action was needed.

When Snape didn't turn up for Potions on Monday, Hermione began to feel frantic. And now a new thought occurred to her. Perhaps this had nothing to do with Death Eaters. The last thing she had said to him was that she loved him. Perhaps she had read this all wrong. Perhaps he had just been enjoying a bit of sex with her. Perhaps the thought of her being in love with him had frightened him off. He didn't look like the kind of man who took kindly to being tied down in a relationship. Perhaps he thought Hermione was trying to trap him. Perhaps … Her brain was filled with worry.

No one else minded Snape being absent, of course. Most people regarded it as cause for celebration, in fact. Ron had entertained the teacherless class with an hour of Snape impression, which had had everyone except Hermione in stitches. To hide her true feelings, she had buried her nose in a book and told everyone else they should do the same.

That evening, they were all sitting in the Gryffindor common room doing their various homework, when the fire crackled. Fred and George's disembodied heads appeared in the flames.

'Greetings, Gryffindors!' said Fred.

Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione crowded round to hear what the twins had to say.

'Is anyone else listening?' asked George. 'We've got some really juicy gossip, but it is for your ears only.'

Ron looked round to make sure no one else was in earshot.

'There is a major panic going on at Grimmauld Place. Snape has vanished and everyone is looking for him! Shacklebolt is convinced that he has gone over to You-Know-Who for good.'

Hermione gasped and Fred grinned.

'Well you may gasp, but that is what it looks like. We always had our suspicions, didn't we?'

'Good riddance, I'd say,' said Ron.

'It would explain why he didn't want to give me proper occlumency lessons,' said Harry but he sounded a bit more doubtful.

'Of course. It explains a lot,' said George.

'Why he didn't stop us going to the Ministry of Magic at the end of our fifth year!' said Ron excitedly.

'Dumbledore explained …' said Harry doubtfully.

'Dumbledore explained – nothing! Snape was just a bad egg all along and now he's gone to where he should have been in the first place!' announced Ron.

Hermione had turned pale. She slipped off to her room to be alone, but that night was the worst she had ever spent.

~@~@~@~

'Lemon sherbets! Fizzy wizzbangs! Aniseed balls!'

Hermione was trying every sweet she could think of to open the door to Dumbledore's office early on Tuesday morning.

'Miss Granger,' said a quiet voice behind her so unexpectedly that she jumped. 'Were you trying to contact me?'

'Oh, Professor Dumbledore, I must speak to you!'

Dumbledore regarded the distraught head girl and then pushed the door open.

'It wasn't locked,' he said smiling, as he led the way up the revolving stairs.

As soon as they entered the office, Hermione burst out, 'There has been a terrible mistake!'

'Sit down, my dear. I find that people are always better able to explain terrible mistakes if they first sit down and drink a cup of tea, especially first thing in the morning.' He waved his hand to conjure a tray of tea things and poured her a cup.

Hermione was actually grateful for the chance to collect her thoughts and even took a sip of tea before she tried to speak again.

'Now you may tell me what is on your mind,' said Dumbledore mildly.

'I heard from London that the Order of the Phoenix think that Professor Snape has defected to Voldemort!' Even now, she flinched at the name.

'There are those who think so,' said Dumbledore cautiously.

'But it isn't true!' she blurted out.

'And why do you think not?'

'I don't think so, I know it. I know why he has disappeared! It's all my fault!' At this point Hermione burst out crying. Dumbledore extracted a large red and yellow handkerchief from his pocket and reached across to give it to her.

'I think you'd better tell me what you know, my dear.'

And so it all came out, the Valentine's card, the dance, the assignation, the affair, and finally her declaration of love, which must have precipitated Snape's flight. Hermione had lost all regard for how these revelations might affect her or Snape.

Dumbledore looked her sadly.  'These are serious matters you tell me of,' he said. 'It certainly puts Severus' disappearance in a different light.'

'Oh,' said Hermione relieved. 'You do believe me.'

'Oh, I believe you, my dear. But I find it hard to stomach that Severus has betrayed my trust. I cannot condone an affair between a member of staff and a student, you know. If Professor Snape returns here I will terminate his contract of employment immediately.'

Hermione's hands flew to her face.

'You can't sack him!' she cried. 'Expel me if you want, but don't sack him. It was all my fault. I set out to seduce him.'

'That's as may be. In normal times I probably would have expelled you, but we are facing the showdown with Voldemort very soon, and the school needs stability. Expelling the Head Girl is not the thing to do. However, Professor Snape is a grown man and he would know what consequences his actions would have. He should have exercised more self-control. I'm sorry, my dear, but I simply don't believe you could have seduced him without some complicity from him.'

'But I did. I was determined to sleep with him. I even wrote it down here.'

Hermione pulled out the locket and snapped it open. For a moment she stared at the empty space. Then a memory came to her of waking up with Snape's hand resting on the locket between her breasts. She went pale.

'I've got to find him,' she said and rushed out of the room.

Dumbledore sighed deeply, then he reached out to send a note winging its way after his star pupil.

~@~@~@~

Snape was sitting in a cold, dark room. Once an hour or so a house elf would come in and try to light some candles and the fire, but he would wave them away. The cold and the dark went with his mood.

The explosion of light came as complete surprise and blinded him temporarily. When he regained his sight and saw Hermione standing in front of him, all he could think of saying was, 'How did you get here?'

But she wasn't listening to him. She had dropped down on the floor in front of him and was crying, 'I can explain. Please let me explain!'

For all the bitterness, he was surprised that she had come after him and curious as to her explanation. He stood and drew himself up to his full height.

'Well, explain then if you can!'

Hermione buried her face in her hands and started to tell the whole story. How excited she had been about going to the New Year's Eve party. How mortified she had been when everyone laughed at her behind her back, because she was too young. The entrance of the wizard she knew. Waking up the next morning.

While she told her story, Snape had first sat down and then pulled her up onto the sofa next to him. Now he dried her tears and said softly, 'You were date raped.'

'Date raped?'

'I may not be fully conversant with muggle psycho-babble, but that is what it is called, isn't it?' he snapped sarcastically.

Hermione knew perfectly well what date rape was. She had read plenty about it in the muggle papers when she was at her parents. It was just that she had never considered that that was what had happened to her. The fact that there was a name for it made her feel better. It suggested that this had happened to others and she was not the only one ever to suffer this indignity. Moreover, the label 'rape' suggested that a crime had been committed and she was the victim. She had never thought of it in that light before.

Seeming to read her mind, Snape said, 'This wasn't your fault, Hermione.'

'But .. ' she said. 'It wasn't rape …'

'Now,' said Snape. 'Did you give your consent to have sex with this man?'

'I don't know. I may have done. I can't remember. I was too drunk.'

'I put it to you that the very fact that you were so drunk that you can't remember what happened means that you were in no fit state to give your consent to anything.'

She thought about that for a while and, realising it made sense, her face cleared a little. A great weight seemed to lift off her mind.

Now that he knew what had happened, Snape found he couldn't hate her any more. He stood and said in a stiff voice, 'Well, if that has made you feel better, I'm glad. I think perhaps I should be going now.'

'No, don't go! You still don't understand!' said Hermione urgently.

'What don't I understand? You wanted to sleep with the nastiest, ugliest man you know to punish yourself. You did so. I'm glad it worked.' His voice turned acid.

'No, no! That is how it started, but once I began looking at you, really looking, I saw something else. You touched something in me. I had forgotten all about that stupid piece of paper until I tried to show it to Dumbledore to prove …'

'You meant to show the paper to Dumbledore. You've told him about … us?' Snape sounded incredulous.

Hermione paled as she remembered what Dumbledore had said.

'I had to tell him. You don't understand. When you disappeared, everyone thought you'd changed sides. I had to prove that there was another reason for you leaving.'

Snape laughed bitterly. 'You give twenty years of your life to the Cause and at the first hint of trouble, everyone assumes that you have defected. What did Dumbledore say to your revelation?'

'Well, he …'

'I assume he sacked me on the spot.'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'Too right. He couldn't very well do anything else. I would have done the same,' said Snape.

'You seem to be taking this very calmly.'

'To be honest,' said Snape slowly. 'It had occurred several times to me over the last week that I might have to choose between my job and you.'

Hermione stared at him. 'And you were prepared to choose me?'

'Well you know how much I love teaching,' he replied dryly. 'But more importantly, how was Albus going to punish you? He wasn't going to expel you, was he?'

'He said it would be too unsettling for the school at this time. To be honest, I don't think he was as upset as he was making out to be. He sent me this.'

Snape took the piece of ancient scroll Hermione handed him. How to follow the trace of a loved one who has disapparated after an argument.

'Ahhh.'

They stared briefly at each other and were leaning forward to kiss, when the fire crackled. Dumbledore's head appeared, looking anxious and unkempt.

'Severus!' he called. 'Severus, are you there?'

Snape moved over to be in sight of the fire.

'I'm here.'

'Severus, it's started! Hogwarts is under attack. We'll have to talk later about why you disappeared, but now I need you here by my side!' And with that his head disappeared.

Snape stood up abruptly and headed for the door.

~@~@~@~

Hermione had followed him closely and they landed together in a heap outside a side gate in the wall surrounding Hogwarts. Snape searched around behind a bush and brought out an old school broom.

'You stay here,' he said throwing his leg over the broom handle, but Hermione shook her head.

'If you think I'm going to sit here while you and my friends are risking your lives, you've got another thing coming!'

Snape sighed. He didn't have time to argue. He slid backwards leaving space for Hermione to sit in front of him. She stepped onto the broom in silence and despite the seriousness of the situation, she felt a jolt of desire run through her body as Snape's strong arms closed around her to grip the broom in front of her.

They flew low over the treetops to come upon an extraordinary scene. The Death Eaters were arraigned around the lawn in front of the main door, with Voldemort at their head. On the front steps stood Harry flanked by Dumbledore and Jansson. Various other teachers and members of the Order of the Phoenix were hanging out of the windows along the front elevation of the castle. Particularly noticeable was Lupin who was perched on a ledge outside a high turret window.

The teachers were all working furiously to counter the curses sent by the Death Eaters, Jansson in particular finally displaying his DADA credentials. But the centre of attention was the duel going on between Harry and Voldemort. They were surrounded by a debris of feathers and fur suggesting that a transformation duel had been taking place. Clearly, they had now worked themselves into some kind of stalemate in their own forms. However, Harry was injured and suddenly he lurched to one side. Voldemort raised his wand and prepared to the cast the definitive killing curse.

The Death Eaters had everyone on the Hogwarts side pinned down. No one was able to raise a wand to help Harry and it looked as if it was all over. But the Death Eaters had made one fatal mistake. They were solely focused ahead of themselves. No one looked round to see if anything was approaching from behind.

'Hold the broom steady,' Snape whispered in Hermione's ear. She thought that this was probably not the moment to tell him that she was really no good at flying a broom, and concentrated instead on gripping the handle, her knuckles white. Snape raised his wand.

'Petrificus totalis!'

'Avada kedavra!'

Snape's curse was uttered a millisecond before Voldemort's with the result that he was already falling when the killing curse left his wand, It missed Harry by a whisker and bounced harmlessly off the ancient stone wall. With a roar, Dumbledore rushed forward and cast a binding curse.

The Death Eaters stood frozen with horror and surprise for a vital moment. With a scything movement of his wand, Jansson cast a mass sleeping curse over them and every last one fell to the ground.

It was all over.

With the merest hint of a victory lap, Snape brought the broom round the lawn and to halt in front of Dumbledore. Hermione hopped off and ran to Harry who had collapsed from exhaustion.

Only some little while later did she think to turn round to look for Snape, but by then he was gone.

A/N: This is only a short story. One more chapter to come.