Chapter 35 Cherish the Ladies
Mary Russell turned her back on the lake and marched away with all deliberate speed, never once stopping to look back until she had gone at least a kilometre. Then, she sat down with her back to a tree and put her head in her hands.
"I must put this all together," she thought. "Holmes has been gone for several weeks and no-one has heard from him, nor received any news of him after he left Edinburgh. I came to that place all unawares, and the hallucinations began straightaway. First, there was the illusion of a castle's towers; then the huge man and his equally huge dog. There was that pink eel, as well....then, the giant and dog returned, and with them, Holmes!
I know I am not going mad; I should have done years ago, when I first met Sherlock Holmes. Therefore, trusting my own sanity, I must conclude that what I saw has some basis in fact. It was foolish of me to run away. I must return to the lake and triangulate the position of the castle, if indeed it is there, as well as determining the coordinates of the site. Then, I must speak with local people; perhaps there is a history of odd appearances..."
Comforted as always by action and reason, Mary got to her feet, noted the position of the sun, and turned about, determined to return to the lake.
"Why am I doing this? Why did I come to Scotland in the first place? I am not Sherlock Holmes' wife, seeking my errant husband!" A sharp pain seized her spirit, and she clenched her jaw. Why, indeed? Why did she feel bereft whenever he went away? Why did she feel complete in his company, as her soul nestled companionably against his? I shall not dissolve into tears, Mary vowed, but her lips trembled. "Damn him, I love him! I have always loved him! Surely he must know it by now, and has studiously ignored the idea. He must think me ridiculous." Tears slid slowly down her cheeks, and she brushed them away impatiently with her sleeve.
'What, indeed, would my life be like if we were married?' She dug in her pocket, found her handkerchief, and with a great honking and snorting, worked the stuffiness out of her nose. 'I daresay my life would be the same as it is now, for we are both creatures of habit and accustomed to our own ways. The only difference would be...' In truth, the only difference would be that in addition to being partners, student and teacher, comrades and friends, they would be man and woman, with all that that implied.
"He will never marry," Russell thought. "He would have done so years ago; if the fact of his 'lovely lost son' did nor induce him to wed and legitimise that son's birth, then nothing can. He is in his full health; I am sure there have been many women in his life, women to be enjoyed and then cast aside." She bit her lip. "How many times has he disappeared from my sight because he had an assignation with a woman? What about all those mysterious weekends spent in unknown locations, in other cities? Can I be so foolish as to think he was 'all work and no play'?"
Abruptly, she stopped walking and sat down on a low stone wall. "I am acting like a petulant child," she said to herself severely. "I am not of an age to be contemplating marriage, barely nineteen and still in school, not yet reached my majority. Holmes would never entertain such a foolish idea: marrying a girl a bare third of his age! He has, I am sure, known many sophisticated, elegant, glamorous women of his own generation; why consider a green girl?"
But her heart would not listen. She might logic herself into a stupor; might ignore the likelihood that in Holmes she saw her beloved father's image; might even argue that no-one knew her brain, her spirit and her heart better than Holmes, and therefore no-one else would suit her as a husband. Her heart simply stated the truth: she loved Sherlock Holmes with every fibre of her being.
Hermione Granger tried to edge Crookshanks over a bit so that she might settle more comfortably in her squashy armchair, but the fat orange cat pushed back against her, refusing to budge. Sighing, she squeezed in next to him, against his warm, furry side. He looked up at her, squinting his amber eyes: "Mrah?"
"Oh, Crooks, everything is falling apart," she said, playing with his fur. "I'm falling apart. Where did I go wrong? How in the name of Medusa's bad hair days did I get fixated on the worst, most awful, most obnoxious man in the Wizarding World?" There was no doubt that something drew her to the Potions Master of Hogwarts, and it had been drawing her for years.
"I should find a psychiatrist," she mused. "It's not healthy to fall in love with someone who treats one abominably. Suppose I read it in a textbook: "Young, intelligent and healthy woman is inexplicably drawn to a man who does nothing but revile her, insult her, criticise her harshly and call her a stupid little girl." I should conclude that the young, intelligent and healthy woman had an inferiority complex, an undeveloped sense of self, and that she was, at the least, a ninny."
"I am emphatically NOT a ninny! I am at the top of my form, which I might say I achieved through dint of much hard work! I was clever enough to suggest to the Headmaster that he bring Sherlock Holmes to Hogwarts, and clever enough to find a way to do it! No-one else could!" She stopped, feeling foolish. She knew what she knew, and that was a racketing great amount! No-one could take that away from her, no matter who they were or what they said.
So, why did it hurt so much when Severus Snape looked down his beak at her, sneered and called her a stupid little girl? He could be so contradictory, and that was another problem. Was it barely a week ago when they were sitting in his office and he came over and sat next to her on the settee, took her hand and kissed it softly, setting her insides fluttering and her heart pounding? She recalled putting her other hand on his shoulder, ready to pull him closer and kiss him on the mouth. He did not resist her; his burning dark-chocolate eyes were intent on her face, and for once he was not scowling. He looked....receptive. Then, she lost her nerve. Suppose I had kissed him? Her insides fluttered at the thought.
Most of her female schoolmates spent untold hours giggling amongst themselves, talking about snogging at the least and 'going all the way' at the most. Hermione made a point to get up and leave when they got into those salacious discussions, stating that she 'had more important things to do.' Lavender Brown, in an uncharacteristic fit of concern, had cornered her one day and asked her baldly: "Don't you fancy boys? Or is it girls?" Hermione laughed at that and told Lavender that she did fancy boys, but she didn't have any time for them, not when there were NEWTs to ace and extra credit to be garnered.
There was no doubt that sex was in the air. Rampaging testosterone was evident in sprouting beards, broadening chests and deepening voices amongst the male students from the ages of fourteen on. Girls stumbled back into their dormitories after forbidden assignations, their faces flushed, their eyes glittering. Hermione was, if truth be told, dying of curiosity, but she would be damned if she would ask anyone! The Library wasn't much help other than providing some rather clinical and unpleasant basic knowledge, and the trashy romance novels some of her chums read were, well, fiction.
I know what I feel like when I have been close to him, she thought. My insides tremble and flutter, my heart pounds. I want him to touch me, to hold me. The very idea made her insides jump. But I'm a student! He would never, ever come near me! 'You won't be a student forever,' her resident little voice piped. 'Only the rest of this year and then you will be graduated.' As a matter of fact, if she took her NEWTs early she would leave her student days behind even sooner! And, she recalled, her excursions with a Time-Turner granted her even more maturity. Surely Snape was aware that she was no longer a child!
How foolish! Severus Snape didn't like anybody, little say love anyone and that was what she wanted, wasn't it? Didn't she want Severus Snape to love her, to want her as she wanted him? 'Miserable misogynist,' she thought. 'I am doomed to love in vain.'