FELLOW FEELING

This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and situations elaborated herein.

A/N: Spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers.

Ginny found Hermione sitting on her bed hugging a pillow. Her face was blotchy and her eyes red and swollen. The butterfly clip lay abandoned on the floor where it had fallen and the brown hair frizzed out like a thorn-bush.

"Did anyone read it?" the older girl asked in a flat dull voice. She flinched a little as Ginny put the book and enclosed letter on the bed near her. Mouth twitching she stared at the little pile as if a poisonous snake lay coiled and ready to strike.

"Only me. Sorry, I couldn't help seeing it when I picked it up," Ginny apologised.

Hermione nodded and trailed a trembling finger along the book's spine.

"It isn't true," she whispered. "It couldn't be."

Ginny smoothed the bed covers and sat down at the other end. Her glance wandered from her friend to the offending missive and back.

"It is his hand-writing," she offered. No one who'd once seen that angry scrawl knifing across a page of hopeful homework could mistake it.

"Someone must have copied it," her friend scowled. "He'd never have written – that." She spat the last word with loathing.

Ginny grimaced and said nothing. She'd have thought that too but how could they know? Snape had never let them see any of his emotions but irritation and impatience or grim gloating. His inner self had been as unreadable to his students as to the murderers he'd spied on. She let her eyes trace along the edge of the letter poking out from the book. Who'd have thought? Yet the letter's first words had left no room for doubt.

Dear ever-dearest Hermione,

I wish this salutation could bring you comfort rather than distress. I apologise for the intrusion as for all our past interactions. Circumstances have forced me to treat you with a disdain as undeserved as it was unfelt.

If this has been sent, my expectations of disaster have proved true. I could not refuse myself this one opportunity to wish you happiness.

S

"Do you mind very much?" she ventured after a long silent pause. "You liked him, didn't you? I mean, you were always defending him."

Hermione made a sound of repulsion.

"Not like that!" she cried then immediately corrected herself. "Not at all! I never liked him. Who could? I respected his courage and his intelligence; I didn't like him."

Ginny rolled a lock of red hair onto one finger then unrolled it and stuck the end into her mouth to chew on.

"He was a hero," she muttered. "As horrid as he was, we can't deny that." It felt strange to be defending the sour Potions-master to Hermione instead of the other way round.

"Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?" Hermione cried rubbing the back of her hand hard across her eyes. "Just the thought that he liked me – like that, uggh! It's disgusting! He was almost as old as my dad!"

"He couldn't help that," Ginny pointed out. Her eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. "He never – he never tried anything, did he? Said anything or – or -" Only then why had Hermione been so astonished?

The other girl blinked and shook her head, teeth clenched and eyes burning.

"No, but he must have thought about it! It makes my skin creep to think he might have been looking at me and wanting to – uggh – to kiss me or – or touch me."

She shuddered and pressed a fist to her mouth. Ginny could think of nothing to say.

"I wish he'd never told me! How could he think I'd want to know something like that?" Hermione burst out after a few seconds.

"He knew you didn't want to know. He said so. He just didn't want to," she swallowed hard, " didn't want to die without having at least said something." Ginny hadn't cried since first year but her throat ached too much to continue.

"Are you sorry for him?" Hermione sputtered incredulously. "How can you be sorry for him? You've always hated him just as much as Ron!"

Ginny's eyes were wide and dark.

"Aren't you? Not even a little bit? To feel like that and never be able to say - in fact to have to say the opposite of what he felt all the time."

Hermione gave a black scowl.

"He had no right to feel anything of the sort!"

"Feelings don't come by rights! You wouldn't understand."

"And you would?" Hermione jeered, obscurely offended by Ginny's sympathy for the wrong party.

"I suppose it's fellow-feeling." She shrugged and looking up met her friend's reproachful brown eyes. "I know what it's like to want someone you can't have."