Part 18 – THE CHALLENGE
not a man, but - a cloud in trousers!
Snape was almost pleased to see the look on her face as she took another step back. He thought about closing the distance between them, to scare her, but he was too tired of that game. And of course, she didn't deserve it, did she? Of course she didn't. He went to sit on the desk behind him.
« You were the way to get the book, » he explained dryly.
« The red one? »
He almost chuckled. She was quick.
« The red one, » he acknowledged with a small smile.
Hermione had stopped her braid half-way and was looking at him hungrily.
« What book was that? »
« Rasputin's Diary »
To his satsifaction, her expression grew hungrier, but also a little scared. Of course she would have read about it.
Answering all her questions, he summed up the story for her. He refused point-blank, though, to explain how he had broken through six of the seven wards.
« You are too young to know, » he said, passing his finger on an old scar on his palm.
« I was old enough to have sex, » she said boldly.
« Sex is a game, » was his answer. « Dark Magic is an enslavement. »
Hermione fell silent at once.
Snape looked at her, thinking that, once again, he's fooling her. Sex should be a game, he should have said. It often isn't, and what happened tonight between them certainly wasn't. It was terrible. Yet, he'd enjoyed it. He closed his hands into fists.
I truly am a horrible person, he thought.
He was still looking at the girl, lost in his thoughts, when he saw her blush. And he remembered. He heard her laugh during...during that. Has she enjoyed it as well? A gentle heat started on his neck, as he was wondering if-
In that moment, Fawkes flew out of the empty rug and circled twice round Snape's head. His thoughts were sharply interrupted.
« The people of the Order are here, » he said wearily, as the bird disapperead.
« Are they- Are they going to punish you? » she asked timidly.
« Don't worry. The Headmaster is no Dark Lord. »
He stood up and went to the rug, throwing some Floo powder inside it. With a wave of his hand, he desactivated the wards on his door.
« Go back to Gryffindor tower and have some sleep, » he told her harshly.
But when she came towards him, saying very unsteadily something that could have been, Take care, he kissed lightly her forehead before stepping in the green flames.
For some reason, they both felt that simple kiss was far more intimate than whatever they'd shared before, and the feeling was unsettling.
Hermione couldn't leave immediately. She spent one or two hours sitting in one of Snape's armchairs, breathing in his smell and gazing absent-mindedly at a volume of Russian poetry she had found on the floor. She had deciphered the title, Mayakovska stikhi, but nothing else.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, she got to her feet, and a bit of parchment fell out of the book. She picked it up, smiling at the familiar untidy writing.
Your thoughts, musing on a sodden brain
like a bloated lackey on a greasy couch,
with my heart's bloody tatters I'll mock again;
impudent and caustic, I'll jeer to superfluity.
No grey hairs streak my soul,
no grandfatherly fondness there!
Thundering the world with the might of my voice,
I go by -- handsome, twenty-two-year-old.
Gentle ones! You play your love on a fiddle,
and the crude club their love on a drum.
but you can't, like me, turn inside out entirely,
and nothing but human lips become!
Out of chintz-covered drawing-rooms,
come and learn - decorous bureaucrats of angelic leagues,
and you whose lips are calmly thumbed,
as a cook turns over cookery-book leaves.
If you wish, I shall rage on raw meat;
or, as the sky changes its hue,
if you wish, I shall grow irreproachably tender:
not a man, but - a cloud in trousers!
It was clearly Snape's translation of one of the poems. She had the strangest feeling – like he had wanted her to find it. She pocketed it and stirred.
He hadn't come back. She went back slowly to the Tower to find it empty.
Over her bed was Hedvig, looking almost comically anxious. Evidently the wards on Snape's room had prevented the owl to find her. She hooted happily when Hermione detached gently the note tied to her leg.
Hermione – hope you're alright. Am at Hogwarts, but must stay with the Order guys. Snape and Dumbledore found a way, it's for tonight.
I didn't want to leave you alone, but Ron and Ginny went back to the Headquarters after you were caught, and Dumbledore sent a note to the families saying to keep everybody home for another night.
See you in the morning.
Love,
Harry
Hermione read it twice, biting her lower lip. See you in the morning.
After that sentence there was a word half-erased, but she couldn't understand what it was. Taking the parchment to her desk, she rubbed her Revealer over it, and she gasped.
If I'm killed, don't go back home. Krum is ready to take you in.
Why had he erased this sentence? Maybe he had decided that it would worry her for nothing, either because Professor Dumbledore was sure to win, or because Voldemort would found her anyway. Or maybe his boyish spirit had resurfaced at the last moment, and he had though it too sentimental.
She started to cry, and Hedvig came down in her arms, hooting softly and rubbing her feathery body against hers. Hermione stroked her gently and paced through her room, trying to calm down.
What were they doing? Where had they gone? She wanted to fight, she wanted to be with Harry – and at the same time, she was afraid, the memory of the Auror's tortured voice filling her ears. She felt angry at being left behind, and she felt relieved for being left behind. As she watched the night outside her window, a calm, indifferent night like a tousand of other ones, the guilt inside her was so strong she couldn't breathe.
No point, she told herself firmly. Pace. Breathe. No point.
Her rational part was right – they were gone, worry and guilt were useless. She trusted Dumbledore, she trusted Harry. She would stay here, and wait till dawn. Then, if she didn't see anything from them, she would find a way to London, to Krum's flat. A smile forced its way on her lips as the memory of Victor Krum resurfaced. Hermione allowed herself to get lost on the feeling of his kisses, of his skin...
His skin?Hermione snapped back to reality. She hadn't done anything with him, how could she – and then she blushed. She wasn't thinking about Victor's skin, but about Snape's.
Professor Snape, she reminded herself. What has happened doesn't change anything.
She went to the window and opened it, the cold winter air making her tremble. He was outside somewhere, with Harry and the others. Nothing she could do about that, either. And what did it matter, anyway? She was worried about Harry – he was her best friend. And she was worried about Professor Dumbledore, because – because, well, one had to. He was so kind to them all, and so powerful and wise. Whereas Snape was just that – Snape. A teacher who'd been mean with her, a man she'd been forced to be with. He'd been kind enough afterwards, but he would surely be back to normal next week, when lessons would start again. Because lessons would start again, and he'd be there, cruel and black-clothed as usual. No need worrying about him. No need. And yet...
Hermione stopped her pacing abruptly, and went through the Portrait door, heading for the Hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey, who wasn't sleeping either, saw her coming in without a word, and set her to check on four simmering cauldrons in her laboratory. She was making ready for the wounded.
If Harry succeded.
« Of course, St. Mungo will probably take them all, » she said briskly to Hermione, « but... »
Hermione looked at her, and understood what she meant. St. Mungo could have been destroyed. Or Professor Dumbledore could wish that some wounds and curses shouldn't be under the eyes of Ministry representatives.
Keeping her silence, she started to work, adding ingredients, stirring, lowering the fires and bottling the potions.
At dawn, she felt like a zombie. She couldn't stay awake any longer, but she couldn't sleep. She went out in the corridor, thinking to go towards Dumbledore's office, but her legs had a different idea.
Without even breathing, she pushed open the door of Snape's quarters and sat down on his bed, waiting.
As long minutes passed, she bent her head on her arms, and eventually fell asleep.
When she looked back, she found that she couldn't remember exactly what had happened. She had awoken to find Snape asleep besides her, his head heavily bandaged. The clear light of day was pouring in, and as she was breathing it mercifully, gazing at the sun reflected on the lake, he had stirred, and had looked at her without a hint of surprise in his eyes.
In a purely Snapeish style he only told her what was essential to know.
The battle had been won. The Dark Lord was dead.
He had looked away from her then, and his words had rang in her brain, beautiful and somehow terrible. Everything was finished. Everything. Hermione had stared at his sharp profile pervaded in light, and had lost the sense of time. She didn't know that Snape could feel every breath she took, every tiny movement of her body as she still lay on his bed. He wasn't looking at her, but he sensed her looking at him, and he sensed her whole body trembling as she unconsciously waited for him to do something. She wasn't old enough to understand that she was waiting for a gesture from him, but he was. He was.
And then the moment ended.
Like in a dream, Hermione had come back to the Gryffindor Tower, and had found everybody there, talking and eating and drinking large mugs of Butterbeer. Harry had given her a knowing look, but nobody had asked her where she'd been.
Days and weeks and months had passed, and things had gone slowly back to normal.
Well, except for one thing.
Snape was still horrible and sour with everybody, but sometimes he would look at her in a most peculiar way, half-curious and half-surprised. There was a challenge in his eyes.
Hermione had the feeling that he was waiting for her to grow up before speaking that challenge out loud, and was really looking forward to hear it.
THE END
A/N Mmh, I hope this didn't disappoint you too much...as I said, I wanted this love story to be unusual, I hope I succeeded. After all, I don't really believe to a canon love story between Hermione and Snape. I don't care about the age difference, but Hermione, for all her brightness, can't handle such a personality. Snape must learn a lot before being ready for a story with a person so young and unexperienced. Or maybe JKR is right, and he doesn't need to learn anything – he's mean, period. Two months till HBP...I really can't wait...just hope we'll finally know something useful...
So, this is the end – a moment for general thanking and patting each other's backs. So let's do it. :) Thank you to Oscar Wilde, who gave me the title and much more (and I don't care about age difference, Alan Rickman, death and such – this is a man I'd do anything to spend one hour of my time with...sigh...); to Mayakoskj, who unknowingly gave me the plot, and whose poetry I hope one day to read in Russian; to Fayth for that marvellous challenge and for having checked through the first chapters ; to my grandmother (yes, this is really strange, but actually Knacklebolt's voice is one of her own memories from the WW2 – as we're celebrating the 60th anniversary of its end, let's thank, for once, the Russians, who had the worst losses – 11 millions dead – and are never thanked ; and, I'm against Stalin and all, of course, and I know you American guys don't believe a word of this, but if the Russians had lost in Stalingrad, the history of the world would have greatly changed...); and, guys, to everybody who reviewed – you don't know what it means to me – well, maybe you do know, since every fanfic writer bores you to death with this, and many of you write fics of their own. But the main reason I'm happy to hear that you liked this story is my unexperienced play with English language – if I think that four years ago I was deciphering Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with the unwilling aid of a large dictionary...
Oh, and last thing: I have a surprise for you, a story I'm taking much pleasure in writing... It's called Did You Say Labyrinth? and will hopefully be published starting May 31st. The nice thing about it is that...you can actually choose what you want to do, where you want to go and whom to trust. At the end of each chapter you'll have two or three choices, and let's hope you choose wisely, since not all possible ends are nice...
Hoping to see you all in some weeks, deeply, truthly, unashamedly yours
chrusotoxos
