Little Girl - Hey
The Door Is That Way
You Better Go You Know
The Fire's Out Anyway
-Another Day, RENT
"Hermione? Hermione! Hermione, you stupid girl, wake up!" Blood was pounding in Severus' ears, he was irrepressibly mad. He'd seriously debated killing the idiot on the spot. What in the bloody hell had possessed her to come to his hideout? How had she found it? Why was she unconscious in his living room?
"Professor?" Hermione's eyes flew open. She looked disoriented for only a moment before launching into a spiel. "Professor! Before you get-"
"Shut up! You flaming imbecile, shut up!" A myriad of emotions ran through Snape at once and out of all of them, he was able to name only one. Anger. "Get out! You're not welcome here!"
"Please, Professor, don't do this…I have nowhere else to go!" Hermione's pale face scrunched up and she bit her lower lip. She looked so vulnerable, so exposed that Snape felt indecent looking at her. It was as if he was seeing her naked. But the next moment her face hardened and different Hermione replaced the unsure child.
"That's not my concern. Now get out before I throw you out. Or worse." Snape added a menacing growl, for affect. But Hermione didn't leave. Instead, she sat there, looking defiantly at Snape, daring him to do what he'd threatened. "Don't look at me like that! You have no idea what I'm capable of, little girl." He grabbed a handful of Hermione's frizzy hair and twisted her head up, so that they were looking eye to eye. "I am a very bad man." He was speaking to her slowly, as if she was a remedial student, not the most brilliant witch in her year. "Do you understand that? I have done things-"
"Like killing Dumbledore?" Snape released Hermione's head roughly, causing it to roll forward. Looking at her with a new feeling he couldn't describe, Snape scrambled away from her.
"What did you say?" He asked in a deadly calm voice.
"Like killing Dumbledore. Everyone in the Order is convinced you went back to the Dark Side. Except me."
If the first words had shocked Snape, these nearly sent him over the edge. He covered his disbelief well though. "You have no idea what you're talking about little girl. Went back?"Snape gave another sneer. "I never left. And I killed your beloved Headmaster in cold blood. Know what? The Dark Lord didn't even ask me to. The bastard got what was coming to him. So take your silly delusions of my innocence and get the hell out of my house!" Snape grew louder with ever word until he was shouting. The lies were pouring out of him so quickly like a sickness, and it felt so good to let them out.
He could tell he was scaring her at last. It was about time. He had no use for anyone who was not afraid of him. But more disturbingly, he was scaring himself. He was beginning to forget where his lies ended and his truths began.
SHSHSHSH
Snape was trembling with rage. And he was scaring Hermione more than she'd ever been scared in her life. How sure was she about this theory of hers? How positive was she that, while there was no doubt Snape had killed Dumbldore, it hadn't been in cold blood? Sure enough to risk coming here. Not that there was too much to risk.
"This is the last time I'll tell you this little girl." Snape's voice was much softer, but in a way even more sinister than when he'd been yelling. "Get out or Dumbledore's won't be the last body they find."
Hermione gave a sharp laugh despite her fear. "That would probably frighten me more if I weren't already dying professor."