Disclaimer: I could be a great star… still I'm far from happy… Nope, that's not mine either. Rufus… again! I love you Rufus! Marry me! Oh if only he were straight -.-…

SLYTHERIN BOY

Chapter Eleven : My Friend

After Lunch, Hermione went searching for Severus. She hadn't seen him leave the Great Hall, but he'd been gone already when she'd stood up to leave. She had already checked the library, to find that he wasn't there. She'd begun to roam the halls, looking for signs of him. She descended the stairs towards the Slytherin dormitories, hoping to perhaps find him lingering about the Potions classroom.

What she found was unexpected, though. Severus was sitting on top of a large, dark-wooded trunk, facing the opposite wall, eyes closed. His left sleeve was pushed up to his elbow, and blood was coursing at a slow but steady pace across the contrasting alabaster skin. In his right hand was a jagged piece of broken glass, smeared with streaks of red. His fingertips were stained as well. Gruesome though it was, it painted a strangely beautiful picture. The dim, bluish light that resided in the dungeons surrounding the bloodied boy. Pale but beautiful, his raven feather hair wafting strangely to one side, the blank expression relaxing all of his features.

"Severus!" Hermione said, her voice reverberating off the walls of the corridor. It broke the angelic peacefulness that she'd felt upon seeing his martyr-like appearance. His eyes flew open, the dark irises sliding to look at her through the corner of his eyes. He didn't say anything.

"What are you doing?" she cried, feeling her eyebrows knitting together in worry.

"I think that's fairly obvious," he said. His voice sounded strangely flat and hollow.

Hermione could hear only her own footsteps as she scampered over to him.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" she asked, her knees felt weak.

"I don't know," he said. Unlike previous times, he made no attempt to cover his wound, nor did he look away.

"You're bleeding all over the place," She said, pulling her wand out. She waved a simple spell to stop the bleeding, but the streaks of the thick and impossibly dark blood remained on his flesh. She could see the jagged, torn-looking wounds over the underside of his arm.

"Why are you so concerned with me?" he asked.

"Because I like you!" She blurted. She suddenly realized the weight of what she'd said. She looked away from him nervously, her ears turning red. "I mean you're my friend." She added lamely.

"But…" he blinked. "That's impossible." He said. "That can't be."

She looked at him again. "Why not?" she asked.

"Because you are supposed to hate me. It's practically a law. Everyone hates me. Why should you be any different? It's natural instinct to hate the lowest creatures, such as myself. How can it be that you don't outright despise me? I'm a disgusting, spiteful, bitter, ugly thing," his voice sounded near hysterical.

"But you're not! You're an intelligent, insightful, sensitive, beautiful person," she countered. He looked suddenly confused.

The whole ordeal felt unreal. A faint humming in the back of Hermione's mind rose to a near-deafening ring in her ears. The situation was overwhelming.

"How can it be that ever since I was born the entire world tells me these things, how can it be that everyone I know tells me these things except for you? You can't be telling the truth if everyone I've ever known has told me different! It's not possible, it has to be the truth or everyone wouldn't say them!"

"But everyone doesn't say them." Hermione said. "I don't say them. I don't think them." He seemed to be utterly confused. His hands came up to his face, his trembling fingers digging into his scalp.

"But that… it can't be…" his voice was a whisper, barely more than a rattling of breath.

Hermione didn't consciously move, but before she knew what was happening, she had wrapped her arms around him. She felt his body trembling, and eventually shaking as he began to sob beneath her touch.

She smoothed his hair with her fingers and rocked slightly, as though comforting a child. He touched her shoulders with his shaking hands as he cried, the tears falling onto his hands and arms, leaving clean streaks through the blood.

****

After he quieted, and she released her hold on him, he looked away from her. She looked at him, her heart and mind buzzing in the intensity of what had just happened. He seemed to have the need to move his hands, and repeatedly touched his hair and his face nervously.

"What happened?" Hermione asked at last.

"My dorm mates moved all my belongings out into the corridor." He said. "…and I got a letter saying that one of my brothers is dead."

"Oh, God," Hermione's hand covered her mouth. He cradled his wounded arm against his chest, his face turned away from her.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"Yes, well." His fingertips ran across the magically-healing wound nervously. "I didn't know him very well. He was a fraternal twin. My parents, they sent him to Beauxbatons. They didn't want me to have an influence on him, they said he might turn rotten if he interacted with me without their supervision. They considered Beauxbatons a superior school, and I guess they were right. I mean, he never joined up with the Dark Lord. He became a Mediwizard for some hospital. My parents are dreadfully proud of him."

She got over her shock at how his parents seemed to have treated him, and said, softly. "Where will you sleep if your dorm mates have kicked you out?"

"I don't know," he said. Her attempt to change the subject seemed to have worked. "They changed the password, too, so I can't get in at all."

"Well," Hermione murmured. "I suppose we ought to get you cleaned up, and then we should go see the Headmaster about finding you somewhere else to stay."

"I suppose." He nodded. He looked at her cautiously. "Please don't tell anyone about this," he said.

"I wouldn't. Not ever." She told him forcefully. "You can trust me, Severus. I wouldn't talk trash about you. You're my friend."

He gave a half-smile, and they walked towards the nearest lavatory so he could wash up.

****

A/N: It's short, I know, I know. And late -.- sorry. I just really don't like this story much when I go back through and read it. But I feel I have to tie up the loose ends, so I'm beginning to attack what's left in the story. Maybe I'll update again soon, maybe not. But I assure you, I WILL update. I know, also that this LOOKS like it's going to develop into a romance due to Hermione's seeming feelings for Severus. Don't worry, there will be no romance between them. I promise. There are some more surprises waiting ^_^