Pre-warning once again, this chapter is directly under the influence of me. LOL.

Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews, they're really so wonderful to read.

Sorry this one took so long. Hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more during this week, depends on school and stuff (some exciting stuff happening this week, I'm very excited!

I'd like to say a big hello to all my reviewers and friends, especially Kelly, Rhiannon (ROAR to you!), Alyson, Miranda.

Oh, and everyone, send some health waves and hugs over to Moonie, who's feeling a little under the weather.

Enjoy the chapter, even if it is a little odd (I know, I say that every time!)

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Chapter Thirty-Four

The sun was setting before Hermione realised, and with it, realisation dawned about just how long they had been soaring around the pitch. With pride she had to admit that she was getting better. Quite a few times now she had been the only one with her hands on the broom, the Professor's hand either snaked around her waist, or standing upon the ground watching her. She admitted that had been quite frightening – despite not falling off, she did feel safer, having him right behind her.

But now, Professor Snape gently guided the broom over to the storage shed, signalling the "lesson" over. That couldn't be disappointment she felt, could it?

"It appears we have missed dinner, Miss Granger." He said softly as he locked up the broom shed.

"You really shouldn't skip meals," she murmured, before realising what she'd said.

A look of curiously descended upon his face. "And why is that?"

Hermione kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ground. She did not want to admit to the Professor that she was… worried about him. Ever since she had left his care so many weeks ago, she had noticed how little he ate at meal times, if he were at the meal at all. That, linked with the image of the thin, ill looking man she had seen that one day, was enough to make her worry. But she didn't want to tell him that.

She must have been silent for too long, trying to come up with an appropriate answer, because he repeated his question in a soft voice. Feeling the familiar heat in her cheeks, hoping he could not see her face in the dimming light, she answered him. "I… I've just noticed that you don't eat much, sir." She whispered.

"Really, Miss Granger?" She didn't need to look at him to know that his eyebrow was raised in its usual fashion.

She shifted her feet, uneasy. "It's just that…" she let her voice trail off. "You didn't look well, that's all."

A silence fell over them, and she knew that his was searching his mind, trying to work out what she had meant by the statement. He was quick to work it out, she admitted. "'You didn't mean to look, but you certainly took notice, didn't you, Miss Granger?" His quiet voice was surprisingly calm. Hermione had been expecting him to start hexing her.

She shrugged, letting her shoulders rise and fall in a small movement. "I-I couldn't help it…" she whispered, looking at her feet. Tears filled her eyes, much to her horror.

A rustle told her that he moved. "It upset you, Miss Granger?"

How she wished he could stop addressing her as that. "Yes," she whispered. She couldn't look up, she didn't want to see his face. Would he be angry? Would he be sad? Would he just walk away if she told him?

A hand touched her chin. "It is only I, Miss Granger." He said, as he guided her head up to look at him. She was scared to look into his black eyes. "Why did it upset you so much?"

She jerked her head, letting her gaze fall back to the ground. She felt frozen in disbelief, unable to comprehend what he was asking her, what she might tell him. She didn't want to admit all her frustrations, all her angers. The conversation she'd had with Harry after she'd left her Professor's chambers came floating back to her. "You weren't down there, you didn't see him. Harry, for the first time in my life I saw that man! I saw what this fucking war has done to him, and knew that it'd done it to hundreds like him."

Willing herself not to cry, Hermione took a breath. "It does not matter why it upset me, sir, I will be wasting your time with such a problem."

"Hermione," his soft voice came. Daring herself, she raised her eyes to meet him, and was shaken by the hurt she saw there. "I believe I spent an entire week with a problem of yours. However, if you are inclined to believe that a problem that quite clearly involves me is not worthy of time, then you are to leave."

More frustration coursed through Hermione's blood. She'd said the stupidest thing, she knew it. "Sir…" she began, wondering how she could fix this. "It frightened me to see you like that, sir." She whispered.

His hand was back on her chin, willing her to look him in the eyes. The hurt was gone, replaced by curiosity and confusion. "Why is that?"

Swallowing to fight back the tears, she kept her eyes on him. "Because I knew why you looked like that."

"Like what?"

Her mouth moved silently as she tried to find the right words to describe what she had seen that day in the dungeon chambers when he had believed her to be asleep. "Like…" she began, swallowing again. What could she say? "You're too thin, Professor." She whispered. "You look so ill, so fragile, but no one notices it. Not until they look closely." Once again, she lowered her head to the ground "It upset me because I know why you're like that. And it frightened me because I know that no one would even bother to think of you like that, that no one would bother to really care if they did see you that way. No one would bother to check, to look closely."

"Because I'm the Greasy Bat?" He asked, his voice floating her and causing silent tears to fall down her face.

"Yes." She whispered, trying hard to keep it all in. "And because of the war." Unconsciously, her fists clenched at her sides. "It made me angry to think that you could become like that, and no one would notice. I don't know what you went through, I don't think anyone does. And I don't know if anyone cares. They see what you did, what you were forced to do and scream for bloody murder, for justice." She let out a laugh,

"You are almost wrong, Miss Granger, for the first time in a long time." Her head snapped up to look him into the eyes. "You are right that no one really does know what I went through, and I will admit to you one thing that many people do not know – I do not know myself." A hand waved dismissively before her. "Oh, of course I know what is making all those people want justice, want to see me thrown away in Azkaban, of course I know that.

"But what drove me to… not eat, not sleep, to become to fearsome beast of the dungeons was the knowledge that I do not know what I did." Hermione was shocked by his revelations, spoken in a quite voice she'd hardly heard him use. "Beyond that, it was the fact that I did not what to know. I couldn't know all that I must have done, and live with myself."

"You didn't do it, sir," she whispered, looking up into his eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"On the contrary. I did. I did it all by making the choice that I foolishly made so very many years ago." A small laugh rung out into the night, escaping his lips. Hermione couldn't mistake the anger in his voice, and knew that the anger was only directed at himself. Staring back at the ground, she didn't know what to say. "It was all my fault, really. I could have stopped it somehow."

Despite herself, she shook her head. "No, you couldn't, sir. Just like you can't stop Neville from blowing up cauldrons." Her comment was greeted by another bark of laughter.

"Some things in life are evitable, Miss Granger," he whispered. Once again her eyes rose to meet his, to see the questions within the black depths. They held each other's eyes for a moment, before he whispered three more words. "Like dinner, tonight."

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Long after Hermione had risen from her seat and left his chambers, Snape sat in the handsome leather chair, his head tipped back, his hand holding haphazardly a tumbler in which sat a small amount of Firewhiskey.

The meal with Miss Granger had been most enlightening after their conversation in the twilight by the Quidditch pitch. He still was no entirely sure what had possessed him to invite her to his chambers to share a meal with him. He supposed he needed to prove to her that he could eat a meal. Now that he had though, he was finding it hard to keep it down. Like many times before, his body was rejecting the food he had forced into it. He could tell he was in for a rough night. The copious amount of Firewhiskey he intended on consuming was certainly not going to help.

He was also not sure what had possessed him to tell the student half of things he had done so that evening. Over a late meal provided by the House Elves of roast lamb, in which she had carefully watched him eat, he had told her about the first war, about what had happened, of the horrors he'd seen. He knew that she'd read it all in a book anyway, so it was nothing new to her.

She had admitted her fears to him, the fears of a world that she was finding still so hard to cope with. "If it doesn't involve books, I don't know anything about it," she had whispered, much to his amusement.

In truth, the evening had brought him to begin worrying about her. The young woman was so academically obsessed, so brilliant, that she had no idea how to cope with the world around her, he realised. He feared for how she would be able to stand outside the confines of the castle grounds, how she would deal in a world where books were considered unimportant. He had found himself having the very problems he believed she would have in the near future. Much to his surprise, he felt anger surge though him. She shouldn't have to go through that.

It wasn't as if her friends would be much help. Potter thought himself above the rules, the laws that made up the world, and Weasley couldn't survive without someone by his side telling him what to do. There was no doubt in Snape's mind that Hermione was the strongest of the group, and that brought upon more fears.

It was little over three weeks until the seventh years would be sitting their NEWTs. Snape knew that Miss Granger would fly through them without a problem. For the first time in his sixteen years at Hogwarts, he was almost dreading seeing the seventh years leave. Oh, it would be such a pleasure to have Longbottom, Weasley and Potter leave, along with all the other annoying shits he'd had to deal with over the last seven years, but he found himself fearing for the future of Miss Granger. While he was sure she would not make the same mistakes he had – that was impossible! – he still feared.

This scared Snape beyond belief. He did not fear for the future of students beyond the walls – he chose to forget about them, wipe them from his mind as he moved onto teaching the next bunch of ungrateful children. He put his worries down to the time the young witch was spending in his rooms, studying.

Satisfied with that, and knowing it was nothing more, he raised his tumbler to his lips, quickly swallowing the amber liquid that resided within it before reaching for more. It would do him well to get drunk tonight. At least he knew he wouldn't be visited by know it all little Gryffindors would help him, talk to him, care for him in his drunken state.

His mind paused on that thought. Did Miss Granger care for him? From their conversation, he had gathered that she was simply annoyed at the world for ignoring him, or not noticing him rotting away to nothing in his dungeon chambers. Did she actually think he didn't prefer it this way, to be left alone by the world? He groaned – was he becoming a pet project, like the House Elves had not too long ago? Thankfully she had disbanded that project after a revolt by the Elves against her. Snape smiled, an actual smile, thinking of that amusing little event. Surely she couldn't be thinking that?

Raising the glass to his lips once again, Snape refused to think of the idea that Miss Granger, the annoying little Gryffindor, might actually care for him. But as he slowly got drunker and drunker, he couldn't help but think of the positive things that might come out of such a care. His last coherent thought before he surrendered to the giggling mass of black robes he became while under the influence, was that it might not be so bad to have a little witch care for him after all.

As long as she didn't expect him to care for her back. He let out a giggle as he slid away in his mind, knowing that he already did.

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Hmm… I don't know.

Next chapter, Hermione and Ginny have a little chat…