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Unlikely Partners
Chapter 17
Severus returned to find Hermione sitting on his bed, staring out in front of her as if she were in some kind of catatonic daze. Her eyes were focused like they would be if she was looking at something extremely far away.
She gave Severus no indication that she was aware of his presence. Severus came to stand beside her.
"Miss Granger?" he asked, willing her to respond.
She said nothing, but closed her eyes in an attempt to alleviate the obvious agony she was experiencing. When she opened her eyes again, they were bright with pain. Slowly, she turned to look at Severus. The expression on her face was one of abject misery.
"It was like I was drowning," she said softly. "Drowning in that ghastly pervasive presence. I fought to stay calm, to keep it from torturing me, but then it only got worse. . . ." Hermione stopped, unable to continue.
An immediate flare of anger burned inside Severus at her words. And that anger stirred within him the desire to personally make sure that Voldemort payed for the suffering he caused Hermione.
"After awhile, it got to the point where I couldn't fight it anymore and then . . . I can't even describe how utterly horrible the feeling of despair and hopelessness that followed was."
Hermione stopped and looked away.
"You probably think I'm overreacting," she said in a small voice that was barely audible.
Then, acting on instinct, Severus did a very uncharacteristic thing. He sat down next to her on the mattress, reached out and took her hand in his. Hermione raised her gaze to his face.
"I know you're not overreacting, Hermione," he said very softly but clearly.
Hermione's reaction was almost instantaneous. Letting out a high pitched sob, she turned and laid her head against Severus's chest, her body shaking as she allowed herself to cry.
Severus drew his arms around Hermione's body and held her close as she released her anguished emotions.
Several minutes later, Hermione's sobs became less and less frequent until finally her eyes were out of tears. She relaxed in Severus's embrace.
"I got your shirt all wet," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."
"You know, contrary to popular belief, I'm not so completely unkind that I would expect you to apologise for something so trivial as dousing my shirt with a few tears."
Hermione didn't respond.
"How do you feel now?" Severus asked her.
"Physically I'm exhausted, but my mind won't stop replaying what I went through. I suppose I'm as all right as can be expected. I just can't stop thinking about what will happen if I'm ever subjected to the full force of his magical presence again," Hermione told him, seemingly unable to speak Voldemort's name. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I go through that agony again. It is affecting me worse now than when I first arrived. I know it might appear that I wasn't suffering physically as bad as I did before when you came in, but that was only because I gave up trying to fight it. And then the emotional torture of it increased about tenfold. There's no way I can put the exact feeling of it into words because any words I can think of that come close to describing it are too mild of terms to truly describe it.
"By far the worst part of it was being forced to experience the pain of feeling that tangible aura press down on me and constrict my spirit and my soul. I was powerless to stop it and that's what made it so terrifying. There's one thing I don't understand. When the Dementors came to Hogwarts, I was no more terribly affected by them than the next person and I certainly wasn't as affected by them as Harry was. Why wouldn't they make me feel something similar to what I just experienced?"
"Dementors are certainly evil in their own right, but they lack the sentience and complexity of spirit that makes Voldemort so much more vile. He is an abomination to Nature. His dark and twisted mind makes him a creature unlike anything ever intended to live on this Earth. It is utter fondness for everything perverse and sadistic that increases the magnitude of his dark power. You are most likely affected by his presence because having such a natural aptitude for wielding magic makes you much more attuned to the aura of everything in nature. When you come physically close to something so completely evil that delights in destroying Nature's creations, you are adversely affected because you can feel the pain and emotions of every living thing Voldemort's ever killed as well as your own severe turmoil. Because of your acute sensitivity to the magical life forces in the world, being near to Voldemort will be many times worse for you than for someone who has no such sensitivity."
"Have I answered your question?"
"Quite well. I have another one now. Are you certain that I'll be able to block this dark aura from my mind with Shield Occlumency?"
"You should find it encouraging that my proximity to you has shielded your mind from Voldemort's aura. It could very well have turned out that I had no such effect on you."
"I'd hate to think of the state I'd be in now if I had been forced to endure that torture since the end of the last Occlumency lesson. If your presence hadn't had this calming affect on me, I'd be suffering even now." Hermione raised her head and looked into her former professor's eyes.
"It's because of you that I haven't started to lose my mind," she told him sincerely. Hermione gave him a small smile. "Thank you,"
"It was through no conscious effort on my part that I was able to alleviate your suffering. It merely happened by chance."
"Do you really think so?" Hermione asked. "Had you not given me the Occlumency lesson when you did, I would have never found this temporary solution to my problem. . . . And I wouldn't have seen you the way I do now, as a protector of sorts and now also"–
"Stop, Miss Granger. Before you end that sentence you need to realise that any attraction you feel towards me and I towards you is a byproduct of the Occlumency lesson. It's real enough at present, but is in no way lasting."
"You seem so sure of yourself. The lesson was over twenty four hours ago. Would its magic really be so strong that it would influence our behaviour for so long? How long is its control over people supposed to last? I wouldn't think it'd be more than a few hours. And you also seem to be forgetting one very important thing."
"Which would be?"
"When you became ill after the lesson you told me that you'd lost all of your magical strength. I've read enough to know that if that ever happens, any spells a person might have been under before the loss of power would instantaneously cease to exit. The Occlumency's magical attraction may have been affecting you during the lesson, but it would have been impossible for it to continue to do so once your strength was gone. I didn't realise it until just now. Remember how I told you that the consequences of touching you seemed to have slipped my mind? Well, this fact truly did slip my mind and apparently it slipped yours too."
Severus was silent. Hermione turned her head to look up into his eyes.
"Severus, . . ."
"I feel like a fool. I thought my thoughts of you this afternoon were induced by the Occlumency's magic. And now that I know they weren't . . . I know I could have stopped myself from kissing you. I knowingly allowed my willpower to weaken because I thought that if I . . . gave in to what I thought was the power of the Occlumency, my mind would no longer be filled with inappropriate thoughts of you. If I had realised that the Occlumency lesson couldn't possibly have been the only cause of my lust for you, I never would have tried to seduce you."
"You say that as if you think kissing me was an unimaginably terrible thing," Hermione told him.
"It never should have happened."
Hermione let out a sigh.
"It's not as if you forced yourself on me. Did I even once say no? When you kissed me I felt the same thing for you that you felt for me."
"That doesn't matter, Miss Granger. My willpower should have been greater than the temptation to seduce you."
"So you're telling me you regret what happened?" Hermione asked carefully.
"Knowing what I know now? Yes, of course I regret what happened!"
Hermione stared at him, more than a little taken aback at Severus's adamant tone.
"There's no need for you to raise your voice," she told him.
Hermione moved off of his chest and Severus immediately stood up wanting to physically distance himself from her as quickly as he could.
"I have one last question," she said to his back as she sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you care about my feelings at all or don't you give a damn that you just hurt me?"
Severus did not turn to look at her.
"A couple of hours ago I came into the room with the intent to have sex with you. If I hadn't been called to Voldemort's side, I would have had you in my bed. It doesn't matter how you see it, what I did was morally wrong in more ways than one, and it most certainly won't happen again."
"So it was okay to act on your lust for me when you thought it was Occlumency magic influencing your behavior, but now that you realise your lust was natural it suddenly becomes something utterly reprehensible?"
"What an excellent summation, Miss Granger," Severus almost growled. "Ten points to Griffindor."
He turned around to look at her and saw that her facial expression was one of shock, as if he'd just physically struck her.
"And did it mean absolutely nothing to you?" she asked quietly.
"It's your mistake if you imagined things differently," he told her firmly.
Hermione stilled. There was a fleeting look of hurt in her eyes that was quickly replaced by one of outrage.
"My mistake? . . .MY MISTAKE? How the bloody hell was it my mistake?"
"How quickly you seem to forget what I told you. This, Miss Granger, would be one of the possible consequences you should have thought about when you approached me in the way that you did. I did warn you that consequences could be rather unpleasant, didn't I?"
"How dare you!" she shouted indignantly. Then softer, though her words held no less vehemence, she said, "That's not fair, and you know it."
"Didn't your parents ever tell you that life's not fair? If they didn't, I'd say it's high time you learn how true that statement really is. You see, Miss Granger, the reality of the world is that life is anything but fair. In fact, it can be downright cruel," Severus told her simply.
"I can't believe you're being this way. After everything I went through . . . and I was just starting to think that you could be a decent human being. What did I do to deserve this?"
The pain in her voice stung him, but Severus hardened his gaze.
"If you were being as smart now as you usually are, you'd see the situation as I do," he told her evenly.
Hermione stared at him, temporarily stunned.
"So now you suggest that I'm not being smart? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Only that you're full of a disgustingly Griffindor stubbornness that prevents you from being able to see for yourself that the inferences you made about what happened between us are most certainly wrong."
"I . . . just leave me alone," Hermione told him hollowly.
Severus walked out of the room without another word. He went into the parlor area and collapsed into a chair. He hadn't purposely tried to hurt Hermione's feelings, but at least now she'd never accuse him of trying to lead her on and she'd never again do anything to encourage sexual activity between the two of them.
He knew he had treated her more harshly than was strictly necessary, but now she knew better than to question where he stood on the matter of their relationship.
He still could barely comprehend the fact that he had deliberately tried to seduce her without being under any magical influence.
God, I should have known better.
A one night stand brought on by the lust created by the Occlumency lesson was one thing. It would have happened one time and once their lust was sated, it would have had no reason to happen again. A one night stand had no attachments to it, no expectations for the future.
A physical relationship that went beyond a one night stand, was another thing entirely and was something that Severus would neither initiate nor participate in.
The other thing that got to him was the fact that he hadn't realized that after the brief period of time he'd lost his magical strength, no magic could have possibly sustained power over him. Though in his defense, it wasn't as if he'd been under any type of curse prior to the other times he'd completely lost his powers. So he'd never before witnessed that one particular effect in action.
Still, he should have been more aware of the facts.
Severus sighed softly. He had a pretty good headache beginning at the base of his skull and ending just in front of his temples. It might have been a normal headache had it not been for the unusual depth of the pain.
Severus paid no attention to the severity of it. By now he was quite used to such physical discomfort.
He had had no right to be so thoroughly mean to Hermione. But he couldn't let her think that they might be lovers. There were more than enough reasons why he could not have a sexual relationship with her. And those same reasons were why he shouldn't have kissed her.
If he had just let their relationship remain platonic, things wouldn't have been this way.
Giving into his lust for her had been a mistake, pure and simple. He only wished he could have told her how much better off she'd be without developing an emotional attachment to him.
Allowing that to happen would have been much more cruel of him than anything he had done thus far.
Women could be such emotional creatures. If he had given her any hope at all that the possibility of them becoming lovers was more than non-existent, he would have been risking the possibility of her eventually developing a real attachment to him.
And then when they finally went their separate ways once this situation was over, it would be that much harder for Hermione to leave him. He knew it would hurt her deeply to walk away from him if he let her fall in love with him.
No matter what, Severus wouldn't bring her that kind of pain.
A/N: How many of you saw that one coming? I promise Bastard!Snape won't be making a return appearance anytime soon. And no, I haven't forgotten about poor Nymphadora, she'll definitely be in the next chapter along with our favorite Griffindor know-it-all and potions master.
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