One Young Heart
Chapter 16: And it Rained
Hermione sat frozen at the table for fully five seconds, fighting the panic that had soared in her stomach at his words. Slowly, she reached out and took the ring off of the table. It was cold, smooth all the way around- her mother didn't wear a diamond ring because it would not fit beneath her work gloves- except for a single rough spot on the bottom. She turned it over and examined the flaw, which had never been there before, as her brain slowly came back into gear. Then the chair fell backwards onto the floor, and she raced along the passageway of the dungeons. She caught up with him as he disappeared into a doorway she was sure was never there before, skidded inside as the door shut, and ducked his reflexive stunning spell.
"Miss Granger?" "How did you know they were my parents?" A light flickered into being as she tried to untangle herself. Ducking may have kept her conscious, but it had gotten her completely mired in a scarlet curtain. Snape looked fighting mad when he lit his wand, but the look faded into one she recognized as amusement. He gripped her chin and lifted her bodily to her feet, though how he managed to do so without injuring her, she could not say. Raised above her normal height, she was able to look straight into his black eyes and had a sickening sensation of depth, of a cavern of eternal dispair which would bodily engulf her if she let it. "Guess", he drawled. Dropping her lightly back to her feet, he turned and started down the corridor. "Run along now. McGonagall will be looking for you. You have to deal with misplacing Potter. Though why that would be difficult is beyond me." Hermione shrugged off the remark and ran after him. "oh no, sir. i'm helping you retrieve Colin. It's my duty as your assistant."
He stopped and spun around just as he entered a room lit by what appeared to be a genuine skylight, dropping smoothly to one knee so he could look into her eyes. "Miss Granger. This was not a intelligent idea. However helpful I may find it to have an assistant in my dealings with the Dark Lord, I cannot ignore the danger this poses to you. Your parents attended the wrong party at the wrong moment, but I had no way of knowing that that was the reason for their capture. I had no way of knowing that He did not know of you. They could have died, Miss Granger. Because of you. You are too young to appreciate the consequences of you're actions. You need to think carefully about what you are doing, and whom you are helping. Before you leave this room, you think about who I am. I cannot shield you forever, and I cannot accept your help unless I trust that you understand what you are doing. Unless I trust you."
He rose again in a swirl of black fabric, and towered over her. "This is foolishness, Miss Granger. You endanger yourself and your family." His face saddened slightly from that of a trained aristocrat to that of a tired man. "I'm not worth that, Miss Granger." Outside, it began to rain.
---
Silence stretched between them for a moment, as Severus tried to watch the figure of Colin, frozen to the spot in the rain. The goo showed every sign of resisting the water, but it could have exploded for all that Severus would have noticed. As Miss Granger was considering him, so he was considering her.
Suddenly, as though steeling herself, Hermione stood straighter, and asked, "Why did you betray the Dark Lord?" When he looked at her, she gave him a mock serious look and added, "No hedging. A straight answer this time."
---
Snape stood silent as the minuets stretched on, until Hermione's neck was aching with the strain. Then, suddenly he burst into speech, talking too fast, as though to say what he wished before a power stronger than he silenced him. It would be years before Hermione understood that his words meant more than just an admission to a teenager, but were rather a leap of faith, a move to trust as he had not trusted anyone in over fifteen years.
"You have to understand, Miss Granger. I was sixteen. Sixteen. A new regime was rising. There was beauty and knowledge and glory to be had! He offered me knowledge, He offered me-" Snape broke off suddenly and spun away from her, striding to the far end of the room and staring out at the rain.
---
I have to trust her, I have to. I can't just stay here, alone, for the rest of my life. But all the while the small, sharp voice that Severus lived his life by was whispering Ah, but you've been alone all your life. All your life you've been betrayed, shunned, scorned. Better to stay as you are than to risk changing now. You were meant to be alone.
Hermione looked round the room, fighting the frustration that rose in her throat. He had been so close to telling her. Glancing across the floor, her eyes met those of Zaire, and she started. Whatever Professor McGonagall might say about kindness to animals, she didn't like that cat. Lifting a pillow off of the couch next to her, she shied it at the cat, which disappeared in a flash of tail and teeth. Snape spun round and kicked a chair into fragments.
---
Severus felt a sudden stab of remorse, seeing Hermione's nutmeg eyes widening as chair fragments rained down around her. Temper, temper, Severus. You'll never get anywhere like that.
"I......, I......" His temper flared up again. "I joined the Dark Lord, damn it. I never much cared about bloodlines. You can't get purer than a Snape. I could've married a muggle, and the Malfoys would have received me, for Merlin's sake. I joined the Dark Lord-" He stopped, swallowed, and Hermione saw fear in his eyes. "and when you join, you join for life. But the Death Eaters were different then, about knowledge, pride and honor, not death. He was a leader of men then, not a idiot with a complex about his father. It was a year later, when Lucius joined, that everything changed. That He changed. Suddenly it was about having something to prove."
He closed his eyes, and prepared to take the inner step that loomed before him, the step that was, to Severus, darker and deeper than any he had taken before. The trust that had come easily enough 19 years ago was gone, replaced by fear and shame. I can't, he thought. I can't do this. A touch on his arm made him jump, and he met Hermione's eyes, saw the encouragement there. He stepped into that void of trust, unable to even guess what would follow.
"He wanted to kill a whole city of Muggles, wanted to prove to Lucius that he truly hated muggles, that he wasn't one of them. He didn't have many craft masters in his ranks, everyone was too rich to bother with working, so he turned to me. He asked me- to make him the bloodrot." Hermione took in a sharp breath. "He wanted me to reason out the contents, and make Pandora's sin complete." He laughed, a sharp, mirthless sound that reminded Hermione suddenly of the way Harry described Voldemort's voice. "So I did. I reasoned out the spells, and the ingredients. I tested it on a group of muggles I caught in a little town." He swallowed. "The outcome was- incredible. Unbearable. I intended to return to Tom, tell him he was wrong, that this was bad, but when I got there, I saw- My God! I saw things no person should ever see, cruelty unimaginable. I saw that Tom would never stop, would never reason. I saw a man destroy his soul, his very humanity, become the Dark Lord. And I saw Lucius watching, smiling."
Hermione released his arm, sat down on the floor silently. He didn't dare to look at her, suppressed the desire to beg for her forgiveness, for her presence, for the chance to escape the hell into which he had descended.
"I destroyed the potion, the information I had, I took the only completed instructions and hid them, and I ran to Albus Dumbledore." He laughed the same high laugh again. "He was always the one kids turned to. So I told him everything. I- I'll never forget the look in his face when I told him. And all he said was 'what a disappointing waste of talent.' " His voice had trembled more with every word, and now he fell to his knees, buried his face in his long slender hands, and let his long black hair fall before his face, seeking again for the shield of shame and reticence that he had abandoned.
There, Severus thought. I've done my duty. Albus will be glad, and things can go back to normal. To normal. Just where I don't want things to go.
Hermione's voice was quiet when she spoke. "How old were you when you made the potion?" "Seventeen" he answered dully.
Suddenly, everything seemed very funny to Hermione, the room in which they spoke opening onto the gray rainy day, the seriousness of the situation, the brilliant man fallen low before her. She laughed hard as she struggled to her feet and lurched a few steps toward they door. "Well, you are talented, aren't you, Professor. We'd better go get Colin, he's going to drown. That would be such a tragedy wouldn't it, especially since I'm beginning to think he's got the right idea about life." She surrendered her attempt to reason her way out of the shock she felt, and sank back down, crying as she laughed, crying for the souls ruined by one man's hate, laughing for the boy who hid from his fear of the deadly world which he did not belong to behind a camera and cheerful incompetence.
Chapter 16: And it Rained
Hermione sat frozen at the table for fully five seconds, fighting the panic that had soared in her stomach at his words. Slowly, she reached out and took the ring off of the table. It was cold, smooth all the way around- her mother didn't wear a diamond ring because it would not fit beneath her work gloves- except for a single rough spot on the bottom. She turned it over and examined the flaw, which had never been there before, as her brain slowly came back into gear. Then the chair fell backwards onto the floor, and she raced along the passageway of the dungeons. She caught up with him as he disappeared into a doorway she was sure was never there before, skidded inside as the door shut, and ducked his reflexive stunning spell.
"Miss Granger?" "How did you know they were my parents?" A light flickered into being as she tried to untangle herself. Ducking may have kept her conscious, but it had gotten her completely mired in a scarlet curtain. Snape looked fighting mad when he lit his wand, but the look faded into one she recognized as amusement. He gripped her chin and lifted her bodily to her feet, though how he managed to do so without injuring her, she could not say. Raised above her normal height, she was able to look straight into his black eyes and had a sickening sensation of depth, of a cavern of eternal dispair which would bodily engulf her if she let it. "Guess", he drawled. Dropping her lightly back to her feet, he turned and started down the corridor. "Run along now. McGonagall will be looking for you. You have to deal with misplacing Potter. Though why that would be difficult is beyond me." Hermione shrugged off the remark and ran after him. "oh no, sir. i'm helping you retrieve Colin. It's my duty as your assistant."
He stopped and spun around just as he entered a room lit by what appeared to be a genuine skylight, dropping smoothly to one knee so he could look into her eyes. "Miss Granger. This was not a intelligent idea. However helpful I may find it to have an assistant in my dealings with the Dark Lord, I cannot ignore the danger this poses to you. Your parents attended the wrong party at the wrong moment, but I had no way of knowing that that was the reason for their capture. I had no way of knowing that He did not know of you. They could have died, Miss Granger. Because of you. You are too young to appreciate the consequences of you're actions. You need to think carefully about what you are doing, and whom you are helping. Before you leave this room, you think about who I am. I cannot shield you forever, and I cannot accept your help unless I trust that you understand what you are doing. Unless I trust you."
He rose again in a swirl of black fabric, and towered over her. "This is foolishness, Miss Granger. You endanger yourself and your family." His face saddened slightly from that of a trained aristocrat to that of a tired man. "I'm not worth that, Miss Granger." Outside, it began to rain.
---
Silence stretched between them for a moment, as Severus tried to watch the figure of Colin, frozen to the spot in the rain. The goo showed every sign of resisting the water, but it could have exploded for all that Severus would have noticed. As Miss Granger was considering him, so he was considering her.
Suddenly, as though steeling herself, Hermione stood straighter, and asked, "Why did you betray the Dark Lord?" When he looked at her, she gave him a mock serious look and added, "No hedging. A straight answer this time."
---
Snape stood silent as the minuets stretched on, until Hermione's neck was aching with the strain. Then, suddenly he burst into speech, talking too fast, as though to say what he wished before a power stronger than he silenced him. It would be years before Hermione understood that his words meant more than just an admission to a teenager, but were rather a leap of faith, a move to trust as he had not trusted anyone in over fifteen years.
"You have to understand, Miss Granger. I was sixteen. Sixteen. A new regime was rising. There was beauty and knowledge and glory to be had! He offered me knowledge, He offered me-" Snape broke off suddenly and spun away from her, striding to the far end of the room and staring out at the rain.
---
I have to trust her, I have to. I can't just stay here, alone, for the rest of my life. But all the while the small, sharp voice that Severus lived his life by was whispering Ah, but you've been alone all your life. All your life you've been betrayed, shunned, scorned. Better to stay as you are than to risk changing now. You were meant to be alone.
Hermione looked round the room, fighting the frustration that rose in her throat. He had been so close to telling her. Glancing across the floor, her eyes met those of Zaire, and she started. Whatever Professor McGonagall might say about kindness to animals, she didn't like that cat. Lifting a pillow off of the couch next to her, she shied it at the cat, which disappeared in a flash of tail and teeth. Snape spun round and kicked a chair into fragments.
---
Severus felt a sudden stab of remorse, seeing Hermione's nutmeg eyes widening as chair fragments rained down around her. Temper, temper, Severus. You'll never get anywhere like that.
"I......, I......" His temper flared up again. "I joined the Dark Lord, damn it. I never much cared about bloodlines. You can't get purer than a Snape. I could've married a muggle, and the Malfoys would have received me, for Merlin's sake. I joined the Dark Lord-" He stopped, swallowed, and Hermione saw fear in his eyes. "and when you join, you join for life. But the Death Eaters were different then, about knowledge, pride and honor, not death. He was a leader of men then, not a idiot with a complex about his father. It was a year later, when Lucius joined, that everything changed. That He changed. Suddenly it was about having something to prove."
He closed his eyes, and prepared to take the inner step that loomed before him, the step that was, to Severus, darker and deeper than any he had taken before. The trust that had come easily enough 19 years ago was gone, replaced by fear and shame. I can't, he thought. I can't do this. A touch on his arm made him jump, and he met Hermione's eyes, saw the encouragement there. He stepped into that void of trust, unable to even guess what would follow.
"He wanted to kill a whole city of Muggles, wanted to prove to Lucius that he truly hated muggles, that he wasn't one of them. He didn't have many craft masters in his ranks, everyone was too rich to bother with working, so he turned to me. He asked me- to make him the bloodrot." Hermione took in a sharp breath. "He wanted me to reason out the contents, and make Pandora's sin complete." He laughed, a sharp, mirthless sound that reminded Hermione suddenly of the way Harry described Voldemort's voice. "So I did. I reasoned out the spells, and the ingredients. I tested it on a group of muggles I caught in a little town." He swallowed. "The outcome was- incredible. Unbearable. I intended to return to Tom, tell him he was wrong, that this was bad, but when I got there, I saw- My God! I saw things no person should ever see, cruelty unimaginable. I saw that Tom would never stop, would never reason. I saw a man destroy his soul, his very humanity, become the Dark Lord. And I saw Lucius watching, smiling."
Hermione released his arm, sat down on the floor silently. He didn't dare to look at her, suppressed the desire to beg for her forgiveness, for her presence, for the chance to escape the hell into which he had descended.
"I destroyed the potion, the information I had, I took the only completed instructions and hid them, and I ran to Albus Dumbledore." He laughed the same high laugh again. "He was always the one kids turned to. So I told him everything. I- I'll never forget the look in his face when I told him. And all he said was 'what a disappointing waste of talent.' " His voice had trembled more with every word, and now he fell to his knees, buried his face in his long slender hands, and let his long black hair fall before his face, seeking again for the shield of shame and reticence that he had abandoned.
There, Severus thought. I've done my duty. Albus will be glad, and things can go back to normal. To normal. Just where I don't want things to go.
Hermione's voice was quiet when she spoke. "How old were you when you made the potion?" "Seventeen" he answered dully.
Suddenly, everything seemed very funny to Hermione, the room in which they spoke opening onto the gray rainy day, the seriousness of the situation, the brilliant man fallen low before her. She laughed hard as she struggled to her feet and lurched a few steps toward they door. "Well, you are talented, aren't you, Professor. We'd better go get Colin, he's going to drown. That would be such a tragedy wouldn't it, especially since I'm beginning to think he's got the right idea about life." She surrendered her attempt to reason her way out of the shock she felt, and sank back down, crying as she laughed, crying for the souls ruined by one man's hate, laughing for the boy who hid from his fear of the deadly world which he did not belong to behind a camera and cheerful incompetence.